: New Brooms by Shores Robert J Robert James - American essays 20th century

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ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved to the end of the article.

LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

When, in October, 1864, the European steamer brought us the intelligence of Walter Savage Landor's death, which occurred the month previous at Florence, newspaper readers asked, "Who is Landor?" The few who remember him remotely through the medium of Mr. Hillard's selections from his writings exclaimed, "What! Did he not die long ago?" The half-dozen Americans really familiar with this author knew that the fire of a genius unequalled in its way had gone out. Two or three, who were acquainted with the man even better than with his books, sighed, and thanked God! They thanked God that the old man's prayer had at last been answered, and that the curtain had been drawn on a life which in reality terminated ten years before, when old age became more than ripe. But Landor's walk into the dark valley was slow and majestic. Death fought long and desperately before he could claim his victim; and it was not until the last three years that body and mind grew thoroughly apathetic. "I have lost my intellect," said Landor, nearly two years ago: "for this I care not; but alas! I have lost my teeth and cannot eat!" Was it not time for him to go?

"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

The glory of old age ceases when second childishness and oblivion begin; therefore we thanked God for His goodness in taking the lonely old man home.

Landor's characteristic fault, in fact his vice, was that of a temper so undisciplined and impulsive as to be somewhat hurricanic in its consequences, though, not unlike the Australian boomerang, it frequently returned whence it came, and injured no one but the possessor. Circumstances aggravated, rather than diminished, this Landorian idiosyncrasy. Born in prosperity, heir to a large landed estate, and educated in aristocratic traditions, Walter Savage Landor began life without a struggle, and throughout a long career remained master of the situation, independent of the world and its favors. Perhaps too much freedom is as unfortunate in its results upon character as too much dependence. A nature to be properly developed should receive as well as give; otherwise it must be an angelic disposition that does not become tyrannical. All animated nature is despotic, the strong preying upon the weak. If men and women do not devour one another, it is merely because they dare not. The law of self-preservation prevents them from becoming anthropophagi. A knowledge that the eater may in his turn be eaten, is not appetizing. Materially and professionally successful, possessed of a physique that did honor to his ancestors and Nature, no shadows fell on Landor's path to chasten his spirit. Trials he endured of a private nature grievous in the extreme, yet calculated to harden rather than soften the heart,--trials of which others were partially the cause, and which probably need not have been had his character been understood and rightly dealt with. There is a soothing system for men as well as horses,--even for human Cruisers,--and the Rarey who reduces it to a science will deserve the world's everlasting gratitude. Powerful natures are likely to be as strong in their weaknesses as in their virtues; this, however, is a reckoning entirely too rational to be largely indulged in by the packed jury that holds inquest over the bodies, rather than the souls, of men. In his old age at least, Landor's irascibility amounted to temporary madness, for which he was no more responsible than is the sick man for the feverish ravings of delirium. That miserable law-suit at Bath, which has done so much to drag the name of Landor into the mire, would never have been prosecuted had its instigators had any respect for themselves or any decent appreciation of their victim.

"TO K. F.

"WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

"Sienna, July, 1860."

The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before the intellectual light began to flicker and go out. Even then Landor was cleverer, and, provided he was properly approached, more interesting than many younger men of genius. I shall ever esteem it one of the great privileges of my life that I was permitted to know him well, and call him friend. These papers are given to the public with the hope that they may be of more than ordinary interest to the intelligent reader, and that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For the inevitable egotism of the personal pronoun, I hope to be pardoned by all charitable souls. That Landor, the octogenarian, has not been photographed by a more competent person, is certainly not my fault. Having had the good fortune to enjoy opportunities beyond my deserts, I should have shown a great want of appreciation had I not availed myself of them. If, in referring to Landor, I avoid the prefix "Mr.," it is because I feel, with Lady Blessington, that "there are some people, and he is of those, whom one cannot designate as 'Mr.' I should as soon think of adding the word to his name, as, in talking of some of the great writers of old, to prefix it to theirs."

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