Grief and Despair.—Describes his Feelings.—Failing Health.—Severe Mental Labor.—Decides to go to Africa.—Visits Vienna.—Arrival at Alexandria.—Sails up the Nile.—Scenes in Cairo.—The Pyramids.—The Lovely Nile.—An Important and Pleasant Acquaintance.—A Lasting Friendship.—Learning the Language.—Assuming the Costume.—Sights by the Way. The great grief which Mr. Taylor felt when his wife died, was so deep and keen that he was for many months unreconciled, and in a mental state somewhat akin to despair. His appearance among his friends, whether at Kennett or in the office of the “Tribune” at New York, did not, however, betray his feelings so much as his private correspondence and occasional poems. He was the sincerest of mourners; and his natural susceptibility to every shade of emotion made this severe bereavement an occasion of untold suffering. In his endeavors to banish the gloomy spectre, he resorted to hard work. Hence, the first half of the year 1851 was one of the busiest seasons of his life. He wrote early and late. He composed poems and essays, wrote editorials, and edited correspondence, some of it being the labor attached to his profession, but a great share of it written to occupy his mind and shut out his affliction.
[152]
His “Rhymes of Travel,” which had been published after his return from California, called the attention of the reading public to him as a poet, and there was a strong demand for another volume. His friends urged him to write, his uneasy heart pushed him into work, and the newspapers kept questioning him about the advent of a second volume, until he decided to bring out his book of “Romances, Lyrics, and Songs.” There was one poem in that volume which was very sweet when wholly disconnected with history, but which becomes fascinating and sad as Milton’s lament for his eyesight, when we once know the circumstances and the mental condition in which it was written. Two verses of that poem were printed, as follows:—
“Give me music, sad and strong,
Drawn from deeper founts than song;
More impassioned, full, and free,
Than the poet’s numbers be:
Music which can master thee,
Stern enchantress, Memory!
Piercing through the gloomy stress
Of thy gathered bitterness,
As the summer lightnings play
Through a cloud’s edge far away.
Give me music; I am dumb;
Choked with tears that never come;
Give me music; sigh or word
Such a sorrow never stirred,—
Sorrow that with blinding pain
Lies like fire on heart and brain.
Earth and heaven bring no relief,
I am dumb; this weight of grief
Locks my lips; I cannot cry:
Give me music, or I die.”
[153]
It was then that he wrote those pathetic lines, so full of his sadness and so descriptive of his bereavement, that he was never satisfied with a name for them and finally left them without a title, the first couplet of which sufficiently indicates the tenor,—
“Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,
And fall, thou drear December rain!”
Such a sorrowful heart and such an overworked brain were too great a load for one human body to carry. His physical strength had never been remarkable, and there had been seasons before his visit to Europe when his health seemed permanently impaired. So when this great strain was made upon his system it began to weaken. To continue the effort was suicidal, and stoutly condemned by his relatives and friends. He then recalled his exhilarating walks among the Alps and on the plains of Europe. He kindled anew his zeal for adventure. He studied the map of the world to decide where was presented the most favorable field for discovery. He wished for rest from sorrow, and rest from close application to literary work. Such a relief could only be found in a climate and among a people wholly different from his own. In this choice he was guided somewhat by a fortunate opportunity to cross the Atlantic as a guest and friend, and by the accounts which a literary companion in the office of the “Tribune” gave of the interesting people and scenery along the coast of Palestine and Greece.
[154]
The winter had passed and the soothing winds of summer seemed so grateful and necessary, that he decided to pass the next winter on the Mediterranean, should his health admit of the necessary outlay of strength. In writing about that undertaking afterwards, he said a trip into Africa would furnish good material for a travelling correspondent and hence that continent was selected. “But,” he said, “there were other influences acting upon me which I did not fully comprehend at the time, and cannot now describe without going too deeply into matters of private history.” But while in Central Africa, enjoying the invigorating breezes along the Nile, he reveals a part of that private history by an incidental exclamation published in a letter to the “Tribune.” “Oh! what a rest is this from the tantalizing and sorrowful suggestions of civilization.” He fled from sorrow—driven into the desert.
Having reached Smyrna, on the coast of Asia Minor, by the overland route to Constantinople via Vienna, he re-embarked at that port for Alexandria in Egypt, arriving at the latter place Nov. 1, 1851. We shall not attempt here to give in any satisfactory detail the record of his wanderings in Africa, as they are so charmingly and instructively told in the book which he wrote concerning them, and as no book of travel in Egypt, except a scientific work, can supplant or equal the many which already honor our shelves. The writer having been over a large portion of Mr.[155] Taylor’s routes, and feeling much indebted to him for his works, which were often used as guides, has perhaps a greater interest in recording his travels, than the reader would have in going through the story a second time. Hence, for the purposes of this outline sketch of Mr. Taylor’s life, we shall introduce only such incidents and facts connected with his wanderings as appear to have some direct or unusual bearing upon his character, or which display some peculiarity of his genius or taste.
He said, in a letter to a friend in New York, that he “owed a debt of gratitude” to the Providence which led him, to the country which attracted him, and to the vessel which carried him from Smyrna to Alexandria. That sentiment was awakened in his heart by the way in which some of the important events in his after life pointed back to that trip and to the valuable friend he met there. Mr. Taylor was of a genial, approachable nature, and easily made the acquaintance of any person whom he met. But having German blood in his veins, loving the German language, and entertaining a sincere respect for German literature, he naturally sought the company of the German people. On the very threshold of this trip into Africa he made the acquaintance of a German gentleman, whose culture and geniality made him a great acquisition in a strange land. They seem to have taken a deep interest in each other from the first time they met. It may be because their condition in life, socially and circumstantially, was so similar;[156] but the more reasonable explanation is found in their similar tastes and equal regard for the works of genius and the beauties of nature. It will be like a romance, when told in all its detail, as it might be now, and will be when the present generation passes away. How little could his human understanding comprehend the great results turning upon the simple, common-place self-introduction to a German travelling companion! This friend, whom he met, and with whom he made the journey up to the cataracts of the Nile, was perhaps as remarkable a man as Taylor, and belonged to a family of scholars and long respected agricultural citizens of the German principality of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
The chief merit of Mr. Taylor’s descriptions lay in their apparent frankness and their charming details. He appeared to think that every reader was acquainted with the works of those great arch?ologists, Lepsius and Champollion, and did not attempt to supply to his readers the information they had already given. He seems to have imagined that all the reading public wished to follow him, and he gave such information as the tourist would need. He told about the clothes he purchased in Alexandria, about the fit of his Arab attire, about the cost of a dinner, the conversation between dragomen and boatmen, the personal appearance of his companions, the faithlessness of his guide, the dirty appearance of his boat, and the gorgeous sunset. He described his own sensations and actions with the boldness of one unconscious of any motive to conceal[157] or deceive. He reveals the sorrow of his heart by occasional remarks such as these: “For many months past I had known no mood of mind so peaceful and grateful.”—“I am away from reminders of sorrow.”—“It is not the beauty of the desert that gratifies me so much, in these days, after all, as the absence of civilization.”
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