Something of this far-off and gigantic primitivism inheres also
in the poetry of William Cullen Bryant. His portrait, with the
sweeping white beard and the dark folds of the cloak, suggests
the Bard as the Druids might have known him. But in the
eighteen-thirties and forties, Mr. Bryant's alert, clean-shaven
face, and energetic gait as he strode down Broadway to the
"Evening Post" office, suggested little more than a vigorous and
somewhat radical editor of an increasingly prosperous Democratic
newspaper. There was nothing of the Fringed Gentian or Yellow
Violet about him. Like so many of the Knickerbockers, Bryant was
an immigrant to New York; in fact, none of her adopted men of
letters have represented so perfectly the inherited traits of the
New England Puritan. To understand his long, and honorable public
life it is necessary to know something of the city of his choice,
but to enter into the spirit of his poetry one must go back to
the hills of western Massachusetts.
Bryant had a right to his cold-weather mind. He came from
Mayflower stock.
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