The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17,
No. 102,
by Various

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17,
No. 102,
April, 1866, by Various This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere
at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg
License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866
Author: Various
Release Date: May 9, 2007 [EBook #21408]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY ***

Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was
produced from images generously made available by Cornell
University Digital Collections)

THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics.
VOL. XVII.--APRIL, 1866.--NO. CII.
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.

PART I.
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.
Long as was Landor's life and literary career, little is known of him
personally. There are glimpses of him in Lady Blessington's Memoirs;
and Emerson, in his "English Traits," describes two interviews with
him in 1843 at his Florentine villa. "I found him noble and courteous,
living in a cloud of pictures.... I had inferred from his books, or
magnified from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,--an
untamable petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just
or not, but certainly on this May-day his courtesy veiled that haughty
mind, and he was the most patient and gentle of hosts." According to
the world's opinion, it was not always "May-day" with Landor, for the
world neither preaches nor practices that rarity, human charity. Its
instinct is a species of divining-rod, the virtue of which seems to be
limited to a fatal facility in discovering frailty. Great men and women
live in glass houses, and what passer-by can resist the temptation to
throw stones? Is it generous, or even just, in scoffers who are safely
hidden behind bricks and mortar, to take advantage of the glass? Could
they show a nobler record if subjected to equally close scrutiny?
Worshippers, too, at the shrines of inspiration are prone to look for
ideal lives in their elect, forgetting that the divine afflatus is, after all, a
gift,--that great thoughts are not the daily food of even the finest
intellects. It is a necessity of nature for valleys to lie beneath the lofty
mountain peaks that daringly pierce the sky; and it would seem as
though the artist-temperament, after rising to sublime heights of ecstasy,
plunged into corresponding depths, showing thereby the supremacy of
the man over the god. Then is there much sighing and shaking of heads
at the failings of genius, whereas genius in its depths sinks no lower
than the ordinary level of mankind. It simply proves its title-deeds to
mortality. Humanity at best is weak, and can only be divine by flashes.

The Pythia was a stupid old woman, saving when she sat upon the
tripod. Seeing genius to the best advantage in its work,--not always, but
most frequently,--they are wisest who