Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-02-08
The Death of Bayard Taylor.

The career of Bayard Taylor is one
of the most striking illustrations in
recent American history of the SUBJ
stantial reward which our republican
society offers to purely literary ambi-
ton. A generation or two ago the
man of letters was so rare character
among us that his very singularity
was claim to public distinction. But
Mr.. Taylor made his celebrity long
after Dana, and Irving, and Prescott,
and Bryant, and a score of others had
taught mankind to respect the taste and
scholarship of the new Western World,
and he won his highest honors in the
very thick of the struggle for literary
success which distinguishes these lat
ter years of the nineteenth century
He owed nothing to the accident of
time or of fortune. The prizes which
enriched the close of his life were the
well-earned fruit of the lard and perse-
vering labors of more than thirty
years. From the day when he set out,
poor and unknown, to make the tour of
Europe with knapsack and staff, until
he arrived only few months ago at
one of the greatest of the European
courts, bearing the highest diplomatic
rank it is in the power of the United
States to confer, cheered by the fare
well plaudits of his countrymen, and
greeted with marked honors by the
people and princes OF Germany, it can
be said that Bayard Taylor was the
maker of all his own good fortunes,
and that he made them by the most
conscientious and faithful of literary
work. He was simply and always a
man of letters.
This is not the place for critical es.
innate of his writings, but there is
one conspicuous quality in them which
shone so brightly also i'll his personal
character that we cannot pass it over
here in silence. That quality is hon
ssty. 1t is seen in the frank simplicity
of his style, the thoroughness of his
workmanship, the clearaess of his
opinions, the fidelity with which he
held through life to his chosen work,
sparing no pains to produce the very
best of which he was capable, however
small the subject or trivial the reward.
Nobody could read one of his books
without feeling the influence of this
virtue. Nobody could know him with
out perceiving that this high literary
merit was reflex of an earnest and
simple nature. II there is long re-
membrance for honest men, there is no
less long life for honest books. 1t is
golden lesson for authors and jour
nalists that in this instance literary
honesty and personal uprightness have
secured brilliant success in life, and
an enduring reputation.
There is little doubt that if Mr.. Tay.
|.lor had lived to complete the Life of
Goethe, for which his foreign appoint
ment gave him the long coveted facili-
with q greater work than any in the
long list of his books. 1t was task
to which he brought manly euthusi.
asm and the accumulations of years of
study and industrious collecting.
Scholars will lament the untimely event
which deprives American literature of
what promised to be such an import
ant acquisition. The craftsmen of let
tiers and arts will mourn the loss of q
companion endeared to them by thou
sand amiable qualities. The general
public will sorrow for the death of O
public man in whose pure fame the
whole country takes pride. But there
are many others to whom the death of
Bayard Taylor will carry a much sharp
er pang. We who have been for so
many years in close intercourse with
this kindly, tender and high-minded
man, and have learned to value more
and more as our intimacy increased,
the nobility of his disposition, the
greatness of his heart, the homely
charm of his simple private life, can
understand how deep o grief will be
carried by the news Of this morning to
friends in every quarter of the globe
who honored in Mr.. Taylor one of the
best types of the American scholar,
and loved the most delightful of Amer
lean nentlemen-Ne ,r York Tribune