Newark post. (Newark, Del.) 1910-1969, 1916-08-30

lore the Delaware IOllege ouNI-
mer School, is full of interest to
teh people of all this region of
country. 1t is paper OF such
value that it should be put in per-
manent form, for it makes real
contribution to the history of Ken
nett Square, Longwood and Will
mington. The paper follows:
Kennett Square is a busy little
country town about IA miles to the
north of us, GROWING a nil, up
three sides of which its streets
and houses climb to stray off to
the level north in pleasant resi-
dences and undulating farms. 1t
is beautifully situated place,
and it is a very wide awake, pro-
gressive community. We who have
always known it and have early
associations rooted there, love it,
but far away PEOPLE who never
had grandfathers living there
know it only by one thing, it is the
home of Bayard Taylor. Just as
Cambridge is known to us as the
home of Lowell and Longfellow,
just as Portsmouth means AL
drich, and Amesbury, Whittier,
and Concord Emerson, Hawthorne
and Louisa Alcott, so does KEN
nett Square out in the world stand
for Bayard Taylor-poet, novel
list, traveler-and it is his story
about his native village that has
made classic rlany of the houses
and farms of the neighborhood so
that it is thought quite worth
while to go on Kennett pilgrim
ages to identify them; just as we
in poetical mood, make journeys to
"The House of Seven Gables" and
THE Old Manse."
Among all his novels-all we'll
written and interesting-the
STORY of Kennett" is to me the
most pleasing and reposeful, bear
ing definitely the assured touch of
good literature. One feels, in
reading, that one is among kindly,
old-fashioned, real people.
was treasured in this esti-
mate only the other day, when a
friend knowing that I had just
been in kennett, said, II find
some new beauty in it every time.
And another-a busy lawyer, not
given to sentiment-picked up the
book from the table where he was
making a quiet call one day, and
read in mellow tones the descrip-
ton of the homecoming Of Gill
bert and Martha in the soft even
ing twilight, saying as he closed
the book, ''There! Isn't that poet
~? if the form is prose" Bayard
Taylor has indeed the happy pow
er to reveal the beautiful and
poetic which inheros in even the
most commonplace and familiar.
That is what poets can do.
One thing that gives a charm to
this book is the title; it is avowed-
~ about Kennett-the poets own
birthplace. This was stone
house on the southern side of the
main street of the town, on the
corner diagonally opposite to the
Unicorn Tavern" of the story. I
happened to be in Kennett Square
in the August of 1878, and witness
sed one night the burning OF this
historic building, only few
months before the death of Bay
ard Taylor himself in Berlin,
where ne had gone less than a
year earlier by appointment of
President Hayes as the United
States minister to Germany.
There surely was never . more
popular governmental appoint
ment than that of Bayard Taylor
to the court of Berlin. His wide
acquaintance with other countries
which his travels had given; his
knowledge of foreign languages,
especially Of German, which he
had studied critically in making
TRANSACTIONS, notably for his chef
d'oeuvre, Goethe's Faust: his nu-
merous perso nal friendships
there and family connections
through his wife, as we'll as his
valuable experience as Secretary
of Legation in Russia during OIL,
Civil War, when so many delicate
situations of vital import TO oul
country had to be met and manip.
ulated by him as charge d'affairs
in the absence of General Gamer
on, the Minister: all these made
him peculiarly fitted for this new
post, and everyone, not only here
but in foreign countries as well
seemed to see the appropriateness:
of the appointment and showereC
him and the administration with