Identifier: lifetravelsliter00conwrich (find matches)
Title: The life, travels, and literary career of Bayard Taylor
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Conwell, Russell Herman, 1843-1925
Subjects: Taylor, Bayard, 1825-1878
Publisher: Boston, B. B. Russell & Co., New York, C. Drew
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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nt theme unspoken was upper-most in his mind. He was searching for an idealwhich should not copy Tennyson, nor Wordsworth,nor Browning, but should equal theirs in conceptionand execution. He felt that irresistible yearning forthe highest poetical work, which is the surest indica-tion of ofenius. He was not e<rotistic, he was not fool-ishly ambitious, but all his life he had been seekinghis place in the realms of poetry, feeling morally sure,notwithstanding his own temporary misgivings, thatthere was a great work for him to do. However, the needs of the present crowded out thedreams of the future, as they so often do in the livesof others, and after a delightful summer in the lands heloved, and a visit to those who were now dearer thanthe most gorgeous landscapes, he determined upon atrip to the frozen regions of Lapland. He undertookthat journey with evident reluctance. His communionwith the best minds of America and Europe had taughthim that of the works which he had published his
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HIS AMBITION. 255 poetry would live much longer than his travels. Hefound that the place of a poet in the scale of humanmerit was loftier than that of a journalistic traveller.He had left home with a feeling of uncertainty abouthis future course; but there was no longer hesitationor doubt. He would follow out the routes laid out andkeep his promises to the newspapers and publishers,and was determined to acquire an insight into theScandinavian language in view of an enterprise in theway of translation, which, however, was never fullymatured nor undertaken. But his interest in travelhad lost its chiefest charms. It would not, could not,satisfy his ambition. Some critics have accounted forthis lack of zeal by the nearness of his marriage, whichwould take him from his wanderins^s. But the bestreason is the one he gave himself; viz., that he desiredto undertake some more permanent task — one thatshould live when his travels were forgotten. Hence, that indescribable lack which his readers

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