Poems of Henry Timrod [3]
with a nervous utterance, but with melody ever in his heart and on his lip. Though always slow of speech, he was yet, like Burns, quick to learn. The chariot wheels might jar in the gate through which he tried to drive his winged steeds, but the horses were of celestial temper and the car purest gold."
His school-fellows remember him as silent and shy, full of quick impulse, and with an eager ambition, insatiable in his thirst for books, yet mingling freely in all sports, and rejoicing unspeakably in the weekly holiday and its long rambles through wood and field. "The sweet security of streets" had no charm for him. He rejoiced in Nature and her changing scenes and seasons. She was always to him comfort, refreshment, balm. She never turned her face from him, and through all his years he "leaned on her breast with loving trustfulness as a little child."
But he had other teachers. He studied all classic literature. "The |Aeschylean drama had no attraction for him; he reveled in the rich and elegant strains of Virgil, and of the many toned lyre of Horace and the silver lute of Catullus." From the full and inexhaustible fountain of English letters he drank unceasingly. Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, and, later, Tennyson were his immediate inspiration.
His college life at the University of Georgia was interrupted by sickness and cramped by lack of means, and his literary plans were foiled by necessity. Nevertheless, he left his Alma Mater with a mind stirred to its depths, and with a large store of learning, and had already sounded with clear note those chords which were afterwards so vocal in melody.
Dr. J. Dickson Bruns has left this graphic description of Timrod's personal appearance, and of some prominent traits of his social character: --
"In stature," he says, "Timrod was far below the medium height. He had always excelled in boyish sports, and, as he grew to manhood, his unusual breadth of shoulder still seemed to indicate a physical vigor which the slender wrists, thin, transparent hands, and habitually lax attitude but too plainly contradicted.
"The square jaw was almost stern in its strongly pronounced lines, the mouth large, the lips exquisitely sensitive, the gray eyes set deeply under massive brows, and full of a melancholy and pleading tenderness, which attracted attention to his face at once, as the face of one who had thought and suffered much.
"His walk was quick and nervous, with an energy in it that betokened decision of character, but ill sustained by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener, though never a moody or uncongenial one!
"Among men of letters, he was always esteemed as a most sympathetic companion; timid, reserved, unready, if taken by surprise, but highly cultivated, and still more highly endowed.
"The key to his social character was to be found in the feminine gentleness of his temperament. He shrank from noisy debate, and the wordy clash of argument, as from a blow. It stunned and bewildered him, and left him, in the m|^el|/ee, alike incapable of defense or attack. And yet, when some burly protagonist would thrust himself too rudely into the ring, and try to bear down opposition by sheer vehemence of declamation, from the corner where he sat ensconced in unregarded silence, HE WOULD SUDDENLY SLING OUT SOME SHARP, SWIFT PEBBLE OF THOUGHT, which he had been slowly rounding, and smite with an aim so keen and true as rarely failed to bring down the boastful Anakim!"
In Charleston, as a first effort in life, for a brief period Timrod attempted the law, but found that jealous mistress unsuited to his life work, though he had all the opportunity afforded him in the office of his friend, the Hon. J. L. Petigru, the great jurist. Leaving the bar, he thenceforward devoted himself to literature and
His school-fellows remember him as silent and shy, full of quick impulse, and with an eager ambition, insatiable in his thirst for books, yet mingling freely in all sports, and rejoicing unspeakably in the weekly holiday and its long rambles through wood and field. "The sweet security of streets" had no charm for him. He rejoiced in Nature and her changing scenes and seasons. She was always to him comfort, refreshment, balm. She never turned her face from him, and through all his years he "leaned on her breast with loving trustfulness as a little child."
But he had other teachers. He studied all classic literature. "The |Aeschylean drama had no attraction for him; he reveled in the rich and elegant strains of Virgil, and of the many toned lyre of Horace and the silver lute of Catullus." From the full and inexhaustible fountain of English letters he drank unceasingly. Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Burns, Wordsworth, and, later, Tennyson were his immediate inspiration.
His college life at the University of Georgia was interrupted by sickness and cramped by lack of means, and his literary plans were foiled by necessity. Nevertheless, he left his Alma Mater with a mind stirred to its depths, and with a large store of learning, and had already sounded with clear note those chords which were afterwards so vocal in melody.
Dr. J. Dickson Bruns has left this graphic description of Timrod's personal appearance, and of some prominent traits of his social character: --
"In stature," he says, "Timrod was far below the medium height. He had always excelled in boyish sports, and, as he grew to manhood, his unusual breadth of shoulder still seemed to indicate a physical vigor which the slender wrists, thin, transparent hands, and habitually lax attitude but too plainly contradicted.
"The square jaw was almost stern in its strongly pronounced lines, the mouth large, the lips exquisitely sensitive, the gray eyes set deeply under massive brows, and full of a melancholy and pleading tenderness, which attracted attention to his face at once, as the face of one who had thought and suffered much.
"His walk was quick and nervous, with an energy in it that betokened decision of character, but ill sustained by the stammering speech; for in society he was the shyest and most undemonstrative of men. To a single friend whom he trusted, he would pour out his inmost heart; but let two or three be gathered together, above all, introduce a stranger, and he instantly became a quiet, unobtrusive listener, though never a moody or uncongenial one!
"Among men of letters, he was always esteemed as a most sympathetic companion; timid, reserved, unready, if taken by surprise, but highly cultivated, and still more highly endowed.
"The key to his social character was to be found in the feminine gentleness of his temperament. He shrank from noisy debate, and the wordy clash of argument, as from a blow. It stunned and bewildered him, and left him, in the m|^el|/ee, alike incapable of defense or attack. And yet, when some burly protagonist would thrust himself too rudely into the ring, and try to bear down opposition by sheer vehemence of declamation, from the corner where he sat ensconced in unregarded silence, HE WOULD SUDDENLY SLING OUT SOME SHARP, SWIFT PEBBLE OF THOUGHT, which he had been slowly rounding, and smite with an aim so keen and true as rarely failed to bring down the boastful Anakim!"
In Charleston, as a first effort in life, for a brief period Timrod attempted the law, but found that jealous mistress unsuited to his life work, though he had all the opportunity afforded him in the office of his friend, the Hon. J. L. Petigru, the great jurist. Leaving the bar, he thenceforward devoted himself to literature and