Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/393



HEN, 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?

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