. Recollections of a lifetime : or men and things I have seen : in a series of familiar letters to a friend : historical, biographical, anecdotical, and descriptive . send fora poet to cure him, was his answer. Having little else before him, he directed his at-tention to literature, and published the first numberof his Clio, 1822. Soon after, he returned to theNorth, and produced some miscellanies in prose andverse. At this period, he had excited a deep interestin the public mind, as well by his writings as hissomewhat eccentric life and manners. The melan-choly which pervaded his poetry, with
. Recollections of a lifetime : or men and things I have seen : in a series of familiar letters to a friend : historical, biographical, anecdotical, and descriptive . send fora poet to cure him, was his answer. Having little else before him, he directed his at-tention to literature, and published the first numberof his Clio, 1822. Soon after, he returned to theNorth, and produced some miscellanies in prose andverse. At this period, he had excited a deep interestin the public mind, as well by his writings as hissomewhat eccentric life and manners. The melan-choly which pervaded his poetry, with fugitive piecesof great feeling and tenderness, together with a certainwildness in his air and manner, rendered him an ob-ject of general curiosity, and in many cases of deepsympathy. Of all this he seemed unconscious, andwalked the world like one who neither accepted nordesired its friendship. In the spring of 1823,1 was walking up Broadwayin New York, and met him. I had been intimatewith him for several previous years, having oftenseen him at my fathers house ; but I now observed,that on seeing me, he turned aside, and evidently ^•^^^^I^r^ ^. -^ - y^^^--i. Percival. Vol 2. p. 132. HISTOEICAL, ANECDOTICAL, ETC. 183 sought to avoid me. This was what I expected, forsuch was his habit of shrinking shyness, that it embar-rassed him to Kieet even an old friend. I put myselfin his way, and, after a few words of recognition,perceiving something more than usually downcast inhis appearance, I asked him what was the occasionof it. At first he denied that any thing had hap-pened, but at length, with some reluctance, he toldme he had been making a tour to the North, andwas out of money. His trunk was consequently de-tained on board the packet in which he had comedown from Albany! Percival had some patrimony, and though his meanswere narrow, they might have been sufficient for , with good management. But common sense—in the economy of life—was, unhappily, not one ofhis en
Size: 1268px × 1970px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookidrecollection, bookyear1856
