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lyric poetry.
A beloved music-
master, Daniel Schlesinger, falling ill and dying, I attended his funeral and wrote some stanzas descriptive of the scene, which were printed in various papers, attracting some notice.
I set them to music of my own, and sang them often, to the accompaniment of a guitar.
Although the reading of
Byron was sparingly conceded to us, and that of
Shelley forbidden, the morbid discontent which characterized these poets made itself felt in our community as well as in
England.
Here, as elsewhere, it brought into fashion a certain romantic melancholy.
It is true that at school we read Cow. per's ‘Task,’ and did our parsing on
Milton's ‘
Paradise Lost,’ but what were these in comparison with:—
The cold in clime are cold in blood,
or:—
I loved her, Father, nay, adored.
After my brother's return from
Europe, I read such works of George Sand and
Balzac as he would allow me to choose from his library.
Of the two writers, George Sand appeared to me by far the superior, though I then knew of her works only ‘Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre,’ ‘Spiridion,’ ‘
Jacques,’ and ‘
Andre.’
It was at least ten years after this time that ‘Consuelo’ revealed to the world the real George Sand, and
