FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  
none of what he himself calls "that kind of affliction which alone can unfold the profundities of the human spirit." It was in Paris that he produced most of the "Juvenilia". He included only a few of the pieces which he had written at Harvard and in New York. Thus all, or nearly all, the poems ranged under that title, are, as he said -- Relics of the time when I too fared Across the sweet fifth lustrum of my days. Paris, however, did not absorb him entirely during these years. He would occasionally set forth on long tramps through the French provinces; for he loved every aspect of that gracious country. He once spent some weeks with a friend in Switzerland; but this experience seems to have left no trace in his work. Then came the fateful year 1914. His "Juvenilia" having grown to a passable bulk, he brought them in the early summer to London, with a view to finding a publisher for them; but it does not appear that he took any very active steps to that effect. His days were mainly spent in the British Museum, and his evenings with a coterie of friends at the Cafe Royal. In the middle of July, his father came to England and spent a week with him. Of this meeting Mr. Seeger writes: == We passed three days at Canterbury--three days of such intimacy as we had hardly had since he was a boy in Mexico. For four or five years I had only seen him a few days at a time, during my hurried visits to the United States. We explored the old town together, heard services in the Cathedral, and had long talks in the close. After service in the Cathedral on a Monday morning, the last of our stay at Canterbury, Alan was particularly enthusiastic over the reading of the Psalms, and said "Was there ever such English written as that of the Bible?" I said good-bye to Alan on July 25th. == Two days earlier, the Austrian Ultimatum had been presented to Serbia; on that very day the time limit expired, the Serbian reply was rejected, and the Austrian Minister left Belgrade. The wheels of fate were already whirling. As soon as it became evident that a European war was inevitable Alan returned to Paris. He took Bruges on his way, and there left the manuscript of his poems in the keeping of a printer, not foreseeing the risks to which he was thus exposing them. The war was not three weeks old when, along with forty or fifty of his fellow-countrymen, he enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France. Why did
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35  
36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Cathedral

 

Austrian

 

Canterbury

 
Juvenilia
 
written
 

Monday

 
enthusiastic
 

morning

 

English

 

Psalms


service
 

reading

 

hurried

 

Mexico

 

intimacy

 
visits
 

United

 

services

 

affliction

 
States

explored

 
Ultimatum
 

keeping

 

printer

 

foreseeing

 

manuscript

 

inevitable

 
returned
 

Bruges

 

exposing


Foreign

 

Legion

 

France

 

enlisted

 

countrymen

 

fellow

 

European

 

evident

 

expired

 

Serbian


Serbia

 

presented

 

rejected

 

Minister

 

whirling

 

Belgrade

 
wheels
 

earlier

 

writes

 

friend