Page 117 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

of the Nile "; "The Land of the Saracens; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia
Minor, Sicily, and Spain"; and "A Visit to India, China, and Japan in the

Year 1853."

He had hundreds of calls to lecture; and thereafter for several years he
made lecturing his principal business. From his books and his lectures he
received large sums of money, so that before he was thirty he had

accumulated a modest fortune.

In 1856 Bayard Taylor took his two sisters and his youngest brother to
Europe. He left them in Germany, while he himself carried out a plan long
in his mind, of visiting northern Sweden and Lapland in winter. The

following summer he visited Norway, and later published the results of
these journeys in "Northern Travel."

While in Germany, after his trip to Sweden, he became engaged to Marie
Hansen, daughter of Prof. Peter A. Hansen, the noted astronomer and

founder of Erfurt Observatory. They were married in the following autumn,
October 27, 1857.

He now hurried home with his wife and prepared to build a house and lay
out the country estate which he called Cedarcroft. The land had belonged to

one of his ancestors, and he was very proud of his fine country house; but
he found it a rather expensive enjoyment.

CHAPTER X

HIS POETRY

We have seen how in youth Bayard Taylor conceived the ambition to be
known as one of his country's great poets. He saw his books of travel sell

by the hundred thousand; but while this brought him money and notoriety,
he clung still to his poetry. He even felt annoyed when he heard himself
spoken of as "the great American traveler" instead of the great American

poet. The truth is, he had not been able to give to poetry the time or energy