Cambridge Neighbors | Page 5

upon him as the architect of greatness, he was
delightfully impatient of it, and he was most amusingly dramatic in
reproducing the consciousness of certain ineffectual alumni who used
to overwhelm him at Commencement solemnities with some such
pompous acknowledgment as, "Professor Child, all that I have become,
sir, I owe to your influence in my college career." He did, with
delicious mockery, the old-fashioned intellectual poseurs among the
students, who used to walk the groves of Harvard with bent head, and
the left arm crossing the back, while the other lodged its hand in the
breast of the high buttoned frock-coat; and I could fancy that his classes
in college did not form the sunniest exposure for young. folly and

vanity. I know that he was intolerant of any manner of insincerity, and
no flattery could take him off his guard. I have seen him meet this with
a cutting phrase of rejection, and no man was more apt at snubbing the
patronage that offers itself at times to all men. But mostly he wished to
do people pleasure, and he seemed always to be studying how to do it;
as for need, I am sure that worthy and unworthy want had alike the way
to his heart.
Children were always his friends, and they repaid with adoration the
affection which he divided with them and with his flowers. I recall him
in no moments so characteristic as those he spent in making the little
ones laugh out of their hearts at his drolling, some festive evening in
his house, and those he gave to sharing with you his joy in his
gardening. This, I believe, began with violets, and it went on to roses,
which he grew in a splendor and profusion impossible to any but a true
lover with a genuine gift for them. Like Lowell, he spent his summers
in Cambridge, and in the afternoon, you could find him digging or
pruning among his roses with an ardor which few caprices of the
weather could interrupt. He would lift himself from their ranks, which
he scarcely overtopped, as you came up the footway to his door, and
peer purblindly across at you. If he knew you at once, he traversed the
nodding and swaying bushes, to give you the hand free of the trowel or
knife; or if you got indoors unseen by him he would come in holding
towards you some exquisite blossom that weighed down the tip of its
long stem with a succession of hospitable obeisances.
He graced with unaffected poetry a life of as hard study, of as hard
work, and as varied achievement as any I have known or read of; and
he played with gifts and acquirements such as in no great measure have
made reputations. He had a rare and lovely humor which could amuse
itself both in English and Italian with such an airy burletta as "Il
Pesceballo" (he wrote it in Metastasian Italian, and Lowell put it in
libretto English); he had a critical sense as sound as it was subtle in all
literature; and whatever he wrote he imbued with the charm of a style
finely personal to himself. His learning in the line of his Harvard
teaching included an early English scholarship unrivalled in his time,
and his researches in ballad literature left no corner of it untouched. I
fancy this part of his study was peculiarly pleasant to him; for he loved
simple and natural things, and the beauty which he found nearest life.

At least he scorned the pedantic affectations of literary superiority; and
he used to quote with joyous laughter the swelling exclamation of an
Italian critic who proposed to leave the summits of polite learning for a
moment, with the cry, "Scendiamo fra il popolo!" (Let us go down
among the people.)

II.
Of course it was only so hard worked a man who could take thought
and trouble for another. He once took thought for me at a time when it
was very important to me, and when he took the trouble to secure for
me an engagement to deliver that course of Lowell lectures in Boston,
which I have said Lowell had the courage to go in town to hear. I do
not remember whether Professor Child was equal to so much, but he
would have been if it were necessary; and I rather rejoice now in the
belief that he did not seek quite that martyrdom.
He had done more than enough for me, but he had done only what he
was always willing to do for others. In the form of a favor to himself he
brought into my fife the great happiness of intimately knowing Hjalmar
Hjorth Boyesen, whom he had found one summer day among the