On this occasion Bayard Taylor went to a chop-house where he could get a wretched bed for a shilling.  The next morning he took a sixpenny breakfast, and started out to look for work.  By good fortune he met Putnam, the American publisher, who lent him a sovereign (five dollars) and gave him work that would enable him to earn his living until he could get money from America for his return passage.

CHAPTER VIII

HIS FIRST LOVE AND GREATEST SORROW

At the very first school which Bayard Taylor attended there was a little Quaker girl who would whisper with a blush to her teacher, “May I sit beside Bayard?” Her name was Mary Agnew.  As schoolmates and neighbors the two children grew up together; and in time Bayard began to confide to his diary his dream of happiness with her.  Toward this object, all his thoughts and plans were gradually directed.

Mary Agnew’s father did not countenance this neighbor lover, however, and when Bayard set out for Europe he was not allowed to write to her.  He sent messages through his mother, and occasionally heard from the young girl in the same way.  On his return, however, he grew more bold, and soon became openly engaged to her.  The romance is a sadly beautiful one; for this fair girl who was his inspiration during the years of his hardest struggles, finally fell into a decline and died just as he was beginning to earn the money that would have made them happy together.

“I remember him,” says a neighbor, speaking of the two at this time, “as a bright, blushing, diffident youth, just entering manhood; and with him I always associate that gentle and beautiful girl, with matchless eyes, who inspired many of his early lyrics, and whose death filled the nest of love with snow.”

Mary Agnew reminds us of Poe’s beautiful Virginia Clemm, his “Annabel Lee.”  Grace Greenwood wrote of her as “a dark-eyed young girl with the rose yet unblighted on cheek and lip, with soft brown, wavy hair, which, when blown by the wind, looked like the hair oft given to angels by the old masters, producing a sort of halo-like effect about a lovely head.”

And Taylor at this time was evidently her match in looks as well as spirit.  A German friend describes him thus:  “He was a tall, slender, blooming young man, the very image of youthful beauty and purity.  His intellectual head was surrounded by dark hair; the glance of his eyes was so modest, and yet so clear and lucid, that you seemed to look right into his heart.”

On his return from Europe, young Taylor found that his letters to the newspapers had attracted some attention, perhaps largely owing to the fact that one who was almost a boy had made the journey on foot, with little or no money.  At the same time he had told his story in a simple, straightforward way, which proved him to be a good reporter.  Friends advised him to gather the letters into a volume, which he did under the title, “Views Afoot; or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff.”  Within a year six editions were sold, and the sale continued large for a number of years.