However, the needs of the present crowded out the dreams of the future, as they so often do in the lives of others, and after a delightful summer in the lands he loved, and a visit to those who were now dearer than the most gorgeous landscapes, he determined upon a trip to the frozen regions of Lapland. He undertook that journey with evident reluctance. His communion with the best minds of America and Europe had taught him that of the works which he had published his poetry would live much longer than his travels. He found that the place of a poet in the scale of human merit was loftier than that of a journalistic traveller. He had left home with a feeling of uncertainty about his future course; but there was no longer hesitation or doubt. He would follow out the routes laid out and keep his promises to the newspapers and publishers, and was determined to acquire an insight into the Scandinavian language in view of an enterprise in the way of translation, which, however, was never fully matured nor undertaken. But his interest in travel had lost its chiefest charms. It would not, could not, satisfy his ambition. Some critics have accounted for this lack of zeal by the nearness of his marriage, which would take him from his wanderings. But the best reason is the one he gave himself; viz., that he desired to undertake some more permanent task—one that should live when his travels were forgotten.
Hence, that indescribable lack which his readers have so universally found in his books of travels published after that date. He could not rid himself of the burden, nor cease to ponder upon the subjects which seemed worthy of a great poem.
Starting from Germany Dec. 1, 1856, and embarking on a steamer which ran between Lubec and Stockholm, he entered upon an undertaking more hazardous and uncomfortable than anything he had ventured upon before. But his experience taught him to fear nothing and to move on so long as any other living being had lived on the same route. He had determined to see a day without a sunrise and a night without a sunset. To be able to state that fact in a book, would, in itself, ensure its ready sale. Of this he had been assured in New York by his friend Dr. E. K. Kane, whose opinion was entitled to much consideration, as the Doctor had been far more extensively engaged in explorations, and had travelled many thousand miles further than Mr. Taylor. Having once decided to see that wonderful sight, nothing in the way of privation could prevent the accomplishment of his purpose.