Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Title: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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Language: English
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end.
American Men of Letters
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
BY
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1902
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published October, 1902_
_Of this edition Three Hundred Copies have been printed and bound
entirely uncut with paper label_
PREFACE
A life of Longfellow has been from the beginning included in the plan of
the "American Men of Letters" series, but it has been delayed through a
variety of causes. Like all memoirs of this poet, it must rest partly on
the material amply furnished by the "Life" so admirably prepared by his
brother sixteen years ago, yet it may be well to explain that the
present volume will be found marked by three especial characteristics of
its own. First, much additional material is here drawn from the
manuscript correspondence of the first Mrs. Longfellow, received from
her family and bearing upon the poet's early married years and first
visit to Europe, during what was undoubtedly the formative period of his
life. Secondly, there is a good deal of material obtained from the
manuscript volumes known as the "Harvard College Papers" and preserved
at the University Library, elucidating the academical side of
Longfellow's life. Thirdly, there is a series of extracts from his
earlier writings, dating from college days and not hitherto brought
together, but showing the origin and growth of his lifelong desire to
employ American material and to help the creation of a native
literature; the desire which had its final fulfilment in "Evangeline"
and "Hiawatha." These three sources will be found, if the author is not
mistaken, to have afforded distinct contributions to our previous
knowledge as to Longfellow's character and work.
T. W. H.
CONTENTS
Chap. Page
I. Longfellow as a Classic 1
II. Birth, Childhood, and Youth 11
III. First Flights in Authorship 21
IV. Literature as a Pursuit 37
V. First Visit to Europe 45
VI. Marriage and Life at Brunswick 59
VII. The Corner Stone laid 67
VIII. Appointment at Harvard and
Second Visit to Europe 81
IX. Illness and Death of Mrs. Longfellow 107
X. Craigie House 116
XI. Hyperion and the Reaction from It 124
XII. Voices of the Night 137
XIII. Third Visit to Europe 149
XIV. Anti-Slavery Poems and Second Marriage 163
XV. Academic Life in Cambridge 176
XVI. Literary Life in Cambridge 188
XVII. Resignation of Professorship--
to Death of Mrs. Longfellow 202
XVIII. Birds of Passage 213
XIX. Last Trip to Europe 219
XX. Dante 225
XXI. The Loftier Strain: Christus 236
XXII. Westminster Abbey 248
XXIII. Longfellow as a Poet 258
XXIV. Longfellow as a Man 278
Appendix 297
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
CHAPTER I
LONGFELLOW AS A CLASSIC
The death of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the first breach in that
well-known group of poets which adorned Boston and its vicinity so long.
The first to go was also the most widely famous. Emerson reached greater
depths of thought; Whittier touched the problems of the nation's life
more deeply; Holmes came personally more before the public; Lowell was
more brilliant and varied; but, taking the English-speaking world at
large, it was Longfellow whose fame overshadowed all the others; he was
also better known and more translated upon the continent of Europe than
all the rest put together, and, indeed, than any other contemporary poet
of the English-speaking race, at least if bibliographies afford any
test. Add to this that his place of residence was so accessible and so
historic, his personal demeanor so kindly, his life so open and
transparent, that everything really conspired to give him the highest
accessible degree of contemporary fame. There was no literary laurel
that was not his, and he resolutely declined all other laurels; he had
wealth and ease, children and grandchildren, health and a stainless
conscience; he had also, in a peculiar degree, the blessings that belong
to Shakespeare's estimate of old age,--"honor, love, obedience, troops
of friends." Except for two great domestic bereavements, his life would
have been one of absolutely unbroken sunshine; in his whole career he
never encountered any serious rebuff, while such were his personal
modesty and kindliness that no one could long regard him with envy or
antagonism. Among all the sons of song there has rarely been such an
instance of unbroken and unstained success.
Yet the fact that his death took place twenty years ago may justly raise
the question how far this wave of success has followed his memory, or
how far the passage of time has impaired his traditional influence; and
here we must compare a variety of tests and standards to ascertain the
result. Some analysis of this kind may well precede any new attempt to
delineate his career.
The editor of one of the great London weeklies said to an American
traveller not many years ago, "A stranger can hardly have an idea of how
familiar many of our working people, especially women, are with
Longfellow. Thousands can repeat some of his poems who have never read
a line of Tennyson and probably never heard of Browning." This passage I
take from an admirable recent sketch by Professor Edwin A. Grosvenor of
Amherst College, one of the most cosmopolitan of Americans, who spent
seven years as professor of history at Robert College, Constantinople.
He goes on to tell how, in the largest private library in the Ottoman
Empire, the grand vizier showed him as his favorite book a large volume
of Longfellow, full of manuscript comments in Turkish on the margin,
adding that he knew some of the poems by heart. Professor Grosvenor was
at one time--in 1879--travelling by steamer from Constantinople to
Marseilles with a Russian lady who had been placed under his escort, and
whose nationality could have been detected only by her marvellous
knowledge of half a dozen languages beside her own. A party of
passengers had been talking in French of Victor Hugo, when the Russian
lady exclaimed in English to the last speaker, "How can you, an
American, give to him the place that is occupied by your own Longfellow?
Longfellow is the universal poet. He is better known, too, among
foreigners, than any one except their own poets!" She then repeated the
verses beginning, "I stood on the bridge at midnight," and added, "I
long to visit Boston, that I may stand on the bridge." Then an English
captain, returning from the Zulu war, said, "I can give you something
better than that," and recited in a voice like a trumpet,--
"Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream."
Presently a gray-haired Scotchman began to recite the poem,--
"There is no flock, however watched and tended,
But one dead lamb is there!"
An American contributed "My Lost Youth," being followed by a young Greek
temporarily living in England, who sang "Stars of the Summer Night."
Finally the captain of the steamer, an officer of the French navy
detailed for that purpose, whom nobody had suspected of knowing a word
of English, recited, in an accent hardly recognizable, the first verse
of "Excelsior," and when the Russian lady, unable to understand him,
denied the fact of its being English at all, he replied, "Ah, oui,
madame, ça a vient de votre Longfellow" (Yes, madam, that is from your
Longfellow). Six nationalities had thus been represented, and the
Russian lady said, as they rose from the table, "Do you suppose there is
any other poet of any country, living or dead, from whom so many of us
could have quoted? Not one. Not even Shakespeare, or Victor Hugo, or
Homer."{1}
One has merely to glance at any detailed catalogue of the translations
from Longfellow's works--as for instance that given in the appendix to
this volume--to measure the vast extent of his fame. The list includes
thirty-five versions of whole books or detached poems in German, twelve
in Italian, nine each in French and Dutch, seven in Swedish, six in
Danish, five in Polish, three in Portuguese, two each in Spanish,
Russian, Hungarian, and Bohemian, with single translations in Latin,
Hebrew, Chinese, Sanskrit, Marathi, and Judea-German--yielding one
hundred versions altogether, extending into eighteen languages, apart
from the original English. There is no evidence that any other
English-speaking poet of the last century has been so widely
appreciated.
Especially is this relative superiority noticeable in that wonderful
literary cyclopædia, the vast and many-volumed catalogue of the British
Museum. There, under each author's name, is found not merely the record
of his works in every successive edition, but every secondary or
relative book, be it memoir, criticism, attack, parody, or translation;
and it is always curious to consider the relative standing of American
and English authors under this severe and inexorable test. The entries
or items appearing in the interleaved catalogue under the name of
Tennyson, for instance, up to September, 1901, were 487; under
Longfellow, 357; then follow, among English-writing poets, Browning
(179), Emerson (158), Arnold (140), Holmes (135), Morris (117), Lowell
(114), Whittier (104), Poe (103), Swinburne (99), Whitman (64). The
nearest approach to a similar test of appreciation in the poet's own
country is to be found in the balloting for the new Hall of Fame,
established by an unknown donor on the grounds of the New York
University with the avowed object of creating an American Westminster
Abbey. The names of those who were to appear in it were selected by a
board of one hundred judges carefully chosen from men of all occupations
and distributed over every State in the Union; and these balloted for
the first hundred occupants of the Hall of Fame. Only thirty-nine names
obtained a majority of votes, these being taken, of course, from men of
all pursuits; and among these Longfellow ranked tenth, having
eighty-five votes, and being preceded only by Washington, Lincoln,
Webster, Franklin, Grant, Marshall, Jefferson, Emerson, and Fulton.
Besides Emerson and Longfellow, only two literary men were included,
these being Irving with eighty-four votes and Hawthorne with
seventy-three.
It is a well-known fact that when the temporary leader in any particular
branch of literature or science passes away, there is often visible a
slight reaction, perhaps in the interest of supposed justice, when
people try to convince themselves that his fame has already diminished.
Such reactions have notably occurred, for instance, in the cases of
Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, and even of Burns, yet without visible or
permanent results, while the weaker fame of Southey or of Campbell has
yielded to them. It is safe to say that up to the present moment no
serious visible reaction has occurred in the case of Longfellow. So
absolutely simple and truthful was his nature and so clear the response
of the mass of readers, that time has so far left his hold upon them
singularly unaffected. During a recent visit to England, the author of
this volume took some pains, in every place he visited in city or
country, to inquire of the local bookseller as to the demand for
Longfellow's poems, and the answer was always in substance and sometimes
in express words, "He is a classic,"--in other words, his books had a
steady and trustworthy sale. I always found his poems on the shelves,
and this was true of no other American poet. Several editions of his
works, single or collective, had recently appeared in London. Poems
newly set to music had lately been published at the music stalls, and
familiar citations from his poems were constantly heard in public
speeches. Inquiries similar to mine were made a few years since in the
book-stores of Switzerland and Germany by my friend, Professor W. J.
Rolfe, who found without difficulty the German and English text of
single or collected poems by Longfellow at Nuremberg, Cologne,
Strasburg, Lucerne, Interlaken, and elsewhere.
Another form of obtaining statistics bearing on the relative position of
Longfellow among English-writing poets would be to inspect books of
selections made in Great Britain out of this class. I find two such
lying near at hand; the first is "Pen and Pencil Pictures from the
Poets," published by William P. Nimmo at Edinburgh, containing fifty-six
poems in all, each with a full-page illustration, generally by Scottish
artists. Of these selections, six are taken from Longfellow, five each
from Wordsworth and Thomson, and three each from Shakespeare, Burns, and
Moore. Of other American poets Bryant and Willis alone appear, each with
one contribution. Another such book is "Words from the Poets; selected
for the use of parochial schools and libraries." To this the leading
contributors are Wordsworth (twenty-one), Longfellow (eighteen), Cowper
(eleven), and Tennyson (nine), the whole number of contributors being
forty-three. Such statistics could be easily multiplied; indeed, it will
be readily admitted that no American poet can be compared to Longfellow
in the place occupied by his poems in the English market. Readily
admitting that this is not the sole or highest standard, it must at
least be recognized as one of the side tests by which that standard may
be determined.
Some occasional expressions of distrust as to Longfellow's permanent
fame have been based wholly upon his virtues. Many still cling to
Dryden's maxim, "Great wits are sure to madness near allied." Those who
grew up during the period when the Lake poets of England were still
under discussion can well recall that the typical poet was long supposed
to be necessarily something of a reprobate, or at any rate wild and
untamable; so that Byron and Shelley gained in fame by the supposition
that the domestic and law-abiding gifts were far from them. The
prominence of Wordsworth was developed in spite of this tradition, and
even when the report cheered some of his would-be admirers that he had
once been intoxicated at the university, it was damped by the opinion
expressed by Theodore Hook that "Wordsworth's conceptions of inebriation
were no doubt extremely limited." The popular impression in such matters
is too deep to be easily removed; and yet every test continues to prove
that the hold taken on the average human heart by Longfellow is far
greater than that held, for instance, by Poe or Whitman. This was
practically conceded by those poets themselves, and it is this fact
which in reality excited the wrath of their especial admirers. No man
ever sacrificed less for mere fame than Longfellow, no man ever bore
attack or jealousy with more of manly self-respect and sweetness; he
simply lived his own life, and worked out his own literary method; all
that he asked was to be taken for what he was worth, and the world's
praise was the answer to his request. The continuance of this hold on
men surely affords a sufficient reason for the renewed study of this
poet's life, training, and career.
{1 _N. Y. Independent_, October 22, 1896.}
CHAPTER II
BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27,
1807, being the son of Stephen and Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow, both
his parents having been descended from Yorkshire families which had
migrated in the seventeenth century. The name of Longfellow first
appears in English records as Langfellay, while the name of Wadsworth
sometimes appears as Wordsworth, suggesting a possible connection with
another poet. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a graduate of Harvard
College in 1794, being a classmate of the Rev. Dr. W. E. Channing and
the Hon. Joseph Story. He became afterward a prominent lawyer in
Portland. He was also at different times a member of the Massachusetts
Legislature, Maine being then a part of that State; a member of the
celebrated "Hartford Convention" of Federalists; a presidential elector,
and a member of Congress. In earlier generations the poet's grandfather
was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas; his great-grandfather was a
graduate of Harvard College in 1742, and was afterward town
schoolmaster, parish clerk, and register of probate; his
great-great-grandfather was a "village blacksmith;" and his ancestor
once more removed, the American founder of the family, was William
Longfellow, who was born in Hampshire County, England, in 1651, and came
in early life to this country, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits.
Thus much for the paternal ancestry.
To turn to the "spindle side," Mr. Longfellow's mother was Zilpah
Wadsworth, eldest daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who was the son
of Deacon Peleg Wadsworth, of Duxbury, Mass., and was the fifth in
descent from Christopher Wadsworth, who came from England and settled in
that town before 1632. The Peleg Wadsworth of military fame was born at
Duxbury, and graduated from Harvard in 1769; he afterward taught school
at Plymouth, and married Elizabeth Bartlett of that town; he then took
part in the Revolution as captain of a company of minutemen, and rose to
a major-general's command, serving chiefly on the eastern frontier. He
was captured, was imprisoned, escaped, and had many stirring adventures.
When the war was over he purchased from the State no less than 7500
acres of wild land, and spent the rest of his life at Hiram, Maine,
representing his congressional district, however, for fourteen years in
the national Congress. Through the Wadsworths and Bartletts, the poet
could trace his descent to not less than four of the Mayflower pilgrims,
including Elder Brewster and Captain John Alden.
Judge Longfellow, the poet's grandfather, is described as having been "a
fine-looking gentleman with the bearing of the old school; an erect,
portly figure, rather tall; wearing, almost to the close of his life,
the old-style dress,--long skirted waistcoat, small-clothes, and
white-topped boots, his hair tied behind in a club, with black ribbon."
General Wadsworth was described by his daughter as "a man of middle
size, well proportioned, with a military air, and who carried himself so
truly that men thought him tall. His dress a bright scarlet coat, buff
small-clothes and vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands,
white stockings, shoes with silver buckles, white cravat with bow in
front, hair well powdered and tied behind in a club, so called." The
poet was eminently well descended, both on the father's and mother's
side, according to the simple provincial standard of those days.
Stephen Longfellow and his young wife lived for a time in a brick house
built by General Wadsworth in Portland, and still known as "the
Longfellow house;" but it was during a temporary residence of the family
at the house of Samuel Stephenson, whose wife was a sister of Stephen
Longfellow, that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born. He was the second
son, and was named for an uncle, Henry Wadsworth, a young naval
lieutenant, who was killed in 1804 by the explosion of a fire-ship,
before the walls of Tripoli. The Portland of 1807 was, according to Dr.
Dwight,--who served as a sort of travelling inspector of the New England
towns of that period,--"beautiful and brilliant;" but the blight of the
Embargo soon fell upon it. The town needed maritime defences in the war
of 1812, and a sea-fight took place off the coast, the British brig
Boxer being captured during the contest by the Enterprise, and brought
into Portland harbor in 1813. All this is beautifully chronicled in the
poem "My Lost Youth:"--
"I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill;
'A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'"
Here Henry Longfellow spent his childhood and youth. Much of that strong
aversion to war which pervades the poet's verses may undoubtedly be
charged to early association with his uncle's death.
The imaginative side of his temperament has commonly been attributed to
his mother, who was fond of poetry and music, and a lover of nature in
all its aspects; one who would sit by a window during a thunderstorm, as
her youngest son has testified, "enjoying the excitement of its
splendors." She loved the retirement of a country life, and found in it,
in her own language, "a wonderful effect in tranquillizing the spirit
and calming every unpleasant emotion." She played the spinet until her
daughter's piano replaced it, and apparently read Cowper, Hannah More,
and Ossian with her children. She sent them early to school, after the
fashion of those days; this experience evidently beginning for Henry
Longfellow at three years of age, when he went with a brother of five to
a private school where he learned his letters. After several
experiments, he was transferred, at the tolerably early age of six, to
the Portland Academy. At this age, his teacher, Mr. Carter, wrote of
him, "Master Henry Longfellow is one of the best boys we have in school.
He spells and reads very well. He also can add and multiply numbers. His
conduct last quarter was very correct and amiable." He began early to
rhyme, and the first poem of his composing which is known to be
preserved in manuscript is entitled, "Venice, an Italian Song," and was
dated Portland Academy, March 17, 1820, he being then barely thirteen.
There appeared a little later, in the poets' corner of the Portland
"Gazette," the following verses, which show curiously, at the very
outset, that vibration between foreign themes and home themes which
always marks his verse:--
THE BATTLE OF LOVELL'S POND
Cold, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast
That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast,
As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear,
Sighs a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier.
The war-whoop is still, and the savage's yell
Has sunk into silence along the wild dell;
The din of the battle, the tumult, is o'er,
And the war-clarion's voice is now heard no more.
The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed;
No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.
They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,
And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim;
They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.
These verses cannot be assigned to the domain of high art, most
certainly, but they mark in this case the beginning of a career, and
milestones are always interesting. It was Longfellow's first poem, and
he chose an American subject. We know from him the circumstances of the
reception of this youthful effort. When the morning paper arrived it was
unfolded and read by his father, and no notice was taken of the
effusion; but when, in the evening, the boy went with his father to the
house of Judge Mellen, his father's friend, whose son Frederic was his
own playmate, the talk turned upon poetry. The host took up the
morning's "Gazette." "Did you see the piece in to-day's paper? Very
stiff. Remarkably stiff; moreover, it is all borrowed, every word of
it." No defence was offered. It is recorded that there were tears on the
young boy's pillow that night.
The young Henry Longfellow went to various schools, as those of Mrs.
Fellows and Mr. Carter, and the Portland Academy, then kept by Mr.
Bezaleel Cushman, a Dartmouth College graduate. In 1821, he passed the
entrance examinations of Bowdoin College, of which his father was a
trustee. The college itself was but twenty years old, and Maine had only
just become an independent State of the Union, so that there was a
strong feeling of local pride in this young institution. Henry
Longfellow's brother, Stephen, two years older than himself, passed the
examinations with him, but perhaps it was on account of the younger
brother's youth--he being only fourteen--that the boys remained a year
longer at home, and did not go to Brunswick until the beginning of the
Sophomore year. Henry's college life was studious and modest. He and
Nathaniel Hawthorne were classmates, having been friends rather than
intimates, and Hawthorne gives in his "Fanshawe" a tolerably graphic
picture of the little rural college. Neither of the two youths cared
much for field sports, but both of them were greatly given to
miscellaneous reading; and both of them also spent a good deal of time
in the woods of Brunswick, which were, and still are, beautiful.
Longfellow pursued the appointed studies, read poetry, was fond of
Irving, and also of books about the Indians, an experience which in
later life yielded him advantage.
It is just possible that these books may have revived in him a regret
expressed in one of his early college letters that he had not gone to
West Point instead of Bowdoin,--some opportunity of appointment to the
military school, perhaps through his uncle, General Wadsworth, having
possibly been declined in his behalf.{2} It is curious indeed to reflect
that had he made this different selection, he might have been known to
fame simply as Major-General Longfellow.
Hon. J. W. Bradbury, another classmate, describes Henry Longfellow as
having "a slight, erect figure, delicate complexion, and intelligent
expression of countenance," and further adds: "He was always a gentleman
in his deportment, and a model in his character and habits." Still
another classmate, Rev. David Shepley, D. D., has since written of
Longfellow's college course: "He gave urgent heed to all departments of
study in the prescribed course, and excelled in them all; while his
enthusiasm moved in the direction it has taken in subsequent life. His
themes, felicitous translations of Horace, and occasional contributions
to the press, drew marked attention to him, and led to the expectation
that his would be an honorable literary career." He spent his vacations
in Portland, where the society was always agreeable, and where the
women, as one of his companions wrote, seemed to him "something
enshrined and holy,--to be gazed at and talked with, and nothing
further." In one winter vacation he spent a week in Boston and attended
a ball given by Miss Emily Marshall, the most distinguished of Boston's
historic belles, and further famous as having been the object of two
printed sonnets, the one by Willis and the other by Percival. He wrote
to his father that on this occasion he saw and danced with Miss
Eustaphiève, daughter of the Russian consul, of whom he says, "She is an
exceedingly graceful and elegant dancer, and plays beautifully upon the
pianoforte." He became so well acquainted in later days with foreign
belles and beauties that it is interesting to imagine the impression
made upon him at the age of twenty-one by this first social experience,
especially in view of the fact that after his returning from Europe, he
records of himself that he never danced, except with older ladies, to
whom the attention might give pleasure.
{2 From a manuscript letter not dated as to year, but written,
apparently, while he was a freshman.}
CHAPTER III
FIRST FLIGHTS IN AUTHORSHIP
It is interesting to know that twice, during his college days,
Longfellow had occasion to show his essentially American feeling; first,
in his plea for the Indians on an Exhibition Day, and again, more fully
and deliberately, in his Commencement Oration on "Our Native Writers."
On Exhibition Day,--a sort of minor Commencement,--he represented, in
debate, an American Indian, while his opponent, James W. Bradbury, took
the part of an English emigrant. The conclusion of the exercise summed
up the whole, being as follows:--
"_Emigrant._--Is it thus you should spurn all our offers of kindness,
and glut your appetite with the blood of our countrymen, with no excuse
but the mere pretence of retaliation? Shall the viper sting us and we
not bruise his head? Shall we not only let your robberies and murders
pass unpunished, but give you the possession of our very fireside, while
the only arguments you offer are insolence and slaughter? Know ye, the
land is ours until you will improve it. Go, tell your ungrateful
comrades the world declares the spread of the white people at the
expense of the red is the triumph of peace over violence. Tell them to
cease their outrages upon the civilized world or but a few days and they
shall be swept from the earth.
"_Savage._--Alas! the sky is overcast with dark and blustering clouds.
The rivers run with blood, but never, never will we suffer the grass to
grow upon our war-path. And now I do remember that the Initiate prophet,
in my earlier years, told from his dreams that all our race should fall
like withered leaves when autumn strips the forest! Lo! I hear sighing
and sobbing: 'tis the death-song of a mighty nation, the last requiem
over the grave of the fallen."{3}
It is fair to conjecture that we may have in this boyish performance the
very germ of "Hiawatha," and also to recall the still more youthful
verses which appeared in the Portland "Gazette." He wrote in college not
merely such verses, but some prose articles for the "American Monthly
Magazine," edited in Philadelphia, by Dr. James McHenry, who in his
letters praised the taste and talent shown in the article upon "Youth
and Age." More important to the young poet, however, was his connection
with a new semi-monthly periodical called the "United States Literary
Gazette." This was published in Boston and New York simultaneously,
having been founded by the late Theophilus Parsons, but edited at that
time by James G. Carter, of Boston, well known in connection with the
history of public schools. Apparently Longfellow must have offered poems
to the "Gazette" anonymously, for one of his classmates records that
when he met Mr. Carter in Boston the editor asked with curiosity what
young man sent him such fine poetry from Bowdoin College. A modest
volume of "Miscellaneous Poems, selected from the 'United States
Literary Gazette,'" appeared in 1826,--the year after Longfellow left
college,--and it furnished by far the best exhibit of the national
poetry up to that time. The authors represented were Bryant, Longfellow,
Percival, Dawes, Mellen, and Jones; and it certainly offered a curious
contrast to that equally characteristic volume of 1794, the "Columbian
Muse," whose poets were Barlow, Trumbull, Freneau, Dwight, Humphreys,
and a few others, not a single poem or poet being held in common by the
two collections.
This was, however, only a volume of extracts, but it is the bound
volumes of the "Gazette" itself--beginning with April 1, 1824--which
most impress the student of early American literature. There will always
be a charm in turning over the pages where one sees, again and again,
the youthful poems of Bryant and of Longfellow placed side by side and
often put together on the same page, the young undergraduate's effusions
being always designated by his initials and Bryant's with a perhaps more
dignified "B.," denoting one whose reputation was to a certain extent
already established, so that a hint was sufficient. Bryant's poems, it
must be owned, are in this case very much better or at least maturer
than those of his youthful rival, and are preserved in his published
works, while Longfellow's are mainly those which he himself dropped,
though they are reprinted in the appendix to Mr. Scudder's "Cambridge"
edition of his poems. We find thus in the "Literary Gazette," linked
together on the same page, Longfellow's "Autumnal Nightfall" and
Bryant's "Song of the Grecian Amazon;" Longfellow's "Italian Scenery"
and Bryant's "To a Cloud;" Longfellow's "Lunatic Girl" and Bryant's "The
Murdered Traveller."{4} How the older poet was impressed by the work of
the younger we cannot tell, but it is noticeable that in editing a
volume of selected American poetry not long after, he assigns to
Longfellow, as will presently be seen, a very small space. It is to be
remembered that Bryant had previously published in book form, in 1821,
his earliest poems, and the "Literary Gazette" itself, in its very first
number, had pronounced him the first "original poet formed on this side
of the Atlantic." "Our pleasure was equalled by our surprise," it says,
"when we took up Bryant's poems, listened to the uncommon melody of the
versification, wondered at the writer's perfect command of language, and
found that they were American poems." "Though the English critics say of
him," it continues, "that their poets must look to their laurels now
that such a competitor has entered the ring, yet, let him remember that
a few jousts in the ring never established the reputation of a
knight."{5} It is a curious fact that the difference in actual quantity
of poetic production between the older and younger poets should thus
have been unconsciously suggested by the editor when Longfellow was but
seventeen.
With Bryant and Longfellow, it would therefore seem, the permanent
poetic literature of the nation began. "The Rivulet" and "The Hymn of
the Moravian Nuns" appeared in the "Gazette" collection, and have never
disappeared from the poetic cyclopædias. The volume included fourteen of
Longfellow's youthful effusions, only six of which he saw fit to
preserve; dropping behind him, perhaps wisely, the "Dirge Over a
Nameless Grave," "Thanksgiving," "The Angler's Song," "Autumnal
Nightfall," "A Song of Savoy," "Italian Scenery," "The Venetian
Gondolier," and "The Sea Diver." He himself says of those which he
preserved that they were all written before the age of nineteen, and
this is obvious from the very date of the volume. Even in the rejected
poems the reader recognizes an easy command of the simpler forms of
melody, and a quick though not profound feeling for external nature.
Where he subsequently revises these poems, however, the changes are apt
to be verbal only, and all evidently matters of the ear. Thus in
reprinting "The Woods in Winter," he omits a single verse, the
following:--
"On the gray maple's crusted bark
Its tender shoots the hoarfrost nips;
Whilst in the frozen fountain--hark!
His piercing beak the bittern dips."
It shows the gradual development of the young poet's ear that he should
have dropped this somewhat unmelodious verse. As a rule he wisely
forbore the retouching of his early poems. He also contributed to the
"Gazette" three articles in prose, quite in Irving's manner, including a
few verses. All these attracted some attention at the time. Mr. Parsons,
the proprietor of the magazine, was thoroughly convinced of the vigor
and originality of the young man's mind, and informed him that one of
his poems, "Autumnal Nightfall," had been attributed to Bryant, while
his name was mentioned in the "Galaxy" on a level with that of Bryant
and Percival. The leadership of Bryant was of course unquestioned at
that period, and Longfellow many years after acknowledged to that poet
his indebtedness, saying, "When I look back upon my early years, I
cannot but smile to see how much in them is really yours. It was an
involuntary imitation, which I most readily confess."
Still more interesting as a study in the "Literary Gazette" itself are
three prose studies, distinctly after the manner of Irving, and headed
by a very un-American title, "The Lay Monastery." There is a singular
parallelism between this fanciful title and the similar transformation
in verse, at about the same time, in the "Hymn of the Moravian Nuns" at
the consecration of Pulaski's banner. As in that poem a plain Moravian
sisterhood, who supported their house by needlework, gave us an
imaginary scene amid a chancel with cowled heads, glimmering tapers, and
mysterious aisles, so the solitary in this prose article leads us into
the society of an old uncle whose countenance resembles that of Cosmo on
the medallions of the Medici, who has been crossed in love, and who
wears a brocade vest of faded damask, with large sprigs and roses. The
author thus proceeds in his description of the imaginary uncle and the
marvellous surroundings:--
"When my uncle beheld my childish admiration for his venerable
black-letter tome, he fondly thought that he beheld the germ of an
antique genius already shooting out within my mind, and from that day I
became with him as a favored wine. Time has been long on the wing, and
his affection for me grew in strength as I in years; until at length he
has bequeathed to me the peculiar care of his library, which consists of
a multitude of huge old volumes and some ancient and modern manuscripts.
The apartment which contains this treasure is the cloister of my
frequent and studious musings. It is a curious little chamber, in a
remote corner of the house, finished all round with painted panellings,
and boasting but one tall, narrow Venetian window, that lets in upon my
studies a 'dim, religious light,' which is quite appropriate to them.
"Everything about that apartment is old and decaying. The table, of oak
inlaid with maple, is worm-eaten and somewhat loose in the joints; the
chairs are massive and curiously carved, but the sharper edges of the
figures are breaking away; and the solemn line of portraits that cover
the walls hang faded from black, melancholy frames, and declare their
intention of soon leaving them forever. In a deep niche stands a heavy
iron clock that rings the hours with hoarse and sullen voice; and
opposite, in a similar niche, is deposited a gloomy figure in antique
bronze. A recess, curtained with tapestry of faded green, has become the
cemetery of departed genius, and, gathered in the embrace of this little
sepulchre, the works of good and great men of ancient days are gradually
mouldering away to dust again."{6}
In view of this essentially artificial and even boyish style, it is not
strange that one of his compositions should have been thus declined by
the eminently just and impartial editor of the "North American Review,"
Jared Sparks.
DEAR SIR,--I return the article you were so good as to send me. In
many respects it has a good deal of merit, but on the whole I do not
think it suited to the "Review." Many of the thoughts and
reflections are good, but they want maturity and betray a young
writer. The style, too, is a little ambitious, although not without
occasional elegance. With more practice the author cannot fail to
become a good writer; and perhaps my judgment in regard to this
article would not agree with that of others whose opinion is to be
respected; but, after all, you know, we editors have no other
criterion than our own judgment.{7}
Nevertheless the young aspirant felt more and more strongly drawn to a
literary life, and this found expression in his Commencement oration on
"Our Native Writers." His brother and biographer, writing of this
address in later years, says of it, "How interesting that [theme] could
be made in seven minutes the reader may imagine," and he does not even
reprint it; but it seems to me to be one of the most interesting
landmarks in the author's early career, and to point directly towards
all that followed.
OUR NATIVE WRITERS
To an American there is something endearing in the very sound,--Our
Native Writers. Like the music of our native tongue, when heard in a
foreign land, they have power to kindle up within him the tender memory
of his home and fireside; and more than this, they foretell that
whatever is noble and attractive in our national character will one day
be associated with the sweet magic of Poetry. Is, then, our land to be
indeed the land of song? Will it one day be rich in romantic
associations? Will poetry, that hallows every scene,--that renders every
spot classical,--and pours out on all things the soul of its enthusiasm,
breathe over it that enchantment, which lives in the isles of Greece,
and is more than life amid the "woods, that wave o'er Delphi's steep"?
Yes!--and palms are to be won by our native writers!--by those that have
been nursed and brought up with us in the civil and religious freedom of
our country. Already has a voice been lifted up in this land,--already a
spirit and a love of literature are springing up in the shadow of our
free political institutions.
But as yet we can boast of nothing farther than a first beginning of a
national literature: a literature associated and linked in with the
grand and beautiful scenery of our country,--with our institutions, our
manners, our customs,--in a word, with all that has helped to form
whatever there is peculiar to us, and to the land in which we live. We
cannot yet throw off our literary allegiance to Old England, we cannot
yet remove from our shelves every book which is not strictly and truly
American. English literature is a great and glorious monument, built up
by the master-spirits of old time, that had no peers, and rising bright
and beautiful until its summit is hid in the mists of antiquity.
Of the many causes which have hitherto retarded the growth of polite
literature in our country, I have not time to say much. The greatest,
which now exists, is doubtless the want of that exclusive attention,
which eminence in any profession so imperiously demands. Ours is an age
and a country of great minds, though perhaps not of great endeavors.
Poetry with us has never yet been anything but a pastime. The fault,
however, is not so much that of our writers as of the prevalent modes of
thinking which characterize our country and our times. We are a plain
people, that have had nothing to do with the mere pleasures and luxuries
of life: and hence there has sprung up within us a quick-sightedness to
the failings of literary men, and an aversion to everything that is not
practical, operative, and thoroughgoing. But if we would ever have a
national literature, our native writers must be patronized. Whatever
there may be in letters, over which time shall have no power, must be
"born of great endeavors," and those endeavors are the offspring of
liberal patronage. Putting off, then, what Shakespeare calls "the visage
of the times,"--we must become hearty well-wishers to our native
authors:--and with them there must be a deep and thorough conviction of
the glory of their calling,--an utter abandonment of everything
else,--and a noble self-devotion to the cause of literature. We have
indeed much to hope from these things;--for our hearts are already
growing warm towards literary adventurers, and a generous spirit has
gone abroad in our land, which shall liberalize and enlighten.
In the vanity of scholarship, England has reproached us that we have no
finished scholars. But there is reason for believing that men of mere
learning--men of sober research and studied correctness--do not give to
a nation its great name. Our very poverty in this respect will have a
tendency to give a national character to our literature. Our writers
will not be constantly toiling and panting after classical allusions to
the Vale of Tempe and the Etrurian river, nor to the Roman fountains
shall--
"The emulous nations of the West repair
To kindle their quenched urns, and drink fresh spirit there."
We are thus thrown upon ourselves: and thus shall our native hills
become renowned in song, like those of Greece and Italy. Every rock
shall become a chronicle of storied allusions; and the tomb of the
Indian prophet be as hallowed as the sepulchres of ancient kings, or the
damp vault and perpetual lamp of the Saracen monarch.
Having briefly mentioned one circumstance which is retarding us in the
way of our literary prosperity, I shall now mention one from which we
may hope a happy and glorious issue: It is the influence of natural
scenery in forming the poetical character. Genius, to be sure, must be
born with a man; and it is its high prerogative to be free, limitless,
irrepressible. Yet how is it moulded by the plastic hand of Nature! how
are its attributes shaped and modulated, when a genius like Canova's
failed in the bust of the Corsican, and amid the splendor of the French
metropolis languished for the sunny skies and vine-clad hills of Italy?
Men may talk of sitting down in the calm and quiet of their libraries,
and of forgetting, in the eloquent companionship of books, all the vain
cares that beset them in the crowded thoroughfares of life; but, after
all, there is nothing which so frees us from the turbulent ambition and
bustle of the world, nothing which so fills the mind with great and
glowing conceptions, and at the same time so warms the heart with love
and tenderness, as a frequent and close communion with natural scenery.
The scenery of our own country, too, so rich as it is in everything
beautiful and magnificent, and so full of quiet loveliness or of sublime
and solitary awe, has for our eyes enchantment, for our ears an
impressive and unutterable eloquence. Its language is in high mountains,
and in the pleasant valleys scooped out between them, in the garniture
which the fields put on, and in the blue lake asleep in the hollow of
the hills. There is an inspiration, too, in the rich sky that "brightens
and purples" o'er our earth, when lighted up with the splendor of
morning, or when the garment of the clouds comes over the setting sun.
Our poetry is not in books alone. It is in the hearts of those men,
whose love for the world's gain,--for its business and its holiday,--has
grown cold within them, and who have gone into the retirements of
Nature, and have found there that sweet sentiment and pure devotion of
feeling can spring up and live in the shadow of a low and quiet life,
and amid those that have no splendor in their joys, and no parade in
their griefs.
Thus shall the mind take color from things around us,--from them shall
there be a genuine birth of enthusiasm,--a rich development of poetic
feeling, that shall break forth in song. Though the works of art must
grow old and perish away from earth, the forms of nature shall keep
forever their power over the human mind, and have their influence upon
the literature of a people.
We may rejoice, then, in the hope of beauty and sublimity in our
national literature, for no people are richer than we are in the
treasures of nature. And well may each of us feel a glorious and
high-minded pride in saying, as he looks on the hills and vales,--on the
woods and waters of New England,--
"This is my own, my native land."{8}
{3 _Every Other Saturday_, i. 21.}
{4 _United States Literary Gazette_, i. 237, 267, 286.}
{5 _Literary Gazette_, i. 8.}
{6 _United States Literary Gazette_, i. 348.}
{7 _Life_, i. 60.}
{8 First printed from the original MS. in _Every Other Saturday_, i.
116.}
CHAPTER IV
LITERATURE AS A PURSUIT
Longfellow graduated at Bowdoin College in June, 1825. There was in his
mind, apparently, from the first, that definiteness of purpose which is
so often wanting when a student takes his first college degree. There
was for him no doubt or hesitation: it must be literature or nothing;
and this not merely from a preference for the pursuit, but from an
ambition, willingly acknowledged, to make a name in that direction. He
writes to his friend, George W. Wells, "Somehow, and yet I hardly know
why, I am unwilling to study any profession. I cannot make a lawyer of
any eminence, because I have not a talent for argument; I am not good
enough for a minister,--and as to physic, I utterly and absolutely
detest it." Even a year before this, he had written to his father a
letter of some moment, dated March 13, 1824, containing the following
ominous passage: "I am curious to know what you do intend to make of
me,--whether I am to study a profession or not; and if so, what
profession. I hope your ideas upon this subject will agree with mine,
for I have a particular and strong prejudice for one course of life, to
which you, I fear, will not agree. It will not be worth while for me to
mention what this is until I become more acquainted with your own
wishes."{9}
This letter remaining for some months unanswered, there followed another
which at last stated his own personal desire. It was written to his
father and dated December 5, 1824.
"I take this early opportunity to write to you, because I wish to know
fully your inclination with regard to the profession I am to pursue when
I leave college.
"For my part I have already hinted to you what would best please me. I
want to spend one year at Cambridge for the purpose of reading history
and of becoming familiar with the best authors in polite literature;
whilst at the same time I can be acquiring a knowledge of the Italian
language, without an acquaintance with which I shall be shut out from
one of the most beautiful departments of letters. The French I mean to
understand pretty thoroughly before I leave college. After leaving
Cambridge I would attach myself to some literary periodical publication,
by which I could maintain myself and still enjoy the advantages of
reading. Now, I do not think that there is anything visionary or
chimerical in my plan thus far. The fact is--and I will not disguise it
in the least, for I think I ought not--the fact is, I most eagerly
aspire after future eminence in literature; my whole soul burns most
ardently for it, and every earthly thought centres in it. There may be
something visionary in _this_, but I flatter myself that I have prudence
enough to keep my enthusiasm from defeating its own object by too great
haste. Surely there never was a better opportunity offered for the
exertion of literary talent in our own country than is now offered. To
be sure, most of our literary men thus far have not been professedly so
until they have studied and entered the practice of Theology, Law, or
Medicine. But this is evidently lost time. I do believe that we ought to
pay more attention to the opinion of philosophers, that 'nothing but
Nature can qualify a man for knowledge.'
"Whether Nature has given me any capacity for knowledge or not, she has
at any rate given me a very strong predilection for literary pursuits,
and I am almost confident in believing that, if I can ever rise in the
world, it must be by the exercise of my talent in the wide field of
literature. With such a belief, I must say that I am unwilling to engage
in the study of law."
Again on December 31 he writes to his father, by way of New Year's gift,
"Let me reside one year at Cambridge; let me study belles-lettres, and
after that time it will not require a spirit of prophecy to predict with
some degree of certainty what kind of a figure I could make in the
literary world. If I fail here, there is still time enough left for the
study of a profession; and while residing at Cambridge, I shall have
acquired the knowledge of some foreign languages which will be, through
life, of the greatest utility."
The answer of the father is too characteristic to be omitted, whether
for its views as to personal standards or as to poetic structure. Most
youthful poets of that day had to face a critical method based strictly
upon the versification of Pope, and their parents regarded all more
flowing measures as having a slight flavor of the French Revolution.
"The subject of your first letter is one of deep interest and demands
great consideration. A literary life, to one who has the means of
support, must be very pleasant. But there is not wealth enough in this
country to afford encouragement and patronage to merely literary men.
And as you have not had the fortune (I will not say whether good or ill)
to be born rich, you must adopt a profession which will afford you
subsistence as well as reputation. I am happy to observe that my
ambition has never been to accumulate wealth for my children, but to
cultivate their minds in the best possible manner, and to imbue them
with correct moral, political, and religious principles,--believing that
a person thus educated will with proper diligence be certain of
attaining all the wealth which is necessary to happiness. With regard to
your spending a year at Cambridge, I have always thought it might be
beneficial; and if my health should not be impaired and my finances
should allow, I should be very happy to gratify you.... In the
'Advertiser' of the 18th, I observe some poetry from the 'U. S. Literary
Gazette,' which from the signature, I presume to be from your pen. It is
a very pretty production, and I read it with pleasure. But you will
observe that the second line of the sixth verse has too many feet.
'Beneath the dark and motionless beech.' I think it would be improved by
substituting _lonely_ for _motionless_. I suggest this for your
consideration. I have the pleasure of hearing frequently from home. They
complain that they have not heard a word from you since you left. This
is unpardonable."
On January 24, 1825, the son wrote to his father again:--
"From the general tenor of your last letter it seems to be your fixed
desire that I should choose the profession of the law for the business
of my life. I am very much rejoiced that you accede so readily to my
proposition of studying general literature for one year at Cambridge. My
grand object in doing this will be to gain as perfect a knowledge of the
French and Italian languages as can be gained without travelling in
France and Italy,--though, to tell the truth, I intend to visit both
before I die.... I am afraid you begin to think me rather chimerical in
many of my ideas, and that I am ambitious of becoming a '_rara avis in
terris_.' But you must acknowledge the usefulness of aiming high,--at
something which it is impossible to overshoot--perhaps to reach. The
fact is, I have a most voracious appetite for knowledge. To its
acquisition I will sacrifice everything.... Nothing delights me more
than reading and writing. And nothing could induce me to relinquish the
pleasures of literature, little as I have yet tasted them. Of the three
professions I should prefer the law. I am far from being a fluent
speaker, but practice must serve as a talisman where talent is wanting.
I can be a lawyer. This will support my real existence, literature an
_ideal_ one.
"I purchased last evening a beautiful pocket edition of Sir William
Jones's Letters, and have just finished reading them. Eight languages he
was critically versed in; eight more he read with a dictionary; and
there were twelve more not wholly unknown to him. I have somewhere seen
or heard the observation that as many languages as a person acquires, so
many times is he a man."{10}
It was undoubtedly an important fact to the young poet to be brought
thus early in contact with Sir William Jones and his twenty-eight
languages. It is the experience of all that the gift of learning a
variety of tongues is something which peculiarly belongs to youth. In
Southern Europe, in Russia, in the East, it is a common thing to
encounter mere children who with next to no schooling will prattle
readily in three or four languages with equal inaccuracy but with equal
ease; while a much older person may acquire them by laborious study and
yet never feel at home. One can hardly doubt Longfellow's natural
readiness in that direction; he was always being complimented, at any
rate--though this may not count for much--upon his aptness in
pronouncing foreign tongues, and the ease with which his own
compositions lent themselves to translation may very possibly have some
obscure connection with his own gifts in this respect. His college
training can have had little bearing upon it, since there is no evidence
that his classmate Hawthorne, doubtless a man of higher genius, showed
any such capacity.
{9 _Life_, i. 50.}
{10 _Life_, i. 57, 58.}
CHAPTER V
FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE
Longfellow's college class (1825) numbered thirty-seven, and his rank in
it at graduation was nominally fourth--though actually third, through
the sudden death of a classmate just before Commencement. Soon after his
graduation, an opportunity occurred to establish a professorship of
modern languages in the college upon a fund given by Mrs. Bowdoin; and
he, being then scarcely nineteen, and nominally a law student in his
father's office, was sent to Europe to prepare himself for this chair,
apparently on an allowance of six hundred dollars a year. The college
tradition is that this appointment--which undoubtedly determined the
literary tendencies of his whole life--was given to him in consequence
of the impression made upon an examining committee by the manner in
which he had translated one of Horace's odes. He accordingly sailed from
New York for Europe on May 15, 1826, having stopped at Boston on the
way, where he dined with Professor George Ticknor, then holding the
professorship at Harvard College to which Longfellow was destined to
succeed at a later day. Professor Ticknor had himself recently returned
from a German university, and urged the young man to begin his studies
there, giving him letters of introduction to Professor Eichhorn, to
Robert Southey, and to Washington Irving, then in Europe.
He sailed on the ship Cadmus, Captain Allen, and wrote to his mother
from Havre that his passage of thirty days had been a dreary blank, and
that the voyage was very tiresome because of the continual talking of
French and broken English, adding, "For Frenchmen, you know, talk
incessantly, and we had at least a dozen of them with us." In spite of
this rather fatiguing opportunity, he was not at once at home in French,
but wrote ere long, "I am coming on famously, I assure you." He wrote
from Auteuil, where he soon went, "Attached to the house is an extensive
garden, full of fruit-trees, and bowers, and alcoves, where the boarders
ramble and talk from morning till night. This makes the situation an
excellent one for me; I can at any time hear French conversation,--for
the French are always talking. Besides, the conversation is the purest
of French, inasmuch as persons from the highest circles in Paris are
residing here,--amongst others, an old gentleman who was of the
household of Louis the Sixteenth, and a Madame de Sailly, daughter of a
celebrated advocate named Berryer, who was the defender of Marshal Ney
in his impeachment for treason. There is also a young student of law
here, who is my almost constant companion, and who corrects all my
mistakes in speaking or writing the French. As he is not much older than
I am, I do not feel so much embarrassed in speaking to him as I do in
speaking to others. These are some of the advantages which I enjoy here,
and you can easily imagine others which a country residence offers over
that of a city, during the vacation of the literary institutions at
Paris and the cessation of their lectures."
It is to be noticed from the outset that the French villages
disappointed him as they disappoint many others. In his letters he
recalls "how fresh and cheerful and breezy a New England village is; how
marked its features--so different from the town, so peculiar, so
delightful." He finds a French village, on the other hand, to be like a
deserted town, having "the same paved streets, the same dark, narrow
alleys without sidewalks, the same dingy stone houses, each peeping into
its neighbor's windows, the same eternal stone walls, shutting in from
the eye of the stranger all the beauty of the place and opposing an
inhospitable barrier to the lover of natural scenery." But when he finds
himself among rural scenes, he has the delight felt by many an American
boy since his days, as in the picture following:--
"From Orléans I started on foot for Tours on the fifth of October.
October is my favorite month of the twelve. When I reflected that if I
remained in Paris I should lose the only opportunity I might ever enjoy
of seeing the centre of France in all the glory of the vintage and the
autumn, I 'shut the book-lid' and took wing, with a little knapsack on
my back, and a blue cap,--not exactly like Quentin Durward, but perhaps
a little more. More anon of him. I had gone as far as Orléans in the
_diligence_ because the route is through an uninteresting country.
"I began the pedestrian part of my journey on one of those dull,
melancholy days which you will find uttering a mournful voice in
Sewall's Almanack: 'Expect--much--rain--about--this--time!' 'Very
miscellaneous weather, good for sundry purposes,'--but not for a journey
on foot, thought I. But I had a merry heart, and it went merrily along
all day. At sundown I found myself about seven leagues on my way and one
beyond Beaugency. I found the route one continued vineyard. On each side
of the road, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but vines,
save here and there a glimpse of the Loire, the turrets of an old
château, or spire of a village church. The clouds had passed away with
the morning, and I had made a fine day's journey, cutting across the
country, traversing vineyards, and living in all the luxury of thought
which the occasion inspired. I recollect that at sunset I had entered a
path which wound through a wide vineyard where the villagers were still
at their labors, and I was loitering along, talking with the peasantry
and searching for an _auberge_ to pass the night in. I was presently
overtaken by a band of villagers; I wished them a good evening, and
finding that the girls of the party were going to a village at a short
distance, I joined myself to the band. I wanted to get into one of the
cottages, if possible, in order to study character. I had a flute in my
knapsack, and I thought it would be very pretty to touch up at a cottage
door, Goldsmith-like,--though I would not have done it for the world
without an invitation. Well, before long, I determined to get an
invitation, if possible. So I addressed the girl who was walking beside
me, told her I had a flute in my sack, and asked her if she would like
to dance. Now laugh long and loud! What do you suppose her answer was?
She said she liked to dance, but she did not know what a flute was! What
havoc that made among my romantic ideas! My _quietus_ was made; I said
no more about a flute, the whole journey through; and I thought nothing
but starvation would drive me to strike up at the entrance of a village,
as Goldsmith did."{11}
Thus, wherever he goes, his natural good spirits prevail over
everything. Washington Irving, in his diary, speaks of Longfellow at
Madrid as having "arrived safely and cheerily, having met with no
robbers." Mrs. Alexander Everett, wife of the American minister at
Madrid, writes back to America, "His countenance is itself a letter of
recommendation." He went into good Spanish society and also danced in
the streets on village holidays. At the Alhambra, he saw the refinement
of beauty within the halls, and the clusters of gypsy caves in the
hillside opposite. After eight months of Spain he went on to Italy,
where he remained until December, and passed to Germany with the new
year. He sums up his knowledge of the languages at this point by saying,
"With the French and Spanish languages I am familiarly conversant so as
to speak them correctly and write them with as much ease and fluency as
I do the English. The Portuguese I read without difficulty. And with
regard to my proficiency in the Italian, I have only to say that all at
the hotel where I lodge took me for an Italian, until I told them I was
an American." He settled down to his studies in Germany, his father
having written, with foresight then unusual, "I consider the German
language and literature much more important than the Italian." He did
not, however, have any sense of actual transplantation, as is the case
with some young students, for although he writes to his sister (March
28, 1829), "My poetic career is finished. Since I left America I have
hardly put two lines together," yet he sends to Carey & Lea, the
Philadelphia publishers, to propose a series of sketches and tales of
New England life. These sketches, as given in his note-book, are as
follows:--
"1. New England Scenery: description of Sebago Pond; rafting logs;
tavern scene; a tale connected with the 'Images.'
"2. A New England Village: country squire; the parson; the little
deacon; the farm-house kitchen.
"3. Husking Frolic: song and tales; fellow who plays the fife for the
dance; tale of the Quoddy Indians; description of Sacobezon, their
chief.
"5. Thanksgiving Day: its merry-making, and tales (also of the Indians).
"7. Description of the White Mountains: tale of the Bloody Hand.
"10. Reception of Lafayette in a country village.
"13. Down East: the missionary of Acadie."{12}
A few days after, he wrote from Göttingen to his father, "I shall never
again be in Europe." We thus see his mind at work on American themes in
Germany, as later on German themes in America, unconsciously predicting
that mingling of the two influences which gave him his fame. His earlier
books gave to studious Americans, as I can well recall, their first
imaginative glimpses of Europe, while the poet's homeward-looking
thoughts from Europe had shown the instinct which was to identify his
later fame with purely American themes. It is to be noticed that
whatever was artificial and foreign in Longfellow's work appeared before
he went to Europe; and was the same sort of thing which appeared in all
boyish American work at that period. It was then that in describing the
Indian hunter he made the dance go round by the greenwood tree. He did
not lay this aside at once after his return from Europe, and Margaret
Fuller said of him, "He borrows incessantly and mixes what he borrows."
Criticising the very prelude to "Voices of the Night," she pointed out
the phrases "pentecost" and "bishop's-caps" as indications that he was
not merely "musing upon many things," but on many books which described
them. But the habit steadily diminished. His very gift at translation,
in which he probably exceeded on the whole any other modern poet, led
him, nevertheless, always to reproduce old forms rather than create new
ones, thus aiding immensely his popularity with the mass of simple
readers, while coming short of the full demands of the more critical. To
construct his most difficult poems was thus mainly a serene pleasure,
and something as far as possible from that conflict which kept Hawthorne
all winter, by his wife's testimony, with "a knot in his forehead" while
he was writing "The Scarlet Letter."
It is always to be borne in mind that, as Mr. Scudder has pointed out in
his admirable paper on "Longfellow and his Art," the young poet was
really preparing himself in Europe for his literary work as well as for
his professional work, and half consciously. This is singularly
confirmed by his lifelong friend, Professor George W. Greene, who, in
dedicating his "The Life of Nathanael Greene" to his friend, thus
recalls an evening spent together at Naples in 1828:--
"We wanted," he says, "to be alone, and yet to feel that there was life
all around us. We went up to the flat roof of the house where, as we
walked, we could look down into the crowded street, and out upon the
wonderful bay, and across the bay to Ischia and Capri and Sorrento, and
over the house-tops and villas and vineyards to Vesuvius. The ominous
pillar of smoke hung suspended above the fatal mountain, reminding us of
Pliny, its first and noblest victim. A golden vapor crowned the bold
promontory of Sorrento, and we thought of Tasso. Capri was calmly
sleeping, like a sea-bird upon the waters; and we seemed to hear the
voice of Tacitus from across the gulf of eighteen centuries, telling us
that the historian's pen is still powerful to absolve or to condemn long
after the imperial sceptre has fallen from the withered hand. There,
too, lay the native island of him whose daring mind conceived the
fearful vengeance of the Sicilian Vespers. We did not yet know
Niccolini; but his grand verses had already begun their work of
regeneration in the Italian heart. Virgil's tomb was not far off. The
spot consecrated by Sannazaro's ashes was near us. And over all, with a
thrill like that of solemn music, fell the splendor of the Italian
sunset."{13}
As an illustration of this obvious fact that Longfellow, during this
first European visit, while nominally training himself for purely
educational work, was fitting himself also for a literary career, we
find from his letter to his father, May 15, 1829, that while hearing
lectures in German and studying faithfully that language, he was, as he
says, "writing a book, a kind of Sketch-Book of scenes in France, Spain,
and Italy." We shall presently encounter this book under the name of
"Outre-Mer." He connects his two aims by saying in the same letter, "One
must write and write correctly, in order to teach." Again he adds, "The
further I advance, the more I see to be done. The more, too, I am
persuaded of the charlatanism of literary men. For the rest, my fervent
wish is to return home." His brother tells us that among his note-books
of that period, we find a favorite passage from Locke which reappears
many years after in one of his letters and in his impromptu address to
the children of Cambridge, in 1880: "Thus the ideas as well as the
children of our youth often die before us, and our minds represent to us
those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass and
marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery
moulders away."{14} He also included a quotation from John Lyly's
"Endymion," which ten years later furnished the opening of his own
"Hyperion." "Dost thou know what a poet is? Why, fool, a poet is as much
as one should say--a poet." When we consider what he had just before
written to his sister, it only furnishes another illustration of the
fact, which needs no demonstration, that young authors do not always
know themselves.
He reached home from Europe, after three years of absence, on August 11,
1829, looking toward Bowdoin College as his abode, and a professorship
of modern languages as his future position. Up to this time, to be sure,
the economical college had offered him only an instructorship. But he
had shown at this point that quiet decision and firmness which marked
him in all practical affairs, and which was not always quite approved by
his more anxious father. In this case he carried his point, and he
received on the 6th of September this simple record of proceedings from
the college:--
"In the Board of Trustees of Bowdoin College, Sept. 1st, 1829: Mr. Henry
W. Longfellow having declined to accept the office of instructor in
modern languages.
"Voted, that we now proceed to the choice of a professor of modern
languages.
"And Mr. H. W. Longfellow was chosen."
Thus briefly was the matter settled, and he was launched upon his life's
career at the age of twenty-two. Of those who made up his circle of
friends in later years, Holmes had just graduated from Harvard, Sumner
was a Senior there, and Lowell was a schoolboy in Cambridge. Few
American colleges had at that time special professors of modern
languages, though George Ticknor had set a standard for them all.
Longfellow had to prepare his own text-books--to translate "L'Homond's
Grammar," to edit an excellent little volume of French "Proverbes
Dramatiques," and a small Spanish Reader, "Novelas Españolas." He was
also enlisted in a few matters outside, and drew up the outline of a
prospectus for a girls' high school in Portland, such high schools being
then almost as rare as professorships of modern languages. He was also
librarian. He gave a course of lectures on French, Spanish, and Italian
literature, but there seems to have been no reference to German, which
had not then come forward into the place in American education which it
now occupies. As to literature, he wrote to his friend, George W.
Greene, "Since my return I have written one piece of poetry, but have
not published a line. You need not be alarmed on that score. I am all
prudence now, since I can form a more accurate judgment of the merit of
poetry. If I ever publish a volume, it will be many years first." It was
actually nine years. For the "North American Review" he wrote in April,
1831, an essay on "The Origin and Progress of the French Language." He
afterwards sent similar papers to the same periodical upon the Italian
and Spanish languages and literatures, each of these containing also
original translations. Thus he entered on his career as a teacher, but
another change in life also awaited him.
{11 _Life_, i. 90, 91.}
{12 _Life_, i. 165.}
{13 Scudder's _Men and Letters_, 28, 29.}
{14 Locke, _Essay on the Human Understanding_, bk. ii. ch. 10, "Of
Retention."}
CHAPTER VI
MARRIAGE AND LIFE AT BRUNSWICK
It has been a source of regret to many that the memoirs of Longfellow,
even when prepared by his brother, have given, perhaps necessarily, so
little space to his early love and first marriage, facts which are apt
to be, for a poet, the turning-points in his career. We know that this
period in Lowell's life, for instance, brought what seemed almost a
transformation of his nature, making an earnest reformer and patriot of
a youth who had hitherto been little more than a brilliant and somewhat
reckless boy. In Longfellow's serener nature there was no room for a
change so marked, yet it is important to recognize that it brought with
it a revival of that poetic tendency which had singularly subsided for a
time after its early manifestation. He had written to his friend, George
W. Greene, on June 27, 1830, that he had long ceased to attach any value
to his early poems or even to think of them at all. Yet after about a
year of married life, he began (December 1, 1832) the introduction to
his Phi Beta Kappa poem, and during the following year published a
volume of poetical translations from the Spanish; thus imitating Bryant,
then in some ways his model, who had derived so much of his inspiration
from the Spanish muse. It is not unreasonable to recognize something of
his young wife's influence in this rekindling of poetic impulse, and it
is pleasant, in examining the manuscript lectures delivered by him at
Bowdoin College and still preserved there, to find them accompanied by
pages of extracts, here and there, in her handwriting. It will therefore
be interesting to make her acquaintance a little farther.
Mary Storer Potter was the second daughter of the Hon. Barrett Potter
and Anne (Storer) Potter of Portland, neighbors and friends of the
Longfellow family. She had been for a time a schoolmate of Henry
Longfellow at the private school of Bezaleel Cushman in Portland; and it
is the family tradition that on the young professor's returning to his
native city after his three years' absence in Europe he saw her at
church and was so struck with her appearance as to follow her home
afterwards without venturing to accost her. On reaching his own house,
however, he begged his sister to call with him at once at the Potter
residence, and all the rest followed as in a novel. They were married
September 14, 1831, she being then nineteen years of age, having been
born on May 12, 1812, and he being twenty-four.
It was a period when Portland was somewhat celebrated for the beauty of
its women; and indeed feminine beauty, at least in regard to coloring,
seems somewhat developed, like the tints of garden flowers, by the
neighborhood of the sea. An oil painting of Mrs. Longfellow is in my
possession, taken in a costume said to have been selected by the young
poet from one of the highly illustrated annuals so much in vogue at that
day. She had dark hair and deep blue eyes, the latter still represented
in some of her nieces, although she left no children. Something of her
love of study and of her qualities of mind and heart are also thus
represented in this younger generation. She had never learned Latin or
Greek, her father disapproving of those studies for girls, but he had
encouraged her in the love of mathematics, and there is among her papers
a calculation of an eclipse.
She had been mainly educated at the school, then celebrated, of Miss
Gushing in Hingham. "My first impression of her," wrote in later years
the venerable professor, Alpheus Packard,--who was professor of Latin
and Greek at Bowdoin at the time of her marriage,--"is of an attractive
person, blooming in health and beauty, the graceful bride of a very
attractive and elegant young man." Some books from her girlish library
now lie before me, dingy and time-worn, with her name in varying
handwriting from the early "Mary S. Potter" to the later "Mary S. P.
Longfellow." They show many marked passages and here and there a
quotation. The collection begins with Miss Edgeworth's "Harry and Lucy;"
then follow somewhat abruptly "Sabbath Recreations," by Miss Emily
Taylor, and "The Wreath, a selection of elegant poems from the best
authors,"--these poems including the classics of that day, Beattie's
"Minstrel," Blair's "Grave," Gray's "Elegy," Goldsmith's "Traveller,"
and some lighter measures from Campbell, Moore, and Burns. The sombre
muse undoubtedly predominated, but on the whole the book was not so bad
an elementary preparation for the training of a poet's wife. It is a
touching accidental coincidence that one of the poems most emphatically
marked is one of the few American poems in these volumes, Bryant's
"Death of the Flowers," especially the last verse, which describes a
woman who died in her youthful beauty. To these are added books of
maturer counsel, as Miss Bowdler's "Poems and Essays," then reprinted
from the sixteenth English edition, but now forgotten, and Mrs.
Barbauld's "Legacy for Young Ladies," discussing beauty, fashion,
botany, the uses of history, and especially including a somewhat
elaborate essay on "female studies," on which, perhaps, Judge Potter
founded his prohibition of the classics. Mrs. Barbauld lays down the
rule that "the learned languages, the Greek especially, require a great
deal more time than a young woman can conveniently spare. To the Latin,"
she adds, "there is not an equal objection ... and it will not," she
thinks, "in the present state of things, excite either a smile or a
stare in fashionable company." But she afterwards says, "French you are
not only permitted to learn, but you are laid under the same necessity
of acquiring it as your brother is of acquiring the Latin." Mrs.
Barbauld's demands, however, are not extravagant, as she thinks that "a
young person who reads French with ease, who is so well grounded as to
write it grammatically, and has what I should call a good English
pronunciation will by a short residence in France gain fluency and the
accent." This "good English pronunciation" of French is still not
unfamiliar to those acquainted with Anglicized or Americanized regions
of Paris.
Among the maturer books of Mary Potter was Worcester's "Elements of
History," then and now a clear and useful manual of its kind, and a
little book called "The Literary Gem" (1827), which was an excellent
companion or antidote for Worcester's History, as it included
translations from the German imaginative writers just beginning to be
known, Goethe, Richter, and Körner, together with examples of that
American literary school which grew up partly in imitation of the
German, and of which the "Legend of Peter Rugg," by William Austin, is
the only specimen now remembered. With this as a concluding volume, it
will be seen that Mary Potter's mind had some fitting preparation for
her husband's companionship, and that the influence of Bryant in poetry,
and of Austin, the precursor of Hawthorne, in prose, may well have
lodged in her mind the ambition, which was always making itself visible
in her husband, towards the new work of creating an American literature.
It is in this point of view that the young wife's mental training
assumed a real importance in studying the atmosphere of Longfellow's
early days. For the rest, she was described by her next-door neighbor in
Brunswick, Miss Emeline Weld, as "a lovely woman in character and
appearance, gentle, refined, and graceful, with an attractive manner
that won all hearts."{15}
Longfellow's salary at Bowdoin College was eight hundred dollars, as
professor of modern languages, with an additional hundred as librarian.
From the beginning he took the lead among American teachers in this
department, the difficulty among these being that they consisted of two
classes,--Americans imperfectly acquainted with Europe and foreigners as
imperfectly known in America. Even in the selection of mere tutors the
same trouble always existed, though partially diminished, as time went
on, by those refugees from revolutionary excitements in Europe,
especially from Germany and Italy, who were a real addition to our
university circles. Even these were from their very conditions of
arrival a somewhat impetuous and unmanageable class, and in American
colleges--as later during the Civil War in the American army--the very
circumstances of their training made them sometimes hard to control as
subordinates. It was very fortunate, when they found, as in Longfellow,
a well-trained American who could be placed over their heads.
There were also text-books and readers to be prepared and edited by the
young professor, one of which, as I well remember, was of immense value
to students, the "Proverbes Dramatiques," already mentioned, a
collection of simple and readable plays, written in colloquial French,
and a most valuable substitute for the previous Racine and Corneille,
the use of which was like teaching classes to read out of Shakespeare.
Thus full of simple and congenial work, Longfellow went to housekeeping
with his young wife in a house still attractive under its rural elms,
and thus described by him:--
"June 23 [1831]. I can almost fancy myself in Spain, the morning is so
soft and beautiful. The tessellated shadow of the honeysuckle lies
motionless upon my study floor, as if it were a figure in the carpet;
and through the open window comes the fragrance of the wild brier and
the mock orange. The birds are carolling in the trees, and their shadows
flit across the window as they dart to and fro in the sunshine; while
the murmur of the bee, the cooing of doves from the eaves, and the
whirring of a little humming-bird that has its nest in the honeysuckle,
send up a sound of joy to meet the rising sun."
{15 _Every Other Saturday_, i. 20.}
CHAPTER VII
THE CORNER STONE LAID
That the young professor rose very early for literary work, even in
November, we know by his own letters, and we also know that he then as
always took this work very seriously and earnestly. What his favorite
employment was, we learn by a letter to his friend George W. Greene
(March 9, 1833) about a book which he proposes to publish in parts, and
concerning which he adds, "I find that it requires little courage to
publish grammars and school-books; but in the department of fine
writing--or attempts at fine writing--it requires vastly more." As a
matter of fact, he had already published preliminary sketches of
"Outre-Mer" in the "New England Magazine," a Boston periodical just
undertaken, putting them under the rather inappropriate title of "The
Schoolmaster," the first appearing in the number for July 18, 1831,{16}
and the sixth and last in the number for February, 1833.{17} He writes
to his sister (July 17, 1831), "I hereby send you a magazine for your
amusement. I wrote 'The Schoolmaster' and the translation from Luis de
Gongora."{18} It is worth mentioning that he adds, "Read 'The Late
Joseph Natterstrom.' It is good." This was a story by William Austin,
whose "Peter Rugg, the Missing Man," has just been mentioned as an early
landmark of the period.{19} It is fair to say, however, that the critic
of to-day can hardly see in these youthful pages any promise of the
Longfellow of the future. The opening chapter, describing the author as
a country schoolmaster, who plays with his boys in the afternoon, is
only a bit of Irving diluted,--the later papers, "A Walk in Normandy,"
"The Village of Auteuil," etc., carrying the thing somewhat farther, but
always in the same rather thin vein. Their quality of crudeness was
altogether characteristic of the period, and although Holmes and
Whittier tried their 'prentice hands with the best intentions in the
same number of the "New England Magazine," they could not raise its
level. We see in these compositions, as in the "Annuals" of that day,
that although Hawthorne had begun with his style already formed, yet
that of Longfellow was still immature. This remark does not, indeed,
apply to a version of a French drinking song,{20} which exhibits
something of his later knack at such renderings. There was at any rate
some distinct maturity in the first number of "Outre-Mer," which
appeared in 1835. A notice of this book in the London "Spectator" closed
with this expression of judgment: "Either the author of the 'Sketch
Book' has received a warning, or there are two Richmonds in the field."
Literary history hardly affords a better instance of the direct
following of a model by a younger author than one can inspect by laying
side by side a page of the first number of "Outre-Mer" and a page of the
"Sketch Book," taking in each case the first American editions. Irving's
books were printed by C. S. Van Winkle, New York, and Longfellow's by J.
Griffin, Brunswick, Maine; the latter bearing the imprint of Hilliard,
Gray & Co., Boston, and the former of the printer only. Yet the physical
appearance of the two sets of books is almost identical; the typography,
distribution into chapters, the interleaved titles of these chapters,
and the prefix to each chapter of a little motto, often in a foreign
language. It must be remembered that the "Sketch Book," like
"Outre-Mer," was originally published in numbers; and besides all this
the literary style of Longfellow's work was at this time so much like
that of Irving that it is very hard at first to convince the eye that
Irving is not responsible for all. Yet for some reason or other the
early copies of the "Sketch Book" command no high price at auction,
while at the recent sale of Mr. Arnold's collection in New York the two
parts of "Outre-Mer" brought $310. The work is now so rare that the
library of Harvard University has no copy of the second part, and only
an imperfect copy of the first with several pages mutilated, but
originally presented to Professor Felton by the author and bearing his
autograph. As to style, it is unquestionable that in "Outre-Mer" we find
Washington Irving frankly reproduced, while in "Hyperion" we are soon to
see the development of a new literary ambition and of a more imaginative
touch.
The early notices of "Outre-Mer" are written in real or assumed
ignorance of the author's name and almost always with some reference to
Irving. Thus there is a paper in the "North American Review" for
October, 1834, by the Rev. O. W. B. Peabody, who says of the book that
it is "obviously the production of a writer of talent and of cultivated
taste, who has chosen to give to the public the results of his
observation in foreign countries in the form of a series of tales and
sketches." He continues, "It is a form which, as every reader knows, had
been recommended by the high example and success of Mr. Irving.... It is
not to be supposed that in adopting the form of Mr. Irving, the author
has been guilty of any other imitation."{21} This may in some sense be
true, and yet it is impossible to compare the two books without seeing
that kind of assimilation which is only made more thorough by being
unconscious. Longfellow, even thus early, brought out more picturesquely
and vividly than Irving the charm exerted by the continent of Europe
over the few Americans who were exploring it. What Irving did in this
respect for England, Longfellow did for the continental nations. None of
the first German students from America, Ticknor, Cogswell, Everett, or
Bancroft, had been of imaginative temperament, and although their
letters, as since printed,{22} revealed Germany to America as the land
of learning, it yet remained for Longfellow to portray all Europe from
the point of view of the pilgrim. When he went to England in 1835, as we
shall see, he carried with him for English publication the two volumes
of one of the earliest literary tributes paid by the New World to the
Old, "Outre-Mer."
It is a curious fact that Mr. Samuel Longfellow, in his admirable memoir
of his brother, omits all attempt to identify the stories by the latter
which are mentioned as appearing in the annual called "The Token,"
published in Boston and edited by S. G. Goodrich. This annual was the
first of a series undertaken in America, on the plan of similar volumes
published under many names in England. It has a permanent value for
literary historians in this country as containing many of Hawthorne's
"Twice-Told Tales" in their original form, but often left anonymous, and
sometimes signed only by his initial (H.). In the list of his own early
publications given by Longfellow to George W. Greene under date of March
9, 1833, he includes, "7. In 'The Token' for 1832, a story.... 8. In the
same, for 1833, a story." To identify the contributions thus affords a
curious literary puzzle. The first named volume--"The Token" for
1832--contains the tale of a domestic bereavement under the name of "The
Indian Summer;" this has for a motto a passage from "The Maid's
Tragedy," and the whole story is signed with the initial "L." This would
seem naturally to suggest Longfellow, and is indeed almost conclusive.
Yet curiously enough there is in the same volume a short poem called "La
Doncella," translated from the Spanish and signed "L....," which is
quite in the line of the Spanish versions he was then writing, although
not included in Mr. Scudder's list of his juvenile or unacknowledged
poems. To complicate the matter still farther, there is also a story
called "David Whicher," dated Bowdoin College, June 1, 1831, this being
a period when Longfellow was at work there, and yet this story is wholly
remote in style from "The Indian Summer," being a rather rough and
vernacular woodman's tale. Of the two, "The Indian Summer" seems
altogether the more likely to be his work, and indeed bears a distinct
likeness to the equally tragic tale of "Jacqueline" in "Outre-Mer,"--the
one describing the funeral of a young girl in America, the other in
Europe, both of them having been suggested, possibly, by the recent
death of his own sister.
In the second volume of "The Token" (1833) the puzzle is yet greater,
for though there are half a dozen stories without initials, or other
clue to authorship, yet not one of them suggests Longfellow at all, or
affords the slightest clue by which it can be connected with him, while
on the other hand there is a poem occupying three pages and signed H. W.
L., called "An Evening in Autumn." This was never included by him among
his works, nor does it appear in the list of his juvenile poems and
translations in the Appendix to Mr. Scudder's edition of his "Complete
Poetical Works," yet the initials leave hardly a doubt that it was
written by him. Why, then, was it not mentioned in this list sent to Mr.
George W. Greene, or did he by a slip of the pen record it as a story
and not as a poem? Perhaps no solution of this conundrum will ever be
given, but it would form a valuable contribution to the record of his
literary dawning. Judging from the evidence now given, the most probable
hypothesis would seem to be that the two contributions which Longfellow
meant to enumerate were the story called "An Indian Summer" in "The
Token" for 1832, and a poem, not a story, in "The Token" for 1833. Even
against this theory there is the objection to be made that the editor of
"The Token," Samuel G. Goodrich, in his "Recollections of a Lifetime"
(New York, 1856), after mentioning Longfellow casually, at the very end
of his list of writers, says of him, "It is a curious fact that the
latter, Longfellow, wrote prose, and at that period had shown neither a
strong bias nor a particular talent for poetry." It is farther
noticeable that in his index to this book, Mr. Goodrich does not find
room for Longfellow's name at all.{23}
It is to be borne in mind that at the very time when Longfellow was
writing these somewhat trivial contributions for "The Token," he was
also engaged on an extended article for "The North American Review,"
which was a great advance upon all that he had before published. His
previous papers had all been scholarly, but essentially academic. They
had all lain in the same general direction with Ticknor's "History of
Spanish Literature," and had shared its dryness. But when he wrote, at
twenty-four, an article for "The North American Review" of January,
1832,{24} called "The Defence of Poetry," taking for his theme Sir
Philip Sidney's "Defence of Poesy," just then republished in the
"Library of the Old English Prose Writers," at Cambridge, Mass., it was
in a manner a prediction of Emerson's oration, "The American Scholar,"
five years later. So truly stated were his premises that they are still
valid and most important for consideration to-day, after seventy years
have passed. It is thus that his appeal begins:--
... "With us, the spirit of the age is clamorous for utility,--for
visible, tangible utility,--for bare, brawny, muscular utility. We would
be roused to action by the voice of the populace, and the sounds of the
crowded mart, and not 'lulled to sleep in shady idleness with poet's
pastimes.' We are swallowed up in schemes for gain, and engrossed with
contrivances for bodily enjoyments, as if this particle of dust were
immortal,--as if the soul needed no aliment, and the mind no raiment. We
glory in the extent of our territory, in our rapidly increasing
population, in our agricultural privileges, and our commercial
advantages.... We boast of the increase and extent of our physical
strength, the sound of populous cities, breaking the silence and
solitude of our Western territories,--plantations conquered from the
forest, and gardens springing up in the wilderness. Yet the true glory
of a nation consists not in the extent of its territory, the pomp of its
forests, the majesty of its rivers, the height of its mountains and the
beauty of its sky; but in the extent of its mental power,--the majesty
of its intellect,--the height and depth and purity of its moral
nature.... True greatness is the greatness of the mind;--the true glory
of a nation is moral and intellectual preëminence."{25}
"Not he alone," the poet boldly goes on, "does service to the State,
whose wisdom guides her councils at home, nor he whose voice asserts her
dignity abroad. A thousand little rills, springing up in the retired
walks of life, go to swell the rushing tide of national glory and
prosperity; and whoever in the solitude of his chamber, and by even a
single effort of his mind, has added to the intellectual preëminence of
his country, has not lived in vain, nor to himself alone."{26}
He goes on to argue, perhaps needlessly, in vindication of poetry for
its own sake and for the way in which it combines itself with the
history of the nation, and expresses the spirit of that nation. He then
proceeds to a direct appeal in behalf of that very spirit. Addressing
the poets of America he says, "To those of them who may honor us by
reading our article, we would whisper this request,--that they should be
more original, and withal more national. It seems every way important,
that now, whilst we are forming our literature, we should make it as
original, characteristic, and national as possible. To effect this, it
is not necessary that the war-whoop should ring in every line, and every
page be rife with scalps, tomahawks, and wampum. Shade of Tecumseh
forbid!--The whole secret lies in Sidney's maxim,--'Look in thy heart
and write.'"{27}
He then points out that while a national literature strictly includes
"every mental effort made by the inhabitants of a country through the
medium of the press," yet no literature can be national in the highest
sense unless it "bears upon it the stamp of national character." This he
illustrates by calling attention to certain local peculiarities of
English poetry as compared with that of the southern nations of Europe.
He gives examples to show that the English poets excel their rivals in
their descriptions of morning and evening, this being due, he thinks, to
their longer twilights in both directions. On the other hand, the
greater dreaminess and more abundant figurative language of southern
nations are qualities which he attributes to their soft, voluptuous
climate, where the body lies at ease and suffers the dream fancy "to
lose itself in idle reverie and give a form to the wind and a spirit to
the shadow and the leaf." He then sums up his argument.
"We repeat, then, that we wish our native poets would give a more
national character to their writings. In order to effect this, they have
only to write more naturally, to write from their own feelings and
impressions, from the influence of what they see around them, and not
from any preconceived notions of what poetry ought to be, caught by
reading many books and imitating many models. This is peculiarly true in
descriptions of natural scenery. In these, let us have no more sky-larks
and nightingales. For us they only warble in books. A painter might as
well introduce an elephant or a rhinoceros into a New England landscape.
[This comes, we must remember, from the young poet who had written in
his "Angler's Song" six years before,--
"Upward speeds the morning lark
To its silver cloud."]
We would not restrict our poets in the choice of their subjects, or the
scenes of their story; but when they sing under an American sky, and
describe a native landscape, let the description be graphic, as if it
had been seen and not imagined. We wish, too, to see the figures and
imagery of poetry a little more characteristic, as if drawn from nature
and not from books. Of this we have constantly recurring examples in the
language of our North American Indians. Our readers will all recollect
the last words of Pushmataha, the Choctaw chief, who died at Washington
in the year 1824: 'I shall die, but you will return to your brethren. As
you go along the paths, you will see the flowers and hear the birds; but
Pushmataha will see them and hear them no more. When you come to your
home, they will ask you, where is Pushmataha? and you will say to them,
He is no more. They will hear the tidings _like the sound of the fall of
a mighty oak in the stillness of the wood_.' More attention on the part
of our writers to these particulars would give a new and delightful
expression to the face of our poetry. But the difficulty is, that
instead of coming forward as bold, original thinkers, they have imbibed
the degenerate spirit of modern English poetry."{28} What is meant by
this last passage is seen when he goes on to point out that each little
village then had "its little Byron, its self-tormenting scoffer at
morality, its gloomy misanthropist in song," and that even Wordsworth,
in some respects an antidote to Byron, was as yet "a very unsafe model
for imitation;" and he farther points out "how invariably those who have
imitated him have fallen into tedious mannerisms." He ends with a moral,
perhaps rather tamely stated: "We hope, however, that ere long some one
of our most gifted bards will throw his fetters off, and relying on
himself alone, fathom the recesses of his own mind, and bring up rich
pearls from the secret depths of thought."{29}
"The true glory of a nation"--this is his final attitude--"is moral and
intellectual preëminence;" thus distinctly foreshadowing the title of
his friend Charles Sumner's later oration, "The True Grandeur of
Nations." American literature had undoubtedly begun to exist before this
claim was made, as in the prose of Irving and Cooper, the poetry of Dana
and Bryant. But it had awaited the arrival of some one to formulate its
claims, and this it found in Longfellow.
{16 _New England Magazine_, i. 27.}
{17 _Ibid._ iv. 131.}
{18 MS. letter.}
{19 See _Writings of William Austin_, Boston, 1890.}
{20 _New England Magazine_, ii. 188.}
{21 _North American Review_, xxix. 459.}
{22 _Harvard Graduates' Magazine_, vi. 6.}
{23 Goodrich's _Recollections of a Lifetime_, ii. 263, 560.}
{24 _North American Review_, xxxiv. 56.}
{25 _North American Review_, xxxiv. 59.}
{26 _North American Review_, xxxiv. 61.}
{27 _Ib._ 69.}
{28 _North American Review_, xxxiv. 74, 75.}
{29 _Ib._ 78.}
CHAPTER VIII
APPOINTMENT AT HARVARD AND SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE
While he was thus occupied with thoughts and studies which proved to be
more far-seeing than he knew, the young professor was embarrassed by
financial difficulties in which the college found itself; and he began
after three years to consider the possibility of a transfer to other
scenes, perhaps to some professorship in New York or Virginia.
The following letter, hitherto unpublished, gives us the view taken in
the Longfellow house of another project, namely, that of his succeeding
to the charge of the then famous Round Hill School at Northampton, about
to be abandoned by its projector, Joseph G. Cogswell. The quiet judgment
of the young wife thus sums it up in writing to her sister-in-law:--
Sunday afternoon [February, 1834].
... Henry left us Friday noon in the mail for Boston, as George will
tell you. I do not like the idea of his going to Northampton at
all--although it would be a most beautiful place to reside in. Still
I feel sure he would not like the care of a school, and such an
extensive establishment as that is too. He heard that Mr. Cogswell
was to leave them for Raleigh and wrote him--in answer to which he
received a long letter, wishing him much to take the place, &c.;
which determined him to go immediately to Northampton. He requires
$1600 to be advanced, and it would be incurring a certain expense
upon a great uncertainty of gaining more than a living there. I do
not think Henry calculated at all for such a situation. If he
dislikes so much the care of such a little family as ours, how can
he expect to like the multifarious cares of such a large one! He has
promised not to decide upon anything till he returns, and I feel so
confident that all uninterested persons will dissuade him from it,
that I rest quite at ease. I wished him to go to satisfy himself, he
was so very sanguine as to the result of it. We expect him home the
last of next week. This Northampton business is a profound secret
and is not mentioned out of the family!
Another extract from the same correspondent shows us how Longfellow was
temporarily influenced at Brunswick, like Lowell afterwards at
Cambridge, by the marked hygienic and even ascetic atmosphere of the
period; an influence apparently encouraged in both cases by their young
wives, yet leaving no permanent trace upon the habits of either
poet,--habits always moderate, in both cases, but never in the literal
sense abstemious.
Friday evening [April, 1834].
... He has gone to a Temperance Lecture this evening. He intends
becoming a member of the Temperance Society; indeed I do not know
but he has signed the paper already. He is a good little dear, and I
approve of everything (_almost_ smoking) he does. He is becoming an
advocate of vegetable diet, Dr. Mussey's hobby; and Clara and I have
nothing but lectures from him and Alexander, upon corsets.
The following extract gives us a glimpse of his literary work:--
BRUNSWICK, Nov. 2, 1834.
Henry comes on famously with Outre Mer. The No. on Spain is finished
and that on Italy will be before Thanksgiving. It is by far more
interesting than any of the other No's. Henry thinks himself it is
much superior in point of interest and in style. I presume he will
have the remaining No's published together in N. Y. this winter.
In the midst of such literary and household cares he received the
following letter:--
CAMBRIDGE, December 1, 1834.
DEAR SIR,--Professor Ticknor has given notice that it is his
intention to resign his office of Smith Professor of Modern
Languages in Harvard University, as soon as the Corporation shall
have fixed upon a successor.
The duty of nominating to that office devolves upon me; and after
great deliberation and inquiry my determination is made to nominate
you for that office under circumstances which render your
appointment not doubtful,--provided I receive a previous assurance
from you of your acceptance of it. To ascertain this is the object
of the present letter.
The salary will be fifteen hundred dollars a year. Residence in
Cambridge will be required. The duties of the professorship will be
of course those which are required from the occupant of a full
professorship, and such as the Corporation and the Overseers may
appoint. If a relation such as I suggest with this university be
acceptable to you, I shall be obliged by an early answer.
Should it be your wish, previously to entering upon the duties of
the office, to reside in Europe, at your own expense, a year or
eighteen months for the purpose of a more perfect attainment of the
German, Mr. Ticknor will retain his office till your return.
Very respectfully, I am
Yours, etc., etc.,
JOSIAH QUINCY.{30}
"Good fortune comes at last and I certainly shall not reject it," the
young Longfellow wrote to his father. "The last paragraph of the
letter," he adds, "though put in the form of a permission, seems to
imply a request. I think I shall accept that also." Some additional
correspondence, however, proved necessary, such as follows:--
HON. JOSIAH QUINCY:
SIR,--Your letter of to-day inclosing the Vote of the President and
Fellows of Har'd University in relation to the Professorship of
Mod'n Lang's has been received, and in expressing anew my desire to
meet your wishes fully in the matter before us, I beg leave to defer
an official answer until my return from the South, in about three
weeks hence.
In the mean time may I take the liberty of calling your attention
once more to the subject of our last conversation? I feel it
important that I should be regularly appointed before sailing for
Europe. Otherwise I present myself as any private individual
whatever. But if I go as one of your professors, I carry with me in
that very circumstance my best letter of recommendation. It gives me
a character--and a greater claim to attention abroad, than I can
otherwise take with me. Judge Story is ready to consent to this
arrangement--so is Mr. Gray--so is Mr. Ticknor. If you could bring
the subject once more before the corporation, I think the objections
suggested by you when I saw you this morning will be found to give
way before the good results, which I think may be reasonably
anticipated from change in your vote where respectfully suggested.
Very respect'y
y'r. Ob'e. Ser't.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{31}
BOSTON, Jan'y 1, 1834. [Error for 1835.]
HON. JOSIAH QUINCY:
SIR,--Placing entire confidence in the assurances of the President
and Fellows of Harvard University in reference to my election to the
Smith Professorship of Modern Languages and Belles Lettres in that
institution, which assurances were communicated to me in y'r favor
of 1st January, together with their Vote upon the subject,--I have
the honor to inform you, that I shall sail for Europe in the month
of April next, and remain there till the summer of 1836.
Very respectfully
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{32}
PORTLAND, February 3, 1835.
His first book, in a strict sense, published before his departure, was
his translation of the "Coplas of Jorge Manrique" (1833), in which were
added to the main poem a few translations of sonnets, the whole being
prefaced with an article from "The North American Review" on the "Moral
and Devotional Poetry of Spain." It was these works which had attracted
the attention of Professor Ticknor, and had led to results so important.
The young professor sailed at the time mentioned, accompanied by his
wife and two young ladies, her friends.
His first aim was Sweden, but he spent a few weeks in London, where he
met, among others, Carlyle. So little has hitherto been recorded of this
part of Longfellow's life or of his early married life in any way, that
I am glad to be able to describe it from the original letters of the
young wife, which are now in my possession, and are addressed mainly to
Mrs. Longfellow, her mother-in-law. She seems to have enjoyed her
travelling experiences very thoroughly, and writes in one case, "We are
generally taken for French ... and I am always believed to be Henry's
sister. They say to me, 'What a resemblance between your brother and
self!'"
Sunday afternoon, May 31, 1835.
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I wrote you a very few lines, in great haste, in
Henry's letter to his Father, acknowledging the receipt of your kind
letter. I hope that you will write us as often as your many cares
will permit, & be assured that even a few lines will always be
welcomed with delight by your absent children. We have passed our
time very delightfully in London. The only difficulty is--there is
so much to be seen & so little time to see it in. We have, however,
seen many of the principal points. Last Monday we passed very
delightfully at Shirley Park, near the little village of Croydon.
The ride is through a very beautiful country. We passed several
gipsy encampments, in the most picturesque situations. Shirley Park
is a truly delightful place. The house, which is a very fine one, is
placed on a beautiful spot, & there are fine views from all sides of
it. Mrs. Skinner, the lady of the place, is a very agreeable amiable
lady--She took us all over the grounds in her carriage, & was very
kind & attentive to us. Her house is thronged with visitors, the
great, the fashionable, & the _literati_ all pay their court to her.
She is a great admirer of Willis's, & thinks his writings _superior
to Irving's_!--On Wednesday we visited the National Gallery, the
finest collection of old paintings in the city. We saw while we were
there, the Queen pass into the city, attended by the horse-guards in
their beautiful uniforms. Five or six carriages passed with a
coachman & two footmen to each, lost almost in the quantity of gold
lace which covered them. Last of all came her Majesty's carriage
with two coachmen & four footmen in the same magnificent livery.
Thursday was the king's birth day. The drawing room was the most
splendid one that had ever been seen--so Willis says. In the eve'g
there was a grand illumination. About ten Henry and Mr. Frazer went
out to see it. The crowd was so immense, that it was with the
greatest difficulty they made their way home. Four women from St.
Giles's armed with large clubs pointed with iron, passed through the
crowd striking in all directions. We took a carriage & drove to see
the illuminations. It was after eleven & the crowd had nearly
dispersed. There were brilliant crowns & a variety of pretty devices
formed with coloured lamps & some very fine gas ones. I suspect
however there was very little true rejoicing in all this show &
splendour. The Queen is very unpopular among the people. Friday
morn'g--Willis called. He had been to breakfast with the beautiful
Mrs. Wadsworth, & was on his way, to breakfast at 3 in the aft. with
the Duchess of St. Albans. Mrs. Wadsworth, from Genesseo, was a
Philadelphia lady & has been greatly admired on the continent &
here. She returns in a few days to America. Yesterday morning Mr.
Barnard a young lawyer from Connecticut called upon me. He arrived
but a month before us, & takes much the same route as we do, though
a more extensive one. He will be in Stockholm in the course of the
summer. Mr. Carlyle of Craigenputtock was soon after announced, &
passed an half hour with us much to our delight. He has very
unpolished manners, & broad Scottish accent, but such fine language
& beautiful thoughts that it is truly delightful to listen to him.
Perhaps you have read some of his articles in the Edinburgh Review.
He invited us to take tea with him at Chelsea, where they now
reside. We were as much charmed with Mrs. C[arlyle] as with her
husband. She is a lovely woman with very simple & pleasing manners.
She is also very talented & accomplished, & how delightful it is to
see such modesty combined with such power to please. On Tuesday we
visit Chantrey's study with them. This morning Mr. Bentham, a nephew
of Jeremy's, called, & invited us to dine with them on Wednesday--We
may see the great potentate appear. Henry is petitioning for room to
write, & saying that I must retire, but I must tell you my dreams. A
few nights since I heard Samuel [Longfellow] preach for Dr. Nichols.
Last night I dreamt I was with my father & sisters, telling them of
all I had seen. I only went to America to make a call & tell you all
we had safely arrived, & was to return immediately. You will give
very much love to all for me. They must all write me, & their
letters shall be answered as speedily as possible. We leave here the
last of this week. I shall leave letters to be sent by the first
opportunity. George & Ann must not forget us.
Your ever affectionate
MARY.
The Carlyles are again mentioned in a letter written while crossing the
German Ocean.
STEAM SHIP, GERMAN OCEAN,
Thursday, June 11 [1835].
... We have some very pleasant passengers. A German lady with her
father and little girl. What a strange idea foreigners have of
America! This lady who appears very intelligent asked us if
_America_ was anything like _London_!! Then we have a German Prince
with huge mustachios; Clara played whist with him last evening! Oh
dear! I do not know as I shall be able to speak to you when I
return, I see so many lords and ladies! but in reality these lords
and ladies are not half as agreeable people as some of Henry's
literary friends. Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle have more genuine worth and
talent than half of the nobility in London. Mr. Carlyle's literary
fame is very high, and she is a very talented woman--but they are
people after my own heart--not the least pretension about them. Mrs.
Carlyle has a pin with Goethe's head upon it, which that great
author sent her himself. She is very proud of it I assure you. They
live very retired, not wishing to mix with fashionable society,
which they regard in its true light; still they have some friends
among the nobility who know how to value them.
STOCKHOLM, August 5, 1835.
MY DEAR MOTHER,--I hope you have received my letter to you from
London ere this. We sent letters home from here July 21st by Capt.
Symons directly to Boston--it was as soon as possible after our
arrival; among them Henry sent a letter to his father, & I to Mary,
Sam & Anne. I was quite delighted to receive a letter from Mary &
Sam--hope they will write me often. Since our last letters we have
removed our lodgings to "No. 5. Clara Södra Kyko Gatan." We have
more rooms but not as good ones as in the Droteninggatan. We have
made some very pleasant acquaintances here. July 15th we dined at
Mr. Arfwedson's--the father of the gentleman who married an American
lady. Mr. A---- resides at Liston Hill in the Park--he has a little
English cottage, built by Sir Robert Liston, formerly English
minister to this court. It is a sweet spot--the Mäler flows almost
directly beneath the windows of the cottage--a little flower garden
is upon its banks, & a fine grove of trees in the rear of the
cottage. Mr. Arfwedson is a fine old man--his wife has been dead
several years. The only ladies present were our countrywoman Mrs.
A---- & the eldest daughter of Mr. Arfwedson--the wife of Baron
S----. She is a very delicate and graceful lady, was dressed very
tastefully & altogether unlike the Swedish ladies we had before
seen. Mr. A's second daughter is just married to a brother of her
sister's husband who is also a Baron. They went immediately to
Copenhagen, we have not therefore seen her, but have heard much of
her great beauty. There were a number of gentlemen present at
dinner, several of which were English. The dinner table was by far
the prettiest we have seen in Sweden.... The dessert plates were
very beautiful, white china--upon each of which was a different
flower elegantly painted. After coffee the gentleman proposed a
drive to Rosendale, a little palace in the park. It is the favorite
spot of king Bernadotte. We first went to the splendid porphyry
vase, which stands in the centre of the flower garden back of the
palace. The top of this celebrated & immense vase is cut from a
single block of porphyry. Sweden is very celebrated for its fine
porphyry. The lower rooms of the palace are handsomely furnished,
but the upper ones are quite splendid. All the rooms were carpeted
with beautiful carpets--the walls were hung with silk damask--each
room a different color, with curtains, sofas & chairs to correspond.
One room was hung with white damask, & the chairs & sofa were
covered with beautiful embroidery--the ground of which was white,
wrought by the Queen & her maids of honor. There was a great
profusion of this beautiful embroidery--fire screens, ottomans,
&c.--The chandeliers, mirrors & candelabras were very elegant. In
one room was a portrait of the king, which was very like him. In
another that of the Queen--much flattered. She was a daughter of a
merchant of Marseilles. There are no bed-chambers in this palace.
The king very rarely sleeps out of his palace in town. We returned
to Mr. Arfwedson's & took tea. Mrs. A---- is very accomplished, she
speaks nearly all the modern languages. She invited us to dine with
them on the next Sabbath.
July 16th. We dined at Mr. Stockoe's, a partner of Mr. Erskine's. We
met quite a large & pleasant party there. The Stockoe's are
excellent, kind-hearted people. They have paid us every attention.
Mrs. S---- sends us presents of fruits & flowers, & all those little
attentions which it is so agreeable to receive.--I was quite unwell
on Sunday, on account of a very long walk the evening previous. I
did not therefore go to young Arfwedson's. Clara & H---- went & had
a very pleasant visit. They met there Baron Stackelberg, who was
Swedish minister in America fourteen years. He returned but two
years since. He has called upon us several times since, & is a
jovial old man with perfectly _white_ hair & whiskers. July 22nd.
The Stockoe's invited us to drive out to Haga with them. We went out
at six in the evening. This palace is about two English miles from
town. It was built by Gustavus the 3rd, & was his favorite
residence. The furniture was very old, but there is one fine room
_lined_ with mirrors. In the drawing room is a centre table with a
deep top & pots of flowers placed in it. This top was covered
entirely with moss, this had a very pretty effect, especially as
there were a variety of flowers all in bloom. The table was on
castors & could be placed in any position.... We were shown three
very small chambers, where Gustavus the 4th was imprisoned after he
was dethroned. His queen lived with him there. In another building,
a pavilion, were some rooms furnished in more modern style. The
Queen sleeps in these rooms when she comes to Haga, [but] the royal
family rarely visit this palace. The grounds are very beautiful. We
walked round the Park to the famous palace which Gustavus 3d
commenced building after his return from Italy. Here he expended two
millions, & the foundations were but laid & the stones in readiness
for the walls when he was assassinated. The work was then
immediately stopped as the people were much opposed to the
undertaking. We saw the model of this building which was to have
been a very extensive one. A row of columns all around it, to have
been built in the Italian style. The model was more like a temple
than a palace. We took tea at a little inn in Hagalund & returned
home late in the evening--The king has a great number of palaces
round Stockholm, there are seven or eight, & as many it is said in
every province.
We have a very pleasant little family of our own, & have fine times
together. Mr. Hughes says "for one lady it would have been
intolerable, for two very unpleasant; but for three quite
agreeable." Henry has been much disappointed not to receive a letter
from his father. We are now expecting letters every day from home, &
when Wm. Goddard arrives next month we hope to have many--
Please to give my love to Aunt Lucia & say to her I shall write her
very soon. Be so kind as to give much love to all the family for me,
& accept much love & respect for yourself & Mr Longfellow from
Your ever affectionate
MARY ----
MY DEAREST MOTHER,--As a little blank space is left, I will fill it
with a postscript.--We have just returned--that is to say, day
before yesterday,--from a visit to the University of Upsala, and the
Iron mines of Dannemora;--of which Mary will give you a description
all in good time. We already begin to think of leaving
Stockholm--and shall probably take the steamboat to Gothenburg in
about three weeks.--For my own part, I should like to go sooner if
we could. I am disappointed in Sweden. The climate is too cold and
unpleasant. I want a little warm sunshine. Something that I can
feel, as well as see. From Gothenburg we shall go to Copenhagen, and
after passing a month there, take steamboat to Stettin, and so to
Berlin. We shall not return to the _North_ again but pass the next
summer in Germany and France.
Much love to all. Very affectionately your Son
H. W. LONGFELLOW
MRS. STEPHEN LONGFELLOW,
Care of Hon. Stephen Longfellow,
Portland, Maine,
U. S. of America.
[TO] HON. STEPHEN LONGFELLOW, PORTLAND, MAINE, U. S. OF AMERICA.
COPENHAGEN, September 21, 1835.
MY DEAR SIR,--Henry has consented that I should copy a few pages of
his journal for you; but I could not prevail on him to grant this,
till I promised again & again for you, that you would not on any
condition, allow it to go out of your house. The _children_ can read
it there; & I will ask of you the same favor for my father and my
sisters, for I know they will take much interest in it.
If it cheers a lonely winter's evening, or cheats you of a few
melancholy hours, I shall feel most amply repaid for the trouble I
have taken.
We have regretted much to hear of your feeble health, but hope that
your journey has quite renovated you. I [was] delighted to receive a
second letter from Mrs. L[ongfellow], in a p[ackage] of letters
which reached us a few days since. She is very kind to write me, & I
shall not fail to write her, as often as possible, while absent.
With this you will receive a letter for Aunt Lucia. I shall answer
Mrs. L's letter very soon.
Henry has become quite learned in the Swedish, & can already
translate Danish. He is studying Icelandic also, as I presume he has
told you. He is in fine health & spirits.
With many wishes for your health & my Mother's, & with much respect
& affection for you both--I am as ever
Your affectionate
MARY ----
[On outside of letter.] September 28. I have written by the same
ship that brings you this. H. W. L. Also a letter to George.
[_Endorsement._]
Mary P. Longfellow to
S. Longfellow, containing a
Copy of Henry's Journal
_Sept. 21, 1835._{33}
COPENHAGEN, September 22, 1835.
MY DEAR AUNT LUCIA,--Pray do not be alarmed on receiving this letter
for fear that you must answer it. I have not hoped such a favor, but
am content, however much I should be delighted to hear from you, to
write you occasionally without the hopes of an answer, thinking &
knowing you would be as happy to receive a letter from me as any of
my dear friends. I received a very entertaining letter from Anne a
few days since. Henry says "Anne's letters have some _pith_ to
them." Pray urge her to write us often, & I shall take just as much
interest in hearing about her family affairs as if I was in
Brunswick.
And so you have made a visit in Boston, & have been upon railroads,
to balloon ascensions, theatres & I know not what. After such a
quiet life as you have passed for several years, it must be quite a
pleasant little incident, & I know that you must have enjoyed your
visit much. But, after all, do you not think that the pleasure of
travelling is greatest when it has been all passed, & you are seated
once more in your quiet home,--& retrace in imagination your
wanderings? It must be so--I think--then you remember only what is
agreeable, & the thousand little inconveniences, one must suffer in
travelling, are forgotten.
I cannot tell you how delighted we all are that we are out of
Sweden. Henry scolds not a little that a summer _in Europe_ should
have been passed there.
You have heard before this, by our letters from Gothenburg, that we
were detained there a week, much against our will. We passed the
time, however, very pleasantly. H[enry] delivered a letter from my
Uncle Robert [Storer] to Mr. Wijk of that place, & he was very
attentive & kind to us. On Sunday the 6th of September we dined with
him, & had the pleasure of being introduced to his celebrated lady.
She appears as his daughter, being more than thirty years younger
than her husband. We had heard of her great beauty in America. I
cannot say that she is beautiful, but she is extremely pretty with
very interesting manners. They have travelled much on the continent
& in England. The dinner was much more American than any we had seen
in Sweden. In the centre of the table was a high glass dish filled
with a musk-melon & surrounded with flowers. The remainder of the
dessert was not placed upon the table, but came on after meat, &c.,
as in our country. After soup, fish & meat, we had a _nice_ baked
apple pudding; & after this, the cloth was removed from the nicely
polished round table, & the dessert of cake, apples, pears,
preserves, nuts & raisins was placed upon it. Captain Condry from
Newburyport dined there, a very pleasant and gentlemanly man. Mrs.
Wijk urged us to remain to tea, but we left them soon after dinner.
Monday. 7. In the aft' walked around Gothenburg, a pleasant town, &
much preferable as an abiding place to Stockholm, in my opinion. On
returning home found Mr. and Mrs. Wijk. She looked sweetly & was
dressed elegantly. They called to invite us to pass the morrow with
them, at their country seat.--Tuesday. 8. At eleven in the morning,
took a carriage to Mr. Wijk's. A long & tedious ride, one & a
quarter Swedish mile from town. We arrived there at one, found Mr.
W[ijk] & his lady waiting to receive us. We took a walk round the
grounds before dinner. The house built in a very pretty style & the
grounds something like an English Park. An English gentleman, a
brother-in-law of Mr. Wijk's dined with us. He has a country seat
adjoining. After dinner, we walked to this gentleman's grounds. They
are quite delighted with a fine lake near the house. We then visited
the factories, which the owner, a man of great mechanical genius,
has erected upon his grounds. We saw all the different stages the
flax went through before weaving & lastly the weaving itself. We
returned home & took tea with Mrs. Wijk & then bade adieu. Found on
our return home Mr. Appleton had arrived from Stockholm. He goes to
Copenhagen with us.
Wednesday. 9. At two in the aft' we left Gothenburg, in a little
boat for the steamer station, which is three miles from the town.
Mr. Wijk accompanied us to the wharf. When we arrived at the steamer
pier--found the boat had not arrived from Christiana, & there we
waited three hours for it. We left about 6 in the evening. The
steamer crowded. We were obliged to sleep in the gentleman's cabin,
& the cabin was entirely filled with hammocks swung one above
another.--Thursday. 10. Arrived in Copenhagen at 2 P.M. Found good
accommodations at the Hotel Royal. Monday. 14. Mr. Appleton & Mary
G---- left us, for London. Tuesday. 15. In the morning went over the
new palace, not yet entirely completed. It is a fine building, the
rooms very neat, most of them carpeted. The carpet English, & upon
the king's apartments of the most ordinary & coarsest Kidderminster.
The Queen's were Brussels, but nothing extraordinary. In one large
room was the king's throne--A gilded chair covered with crimson
velvet, & his initials worked in gold upon it. The platform, & the
steps by which you ascend to it, were also covered with crimson
velvet. The window-curtains were superb--of crimson velvet & a gold
vine wrought upon the edge of them. The Queen's apartments were more
splendid than the king's. She had also a room similar to the king's,
with a throne like his & curtains the same. The dancing hall was
very fine with seven immense chandeliers in it.--The king and Queen
both had their dining halls. There was a most splendid hall for
_dubbing knights_. An immense room, with gallery all around it,
supported by pillars which appeared like white marble, but were of
some composition. The ceiling was very beautiful, white with raised
gilt figures. The chapel was very fine; also the hall of justice,
where criminals for high treason, I think, are tried. There is a
throne of crimson velvet at one end, & three silver lions, with
golden manes, as large as life & in very fierce attitudes are
guarding it.
Thursday. 17. In the morning at the museum of "Northern
Antiquities." The collection has been made since 20 years & is the
largest in Europe. We were first shown the knives, chisels, arrows,
&c., used before any metal was discovered & many--many years before
Christianity. They were all of stone. We also saw the first rude
urns which were used for the burial of dead bodies. Gold, silver &
copper were discovered before iron; when iron was discovered it was
for a long time so valuable, that we saw that instruments were made
of copper & only pointed with iron. Thus we were shown these
instruments from their first rude state till they arrived quite at
perfection. We also saw the gold rings & bracelets which the
ancients wore, & which they cut off, piece by piece, to give in
exchange for clothing or food before the use of money. We saw a
beautiful ebony altar piece with gold & silver figures raised upon
it. It was intended for a chapel of one of the former kings; but he
afterwards altered his plan & erected a large church,--so that it
has never been used.
I fear, my dear Aunt, you will find this all very stupid & tedious,
& will not thank me much for the _copious_ extracts from my poor
little journal. I flatter myself, however, you will take an interest
in all that we do & see, so I give you the best descriptions in my
power. Copenhagen appears like a different place to us, from what it
did when here before. Henry would like to pass the winter here, he
is now so charmed with it. We have a much pleasanter situation, than
when here before, & coming from Sweden any place would be quite
delightful. Indeed it seems now quite like London--the cries remind
us of that city & it appears almost as noisy. How different from our
first impression of Copenhagen! but then we were direct from London
& after that immense and overpowering place everything seems dull
and lifeless. We shall probably leave here this week Thursday, &
shall take these letters to Hamburg with us, with the hopes of
sending them directly to America from there. Henry sends books to
the college from here, but it is so uncertain when they go I do not
like to leave my letters. How lonely you will be without Sammy this
winter; I feel very glad he has entered as Freshman, for we shall
have him a year longer with us. Give much love to all from us--Clara
is very well and seems very happy. She enjoys travelling very much,
& is just as good & excellent a girl as ever--Henry desires very
much love to Aunt Lucia--accept much from your ever affectionate
MARY.
To MISS LUCIA WADSWORTH, Portland, Me.
{30 _Life_, i. 205; also _Harvard College Papers_ [MS.], vi. 290.}
{31 _Harvard College Papers_, 2d ser. vii. 1.}
{32 _Harvard College Papers_, 2d ser. vii. 10.}
{33 The journal is missing from the MS., having doubtless been retained
by the father. A long extract from it will be found in the _Life_, i.
216.}
CHAPTER IX
ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MRS. LONGFELLOW
This series of happy travelling narratives was suddenly interrupted by
the following letters, now first printed, to the father of the young
wife.
ROTTERDAM, Dec. 1, 1835.
MY DEAR SIR,--I trust that my last letter to my father has in some
measure prepared your mind for the melancholy intelligence which
this will bring to you. Our beloved Mary is no more. She expired on
Sunday morning, Nov. 29, without pain or suffering, either of body
or mind, and with entire resignation to the will of her heavenly
Father. Though her sickness was long, yet I could not bring myself
to think it dangerous until near its close. Indeed, I did not
abandon all hope of her recovery till within a very few hours of her
dissolution, and to me the blow was so sudden, that I have hardly
yet recovered energy enough to write you the particulars of this
solemn and mournful event. When I think, however, upon the goodness
and purity of her life, and the holy and peaceful death she died, I
feel great consolation in my bereavement, and can say, "Father, thy
will be done."
Knowing the delicate state of Mary's health, I came all the way from
Stockholm with fear and trembling, and with the exception of one
day's ride from Kiel to Hamburg we came the whole distance by water.
Unfortunately our passage from Hamburg to Amsterdam in the Steamboat
was rather rough, and Mary was quite unwell. On the night of our
arrival the circumstance occurred to which I alluded in my last,
[the premature birth of a child] and which has had this fatal
termination.... In Amsterdam we remained three weeks; and Mary
seemed to be quite restored and was anxious to be gone. To avoid a
possibility of fatigue we took three days to come to this place--a
distance of only forty miles; and on our arrival here Mary was in
excellent spirits and to all appearances very well. But alas! the
same night she had a relapse which caused extreme debility, with a
low fever, and nervous headache. This was on the 23d October. In a
day or two she was better, and on the 27th worse again. After this
she seemed to recover slowly, and sat up for the first time on the
11th, though only for a short while. This continued for a day or two
longer, till she felt well enough to sit up for nearly an hour. And
then she was seized with a violent rheumatism, and again took to her
bed from which she never more arose.
During all this she was very patient, and generally cheerful, tho'
at times her courage fainted and she thought that she should not
recover,--wishing only that she could see her friends at home once
more before she died. At such moments she loved to repeat these
lines [by Andrews Norton], which seemed to soothe her feelings:--
"Father! I thank thee! may no thought
E'er deem thy chastisements severe.
But may this heart, by sorrow taught,
Calm each wild wish, each idle fear."
On Sunday, the 22nd, all her pain had left her, and she said she had
not felt so well during her sickness. On this day, too, we received
a letter from Margaret, which gave her great pleasure, and renovated
her spirits very much. But still from day to day she gained no
strength. In this situation she continued during the whole
week--perfectly calm, cheerful and without any pain. On Friday
another letter came from Margaret, and she listened to it with
greatest delight. A few minutes afterwards a letter from you and
Eliza was brought in, which I reserved for the next day. When I went
to her on Saturday morning I found her countenance much changed, and
my heart sank within me. Till this moment I had indulged the most
sanguine hopes;--but now my fears overmastered them. She was
evidently worse, though she felt as well as usual. The day passed
without change; and towards evening, as she seemed a little restless
and could not sleep, I sat down by her bedside, and read your letter
and Eliza's to her. O, I shall never forget how her eyes and her
whole countenance brightened, and with what a heavenly smile she
looked up into my face as I read. My own hopes revived again to see
that look; but alas! this was the last gleam of the dying lamp.
Towards ten o'clock she felt a slight oppression in the chest, with
a difficulty of breathing. I sat down by her side and tried to cheer
her; and as her respiration became more difficult, she said to me,
"Why should I be troubled; If I die God will take me to himself."
And from this moment she was perfectly calm, excepting for a single
instant, when she exclaimed, "O, my dear Father; how he will mourn
for me." A short time afterwards she thanked Clara for her kindness,
and clasping her arms affectionately round my neck, kissed me, and
said, "Dear Henry, do not forget me!" and after this, "Tell my dear
friends at home that I thought of them at the last hour." I then
read to her from the Church Litany the prayers for the sick and
dying; and as the nurse spoke of sending for Dr. Bosworth, the
Episcopal clergyman, Mary said she should like to see him, and I
accordingly sent. He came about one o'clock, but at this time Mary
became apparently insensible to what was around her; and at
half-past one she ceased to breathe.
Thus all the hopes I had so fondly cherished of returning home with
my dear Mary in happiness and renovated health have in the
providence of God ended in disappointment and sorrow unspeakable.
All that I have left to me in my affliction is the memory of her
goodness, her gentleness, her affection for me--unchangeable in life
and in death--and the hope of meeting her again hereafter, where
there shall be no more sickness, nor sorrow, nor suffering, nor
death. I feel, too, that she must be infinitely, oh, infinitely
happier now than when with us on earth, and I say to myself,--
"Peace! peace! she is not dead, she does not sleep!
She has awakened from the dream of life."
With my most affectionate remembrance to Eliza and Margaret, and my
warmest sympathies with you all, very truly yours,
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
On the 2d of December the young husband left Rotterdam for Heidelberg.
There he spent the winter, like Paul Flemming of "Hyperion," and buried
himself in "old dusty books." He met many men who interested him,
Schlosser, Gervinus, and Mittermaier, and also Bryant, the poet, from
his own country, whom he saw for the first time. An added sorrow came to
him in the death of his brother-in-law and dearest friend, George W.
Pierce, "He the young and strong," as he afterwards wrote in his
"Footsteps of Angels;" but in accordance with the advice of his friend
Ticknor he absorbed himself in intellectual labor, taking the direction
of a careful study of German literature. This he traced from its
foundations down to Jean Paul Richter, who was for him, as for many
other Americans of the same period, its high-water mark, even to the
exclusion of Goethe. It will be remembered that Longfellow's friend,
Professor Felton, translated not long after, and very likely with
Longfellow's aid or counsel, Menzel's "History of German Literature," in
which Goethe is made quite a secondary figure.
It is also to be noticed that George Bancroft, one of the half dozen men
in America who had studied at a German University, wrote about the same
time a violent attack on Goethe in the Boston "Christian Examiner," in
which he pronounced him far inferior to Voltaire, "not in genius and
industry only, but still more in morality." He says of him farther, "He
imitates, he reproduces, he does not create and he does not build up....
His chances at popularity are diminishing. Twaddle will not pass long
for wisdom. The active spirit of movement and progress finds in his
works little that attracts sympathy."{34} It is to be remembered in the
same connection that Longfellow, in 1837, wrote to his friend, George W.
Greene, of "Jean Paul Richter, the most magnificent of the German prose
writers,"{35} and it was chiefly on Richter that his prose style was
formed.
In June he left Heidelberg for the Tyrol and Switzerland, where the
scene of "Hyperion" was laid. He called it "quite a sad and lonely
journey," but it afterwards led to results both in his personal and
literary career. He sailed for home in October and established himself
in Cambridge in December, 1836. The following letter to his wife's
sister was written after his return.
CAMBRIDGE, Sunday evening.
MY DEAR ELIZA,--By tomorrow's steamboat I shall send you two trunks,
containing the clothes which once belonged to your sister. What I
have suffered in getting them ready to send to you, I cannot
describe. It is not necessary, that I should. Cheerful as I may have
seemed to you at times, there are other times, when it seems to me
that my heart would break. The world considers grief unmanly, and is
suspicious of that sorrow, which is expressed by words and outward
signs. Hence we strive to be gay and put a cheerful courage on, when
our souls are very sad. But there are hours, when the world is shut
out, and we can no longer hear the voices, that cheer and encourage
us. To me such hours come daily. I was so happy with my dear Mary,
that it is very hard to be alone. The sympathies of friendship are
doubtless something--but after all how little, how unsatisfying they
are to one who has been so loved as I have been! This is a selfish
sorrow, I know: but neither reason nor reflection can still it.
Affliction makes us childish. A grieved and wounded heart is hard to
be persuaded. We do not wish to have our sorrow lessened. There are
wounds, which are never entirely healed. A thousand associations
call up the past, with all its gloom and shadow. Often a mere look
or sound--a voice--the odor of a flower--the merest trifle is enough
to awaken within me deep and unutterable emotions. Hardly a day
passes, that some face, or familiar object, or some passage in the
book I am reading does not call up the image of my beloved wife so
vividly, that I pause and burst into tears,--and sometimes cannot
rally again for hours.
And yet, my dear Eliza, in a few days, and we shall all be gone, and
others sorrowing and rejoicing as we now do, will have taken our
places: and we shall say, how childish it was for us to mourn for
things so transitory. There may be some consolation in this; but we
are nevertheless children. Our feelings overcome us.
Farewell. Give my kind regards to all, and believe me most truly and
affectionately, your friend,
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{36}
{34 _Christian Examiner_, July, 1839, xxvi. 363-367.}
{35 _Life_, i. 259.}
{36 MS. letter.}
CHAPTER X
CRAIGIE HOUSE
In entering on the duties of his Harvard professorship (December, 1836)
Longfellow took rooms at the Craigie House in Cambridge. This house, so
long his residence, has been claimed as having more historic interest
than any house in New England, both from the fact of his ownership and
of its having been the headquarters of General Washington during the
siege of Boston. It has even been called from these two circumstances
the best known residence in the United States, with the exception of Mt.
Vernon, with which it has some analogy both in position and in aspect.
It overlooks the Charles River as the other overlooks the Potomac,
though the latter view is of course far more imposing, and the Craigie
House wants the picturesque semicircle of outbuildings so characteristic
of Mt. Vernon, while it is far finer in respect to rooms, especially in
the upper stories. It was built, in all probability, in 1759 by Colonel
John Vassall, whose family owned the still older house across the way
now called the Batchelder House; and there is a tradition of a
subterranean passage between the two houses, although this has hitherto
been sought in vain. Both these dwellings belonged to a series of large
houses on Brattle Street, called Tory Row, whose proprietors were almost
all kinsfolk, owned West India estates and slaves, entertained company
in great affluence, according to the descriptions of the Baroness
Riedesel, and were almost all forced to leave the country at the
approach of the Revolution. Tradition recalls a Twelfth Night party
given by Mrs. Washington in 1776, she having come to visit her husband
during his residence in Cambridge. "She arrived in great ceremony, with
a coach and four black horses, with postilions and servants in scarlet
livery. During her visit she and her husband celebrated their wedding
anniversary, though the General had to be much persuaded by his
aides."{37} The southeastern room, afterwards Longfellow's study, had
been Washington's office, and the chamber above it his private room,
this being Longfellow's original study. The house was bought about
1792, the dates being a little uncertain, by Andrew Craigie,
apothecary-general of the northern department of the Revolutionary army,
who made additions to the house, which was described as a princely
establishment.{38} Mr. Craigie sometimes entertained a hundred guests at
the Commencement festival, and had among his other guests the celebrated
Talleyrand and the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father, then Prince
Edward. Mr. Craigie had large business transactions, speculated
extensively but at last unsuccessfully in real estate, and died in 1819.
His wife long outlived him, and being poor, let rooms to various
inmates. Edward Everett took his bride there in 1822, and so did
President Jared Sparks in 1832. Five years after, Longfellow took the
rooms, and thus describes his first visit to Mrs. Craigie:--
"The first time I was in Craigie House was on a beautiful afternoon in
the year 1837. I came to see Mr. McLane, a law-student, who occupied the
southeastern chamber. The window-blinds were closed, but through them
came a pleasant breeze, and I could see the waters of the Charles
gleaming in the meadows. McLane left Cambridge in August, and I took
possession of his room, making use of it as a library or study, and
having the adjoining chamber for my bedroom. At first Mrs. Craigie
declined to let me have rooms. I remember how she looked as she stood,
in her white turban, with her hands crossed behind her, snapping her
gray eyes. She had resolved, she said, to take no more students into the
house. But her manner changed when I told her who I was. She said that
she had read 'Outre-Mer,' of which one number was lying on her
side-board. She then took me all over the house and showed me every room
in it, saying, as we went into each, that I could not have that one. She
finally consented to my taking the rooms mentioned above, on condition
that the door leading into the back entry should be locked on the
outside. Young Habersham, of Savannah, a friend of Mrs. Craigie's,
occupied at that time the other front chamber. He was a skilful
performer on the flute. Like other piping birds, he took wing for the
rice-fields of the South when the cold weather came, and I remained
alone with the widow in her castle. The back part of the house was
occupied, however, by her farmer. His wife supplied my meals and took
care of my rooms. She was a giantess, and very pious in words; and when
she brought in my breakfast frequently stopped to exhort me. The
exorbitant rate at which she charged my board was rather at variance
with her preaching. Her name was Miriam; and Felton called her 'Miriam,
the profitess.' Her husband was a meek little man.
"The winter was a rather solitary one, and the house very still. I used
to hear Mrs. Craigie go down to breakfast at nine or ten in the morning
and go up to bed at eleven at night. During the day she seldom left
the parlor, where she sat reading the newspapers and the
magazines,--occasionally a volume of Voltaire. She read also the
English Annuals, of which she had a large collection. Occasionally, the
sound of voices announced a visitor; and she sometimes enlivened the
long evenings with a half-forgotten tune upon an old piano-forte.
"During the following summer the fine old elms in front of the house
were attacked by canker-worms, which, after having devoured the leaves,
came spinning down in myriads. Mrs. Craigie used to sit by the open
windows and let them crawl over her white turban unmolested. She would
have nothing done to protect the trees from these worms; she used to
say, 'Why, sir, they are our fellow-worms; they have as good a right to
live as we have.'"
It was certainly a strange chance which threw the young poet, on his
return from Europe, into the curiously cosmopolitan atmosphere of Mrs.
Craigie's mind. The sale catalogue of her books lies before me, a mass
of perhaps five hundred odd volumes of worthy or worthless literature:
Goethe's "Werther" beside the American "Frugal Housewife," and Heath's
"Book of Beauty" beside "Hannah More." Yet it was doubtless the only
house in Cambridge which then held complete sets of Voltaire and
Diderot, of Molière, Crébillon, and Florian, Madame de Sévigné and
Madame de Staël. Some of the books thus sold form a part to this day of
the Longfellow library at Craigie House; but there is no reference to
the poet in the original catalogue, except that it includes "Outre-Mer,"
No. 1, doubtless the same copy which he saw lying on the sideboard.
Mr. J. E. Worcester, the lexicographer, shared the house with
Longfellow, as did for a time Miss Sally Lowell, an aunt of the poet.
Mr. Worcester bought it for himself, and ultimately sold it to Mr.
Nathan Appleton, father of the second Mrs. Longfellow, to whom he
presented it. Part of the ten magnificent elms of which Longfellow wrote
in 1839 have disappeared. The ground has been improved by the low-fenced
terrace which he added, and the grounds opposite, given by the poet's
children to the Longfellow Memorial Association, have been graded into a
small public park descending nearly to the river. Within the house all
remains much the same, Longfellow's library never having been scattered,
although his manuscripts and proof-sheets, which he preserved and caused
to be bound in their successive stages in the most orderly manner, have
now been transferred to a fire-proof building for greater security. The
"old clock on the stairs," which he himself placed there, still ticks
and strikes the hour; and one can see cracks in the stairway through
which the mysterious letters dropped morning after morning, as told in
the story of "Esther Wynne's Love Letters," by the accomplished author
known as Saxe Holm. The actual letters were more commonplace, but they
were apparently written by a schoolgirl under Mr. Craigie's care; and
there was a tradition, not very well authenticated, that Longfellow
himself had planned to make them the subject of a poem before Saxe Holm
or Helen Hunt--as the case may be--had anticipated him in prose.
Such was the house where Longfellow resided for the rest of his life;
seven years of which passed before his second wedded life began. The
following letter, taken from the Harvard College papers, will show the
interest he took in the estate.
MY DEAR SIR [President Quincy],--Will you have the goodness to lay
before the Corporation, at their next meeting, my request concerning
the trees, which I mentioned to you the last time I had the pleasure
of seeing you; viz. that they would permit me to take from the
College grounds 3 elm trees to be placed in front of the Craigie
House.
I am endeavoring to replace, as well as possible, the old elms, and
find it difficult to obtain many of the size I desire. Some parts of
the College ground are so thickly planted that a tree may be
removed, here & there, without at all impairing the beauty of the
grounds. I therefore request permission to remove any 3 trees that
the College Steward shall say may be taken without detriment to the
College property.
Yrs very truly,
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
CAMBRIDGE, Dec. 29 [1843].{39}
{37 Miss Alice M. Longfellow in _The Cambridge Tribune_, April 21, 1900,
page 4.}
{38 A history of this house from original documents was prepared by
Samuel S. Green, of Worcester, and was read by him before the American
Antiquarian Society, April 25, 1900, and published in their documents.}
{39 _Harvard College Papers_ [MS.], 2d ser. xii. 26.}
CHAPTER XI
HYPERION AND THE REACTION FROM IT
"Outre-Mer" had been published some time before, with moderate success,
but "Hyperion" was destined to attract far more attention. It is first
mentioned in his journal on September 13, 1838, though in a way which
shows that it had been for some time in preparation, and its gradual
development is traceable through the same channel. One entire book, for
instance, was written and suppressed, namely, "St. Clair's Day Book,"
the hero having first been christened Hyperion, then St. Clair, and then
Paul Flemming. Its author wrote of it, "I called it 'Hyperion,' because
it moves on high among clouds and stars, and expresses the various
aspirations of the soul of man. It is all modelled on this idea, style
and all. It contains my cherished thoughts for three years."{40}
The cordiality with which "Hyperion" was received was due partly to the
love story supposed to be implied in it, and largely to the new
atmosphere of German life and literature which it opened to Americans.
It must always be remembered that the kingdom in which Germany then
ruled was not then, as now, a kingdom of material force and business
enterprise, but as Germans themselves claimed, a kingdom of the air; and
into that realm Hyperion gave to Americans the first glimpse. The faults
and limitations which we now see in it were then passed by, or visible
only to such keen critics as Orestes A. Brownson, who wrote thus of it
in "The Boston Quarterly Review," then the ablest of American
periodicals except "The Dial:" "I do not like the book. It is such a
journal as a man who reads a great deal makes from the scraps in his
table-drawer. Yet it has not the sincerity or quiet touches which give
interest to the real journals of very common persons. It is overloaded
with prettinesses, many of which would tell well in conversation, but
being rather strown over than woven into his narrative, deform where
they should adorn. You cannot guess why the book was written, unless
because the author were tired of reading these morceaux to himself, for
there has been no fusion or fermentation to bring on the hour of
utterance. Then to me the direct personal relation in which we are
brought to the author is unpleasing. Had he but idealized his tale, or
put on the veil of poetry! But as it is, we are embarrassed by his
extreme communicativeness, and wonder that a man, who seems in other
respects to have a mind of delicate texture, could write a letter about
his private life to a public on which he had as yet established no
claim.... Indeed this book will not add to the reputation of its author,
which stood so fair before its publication."{41} This is the criticism
of which Longfellow placidly wrote, "I understand there is a spicy
article against me in the 'Boston Quarterly.' I shall get it as soon as
I can; for, strange as you may think it, these things give me no
pain."{42}
Mr. Howells, in one of the most ardent eulogies ever written upon the
works of Longfellow, bases his admiration largely upon the claim "that
his art never betrays the crudeness or imperfection of essay,"--that is,
of experiment.{43} It would be interesting to know whether this
accomplished author, looking back upon "Hyperion" more than thirty years
later, could reindorse this strong assertion. To others, I fancy,
however attractive and even fascinating the book may still remain, it
has about it a distinctly youthful quality which, while sometimes
characterizing even his poetry, unquestionably marked his early prose. A
later and younger critic says more truly of it, I think, "Plainly in the
style of Richter, with all the mingled grandeur and grotesqueness of the
German romanticists, it is scarcely now a favorite with the adult
reader; though the young, obedient to some vague embryonic law, still
find in it for a season the pleasure, the thrilling melancholy, which
their grandfathers found."{44} But Professor Carpenter, speaking from
the point of view of the younger generation, does not fail to recognize
that Paul Flemming's complaints cease when he reads the tombstone
inscription which becomes the motto of the book; and I recall with
pleasure that, being a youth nurtured on "Hyperion," I selected that
passage for the text of my boyish autobiography written in the Harvard
"Class Book" at the juvenile age of seventeen. Dozens of youths were
perhaps adopting the motto in the same way at the same time, and it is
useless to deny to a book which thus reached youthful hearts the credit
of having influenced the whole period of its popularity.
Apart from the personal romance which his readers attached to it, the
book had great value as the first real importation into our literature
of the wealth of German romance and song. So faithful and ample are its
local descriptions that a cheap edition of it is always on sale at
Heidelberg, and every English and American visitor to that picturesque
old city seems to know the book by heart. Bearing it in his hand, the
traveller still climbs the rent summit of the Gesprengte Thurm and looks
down upon the throng in the castle gardens; or inquires vainly for the
ruined linden-tree, or gives a sigh to the fate of Emma of Ilmenau, and
murmurs solemnly,--as a fat and red-faced Englishman once murmured to me
on that storied spot,--"That night there fell a star from heaven!" There
is no doubt that under the sway of the simpler style now prevailing,
much of the rhetoric of "Hyperion" seems turgid, some of its learning
obtrusive, and a good deal of its emotion forced; but it was
nevertheless an epoch-making book for a generation of youths and
maidens, and it still retains its charm. The curious fact, however,
remains--a fact not hitherto noticed, I think, by biographers or
critics--that at the very time when the author was at work on
"Hyperion," there was a constant reaction in his mind that was carrying
him in the direction of more strictly American subjects, handled under a
simpler treatment. He wrote on September 13, 1838, "Looked over my notes
and papers for 'Hyperion.' Long for leisure to begin once more." It is
impossible to say how long a preparation this implies; it may have been
months or years. Yet the following letter to a young girl, his wife's
youngest sister, shows how, within less than a year previous, his
observation had been again turned towards the American Indians as a
theme.
CAMBRIDGE, October 29, 1837.
MY DEAR MARGARET,--I was very much delighted with your present of
the slippers. They are too pretty to be trodden under foot; yet such
is their destiny, and shall be accomplished, as soon as may be. The
colors look beautifully upon the drab ground; much more so than on
the black. Don't you think so? I should have answered your note, and
sent you my thanks, by Alexander on Wednesday last; but when I last
saw him, I had not received the package. Therefore you must not
imagine from my delay, that I do not sufficiently appreciate the
gift....
There is nothing very new in Boston, which after all is a gossiping
kind of _Little Peddlington_, if you know what that is; if you
don't, you must read the story. People take too much cognizance of
their neighbors; interest themselves too much in what no way
concerns them. However, it is no great matter.
There are Indians here: savage fellows;--one Black-Hawk and his
friends, with naked shoulders and red blankets wrapped about their
bodies:--the rest all grease and Spanish brown and vermillion. One
carries a great war-club, and wears horns on his head; another had
his face painted like a grid-iron, all in bands:--another is all
red, like a lobster; and another black and blue, in great daubs of
paint laid on not sparingly. Queer fellows!--One great champion of
the _Fox_ nation had a short pipe in his mouth, smoking with great
self-complacency as he marched out of the City Hall: another was
smoking a cigar! Withal, they looked very formidable. Hard
customers....
Very truly yours
H. W. L.{45}
Note, again, how this tendency to home themes asserts itself explicitly
in Longfellow's notice of Hawthorne's "Twice-Told Tales" at about the
same time in "The North American Review," (July, 1837):--
"One of the most prominent characteristics of these tales is, that they
are national in their character. The author has wisely chosen his themes
among the traditions of New England; the dusty legends of 'the good Old
Colony times, when we lived under a king.' This is the right material
for story. It seems as natural to make tales out of old tumble-down
traditions, as canes and snuff-boxes out of old steeples, or trees
planted by great men. The puritanical times begin to look romantic in
the distance. Who would not like to have strolled through the city of
Agamenticus, where a market was held every week, on Wednesday, and there
were two annual fairs at St. James's and St. Paul's? Who would not like
to have been present at the court of the Worshipful Thomas Gorges, in
those palmy days of the law, when Tom Heard was fined five shillings for
being drunk, and John Payne the same, 'for swearing one oath'? Who would
not like to have seen the time, when Thomas Taylor was presented to the
grand jury 'for abusing Captain Raynes, being in authority, by
_thee-ing_ and _thou-ing_ him;' and John Wardell likewise, for denying
Cambridge College to be an ordinance of God; and when some were fined
for winking at comely damsels in church; and others for being
common-sleepers there on the Lord's day? Truly, many quaint and quiet
customs, many comic scenes and strange adventures, many wild and
wondrous things, fit for humorous tale, and soft, pathetic story, lie
all about us here in New England. There is no tradition of the Rhine nor
of the Black Forest, which can compare in beauty with that of the
Phantom Ship. The Flying Dutchman of the Cape, and the Klabotermann of
the Baltic, are nowise superior. The story of Peter Rugg, the man who
could not find Boston, is as good as that told by Gervase of Tilbury, of
a man who gave himself to the devils by an unfortunate imprecation, and
was used by them as a wheelbarrow; and the Great Carbuncle of the White
Mountains shines with no less splendor, than that which illuminated the
subterranean palace in Rome, as related by William of Malmesbury. Truly,
from such a Fortunatus's pocket and wishing-cap, a tale-bearer may
furnish forth a sufficiency of 'peryllous adventures right
espouventables, bryfefly compyled and pyteous for to here.'"
We must always remember that Longfellow came forward at a time when
cultivated Americans were wasting a great deal of superfluous sympathy
on themselves. It was the general impression that the soil was barren,
that the past offered no material and they must be European or die. Yet
Longfellow's few predecessors had already made themselves heard by
disregarding this tradition and taking what they found on the spot.
Charles Brockden Brown, although his style was exotic and Godwinish, yet
found his themes among American Indians and in the scenes of the yellow
fever in Philadelphia. It was not Irving who invested the Hudson with
romance, but the Hudson that inspired Irving. When in 1786, Mrs. Josiah
Quincy, then a young girl, sailed upon that river in a sloop, she wrote,
"Our captain had a legend for every scene, either supernatural or
traditional or of actual occurrence during the war, and not a mountain
reared its head unconnected with some marvellous story." Irving was then
but three years old, yet Ichabod Crane and Rip Van Winkle or their
prototypes were already on the spot waiting for biographers; and it was
much the same with Cooper, who was not born until three years later.
What was needed was self-confidence and a strong literary desire to take
the materials at hand. Irving, Cooper, Dana, had already done this; but
Longfellow followed with more varied gifts, more thorough training; the
"Dial" writers followed in their turn, and a distinctive American
literature was born, this quality reaching a climax in Thoreau, who
frankly wrote, "I have travelled a great deal--in Concord."
And while thus Longfellow found his desire for a national literature
strengthened at every point by the example of his classmate Hawthorne,
so he may have learned much, though not immediately, through the warning
unconsciously given by Bryant, against the perils of undue moralizing.
Bryant's early poem, "To a Water-Fowl," was as profound in feeling and
as perfect in structure as anything of Longfellow's, up to the last
verse, which some profane critic compared to a tin kettle of moralizing,
tied to the legs of the flying bird. Whittier's poems had almost always
some such appendage, and he used to regret in later life that he had not
earlier been contented to leave his moral for the reader to draw, or in
other words, to lop off habitually the last verse of each poem. Apart
from this there was a marked superiority, even on the didactic side, in
Longfellow's moralizing as compared with Bryant's. There is no light or
joy in the "Thanatopsis;" but Longfellow, like Whittier, was always
hopeful. It was not alone that he preached, as an eminent British critic
once said to me, "a safe piety," but his religious impulse was serene
and even joyous, and this under the pressure of the deepest personal
sorrows.
It is also to be observed that Longfellow wrote in this same number of
"The North American Review" (July, 1837) another paper which was
prophetic with regard to prose style, as was the Hawthorne essay in
respect to thought. It was a review of Tegner's "Frithiof's Saga" which
showed a power of description, brought to bear on Swedish life and
scenery, which he really never quite attained in "Hyperion," because it
was there sometimes vitiated by a slightly false note. A portion of it
was used afterwards as a preface to his second volume of poems ("Ballads
and Other Poems"), a preface regarded by some good critics as
Longfellow's best piece of prose work. It was, at any rate, impossible
not to recognize a fresh and vigorous quality in a descriptive passage
opening thus; and I can myself testify that it stamped itself on the
memories of young readers almost as vividly as the ballads which
followed:--
"There is something patriarchal still lingering about rural life in
Sweden, which renders it a fit theme for song. Almost primeval
simplicity reigns over that northern land,--almost primeval solitude and
stillness. You pass out from the gate of the city, and, as if by magic,
the scene changes to a wild, woodland landscape. Around you are forests
of fir. Overhead hang the long, fan-like branches, trailing with moss,
and heavy with red and blue cones. Under foot is a carpet of yellow
leaves; and the air is warm and balmy. On a wooden bridge you cross a
little silver stream; and anon come forth into a pleasant and sunny land
of farms. Wooden fences divide the adjoining fields. Across the road are
gates, which are opened by troops of children. The peasants take off
their hats as you pass; you sneeze, and they cry, 'God bless you.' The
houses in the villages and smaller towns are all built of hewn timber,
and for the most part painted red. The floors of the taverns are strewn
with the fragrant tips of fir boughs. In many villages there are no
taverns, and the peasants take turns in receiving travellers. The
thrifty housewife shows you into the best chamber, the walls of which
are hung round with rude pictures from the Bible; and brings you her
heavy silver spoons,--an heirloom,--to dip the curdled milk from the
pan. You have oaten cakes baked some months before; or bread with
anise-seed and coriander in it, or perhaps a little pine bark."
{40 _Life_, i. 353.}
{41 _Boston Quarterly Review_, January, 1840, iii. 128.}
{42 _Life_, i. 354.}
{43 _North American Review_, civ. 537.}
{44 Carpenter's _Longfellow_, p. 55.}
{45 MS.}
CHAPTER XII
VOICES OF THE NIGHT
There was never any want of promptness or of industry about Longfellow,
though his time was apt to be at the mercy of friends or strangers.
"Hyperion" appeared in the summer of 1839, and on September 12, 1839, he
writes the title of his volume, "Voices of the Night;" five days later
he writes, still referring to it:--
"First, I shall publish a collection of poems.
Then,--History of English Poetry.
"Studies in the Manner of Claude Lorraine; a series of Sketches.
"Count Cagliostro; a novel.
"The Saga of Hakon Jarl; a poem."
It is to be noticed that neither of these four projects, except it be
the second, seems to imply that national character of which he dreamed
when the paper in "The North American Review" was written. It is also to
be noticed that, as often happens with early plans of authors, none of
these works ever appeared, and perhaps not even the beginning was made.
The title of "The Saga" shows that his mind was still engaged with Norse
subjects. Two months after he writes, "Meditating what I shall write
next. Shall it be two volumes more of 'Hyperion;' or a drama of Cotton
Mather?" Here we come again upon American ground, yet he soon quits it.
He adds after an interruption, "Cotton Mather? or a drama on the old
poetic legend of Der Armer Heinrich? The tale is exquisite. I have a
heroine as sweet as Imogen, could I but paint her so. I think I must try
this." Here we have indicated the theme of the "Golden Legend." Meantime
he was having constant impulses to write special poems, which he often
mentioned as Psalms. One of these was the "Midnight Mass for the Dying
Year," which he first called an "Autumnal Chant." Soon after he says,
"Wrote a new Psalm of Life. It is 'The Village Blacksmith.'" It is to be
noticed that the "Prelude," probably written but a short time before the
publication of "Voices of the Night," includes those allusions which
called forth the criticism of Margaret Fuller to the "Pentecost" and the
"bishop's caps." Yet after all, the American Jews still observe
Whitsunday under the name of Pentecost, and the flower mentioned may be
the _Mitella diphylla_, a strictly North American species, though
without any distinctly "golden ring." It has a faint pink suffusion,
while the presence of a more marked golden ring in a similar and
commoner plant, the _Tiarella Pennsylvanica_, leads one to a little
uncertainty as to which flower was meant, a kind of doubt which would
never accompany a floral description by Tennyson.
It is interesting to put beside this inspirational aspect of poetry the
fact that the poet at one time planned a newspaper with his friends
Felton and Cleveland, involving such a perfectly practical and
business-like communication as this, with his publisher, Samuel Colman,
which is as follows:{46}--
CAMBRIDGE, July 6, 1839.
MY DEAR SIR,--In compliance with your wishes I have ordered 2200
copies of Hyperion to be printed. I do it with the understanding,
that you will give your notes for $250 each, instead of the sums
mentioned in the agreement: and that I shall be allowed 50 copies
instead of 25 for distribution. This will leave you 150, which
strikes me as a very large number.
The first Vol. (212 pp.) will be done to-day: and the whole in a
fortnight, I hope. It is _very_ handsome; and those who praise you
for publishing _handsome_ books, will have some reason for saying
so.
Will you have the books, or any part of them done up here?--and in
the English style, uncut?--Those for the Boston market I should
think you would.
With best regards to Mellen and Cutler,
Very truly yours in haste
LONGFELLOW.
P. S. By the way; I was shocked yesterday to see in the New York
Review that _Undine_ was coming out in your Library of Romance. This
is one of the tales of the Wonderhorn. Have you forgotten? I intend
to come to New York, as soon as I get through with printing
Hyperion; and we will bring this design to an arrangement, and one
more beside.
Addressed to SAMUEL COLMAN, ESQ.
8 Astor House,
New York.
That was at a time when it was quite needful that American authors
should be business-like, since American publishers sometimes were not.
The very man to whom this letter was addressed became bankrupt six
months later; half the edition of "Hyperion" (1200 copies) was seized by
creditors and was locked up, so that the book was out of the market for
four months. "No matter," the young author writes in his diary, "I had
the glorious satisfaction of writing it." Meanwhile the "Knickerbocker"
had not paid its contributors for three years, and the success of
"Voices of the Night" was regarded as signal, because the publisher had
sold 850 copies in three weeks.
The popularity of the "Voices of the Night," though not universal, was
very great. Hawthorne wrote to him of these poems, "Nothing equal to
some of them was ever written in this world,--this western world, I
mean; and it would not hurt my conscience much to include the other
hemisphere."{47} Halleck also said of the "Skeleton in Armor" that there
was "nothing like it in the language," and Poe wrote to Longfellow, May
3, 1841, "I cannot refrain from availing myself of this, the only
opportunity I may ever have, to assure the author of the 'Hymn to the
Night,' of the 'Beleaguered City,' and of the 'Skeleton in Armor' of the
fervent admiration with which his genius has inspired me."
In most of the criticisms of Longfellow's earlier poetry, including in
this grouping even the "Psalm of Life," we lose sight of that fine
remark of Sara Coleridge, daughter of the poet, who said to Aubrey de
Vere, "However inferior the bulk of a young man's poetry may be to that
of the poet when mature, it generally possesses some passages with a
special freshness of their own and an inexplicable charm to be found in
them alone." Professor Wendell's criticisms on Longfellow, in many
respects admirable, do not seem to me quite to recognize this truth, nor
yet the companion fact that while Poe took captive the cultivated but
morbid taste of the French public, it was Longfellow who called forth
more translators in all nations than all other Americans put together.
If, as Professor Wendell thinks, the foundation of Longfellow's fame was
the fact that he introduced our innocent American public to "the
splendors of European civilization,"{48} how is it that his poems won
and held such a popularity among those who already had these splendors
at their door? It is also to be remembered that he was, if this were
all, in some degree preceded by Bryant, who had opened the doors of
Spanish romance to young Americans even before Longfellow led them to
Germany and Italy.
Yet a common ground of criticism on Longfellow's early poems lay in the
very simplicity which made them, then and ever since, so near to the
popular heart. Digby, in one of his agreeable books, compares them in
this respect to the paintings of Cuyp in these words: "The objects of
Cuyp, for instance, are few in number and commonplace in their
character--a bit of land and water, a few cattle and figures in no way
remarkable. His power, says a critic, reminds me of some of the short
poems of Longfellow, where things in themselves most prosaic are flooded
with a kind of poetic light from the inner soul."{49} It is quite
certain that one may go farther in looking back upon the development of
our literature and can claim that this simplicity was the precise
contribution needed at that early and formative period. Literature in a
new country naturally tends to the florid, and one needs only to turn to
the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, or even Bancroft's "History of the
United States," to see how eminently this was the case in America.
Whatever the genius of Poe, for instance, we can now see that he
represented, in this respect, a dangerous tendency, and Poe's followers
and admirers exemplified it in its most perilous form. Take, for
instance, such an example as that of Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers of
Georgia, author of "Eonchs of Ruby," a man of whom Bayard Taylor wrote
in 1871, speaking of that period thirty years earlier, "that something
wonderful would come out of Chivers."{50} It is certain that things
wonderful came out of him at the very beginning, for we owe to him the
statement that "as the irradiancy of a diamond depends upon its
diaphanous translucency, so does the beauty of a poem upon its
rhythmical crystallization of the Divine Idea." One cannot turn a page
of Chivers without recognizing that he at his best was very closely
allied to Poe at his worst. Such a verse as the following was not an
imitation, but a twin blossom:--
"On the beryl-rimmed rebecs of Ruby
Brought fresh from the hyaline streams,
She played on the banks of the Yuba
Such songs as she heard in her dreams,
Like the heavens when the stars from their eyries
Look down through the ebon night air,
Where the groves by the Ouphantic Fairies
Lit up for my Lily Adair,
For my child-like Lily Adair,
For my heaven-born Lily Adair,
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair."
It is easy to guess that Longfellow, in his "North American Review"
article, drew from Dr. Chivers and his kin his picture of those
"writers, turgid and extravagant," to be found in American literature.
He farther says of them: "Instead of ideas, they give us merely the
signs of ideas. They erect a great bridge of words, pompous and
imposing, where there is hardly a drop of thought to trickle beneath. Is
not he who thus apostrophizes the clouds, 'Ye posters of the wakeless
air!' quite as extravagant as the Spanish poet, who calls a star a
'burning doubloon of the celestial bank'?"{51} It is a curious fact that
this exuberant poet Chivers claimed a certain sympathy{52} with the
Boston "Dial" and with the transcendental movement, which had a full
supply of its own extravagances; and it is clear that between these two
rhetorical extremes there was needed a voice for simplicity. Undoubtedly
Bryant had an influence in the same direction of simplicity. But Bryant
seemed at first curiously indifferent to Longfellow. "Voices of the
Night" was published in 1839, and there appeared two years after, in
1841, a volume entitled "Selections from the American Poets," edited by
Bryant, in which he gave eleven pages each to Percival and Carlos
Wilcox, nine to Pierpont, eight to himself, and only four to Longfellow.
It is impossible to interpret this proportion as showing that admiration
which Bryant seems to have attributed to himself five years later when
he wrote to him of the illustrated edition of his poems, "They appear to
be more beautiful than on former readings, much as I then admired them.
The exquisite music of your verse dwells more than ever on my ear."{53}
Their personal relation remained always cordial, but never intimate,
Longfellow always recognizing his early obligations to the elder bard
and always keeping by him the first edition of Bryant's poems, published
in 1821. Both poets were descended from a common pilgrim ancestry in
John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, whose story Longfellow has told.{54}
Thus much for first experiences with the world of readers. The young
professor's academical standing and services must be reserved for
another chapter. But he at once found himself, apart from this, a member
of a most agreeable social circle, for which his naturally cheerful
temperament admirably fitted him. It is indeed doubtful if any Harvard
professor of to-day could record in his note-books an equally continuous
course of mild festivities. There are weeks when he never spends an
evening at home. He often describes himself as "gloomy," but the gloom
is never long visible. He constantly walks in and out of Boston, or
drives to Brookline or Jamaica Plain; and whist and little suppers are
never long omitted. Lowell was not as yet promoted to his friendship
because of youth, nor had he and Holmes then been especially brought
together, but Prescott, Sumner, Felton, and others constantly appear. He
draws the line at a fancy ball, declining to costume himself for that
purpose; and he writes that he never dances, but in other respects
spends his evenings after his own inclination. Two years later, however,
he mentions his purpose of going to a subscription ball "for the purpose
of dancing with elderly ladies," who are, he thinks, "much more grateful
for slight attentions than younger ones."
It is curious to find the fact made prominent by all contemporary
critics, in their references to the young professor, that he was at this
time not only neat in person, but with a standard of costume which made
him rather exceptional. To those accustomed to the average dress of
instructors in many colleges up to this day, this spirit of criticism
may afford no surprise. His brother tells us that "good Mrs. Craigie
thought he had somewhat too gay a look," and "had a fondness for colors
in coats, waistcoats, and neckties." It will be remembered that in
"Hyperion" he makes the Baron say to Paul Flemming, "The ladies already
begin to call you Wilhelm Meister, and they say that your gloves are a
shade too light for a strictly virtuous man." He wrote also to Sumner
when in Europe: "If you have any tendency to curl your hair and wear
gloves like Edgar in 'Lear,' do it before your return." It is a curious
fact that he wrote of himself about the same time to his friend, George
W. Greene, in Rome: "Most of the time am alone; smoke a good deal; wear
a broad-brimmed hat, black frock coat, a black cane."{55}
Of the warmth of heart which lay beneath this perhaps worldly exterior,
the following letter to his youthful sister-in-law gives evidence:--
Friday evening [1837].
MY GOOD, DEAR MADGE,--You do not know how sorry I am, that I cannot
see you. But for a week past I have hardly left my chamber. I have
been so ill as to give up all College duties, Lectures, &c.; and am
very happy to get through--(as I trust I shall) without a fever,
which I have been expecting for several days past. To-night I am
better and have crawled off the sofa, to write you half a dozen
lines.
My dear little child; I am truly delighted to know you are in
Boston. It is an unexpected pleasure to me. Of course you mean to
stay all summer; and I shall see you very often. Write me
immediately; and tell me everything about everybody. I shall come
and kiss you to death, as soon as my bodily strength will permit.
Till then very truly
my little dear,
Yr. BROTHER HENRY.
{46 From the _Chamberlain Collection of Autographs_, Boston Public
Library.}
{47 _Life_, i. 349.}
{48 _Literary History of America_, p. 384.}
{49 _The Lovers Seat_, London, i. 36.}
{50 Passages from the _Correspondence of Rufus W. Griswold_, p. 46.}
{51 _North American Review_, xxxiv. 75.}
{52 Passages from the _Correspondence of Rufus W. Griswold_, p. 46.}
{53 _Life_, ii. 31.}
{54 Bigelow's _Life of Bryant_, p. 3.}
{55 _Life_, i. 256, 304.}
CHAPTER XIII
THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE
The year 1841 was on the whole a rather dazzling period for the young
poet. His first volume had been received with enthusiasm. His second
volume was under way. He had a circle of friends always ready to
criticise any new poem or to propose themes for other works; chief among
the latter being his friend Samuel Ward, in New York, who suggested the
"Phantom Ship," on the basis of a legend in Mather's "Magnalia," and
urged the translation of Uhland's "Das Glück von Edenhall" and Pfizer's
"Junggesell." A scrap of newspaper, bearing the seal of the State of New
York with the motto "Excelsior," suggested the poem of that name. "The
Skeleton in Armor" was included within the book and was originally to
have given the title to it. Prescott, the historian, said that this poem
and the "Hesperus" were the best imaginative poems since Coleridge's
"Ancient Mariner." Reading the tenth chapter of Mark in Greek,
Longfellow thought of "Blind Bartimeus." He wrote to his father that he
liked the last two poems in the volume best, and thought them perhaps as
good as anything he had written,--these being "Maidenhood" and
"Excelsior." It was also in this year that he conceived the plan of the
"Spanish Student" and of "a long and elaborate poem by the holy name of
'Christ,' the theme of which would be the various aspects of Christendom
in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages." It shows the quiet
persistence of the poet's nature that this plan, thus conceived in 1841,
was brought to a final conclusion, more than thirty years after, in
1873, and under the very name originally conceived, that of "Christus."
Thus much for this year of poetic achievement. His journals, as
published by his brother, show the activity of social life which the
year also included; and, above all, his regular academic work was of
itself continuous and exhausting. In the schedule of university
lectures, announced in the college catalogue for 1841-2, one finds the
following entry: "On the _French, Spanish, Italian, and German languages
and literature_, by Professor Longfellow." In the list of officers there
appear only three instructors as doing the detailed work of instruction
under this professor, and the lecturing was done entirely by him,
occupying three hours a week, on the afternoons of Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday. He was designated in the catalogue as "Smith Professor of
the French and Spanish languages and literature and Professor of Belles
Lettres," whatever this last phrase may have been construed as
including. He had also the supervision of his subordinates, the
examination of written exercises, and the attendance upon faculty
meetings; and it certainly is no cause for wonder that the following
letters should have passed between him and the college authorities.
[1839].
GENTLEMEN,--I respectfully beg leave to call your attention once
more to the subject of my duties as Smith Professor in the
University. You will recollect that when I entered upon my labors in
the Department of Modern Languages, the special duties, which
devolved upon me as Head of that Department, and Professor of Belles
Lettres, were agreed upon by a Committee of the Corporation and
myself. Native teachers having always been employed to instruct in
the elements and pronunciation of the Modern Languages, the general
supervision of the Department, instruction in some of the higher
works of modern foreign literature, and certain courses of Lectures
were assigned to me. This arrangement, so far as I know, proved
satisfactory to all the parties concerned.
You will also recollect, that in the Summer of 1838, two gentlemen,
namely the French and the German Instructors, for reasons which it
is unnecessary to specify, resigned. Another German teacher was
immediately appointed; but as no suitable person occurred at the
moment to fill the place of French Instructor, the appointment of
one was postponed for a season, and I consented to take charge of
the Classes in that language. I would respectfully remind you of the
distinct understanding at the time, that this arrangement was to be
only a temporary one, and to be given up as soon as a suitable
appointment could be made. It so happened, however, that I continued
to instruct in the French language during the whole year.
At the commencement of the present academical year, I proposed the
name of a French gentleman, and this nomination was laid by the
President before your honorable body. No appointment, however, was
made; but on the contrary a vote was passed, requiring the Smith
Professor to instruct all the French classes for the future.
I do not, of course, Gentlemen, call in question your right to
modify the duties of my Professorship; and I have proceeded to
organize the classes, and commence the instruction in the Elements
of the French language, agreeably to your vote. But I still
entertain the [hope] that a different arrangement, and one more in
harmony with the intent of a Professorship of Belles Lettres, and
more advantageous to the University, may yet be made. The symmetry
and completeness of the Department are at present destroyed. The
organization introduced by Mr. Ticknor, and continued successfully
to the great honor of the University is broken up. The French
language has no native teacher. And I submit to you, Gentlemen,
whether depriving the Department of the services of such a teacher
will not justly be regarded by the public as lessening the
advantages of a residence at the University.
I have now under my charge 115 students in French, and 30 in German.
Of course, with so many pupils my time is fully occupied. I can
exercise but little superintendence over the Department; and have no
leisure for the prosecution of those studies, which are absolutely
requisite for the proper discharge of the duties originally
prescribed to me. When the labor of mastering the Literature of even
a single nation is considered,--the utter impossibility of my
accomplishing anything, under the present arrangement,--in the
various fields of Foreign Literature, over which my Professorship
ranges, will be at once apparent. An object of greater importance is
clearly sacrificed to one of less. I am required to withdraw from
those literary studies and instructions, which had been originally
marked out for me, and to devote my time to Elementary Instruction.
Now if my labors are of any importance to the College it is to the
former class of duties, that the importance belongs. The latter can
be performed as well, perhaps better, by an instructor, employed and
paid in the usual way. In point of fact, my office as Professor of
Belles Lettres is almost annihilated, and I have become merely a
teacher of French. To remedy this, Gentlemen, I make to you the
following propositions:--
I. That I should be wholly separated from the Department of Modern
Languages, and be only Professor of Belles Lettres.
II. That I should reside, as now, in Cambridge.
III. That I should not be a member of the Faculty.
IV. That my duties be confined to lecturing during the Autumn Term;
and the rest of the year be at my own disposal, as in the case of
the Professor of History.
V. In consideration of which I relinquish one half of my present
income from the College, and receive only one thousand dollars per
annum. Respectfully submitted, &c., &c.
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{56}
The committee to which was referred the memorial of Professor Longfellow
reports:--
That in conformity with his wishes, one of two modifications of his
existing duties may be admitted consistently with the interest of
the University, both being predicated upon the plan of substituting
a native of France as a principal teacher of the French language.
1. That Professor Longfellow's services should be limited to public
lectures and oral instruction & relief from all other teaching, & to
continue the general superintendence of the Department and to
continue his lectures both terms and receive a salary of One
Thousand dollars.
2. That he perform the above and give instruction by hearing
recitations of the advance Classes in French, in both terms, and
also of all the surplus of the Students in French, when their
numbers shall exceed One Hundred & to receive a salary of Fifteen
hundred dollars.
The committee submit it to the wisdom of the board, which of these
modifications is preferable.
For the Committee,
26 Oct. 1839.
JOSIAH QUINCY.{57}
At a later period came the following:--
GENTLEMEN,--I am reluctantly compelled by the state of my health to
ask leave of absence from the College for six months from the first
of May next. In this time I propose to visit Germany, to try the
effect of certain baths, by means of which, as well as by the
relaxation and the sea-voyage, I hope to reëstablish my health. My
medical attendant advises this course as more efficacious than any
treatment I can receive at home.
I shall be able, before leaving, to deliver all the lectures of the
Spring Term; and on my return in November, those of the Autumn Term
before its close; and it is in reference to the necessary
arrangements for this, that I make thus early my application for
le
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