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 117 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 118 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 119 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.
120“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 121 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 122 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 123 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]
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 125 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, 126 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 127 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 128 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 129 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 130 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 yoursH. 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 131 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 132 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. 133 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 134 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 135 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 136 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.”
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 138 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 139 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 140 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 hasteLongfellow.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 141 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 142 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 143 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 144 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:—
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 145 ‘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 146 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. 147 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 148 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.
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 150 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 151 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.
155[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.
152You 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 153 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 154 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:—
157Gentlemen,—I am reluctantly compelled by the state of my health to ask leave of absence 156 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 leave of absence. The general supervision of the Department will be undertaken by Professor Felton, without any charge to the College;—the classes will lose none of their lectures;—and I trust the interests of the College will not suffer.
I would repeat in conclusion that the state of my health is the sole reason of my making this request.
I am, Gentlemen,
Your Obt. Sert.Henry W. Longfellow.[58]Harvard University, January 24, 1842. To the President and Fellows of Harvard University.
He sailed on April 23, 1842, and although his health gained during the summer, was yet obliged to ask for an extension of time, as follows:—
Marienberg, September 3, 1842.My dear Sir [Hon. Josiah Quincy],—When I left you in the Spring, I thought by this time I should have recovered my health and be setting my face homeward. In this I have been disappointed. My recovery has been slower than I expected; and though considerably better than when I arrived here, I am yet far from being well. The Doctor urges me very strongly to remain longer. He thinks it of the utmost importance to my future health, for years to come, that I should do so. He says, that if I look forward to a life of intellectual labor, in his opinion “it is absolutely necessary I should give up all thought of returning home before next Summer, devoting the time to reëstablishing my health, and avoiding all severe study.” I quote these words from a written opinion which he gave me this morning; and in consequence of which I have determined to ask leave of absence until that time, unless the state of my department in College should absolutely demand my return.
I assure you, that I do this with the greatest reluctance. I have no desire to remain here; on the contrary a very strong desire to be at home 158 and at work. Still I wish to return in good health and spirits, and not to lead a maimed life. I fear, and the physician positively asserts, that if I go back now I shall thwart the whole object of my journey, and that if I hope to be well I must go on with the baths.
I have therefore concluded to remain here until I receive an answer from you; promising myself that when I once escape from this hospital I will never enter another until that final one appointed for all the poets.
Will you have the goodness to say to your daughter, Miss Quincy, that I left her package for Mr. Graham at its address in Havre; and presume it reached him safely. In coming through France it was not in my power to go into Brittany, and avail myself of your letter of introduction to him; the place of his residence lying too far out of my route. From Paris I came through Belgium to this ancient city of Boppard, where I have remained stationary since the first of June.
With kind remembrances to Mrs. Quincy and your family,
Very truly yoursHenry W. Longfellow.[59]
It is interesting to note the manner in which this appeal was met by the economical college.
159161Henry W. Longfellow, Esq.
Sir,—I perceive with great regret, by your letter of the 3d Inst. that, although you have followed with due precision the prescriptions of the German Doctor who
corpus recentisparget aqua,convalescence is not yet attained, but that the water spirit has announced that another year is required in order to obtain the full benefit of his draughts and ablutions. The fact is a source of great sorrow to your friends and of no less embarrassment to the Corporation of the College. The granting the leave of six months’ absence was effected, not without difficulty. Doubts were expressed concerning the possibility of your realizing your expectations, within the period you specified; and the objections were surmounted only on your assurance that you would return in October, and that the benefit of your instructions should not be lost, by any [class] of the college, according to the arrangements you made. It was on this fact, and on this assurance alone, that assent of the Corporation was obtained. By the proposition you now make the present Senior class will be deprived of the advantages, on which they have a right to calculate and have been taught to expect.
Under the circumstances of the case, the Corporation do not feel themselves willing absolutely 160 to withhold their assent to your protracting your absence as you propose; at the same time they are compelled by their sense of duty & I am authorized to state, that they, regarding themselves, not as proprietors, but as trustees, of the funds under their control, cannot deem themselves justified in paying the salary of the Professorship to a Professor, not resident & not performing its duties. They value your services very highly, and are therefore willing, if you see fit to remain another year in Europe, to keep the Professorship open for your return; but I am directed to say that, in such case, your salary must cease, at the end of the current quarter—viz. on the 30 of November next.
The obligation thus imposed on the Corporation, it is very painful to them to fulfil, but they cannot otherwise execute the trust they have undertaken, conformably to their sense of duty.
And now, Sir, permit me to express my best wishes for your health; the high sense I entertain of your talents and attainments and the unaltered esteem & respect with which I am, most truly.
Your friend and
hle St.Josiah Quincy.[60]Cambridge.
30. Sep. 1842.
Longfellow spent his summer at the water-cure in Marienberg, with some diverging trips, as those to Paris, Antwerp, and Bruges. In Paris he took a letter to Jules Janin, now pretty well forgotten, but then the foremost critic in Paris, who disliked the society of literary men, saying that he never saw them and never wished to see them; and who had quarrelled personally with all the French authors, except Lamartine, whom he pronounced “as good as an angel.” In Bruges the young traveller took delight in the belfry, and lived to transmit some of its charms to others. At Antwerp he had the glories of the cathedral, the memory of Quintin Matsys, and the paintings of Rubens. His home at Marienberg was in an ancient cloister for noble nuns, converted into a water-cure, then a novelty and much severer in its discipline than its later copies in America, to one of which, however, Longfellow himself went later as a patient,—that of Dr. Wesselhoeft at Brattleboro, Vermont. He met or read German poets also,—Becker, Herwegh, Lenau, Auersberg, Zedlitz, and Freiligrath, with the latter of whom he became intimate; indeed reading aloud to admiring nuns his charming poem about “The Flowers’ Revenge” (Der Blumen Rache). He just missed seeing Uhland, the only German poet then more popular than Freiligrath; he visited camps of 50,000 troops 162 and another camp of naturalists at Mayence. Meantime, he heard from Prescott, Sumner, and Felton at home; the “Spanish Student” went through the press, and his friend Hawthorne was married. He finally sailed for home on October 22, 1842, and occupied himself on the voyage in writing a small volume of poems on slavery.