Authors and Friends Part 2

"'Oui, monsieur.'

"'Il a du merite. Il a beaucoup d'avenir.'

"'Ah,' said I, 'c'est une belle chose que l'avenir.'

"The elderly French gentleman rolled up the whites of his eyes and answered:--

"'Oui, c'est une belle chose; mais vous et moi, nous n'en avons pas beaucoup!'

"Superfluous information!--H. W. L."

It would be both an endless and unprofitable task to recall more of the curious experiences which popularity brought down upon him. There is a pa.s.sage among Mr. Fields's notes, however, in which he describes an incident during Longfellow's last visit to England, which should not be overlooked. Upon his arrival, the Queen sent a graceful message, and invited him to Windsor Castle, where she received him with all the honors; but he told me no foreign tribute touched him deeper than the words of an English hod-carrier, who came up to the carriage door at Harrow, and asked permission to take the hand of the man who had written the "Voices of the Night."

There was no break nor any change in the friendship with his publisher during the pa.s.sing of the years; but in 1861 there is a note containing only a few words, which shows that a change had fallen upon Longfellow himself, a shadow which never could be lifted from his life. He writes:--

"MY DEAR FIELDS,--I am sorry to say No instead of Yes; but so it must be. I can neither write nor think; and I have nothing fit to send you but my love, which you cannot put into the magazine."

For ever after the death of his wife he was a different man. His friends suffered for him and with him, but he walked alone through the valley of the shadow of death. "The blow fell entirely without warning, and the burial took place upon the anniversary of her marriage day. Some hand placed on her beautiful head, lovely and unmarred in death, a wreath of orange blossoms."

There was a break in his journal at this time. After many days he inscribed in it the following lines from Tennyson's poem addressed to James Spedding:--

"Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace.

Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul!

While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll."

His friends were glad when he turned to his work again, and still more glad when he showed a desire for their interest in what he was doing.

It was not long before he began to busy himself continuously with his translation of the "Divina Commedia," and in my diary of 1863, two years later, I find:--

"_August._--A delightful day with Longfellow at Nahant. He read aloud the last part of his new volume of poems, in which each one of a party of friends tells a story. Ole Bull, Parsons, Monti, and several other characters are introduced."

"_September_ 1st.--A cold storm by the seash.o.r.e, but there was great pleasure in town in the afternoon. Longfellow, Paine, Dwight, and Fields went to hear Walcker play the new organ in the Music Hall for the first time since its erection. Afterwards they all dined together. Longfellow comes in from Cambridge every day, and sometimes twice a day, to see George Sumner, who is dying at the Ma.s.sachusetts General Hospital."

"_September_ 19th.--Longfellow and his friend George W. Greene, Charles Sumner, and Dempster the singer, came in for an early dinner.

A very cosy, pleasant little party. The afternoon was cool, and everybody was in kindly humor. Sumner shook his head sadly when the subject of the English iron-clads was mentioned. The talk prolonged itself upon the condition of the country. Longfellow's patriotism flamed. His feeling against England runs more deeply and strongly than he can find words to express. There is no prejudice nor childish partisanship, but it is hatred of the course she has pursued at this critical time. Later, in speaking of poetry and some of the less known and younger poets, Longfellow recalled some good pa.s.sages in the poems of Bessie Parkes and Jean Ingelow. As evening approached we left the table and came to the library. There in the twilight Dempster sat at the piano and sang to us, beginning with Longfellow's poem called 'Children,' which he gave with a delicacy and feeling that touched every one. Afterwards he sang the 'Bugle Song' and 'Turn, Fortune,'

which he had shortly before leaving England sung to Tennyson; and then after a pause he turned once more to the instrument and sang 'Break, break, break.' It was very solemn, and no one spoke when he had finished, only a deep sob was heard from the corner where Longfellow sat. Again and again, each time more uncontrolled, we heard the heartrending sounds. Presently the singer gave us another and less touching song, and before he ceased Longfellow rose and vanished from the room in the dim light without a word."

"_September_ 27th.--Longfellow and Greene came in town in the evening for a walk and to see the moonlight in the streets, and afterwards to have supper.... He was very sad, and seemed to have grown an old man since a week ago. He was silent and absent-minded. On his previous visit he had borrowed Sidney's 'Arcadia' and Christina Rossetti's poems, but he had read neither of the books. He was overwhelmed with his grief, as if it were sometimes more than he could endure."

"_Sunday, October_.--Took five little children to drive in the afternoon, and stopped at Longfellow's. It was delightful to see their enjoyment and his. He took them out of the carriage in his arms and was touchingly kind to them. His love for children is not confined to his poetic expressions or to his own family; he is uncommonly tender and beautiful with them always."

I remember there was one little boy of whom he was very fond, and who came often to see him. One day the child looked earnestly at the long rows of books in the library, and at length said:-- "Have you got 'Jack the Giant-Killer'?"

Longfellow was obliged to confess that his library did not contain that venerated volume. The little boy looked very sorry, and presently slipped down from his knee and went away; but early the next morning Longfellow saw him coming up the walk with something tightly clasped in his little fists. The child had brought him two cents with which he was to buy a "Jack the Giant-Killer" to be his own.

He did not escape the sad experiences of the war. His eldest son was severely wounded, and he also went, as did Dr. Holmes and other less famous but equally anxious parents, in search of his boy.

The diary continues:--

"_December_ 14th.--Went to pa.s.s the afternoon with Longfellow, and found his son able to walk about a little. He described his own arrival at a railway station south of Washington. He found no one there but a rough-looking officer, who was walking up and down the platform. At each turn he regarded Longfellow, and at length came up, and taking his hand said:

"'Is this Professor Longfellow? It was I who translated "Hiawatha"

into Russian. I have come to this country to fight for the Union.'"

In the year 1865 began those Wednesday evenings devoted to reading the new translation of Dante. They were delightful occasions. Lowell, Norton, Greene, Howells, and such other Dante scholars or intimate friends as were accessible, made up the circle of kindly critics.

Those evenings increased in interest as the work progressed, and when it was ended and the notes written and read, it was proposed to re-read the whole rather than to give up the weekly visit to Longfellow's house. In 1866 he wrote to Mr. Fields:--

"Greene is coming expressly to hear the last canto of 'Paradiso' to- morrow night, and will stay the rest of the week. I really hoped you would be here, but as you say nothing about it I begin to tremble.

Perhaps, however, you are only making believe and will take us by surprise. So I shall keep your place for you.

"This is not to be the end of all things. I mean to begin again in September with the dubious and difficult pa.s.sages; and if you are not in too much of a hurry to publish, there is still a long vista of pleasant evenings stretching out before us. We can pull them out like a spygla.s.s. I am shutting up now to recommence the operation."

In December of the same year he wrote:--

"The first meeting of the Dante Club Redivivus is on Wednesday next.

Come and be bored. Please not to mention the subject to any one yet awhile, as we are going to be very quiet about it."

"_January_, 1867.--Dante Club at Longfellow's again. They are revising the whole book with the minutest care. Lowell's accuracy is surprising and of great value to the work; also Norton's criticisms.

Longfellow stands apart at his desk taking notes and making corrections, though of course no one can know yet what he accepts."

Longfellow's true life was that of a scholar and a dreamer; everything else was a duty, however pleasurable or bountiful the experience might become in his gentle acceptation. He was seldom stimulated to external expression by others. Such excitement as he could express again was always self-excitement; anything external rendered him at once a listener and an observer. For this reason, it is peculiarly difficult to give any idea of his lovely presence and character to those who have not known him. He did not speak in epigrams. It could not be said of him,--

"His mouth he could not ope, But out there flew a trope."

Yet there was an exquisite tenderness and effluence from his presence which was more humanizing and elevating than the eloquence of many others.

One quotation from a letter to Charles Sumner is too characteristic to be omitted even in the slightest sketch of Longfellow. He writes: "You are hard at work; and G.o.d bless you in it. In every country the 'dangerous cla.s.ses' are those who do no work; for instance, the n.o.bility in Europe and the slaveholders here. It is evident that the world needs a new n.o.bility,--not of the gold medal and _sangre azul_ order; not of the blood that is blue because it stagnates, but of the red arterial blood that circulates, and has heart in it and life and labor."

Speaking one day of his own reminiscences, Longfellow said, that "however interesting such things were in conversation, he thought they seldom contained legitimate matter for book-making; and ----'s life of a poet, just then printed, was, he thought, peculiarly disagreeable chiefly because of the unjustifiable things related of him by others.

This strain of thought brought to his mind a call he once made with a letter of introduction, when a youth in Paris, upon Jules Janin. The servant said her master was at home, and he was ushered immediately into a small parlor, in one corner of which was a winding stairway leading into the room above. Here he waited a moment while the maid carried in his card, and then returned immediately to say he could go up. In the upper room sat Janin under the hands of a barber, his abundant locks shaken up in wild confusion, in spite of which he received his guest, quite undisturbed, as if it were a matter of course. There was no fire in the room; but the fireplace was heaped with letters and envelopes, and a trail of the same reached from his desk to the grate. After a brief visit Longfellow was about to withdraw, when Janin detained him, saying: 'What can I do for you in Paris? Whom would you like to see?'

"'I should like to know Madame George Sand.'

"'Unfortunately that is impossible! I have just quarreled with Madame Sand!'

"'Ah! then, Alexandra Dumas,--I should like to take him by the hand!'

"'I have quarreled with him also, but no matter! _Vous perdriez vos illusions.'_

"However, he invited me to dine the next day, and I had a singular experience; but I shall not soon forget the way in which he said, 'vous perdriez vos illusions.'

"When I arrived on the following day I found the company consisted of his wife and himself, a little red-haired man who was rather quiet and cynical, and myself. Janin was amusing and noisy, and carried the talk on swimmingly with much laughter. Presently he began to say hard things about women, when his wife looked up reproachfully and said, 'Deja, Jules!' During dinner a dramatic author arrived with his play, and Janin ordered him to be shown in. He treated the poor fellow brutally, who in turn bowed low to the great power. He did not even ask him to take a chair. Madame Janin did so, however, and kindly, too. The author supplicated the critic to attend the first appearance of his play. Janin would not promise to go, but put him off indefinitely, and presently the poor man went away. He tingled all over with indignation at the treatment the man received, but Janin looked over to his wife, saying, 'Well, my dear, I treated this one pretty well, didn't I?'

"'Better than sometimes, Jules,' she answered."

Altogether it was a strange scene to the young American observer.

"_July_, 1867.--Pa.s.sed the day at Nahant. As Longfellow sat on the piazza wrapped in his blue cloth cloak, he struck me for the first time as wearing a venerable aspect. Before dinner he gathered wild roses to adorn the table, and even gave a careful touch himself to the arrangement of the wines and fruits. He was in excellent spirits, full of wit and lively talk. Speaking of the use and misuse of words, he quoted Chateaubriand's mistake (afterwards corrected) in his translation of 'Paradise Lost,' when he rendered