Harper's Round Table, September 17, 1895 Part 6

"Yes, truthfully all. He said he wouldn't stay any longer 'cause he was salted, or something."

"Salted!"

"Yes, or 'sulted, or some word like that."

"_In_sulted, do you mean?"

"Yes, I guess so. And now where's the necklace?"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

STORIES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.

BY HENRIETTA CHRISTIAN WRIGHT.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative L]

Late on almost any summer day early in this century a blue-eyed, brown-haired lad might have been seen lying under a great apple-tree in the garden of an old house in Portland, forgetful of everything else in the world save the book he was reading.

The boy was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and the book might have been _Robinson Crusoe_, _The Arabian Nights_, _Don Quixote_, all of which were favorites; or possibly it was Irving's _Sketch Book_, of which he was so fond that even the covers delighted him, and whose charm remained unbroken throughout life. Years afterward, when, as a famous man of letters, he was called upon to pay his tribute to the memory of Irving, he could think of no more tender praise than to speak with grateful affection of the book which had so fascinated him as a boy, and whose pages still led him back into the "haunted chamber of youth."

It was during Longfellow's childhood that the British ship _Boxer_ was captured by the _Enterprise_ in the famous sea-fight of the war of 1812; the two captains who had fallen in the battle were buried side by side in the cemetery at Portland, and the whole town came together to do honor to the dead commanders. Long years afterward Longfellow speaks of this incident in his poem ent.i.tled "My Lost Youth," and recalls the sounds of the cannon booming over the waters, and the solemn stillness that followed the news of the victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SPANISH SAILORS WITH BEARDED LIPS.]

It is in this same poem that we have a picture of the Portland of his early life, and are given glimpses of the black wet wharves where were the ships moored, and the Spanish sailors, "with bearded lips," who seemed as much a mystery to the boy as the ships themselves. These came and went across the sea, always watched and waited for with greatest interest by the children who loved the excitement of the unloading and loading, the shouts of the surveyors who were measuring the contents of cask and hogshead, the songs of the negroes working the pulleys, the jolly good nature of the seamen strolling through the streets, and, above all, the sight of the strange treasures that came from time to time into one home or another--bits of coral, beautiful sea-sh.e.l.ls, birds of resplendent plumage, foreign coins, which looked odd even in Portland, where all the money nearly was Spanish, and the hundred and one things dear to the hearts of sailors and children. It was during his school-boy days that Longfellow published his first bit of verse. It was inspired by hearing the story of a famous fight which took place on the sh.o.r.es of a small lake called Lovell's Pond, between the two Lovells and the Indians. Longfellow was deeply impressed by this story, and threw his feeling of admiration into four stanzas, which he carried with a beating heart down to the letter-box of the _Portland Gazette_, taking an opportunity to slip the ma.n.u.script in when no one was looking.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HIS FIRST POEM.]

The next morning Longfellow watched his father unfold the paper, read it, slowly before the fire, and finally leave the room, when the sheet was grasped by the boy and his sister, who shared his confidence, and hastily scanned. The poem was there in the "poets' corner" of the _Gazette_, and Longfellow was so filled with exultant joy that he spent the greater part of the remainder of the day in reading and rereading the verses, becoming convinced toward evening that they promised remarkable merit. His happiness was dimmed, however, a few hours later, when the father of a boy friend, with whom he was pa.s.sing the evening, p.r.o.nounced the verses stiff and entirely lacking in originality.

Longfellow slipped away as soon as possible to nurse his wounded feelings in his own room, and instead of letting the incident discourage him, began with renewed vigor to write verses, epigrams, essays, and tragedies, which he produced in a literary partnership with one of his boy friends. None of these effusions had any literary value, being no better than any boy of thirteen or fourteen would produce if he turned his attention to literature instead of to bat and ball.

Longfellow remained in Portland until his sixteenth year, when he went to Bowdoin College, entering the Soph.o.m.ore Cla.s.s. Here he remained for three years, gradually coining a name for scholarship and character that was second to none. However much he enjoyed college sports and fun, he never distinguished himself in any act that called for even the mildest censure from the college authorities. The love of order, the instinct of obedience to proper authority, and his naturally quiet tastes kept him from any transgression of the rules that seemed irksome to those of more excitable natures and less carefully trained. Through his entire college career Longfellow kept the respect and affection of many of the students whose natural tendencies led them often into mischief, but who none the less highly esteemed the graver qualities of their friend.

Immediately after his graduation he was offered the chair of modern languages in Bowdoin, with permission from the college authorities to visit Europe for the purpose of fitting himself for his new duties.

Accordingly at the age of nineteen Longfellow sailed for France, visiting also Spain, Italy, and Germany, meeting with adventure everywhere, and storing up memory after memory that came back in after-years to serve some purpose of his art. We have thus preserved in his works the impressions that Europe then made upon a young American who had come there to supplement his education by studying at the universities, and whose mind was alive to all the culture denied it in his own land. The grandeur of the world of antique art preserved in the museums, the works of living artists whose names were famous, the magnificence of the cathedrals and palaces, the thousand memories cl.u.s.tered around the old historic towns and cities, the picturesque details of peasant life, the gay student life which was so unlike that of the American youth that it seemed a different world, all struck Longfellow with a new and pleasant feeling of richness, as if the world had suddenly become wider, and full of stores of unsuspected wealth. One of Longfellow's great pleasures while on this trip was the meeting with Irving in Spain, where the latter was busy with his _Life of Columbus_.

The vividness of his impressions of European life was seen upon all his work, and was perhaps the first reflection of the old poetic European influence that began to be felt in much American poetry, where the charm of old peasant love songs and roundelays, heard for centuries among the lower cla.s.ses of Spain, France, and Italy, was wrought into translation and transcription so perfect and spirited that they may almost rank with original work.

Longfellow returned to America after three years' absence, and at once began his duties at Bowdoin College, remaining three years, when he left to take a Professorship at Harvard, which he had accepted with the understanding that he was to spend a year and a half abroad before commencing his work. Two years after his return he published his first volume of poems, and his romance _Hyperion_. In _Hyperion_, Longfellow relates some of the experiences of his own travels under the guise of the hero, who wanders through Europe, and the book is full of the same biographical charm that belongs to _Outre Mer_. Here the student life of the German youths, the songs they sang, the books they read, and even their favorite foods are noted, while the many translations of German poetry opened a new field of delight to American readers. It was well received by the public, who appreciated its fine poetic fancy and its wealth of serious thought. But it was not by his prose that Longfellow touched the deepest sympathies of his readers, and the publication of his first volume of poetry a few months later showed his real position in the world of American letters. This little book, which was issued under the t.i.tle _Voices of the Night_, consisted of the poems that had so far appeared in the various magazines and papers, a few poems written in his college days, and some translations from the French, German, and Spanish poets. In this volume occurs some of Longfellow's choicest work, the gem of the book being the celebrated "Psalm of Life."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LONGFELLOW'S HOME AT CAMBRIDGE.]

It is from this point that Longfellow goes onward, always as the favorite poet of the American people. The "Psalm of Life" had been published previously in a magazine without the author's name, and it had no sooner been read than it seemed to find its way into every heart.

Ministers read it to their congregations all over the country, and it was sung as a hymn in many churches. It was copied in almost every newspaper in the United states, it was recited by every school-child, and years afterwards one of America's greatest men said that in one of the darkest hours of his life he had been cheered and uplifted by its n.o.ble spirit. To young and old alike it brought its message, and its voice was recognized as that of a true leader. The author of _Outre Mer_ and _Hyperion_ had well touched hands with millions of his brothers and sisters, and the clasp was never unloosed while he lived.

In the same collection occurs "The Footsteps of Angels," another well-beloved poem, and one in which the spirit of home life is made the inspiration.

Longfellow's poems now followed one another in rapid succession, appearing generally at first in some magazine, and afterward in book form in various collections under different t.i.tles.

His greatest contributions to American literature are his "Evangeline"

and "Hiawatha," and a score of shorter poems, which in themselves would give the author a high place in any literature.

In "Evangeline" Longfellow took for his theme the story of the destruction of the Acadian villages in Nova Scotia by the English during the French and Indian war. Longfellow has made of this sad story a wondrously beautiful tale that reads like an old legend of Grecian Arcadia.

The description of the great primeval forests stretching down to the sea; of the villages and farms scattered over the land as unprotected as the nests of the meadow-lark; of the sowing and harvesting of the peasant folks, with their fetes and church-going, their weddings and festivals; and the pathetic search of Evangeline for her lost lover Gabriel among the plains of Louisiana--all show Longfellow in his finest mood as a poet whom the sorrows of mankind touched always with reverent pity, as well as a writer of n.o.ble verse.

Everywhere that the English language is read, "Evangeline" has pa.s.sed as the most beautiful folk-story that America has produced: and the French Canadians, the far-away brothers of the Acadians, have included Longfellow among their national poets. Among them "Evangeline" is known by heart, and the cases are not rare where the people have learned English expressly for the purpose of reading Longfellow's poem in the original, a wonderful tribute to the poet who could thus touch to music one of the saddest memories of their race.

In "Hiawatha" Longfellow gave to the Indian the place in poetry that had been given him by Cooper in prose.

"Hiawatha" is a poem of the forests and of the dark-skinned race who dwelt therein, who were learned only in forest-lore, and lived as near to nature's heart as the fauns and satyrs of old. Into this legend Longfellow has put all the poetry of the Indians' nature, and has made his hero, Hiawatha, a n.o.ble creation, that compares favorably with the King Arthur of the old British romances. From first to last Hiawatha moves among the people a real leader, showing them how to clear their forests, to plant grain, to make for themselves clothing of embroidered and painted skins, to improve their fishing-grounds, and to live at peace with their neighbors. From the time when he was a little child, and his grandmother told him all the fairy-tales of nature, up to the day when, like Arthur, he pa.s.sed mysteriously through the gates of the sunset, all his hope and joy and work were for his people. He is a creature that could only have been born from a mind as pure and poetic as that of Longfellow. All the scenes and images of the poem are so true to nature that they seem like very breaths from the forests. We move with Hiawatha through the dewy birchen aisles, learn with him the language of the nimble squirrel and of the wise beaver and mighty bear, watch him build his famous canoe, and spend hours with him fishing in the waters of the great inland sea, bordered by the great pictured rocks painted by nature itself. Longfellow's first idea of the poem was suggested, it is said, by his hearing a Harvard student recite some Indian tales. Searching among the various books that treated of the American Indians, he found many legends and incidents that preserved fairly well the traditional history of the Indian race, and grouping these around one central figure, and filling in the gaps with poetic descriptions of the forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, and plains which made up the abode of these picturesque people, he thus built up the entire poem. The metre used is that in which the "Kalevala Thean," the national epic of the Finn, is written, and the Finnish hero Wainamoinen, in his gift of song and his brave adventures, is not unlike the great Hiawatha.

Among Longfellow's other long poems are "The Spanish Student," a dramatic poem founded upon a Spanish romance; "The Divine Tragedy" and "The Golden Legend," founded upon the life of Christ; "The Courtship of Miles Standish," a tale of Puritan love-making in the time of the early settlers; and "Tales of a Wayside Inn," which are a series of poems of adventure supposed to be related by the guests at an inn.

But it is with such poems as "Evangeline" and "Hiawatha," and the shorter famous poems like the "Psalm of Life," "Excelsior," "The Wreck of the _Hesperus_," "The Building of the Ship," "The Footsteps of Angels," that his claim as the favorite poet of America has its foundation. "The Building of the Ship" was never read during the struggle of the civil war without raising the audience to a pa.s.sion of enthusiasm; and so in each of these shorter poems Longfellow touched with wondrous sympathy the hearts of his readers. Throughout the land he was received as the poet of the home and heart: the sweet singer to whom the fireside and family gave ever sacred and beautiful meanings.

Some poems on slavery, a prose tale called "Kavanajh," and a translation of the "Divine Comedy" of Dante, must also be included among Longfellow's work; but these have never reached the success attained by his more popular poems, which are known by heart by millions.

Longfellow died in Cambridge in 1882, in the same month in which was written his last poem, "The Bells of San Blas," which concludes with these words,

"It is daybreak everywhere."

JOHN CABOT.

Hickety, pickety, John Cabot Longed to discover a brand-new spot.

He found Cape Breton, and, well content.

As fast as the billows would take him, he went Back to his home with a very high head, And unto King Henry the Seventh he said, "I have found China, that empire old.

Give me a garment all trimmed with gold."

Hickety, pickety, John Cabot, Garments and t.i.tles and honors he got.

And he said to his barber one summer day, "I have an island to give away, An island in China, a very nice spot, I hope you will like it," quoth John Cabot.

Hickety, pickety, bless my heart, To own an island is very smart.

"To own an island is great indeed,"

The barber he said, "and a t.i.tle I'll need.

And I'll wear a mantle all trimmed with lace, And never again will I shave a face."

But alas for the barber, and poor John too, Their t.i.tles and honors and airs fell through.

It was only a corner of Canada, not The Chinese Empire which John Cabot Had found in 1497 And unto his barber so freely had given.

So then this poor barber of John Cabot Back to his shaving went trit-ty-te-trot.