Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Part 12

CAMBRIDGE, Sept. 25, 1846.

DEAR SIR,--In answer to your favor of the 18th inst. requesting my opinion on certain points connected with the Studies of the University, I beg leave to state;

I. In regard to the "advantages and disadvantages of the Elective System." In my own department I have always been strongly in favor of this system. I have always thought that the modern languages should be among the voluntary or elective studies and form no part of the required Academic course. As to the Latin and Greek I have many doubts; but incline rather to the old system, particularly if the fifth cla.s.s can be added to the present course; for we could then secure the advantages of both systems.

II. The cla.s.s examinations in my department are very slight and unsatisfactory. They serve however as a kind of Annual Report of what has been done in the department; and as there is nothing depending upon them, it does not seem to me a matter of very urgent necessity to have them rendered more thorough.

III. "The Fifth cla.s.s or New Department in the University" seems to me of the greatest importance, as it would enable us to carry forward the studies of each department much farther than at present, by means of Lectures, for which there is now hardly sufficient opportunity. Last year there were fifteen Resident Graduates. Why should not these have formed the Fifth Cla.s.s?

IV. In regard to the "practical working of any other of the changes made in our system during the last twenty years," I can hardly claim any distinct views. Many, perhaps most of them were made before I came to the University; so that I hardly know what is old and what is new.

I have made but a brief statement in answer to your enquiries, partly because writing is a painful process with me, and partly because many things here touched upon can be more clearly explained _vive voce_ than with the pen.

I remain, with great regard Faithfully Yours

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.{73}

It is a curious fact that more than half a century later, at a meeting of the American Modern Language a.s.sociation, held at the very inst.i.tution where this correspondence took place, it was President Charles William Eliot, son of the author of the letter just quoted, who recognized the immense advance made in this particular department as one of the most important steps in the progress of the University. His remarks were thus reported in the Boston "Herald" of December 27, 1901:--

"When the meeting opened yesterday afternoon President Eliot was present and graciously said a few words of welcome. He said that he knew of no body of modern learned men whom he would be so glad to welcome as the professors of language.

"'Here at Harvard,' he said, 'we have been pressing forward for many years toward the same object you have in view. I congratulate you upon the great progress made in the last thirty years. One of the most striking features of American education has been the rapid development of the study of languages. It has been more rapid at some of the other colleges than at Harvard. They started at nothing a shorter time ago.

[Laughter.]

"'You are to be congratulated upon the cohesion which exists among learned men in dealing with this important subject. The study of modern languages is beginning to connect itself with the life of the nation. It now bears a real connection to national life and interest. No great subject in educational thought ever obtained a firm hold that had not some modern connection with the day. I do not overlook the literary element in the study of modern languages, but you will have a stronger hold for the next twenty years than you have in the past, owing to this use of modern languages in daily life, incident to the industrial and commercial activity of the country.'"

It is always to be borne in mind that Longfellow's self-restrained and well-ordered temperament habitually checked him in the career of innovator. Both in public and private matters, it was his way to state his point of view and then await results. It is clear that his mental habit, his foreign experience, and the traditions of his immediate department predisposed him to favor the elective system in university training. This system, after temporary trial and abandonment, was now being brought forward once more and was destined this time to prevail.

Towards this success, the prosperity of the Modern Language Department formed a perpetual argument, because it was there that the reform was first introduced. The records of the Faculty at that period give very little information as to the att.i.tude of individual professors, and Longfellow may be viewed as having been for the most part a silent reformer. One finds, however, constant evidence in his diaries of the fact that his duties wore upon him. "I get very tired of the routine of this life." "This college work is like a great hand laid on all the strings of my lyre, stopping their vibrations." "How the days resemble each other and how sad it is to me that I cannot give them all to my poem." "I have fallen into a very unpoetic mood and cannot write." It must be remembered that his eyes were at this time very weak, that he suffered extremely from neuralgia, and that these entries were all made during the great fugitive slave excitement which agitated New England, and the political overturn in Ma.s.sachusetts which culminated in the election of the poet's most intimate friend, Sumner, to the United States Senate. He records the occurrence of his forty-fourth birthday, and soon after when he is stereotyping the "Golden Legend" he says: "I still work a good deal upon it," but also writes, only two days after, "Working hard with college cla.s.ses to have them ready for their examinations." A fortnight later he says: "Examination in my department; always to me a day of anguish and exhaustion." His correspondence is very large; visitors and dinner parties constantly increase. His mother dies suddenly, and he sits all night alone by her dead body; a sense of peace comes over him, as if there had been no shock or jar in nature, but a "harmonious close to a long life." Later he gets tired of summer rest at Nahant, which he calls "building up life with solid blocks of idleness;" but when two days later he goes back to Cambridge to resume his duties, he records: "I felt my neck bow and the pressure of the yoke." Soon after he says: "I find no time to write. I find more and more the little things of life shut out the great. Innumerable interruptions--letters of application for this and for that; endless importunities of foreigners for help here and help there--fret the day and consume it." He often records having half a dozen men to dine with him; he goes to the theatre, to lectures, concerts, and b.a.l.l.s, has no repose, and perhaps, as we have seen at Nahant, would not really enjoy it. It was under these conditions, however, that the "Golden Legend"

came into the world in November, 1851; and it was not until September 12, 1854, that its author was finally separated from the University. He was before that date happily at work on "Hiawatha."

{71 _Harvard College Papers_ [MS.], 2d ser. xiii. 363.}

{72 _Harvard College Papers_ [MS.], 2d ser. xiii. 13.}

{73 _Harvard College Papers_ [MSS.], 2d ser. xiv. 61.}

CHAPTER XVI

LITERARY LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE

Let us now return from the history of Longfellow's academic life to his normal pursuit, literature. It seemed a curious transition from the real and genuine sympathy for human wrong, as shown in the "Poems on Slavery," to the purely literary and historic quality of the "Spanish Student" (1843), a play never quite dramatic enough to be put on the stage, at least in English, though a German version was performed at the Ducal Court Theatre in Dessau, January 28, 1855. As literary work it was certainly well done; though taken in part from the tale of Cervantes "La Gitanilla," and handled before by Montalvan and by Solis in Spanish, and by Middleton in English, it yet was essentially Longfellow's own in treatment, though perhaps rather marred by taking inappropriately the motto from Robert Burns. He wrote of it to Samuel Ward in New York, December, 1840, calling it "something still longer which as yet no eye but mine has seen and which I wish to read to you first." He then adds, "At present, my dear friend, my soul is wrapped up in poetry. The scales fell from my eyes suddenly, and I beheld before me a beautiful landscape, with figures, which I have transferred to paper almost without an effort, and with a celerity of which I did not think myself capable. Since my return from Portland I am almost afraid to look at it, for fear its colors should have faded out. And this is the reason why I do not describe the work to you more particularly. I am not sure it is worth it. You shall yourself see and judge before long." He thus afterwards describes it to his father: "I have also written a much longer and more difficult poem, called 'The Spanish Student,'--a drama in five acts; on the success of which I rely with some self-complacency.

But this is a great secret, and must not go beyond the immediate family circle; as I do not intend to publish it until the glow of composition has pa.s.sed away, and I can look upon it coolly and critically. I will tell you more of this by and by."

Longfellow's work on "The Poets and Poetry of Europe" appeared in 1845, and was afterwards reprinted with a supplement in 1871. The original work included 776 pages,{74} the supplement adding 340 more. The supplement is in some respects better edited than the original, because it gives the names of the translators, and because he had some better translators to draw upon, especially Rossetti. It can be said fairly of the whole book that it is intrinsically one of the most attractive of a very unattractive cla.s.s, a book of which the compiler justly says that, in order to render the literary history of the various countries complete, "an author of no great note has sometimes been admitted, or a poem which a severer taste would have excluded." "The work is to be regarded," he adds, "as a collection, rather than as a selection, and in judging any author it must be borne in mind the translations do not always preserve the rhythm and melody of the original, but often resemble soldiers moving forward when the music has ceased and the time is marked only by the tap of the drum." It includes, in all, only ten languages, the Celtic and Slavonic being excluded, as well as the Turkish and Romaic, a thing which would now seem strange. But the editor's frank explanation of the fact, where he says "with these I am not acquainted," disarms criticism. This explanation implies that he was personally acquainted with the six Gothic languages of Northern Europe--Anglo-Saxon, Icelandish, Danish, Swedish, German, and Dutch--and the four Latin languages of the South of Europe--French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The mere work of compiling so large a volume in double columns of these ten languages was something formidable, and he had reason to be grateful to his friend Professor Felton, who, being a German student, as well as a Greek scholar, compiled for him all the biographical notes in the book. It is needless to say that the selection is as good as the case permitted or as the plan of the book allowed, and the volume has always maintained its place of importance in libraries.

Many of the translations were made expressly for it, especially in the supplement; among these being Platen's "Remorse," Reboul's "The Angel and Child," and Malherbe's "Consolation." It is to be remembered that Longfellow's standard of translation was very high and that he always maintained, according to Mrs. Fields, that Americans, French, and Germans had a greater natural gift for it than the English on account of the greater insularity of the latter's natures.{75} It is also to be noted that he sometimes failed to find material for translation where others found it, as, for instance, amid the endless beauty of the Greek Anthology, which he called "the most melancholy of books with an odor of dead garlands about it. Voices from the grave, cymbals of Bacchantes, songs of love, sighs, groans, prayers,--all mingled together. I never read a book that made me sadder."{76}

His fame at this time was widely established, yet a curious indication of the fact that he did not at once take even Cambridge by storm, as a poet, is in a letter from Professor Andrews Norton, father of the present Professor Charles E. Norton, to the Rev. W. H. Furness of Philadelphia. The latter had apparently applied to Mr. Norton for advice as to a desirable list of American authors from whom to make some literary selections, perhaps in connection with an annual then edited by him and called "The Diadem." Professor Norton, as one of the most cultivated Americans, might naturally be asked for some such counsel. In replying he sent Mr. Furness, under date of January 7, 1845, a list of fifty-four eligible authors, among whom Emerson stood last but one, while Longfellow was not included at all. He then appended a supplementary list of twenty-four minor authors, headed by Longfellow.{77} We have already seen Lowell, from a younger point of view, describing Longfellow, at about this time, as the head of a "clique," and we now find Andrews Norton, from an older point of view, a.s.signing him only the first place among authors of the second grade. It is curious to notice, in addition, that Hawthorne stood next to Longfellow in this subordinate roll.

Longfellow published two volumes of poetic selections, "The Waif" (1845) and "The Estray" (1846), the latter t.i.tle being originally planned as "Estrays in the Forest," and he records a visit to the college library, in apparent search for the origin of the phrase. His next volume of original poems, however, was "The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems,"

published December 23, 1845, the contents having already been partly printed in "Graham's Magazine," and most of them in the ill.u.s.trated edition of his poems published in Philadelphia. The theme of the volume appears to have been partly suggested by some words in a letter to Freiligrath which seem to make the leading poem, together with that called "Nuremberg," a portion of that projected series of travel-sketches which had haunted Longfellow ever since "Outre-Mer."

"The Norman Baron" was the result of a pa.s.sage from Thierry, sent him by an unknown correspondent. One poem was suggested by a pa.s.sage in Andersen's "Story of my Life," and one was written at Boppard on the Rhine. All the rest were distinctly American in character or origin.

Another poem, "To the Driving Cloud," the chief of the Omaha Indians, was his first effort at hexameters and prepared the way for "Evangeline." His translation of the "Children of the Lord's Supper" had also served by way of preparation; and he had happened upon a specimen in "Blackwood's Magazine" of the hexameter translation of the "Iliad"

which had impressed him very much. He even tried a pa.s.sage of "Evangeline" rendered into English pentameter verse, and thus satisfied himself that it was far less effective for his purpose than the measure finally adopted.

There is no doubt that the reading public at large has confirmed the opinion of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes when he says, "Of the longer poems of our chief singer, I should not hesitate to select 'Evangeline' as the masterpiece, and I think the general verdict of opinion would confirm my choice.... From the first line of the poem, from its first words, we read as we would float down a broad and placid river, murmuring softly against its banks, heaven over it, and the glory of the unspoiled wilderness all around." The words "This is the forest primeval" have become as familiar, he thinks, as the "Arma virumque cano" which opened Virgil's "aeneid," and he elsewhere calls the poem "the tranquil current of these br.i.m.m.i.n.g, slow-moving, soul-satisfying lines." The subject was first suggested to Longfellow by Hawthorne, who had heard it from his friend, the Rev. H. L. Conolly, and the outline of it will be found in "The American Note-Books" of Hawthorne, who disappointed Father Conolly by not using it himself. It was finished on Longfellow's fortieth birthday.

It was a striking ill.u.s.tration of the wide popularity of "Evangeline,"

that even the proper names introduced under guidance of his rhythmical ear spread to other countries and were taken up and preserved as treasures in themselves. Sumner writes from England to Longfellow that the Hon. Mrs. Norton, herself well known in literature, had read "Evangeline," not once only, but twenty times, and the scene on Lake Atchafalaya, where the two lovers pa.s.s each other unknowingly, so impressed her that she had a seal cut with the name upon it. Not long after this, Leopold, King of the Belgiums, repeated the same word to her and said that it was so suggestive of scenes in human life that he was about to have it cut on a seal, when she astonished him by showing him hers.

The best review of "Evangeline" ever written was probably the a.n.a.lysis made of it by that accomplished French traveller of half a century ago, Professor Philarete Chasles of the College de France, in his "Etudes sur la Litterature et les Murs des Anglo-Americains du XIX. Siecle,"

published in 1851. It is interesting to read it, and to recognize anew what has often been made manifest--the greater acuteness of the French mind than of the English, when discussing American themes. Writing at that early period, M. Chasles at once recognized, for instance, the peculiar quality of Emerson's genius. He describes Longfellow, in comparison, as what he calls a moonlight poet, having little pa.s.sion, but a calmness of att.i.tude which approaches majesty, and moreover a deep sensibility, making itself felt under a subdued rhythm. In short, his is a slow melody and a reflective emotion, both these being well suited to the sounds and shadows of our endless plains and our forests, which have no history. He is especially struck with the resemblance of the American poet to the Scandinavians, such as Tegner and Oehlenschlaeger. He notices even in Longfellow the Norse tendency to alliteration, and he quotes one of the Northern poems and then one of Longfellow's to show this a.n.a.logy. It is worth while to put these side by side. This is from Oehlenschlaeger:--

"_T_i_l_giv _t_vu_n_gne _T_rae_l_ af E_l_skov!

_At_ han dig _a_tter _A_s_t_saeld findet." ... etc.

The following is by Longfellow:--

"_F_uller of _f_ragrance, _th_an _th_ey And as heavy with sha_d_ows and night-_d_ews, _H_ung the _h_eart of the _m_aiden.

The cal_m_ and _m_agical _m_oonlight See_m_ed to inundate her soul."

It is curious to notice that Chasles makes the same criticism on "Evangeline" that Holmes made on Lowell's "Vision of Sir Launfal;"

namely, that there is in it a mixture of the artificial and the natural.

The result is, we may infer, that on the whole one still thinks of it as a work of art and does not--as, for instance, with Tolstoi's "Cossacks"--think of all the characters as if they lived in the very next street. Yet it is in its way so charming, he finds that although as he says, "There is no pa.s.sion in it," still there is a perpetual air of youth and innocence and tenderness. M. Chasles is also impressed as a Catholic with the poet's wide and liberal comprehension of the Christian ideas. It is not, he thinks, a masterpiece (_Il y a loin d'Evangeline a un chef-d'uvre_), but he points out, what time has so far vindicated, that it has qualities which guarantee to it something like immortality.

When we consider that Chasles wrote at a time when all our more substantial literature seemed to him to consist of uninteresting state histories and extensive collections of the correspondence of American presidents--a time when he could write sadly: "All America does not yet possess a humorist" (_Toute l'Amerique ne possede pas un humoriste_), one can place it to the credit of Longfellow that he had already won for himself some sort of literary standing in the presence of one Frenchman.

At the time of this complaint, it may be noticed that Mr. S. L. Clemens was a boy of fifteen. The usual European criticism at the present day is not that America produces so few humorists, but that she brings forth so many.

The work which came next from Longfellow's pen has that peculiar value to a biographer which comes from a distinct, unequivocal, low-water mark in the intellectual product with which he has to deal. This book, "Kavanagh," had the curious fate of bringing great disappointment to most of his friends and admirers, and yet of being praised by the two among his contemporaries personally most successful in fiction, Hawthorne and Howells. Now that the New England village life has proved such rich material in the hands of Mary Wilkins, Sarah Jewett, and Rowland Robinson, it is difficult to revert to "Kavanagh" (1849) without feeling that it is from beginning to end a piece of purely academic literature without a type of character, or an incident--one might almost say without a single phrase--that gives quite the flavor of real life.

Neither the joys nor the griefs really reach the reader's heart for one moment. All the characters use essentially the same dialect, and every sentence is duly supplied with its anecdote or ill.u.s.tration, each one of which is essentially bookish at last. It has been well said of it that it is an attempt to look at rural society as Jean Paul would have looked at it. Indeed, we find Longfellow reading aloud from the "Campaner Thal"

while actually at work on "Kavanagh," and he calls the latter in his diary "a romance."{78} When we consider how remote Jean Paul seems from the present daily life of Germany, one feels the utter inappropriateness of his transplantation to New England. Yet Emerson read the book "with great contentment," and p.r.o.nounced it "the best sketch we have seen in the direction of the American novel," and discloses at the end the real charm he found or fancied by attributing to it "elegance." Hawthorne, warm with early friendship, p.r.o.nounces it "a most precious and rare book, as fragrant as a bunch of flowers and as simple as one flower....

n.o.body but yourself would dare to write so quiet a book, nor could any other succeed in it. It is entirely original, a book by itself, a true work of genius, if ever there was one." Nothing, I think, so well shows us the true limitations of American literature at that period as these curious phrases. It is fair also to recognize that Mr. W. D. Howells, writing nearly twenty years later, says with almost equal exuberance, speaking of "Kavanagh," "It seems to us as yet quite unapproached by the mult.i.tude of New England romances that have followed it in a certain delicate truthfulness, as it is likely to remain unsurpa.s.sed in its light humor and pensive grace."{79}

The period following the publication of "Evangeline" seemed a more indeterminate and unsettled time than was usual with Longfellow. He began a dramatic romance of the age of Louis XIV., but did not persist in it, and apart from the story of "Kavanagh" did no extended work. He continued to publish scattered poems, and in two years (1850) there appeared another volume called "The Seaside and the Fireside" in which the longest contribution and the most finished--perhaps the most complete and artistic which he ever wrote--was called "The Building of the Ship." To those who remember the unequalled voice and dramatic power of Mrs. Kemble, it is easy to imagine the enthusiasm with which her reading of this poem was received by an audience of three thousand, and none the less because at that troubled time the concluding appeal to the Union had a distinct bearing on the conflicts of the time. For the rest of the volume, it included the strong and lyric verses called "Seaweed,"

which were at the time criticised by many, though unreasonably, as rugged and boisterous; another poem of dramatic power, "Sir Humphrey Gilbert;" and one of the most delicately imaginative and musical among all he ever wrote, "The Fire of Drift-Wood," the scene of which was the Devereux Farm at Marblehead. There were touching poems of the fireside, especially that ent.i.tled "Resignation," written in 1848 after the death of his little daughter f.a.n.n.y, and one called "The Open Window." Looking back from this, his fourth volume of short poems, it must be owned that he had singularly succeeded in providing against any diminution of power or real monotony. Nevertheless his next effort was destined to be on a wider scale.

{74 Mistakenly described by the Rev. Samuel Longfellow as "nearly four hundred pages." _Life_, ii. 3.}

{75 _Life_, iii. 370.}

{76 _Life_, iii. 94.}