Chapter II: Part 2

"_December_ 14th.--Went to pass 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 passages; 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 spyglass. 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 God bless you in it. In every country the 'dangerous classes' are those who do no work; for instance, the nobility in Europe and the slaveholders here. It is evident that the world needs a new nobility,--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, 'Déjà, 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.--Passed 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

"'Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God,'

as

"'Le ruisseau de Siloa qui coulait rapidement.'"

In talking about natural differences in character and temperament, he said of his own children that he agreed with one of the old English divines who said, "Happy is that household wherein Martha still reproves Mary!"

In February, 1868, it was decided that Longfellow should go to Europe with his family. He said that the first time he went abroad it was to see places alone and not persons; the second time he saw a few persons, and so pleasantly combined the two; he thought once that on a third visit he should prefer to see persons only; but all that was changed now. He had returned to the feeling of his youth. He was eager to seek out quiet places and wayside nooks, where he might rest in retirement and enjoy the consecrated memorials of Europe undisturbed.

The following year found him again in Cambridge, refreshed by his absence. The diary continues: "He has been trying to further the idea of buying some of the lowlands in Cambridge for the colleges. If this can be done, it will save much future annoyance to the inhabitants from wretched hovels and bad odors, beside holding the land for a beautiful possession forever. He has given a good deal of money himself. This might be called 'his latest work.'"

"_January_, 1870.--Longfellow and Bayard Taylor came to dine. Longfellow talked of translators and translating. He advanced the idea that the English, from the insularity of their character, were incapable of making a perfect translation. Americans, French, and Germans, he said, have much larger adaptability to and sympathy in the thought of others. He would not hear Chapman's Homer or anything else quoted on the other side, but was zealous in enforcing this argument. He anticipates much from Taylor's version of 'Faust.' All this was strikingly interesting, as showing how his imagination wrought with him, because he was arguing from his own theory of the capacity of the races and in the face of his knowledge of the best actual translations existing to-day, the result of the scholarship of England.

"Longfellow speaks of difficulty in sleeping. In his college days and later he had the habit of studying until midnight and rising at six in the morning, finding his way as soon as possible to his books. Possibly this habit still prevents him from getting sufficient rest. However light may be the literature in which he indulges before going to bed, some chance thought may strike him as he goes up the stairs with the bedroom candle in his hand which will preclude all possibility of sleep until long after midnight.

"His account of Sainte-Beuve during his last visit to Europe was an odd little drama. He had grown excessively fat, and could scarcely move. He did not attempt to rise from his chair as Longfellow entered, but motioned him to a seat by his side. Talking of Victor Hugo and Lamartine, 'Take them for all in all, which do you prefer?' asked Longfellow.

"'Charlatan pour charlatan, je crois que je préfère Monsieur de Lamartine,' was the reply.

"Longfellow amused me by making two epigrams:--

"'What is autobiography?
It is what a biography ought to be.'

"And again:--

"'When you ask one friend to dine,
Give him your best wine!
When you ask two,
The second best will do!'

"He brought in with him two poems translated from Platen's 'Night Songs.' They are very beautiful.

"'What dusky splendors of song there are in King Alfred's new volume,' he said. 'It is always a delight to get anything new from him. His "Holy Grail" and Lowell's "Cathedral" are enough for a holiday, and make this one notable.'"

When Longfellow talked freely as at this dinner, it was difficult to remember that he was not really a talker. The natural reserve of his nature made it sometimes impossible for him to express himself in ordinary intercourse. He never truly made a confidant of anybody except his Muse.

"I never thought," he wrote about this time, "that I should come back to this kind of work." He was busying himself with collecting and editing "The Poems of Places." "It transports me to my happiest years, and the contrast is too painful to think of." And again in calmer mood: "The 'ruler of the inverted year' (whatever that may mean) has, you perceive, returned again, like a Bourbon from banishment, and is having it all his own way, and it is not a pleasant way. Very well, one can sit by the fire and read, and hear the wind roar in the chimney, and write to one's friends, and sign one's self 'yours faithfully,' or as in the present instance, 'yours always.'"

His sympathetic nature was ever ready to share and further the gayety of others. He wrote one evening:--

"I have been kept at home by a little dancing-party to-night.... I write this arrayed in my dress-coat with a rose in my buttonhole, a circumstance, I think, worth mentioning. It reminds me of Buffon, who used to array himself in his full dress for writing 'Natural History.' Why should we not always do it when we write letters? We should, no doubt, be more courtly and polite, and perhaps say handsome things to each other. It was said of Villemain that when he spoke to a lady he seemed to be presenting her a bouquet. Allow me to present you this postscript in the same polite manner, to make good my theory of the rose in the buttonhole."

How delightful it is to catch the intoxication of the little festival in this way. In his endeavor to further the gayeties of his children he had received a reflected light and life which his love for them had helped to create.

"_December_ 14, 1870.--Taylor's 'Faust' is finished, and Longfellow is coming with other friends to dinner to celebrate the ending of the work....

"A statuette of Goethe was on the table. Longfellow said Goethe never liked the statue of himself by Rauch, from which this copy was made. He preferred above all others a bust of himself by a Swiss sculptor, a copy of which Taylor owns. He could never understand, he continued, the story of that unpleasant interview between Napoleon and Goethe. Eckermann says Goethe liked it, but Longfellow thought the emperor's manner of address had a touch of insolence in it. The haunts of Goethe in Weimar were pleasantly recalled by both Longfellow and Taylor, to whom they were familiar; also that strange portrait of him taken standing at a window, and looking out over Rome, in which nothing but his back can be seen.

"I find it impossible to recall what Longfellow said, but he scintillated all the evening. It was an occasion such as he loved best. His _jeux d'esprit_ flew rapidly right and left, often setting the table in a roar of laughter, a most unusual thing with him."

There was evidently no such pleasure to Longfellow as that of doing kindnesses. One of many notes bearing on such subjects belongs to this year, and begins:--

"A thousand thanks for your note and its inclosure. There goes a gleam of sunshine into a dark house, which is always pleasant to think of. I have not yet got the senator's sunbeam to add to it; but as soon as I do, both shall go shining on their way."

"_January_, 1871.--Dined at Longfellow's, and afterwards went upstairs to see an interesting collection of East Indian curiosities. Passing through his dressing-room, I was struck with the likeness of his private rooms to those of a German student or professor; a Goethean aspect of simplicity and space everywhere, with books put in the nooks and corners and all over the walls. It is surely a most attractive house!"

Again I find a record of a dinner at Cambridge: "The day was springlike, and the air full of the odors of fresh blossoms. As we came down over the picturesque old staircase, he was standing with a group of gentlemen near by, and I heard him say aloud unconsciously, in a way peculiar to himself, 'Ah, now we shall see the ladies come downstairs!' Nothing escapes his keen observation--as delicate as it is keen."

And in the same vein the journal rambles on:--

"_Friday._--Longfellow came into luncheon at one o'clock. He was looking very well;... his beautiful eyes fairly shone. He had been at Manchester-by-the-Sea the day before to dine with the Curtises. Their truly romantic and lovely place had left a pleasant picture in his mind. Coming away by the train, he passed in Chelsea a new soldiers' monument which suggested an epigram to him that he said, laughingly, would suit any of the thousand of such monuments to be seen about the country. He began somewhat in this style:--

"'The soldier asked for bread,
But they waited till he was dead,
And gave him a stone instead,
Sixty and one feet high!'

"We all returned to Cambridge together, and, being early for our own appointment elsewhere, he carried us into his library and read aloud

'The Marriage of Lady Wentworth.' E----, with pretty girlish ways and eyes like his own, had let us into the old mansion by the side door, and then lingered to ask if she might be allowed to stay and hear the reading too. He, consenting, laughingly, lighted a cigar and soon began. His voice in reading was sweet and melodious, and it was touched with tremulousness, although this was an easier poem to read aloud than many others, being strictly narrative. It is full of New England life and is a beautiful addition to his works. He has a fancy for making a volume, or getting some one else to do it, of his favorite ghost stories, 'The Flying Dutchman,' 'Peter Rugg,' and a few others."

On another occasion the record says:--

"Passed the evening at Longfellow's. As we lifted the latch and entered the hall door, we saw him reading an old book by his study lamp. It was the 'Chansons d'Espagne,' which he had just purchased at what he called the massacre of the poets; in other words, at the sale that day of the library of William H. Prescott. He was rather melancholy, he said: first, on account of the sacrifice and separation of that fine library; also because he is doubtful about his new poem, the one on the life of our Saviour. He says he has never before felt so cast down.

"What an orderly man he is! Well-ordered, I should have written. Diary, accounts, scraps, books,--everything where he can put his hand upon it in a moment."

"_December_, 1871.--Saturday Mr. Longfellow came in town and went with us to hear twelve hundred school children sing a welcome to the Russian Grand Duke in the Music Hall. It was a fine sight, and Dr. Holmes's hymn, written for the occasion, was noble and inspiring. Just before the Grand Duke came in I saw a smile creep over Longfellow's face. 'I can never get over the ludicrousness of it,' he said. 'All this array and fuss over one man!' He came home with us afterwards, and lingered awhile by the fire. He talked of Russian literature,-- its modernness, and said he had sent us a delightful novel by Tourguéneff, 'Liza,' in which we should find charming and vivid glimpses of landscape and life like those seen from a carriage window. We left him alone in the library for a while, and returning found him amusing himself over the 'Ingoldsby Legends.' He was reading the 'Coronation of Victoria,' and laughing over Count Froganoff, who could not get 'prog enough,' and was 'found eating underneath the stairs.' He wants to have a dinner for Bayard Taylor, whose coming is always the signal for a series of small festivities. His own 'Divine Tragedy' is just out, and everybody speaks of its simplicity and beauty."

"_April._--In the evening Longfellow came in town for the purpose of hearing a German gentleman read an original poem, and he persuaded me to go with him. The reader twisted his face up into frightful knots, and delivered his poem with vast apparent satisfaction to himself if not to his audience. It was fortunate on the whole that the production was in a foreign tongue, because it gave us the occupation, at least, of trying to understand the words,--the poem itself possessing not the remotest interest for either of us. It was in the old sentimental German style familiar to the readers of that literature. Longfellow amused me as we walked home by imitating the sing-song voice we had been following all the evening. He also recited in the original that beautiful little poem by Platen, 'In der Nacht, in der Nacht,' in a most delightful manner. 'Ah,' he said, 'to translate a poem properly it must be done into the metre of the original, and Bryant's "Homer," fine as it is, has this great fault, that it does not give the music of the poem itself.' He came in and took a cigar before walking home over the bridge alone....

"Emerson asked Longfellow at dinner about his last visit to England, of Ruskin and other celebrities. Longfellow is always reticent upon such subjects, but he was eager to tell us how very much he had enjoyed Mr. Ruskin. He said it was one of the most surprising things in the world to see the quiet, gentlemanly way in which Ruskin gave vent to his extreme opinions. It seems to be no effort to him, but as if it were a matter of course that every one should give expression to the faith that is in him in the same unvarnished way as he does himself, not looking for agreement, but for conversation and discussion. 'It is strange,' Ruskin said, 'being considered so much out of harmony with America as I am, that the two Americans I have known and loved best, you and Norton, should give me such a feeling of friendship and repose.' Longfellow then spoke of Mrs. Matthew Arnold, whom he liked very much,--thought her, as he said, 'a most lovely person.' Also of the 'beautiful Lady Herbert,' as one of the most delightful of women....

"Longfellow came in to an early dinner to meet Mr. Joseph Jefferson, Mr. William Warren, and Dr. Holmes. He said he felt like one on a journey. He had left home early in the morning, had been sight-seeing in Boston all day, was to dine and go to the theatre with us afterwards. The talk naturally turned upon the stage. Longfellow said he thought Mr. Charles Mathews was entirely unjust in his criticisms upon Mr. Forrest's King Lear. He considered Mr. Forrest's rendering of the part as very fine and close to nature. He could not understand why Mr. Mathews should underrate it as he did. Longfellow showed us a book given him by Charles Sumner. In it was an old engraving (from a painting by Giulio Clovio) of the moon, in which Dante is walking with his companion. He said it was a most impressive picture to him. He knew it in the original; also there is a very good copy in the Cambridge Library among the copies of illuminated manuscripts."

There is a little note belonging to this period full of poetic feeling and giving more than a hint at the wearifulness of interrupting visitors:--

"I send you the pleasant volume I promised you yesterday. It is a book for summer moods by the seaside, but will not be out of place on a winter night by the fireside.... You will find an allusion to the 'blue borage flowers' that flavor the claret-cup. I know where grows another kind of bore-age that embitters the goblet of life. I can spare you some of this herb, if you have room for it in your garden or your garret. It is warranted to destroy all peace of mind, and finally to produce softening of the brain and insanity.

"'Better juice of vine
Than berry wine!
Fire! fire! steel, oh, steel!
Fire! fire! steel and fire!'"

The following, written in the spring of the same year, gives a hint of what a festival season it was to him while the lilacs which surround his house were in bloom:--

"Here is the poem, copied for you by your humble scribe. I found it impossible to crowd it into a page of note paper. Come any pleasant morning, as soon after breakfast or before as you like, and we will go on with the 'Michael Angelical' manuscript. I shall not be likely to go to town while the lilacs are in bloom."

The rambling diary continues: "To-day Longfellow sent us half a dozen bottles of wine, and after them came a note saying he had sent them off without finding time to label them. 'They are wine of Avignon,' he added, 'and should bear this inscription from Redi:--

"'Benedetto
Quel claretto
Che si spilla in Avignone.'"

About this period Longfellow invited an old friend, who had fallen into extreme helplessness from ill health, to come and make him a visit. It was a great comfort to his friend, a scholar like himself, "to nurse the dwindling faculty of joy" in such companionship, and he lingered many weeks in the sunshine of the old house. Longfellow's patience and devoted care for this friend of his youth was a signal example of what a true and constant heart may do unconsciously, in giving expression and recognition to the bond of a sincere friendship. Long after his friend was unable to rise from his chair without assistance or go unaccompanied to his bedroom, Longfellow followed the lightest unexpressed wish with his sympathetic vision and performed the smallest offices unbidden. "Longfellow, will you turn down my coat collar?" I have heard him say in a plaintive way, and it was a beautiful lesson to see the quick and cheerful response which would follow many a like suggestion.

In referring to this trait of his character, I find among the notes made by Mr. Fields on Longfellow: "One of the most occupied of all our literary men and scholars, he yet finds time for the small courtesies of existence, those minor attentions that are so often neglected. One day, seeing him employed in cutting something from a newspaper, I asked him what he was about. 'Oh,' said he, 'here is a little paragraph speaking kindly of our poor old friend Blank; you know he seldom gets a word of praise, poor fellow, nowadays; and thinking he might not chance to see this paper, I am snipping out the paragraph to mail to him this afternoon. I know that even these few lines of recognition will make him happy for hours, and I could not bear to think he might perhaps miss seeing these pleasant words so kindly expressed.'"

"_May Day_, 1876.--Longfellow dined with us. He said during the dinner, when we heard a blast of wintry wind howling outside, 'This is May day enough; it does not matter to us how cold it is outside.' He was inclined to be silent, for there were other and brilliant talkers at the table, one of whom said to him in a pause of the conversation, 'Longfellow, tell us about yourself; you never talk about yourself.' 'No,' said Longfellow gently, 'I believe I never do.' 'And yet,' continued the first speaker eagerly, 'you confessed to me once'--'No,' said Longfellow, laughing, 'I think I never did.'"

And here is a tiny note of compliment, graceful as a poet's note should be:--

"I have just received your charming gift, your note and the stately lilies; but fear you may have gone from home before my thanks can reach you.

"How beautiful they are, these lilies of the field; and how like American women! Not because 'they neither toil nor spin,' but because they are elegant and 'born in the purple.'"

There is a brief record in 1879 of a visit to us in Manchester-by-the- Sea. Just before he left he said, "After I am gone to-day, I want you to read Schiller's poem of the 'Ring of Polycrates,' if you do not recall it too distinctly. You will know then how I feel about my visit." He repeated also some English hexameters he had essayed from the first book of the Iliad. He believes the work may be still more perfectly done than has ever yet been achieved. We drove to Gloucester wrapped in a warm sea fog. His enjoyment of the green woods and the sea breeze was delightful to watch. "Ay me! ay me! woods may decay," but who can dare believe such life shall cease from the fair world!

Seeing the Portland steamer pass one night, a speck on the horizon, bearing as he knew his daughter and her husband, he watched it long, then said, "Think of a part of yourself being on that moving speck."

The Sunday following that visit he wrote from Portland:-- "Church bells are ringing; clatter of church-going feet on the pavement; boys crying 'Boston Herald;' voices of passing men and women: these are the sounds that come to me at this upper window, looking down into the street.

"I contrast it all with last Sunday's silence at Manchester-by-the- Sea, and remember my delightful visit there. Then comes the thought of the moonlight and the music and Shelley's verses,--

"'As the moon's soft splendor
O'er the faint, cold starlight of heaven
Is thrown;'

and so on

"'Of some world far from ours,
Where moonlight and music and feeling
Are one.'

"How beautiful this song would sound if set to music by Mrs. Bell and chanted by her in the twilight."

Later he enclosed the song, which is as follows, and I venture to reprint it because it is seldom found among Shelley's poems:--

AN ARIETTE FOR MUSIC.

_To a lady singing to her accompaniment on the guitar._

As the moon's soft splendor
O'er the faint, cold starlight of heaven
Is thrown,
So thy voice most tender
To the strings without soul has given.
Its own.

The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night;
No leaf will be shaken,
Whilst the dews of thy melody scatter
Delight.

Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with thy sweet voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.

He added:--

"I find the song in my scrapbook, and send it to save you the trouble of hunting for it.

"H. W. L."

It was first reprinted in "The Waif," a thin volume of selections published by Longfellow many years ago. "The Waif" and "The Estray" preserved many a lovely poem from oblivion, till it should find its place at length among its fellows.

Already in 1875 we find Longfellow at work upon his latest collection of poems, which he called "Poems of Places." It was a much more laborious and unrewarding occupation than he had intended, and he was sometimes weary of his self-imposed task. He wrote at this period:-- No politician ever sought for Places with half the zeal that I do. Friend and Foe alike have to give Place to

Yours truly, H. W. L.

Again he says:--

"What evil demon moved me to make this collection of 'Poems of Places'? Could I have foreseen the time it would take, and the worry and annoyance it would bring with it, I never would have undertaken it. The worst of it is, I have to write pieces now and then to fill up gaps."

More and more his old friends grew dear to him as the years passed and "the goddess Neuralgia," as he called his malady, kept him chiefly at home. He wrote in 1877:--

"When are you coming back from your Cottage on the Cliffs? The trees on the Common and the fountains are calling for you.

"'Thee, Tityrus, even the pine-trees,
The very fountains, the very
Copses are calling.'

Perhaps also your creditors. At all events I am, who am your debtor."

The days were fast approaching when the old things must pass away. He wrote tenderly:--

"I am sorry to hear that you are not quite yourself. I sympathize with you, for I am somebody else. It is the two W's, Work and Weather, that are playing the mischief with us.... You must not open a book; you must not even look at an inkstand. These are both contraband articles, upon which we have to pay heavy duties. We cannot smuggle them in. Nature's custom-house officers are too much on the alert."

In 1880 he again wrote, describing the wedding of the daughter of an old friend:--

"A beautiful wedding it was; an ideal village wedding, in a pretty church, and the Windmill Cottage of our friend resplendent with autumnal flowers. In one of the rooms there was a tea-kettle hanging on a crane in the fireplace.

"So begins a new household. But Miss Neilson's death has saddened me, and yesterday Mrs. Horsford came with letters from Norway, giving particulars of Ole Bull's last days, his death and burial. The account was very touching. All Bergen's flags at half-mast; telegrams from the King; funeral oration by Björnson. The dear old musician was carried from his island to the mainland in a steamer, followed by a long line of other steamers. No Viking ever had such a funeral."

And here the extracts from letters and journals must cease. It was a golden sunset, in spite of the increasing infirmities which beset him; for he could never lose his pleasure in making others happy, and only during the few last days did he lose his own happiness among his books and at his desk. The influence his presence gave out to others, of calm good cheer and tenderness, made those who knew him feel that he possessed, in larger measure than others, what Jean Paul Richter calls "a heavenly unfathomableness which makes man godlike, and love toward him infinite." Indeed, this "heavenly unfathomableness" was a strong characteristic of his nature, and the gracious silence in which he often dwelt gave a rare sense of song without words. Therefore, perhaps on that day when we gathered around the form through which his voice was never again to utter itself, and heard his own words repeated upon the air saying, "Weep not, my friends! rather rejoice with me. I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone, and you shall have another friend in heaven," it was impossible not to believe that he was with us still, the central spirit, comforting and uplifting the circle of those who were most dear to him.

GLIMPSES OF EMERSON

The perfect consistency of a truly great life, where inconsistencies of speech become at once harmonized by the beauty of the whole nature, gives even to a slight incident the value of a bit of mosaic which, if omitted, would leave a gap in the picture. Therefore we never tire of "Whisperings" and "Talks" and "Walks" and "Letters" relating to the friends of our imagination, if not of our fireside; and in so far as such fragments bring men and women of achievement nearer to our daily lives, without degrading them, they warm and cheer us with something of their own beloved and human presence.

From this point of view the publication of so many of these side lights on the lives of what Emerson himself calls "superior people," is easily accounted for, and the following glimpses will only confirm what he expresses of such natures when he says, "In all the superior people I have met I notice directness, truth spoken more truly, as if everything of obstruction, of malformation, had been trained away."

In reading the correspondence between Carlyle and Emerson, few readers could fail to be impressed with the generosity shown by Emerson in giving his time and thought without stint to the publication of Carlyle's books in this country. Nor was this the single instance of his devotion to the advancement of his friends. In a brief memoir, lately printed, of Jones Very, as an introduction to a collection of his poems, we find a like record there.

After the death of Thoreau, Emerson spared no trouble to himself that his friend's papers might be properly presented to the reading world. He wrote to his publisher, Mr. Fields: "I send all the poems of Thoreau which I think ought to go with the letters. These are the best verses, and no other whole piece quite contents me. I think you must be content with a little book, since it is so good. I do not like to print either the prison piece or the John Brown with these clear sky- born letters and poems." After all his labor and his care, however, it was necessary to hold consultation with Thoreau's sister, and she could not find it in her heart to leave out some of the tender personalities which had grown more dear to her since her brother's death, and which had been omitted in the selection. She said that she was sure Mr. Emerson was not pleased at the restorations she made after his careful work of elimination was finished, but he was too courteous and kind to say much, or to insist on his own way; he only remarked, "You have spoiled my Greek statue." Neither was he himself altogether contented with his work, and shortly afterward said he would like to include "The Maiden in the East," partly because it was written of Mrs. W----n, and partly because other persons liked it so well.

"I looked over the poems again and again," he said, "and at last reserved but ten, finding some blemish in all the others which prevented them from seeming perfect to me. How grand is his poem about the mountains! As it is said of Goethe that he never spoke of the stars but with respect, so we may say of Thoreau and the mountains." It could hardly be expected of Thoreau's sister to sympathize with such a tribunal, especially when the same clear judgment was brought to bear upon the letters. Even touching the contract for publication he was equally painstaking--far more so than for his own affairs. He wrote, "I inclose the first form of contract, as you requested, with the alterations suggested by Miss Thoreau." After this follows a careful reiteration in his own handwriting of such alterations as were desired.

The early loss of Thoreau and his love for him were, I had believed, the root and flower which brought forth fruit in his noble discourse on "Immortality;" but Miss Emerson generously informs me that I am mistaken in this idea. "Most of its framework," she says, "was written seven or eight years earlier and delivered in September, 1855. Some parts of it he may have used at Mr. Thoreau's funeral and some sentences of it may have been written then, but the main work was done long before, and it was enlarged twice afterwards."

Happy were they who heard him speak at the funeral of Henry Thoreau. At whatever period he first framed his intuitions upon the future in prose, on that day a light was flashed upon him which he reflected again upon the soul of his listeners, and to them it seemed that a new-born glory had descended. Whatever words are preserved upon the printed page, the spirit of what was given on that day cannot be reproduced. He wrote, the day after Thoreau's death, to Mr. Fields: "Come tomorrow and bring ---- to my house. We will give you a very early dinner. Mr. Channing is to write a hymn or dirge for the funeral, which is to be from the church at three o'clock. I am to make an address, and probably Mr. Alcott may say something." This was the only announcement, the only time for preparation. Thoreau's body lay in the porch, and his townspeople filled the church, but Emerson made the simple ceremony one never to be forgotten by those who were present. Respecting the publication of this address I find the following entry in a diary of the time: "We have been waiting for Mr. Emerson to publish his new volume, containing his address upon Henry Thoreau; but he is careful of words, and finds many to be considered again and again, until it is almost impossible to extort a manuscript from his hands."

There is a brief note among the few letters I have found concerning the poetry of some other writer whose name does not appear, but in the publication of whose work Emerson was evidently interested. He writes: "I have made the fewest changes I could. So do not shock the _amour propre_ of the poet, and yet strike out the bad words. You must, please, if it comes to question, keep my agency out of sight, and he will easily persuade himself that your compositor has grown critical, and struck out the rough syllables."

Emerson stood, as it were, the champion of American letters, and whatever found notice at all challenged his serious scrutiny. The soul and purpose must be there; he must find one line to win his sympathy, and then it was given with a whole heart. He said one day at breakfast that he had found a young man! A youth in the far West had written him, and inclosed some verses, asking for his criticism. Among them was the following line, which Emerson said proved him to be a poet, and he should watch his career in future with interest:

"Life is a flame whose splendor hides its base."

We can imagine the kindly letter which answered the appeal, and how the future of that youth was brightened by it. "Emerson's young man" was a constant joke among his friends, because he was constantly filled with a large hope; and his friend of the one line was not by any means his only discovery.

His feeling respecting the literary work of men nearer to him was not always one of satisfaction. When Hawthorne's volume of "English Sketches" was printed, he said, "It is pellucid, but not deep;" and he cut out the dedication and letter to Franklin Pierce, which offended him. The two men were so unlike that it seemed a strange fate which brought them together in one small town. An understanding of each other's methods or points of view was an impossibility. Emerson spoke once with an intimate friend of the distance which separated Hawthorne and himself. They were utterly at variance upon politics and every theory of life.

Mr. Fields was suggesting to Emerson one day that he should give a series of lectures, when, as they were discussing the topics to be chosen, Emerson said: "One shall be on the Doctrine of Leasts, and one on the Doctrine of Mosts; one shall be about Brook Farm, for ever since Hawthorne's ghastly and untrue account of that community, in his 'Blithedale Romance,' I have desired to give what I think the true account of it."

The sons of Henry James, Senior, being at school in Concord for a period, Emerson invited Mr. James, who had gone to visit his boys, to stay over and be present at one of Mr. Alcott's conversations, which were already "an institution" of the time. Mr. Alcott began to speak upon subjects which interested Mr. James; and the latter, not understanding, naturally enough, that these so-called "Conversations" were in truth monologues, replied to Mr. Alcott in his own striking style. Finding the audience alive to what he wished to say, he continued, and "did the talking himself." Miss Mary Emerson, Emerson's well-beloved aunt, the extraordinary original of one of his most delightful papers, was present. She had never met Mr. James before, and became greatly excited by some of the opinions he advanced. She thought he often used the word "religion," when, to her mind, he appeared to mean, sometimes "dogmatism" and sometimes, "ecclesiasticism."

She bided her time, though a storm had gathered within her. At last, when a momentary silence fell and no one appeared ready to refute certain opinions advanced by Mr. James, "Amita" rose, took a chair, and, placing it in front of him, exclaimed, "Let me confront the monster!" The discussion was then renewed, excited by this sally of "Amita's" wit, and the company parted with a larger understanding of the subject and greater appreciation of each other. "It was a glorious occasion for those who love a battle of words," said one who was present. Mr. James delighted his host by his remarks upon the character of the beloved "Amita."

He had many reservations with regard to Dickens. He could not easily forgive any one who made him laugh immoderately. The first reading of "Dr. Marigold" in Boston was an exciting occasion, and Emerson was invited to "assist." After the reading he sat talking until a very late hour, for he was taken by surprise at the novelty and artistic perfection of the performance. His usual calm had quite broken down under it; he had laughed as if he might crumble to pieces, his face wearing an expression of absolute pain; indeed, the scene was so strange that it was mirth-provoking to those who were near. But when we returned home he questioned and pondered much upon Dickens himself. Finally he said: "I am afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound, and he can never be freed from it nor set at rest. You see him quite wrong evidently, and would persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness and amenities, and superior to his talents; but I fear he is harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a thread of nature left. He daunts me. I have not the key." When Mr. Fields came in he repeated: "---- would persuade me that Dickens is a man easy to communicate with, sympathetic and accessible to his friends; but her eyes do not see clearly in this matter, I am sure!"

The tenor of his way was largely stayed by admiration and appreciation of others, often far beyond their worth. He gilded his friends with his own sunshine. He wrote to his publisher: "Give me leave to make you acquainted with ----" (still unknown to fame), "who has written a poem which he now thinks of publishing. It is, in my judgment, a serious and original work of great and various merit, with high intellectual power in accosting the questions of modern thought, full of noble sentiment, and especially rich in fancy, and in sensibility to natural beauty. I remember that while reading it I thought it a welcome proof, and still more a prediction, of American culture. I need not trouble you with any cavils I made on the manuscript I read, as ---- assures me that he has lately revised and improved the original draft. I hope you will like the poem as heartily as I did."

I find a record of one very warm day in Boston in July when, in spite of the heat, Mr. Emerson came to dine with us:--

"He talked much of Forceythe Willson, whose genius he thought akin to Dante's, and says E---- H---- agrees with him in this, or possibly suggested it, she having been one of the best readers and lovers of Dante outside the reputed scholars. 'But he is not fertile. A man at his time should be doing new things.' 'Yes,' said ----, 'I fear he never will do much more.' 'Why, how old is he?' asked Emerson; and hearing he was about thirty-five, he replied, with a smile, 'There is hope till forty-five.' He spoke also of Tennyson and Carlyle as the two men connected with literature in England who were most satisfactory to meet, and better than their books. His respect for literature in these degenerate days is absolute. It is religion and life, and he reiterates this in every possible form. Speaking of Jones Very, he said he seemed to have no right to his rhymes; they did not sing to him, but he was divinely led to them, and they always surprised you."

We were much pleased and amused at his quaint expressions of admiration for a mutual friend in New York at whose hospitable house we had all received cordial entertainment. He said: "The great Hindoo, Hatim Tayi, was nothing by the side of such hospitality as hers. Hatim Tayi would soon lose his reputation." His appreciation of the poems of H. H. was often expressed. He made her the keynote of a talk one day upon the poetry of women. The poems entitled "Joy," "Thought," "Ariadne," he liked especially. Of Mrs. Hemans he found many poems which still survive, and he believed must always live.

Matthew Arnold was one of the minds and men to whom he constantly reverted with pleasure. Every traveler was asked for the last news of him; and when an English professor connected with the same university as Arnold, whom Emerson had been invited to meet, was asked the inevitable question, and found to know nothing, Emerson turned away from him, and lost all interest in his conversation. A few days afterward some one was heard to say, "Mr. Emerson, how did you like Professor ----?"

"Let me see," he replied; "is not he the man who was at the same university with Matthew Arnold, and who could tell us nothing of him?"

"How about Matthew Arnold?" he said to B---- on his return from England.

"I did not see him," was the somewhat cool reply.

"Yes! but he is one of the men one wishes not to lose sight of," said Emerson.

"Arnold has written a few good essays," rejoined the other, "but his talk about Homer is all nonsense."

"No, no, no!" said Emerson; "it is good, every word of it!"

When the lecture on Brook Farm really came, it was full of wit and charm, as well as of the truth he so seriously desired to convey. The audience was like a firm, elastic wall, against which he threw the balls of his wit, while they bounded steadily back into his hand. Almost the first thing he said was quoted from Horatio Greenough, whom he esteemed one of the greatest men of our country. But there is nothing more elusive and difficult to retain than Emerson's wit. It pierces and is gone. Some of the broader touches, such as the clothes- pins dropping out of the pockets of the Brook Farm gentlemen as they danced in the evening, were apparent to all, and irresistible. Nothing could be more amusing than the boyish pettishness with which, in speaking of the rareness of best company, he said, "We often found ourselves left to the society of cats and fools."

I find the following note in a brief diary: "October 20, 1868. Last night Mr. Emerson gave his second lecture. It was full of touches of light which dropped from him, to us, his listeners, and made us burn as with a kind of sudden inspiration of truth. He was beautiful both to hear and see. He spoke of poetry and criticism....

"He discovered two reporters present and spoke to them, saying, 'It is not allowed.' Whereat they both replied: 'They were only at work for their own gratification. Of course I could say nothing more; but afterward the Lord smote one of them and he came and confessed.' When he returned after speaking he brought one of the two bouquets which he found upon his desk. 'I bring you back your flowers,' he said gently. There was no loud applause last evening; but there were little shivers of delight or approbation running over the audience from time to time, like breezes over a cornfield."

Emerson was always faithful to his appreciation of Channing's poems. When "Monadnock" was written, he made a special visit to Boston to talk it over, and the fine lines of Channing were always ready in his memory, to come to the front when called for. His love and loyalty to Elizabeth Hoar should never be forgotten, in however imperfect a rehearsal of his valued companionships. One morning at breakfast I heard him describing her attributes and personality in the most tender and engaging way to Mrs. Stowe, who had never known her, which I would give much to be able to reproduce.

Emerson's truthfulness was often the cause of mirth even to himself. I remember that he thought he did not care for the work of Bayard Taylor, but he confessed one day with sly ruefulness that he had taken up the last "Atlantic" by chance, and found there some noble hexameters upon "November;" and "I said to myself, 'Ah! who is this? this is as good as Clough.' When to my astonishment, and not a little to my discomfiture, I discovered they were Bayard Taylor's! But how about this 'Faust'? We have had Dante done over and over, and even now done, I see, again by a new hand, and Homer forever being done, and now 'Faust'! I quarrel somewhat with the overmuch labor spent upon these translations, but first of all I quarrel with Goethe. 'Faust' is unpleasant to me. The very flavor of the poem repels me, and makes me wish to turn away." The "Divina Commedia," too, he continued, was a poem too terrible to him to read. He had never been able to finish it. It is probable that poor translations of both "Faust" and Dante read in early youth were at the bottom of these opinions.