Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 1807-1882
Scudder, Horace Elisha, 1838-1902
Longfellow, Alice M. (Alice Mary), 1850-1928
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A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS
OF
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
I.
The house is still standing in Portland, Maine, — a large, square, wooden house at the corner of Fore and Hancock streets, — where Longfellow was horn, February 27, 1807. Longfellow's early life, however, was passed in what is known as the Longfellow House, a substantial brick mansion in Congress Street. Here lived his father, Stephen Longfellow, and his mother, Zilpha (Wadsworth) Longfellow. The father was a lawyer, who gathered honors through a long life, having been several times a member of the Massachusetts Legislature while Maine was a district of that State; a member of the Hartford Convention, for he was a stout Federalist; a presidential elector when Monroe was first elected ; and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1823 to 1825. He died in 1849, after Evangeline had set its seal upon his son's growing reputation. The mother was daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, who had fought in the Revolutionary War. Both parents were descended from Englishmen, who came to this country in the early days of the colony, and whose successors were marked men in the generations that followed. Upon his mother's side the poet ti'aced his ancestry to four of the Pilgrims who came in the Mayflower, two of these being Elder William Brewster and Captain John Alden.
iv HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the second son of the family, which contained four sons and four daughters. He took his name from his mother's brother. Lieutenant Henry Wadsworth, whose lieroic death was a fresh and tender memory in the family. Two years and a half before, on the night of September 4, 1804, he had been second in command of the bomb-ketch Litrepid, which was fitted up as an " infernal," and sent stealthily into the harbor of Tripoli to blow up the enemy's fleet. The officers and crew were to apply the match and escape in the boats; but when the Intrepid was still a quarter of a mile from her destination, the watching men in the American fleet outside saw a sudden line of light; in a moment a column of fire shot up from the vessel, and Avith a tremendous exj^losion bombs burst in every direction, and the masts and rigging flew into the air. Every soul on board perished. Something, perhaps, of this adventure entered into the poet's early associations, and deepened the ardor of his patriotism.
The sea, at any rate, and a sea-fight nearer home, made a part of his boyish recollections. In 1813, when he was six years old, the American brig Enterprise fell in with the English brig Boxer, outside of Portland harbor, and a fight took place, which could be heard from the shore. It lasted for three quarters of an hour, the Boxer's colors beingnailed to the mast. The Enterprise came into the harbor, bringing her captive, but both commanders had been killed in the engagement, and were buried side by side in the cemetery on Mount joy. In his poem My Lost Youth, Longfellow recalls the town g-s it then was, and this memorable fight: —
" I remember the black wharves aud the ships. And the sea-tides tossing free ; And Spanish sailoi-s with bearded lips, And the beauty and mystery of the ships, And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
MR. LONGFELLOW'S BIRTHPLACE, PORTLAND
Is singing and saying still: * A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
" I remember the bulwarks by the shore, And the fort upon the hill; The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar. The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, And the bugle wild and shrill; And the music of that old song Throbs in my memory still: 'A boy's will is the wind's will. And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
" I remember the sea-fight far away. How it thundered o'er the tide ! And the dead captains as they lay In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay. Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song ■• Goes through me with a thrill:
' A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."
In the same poem Longfellow speaks of the
" Gleams and glooms that dart Across the school-boy's brain."
The first school which he attended was a child's school, kept on Spring Street by a dame known in the New England vernacular as Marm Fellows. Later he went to the town school in Love Lane, now Centre Street, for a short time, and then to the private school of Nathaniel H. Carter, in a little one-story house on the west side of Preble Street, now Congress. He was prepared for college at the Portland Academy, which had for masters the same Mr. Cai'ter and Mr. Bezaleel Cushman, who subsequently was editor of the New York Evening Post. An usher, also, in the school was Mr. Jacob Abbott, who afterward became famous as a teacher and writer of books for children. His amiable and indulgent manner remained in the recollection of his pupil.
The promise of his life was fulfilled a little in those earliest days. Ten miles from Portland is the old Longfellow homestead at Gorham, and thither the boy was wont to go. In later life he sjjeaks of " my pleasant recollections of Gorham, the beautiful village, the elms, the farms, the pastures scented with pennyroyal, and the days of my boyhood, that have a perfume sweeter than field or flower." Here it was, perhaps, or in Deering Woods, that he had those early dreams to which he refers in the Prelude which opens his first published volume : —
" And dreams of that which cannot die,
Bright visions, came to me, As lapped in thought I used to lie, And gaze into the summer sky, Where the sailing clouds went by,
Like ships upon the sea;
" Dreams that the soul of youth engage
Ere Fancy has been quelled: Old legends of the monkish page, Traditions of the saint and sage, Tales that have the rime of age.
And chronicles of eld."
While he was still a school-boy he had begun to write and to print his poems. His first published poem was on Lo veil's Fight. His experience in the publication was recalled by him once, in a conversation with a younger poet, William Winter. He had droj^ped the manuscript with fear and trembling into the editor's box at the office of a weekly newspaper in Portland. When the next issue of the paper appeared the boy looked eagerly, but in vain, for his verses. " But I had another copy,'* he said, " and I immediately sent it to the rival weekly, and the next week it was published. I have never since had such a thrill of delight over any of my publications; " and he told how he had bought a C02)y of the paper, still damp from the press, and walked with it into a by-street of the town, where he opened it, and found his poem actually printed.
He was ready for college when he was fourteen, and his father entered him at Bowdoin, but for some reason he passed the greater part of his Freshman year at home. His college life was one which increased the expectation of his friends. One of his teachers in college, the late venerable Professor A. S. Packard, once gave his reminiscences of the poet, who entered with his brother Stephen. " He was," says Professor Packard, " an attractive youth, with auburn locks, clear, fresh, blooming complexion, and, as might be presumed, of well-bred manners and bearing."
During his college life he contributed to the periodicals of the day. The most important of these, in a literary point of view, was the United States Literary Gazette, which was published simultaneously in New York and Boston. It was founded by Theophilus Parsons. To this periodical Longfellow contributed seventeen poems; the first five included under the division Earlier Poems, in his collected writings, were among the seventeen. Fourteen of Longfellow's poems contributed to the Literary Gazette were included in a little volume published in 1826, under the title of Miscellaneous Poems selected from the United States^ Literary Gazette, and one of these was The Hymn of the Moravian Nuns, which has always remained a favorite. In 1872 a friend brought from England Coleridge's inkstand, which he gave to Mr. Longfellow, who, in acknowledging the gift, wrote : —
" This memento of the poet recalls to my recollection that Theophilus Parsons, subsequently eminent in Massachusetts jurisprudence, paid me for a dozen of my early pieces that appeared in his United States Literary Gazette with a copy of Coleridge's poems, which I still have in my possession. Mr. Bryant contributed the Forest Hymn, The Old Man's Funeral, and many other poems to the same periodical, and thought he was well paid by receiving two dollars apiece ; a price, by the way, which he himself placed upon the poems, and at least double the amount of my
honorarium. Truly, times have changed with us litth'atears during the last half century."
Longfellow graduated second in his class, and the class was one having a number of men of singular ability. It would have been a great class in any college which held Longfellow and Hawthorne, but this had also George B. Cheever and Jonathan Cilley, a young man of great promise, who died in early manhood, and John S. C. Abbott. Fifty years after graduation the surviving members met at Brunswick, and Longfellow celebrated the occasion by his noble Morituri Salutamus.
II.
Near the close of his college course an event took place in the order of academic life which had an interesting influence on the poet's career. The story is told by his classmate Abbott: " Mr. Longfellow studied Horace with great enthusiasm. There was one of his odes which he particularly admired. He had made himself as familiar with it as if it were written in his own mother tongue, and had translated it into his own glowing verse, which rivalled in melody the diction of Horace. There was at that time residing in Brunswick a very distinguished lawyer by the name of Benjamin Orr. Being a fine classical scholar, Horace was his pocket companion, from whose pages he daily read. He was, as one of the Trustees of Bowdoin College, accustomed to attend the annual examinations of the classes in the classics. In consequence of his accurate scholarship he was greatly dreaded by the students. The ode which pleased young Henry Longfellow so much was also one of his favorites. It so happened that he called upon Longfellow to translate that ode at, I think, our Senior examination. The translation was fluent and beautiful. Mr. Orr was charmed, and eagerly inquired the name of the brilliant scholar. Soon after this the trustees of the college met to choose a professor of modern languages. Mr. Orr, whose voice was
potent In that board, said, " Why, Mr. Longfellow is your man. He is an admirable classical scholar. I have seldom heard anything more beautiful than his version of one of the most difficult odes of Horace."
The poet was but nineteen when the appointment was made, and the confidence which elder men had in him is more noticeable since the professorship to which he was called was a new one, and there were few, If any, precedents In other colleges to determine its character. At the time when the appointment came to him Longfellow was reading law in his father's office, but this was probably only incidental to his larger interest in literature. At any rate he accepted at once the offer made to him, and went to Europe to qualify himself for the position by study and travel.
He remained away three years and a half, and returned to enter upon his college duties in the fall of 1829. He had spent his time of preparation in England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, and had laid the foundation of that liberal knowledge of modern European literature which served him In such good stead throughout his life. His journey did more than this for him. It gave him the large background to his thoughts which served to bi-ing out clearly the deeper purposes of life. In the glowing and affectionate dedication to Longfellow by George Washington Greene of his life of his grandfather. General Greene, there Is a distinct reference to this period of the poet's life.
" Thirty-nine years ago this month of April," he writes in April, 1867, " you and I were together at Naples, wandering up and down amid the wonders of that historical city, and consciously in some things, and unconsciously In others, laying up those precious associations which are youth's best preparation for age. We were young then, with life all before us; and, in the midst of the records of a great past, our thoughts would still turn to our own future. Yet even In looking forward they caught the coloring
of that past, making things bright to our eyes which, from a purely American point of view, would have worn a different asjject. From then till now the spell of those days has been upon us.
" One day — I shall never forget it — we returned at sunset fi'om a long afternoon amid the statues and relics of the Museo Borbonico. Evening was coming on, with a sweet promise of the stars: and our minds and hearts were so full that we could not think of shutting ourselves up in our rooms, or of mingling with the crowd on the Toledo. We wanted to be alone, and yet to feel that there was life all around us. We went up to the flat roof of the house, where, as we walked, we could look down into the crowded street, and out upon the wonderful bay, and across the bay to Ischia and Capri and Sorrento, and over the house-tops and villas and vineyards to Vesuvius. • . . And over all, with a thrill like that of solemn music, fell the splendor of the Italian sunset.
" We talked and mused by turns, till the twilight deepened and the stars came forth to mingle tlieir mysterious influences with the overmastering magic of the scene. It was then that you unfolded to me your plans of life, and showed me from what ' deep cisterns' you had already learned to draw. From that day the office of literature took a new place in my thoughts. I felt its forming power as I had never felt it before, and began to look with a calm resignation upon its trials, and with true appreciation upon its rewards."
It is interesting, as one thinks of Longfellow in his youth, and again in the splendor of his age, to turn to the words with which he closes the record of his first journey: —
" My pilgrimage is ended. I have come home to rest; and recording the time i)ast, I have fulfilled these things, and written them in this book, as it would come into my mind, — for the most part, when the duties of the day were over, and the world around me was hushed in sleep. . . .
The morning watches have begun. And as I write the melancholy thought intrudes upon me, To what end is all this toil ? Of what avail these midnight vigils ? Dost thou covet fame ? Vain dreamer ! A few brief days, and what will the busy world know of thee ? " He is described at this time as '' full of the ardor excited by classical pursuits. He liad sunny locks, a fresh complexion, and clear blue eyes, with all the indications of a joyous temperament."
He entered upon his work as professor with such spirit that he began very early to draw students to Bowdoin. Two years after entering upon his new duties, he was married to Mary Storer Potter, daughter of Hon. Barrett Potter and Anne (Storer) Potter, of Portland. Judge Potter was a man of strong character, and his daughter, by the testimony of those who knew her, was both strong in her intellectual nature and of rare beauty of person. It is thought that the reference is to her in the verses Footstej^s of Angels, where the poet, seeing in a reverie the forms of departed friends, sings: —
" And with them the Being Beauteous Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven.
" With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mme.
" And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like. Looking downward from the skies."
Mr. Longfellow held his professorship at Bowdoin for five years, and during this time put forth his first formal publications. The eai'liest book with which he had to do was Elements of French Grammar, translated from the
French of C F. L'Homond, and published in 1830. Other works, edited or translated by him, and having direct reference to his occupation as a professor of modern languages and literature, appeared during these five years. The subjects of his more purely literary productions during this period were also closely connected with his profession. He published articles in the North Am.erican Review on the Origin and Progress of the French Language, a Defence of Poetry, on the Hlstorg of the Italian Language and Dialects, on Spanish Language and Literature, on Old English Romances, and on Sjyanish Devotional and Moral Poetry. In 1833 he took tliis last essay, and attaching to it a translation of Manrique's Coj^las, and of some sonnets by Lope de Vega and others, produced a volume entitled Coplas de Manrique, which may be regarded as his first purely literary venture in book form. His name was placed on the title-page with his title as professor, and the book was publislied by Allen & Ticknor, predecessors of the jwesent publishers of his works.
Meanwhile he was beginning to make use of the abundant material which he had gathered during his European sojourn, in the form of sketches of travel and little romances drawn from legendary lore. He began in The New England Magazine, a periodical long since dead, a series of papers under the title The Schoolmaster, but discontinued them after a few numbers and used some of this material and much more in his first considerable book, Outre-Mer.
This book appeared at first with no name attached, but it was probably well known who wrote it; and when the second part appeared, shortly afterward, Professor Longfellow's name was openly connected with it. The last three chapters of The Schoolmaster were not reprinted, and the serial was not resumed, perhaps because the author preferred the more satisfactory and more dignified appearance in book form. A prior publication in a magazine was
'
LIFE AND WRITINGS. xiii
more likely to obscure a book then than now. It is not impossible that the slight concejition of a schoolmaster was reserved, also, for future use in the tale of Kavanagh.
His work as an author and that as a professor were substantially one. " He proved himself," says one of his contemporaries at Bowdoln, " a teacher who never wearied of his work, who won by his gentle grace, and commanded respect by his self-respect and his respect for his office." He assumed the duties of librarian, also, and liis work was comprehensively literary. He was twenty-six years old, and had made a positive place in literature.
ni.
In a letter dated Boston, January 5, 1835, Mr. George Ticknor, then Professor of the French and Spanish Languages and of Belles Lettres at Harvard College, wrote as follows to his friend, C. S. Daveis, of Portland: "Besides wishing you a happy New Year, I have a word to say about myself. I have substantially resigned my place at Cambridge, and Longfellow is appointed substantially to fill it. I say suhstantlallij, because he is to pass a year or more in Germany and the North of Europe, and I am to continue in the place till he returns, which wiU be in a year from next Commencement, or thereabouts."
The transfer from Bowdoin to Harvard grew out of the increasing reputation of the young professor, and in taking another journey to Europe he was carrying forward the same spirit of thorough preparation, and was completing the survey of European languages and literature, by making acquaintance with those parts unvisited in his former residence abroad. His eighteen months of travel and study Avere very productive, but they were shadowed by the death of his wife, who was taken ill at Rotterdam, and died there November 29, 1835. The record of his life during this time is partially disclosed in the pages of Hyperion., and the mournful character of its early chapters may well be
xiv HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW.
taken as echoing the temper in which he pursued his solitary studies.
He returned to America in November, 1836, and after a short visit to his home in Portland he entered upon his new work at Cambridge. The house which is so identified with Longfellow's life was his home from the time he came to Cambridge until his death, although it was not till 1843 that he became actual owner of it. The ample, dignified mansion on Brattle Street has a generous surrounding of green fields, and a clear outlook across meadows to the winding Charles and the gentle hills beyond, but in 1836 it was even more rural in its position. The history of the house carries it back to the days of the rich Tory merchants, who were so loath to abandon the ease and dignity of the province for the anxieties and levelling of an independence of England. It was built by John Vassall in 1759, as a home for himself and his bride, who was a sister of the last royal lieutenant-governor of the province. At the outbreak of the Revolution Vassall fled to London, and the house passed into the hands of the provincial government. When soldiers flocked to Cambridge, after the Lexington and Concord fight, it was used by a battalion of Colonel John Glover's regiment of Marblehead fishermen. They held it but a short time, for upon Washington's arrival in Cambridge the house, as the most commodious in the place, was made ready for the general's headquarters. Here Washington and his military family remained during the siege of Boston.
Upon the transfer of military movements southward, Nathaniel Tracy, of Newbury port, who had grown rich by privateering, bought the estate; but his wealth vanished almost as rapidly as it was acquired, and in 1786 the place was sold to Thomas Russell, the first president of the United States Branch Bank ; and he in his turn sold it in 1792 to Andrew Craigie, who had been apothecary-general to the Continental Army, and had amassed a fortune in that
office. He became embarrassed in his affairs, and when he died his widow, who continued to live there, drew her income in part from the lease of rooms in her house to college officers and others. Mr. Sparks went there to live, and was at work upon his edition of the life and writings of Washington in the very room occupied by the general. Hither also came Dr. Edward Everett, and here lived and worked Dr. Joseph E. Worcester, the lexicographer.
The story is told that when Mr. Longfellow knocked at the door and asked the stately old lady if she would receive him as a lodger, she demurred.
" I am sorry to tell you," she said, " that I never have students to live with me."
" But I am not a student," he replied. " I am a professor in the University."
" A professor ?" She looked curiously at one so like most students in appearance.
" I am Professor Longfellow," he said.
" If you are the author of Outre-Mer, then you can come," said the old lady, and proceeded to show him her house. She led him up the broad staircase, and, proud of the historic mansion, opened one spacious room after another, only to close the door of each, saying, " You cannot have that," until at length she led him into the southeast corner room of the second story. " This was General AVashington's chamber," she said; " you may have this." And here he gladly set up his home.
Old Madam Craigie continued to live in the house until her death. On one occasion her poet lodger, entering her jDarlor in the morning, found her sitting by the open window, through which innumerable canker-worms had crawled from the trees they were devouring outside. They had fastened themselves to her dress, and hung in little writhing festoons from the white turban on her head. Her visitor, surprised and shocked, asked if he could do nothing to destroy the worms. Raising her eyes from the book which
she sat calmly reading, she said in tones of solemn rebuke, "Young man, have not our fellow-worms as good a right to live as we ? " Dr. Worcester bought the estate, and afterwai'd sold it to Mr. Longfellow.
He sjient seventeen years in Cambridge as professor, and he carried the title the rest of his days. It has not been customary of late years to associate Mr. Longfellow with academic life, but while he was engaged in it he gave himself to it with great assiduity. Under Mr. Ticknor's management, the modern languages and literature at Harvard had been erected into a department, with four foreigners for teachers, all being directed and supervised by the jirofessor in charge. Something of the nature of this department jilan, which was an innovation upon the customary college method, may be gathered from the letter of Mr. Ticknor already quoted, in which he announced the election of Mr. Longfellow. " Within the limits of the department," he writes, "I have entirely broken up the division of classes, established fully the principle and practice of progress accox-ding to proficiency, and introduced a system of voluntary study, which for several years has embraced from one hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty students; so that we have relied hardly at all on college discipline, as it is called, but almost entirely on the good dispositions of the young men and their desire to learn."
The traditions of this department were carried forward by Mr. Longfellow, as may be seen by an animated letter of reminiscences, written in 1881 by Rev. Edward Everett Hale, who was one of his students : —
" I was so fortunate as to be in the first ' section,' which Mr. Longfellow instructed personally when he came to Cambridge in 1836. Perhaps I best illustrate the method of his instruction when I say that I think every man in that section would now say that he was on intimate terms with Mr. Longfellow. We are all near sixty now, but I think that
every one of the section would expect to have Mr. Longfellow^ recognize him, and would enter into familiar talk with him if they met. From the first he chose to take with us the relation of a personal friend a few years older than we were.
" As it happened, the regular recitation rooms of the college were all in use, and indeed I think he was hardly expected to teach any language at all. He was to oversee the department and to lecture. But he seemed to teach us German for the love of it; I know I thought he did, and till now it never occurred to me to ask whether it were a part of his regular duty. Any way, we did not meet him in one of the rather dingy ' recitation rooms,' but in a sort of pai'lor. carpeted, hung with pictures, and otherwise handsomely furnished, which was, I believe, called ' the Corporation Room.' We sat round a mahogany table, which was reported to be meant for the dinners of the trustees, and the whole affair had the aspect of a friendly gathering in a private house, in which the study of German was the amusement of the occasion. These accidental surroundings of the place characterize well enough the whole proceeding.
" He began with familiar ballads, read them to us, and made us read them to him. Of course we soon committed them to memory without meaning to, and I think this was probably part of his theory. At the same time we were learning the paradigms by rote. But we never studied the grammar except to learn them, nor do I know to this hour what are the contents of half the pages in the regular German grammars.
" This was quite too good to last; for his regular duty was the oversight of five or more instructors, who were teaching French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese to two or three hundred undergraduates. All these gentlemen were of European birth, and you know how undergraduates are apt to fare with such men. Mr. Longfellow had a real administration of the whole department. His
title was ' Smith Professor of Modern Literature,' but we always called him ' the Head,' because he was head of the department. We never knew when he might look in on a recitation and virtually conduct it. We were delighted to liave him come. 'Any slipshod work of some poor wretch from France, who was tormented by wild-cat Sophomores, would be made straight and decorous and all right. We all knew he was a poet, and were proud to have him in the college, but at the same time we resjjected him as a man of affairs.
" Besides this, he lectured on authors or more general subjects. I think attendance was voluntary, but I know we never missed a lecture. I have full notes of his lectures on Dante's Dlvina Coviviedia, which confirm my recollections, namely, that he read the whole to us in English, and explained whatever he thought needed comment. I have often referred to these notes since. And though I suppose he included all that he thought worth while in his notes to his translation of Dante, I know that until that was published I could find no such reservoir of comment on the poem."
Another of his jjupils, T. W. Higginson, in recalling the days of Longfellow's professorship, writes : " In respect of courtesy his manners quite anticipated the present time, and were a marked advance upon the merely pedagogical relation which then prevailed. He was one of the few professors who then addressed his pupils as ' Mr.; ' his tone to them, though not paternal or brotherly, was always gentlemanly. On one occasion, during an abortive movement towai'd rebellion, some of the elder professors tried in vain to obtain a hearing from a crowd of angry students collected in the college yard ; but when Longfellow spoke, there was a hush, and the word went round, 'Let us hear Professor Longfellow, for he always treats us as gentlemen.' As an instructor he was clear, suggestive, and encouraging; his lectures on the great French writers were admirable, and his facility in equivalent phrases was of great use to
his jiupils and elevated their standai'd of translation. He was scrupulously faithful to his duties, and even went through the exhausting process of marking French exercises with exemplary patience. Besides his own classes in Moliere, Racine, and other poets, he had the general supei'vision of his department, which inclucled subordinate teachers in French, Spanish, Italian, and German. All these were under his authority, and he doubtless had the selection of all appointees. There was probably no coUege in the United States which had so large a corps of instructors in the modern languages as had Harvard at that time."
With the regular, methodical habits indicated in the foregoing reminiscences, the professor found place for the litterateur and poet. Contributions to the North American " were continued," and it is to be noted that one of these was a hearty recognition of Hawthorne's Twice - Told Tales, which appeared in 1837, and needed at the time all the encouragement which appreciative minds could give. How much pleasure it gave to Hawthoi'ne may be read in the letter which the story-teller was moved to write to the critic : —
Salem, June 19, 1837.
Dear Longfellow, — I have to-day received and read with huge delight your review of Hawthorne's Tivice-Told Tales. I frankly own that I was not without hopes that you would do this kind office for the book ; though I could not have anticipated how very kindly it would be done. Whether or no the public will agree to the praise which you bestow on uie, there are at least five persons who think you the most sagacious critic on earth, namely, my motlier and two sisters, my old maiden aunt, and finally the strongest believer of the whole five, my own self. If I doubt the sincerity and correctness of any of my critics, it shall be of those who censure me. Hard would be the lot of a poor scribbler, if he may not have this privilege. . . . Very sincerely yours,
Nath. Hawthorne.
Other papers of this period were articles on Teg tier's
Frith iof's Saga and Anglo-Saxo7i Literature, indicative of his scholastic work.
IV.
As Outre-Mer was. in some ways the report of his first journey to Europe, so Hyperion stands as expressive of his second. Outre-Mer is a record of travel, continuous in its geographical outline, but separated from ordinary itineraries by noting less the personal accidents of the traveller than the poetic and romantic scenes which, whether of the present or the past, marked the journey and transformed it into the pilgrimage of a devotee to art. In Hyperion a more deliberate romance is intended, but the lights and shades of the story are heightened or deepened by the passages of travel and study, which form the background from which the human figures are relieved. It is interesting to observe how, as the writer was more withdrawn from the actual Europe of his eyes, he used the Europe of his memory and imagination to wait upon the movements of a profounder study, the adventures of a human soul. These two books and the occasional critical papers are characterized by a strong consciousness of literary art. Life seems always to suggest a book or a picture, and nature is always viewed in its immediate relation to form and color. There is a singular discovery of the Old World, and while European writers like Chateaubriand, for example, were turning to America for new and unworn images, Longfellow, reflecting the awaking desire for the enduring forms of art which his countrymen were showing, eagerly disclosed the treasures to which the owners seemed almost indifferent. It is difficult to measure the influence which his broad, catholic taste and his refined choice of subjects have had upon American culture through the medium of these works, and that large body of his poetry which draws an inspiration from foreign life.
Hyjjerion at once became a general favorite. Barry Cornwall is said to have read it through once a year for the sake of its style. It is so faithful in its descriptions that it still serves as a companion to travellers on the Rhine, and is read at Heidelberg and elsewhei'e somewhat as Byron used to be read in Switzerland and Italy. It contains some translations also of German verse, which by their musical form obtained at once a popularity aside from the prose romance.
The same year, 1839, which saw the publication of Hyperion saw also the appearance of Longfellow's first volume given wholly to verse, a thin book entitled Voices of the Night. He had been contributing poems from time to time to the Knickerbocker Magazine, and he now collected these, some of the earlier poems contributed to the United States Literary Gazette, the poetry in the volume of Coplas de Manrique, the verses contained in Hypterion, and other translations. The most famous poem in this collection was the Psalm of Life. It was written, we are told by Mr. Fields, on a bright summer morning in July, 1838, as the poet sat at a small table between two windows, in the corner of his chamber. He kept it unpublished for some time, since it had a very close connection in his own mind with the troubles through which he had lately passed.
In 1841 the next volume of poems was issued, under the title of Ballads and other Poems, — a title still preserved in a division of his collected poems. It may be said to contain more of his famous short poems than any other volume which he issued, for it opens with The Skeleton in Armor ; it holds The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Village Bldcks7mtJi, The Rainy Day, To the River Charles, Maidenhood, and Excelsior. In the notes to his poems Mr. Longfellow has himself related the slight incidents which led to the writing of The Skeleton in Armor.
A letter from Mr. Longfellow to Mr. Charles Lanman
gives an interesting account of the circumstances attending the production of The Wreck of the Hesperus : —
Cambridgk, November 24, 1871.
My dear Sir, — Last night I had the pleasure of receiving your friendly letter and the beautiful pictures that came with it, and I thank you cordially for the welcome gift and the kind remembrance that prompted it. They are both very interesting to me ; pax'ticularly the Keef of Norman's Woe. What you say of the ballad is also very gratifying, and induces me to send yon in return a bit of autobiography.
Looking over a journal for 1839, a few days ago, I found the following entries : —
" December 17. — News of shipwrecks, horrible, on the coast. Forty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester. One woman lashed to a piece of wreck. There is a reef called Norman's Woe, where many of these took place. Among others the schooner Hesperus. Also, the Seaflower, on Black Rock. I will write a ballad on this.
" December 30. — Wrote last evening a notice of Allston's poems, after which sat till 1 o'clock by the fire, smoking ; when suddenly it came into my head to write the Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus, which I accordingly did. Then went to bed, but could not sleep. New thoughts were running in my mind, and I got up to add them to the Ballad. It was 3 by the clock."
All this is of no importance but to myself. However, I like sometimes to recall the circumstances under which a poem was written, and as you express a liking for this one it may perhaps interest you to know why and when and how it came into existence. I had quite forgotten about its first publication ; but I find a letter from Park Benjamin, dated January 7, 1840, beginning (you will recognize his style) as follows : —
" Your ballad. The Wreck of The Hesperus, is grand. Inclosed are twenty-five dollars (the sum you mentioned) for it, paid by the proprietors of ' The New Worixl,' in which glorious paper it will resplendently coruscate on Saturday next."
Pardon this gossip, and believe me, with renewed thanks, yours faithfully,
Henry W. Longfellow.
The word excelsior happened to catch his eye one evening as he was reading a bit of newspaper, and his mind began to kindle over the suggestion of the word. He took the nearest scrap of paper, which happened to be a letter from Charles Sumner, and wrote the verses with corrections on the back. The scrap is still preserved and shown at the library of Harvard University. A pretty story is told of the fortunes of one of the poems in the volume, the well-known Maidenhood. Once when it was printed in an illustrated paper, it fell into the hands of a poor woman living in a lonely cabin in a sterile portion of the Northwest. She had papered the walls of her cabin with the journals which a friend had sent her, and this poem with its picture was upon the wall by her table. Here, as slie stood at her bread-making or ironing, day after day, she gazed at the picture and read the poem until, by long brooding over it, she understood it and absorbed it as people rarely possess the words they read. The friend who sent her the papers was himself a man of letters, and coming afterward to see her in her loneliness, stood amazed and humbled as she talked to him artlessly about the poem, and disclosed the depths of her intelligence of its beauty and thought.
In 1842 he paid a third visit to Europe. It was on his return voyage in October that he wrote the Poems on Slavery which made his next volume, and formed his conti'ibution to the discussion which was then engrossing so much of the thought of the country.
In July, 1843, he married Miss Fanny Appleton, daughter of the late Nathan Appleton, of Boston, a lady of noble bearing, of great beauty of person and dignity of character, whom he had met on his recent journey in Europe. By her he had two sons and three daughters. Mrs. Longfellow died July 9, 1861, under circumstances which caused a terrible shock. She had been amusing her children with some seals which she made, when some of the burning wax fell upon her light summer dress, and
before help could be given she had received severe burns, from which she died in a few hours. The shock to the poet was so great that for a time it seemed as if reason itself was in danger; but the firmness and calmness of his nature reasserted itself, and he slowly came back to his singing. His friends were wont to obsei've, however, his increased signs of age and the greater silence of his life. " I have never heard him make but one allusion to the great grief of his life," said an intimate friend. " We were speaking of Schiller's fine poem, ' The Ring of Polycrates.' He said, ' It was just so with me. I was too happy. I might fancy the gods envied me, if I could fancy heathen gods.' "
To return to his publications in the order of their appearance. The Spanish Student came out in 1843, and in 1845 he edited a little collection of jioems called The Waif. In the same year, also, he made the important collection known as The Poets and Poetry of Europe^ containing biographical and critical sketches, with translations by various English poets, his own contribution being considerable. In 1846 appeared The Belfry of Bruges and other Poems, and the next year came Evangeline.
Two years later, in 1849, appeared Mr. Longfellow's latest prose work, Kavanagh, a tale of New England life, and in 1850 a new volume of poems, entitled The Seaside and the Fireside. The dedication of this volume, addressed to no one name, is a graceful acknowledgment of the multitudinous responses which he was now receiving. " Thanks," he says, —
" Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown ! Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token, That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.
" Kind messages, that pass from land to land ;
Kind letters, that betray the heart's deej) history, In which we feel the pressure of a hand, —
One touch of fire, — and all the rest is mystery!"
And the Dedication closes with words which had a truly prophetic meaning: —
" Therefore I hope, as no unwelcome guest,
At your warm fireside, when tlie lamps are lighted, To have my place reserved among the rest, Nor stand as one unsought and uninvited!''
The longest poem in the collection was The Building of the Ship, —" that admirably constructed poem," as Dr. Holmes says, " beginning with the literal description, passing into the higher region of sentiment by the most natural of transitions, and ending with the noble climax,
" ' Thou too sail on, 0 Ship of State,'
which has become the classical expression of patriotic emotion." It would be curious if it should prove that the ode of Horace, the translation of which led to Mr. Longfellow's appointment to a professorship at Bowdoin, was that one beginning —
" 0 navis referent in mare te novi,"
which the poet so nobly repeated in higher sti'ains at the close of The Building of the Ship. Mr. Noah Brooks, in a paper on " Lincoln's Imagination," which he contributed to Scribner's Monthly (August, 1879), mentions that he found the President one day attracted by these closing stanzas, which were quoted in a political speech. " Knowing the whole poem," he adds, " as one of my early exercises in recitation, I began, at his request, with the description of the launch of the ship, and repeated it to the end. As he listened to the last lines, —
" ' Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears. Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee, — are all with thee !'
his eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks were wet. He did not speak for some minutes, but finally said with sim
plicity, ' It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that.' "
The critics had complained of the European flavor of Mr. Longfellow's verse. He was steadily keeping on his way, however, expressing his nature honestly, and finding a noble delivery in such national poems as The Buildiiig of the ShijJ.
It is noticeable how^ much more fully the tide of his poetry set in the direction of America after the publication of Evangeline; while The Golden Legend was published in 1851, and is perhaps the most perfect expression of the Old World in his verse. The Song of Hiawatha appeared in 1855, and awakened an enthusiasm which was unexampled in the history of his literary career.
The story is told that in the summer of 1857 acting Governor Stanton, of Kansas, paid a visit to the citizens of Lawrence, in that State. After partaking of the hospitalities shown him by Governor Robinson, he addressed, by request, a crowd of some five hundred free-state men, who did not hesitate to manifest their disapprobation at such portions of his speech as did not accord with their peculiar political views. At the close of his speech Mr. Stanton pictured in glowing language the Indian tradition of Hiawatha, of the " peace pipe" shaped and fashioned by Gitche Manito, and by which he called tribes of men together, closing with the lines, —
" I am weary of your quarrels, Weary of your wars and bloodshed, Weary of your prayers for vengeance, Of your wrangliug-s and dissensions ; All your strengtli is in your union, All your danger is in discord ; Therefore be at peace henceforward, And as brothers live together."
The aptness of the quotation from so favorite a poem acted
like a charm for the time in pacifying the crowd, who applauded vociferously.
Innumerable discussions arose over the faithfulness of the poem to Indian traditions, but the most renowned Indian scholars supported the claims of the poem to truthfulness, and the liquid names passed at once into common use. It may fairly be said that by this work a popularity was given to Indian names which did much to preserve them from disuse as titles to rivers, mountains, and districts.
The Courtship of Miles Standish appeared in 1858, and the volume bearing this title contained also a number of short poems, under the collective title Birds of Passage. The Atlantic Monthly had been established the year befoi-e, and in the first number Mr. Longfellow published his jioem Santa Filomena. He became a very frequent contributor, and some of the poems in this volume were those which had thus far appeared in The Atlantic. Indeed, after this date, his smaller volumes of original verse were for the most part collections from time to time of poenis which were first printed in that magazine. In the following year the poet received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Harvard.
In the fall of 1863 was published Tales of a TVayside Inn, with a few poems added under the title Birds of Passage, Flight the Second. The Tales constitute the division known as the First Day, for the volume as now published contains also two other parts. The Prelude to this first part, introducing the characters who share in the festivities of the Inn, has always been a favorite," and the several personages have been identified with more or less confidence, the Inn itself being the old Howe Tavern, which still stands by the turnpike which runs through Sudbury, in Massachusetts: the landlord is easily said to stand for Lyman Howe; the theologian for Professor Treadwell, the pliysicist, who was also an unprofessional student of theol
ogy; the poet for T. W. Parsons, the musician for Ole Bull, the student for Heniy Wales, and the Sicilian for Luigi Monti. The original, if there was one, of the Spanish Jew is not known.
Flower-de-Luce was the title of a small volume of poems published in 1867, and the same year appeared the first of the three volumes containing the poet's translation of Dante, a work which was completed by the press in 1872. One of his friends states that his translation of the Inferno " was the result of ten minutes' daily work at a standing desk in his library, while his coffee was reaching the boiling point on his breakfast table." As he was an orderly man, and like all highly organized natures set a high value on time, this may well have been; but the final result was obtained only after a long and careful consideration, in which the poet invited the aid of Mr. Lowell, Professor Norton, Mr. Howells, and other Italian scholars, who met with him in a little club for the discussion of the work.
In May, 1868, Mr. Longfellow again visited Europe with his, family, and, going now with the accumulating honors of his eminent career, his presence was the occasion there of marked homage. Esjiecially was this true in England, where he received abundant social and civic honors. The University of Cambridge conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, and Oxford gave him the title of Doctor of Civil Law the next year. An English reporter describes him as he appeared at Cambridge in the scarlet robes of an academic dignitary : —
" The face was one which, I think, would have caught the spectator's glance even if his attention had not been called to it by the cheers which greeted Longfellow's appearance in the robes of an LL. D. Long white silken hair and a beard of patriarchal length and whiteness inclosed a young, fresh-colored countenance, with fine-cut features and deepsunken eyes, overshadowed by massive black eyebrows. Looking at him, you had the feeling that the white head of
hair and beard were a mask put on to conceal a young man's face; and that if the poet chose he could throw off the disguise, and appear as a man in the jjrime and bloom of life."
VI.
Mr. Longfellow returned to his home in the fall of 1869. During his absence The New England Tragedies had been published, and in 1872 came out The Divine Tragedy. At the same time the poet published his Christies, which consists of The Divine Tragedy, The Golden Legend, and The Neiv England Tragedies, as a consecutive trilogy, and it is to be regarded as the poet's most serious and profound undertaking. In the same year appeared also Three Books of Song, which contained the Second Day of Tales of a Wayside Inn, Judas Maccabceus, and a number of translations. In 1874 was published Aftermath, which comprised the completion of Tales of a Wayside Inn and the Third Flight of Birds of Passage. The Masque of Pandora and other poems followed in 1875.
This volume contained the poem Morituri Salutamus, read by the poet at the gathering of his classmates upon the fiftieth anniversary of graduation at Bowdoin. The occasion was one of singular interest, and the fact that the poet had never publicly recited one of his poems except in the case of the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard in 1833, gave a special value to the services in the plain church building at Brunswick. He expressed his relief when he found that he could read his poem from the pulpit, for, as he said, " Let me cover myself as much as possible; I wish it might be entirely." In the same volume was The Hanging of the Crane, the delightful domestic poem which had been previously issued with abundant illustrations the year before, after it had been first printed in The New York Ledger, the poet receiving for its publication there the unprecedented sum of four thousand dollars. The
Masque of Pandora was adapted for the stage and set to music by Alfred Cellier, and brought out at the Boston Theatre in 1881.
Shortly after the publication of this volume there began to appear a series of volumes, edited by Mr. Longfellow, entitled Poems of Places, which were published at intervals during the next four years, and extended to thirty-one volumes; the woi'k of sifting and arranging these poems gave him an agreeable occupation, for he was always at home in the best poetry of the world. While the series was in progress he issued, in 1878, Keratnos a7id other Poems, which gathered up the poems which he had been publishing the past three yeai'S. It is noticeable that in these later volumes the sonnet held a conspicuous place. Among these is the touching one entitled A Navieless Grave, of which the origin is told by Mrs. Apphia Howard: —
" I found in 1864, on a torn scrap of the Boston Sat^irday Evening Gazette, a description of a burying - ground in Newport News, where on the head-board of a soldier might be read the words ' A Union Soldier mustered out,' and this was the only inscription. The correspondent told the brief story very effectively, and, knowing Mr. Longfellow's intense patriotism and devotion to the Union, I thought it would impress him greatly. I knew also that the account would seem vital to him from the fact that his own son Charles was a Union soldier and severely wounded during the war.
" After carefully pasting the broken bits together on a bit of cardboard I sent it to Mr. Longfellow by Mr. [G. W.] Greene, who did not think Longfellow would use it, for he declared ' a poet could not write to order.' In a few days Mr. LongfelloAv acknowledged it by a letter, which I did not at all expect, as follows : —
"' In the writing of letters, moi'e, perhaps, than in anything else, Shakespeare's words are true ; and
' " The flighty purpose never is o'ertook Unless the deed go with it."
For this reason, the touching incident you have sent me has not yet shaped itself poetically in my mind, as I hope it some day will. Meanwhile, I thank you most sincerely for bringing it to my notice, and I agree with you in thinking it very beautiful.' " It was ten years and more before the sonnet was printed ; how long it may have lain in the poet's drawer we do not know.
The last published volume was Ultima Thule, issued in 1880, and containing a few melodious verses. A singular interest attaches to the volume. It is dedicated to his lifelong friend George Washington Greene, whose tender dedication to the poet of his life of his grandfather disclosed a little of the poet's inner life also. It touches upon the friendships of the jioet, that for Bayard Taylor and for the poet Dana, and it contains the lines Frdvi my Arm-Chair., which have set a precious seal upon the poet's relation to childhood. The origin of the poem is well known, but deserves to be repeated. The poem The Village Blacksm/lth had been a great favorite, and visitors to Cambridge did not fail to seek the spreading chestnut under which the smithy once stood. The smithy disappeared several years ago ; but the tree remained until 1876, when the city government, with a prudent zeal which no remonstrance of the poet and his friends could divert, ordered it to be cut down, on the plea that its low branches endangered drivers upon high loads passing upon the road beneath it.
The after-thought came to construct some memento of the tree for the poet, and the result was the presentation, upon the poet's seventy-second birthday, by the children of Cambridge, of a chair made from the wood of the tree. The' color is a dead black, the effect being produced by ebonizing the wood. The upholstering of the arms and the cushion is in green leather. The casters are glass balls set in sockets. In the back of the chair is a circular piece of
carving, consisting of hoi-se-chestnut leaves and blossoms. Horse-chestnut leaves and burrs are presented in varied combinations at other points. Underneath the cushion is a brass j^late, on which is the following inscription : —
To
The Author
of
The Village Blacksmith
This chair, made from the wood of the
spreading chestuut-tree,
is presented as
An expression of gratefid regard and veneration
by
The Children of Cambridge,
who with their friends join in best wishes
and congratulations
on
This Anniversary,
February 27, 1879.
Around the seat, in raised German text, are the lines from the poem, —
" And children coming home from school Look in at the open door; And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing floor."
The poem From viy Arm-Chair was the poet's response to the gift. In 1880, when the city of Cambridge celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town, December 28th, there was a children's festival in the morning at Sanders Theatre, and the chair stood ])rominently on the platform, where the thousand school-children gathered could see it. The poem was read to them by Mr. Riddle, and, better than all, the poet himself came forward, to the surprise of all who knew how absolute was his silence on public occasions, and standing,
the picture of beautiful old age, he spoke smilingly these few words to the delighted childi-en : —
My dear Young Friends, — I do not rise to make an address to you, but to excuse myself from making one. I know the proverb says that he who excuses himself accuses himself, and I am willing on this occasion to accuse myself, for I feel very much as I suppose some of you do when you are suddenly called upon in your class-room, and are obliged to say that you are not prepared. I am glad to see your faces and to hear your voices. I am glad to have this opportunity of thanking you in prose, as I have already done in verse, for the beautiful present you made me some two years ago. Perhaps some of you have forgotten it, but I have not ; and I am afraid — yes, I am afraid — that fifty years hence, when you celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of this occasion, this day and all that belongs to it will have passed from your memory ; for an English philosopher has said that the ideas as well as children of our youth often die before us, and our minds represent to us tliose tombs to which we are approacliing, where, though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away.
The chair gave the children a proud feeling of proprietorshiji in the poet, and hundreds of little boys and girls presented themselves at the door of the famous house. None were ever turned away, and pleasant memories will linger in the minds of those who boldly asked for the poet's hospitality, unconscious of the tax which they laid upon him. A pleasant story is told by Luigi Monti, who had for many years been in the habit of dining with the poet every Saturday. One Christmas, as he was walking toward the house, he was accosted by^ a girl about twelve years old, who inquired where Mr. Longfellow lived. He told her it was some distance down the street, but if she would walk along with him he would show her. When they reached the gate, she said, —
" Do you think I can go into the yard ? "
" Oh, yes," said Signor Monti. " Do you see the room
on the left ? That is where Martha Washington held her receptions a hundred years ago. If you look at the windows on the right you will probably see a white-haired gentleman reading a i)aper. Well, that will be Mr. Longfellow."
The child looked gratified and happy at the unexpected pleasure of really seeing the man whose poems she said she loved. As Signer Monti drew near the house he saw Mr. Longfellow standing with his back against the window, his head out of sight. When he went in, the kind-hearted Italian said, —
" Do look out of the window and bow to that little girl, who wants to see you very much."
" A little girl wants to see me very much ? Where is she ? " He hastened to the door, and, beckoning with his hand, called out, " Come here, little girl; come here, if you want to see me." She came forward, and he took her hand and asked her name. Then he kindly led her into the house, showed her the old clock on the stairs, the children's chair, and the various souvenirs which he had gathered. This was but one little instance of many.
Indeed, it was not to children alone that he was kind. Numberless were the acts of courtesy which he showed not to the courteous only, but to those whom others would have turned away. " Bores of all nations," says INIr. Norton, " especially of our own, persecuted him. His long-suffering ])atience was a wonder to his friends. It was, in truth, the sweetest charity. No man was ever before so kind to these moral mendicants. One day I ventured to remonstrate with him on his endurance of the persecutions of one of the worst of the class, who to lack of modesty added lack of honesty, — a wretched creature, — and when I had done he looked at me with a pleasant, reproving, humorous glance, and said, ' Charles, who would be kind to him if I were not ? ' It was enough."
" I happened," says a writer, " to be often brought into
LIFE AND WRITINGS. xxxv
contact with a very intelligent but cynical and discontented laboring man, who never lost an opportunity of railing against the rich. To such men wealth and poverty are the only distinctions in life. In one of his denunciations I heard him say, ' I will make an exception of one rich man, and that is Mr. Longfellow. You have no idea how much the laboring men of Cambridge think of him. There is many and many a family that gets a load of coal from Mr. Longfellow, without anybody knowing where it comes from.' . . . The people of Cambridge delighted in Mr. Longfellow's loyalty to the town of his residence and its society. They could not fail to be gratified that he and his family did not seek the society of the neighboring metropolis, or rather usually declined its solicitations, and preferred the simjjle and familiar ways and old friends of the less pretentious suburban community. Nothing could be more charming than tlie apparently absolute unconsciousness of distinction which pervaded the intercourse of Mr. Longfellow and his family with Cambridge society."
The title of Ultima Thule was a tacit confession that the poet had reached the border of earth, but the last poem in the volume. The Poet and his Sonz/s, was a truer confession that the singer must sing when the songs come to him ; and thus from time to time, in the last year of his life, Mr. Longfellow uttered his poems, reading the proof, indeed, of one, Mad River, but a few days before his death, the poem appearing in the May number of The Atlaiitic.
As the seventy-fifth anniversary of the poet's birth drew near, there was a spontaneous movement throughout the country looking to the celebration of the day, especially among the school-children. The recitation of his poems by thousands of childish voices was the happiest possible form of honoring him. In his own city of Cambridge all the schools thus remembered him, and numberless schools in the "West and South also took the same form of celebration ; while the Historical Society which had its home in hia
XXXvi HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,
birthplace held a meeting, and its members gave themselves up to pleasant reminiscences of the poet.
He had been confined to the house for several weeks before his last sickness, but in the warm days of early spring had ventured upon his veranda. A neighbor recalls the pretty sight of the gray-haired poet playing with his little grandchild one day in March. It was not until Monday, March 20th, that the fatal illness caused serious alarm ; and on Friday, the 24th, the bells tolled his death. His neighbors and the whole community showed their solicitude in those few days. The very children were heard to say, as they passed his gate, " We must tread gently, for Mr. Longfellow is very sick." The message of his death was sent round the world, and probably not a journal in Christendom but had some words, few or many, in regret and honor, upon receipt of the news. On Sunday, March 2C, 1882, he was buried from his home, where his family and a few of his nearest friends were gathered. He was laid in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge; and that afternoon Appleton Chapel, of Harvard University, was opened for a simple memorial service, thronged by a silent multitude, who listened to the tender discourse of two of the college clergy, to the hymns of the college choir, and to the consolation of the sacred Scriptures.
1.0NGFELL0W IN HOME LIFE.
BY ALICE M. LONGFELLOW.
Many people are full of poetry without, perhaps, recognizing it, because they have no power of expression. Some have, unfortunately, full power of expression, with no depth or richness of thought or character behind it. With Mr. Longfellow, there was complete unity and harmony between his life and character and the outward manifestation of this in his poetry. It was not worked out from his brain, but was the blossoming of his inward life.
His nature was thoroughly poetic and rhythmical, full of delicate fancies and thoughts. Even the ordinary details of existence were invested with charm and thoughtfulness. There was really no line of demarcation between his life and his poetry. One blended into the other, and his daily life was poetry in its truest sense. The rhythmical quality showed itself in an exact order and method, running through every detail. This was not the precision of a martinet; but anything out of place distressed him, as did a faulty rhyme or defective metre.
His library was carefully arranged by subjects, and, altliough no catalogue was ever made, he was never at a loss where to look for any needed volume. His books were deeply beloved and tenderly handled. Beautiful bindings were a great delight, and the leaves were cut with the utmost care and neatness. Letters and bills were kept in the same orderly manner. The latter were paid as soon as rendered, and he always personally attended to those in Die Tieighborhood. An unpaid bill weighed on him like a night
mare. Letters were answered day by day, as they accumulated, although it became often a weary task. He never failed, I think, to keep his account books accurately, and he also used to keep the bank books of the servants in his employment, and to lielp them with their accounts.
Consideration and thoughtfulness for others were strong characteristics with Mr. Longfellow. He, indeed, carried it too far, and became almost a prey to those he used to call the " total strangers," whose demands for time and help were constant. Fortunately he was able to extract much interest and entertainment from the different types of humanity that were always coming on one pretext or another, and his genuine sympathy and quick sense of humor saved the situation from becoming too wearing. This constant drain was, however, very great. His unselfishness and courtesy prevented him from showing the weariness of spu"it he often felt, and many valuable hours were taken out of his life by those with no claim, and no appreciation of what they were doing.
In addition to the " total strangers " was a long line of applicants for aid of every kind. " His house was known to all the vagrant train," and to all he was equally genial and kind. There was no change of voice or manner in talking with the humblest member of society ; and I am inclined to think the friendly chat in Italian with the organgrinder and the little old woman peddler, or the discussions with the old Irish gardener, were quite as full of pleasure as more important conversations with travelers from Elurope.
One habit Mr. Longfellow always kept up. Whenever he saw in a newspaper any pleasant notice of friends or acquaintances, a review of a book, or a subject in which they were interested, he cut it out, and kept the scraps in an envelope addressed to the person, and mailed them when several had accumulated.
He was a great foe to procrastination, and believed in attending to everything without delay. In connection with
HOME LIFE. xxxix
this I may say, that when he accepted the invitation of his classmates to deliver a poem at Bowdoin College on the fiftieth anniversary of their graduation, he at once devoted himself to the work, and the poem was finished several months before the time. During these months he was ill with severe neuralgia, and if it had not been for this habit of early preparation tlie j)oem would probably never have been written or delivered.
Society and hospitality meant something quite real to Mr. Longfellow. I cannot remember that there were ever any formal or obligatory occasions of entertainment. All who came were made welcome without any special preparation, and without any thought of personal inconvenience.
Mr. Longfellow's knowledge of foreign languages brought to him travelers from every country, — not only literary men, but public men and women of every kind, and, during the stormy days of European jjolitics, great numbers of foreign patriots exiled for their liberal opinions. As one Englishman pleasantly remarked, " There are no ruins in your country to see, Mr. Longfellow, and so we thought we would come to see you."
Mr. Longfellow was a true lover of peace in every way, and held war in absolute abhorrence, as well as the taking of life in any form. He was strongly opposed to capital punishment, and was filled with indignation at the idea of men finding sport in hunting and killing dumb animals. At the same time he was quickly stirred by any story of wrong and oppression, and ready to give a full measure of help and sympathy to any one struggling for freedom and liberty of thought and action.
With political life, as such, Mr. Longfellow was not in full sympathy, in spite of his life-long friendship with Charles Sumner. That is to say, the principles involved deeply interested him, but the methods displeased him. He felt that the intense absorption in one line of thought prevented a full development, and was an enemy to many of
xl HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW.
the most beautiful and important things in life. He considered that his part was to cast his weight with what seemed to him the best elements in public life, and he never omitted the duty of expressing his ojiinion by his vote. He always went to the polls the first thing in the morning on election day, and let nothing interfere with this. He used to say laughingly that he still belonged to the Federalists.
Mr. Longfellow came to Cambridge to live in 1837, when he was thirty years old. He was at that time professor of literature in Harvard College, and occupied two rooms in the old house then owned by the widow Craigie, formerly Washington's Headcpiarters. In this same old house he passed the remainder of his life, being absent only one year in foreign travel. Home had great attractions for him. He cared more for the quiet and repose, the comjjanionsliip of his friends and books, than for the fatigues and adventures of new scenes. Many of the friends of his youth were the friends of old age, and to them his house was always open with a warm welcome.
Mr. Longfellow was always full of reserve, and never talked much about himself or his work, even to his family. Sometimes a volume would appear in print, without his having mentioned its preparation. In spite of his general interest in people, only a few came really close to his life. With these he was always glad to go over the early days passed together, and to consult with them about literary work.
The lines descriptive of the Student in the Wayside Inn might apply to Mr. Longfellow as well: —
" A youth was there, of qiiiet ways, A Student of old books and days. To whom all tongues and lands were known, And yet a lover of his own; With many a social virtue graced. And yet a friend of solitude; A man of such a genial mood The heart of all things he emhraced, And yet of such fastidious taste, He never found the best too good."
EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE.
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
The country now known as Nova Scotia, and called formerly Acadie by the French, was in the hands of the French and English by turns until the year 1713, when, by the Peace of Utrecht, it was ceded by France to Great Britain, and has ever since remained in the possession of the English. But in 1713 the inhabitants of the peninsula were mostly French farmers and fishermen, living about Minas Basin and on Annapolis River, and the English government exercised only a nominal control over them. It was not till 1749 that the English themselves began to make settlements in the country, and that year they laid the foundations of the town of Halifax. A jealousy soon sprang uj) between the English and French settlers, which was deepened by the great conflict which was impending between the two mother countries ; for the treaty of peace at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, which confirmed the English title to Nova Scotia, was scarcely more than a truce between the two powers which had been struggling for ascendency during the beginning of the century. The French engaged in a long controversy with the English respecting the boundaries of Acadie, which had been defined by the treaties in somewhat general terms, and intrigues were carried on with the Indians, who were generally in sympathy with the French, for the annoyance of the English settlers. The Acadians were allied to the French by blood and by religion, but they claimed to have the rights of neutrals, and that these rights had been
granted to them by previous English ofi&cers of the crown. The one point of special dispute was the oath of allegiance demanded of the Acadians by the English. This they refused to take, except in a form modified to excuse them from bearing arms against the French. The demand was repeatedly made, and evaded with constant ingenuity and persistency. Most of the Acadians were probably simple* minded and peaceful people, who desired only to live imdisturbed upon their farms ; but there were some restless spirits, especially among the young men, who compromised the reputation of the community, and all were very much under the influence of their priests, some of whom made no secret of their bitter hostility to the English, and of their determination to use every means to be rid of them.
As the English interests grew and the critical relatiqns between the two countries approached open warfare, tho question of how to deal with the Acadian problem became the commanding one of the colony. There were some who coveted the rich farms of tli,e Acadians ; there were some who were inspired by religious hatred ; but the prevailing spirit was one of fear for themselves from the near presence of a community which, calling itself neutral, might at any time offer a convenient ground for hostile attack. Yet to require these people to withdraw to Canada or Louisburg would be to strengthen the hands of the French, and make these neutrals determined enemies. The colony finally resolved, without consulting the home government, to remove the Acadians to other parts of North America, distributing them through the colonies in such a way as to preclude any concert amongst the scattered families by which they should return to Acadia. To do this required quick and secret preparations. There were at the service of the Enghsh governor a number of New England troops, brought thither for the capture of the forts lying in the debatable land about the head of the Bay of Fundy. These were under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, of Massachu
setts, a great-grandson of Governor Edward WinsloAv, of Plymouth, and to this gentleman and Captain Alexander Murray was intrusted the task of removal. They were instructed to use stratagem, if possible, to bring together the various families, but to prevent any from escaping to the woods. On the 2d of September, 1755, Winslow issued a written order, addressed to the inhabitants of Grand-Prd, Minas, River Canard, etc., " as well ancient as young men and lads," — a proclamation summoning all the males to attend him in the church at Grand-Pr^ on the 5th instant, to hear a communication which the governor had sent. As there had been negotiations respecting the oath of allegiance, and much discussion as to the withdrawal of the Acadians from the countiy, though none as to their removal and dispersal, it was understood that this was an important meeting, and upon the day named four hundred and eighteen men and boys assembled in the church. Winslow, attended by his officers and men, caused a guard to be placed round the church, and then announced to the people his majesty's decision that they were to be removed with their families out of the country. The church became at once a guardhouse, and all the prisoners were under strict surveillance. At the same time similar plans had been carried out at Pisiquid under Captain Murray, and less successfully at Chignecto. Meanwhile there were whispers of a rising among the prisoners, and although the transports which had been ordered from Boston had not yet arrived, it was determined to make use of the vessels which had conveyed the troops, and remove the men to these for safer keeping. This was done on the 10th of September, and the men remained on the vessels in the harbor until the arrival of the transports, when these were made use of, and about three thousand souls sent out of the country to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, —' a haste which was increased by the anxiety of the oflB.
cers to be rid of the distasteful business, and a confusion which was greater from the difference of tongues, — many families were separated, and some at least never came together again.
The story of Evangeline is the story of such a separation. The removal of the Acadians was a blot upon the government of Nova Scotia and upon that of Great Britain, which never disowned the deed, although it was probably done without direct permission or command from England. It proved to be unnecessary, but it must also be remembered that to many men at that time the English power seemed trembling before France, and that the colony at Halifax regarded the act as One of self-preservation.
The authorities for an historical inquiry into this subject are best seen in a volume published by the government of Nova Scotia at Halifax in 1869, entitled Selections from the Public Documents of the Province of Nova SCotia, edited by Thomas B. Akins, D. C L., Commissioner of Public Records ; and in a manuscript journal kept by Colonel Winslow, now in the cabinet of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. At the State House in Boston are two volumes of records, entitled French Neutrals, which contain voluminous papers relating to the treatment of the Acadians who were sent to Massachusetts. Probably the work used by the poet in writing Evangeline was An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, by Thomas C. Hallburton, who is best known as the author of The ClockMaker, or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville, a book which, written apparently to prick the Nova Scotians into more enterprise, was for a long while the chief representative of Yankee smartness. Judge Haliburton's history was published in 1829. A later history, which takes advantage more freely of historical documents, is A History of Nova Scotia, or Acadie, by Beamish Murdock, Esq., Q. C, Halifax, 1866. Still more recent is a smaller, well-written work, entitled The History of Acadia from its
First Discovery to its Surrender to England hy the Treaty of Paris, by James Hannay, St. John, N. B., 1879. W. J. Anderson published a paper in the Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, New Series, part 7, 1870, entitled Evangeline and the Archives of Nova Scotia, in which he examines the poem by the light of the volume of Nova Scotia Archives, edited by T. B. Akins. The sketches of travellers in Nova Scotia, as Acadia, or a Montli among the Blue Noses, by F. S. Cozzens, and Baddeck, by C. D. Warner, give the present appearance of the country and inhabitants.
HISTORY OF THE POEM.
The origin of the tale brings out one of those interestingincidents of the relations of authors toward each other which happily are not uncommon. In Hawthorne's American Note-Books, under date of October 24, 1838, occurs this
paragraph: '' H. L. C • heard from a French Canadian
a story of a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day, all the men of the province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a proclamation. When assembled, they were all seized and shipped off to be distributed through New England, among them the new bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him, wandered about NewEngland all her life-time, and at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his death-bed. The shock was so great that it killed her likewise."
It may have been the same H. L. C. who dined with Hawthorne at Mr. Longfellow's one day, and told the poet that he had been trying to persuade Hawthorne to write a story on this theme. Hawthorne said he could not see in it the material for a tale, but Longfellow at once caught at it as the suggestion for a poem. '* Give it to me," he said, '' and promise that you will not write about it until I have written the poem." Hawthorne readily consented, and when Evangeline appeared was as quick to give expression
to his admiration as the poet had been in reviewing Tivlce-Told Tales. He wrote to Longfellow and sent him a copy of a Salem newspaper in which he had noticed Evangeline. Longfellow replied : —
My dear Hawthorne, — I have been waiting and waiting in the hope of seeing you in Cambridge. ... I have been meditating upon your letter, and pondering with friendly admiration your review of Evangeline, in connection with the subject of which, that is to say, the Acadiaus, a literary project arises in my mind for you to execute. Perhaps I can pay you back in part your own generous gift, by giving you a theme for story in return for a theme for song. It is neither more nor less than the history of the Acadians after their expulsion as well as before. Felton has been making some researches in the state archives, and offers to resign the documents into your hands.
Pray come and see me about it without delay. Come so as to pass a night with us, if possible, this week, if not a day and night. Ever sincerely yours, Henry W. Longfellow.
The poet never visited the scenes of his poem, though travellers have testified to the accuracy of the portraiture. " I have never been in Nova Scotia," he wrote to a friend. " As far as I remember, the authorities I mostly relied on in writing Evangeline were the Abb^ Raynal and Mr. Haliburton: the first for the pastoral, simple life of the Acadians ; the second for the history of their banishment." He gave to a Philadelphia journalist a reminiscence of his first thought of the material which forms the conclusion of the poem. " I was passing down Spruce Street one day toward my hotel, after a walk, when my attention was attracted to a large building with beautiful trees about it, inside of a high inclosure. I walked along until I came to the great gate, and then stepped inside, and looked carefully over the place. The charming picture of lawn, flowerbeds, and shade which it presented made an impression which has never left me, and when I came to write Evangeline I placed the final scene, the meeting between Evangeline
INTRODUCTION TO EVANGELINE. 1
and Gabriel and the death, at the poov-house, and the burial in an old Catholic grave-yard not far away, which I found by chance in another of my walks."
The poem made its way at once into the hearts of people. Faed, an English artist, painted a picture of Evangeline, taken from the face of a Manchester working-girl, which his brother engraved, and the picture became a great favorite on both continents.
THE MEASURE.
The measure of Evangeline is what is commonly known as English dactylic hexameter. The hexameter is the measure used by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey, and by Virgil in the jEneid, but the difference between the English language and the Latin or Greek is so great, especially when we consider that in English poetry every word must be accented according to its customary pronunciation, while in scanning Greek and Latin verse accent follows the quantity of the vowels, that in applying this term of hexameter to Evangeline it must not be supposed by the reader that he is getting the effect of Greek hexameters. It is the Greek hexameter translated into English use, and some have maintained that the verse of the Uiad is better represented in the English by the ti'ochaic measure of fifteen syllables, of which an excellent illustration is in Tennyson's Locksley Hall; others have compared the Greek hexameter to the ballad metre of fourteen syllables, used notably by Chapman in his translation of Homer's Iliad. The measure adopted by Mr. Longfellow has never become very popular in English poetry, but has repeatedly been attempted by other poets. The reader will find the subject of hexameters discussed by Matthew Arnold in his lectures On Translating Homer ; by James Spedding in English Hexameters, in his recent volume, Reviews and Discussions, Literary, Political and Historical, not relating to Bacon; and by John Stuart Blackie in Remarks on Eng
lish Hexameters, contained in his volume Hone Hellenlcce. The pubhcation of Evangelme had much to do with the revival of the use of the hexameter in English poetry, notably by Arthur Hugh Clough, who employed it with great skill in his pastoral poem of the Botkie of Tobev-naVuolich. In a letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Clough writes, " AVill you convey to Mr. Longfellow the fact that it was a reading of his Evangeline aloud to my mother and sister, which, coming after a reperusal of the Iliad, occasioned this outbreak of hexameters ? "
The measure lends itself easily to the lingering melancholy which marks the greater part of the poem, and the poet's fine sense of harmony between subject and form is rarely better shown than in this poem. The fall of the verse at the end of the line and the sharj) recovery at the beginning of the next will be snares to the reader, who must beware of a jerking style of delivery. The voice naturally seeks a rest in the middle of the line, and this rest, or csesural pause, should be carefully regarded; a little practice will enable oire to acquire that habit of reading the hexameter, which we may liken, roughly, to the climbing of a hill, resting a moment on the summit, and then descending the other side. The charm in reading Evangeline aloud, after a clear understanding of the sense, which is the essential in all good reading, is found in this gentle labor of the former half of the line, and gentle acceleration of the latter half.
PRELUDE.
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight.
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
1. A primeval forest is, strictly speaking, one which has never been disturbed by the axe. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, remarking on this opening of the poem, says : " 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.
" ' This is the forest primeval.'
The words are already as familiar as
or
Arma virumque cano.
The hexameter has been often criticised, but I do not believe any other measure could have told that lovely story with such effect as we feel when carried along the tranquil current of these brimming, slow-moving, soul-satisfying lines. Imagine for one moment a story like this minced into octosyllabics. The poet knows better than his critics the length of step which best fits his muse."
3. Druids were priests of the Celtic inhabitants of ancient Gaul and Britain. The name was probably of Celtic origin, but its form may have been determined by the Greek word drus, an oak, since their places of worship were consecrated groves of oak. Perhaps the choice of the image was governed by the analogy of a religion and tribe that were to disappear before a stronger power.
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deei)-voiced neighboring ocean 5
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts tha^j beneath it
Leaped like the voe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman ?
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers, —
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands, 10
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven ?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean.
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre. is
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and enduresj and is patient,
4. A poetical description of an ancient harper will be found in the Introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel, by Sir Waiter Scott.
8. Observe how the tragedy of the story is anticipated by this picture of the startled roe.
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's
devotion, List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines
of the forest; List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happjc
PART THE FIRST.
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of
Minas, 2e
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched
to the eastward, Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks
without number. Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with
labor incessant,
19. In the earliest records Acadie is called Cadie ; it afterwards was called Arcadia, Accadia, or L'Acadie. The name is probably a French adaptation of a word common among the Micmac Indians living there, signifying place or region, and used as an affix to other words as indicating the place where various things, as cranberries, eels, seals, were found in abundance. The French turned this Indian term into Cadie or Acadie ; the Eng= lish into Quoddy, in which form it remains when applied to the Quoddy Indians, to Quoddy Head, the last point of the United States next to Acadia, and in the compound Passamaquoddy, or Pollock-Ground.
21. Compare, for effect, the first line of Goldsmitn's The Traveller. Grand-Pr^ will be found on the map as part of the township of Horton.
24. The people of Acadia are mainly the descendants of the colonists who were brought out to La Have and Port Royal by Isaac de Razilly and Charnisay between the years 1633 and 1638.
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the
flood-gates 2,^
Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er
the meadows. West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards
and cornfields Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain ; and away
to the northward Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the
mountains Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty
Atlantic so
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended. There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian
village. Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and
of hemlock, Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign
of the Henries.
These colonists came from Roebelle, Saintouge, aud Poitou, so that they were drawn from a very limited area on the west coast of France, covered by the modern departments of Vendue and Charente Inf^rieure. This circumstance had some influence on their mode of settling the lands of Acadia, for they came from a country of marshes, where the sea was kept out by artificial dikes, and they found in Acadia similar marshes, which they dealt with in the same way that they had been accustomed to practise in France. Hannay's History of Acadia, pp. 282, 283. An excellent account of dikes and the flooding of lowlands, as practised in Holland, may be found in A Farmer''s Vacation, by George E. Waring, Jr.
29. Blomidon is a mountainous headland of red sandstone, surmounted by a perjjendicular wall of basaltic trap, the whole about four hundred feet in height, at the entrance of the Basin of Minas.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting 35
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, wheo brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the chimneys.
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden 40
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the songs of the maidens.
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the children
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless them.
Reverend walked he among them ; and up rose matrons and maidens, 45
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome
Then came the laborers home from tne field, and serenely the sun sank
36. The characteristics of a Normandy village may be further learned by reference to a pleasant little sketch-book, published a few years since, called Normandy Picturesque, by Henry Blackburn, and to Through Normandy, by Katharine S. Macquoid.
39. The term kirtle was sometimes applied to the jacket only, sometimes to the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A full kirtle was always both ; a half kirtle was a term applied to either. A man's jacket was sometimes called a kirtle ; here the reference is apparently to the full kirtle worn by women.
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from
the belfry Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the
village Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense
ascending, sc
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and
contentment. Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian
farmers, — Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were
they free from Fear, that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice
of republics. Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their
windows; 55
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts
of the owners ; There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in
abundance.
Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the
Basin of Minas, Benedict Beliefoutaine, the wealthiest farmer of
Grand-Pie, Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing
his household, ec
Gentle Evangeline lived, his.child, and the pride of
the village.
49. Angelus Domini is the full name given to the bell which, at morning, noon, and night, called the people to prayer, in commemoration of the visit of the angel of the Lord to the Virgin Mary. It was introduced into France in its modern form in the sixteenth century.
Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy
winters ; Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with'
snow-flakes ; White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as
brown as the oak-leaves. Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers ; 65 Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the
thorn by the wayside, Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown
shade of her tresses! Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed
in the meadows. When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at
noontide Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah ! fair in sooth was the
maiden. 7o
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell
from its turret Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with
his hj'ssop Sprinkles the congrega,tion, and scatters blessings upon
them, Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of
beads and her missal. Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and
the ear-rings 7s
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as
an heirloom. Handed down from mother to child, through long generations. Bat a celestia". brightness — a more ethereal beauty —Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after
confession,
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her. so {^ When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.,/
Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of
the farmer Stood on the side of a hill commanding the sea: and
a shady Sycamore grew by the door, with a woodbine wreathing around it. Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath ; and
a footpath ss
Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the
meadow. Under the sycamore-tree were hives overhung by a
penthouse. Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the
roadside. Built o'er a box for the poor, or the blessed image of
Mary. Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well
with its moss-grown so
Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for
the horses. Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were
the barns and the farm-yard ; There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique
ploughs and the harrows ; There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his
feathered seraglio,
93. The accent is on the first syllable of antique, where it remains in the form antic, which once had the same general mean' iug.
Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the selfsame 95
Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter.
Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. In each one
Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch ; and a staircase.
Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous cornloft.
There too the dove-cot stood, with its meek and innocent inmates 100
Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes
Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of mutation.
Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer
of Grand-Pre Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed
his household. Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened
his missal, 105
Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest
devotion ;
99. Odorous. The accent here, as well as iu line 403, is upon the first syllable, where it is commonly placed ; but Milton, who of all poets had the most refined ear, writes " So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More airy, last the bright consummate flower Spirits odorous breathes."
Par Losf, Book V., lines 479-482.
But he also uses the more familiar accent in other passages, as, " An amber scent of ddorous perfume," in Samson Agonistes^ line 720.
Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her garment!
Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,
And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her footsteps,
Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker of iron ; uo
Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village,
Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he whispered
Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music.
But among all who came young Gabriel only was welcome;
Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith, 115
Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all men;
For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations.
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people.
Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from earliest childhood
Grew up together as brother and sister ; and Father Felician, i2t)
Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them their letters
Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and the plain-song. 122. The plain-song is a monotonic recitative of the collects.
But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson
completed, Swiftly they hurried away to the foi'ge of Basil the
blacksmith. There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to
behold him 125
Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a
plaything, Nailing the shoe in its place ; while near him the tire
of the cart-wheel Lay like a fiery snake^ coiled round in a circle of
cinders. Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering
darkness Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every
cranny and crevice, 130
Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring
bellows, And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired in
the ashes. Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into
the chapel. Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the
eagle, Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the
meadow. 135
Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests
on the rafters,' Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which
the swallow Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight
of its fledglings;
133. The French have another saying similar to this, that they were guests going in to the wedding.
Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the
swallow! Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer
were children, uc
He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of
the morning, Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened
thought into action. She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a
woman. " Sunshine of Saint Eulalie " was she called; for that
was the sunshine Which, as the farmers believed, would load their
orchards with apples ; 145
She too would bring to her husband's house delight
and abundance. Filling it with love and the ruddy faces of childr-en.
II.
Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and longer. And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.
139. In Pluquet's Contes Populaires we are told that if one of a swallow's young is blind the mother bird seeks on the shore of the ocean a little stone, with which she restores its sight ; and he adds, " He who is fortunate enough to find that stone in a swallow's nest holds a wxinderful remedy." Pluquet's book treats of Norman superstitions and popular traits.
144. Pluquet also gives this proverbial saying : —
" Si le soleil rit le jour Sainte-Eulalie, n y aura pommes et cidre a folie."
(If the sun smiles on Saint Eulalie's day, there will be plenty of apples, and cider enough.)
Saint Eulalie's day is the 12tb of Febraaxy.
Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound, iso
Desolate northern bays to the shores of tro|)ical islands.
Harvests were gathered in ; and wild with the winds of September
VTrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the angel. TAII the signs foretold a winter long and inclement.
Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded their honey 155
Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian hunters asserted
Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the foxes.
Such was the advent of autumn, i Then followed that beautiful season.
Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All-Saints!
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape leo
Lay as if new-created m all the freshness of childhood.
Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart of the ocean
Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in harmony blended.
Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the farm-yards,
159. The Summer of All-Saints is our Indian Summer, A'.Saints Day being November 1st. The French also give this season the name of Saint Martin's Summer, Saint Martin's Day being November 11th.
Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of
pigeons, - les
All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love,
and the great sun Looked with the eye of love through the golden va
pors around him; While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet anc
yellow, Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree
of the forest Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with
mantles and jewels. no
Now recommenced the region of rest and affection and stillness. ( Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight descending
Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead, j
Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on each other.
And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of evening. its
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer.
Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that; waved from her collar.
Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of humar affection.
170. Herodotus, in his account of Xerxes' expedition against Greece, tells of a beautiful plane-tree which Xerxes found, and was so enamored with that he dressed it as one might a woman, and placed it under the care of a guardsman (vii. 31). Anothet writer, ^lian, improving on this, says he adorned it with a necklace and bracelets.
Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks from the seaside,
Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them followed the watch-dog, iso
Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his instinct,
Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly
Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers ;
Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept; their protector,
When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, the wolves howled. i85
Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the marshes.
Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor.
Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks.
While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous saddles.
Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson, 190
Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms.
Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders
Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular cadence
193. There is a charming milkmaid's song in Tennyson's drama of Queen Mary, Act III., Scene 5, where the streaming of the milk into the sounding pails is caught in the tinkling k's of ,'iuch lines as
"And you came and kissed rae milking the cow.''
Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended.
Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the farm-yard, wi
Echoed back by the barns. Anos they sank into stillness;
Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of tht barn-doors,
Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was silent.
^ In^doors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the farmer
Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths 200
Struggled together like foes in a bui-ning city. Behind him.
Nodding and mocking along the ',»^all with gestures fantastic.
Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished aw^ay into darkness.
Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his armchair
Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser 205
Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.
Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas,
Sucli as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him
Sang in their Norman oi'chards and bright Burgundian vineyards.
Close at her father's 'side was the gentle Evangeline seated, 2x0
Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the corner
behind her. Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest was its diligent
shuttle, While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the
drone of a bagpipe, Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments
together. As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals ceases, 215 Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest
at the altar. So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion
the clock clicked.
Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and,
suddenly lifted. Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back
on its hinges. Benedict knew by the hob-nailed shoes it was Basil
the blacksmith, 220
And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was
with him. " Welcome ! " the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps
paused on the threshold, " Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place
on the settle dose by the chimney-side, which is always empty
without thee; Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of
tobacco; 225
Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the
curling Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial
face gleams
Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist
of the marshes." Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the
blacksmith, Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire
side: — 23{
" Benedict Beliefontaine, thou hast ever thy jest anc*
thy ballad! Ever in cheerfullest mood art thou, when others are
filled with Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before
them. Happy art thou, as if every day thou hadst picked up
a horseshoe.'^ Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline
brought him, 235
And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he
slowly continued : — " Four days now are passed since the English ships
at their anchors Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon
pointed against us. What their design may be is unknown; but all are
commanded On the morrow to meet in the church, where his
Majesty's mandate 240
Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas ! in the
mean time Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the peo
pie." Then made answer the fainiier: —" Perhaps some
friendlier purpose
239. The text of Colonel Winslow's proclamation will be found in Haliburton, i. 175.
Brings these ships to our shores. Jt'erhaps the harvests in England
By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been blighted, 245
And from our bursting barns they would feed their cattle and children."
** Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said warmly the blacksmith,
Shaking his head as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh, he continued : —
" Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor Port Koyal.
Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts, 250
Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of tomorrow.
Arms have been taken from us, and wai'like weapons of all kinds;
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe ot the mower."
Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer: —
249. Louisburg, on Cape Breton, was built by the French as a military and naval station early in the eighteenth century, but was taken by an expedition from Massachusetts under General Pepperell in 1745. It was restored by England to France in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and recaptured by the English in 1757. Beau Sejour was a French fort upon the neck of land connecting Acadia with the mainland which had just been captured by Winslow's forces. Fort Royal, afterwards called Annapolis Royal, at the outlet of Annapolis River into the Bay of Fundy, had been disputed ground, being occupied alternately by French and English, but in 1710 was attacked by an expedition from New England, and after that held by the English government and made a fortified place.
" Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks
and our cornfields, 255
Safer within these peaceful dikes besieged by the ocean. Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's
cannon. Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow
of sorrow Fail on this house and hearth ; for this is the night
of the contract. Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of
the village 260
Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the
glebe round about them, Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for
a twelvemonth. Rend Leblanc wiD be here anon, with his papers and
inkhorn. Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of
our children ? " As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in
her lover's, zej
Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father
had spoken, And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered.
III.
Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean,
267. A notary is an officer authorized to attest contracts or writings of any kind. His authority varies in different countries ; in France he is the necessary maker of all contracts where the subject-matter exceeds 150 francs, and his instruments, which are preserved and registered by himself, are the originals, the parties preserving only copies.
Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the no. tary public ;
Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung 270
Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows
Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal
Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred
Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.
Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive, 275
Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English.
Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion.
Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.
He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children ;
For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest, 280
275. King George's War, which broke out in 1744 in Cape Breton, in an attack by the French upon an English garrison, and closed with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle iu 1748 ; or, the reference may possibly be to Queen Anne's war, 1702-1713; when the French aided the Indians iu their warfare with the colonists.
280. The Loup-garou, or were-wolf, is, according to an old superstition especially prevalent in France, a man with power to turn himself into a wolf, which he does that he may devour children. In later times the superstition passed into the more inno cent one of men having a power to charm wolves.
And of the goblin that came in the night to water the
horses, And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who
unchristened Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers
of children; And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the
stable. And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in
a nutshell, 285
And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover
and horseshoes. With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the
blacksmith. Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his right hand, " Father Leblanc," he exclaimed,' " thou hast heard
the talk in the village, 290
And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships
and their errand." Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary
public, — "Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never
the wiser;
282. Pluquet relates tliis superstition, and conjectures that the white, fleet ermine gave rise to it.
284. A belief still lingers among the peasantry of England, as well as on the Continent, that at midnight, on Christmas eve, the cattle in the stalls fall down on their knees in adoration of the infant Saviour, as the old legend says was done in the stable at Bethlehem.
285. In like manner a popular superstition prevailed in England that ague could be cured by sealing a spider in a goose* quill and hanging it about the neck.
And what their errand may be I know no better than
others. Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil intention 295 Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why then
molest us ? " "God's name ! " shouted the hasty and somewhat iras=
cible blacksmith ; " Must we in all things look for the how, and the why,
and the wherefore ? Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the
strongest! " But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary public, — 300
V " Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often
consoled me. When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at
Port Royal." This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to
repeat it When his neighbors complained that any injustice was done them. 305
" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember. Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its
left hand, And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice
presided Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people. 310
302. This is an old Florentine story ; in an altered form it is the theme of Rossini's opera of La Gazza Ladra.
Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance,
Havino- no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them.
But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted;
Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty
Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman's palace sis
That a necldace of pearls was lost, and ere long a suspicion
Fell on an orphan girl who lived as a maid in the household.
She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold,
Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice.
As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended, 320
Lo ! o'er the city a tempest rose ; and the bolts of the thunder
Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand
Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,
A.nd in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie,
Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven." 325
Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith
Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language;
All his thoughts were cotigealed into lines on his face,
as the vapors Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the
winter.
Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the table, 330
Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with home-brewed
Nut-bvown ale, that was famed for its strength in the village of Grand-Pre;
While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn,
Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties.
Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in cattle. 335
Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were completed,
And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the margin.
Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table
Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver;
And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and bridegroom, 340
Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare.
Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed.
While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside,
Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its
corner. Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention
the old men 343
Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful mancEuvre, Laughed when a man was crowned, or a bieach was
made in the king-row. Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's
embrasure. Sat the lovers and whispered together, beholding the
moon rise Over tiie pallid sea and the silvery mists of the mead
, OWS. 350
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.
Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from
the belfry Kang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and
straightway Rose the guests and departed ; and silence reigned In
the household. 355
344. The word draughts is derived from the circumstance of drawing the men from one square to another.
354. Curfew is a corruption of couvre-feu, or cover fire In tbe Middle Ages, when police patrol at night was almost unknown, it was attempted to lessen the chances of crime by making it an offence against the laws to be found in the streets iu tlie night, and the curfew bell wa-s tolled, at various hours, according to the custom of the place, from seven to nine o'clock in the evening. It warned honest people to lock their doors, covei their fires, and go to bed. The custom still lingers in many places, even in America, of ringing a bell at nine o'clock in the evening.
Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the
door-step Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with
gladness. Carefully then were covered the embeis that glowed^
on the hearth-stone, And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the
farmer. Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline fol
lowed. 360
Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the darkness. Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the
maiden. Silent she passed the hall, and entered the door of her
chamber. Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white,
and its clothes-press Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully folded 365 Linen and woollen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline
woven. This was the precious dower she would bring to her
husband in marriage, Better than flocks and herds, being proofs of her skiU
as a housewife. Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and
radiant moonlight Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room.
till the heart of the maiden 370
Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides
of the ocean. Ah! she was fair, exceeding fair to behold, as she
stood with
Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her
chamber! Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the
orchard, Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her
lamj) and her shadow. 375
Yei were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling
of sadness Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in
the moonlight Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a
moment. And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely
the moon pass Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow
her footsteps, sso
As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered
with Hagar.
IV.
Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village
of Grand-Prc. Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of
Minas, Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were
riding at anchor. Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous
labor 385
Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates
of the morning. Now from the country around, from the farms and
neighboring hamlets, Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian
peasants.
Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the young folk
Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous meadows, 390
Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in the greensward.
Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the highway.
Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were silenced.
Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy groups at the house-doors
Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped together. 395
Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and feasted ;
For with this simple people, who lived like brothers together,
All things were held in common, and what one had was another's.
Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more abundant:
396. " Real misery was wholly miknown, and benevolence anticipated the demands of poverty. Every misfortune was relieved as it were before it could be felt, without ostentation on the one hand, and without meanness on the other. It was, in short, a society of brethren, every individual of which was squally ready to give and to receive what he thought the common right of mankind." — From the Abb^ Raynal's account oi the Acadians. The Abbd Guillaume Thomas Francis Raynal was a French writer (1711-1796), who published A Philosophical History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies, in which he included also some account of Canada and Nova Scotia. His picture of life among the Acadians, somewhat highly colored, is the source from which after writers have drawn their knowledge of Acadian manners.
For Evangeline stood among the guests of hei father; lou
Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome and gladness
Fell from her beautiful lips, and blessed the cup as she gave it.
Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard,
Stript of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal.
There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the notary seated; 405
There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.
Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the beehives,
Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts and of waistcoats.
Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his snow-white
Hair, as it waved in the wind ; and the jolly face of the fiddler 410
Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from the embers.
Gayly the old man saug to the vibrant sound of his fiddle,
Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon dt
Dunkerque^
- I .
413. Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres was a song written b^
Ducauroi, maitre de chapelle of Henri IV., the words of whicli
are : —
Voua connaissez Cybele, You remember Cybele,
Qui sut fixer le Temps; Wise tlie seasons to unfold ;
On la (lisait fort belle, Very fair, said men, was she,
MSme dans ses vieux acs. Even when her years grew old.
And anon with bis wooden shoes beat time to the
music. Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying
dances ■ 415
Under the orchard-trees and down the path to the
meadows; Old folk and young together, and children mingled
among them. Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's
daughter! Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the
blacksmith!
So passed the morning away. And lo! with a summons scmorous 420
Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat.
Thronged ere long was the church with men. Without, in the churchyard.
CHORUS. caacvBUs.
Cette divinite, quoique deja grand'mere A grandame, yet by goddess birth
Avait les yeux doux, le teiut frais, She kept sweet eyes, a color warm,
Avait nigme certains attraita And held through everything a charm
Fermes comme la Terre. Fast like the earth.
Le Carillon de Dunkerque was a popular song to a tune played on the Dunkirk chimes. The words are : —
Le Carillon de Dunkerque. The Carillon of Dunkirk.
Imprudent, t^m^raire Reckless and rash,
A I'instant, je I'espere Take heed for the flash
Dans raon juste courroux. Of mine auger, "tis just
Tu vas tomber sous mes coups! To lay thee with its blows in the dust.
— Je brave ta menace. — Your threat I defy.
— Etre moi! quelle audace ! — What! You would be I! Avance done, poltron I Come, coward ! I 'U show — Tu trembles ? non, non, nor. You tremble ? No, no !
— J'^touffe de colere ! — I 'm choking with rage!
— Je ris de ta colere. — A fig for your rage!
The music to which the old man sang these songs will be found in La Cle du Caveau, by Pierre Capelle, Nos. 664 and 739. Paris : A. Cotelle.
Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and
hung on the headstones Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from
the forest. Then came the guard from the ships, and marching
proudly among them 425
Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant
clangor Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling
and casement, — Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of
the soldiers. Then uprose their commander, and spake from the
steps of the altar, 430
Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal
commission. " You are convened this day," he said, " by his Majesty's orders. Clement and* kind has he been; but how you have
answered his kindness Let your own hearts reply ! To my natural make and
my temper Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must
be grievous. 435
Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our
monarch: Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle
of all kinds Forfeited be to the crown ; and that you yourselves
from this province
432. Colonel Winslow has preserved in his Diary the speech which he delivered to the assembled Acadians, and it is copied by Halihurton in his History of Nova Scotia, i. 166, 167.
Be transported to other lands. God grant you may
dwell there Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people ! 440 Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's
pleasure!" As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of
summer, Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the
hailstones Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters
his windows. Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch
from the house-roofs, 445
Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures ; So on the hearts of the people descended the words ot
the speaker. Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and
then rose Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger, And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the
door-way. 450
^in was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce
imprecations Rang through the house of prayer; and high o'er the
heads of the others Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the
blacksmith. As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and
wildly he shouted, — 45s
** Down with the tyrants of England ! we never have
sworn them allegiance!
Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our
homes and our harvests ! " More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand
of a soldier Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to
the pavement.
In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention, 4(30 Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Feli
cian - Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of
the altar. Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed
into silence All that clamorous throng; and thus he spake to his
people; Deep were his tones and solemn; in accents measured
and mournful 465
Spake he, as, after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the
clock strikes. " What is this that ye do, my children ? what madness
has seized you ? Forty years of my life have I labored among you, aad
taught you, Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another! Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayer.'.
and privations ? 47t
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and
forgiveness ? This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would
you profane it Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with
hatred?
Lo! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gazing upon you! See ! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy
compassion
Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, ' O Father, forgive them !'
Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked assail us,
Let us repeat it now, and say, ' O Father, forgive them!' "
Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of Jiis people
Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate outbreak, 480
While they repeated his prayer, and said, " O Father, forgive them! "
Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed
from the altar; Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the
people responded, Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the
Ave Maria Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls,
with devotion translated, 48f
Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending tc
heaven.
Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, and on all sides ' Wandered, wailing, from hou>se to house the women and children. Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her riffht hand
Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun,
that, descending, m
Lighted the village street with mysteiious splendor,
and roofed each Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned
its windows. Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on
the table; There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant
with wild flowers; There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh
brought from the dairy; . 495
And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of
the farmer. Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the
sunset Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambrosial meadows. Ah ! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen. And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial
ascended, — 500
Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness,
and patience! Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the \\\
lage. Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of
the women, As o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they
departed. Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of
their children. 505"
492. To emblazon is literally to adorn anything with ensigns armorial. It was often the custom to work these ensigns into the design of painted windows.
Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors
Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.
Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelas sounded.
Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline lingered. All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the
windows 510
Stood she, and listened and looked, until, overcojue by
emotion, " Gabriel! " cried she aloud with tremulous voice ;
but no answer Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier
grave of the living. Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house
of her father. Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board was
the supper untasted. 515
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with
phantoms of terror. Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her
chamber. In the dead of the night she heard the disconsolate
rain fall Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore-tree by
the window. Keenly the lightning flashed ; and the voice of the
echoing thunder 520
Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the
world He created!
Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the
justice of Heaven; Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully
slumbered till morning.
V.
Four times the sun had risen and set; and now on
the fifth day
Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm-house. 525
Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession.
Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian women,
Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore.
Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their dwellings,
Ere they were -shut from sight by the winding road and the woodland. 530
Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the oxen.
While in their little hands they clasped some fragments of playthings.
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and
there on the sea-beach Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the
peasants. All day long between the shore and the ships did the
boats ply; ssi
All day long the wains came laboring down from the
village. Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his
setting.
Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the churchyard.
Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden the church-doors
Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy procession 540
Followed the long-impi'isoned, but patient, Acadian farmers.
Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and their country.
Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and wayworn.
So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended
Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and their daughters. 545
Foremost the young men came; and, raising together their voices.
Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions: —
" Sacred heart of the Saviour! O inexhaustible foun= tain!
Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience!"
Then the old men, as they marched, and the women that stood by the wayside 550
Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine above them
Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits departed.
Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waitecf in silence, Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of affliction, —
Calmly and sadly she waited, until tlie procession ap proached her, 555
And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion.
Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him.
Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder-, and whispered, —
" Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we love one another
Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen ! " m
Smiling she spake these words ; then suddenly paused, for- her father
Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas! how changed was his aspect!
Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, and his footstep
Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart in his bosom.
But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him, ses
Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort availed not.
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mournful procession.
There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of
embarking. Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers,
too late, saw their children 570
Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest
entreaties. So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried.
While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with
her father. Half the task was not done when the sun went down,
and the twilight Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the
refluent ocean 575
Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the
sand-beach Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery sea-weed. Farther back in the midst of the household g-oods and
the wagons, Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle. All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near
them, 580
Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian
farmers. Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing
ocean. Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and
leaving Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the
sailors. Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from
their pastures; sso
Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk
from their udders; Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars
of the farm-yard, — Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand
of the milkmaid. Silence reigned in the streets; from the church no
Angelus sounded. Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights
from the windows. 590
But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had
been kindled, Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from
wrecks in the tempestRound them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were
gathered, Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the
crying of children. Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in
his parish, 595
Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing
and cheering. Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate seashore. Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat
with her father, And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old
man. Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either
thought or emotion, 600
E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have
been taken. Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to
cheer him, Vainly offered him food ; yet he moved not, he looked
not, he spake not, But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering
fire-light. " Benedicite 1" murmured the priest, in tones of compassion. 605 More he fain would have said, but his heart was full,
and his accents Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child
on a threshold.
Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow.
Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the maiden,
Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above them 610
Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of mortals.
Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in silence.
Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn
the blood-red Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the
horizon Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain
and meadow, 615
Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge
shadows together. Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of
the village, Gleamed on the sky and sea, and the ships that lay in
the roadstead. Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of
flame were Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the
quivering hands of a martyr, 62(
615. The Titans were giant deities in Greek mythology who attempted to deprive Saturn of the sovereignty of heaven, and were driven down into Tartarus by Jupiter, the son of Saturn, who hurled thunderbolts at them, Briareus, the hundred-handed giant, was in mythology of the same parentage as the TitanSj but was not classed with them
Then as the wind seized the gleeds and the burning
thatch, and, uplifting, Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a
hundred house-tops Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame inter
mingled.
These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard.
Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish, 625
" We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand-Pre ! "
Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farmyards.
Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle
Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs interrupted.
Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping encampments 63o
Far in the western prairies of forests that skirt the Nebraska,
When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the whirlwind,
621. Gleeds. Hot, burning coals ; a Chaucerian word : —
"And wafres piping hoot out of the gleede."
Canterbury Tales, 1. 3379.
The burning of the houses was in accordance with the instructions of the Governor to Colonel Winslow, in case he should fail in collecting all the inhabitants : " You must proceed by the most vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to embark, but in depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter or support, by burning their houses and by destroying everything that may afford them the means of subsistence in the country."
Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the
river. Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the
herds and the horses Broke through their folds and fences, and madly
rushed o'er the meadows. 635
Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the
priest and the maiden Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and
widened before them; And as they turned at length to speak to their silent
companion, Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad
on the seashore Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed. 640 Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the
maiden Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her
terror. Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on
his bosom. Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious
slumber; And when she woke from the trance, she beheld a
multitude near her. C45
Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gaz=
ing upon her. Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest com
passion. Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the
landscape,
Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces
around her, And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering
senses. eso
Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people,— " Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier
season Brings us again to our hoaies from the unknown land
of our exile. Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the
churchyard." Such were the words of the priest. And there in
haste by the sea-side, ess
Having the glare of the burning village for funeral
torches. But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of
Grand-Pre. And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of
sorrow, Lo ! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast
congregation, Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with
the dirges. eeo
'T was the returning tide, that afar from the waste of
the ocean, With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward. Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of
embarking;
657. The bell was tolled to mark the passage of the soul into the other world ; the book was the service book. The phrase "bell, book, or candle" was used in referring to excommumca» tion.
And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of
the harbor, Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the
villaore in ruins. m
PART THE SECOND.
I.
Many a weary year had passed since the burning of
Grand-Pre, When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into
exile, Exile without an end, and without an example in
story. Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians
landed; ero
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the
wind from the northeast Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks
of Newfoundland. Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from
city to city, From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southerr
savannas, — From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where
the Father of Waters 67f
Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to
the ocean. Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the
mammoth. 677. Bones of the mastodon, or mammoth, have been found
Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heart-broken,
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside.
Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards. eso
Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wandered,
Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things.
Fair was she and young; but, alas! before her extended,
Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its pathway
Marked by the graves of those who had sorrowed and suffered before her, ess
Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and abandoned.
As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by
Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine.
Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished;
As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine, 690
Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended
Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen.
Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the fever within her,
scattered all over the territory of the United States and Canada, but the greatest number have been collected in the Salt Licks of Kentucky, and in the States of Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, and Alabama.
Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of the spirit,
She would commence again her endless search and endeavor ; 695
Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses and tombstones,
Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in its bosom
He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.
Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper,
Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. 700
Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved and known him,
But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten.
" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " they said ; " Oh, yes ! we have seen him.
He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone to the prairies;
Caureurs-des-bois are they, and famous hunters and trappers." vos
699. Observe the diminution in this line, by which one is led to the airii hand in the next.
705. The coureurs-des-hois formed a class of men, very early in Canadian history, produced by the exigencies of the fur-trade. They were French by birth, but by long affiliation with the Indians and adoption of their customs had become half-civilized vagrants, whose chief vocation was conducting the canoes of the traders along the lakes and rivers of the interior. Bushrangers is the English equivalent. They played an important part in the Indian wars, but were nearly as lawless as the Indians themselves. The reader will find them frequently referred to in
" Gabriel Lajeunesse ! " said others ; " Oh, yes I we
have seen him. He is a voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana." Then would they say, " Dear child! why dream and
wait for him longer ? Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel ? others Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as
loyal ? 71 c
Here is Baptiste Leblane, the notary's son, who has
loved thee Many a tedious year; come, give him thy hand and be
happy! Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's
tresses." Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly,
" I cannot! Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand,
and not elsewhere. 715
For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and
illumines the pathway, Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in
darkness." Thereupon the priest, her friend and father confessor. Said, with a smile, "O daughter! thy God thus
speaketh within thee ! Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was
wasted; 72c
Parkman's histories, especially in The Conspiracy of Pontiac, The Discovery of the Great West, and Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV.
707. A voyageur is a river boatman, and is a term applied usually to Canadians.
713. St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Catherine of Siena were both celebrated for their vows of virginity. Hence the saying to braid St. Catherine's tresses, of one devoted to a single life.
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full
of refreshment; That which the fountain sends forth returns again to
the fountain. Patience ; accomijlish thy labor ; accomplish thy work
of affection! Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance
is godlike. 725
Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart
is made godlike. Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more
worthy of heaven ! " Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored
and waited. Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the
ocean, But with its sound there was mingled a voice that
whispered, " Despair not! " 730
Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless discomfort, Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of
existence. Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wanderer's foot=
steps; — Not through each devious path, each changeful year
of existence; But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through
the valley : 735
Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of
its water Here and there, in some open sjDace, and at intervals
only;
Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms
that conceal it, Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous
niurmur; Happy, at length, if he find a spot where it reaches
an outlet. in
II.
It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful River,
Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash,
Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi,
Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian boatmen.
It was a band of exiles: a raft, as it were, from the shipwrecked 745
Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together,
Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common misfortune ;
Men and women and children, who, guided by hope or by hearsay.
Sought for their kith and their kin among the fewacred farmers
On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Ope» lousas. 15C
741. The Iroquois gave to this river the name of Ohio, or the Beautiful River, and La Salle, who was the first European to discover it, preserved the name, so that it was transferred to maps very early.
750. Between the 1st of January and the 13th of May, 1765, about six hundred and fifty Acadians had arrived at New Or
With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father Feliciau.
Onward o'er sunken sands, through a wilderness sombre with forests.
Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river;
Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on its borders.
Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where plumelike 755
Cotton-trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with the current.
Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sandbars
Lay in the stream, and along the wimpliug waves of their mai'gin,
Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans waded.
Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river, veo
Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens.
Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and dove-cots.
They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual summer,
leans. Louisiana had been ceded by France to Spain in 1762 but did not really pass under the control of the Spanish until 1769. The existence of a French population attracted the wandering Acadians, and they were sent by the authorities to form settlements in Attakapas and Opelousas. They afterward formed settlements on both sides of the Mississippi from the German Coast up to Baton Rouge, and even as high as Pointe Coupde. Hence the name of Acadian Coast, which a portion of the banks of the river still bears. • See Gayarr^'s History of Louisiana: The French Dominion, vol. ii.
Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and citron,
Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward. 763
They, too, swerved from their course; and, entering the Bayou of Plaquemine,
Soon were lost in a maze of sluggish and devious waters,
Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction.
Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of the cypress
Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in midair 770
Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient cathedrals.
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken, save by the herons
Home to their roosts in the cedar-trees returning at sunset,
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac laughter.
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the water, 775
Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining the arches,
Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks in a ruin.
Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things around them ;
And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and sadness, —
Strange forebodings of ill, unseen and that cannot bo compassed.
As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the
prairies, Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking
mimosa. So, at the hoof-beats of fate, with sad forebodings of
evil. Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom
has attained it. But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that
faintly 785
Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through
the moonlight. It was the thought of her brain that assumed the
shape of a j)hantom. Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered
before her. And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer
and nearer.
Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one
of the oarsmen, 790
And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradven
ture Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a
blast on his bugle. Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy
the blast rang, Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the
forest. Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred
to the music. 795
Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance, Over the watery floor, and beneath the reverberant
branches:
But not a voice replied; no answer came from the
darkness ; And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain
was the silence. Then Evangeline slept ; but the boatmen rowed
through the midnight, soc
Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boatsongs, Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers, While through the night were heard the mysterious
sounds of the desert. Far off, — indistinct, — as of wave or wind in the
forest, Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of
the grim alligator. sos
Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades ; and before them
Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya.
Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations
Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, tlie lotus
Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen, 810
Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia blossoms.
And with the heat of noon ; and numberless sylvan islands.
Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges of roses,
Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to slumber.
Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were suspended. 8i»
Under the boughs of Wachlta willows, that grew by the margin,
Safely their boat was moored ; and scattered about on the greensward.
Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slumbered.
Over them vast and high extended the cope of a cedar.
Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the grapevine 820
Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob,
On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending,
Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blossom to blossom.
Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered beneath it.
Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening heaven 825
Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial.
Nearer, ever neai*er, among the numberless islands, Darted a light, swift boat, that sped away o'er the
water. Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters
and trappers. Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the
bison and beaver. 830
At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful
and careworn. Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and
a sadness
Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written.
Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and restless,
Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow. sse
Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the island,
But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos ;
So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the willows ;
All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were the sleepers;
Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering maiden. 84o
Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the prairie.
After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance.
As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden
Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "O Father Felician!
Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders. 845
Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition?
Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit ? "
Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my credulous fancy!
Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning."
But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered, — sm
" Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to
me without meaning, Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on
the surface Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor
is hidden. Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world
calls illusions. Gabriel truly is near thee ; for not far away to the
southward, ess
On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur
and St. Martin. There the long-wandering bride shall be given again
to her bridegroom, There the long-absent pastor regain his flock and his
sheepfold. Beautifid is the land, with its prairies and forests of
fruit-trees ; Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of
heavens seo
Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of
the forest. They who dwell there have named it the Eden of
Louisiana."
With these words of cheer they arose and continued their journey.
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon
Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the landscape; ees
Twinkling vapors arose ; and sky and water and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of
silver, Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless water. Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweet=
ness. 67C
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of
feeling Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters
around her. Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird,
wildest of singers, Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the
water. Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious
music, 875
That the whole air and the woods and the waves
seemed silent to listen. Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring
to madness Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied
Bacchantes. Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation ; Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad
in derision, sse
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the
tree-tops Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on
the branches.
878. The Bacchantes were worshippers of the god Bacchus, who in Greek mythology presided over the vine and its fruits. They gave themselves up to all manner of excess, and theii songs and dances were to wild, intoxicating measures.
With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with emotion,
Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through the green Opelousas,
And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland, ssr
Saw the column of smoke that arose from a neighboring dwelling; —
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of cattle.
III.
Near to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks from whose branches
Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted,
Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at Yule-tide, 89o
Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. A garden
Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms,
Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was of timbers
Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted together.
Large and low was the roof ; and on slender columns supported, 895
Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious veranda.
Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it.
At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the garden,
Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual symbol,
Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals. 900
Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow and sunshine
Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow.
And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding
Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose.
In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway 905
Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limitless prairie,
Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending.
Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas
Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics.
Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grapevines. 910
Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of
the prairie. Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and
stirrups, Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of
deerskin. Broad and brown was the face that from under the
Spanish sombrero Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of
its master. 913
Round about him were numberless herds of kine that were grazing
Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory freshness
That uprose from the river, and spread itself over the landscape.
Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and expanding
Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast, that resounded 820
Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air of the evening.
Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the cattle
Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of ocean.
Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed o'er the prairie.
And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the distance. 925
Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through the gate of the garden
Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden advancing to meet him.
Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amazement, and forward
Pushed with extended arms and exclamations of won* der;
When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the blacksmith. 930
Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the garden.
There in an arbor of roses with endless question and answer
Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their
friendly embraces, Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and
thoughtful. Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark
doubts and misgivings 935
Stole o'er the maiden's heart; and Basil, somewhat
embai'rassed, Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the
Atchafalaya, How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's
boat on the bayous ? " Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade
passed. Tears came into her eyes, and she said, with a tremulous accent, 940 " Gone ? is Gabriel gone ? " and, concealing her face
on his shovilder, All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept
and lamented. Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe
as he said it, — " Be of good cheer, my child; it is only to-day he
departed. Foolish boy! he has left me alone with my herds and
my horses. m
Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his
spirit Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet exis.
tence. Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever, Ever silent, or speaking only of thee and his troubles, He at length had become so tedious to men and to
maidens, 950
Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought me, and
sent him Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the
Spaniards. Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark
Mountains, Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the
beaver. Therefore be of good cheer; we will follow the fugitive lover; 955 He is not far on his way, and the Fates and the
streams are against him. Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of
the morning, We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his
prison."
Then glad voices were heard, and up from the
banks of the river. Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the
fiddler. seo
Long under Basil's roof had he lived, like a god on
Olympus, Having no other care than dispensing music to mortals. Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his
fiddle. ' Long live Michael," they cried, " our brave Acadian
minstrel! " As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession; and
straightway ses
Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting
the old man Kindly and oft, and recalling the past, while Basil,
enraptured,
Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gossips,
Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and daughters.
Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant blacksmith, 97/
All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchaf demeanor;
Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and the climate.
And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his who would take them ;
Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go and do likewise.
Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy veranda, 975
Entered the hall of the house, where already the supper of Basil
Waited his late return; and they rested and feasted together.
Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness descended.
All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape with silver.
Fair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars; but within doors, 98'
Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the glimmering lamplight.
Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, the herdsman
Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless profusion.
Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchitoches tobacco^
Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled
as they listened : — 985
" Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been
friendless and homeless, Welcome once more to a home, that is better perchance than the old one! Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the
rivers; Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the
farmer; Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a
keel through the water. 990
All the year round the orange-groves are in blossom;
and grass grows More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer. Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed
in the prairies; Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and
forests of timber With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed
into houses. 995
After your houses are built, and your fields are yellow
with harvests. No King George of England shall drive you away from
your homesteads. Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your
farms and your cattle." Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from
his nostrils. While his huge, brown hand came thundering down
on the table, ioo«
So that the guests all started; and Father Felician,
astounded, Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to
his nostrils.
But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were
milder and gayer : — " Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the
fever! For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate, looo Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in r
nutshell!" Then there were voices heard at the door, and foot
stejjs approaching Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy
veranda. It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian
planters. Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the
herdsman. loio
Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and
neighbors: Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who
before were as strangers. Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each
other. Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country
together. But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, pro
ceeding 1015
From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious
fiddle, Broke up all further speech. Away, like children!
delighted. All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to
the maddening Whirl of the dizzy dance, as it swept and swayed to
the music. Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering garments. 102c
Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest
and the herdsman Sat, conversing together of past and present and
future; While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within
her Olden memories rose, and loud in the midst of the
music Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness 1025 Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth into
the garden. Beautiful was the night. Behind the black wall of
the forest. Tipping its summit with silver, arose the jnoon. On
the river Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous
gleam of the moonlight, Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and
devious spirit. io3«
Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers
of the garden Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers
and confessions Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent
Carthusian.
1033. The Carthusians are a monastic order founded in the twelfth century, perhaps the mosC severe in its rules of all religious societies. Almost perpetual silence is one of the vows; the monks can talk together but once a week ; the labor required of them is unremitting and the discipline exceedingly rigid. The first monastery was established at Chartreux near Grenoble in France, and the Latinized form of the name has given us the word Carthusian.
Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows and night-dews,
Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magical moonlight 1035
Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings,
\s, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of the oak-trees.
Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless prairie.
Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies
Gleamed and floated away in mingled and infinite numbers. 1040
Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the heavens,
Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and worship,
Save when a blaziiig comet was seen on the walls of that temple,
As if a hand had appeared and written upon them, " Upharsin."
And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the fire-flies, 1045
Wandered alone, and she cried, " O Gabriel! O my beloved !
Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee ?
Art thou so near unto ro^, and yet thy voice does not reach me ?
Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie!
Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands around me ! losa
Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor,
Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in
thy slumbers! When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded
about thee ? " Loud and sudden and near the notes of a whippoor=
will sounded Like a flute in the woods ; and anon, through the
neighboring thickets, 1055
Farther and farther away it Hoated and dropped into
silence. " Patience! " whispered the oaks from oracular caverns of darkness; And, from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded,
" To-morrow! "
Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers of the garden
Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed his tresses loeo
With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of crystal.
"Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy threshold;
■'See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting and famine,
/Ind, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bridegroom was coming."
'Farewell! " answered the maiden, and, smiling, with Basil descended loes
Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already were waiting.
Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, and gladness,
Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding before them,
Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the
desert. Not that day, uor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded, 1O70 Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or
river. Nor, after many days, had they found him ; but vague
and uncertain Rumors alone were their guides through a wild and
desolate country; Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the
garrulous landlord iots
That on the day before, with horses and guides and
companions, Gabriel left the village, and took the road of the
prairies.
rv.
Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the
mountains Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous summits. Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the
gorge, like a gateway, loso
Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's
wagon. Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and
Owyhee. Eastward, with devious course, among the Wind-river
Mountains, Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the
Nebraska; And to the south, from Foutaine-qui-bout and the
Spanish sierras, low
Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of the desert,
Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the ocean,
Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemr vibrations.
Spreading between these streams are the wondrous beautiful prairies,
Billowy bays of grass ever rolling in shadow and sunshine, 1090
Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas.
Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the roebuck;
Over them wandered the wolves, and herds of riderless horses;
Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with travel;
Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children, 1095
Staining the desert with blood ; and above their terrible war-trails
Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture,
Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle,
By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens.
Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage marauders ; noo
Here and there rise groves from the margins of swiftrunning rivers;
And the gTim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert.
Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by
the brook-side, And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline
heaven, Like the protecting hand of God inverted above
them. uo.
Into this wonderful land, at the base of the Ozark
Mountains, Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers
behind him. Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden
and Basil loUowed his flying steps, and thought each day to
o'ertake him. Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke
of his camp-fire mo
Rise in the morning air from the distant plain ; but
at nightfall, When they had reached the jDlace, they found only
embers and ashes. And, though their hearts were sad at times and their
bodies were weary, Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and
vanished before them. ins
1114. The Italian name for a meteoric phenomenon nearly illied to a mirage, witnessed in the Straits of Messina, and less frequently elsewhere, and consisting in the appearance in the air over the sea of the objects which are upon the neighboring coasts. In the southwest of our own country, the mirage is very common, of lakes which stretch before the tired traveller, and the deception is so great that parties have sometimes beckoned to other travellers, who seemed to be wading knee-deep, to come over to them where dry laud was
Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently
entered Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as
her sorrow. She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her
people. From the far-off hunting-grounds of the cruel Ca
raanches, 1120
Where her Canadian husband, a coureur-des-bois,
had been murdered. Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest
and friendliest welcome Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and
feasted among them On the buffalo-meat and the venison cooked on the
embers. But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his
companions, 1125
Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the
deer and the bison. Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where
the quivering fire-light Flashed on their swarthy cheeks, and their forms
wrapped vip in their blankets. Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and repeated Slowly, with soft, low voice, and the charm of her Indian accent, 1130 All the tale of «her love, with its pleasures, and pains,
and reverses. Muoh Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that
another Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been
disappointed.
Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's
compassion, Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered
was near her, txx
She in turn related her love and all its disasters. Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had
ended Still was mute ; but at length, as if a mysterious hor
ror Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the
tale of the Mowis; Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded
a maiden, iwo
But, when the morning came, arose and passed from
the wigwam, Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sunshine, Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far
into the forest. Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a
weird incantation. Told she the tale of the fair Lilinau, who was wooed
by a phantom, 1145
That, through the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the
hush of the twilight, Breathed like the evening wind, and whisj)ered love to
the maiden. Till she followed his green and waving plume through
the forest. And nevermore returned, nor was seen again by her
people.
1145. The story of Lilinau and other Indian legends will bs found in H. R. Schoolcraft's Alaic Researches,
Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened nso
To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around her
Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the enchantress.
Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose.
Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendor
Touching- the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the woodland. um
With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the branches
Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers.
Filled with the thoughts of love was Evangeline's heart, but a secret,
Subtile sense crept in of pain and indefinite terror.
As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the swallow. iieo
It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of spirits
Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment
That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phantom.
With this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom had vanished.
Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and the Shawnee net
Said, as they journeyed along, — " On the western slope of these mountains
Dwells in his little village the Black Robe chief of
the Mission. Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary
and Jesus ; Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain.
as they hear him." Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline
answered, n70
" Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings
await us! " Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur
of the mountains. Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of
voices. And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a
river. Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit
Mission. n75
Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the
village. Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A
crucifix fastened High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by
grapevines, Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling beneath it. This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intricate arches use Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers. Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of
the branches. Silent, with heads uncovered, the ti'avellers, nearer
approaching. Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening
devotions.
But when the service was done, and the benediction had fallen uss
Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hands of the sower,
Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers, and bade them
Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with be= nignant expression.
Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the forest,
And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his wigwam. 1190
There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes of the maize-ear
Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the teacher.
Soon was their story told; and the priest with solemnity answered : —
" Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated
On this mat by my side, where now the maiden reposes, n95
Told me this same sad tale; then arose and continued his journey ! "
Soft was the voice of the priest, and he spake with an accent of kindness ;
But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter the snow-flakes
Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have departed.
" Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest; " but in autumn, 1200
When the chase is done, will return again to the Mission."
Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and submissive,
" Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and afflicted.'^
So seemed it wise and well unto all; and betimes on the morrow,
Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides and companions, 1205
Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at the Mission^
Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each
other, — Days and weeks and months; and the fields of maize
that were springing Green from the ground when a stranger she came,
now waving about her, Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing,
and forming 1210
Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged
by squirrels. Then in the golden weather the maize was husked,
and the maidens Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a
lover, But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in
the corn-field. Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her
lover. 1215
' Patience! " the priest would say; " have faith, and
thy prayer will be answered ! Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from
the meadow, See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as
the magnet;
This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has
planted Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's
journey 12281
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the
desert. Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of
passion. Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of
fragrance, But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their
odor is deadly. Only this humble plant can guide us here, and hereafter 1225 Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the
dews of nepenthe."
So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter —
yet Gabriel came not; Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the
robin and bluebird Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel
came not. But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was
wafted 1230
1219. Silph'mm laciniatum or compass-plant is found on the prairies of Michigan and Wisconsin and to the south and west, and is said to present the edges of the lower leaves due north and south.
1226. In early Greek poetry the asphodel meadows were haunted hy the shades of heroes. See Homer's Odyssey, xxiv. 13, where Pope translates : —
" In ever flowering meads of Asphodel." The asphodel is of the lily family, and is known also by the name king's spear.
Sweeter tlian song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom.
Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests,
Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw Eiver.
And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of St. Lawrence,
Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mission. 1235
When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches.
She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan forests.
Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to ruin!
Thus did the long sad years glide on, and in seasons and places Divers and distant far was seen the wandering
maiden ; — 121c
Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian
Missions, Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of thi'
army, Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous
cities. Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremem
bered. Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long
journey; " 1245
Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it
ended. 1241, A rendering of the Moravian Gnadenhtitten.
Each succeeding year stole something away from her
beauty, Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and
the shadow. Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray
o'er her forehead, Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly hoiv
izon, 1250
As in the eastern sky the first faint streaks of the
morning.
V.
In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's waters,
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Peun the apostle,
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty, 1255
And the streets still reecho the names of the trees of the forest,
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested.
There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile.
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.
There old Rene Leblanc had died; and when he departed, • 1260
Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants.
1256. The streets of Philadelphia, as is well known, are many of them, especially those running east and west, named for trees, as Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, etc.
Something at least there was in the friendly streets of the city,
Something- that spake to her heart, and made her no longer a stranger ;
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the Quakers,
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, n&i
Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters.
So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor,
Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining,
Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts and her footsteps.
As from the mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning 1270
Koll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us.
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets.
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far below her.
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the pathway
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the distance. i27£
Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his image.
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she beheld him.
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and absence.
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not.
Over him years had no power; he was not changed,
but transfigured; 128O
He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and
not absent; Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others. This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had
taught her. So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous
spices, Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with
aroma. 1285
Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to Meekly follow, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of
her Saviour. Thus many years she lived as a Sister of Mercy; frequenting Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of
the city. Where distress and want concealed themselves from
the sunlight, 1290
Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected. Night after night when the world was asleep, as the
watchman repeated Loud, through the dusty streets, that all was well in
the city. High at some lonely window he saw the light of her
taper. Day after day, in the gray of the dawn, as slow
throufjh the suburbs 1295
Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits
for the market. Met he that meek, pale face, returning home from its
watchins:s.
Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city,
Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by floclcs of wild pigeons,
Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws but an acorn. isoo
And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September,
Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the meadow.
So death flooded life, and, o'erflowing its natural margin,
Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of existence.
Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm, the oppressor ; 1305
But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger;—
Only, alas ! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants.
Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless.
Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands; —
1298. The year 1793 was long remembered as the year when yellow fever was a terrible pestilence in Philadelphia. Charles Brockden Brown made his novel of Arthur Mervyn turn largely upon the incidents of the plague, which drove Brown away from home for a time.
1308. Philadelphians have identified the old Friends' almshouse on Walnut Street, now no longer standing, as that in which Evangeline ministered to Gabriel, and so real was the story that some even ventured to point out tlie graves of the two lovers. See Westcott's The Historic Mansions of Philadelphia, pp. 101, 102.
Now the city surrounds it; but still, with its gateway and wicket 1310
Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo
Softly the words of the Lord: —" The poor ye always have with you."
Thither, by night and by day, came the Sister of Mercy. The dying
Looked up into her face, and thought, indeed, to behold there
Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor, isis
Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and apostles.
Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance.
Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial.
Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would enter.
Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, deserted and silent, 1320
Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the almshouse.
Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the garden.
And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among them,
That the dying once more might rejoice in their frar grance and beauty.
Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled by the east-wind, 1325
Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry of Christ Church,
While, intermingled with these, across the meadowa
were wafted Sounds of psahiis, that were sung by the Swedes in
their church at Wicaco. Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on
her spirit; Something within her said, " At length thy trials are
ended ;" isso
And, with light in her looks, she entered the chambers of sickness. Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants. Moistening the feverish lip, and. the aching brow, and
in silence Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing
their faces, Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow
by the roadside. 1335
Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed^
for her presence Fell on their hearts like a ray of the sun on the walls
of a jjrison. And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the
consoler. Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it
forever. imc
1328. The Swedes' church at Wicaco is still standing, the oldest in the city of Philadelphia, having been begun in 1698. Wicaco is within the city, on the banks of the Delaware River. An interesting account of the old church and its historic associations will be found in Westcott's book just mentioned, pp. 56-67. Wilson the ornithologist lies buried in the churchyard adjoining the church.
Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night
time; Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers.
Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of
wonder, Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a
shudder Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets
dropped fram her fingers, 1345
And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of
the morning. Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible anguish. That the dying heard it, and started up from their
pillows. On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an
old man. Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded
his temples; 1350
But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a
moment Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier
manhood; So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are
dying. Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the
fever, As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled
its portals, 1355
That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass
over. Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit
exhausted
Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in
the darkness, Darkness of shimber and death, forever sinking aiid
sinking. Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied
reverberations, laet
Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that
succeeded Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saintlike, " Gabriel! O my beloved!" and died away into silence. Then he beheld, in a dream, once more the home of
his childhood; Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among
them, 1365
Village, and mountain, and woodlands; and, walking
under their shadow. As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his
vision. Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his
eyelids. Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his
bedside. Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents
un uttered 1370
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his
tongue would have spoken. Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling
beside him. Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom, Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank
into darkness. As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a
casement. i37«
EVANGELINE. 99
All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the
sorrow, All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied
longing, All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of
patience! And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her
bosom, Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, " Father,
I thank thee! " isso
Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow.
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard.
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed.
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them, • 1385
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever,
Thousan^^s of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy,
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors.
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey 1
Still stands the forest primeval; but under the
shade of its branches isoc
Dwells another race, with other customs and language.
100 JJENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW.
Only along the shore of the mournful and misty
Atlantic Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from
exile Wandered back to their native land to die in its
bosom. In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still
busy; 1395
Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles
of homespun, And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail
of the forest.
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY
OF PROPER NAMES AND FOREIGN WORDS IN EVANGELINE.
The diacritical marks given below are those found in the latest edition of Web^ ster's Internatioual Dictionary.
EXPLANATION OF MARKS.
A Dash (~) above tlie vowel denotes the long sound. A Curve (") above the vowel denotes the short sound.
A Circumflex Accent {") above the vowels a or u denotes the sound of a in care or of u in tflru ; above the vowel o it denotes the sound of o in 6rb. A Dot (*) above the vowel a denotes the sound of a in past. A Double Dot (") above the vowel a denotes the sound of a in star. A Double Dot (__) below the vowel u denotes the sound of u in trjie. A Wave C^) above the vowel e denotes the sound of e in her.
8 sounds like z. 5 sounds like s. g sounds like j. a, e, o are similar in sound to &, e, o, but are not pronounced so long.
Note that the pronunciation of French words can be given only approximately by means of signs and English equivalents. A living teacher is requisite to enable one to read and speak the language with elegance.
Abb^ Guillaume Thomas Francis Raynal
(SCb-ba' ge-yom', etc.). Acadie (a-ka-de'). Xcca'dia. Ada'yes. Aelian (e^T-5n).
Aix-la-Chapelle (aks-lii-sha-pSl'). Amorphas (a-niSr'faz). Angelus Domini (Sn'je-liis d5m'i-nT). Arca'dia.
asphodel (5s'fo-dSl). Atchafalaya (Sch-a-f4-li'ft). Attakapas (at-tiik'a-paw). Bacchantes (bak-kan'tez). Bacchus (bak'iJs).
Beau Sdjour (bo sa-zhobr').
BenedTg'Tte.
BSn'edTct BSllefontaine'.
BlSmTdSn.
Briareus (bri'a-rus).
Bruges (brjizh).
Cadie'.
CSman'ch5§.
CSnard'.
Cape Brgt'on.
fSl'tic.
Charente Inferieure (shSr-anhf 5nh-fa
re-er'). Charnisay (shar-nT-za'). Chartreux (shar-tre').
102
PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY.
ci-devant (se-de-vanli').
Cotglle'.
coureurs-des-bois (koo'rer-da-bwa).
Contes Populaires (kSuht pop-ji-lSr').
couvre-feu (koo'vr-le).
Daute's Diviiia Commedia (di-ve'ua
c6m-ma'di-a). Ducauroi (dji-ko-rwa'). Evau'gelTue. Fii'ta M6igii'na. Father Feliciau (fe-lTsh'i-an). Foiitaine-qui-bout (f6iih'tau-ke-boo). Gabriel Lajeuuesse (la-zhe-ues'). Gaspereau (gas-pe-ro'). Gayarr(5 (gi-a-ia'). Gnadeuliutteii (gna-deii-hut'en). Graud-Pie (griiuh-pra'). Heiod'otus.
Horae Hellenicae (ho're hSl-lgn'i-s§). Isaac de Razilli (de ra-ze-je'). Kavanagh (kav'a-na). La Clt5 du Caveau (la kla du kJUvo'). La Gazza Ladra (la gat'za la'dra). La Have. La Salle. Le Carillon de Dunkerque (le kSr-e
J8nh' de diin-kerk'). L(;tiche (la-tesh'). Lilinau (le'lT-no). Louisburg (lob'i-bfirg). Loup-garou (16o-gar-oo'). mattre de chapelle (ma'tr de sha-pel'). Melita (me-le'ta). Minas Basin (ine'nas basin). Mowis (mo'vves).
Natchitoches (nSck'e-tSsh).
uepSu'the.
Opelousas (op-8-166'8As).
Outre-Mer (ootr-uiSr').
Owy'hee.
PSssamaqu5d'dy.
Pierre CapeUe (pe-Sr' kS-pgl').
PTs'iquTd.
Plaquemtne. Bayou of (pl5k-men', bi'66)
Pluquet (plu-ka').
Pointe Coupee (pwSnht kob-pa').
Poitou (pwa-tob').
Ren(5 Leblanc (re-na' le-blanhk').
RocbeUe (r5-shell').
Rossini (ros-se'ne).
St. Maur (sSnh mor').
Saintonge (sanh-t6nlizh').
Sam'son Xgonis'teg.
seraglio (se-rSl'yo).
Siena (se-a'na).
Silphium laciuiatum (sll'fl-iim la-sTttt f
a'tum). Straits of Messina (mSs-se'ni). Tgche (tash). Tous les Bourgeois de Chartres (too &
bobr-zhwa' de shartr). Upharsin (u-far'siu). Utrecht (u'trSkt). Vendue (vanh-da'). voyageur (v\va-ya-zher'). Wacbita (wosh'e-taw), Walleway (w5U'e-wa). vi'ere-wolf. Wicaco (we-ka'ko). Xerxes (zerks'ez).
Cl^e lEftier^tne literature ^erte0»
'^^ [A list of the first fijty-eiglu numbers is given on the next page.]
69. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Heading.**
60, 61. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. In two parts.}:
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63. Longfellow's Paul Revere's Ride, and Other Poems.*
64. 65, 66. Tales from Shakespeare. Edited b}- Chakles and Mae>;
Lamb. Iu three p.irts. [Also, in one volume, lineu, 50 tents.]
67. Shakespeare's Julius C^sar. ■ * *
68. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, The Traveller, etc.
69. Hawthorne's Old Manse, and A Pew Mosse s *
70. A Selection from Whittier's Child Liie in Poetry.*
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72. Milton's L'Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, Lycidas, etc.
73. Tennyson's Enoch Arden, and Other Poems.
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75. Scudder's George "Washington. §
76. "Wordsworth's On the Intimations of Immortality, eto. ■77. Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night, and Other Poems.
78. Goldsmith's "Vicar of "Wakefield. §
79. Lamb's Old China, and Other Essays of Elia.
80. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Other Poems ;
Campbell's Lochiel's "Warning, and Other Poems.
81. Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. {Triple Number, 45
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82. Hawthorne's Twice- Told Tales. §§
83. George Eliot's Silas Marner. §
84. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. §§ 8.3. Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days. §§
86. Scott's Ivanhoe. §§
87. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. §§
88. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. §§
89. Swift's Gulliver's "Voyage to Lilliput.*
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92. Burroughs's A Bunch of Herbs, and Other Papers.
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B Portraits and Biographies of 20 American Authors.
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€tft ISitemtie literature ^zvm.
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1. Iiongfellow's Evangeline.** XX
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4. Whittier's Snow-Bound, and Other Poems.** \X *
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6. Holmes's Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle, etc*
7. 8, 9. Hawthorne's True Stories from ISTew England History.
1620-180.3. In three i>arts. +
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27. Thoreau's Succession of Forest Trees, Sounds, and "Wild App)'*8.
With .1 Biographical Sketch by K. W. Kmeksun.
28. John Burrougbs's Birds and Bees.*
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