We entered the chapel together, and, ascending a flight of steps beside the altar, passed into the cloisters of the convent. Another flight of steps led us to the dormitories above, in one of which the sick man lay. Here my guide left me for a moment, and softly entered a neighbouring cell. He soon returned and beckoned me to come in. The room was dark and hot; for the window-shutter had been closed to keep out the rays of the sun, that in the after part of the day fell unobstructed upon the western wall of the convent. In one corner of the little room, upon a pallet of straw, lay the sick man, with his face towards the wall. As I entered, he raised himself upon his elbow, and, stretching out his hand to me, said, in a faint voice, —
“I am glad to see you. It is kind in you to make me this visit.”
Then speaking to his friend, he begged him to open the window-shutter and let in the light and air; and as the bright sunbeam through the wreathing vapors of evening played upon the wall and ceiling, he said, with a sigh, —
“How beautiful is an Italian sunset! Its splendor is all around us, as if we stood in the horizon itself and could touch the sky. And yet, to a sick man’s feeble and distempered sight, it has a wan and sickly hue. He turns away with an aching heart from the splendor he cannot enjoy. The cool air seems the only friendly thing that is left for him.”
As he spake, a deeper shade of sadness stole over his pale countenance, sallow and attenuated by long sickness. But it soon passed off; and as the conversation changed to other topics, he grew cheerful again. He spoke of his return to his native land with childish delight. This hope had not deserted him. It seemed never to have entered his mind that even this consolation would be denied him, — that death would thwart even these fond anticipations.
“I shall soon be well enough,” said he, “to undertake the journey; and, O, with what delight shall I turn my back upon the Apennines! We shall cross the Alps into Switzerland, then go down the Rhine to England, and soon, soon we shall see the shores of the Emerald Isle, and once more embrace father, mother, sisters! By my profession, I have renounced the world, but not those holy emotions of love which are one of the highest attributes of the soul, and which, though sown in corruption here, shall hereafter be raised in incorruption. No; even he that died for us upon the cross, in the last hour, in the unutterable agony of death, was mindful of his mother; as if to teach us that this holy love should be our last worldly thought, the last point of earth from which the soul should take its flight for heaven.”
He ceased to speak. His eyes were fastened upon the sky with a fixed and steady gaze, though all unconsciously, for his thoughts were far away amid the scenes of his distant home. As I left his cell, he seemed sinking to sleep, and hardly noticed my departure. The gloom of twilight had already filled the cloisters; the monks were chanting their evening hymn in the chapel; and one unbroken shadow spread through the long cathedral aisle of forest-trees which led me homeward. There, in the silence of the hour, and amid the almost sepulchral gloom of the woodland scene, I tried to impress upon my careless heart the serious and affecting lesson I had learned.
I saw the sick monk no more; but a day or two afterward I heard in the village that he had departed, — not for an earthly, but for a heavenly home.
NOTE-BOOK.
Once more among the old, gigantic hills,
With vapors clouded o’er,
The vales of Lombardy grow dim behind,
And rocks ascend before.
They beckon me, — the giants, — from afar,
They wing my footsteps on;
Their helms of ice, their plumage of the pine, Their cuirasses of stone.
OEHLENSCHLAGER.
THE glorious autumn closed. From the Abruzzi Mountains came the Zampognari, playing their rustic bagpipes beneath the images of the Virgin in the streets of Rome, and hailing with rude minstrelsy the approach of merry Christmas. The shops were full of dolls and playthings for the Bifana, who enacts in Italy the same merry interlude for children that Santiclaus does in the North; and travellers from colder climes began to fly southward, like sun-seeking swallows.
I left Rome for Venice, crossing the Apennines by the wild gorge of the Strettura, in a drenching rain. At Fano we struck into the sands of the Adriatic, and followed the seashore northward to Rimini, where in the market-place stands a pedestal of stone, from which, as an officious cicerone informed me, “Julius Caesar preached to his army, before crossing the Rubicon.” Other principal points in my journey were Bologna, with its Campo Santo, its gloomy arcades, and its sausages; Ferrara, with its ducal palace and the dungeon of Tasso; Padua the Learned, with its sombre and scholastic air, and its inhabitants “apt for pike or pen.”
I FIRST saw Venice by moonlight, as we skimmed by the island of St. George in a felucca, and entered the Grand Canal. A thousand lamps glittered from the square of St. Mark, and along the water’s edge. Above rose the cloudy shapes of spires, domes, and palaces, emerging from the sea; and occasionally the twinkling lamp of a gondola darted across the water like a shooting star, and suddenly disappeared, as if quenched in the wave. There was something so unearthly in the scene, — so visionary and fairy-like, — that I almost expected to see the city float away like a cloud, and dissolve into thin air.
Howell, in his “Signorie of Venice,” says, “It is the water, wherein she lies like a swan’s nest, that doth both fence and feed her.” Again: “She swims in wealth and wantonness, as well as she doth in the waters; she melts in softness and sensuality, as much as any other whatsoever.” And still farther: “Her streets are so neat and evenly paved, that in the dead of winter one may walk up and down in a pair of satin pantables and crimson silk stockings, and not be dirtied.” And the old Italian proverb says, —
“Venegia, Venegia,
Chi non ti vede non ti pregia;
Mà chi t’ ha troppo veduto
Ti dispregia!”
Venice, Venice, he that doth not see thee doth not prize thee; but he that hath too much seen thee doth despise thee!
Should you ever want a gondolier at Venice to sing you a passage from Tasso by moonlight, inquire for Toni Toscan. He has a voice like a raven. I sketched his portrait in my note-book; and he wrote beneath it this inscription: —
“Poeta Natural che Venizian,
Ch’ el so nome xe un tal Toni Toscan.”
THE road from Venice to Trieste traverses a vast tract of level land, with the Friulian Mountains on the left, and the Adriatic on the right. You pass through long avenues of trees, and the road stretches in unbroken perspective before and behind. Trieste is a busy, commercial city, with wide streets intersecting each other at right angles. It is a mart for all nations. Greeks, Turks, Italians, Germans, French, and English meet you at every corner and in every coffeehouse; and the ever-changing variety of national countenance and costume affords an amusing and instructive study for a traveller.
TRIESTE to Vienna. Daybreak among the Carnic Alps. Above and around me huge snow-covered pinnacles, shapeless masses in the pale starlight, — till touched by the morning sunbeam, as by Ithuriel’s spear, they assumed their natural forms and dimensions. A long, winding valley beneath, sheeted with spotless snow. At my side a yawning and rent chasm; — a mountain brook, — seen now and then through the chinks of its icy bridge, — black and treacherous, — and tinkling along its frozen channel with a sound like a distant clanking of chains.
Magnificent highland scenery between Grâtz and Vienna in the Steiermark. The wild mountain-pass from Meerzuschlag to Schottwien. A castle built like an eagle’s nest upon the top of a perpendicular crag. A little hamlet at the base of the mountain. A covered wagon, drawn by twenty-one horses, slowly toiling up the slippery, zigzag road. A snow-storm. Reached Vienna at midnight.
ON the southern bank of the Danube, about sixteen miles above Vienna, stands the ancient castle of Greifenstein, where — if the tale be true, though many doubt and some deny it — Richard the Lion-heart, of England, was imprisoned, when returning from the
third crusade. It is built upon the summit of a steep and rocky hill, that rises just far enough from the river’s brink to leave a foothold for the highway. At the base of the hill stands the village of Greifenstein, from which a winding pathway leads you to the old castle. You pass through an arched gate into a narrow court-yard, and thence onward to a large, square tower. Near the doorway, and deeply cut into the solid rock, upon which the castle stands, is the form of a human hand, so perfect that your own lies in it as in a mould. And hence the name of Greifenstein. In the square tower is Richard’s prison, completely isolated from the rest of the castle. A wooden staircase leads you up on the outside to a light balcony, running entirely round the tower, not far below its turrets. From this balcony you enter the prison, — a small, square chamber, lighted by two Gothic windows. The walls of the tower are some five feet thick; and in the pavement is a trapdoor, opening into a dismal vault, — a vast dungeon, which occupies all the lower part of the tower, quite down to its rocky foundations, and which formerly had no entrance but the trapdoor above. In one corner of the chamber stands a large cage of oaken timber, in which the royal prisoner is said to have been shut up; — the grossest lie that ever cheated the gaping curiosity of a traveller.
The balcony commands some fine and picturesque views. Beneath you winds the lordly Danube, spreading its dark waters over a wide tract of meadow-land, and forming numerous little islands; and all around, the landscape is bounded by forest-covered hills, topped by the mouldering turrets of a feudal castle or the tapering spire of a village church. The spot is well worth visiting, though German antiquaries say that Richard was not imprisoned there; this story being at best a bold conjecture of what is possible, though not probable.
FROM Vienna I passed northward, visiting Prague, Dresden, and Leipsic, and then folding my wings for a season in the scholastic shades of Gôttingen. Thence I passed through Cassel to Frankfort on the Maine; and thence to Mayence, where I took the steamboat down the Rhine. These several journeys I shall not describe, for as many several reasons. First, — but no matter, — I prefer thus to stride across the earth like the Saturnian in Micromegas, making but one step from the Adriatic to the German Ocean. I leave untold the wonders of the wondrous Rhine, a fascinating theme. Not even the beauties of the Vautsburg and the Bingenloch shall detain me. I hasten, like the blue waters of that romantic river, to lose myself in the sands of Holland.
THE PILGRIM’S SALUTATION.
Ye who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene Which is his last, if in your memories dwell A thought which once was his, if on ye swell A single recollection, not in vain He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell.
CHILDE HAROLD.
THESE, fair dames and courteous gentlemen, are some of the scenes and musings of my pilgrimage, when I journeyed away from my kith and kin into the land of Outre-Mer. And yet amid these scenes and musings, — amid all the novelties of the Old World, and the quick succession of images that were continually calling my thoughts away, there were always fond regrets and longings after the land of my birth lurking in the secret corners of my heart. When I stood by the seashore, and listened to the melancholy and familiar roar of its waves, it seemed but a step from the threshold of a foreign land to the fireside of home; and when I watched the out-bound sail, fading over the water’s edge, and losing itself in the blue mists of the sea, my heart went with it, and I turned away fancy-sick with the blessings of home and the endearments of domestic love.
“I know not how, — but in yon land of roses
My heart was heavy still;
I startled at the warbling nightingale,
The zephyr on the hill.
They said the stars shone with a softer gleam:
It seemed not so to me’
In vain a scene of beauty beamed around, —
My thoughts were o’er the sea.”
At times I would sit at midnight in the solitude of my chamber, and give way to the recollection of distant friends. How delightful it is thus to strengthen within us the golden threads that unite our sympathies with the past, — to fill up, as it were, the blanks of existence with the images of those we love! How sweet are these dreams of home in a foreign land! How calmly across life’s stormy sea blooms that little world of affection, like those Hesperian isles where eternal summer reigns, and the olive blossoms all the year round, and honey distils from the hollow oak! Truly, the love of home is interwoven with all that is pure, and deep, and lasting in earthly affection. Let us wander where we may, the heart looks back with secret longing to the paternal roof. There the scattered rays of affection concentrate. Time may enfeeble them, distance overshadow them, and the storms of life obstruct them for a season; but they will at length break through the cloud and storm, and glow, and burn, and brighten around the peaceful threshold of home!
And now, farewell! The storm is over, and through the parting clouds the radiant sunshine breaks upon my path. God’s blessing upon you for your hospitality. I fear I have but poorly repaid it by these tales of my pilgrimage; and I bear your kindness meekly, for I come not like Theudas of old, “boasting myself to be somebody.”
Farewell! My prayer is, that I be not among you as the stranger at the court of Busiris; that your God-speed be not a thrust that kills.
The Pilgrim’s benison upon this honorable company. Pax vobiscum!
COLOPHON.
Heart, take thine ease, —
some speak ill
Of thee, some will
Say better; — there’s an end.
HEYLIN.
MY pilgrimage is ended. I have come home to rest; and, recording the time past, 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 pen wherewith I write most easily is a feather stolen from the sable wing of night. Even now, as I record these parting words, it is long past midnight. 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? Alas! this little book is but a bubble on the stream; and although it may catch the sunshine for a moment, yet it will soon float down the swift-rushing current, and be seen no more!
THE END
The Biography
Longfellow in later years. This portrait still resides in the poet’s study at the Longfellow National Historic Site in Cambridge.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) was an American Unitarian minister, author and soldier, who was active in the American Abolitionism movement during the 1840s and 1850s. Higginson is also remembered as a close correspondent and literary mentor of the poet Emily Dickinson. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorised African-American regiment, from 1862-1864. Following the war, Higginson devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed slaves, women and other disfranchised peoples. In 1902 Higginson wrote this detailed biography on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as part of the American Men of Letters series.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
CONTENTS
PREFACE
CHAPTER I. LONGFELLOW AS A CLASSIC
CHAPTER II. BIRTH, CHILDHOOD, AND YOUTH
CHAPTER III. FIRST FLIGHTS IN AUTHORSHIP
CHAPTER IV. LITERATURE AS A PURSUIT
CHAPTER V. FIRST VISIT TO EUROPE
CHAPTER VI. MARRIAGE AND LIFE AT BRUNSWICK
CHAPTER VII. THE CORNER STONE LAID
CHAPTER VIII. APPOINTMENT AT HARVARD AND SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE
CHAPTER IX. ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MRS. LONGFELLOW
CHAPTER X. CRAIGIE HOUSE
CHAPTER XI. HYPERION AND THE REACTION FROM IT
CHAPTER XII. VOICES OF THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XIII. TH
IRD VISIT TO EUROPE
CHAPTER XIV. ANTI-SLAVERY POEMS AND SECOND MARRIAGE
CHAPTER XV. ACADEMIC LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE
CHAPTER XVI. LITERARY LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE
CHAPTER XVII. RESIGNATION OF PROFESSORSHIP — TO DEATH OF MRS. LONGFELLOW
CHAPTER XVIII. BIRDS OF PASSAGE
CHAPTER XIX. LAST TRIP TO EUROPE
CHAPTER XX. DANTE
CHAPTER XXI. THE LOFTIER STRAIN: CHRISTUS
CHAPTER XXII. WESTMINSTER ABBEY
CHAPTER XXIII. LONGFELLOW AS A POET
CHAPTER XXIV. LONGFELLOW AS A MAN
PREFACE
A life of Longfellow has been from the beginning included in the plan of the “American Men of Letters” series, but it has been delayed through a variety of causes. Like all memoirs of this poet, it must rest partly on the material amply furnished by the “Life” so admirably prepared by his brother sixteen years ago, yet it may be well to explain that the present volume will be found marked by three especial characteristics of its own. First, much additional material is here drawn from the manuscript correspondence of the first Mrs. Longfellow, received from her family and bearing upon the poet’s early married years and first visit to Europe, during what was undoubtedly the formative period of his life. Secondly, there is a good deal of material obtained from the manuscript volumes known as the “Harvard College Papers” and preserved at the University Library, elucidating the academical side of Longfellow’s life. Thirdly, there is a series of extracts from his earlier writings, dating from college days and not hitherto brought together, but showing the origin and growth of his lifelong desire to employ American material and to help the creation of a native literature; the desire which had its final fulfilment in “Evangeline” and “Hiawatha.” These three sources will be found, if the author is not mistaken, to have afforded distinct contributions to our previous knowledge as to Longfellow’s character and work.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 203