“Christus: A Mystery” appeared as a whole in 1872, for the first time bringing together the three parts (I. “The Divine Tragedy;” II. “The Golden Legend,” and III. “The New England Tragedies”). “The Divine Tragedy,” which now formed the first part, was not only in some degree criticised as forming an anti-climax in being placed before the lighter portions of the great drama, but proved unacceptable among his friends, and was often subjected to the charge of being unimpressive and even uninteresting. On the other hand, we have the fact that it absorbed him more utterly than any other portion of the book. He writes in his diary on January 6, 1871, “The subject of ‘The Divine Tragedy’ has taken entire possession of me, so that I can think of nothing else. All day pondering upon and arranging it.” And he adds next day, “I find all hospitalities and social gatherings just now great interruptions.” Yet he has to spend one morning that week in Boston at a meeting of stockholders; on another day Agassiz comes, broken 243 down even to tears by the loss of health and strength; on another day there is “a continued series of interruptions from breakfast till dinner. I could not get half an hour to myself all day long. Oh, for a good snow-storm to block the door!” Still another day it is so cold he can scarcely write in his study, and he has “so many letters to answer.” Yet he writes during that month a scene or two every day. We know from the experience of all poets that the most brilliant short poems may be achieved with wonderful quickness, but for a continuous and sustained effort an author surely needs some control over his own time.

It is a curious fact, never yet quite explained, that an author’s favorite work is rarely that whose popular success best vindicates his confidence. This was perhaps never more manifest than in the case of Longfellow’s “Christus” as a whole, and more especially that portion of it on which the author lavished his highest and most consecrated efforts, “The Divine Tragedy.” Mr. Scudder has well said that “there is no one of Mr. Longfellow’s writings which may be said to have so dominated his literary life” as the “Christus,” and it shows his sensitive reticence that the portion of it which was first published, “The Golden Legend” (1851), gave to the reader no suggestion of its being, as we now 244 know that it was, but a portion of a larger design. Various things came in the way, and before “The Divine Tragedy” appeared (1871) he had written of it, “I never had so many doubts and hesitations about any book as about this.” On September 11 in that year he wrote in Nahant, “Begin to pack. I wish it were over and I in Cambridge. I am impatient to send ‘The Divine Tragedy’ to the printers.” On the 18th of October he wrote: “The delays of printers are a great worry to authors;” on the 25th, “Get the last proof sheet of ‘The Divine Tragedy;’” on the 30th, “Read over proofs of the ‘Interludes’ and ‘Finale,’ and am doubtful and perplexed;” on November 15, “All the last week, perplexed and busy with final correction of ‘The Tragedy.’” It was published on December 12, and he writes to G. W. Greene, December 17, 1871, “‘The Divine Tragedy’ is very successful, from the booksellers’ point of view—ten thousand copies were published on Tuesday last and the printers are already at work on three thousand more. That is pleasant, but that is not the main thing. The only question about a book ought to be whether it is successful in itself.”

It is altogether probable that in the strict views then prevailing about the very letter of the Christian Scriptures, a certain antagonism 245 may have prevailed, even toward the skill with which he transferred the sacred narratives into a dramatic form, just as it is found that among certain pious souls who for the first time yield their scruples so far as to enter a theatre, the mere lifting of the curtain seems to convey suggestions of sin. Be this as it may, we find in Longfellow’s journal this brief entry (December 30): “Received from Routledge in London, three notices of ‘The Tragedy,’ all hostile.” He, however, was cheered by the following letter from Horace Bushnell, then perhaps the most prominent among the American clergy for originality and spiritual freedom:—

Hartford, December 28, 1871.

Dear Sir,—Since it will be a satisfaction to me to express my delight in the success of your poem, you cannot well deny me the privilege. When I heard the first announcement of it as forthcoming, I said, “Well, it is the grandest of all subjects; why has it never been attempted?” And yet I said inwardly in the next breath: “What mortal power is equal to the handling of it?” The greater and the more delightful is my surprise at the result. You have managed the theme with really wonderful address. The episodes, and the hard characters, and the partly imaginary characters, you had 246 your liberty in; and you have used them well to suffuse and flavor and poetize the story. And yet, I know not how it is, but the part which finds me most perfectly, and is, in fact, the most poetic poetry of all, is the prose-poem,—the nearly rhythmic transcription of the simple narrative matter of the gospels. Perhaps the true account of it may be that the handling is so delicately reverent, intruding so little of the poet’s fine thinking and things, that the reverence incorporate promotes the words and lifts the ranges of the sentiment; so that when the reader comes out at the close, he finds himself in a curiously new kind of inspiration, born of modesty and silence.

I can easily imagine that certain chaffy people may put their disrespect on you for what I consider your praise. Had you undertaken to build the Christ yourself, as they would require of you, I verily believe it would have killed you,—that is, made you a preacher.

With many thanks, I am yours,

Horace Bushnell.[98]

It would not now be easy to ascertain what these hostile notices of “The Divine Tragedy” were, but it would seem that for some reason the poem did not, like its predecessors, find its 247 way to the popular heart. When one considers the enthusiasm which greeted Willis’ scriptural poems in earlier days, or that which has in later days been attracted by semi-scriptural prose fictions, such as “The Prince of the House of David” and “Ben Hur,” the latter appearing, moreover, in a dramatic form, there certainly seems no reason why Longfellow’s attempt to grapple with the great theme should be so little successful. The book is not, like “The New England Tragedies,” which completed the circle of “Christus,” dull in itself. It is, on the contrary, varied and readable; not merely poetic and tender, which was a matter of course in Longfellow’s hands, but strikingly varied, its composition skilful, the scripture types well handled, and the additional figures, Helen of Tyre, Simon Magus, and Menahem the Essenian, skilfully introduced and effectively managed. Yet one rarely sees the book quoted; it has not been widely read, and in all the vast list of Longfellow translations into foreign languages, there appears no version of any part of it except the comparatively modern and mediæval “Golden Legend.” It has simply afforded one of the most remarkable instances in literary history of the utter ignoring of the supposed high water-mark of a favorite author.

[96] Modern Painters, vol. v. chap. xx.

[97] Life, iii. 123, 125.

[98] Life, iii. 192, 193.

CHAPTER XXII
WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Longfellow was the first American to be commemorated, on the mere ground of public service and distant kinship of blood, in Westminster Abbey. The impressions made by that circumstance in America were very various, but might be classed under two leading attitudes. There were those to whom the English-speaking race seemed one, and Westminster Abbey its undoubted central shrine, an opinion of which Lowell was a high representative, as his speech on the occasion showed. There were those, on the other hand, to whom the American republic seemed a wholly new fact in the universe, and one which should have its own shrines. To this last class the “Hall of Fame,” upon the banks of the Hudson, would appeal more strongly than Westminster Abbey; and it is probable that the interest inspired by that enterprise was partly due, at the outset, to the acceptance of Longfellow in England’s greatest shrine. It may be fairly said, however, on reflection, that there is no absolute inconsistency between these two 249 opinions. No one, surely, but must recognize the dignity of the proceeding when an American writer, born and bred, is, as it were, invited after death to stand as a permanent representative of his race in the storied abbey. On the other hand, it may easily be conceded that the dignitaries of Westminster are not, of themselves, necessarily so well versed in American claims as to make their verdict infallible or even approximate. The true solution would appear to be that in monuments, as in all other forms of recognition, each nation should have its own right of selection, and that it should be recognized as a gratifying circumstance when these independent judgments happen to coincide. The following is the best London report of the services on this occasion:—