It is just possible that these books may have revived in him a regret expressed in one of his early college letters that he had not gone to West Point instead of Bowdoin,—some opportunity of appointment to the military school, perhaps through his uncle, General Wadsworth, having possibly been declined in his behalf.[2] It is curious indeed to reflect that had he made this 19 different selection, he might have been known to fame simply as Major-General Longfellow.
Hon. J. W. Bradbury, another classmate, describes Henry Longfellow as having “a slight, erect figure, delicate complexion, and intelligent expression of countenance,” and further adds: “He was always a gentleman in his deportment, and a model in his character and habits.” Still another classmate, Rev. David Shepley, D. D., has since written of Longfellow’s college course: “He gave urgent heed to all departments of study in the prescribed course, and excelled in them all; while his enthusiasm moved in the direction it has taken in subsequent life. His themes, felicitous translations of Horace, and occasional contributions to the press, drew marked attention to him, and led to the expectation that his would be an honorable literary career.” He spent his vacations in Portland, where the society was always agreeable, and where the women, as one of his companions wrote, seemed to him “something enshrined and holy,—to be gazed at and talked with, and nothing further.” In one winter vacation he spent a week in Boston and attended a ball given by Miss Emily Marshall, the most distinguished of Boston’s historic belles, and further famous as having been the object of two printed sonnets, the one by Willis and the other by Percival. He wrote to his 20 father that on this occasion he saw and danced with Miss Eustaphiève, daughter of the Russian consul, of whom he says, “She is an exceedingly graceful and elegant dancer, and plays beautifully upon the pianoforte.” He became so well acquainted in later days with foreign belles and beauties that it is interesting to imagine the impression made upon him at the age of twenty-one by this first social experience, especially in view of the fact that after his returning from Europe, he records of himself that he never danced, except with older ladies, to whom the attention might give pleasure.
[2] From a manuscript letter not dated as to year, but written, apparently, while he was a freshman.
CHAPTER III
FIRST FLIGHTS IN AUTHORSHIP
It is interesting to know that twice, during his college days, Longfellow had occasion to show his essentially American feeling; first, in his plea for the Indians on an Exhibition Day, and again, more fully and deliberately, in his Commencement Oration on “Our Native Writers.” On Exhibition Day,—a sort of minor Commencement,—he represented, in debate, an American Indian, while his opponent, James W. Bradbury, took the part of an English emigrant. The conclusion of the exercise summed up the whole, being as follows:—
“Emigrant.—Is it thus you should spurn all our offers of kindness, and glut your appetite with the blood of our countrymen, with no excuse but the mere pretence of retaliation? Shall the viper sting us and we not bruise his head? Shall we not only let your robberies and murders pass unpunished, but give you the possession of our very fireside, while the only arguments you offer are insolence and slaughter? Know ye, the land is ours until you will improve it. Go, tell your 22 ungrateful comrades the world declares the spread of the white people at the expense of the red is the triumph of peace over violence. Tell them to cease their outrages upon the civilized world or but a few days and they shall be swept from the earth.
“Savage.—Alas! the sky is overcast with dark and blustering clouds. The rivers run with blood, but never, never will we suffer the grass to grow upon our war-path. And now I do remember that the Initiate prophet, in my earlier years, told from his dreams that all our race should fall like withered leaves when autumn strips the forest! Lo! I hear sighing and sobbing: ’tis the death-song of a mighty nation, the last requiem over the grave of the fallen.”[3]
It is fair to conjecture that we may have in this boyish performance the very germ of “Hiawatha,” and also to recall the still more youthful verses which appeared in the Portland “Gazette.” He wrote in college not merely such verses, but some prose articles for the “American Monthly Magazine,” edited in Philadelphia, by Dr. James McHenry, who in his letters praised the taste and talent shown in the article upon “Youth and Age.” More important to the young poet, however, was his connection with a new semi-monthly periodical called the 23 “United States Literary Gazette.” This was published in Boston and New York simultaneously, having been founded by the late Theophilus Parsons, but edited at that time by James G. Carter, of Boston, well known in connection with the history of public schools. Apparently Longfellow must have offered poems to the “Gazette” anonymously, for one of his classmates records that when he met Mr. Carter in Boston the editor asked with curiosity what young man sent him such fine poetry from Bowdoin College. A modest volume of “Miscellaneous Poems, selected from the ‘United States Literary Gazette,’” appeared in 1826,—the year after Longfellow left college,—and it furnished by far the best exhibit of the national poetry up to that time. The authors represented were Bryant, Longfellow, Percival, Dawes, Mellen, and Jones; and it certainly offered a curious contrast to that equally characteristic volume of 1794, the “Columbian Muse,” whose poets were Barlow, Trumbull, Freneau, Dwight, Humphreys, and a few others, not a single poem or poet being held in common by the two collections.
This was, however, only a volume of extracts, but it is the bound volumes of the “Gazette” itself—beginning with April 1, 1824—which most impress the student of early American 24 literature. There will always be a charm in turning over the pages where one sees, again and again, the youthful poems of Bryant and of Longfellow placed side by side and often put together on the same page, the young undergraduate’s effusions being always designated by his initials and Bryant’s with a perhaps more dignified “B.,” denoting one whose reputation was to a certain extent already established, so that a hint was sufficient. Bryant’s poems, it must be owned, are in this case very much better or at least maturer than those of his youthful rival, and are preserved in his published works, while Longfellow’s are mainly those which he himself dropped, though they are reprinted in the appendix to Mr. Scudder’s “Cambridge” edition of his poems. We find thus in the “Literary Gazette,” linked together on the same page, Longfellow’s “Autumnal Nightfall” and Bryant’s “Song of the Grecian Amazon;” Longfellow’s “Italian Scenery” and Bryant’s “To a Cloud;” Longfellow’s “Lunatic Girl” and Bryant’s “The Murdered Traveller.”[4] How the older poet was impressed by the work of the younger we cannot tell, but it is noticeable that in editing a volume of selected American poetry not long after, he assigns to Longfellow, as will presently be seen, a very small 25 space. It is to be remembered that Bryant had previously published in book form, in 1821, his earliest poems, and the “Literary Gazette” itself, in its very first number, had pronounced him the first “original poet formed on this side of the Atlantic.” “Our pleasure was equalled by our surprise,” it says, “when we took up Bryant’s poems, listened to the uncommon melody of the versification, wondered at the writer’s perfect command of language, and found that they were American poems.” “Though the English critics say of him,” it continues, “that their poets must look to their laurels now that such a competitor has entered the ring, yet, let him remember that a few jousts in the ring never established the reputation of a knight.”[5] It is a curious fact that the difference in actual quantity of poetic production between the older and younger poets should thus have been unconsciously suggested by the editor when Longfellow was but seventeen.
With Bryant and Longfellow, it would therefore seem, the permanent poetic literature of the nation began. “The Rivulet” and “The Hymn of the Moravian Nuns” appeared in the “Gazette” collection, and have never disappeared from the poetic cyclopædias. The volume included fourteen of Longfellow’s youthful effusions, 26 only six of which he saw fit to preserve; dropping behind him, perhaps wisely, the “Dirge Over a Nameless Grave,” “Thanksgiving,” “The Angler’s Song,” “Autumnal Nightfall,” “A Song of Savoy,” “Italian Scenery,” “The Venetian Gondolier,” and “The Sea Diver.” He himself says of those which he preserved that they were all written before the age of nineteen, and this is obvious from the very date of the volume. Even in the rejected poems the reader recognizes an easy command of the simpler forms of melody, and a quick though not profound feeling for external nature. Where he subsequently revises these poems, however, the changes are apt to be verbal only, and all evidently matters of the ear. Thus in reprinting “The Woods in Winter,” he omits a single verse, the following:—