LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Other Books by the Same Author ** Browning's Italy " "Browning's England" **A Child's Guide to Mythology" "Ancient Myths in Modern Poets" A* THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY 33 E. 17th Street, Union Square North New York LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY BY HELEN ARCHIBALD CLARKE Author of "Browning's Italy," "Browning's England," "Ancient Myths in Modern Poets," etc., etc. NEW YORK The Baker and Taylor Company 1909 h\ CopyrigM, 1909, By The Baker & Taylor Company Published October, 1909 24S662 The Premier Press, New York ^'^U Qratefully and Faithfully Inscribed to the PoeVs Much Loved Daughter MISS ALICE W, LONGFELLOW INTRODUCTORY NOTE The author desires to express her cordial thanks to Miss AHce W. Longfellow, and to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for permission to make quotations from the Poet's Works and Diary. Also to Dr. H. C. Porter for scientific informa- tion regarding Alg£e, to Miss E. F. Bonsall for help in securing views in Philadelphia, to Dr. Benjamin Rand for views in Nova Scotia, to Miss Helen Leah Reed for the automobile ride over Paul Revere 's route, and to the Magazine Poet-lore wherein was some of the material relating to the *' Skeleton in Armor" and *' Hiawatha" in studies by Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke. CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Along the Coast of New England - 3 II. Under the Shadow of Blomidon - - 53 III. Idyls from History - - - - 99 IV. *'The New England Tragedies" - - 147 V. The Lore of "Hiawatha" - - - 177 VI. In Cambridge ----- 229 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Frontispiece FACING PAGE The Reef of Norman's Woe, Gloucester Harbor ... 4 East Gloucester 8 Eastern Point Light 14 The Harbor at Marblehead 18 Quaint Old Town, Marblehead 24 Sea Weed 30 Old Norse Tower 34 Portland Harbor 40 Light Half Way Rock, Portland 44 Cape Blomidon, Nova Scotia 54 Grand Pre, Showing Road Acadians Took to the Sea . 60 Christ Church, Philadelphia 64 Old Swede Church, Philadelphia 86 Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia 90 Friends' Almshouse, Philadelphia 94 The Old North Church 104 The Buckman Tavern 110 Paul Revere's House 114 The Monroe Tavern .118 The Hancock-Clarke House 124 The Standish House, Duxbury 130 The Alden House, Duxbury 142 The Old Elm, Boston Common 150 The Rebecca Nourse House, Danver's Center .... 168 Grand Arch, Apostle Islands, Lake Superior . . . . 188 The Falls of Minnehaha 200 Temple Gate, Sand Island, Lake Superior . . . .214 The Longfellow Home, Cambridge 230 Beacon Street Mall, Boston Common 240 The Wayside Inn, Sudbury 246 Elmwood, The Lowell House, Cambridge 250 ALONG THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 'Rich are the sea- gods: — who gives gifts hut theyf They grope the sea for pearls, hut more than pearls: They pluck force thence, and give it to the wise. For every wave is wealth to Doedalus, Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, waves! A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?" — Emerson. THE charm and variety, and, at times, the gran- deur of the New England coast impress it as a living memory upon the mind of any one who has had the good fortune to follow the summer-holiday advice of Emerson to "lie on the warm rock-ledges and there learn a little hut suffices like a town," or who, viewing it in its sterner aspects, feels the urge and power of the sea as the poet has concentrated them in the line "Pluck force thence and give it to the wise." We shall be foolish, indeed, if, when we make our sum- mer pilgrimages to the coast, we do not go in com- pany with the poets who love the sea; for to the gifts of color and motion and force brought to us by the sea they add the gifts of imagination. Thus, if we will, besides reveling in straightforward appreciation of ever-present beauty, we may track to their sources the springs of the poet's fancy — storing our minds with curious or by-gone lore. Delightful as it would be to think that the workings of a poet's imagination require no more strenuous exertion than \he giving to "airy nothings a local habitation and a name"; as a matter of fact, his poetic flights are invariably based upon knowledge obtainable by the most humdrum in- telligence. We know that Longfellow loved the sea, not only because of his frequent references to it in his poetry. 4 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY but because he speaks of this love more than once, when clothed and in his right mind, in his journal. Of the view from Milton Hill, near Boston, he writes it "Commands a grand prospect over villages, fields, forests and the city, to the great sea itself, stretching blue and vapory beyond." And of the sea by Port- land there is this beautiful description: "At sunrise caught a glimpse of the fair city of my birth, rising beautifully in terraces above the sea — the calm, solemn sea, that I have seen so often, and that Jean Paul longed to see once before he died. A glorious scene, with market-boats rowing cityward, rocks, promon- tories, lighthouses, forts, and wooded islands." We may sail up and down the coast from Portland to Newport, where summer outings were frequently spent, and touch from time to time in our voyage many a spot made memorable in his verse. Not the least interesting, for various reasons, of these seaside poems is the Ballad of the Wreck of the 'Hesperus on the Reef of Norman's Woe. This will come to be considered when a few more centuries have cast their mellowing shadows upon our rawness, an interesting bit of folk-lore, smacking of the soil as surely as any legend of Glooskap or Manabozho seems to do to-day. The poem actually has the naive sim- plicity of a folk-tale. Probably half the population of America now living shed tears when children over the fate of the skipper's little daughter, and many hun- dreds, if not thousands, have, in later years, entered Gloucester Harbor with a thrilling sense of being in the land of romance, when they passed the formidable reef, lying on the left as you enter the harbor, where the schooner Hesperus met her fate. But the grim- n^im^^^p W4 THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 5 ness of this cruel rock is never felt in all its possi- bilities of horror until some venturesome oarsman persuades you to row up to it and around it in the evening shadows after sunset. Though the bay be quiet as a mill-pond, and reflect in long, peaceful streaks the waning lights in the sky, yet about this reef the ocean seems to make vindictive thrusts at your boat, and the waves leaping upon the rocks moan and shudder like wraiths of the long-departed skip- pers. After the gruesomeness of this experience, it is with a sense of relief that the long row across the bay, home to East Gloucester, is accomplished. This is all just as our poet would have it. At the time when he wrote this poem and the other two bal- lads, "The Skeleton in Armor" and "Sir Humphrey Gilbert," he was in a fever of excitement to become the author of national ballads. Writing to George Greene in 1840, he said: "I have broken ground in a new field; namely, bal- lads, beginning with "Hesperus." The national ballad is a virgin soil here in New England, and there are great materials. Besides, I have a great notion of working upon the people's feelings. I am going to have it printed on a sheet, with a coarse picture on it. I desire a new sensation, and a new set of critics. Nathaniel Hawthorne is tickled with the idea, Fel- ton laughs and says *I wouldn't.' " Later he speaks in his journal of telling Hawthorne about his ballad and how he meant to have it printed on a sheet with a picture on top, like other ballads. Hawthorne was so delighted with the idea that he promised to distribute the copies to every skipper of 6 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY every craft he boarded in his custom-house duties. Their criticisms were expected to be of great interest. Is the story told in this poem true? we ask when we are children. Yes, such a wreck occurred, though we glean from the poet's journal that he drew upon his imagination for the pathetic points in the story. Under date of December 17, 1839, Longfellow writes: "News of shipwrecks horrible on the coast. Twenty bodies washed ashore near Gloucester, one lashed to a piece of the 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 must write a ballad upon this." Again, on the 30th of December, he wi'ites: "I sat till twelve by my fire, smoking, when suddenly it came into my mind to write the 'Ballad of the Schooner Hesperus,' which I accordingly did. Then I 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 three by the clock. I then went to bed and fell asleep. I feel pleased with the ballad. It hardly cost me an effort. It did not come into my mind by lines, but by stanzas." In looking through the newspapers of the 16th and 17th of December, 1839, it was something of a shock to find that among the vessels which were wrecked on Norman's Woe in this storm there was no mention in the list of a schooner called the Hesperus. After searching the columns of the "Advertiser," the "Eve- ning Journal," the "Traveller," and the pigmy "Tran- script" of the time, at last the Hesperus was dis- covered, but the scene of her misfortune was the un- romantic one of Rowe's wharf, on Atlantic Avenue, i THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 7 Boston, not Norman's Woe. The "Transcript's" ac- count runs: "Schooner Hesperus (of Gardiner, from Pittston) , at anchor in the stream, parted chains and drove against ship Wm. Badger^ north side of Rowe's wharf, parted her fasts and both drove up against the dock. Schooner carried away her bowsprit and stove her bow. The ship was badly chafed and stove end of gibboon through the upper window of the four-story store opposite." This storm was one of those terrible "nor'easters" — a gale with snow. The most graphic account of it is in a letter from Gloucester printed in the "Evening Journal," December 17: "It is impossible to say at present precisely how many have perished, but all agree that the number cannot be less than fifty. The northern shore of our harbor presents a scene that makes the heart bleed — strewn as it is with wrecks and cargoes of twenty or twenty-five vessels, and here and there with the lifeless and bleeding bodies of un- fortunate mariners." The "Traveller's" account of the same date gives the precise material upon which Longfellow set his imagination working, barring the name of the vessel and the fact that the body lashed to the spar was a woman's, not a child's: "From Gloucester we learn that of a large number of coasting vessels and sloops which had put into Cape Ann Har- bor when the storm came on and, for the most part, anchored in the outer harbor, twenty went ashore, and sixteen of that number went to pieces. Many lives were lost, as seventeen bodies had already been washed ashore. One of them was reported to be a female, who was lashed to the bitts of the windlass of a coast- line schooner. The place where most of these vessels 8 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY struck was a reef of rocks called Norman's Woe." So much for dry history! But this famous storm has its edda as well as its ballad, for there exists in an obscure pamphlet the sermon preached by the Rev. Josiah K. Waite, Sunday, December 15, 1839, for the inter- ment of eleven of the mariners who perished. The text was from Exodus xv, 10: "Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty waters." Among much high-flown moral- izing, of an old-fashioned kind, there is a passage describing the event in truly grandiose language, be- speaking on the part of the Rev. Mr. Waite an alert- ness to the poetic and dramatic possibilities of the scene which deserves to be rescued from the oblivion of a pamphlet. "The wrecks! The wrecks! What more of them? How many and what lives have been lost. How many bodies have been found? Such have been the sub- jects of inquiry and engrossing topics of conversation during the past week, at one's firesides and by the way. "We see them in their freighted barks pursuing their course o'er the billowy main, but anon, the sky darkens, the wind soars around them, preluding a storm; they make our harbor, cast anchor and hope here to lie in safety. Alas, delusive hope! They see the mighty waves roll on the 'increasing fury of the gale'; anxiety, fear, and anguish fill their hearts as their vessels yield to the heavy sea as they slip their cables or drag their anchors and are borne in fearful proximity to this rock-bound shore. We see them in imagination, but some who hear me saw them in real- ity, and with inexpressible commiseration, when, de- w i THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 9 spairing of relief, they ran their vessels amidst the angry surf or death-threatening breakers to take chance among the fragments of their riven hulls. But who can depict the awful scene or imagine the horrors that ensued, when having struck the shore, vessel after vessel was shattered and broken up by the battering strokes of the heavy sea — when one human being after another was swept by the swelling waves into the raging, foaming deep ; and when others, in attempting to gain the strand in boats, were immediately sub- merged in the eddying waters, or borne back by the reflex of the shore-lashing surf. "Night now closes in upon that heart-rending scene — and what a night! — in which our rocky promontory was shaken by the Storm King to its veiy center — was thatj to the horror-stricken victims, among whom the angel of death continued his work of destruction and slaughter amidst the roaring of winds, the rush of waters, the falling of spars, the crash of timbers, and the shrieks of eternity-expecting men and women: 'O I have suffered With those that I saw suffer! a brave vessel. Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock Against my very heart! Poor souls, they perish'd!' '* This disaster is but typical of many a wreck that occurs along the shores of Cape Ann. The warm rock ledges, which Emerson so lovingly describes, fre- quently become seething cauldrons of foam, tossed off by the mounting breakers, so splendid to look upon from above, so terrible to be caught in below. Every- one's heart yet stands still at the mention of the Port- 10 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY land wreck, which occurred in the great blizzard of several years ago. The vessel must have gone to pieces — lashed to ruin by the fearful fury of the waves not far from the spot so fatal in the similar storm of 1839. The last seen of the Portland was off the Thatcher lights — the imposing twin lighthouses, which distinguish the tip-end of Cape Ann, while the light seen by the skipper's little daughter could have been no other than the light on Eastern Point, four or five miles to the south. This light is on the side of the bay opposite to Norman's Woe. At the head of the bay can be seen the quaint old town of Gloucester, cele- brated principally in the mind of the summer visitor for its group of public buildings and church so placed as to give the effect of a cathedral; for its ingenious signs, its rattling trolley line running the length of the main street, and its fish-flakes. Once upon a time it had a lively horse-car line, so reckless in its wild speed that the cars were in constant danger of tipping over as they dashed round the sharp ciu'ves in the street bequeathed, it is said, by the ancestral cows, who were the first roadmakers. In the days of the wreck of the Hesperus there was neither horse-car nor trolley. The "lumbering" stage coach did duty. Indeed, it is not so long ago that the last of the stage coaches plodded its jolly way from Gloucester to Annisquam and Lanesville, to the delectation of those who were for- tunate enough to get a seat on top. The suspense of the swiftest automobile ride is not to be compared with the delicious sense of charmed insecurity incident to the top seat of an old-fashioned stage-coach. Among the queer signs to be seen there are three in particular, never to be forgotten, which bore the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 11 legends "Coats and Panze sold here;" "Soda colder than Charity;" and "God helps him who helps him- self, but God help him who helps himself here." After all it is the fish flakes which give distinctive color, not to say odor, to the town. They are the symbol of its wealth and of its sorrow. Gloucester grew in the lat- ter part of the nineteenth century to be the largest seat of the fisheries in the world. Cod and mackerel, halibuttand herring are among the fishes big and little that come to her net. Some of the fishing, especially for cod, has been done near shore. The "gay mack- erel," as the nonsense rhyme has it, used to be plentiful in the neighborhood, but lately an old fisherman told me that they now strike for Nova Scotia, eluding the fishermen farther south. A yam of the year 1833 illustrates what mackerel fishing used to be in the neighborhood of Gloucester in the good old times. "I well recollect," writes an old tar in the "Fisherman's Own Book," "the great school of mackerel that struck Middle Bank that year, September twenty-second, at ten o'clock at night. There were some two hundred sail at anchor, twenty- five miles southeast of Eastern Point light, in a dead calm, when our skipper sang out: 'Here they are, boys.' At the same moment every vessel in the fleet commenced the catch. We fished for three days and filled everything, even our boat, and stuck on deck until we were in fish knee deep. Then a breeze springing up, we ran in and packed out two hundred and eighty barrels and returned to the bank just as the wind left us. We fished three days more, when they struck off as suddenly as they had come." For much of its fishing, however, long and danger- 12 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ous voyages are made. Besides the fishing on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, her sails have visited far away Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the coasts of Labrador. The bringing in of the products of the sea is only the first step in the process of the Glouces- ter fish industry. After cleaning, the cod and the mackerel find their way to the fish-flake to be dried in the sun, and one may see them glistening in shining rows in the sunlight, or when the sun grows too warm, covered with long strips of sail cloth. These sun- dried fish are done up later in almost every conceivable kind of package — shredded, boneless, in blocks and strips, in prepared fish-balls ready for warming, cod- liver oil, glue, and all sorts of fertilizers, and are sent to markets in all parts of the civilized world. This is the Gloucester of to-day ; when Longfellow wrote "The Wreck of the Hesperus," it was more remarkable for its foreign commerce than for its fish- eries, which, for the time being, had fallen into less prominence than they had formerly enjoyed. An oc- casional "square-rigger" comes sailing into port now to remind one of the days when Gloucester had ships and barques, brigs and schooners running to the East Indies, South America, Europe, Dutch Guiana and the West Indies. The products of every clime upon the earth have been piled upon her wharves, or stored ready for distribution. This extensive trading lasted until 1860, when the chief part of it was transferred to Boston. A salt trade with Nova Scotia and New- foundland partly made up for the transference, and the square-rigger of to-day is almost sure to be laden with salt packed so tightly in its hold that the sailors have literally to mine it out with shovels, a THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 13 picturesque-enough proceeding, if not quite as cleanly as one would like. Over a town whose very life depends upon the ex- ertions of those who go down to the sea in ships, the angel of death ever spreads its brooding wings. As some one has said, the history of Gloucester has been written in tears. Many a schooner goes out to the Grand Banks to fish and never returns. There have been periods of time when the average loss a year was eight vessels. Besides these disasters to the boats put- ting out from Gloucester Harbor, are the wrecks of strange boats sailing along the shores, which can be either so smiling or so terrible in their cruelty. The Gloucester of 1839 was much smaller than the Gloucester of to-day, and Eastern Point was the un- tenanted garden of paradise which it still was in the early days of the present generation. Where else did the wild roses blow as they did on Eastern Point? — and still do, for that matter, when the syndicate will let them, for however much it might try, the most power- ful syndicate in the world could not turn Eastern Point into a tenanted waste. There may be larger wild roses — I myself have seen them — and there may be roses of deeper color, but none so lovely, none to fill the air with such redolence of perfume. How they lodge in every nook and cranny of the rocks, nestling like children unafraid between the paws of herding elephants! And trooping along with the roses come meadow-sweet and deutzia and aromatic bay — blend- ing their varied fragrance with that of the rose. Where once the flowers held imdisputed sway, the res- olute golfer now walks and waits, while roads and cot- tages checquer the once lonely landscape. 14 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Whether Longfellow ever carried out his threat of having the "Wreck of the Hesperus" printed in En- glish ballad form or not, I do not know. Nor does any one know to whom I have put the question. It was first printed at the poet's own price of twenty- five dollars in the New World. In accepting it, Park Benjamin wrote: "Your ballad is grand. En- closed are $25:00, the sum you mention, for it, paid by the proprietors of the New World, in which glorious paper it will resplendently coruscate on Saturday next. Of all American journals the New World is alone worthy to contain it." A few miles down the coast we come upon the scene of another of Longfellow's seashore poems, "The Fire of Drift Wood," which burned itself into the poet's verse on the hearth of the old Devereux farm near Marblehead. "We sat within the farmhouse old. Whose windows, looking o'er the bay. Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, An easy entrance night and day. "Not far away we saw the port — The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, The lighthouse, the dismantled fort — The wooden houses, quaint and brown." The poem may be supplemented by the poet's own description of the visit in his journal, September twenty-ninth, 1846; "A delicious drive with F. through Maiden and Lynn to Marblehead, to visit E. W. at the Devereux farm by the seaside. Drove across the beautiful sand. What a delicious scene! The ocean in the sunshine THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 15 changing from the silvery hue of the thin waves upon the beach, through the lighter and the deeper green, to a rich purple in the horizon. We recalled the times past and the days when we were at Nahant. The Devereux farm is by the sea, some miles from Lynn. An old-fashioned farmhouse, with low rooms and nar- row windows rattling in the sea-breeze." The description of the port and the town, the light- house and the fort, would suit a view from Magnolia or Gloucester, exactly as well as it does that of Mar- blehead, especially as Longfellow was obliged to ad- mit, when questioned on the subject, that from the Devereux farm could not be seen the view he describes. There is, however, a sumptuous bay at Marblehead, and nothing could be more bewitching than to watch the sta^-ting of a yacht race from the dismantled fort. The "strange, old-fashioned town" still answers to the description, but it is now enlivened by a trolley line. Hand in hand the trolley and the telephone are invading all the quiet corners of the earth, making one feel, in spite of their convenience, a Ruskin-like irri- tation at the cheapening of picturesque spots. 'Of course, to reach the Devereux farm one leaves the quaint, old-fashioned part of Marblehead with its up- to-date shows and dingy lunch rooms, where the sum- mer "crowds" amuse and feed themselves upon their outings, for the elegant summer residence portion of the town on Marblehead Neck. Another reminiscence of seashore pastimes which might well have for its locale the "South Shore" rather than the "North Shore," is to be found in "Seaweed." In one of the poetical outbursts characteristic of Longfellow's entries in his journals, he exclaims: "I 16 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY always stop on the bridge; tide-waters are beautiful. From the ocean up into the land they go, like messen- gers, to ask why the tribute has not been paid. The brooks and rivers answer that there has been little harvest of snow and rain this year. Floating seaweed and kelp is carried up into the meadows, as returning sailors bring oranges in bandanna handkerchiefs to friends in the country." The opening stanzas of this poem give a fine de- scription of the gathering of the seaweed from far-off lands upon our shores : "When descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm- wind of the equinox. Landward in his wrath he scourges The toiling surges Laden with seaweed from the rocks. "From Bermuda's reefs; from edges Of sunken ledges. In some far-off, bright Azore; From Bahama, and the dashing. Silver-flashing Surges of San Salvador; "From the tumbling surf, that buries The Orkneyan skerries. Answering the hoarse Hebrides; And from wrecks of ships, and drifting Spars uplifting On the desolate, rainy seas; — "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the shifting Currents of the restless main; Till in sheltered coves and reaches Of sandy beaches, All have found repose again." THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 17 Seaweed from foreign lands adds its wealth to the native varieties which may be found in the fascinating rock-pools of Cape Ann or Marblehead, but every true lover of seaweed knows that Wood's Holl on Cape Cod is the great asylum for these waifs of the sea. The reason for this is that Wood's Holl is a sort of natural museum for seaweed. Its climate is such that many beautiful varieties of algse whose habitats are found in localities further south, especially those of the Jersey coast, grow here with a luxuriance even exceed- ing that of their kindred in their native environment. Not only the "gigantic storm winds" of the "equinox," but the Gulf stream and the Polar currents swirl coastwards here, and bring their tribute of beautiful and various forms from the bleak regions of the north and the summer seas of the south. Scientific rather than poetic fame attaches to the place. The great naturalist, Agassiz, had a laboratory on an adjacent island, and latterly the work of the Wood's Holl bio- logical students has become almost a byword for stren- uousness. They may be seen balancing themselves upon isolated rocks in long rubber boots and short skirts, if they are women, dredging for the treasures of the sea at the imminent peril of their lives. The summer visitors also catch the infection and float their little finds out on sheets of "Wattmann's Rough," for the delectation of admiring friends come next Christ- mas. The scientist studies bit by bit the varied forms of algse with his microscope, adding A^ast ranges of knowledge to the lore of biology, much of it bearing upon the practical needs of life, much of it simply taking its place in the realm of the wonderful. The summer visitor babbles with lightsome heart over the 18 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY varied beauty of the flowers of the sea. The poet makes the seaweed typical of the poets' songs. Scien- tists are somewhat prone to expend their sarcastic hu- mors upon both the summer visitor and the poet, yet what would the world do without just those elements each one has to contribute? A world of knowledge would, indeed, be a dismal place without the savor of a little light-hearted, ignorant appreciation of nature, and a still more dismal place without the poet to re- late nature to human truths, as Longfellow does, for example, in the latter half of this poem: "So when storms of wild emotion Strike the ocean Of the poet's soul, ere long From each cave and rocky fastness. In its vastness. Floats some fragment of a song. "From the far-off isles enchanted. Heaven has planted With the golden fruit of Truth; From the flashing surf, whose vision Gleams Elysian In the tropic clime of Youth; "From the strong Will, and the Endeavor That forever Wrestles with the tides of Fate; From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered, Floating waste and desolate; "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting, On the shifting Currents of the restless heart; Till at length in books recorded. They, like hoarded Household words, no more depart." THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 19 Longfellow's summer home was for many years at Nahant, and quite possibly he made his observations upon the seaweed there. One cannot, however, read the poem without havmg brought up in the mind the picture of Wood's Holl. Others of the seaside poems might have been in- spired anywhere along the coast where there is an open view out to sea. Every one who knows the shore at all has watched Jupiter rise in the summer evenings over the ocean and trail its path of light in the change- ful waters, much less in size but almost as brilliant as a moonlight path. "Into the ocean faint and far Falls the trail of its golden splendor. And the gleam of that single star Is ever refulgent, soft and tender." But the poet adds a beautiful comparison, taking us into the fairy-land of myth, with which we ordinary mortals may adorn our own cruder mental images : "Chrysaor rising out of the sea, Showed thus glorious and thus emulous. Leaving the arms of Cillirrhoe, Forever tender, soft, and tremulous. "Thus o'er the ocean faint and far Trailed the gleam of his falchion brightly — Is it a god, or is it a star That, entranced, I gaze on nightly?" A fisherman's cottage, a little face at the window, the mother's shadow "passing to and fro," a storm outside, are the very obvious materials of "Twilight" 20 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY — commonplace, yet replete with the pathos of fisher- lives, which the poet touches upon in the last stanzas so tenderly that the otherwise unoriginal treatment of a theme as old as the hills is brought up to the plane of genuine feeling: "What tales do the roaring ocean, And the night wind, bleak and wild, As they beat at the crazy casement, Tell the little child? "And why do the roaring ocean. And the night wind, wild and bleak. As they beat at the heart of the mother. Drive the color from her cheek?" The fisherman's cottage has held a place in liter- ature for thousands of years. Theocritus describes one occupied by two old fishermen of Sicily which would serve for many a tumble-down fisherman's abode to be found upon our coast, allowing for the dif- ference in building material. These two old men "had strown the dry sea-moss for a bed in their wat- tled cabin, and there they lay against the leafy wall. Beside them were strewn the instruments of their toil- some hands, the fishing-creels, the rods of reed, the hooks, the sails bedraggled with sea spoil, the lines, the weels, the lobster pots woven of rushes, the seines, two oars, and an old coble upon props. Here was all their toil, here all their wealth. The threshold had never a door, nor a watch-dog; all things, all, to them seemed superfluity, for Poverty was their sentinel. They had no neighbor by them, but ever against their narrow cabin gently floated up the sea." I believe I THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 21 have never seen a fisherman's cottage without a door, but windows without glass, lobster pots and dilapi- dated sails and fishing tackle too frequently form all the wealth of the worthy fisher-folk of our coast who, after two thousand years of progress in civilization, are little better protected from want and sorrow than these old men of Sicily. There are, of course, well- to-do fishermen, especially among lobster men, who along some portions of the coast own thoroughly well- equipped boats and live in neat, well-built cottages. It is the isolated fisherman on lonely bits of coast who has the hardest time. At Newport, Longfellow found a ballad-subject worthy of his steel, inspired by the old mill or round tower there, said to have been built by the Norsemen. What a word is this to conjure with! The subject of the Norsemen in America opens up fascinating vistas of half mythical history, which every American with a particle of romance in his nature would fain believe. The very prosaic story, for example, that this Norse tower was built by Governor Benedict Ar- nold in the year 1676, and was copied from an old stone mill still standing in his native town in England, sounds so much like the truth that nobody could be expected to believe it. How much more inspiring to accept this picturesque old tower for what the Danes claim it to be — the work of their early ancestors, the Norsemen, and to pin our faith in things unprovable to Professor Rafn in the "Memoires de la Societe Royale des Antiquaires du Nord." "There is no mistaking in this instance," he writes, "the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the north were constructed, the style which belongs 22 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY to the Roman or ante-Gothic architecture, and which especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused it- self from Italy over the whole of the west and north of Europe, where it continued to predominate until the close of the twelfth century; that style, which some authors have, from one of its most striking char- acteristics, called the round-arch style, 'the same which in England is denominated Saxon and some- times Norman architecture. "On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is in- dicative of an earlier rather than a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old Northern architecture will concur, that this buhj)- ING WAS erected AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY. This remark applies, of course, to the original building only, and not to the alterations that it subsequently received, for there are several such alterations in the upper part of the building which cannot be mistaken, and which were most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern times to various uses, for example as the substructure of a windmill, and latterly as a hay magazine. To the same times may be referred the windows, the fire- place and the apertures made above the columns. That this building could not have been erected for a windmill is what an architect will easily discern." The new ballad about which our poet pondered for THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 23 some time was to be called "The Skeleton in Armor." Like an ingenuous school-boy, he exclaims in his diary: "The skeleton in armor really exists. It was dug up near Fall River, where I saw it some two years ago. I suppose it to be the remains of one of the old northern sea-rovers, who came to this country in the tenth century." While riding upon the seashore at Newport in 1838 the idea of such a ballad came into his head. He seems almost immediately to have dipped into the Norse Sagas, and waxed so enthusiastic over the possibilities of the subject that he contemplated a series of ballads, or a romantic poem which should tell of the "deeds of the first bold viking who crossed to the western world, with storm spirits and devil ma- chinery under water." The real skeleton's claim to being a Norseman was based upon a chemical analysis of his armor which showed it to be composed of zinc, tin, copper, lead and iron — an amalgamation almost identical with the bronze of which ancient Norse armor was made. But alas for romance! Most archaeologists with exas- perating stubbornness insist that it was only an Indian. Whether he was a worshiper of Odin or of the Great White Hare, he was certainly an interesting figure of a skeleton as described in the American Monthly of the day, January, 1836, and well worthy to be immortalized as the hero of a ballad. He was found buried in a sitting posture, the head being about one foot below what had been for many years the surface of the ground. The body was enveloped in a covering of coarse bark of a dark color. Within this 24* LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY envelope were found the remains of another of coarse cloth, made of fine bark and about the texture of a manilla coffee bag. On the breast was a plate of brass, thirteen inches long, six broad at the upper end, and five in the lower. "This plate appears to have been cast, and is from one-eighth to three thirty- seconds of an inch in thickness. It is so much cor- roded that whether or not anything was engraved upon it has not yet been ascertained. It is oval in form, the edges being irregular, apparently made so by corrosion. Below the breastplate and entirely en- circling the body, was a belt composed of brass tubes, each four and a half inches in length and three-six- teenths of an inch in diameter, arranged longitudinal- ly and close together, the length of the tube being the width of the belt. The tubes are of thin brass, cast upon hollow reeds, and were fastened together by pieces of sinew. Near the right knee was a quiver of arrows. The arrows are of brass, thin, flat and tri- angular in shape, with a round hole cut through near the base. The shaft was fastened to the head by in- serting the latter in an opening at the end of the wood, and then tying it with a sinew through the round hole, a mode of constructing the weapon never practised by the Indians, not even with their arrows of thin shell. Parts of the shaft still remain on some of them. When first discovered the arrows were in a sort of quiver of bark which fell to pieces when exposed to the air." Very likely the problem of the tower and the skele- ton will never be settled, for no matter what excellent arguments the romanticist may bring forward, there will always be a "last say" on the part of those in- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 25 dividuals so constituted that their zeal for truth causes them to demolish every really fascinating episode with which the historians of the past have enlivened their pages. But the arguments are good enough for poetry though history cast them out, as Longfellow intimates when he remarks: "I will not enter into a discussion of the point. It is sufficiently well estab- lished for the purpose of a ballad; though doubtless many an honest citizen of Newport, who has passed his days within sight of the Round Tower, will be ready to exclaim with Sancho: 'God bless me! did I not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that it was nothing but a mndmill; and nobody would mistake it, but one who had the like in his head?' " Longfellow's visit to Copenhagen in 1835 must have been of value to him in the creation of the un- doubted Norse feeling in the poem. Here he had actually associated with Rafn, whose opinions in re- gard to the Newport tower are infectious. His de- scription of this distinguished historian of whom he took lessons in Icelandic, is pertinent as perhaps show- ing one of the sources leading up to the poem — "a tall, thin man with white hair, standing out in all direc- tions like a brush. His eyes are always wide open like a man who sees a ghost/" "Speak, speak, thou fearful guest." With Rafn, too, he went to the imiversity library in the Round Tower, which is climbed by a spiral inclined plane in place of a staircase, and there gazed upon a large collection of Icelandic manuscripts. As 26 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY he was in Copenhagen only two weeks he could not have read many of them, but it is much to imbibe an atmosphere of old manuscripts. Besides Rafn he knew the great scholar, Finn Magnussen, full of the lore of his own native Iceland, and doubtless from him, drank in great draughts of the northern spirit. "Of course I make the tradition myself," Long- fellow wrote, and it is of interest to note how far away his romantic ballad is from anything in the Norse Sagas, which are, strictly speaking, the only road to the truth. As the stories of the Norsemen's coming to America are told in the Sagas of Eric the Red and of Thorfinn Karlsefne, they are convincing enough to fill the heart of the romanticist with a proud faith in his own belief, however disturbing the contro- versies in regard to the localities mentioned in the Sagas may be to his inner consciousness. More than once in the old Sagas there are allusions to the settlements made by the Norsemen upon our coast. Vinland was the picturesque name they gave it, because of the wild grapes they found growing. The most complete accounts of the Norse voyages to this delectable land flowing with wild grapes occur in two ancient manuscripts, one on vellum, the "Saga of Eric the Red," and called by scholars the "Flatey Book," because it was long preserved on the island of Flatey near Iceland ; and one on paper, founded upon an old parchment manuscript, the "Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne." The older of these does not date farther back than the twelfth century, for it was only then that writing was introduced into Iceland, so that the events relating to the discovery of America about 1000 A. D. were preserved orally for a century or THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 27 two before they were written down. Under such cir- cumstances it is not strange that there should be dis- crepancies between the two accounts. These are not, however, regarded of sufficient importance to impair the authenticity of the story, which has been told in Latin by a learned Icelander, Thormodus Thorf aeus. His work, based upon the Sagas, and published in 1705, is now translated into Enghsh by Charles G. Herbermann, so that one need not be an Icelandic scholar in order to come face to face with the living Norsemen who may have built our round tower and furnished us with the interesting skeleton. In the "Saga of Eric the Red," it is told how Bjarne, the son of Her julf sues, was in the habit of spending part of his time in Norway, and part of his time in Iceland mth his father, and how one day, re- turning to Iceland, he found that his father had gone to Greenland and settled there with Eric the Red. Being a stubborn observer of customs he had once adopted, he declared he would spend the winter in his father's house in Greenland, though unknown to him and recently discovered. He, therefore, set sail, but a north wind and darkness took him out of his course. Darkness being dispelled, they sailed a whole day and night until an unknown land came in view; but, find- ing it covered with forests and low hills, they left it. For two days more they sailed on with a southeast wind, imtil another country came in sight, level and full of woods. But the capta'in recognized that this could not be Greenland, and, much to the chagrin of his sailors, would not land here. Sailing on with a southwest wind for three da^^s more, he came to an- other land with lofty mountains and white peaks; 28 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY finding this an island, he passed it by. Four days more he sailed, and again saw land, and this time it proved to be Greenland. His countrymen, when they heard of the lands he had seen, blamed him for lacking the ambition to explore them; and Lief, the son of Eric, bought Bjarne's ship and set sail with a num- ber of companions. "The country last seen by Bjarne, first met their view, and approaching it, they sent out a boat ; climb- ing up mountains covered by perpetual snow, they noticed that below, as far as the sea, the land was cov- ered with continuous rock, and was therefore utterly uninhabitable. Then said Lief: Bjarne's listlessness, at least, we have made amends for by exploring this country. I shall therefore give it a name to match its character, and it shall be called Helluland, that is to say, rocky land. Starting thence they found another land; landing here, likewise, they found it flat and without harbors, here and there green with woods, and again covered with white sand. This Lief called Markland from its flatness. Sailing thence after a short delay, a north wind filling their sails for two days, they again saw land along whose northern side stretched an island. They brought their ship close up to this, and disembarking in clear weather they ob- served grass dripping with dew and vying even with honey in sweetness. Returning thence to their ship they brought it to the sound, which lay between the island and the cape, that stretched northward from the Mainland:. when sailing past the cape they veered toward the West. The water ebbed away and the ship struck on the Quicksands, and was separated from the sea by great shallows. But so great was THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 29 their eagerness to see the newly found land, that without waiting for the tide, they left the ship behind and immediately entered the land by a river which flowed from a lake; when the tide rose they brought the ship by the river into the lake, and after fastening it by casting anchor they established huts on the bank and there built commodious winter quarters." The Saga goes on to tell how mild the climate seemed to these Icelanders, how fertile the soil, and how plentiful the salmon and the grapes. They load- ed their ship with vines, wheat, and lumber, and left Vinland for Greenland with favorable winds, in the beginning of spring. On his return, Lief was nicknamed Lief the Lucky ; and his brother Thorvald, emulous of his adventures, borrowed his ship, engaged thirty sailors, and set sail to explore Vinland still fur- ther. He spent the winter in fishing, living in Lief's winter quarters. In the spring he sent his ship out with a party of his sailors to explore throughout the summer. They found neither human beings nor wild beasts. "The land seemed pleasant, being covered with woods at a short distance from the sea, and the shore covered with white sand and lined everywhere with many islands." They returned in the autumn to winter quarters ; and the next summer, steering along the northern and eastern shores and turning eastward, they entered a bay and brought the ship to harbor by the nearest headland "all covered with forests," and there they landed, Thorvald exclaiming, "Here it is beautiful, and I should like to fix my home." There they beheld "three hills on the sand below the head- land, and when they came there they saw three boats of leather or hides and under each three men." One 30 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY of them escaped with his boat, but the others they seized and killed. Returning then to the headland, says the Saga, "a sudden sleep fell upon them all, so deep that it could not be shaken off even for the ap- pointed watches. It was broken by a voice which called out : 'Awake, Thorvald, I beseech thee, with all thy companions, if you mean to save your lives: em- bark all of you with the greatest speed and depart thence.' " These words aroused them only to find the whole bay thick with boats. Javelins and arrows poured upon them right and left; but "after a short hour" the Norsemen scattered their enemies, whom they called Skraelings, in contempt; that is to saj'-, dwarfs. Thorvald then asked his men if any of them had been hurt ; and when they answered none, he told them he himself had been wounded in the armpit and that it would be fatal, and he bade them carry him to the headland where he had intended to settle, and to bury him there with a cross at his head and i^ne at his feet. His intention had not been frustrated, said he, for he would "dwell there for a long time." After this, in the next spring, with their ship laden with vines and grapes, they returned to Lief in Greenland. In the same ship, Thorstein, the third son of Eric the Red, then visited Vinland, in order to bring home his brother's body. But he was tossed about by storms all summer, and carried to Greenland at the beginning of winter, where he died of the plague. His widow, Gudrid, returning to Lief s house, uiar- ried Thorfinn Karlsefne, an Icelander, who was the next to journey to Vinland, Gudrid accompanying him ; and his sixty sailors he took into partnership, in- tending to colonize the new country and to share the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 31 profits equally. The cattle they carried thrived ; they found much to do in hewing and polishing wood, fish- ing, and gathering grapes. A son, Snorre, was born to Karlsefne and Gudrid. When the Skraelings came, they gave them food in exchange for furs. So all went peacefully until one of Karlsefne's servants killed a Skraeling, when a battle followed; but al- though the Skraelings were again put to flight, Karlsefne thought it good to return the next spring with his laden ship to Greenland. The Saga tells also of a fourth excursion to Vin- land, undertaken by a sister of Lief's, Freydis, and her husband Thorvard; but it was troubled by quar- rels and violence among themselves, and ended in the usual return, laden with the booty of the new country. Many attempts have been made to settle upon the exact localities described in the Sagas. Helluland is supposed to be Newfoundland; Markland, Nova Scotia; and Vinland, the region round about Cape Cod and Rhode Island. And indeed the accoimt above quoted of the spot where the Norsemen landed, seems to fit in very well with the locality of Mount Hope Bay, as any one can see by following the de- scription with a map — all but the island north of Cape Cod, which, however, may have become joined to the mainland since that day. On the other hand, Mr. Eben Norton Horsford thinks that the spot where the Norsemen landed was up the Charles River, and he claims to have proved his point by the discovery of the foundation stones and central Norse fireplace of the very house where Lief Ericson and his successors lived on the banks of the Charles, near Gerry's Land- ing. 32 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Longfellow, like many a primitive myth-maker of the long ago past, created his myth to explain the facts. If it had been invented before the days of printing and had, in consequence, owed its preserva- tion to generations of oral tradition, it would have become a genuine legend and part of the folk-lore of the country. The "ghost" would have been deified; there would have been an altar or shrine in the Round Tower and religious ceremonies would have been per- formed in honor of the god and his consort, and New- port society might have had another novelty to add to its gayeties. One cannot help contrasting this stirring dramatic ballad with Whittier's "The Norseman." Whittier's poem is a more conscientious piece of work. Like a scholar he puts all his doubts of the authenticity of the supposed Norse remains, upon which his poem is based, into the poem. He is careful to tell you his poem is only a vision and devoutly expresses his thanks at the end that anything so doubtful should have given rise to so pleasant an imaginative flight. Even left in the hands of oral tradition his poem could never have attained the fascination of a legend, and though we know so exactly how this legend of Long- fellow's came into existence, yet, because of it, there will always cling a mysterious glamor around the Newport tower. We cannot pass the spot without looking as if we had seen a ghost, without picturing to ourselves the life of this ancient Norseman with his bride in the tower, and without feeling perfectly certain that if we should dig in the cellar we should find her skeleton to companion his. It is truly to be regretted that Longfellow did not THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 33 write more poems upon the same subject, as he seemed disposed to do, and why did he not carry out fully his aspiration to become the balladist of New Eng- land? Some of his translations might have been spared to this end. Two more ballads of his lend their poetic association to the coast, "The Phantom Ship" and "Sir Hum- phrey Gilbert," at almost the opposite ends of New England. New Haven is the scene of the first — a versified ac- count of a strange experience which befell the good people of New Haven in the year 1647; the neighbor- hood of the island of Campobello, at the northeastern limit of our coast, the scene of the second. The story of the phantom ship is, aside from the element of the marvelous, one of the tales that give pathos and ro- mance to the life of the early settlers. The episode occurred in the days when the New Haven colony was still governed according to the laws of Moses, which, it had agreed by vote, contained the "perfect rule" for the government of the state as well as the church. As Cotton Mather quaintly describes them: "Behold a fourth colony of New England Christians, in a man- ner stolen into the world, and a colony, indeed, con- stellated with many stars of the first magnitude. The colony was under the conduct of as holy and as pru- dent and as genteel persons as most that ever visited the nooks of America." Affairs in the colony had reached a crisis, which the colonists tried to tide over by fitting out the "Greate Shippe," as it was called, with a cargo to be disposed of in London. The cargo consisted of lumber, wheat, hides, beaver skins, even silver plate and spoons. It 34 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY was worth thousands of dollars, and if the voyage was successful it would mean a large profit, and if not, the loss would be overwhelming. The story, the sequel of which was the inspiration for Longfellow's poem, is best told in a letter written by James Pierpont to Cotton Mather and included by the latter in his "Magnaha Christie" : "Reverend and Dear Sir — In compliance with your desires, I now give you the relation of that apparition of a ship in the air, which I have received from the most credible, judicious, and curious surviving ob- servers of it. *'In the year 1647, besides much other lading, a far more rich treasure of passengers (five or six of which were persons of chief note and worth in New Haven) put themselves upon board a new ship built at Rhode Island, of about 150 tuns ; but so walty that the master (Lamberton) often said she would prove their grave. In the month of January, cutting their way through much ice, on which they were accom- panied with the reverend Mr. Davenport, besides many other friends, with many fears, as well as prayers and tears, they set sail. Mr. Davenport in prayer with an observable emphasis used these words, Lord, if it be thy pleasure to bury these friends in the bottom of the sea, they are thine ; save them ! The spring following no tidings of these friends arrived with the ship from England: New Haven's heart be- gan to fail her: this put the godly people on much prayer, both publick and private, that the Lord would (if it was his pleasure) let them hear what he had Old Norse Tower THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 35 done with their dear friends, and prepare them with a suitable submission to his Holy Will. "In June next ensuing, a great thunderstorm arose out of the northwest, after which (the hemisphere be- ing serene) , about an hour before simset, a ship of like dimensions with the aforesaid, with her canvass and colours abroad (though the wind northerly), ap- peared in the air coming up from our harbour's mouth, which lyes southward from the town, seemingly with her sails filled under a fresh gale, holding her course north, and continuing under observation, sailing against the wind for the space of half an hour. "Many were drawn to behold this great work of God ; yea, the very children cried out. There's a brave ship! At length, crouding up as far as there is usual- ly water sufficient for such a vessel, and so near some of the spectators as that they imagined a man might hurl a stone on board her, her main-top seemed to be blown off, but left hanging in the shrouds: then her missen-top: then all her masting seemed blown away by the board: quickly after, the hulk brought unto a careen, she overset, and so vanished into a smoaky cloud, which in some time dissipated, leaving, as every- where else, a clear air. The admiring spectators could distinguish the several colours of each part, the principal rigging, and such proportions as caused not only the generality of persons to say, this was the mould of their ship, and thus was her tragick end : but Mr. Davenport also in publick declared to this effect, that God had condescended, for the quieting of their afflicted spirits, this extraordinary account of his sovereign disposal of those for whom so many ferv- 36 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ent prayers were made continually. Thus, I am, sir, your humble servant, "James Pierpont." Cotton Mather adds to this weird account: "There being yet living so many credible gentlemen, that were eye-witnesses of this wonderful thing, I venture to publish it for a thing as undoubted as it is won- derful." One cannot but surmise to-day if it were not a very remarkable case of mind transference, the story bears such unmistakable marks of sincerity and truth. Much more might have been made of this material than Longfellow has made ; instead of clothing it with richer imagery and suggestion than the original ac- count, he has rather diluted it into merely a rhymed version, neither so religious nor so full of poetic fervor as James Pierpont's letter. The ballad of "Sir Humprey Gilbert" is more suc- cessful from an artistic point of view. The poet has worked up some hints in the original account into a fine picture in the opening stanzas: "Southward with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and fast blew the blast. And the east-wind was his breath. "His lordly ships of ice Glistened in the sun; On each side, like pennons wide. Flashing crystal streamlets run. "His sails of white sea-mist Dripped with silver rain; But where he passed there were cast Leaden shadows o'er the main." THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 37 The report was made by "M. Haies, gentleman," of the Golden Hinde, the only ship of the three that sailed from St. John, August 27, 1583, to reach Eng- land. With a becoming sense of his importance, he calls himself "the principal actour in the same voyage who alone continued unto the end, and by God's spe- ciall assistance returned home with his retinue safe and entire." In describing the wreck of the Delight, which was not Sir Humphrey Gilbert's ship, he says : "And betimes in the morning we were altogether runne and folded in amongst flats and sands, amongst which we found shoale and deepe in every three or foure shippes length, 'after wee began to sound: but first we were upon them unawares, untill Master Cox looking out, discerned (in his judgement) white cliff es, crying (land) withal, though we could not afterward descrie any land, it being very likely the breaking of the sea white, which seemed to be white cliff es, through the haze and thicke weather." It seems probable that the white cliffs were ice- bergs. At any rate Longfellow's "fleet of ice" and "ships of ice" were undoubtedly suggested by the white cliffs Master Cox saw. To continue the story in the extraordinary English of M. Haies, gentle- man: "By that time we had brought the Islands of Azores south to us, yet wee then keeping much to the north, untill we had got into the height and eleva- tion of England : we met with very f oule weather, and terrible seas, breaking short and high Pyramid wise. The reason whereof seemed to proceed either of hilly grounds high and low within the sea (as we see hills and dales upon the land) upon which the seas do mount and fall : or else the cause proceedeth of diver- 38 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY sitie of windSj shifting often in sundry points: al which having power to move the great Ocean, which again is not presently settled, so many seas do en- counter together, as there had been diversity of windes. However it cometh to passe men which all their life time had occupied the Sea, never saw more outragious Seas. We had also upon our maine yard an apparition of a little fire by night, which seamen do call Castor and Pollux. Monday, the ninth of September, in the.af ternoon, the Frigat was near cast away, oppressed by waves, yet at that time recovered : and giving forth signes of joy, the Generall sitting abaft with a booke in his hand, cried out unto us in the Hinde (so oft as we did approach within hearing) 'We are as neare to heaven by sea as by land.' Reit- erating the same speech, well beseeming a soldier, resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testifie he was. "The same Monday night, about twelve of the clocke, or not long after, the Frigat being ahead of us in the Golden Hinde, suddenly her lights were out, whereof, as it were in a moment, we lost the sight, and withal our watch cryed, the Generall was cast away, which was so true. For in that moment the Frigat was devoured and swallowed up of the sea. Yet still we looked out all that night and ever after, untill we arrived upon the coast of England : Omitting no small sail at sea, unto which we gave not the tokens betweene us, agreed upon, to have perfect knowledge of each other, if we should at any time be separated." From this account of an eye-witness it will be seen that the poet has allowed himself to depart consid- erably. He describes Sir Humphrey's wi'eck to have occurred three days eastv/ard from Campobello, in- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 39 stead of near the Azores twelve days after the little fleet left St. John. The idea of Sir Humphrey Gil- bert's ship drifting down to the Spanish main in the clasp of icebergs is certainly picturesque. Curiously enough, with more prosaic material than he had in the "Phantom Ship," the poet has made of this the more fanciful poem. The icebergs with Sir Humphrey in their cold embrace finally disappear in the Gulf stream: "Southward through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, to the Spanish main, Yet there seems no change of place. "Southward, forever southward. They drift through dark and day, And like a dream, in the Gulf stream Sinking, vanish all away." It was also a clever touch to use the euphonious name of Campobello as the starting point of Gilbert, instead of St. John. One may to-day take a crazy narrow-gauge train that sways from side to side as though it might jump the track at any moment and journey from St. John down to Calais, and there take a steamer down the beautiful St. Crois river to Eastport, and so get a view of this charming island of Campobello which lies some little distance out from Eastport, washed by twenty- or thirty-foot tides. It is not unusual for the little steamboats to be stranded on the sands at low tide when attempting to make a landing, even to- day, when all the tricks of sand and tide are known. 40 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY No spot on the coast is so closely associated with Longfellow himself as Portland, the city of his birth and childhood, and often visited by him in his later life. The house in which he was born was but a hand's throw from the sea. The door-yard, the road, and a little strip of beach — that was all ! The dwell- ing, once in a fine neighborhood, is now a tenement house, while the beach is given over to the tracks of the Grand Trunk Railroad. Only one year of his life was spent in this close proximity to the sea, but that was doubtless enough to implant in him his love of it. Besides, the home in which the Longfellows settled though removed from the shore, had a beautiful sea view. "I prefer the seaside to the country," he used to say; "the idea of liberty is stronger there." We have already seen his own fine description of Portland harbor, a haven for ships not surpassed in spaciousness and beauty by any along the coast. Sailing into this harbor to-day one is struck with far other craft than the market boats of which he speaks. Gigantic men of war in their peaceful garb of white, may often be seen standing about like sentinels to usher in the humble side-wheeler, which bears the sum- mer tourist on his way to his destination. Awesome and beautiful objects, if it were not for a melancholy bit of statistics which always gets possession of one's thoughts to the effect that the nation squanders more money upon one of these engines of destruction than it would take to build a college of the size of Harvard. So much more important is destruction than construc- tion in the policy of nations. Graceful sail- ing yachts or chic steam yachts, bedecked with trappings of burnished brass, like Gibson girls in / THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 41 party array, make gay the scene, and these invariably induce philosophical reflections upon modern types of wealth. The six-masted schooner with its noble pro- portions and its evident intention of doing good work, brings unalloyed pleasure into the scene, and finally the "power boats," whose frail little bodies seem in danger of being rent asunder by their titanic asthmatic puffings, rush about performing in their cheering manner all needful tasks. What a stride from the days when Longfellow gazed upon the peaceful scene to the present, with its immeasurable increase of beauty on the one hand, and on the other its ''strang- ling" problems. Though not a proven fact, it seems probable that the inspiration for his poem "The Building of the Ship" arose from memories of shipbuilding in Port- land. His aunt, Mrs. Stevenson, a sister of his father's, and her husband, Mr. Samuel Stevenson, lived in the house where the poet was born, the event having oc- curred when Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow were on a visit to their relatives. Next to this house there was a large yard, which was afterwards converted into a ship yard, where many ships were built and launched. There were besides ship yards all along the harbor front, for Portland was a great shipbuilding center, and ship-launchings must have been frequently wit- nessed by the young Longfellow. It is also worthy of note that he was actually in Portland for a time while he was brooding over this poem, having been called there by his father's death. That his observa- tions upon the launching of ships had been accurate, is proved by his own note on a point which he feared 42 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY might call out criticism. He writes: "I wish to an- ticipate a criticism on this passage by stating that sometimes, though not usually, vessels are launched fully rigged and sparred. I have availed myself of the exception, as better suited to my purposes than the general rule; but the reader will see that it is neither a blunder nor a poetic license." To his own authority he adds that of a friend in Portland who writes: "In this State and also, I am told, in New York, ships are sometimes rigged upon the stocks, in order to save time or to make a show. There was a fine large ship launched last summer at Ellsworth, fully rigged and sparred. Some years ago a ship was launched here, with her rigging, spars, sails and cargo aboard. She sailed the next day and was never heard of again! I hope this will not be the fate of your poem!" The fate of the poem has been, as every one knows, a particularly fortunate one. It has been a favorite, not only with people in general, but, appearing at the time it did, it was an inspiration because of its closing lines — "Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great," to many who felt the approaching darkness that was one day to overwhelm their country in the horrors of civil war. Never to be forgotten is the poet's own account in his diary, February twelfth, 1850, of Mrs. Kemble's reading of this poem: "In the evening Mrs. Kemble read before the Mer- cantile Library Association, to an audience of more THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 43 than three thousand, portions of 'As You Like It;' then 'The Building of the Ship.' Standing out upon the platform, book in hand, trembling, palpitating and weeping, and giving every word its true weight and emphasis, she prefaced the recital by a few words to this effect: that when she first saw the poem, she desired to read it before a Boston audience: and she hoped she would be able to make every word audible to that great multitude." Mr. Samuel Longfellow remarks upon this in his Life of the poet: "But it is to be suspected that the vast multitude was stirred to its depths not so much by the artistic completeness of the rendition as by the impassioned burst with which the poem closes, and which fell upon no listless ears in the deep agitation of the eventful year 1850." An even greater tribute was paid to the poem by President Lincoln, as related in an article by Noah Brooks in Scribner's Monthly for August, 1879. Finding the President one day attracted by these clos- ing stanzas which he had used in a political speech, he recited for him, at his request, nearly the whole poem. He began with the description of the launch of the ship and repeated it to the end. "As he listened," writes Mr. Brooks, "to the last lines his eyes filled with tears, and his cheeks were wet. He did not speak for some minutes, then finally said with sim- plicity: 'It is a wonderful gift to be able to stir men like that.' " The "Lighthouse" on the rocky ledge that "runs far in to the sea" might stand for many a lighthouse on our well-lit coast. But from the fact that the poem was written in November, 1847, after Longfel- low had spent a summer in Westport, near Portland 44 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Harbor, makes it altogether likely that he had a Port- land lighthouse in mind. He tells in his journal of an expedition to two neighboring lighthouses: "We made up a little party and drove to the Cape. Visited the Bowery where there is no bower. Thence went to the two lighthouses. I climbed to the top of the revolving one, and found it as neat as a new pin. Below are oil jars large enough to hold the forty thieves." Though these are neither of them the lighthouse of the poem, the visit doubtless served to turn his mind to the subject for a poem. In his "Early Haunts of Longfellow," George Thornton Edwards attaches the poem to the venerable Portland Head Light on Cape Elizabeth, said to be the oldest lighthouse on the Atlantic Coast. He writes: "As one stands in the front windows of the Wadsworth-Longfellow house to-day and sees the brick walls of the buildings across the way, it is hard to realize that from these windows once stretched a view of surpassing loveliness. The bay, the islands, the cape shore, and the light at Portland Head were all plainly visible from the windows of the poet's sleeping room; and from these windows he could 'See the tides Upheaving, break unheard' along the foot of the lighthouse some three miles away.'* It is on record that "as early as 1785 the represen- tative from the town was instructed to urge ui)on the government of Massachusetts the erection of a light- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 45 house at the mouth of this (Portland) harbor. But from the poverty of the country nothing was done for a year or two. At length the work was undertaken, but proceeded slowly until the organization of the general government. In August, 1790, Congress ap- propriated $1,500 to finish the work, and it was com- pleted within five months of that time." Originally the stonework was seventy-two feet high, and the lantern fifteen feet. But it was found to be too high, and, twenty years after it was built, twenty feet were taken off. In the poet's day, one had to thread one's way through brambles and a tangled growth of bushes to reach the light, but to- day the approach is along smooth roadways and through the well-kept parade grounds of Fort Williams. Turning to the journal we find such charming rec- ollections of this Portland summer by the sea as the following: "We drove to the Verandah at Oak Grove in Westbrook, where we propose to inhale the Sea for six weeks. A delicious place, a promontory front- ing the entrance to the harbor, crowned with a grove of oaks. "How lovely the view of the harbor, the pearly sea with its almost irresistible attraction drawing me into it. A whole fleet of vessels in the horizon, looking in the vapory distance like the spires and towers of a great city. "The rain is over, the tide is rising. One by one the banks of sea-shells and the brown weed-covered rocks have disappeared, and the ships have sailed away from the mouth of the harbor, and the city by the sea has simk into its depths." 46 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Again : "We leaned for a while on the wooden rail, and enjoyed the silvery reflection on the sea, making sundry comparisons. Among other thoughts we had this charming one — that the whole sea was flashing with this heavenly light, though we saw it only in a single track ; the dark waves are the dark providences of God ; luminous, though not to us ; and even to our- selves in another position." The "Verandah" mentioned here was a famous summer hotel, when Longfellow visited it. There is now a marine hospital upon the spot where it stood, yet the surroundings have retained much of their old- time loveliness. An old advertisement of the hotel, printed by Mr. Edwards, witnesses to the charm and desirability of the place as only an advertisement may do: "The Verandah "At Oak Grove, two miles from Portland, Me., a new and splendid establishment, built expressly for a first-class hotel and watering place, is now opened for the season. "It stands on a bold peninsula bounded by Pre- sumpscot River and by Casco Bay, whose hundred green islands breaking the surface of the ocean waters, are fully in sight. For natural beauty and richness and variety of scenery it is not surpassed. "Omnibi and carriages at the depot and the steam- boats to take passengers to the Verandah for 25c. per seat. It is orue of the most desirable places of re- sort in the country for the invalid, the lover of fine scenery and pure air." THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 47 One more entry from the diary, this time in verse, will help to round out the picture. The lines were inspired by the tides flowing under Martin's Point Bridge, near the Verandah, and have been included in the definitive edition of the poet's works : "O faithful, indefatigable tides, That evermore upon God's errands go, — Now seaward, bearing tidings of the land, Now landward, bearing tidings of the sea, — And filling every firth and estuary. Each arm of the great sea, each little creek, Each thread and filament of water courses, Full with your ministrations of delight, Under the rafters of this wooden bridge I see you come and go ; sometimes in haste To reach your journey's end, which being done With feet unrested ye return again, And recommence the never-ending task: Patient, whatever burdens ye may bear, And fretted only by the impending rocks." The poem most thoroughly identified with Port- land is "My Lost Youth," wherein the Portland of the poet's boyhood lives again in imagination. Much of the sea comes into it : 'Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea; Often in thought go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town. And my youth comes back to me. And a verse of a Lapland song Is haunting my memory still: *A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 48 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY *'I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, And catch in sudden gleams The sheen of the far-surrounding seas, And Islands that were the Hesperides Of all my boyish dreams. And the burden of that old song, It murmurs and whispers still: 'A boy's will is the wind's will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' ''I remember the black wharves and the slips, And the sea-tides tossing free; And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips. And the beauty and mystery of the ships. And the magic of the sea. And the voice of that wayward song 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.' " These pleasant visions of a summer along our coast, with the poet to cast an imaginative glamor upon many a favorite spot, may best be brought to a close by one or two more glimpses through his own poetic every-day eyes at the sea as he saw it at Nahant and Newport. At Nahant he writes: "At length over the glorious beach we came, the surf mowing great swaths of foam along the sands, and the loveliest colors THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND 49 playing over the surface of the water, from the sil- ver shallows, through the green middle space, out to the blue of the far-off ocean." "One of the prettiest sights of Nahant is the cows going over the beach at sunset, from cow-sites of Nahant to the cow-yards of Lynn. Their red hides and the reflection in the wet sand light up the gray picture of the sky and surge. Has it ever been painted?" "A delightful stroll with F. on the cliff watching the sails in sunshine and in shadow, and our own shadows on far-off rocks." "We had a charming drive along the beach this aft- ernoon. A phantom ship flashed back the setting sun, and seemed of pearl floating on a pearly sea. The whole scene was too lovely to be painted in words; and guarding it, lay, like a tawny lion, the brown, sun- lighted island of Egg Rock." At Newport in 1852 he writes; "How beautifully the soft sea spreads its broad-feathered fans upon the shore! In the afternoon we went and sat by the sea under the cliff, and watched the breakers and the sails, and thought the rocks looked like the Mediterranean shore, and that the Italian language would sound well. Here, in truth, the sea speaks Italian; at Nahant it speaks Norse." It must have been these softer, more Southern seas that filled the poet's mind when he wrote "The Secret of the Sea," with its recollections of a Spanish ballad: "Ah! What pleasant visions haunt me As I gaze upon the sea! All the old romantic legends, All mv dreams, come back to me. 50 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "Sails of silk and ropes of sendal, Such as gleam in ancient lore ; And the singing of the sailors, And the answer from the shore! "Most of all, the Spanish ballad Haunts me oft, and tarries long, Of the noble Count Arnaldos And the sailor's mystic song." UNDER THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON ^^The sun goes down, and over all These barren reaches by the tide Such unelusive glories fall, I almost dream they yet will bide Until the coming of the tide. *'And yet I know that not for us. By any ecstasy of dream. He lingers to keep luminous A little while the grievous stream. Which frets, uncomforted of dream — "A grievous stream, that to and fro Althrough the fields of Acadie Goes wandering, as if to know Why one beloved face should be So long from home and Acadie. ***** "The night has fallen, and the tide — Now and again comes drifting home. Across these aching barrens wide, A sigh like driven wind and foam: In grief the flood is bursting home." Bliss Carman. II MY first view of Grand Pre was afar off from the little village of Del Haven on the op- posite shore of the Basin of Minas; and owing to the wonderful fascination of this western shore of the basin, it was some time before the drive of a few miles, partly along the course of the Gas- pereau, was made for the closer inspection of Grand Pre. One has the sensation of being on the planet Mars, when in this region of Nova Scotia, the tone of the beach and shores is so unmitigatedly red. Then, too, the shrinking of the water in the basin twice a day to a width of some five miles less than it is at high tide parallels very well the strange behavior of the canals on Mars as it is described by some astron- omers. Who knows but the whole of Mars may be formed out of soft red sandstone like the foundations of Cape Blomidon? The banks all along this west- ern side, limiting the encroachment of the tide, look as if they had been carefully cut down with a huge knife, so straight up and doAvn are the lines; per- haps the giant Glooskap, whose home in mythical times was on Cape Blomidon, may have had a hand in it. These banks vary in height, but are never very lofty, though the land above them is undulating, end- ing in the ridge, which at length forms the imposing and peculiarly beautiful Cape Blomidon, five hundred 63 54 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY and seventy feet in height, with its red sandstone walls and battlemented top of gray trap rock, and its growths of solemn firs. Red, red everywhere are these banks, and at their base, as at the base of Blomi- don itself, stretches the red beach, as smooth and seem- ingly as level as a floor, which at low tide loses itself in a distance of two miles. In reality, this beach must slant considerably, for on the northern shore of the basin there is a pier at Parsborough, sixty feet in height, with landings at several stages to accommo- date the phenomenal rise of the tide. The tale is told at Del Haven that if one were at the outermost edge of the beach when the tide turned, he could not walk fast enough to keep from being overwhelmed by it, so rapidly does it rise. This hardly seems believable, at least along this shore, where the tide does not come up with a rush of big waves and breakers ; on the con* trary, the edge of the water steadily advances with a quiet little trickling sound, for all the world as if the basin were a tank being filled from a faucet. No one, however, had the temerity to try the experiment of following the water down to the turn of the tide. What fierceness the tides of the Basin of Minas are capable of, shows itself on the north shore, where the surf rolls in over a curving beach, while the narrow passage from the basin out to the Bay of Fundy, north of Cape Blomidon, is a tossing mass of waters forming a powerful rip, through which vessels dare not go except in the direction in which the tide is running. The magic of low tide when it occurs near sunset in the glowing afternoon light, is hardly describable in words. Patches of dampness left on the beach by THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 55 the receding tide refract the Hght in such a manner that the whole atmosphere becomes radiant with melt- ing rainbow tints, while the shadows falling on the banks are of a deep wine-color, with elusive perspec- tives of intensity to the depths of which the eye hardly seems able to penetrate. Blomidon looms sombre in the background, its crest alone lit up by the rays of the departing sun ; and perhaps far out on a dike, still in a flood-tide of sunlight, maj^ be seen an old-fash- ioned ox-team with hay wagon attached, standing peacefully, even statue-like, in the still calm of that mystical afternoon light, the one bit of life in the scene being a boy who tosses the hay into the wagon — a fairy in blue- jeans, a scarlet sweater and a wide, yel- low hat. The charm of the place is greatly enhanced by the mythical lore that attaches to it. Here Glooskap en- tered into a combat with the Great Beaver. For his weapons he had huge masses of rocks. These he pitched at his enemy ; they fell into the water and be- came Five Islands. Around these missiles of the god, mysterious lights and shadows constantly hover. Once there was a stupendous dam at this point, which caused the flooding of the Cornwallis Valley. The Great Beaver was also responsible for this. But Glooskap, whose might was not surpassed even by that of the great Norse giant Thor, bent the dam into its present shape, forming Cape Blomidon to stand sentinel over the Basin of Minas as it rushes out through the channel to the Bay of Fundy, and Cape Split, a gigantic headland of bare rock with a yawn- ing chasm dividing it from top to bottom, the fiercer sentinel to guard the point where the channel meets 56 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY the Bay of Fundy. Cape Split has its tragedy. It is whispered a man was once swallowed there by the Great Beaver, or rather, that, fired with reckless am- bition, he tried to scale its dizzy height and never again was heard of. It was Glooskap, too, who flung gems about in such profusion on Cape Blomidon. Though he car- ried some away, there are still quantities left for the tourist and the collector of specimens. But there is one jewel which no one can obtain possession of. This is the "Witch's Stone," sometimes called the "Dia- mond of Cape Blomidon" or the "Eye of Glooskap." This is a great gem, which tradition says is some- times seen at night shining with miraculous radiance out of the dark face of Blomidon. The story comes down out of the most impenetrable mists of the past. It is said that of the many who have sought the stone, certain ones from time to time have found it — ^but to their own undoing. The possession of the mystic gem has always wrought irremediable misfortune to its possessor ; and the gem itself has always found its way by sorcery back to the brow of the mount. All sorts of minerals abound, some of them semi- precious, on Blomidon, Partridge Island and the cliffs near Parsborough. These latter as you approach them from the water, especially when the sun is shin- ing upon them, might be gates of jasper and chal- cedony leading to some heavenly city, so brilliant is the coloring. No one comes away from Blomidon without a geode or two, with clustering amethysts imbedded in its stony interior. These may be bought or picked up at Amethyst Cove, according to the taste or energy of the visitor. THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 57 Though the giant form of Glooskap often seems to take shape in the mists that hang over Blomidon, he is no longer there. He departed at the appearance of the white man, or according to an Algonquin legend : "When the ways of men and beasts waxed evil they greatly vexed Glooskap, and at length he could no longer endure them, and he made a rich feast by the shore of the great Lake Minas. All the beasts came to it, and when the feast was over, he got into a great canoe, and the beasts looked after him till they saw him no more. And after they ceased to see him, they still heard his voice as he sang; but the sounds grew fainter and fainter in the distance, and at last they wholly died away; and then deep silence fell on them all, and a great marvel came to pass, and the beasts, who had till now spoken but one language, were no longer able to understand each other, and they fled away, each his own way, and never again have they met together in council. Until the day when Gloos- kap shall return to restore the Golden Age, and make men and animals dwell once more together in amity and peace, all Nature mourns. And tradition says that on his departure from Acadia the Great Snowy Owl retired to the deep forests, to return no more imtil he could come to welcome Glooskap; and in those sylvan depths the owls even yet repeat to the night Koo-koo-skoos! which is to say in the Indian tongue, *Oh, I am sorry! Oh, I am sorry!* And the Loons, who had been the huntsmen of Gloosgap, go restlessly up and down through the world, seeking vainly for their master, whom they cannot find, and wailing sad- ly because they find him not." When one finally makes up one's mind to leave all 58 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY this loveliness and drive from Del Haven to Grand Pre, what other loveliness is the reward! What won- derful orchards ! Apples of rare kinds that never find their way to the American market because of the cus- toms duties; fields of wheat and oats and rye which exhale the richness of the earth. One may drive to the top of Blomidon and look down upon all this beau- tiful garden as it lies far down below in squares of many tints, but when Grand Pre is the destination, he may either enter into the heart of the valley of the Gaspereau and loiter amid its orchards along his happy way or drive by the upland road above the val- ley, where this tiny but celebrated stream meanders, and from time to time catch glimpses of the surround- ing wealth of garden land. When the Gaspereau is met on the way to Grand Pre, it has become a gentle stream flowing through a peaceful valley of alluvial meadows, the mountains, which guard it so closely at its birth, having drawn off to give it free scope to follow its own will, which is of the mildest. The river starts in a little lake of the same name in the south- western part of Horton Township. Not having had the good fortune to follow it along the whole of its course, I borrow a graphic description of it from Hali- burton: "For the first few miles and as it flows through the settlement of Canaan, there is a wild beauty and grandeur in the scenery. It rushes impet- uously between two lofty and almost perpendicular hills — its bed resembling a chasm made in the heart of the mountain by some violent convulsion of nature. From this place the course of the stream is so serpen- tine that, within a small space, the horizon is bounded on all sides by the hills, that in their circumference re- THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 59 cede from the river, which, in this deep recess, appears like a small central point. Here a narrow footpath winds down the precipitous steep, by which the trav- eler with much exertion and some danger of a more rapid descent, reaches the margin of the stream, where a scene of indescribable beauty is presented to view. As the river pursues its course the hills become more accessible and admit of cultivation." When finally the valley broadens out it becomes a most peaceable little river, and when it nears the Basin of Minas its waters mingling with the tides form salt marshes. Bliss Carman has pictured all the beauty in his fine poem "The Valley of the Gaspereau," v/ith the loving touch of one who was born in this fruitful land: "The crowds of black spruces in tiers from the valley below. Ranged round their sky-roofed coliseum, mount row after row. How often there, rank above rank, they have watched for the slow Silver-lanterned processions of twilight — the moon's come and go! How often as if they expected some bugle to blow, Announcing a bringer of news they were breathless to know, They have hushed every leaf — to hear only the mur- murous flow Of the small mountain river sent up from the valley below ! iii. il£. ik. ^ iiiL ^le. ik. ~ ^ ^T^ T^f ^ vfr Tf^ "Then the orchards that dot, all in order, the green valley floor. Every tree with its boughs weighed to earth, like a tent from whose door 60 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Not a lodger looks forth, — ^yet the signs are there, gay and galore, The great ropes of red fruitage and russet, crisp snow to the core. Can the dark-eyed Romany here have deserted of yore Their camp at the coming of frost? Will they seek it no more? Who dwells in St. Eulalie's village? Who knows the fine lore Of the tribes of the apple trees there on the green valley floor? "Who indeed? From the blue mountain gorge to the dikes by the sea. Goes that stilly wanderer, small Gaspereau; who but he Should give the last hint of perfection, the touch that sets free From the taut string of silence the whisper of beau- ties to be? The very sun seems to have tarried, turned back a degree. To lengthen out noon for the apple folk here by the sea." Grand Pre may also be reached by the "crack" train of Nova Scotia, "The Flying Blue Nose." This train, like Alice-in- Wonderland's jam, is only to be had every other day — at least, such was the case a few years ago. The hour at which it left Yarmouth had furthermore to be carefully computed from the time-table, one's own watch, and the watch of some obliging inhabitant of the country, for the time-table represented Washington time, one's own watch Bos- ton or New York time as the case might be, while the inhabitant's watch was what it really was o'clock. There doubtless are people who have traveled all THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 61 the way from Yarmouth to Grand Pre in the "Fly- ing Blue Nose," so they may know how or where the transformation occurs, for certain it is that this train which starts from Yarmouth a tolerably well-ap- pointed passenger train, often arrives at the little sta- tion in Grand Pre a train of freight cars with only a half-passenger booth at the end of the last car. The shores of the Basin of Minas at Grand Pre are similar to those near Del Haven, though not by any means so picturesque, probably because of the greater extent of dike land, which gives the effect of endless flat meadows. One misses, too, the pervading so- lemnity of Blomidon, now miles away, while the atmospheric effects are not in any way comparable with those on the other side of the basin. Nothing of the ancient Acadian village is left, but devout tourists take much delight in the sites pointed out to them as marking some street or old homestead. The smithy of Basil Lajeunesse is distinguished by an old tree, and stony hollows in the ground do duty as landmarks for the house of Father Felician and for the village church, so famous in Acadian history. There is an avenue of hoary willows said to have been planted by the French that look as if they might in- deed have waved above the heads of Evangeline and Gabriel, and most important of all there is Evan- geline's Well with an old-fashioned well-sweep, from which the tourists may be seen slicing off little chips as mementos, unaware of the fact that the well-sweep needs to be renewed every few years owing to the ravages of these same tourists. This is all there is to tell of the once flourishing French settlement. A lit- tle bit sad the land seems, in spite of its strange beauty, 62 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY as if the air still vibrated to the wailing and woe of the women as they saw perhaps a father, a husband or a son marched off for embarkation upon vessels which were not to hold themselves. Lieutenant Winslow seems to have been given instructions to keep the in- habitants of villages, and the members of families to- gether. According to one account, however, the men were embarked first, a method which would certainly make it difficult to insure the keeping of families to- gether. Besides, we have the word of the Acadians, who wrote from Philadelphia to King George asking redress for their grievances. In this letter they de- clare the transporting was done in so much haste that "parents were separated from children, and husbands from wives, some of whom have not to this day met again. . . . "And even those amongst us who had suffered deep- ly from your Majesty's enemies, on account of their attachment to your Majesty's government, were equally involved in the common calamity, of which Rene Leblanc, the notary public, is a remarkable in- stance. He was seized, confined and brought away among the rest of the people, and his family, consist- ing of twenty children, and about one hundred and fifty grandchildren, were scattered in different col- onies, so that he was put on shore at New York with only his wife and two youngest children, in an infirm state of health, from whence he found three more of his children at Philadelphia, where he died without any more notice being taken of him." There is some- thing touching as well as naive in the spectacle of the personal devotion of Rene Leblanc and all his chil- dren and grandchildren, to the number of a hundred THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 63 and seventy, and possibly in this instance there may be some excuse for the authorities not being able to see that the whole family was kept together. Longfellow has presented a kindly picture of the worthy old notary public : "Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public; Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung 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 lan- guished a captive. Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English. Now, though warier grown, without all guile or sus- picion. Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike." Again he mentions his sad fate, when describing Philadelphia : "There old Rene Leblanc died; and when he departed, Saw at his side 'only one of all liis hundred de- scendants." When the poet sat down to write this poem, like the admiral of "Pinafore" fame, "he stuck close to his desk." He traveled neither to Nova Scotia, nor to 64 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Louisiana ; nor did he sail the wide reaches of the Mis- sissippi, nor wander over the Western prairies, nor penetrate the depths of the Michigan forests. He read books and saw these far-away lands with the eye of the imagination. The books he mentions as hav- ing helped him to construct his scenery were Wat- son's "Annals of Philadelphia," "Historical Collec- tions of Pennsylvania," and Darby's "Geographical Description of Louisiana." There must have been many more, but chief of all his helps was a diorama of the Mississippi. In his diary he writes: "I see a diorama of the Mississippi advertised. This comes very a propos. The river comes to me instead of my going to the river; and as it is to flow through the pages of the poem, I look upon this as a special bene- diction." Then he notes again that he "went to see Banvard's moving diorama of the Mississippi. One seems to be sailing down the great stream, and sees the boats and the sandbanks crested with cottonwood and the bayous by moonlight. Three miles of canvas and a great deal of merit." The wanderings of Evangeline through this book and diorama-land can be compared only with the wanderings of lo in the Prometheus of ^schylus through partly imaginary regions. Each poet outdoes himself in the particu- larity and variety of the geographical descriptions, so that one can scarcely believe the scenes have not been seen at first hand. Some one has said that Longfellow declared he would rather not see Acadia lest it might fall short of the picture his imagination had formed of it. Would that he could have had his inspiration fired by the reality, for here his descriptions certainly might Christ Church, Philadelphia THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 65 have been more individual. They frequently carry suggestions of the Maine coast. He speaks some- times of the Basin of Minas shore, so mild in the neighborhood of Grand Pre, with its endless flats of dike land, as if it M^ere a rocky coast with dashing breakers. Even the opening of "Evangeline" does not correctly portray the mood of the Grand Pre country, although there are portions of Nova Scotia on the ocean side or on the Bay of Fundy shore which it would very well describe : "This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indis- tinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic. Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neigh- boring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest." Again, he refers constantly to the Basin of Minas as the sea or the ocean, which calls up in the mind a picture entirely different from that of this land-locked bay, with but one narrow outlet to the larger Bay of Fundy. For example, in this passage descriptive of the scene when the Acadians were embarking: "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." 66 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Here again is a description reminiscent of the Maine coast: "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 moun- tain and meadow, Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together." And again : "Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges. 'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the ocean, With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying landward." Quite in the mood of Grand Pre, however, is this : "Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of Grand Pre. Pleasantly gleamed in the soft sweet air the Basin of Minas, Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding at anchor." Francis Parkman gives a striking description of the approach of the transports under Captain Winslow to Grand Pre which is worth quoting for the sake of the truthfulness of the picture : "On the fourteenth of August, Winslow set out from Beau Sejour. He sailed down Chignecto Chan- THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 67 nel to the Bay of Fundy. Here, while they waited the turn of the tide to enter the Basin of Minas, the shores of Cumberland lay before them, dim in the hot and hazy air, and the promontory of Cape Split like some misshapen monster of primeval chaos stretched its portentous length along the glimmering sea, with head of yawning rock and ridgy back, bristled with forests. Borne on the rushing flood, they soon drifted through the inlet, gliding under the rival promontory of Cape Blomidon, passed the red sandstone cliffs of Lyon's Cove, and descried the mouths of the rivers Canard and des Habitants, where fertile marshes, diked against the tides, sustained a numerous and thriving population. Before them spread the bound- less meadows of Grand Pre, waving with harvests and alive with grazing cattle. The green slopes behind were dotted with the simple dwellings of the Acadian farmers, and the spire of the village church rose against a background of woody hills. It was a peace- ful, rural scene, soon to become one of the most wretched spots on earth." Since the writing of "Evangeline" there has been more or less controversy in regard to the real truth of the story connected with the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia. Sometimes feeling has reached an almost vituperative stage, according as the sympa- thies were on the side of the French Acadians or the English. Francis Parkman, in an article in Har- per's for November, 1884, administered a cruel blow to sentiment when he wrote : "Now was begun a dismal tragedy, famous in prose and verse, yet ill understood, both in its causes and events. The removal of the Acadians was the result 68 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY of influences that had been at work for forty years, and which had now mounted to a crisis. Abbe Rey- nal, who knew nothing of these people except from hearsay, has drawn an ideal picture of them, which later writers have copied and embellished till Acadia has become Arcadia." Philip H. Smith took up the cudgels for the Aca- dians and there followed a lively correspondence in the Nation, the Post, and the Boston Transcript be- tween Mr. Parkman and Mr. Smith, in the course of which the tempers of the correspondents became so inflamed that they accused each other of not being able to write "good English" and of "bad grammar." Francis Parkman's account is fair enough in regard to the facts as they are to be gathered from the pub- lic documents of Nova Scotia, supplemented by the documents upon the French aspects of the case. But in his desire to palliate the action of the English, he has perhaps not seen quite clearly all the merits of the case. Dr. W. J. Anderson, in a paper in the "Transac- tions" of the Literary and Historical Society of Que- bec, entitled "Evangeline and the Archives of Nova Scotia," exammes the poem in the light of the docu- ments edited by Akins and concludes that after all there is substantial agreement between the poem and the documents. The truth is that the expulsion of the Acadians was one of those wrongs to which there is no possible right until Heaven and Earth shall pass away. Here was a peacefully inclined, industrious, re- ligiously superstitious people handed over by their French rulers to English rulers, with no "say" in the THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 69 matter whatever. The English, on the one hand, de- mand an unquahfied oath of allegiance. The Aca- dians on the other will sign only an oath which ex- empts them from bearing arms against either the French, the English, or the Indians. They do not wish to become embroiled in hostilities of any kind — a most sensible attitude on their part, and one which seems to have been recognized at first in that light by some of the men who administered the oath, and who permitted a clause to be inserted to this effect or, in some cases, at least an understanding. There was more than one cause at work to lead the Acadians to take such an attitude. The French were deliberately trying to disaffect them, and through Jesuit missionaries, the most no- torious of whom was Le Loutre, terrorized them with the prospect of Indian raids if they should sign any oath implying that they would take up arms for the English. Furthermore, because of their religious de- votedness, the priests had tremendous control over them. It was not only troubles on earth they had to fear, but everlasting perdition if they went against the King of France, who was the bulwark of their faith. Is it any wonder that some of the Acadians became disaffected under such a strain, and were found sup- plying provisions to the French and the Indians? And upon a few occasions a handful seems actually to have borne arms against the English. These facts were made the most of by the English governors. In read- ing through the documents the impression grows constantly stronger that the English made a great boast of their kindness to the Acadians; they enlarged in every communication upon the 70 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY value of their protection, and their graeious- ness in allowing the people the free exercise of their religion. As a matter of fact, they did not — indeed, had not the military force necessary to give protection, where it was most needed; that is, protection from the raids of the savages to which the Acadians are constantly referring as a menace to their flocks, their homes and their herds. It is also quite plain that the English fully appreciated the value of these peace-loving people as farmers who could supply them with provisions. In fact, they peremptorily insisted that they should be supplied with provisions. As the menace from the French be- came greater, it was, of course, only natural on the part of the English that they should wish to bind the Acadians to them by an unqualified oath of allegiance. Then began the voluntary departure of the Acadians from Nova Scotia, many preferring to leave their farms rather than sign the oath of allegiance as now demanded. Upon petitioning for passports and per- mission to leave, they were refused, and in conse- quence, many of them went off by stealth. Finally, the English not being able to solve the problem by fair means, resorted to a combination of stratagem and force. They had already taken away all arms fuom the Acadians, and now, after refusing them permission to leave and dispose of their prop- erty to their own advantage, it was suddenly decided to transport them, allowing them only their house- hold goods. In order to carry out this decision re- course was had to the mean trick of imprisoning the men and boys by stratagem. Lest the Acadians might join their fellow countrymen in Canada, they THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 71 were scattered from end to end of the colonies. Thus these formidable enemies whose chief desires in life were not to be obliged to fight, and to be allowed to follow their religion, were prevented from giving fur- ther trouble. The letter dated Halifax, August eleventh^ 1755, giving instructions to the captain of the Transport Vessel shows what the temper of the English had be- come: "That the inhabitants may not have it in their power to return to this Province, nor to join in strengthen- ing the French of Canada or Louisburg, it is resolved that they shall be dispers'd among his Majesty's col- onies upon the continent of America. "For this purpose transports are sent up the Bay to ship off those at Chignecto, and Colonel Moncton will order those he cannot fill there into Mines Bason to carry off some part of the inhabitants of these dis- tricts. "Upon the arrival of these vessels from Boston or Chignecto in the Bason of Mines, as many of the in- habitants of the district of Mines, Pizaquid, Cobequid, and the River of Canard, etc., as can be collected by any means, particularly the heads of families and young men, are to be shipped on board of them at the above rate of two persons to a ton, or as near it as possible. "If the transports from Boston should arrive in Mines Bason before Mr. Saul, the Agent Victualler, shall arrive from Chignecto, they must remain there until he does arrive with the provisions. But in case you should have embarked any of the inhabitants be- fore the Agent Victualler be on the spot you will, if 72 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY necessary, allow each person so embarked five pounds of flour and one pound of pork for seven days, which allowance Mr. Saul has orders to replace. "And you will in these orders, make it a particular injunction to the said masters to be as careful and watchful as possible during the whole course of the passage, to prevent the passengers from making any attempt to seize upon the vessel, by allowing only a small number to be upon the decks at a time, and using all other necessary precautions to prevent the bad con- sequences of such attempts; and that they be partic- ularly careful that the inhabitants have carried no arms or other offensive weapons on board with them at their embarkation. "As Captain Murray is well acquainted with the people and with the country, I would have you to consult with him upon all occasions and particularly with relation to the means necessary for collecting the people together so as to get them on board, and if you find that fair means will not do with them you must proceed by the most vigorous measures possible, not only in compelling them to embark, but in de- priving 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 sub- sistence in the country.'* Five hundred of these unfortunates were to be sent to North Carolina, one thousand to Virginia, and five hundred to Maryland. Many of them found their way to Louisiana, as the poem describes, where they have formed a distinct part of the inliabitants. At the present time their descendants in Louisiana are known as Ca jeans. THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 73 These instructions in all their brutality were carried out to the letter, as Parkman's account, in spite of his English sympathy, shows just as fully if not more fully than Haliburton's earlier account. Arrived at Grand Pre, Colonel Winslow, who had charge of the affair there, took possession of the village church which was used as a storehouse and place of arms. Winslow took up his quarters in the house of the priest, and the tents for the men were pitched be- tween the church and the graveyard. Winslow, after making a tour of inspection with fifty men as escort on Sunday, decided to summon all the male inhab- itants to meet him in the church the following Fri- day. This was to give the farmers time to get in all the wheat, which they were allowed thus uncon- sciously to harvest for the use of the English. The summons read as follows : "By John Winslow, Esq., Lieutenant Colonel and commander of his Majesty's troops at Grand Pre, Mines, River Canard and Places adjacent: "To the inliabitants of the districts above named, as well ancients as young men and lads. "Whereas, his Excellency, the Governor, has in- structed us of his last resolution respecting the mat- ters proposed lately to the people in general, his Ex- cellency being desirous that each of them should be fully satisfied of his Majesty's intentions, which he has also ordered us to communicate to you such as they have been given him. "We therefore order and strictly enjoin by these presents to all the inliabitants as well of the above- named districts as of all the other districts, both old men and young men as well as all the lads of ten 74 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY years of age, to attend at the church of Grand Pre on Friday, the 5th instant, at three of the clock in the afternoon, that we may impart what we are or- dered to communicate to them. Declaring that no excuse will be admitted on any pretense whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting goods and chattels in default." Parkman's account here is especially interesting as showing how close the "cold" historian sometimes came to the poet's view upon which he casts discredit. "On the next day the inhabitants appeared at the hour appointed to the number of 418 men. Winslow ordered a table to be set in the middle of the church, and placed on it his instructions and the address he had prepared. Then he took his stand in his laced uniform, with one or two subalterns from the reg- ulars at Fort Edward, and such of the Massachusetts officers as were not on guard duty. The congrega- tion of peasants clad in rough homespun, turned their sunburned faces upon him, anxious and intent, and Winslow delivered them by interpreters the King's orders in the following words : " 'Gentlemen, I have received from his Excellency, Governor Lawrence, the King's instructions, which I have in my hand. By his orders you are called to- gether to hear his Majesty's final resolution concern- ing the French inhabitants of this, his province of Nova Scotia, who, for almost half a century, have had more indulgence granted them than any of his sub- jects in any part of his dominions. What use you have made of it you yourselves know. " 'The duty I am now upon, though necessary, is very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I know it must be grievous to you, who are of the same THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 75 species. But it is not my business to animadvert on the orders I have received, but to obey them; and therefore, without hesitation I shall deliver to you his Majesty's instructions and commands, which are that your lands and tenements and cattle and live stock of all kinds are forfeited to the crown, with all your other effects, except money and household goods, and that you yourselves are to be removed from this, his province. " 'The peremptory orders of his Majesty are that all the French inhabitants of these districts be re- moved, and through his Majesty's goodness I am di- rected to allow you the liberty of carrying with you your money and as many of your household goods as you can take without overloading the vessels you go in. I shall do everything in my power that all these goods shall be secured to you, and that you be not molested in carrying them away, and also that whole families shall go in the same vessel, so that this removal, which I am sensible must give you a great deal of trouble, may be made as easy as his Majesty's service w^ill ad- mit, and hope that in whatever part of the world your lot may fall you may be faithful subjects and a peace- able and happy people. " 'I must also inform you that it is his Majesty's pleasure that you remain in security under the in- spection and the direction of the troops that I have the honor to command.' "He then declared them prisoners of the King. 'They w^ere greatl}^ struck,' he says, 'at this deter- mination, tho I believe they did not believe that they were actually to be removed.' After delivering the address he returned to his quarters at the priest's 76 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY house, whither he was followed by some of the elder prisoners, who begged leave to tell their families what had happened, since they were fearful that the sur- prise of their detention would quite overcome them. Winslow consulted with his officers, and it was ar- ranged that the Acadians should choose twenty each day to revisit their homes, the rest being held answer- able for their return." The action on the part of the Acadians which led to this crisis in affairs is best told from their own let- ters to the English Governor: "Mines, June 10th, 1755. "To His Excellency, Charles Lawrence, Governor of the Province of Nova Scotia or Acadie, &c., &c. : "Sir — We, the inhabitants of Mines, Pisiquid, and the river Canard, take the liberty of approaching your Excellency for the purpose of testifying our sense of the care which the government exercises towards us. "It appears, Sir, that your Excellency doubts the sincerity with which we have promised to be faithful to his Britannic Majesty. "We most humbly beg your Excellency to consider our past conduct. You will see that, very far from violating the oath we have taken, we have maintained it in its entirety, in spite of the solicitations and the dreadful threats of another power. We still enter- tain. Sir, the same pure and sincere disposition to prove, under any circumstances, our unshaken fidelity to his Majesty, provided that his Majesty shall allow us the same liberty that he has granted us. We earnestly beg your Excellency to have the goodness THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 77 to inform us of his Majesty's intentions on this sub- ject, and to give us assurances on his part. "Permit us, if you please, Sir, to make known the annoying circumstances in which we are placed, to the prejudice of the tranquillity we ought to enjoy. Under pretext that we are transporting our corn and other provisions to Beau Sejour, and the river St. John, we are no longer permitted to carry the least quantity of corn by water from one place to another. . . . Moreover, our guns, which we regard as our own personal property, have been taken from us, not- withstanding the fact that they are absolutely neces- sary to us, either to defend our cattle which are at- tacked by the wild beasts, or for the protection of our children and of ourselves. . . . "It is certain, Sir, that since the savages have ceased frequenting our parts, the wild beasts have greatly increased, and that our cattle are devoured by them almost every day. Besides, the arms which have been taken from us are but a feeble guarantee of our fidel- ity. It is not the gun which an inhabitant possesses, that will induce him to revolt, nor the privation of the same gun that will make him more faithful; but his conscience alone must induce him to maintain his oath. An order has appeared in your Excellency's name, given at Fort Edward, June 4th, 1755, and in the 28th year of his Majesty's reign, by which we are commanded to carry guns, pistols, etc., to Fort Edward. "It appears to us. Sir, that it would be dangerous for us to execute that order, before representing to you the danger to which this order exposes us. The savages may come and threaten and plunder us, re- 78 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY preaching us for having furnished arms to kill them. We hope, Sir, that you will be pleased, on the con- trary, to order that those taken from us be restored to us. By so doing j'^ou will afford us the means of preserving both ourselves and our cattle. In the last place, we are grieved, Sir, at seeing ourselves de- clared guilty without being aware of having disobeyed. One of our inhabitants of the river Canard, named Piere Melan9on, was seized and arrested in charge of his boat, before having heard any order forbidding that sort of transport. We beg your Excellency, on this subject, to have the goodness to make known to us your good pleasure before confiscating our prop- erty and considering us in fault. This is the favor we expect from your Excellency's kindness, and we hope that you will do us the justice to believe that, very far from violating our promises, we will maintain them. Assuring you that we are very respectfully, Sir, "Your very humble and obt. servants." The powers that be were outraged at this letter, es- pecially at the clause about the guns. "They were asked," writes Governor Lawrence, "what excuse they could make for their presumption in this paragraph, and treating the government with such indignity and contempt as to expound to them the nature of fidel- ity, and to prescribe what would be the security proper to be relied on by the government for their sincerity." The substance of the reply to this communication was that they must at once take an oath of unqualified allegiance. The deputies refused to do this and were THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 79 imprisoned ; whereupon followed another letter to his Excellency, Charles Lawrence. "Inasmuch as a report is in circulation among us, the French inliabitants of this province, that his Ex- cellency, the Governor, demands of us an oath of obedience conformable in some manner to that of nat- ural subjects of His Majesty, King George the Sec- ond, and as, in consequence, we are morally certain that several of our inhabitants are detained and put to inconvenience at Halifax for that object; if the above are his intentions with respect to us, we all take the liberty of representing to his Excellency, and to all the inhabitants, that we and our fathers, having taken an oath of fidelity, which has been approved of several times in the name of the King, and under the privileges of which we have lived faithful and obedi- ent, and protected by His Majesty, the King of Great Britain, according to the letters and proclamations of his Excellency, Governor Shirley, dated 16th of September, 1746, and 21st of October, 1747. We will never prove so fickle as to take an oath which changes ever so little the conditions and privileges obtained for us by our sovereigns and our fathers in the past. "And so we are well aware that the King, our mas- ter, loves and protects only constant, faithful, and free subjects, and as it is only by virtue of his kindness, and of the fidelity which we have always preserved toward his Majesty, that he has granted to us, and that he still continues to grant to us the entire posses- sion of our property and the free and public exercise of the Roman Catholic religion, we desire to continue to the utmost our power and be faithful and dutiful 80 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY in the same manner that we were allowed to be by his Excellency, Mr. Richard Philipps. "Charity for our detained inhabitants, and their in- nocence, oblige us to beg your Excellency to allow yourself to be touched by their miseries and restore to them that liberty which we ask for them, with all pos- sible submission and the most profound respect. "Signed by 203 of the said inhabitants of Mines and the River Canard." This was the end of all for the Acadians. Their fate is a lasting monument of the iniquity of the pol- icy of Kings and rulers, in settling political disputes with which the people at large have nothing to do, by handing over the lands occupied by them to alien gov- ernments. To conquer an army is not to conquer a people. There is something inspiring in the spectacle of this handful of farmers stubbornly refusing to per- jure themselves by an oath to which they could not in all sincerity subscribe. They endeavored to pre- serve their integrity as individuals by taking a neu- tral position politically. Wiser and less selfish gov- ernments would have seen the strength of such an at- titude and would perhaps have compromised by allow- ing them to maintain an independent footing com- mercially and politically. It was not PhilipiDS, as the Nova Scotia documents frequently say, who allowed the exemption from bear- ing arms, but Armstrong, who was governor during Philipps' absence in Europe. He and one or 'two others who permitted this understanding were se- verely reprimanded for it by their government. The French government was just as much, if not more to blame than the English. Even Parkman is THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 81 strong on this point. Speaking of the malign influ- ence of Le Loutre, who was missionary to the Micmac Indians and vicar-general for Acadia under the Bishop of Quebec, he says : "He threatened the Acadians with excommunica- tion if they obeyed the King of England. In con- nection with French officers across the line, he encour- aged them to put on the disguise of Indians and join his Micmacs in pillaging and killing English settlers on the outskirts of Halifax, when the two nations were at peace. He drew, on one occasion, from a French official, 1,800 livres to pay his Indians for English scalps. With a reckless disregard of the welfare of the unhappy people under his charge he spared no means to embroil them with the government under which, but for him and his fellow conspirators, they would have lived in peace and contentment. An en- tire heartlessness marked the dealings of the French authorities with the Acadians. They were treated as mere tools of policy to be used, broken and flung away.'* Both the sturdy spirit of independence and the peaceableness of the Acadians are brought out by the poet. Benedict Belief ontaine is the type of the peace- ful farmer who guilelessly believes in the good, while Basil, the blacksmith, is suspicious and bristling with the fire of independence. He it is who exclaims when the farmer thinks some friendly purpose may have brought the English ships to the harbor: " 'Not so thinketh the folk in the village,' said, warm- ly, the blacksmith. Shaking his head as in doubt ; then, heaving a sigh, he continued : 82 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 'Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Sejour, nor Port Royal. Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts, Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to- morrow. Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds; Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe of the mower.' Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer : *Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our cornfields, Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the ocean, Than were our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's cannon.' " And again it is Basil who, in such fierce and just anger, when he finds himself and his friends trapped in the church, rises with his arms uplifted : "As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. Flushed was his face and distorted with passion ; and wildly he shouted, '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." Longfellow had only Haliburton and the Abbe Reynal to draw upon for his historical facts and the THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 83 description of the Acadian's manner of life. It is all the more remarkable, on this account, that his interpretation of the history, as we have seen, should chime in so well with the documents and conclusions of later investigators, even when, like Parkman, they have English sympathies. With the already complimentary basis of the Abbe Reynal's account to build upon, the poet allowed his imagination full scope in depicting the every-day life of the Acadians. By Reynal the Acadians are described in glowing colors. Hunting and fishing by which the colony had in the first place subsisted, gave way to agriculture. The meadows, which they re- claimed from the tides, with dikes, were so fertile that under cultivation they yielded as much as fifteen or twenty for one. The soil was especially good for wheat and oats, but they also grew crops of rye, bar- ley and maize. Potatoes and apples then as now were among their most important products. Live-stock they had in the same profusion, poultry, sheep, horned cattle, computed at sixty thousand head. Most fam- ilies had several horses, though the tillage then, as often now, was carried on by oxen. These prosper- ous farmers, according to the Abbe, lived in dwell- ings, made of wood, which were extremely convenient, and furnished as substantially as prosperous farmers' houses in Europe. As for their clothing, it was the product of their own flax or their own sheep; linen and cloth, not very fine in texture, of course, but durable. Those who desired luxuries they could not make for themselves could procure them from An- napolis or Louisburg in exchange for corn, cattle or furs. Exchanges among themselves were rare, be- 84 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY cause every family was able to provide for its own wants. They had no paper money and only a small quantity of gold and silver. Their manners, their cus- toms and their government were just as simple as their industrial life. If they had any differences, the wise elders or the priests settled them. Marriages were early ; when the young men were ready to marry, the whole community took an interest in the event. His neighbors of the village built him a house, got the land about it in readiness for planting, and pre- sented him with all the necessaries of life for a year. His bride came to him there with flocks as her por- tion. It is not surprising that under such conditions of life, if they actually existed, real misery was un- known. If any one suffered any misfortune, it was relieved almost before it was felt, in a spirit of simple kindness. Every individual was equally ready to give and to receive, believing it to be the common right of mankind. Longfellow, not satisfied with this doubtless ideal- ized picture, "gilds the lily" by adding embellish- ments borrowed from the peasant life in Sweden as he himself saw it. J. N. Mcllwraith, in "A Book About Longfellow," was the first to call attention to the fact that the descriptions of the Acadians showed traces of some European influence, and a writer in the autumn number of Poet Lore, 1908, Ed- ward Thostenberg, makes quite an exhaustive study of the subject, showing pretty conclusively that these influences were Swedish. Not only had Longfellow traveled in Sweden, but he was much interested in Swedish literature. His admiration of Tegner, in particular, resulted in his writing an article on Teg- THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 85 ner's "Frithiof s Saga," at the beginning of which he describes quite at length the impressions he received of the country and the Hfe in Sweden. Mr. Thosten- berg writes: "His recollections center mainly about two thoughts: the thought of the gloom and solitude of a forest landscape in Sweden, on the one hand, and on the other the 'primeval simplicity,' the idyllic life of the peasant population." It is certainly not necessary to go to Sweden for forest landscapes such as Longfellow paints in "Evangeline." As already intimated, he could find many a "forest," seemingly "primeval," on his own Maine coast, and trees "trail- ing with moss, and heavy with red and blue cones," like those in Sweden. But that he has transported into his poem some of the aspects of the life of the Swedish people there can be little doubt. The Grand Pre houses resemble, as described in "Evangeline," the Swedish houses built of "hewn timber." "Frequent, too," writes the poet in his article on the Saga, "are the village churches, standing by the roadside, each in its own little garden of Gethsemane. Near the church- yard gate stands a poor hooc, fastened to a post by iron bands and secured by a padlock, with a sloping wooden roof to keep off the rain." Such a box ap- pears in the poem : "Under the sycamore tree were hives overhung by a penthouse. Such as the traveler sees in regions remote by the roadside. Built o'er a box for the poor or the blessed image of Mary." The description of a village wedding also furnishes hints made use of by the poet. "In this description," 86 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY writes Mr. Thostenberg, "Longfellow says that the bride is dressed in a red bodice and kirtle, with loose linen sleeves. In connection with the scene in 'Evan- geline/ in which Father Felician is introduced, we read that 'matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and kirtles scarlet, blue and green.' The poet here employs a word, hirtle, which in his own language is archaic, while the Swedish cognate kjortel continues to be the regular word for skirt. His rather frequent use — three times each in the poem and in the article on the Saga — of this otherwise obsolescent word seems, therefore, to have been induced by his knowledge and thought of the Swedish word, kjortel. The peasant women of Sweden, morever, have long been known for their delight in gay colors of dress, such as the poet gives to the Acadian women. In many sections of the country all the women of a given parish formerly wore costumes of a definite combination of colors, whereby they could be readily distinguished from the peasant sisters of other parishes. Even in later years the par- ticular combination of 'snow-white caps, and kirtles scarlet and blue and green,' has been known to survive quite commonly in some of the southern provinces, for example, Dalekarlia, Scania, and Soderwanland. From his direct mention of the Dalekarlian peasant women, we may infer that Longfellow had visited their province, and we know that he passed through the other two on his way both to and from Stock- holm." The fascinating myths which the poet puts into the mouth of the old notary public, also seem to be of Swedish origin. He observes in the Saga article: "In every mysterious sound that fills the air, the peasant THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 87 still hears the trembling of Odin's steed, which many centuries ago took fright at the sound of a church bell. The sound of Stromkarl's flute is heard in tinkling brooks and his song in waterfalls. In the forest, the Skogsfrun, of wondrous beauty, leads young men astray; and Tomtegubbe hammers and pounds away, all night long, at the peasant's unfin- ished cottage." "The goblin here mentioned,'* says Mr. Thosten- berg, the tomtegubbe^ plays an unusually large and important role in the folk-lore of the Scandinavian North. He is a friendly spirit who performs many and valuable services for those who treat him kindly and are industrious and upright in their living. While the peasant sleeps, the goblin is busy putting up buildings for him, chopping his wood, or carrying heads of grain to his barn. But his chief occupation is that of looking to the proper care of the domestic animals, and with these he accordingly makes his home. This last service mentioned of the goblin was clearly in the poet's mind when, in 'Evangeline,' he characterized the notary public as a man who related tales, among them the tale 'of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses.' " This writer goes on to point out how both Tegner's "Frithiofs Saga" and "The Children of the Lord's Supper," translated by the poet, furnished sugges- tions for descriptions in "Evangeline." From among a number of examples, the descriptions of the cows and the horses in the "Saga" and "Evangeline" may be selected to show just how much and how little Longfellow's debt was to the Swedish poet. In de- scribing the cows the "Saga" has — 88 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "But in the valleys full widely around, there fed on the greensward Herds with sleek shining hides and udders that longed for the milk-pail." Longfellow's description enlarges considerably upon this : "Twilight descending Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds to the homestead ; Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer. Proud of her snow-white hide and the ribbon that waved from her collar. jA» si/L ita ik. :^ £k. iif' yfc 'yfc Tf^ 7t^ Tf^ ^n^ -^ Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders Unto the milkmaid's hand ; whilst loud and in regular cadence Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets de- scended." Now take the horses. In the Saga there are — "Coursers two times twelve, all mettlesome, fast-fet- tered storm winds. Stamping stood in the line of stalls, and tugged at their fodder. Knotted with red were their manes, and their hoofs all white with steel shoes." And in "Evangeline" — "Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and their fetlocks. While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and pon- derous saddles, THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 89 Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of crimson, Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms." By combining all that he knew of the most beautiful of peasant Hfe, Longfellow has given a picture of peace, plenty and joyousness to be compared only with such imaginative flights as Morris's "Dream of John Ball," and why should he not? Where are we to find ideals if not in the poets? Parkman corrects this picture with the chilling wind of reality. He writes: "The Acadians were a simple and very ignorant peasantry, industrious and frugal, till evil days came to discourage them; living aloof from the world, with little of that spirit of ad- venture which marked their Canadian kindred, hav- ing few wants and those of the rudest: fishing a little and hunting in the winter, but chiefly employed in cultivating the meadows along the river Annapolis, or rich marshes reclaimed by dikes from the tides of the Bay of Fundy. The British Government left them entirely free of taxation. They made clothing of flax or wool of their own raising. They had cattle, sheep, hogs and horses in abundance, and the valley of the Annapolis, then as now, was known for the profusion and excellency of its apples. For drink they made cider or brewed spruce beer. French officials de- scribe the dwellings as wretched wooden boxes, with- out ornaments or conveniences and scarcely supplied with the most necessary furniture. Two or more fam- ilies often occupied the same house, and their way of life, though simple and virtuous, was by no means remarkable for cleanliness. Such as it was, content 90 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY reigned among them. Marriages were early and pop- ulation grew apace. This humble society had its dis- turbing elements, for, like the Canadians, they were a litigious race, and neighbors often quarreled about their boundaries. Nor were they without a bountiful share of jealousy, gossip and back-biting to relieve the monotony of their lives; and every village had its turbulent spirits, sometimes by fits, though rarely long, contumacious even to the Cure, the guide, coun- selor and ruler of the flock. Enfeebled by hereditary mental subjection, and too long kept in leading strings to walk alone, they needed him not for the next world only, but for this, and their submission compounded of love and fear was commonly without bounds. He was their true government : to him they gave a frank and full allegiance and dared not disobey him if they would." Barring the different accounts of their houses and the added information of their sometimes being quar- relsome among themselves, a close scrutiny of the facts reveals that they differ very little in essential particulars from those in the Abbe's account. The difference is mainly in the personal equation of the writer. The Abbe Reynal perceived the intrinsic beauty of a simple pastoral and religious life, while Francis Parkman, from his lofty pinnacle of nine- teenth century culture, sees its limitations so distinctly that its beauties escape him completely. The truth probably lies between the two extremes. It is, how- ever, interesting to note that Acadians, after they were dispersed, seem to have impressed the people with whom they came in contact with the mildness and in- tegrity of their character. Haliburton, remarking THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 91 upon the picture drawn by the Abbe, says : "By many it is thought to represent a state of social happiness, totally inconsistent with the frailties and passions of human nature ; and that it is worthy rather of the poet than the historian. In describing a scene of rural fe- licity like this, it is not improbable that his narrative has partaken of the warmth of feehng for which he was remarkable; but it comes much nearer the truth than is generally imagined. Tradition is fresh and positive in the various parts of the United States where they were located respecting their guileless, peaceable, and scrupulous character; and the descend- ants of those, whose long cherished and endearing local attachment induced them to return to the land of their nationality, still deserve the name of a mild, frugal and pious people." An anecdote related by Eliza Brown Chase in her entertaining little book "Over the Border: Acadia," tells the same tale. It seems that many years ago two girls were in the habit of strolling to what was then suburban Philadelphia in their walks, and that when they went to visit the Pennsylvania Hospital at Ninth and Pine streets, they were afraid because they were obliged to pass the place where the "French Neu- trals," as the Acadians were called, lived. These people, because they were foreigners and there was some mystery about them, which the girls did not then understand, inspired them with fear; though Philadelphia residents of that time testify that the homeless and destitute strangers were in reality a very simple and inoffensive company. The one place described in the poem where Long- fellow had been was Philadelphia. Here he placed 92 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY the poorhouse where Evangeline and Gabriel finally- met, though his recollections of its location seem to have been rather vague. He writes: "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 enclosure. 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, flower-beds 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 and Gabriel, and the death at the poorhouse, and the burial in an old Cath- olic graveyard not far away, which I found by chance in another of my walks." He evidently refers here to the "Pennsylvania Hospital," which fills up a whole square from Spruce Street to Pine Street and from Eighth to Ninth. There was said to have been an almshouse at the corner of Twelfth and Spruce in the days of the Acadians. The writer lived, when a small child, on Spruce Street above Twelfth, but if an almshouse ever stood there it had long given place to the neat Philadelphia dwelling house of red brick with white shutters and white marble steps. The children in the neighborhood used to be astonished when told that once upon a time this was out in the coimtry. Then, as now, the City Almshouse was three or four miles away across the Schuylkill in West Philadelphia. A little above the corner of Twelfth and Spruce was a confectioner's where small sugar cakes and lemon sticks could be procured for a cent apiece. Diagonally opposite at the corner THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 93 was an entrancing paper-doll shop. There, paper dolls could be furnished with every variety of fancy papers, brocades and satins and piques, with laces and with flowers for their costumes. These also a cent apiece! It may be imagined what a thriving shopping district it had become since the days of Evangeline for small fry with pennies to spend. Some people seem to know better than Longfel- low himself what building he had in mind. They beheve he meant to portray the quaint building for- merly known as the Friends' Almshouse, which stood in Walnut Place, opening off Walnut Street be- low Fourth, torn down in '72 or '73. Indeed, the poet finally himself wrote to a Philadelphia woman a letter in which he declared the Friends' Almshouse was the one he intended to describe. Who then can be cer- tain when his own letters are contradictory? This is described by one who remembered it: "The entrance from the street, by 'gateway and wicket,' as the poem says, led through a narrow passageway; and there faced one a small, low-roofed house, built of alternate red and black bricks (the latter glazed), almost entirely covered by an aged ivy which clambered over the roof. The straggling branches even nodded above the wide chimneys: at both sides of the door stood comfortable settees, in- viting to rest; and the pretty garden charmed with its bloom and fragrance. The whole formed such a restful retreat, such an oasis of quiet in the very heart of the busy city, that one was tempted often to make excuses for straying into the peaceful enclosure." Perhaps he had both places in mind, but whatever may have been the exact spot, it seems hardly possi- 94 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ble that Evangeline could have heard, that Sabbath morn, the Swedes singing psalms in their church at Wicaco, for the old Swedish church is some miles to the south on Second Street. She might, however, have heard the chimes of Christ Church, though even that is a mile or more away from any of the possible locations of the almshouse in this city, where — "All the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty. 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." As every one knows, the pathetic romance of Evan- geline and Gabriel was developed by the poet from a story which the Rev. H. L. ConoUy had heard from a French-Canadian. He told it to Hawthorne, who jotted it down in his note-book: "H. L. C. heard from a French Canadian a story of a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day all the men in 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 New England all her lifetime, 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." One day when Conolly and Haw- thorne were dining with Longfellow, the story was again mentioned, Conolly wondering that Haw- thorne did not care for it. "If j^ou really do not want Friends' Almshouse, Philadelphia THE SHADOW OF BLOMIDON 95 this incident for a tale," said Longfellow, "let me have it for a poem." And so the poem was written, and the Acadians immortalized. "Evangeline" belongs to the earliest recollections of many of us. To some its simple dig- nity and beauty became obscured through school uses. In the writer's early school days Milton's Satan and Evangeline, hand in hand, led the young grammarian wearisomely through the purgatorial regions of parsing. But after several years of the torturing problems of Ibsen and the psychical miseries of Maeterlinck, this wholesome tale of the unswerving loyalty of two beings through a lifetime of suffering and separation gives one a renewed sense of faith in humanity. IDYLS FROM HISTORY "And thou, America, For the schemers culmination, its thought and its reality. For these {not for thyself) thou hast arrived. "Thou too surroundest all. Embracing, carrying, welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new. To the ideal tendest. "The measured faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past. Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own, Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all, all eligible to all. "All, all for immortality. Love like the light silently wrapping all, Nature^s amelioration blessing all. The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain. Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening." Whitman. Ill HAWTHORNE wrote to Longfellow: "I never was more surprised than at your writing poems about slavery. I have not seen them, but have faith in their excellence, though I cannot con- jecture what species of excellence it will be. You have never poetized a practical subject hitherto." Longfellow was so distinctly a lover of the romantic that only a romantic treatment occurred to him, even when dealing with the stern problem of slavery, al- ready looming into the foreground of national affairs at that time — some twenty years before it was threshed out at the bar of force. There is a handful of poems, each presenting some picture or episode under the conditions of slavery, which seems slight, even senti- mental, when compared with utterances made by others of deeper philosophical insight. Still, these poems have their place, and perhaj^s did surer work in arousing dormant sympathy just because of their tell- ing the story of slave wrongs and sufferings in a simple and sympathetic manner, instead of with due thundering of righteous wrath. The Dial, ^vith its deeply serious aims, might dismiss the book with scant notice as "spirited and polished like its fore- runners; but the subject would warrant a deeper tone" ; but there were many to whose hearts the poems 99 100 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY made a strong appeal. Among the dozens of letters received by the poet are such expressions of enthusi- asm as the following: "Such poems on slavery are never to be forgotten; and I must not refrain from giving you my heartiest thanks. They are all one could wish them to be — poetry, simple, graceful, strong; without any taint of coarseness, harshness or passion. I think the Quadroon is my favorite." Even a correspondent who took the poet to task for his general attitude on the subject of slavery is warm in his praise of the "Quadroon Girl." He writes: "I do not like the sentiment of your first piece, and though respecting Dr. Channing as an eminently good man, I think every word he wrote on the sub- ject at least did no good. . . The 'Chartered lie' of our respected Declaration is no doubt a lie, and would not have been inserted except for the present necessity, but it is only so because men are not in fact created free and equal, and if they were could not remain so a single moment. There must he 'thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.' I regret, too, that in piece second you should consider your African, riding like mad in such guise over the desert, killing men^ women and children, and being himself killed in turn, stealing everything he can lay his hands on ; seizing his neighbor's little ones for sale, or perhaps selling his own ; in one word, an unreclaimed barbarian — as a more respectable character than the same person pursuing agriculture as a profession at the South, attending church on Sunday, dancing care off when his work is done, playing with his master's children possibly, and, on the whole, enjoying him- self ten times as much as half our surly freemen who IDYLS FROM HISTORY 101 commiserate him. I very much doubt the sentiment you impute to him." But even this caviller found the "Quadroon Girl" a "gem": "The description of herself is as sweet a thing as I remember to have seen, and as touching, and above all praise. The whole piece is exquisitely wrought and the thing it depicts too horrible for the human heart to endure — almost to believe. This is the great evil of slavery and de- serves all the assaults which indignant humanity can hurl at it." What it meant to come out publicly on the side of anti-slavery at that time is shown by the fact that the editor of a Philadelphia magazine wrote to apologize for giving the poems insufficient notice, because the word slavery was not allowed to appear in his mag- azine. Only with difficulty had he obtained from the publishers permission to print the title of the book "Poems on Slavery." The story of the writing of these poems is an in- teresting one. Longfellow had been in London vis- iting Charles Dickens, one of his most cherished friends. Dickens had then written his "American Notes" with its "Grand Chapter on Slavery," as the poet called it. In this chapter it may be remembered that Dickens makes an especial point of the brutaliz- ing effect upon the American people of the institution of slavery, contending that the advertisements con- stantly appearing in the Southern newspapers could but have a deteriorating influence upon the young minds of the South. He quotes several columns of them. It is difficult for those who were not born into the nation while yet it was the holder of slaves, to real- ize that such advertisements could appear in a civ- 102 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ilized country in the nineteenth century. They ask for the apprehension of runaway slaves, and, in order that the slaves may be identified, the owners describe with unblushing frankness the marks of cruelty to be found on their bodies, such as teeth punched out, scars from gun wounds or knife wounds, letters branded in the cheek with hot irons. Dickens was perfectly aware of the fact that all slave-holders were not monsters of cruelty, but that did not prevent him from hurling forth his well-grounded indignation at an institution which countenanced cruelties so dis- graceful. Longfellow speaks of having read this book in London, and probably this, together with talk on the subject with its author, fired his long-smouldering sympathy for the anti-slavery movement to the point of versification. He had long before wished to do something in his "humble way," he said, for the cause, and had thought of writing a drama on "Toussaint rOuverture." He set sail for America immediately after this visit in the once-famous ocean vessel, the Great Western, and himself describes his "boister- ous" passage home in the teeth of a gale from the west. In this hurly-burly of the elements he com- posed his slave poems. "I was not out of my berth more than twelve hours for the first twelve days. I was in the forward part of the vessel, where all the great waves struck and broke with voices of thunder. There, 'cribbed, cabined and confined,' I passed fif- teen days. During this time I wrote seven poems on Slavery. I meditated upon them in the stormy, sleepless nights, and wrote them down with a pencil in the morning. A small window admitted light into IDYLS FROM HISTORY 103 my berth, and there I lay on my back and soothed my soul with songs." This is the only time Longfellow ventured into the burning questions of the day. He, however, sent a young son into the war when the long-brewing crisis came, whose illness first and later whose dangerous wounds took the poet twice to Washington. He thus had his full share in the anxiety of those troublous times. In judging these poems to-day, however, it should always be borne in mind that Longfellow's was not a militant but a sympathetic nature. As Samuel Longfellow writes: "With the Abolitionist leaders he was not acquainted. To his pacific temper, constitu- tionally averse to controversy, and disliking every- thing violent, these brave and unrelenting fighters for justice, humanity and liberty seemed often harsh, violent and dictatorial." With the seriousness of Sumner, however, he was deeply in sympathy and the two were life-long friends. He belonged by na- ture to the unclassified sympathizers with anti- slavery. Such are not the people who push forward a movement. Their part is to shed a cheerful light upon the paths of those who do, and for this reason their value is beyond price. Longfellow's muse was better attuned to glimpses into the history of the past, which he always chose to look at with the artist's prerogative of leaving out or changing anything in the landscape that would detract from his artistic design. "Paul Revere's Ride" is a vital and stirring presentation of an epi- sode, picturesque as well as of profound import for the future of America, but it is proverbial for its his- 104 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY torical inaccuracies. Nevertheless the greater part of the school children of the United States remember the nineteenth of April more because of this poem than because of their history lessons. So convincing is it that even grown-up historians repeat its inac- curacies as bona fide history. No less a man than John Fiske was sadly mixed about the famous bea- con lanterns and, in all seriousness, relates that Paul Revere watched for them himself in Charlestown. No one who compares Revere's own circumstantial and unilluminated account of his ride with Longfel- low's ballad but will be thankful to the poet for giv- ing us flashlights upon him as he rides through the darkness. "It was twelve by the village clock When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. He heard the crowing of the cock. And the barking of the farmer's dog, And felt the damp of the river fog. That rises after the sun goes down. "It was one by the village clock When he galloped into Lexington. He saw the gilded weather-cock Swim in the moonlight as he passed. And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare. As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon. "It was two by the village clock When he came to the bridge in Concord town. He heard the bleating of the flock, And the twitter of birds among the trees. And felt the breath of the morning breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. The Old North Church IDYLS FROM HISTORY 105 And one was safe and asleep in his bed Who at the bridge would be first to fall, Who that day would be lying dead. Pierced by a British musket-ball." We are perfectly satisfied to imagine that the things Longfellow does not describe happened to Paul as mere incidents between his arrival at these different points. In Paul's own account he tells how about ten o'clock Dr. Warren sent in great haste for him and begged him immediately to set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock and Adams were, and ac- quaint them of the movements of the British soldiers who were preparing to embark, and who, it was thought, intended mischief to these two. "When I got to Dr. Warren's house," he writes, "I found he had sent an express by land to Lexington — a Mr. William Dawes. The Sunday before, by desire of Dr. Warren, I had been to Lexington to Messrs. Hancock and Adams, who were at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I returned at night through Charlestown; there I agreed with a Colonel Conant and some other gentlemen, that if the British went out by water, we would show two lanthorns in the North Church steeple; and if by land, one, as a signal; for we were apprehensive it would be difficult to cross the Charles River, or get over Boston Neck. I left Dr. Warren, called upon a friend, and desired him to make the sig- nals. I then went home, took my boots and surtout, went to the north part of the town, where I had left a boat; two friends rowed me across Charles River, a little to the eastward where the Somerset man-of- war lay. It was the young flood, the ship was wind- 106 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ing and the moon was rising. They landed me on the Charlestown side. When I got into the town I met Colonel Conant, and several others; they said they had seen our signals. I told them what was acting, and went to get me a horse; I got a horse of Deacon Larkin." This description is so prosaic as to be almost irritating to any one who has in mind the stanza describing Paul's own restless watching for the signals : "Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. Now he patted his horse's side, Now gazed at the landscape far and near, Then, impetuous, stamped the earth. And turned and tightened his saddle-girth; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry tower of the Old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill. Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height A glimmer, and then a gleam of light! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry burns!" No wonder historians have liked to go on making this mistake! No logic of necessity can convince one that there was any need to have these signals dis- played for those watching on the opposite shore lest Paul should not, himself, get safely across the river. It was his due as the hero of this tempestuous ride to have had the suspense of watching for the signals himself just as the poet describes it. IDYLS FROM HISTORY 107 He goes on: "I set off on a very good horse; it was then about eleven o'clock and very pleasant. After I had passed Charlestown Neck, and got nearly op- posite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on horseback, under a tree. When I got near them I discovered they were British officers. One tried to get ahead of me and the other to take me. I turned my horse very quick, and galloped towards Charlestown Neck, and then pushed for the Medford road. The one who chased me, endeavoring to cut me off, got into a clay pond, near where the new tavern is now built. I got clear of him, and went through Medford, over the bridge and up to Menot- omy. In Medford I waked the Captain of the Minute Men; and after that I alarmed almost every house, till I got to Lexington. I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams at the Rev. Mr. Clark's. I told them my errand, and inquired for Mr. Dawes; they said he had not been there; I related the story of the two officers and supposed that he must have been stopped as he ought to have been there before me. After I had been there about half an hour, Mr. Dawes came; we refreshed ourselves, and set off for Concord, to secure the stores, etc., there. We were overtaken by a young Dr. Prescott, whom we found to be a high son of liberty." He joined them in spite of the fact that they warned him they might be stopped on the way to Concord by British soldiers. They had gone about half way, Mr. Dawes and the doctor had stopped to alarm the people of a house, when the expected happened. "I was about one hun- dred rods ahead," says Paul, "when I saw two men, in 108 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY nearly the same situation as those officers were, near Charlestown. I called for the doctor and Mr. Dawes to come up; in an instant I was surrounded by four — they had placed themselves in a straight road, that inclined each way; they had taken down a pair of bars on the north side of the road, and two of them were under a tree in the pasture. The doctor being foremost he came up ; and we tried to get past them; but they being armed with pistols and swords, they forced us into the pasture — the doctor jumped his horse over a low stone wall, and got to Concord. I observed a wood at a small distance and made for that. When I got there, out started six officers, on horseback, and ordered me to dismount; one of them who appeared to have the command examined me, where I came from, and what my name was? I told him. He asked me if I was an express? I an- swered in the affirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and added, that their troops had catched aground in passing the river, and that there would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the way up. He imimediately rode toward those who stopped us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them whom I afterwards found to be a Major Mitchell of the Fifth Regiment, clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers he would blow my brains out. He then asked me similar questions to those above. He then ordered me to mount my horse after searching me for arms. He then ordered them to advance, and to lead me in front. When we got IDYLS FROM HISTORY 109 to the road, they turned down toward Lexington. When we had got about one mile, the Major rode up to the officer that was leading me, and told him to give me to the Sergeant. As soon as he took me the Major ordered him if I attempted to run, or any- body insulted them, to blow my brains out. We rode till we got near Lexington meeting-house, when the militia fired a volley of guns, which appeared to alarm them very much. The Major inquired of me how far it was to Cambridge, and if there were any other road? After some consultation, the Major rode up to the Sergeant and asked if his horse was tired? He answered him, he was — (he was a Sergeant of Gren- adiers and had a small horse). Then, said he, take that man's horse; I dismounted and the Sergeant mounted my horse, when they all rode towards Lex- ington meeting-house. I went across the burying ground and some pastures and came to Mr. Clark's house where I found Messrs. Hancock and Adams. I told them of my treatment, and they concluded to go from that house towards Woburn. I went with them, and a Mr. Lowell who was clerk to Mr. Han- cock. When we got to the house where they in- tended to stop Mr. Lowell and myself returned to Mr. Clark's, to find what was going on. When we got there an elderly man came in; he said he had just come from the tavern, that a man had come from Bos- ton who said there were no British troops coming. Mr. Lowell and myself went towards the tavern, when we met a man on a full gallop who told us the troops were coming up the rocks. We afterwards met another who said they were close by; Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the tavern with him, to get a trunk no LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY of papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. While we were getting the trunk we saw the British very near, upon a full march. In our way we passed through the militia. There were about fifty. When we had got about one hundred yards from the meeting- house the British troops appeared on both sides of the meeting-house. In their front was an officer on horseback. They made a short halt: when I saw and heard a gun fired, which appeared to be a pistol. Then I could distinguish two guns, and then a con- tinual roar of musketry; when we made off with the trunk." So it was that Paul never reached Concord! Only a miserable second fiddle, Dr. Prescott. A very worthy gentleman, no doubt, who had a full share in saving the country that memorable night, but is there any one who has read the poem and who does not wish it had been Paul? There is some compensa- tion here, however, in the fact, not appearing in the poem, that Paul saw the first gun fired. That is one of the things we may imagine happened between "one by the village clock" and "two by the village clock," though the poet only makes Paul see "the meeting-house windows, blank and bare. Gaze at him with a spectral glare." Another account of this ride was given by Richard Devens, who, as well as Paul Revere, was a mem- ber of the Committee of Safety. It antedated Paul Revere's account; and differs slightly, but is interest- ing as showing what was happening on the other side IDYLS FROM HISTORY 111 of the river at the same time that the British were preparing their attack from Boston: "On the 18th of April, '75, Tuesday, the Com- mittee of Safety, of which I was then a member, and the Committee of Supplies, sat at Newell's tavern at Menotomy. A great number of British officers dined at Cambridge. After we had finished the business of the day, we adjourned to meet at Wo- burn on the morrow ; left to lodge at Newell's, Gerry, Orne and Lee. Mr. Watson and myself came off in my chaise at sunset. On the road we met a great number of British officers and their servants on horseback, who had dined that day at Cambridge. We rode some way after we met them and then turned back and rode through them, went and in- formed our friends at Newell's. We stopped there until they came up and rode by. We then left our friends and I came home, after leaving Mr. Watson at his house. I soon received intelligence from Bos- ton that the enemy were all in motion and were cer- tainly preparing to come out into the country. Soon afterwards the signal agreed upon was given: this was a lanthorne hung out in the upper window of the tower of the North Church towards Charlestown. I then sent off an express to inform Messrs. Gerry, etc., and Messrs. Hancock and Adams, who I knew were at the Rev. Mr. Clark's at Lexington, that the enemy were certainly coming out. I kept watch at the ferry to watch for the boats till about eleven o'clock, when Paul Revere came over and informed that the T. [troops] were actually in the boats. I procured a horse and sent off Paul Revere to give the intelli- gence at Menotomy and Lexington. He was taken 112 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY by the British officers before he got to Lexington and detained till near day" — an error, of course. Besides the need which has troubled the consciences of the historians to tell the "true story of Paul Re- vere," there has been a lengthened controversy upon who was the "friend" to hang out the lanterns and where was the church in which they were hung ; points not brought up by the poet's inaccuracy this time, but because of the vagueness of both Revere and Devens on the subject in speaking simply of the North Church, and a "friend," without mentioning the name. The church which bears the inscription commem- orating the event is Christ Church, though its claims since first brought forward in 1873 have been dis- puted. Dr. Eaton wrote a historical account of this church in 1824, but said nothing about its connection with Paul Revere's ride. Dr. Henry Burroughs, however, not only claimed this church as the one with which the incident was connected, in a historical dis- course in the year above mentioned, but he declared that the "friend" who hung out the lanterns was Robert Newman, in 1775 the sexton of the church. Drake's "Landmarks" also connected the incident with Christ Church. Not until December, 1876, when the city authorities decided to put a tablet upon this church, were its claims disputed. Richard Frothingham then declared that the true place where the lanterns were displayed was the old North Meet- ing-house in North Square, which was pulled down during the siege for fuel. Then followed a letter in the Daily Advertiser from Rev. John Lee Watson, and comments by Charles Deane, in which it is shown beyond a doubt that Christ Church was popularly IDYLS FROM HISTORY 113 known as the North Church. But Mr. Watson con- fused matters somewhat by declaring that the friend who hung the lanterns up was a Boston merchant, Mr. John Pulling, a warden of the church, and not the sexton. Mr. W. W. Wheildon in 1878 brought forward the claims of Newman again, but confirms the opinion that the church was Christ Church. To sum up ; who the friend was, still remains in doubt, but Christ Church is generally accepted as the place, and consequently on Oct. 17, 1878, the tablet was put up on the front of the church, with the inscription, "The Signal Lanterns of Paul Revere displayed in the steeple of this church, April 18, 1775, warned the country of the march of the British troops to Lexing- ton and Concord." This church, built in 1723, was the second Episcopal church in Boston. The original spire was blown down in a gale in 1804, so the devout tourist can gaze only upon the simulacrum of the spire from which the beacon fraught with such big meaning flashed. The present spire was built in likeness to the old one by Charles Bulfinch, the architect of State-house fame, but has suffered not a "sea change," but a clock change, some alterations having been necessary to ac- commodate the present clock. In the palmy days of the North End, Christ Church, built on rising ground on Salem Street, must have been a conspicuous object in the surrounding neighborhood, and, of course, could readily be seen from the low land of Charlestown opposite the North End. Now it is buried in a labyrinth of crooked streets lined with tenements and shops and given over to the Italians, and the Russian and Polish Jews. It is 114 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY peculiarly fitting that these last should find an asylum in the quarter of the city so identified with the inaug- uration of our own freedom. The Italians, however, give the local color to the neighborhood. One sees bits of bright yellow blinking in the sunshine from behind half shut blinds, women stand about with gay shawls and head coverings, and if one be so disposed, he can dine on yards of maccheroni smothered in toma- toes and read Dante henceforth with an Italian ac- cent; or better still, he may attend a performance of Marionettes in a stuffy little room full of men smok- ing. The heroes of Ariosto stalk about the stage and fight and make love with the nervous tension and precision so characteristic of Marionettes, while from above is heard the voice of one reading. I was never at such a performance, but "it's as if I saw it all," as Browning makes one of his Dramatis Personce say of Italy itself. Not far from the church, on North Square, is the house where Paul Revere lived for the greater part of his life. A short time ago it was "restored" and now looks as it did in the days when Paul exhibited transparencies from its upper windows, cartooning the political events of the time. It was upon the oc- casion of the first anniversary of the Boston Massacie that this interesting exhibition took place and great- ly impressed the crowds below. A newspaper of the time describes them: "One of these transparencies represented Christopher Snider, with one of his fin- gers in his wound, endeavoring to stop the blood from issuing therefrom; near him his friends weeping; at a small distance a monumental pyramid with his name IDYLS FROM HISTORY 115 on the top and the names of those killed on the fifth of March around the base. There was an inscripticMi which read : " 'Snider's pale ghost fresh bleeding stands, And vengeance for his death demands.' " In another window, under the legend "Foul Play," were shown the British soldiers drawn up in firing line, with dead and wounded lying about, blood pour- ing from their wounds. A third transparency repre- sented America, in the form of a female figure, sit- ting on a tree stump with one foot on the head of a prostrate grenadier grasping a serpent. The Bos- ton Gazette reported that "the spectators were struck with solemn silence and their countenances were cov- ered with a melancholy glow." A truly remarkable man was Paul Revere. He had his finger in so many of Dame America's pies that we are constantly being reminded of him. If we pick up some book upon Boston in the early days we shall almost surely find among the illustra- tions one or more of his engravings. We are liable at any time to meet some one who has a silver tea-pot or silver knee-buckles made by him; when we hear the church bells ring we remember that Paul Revere cast the first church bell ever cast in America for the "New Brick Church." And who but he furnished all the copper fixtures for the United States frigate Constitution, or, as it was nicknamed, "Old Iron- sides. Finally we cannot even cast our gaze upon the State House without remembering that as a grand 116 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY mason he helped to lay its cornerstone, nor yet raise our eyes upwards to its dome without remembering that once upon a time he re-coppered it. To round out his usefulness he served his country as a soldier and engraved and printed the paper money of Massa- chusetts. If he had lived in the days of the Italian Renaissance he would probably have also painted Madonnas and written sonnets. He had, however, that instinctive commercialism which was to reach abnormal development in the American character in a hundred years, and this it was, no doubt, that made him successively engraver, cartoonist, gold- smith, soldier, bell and cannon founder, copper- rolling mill owner. Even as messenger on the Com- mittee of Safety, after the Lexington episode, he de- manded and received "pay." The quaint old house, built in the Dutch style with second story projecting beyond the first, and with small diamond-paned windows, looks crowded and out of place shoulder to shoulder with the much la- ter shop buildings now standing on either side of it. Not long since I had the pleasure of threading the mazes of the "North End" with a party in a friend's automobile, the express purpose being to follow as closely as possible Paul's famous ride. Having viewed first the house, then the church, we made our way with some difficulty through the narrow streets, where groups of voluble Italians — women in gay colors., and men — were talking and gesticulating, and often only lounging, to the bridge connecting Boston with Charlestown. The place where the British warship Somerset must have been anchored, not far from the point where Paul embarked for his stealthy row IDYLS FROM HISTORY 117 across the river, is now such a mass of docks and low bridging for railroad tracks that the broad reach of the Charles seems almost obliterated. It was half a mile across in those days ; now in less time than it takes to tell it, we were over the river and in Charlestown, with elevated trains whizzing overhead, and trolleys blocking our headlong career in a manner almost as exasperating as the British interferences with Paul's ride on horseback must have been. We fol- lowed the main street to "Medford town," but foimd it difficult up to that point to imagine ourselves in Paul Revere's shoes. For one thing we were not in the least sure that we were really following in his footsteps. From Medford to Lexington, we knew ourselves to be on the identical road, because an oblig- ing sign, "This is the road Paul Revere took to Lex- ington," furnished us with the needed information. The country along* this road is still to a great extent "open," so, forgetting the fact of daylight and an automobile, we could very well imagine ourselves in a Revere mood. Along the road are still standing some of the old houses whose inmates he aroused nearly one hundred and thirty-five years ago. The closer one approaches to Lexington the more numerous become the houses upon which some legend is fastened, connecting it with the events of Lexing- ton's great day. The most important is the "Mon- roe Tavern" on the left of the road, where Lord Percy with his reinforcement of twelve hundred men and two cannon took his stand, the afternoon of April 19, and prevented the complete rout of the British army in its retreat from Concord. It was an early spring that year for a New England spring. 118 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY the cherry trees were already in bloom, and the Brit- ish, who had been fighting a running fight for ten miles, dropped down when they reached the shelter of the "Monroe'Tavern," completely overcome by heat and fatigue. Cruelly were their sufferings revenged by the bayoneting of the harmless and the firing of the houses which followed, but why bring up this hor- rible scene? It is pleasanter to remember a story told by Howells about Lord Percy's portrait which hangs in the Lexington library. Howells was spending the summer in Lexington and naturally was much in the library, where he had the "opportunity" to answer the questions of the various visitors who came in to look at the revolutionary relics kept there. He relates that the portrait of Lord Percy, young and hand- some, always attracted the greatest interest, no Amer- icans ever seeming to realize that he was not in sym- pathy with them. Howells noticed especially one boy who gazed and gazed at the portrait for a long time and finally went off with a sigh of wonder, say- ing "And he was a Britisher!" Soon we came upon the irregular triangle forming the green, about which the chief interest centers. The meeting-house which figures in the poem and in Re- vere's own account is no longer there, but the hallowed spot is marked by a most original monument. It is a single block of red granite, and represents a reading desk with a closed polished book of granite upon it. The last of the three meeting-houses built on this spot was burned in 1846. The desk is supposed to face ex- actly as the pulpit did in at least two of the meeting- houses. Upon sunken polished panels, front and back, are recorded events connected with the civic and IDYLS FROM HISTORY 119 religious history of a hundred years, now completed as the closed book is meant to symbolize. Another characteristic monument is a boulder, said to weigh about eighteen tons. It was brought from the woods on the old Muzzey place in the western part of the town, a distance of two miles. Only the front of this has been cut, the remainder of the rock being left in its natural state. An old musket such as the Minute- men bore, is carved on the face with a powder horn above it, while underneath is an inscription giving the words used by Captain Parker to his men as they stood there — some forty or fifty of them facing a regiment of six hundred British soldiers: *' Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want to have a war let it begin here." The musket is intended to point the direction of Captain Parker's company. We turn from these modern memorials to the old monument in honor of the men who fell, upon which has recently been placed a tablet setting forth that the bodies of those who fell were first buried in the old cemetery, and after lying there for sixty years the remains were gathered up and brought here to be buried at the foot of the monument. Still more are we brought into touch with the past when we come upon the old, old houses, that were standing about the green on that eventful day. One is the "Buckman Tavern," where the Provincials mustered when the alarm was given by Paul, and whither he went with Mr. Lowell to get Mr. Hancock's trunk- ful of papers. It is a quaint and picturesque old house with a pretty, old-fashioned garden. Upon another house is a tablet relating that here lived Jonathan Harrington, who was wounded in the 120 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY skirmish which took place in the sight of its windows, and how he succeeded in dragging himself to his own doorstep, and there died in his wife's arms. As an English lady who was of the party said with beau- tiful sympathy in her voice, "the only comfort is that by this time she is dead, too." But we must take up the role of Paul Revere again and hasten on to the Rev. Jonas Clark's, which is not far off on a road to the right. It is known as the Hancock house. It was built by the Rev. John Han- cock, later enlarged by his son Thomas, and finally bought by the Rev. Mr. Clark, who married a grand- daughter of John Hancock's. We alighted from the vehicle which stood us in place of the good horse from Mr. Larkin's, and entered with mingled feel- ings the room where Paul had delivered his message to the two men most vitally concerned in the com- ing encounter, Hancock and Adams, upon whose heads a price had been set. This house is preserved as a relic of the Revolution, and is filled with inter-, esting mementos. Among other things are a mus- ket and a drum which were used at the fight on the green, the pocketbook carried by one of the men who rowed Paul Revere across the Charles, and one of Revere's o-vvn engravings of the Boston massacre. To speak of these simple things in cold print means so little! But even the nonchalant, blase, latter-day Bostonian, with brains satiated by knowledge, and emotions chilled through lack of faith, feels stirred by these tokens of an event marking one of the most significant strides of the human spirit in its long and tortuous march toward enlightenment. Something of the feeling that all Americans have when contemplat- IDYLS FROM HISTORY 121 ing the daring and pluck of that handful of men at Lexington comes out in what Ilowells has to say. "It ['The Buckman Tavern'] afforded a rendez- vous for the Provincials when the alarm of the Brit- ish approach was first sounded by Paul Revere, and there most of the men lingered and waited subject to their captain's orders, after he had begun to doubt the truth of the rumor. The interval must have been trying to those unwarlike men, but they all answered the drum when a messenger galloped up with the news that the King's troops were right upon them. Some of them had gone to bed again in their homes beside the green, and they left their wives and chil- dren sleeping almost within sound of a whisper from the spot where they loosely formed on the grass be- fore their doors. Independence was scarcely dreamt of: all that the villagers were clear of was their right as Englishmen, and they stood there upon that, with everything else around them in a dark far thicker than the morning gloom out of which the redcoats flashed at the other corner of the green. Major Pitcairne called a halt at some thirty rods, and riding forward swore at the damned rebels and bade them disperse. They stood firm, and he ordered his men to fire; the soldiers hesitated; but when he drew his pistols and emptied them at the Provincials they discharged a volley and eight of our people fell. They were not a tithe of the enemy in number, and it is doubtful if they returned the fire; then Captain Parker called a retreat and those who were unhurt made their escape, to join later in the long running fight through M'hich the Provincials all day harassed the flight of the Brit- ish from Concord back to Boston. Major Pitcairne 122 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY had dispersed a riot and shed the first blood in a seven years' war. The dead men lay on the grass where their children had played a few hours before." From the "Hancock House," we followed the road on to Concord, noting the spot about half way be- tween the two towns where Paul Revere was captured and was led back toward Lexington. The only event to disturb the present-day peacefulness and remind us that tragedy still stalks abroad in the world was the immolation under our car of a chicken which, suddenly seized with some form of dementia, rushed in front of the "speeding" machine, and was cut off in the flower of its youth. Soon after we met an auto- wagon belonging to a famous piano concern of Bos- ton. Later, upon our return, we beheld the crew of the auto-wagon roasting the chicken over a slow fire which had been built by the roadside. We were glad of this and felt better contented to know that the chicken had reached its legitimate goal. Its ghost was laid, so to speak, although it had not received the last rites due it from its owners. This semi-pa- thetic, semi-humorous incident will mark more dis- tinctly in our minds the locality of Paul Revere's cap- ture than any lettered milestone. Whatever its slight inaccuracies may be, it is a real bit of history which Longfellow gives us in "Paul Revere's Ride." In the equally popular poem, "The Courtship of Miles Standish," he has developed from a bare statement of fact, a pleasing romance, calling for considerable imagination in the portrayal of the characters. These belong in a historical environment dear to the heart of New England, and this the poet reproduces with faithfulness as far as the atmosphere IDYLS FROM HISTORY 123 is concerned. We see the little, very young town of Plymouth with its one street guarded by a fort which was used also as a church, set down close by the sea in the midst of wilds haunted by the Indians. His- tory tells how, when the Pilgrim Fathers gathered to- gether to confer about their simple state affairs on the hill, they were time after time interrupted by the sudden apparition of an Indian or a party of Indians. None of these, however, proved very fierce. Upon one of these occasions, the chronicler says: "Over against us two or three savages presented themselves, that made semblance of daring us, as we thought. So Captain Standish with another, with their muskets, went over to them, with two of the Master's mates that follow them without arms, having two muskets with them. They whetted and rubbed their arrows and strings, and made show of defiance; but when our men drew near them they ran away." Pictu- resque and stirring is the incident of Samoset, boldly approaching the settlement, alone, and calling out "Welcome" to the newly arrived Pilgrims. He be- came a staunch friend, introducing them to his tribe, the Massasoyts, who proved most loyal neighbors. The contemporary descriptions of these friends of Samoset, which he speedily brought to confer with the Pilgrims, gives a vivid picture of these gentle "salvages." "They had every man a deer's skin on him, and the principle of them had a wild-cat's skin, or such like, on one arm. They had most of them long hosen up to their groins, close made, and above their groins to their waist another leather. They are of com- plexion like our English gipseys; no hair or very 124 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY little on their faces; on their heads long hair to their shoulders, only cut before; some trussed up before with a feather, broad-wise, like a fan; another a fox- tail." When the King and his followers came to ratify the alliance with the Pilgrims considerable ceremony was observed. The pageant, with its display of one green rug and three or four cushions and its military music of trumpet and drum, must have caused not a little excitement among the hundred or so inhabitants of the small village. After various preliminaries, in- cluding the presentation to the Indian King of the terms of the alliance, the King "came over the brook, and some twenty men following him, leaving all their bows and arrows behind them. We kept six or seven as hostages for our messenger. Captain Standish and Master Williamson met the King at the brook, with half a dozen musketeers. They saluted him, and he them; so one going over, the one on the one side and the other on the other, conducted him to a house then in building, where we placed a green rug and three or four cushions. Then instantly came our gov- ernor, with drum and trumpet after him, and some few musketeers. After salutations our governor kissing his hand, the King kissed him; and so they sat down." It is a pity that such auspicious beginnings with the Indians could not have insured eternal peace; there had, however, been premonitions of another temper among some of the other tribes. If the debonair Samoset came with a greeting of wel- come, there was also the unfriendly gang of Indians who carried terror before them with the unearthly IDYLS FROM HISTORY 125 cry "Woach, woach, ha ha hach woach," none the less dreadful because nobody knew what it meant. Not far distant was the day when the Indians yearned to sweep the paleface from off the face of the earth, and succeeded in accomplishing the purpose to an appalling extent. The paleface unfortunately brought it upon himself — not as represented by the good people of Plymouth, but by the bad people of Wessagusset, now Weymouth. The recklessness of this colony settled by Weston shortly after Plymouth, came near to destroying all the good influences of the Plymouth colony. These people were not only im- provident, but unruly. To keep from starvation they were driven to hire themselves out among the In- dians that they might share their food. In the end they actually robbed the Indians, who naturally became exasperated and plotted vengeance. The belligerent spirit was whetted by the success of the massacre in Virginia, when the villages along the James River were set upon and the inhabitants to the number of four hundred were cut off by death-deal- ing Indian tomahawks in the short space of an hour. Such news might well alarm the New England settlers. This is the pass to which Indian affairs had come when Longfellow introduces to us Miles Standish. It was on the 23rd of March, 1623, that Standish was called to the council mentioned in the lines: "Meanwhile the choleric captain strode wrathful away to the council. Found it already assembled, impatiently waiting his coming ; Men in the middle of life, austere and grave in de- portment." 126 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY The account in the old chronicles tells how the gov- ernor laid the evidence before them when the unani- mous voice declared for war. Captain Standish was to take so many men as he thought sufficient to make his party good against all the Indians in Massachu- setts Bay, and he was to adopt the Indian guerilla tactics instead of open defiance. There is something almost grimly humorous in the thought of an army of eight men going forth to battle with all the Indians of the region; yet so it was. Miles Standish set out on his march to Weymouth with eight men and an Indian friend and guide, Hobomok. Governor Winslow's account of the Pecksuot incident, told by Longfellow, is interesting as the rough material from which the poet carved his gem in the way of dramatic narrative. He relates that Pecksuot came to Hobomok and told him "he understood that the cap- tain was come to kill himself and the rest of the sav- ages there. 'Tell him,' said he, 'we know it, but fear him not, neither will we shun him; but let him begin when he dare, he shall not take us at unawares.' Many times after, divers of them severally or few to- gether, came to the plantation to him, where they would whet and sharpen the points of their knives before his face and use many other insulting gestures and speeches. Amongst the rest Wituwamat bragged of the excellency of his knives before his face, and used many other insulting gestures and speeches. On the end of the handle there was pictured a woman's face; 'but,' said he, 'I have another at home, where- with I have killed both French and English, and that hath a man's face on it, and by and by it should eat, but not speak.' Also Pecksuot, being a man of IDYLS FROM HISTORY 127 greater stature than the captain, told him though he were a great captain, yet he was but a little man; 'and,' said he, 'though I be no sachem, yet I am a man of great strength and courage!' These things the captain observed, yet bore with patience for the present. "On the next day, seeing he could not get many of them together at once, and this Pecksuot and Witu- wamat both together with another man, and a youth of some eighteen years of age, which was brother to Wituwamat, and, villain-like, trod in his steps, daily putting many tricks upon the weaker sort of men, and the door being fast shut, began himself with Pecksuot, and snatching his own knife from his neck, though with much struggling, killed him therewith, the point whereoff he had made as sharp as a needle and ground the back also to an edge. Wituwamat and the other man the rest killed and took the youth, whom the cap- tain caused to be hanged." The rattlesnake-skin episode which Longfellow makes a striking incident of the council scene really occurred some time previous to this in January, 1622, and is related by Governor Winslow in his own slow manner: "At length came one of them to us [the Naragan- setts], who was sent by Conanacus, their chief sachem or king, accompanied with one Tokamahamon, a friendly Indian. This messenger inquired for Tis- quantum, our interpreter, who not being at home, seemed rather to be glad than sorry, and leaving for him a bundle of new arrows, lapped in a rattlesnake's skin, desired to depart with all expedition. But our governor not knowing what to make of this strange 128 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY carriage and comparing it with what we had former- ly heard, committed him to the custody of Captain Standish, hoping now to know some certainty of that we so often heard, either by his own relation to us, or to Tisquantum, at his return, desiring myself, hav- ing special familiarity with the other fore-named In- dian, to see if I could learn anything from him ; whose answer was sparingly to this effect, that he could not certainly tell us, but thought they were enemies to us. "When Tisquantum returned and the arrows were delivered and the manner of the messenger's carriage related, he signified to the governor that to send the rattlesnake skin in that manner imported enmity, and that it was no better than a challenge. Thereupon, after some deliberation, the governor stuffed the skin with powder and shot, and sent it back, returning no less defiance to Conanacus, assuring him if he had shipping now present, thereby to send his men to Nanohigganset, they should not need to come so far by land to us; yet withal showing that they should never come unwelcome or unlooked for. This mes- sage was sent by an Indian and delivered in such sort, as it was no small terror to this savage king, inso- much that he would not once touch the powder and shot, or suffer it to stay in his house or country. Whereupon the messenger refusing it, another took it up; and having been posted from place to place a long time, at length came whole back again." "Near them was standing an Indian, in attitude stern and defiant, Naked down to the waist, and grim and ferocious in aspect; IDYLS FROM HISTORY 129 While on the table before them was lyinff unopened a Bible, Ponderous, bound in leather, brass-studded, printed in Holland, And beside it outstretched the skin of a rattlesnake glittered. Filled, like a quiver, with arrows ; a signal and chal- lenge of warfare, Brought by the Indian, and speaking with arrowy tongues of defiance." After some debate in regard to what is to be done, it is Standish, not the governor, who returns the chal- lenge, according to Longfellow, and in a manner far more impressive than history has it : *' 'Leave this matter to me, for to me by right it per- taineth. War is a terrible trade; but in the cause that is righteous, Sweet is the smell of powder; and thus I answer the challenge!' "Then from the rattlesnake's skin, with a sudden con- temptuous gesture. Jerking the Indian arrows, he filled it with powder and bullets Full to the very jaws, and handed it back to the savage. Saying, in thundering tones: 'Here, take it! this is your answer!' Silently out of the room then glided the glistening savage. Bearing the serpent's skin, and seeming himself like a serpent, Winding his sinuous way in the dark to the depths of the forest." 130 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY The record of the love-story is very slight. It was handed down by tradition until about 1812, when per- haps the first printed narrative appeared in the Rev. Timothy Alden's "Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions." Longfellow's version of the story has itself taken on almost the authenticity of a tradi- tion. Not long ago I chanced upon a history of the Pilgrims, which remarked that no doubt the poet had looked carefully into the records of the time and had been minutely accurate. It then went on to tell as history the account given in the poem. How much the poet embellished and developed the legend may be seen by comparing it with the Rev. Timothy Alden's narrative : "It is well known that of the first company consist- ing of one hundred and one, about one-half died in six months after the landing in consequence of the hardships they were called to encounter. Mrs. Rose Standish, consort of Captain Standish, departed this life on the twenty-ninth of January, 1621. This cir- cumstance is mentioned as an introduction to the fol- lowing anecdote, which has been carefully handed down by tradition. In a very short time after the de- cease of Mrs. Standish, the captain was led to think that if he could obtain Miss Priscilla Mullins, a daughter of Mr. William Mullins, the break in his family would be happily repaired. He, therefore, according to the custom of those times, sent to ask Mr. Mullins' permission to visit his daughter. John Alden, the messenger, went and faithfully communi- cated the wishes of the captain. "The old gentleman did not object, as he might have done, on account of the recency of Captain IDYLS FROM HISTORY 131 Standish's bereavement. He said it was perfectly- agreeable to him, but the young lady must also be consulted. The damsel was then called into the room, and John Alden, who is said to have been a man of most excellent form, with a fair and ruddy complexion, arose, and, in a very courteous and pre- possessing manner, delivered his errand. Miss Mul- lins listened with respectful attention, and at last after a considerable pause, fixing her eyes upon him with an open and pleasant countenance, said: 'Prithee, John, why do you not speak for yourself?' He blushed and bowed, and took his leave, but with a look which indicated more than his diffidence would permit him otherwise to express. However, he soon renewed his visit, and it was not long before their nup- tials were celebrated in ample form. From them are descended all of the name, Alden, in the United States. What report he made to his constituent after the first interview, tradition does not unfold: but it is said, how true the writer knows not, that the cap- tain never forgave them to the day of his death." The chronicles of the time give only the military doings of Miles Standish, but even from these one gathers much of the interesting personality of the man, who had gained his experiences in war against that most terrible of all foes, the Duke of Alva. It is strange what a mere chance it was that caused his fortunes to become so indissolubly bound up with those of this country. Sent to the Netherlands as a commissioned officer in an English regiment by Queen Elizabeth, he fought against the cruel armies of the Inquisition. After peace was declared he re- mained in the Netherlands, and, as has been suggest- 132 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ed, may have become interested in the fierce theological disputes of the Calvinists and the Armenians which raged in the Low Countries from 1609 to 1620. He was not himself a churchman, but whatever the cause, he attached himself to the English exiles, who in Leyden had taken refuge from the persecution of the English, and when they sailed for America in the Mayflower, he came with them, fortunately — else the Plymouth colony might have met the same terrible fate as the Virginia colony. How much he became interested in religious affairs is shown by the inven- tory of his library, consisting of about forty books, of which twenty were devotional or religious. There were also the books for the soldier — Cesar's "Com- mentaries," "Bariffe's Artillery," as Longfellow de- scribes, and not one Bible but three: "Fixed to the opposite wall was a shelf of books, and among them Prominent three, distinguished alike for bulk and for binding; Bariffe's Artillery Guide, and the Commentaries of Caesar, Out of the Latin translated by Arthur Goldinge of London, And, as if guarded by these, between them was standing the Bible. Musing a moment before them. Miles Standish paused, as if doubtful Which of the three he should choose for his consola- tion and comfort. Whether the wars of the Hebrews, the famous cam- paigns of the Romans, Or the artillery practice, designed for belligerent Christians." IDYLS FROM HISTORY 133 After the manner of titles in the days of Queen Elizabeth, the title of this last was interminable — almost a course in military tactics by itself: "Mili- tary Discipline; or the young Artillery man, where- in is discoursed and shown the Postures, both of Mus- ket and Pike, the exactest way, etc., together with the Exercise of the Foot in their Motions, with much va- riety: As also, diverse and several Forms for the Im- batteling small or great Bodies demonstrated by the number of a single company with their Reducements. Very necessary for all such as are studious in the Art Military. Whereunto is also added the Postures and Beneficiall Use of the Halfe Pike Joyned with the Musket. With the way to* draw up the Swedish Brigade." Although according to the tradition. Miles Stand- ish never forgave John Alden, history says that he married Barbara, the orphan sister of Rose Stand- ish, who was left in England and for whom he sent. Thus it seems quite probable that he was reconciled, as Longfellow puts it, with his old friend, John Alden, who in the assignments of houses and the division into households in 1621, is found under the roof presided over by Captain Miles Standish, the first house under Fort Hill. The more one can gather about Miles Standish — his courage, his loyalty, his good sense and his skill, the more one feels how much his memory should be honored. One experiences a slight sense of irrita- tion at Priscilla, not that she did not love him, but that she should have shown so little appreciation of what his services meant in the preservation of the colony, as to be afraid of him on account of his valor. 134 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "Thus the first battle was fought and won by the stalwart Miles Standish. When the tidings thereof were brought to the village of Plymouth, And as a trophy of war the head of the brave Wattawamat Scowled from the roof of the fort, which was at once a church and a fortress, All who beheld it rejoiced, and praised the Lord, and took courage. Only Priscilla averted her face from this spectre of terror, Thanking God in her heart that she had not mar- ried Miles Standish ; Shrinking, fearing almost, lest, coming home from his battles, He should lay claim to her hand, as the prize and reward of his valor.'* Appreciation of the services of Miles Standish to his country finally took very palpable shape in the formation of a Monument Association in 1871, when the site for a monument on Monument Hill at Dux- bury was consecrated with great ceremony. The orator of the occasion was General Horace Binney whose eloquence brings out with peculiar emphasis just what manner of man this Miles Standish was: "With the memory of one act of singularly resolute daring when, in obedience to the Colonial orders to crush a great Indian conspiracy, he took a squad of eight picked men into the forests, and deemed it prudent to kill the most turbulent warrior with his own hands, we may imagine how the Pilgrim sol- dier, friend and associate of Brewster, disciple of the saintly Robinson, rose from the perusal of one of the IDYLS FROM HISTORY 135 old Bibles, or of "Ball on Faith," "Sparks Against Heresie," or "Dodd on the Lord's Supper," to stab Pecksuot to the heart with his own knife ; a giant who had taunted him with his small stature, in almost the very words of Goliath in his insulting sneer at David, long before ; and to cut off the head of Watuwamat, which bloody trophy the elders had ordered him to bring home with him. "Yet the all-daring contempt for peril, the rough- ness of temper, the masterly economy with which Standish saved human life by consummate indiffer- ence to personal homicide upon prudent occasions, his power of breathing his own fiery heart into a handful of followers, till he made them an army able to withstand a host in the narrow gates of death, would lead us to expect such a colleague for the saintly Brewster as little as we should expect to see Sheridan prominent among the Methodists. "From the first anchorage Captain Standish as the soldier of the company was charged with all deeds of adventure. At first certain grave elders were sent with him for counsel. But ultimately, his repute in affairs, both civil and military, was such that he was for many years the treasurer of the colony, and during a period of difficulty their agent in England. They invested him with the general command. Even in extreme old age — the very year that he died 'very ancient and full of dolorous pains' — he received his last and fullest commission against new enemies, his old friends, the Dutch." When the cornerstone of the monument was laid, October 7, 1872, there were ten thousand people present to witness the ceremonies in which partici- 136 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY pated the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, and several Masonic lodges. Under the cornerstone was placed a metallic plate with the fol- lowing inscription : The Corner Stone of the Standish Memorial in commemoration of the character and services of Captain Myles Standish, The First Commissioned Military Officer of New England Laid on the smnmit of Captain's Hill in Duxbury under the Superintendance of The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, In presence of The Standish Monument Association, By the M. W. Grand Lodge of Free Masons, of Massachusetts M. W. Sereno D. Nickerson, Grand Master On the seventh day of October, A. D. 1872. Being the Two Hundred and Fifty-second Year since the First Settlement of New England By the Pilgrim Fathers. Site consecrated August 17, 1871. Association incorporated May 4, 1872. Association organized and ground broken June 17, 1872. Corner of foundation laid August 9, 1872. IDYLS FROM HISTORY 137 The handsome youth, Jolin Alden, grew also to be a very important personage in the Plymouth colony. His qualities, though not of so picturesque a nature as those of Miles Standish, were* of equal importance in assuring the success of the colony. He appears first as one of its financial backers or "Undertakers," as they were called, of which there were eight. The responsibility of the position was great, for if any- thing should happen that liabilities could not be met, and such was only too likely to be the case in an ad- venturous undertaking of this sort — the debtors' prison was a horror to be reckoned with in the mother- land whence they had fled. He never, however, shirked the burden, remaining an "Undertaker" until the debt was wiped out, in 1646. As agent for the colony, he had a general oversight of business affairs. He was surveyor of the highways also, and in 1633 he was a member of the board of assistants to the gov- ernor. He held this post on and off until, in 1650, he was again appointed on this board and held it until his death in 1686. He was also almost continuously deputy from the town of Duxbury which he repre- sented on the Colonial Councils. Though identified chiefly with the administrative duties belonging to times of peace, he was evidently not behindhand in times of war, joining not only in the councils of war, but being enrolled along with his two sons, John and Joseph, among the eighty Duxbury men forming its military organization. To his administrative abilities he added the qualities of piety and godliness, proven to all posterity forever by the imprint of his own pious thumb on his own Bible preserved in Plymouth Hall. That he must 138 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY have had a winning personality is rendered certain by the golden opinions which were current about him. Gentle and faithful in character, and the tallest and handsomest man in the colony. Such was the John Alden the world knew. The John Alden Priscilla knew we find, as portrayed by the imagination of the poet, more fascinating, if hardly so talented a being. As a hero of romance the all- consuming interest of his life is his love for Priscilla. He comes to America solely for the purpose of being near Priscilla, and having decided to be a loyal friend to Miles Standish and crush out his own love, he de- termines to sail back to England on the Mayflower — "Thinking to fly from despair, that swifter than keel is or canvas, Thinking to drown in the sea the ghost that would rise and pursue him. But as he gazed on the crowd, he beheld the form of Priscilla Standing dejected among them, unconscious of all that was passing. Fixed were her eyes upon his, as if she divined his intention, Fixed with a look so sad, so reproachful, imploring and patient, That with a sudden revulsion his heart recoiled from its purpose. As from the verge of a crag, where one step more is destruction. Strange is the heart of man, with its quick, mys- terious instincts! Strange is the life of man, and fatal or fated are moments. Whereupon turn, as on hinges, the gates of the wall adamantine ! IDYLS FROM HISTORY 139 'Here I remain!' he exclaimed, as he looked at the heavens above him, Thanking the Lord whose breath had scattered the mist and the madness, Wherein, blind and lost, to death he was stagger- ing headlong. 'Here for her sake will I stay, and like an invisible presence Hover around her forever, protecting, supporting her weakness ; Yes! as my foot was the first that stepped on this rock at the landing. So, with the blessing of God, shall it be the last at the leaving!' " Priscilla's history does not seem to have been writ- ten. It is merely recorded that Priscilla was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Mullins, and that she had one brother. They all came over in the Mayflower, accompanied by one servant. Father, mother and brother all died the first winter and Priscilla was left an orphan. Though the whole development of the love story and the portrayal of the feelings of the three char- acters in it are imaginary, the poet has taken what hints he found to build upon for the general presen- tation of the qualities distinguishing Miles Standish and John Alden. The portrayal of Miles is naturally more in tune with history than that of John. Even his ancestry and the injustice he suffered through not receiving his inheritance are cleverly brought in as reasons by John why Priscilla should admire him and accept the offer of his hand. John is so pre-eminently the handsome young lover, "fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate 140 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Saxon complexion," that the thought of him in the prosaic aspect of the backer in a financial way of the colony is wisely not brought forward. The his- torical setting to the love story is not slavishly accurate as to succession of events, but it is a wonderfully true picture of the life of the colony, divided between the exercise of piety, warfare with the Indians, and the building up of a means of livelihood. Many a local touch gives vraisemblance to the scenes described. For example, when Miles is called to the council of war, the voice of the elder is raised against war. "Judging it wise and well that some, at least, were converted," the sentiment actually expressed by John Robinson after the first encounter with the Indians, who wrote to the Colonists: "Oh, how happy a thing it had been if you had converted some before you had killed any." Again, when the Mayflower sails the poet describes how — "Mournfully sobbed the waves at the base of the rock, and above them Bowed and whispered the wheat on the hill of death, and their kindred Seemed to awake in their graves, and to join in the prayer that they uttered." This refers to the fact that in order that the In- dians should not know how many of the Pilgrims had died during the winter by counting their graves, they had the bank which was a little distance from Plym- outh Rock, where they were buried, leveled, and sown with grass. Priscilla's ride home from her wedding on a snow- white bull is also in keeping with the time, for heads IDYLS FROM HISTORY 141 of cattle were divided by lot among the settlers, and horses being scarce, cattle were pressed into service where otherwise horses would have been used. I have read somewhere in an account purporting to be historical that "when John Alden went to Cape Cod to marry Priscilla Mullins, he covered his bull with broadcloth and rode on his back; when he re- turned, he placed his wife there and led the bull home by the ring in his nose." It looks much as if the story about the bull had been derived from Longfellow's poem, but how Priscilla was transplanted to Cape Cod is a myster5^ She and John both lived in Plym- outh and were married there, though later they moved to Duxbury, as did also Miles Standish and various others who wished larger farmsteads. The name was given the settlement, of course, from Duxbury Hall, the ancestral home of Miles Standish. The up-to-date pilgrim taking his rapid way by train to Duxbury from Plymouth, will see not far from the station on the right, the second home built by John Alden in Duxbury, still occupied by descend- ants of John and Priscilla with the same names. Not far from the present house is a knoll marked by a slab where the first house stood. The scenery in the neighborhood is rural and peaceful. There are meadows and gardens, and wood lots, with houses of many types distributed about the landscape, from the old-time dwelling to the natty modern cottage. The monotony of level meadowland is varied every now and then by a hill or groups of hills, one such rise of the land protecting the Alden house from the sea- winds. Perhaps the most interesting features of the landscape are the eagle-trees, standing solitary in the 142 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY midst of swampy fields near the lake which is named from them "Eagle Lake." These ancient trees, which show in their gnarled and twisted branches their long endurance of ocean winds and cold, were once the favorite perches of eagles, now no longer to be found in this region. Those who have a penchant for historic old houses will like to enter the penetralia of the Alden house. In the days when this house was built, the kitchen fire was the altar of the household gods and around it the manifold occupations of the women inmates were car- ried on. In this instance the kitchen is a long nar- row room about twelve feet wide and forty feet long with a huge fireplace on one side. This room served not only as kitchen and dining-room, but as nursery, sewing-room and spinning-room. There also the family gathered about the fire in the evening. In many a New England cottage to-day the kitchen holds the same important place in the life of the house- hold, while the parlor is so cold and stuffy that it is rarely entered. In the Alden house, however, there are two other fine rooms, in which the family or guests might assemble. One, called in the olden times, the Great Room, with a fine large fireplace, which has, however, given place in later days to a wooden panel- ing and a small iron grate. A corner cupboard is built in one corner of the room, and near it is a panel of wood which may be raised, disclosing the date of the erection of the house, cut into the planking, 1653. Next the Great Room is another which was called the Best Room or parlor, of about the same size. In the hall is a curious ladder-like stairway over the chim- ney which leads to the sleeping-rooms above. The IDYLS FROM HISTORY 143 most interesting object upstairs is a door in the guest- room supposed to have been transferred from the first house built on the Duxbury farm, and which may have been made by John Alden himself, for it is said that he knew well how to use tools. The house occupied by Miles Standish in Duxbury no longer exists, but there is still standing one built by his son, Alexander, in which there are supposed to be timbers taken from the old house. Miles Stand- ish owned all the land to the south of Captain's Hill, where his monument now stands. The site of his barn is pointed out near a large rock called the Cap- tain's Chair. There is no more delectable spot in Duxbury than this hill with its wonderful view. Away off to the east are the white sandhills of Cape Cod, ghstening on sunlit days beyond the Italian blue of the ocean. Beach and lighthouse and sails make the foreground familiar in most sea-shore places, none of which, however, is without some distinctive individuality of its own. To the south across the bay is the promontory of Manomet, with the town of Plymouth below and the neighboring villages of Rocky Nook and Kingston. Inland, far to the north- west loom up the Milton Hills, with forest and fields for foreground, and the villages of Duxbury and Marshfield dotting the green rolling country with their white cottages. THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES "How has New England's romance fled. Even as a vision of the morning! Its rites foredone, its guardians dead. Its priestesses, bereft of dread. Waking the veriest urchin's scorning! Gone like the Indian wizard's yell And fire-dance round the magic rock. Forgotten like the Druid's spell At moonrise by his holy oak! No pale blue flame sends out its flashes Through creviced roof and shattered sashes! The witch-grass round the hazel spring May sharply to the night-air sing, But there no more shall withered hags Refresh at ease their broomstick nags. Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters As beverage meet for Satan's daughters; No more their mimic tones be heard. The mew of cat, the chirp of bird. Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after !'^ Whittier. IV THE two other important historical periods used by Longfellow in his poetry are those dealing with the Quaker persecution and with the withcraft persecution. "John Endicott" and "Giles Corey" are more avowedly than any of his other American poems, attempts to reconstruct important episodes in the nation's history, especially its religious history. They form the third part of his magnum opus, "Christus," the work more near to his heart than any- thing else he has written. The composition of it ex- tended over a period of thirty years. As early as November, 1841, he notes in his journal: "This even- ing it has come into my mind to undertake a long and elaborate poem by the holy name of "Christ"; the theme of which would be the various aspects of Chris- tendom in the Apostolic, Middle and Modern Ages." It was not until 1873 that the work was pubhshed in its completed form. The middle portion, "The Golden Legend," appeared first in December, 1851 ; the third portion, "The New England Tragedies," in- cluding the two plays, "John Endicott" and "Giles Corey," in October, 1868, and the first portion, "The Divine Tragedy," was the last pubhshed, in 1871. "John Endicott" follows closely the contemporary 147 148 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY records of the Quaker persecution in Boston. The names are historical with the exception of Edith, the daughter of Wenlock Christison, who is an imaginary person in her relationship to Wenlock, no daughter of his being mentioned in the records. The tale of her woes and the undaunted religious strength of her character are, however, paralleled by many a one of maltreated Quakeresses of the day. The part of John Endicott, son of Governor Endicott, is also imagi- nary. Longfellow has intensified artistically the situation by making him sympathize with the Quakers and fall in love with Edith. The poet derived most of his subject-matter from Besse's account of the sufferings of the Quakers, a record of man's brutality forming a chapter in hu- man annals so dark as to be almost incomprehensible. This book was published in London, 1753, and was based upon original records of the persecutions, not only in New England, but in England, Ireland, Scot- land, Germany and divers other places where the so- called heresy had penetrated. Herein it is related how in July of 1656, "Two women of that persuasion [Quakers] arrived in a vessel from Barbadoes in the road before Boston. Intelligence of their arrival being given to Richard Bellingham, the Deputy Governor (the Governor himself being out of town), he immediately ordered them to be detained on board and sent officers who searched their trunks and chests and took away one hundred books which they carried on shore. The danger which was apprehended from the arrival of these women and the spreading of their books, pro- duced the following order: NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 149 " 'Whereas, there are several laws long since made and published in this jurisdiction, bearing testimony against Hereticks and erroneous Persons, yet not- withstanding Simon Kempthome of Charles-Town, Master of the ship Swallow of Boston, hath brought into this Jurisdiction, from the Island of Barbadoes, two women, who name themselves Anne, the Wife of one Austin, and Mary Fisher, being of that Sort of People commonly known by the name of Quakers, who, upon examination, are foimd not only to be Transgressors of the former Laws, but do hold very dangerous heretical and blasphemous opinions, and they do also acknowledge that they came here pur- posely to propagate their said Errors and Heresies, bringing with them and spreading here sundry books, wherein are contained most corrupt, Heretical and blasphemous Doctrines, contrary to the Truth of the Gospel here professed among us. The council, therefore, tendring the Preservation of the Peace and Truth enjoyed and professed among Churches of Christ in this Country, do hereby order: " 'First, That all such corrupt Books, as shall be found upon Search, to be brought in and spread by the aforesaid Persons, be forthwith burned and de- stroyed by the common Executioner. " 'Secondly, That the said Anne and Mary be kept in close Prison, and none admitted communica- tion with them without leave from the Governor, Deputy Governor or two magistrates, to prevent the spreading of their corrupt opinions, until such Time as they be delivered aboard of some vessel to be trans- ported out of the country. " 'Thirdly, The said Simon Kempthorne is here- 150 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY by enjoined, speedily and directly to transport or cause to be transported, the said prisoners from hence to Barbadoes, from whence they came, defraying all the charges of their Imprisonment, and for the effect- ual Performance hereof, he is to give Security in a Bond of one Hundred Pounds Sterling, and on his Refusal to give such Security, he is to be committed to Prison till he do it.' " The women were imprisoned and so badly treated that "their case excited the compassion of Nicholas Upshall, an old inhabitant in Boston, and a member of the church there, so that he gave the goaler five shillings a week for the liberty of sending them pro- visions, lest they should be starved." In Longfellow's drama, Edith is among the Quaker passengers on the Swallow, and is harbored with Edward Wharton, under the hospitable roof of Nicholas Upshall, whence they are rudely carried off to prison. Another record gives an account of this arrest of Edward Wharton: "Anon they met with Edward Wharton in their search at Nicholas Up- shall's house, and questioned him, whether he was not one that spake at the Quaker's Meeting? He de- manded of them. What they had to do to examine him? We have a Warrant, said they. Let me see it, said he. When they showed it, he told them. His name was not in it. You shall go before the Gov- ernor, said the Constable. But Edward refused to go without a Warrant. Upon that the Constable drew out his black staff and said, Here is my War- rant. Then they dragged him by Violence out of the House, and led him away to the Governor's: The Governor, though he knew Edward full well, and o > H S a; ^ ■ o 42 « NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 151 that he was an inhabitant of the Colony, a Tradesman of good Circumstances, and a reputable Housekeep- er, yet presently told him, He should suffer as a Vag- abond: To which Edward replied, I defy the Life of a Vagabond: That Law is a wicked Law, and very wicked and unrighteous Men are they that cause those who fear the Lord to suffer by such a wicked Law. But his Plea availed not: The Governor, resolved on Rigour, turned the deaf Ear to all his Reasoning, and issued the following Warrant, viz. : " 'To the Constable of Boston, or his Deputy, and of Lynn, and his Deputy: " 'You are hereby required, in his Majesty's Name, to commit the Body of Edward Wharton to safe Cus- tody till the next Morning, and then to take him out of Prison, and cause him to be tied to a Cart's Tail, and whipped through this Town, and delivered to the Constable of Lynn, to be alike whipped, and by him to be carried to Salem, the Place of his Abode, from whence as a Vagabond he hath strayed, and re- fused to give a satisfactory answer for such a vagrant Life: Whereof you are not to fail. Dated the 4th of May, 1664. " 'John Endicott.' " The trial of Wenlock Christison is given with lively dramatic force in this old book, and furnished for the poet important material for the developing of the characters of both Wenlock and Endicott. As this rare book does not come to the hands of many read- ers, we transcribe the trial scene — as a curious bit of literature showing how insanely unjust really reputa- 152 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ble people could be when obsessed by any form of fanaticism. Trial of Wenlock Christison. But above all most eminently remarkable was the Christian courage and magnanimity of Wenlock Christison, who having been banished on pain of death, not only returned as it were with his life in his hands to Boston, but openly came into the court there at the time when they were passing sentence of death uj)on William Leddra. His appearance there struck the Court with a sudden damp and consterna- tion, so that for some time there was a general silence. But, anon, recovering themselves, they ordered him to be brought to the bar. The marshall bid him pull off his hat. Wenlock. No, I shall not. Secretary Eawson. Is not your name Wenlock Christison? Wenlock. Yes. Governor Endicott. Wast not thou banished upon pain of Death? Wenlock. Yes, I was. Governor, What dost thou here then? Wenlock. I am come to warn you, that you should shed no more innocent blood; for the blood that you have shed already, cries to the Lord for Vengeance to come upon you. Whereupon the Governor ordered to take him into custody. On the day that William Leddra was executed, the Court sat again, and thinking to terrify Wenlock by the Example of William's Death, sent for him; when NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 158 both the Governor Endicott and his Deputy Belling- ham endeavoured to daunt that valiant confessor with bloody Menaces, telling him, that Except he would renounce his religion he should surely die. But he, not at all dismayed, answered thus, Nay, I shall not change my Religion, nor seek to save my life : neither do I intend to deny my master, but if I love my life for Christ's Sake, and the preaching of the Gospel, I shall save it. This undaunted reply so struck them for the present that after a few words they sent him to prison again, there to be kept till the next Court. At the next Court the Governor asked him what he had to say for himself why he should not die? Wenlock. I have done nothing worthy of death; if I had I refuse not to die. Governor. Thou art come in among us in Re- bellion, which is as the Sin of Witch-craft and ought to be punished. Wenlock, I came not in among you in Rebellion, but in Obedience to the God of Heaven; not in Con- tempt to any of you, but in Love to your Souls and Bodies : and that you shall know one Day, when you and all Men must give an Account of your Deeds done in the body. Take heed, for you cannot es- cape the righteous judgments of God. Major-General Adderton. You pronounce woes and judgments, and those that are gone before you pronounce woes and judgments; but the judgments of the Lord God are not come upon us yet. Wenlock. Be not proud, neither let your Spirits be lifted up; God doth but wait till the measure of your Iniquity be filled up, and that you have run your ungodly Race, then will the Wrath of God come 154 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY upon you to the uttermost: And as for thy past it hangs over thy Head, and is near to be poured down upon thee, and shall come as a thief in the night sud- denly, when thou thinkest not of it. By what Law will ye put me to death? Court, We have a Law, and by our Law you are to die. Wenlock. So said the Jews of Christ. We have a Law, and by our Law he ought to die. Who em- powered you to make that Law? Court, We have a patent, and are Patentees. Judge whether we have not Power to make Laws? Wenlock, How? Have you Power to make Laws repugnant to the Laws of England? Governor, Nay. Wenlock, Then you are gone beyond your Bounds, and have forfeited your Patent, and this is more than you can answer. Are you Subjects to the King, yea, or nay? Secretary Rawson. What will you infer from that, what good will that do you? Wenlock. If you are, say so ; for in your Petition to the King, you desire that he will protect you and that you may be worthy to kneel among his loyal Sub- jects. Court, Yes. Wenlock. So am I, and for any thing I know, am as good as you, if not better; for if the King did but know your Hearts, as God knows them, he would see that your Hearts are as rotten towards him, as they are towards God. Therefore, seeing that you and I are Subjects to the King, I demand to be tried by the Law of my own Nation. NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 155 Court, You shall be tried by a Bench and a Jury. Wenloch. That is not the Law, but the Manner of it; for if you will be as good as your Word, you must set me at Liberty, for I never heard or read of any Law that was in England to hang Quakers. Governor. There is a law to hang Jesuits. Wenlock. If you put me to Death, it is not be- cause I go under the name of a Jesuit, but a Quaker, therefore I do appeal to the Laws of my own Nation. Court. You are in our Hands, and have broken our Laws, and we will try you. Wenlock. Your Will is your Law, and what you have Power to do, that you will do. And seeing that the Jury must go forth on my Life, this I have to say to you in the Fear of the Living God, That you will true Trial make, and just Verdict give, according to the Evidence. Jury, look for your Evidence: What have I done to deserve Death? Keep your Hands out of innocent Blood. A Juryman. It is good Counsel. The Jury went out, but having received their Les- son, soon returned and brought in their Verdict Guilty. Wenloch. I deny all Guilt, for my Conscience is clear in the Sight of God. Governor. The Jury hath condemned thee. Wenlock. The Lord doth justify me, who art thou that condemnest? Then the Court proceeded to vote as to the Sentence of Death, to which several of them, viz., Richard Rus- sell and others, would not consent, the Innocence and Steadfastness of the Man having prevailed upon them in his Favour. There happened also a circumstance 156 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY during this Trial, which could not but affect Men of any Tenderness or Consideration, which was, that a Letter was sent to the Court from Edward Wharton, signifying. That, whereas, they had banished him on pain of Death, yet he was at Home in his own House in Salem, and therefore proposing That they would take off their wicked Sentence from him, that he might go about his Occasions out of their Jurisdiction. This Circumstance, however affecting to others, did only enrage Endicott, the Governor, who was very much displeased, and in much anger cried out, I could find it in my heart to go Home. Wenlock. It were better for thee to be at Home than here, for thou art about a bloody piece of Work. Governor. You that will not consent, record it. I thank God I am not afraid to give Judgment. Wen- lock Christison, hearken to your Sentence : You must return unto the Place from whence you came, and from thence to the Place of Execution, and there you must be hanged until you be dead, dead, dead, upon the 13th Day of June, being the Fifth day of the Week. Wenlock. The Will of the Lord be done: In whose Will I came amongst you, and in his Counsel I stand, feeling his Eternal Power, that will uphold me unto the last Gasp, I do not question it. Known be it unto you all. That if you have 'Power to take my Life from me, my Soul shall enter into Ever- lasting Rest and Peace with God, where you, your- selves, shall never come: And if you have Power to take my Life from me, the which I do question, I be- lieve you shall nevermore take Quakers' Lives from them: [Note my Words.] Do not think to weary NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 157 out the Living God by taking away the Lives of his Servants: What do you gain by it? For the last Man you put to Death, here are five come in his Room, that you may have Torment upon Torment, which is your Portion: For there is no Peace to the Wicked, saith my God. Governor. Take him away. So the Goaler had him back to Prison, where he continued in Faith and Patience, ready to abide the good Pleasure of God concern- ing him, and to suffer Death for a good Con- science, as his Brethren had done before him. But before the Day appointed for his Execution, an Order of Court (probably occasioned by some Intel- ligence from London, of Complaints against them) was issued for the Enlargement of him and twenty- seven others then in Prison for the same Testimony : When one of the Marshals and a Constable came to the Prison, and told them, they were ordered by the Court to make them acquainted with their New Law, Wenlock Christison said. What means this? Have ye a New Law? They answered, Yes. Then said Wenlock, You have deceived most People. Why? said they. Because, said Wenlock, they did think the Gallows had been your last Weapon : Have you got more yet? Yes, said they. Read it, says Wenlock ; which they did. Then Wenlock said, Your Magistrates said, that your Law was a good and wholesome Law, made for your Peace, and the Safe- guard of your Country. What! Are your Hands now become weak? The Power of God is over you all. Then the Prison-doors were set open, and Wen- lock, with twenty-seven others, turned forth, of whom 158 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Peter Pearson and Judith Brown were whipt with twenty cruel Stripes through the Town of Boston, on their naked Backs: Many of their Mouths were opened, and they pubhshed the Truth among the People. A Guard armed with Swords was appoint- ed by the Court to drive them all out of that Jurisdic- tion into the Wilderness Country, which they per- formed accordingly. Norton, the divine, who figures in the opening meeting-house scene, was one of the most intolerant of the Puritans in his denunciation of the Quakers. He wrote a small book, published in Cambridge, 1659, and in London 1560, still to be found in libraries in its original editions, of which the title and headings of chapters alone, are enough to show the temper of the book. Here is the title : "The Heart of New England Rent at the Blas- phemies of the present Generation Or a brief trac- tate Concerning the Doctrine of the Quakers, Dem- onstrating the destructive nature thereof, to Religion, the Churches, and the State; with consideration of the Remedy against it. Occasional Satisfaction to Objections, and Confirmation of the contrary Truth." The contents show the lines o^rgument taken up, which it is unnecessary to say are dwelt upon at weari- some and unconvincing length spite of the slimness of the little volume. "Chapter I. The Original of the Doctrine of the Quakers, with some of their principal Heterodoxies. A Brief Demonstration of three Distinct Persons in NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 159 the Divine Essence. Satisfactions to some Objec- tions, and a vindication of some Scriptures. "Chapter II. Of the Signal Nature of the Quakers and other false Teachers, arising and pre- vailing among the people of God. "Chapter III. Of the Destructiveness of the Doctrine and Practise of the Quakers unto Religion, the Churches of Christ, and Christian States. "Chapter IV. Of the Remedy against Heretical Doctrines, and in particular against the Doctrine of the Quakers." The sentence passed upon Edith by the Court that she be "Scourged in three towns, with forty stripes save one. Then banished upon pain of death!" is one only too frequently recorded. The shocking tale of the repeated cruelty practised upon Elizabeth Horton is especially suggestive of Edith's fate: "Elizabeth Horton, who notwithstanding all the cruel usage she had sustained, was nothing terrified, but returned again to Boston, and there publickly warned the People of Repentance, and of the terri- ble Day of the Lord, which would otherwise overtake them : This Message of hers was received with Scorn, her godly admonitions rejected, and she herself sent to the House of Correction, and there whipt at a whipping-post with ten Stripes; thence she was sent to Roxbury, and there whipt at a Cart's Tail, and from thence to Dedham, where the same cruel Pun- ishment was repeated: Thence she was had to Med- 160 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY field, and the same night hurried into the Wilderness, and there left to pass above twenty Miles with her body thus miserably torn and mangled, in an extreme cold Season." In depicting the character of Governor Endicott, Longfellow evidently depended largely upon the ac- counts given of him in "New England Judged by the Spirit of the Lord," a book dealing with the Quaker persecution, by George Bishop and printed in London in 1703. According to this. Governor Endi- cott had been much beloved by some of the very peo- ple he afterwards persecuted. A letter from a former neighbor of his, John Smith, in Salem, bears witness to this. In the course of this letter he exclaims : "Oh! my spirit is grieved for thee, because that the love I did once see in thee, is departed from thee, and there remaineth in thee a spirit of cruelty, of hard- heartedness to thy poor neighbours, which thou hast formerly been much beholden to, and relieved by in time of want, when thou hadst no bread to eat. Oh! Consider of these times, and forget them not, and of the love thou didst find amongst poor people in thy necessity, and how evil thou hast dealt, and requited some of them now, and how thou didst walk and act contrary to what thou didst formerly profess; yea, I have heard thee say: 'That all the armies on earth cannot subdue one lust in man or woman;' and now thou pronouncest sentence of death upon some, be- cause they cannot submit to your wills, nor worship as ye do." And again he is spoken of as "A man who formerly had some tenderness in him and who had degenerated into hardness and cruelty, a cruelty which Longfellow makes him show even to his son." NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 161 It is certainly a strange circumstance that just as the Quakers were constantly predicting, judgment apparently did fall upon those men who seemed fair- ly to have lost their reason in their treatment of alien religionists. Of Endicott it is written, soon after signing a war- rant for the barbarous whipping of Edward Wharton, "But as for John Endicott, your cruel and unmerciful governor, he fought no more bloody battles with the people of the Lord, but as if this were the comple- ment of his miserable tragedy, or the height of all that which he travailed with during the days of his government, which showed consummate or complete his wickedness, or fill up the measure of his iniquity, rapine, cruelty, and blood, and that which should sum up all the end of his days and the measure of his iniquity, he died not long after, the hand of the Lord struck him off." Among others suddenly "struck off" and referred to by Longfellow were Humphrey Adderton ( Ather- ton), "who vaunted concerning the Judgments of God, saying, 'They were not come yet,' and said, 'That Mary Dyer hung as a flag of warning,' was killed by a fall off his horse." "John Davenport, a member of their church, and captain of their castle near Boston, being laid upon his bed in the heat of the day, the hand of the Lord in a strange manner, with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, in a moment smote him to death, it is testified he never spoke more." And John Norton, "one of their Chief Priests, a principal Exciter of the Magistrates to persecute the innocent and put them to Death, was cut off by a 162 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY sudden and unexpected Stroke, for having been at his worship in the fore part of the Day, and intend- ing to go thither again in the afternoon, as he was walking in his own House, he was observed to fetch a great groan, and leaning his Head against the Chimney-piece, was heard to say. The Hand, or Judg- ment of the Lord is upon me, and so sunk down and spake no more, and had fallen into the Fire, had not an ancient man then present prevented it." Bellingham, also, "having completed the Measure of his Iniquity, ended his Government with his Life, being bereft of his understanding and dying dis- tracted." Those who care to do so may read of the unheard- of calamities subsequently falling upon New Eng- land in Cotton Mather's History. It is not improbable that when the craze for cruelty, and brutality began to wear itself out, there was an awakening of the conscience, and an overwhelming, sickening sense of the barbarousness which had sig- nalized this religious persecution. Irritating the Quakers were, no doubt. Banishment was a perfect- ly ineffective weapon against them, because they per- sisted, in fact, took a particular delight in disobeying the sentence of banishment. Under these circum- stances the Governor justified himself upon the ground that they themselves rushed upon their death. We can easily imagine that if the Salvation Army should march up the aisle of an Episcopal church to- day with drums and cymbals beating, and banners flying, and insist that the minister in the pulpit had a darkened understanding and that the leaders alone knew the truth — we can imagine the congregation's NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 163 demanding that such a disturbance of its peace should be immediately stopped. In that long ago time, to irritation was added the fear that the rock of truth upon which the church stood might be swept away. The lesson had not yet been learned that a new view of truth is but another view, and that the same truth may be ap- proached from different sides by different natures. Yet this very outbreak of fanaticism was to help a long way toward the learning of the lesson. If we could have known the soul of Governor Endicott, we should know that it was awakening to larger light, and this is indeed the lesson which the poet means to emphasize in the closing words of the Governor: "Speak no more. For as I listen to your voice it seems As if the Seven Thunders uttered their voices. And the dead bodies lay about the streets Of the disconsolate city. Bellingham, I did not put those wretched men to death. I did but guard the passage with the sword Pointed towards them, and they rushed upon it! Yet now I would that I had taken no part In all that bloody work." So he was saved. If the Quaker persecution was difficult to compre- hend, the witch delusion was still more extraordinary. How did it happen that men of brains and culture, doctors, clergymen, even a man like Cotton Mather, should have let themselves be duped by a parcel of children, when a simple-minded woman like Martha Corey should have seen so clearly the imposture of it all, and though brought up against learning and 164 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY piety and accusation stoutly maintained until the last her disbelief in witches ? Why should her psychology have been so much in advance of that of the rest of the community? After the wiseacres of the town had tortured and hung and imprisoned innocent human beings in their attempts to exorcise the Devil, they suddenly woke up, and came to the point of view of Martha. Goodwife Corey should certainly be re- garded as marking an important step in the evolu- tion of consciousness. Longfellow's play is modeled closely upon the facts in the Salem tragedy of 1692. There is Giles, the testy, ill-tempered man, but with a good heart, who has but lately become a Christian, and is trying hard to repent from the errors of his way. He, like most of his associates, is full of a belief in witch- craft. There is Martha, his wife, a sweet, affection- ate woman, of sound brain and heart, who refuses to believe in witchcraft, and never hesitates to say that priest and magistrate were alike deluded. There is Gloyd, the disgruntled servant of Corey; Hathorne, the blindly superstitious magistrate, and Cotton Mather, who was a firm believer in the "Wonders of the Invisible World," as his book proves, but who also believed that accusations and condemnations should not be made in too great haste. Finally there is Mary Walcot and Tituba, the slave woman, with whom the savage but fortunately brief craze origi- nated. Jonathan Walcot and Gardner, the friend, are imaginary "walking gentlemen," the latter being merely a foil to bring out more emphatically the true nobleness of Giles Corey's nature. When it comes to the supreme test, Gardner tries to persuade him NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 165 to perjure himself by confessing he has had dealings with the Devil, but this sturdy old fellow of eighty refuses to accept any loophole of escape, though he is to suffer the horrible torture of being pressed to death. We explain this delusion to-day by saying that it is based upon the complex phenomena of trance, insanity and hypnotism, but no one can read the facts in the case without realizing that love of power, of display, and enmity had a large share in the development of the delusion. The ''afflicted children" declared they were bewitched through the agency of others in league with the Devil, but as a matter of fact it was their own evil natures which were in league with the powers of evil. The trouble started in Salem Village, the county seat of Salem Town. It was five miles off and is now Danvers Centre, so the curious visitor who would like to see the house where witchcraft started must take a trip thither. It was at the home of the Rev. Samuel Parris, who had become, in 1688, the pastor of the New Church, in 1671 separated from the First Church. It is said that his lust for power was one of the underlying sources of the witch persecution. At any rate, he was not only one of the most implacable of the per- secutors, but it was because of practices allowed in his own home that the delusion reached such terrifying proportions. The facts in the case are briefly as follows:* Mr. Parris had in his household at Salem several 166 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY slaves. Two of them were John Indian and his wife, Tituba, natives of South America, who were saturated with the superstitions of their race, and with whom the young girls in the neighborhood had mysterious interviews. During the winter of 1691-92, a circle of girls was formed, who used to come regularly to the parsonage for the purpose of practising the arts of palmistry and magic. In addition to Tituba, the names of eleven girls are given who were members of the circle. Elizabeth Parris was the daughter of the minister. Although only nine years old she took a leading part in the early stages of the affair. Abigail Williams, her cousin, eleven years of age, lived in Mr. Parris's family, and from first to last was one of the most audacious in her accusations. Anne Putnam, twelve years of age, the daughter of the Parish Clerk, must have been a child of astonishing precocity, her prom- inence throughout having made her very memory odious. Mary Walcott was the daughter of the nearest neighbor. Mercy Lewis, seventeen years of age, was a servant girl. These were the most promi- nent, but the whole circle, including some older women, seemed to move with entire unanimity in acts of reckless presumption and appalling malignity. In the course of the winter this circle became adepts in the art of "unaccountable behaviors," such as creeping slyly into holes, dropping unconscious on the floor, making antic and unnatural gestures, writhing in dreadful contortions and uttering piercing outcries. The community was aroused. What could be the matter with them? Dr. Gregg, the village physician, was called in. What could a man who knew nothing NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 167 about psychology, with generations of superstition be- hind him, do, but just what he did?— declare them under an evil hand ; they were bewitched. The whole country became alarmed at this professional decision. Multitudes thronged in to witness the tremendous convulsions of the "afflicted children," who natural- ly played up more and more to the part which was expected of them. An account is given by Mr. Law- son of his experience one Sunday when he preached in the meeting-house : "There were sundry of the afflicted persons at meet- ing. They had several sore fits in the time of public worship, which did something interrupt me in my first prayer, being so unusual. After psalms was sung, Abigail Williams said to me, 'Now, stand up and name your text!' And, after it was read, 'It is a long text!' In the beginning of sermon, Mrs. Pope, a woman afflicted, said to me, 'I know no doctrine you had; if you did name one I forgot it.' In sermon time, M^hen Goodwife C. [orey] was present, Abigail Williams called out, 'Look where Goodwife C. sits in her beam — ^her yellow bird betwixt her fingers!' Anne Putnam, another girl afflicted, said, 'There was a yellow bird sat on my hat as it hung .on the .pin in the pulpit!' But those that were by restrained her from speaking loud about it." Mr. Parris was so much troubled that he summoned all the neighboring ministers to his own house. Then they spent a day in fasting and prayer, in view of these strange dispensations. The children went through their various performances for the benefit of the ministers, who were duly amazed. They solemn- ly reaffirmed the opinion of Dr. Gregg. They de- 168 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY clared it to be their full belief that the Evil One had confederates in that community, bewitching these poor girls. Wild excitement ensued upon this decision. Since the Devil could operate upon human affairs only through the instrumentality of human beings in league with himself, the burning question became "Who are those among us in league with him af- flicting these girls?" Finally the girls began indi- cating who the people were. All that were accused were arrested and thrown into prison, and if they would not confess themselves to be in league with the Devil, they were sentenced to be hung. "Gallows Hill," says a recent writer, "still haunts the western borders of Salem, a grim spectre of the dreadful Past. Around its base have clustered the factories and homes of a thriving population, and their 'buildings begin to ascend its rocky sides. But the bald and ancient top continues to affront the open sky. Our eye cannot run up that rocky height without recalling to our 'heart the most appalling event of Colonial history. There, looming against the summer clouds of 1692, nineteen innocent persons were hanged by the neck until they were dead." Such was the prologue to the accusation of Giles Corey and his wife. When Martha Corey was first arraigned for witch- craft, Giles was a firm believer in it. She, however, was one of the two or three persons who had both sense and boldness to declare that she did not believe there were any witches. A committee from the church called upon her with suspicions aroused be- cause of the outcries of the "afflicted children." She o y. ^ o 5^ ^ n tf JJ NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES 169 received them cordially and told them she knew they had come to talk to her about being a witch, but that she was not one. But her shape continued to haunt the girls. She was brought before the magistrate and in spite of all her virtues she was promptly com- mitted. While undergoing her final trial, with serene and firm composure she reasserted her disbelief in the delusion. All the wiles of the crafty girls could not confound her, and she listened to her sentence with her heart undismayed by the terrors it denounced. She was, therefore, excommunicated, and at length carried to the scaffold, where, as Calef relates, "Mar- tha Corey, protestmg her innocence, concluded her life with an eminent prayer upon the ladder." The last we hear of her in Longfellow's play is in her cell, singing, where her husband hears her from his cell. The poet has worked up in a dream of Martha's a paper written by Giles Corey himself. In the dream her husband was to testify against her, and later in her trial the dream comes true in so far that her husband's testimony was damaging to her without his intending it. It was evidently thought that this paper might be used against Martha. But it was realized that there was nothing damaging to Martha in it, for though it shows that Giles believed himself and everything about him bewitched, he was not will- ing to say that his own wife was the witch. Here is the paper: "The evidence of Giles Corey testifieth and saith that last Saturday evening, sitting by the fire, my wife asked me to go to bed. I told her I would go to prayer, and when I went to prayer I could not utter my desires with any sense, nor open my mouth to 170 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY speak. My wife did perceive it and came toward me, and said she was coming to me. After this, in a little space, I did according to my measure attend the duty. Some time last week I fetched an ox, well, out of the woods, about noon, and .he laying down in the yard I went to raise him, to yoke him, but he could not rise, but dragged his hinder parts as if he had been hip-shot. But after did rise. Another time, going to my duties, I was interrupted for a space, but after- wards I was helped according to my poor measure. My wife hath been wont to set up after I went to bed; and I have perceived her to kneel down on the hearth, as if she was at prayer, but heard nothing." The accusations of witchcraft against Giles Corey were intensified by local eimiities against him. The story runs that in the winter of 1676 a hired man named Goodell fell sick at his house. He was at length carried home to his friends by Goodwife Corey. Soon after he died. It was whispered about that he had come to his death in consequence of an awful flogging, given him in a passion by Corey. Corey was brought to trial for murder. He was ac- quitted. John Gloyd, another laborer on his farm, was a man of sullen temper. They had fallen out with each other a number of times, but, in 1678, a quarrel between them about wages had grown so fierce that they resorted to law. The case was, how- ever, taken out of court, and put into the hands of referees mutually chosen. It was decided against Corey by the voice of John Proctor, who was the friend of Gloyd. Corey expressed himself satisfied. A short time after this, one morning before daylight, Proctor's house topk fire and was burned to the NEW ENGLAND TR AGEDIE S 171 ground. Corey was accused of setting it on fire, he was indicted for trial, but incontestable evidence proved an alibi and he was triumphantly acquitted. In order to put an end to the calumnies flying about in regard to him, Corey now instituted proceedings against a number of witnesses for defamation of character, and recovered damages against all of them. When his trial for witchcraft came on, his past record was made the most of, as Longfellow shows. Giles was examined in the meeting-house. "Giles Corey," said Hathorne, the magistrate, "you are brought before authority upon high suspicion of sun- dry acts of witchcraft. Now tell us the truth in the matter." "I hope through the goodness of God I shall, for that matter I never had no hand in, in my life." The "afflicted children," however, proved him a witch on the spot by .affirming that he had troubled them and by going off into spasms and awful convulsions. According to the records, "Giles Corey was, by an old Enghsh law, put to a most cruel death. When arraigned before the Court he refused to plead or to answer questions, for he knew what his fate would be in either case. The .usage in England was to give the recusant three separate opportunities to plead, each time announcing the dread penalty of continued contumacy. After the third trial if he still remained speechless he was remanded to prison, with the sen- tence of peine forte et dure. He would then be thrown upon his back, and weights of stone or iron would be piled upon him. There he would be kept sometimes for days, the weights gradually increasing until the sufferer had consented to plead, or had been 172 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY pressed to death." It is said that Giles Corey told them it was no use for them to expect him to plead, and that they might as well pile on the rocks at once, "and so they did, and so he died." •Soon after this, the awakening came. The girls became too audacious and accused a lady known in all the region around for her graces — the wife of Rev. Mr. Hale of Beverly. He had, himself, been a per- secutor of witches, but to have his wife come under the ban was more than even his credulity could ac- cept. "He turned, at once, his powerful influence against the current. The accusers had perjured themselves. This conviction spread suddenly through the community. The people had been duped. It was all a mistake. The wild storm quelled. In a moment that mortal delirium was checked. The whole delusion vanished." Salem was so horror-stricken upon coming into its right mind that there are few traditions and few relics to lend their embellishment to the tale. The grim records were in the old meeting-house where the unco' pious Mr. Parris held forth, and where had been the scene of so many insane witch trials. The visitor to Salem will probably continue to gaze with curiosity upon the witch pins preserved in the Court House. Just common ^pins ! but diabolical enough was their use, for the witches of Salem, like witches from time immemorial, were in the habit of making puppets like the persons they wished to in- jure. Jabbing pins into the puppets was a sure way of afliicting the bewitched person. The only witchcraft exercised by Salem now is upon the pocketbook of the summer person, who has NEW ENGLAND TR AGEDIE S 173 a fad for souvenir spoons, and a taste for the delect- able confection made there, and known as the Salem Gibraltar — a delicious compound of softness and pep- permint. Coins large and small fly from their hiding places when coming into proximity with these luxuries. THE LORE OF HIAWATHA *^Long ere the shores of green America Were touched hy men of Norse and Saxon hlood. What time the Continent in silence lay, A solemn realm of forest and of flood. Where Nature wantoned wild in zones immensey Unconscious of her own magnificence; "Then to the savage race, who knew no world Beyond the hunter^s lodge, the council-fire. The clouds of grosser sense were sometimes furled. And spirits came to answer their desire, — The spirits of the race, grotesque and shy; Exaggerated powers of earth and sky. "For Gods resemble whom they govern: they. The fathers of the soil, may not outgrow The children's vision. In that earlier day. They stooped the race familiarly to know; From Heaven's blue prairies they descended, then. And took the shapes and shared the lives of rnen.* Bayard Taylor. IN turning to Indian stories for subject-matter for his poetry, Longfellow has done our literature a lasting service by adopting into it an entire- ly new range of folk-lore. It is often remarked that we can never have a distinctively American literature because we have no folk-lore of our own. Where is the culture-race that does possess a folk-lore exclu- sively its own? The French writers have either harked back to the classics or adopted the legends of Normandy or Brittany; the English writers have either harked back to the classics or adopted Celtic and Welsh legends into their literature. Push back the history of any people far enough and it will be found adopting into its literature, whether oral or written, the tales of aboriginal or previous inhabitants. The Indian lore is the lore of the soil, and when used as subject-matter by an American writer is just as much American literature as his descriptions of the wonderful scenery of the country, and it must per- force bring a new note into literature, and in that sense be American — since it exists nowhere else in the literature of culture. It was some time before the highly civilized con- querors of the Indians discovered that these "untu- tored" savages possessed any imagination whatever, and still longer before they began taking down from 177 178 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY the lips of Indians the stories and myths which circu- lated among them at their wigwam firesides. Paul Le Jeune, who was one of the first Jesuit mis- sionaries to the Indian tribes, who yet remained near the island of Hochelaga, in the St. Lawrence, in 1637, over a hundred years after Cartier's first visit to them in 1535, was "surprised" to observe that the natives were in the habit of entertaining themselves by fanci- ful tales, which, in a people who made war and hunt- ing their boast, constituted a curious branch of mental phenomena. At another time he wrote: "I think the savages, in point of intellect, may be placed in a high rank. Education and instruction alone are wanting. The powers of the mind operate with fa- cility and effect. The Indians I can well compare to some of our own villagers who are left without in- struction. Yet I have scarcely seen any person who has come from France to this country, who does not acknowledge that the savages have more intellect or capacity than most of our own peasantry." Other testimony of a like character came from French missionaries, one of the most appreciative of them being Charlevoix, who wrote: "The beauty of their imagination equals its vivacity, which appears in all their discourse: they are very quick at repartee, and their harangues are full of shining passages, which would have been applauded at Rome or Athens. Their eloquence has a strength, nature and pathos, which no art can give, and which the Greeks admired in the barbarians." These tribes were supposed to be the descendants of those M^ho were at the head of the celebrated Iroquois Confederacy. This league of the Five Nations was fashioned much like the Greek THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 179 Amphictyonic League. The union was a real and practical one, yet each of the five allied tribes was left with its individual rights. It is a matter of moment to us that the Indians were so conscious of the su- periority of their form of government that they actu- ally urged upon the colonies in 1774, just trembling on the verge of becoming a Republic, the advantages of their system. To the myths current among this Iroquois nation Longfellow went for most of his material, which, as he himself explains, he found recorded in the various and voluminous works of Schoolcraft, who, having married an Indian wife, was in an excellent position to collect them from the oral traditions of the Indians among whom he lived for many years. Since his day collectors of Indian folk-lore have multiplied until, at the present time, every scrap of wisdom and fancy to be gleaned from this rapidly disappearing and reti- cent race is seized upon with the greatest eagerness. It is impossible often to persuade them to allow their oral tales to be written down. They have learned greatly to fear the intentions of the white man, but modern science, the conqueror of all things, overcomes the difficulty by prevailing upon the unsuspecting In- dian to talk in front of a phonograph, from which he is separated by a light screen. Amid this mass of material now being accumulated, there will doubtless be found much to the taste of future poets. Longfellow worked at the raw stuff of Indian legend as he did at everything else, in a simple roman- tic spirit, modeling it always with a view to making an interesting story. Sometimes weaving together separate tales, at another lopping off redundant ele- 180 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ments, and again, expanding and embellishing with his own imaginative exfoliations, he has succeeded in "Hiawatha" in producing a marvellously unified series of pictures in the life of this Indian hero, who, among his own creators, was endowed with so hetero- geneous a collection of virtues and faults that he might easily stand as the prototype of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The poet has done this, too, without abating one jot of the fascination that usually clings about the exploits of a recklessly mischievous person in romance. There were two accounts of the great Indian hero, half-god, half-human, to draw upon. Among the Algonquins he was known as Manabozho, and was evidently more of a cosmic myth than anything else, with survivals of earlier animistic conceptions; for besides engaging in battles with his foes, especially Pau-Puk-Keewis, that suggest the wind and the storm, he was, as a God, known under the name of the Great White Hare. As a man he understood the language of birds and animals, which he called his brothers. He had also the power of transforming himself into the shape of any animal he pleased. The general conception of him was that of a messenger of the Great Spirit, sent down to mankind, in the character of a wise man or prophet, with the power of performing miraculous deeds. On the other hand, he has all the attributes of humanity, and adapts himself perfectly to their manners and customs and ideas. He was the conqueror of the evil genii of the In- dians, the Manitoes, yet he was so ambitious, vain- glorious and deceitful as often to be an evil genius himself. When he could gain his ends by cunning he THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 181 never hesitated to do so. For example, he treated his brothers, the birds and animals, once in a manner scarcely befitting the messenger of the Great Spirit. He had invited them all to a feast. A curious enough feast! namely, a lake of oil which he had formed from a large fish he had captured. As his guests arrived he told them all to plunge in and help themselves, and for all time to come the measure of their fatness was decided by the order in which they partook of the ban- quet. Then the cunning Manabozho suggested it would be nice to have a little fun, and taking up his drum, he cried out : "New songs from the South; come, brothers, dance!" He directed them to make the sport more mirthful, that they should shut their eyes and pass round him in a circle. Again he beat his drum and cried out: "New songs from the South; come, brothers, dance!" They all fell in and commenced their rounds. Whenever Manabozho, as he stood in the circle, saw a fat fowl which he fancied, pass by him, he adroitly wrung its neck and slipped it in his girdle, at the same time beating his drum and singing at the top of his lungs, to drown the noise of the fluttering, and crying out in a tone of admiration : "That's the way, my brothers; that's the way." At last a small duck, of the diver family, thinking there was something wrong, opened one eye and saw what Manabozho was doing. Giving a spring, and crying: "Ha-ha-ha! Manabozho is killing us!" he made for the water. Manabozho, quite vexed that the creature should 182 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY have played the spy upon his housekeeping, followed him, and just as the diver duck was plunging. into the water, gave him a kick, which is the reason that the diver's tail-feathers are few, his back flattened, and his legs straightened out so that when he comes on land he makes a poor figure in walking. Meantime, the other birds, having no ambition to be thrust into Manabozho's girdle, flew off and the animals scampered into the woods. The Iroquois account is a short and extreme- ly dignified one, in which this Indian hero ap- pears first as Tarenyawago, and then as Hiawatha, who formed the confederacy of the Five Nations, or as sometimes said, Six Nations. It was taken down from the lips of an Onondaga Chief, Abraham Le Fort, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and as he had been educated at an academy, the sup- pression of merely grotesque elements might have been due to his personal manipulation of the ancient tradi- tion. At any rate, Longfellow made this more dig- nified account the basis of Hiawatha's character, add- ing to it whatever pleased his fancy from the exploits of the Algonquin hero, or from those told of other In- dian heroes. The account, as given in Schoolcraft's "Aboriginal Researches" is as follows: "Tarenyawago taught the six nations arts and knowledge. He had a canoe which would move with- out paddles. It was only necessary to will it to com- pel it to go; with this he ascended the streams and lakes. He taught the people to raise corn and beans, removed obstructions from their water-courses, and made their fishing grounds clear. He helped them to get mastery over the great monsters that overran THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 183 the country. His wisdom was as great as his power. He gave wise instructions for observing the laws and maxims of the Great Spirit. Having done these things, he laid aside the high powers of his public mission and resolved to set an example of how people should live. He selected a beautiful spot on the shores of the lesser Southern lakes, erected a lodge, planted his field of corn, kept by him his magic canoe, and selected a wife. In relinquishing his former posi- tion as a subordinate power to the Great Spirit, he also dropped his name and according to his present situation took that of Hiawatha, meaning a person of very great wisdom. "He now lived in a degree of respect scarcely in- ferior to that which he before possessed. His words and counsels were implicitly obeyed. The people flocked to him from all quarters for advice and in- struction. Such persons as had been prominent in following his precepts, he favored, and they became eminent on the war-path and in the council-room. "When Hiawatha assumed the duties of an in- dividual, at Tioto, he carefully drew out from the water his beautiful talismanic canoe, which had served for horses and chariot, in his initial excursions through the Iroquois territories, and it was carefully secured on land, and never used except in his journeys to at- tend the general councils. He had elected to become a member of the Onondaga tribe, and chose the resi- dence of this people, in the shady recesses of their fruitful valley, as the central point of their govern- ment. "After the termination of his higher mission from above, years passed away in prosperity, and the Onon- 184 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY dagas assumed an elevated rank, for their wisdom and learning, among the other tribes, and there was not one of these which did not yield its assent to their high privilege of lighting the general council fire. "Suddenly there arose a great alarm at the invasion of a ferocious band of warriors from the mouth of the Great Lakes. As they advanced, an indiscriminate slaughter was made of men, women and children. Destruction threatened to be alike the fate of those who boldly resisted, or quietly submitted. The public alarm was extreme. Hiawatha advised them not to waste their efforts in a desultory manner, but to call a general council of all the tribes that could be gath- ered together from the east to the west; and he ap- pointed the meeting to take place on an eminence on the banks of Onondaga lake. "Accordingly, all the chief men assembled at this spot. The occasion brought together vast multitudes of men, women and children ; for there was an expec- tation of some great deliverance. Three days had already elapsed, and there began to be a general anx- iety lest Hiawatha should not arrive. Messengers were despatched for him to Tioto, who found him in a pensive mood, to whom he communicated his strong presentiments that evil betided his attendance. These were overruled by the strong representations of the messengers, and he again put his wonderful vessel in its element, and set out for the council, taking his only daughter with him. She timidly took her seat in the stern, with a light paddle, to give direction to the ves- sel ; for the strength of the current of the Seneca river was sufficient to give velocity to the motion till arriv- ing at So-hah-hi, the Onondaga outlet. At this point THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 185 the powerful exertions of the aged chief were re- quired, till they entered on the bright bosom of the Onondaga. "The grand council, that was to avert the threat- ened danger, was quickly in sight, and sent up its shouts of welcome as the venerated man approached and landed in front of the assemblage. An ascent led up the banks of the lake to the place occupied by the council. As he walked up this, a loud sound was heard in the air above, as if caused by some rushing current of wind. Instantly the eyes of all were di- rected upward to the sky, when a spot of matter was discovered descending rapidly, and every instant en- larging in its size and velocity. Terror and alarm were the first impulses, for it appeared to be descend- ing into their midst, and they scattered in confusion. "Hiawatha, as soon as he had gained the eminence, stood still, and caused his daughter to do the same, deeming it cowardly to fly, and impossible, if it were attempted, to divert the designs of the Great Spirit. The descending object had now assumed a more def- inite aspect, and as it came down, revealed the shape of a gigantic white bird, with wide extended and pointed wings, which came down, swifter and swifter, with a mighty swoop, and crushed the girl to the earth. Not a muscle was moved in the face of Hiawatha. His daughter lay dead before him, but the great and mysterious white bird was also destroyed by the shock. Such had been the violence of the con- cussion that it had completely buried its beak and head in the ground. But the most wonderful sight was the carcase of the prostrated bird, which was covered with beautiful plumes of snow-white, shining feathers. 186 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY Each warrior stepped up and decorated himself with a plume. And it hence became a custom to assume this kind of feathers on the warpath. Succeeding generations substituted the plumes of the white heron, which led this bird to be greatly esteemed. "But yet a greater wonder ensued. On removing the carcase of the bird, not a human trace could be discovered of the daughter. She had completely van- ished. At this the father was greatly afflicted in spirits, and disconsolate. But he roused himself, as from a lethargy, and walked to the head of the coun- cil with a dignified air, covered with his simple robe of wolf-skins, taking his seat with the chief warriors and counselors, and listening with attentive gravity to the plans of the different speakers. One day was given to these discussions ; on the next day he arose and said : "'My friends and brothers; you are members of many tribes, and have come from a great distance. We have met to promote the common interest, and our mutual safety. How shall it be accomplished? To oppose these northern hordes in tribes singly, while we are at variance often with each other, is impossible. By uniting in a common band of brotherhood, we may hope to succeed. Let this be done, and we shall drive the enemy from our land. Listen to me by tribes. " 'You (the Mohawks), who •are sitting under the shadow of the Great Tree, whose roots sink deep in the earth, and whose branches spread wide around, shall be the first nation, because you are warlike and mighty. "'You (the Oneidas), who recline your bodies against the Everlasting Stone, that cannot be moved, THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 187 shall be the second nation, because you always give wise counsel. " 'You (the Onondagas), who have your habitation at the foot of the Great Hills, and are overshadowed by their crags, shall be the third nation, because you are all greatly gifted in speech. "'You (the Senecas), whose dwelling is in the Dark Forest, and whose home is everywhere, shall be the fourth nation, because of your superior cunning in hunting. " *And you (the Cayugas), the people who live in the open country and possess much wisdom, shall be the fifth nation, because you understand better the art of raising corn and beans, and making houses. " 'Unite, you five nations, and have one common in- terest, and no foe shall disturb and subdue you. You, the people who are as the feeble bushes, and you, who are a fishing people, may place yourself under our protection, and we will defend you. And you of the south and of the west may do the same, and we will protect you. We earnestly desire the alliance and the friendship of you all. " 'Brothers, if we unite in this great bond, the Great Spirit will smile upon us, and we shall be free, pros- perous and happy. But if we remain as we are we shall be subject to his frown. We shall be enslaved, ruined, perhaps annihilated. We may perish under the war-storm, and our names be no longer remem- bered by good men, nor be repeated in the dance and song. " 'Brothers, these are the words of Hiawatha. I have said it. I am done.' 188 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "The next day the plan of union was again con- sidered and adopted by the council. Conceiving this to be the accomplishment of his mission to the Iro- quois, the tutelar patron of this rising confederacy ad- dressed them in a speech elaborate with wise counsels, and then announced his withdrawal to the skies." The scene of the poem is laid on Lake Superior, be- tween the Pictured Rocks and the Grand Sable of the land of the O jib ways, a tribe belonging to the Algon- quins. The stage setting is an impressive one. Di- rectly out of this great fresh, inland sea, rise the pre- cipitous cliffs of the Pictured Rocks, often two hun- dred feet in height, and extending for five miles. By the constant surge of the breakers at their base, these cliffs have been worn into an astonishing variety of shapes, and are strangely brilliant with bands of many-hued color. Contrasting with this is the sandy stretch of the Grand Sable — a long reach of coast re- sembling a vast sandbank more than three hundred and fifty feet in height, without a trace of vegetation. The poet follows closely the Ojibway story of Manabozho's birth and childhood, which relates that his grandmother was a daughter of the moon. Hav- ing been married but a short time, her rival attracted her to a grape-vine swing on the banks of a lake, and by one bold exertion pitched her into the center, from which she fell through to the earth. Her daughter, the fruit of her human marriage, she was very careful to instruct, from her early infancy, to beware of the West Wind. But one day, neglecting precautions, she was encircled by the West Wind, who scattered her robes upon his wings and annihilated her. In her eo THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 189 place was found a small infant, that soon developed, under the careful and tender nursing of his grand- mother, Nokomis, the striking lineaments of the in- fant Manabozho. The myth gives a scant account of his boyhood — wherein he is represented as living with his grand- mother on the edge of a wide prairie, seeing there birds and animals of every kind, learning every sound they uttered until he could converse with them so well that he called them his brothers, watching also the changes of day and night, musing upon the clouds as they rolled by, and watching the play of thunder and lightning. The poet has vitalized the story by weaving in many strange Indian myths and sayings: Such as the idea that the Milky Way is the pathway of ghosts ; that the rainbow is the heaven of flowers; that the flecks and shadows on the moon are a warrior's grandmother; that the Northern Lights are the death-dance of the spirits. The fear of the naked bear was proverbial. Heckewelder tells how the Indians declared that "among all animals which had formerly been in this country, this was the most ferocious ; that it was much larger than the largest of the common bears, and re- markably long-bodied; all over (except a spot of hair on its back of a white color) naked. The history of this animal used to be a subject of conversation among them, especially when in the woods or hunting. I have also heard them say to their children when cry- ing: 'Hush! the naked bear will hear you, be upon you, and devour you.' " Even the little fire-fly song is a real Indian chant, sung by the Ojibway children on hot summer evenings, when they assemble to amuse 190 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY themselves before their parents' lodges. In the literal translation it is a charming example of Indian fancy: "Flitting white-fire insect. Waving white-fire bug, Give me light before I go to bed, Give me light before I go to sleep. Come, little dancing white-fire bug, Come, little flitting white-fire beast, Light me with your bright white flame-instrument, — your little candle." Hiawatha's fear of the owl is told in the story of Manabozho, but the incident of lagoo making his first bow and the subsequent shooting of the deer, is added to the story. By means of these additional touches of legend and the poetical expansion of the few facts of his child- hood given in the original story, the poet has created a lovely picture of mysterious childhood. This charm- ing account is led up to by the Prologue addressed to the reader, and two introductory cantos. Imaginative sources of the song of Hiawatha are given in the songs of an Indian bard, who derived them from "The birds' nests of the forest, In the lodges of the beaver, In the hoof-prints of the bison, In the eyrie of the eagle! All the wild-fowl sang them to him, In the moorlands and the fen-lands. In the melancholy marshes." At the end, in the symbolizing of the song as an in- scription on a grave-stone, is suggested the annihila- THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 191 tion of the Indian life of the country, again brought out at the close of the poem in the description of the coming of the white man, "The Peace Pipe" relates a legend well fitted to give the pervading atmosphere of the poem. It is based upon an interesting version of the Red Pipe tradition given in Catlin's "Letters and Notes on Manners, Customs and Condition of the North Amer- ican Indians." The Great Spirit at an ancient period here [at the Red Pipe Stone Quarry] called the Indian nations together, and, standing on the precipice of the red pipe-stone rock, broke from its wall a piece, and made a huge pipe by turning it in his hand, which he smoked over them, and to the north, the south, the east, and the west, and told them that this stone was red — that it was their flesh — that they must use it for their pipes of peace — that it belonged to them all, and that the war-club and scalping-knife must not be raised on its ground. At the last whiff of his pipe his head went into a great cloud, and the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed; two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women ( guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet ( Tso-mec-cos-tee and Tso-me-cos-te-won-dee) answering to the invocations of the high-priests or medicine-men, who consult them when they are visitors to this sacred place. "The Four Winds" is linked with the rest of the poem more closely because it introduces the father of the hero, Mudjekeewis, or the West Wind. An im- portant traditional exploit of his, for which Longfel- low found the material in an incident told in the course 192 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY of the grisly tale of "lamo or The Undying Head," one of the stories in Schoolcraft's "Algic Researches," is joined with two other traditions of his brothers, the North and the South Wind, the first of which may be found in Schoolcraft's "Aboriginal Archives," the second in the "Algic Researches." Both of these legends are faithfully followed, owing nothing but their pleasing versification to the poet. The story of Mudjekeewis is, however, much con- densed and gains thereby greatly in strength. In the original he is only one of ten brothers who go forth to steal the wampum from the bear's neck, and it certainly does not appear that he was the brother to successfully slip the necklace of wampum over the sleeping bear's head. On the contrary, it was the youngest, while ]Mudjekeewis is spoken of as the third from the oldest ; nor does he immediately demolish the bear with his powerful club. Although he boasts that he is going to do great things, many adventures are gone through, during which various magical be- ings called up, not by Mudjekeewis, but by the eldest brother and leader, have their whacks at the bear. This monster whose growl is like thunder and who shakes the earth with his footsteps, is stunned by these beings long enough always to allow the brothers to escape from his imminent hugs, but he revives and goes striding over the landscape in pursuit of the thieves with ever renewed vigor. Finally the ten brothers embark in a canoe, the bear comes down to the edge of the lake as they paddle away, but being a clever animal, he starts to walk round the lake to head them off on the opposite side — so there is nothing for the brothers to do but stay in the middle of the THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 193 lake. The bear, however, is equal to the emergency; he begins to drink up the lake, which causes such a rapid current toward his mouth that the canoe is carried irresistibly toward it. Now is the chance of Mudjekeewis. He strikes a blow with his club on the bear's forehead and stuns him; the result is that he disgorges all the water he has been drinking, and sends the canoe flying to the opposite shore, and once more the brothers escape. Finally, with the help of the magic head, the bear is stupefied, Mudjekeewis beats his brains out with the club, while the brothers cut up his body in little pieces, which all run off as ordinary- sized bears, and so the race of bears originated. These three cantos strike a sort of major chord giv- ing the key of the whole poem — the song of a hero, typical of a complete phase of life that is past; a state of peace, typical of the human ideal the whole race of Indians had attained through a mystical reve- lation; a fanciful mythology, typical of the cosmic processes of nature. To this harmony of atmosphere and environment the melody of Hiawatha's life is set. The story of Hiawatha's combat with his father is taken from the account in "Algic Researches." It represents Manabozho sitting dejected and silent, thinking how singular it was that he had never heard a word about his father or mother, and finally asking his grandmother about them. "Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful disposition, she dreaded telling him the story of his parentage, but he insisted on her compliance . . . and seemed to be rejoiced to hear that his father was living, for he had already thought in his heart to try and kill him. He told his grandmother he should set 194/ LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY out in the morning. . . . She said it was a long way . . . but that had no effect to stop him, for he had now attained to manhood . . . and had a giant's strength and power . . . and every step he took covered a large surface. . . . The meeting took place on a high mountain in the West. His father was happy to see him and they spent days in talking. One evening he asked 'Is there not some- thing you dread here?' His father said, 'Yes, there is a black stone . . . the only thing earthly I am afraid of.' He said this as a secret, and in return asked his son the same question. . . . Manabozho affected great dread, 'le-ee, it is — it is — I cannot name it; I am seized with dread. ... It is the root of the apuhwa [bulrush], and he cried out 'Kago! Kago!' when his father said he would get it, really wishing to urge him to do so that he might draw him into combat. . . . He asked his father if he had been the cause of his mother's death. The an- swer was 'Yes !' He then took up the rock and struck him. Blow led to blow, and here commenced an ob- stinate and furious combat which continued several days. Fragments of the rock can be seen in various places to this time. Manabozho drove him across rivers, mountains and lakes and came at last to the brink of this world. 'Hold!' cried he, 'my son, you know my power, and that it is impossible to kill me. . . . You can do a great deal of good to the peo- ple of this earth, which is infested with large serpents, beasts, and giants. . . . When you have finished your work, I will have a place provided for you. You will then sit with your brother Kabibboonocca in the north." THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 195 The revengefulness and tricksyness characteristic of Manabozho in this story LongfelloAv has turned into a righteous indignation at his father's falseness, and a quiet reserve-force which carries sympathy to the young hero. How effective is the repetition of "And his heart was hot within him!" The hated Mudjekeewis, too, gains pathos and dignity by the touch that describes the toss and nod of his hoary head. In the poem, on his way back from the fight with Mudjekeewis, Hiawatha visits the old arrow-maker, and sees for the first time his daughter, Minnehaha. The incident of the visit to the arrow-maker occurs differently in the original legend, as we shall see when speaking of Hiawatha's wooing. Manabozho is represented as fasting before going to war with Pearl Feather; but Longfellow, instead of using this incident, describes Hiawatha's fast in Canto V as the customary one observed by young In- dians on reaching manhood, and incorporates in the account the Ojibway story of the poor young man, who having arrived at the age proper for fasting, his mother built him a little fasting-lodge in a retired spot where he would not be disturbed. As told in "Abo- riginal Archives," the story is as follows: "He amused himself for a few mornings by ram- bling about in the vicinity looking at the shrubs and wild flowers, and brought great bunches of them along in his hands, which led him often to think on the good- ness of the Great Spirit in providing all kinds of fruits and herbs for the use of man. This idea quite took possession of his mind, and he earnestly prayed that he might dream of something to benefit his peo- ple, for he had often seen them suffering for food." 196 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY The remainder of the story is almost exactly par- aphrased by Longfellow, except that upon the fourth morning his father brought him food, and the son asked him to set it by for a particular reason until the sun went down, when he had his final trial with the visitor. He did not tell his father what had hap- pened, but took him to the spot where the lodge had stood when the corn was ripe and surprised him. "It is the friend of my dreams and visions," said the youth. "It is Mondamin, it is the spirit's grain," said the father. The description of Hiawatha's friends is partly imaginary and partly founded on legend. Chibiabos, according to one account which occurs in the story of "Hiawatha's Lamentation," was the brother of Hia- watha and greatly beloved by him. Longfellow sim- ply makes him a friend, and attributes to him the character of a poet. He also makes the fearfully strong man Kwasind a friend of Hiawatha's, and bases his character upon a legend told in the "Algic Researches." "Kwasind was a listless, idle boy. He would not play when other boys played, and his parents could never get him to do any kind of labor. He was al- ways making excuses. His parents noticed, however, that he fasted for days together, but they could not learn what spirit he supplicated. 'You neither hunt nor fish,' said his mother. 'I set my nets the cold- est days of winter without your assistance while you sit by the lodge fire. Go, wring out that net.' With an easy twist of his hands he wrung it short off with as much ease as if every twine had been a thin brittle fibre." THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 197 The incidents of the rock he hurled, the logs he lifted, the beaver he secured, all occur just as Long- fellow uses them; except that he describes it all with the poet's revivifying touch. In the account of Manabozho in the "Algic Re- searches" there are but two sKght references to his canoe — one where he says to his grandmother, "Noko, get cedar bark and make me a line, whilst I make a canoe" ; and later, where it is said that he only had to wiU or speak and the canoe went. The Iroquois ac- count already given also speaks of the magic quahty of his canoe. With only these hints to go upon, it will be seen that the story of the building of the canoe de- scribed in Canto VII is entirely the work of the poet's fancy, except in so far as he has been careful to de- scribe a real Indian canoe. Then upon the general statement in the Iroquois account that Hiawatha cleared the rivers, he builds up the taking incident of Hiawatha's sailing with his friend Kwasind down the river Taquamenaw, and clearing it of all dead trees and sand-bars. His fishing with the fishing-rod of cedar, for the sturgeon, is described at considerable lengtl: in the Algonquin legend of Manabozho, and Longfellow has here followed the incidents very closely, making additions only which add to the poetic effect. Fol- lowing the hne of tasks his father had assigned him to rid the land of serpents, beasts, and giants, Hia- watha, having caught the king of fishes, next attempts to kill the giant. Pearl Feather, and the serpents that defended him. Longfellow found the material for this ui the "Algic Researches" substantially as fol- lows: 198 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "After this, he commenced making preparations for a war excursion against the Pearl Feather, the Manito who lived on the opposite side of the great lake, who had killed his grandfather. The abode of this spirit was defended, first by fiery serpents, who hissed fire so that no one could pass them; and in the second place by a mass of gummy matter lying on the water, so soft and adhesive that whoever attempt- ed to pass was sure to stick there. . . He trav- eled rapidly night and day, for he had only to will or speak and the canoe went. At length he arrived in sight of the fiery serpents. . . He commenced talking as a friend to them; but they answered, 'We know you, Manabozho, you cannot pass.' . . He then pushed his canoe as near as possible. All at once he cried out with a loud and terrified voice, 'What is that behind you?' The serpents instantly turned their heads, when at a single word, he passed them. 'Well,' said he placidly, after he had got by, 'how do you like my exploit?' He then took up his bow and arrows, and with deliberate aim shot them. . . Then he came to a soft gummy part of the lake called Pigiu-wagumee or Pitchwater. He took the oil and rubbed it on his canoe, and then pushed into it. . . He debarked in safety, and could see the lodge of the Shining Manito situated on a hill. He com- menced putting his arrows in order, and at dawn be- gan yelling and shouting with triple voices, 'Surround him! Run up!' making it appear he had many fol- lowers. Crying, 'It was you that killed my grand- father,' he shot his arrows, but with no effect, for his antagonist was clothed with pure wampum. The combat continued all day. He was now reduced to THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 199 three arrows. At that moment a large woodpecker (the 7na-ma) flew past and lit on a tree. 'Mana- bozho,' he cried, 'your adversary has a vulnerable point; shoot at the lock of hair on the crown of his head.' He shot his first arrow so as only to draw blood. The Manito made one or two unsteady steps, but recovered himself. A second arrow brought him to his knees. But he again recovered. In so do- ing, he exposed his head and gave his adversary a chance to fire his arrow which penetrated deep and brought him a lifeless corpse to the ground. Mana- bozho uttered his saxv-saw-quan, took his scalp as a trophy, and taking the Manito's blood rubbed it on the woodpecker's head, the feathers of which are red to this day. He returned home singing songs of triumph and beating his drum. When his grand- mother heard him she came to the shore and welcomed him with songs and dancing, and he displayed his trophies." It is interesting to see how our poet in working over this material has left out or passed lightly over the tricksyness of Manabozho, perhaps most relished by the Indian mind. He has even forborne to make him scalp the Manito, and, instead, makes him carry off only the coat of wampum. The pitchy water is an element of the story he has made much of, and to con- trast merely the crude original description of this with the dreary slime the poet describes so effectively, is to have an object-lesson in the workings of the creative poetic faculty. In the original, a series of travels, exploits, and crafty, sometimes cruel adventures with bird and beast followed, which Longfellow omits. They would have 200 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY made his Hiawatha much more whimsical and sav- age, and less dignified. From the chief one of these exploits, however, against the Prince of Snakes and his serpent tribe, which Longfellow left out — prob- ably because it would have added little to the similar snake victory just related — he has borrowed their taunts of him as a STiau-go-dai-a (coward) to put in the mouth of Pearl Feather; and from quite another story of "Mishosha, or the Magician of the Lakes," told by Schoolcraft in his second volume, he has bor- rowed the charm Hiawatha pronounced, in order to send his canoe forward — Chemaun. The story of "Hiawatha's Wooing" is charmingly elaborated from a few hints in Schoolcraft's account. "When Manabozho was preparing for the fight with Pearl Feather, having no heads for his arrows, his grandmother, Noko, told him of an old man living at some distance who could make them, so he sent her for some. She did not bring enough, so he sent her again, and then thinking to himself, 'I must find out the way to make these heads,' pretended he wanted some larger heads and sent her again. Then fol- lowing her at a distance, he went, saw the old man at work, discovered his process, and at the same time beheld his beautiful daughter and felt his breast beat with a new emotion. But he took care to get home before his grandmother, and commenced singing as if he had never left the lodge." Some pages further on, it is mentioned that, "hav- ing accomplished the victory over the reptiles, Mana- bozho returned to his former place of dwelling, and married the arrow-maker's daughter." Longfellow has made his Hiawatha discover the arrow-maker and Copyright, 1909. by L'lidet-.iood d-' Indei-wood, X. }'. The Falls of Minnehaha THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 201 his daughter for himself without any deceit to No- komis, while on his way homeward after his contest with his father, already mentioned ; and the only trace of cunning towards his grandmother which remains in his story is shown in the attractive light of the natural reserve of the yoimg man who is as yet but half aware of the dreams cherished in his heart. The friction with Nokomis about wedding a stran- ger, and the whole pretty romance, as told in the tenth canto, is apparently due to Longfellow's happy fancy. The name Minnehaha, he himself tells us, he found in Miss Eastman's "Dacotah, or Legends of the Sioux," where she describes between Fort Snelling and the Falls of St. Anthony the "Little Falls, forty feet in height, on a stream that empties into the Mississippi. The Indians called these Mine- hah-hah, or laughing waters." The poet has made Hiawatha's Wedding Feast the opportunity for introducing us to Pau-Puk-Keewis, a mischievous sort of Indian Mercury. In fact, he evidently belongs to the family of wind gods. He also makes us further acquainted with Chibiabos, who sings some Indian songs, and with lagoo, the great boaster and story-teller, who relates the charming story of "Osseo, the Evening Star." The incident of Pau-Puk-Keewis building up the sand-dunes along the shores of Lake Suj^erior seems to be an invention of the poet — at least, there is no such incident in the story of Pau-Puk-Keewis as told in "Algic Researches." It is, however, quite in keep- ing with his character, which Longfellow everywhere develops on the model of a Mercury. lagoo's story is given in "Algic Researches": 202 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "He was noted in Indian lore for having given ex- travagant narrations of whatever he had seen, heard, or accomplished. He told of a serpent he had seen, which had hair on its neck like a mane and feet re- sembling a quadruijed. Another time he told of mosquitoes of such enormous size that he staked his reputation on the fact that a single wing of one of them was sufficient for a sail to his canoe, and the proboscis as big as his wife's shovel. The character of this Indian story-teller for extravagance was so well known that his name became a proverb, and if any hunter or warrior undertook to embellish his exploits in telling of them his hearers would call out, 'So here we have lagoo come again.' " Notwithstanding his reputation as a story-teller, there are but few scraps of his stories to be found; but Longfellow cleverly puts into his mouth the story of Osseo, the Magician, which is little more than a poetized version of the story as told by the Algon- quins. The tale of the Red Swan to which lagoo refers, is also told in "Algic Researches": "Three brothers were hunting on a wager to see who would bring home the first game. They were to shoot no other animal but such as each was in the habit of killing. They set out different ways ; Odjib- wa, the youngest, had not gone far before he saw a bear, an animal he was not to kill, by the agreement. He followed him close, and drove an arrow through him, which brought him to the ground. Although contrary to the bet, he immediately commenced skin- ning him, when suddenly something red tinged all the air around him. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 203 was perhaps deceived: but without effect, for the red hue continued. At length he heard a strange noise at a distance. It first appeared Hke a human voice, but after following the sound for some distance he reached the shores of a lake, and soon saw the object he was looking for. At a distance out in the lake sat a most beautiful red swan, whose plumage glittered in the sun, and who would now and then make the same noise he had heard. He was within long bow- shot, and, pulling the arrow from the bow-string up to his ear, took deliberate aim and shot. The arrow took no effect and he shot and shot again until his quiver was empty. Still the swan remained, moving round and round, stretching its long neck and dipping its bill into the water, as if heedless of the arrows shot at it. Odjibwa ran home and got all his own and his brothers' arrows and shot them all away. He then stood and gazed at the beautiful bird. While standing, he remembered his brothers' saying that in their deceased father's medicine rack were three magic arrows. Off he started, his anxiety to kill the swan overcoming all scruples. At any other time he would have deemed it sacrilege to open his father's medi- cine rack; but now he hastily seized the three arrows and ran back, leaving the other contents of the rack scattered over the lodge. The swan was still there. He shot the first arrow with great precision, and came very near to it. The second came still closer; as he took the last arrow, he felt his arm firmer, and, draw- ing it up with vigor, saw it pass through the neck of the swan a little above the breast. Still it did not pre- vent the bird from flying off, which it did, however, at first slowly, flapping its wings and rising gradual- 204 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ly into the air, and then flying off toward the sinking of the sun." The prosperous course of Hiawatha's life after his wedding is cleverly implied by the incidents described in Cantos XIII and XIV. For the Indian custom he introduces of blessing the cornfields, making Minnehaha, as Hiawatha's happy wife, defend the safety of the crops, he found warrant in "Aboriginal Archives," as follows: "To cast a protective spell, and secure the fields against vermin, protect the crops against blight, and make them prolific, the mother of the family chooses a suitable hour at night, when the children are at rest and the sky is overcast, and having divested herself of her garments trails her machecota behind her and per- forms the circuit of the field." It is well known that corn-planting and corn- gathering was the prerogative of the women, who con- sidered this work only a just equivalent for the hunt- ing duties of the men, as well as their duties in de- fending the villages from their enemies. The incident of the husking-scene is a bit of Indian jollity described in "Oneota," and told literally by the poet. The lit- eral meaning of the term, Wagemin, is a mass or crooked ear of grain ; but the ear of corn so-called is a conventional type of a little old man pilfering ears of corn in a corn-field. The word is taken as the basis of the cereal chorus, sung by the Northern Algonquin tribes. It is coupled with the phrase, Paimosaid. Its literal meaning is, he who walks, but the idea conveyed by it is "he who walks by night to pilfer corn." For the Indian manner of picture-writing, of carv- ing the sign of the family totem on the graveposts, or THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 205 of painting on birch bark and skin the records of events, the lore of the medicine-men, the songs of the wabenos or the dreams of the jossakeeds, all of which, according to tradition, as Schoolcraft reports, Mana- bozho taught them, and which our poet therefore makes Hiawatha invent, Longfellow evidently studied carefully the descriptions and the plates given in the first of Schoolcraft's large folios. How ac- curately he followed these, and yet with how much more interesting and graphic a hand he colored the colorless explanations collected there, may appear from the following abstract of the account of the love-song. He has singled out this particular song among all the songs of the original, and it is to be no- ticed that he incorporates the look of the colored fig- ures in the plate as well as the gist of the explana- tion of what the mnemonic symbols mean in his poetic version of the song. "Figure 1. [representing in the plate a red figure standing], a person who affects to be invested with magic power to charm the other sex which makes him regard himself as a monedo or god. Fig. 2. [a man painted red sitting] is depicted beating a magic drum. He sings — Hear the sounds of my voice, of my song. Fig. 3. [same with the roof -line of a wigwam over- head]. He surrounds himself with a secret lodge. Fig. 4. [two red figures with one long arm]. He de- picts the intimate union of their affection by joining two bodies with one continuous arm. He sings, I can make her blush because I hear all she says of me. Fig. 5. [a red figure in a circle]. He represents her on an island. He sings. Were she on a distant island I could make her swim over. Fig. 6. [same lying 206 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY down]. She is depicted asleep. He boasts of his magical powers which are capable of reaching her heart. He sings, Were she far off, even on the other hemisphere. Fig. 7. [a red heart in a circle] depicts a naked heart. He sings, I speak to yom- heart. The series of figures may be read thus: 1. It is my form and person that makes me great. 2. Hear the voice of my song — it is my voice. 3. I shield myself with secret coverings. 4. All your thoughts are known to me — blush! 5. I could draw you hence were you on a desert island. 6. Though you were on the other hemisphere. 7. I speak to your naked heart." The story of "Hiawatha's Lamentation" is found- ed on an Iroquois legend of the origin of the medicine dance. According to this story, Chibiabos was a brother of Manabozho's, and their father was a Man- ito, or a gi*eat spirit who married a mortal worfian. The Manitoes became jealous of these brothers, and caused Chibiabos to fall through the ice of one of the great lakes, although Manabozho had cautioned him not to separate himself from him. There the Manitoes hid his body. Manabozho wailed along the shores and waged war against all Manitoes, hurling many of them into the abyss. Six years he lamented, his face smeared with black, and calling 'Chibiabos.' The Manitoes consult how to appease him — especially the oldest and wisest Manito who had nothing to do with the death of Chibiabos. They build a sacred lodge close to his, prepare a feast, pipe and delicious to- bacco; then, each carrying a sack of bear, otter or lynx, skin full of medicines culled from all plants, in- vite him to feast. He raises his head, washes off his THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 207 mourning, drinks the cup they offer in propitiation and as a rite, and, his melancholy departing, they sing and dance, and smoke the sacred pipe, and so was initiated the great medicine dance. The Manitoes then bring Chibiabos to life, but forbid him to enter the lodge. Through a chink they give him a burning coal and tell him to go and preside over the land of the dead and kindle a fire for his aunts and uncles. Manabozho goes to the Great Spirit, and then de- scending to earth confirms the mystery of the medicine dance and initiates those to v/hom he gives medicines, making offerings to Misukumigakwa, the mother of the earth, for the growth of medical roots. The white stone canoe in which Longfellow repre- sents Chibiabos as sailing is described in a story of a young man who goes to seek his dead lady-love in the land of souls. After journeying for some time, he came to the lodge of Chibiabos, who directs him on his way to the lake across which lay the land of souls. When he reaches the lake, he finds a canoe of shining white stone, with shining paddles. He enters the canoe, takes the paddles in his hands, when to his joy and sur- prise, on turning round, he beholds the object of his search in another canoe exactly the same. The materials for Cantos XVI and XVII are found principally in the story of Pau-Puk-Keewis in "Algic Researches." The setting of the scene, in Canto XVI, where Pau-Puk-Keewis comes and in- terrupts the story-telling of lagoo, is, of course, pure- ly fanciful. The story of the summer-maker which lagoo is telling, is followed exactly except in lan- guage. The incident of Pau-Puk-Keewis teaching 208 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY the game of bowl is also fanciful, though the real In- dian game is exactly depicted by Longfellow. This game is played with thirteen pieces, nine of which are formed of bone and four of circular bits of brass. The right side of the bone pieces is red with edges and dots burned black [which represent differ- ent objects, each with a special value] with hot iron. The reverse is white. The brass pieces are convex and bright on the right side, concave and dull on the left. The game is won by the red pieces. All are shaken in a curiously carved wooden bowl and the luckiest throw is when all the pieces turn up red and No. 1 stands upright on the bright side of a brass disc. Life is given to the picture by representing Pau- Puk-Keewis as winning everything and finally stak- ing all his winnings on the young pipe-bearer, grand- son of lagoo, whom he also wins. In the Indian legend the pipe-bearer follows Pau-Puk-Keewis from attachment, and he is not the grandson of lagoo, who does not appear in the story at all. A considerable portion of the tale of Pau-Puk- Keewis is not used by Longfellow, who culls out such striking incidents as the ransacking of Hiawatha's lodge when the hero was absent, the killing of the raven and also the mountain chickens, and the mes- sage sent by the birds to their brother Hiawatha. In the Hunting of Pau-Puk-Keewis, Longfellow changes the place of the incidents in such a way as to greatly enhance the interest of the story. All the transformations into animals, with the exception of that into a snake, occur in the original legend before his conflict with Hiawatha, merely as a means of THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 209 amusing himself, and not as a means of escape from his pursuer. In the original legend Pau-Puk-Keewis invents some ruses to escape Hiawatha, which Long- fellow has not used; for example, when Pau-Puk- Keewis found himself hard pressed, he climbed a large pine-tree, stripped it of all its leaves, threw them to the winds, and then went on. When Manabozho reached the spot, the tree addressed him. "Great chief," said the tree, "will you give me my life again? Pau-Puk-Keewis has killed me." Manabozho an- swered, "Yes," and it took him some time to gather the foliage together again. Pau-Puk-Keewis tried the same thing with various trees. Then he rode a long way on the back of an Elk, then broke up a large rock of sandstone which Manabozho was obliged to put together again. Then comes the incident of the serpent and the manito who tries to rescue Pau-Puk- Keewis, which Longfellow uses almost as it stands. The death of Kwasind follows exactly the original legend. "He performed so many feats of strength and skill, that he excited the envy of the Puck-wudj In-in-ee- sug, or fairies, who conspired against his life. 'For,' said they, 'if this man is suffered to go on in his career of strength and exploits, we shall presently have no work to perform. Our agency in the affairs of men must cease. He will undermine our power, and drive us, at last, into the water, where we must all perish, or be devoured by the wicked Neebanawbaig.' The strength of Kwasind was all concentrated in the crown of his head. This was, at the same time, the only vul- nerable part of his body ; and there was but one species of weapon which could be successfully employed in 210 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY making any impression upon it. The fairies carefully- hunted through the woods to find the weapon. It was the burr or seed vessel of the white pine. They gath- ered a quantity of this article, and waylaid Kwasind at a point on the river, where the red rocks jut into the water, forming rude castles — a point which he was accustomed to pass in his canoe. They waited a long time, making merry upon these rocks, for it was a highly romantic spot. At last the wished-for object appeared, Kwasind came floating calmly down the stream, on the afternoon of a summer's day, languid with the heat of the weather and almost asleep. When his canoe came directly beneath the cliff, the tallest and stoutest fairy began the attack. It was a long time before they could hit the vulnerable part, but success at. length crowned their efforts, and Kwasind sank, never to rise more. "Ever since this victory the Puck-wudj In-in-ee have made that point of rock a favorite resort. The hunters often hear them laugh, and see their little plumes shake as they pass this scene on light summer evenings." The story of the strange unearthly guests who came to test the patience and nobility of Hiawatha's house- hold is based upon one of the most weird and whim- sical of Indian fancies, the legend of the Jeebi or Two Ghosts : "There lived a hunter in the far North. One dark evening in winter his wife, uneasily awaiting him, heard steps and went expecting to meet her husband, when she beheld two strange females, whom she bade enter. There was something peculiar about them. They would not come near the fire, but sat in a re- THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 211 mote part of the lodge, shy and taciturn. 'Merciful spirit!' cried a voice from the opposite part of the lodge, 'there are two corpses clothed with garments.' The hunter's wife turned round trembling, but seeing nobody concluded it was the wind. At this moment her husband entered and threw down a large fat deer. 'Behold what a fat animal!' cried the mysterious fe- males, and they ran and pulled off pieces of the whitest fat, eating greedily. The hunter and his wife looked on astonished but said nothing, supposing their guests had been famished. Day after day, how- ever, they repeated this unusual conduct. . . One evening when the hunter entered and they began to tear off the fat, the wife's portion, the wife could not altogether contain her anger, and the guests saw this and became uneasy. The good hunter inquired the cause, and his wife denied having used any hard words ; but when they went to bed he could not sleep for the sobs and sighs of the guests. 'Tell me,' he said, 'what pains you.' They replied that they had been treated with kindness and had not been slighted. Bitter lamentations had reached them in the place of the dead, the bereaved saying how they would de- vote their lives to make their dead happy if they could be restored to them. Three moons had been allotted for the trial, and half the time had passed successfully when the angry feelings of the wife had shown the irksomeness of their presence and made them resolve to go. They promised him success and bade him adieu, and when they ceased speaking total darkness filled the lodge. The hunter and his wife heard the door open and shut and never saw them more." 212 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY In borrowing this story to serve as an incident in his hero's life, the poet has, with delicate intention, modified it in such a manner as to allow no shadow of reproach to fall upon Minnehaha for any lapse in hospitahty. Furthermore, instead of using it as an auspicious visit, as in the original story, where good fortune follows to the hunter, he has made it an omen of greater trial, indeed, almost a warning to Hia- watha of the famine and the death of Minnehaha which follow soon upon the visit of the Jeebi, and finally of that graver misfortune to Hiawatha's whole race, which leads to the hero's departure and the close of the poem — the coming of the white man to the red man's country. The story of the devastating famine is developed from a hint found in the legend of the Moose and Woodpecker, or Manabozho in distress, in "Algic Researches." "After Manabozho had killed the Prince of Ser- pents, he was living in a state of great want, com- pletely deserted by his powers as a deity, and not able to procure the ordinary means of subsistence. He was at this time living with his wife and chil- dren, in a remote part of the country, where he could get no game. He was miserably j)oor. It was win- ter and he had not the common Indian comforts." The elaboration of the story from this hint is en- tirely Longfellow's own, and in dignity and pathos far surpasses the trivial incidents of the Indian tale describing how Manabozho obtained food. The por- trayal of Minnehaha as well as her name is entirely fanciful. In none of the legends does the wife of Manabozho appear as a distinct personality. THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 213 Canto XXI opens with the pretty allegory of the coming of summer, founded upon an O jib way tale called "Peboan and Seegwun." The poet has not embellished it in any particular, and has faithfully reproduced its delicate fancies, but he has made it serve his special purpose by symbolizing the Indian race as Peboan, and the white race as Seegwun — the irresistible conquering influence from the East, like that of spring over winter, which is destined to drive the tribes of Hiawatha westward. He weaves in next, accordingly, an account of the coming of the white people, "in a great canoe with pinions" ; and in this he seems to have worked upon a hint or two from the mouth of a Delaware Indian as given in Hecke- welder's "Historical Account of the Indian Na- tions." "A great many years ago, when men with a white skin had never been seen in this land, some Indians out fishing where the sea widens, espied at a distance something remarkably large floating on the water. Returning and telling their countrymen what they had seen, they all hurried out together and saw with astonishment ... a large fish, as some thought, others a big house floating on the sea ... in which the Great Spirit himself lived, and that he was coming to visit them. . To fitly welcome him they prepared meat for sacrifice . . and a grand dance to appease him in case he might be angry. , . The house, some say large canoe, stops, and a canoe of smaller size comes ashore with one man, in red clothes, who they think must be the Manito himself, and some others in it. He salutes them with a friendly countenance which they return. . They are 214 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY lost in admiration. The dress and manners of the newcomers is a source of wonder." There is a similar account of the welcome given by the Indians to Cartier, who had arrayed himself in gorgeous clothing on his landing at the island of Hochelaga in the St. Lawrence. From one end of the land to the other there seems to have been a myth among the Indians that* a white race was to come from the East and conquer them. Lew Wallace has worked up this feeling most ef- fectively in his novel "The Fair God," which romances upon themes furnished by Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico." Dr. Brinton, whose studies in American archaeology are so extensive, is of the opinion that some forgotten trace of Chinese invasion or of Phoenician or Carthaginian voyages may have lurked in the background of aboriginal consciousness, and given rise to white-man myths or to such prophecies as this one of the Mayas of Yucatan, translated by Dr. Brinton: "What time the sun shall brightest shine Tearful will be the eyes of the King. Four ages yet shall be inscribed, Then shall come the holy priest, the holy god. With grief I speak what now I see. Watch well the road, ye dwellers in Itza, The Master of the earth shall come to us. Thus prophesies Nahu Peet, the Seer, In the days of the fourth age, At the time of its beginning." Upon such a supposition, or with the idea that so wise a leader as Hiawatha would recognize the in- Copr. Detroit Photographic Co. Temple Gate, Sand Island, Lake Superior THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 215 evitable and refrain from vainly combating it, the poet has represented his hero as foreseeing not only the coming of the white man, but the general west- ward dispersion of his race. When relating in the last canto Hiawatha's serene resignation to the new order of things, his greeting of the priest, and his own departure, Longfellow doubtless bore in mind the zeal of the Jesuit mission- aries, who followed in Champlain's wake, after his founding of Quebec in 1608, and who penetrated far to the westward, converting the natives and meeting with such friendly reception as the poet makes Hia- watha give the "Pale-Face Priest of Prayer." We may even recognize in this "Black-Robe Chief" the figure of Paul le Jeune, the first of that devoted band of teachers, the history of whose labors constitutes so celebrated an episode in the settlement of New France. For the closing picture of Hiawatha's departure in his magic boat, the poet had only to follow the legend of Tarenyawago. His departure resembles that of the Algonquin hero Glooskap, and is strik- ingly similar to the departure also in a boat to Ava- lon of the old-world hero. King Arthur. The story of a hero who leaves his people, but one day promises to return, is as widespread as white-man myths. Ar- thur is to return, Glooskap is to return, and though Longfellow does not make use of it, the Iroquois be- lieve that Manabozho still lives on an ice flake in the Arctic Ocean, and they fear the white race will some day find his retreat and drive him off, when this world will end, for as soon as he puts his foot on earth again, it will take fire and all will perish. 216 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY- A comparison of the Indian stories with Long- fellow's poem shows with what consummate art he has welded together the detached myths and customs of the North American Indian races, making of them a perfectly harmonious and unified whole. Our ad- miration is aroused both because of the human in- terest attaching to the fortunes of the hero, around whom all the other incidents of the story group them- selves, and because of the poem's more general sig- nificance as a symbolic picture of the growth and decay and final blotting out of the Indian phase of civilization. The poem opens with the proclaiming of peace among the nations, which is significant of the close of a purely warlike and barbarous stage of humanity, and the making ready for the more pacific arts of peace. The time is ripe for the birth of the culture hero, who stands as the incarnation of the growing life and art of his nation. His education is such as to fit him for the duties he is to fulfil for his race. His life is spent in righting injustices and instructing his fellows in agricultural arts, the 'art of writing and so on. He is aided in this by his two friends, Chibia- bos and Kwasind. His marriage with Minnehaha completes the sum of his happiness; but he has no sooner attained this zenith of prosperity in his do- mestic relations and in his relations with his fellow- men than clouds begin to gather? Troubles thicken about him. The lamentation over-Chibiabos, the mis- chief-making of Pau-Puk-Keewis, the death of Kwasind, succeed one another. Then the visit of the ghosts casts its ill-omened shadow. Famine and the death of Minnehaha follow. Last of all, the white THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 217 man's foot comes to tread down into oblivion the whole Indian race. Freiligrath, who translated Hiawatha into Danish, thought the contact between myth and history too sudden in the last two cantos and Longfellow ac- cepted the criticism, writing to him, "What you say is very true . . but how could I remedy it?" I cannot agree with any such criticism. If "Hia- watha" were, simply an account of the mythic history of the Indians, Freiligrath's opinion might have some weight. But, as we have seen, the poet gives to the myths the significance of a symbol, standing for the culminating phase of Indian life, and in so doing throws into them, if not any special, yet general truths of history. The facts he borrows from his- tory, on the other hand, he does not introduce in an accurate historical manner, but brings them into har- monious relations with the mythical part of the poem by generalizing them and making them also stand symbolically for that conquering phase of life — namely, the Christian — destined to blot out the Indian phase. Longfellow was also accused of having borrowed from the Finnish epic, the "Kalevala." Such an ac- cusation could reflect only upon the ignorance of the persons making it. The resemblances between the Kalevala and the Hiawatha legends do not extend beyond a certain similarity in the general characteris- tics of the myths. In both, all inanimate objects are represented as having life and the power of speech. Magic is also an ever-present element. There are other resemblances which arise from the permeation of the myths with cosmic elements, but in detail the 218 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY stories have hardly a point in common. The stage of civihzation depicted in the "Kalevala" is very dif- ferent from that in the Hiawatha legends; the man- ners and customs are those of a people advanced much farther along the road to culture. Lemminkauieu, or Kaukomieli, in some of his characteristics re- minds one of Pau-Puk-Keewis and Kwasind com- bined: it comes from the fact that all three are evi- dently beings whose chief attributes have been bor- rowed from the winds. Such similarities as do exist are to be traced to the very general resemblances of the original legends, and are not in any sense due to conscious borrowing. There is one scene in the "Kalevala" that may have given the poet a sugges- tion. It is in the description of Wainamoinen's prep- aration for the building of his boat. Both heroes have magic boats, but they are not at all alike in construc- tion. No Indian legend describes the building of Hiawatha's canoe, but the building of Wainamoinen's boat is described at considerable length. Pellerwoi- nen is sent to get timber. He goes to the forests and holds conversations with various trees as to the suitability of their timber for his purpose. The aspen and the pine both declare they will not do, but the oak, when it is addressed, says : "I for thee will gladly furnish Wood to build the hero's vessel, I am tall and sound and hardy, Have no flaws within my body. Three times in the month of summer, In the warmest of the seasons. Does the sun dwell in my tree-top. THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 219 On my trunk the moonlight glimmers; In my branches sings the cuckoo, In my top her nestlings slumber." Very possibly this may have furnished a hint for the conversations held by Hiawatha with the trees and other objects which provided him with materials for his boat. This, however, is so slight a debt, and the incident has been so transmuted by the genius of the poet, as to place it entirely beyond criticism. There is one really striking resemblance in incident between the Finnish and the Indian poems in the description of the departure of the two heroes. Compare the fol- lowing with the Indian story and the close of Long- fellow's poem: "Thus the ancient Wainamoinen, In his copper-banded vessel, Left his tribe in Kalevala, Sailing o'er the rolling billows. Sailing through the azure vapors. Sailing through the dusk of evening, Sailing to the fiery sunset. To the higher-landed regions To the lower verge of heaven; Quickly gained the far horizon, Gained the purple-colored harbor. Here his bark he firmly anchored, Rested in his boat of copper; But he left his harp of magic, Left his songs and wisdom-sayings To the lasting joy of Suomi." Of the rhythm much has been said. Oliver Wend- ell Holmes spoke of it as having a fatal facility based upon physiological principles; namely, the recital of 220 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY each line uses up the air of one natural expiration, so that we read as we naturally do, eighteen or twenty lines in a minute, without disturbing the normal rhythm of breathing, which is also eighteen or twenty breaths to a minute. It is the same as the rhythm of the "Kalevala" and was adopted by the poet as es- pecially suited to his purpose, for the parallelism and repetition characteristic of Finnish metre are just as much characteristic of Indian song. Into this un- doubtedly sing-song rhythm the poet has succeeded in putting a wonderful and fascinating variety of ef- fect. While much of the parallelism and repetition in the "Kalevala" is simply redundancy of expres- sion, in "Hiawatha" each repetition adds some vital touch to the thought and takes the reader along in the story. There is not a more popular poem than this among Longfellow's many popular poems. The criticisms and the parodies that have been showered upon it have one and all missed fire. Its originality and intrinsic beauty have won for it a place among the poems of all time. To offset the strictures of the unseeing or the facetious was the instant recognition of its worth by such men as Emerson, Hawthorne, Taylor, Ban- croft and numerous others, who, in letters to the poet, expressed their praise in no uncertain terms. Com- posers, too, have found "Hiawatha" greatly to their taste as a musical text — one of them, an English- man of genius, Coleridge Taylor, having written a cantata to words from "Hiawatha" that ranks as one of the great musical compositions of the present age. But perhaps there has been no greater tribute to the power of the poem than the fact that the descendants THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 221 of the Ojibways give a dramatic performance of "Hiawatha" every year in honor of the poet. This festival is celebrated at Garden River on Lake Huron, and was, not long since, witnessed in its original set- ting by the poet's daughters. The Indians were deeply interested in the poem and its author, and at the time of the Sportsman's Show in Boston, 1900, among the important features of which were illustrations of Indian life given by a band of O jib way Indians, they visited the poet's home. This brought their enthusiasm to a climax and as a result they planned the first performance of their "Hiawatha" play. Miss Alice W. Longfellow gives a delightful de- scription of this performance in her "Visit to Hia- watha's People," which she kindly allows me to quote. "The play of 'Hiawatha' was performed on a rocky, thickly wooded point. Near the shore a platform was built around a tall pine-tree, and grouped around this were tepees and huts forming the Indian village. Be- hind this the ground sloped gradually upward, form- ing a natural amphitheatre. "As a prelude to the play a large pile of brushwood was lighted. Down the hillsides rushed the braves in war paint and feathers — 'Wildly glaring at each other, In their hearts the feuds of ages.' After listening to the commands of the Great Spirit, the warriors threw down their weapons and war-gear and, leaping into the lake, washed the war-paint from their faces. Then they seated themselves and smoked the peace-pipe. 222 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "The second scene showed old Nokomis before her wigwam, singing a lullaby to the little Hiawatha in his linden cradle. Then, the scene changing, Noko- mis led the boy Hiawatha out upon the stage and taught him how to shoot the bow and arrows, while the warriors stood around watching and applauding when he hit the mark. "The fourth scene was the journey of Hiawatha in his manhood after his battle with Mudjekeewis, a pic- turesque figure striding through the woods flecked with sunshine and shadow. 'Only once his pace he slackened. Paused to purchase heads of arrows Of the ancient arrow-maker.' "The wigwam of the ancient arrow-maker was placed far from the rest in the shad*e of the trees, to give an idea of distance. The arrow-maker, himself a very old man, sat by the entrance, cutting arrow- heads; his daughter, a modest Indian maiden, stood beside him with downcast eyes, while the stranger paused to talk with her father. "This scene was followed by the return of Hia- watha to the land of the Dakotahs. Again the old man sat in the doorway, and by him was Minnehaha, 'plaiting mats of flags and rushes.' "She stood modestly on one side while Hiawatha urged his suit, and then putting her hand in his, she followed him home through the forest. "Then came the wedding dances, full of life and spirit, the figures moving always round and round in a circle, with a swaying motion, the feet scarcely THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 223 lifted from the ground. Under the pine-tree, tall and erect, with head and eyes uplifted, stood the musi- cian, chanting his songs with a strange rhythmical cadence, and accompanying them on the flat Indian drum. "The old Nokomis in one corner guarded with a war club a group of«'maidens who were dancing all the while, and the braves circling round slyly stole one maiden after another, until Nokomis was left alone. Then followed the caribou dance, the dancers with arms uplifted like horns, knocking and striking one another; the bear dance with its clumsy, heavy mo- tion; and the snake dance, where the dancers wound and twisted in and out, round and round ; and always the singer continued his rhythmic chant. "Last came the gambling dance, the favorite with the actors. A mat of rushes was placed on the ground, and on each side kneeled the contestants. At the back stood the old singer, drumming and chant- ing advice to the players. On each side were grouped the women watching the game, their bodies swaying in time to the music, while the players grew more and more excited, arms, heads, bodies, all moving in per- fect rhythm, calling out and shouting as one by one pouches, knives, belts, etc., were passed to the winning side. One side hid a small metal counter under one of two moccasins, while the other side tried to find it. "This game was interrupted by a sudden shout, and across the water was seen approaching a canoe, and seated in it the missionary, 'the black-robed chief, the prophet.' On the shore he was graciously received by Hiawatha, and led to a wigwam for refreshment 224 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY and repose. Then he addressed the attentive tribes in Ojibway: 'Told his message to the people. Told the purport of his mission.* Thereupon Hiawatha arose, greeting the missionary, took farewell of all his people and — 'On the clear and luminous water Launched his birch canoe for sailing.' With hands uplifted he glided slowly out upon the lake, floating steadily onward across the rippling water toward the setting sun." In the study at Craigie House is the formal invita- tion received by the poet's daughters upon this occa- sion. It is a beautiful piece of birch bark about eight- een inches long and ten inches wide, with many tinted lichens still clinging to it. In one corner the outer bark is stripped off to show the under reddish bark forming a medallion, upon which is sketched in sepia an Indian's head. In the center, the outer bark has been removed in a similar way to form a slanting scroll upon which the invitation is written in Ojibway. Simple and genuine is its wording and one can but wish the poet himself might have shared in this ex- pression of admiration and love : "Ladies: We loved your father. The memory of our people will never die as long as your father's song lives, and that will live forever. "Will you and your husbands and Miss Longfellow come and see us and stay in our royal wigwams on an THE LORE OF HIAWATHA 225 island in Hiawatha's playground, in the land of the Ojibways? We want you to see us live over again the life of Hiawatha in his own country. "Kabaoosa^ "Wabumasa." The whole is set off by an appropriate frame. It is at once a unique and artistic memorial of the es- timation in which the poet is held by the race whose gift of legend and fancy has been so sympathetically accepted by him — a graceful token that, in the realm of imagination, at least, the American and the Indian shall be known as kin. IN CAMBRIDGE "/ need not praise the sweetness of his song. Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong The 7iew moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along. Full without n^oise and whispers in his reeds. *'With loving breath of all the winds his name Is blown about the world, but to his friends A sweeter secret hides behind his fame. And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim To murmur a God bless you! and then ends. ****** "Surely if skill in song the shears may stay And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss. If our poor life be lengthened by a lay. He shall not go, although his presence may. And the next age in praise shall double this." James Russell Lowell. VI DURING the larger part of the nineteenth cen- tury, Mr. Longfellow was associated with the intellectual and social life of Cambridge. Under these circumstances, one might expect that much of his poetry would reflect the atmosphere of this environment. Little of Cambridge, however, comes into his work further than an intense apprecia- tion for nature as he saw it from his study windows, his own garden, or in the neighborhood of his beau- tiful home, extending to his favorite walk into Boston over the West Boston bridge. There are a few charming glimpses into the sanctity of his home life. Such are the "Ode to a Child," "Resignation," the "Children's Hour," and "Chil- dren," to which should be added the exquisite sonnet, the "only love poem he ever wrote," dedicated to Mrs. Longfellow, entitled "The Evening Star," though at first mentioned by the poet in his diary as "Hes- perus": "The Indian summer still in its glory. Wrote the sonnet 'Hesperus' in the rustic seat of the old apple-tree." "Lo! in the painted oriel of the West, Whose panes the sunken sim incarnadines, Like a fair lady at her casement shines 329 230 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY The evening star, the star of love and rest ! And then anon she doth herself divest Of all her radiant garments, and reclines Behind the sombre screen of yonder pines. With slumber and soft dreams of love oppressed. O my beloved, my sweet Hesperus ! My morning and my evening star of love! My best and gentlest lady ! even thus, As that fair planet in the sky above, Dost thou retire unto thy rest at night, And from thy darkened window fades the light." In the ode "To a Child," side by side with the lovely portraiture of the child on its mother's knee, there are fascinating bits of description within and without the house so famous for its historical and literary as- sociations. 'Through these once solitary halls Thy pattering footstep falls. The sound of thy merry voice Makes the old walls Jubilant, and they rejoice With the joy of thy young heart, O'er the light of whose gladness No shadows of sadness From the sombre background of memory start. 'Once, ah, once, within these walls, One whom memory oft recalls. The Father of his Country, dwelt. And yonder meadows broad and damp The fires of the besieging camp Encircled with a burning belt. Up and down these echoing stairs, Heavy with the weight of cares, IN CAMBRIDGE 231 Sounded his majestic tread; Yes, within this very room Sat he in those hours of gloom, Weary both in heart and head. *'But what are these grave thoughts to thee? Out, out! into the open air! Thy only dream is liberty, Thou carest little how or where. *'I see thee eager in thy play. Now shouting to the apples on the tree. With cheeks as round and red as they ; And now among the yellow stalks. Among the flowering shrubs and plants, As restless as the bee. Along the garden walks. The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace; And see at every turn how they efface Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, That rise like golden domes Above the cavernous and secret homes Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants. Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, Who, with thy dreadful reign. Dost persecute and overwhelm These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm! "What, tired already! With those suppliant looks, And voice more beautiful than a poet's books. Or murmuring sound of water as it flows, Thou comest back to parley with repose ! This rustic seat in the old apple-tree. With its overhanging golden canopy Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues And shining with the argent light of dews, Shall for a season be our place of rest. * 'Beneath us, like an oriole's pendant nest, 232 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY From which the laughing birds have taken wing, By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing. Dream-like the waters of the river gleam; A sailless vessel drops adown the stream, And like it, to a sea as wide and deep, Thou driftest down the tides of sleep." How much the child-life of his home meant to him is reflected in his other poems on his children, by which he has endeared himself to many a young heart. Who, as a small child, has not wondered if "Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith, with golden hair," could really be children of flesh and blood, they seemed such far-away and fairy-like beings? Long, long after, he again addressed the children, this time not his own, but the school children of Cambridge, who responded to the happy thought of presenting him on his seventy-second birth- day with an armchair made from the "spreading chestnut tree" under which the village blacksmith shop stood. This substantial chair still stands in his study, in a shape more lasting than if it had been preserved as a tree. The wood has been ebonized, and with its carvings of horse-chestnut leaves and blossoms and fruit, is a beautiful as well as an appropriate re- incarnation of the tree. Under the cushion is an in- scription : "To the author of 'The Village Blacksmith.' This chair made from the wood of the spreading chest- nut-tree, is presented as an expression of grateful re- gard and veneration by the children of Cambridge, who, with their friends, join in best wishes and con- gratulations on this anniversary, February 27, 1879." In raised German letters around the seat is added a verse from the poem — IN CAMBRIDGE 233 "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 prosaic city authorities of Cambridge had the tree removed in spite of the protests of the poet and others in 1876, on the ground that it imperiled drivers of heavy loads who passed under it. The children, however, rescued it from annihilation, and one likes to think of the poet writing, from the en- circling arms of the horse-chestnut tree his verse had made famous nearly forty years before, his poem of acknowledgement to the Cambridge children. Not the least interesting episode of the poet's life was his appearance on the platform at the children's festival in Sanders' Theatre, when Cambridge celebrated its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, in 1880, Decem- ber 28th. The chair stood on the platform where all the children could see it, and, to the intense delight of the assembled youngsters, the poet made a short speech, a most unusual concession on his part. So much was the poet honored by the little boys and girls of the town that, it is said, hundreds of them ventured to present themselves at the door of the house, where they were always welcomed. Mr. Scudder relates a story told b}^ Luigi Monti, who for many years dined with the poet every Sat- urday, which illustrates the pleasure he derived from the appreciation showered upon him by children. "One Christmas, as he [Luigi Monti] 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 234 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY 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 Washing- ton 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 paper. Well, that will be Mr. Longfellow.' "The child looked gratified and happy at the un- expected pleasure of really seeing the man whose poems she said she loved. As Signor 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 souve- nirs which he had gathered." The smithy of the poem was near the poet's house and was passed daily by him. When he first speaks of the poem, he calls it a "new psalm of life," but writing to his father a year later he says: "There will be a kind of a ballad on a blacksmith in the next Knickerbocker.^' "The Open Window" commemorizes another his- torical house, though in such a vague manner that IN CAMBRIDGE 235 the poem might be attached to any home which no longer fulfilled its functions of family life. "The old house by the lindens Stood silent in the shade, And on the graveled pathway The light and shadow played. "I saw the nursery windows Wide open to the air ; But the faces of the children, They were no longer there." This old house stood on Brattle Street, at the cor- ner of Sparks Street, and is now the third house from the corner. It was known as the Lechmere house, having been built by Richard Lechmere. Here Baron Riedesel was quartered as prisoner of war after the surrender of Burgoyne, and here the Bar- oness wrote her name upon the window-pane with a diamond — material, surely, for romance ; but the poet was evidently lost to every aspect except that of the departed children, probably because at the time he was so happy in his own children. "The birds sang in the branches, With sweet, familiar tone; But the voices of the children Will be heard in dreams alone!" It is pleasant to look through the poet's eyes at the scenes he so much loved. Even his delight in the sea could not blot out his peculiarly affectionate re- gard for his Cambridge home. He, more than once, notes with delight in his diary, after a summer by the 236 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY sea, that they are back in Cambridge, and that the children are wild with joy. He comments upon the coming of spring: "For my own part I am delighted to hear the birds again. Spring always reminds me of the Palingenesis, or re-creation of the old alchemists, who believed that form is indestructible and that out of the ashes of a rose the rose itself could be reconstructed — if they could only discover the great secret of nature. It is done every spring beneath our windows and before our eyes, and is always so won- derful and so beautiful." Later on this thought took form in poetry, but he used the imagery of the sea, and introduced a note of melancholy of which there was not a suspicion in his first joyous outburst when watching the oncoming of spring from his own win- dows. This should really be classed among his poems of the sea, so fine is the picture of North Shore scenery given in the first stanzas. "I lay upon the headland-height, and listened To the incessant sobbing of the sea In caverns under me. And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened, Until the rolling meadows of amethyst Melted away in mist. 'Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started; For round about me all the sunny capes Seemed peopled with the shapes Of those whom I had known in days departed. Appareled in the loveliness which gleams On faces seen in dreams. IN CAMBRIDGE 237 "A moment only, and the light and glory- Faded away, and the disconsolate shore Stood lonely as before ; And the wild roses of the promontory Around me shuddered in the wind and shed The petals of pale red. "There was an old belief that in the embers Of all things their primordial form exists, And cunning alchemists Could re-create the rose with all its members From its own ashes, but without the bloom, Without the lost perfume. "Ah, me! What wonder-working, occult science Can from the ashes in our hearts once more The rose of youth restore? What craft of alchemy can bid defiance To time and change, and for a single hour Renew this phantom-flower?" The remainder of the poem is dominated by the idea that the secret of nature for which the old alchemists looked has not been found, rather than by the thought of the loveliness of the idea as he ex- pressed it in his first thought. The most delightful of his nature-pictures go back to his early days at Craigie House, when not only his poetry, but his diary is full of the beauty and the glory constantly being wafted in to him through his open window. The spell of its nights was upon him when he wrote sitting at his window "on one of the balmiest nights of the year" — "I heard the trailing garments of the night Sweep through her marble halls, I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls!" 238 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY The far away light of stars vibrates in "There is no light in earth or heaven, But the cold light of stars; And the first watch of the night is given To the red planet Mars." "On a beautiful summer night," he explains, he wrote this poem. "The moon, a little strip of silver, was just setting behind the groves of Mount Au- burn, and the planet Mars blazing in the southeast. There was a singular light in the sky." Upon another occasion it is the moonlight he gazes upon from his window that dominates the scene. The planet Mars brought to his mind the symbol of the unconquerable will: "The star of the unconquered will, He rises in my breast, Serene, and resolute, and still. And calm, and self-possessed." But with the moonlight comes the thought of En- dymion awakened by the moon's kiss : "The rising moon has hid the stars; Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green. With shadows brown between. "And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams. Had dropt her silver bow Upon the meadows low. "On such a tranquil night as this. She awoke Endymion with a kiss. When, sleeping in the grove, He dreamed not of her love. IN CAMBRIDGE 239 "Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, Love gives itself, but is not bought ; Nor voice, nor sound betrays Its deep, impassioned gaze. "It comes — the beautiful, the free. The crown of all humanity — In silence and alone To seek the elected one." Another poem which seems especially identified with nature as he saw and felt it about him in his home is "Flowers." This he tells us he wrote to send with a bouquet of autumnal flowers. "I still remem- ber the great delight I took in its composition, and the bright sunshine that streamed in at the southern windows as I walked to and fro, pausing ever and anon to note down my thoughts." In fact all the poems he wrote at this time seem to have blossomed into being under the influence of nature, even when the subject was wholly introspective. "The Psalm of Life,"' which, though it was a voice from his in- most heart at a time when he was "rallying from de- pression," doubtless owes to the bright summer morning upon which it was written, much of its hope- fulness. This poem should not be passed over with- out mention being made of the extraordinary moral effect it had upon many of its readers at the time of its appearance. "It was copied far and wide," writes Samuel Long- fellow. "Young men read it with delight; their hearts were stirred by it as by a bugle summons. It roused them to high resolve, and wakened them to a new sense of the meaning and worth of life. Thirty years later, a man high in the community for in- 240 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY tegrity and generosity, came to his old professor in chemistry, and, reminding him of his having one day read this poem to his class, added, 'I feel that I can never repay you for the good you did me that day in reading us the "Psalm of Life." I grasped its spirit instantly and made it the inspiration of my life.' Mr. Sumner tells us of a classmate of his who was saved from suicide by reading this poem. An inci- dent told of an officer in the Franco-German war of 1870 also illustrates the wonderful hold this poem had upon those who were in any way overwhelmed by life's fatalities : "In the midst of the siege of Paris, a venerable man presented himself to me, bowed with grief. He said, 'I am Monsieur R., Procureur- General of the Cour de Cassation. I have just learned that my son has been arrested by the German authorities at Ver- sailles on an entirely unfounded charge. He is to be sent to a German fortress and may be condemned to death. I am here alone and helpless. I feel that my mind will give way if I cannot find occupation; can you tell me of some English book I can translate into French?' I promised to do so and he left me. Within an hour or two, however, I received a line from him saying he had found what he required. A few days afterward he came again to see me; but now erect, his face bright with hope, his voice clear and strong. He said, 'I have been translating Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" and I am a new man; I feel that my mind is saved and that faith and hope have taken the place of despair.' " Of "Footsteps of Angels" the poet wrote: "A lovely morning. Sat at home and wrote a third 'Psalm IN CAMBRIDGE 241 of Life' "; and of "The Reaper and the Flowers," he wrote: "A beautiful holy morning within me. I was softly excited, I knew not why, and wrote with peace in my heart and not without tears in my eyes." A charm- ing story is connected with this poem, showing once more the hold he was apt to take upon the minds of children. A lady, who had bought a copy of "Voices of the Night," gave it to her little girl, after reading to her "The Reaper and the Flowers." The same even- ing the child on repeating her prayers said: "Mother, do you not think 'The Reaper' beautiful enough to mix with my prayer this lovely moonlight night?" Many of the entries in his diary at this time touch upon fancies so lovely that one wonders why they were not transformed into verse. Take a few at random: "Raining, and the birds shrieking! The storm will thresh all the blossoms from the trees. Where do the birds hide themselves in such storms? At what firesides do they dry their feathery cloaks? At the fireside of the great sun, to-morrow — not be- fore; they must sit in wet clothes till then." "How glorious these spring mornings are! I sit by an open window and inhale the pure morning air and feel how delightful it is to live! Peach, pear, and cherry trees are all in blossom together in the garden." "Nothing can well surpass the beauty of Cambridge at this season. Every tree is heavy with blossoms, and the whole air laden with perfume. My residence here in the old Craigie House is a paradise." "A thunderstorm is now sailing up majestically from the southwest with almost unbroken volleys of thunder. The wind seems to be storming a cloud- 242 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY redoubt in gallant style, and marches onward with dust, and green banners of the trees waving, and rattle of musketry, and occasional heavy cannonading, and an explosion like the blowing up of a powder wagon." "Oh, what glorious, glorious moonlight nights! I never beheld in Italy aught more passing fair. The river in the meadow in front of my house spreads out into a silver lake, and the black shadows lie upon the grass like engravings in a book. Autumn has writ- ten his rubric on the illuminated leaves. The wind turns them over and chants like a friar." "A glorious day. Could not stay at home, but went alone to Fresh Pond. What a lovely lake it is, with the forest hanging round it — like a mirror with a garland of oak leaves ! Took a boat and floated away rocked in dreams." "To-day I heard the song of the bluebird, the herald of spring. It is exquisite music to my ear. It announces the approach of Nature's great proces- sion of grass, leaves, flowers and waving cornfields. The spring, the spring, the ever beautiful! with its rushing waters, and floating clouds like thistle-down, and buds whose pale parting lips prophesy delight and love." The entrancing vision of the Charles River seems ever present in the poet's mind. From the windows of Craigie House can still be seen the river "that in silence windest Through the meadows, bright and free." The poet looked over fields and meadows to his cherished stream. Now a trim park, the Longfellow IN CAMBRIDGE 243 Memorial Park, separates the house from the river. The fields were undoubtedly more redolent of poetic possibilities than the park, but how much better the park than perhaps towering apartment houses, blot- ting out the view so precious because of its associa- tion with the poet's muse. He so loved the river that we imagine the river nymphs casting their spell of sympathy about him and sustaining him in his trials as aforetime the Oceanides did Prometheus. Nymphs that dwell in the depths of the river that en- circles Cambridge would surely be akin to the nymphs of the river that encircled the earth, and would sing their devoted laj^s to the spirit ear of the poet. There are greater changes to record in regard to the bridge upon which the poet "stood at midnight." The old wooden bridge has given place to a stone one, the handsomest bridge Boston boasts, and the tide that swept and eddied through "the wooden piers" has had its life sapped out of it by the dam, recently con- structed across the mouth of the river. Now the Charles is always flood-tide, no longer to be moved by the steady rhythmic surge of the ocean, but only by the fickle winds. The writer suspects that the river resents being deprived of its supply of salt, and takes its revenge by chilling the spring East winds to a pitch of rancorousness far beyond that of former springs — though our poet does speak somewhere of the last day of May "presenting the heavens like a crystal goblet, full of sunshine iced with an East wind." When Mr. Longfellow first took his walks over this bridge in 1838 and 1839, Cambridge was still a vil- lage, and as remembered by his biographer, Mr. Sam- 244 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY uel Longfellow, "the Common had not long before been enclosed. The First Parish Church, in all the freshness of its quasi-Gothic, had but lately taken its post as sentinel at the end of the burying ground op- posite to the 'lowly nun' of Christ Church. The great elms were still in the square, untouched by the arbor- icidal instincts of the authorities and spreading their ample shelter for the omnibus drivers and their waiting horses. The omnibus, called the 'hourly,' from its times of going, was the only public means of communication with Boston, and if infrequent, was accommodating, since, on command, it called for and left its passengers at their houses. The fare was a quarter of a dollar, so the students generally com- bined economy with exercise and walked in and out of town, as Boston was called." Many are the walks over this bridge recorded by the poet. Sometimes a walk in Boston Com- mon rounded up the journey into town, some- times a reading by Mrs. Kemble, a concert or a visit to the historian Prescott in the first blush of his fame, as well as dinners with other celebrities. In fact, what of altogether delightful did not the poet experience as the reward of those walks to town! The road, as he followed it, must have been a much prettier one than it would be now, through built-up streets instead of through a sparsely settled district, where tidal meadows kept up their pendulous swing between the charm of laughing waters and the lugubriousness of mud banks. A boulevard, wide and beautiful, with its central garden of trees and shrubs, connects the poet's bridge with Harvard IN CAMBRIDGE 245 Bridge and continues beyond, one day to join the en- circling Parkway which is rapidly becoming one of Boston's greatest beauties. If the poet were walking in town to-day, instead of branching off by way of Main Street to reach the West Boston Bridge, he would keep to Massachusetts Avenue, cross the Har- vard Bridge, from which the view is more beautiful than from the West Boston Bridge, and reach the heart of the city by the parkway of Commonwealth Avenue. A more beautiful walk through a closely built-up city it would be difficult to imagine. The Longfellow house is, of course, one of the most famous spots in Cambridge, eagerly picked out by all tourists, as the site which, above all, they wish to see. Even in these days when the muses sit discon- solate on Helicon, weeping tears because of their pub- lic neglect, he who could not be moved bj^ the sight of a poet's home would be fit for "treasons, stratagems and spoils." Add to this the fact that the Father of his Country lived in the house for nine months, taking care of the infant nation, while Martha Washington gave Twelfth-night parties to help keep the infant awake, and there gathers about the house a vari-col- ored halo of war, society and poetry that is perfectly irresistible. And add to this such guests as Queen Victoria's father, and Talleyrand, and one seems to touch in this house the history of the whole world. Some of this is due to the rich Mr. Craigie, who thought to pile up glory, with his wealth, for him- self, when he entertained in such princely style, and brought to his table guests of historical distinction; but the muses may cheer up, for after all, it is the poet 246 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY who has immortalized the house with his happy chants to river, sky, and stars, which visited him in his study, when Mr. Craigie's widow had been reduced to rent- ing part of her house to eke out her husband's squan- dered income. The poet's own account of how he came there is full of interest : "The first time I was in Craigie House was on a beautiful summer afternoon in the year 1837. I came to see Mr. McLane, a law student, who occupied the southeastern chamber. The window blinds were closed, but through them came a pleasant breeze, and I could see the waters of the Charles gleaming in the meadows. McLane left his room and I took posses- sion of his room, making use of it as a library and study, and having the adjoining chamber for my bed- room. At first Mrs. Craigie declined to let me have rooms. I remember how she looked as she stood, in her white turban, with her hands crossed behind her, snapping her gray eyes. She had resolved, she said, to take no more students into her house. But her manner changed when I told her who I was. She said she had read 'Outre-Mer,' of which one num- ber was lying on her sideboard. She then took me all over the house and showed me every room in it, saying, as we went into each, that I could not have that one. She finally consented to my taking the rooms mentioned above, on condition that the door leading into the back entry should be locked on the outside. "The winter was a very solitary one, and the house very still. I used to hear Mrs. Craigie go down to breakfast at nine or ten in the morning, and go up IN CAMBRIDGE 247 to bed at eleven at night. During the day she sel- dom left her parlor, where she sat reading the news- papers and the magazines — occasionally a volume of Voltaire. "During the following summer the fine old elms in front of the house were attacked by canker-worms, which, after having devoured the leaves, came spin- ning down in myriads. Mrs. Craigie used to sit by the open windows and let them crawl over her white turban unmolested. She would have nothing done to protect the trees from these worms; she used to say: 'Why, sir, they are our f ellow- worms ; they have as good a right to live as we have.' " As a result of this generous attitude, there is but one of those fine old sky-touching elms left, the "con- suming canker" having utterly disregarded their "right to live." Occasionally, as in "The Village Blacksmith," the poet stepped outside his study, even outside his own garden and fields, and quite away from the all-em- bracing Charles, to celebrate some not too-far distant bit of scenery. The Inn at Sudbury is the most impor- tant example. This he describes quite minutely in the prologue to "The Wayside Inn." It was no longer an inn in Longfellow's day, though for a hundred and seventy-five years it had flourished as the Red-Horse Tavern, kept by the Howes, who, twenty-five years before that, had built it for a country house. Losing their fortune they became inn-keepers. It is about twenty miles from Boston, in a lovely valley, and stands upon a winding road with ancient oaks to shade the front of the house. 248 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "As ancient is this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the old Colonial day, When men lived in a grander way, With ampler hospitality; A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay. With weather stains upon the wall, And stairways worn and crazy doors, And creaking and uneven floors, And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. "A region of repose it seems, A place of slumber and of dreams. Remote among the wooded hills! For there no noisy railway speeds. Its torch-race scattering smoke and gleeds; But noon and night the pausing teams Stop under the great oaks, that throw Tangles of light and shade below. On roofs and doors and window sills. "Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay. Through the wide doors their breezes blow. The wattled cocks strut to and fro. And half effaced by rain and shine, The Red Horse prances on the sign. "Round this old-fashioned quaint abode Deep silence reigned, save when a gust Went rushing down the country road, And skeletons of leaves and dust, A moment quickened by its breath. Shuddered and danced their dance of death. And through the ancient oaks o'erhead Mysterious voices moaned and fled." IN CAMBRIDGE 249 Nearer home again is "In the Churchyard at Cam- bridge." This is the churchyard of Christ Church, on Garden Street, opposite the Common. It has known, like many another church, the vicissitudes of war. Connecticut troops were quartered here about the time of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and, being Tory property, its lead organ-pipes were melted into bul- lets. The legend which the poet has versified so gracefully is told of the Vassall monument, under which Madame Vassall is buried. It is a red sand- stone slab, supported by five square pilasters, one at each corner and one in the middle. On its upper surface is engraved a vase and an image of the Sun — supposed to symbolize the origin of the name, Vassal. The legend goes that two slaves were buried here, one at the head, and one at the foot of the tomb. Still nearer home, within sound again of the river- nymphs, is the exquisite poem on the home of James Russell Lowell, "The Herons of Elmwood," one of the most enchanting songs ever simg by poet to a brother poet : "Warm and still is the summer night, As here by the river's brink I wander; While overhead are the stars, and white The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder. "Silent are all the sounds of day; Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets. And the cry of the herons winging their way O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets. "Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes, Sing him the song of the green morass, iSid the tides that water the reeds and rushes. 250 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY "Sing him the mystical song of the Hern, And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking; For only a sound of lament we discern, And cannot interpret the words you are speaking. "Sing of the air, and the wild delight Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you. The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight Through the drift of the floating mists that enfold you; "Of the landscape lying so far below. With its towns and rivers and desert places ; And the splendor of light above, and the glow Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces. "Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, Or of Minnesingers in .old black-letter, Sound in his ears more sweet than yours. And if yours are not sweeter and milder and better. "Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate. Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, Some one hath lingered to meditate. And send him unseen this friendly greeting ; "That many another hath done the same, Though not by a sound was the silence broken; The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken." Besides the pervading cheerfulness of the Long- fellow house with its many windows, one is struck with the harmony that seems to breathe from it. Harmony of line, of proportion, of color,* of atmosphere. The two rooms most interesting to the visitor are the upper '^f^^i IN CAMBRIDGE 251 room, first the poet's study, where his most joy- ous nature poems were written, and the room direct- ly beneath, which he used as a study from the time of his marriage with Miss Appleton, when, Mrs. Craigie having died, he became the happy possessor of the house. With the upper one we naturally associate especial- ly his early poems, written between 1837 and 1845; with the lower room his maturer work, when he was looking more into the lives of men and women than into nature. Yet it must have been this early keen appreciation that helped him to write so understand- ingly of scenes he had never seen. The lower room still remains the poet's study and is kept as nearly as possible as it was in his life-time. There is the large round table in the centre, upon which, lying still open, is an old-fashioned writing desk with the slant our forefathers thought so necessary for successful pen- manship. Back of this is no ordinary ink-stand, but an ebon affair of handsome design, with a little bronze statue between the bottles, that once belonged to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is flanked by a little jar of quill pens. A book about the Indians, one about Acadia, the "Golden Treasury of Song," an early edition of the poet's own works are among the other furnishings of the table. A bust of Shake- speare looks with peculiar benignity down upon these memorials of his brother poet, who, though lesser in genius, "warbled his native woodnotes wild" after his own fashion as spontaneously and sincerely as the greater bard. A laurel wreath frames often the poet's portrait, for friends still send tributes of flowers upon his birthday. Upon leaving the house the visitor ^'.f 252 LONGFELLOW'S COUNTRY ^•^'^ ''^ 16 should always pause a moment upon the threshold and . look through the archway made by two slender elms, planted at the gateway in the poet's time; at the gleaming river which wound itself so tenderly into the thought of his earlier verse.