Part 3 (1/2)
”'Siloa's brook that flowed Fast by the oracle of G.o.d,'
as
”'Le ruisseau de Siloa qui coulait rapidement.'”
In talking about natural differences in character and temperament, he said of his own children that he agreed with one of the old English divines who said, ”Happy is that household wherein Martha still reproves Mary!”
In February, 1868, it was decided that Longfellow should go to Europe with his family. He said that the first time he went abroad it was to see places alone and not persons; the second time he saw a few persons, and so pleasantly combined the two; he thought once that on a third visit he should prefer to see persons only; but all that was changed now. He had returned to the feeling of his youth. He was eager to seek out quiet places and wayside nooks, where he might rest in retirement and enjoy the consecrated memorials of Europe undisturbed.
The following year found him again in Cambridge, refreshed by his absence. The diary continues: ”He has been trying to further the idea of buying some of the lowlands in Cambridge for the colleges. If this can be done, it will save much future annoyance to the inhabitants from wretched hovels and bad odors, beside holding the land for a beautiful possession forever. He has given a good deal of money himself. This might be called 'his latest work.'”
”_January_, 1870.--Longfellow and Bayard Taylor came to dine.
Longfellow talked of translators and translating. He advanced the idea that the English, from the insularity of their character, were incapable of making a perfect translation. Americans, French, and Germans, he said, have much larger adaptability to and sympathy in the thought of others. He would not hear Chapman's Homer or anything else quoted on the other side, but was zealous in enforcing this argument.
He antic.i.p.ates much from Taylor's version of 'Faust.' All this was strikingly interesting, as showing how his imagination wrought with him, because he was arguing from his own theory of the capacity of the races and in the face of his knowledge of the best actual translations existing to-day, the result of the scholars.h.i.+p of England.
”Longfellow speaks of difficulty in sleeping. In his college days and later he had the habit of studying until midnight and rising at six in the morning, finding his way as soon as possible to his books.
Possibly this habit still prevents him from getting sufficient rest.
However light may be the literature in which he indulges before going to bed, some chance thought may strike him as he goes up the stairs with the bedroom candle in his hand which will preclude all possibility of sleep until long after midnight.
”His account of Sainte-Beuve during his last visit to Europe was an odd little drama. He had grown excessively fat, and could scarcely move. He did not attempt to rise from his chair as Longfellow entered, but motioned him to a seat by his side. Talking of Victor Hugo and Lamartine, 'Take them for all in all, which do you prefer?' asked Longfellow.
”'Charlatan pour charlatan, je crois que je prefere Monsieur de Lamartine,' was the reply.
”Longfellow amused me by making two epigrams:--
”'What is autobiography?
It is what a biography ought to be.'
”And again:--
”'When you ask one friend to dine, Give him your best wine!
When you ask two, The second best will do!'
”He brought in with him two poems translated from Platen's 'Night Songs.' They are very beautiful.
”'What dusky splendors of song there are in King Alfred's new volume,'
he said. 'It is always a delight to get anything new from him. His ”Holy Grail” and Lowell's ”Cathedral” are enough for a holiday, and make this one notable.'”
When Longfellow talked freely as at this dinner, it was difficult to remember that he was not really a talker. The natural reserve of his nature made it sometimes impossible for him to express himself in ordinary intercourse. He never truly made a confidant of anybody except his Muse.
”I never thought,” he wrote about this time, ”that I should come back to this kind of work.” He was busying himself with collecting and editing ”The Poems of Places.” ”It transports me to my happiest years, and the contrast is too painful to think of.” And again in calmer mood: ”The 'ruler of the inverted year' (whatever that may mean) has, you perceive, returned again, like a Bourbon from banishment, and is having it all his own way, and it is not a pleasant way. Very well, one can sit by the fire and read, and hear the wind roar in the chimney, and write to one's friends, and sign one's self 'yours faithfully,' or as in the present instance, 'yours always.'”
His sympathetic nature was ever ready to share and further the gayety of others. He wrote one evening:--
”I have been kept at home by a little dancing-party to-night.... I write this arrayed in my dress-coat with a rose in my b.u.t.tonhole, a circ.u.mstance, I think, worth mentioning. It reminds me of Buffon, who used to array himself in his full dress for writing 'Natural History.'
Why should we not always do it when we write letters? We should, no doubt, be more courtly and polite, and perhaps say handsome things to each other. It was said of Villemain that when he spoke to a lady he seemed to be presenting her a bouquet. Allow me to present you this postscript in the same polite manner, to make good my theory of the rose in the b.u.t.tonhole.”
How delightful it is to catch the intoxication of the little festival in this way. In his endeavor to further the gayeties of his children he had received a reflected light and life which his love for them had helped to create.
”_December_ 14, 1870.--Taylor's 'Faust' is finished, and Longfellow is coming with other friends to dinner to celebrate the ending of the work....