The story of Evangeline

Foreword

The purpose of this narrative is threefold, — to give a direct prose rendering of Longfellow's poem, "Evangeline," to awaken interest in the poem itself, and to preserve, so far as possible, the spirit of the original poetry for those who prefer their romances in prose. The text follows the poem closely and uses many of Longfellow's own words and phrases as being eminently the best fitted to the scenes that are described. In the brief historical and legendary introduction the writer is largely indebted to Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton's "The History of Kings County," and to "Acadian Legends and Lyrics" by the same author. For Longfellow's biography the following books have also been consulted : "The Life of Longfellow" by Erin S. Robertson, "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" by Thomas Wadsworth Higginson, and "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" by Samuel Longfellow.

Contents

PAGE

Foreword v

Introduction . i

A TALE OF ACADIE

Part II • • . 197 ILLUSTRATIONS

"In the Twilight Gloom of a Window's Embrasure,

Sat the Lovers" Cover ^

"Long at Her Father's Door Evangeline Stood" ^ Frontispiece

TACINQ PAGE

'This is the Forest Primeval" ...;.. ,,, ... . 20 ^

■'Down the Long Street She Passed" . . .... 40 j^

'There at the Door They Stood With Wondering

Eyes to Behold Him" 70 iX

'Close at her Father's Side Was the Gentle Evangeline Seated" 100 ^'

'And Anon With His Wooden Shoes Beat Time to

THE Music" 130 ^-

'Halfway Down to the Shore Evangeline Waited

IN Silence" 160 -^

'Lovely the Moonlight Was as It Glanced and

Gleamed on the Water" 190"^

'There in an Arbor of Roses" ....... 220 -'

'Silent With Wonder and Strange Surprise Evangeline Listened" 240 ^'

'Thus Many Years She Lived as a Sister of Mercy" 250 xy

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in the city of Portland, February 27, 1807. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a lawyer who held a prominent place in the New England of his day and was greatly respected, both for his ability and his character. Stephen Longfellow had taken honors at Harvard college and was considered a man of extraordinary fineness of nature both by his professors and his classmates; he came swiftly to the front in the profession of law and was prominent at the Cumberland bar. In politics he belonged to the Federalist party and went to the legislature as representative in 1814. He was also a member of the National Congress a year later.

There was little about the admirable figure of this old-fashioned New England gentleman, however, to make it seem probable that any of his son's poetic qualities were inherited from him. The poet undoubtedly owed to his father the composure of character and manliness of principle that have made his name, with those of Whitman and Browning, stand forward so sturdily among the names of poets of the Nineteenth Century, but the gifts that won his popularity and fame must have come to him from the nature of his mother, who delighted in music and showed a keen appreciation of poetry. An invalid in her later years, she was active as well as beautiful in her youth, fond of dancing and of the society of her friends and possessed of a great love of nature — able, as Samuel Longfellow says of her, "to sit by a window during a thunderstorm enjoying the excitement of its splendors."

Zilpah Longfellow was a daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth and Elizabeth Bartlett, coming from a family of Americans who were famous for patriotic service. Her brother, Henry Wadsworth, a young naval lieutenant, perished in 1804 when the fire ship Intrepid was blown up before Tripoli on the night of September fourth, and her father commanded a company of minute men and saw active service in the Revolution.

Longfellow was the second son. As a boy he is described as decidedly attractive in character and appearance, fond of all outdoor sports — except that of shooting, to which his elder brother Stephen was devoted — sensitive, dreamy, quick to anger but affectionate, and with a strong and an unusual dislike of all loud noises, a trait that followed him through life. When he was three years old his parents began to live in the house on Congress Street that has since been associated with the scenes of his youth and childhood. It was built by his grandfather, General Wadsworth, and was celebrated as being the first brick house in Portland. The poet's mother had spent her girlhood and celebrated her wedding there and she returned to the old house to make her permanent home soon after her marriage.

From his earliest years Longfellow had the use of his father's excellent library and has left in his own words a record of the books that fascinated him most. Washington Irving's "Sketch Book" was read by him "with an ever increasing wonder and delight," and in his address before the Massachusetts Historical Society on the occasion of Irving's death he declared that the old fascination had always remained for him.

After some desultory schooling which began at what would seem to-day the preposterous age of three years, Longfellow was sent to the Portland Academy, where as a little boy he excited remark on the part of his teachers for the same industry and good habits that later graduated him from Bowdoin almost at the head of one of the largest classes that up to that time had entered the young college. Idling was never encouraged in the Longfellow household, where the father governed his family with kindly firmness, teaching them, as is recorded, "habits of industry, personal honor and an abiding fear of debt."

Samuel Longfellow and other of Longfellow's biographers have told at some length of his first printed production which appeared in the poet's corner of the Portland Gazette when he had barely passed his thirteenth birthday. It was entitled "The Battle of Lovell's Fond," and while it bears the marks of immaturity and is hardly remarkable when compared with the work that some other poets had produced at the same early age, it is, in a certain way characteristic of much of his later work. Lo veil's Pond in the neighborhood of Portland was once the scene of an Indian fight whose details excited Longfellow's awakening imagination. The poem resulted and was duly printed in the Gazette under the signature of "Henry," exciting no comment whatever from the young poet's parents who were doubtless unaware of its authorship. Longfellow had kept his effort a secret that only his little sister shared, but on the evening of the day that the poem was published he visited the house of his father's friend, Judge Mellen, whose son, Frederick, was one of his own early companions. The talk in the sitting-room chanced, unfortunately for Longfellow, to include poetry, for the Judge said: "Did you see the piece in to-day's paper? Very stiff, remarkably stiff; moreover it is all borrowed, every word of it."

The cruel disappointment at this reception of his earliest flight did not, however, prevent ''Henry" from repeating his performance and publishing other poems, all more or less crude, over the same signature. Gradually the secret of their authorship leaked out among his friends. His mother encouraged him in his "poetic effusions" as she called his writings and Portland became the scene of a schoolboy literary union that included four or five other lads besides Longfellow. In the meanwhile he attended strictly to his studies and was ready for college when fourteen years old, passing his entrance examinations for Bowdoin in 1821.

Stephen Longfellow, was one of the trustees of that little college that has since then had upon its honor roll such names as Longfellow, Hawthorne and Peary; and it was characteristic of him that he decided to send both his sons to the young and struggling institution, feeling himself in duty bound to do so. Longfellow entered college in the same year with his elder brother, Stephen, making the acquaintance of Nathaniel Hawthorne who chanced to be in his class. In their college years, however, the two never became the closest of friends, although they were fond of taking walks together in the Brunswick woods and of reading and conversing on literary subjects.

Longfellow studied hard at Bowdoin and wrote constantly. Although the quality of most of his earliest poems was far from being remarkable, they showed sufficient flashes of inspiration to awaken in his own mind a passionate desire to direct his life work in the field of literature. Bryant was becoming famous then, and a paper known as the United States Literary Gazette had the unique distinction of printing, often on the same page, the early poems of Bryant and Longfellow, while it was claimed that the quality of this verse with that of other contemporaries was of a higher order than the work of any previous American poets. "With Bryant and Longfellow it would therefore seem that the permanent poetic literature of the nation began," says Higginson — a small beginning, certainly when considered with the work that was being done on the other side of the Atlantic at that time, where the poems of Keats, Shelley, Byron and Wordsworth were ringing!

Bryant's poetry in those early days was considered far superior to that of his younger rival and Longfellow has admitted that much of his verse was involuntarily borrowed from Bryant's, for which he had the highest admiration. He discarded the major part of it in his later life with the apology, that all had been written before he was nineteen years old. Seventeen pieces were contributed by Longfellow to the Gazette during his college course and only five of them were considered by him to be sufficiently good for subsequent publication.

His future career commenced to become a problem to him, occupying his mind to a marked degree during the year of his graduation, and he wrote frequently to his father asking advice. He confessed himself averse to taking up any profession and expressed the desire to spend a year abroad at Cambridge to study the polite languages. He declared that of all the things in the world he had a strong desire to win distinction in literature, and that in the field of letters alone did he believe that he could be successful. That Longfellow's father did not have great confidence in his son's literary gifts is decidedly apparent in the tone of his answering letters. He said among other things that America did not then possess wealth enough to encourage purely literary men ; that while the life of an author must be very pleasant, it required sufficient means to dissolve the thought of the necessity of self-support and that as he had never lived with the intention of amassing wealth for his children but rather to cultivate their minds in the best possible manner, his own income did not allow his son's taking such a course. He would be glad, however, he added, to bear the expenses of the trip abroad, which he had always believed might be beneficial to his son.

While the young poet was thus wrestling with his first real problem, the event occurred which it is generally conceded forced the trend of his genius and directed the course of his entire life — perhaps was even responsible for his having continued in literature, although this seems hardly probable. In college his ability as a scholar had attracted such attention at Bowdoin that although he was only nineteen years old when he graduated the trustees promptly chose him to fill a new position made by the establishment of a chair of modern languages through a gift by Mrs. Bowdoin. This entailed a year's study abroad to gain a mastery of modern languages and it is needless to say that Longfellow was delighted with the marvelous opportunity which fell in so happily with his own wishes. He accepted it at once — ^but with the demand that he be made a professor instead of filling the position of instructor as was expected of him. The point was acceded by the trustees and Longfellow sailed for France.

Europe in those days had about it a glamour for Americans that was enhanced in Longfellow's eyes through the stimulus to his active imagination in the studying of different peoples and customs and the visiting of historic and romantic places. His letters home bear ample witness to the effect of his first travels. He was faithful to the purpose with which he had gone abroad, however, and in the time allowed him gained a knowledge of French, German, Spanish and Italian. He had well fulfilled his mission when he returned to take up his duties at Bowdoin, where so short a time before he had been a student.

Longfellow's life as a professor of languages in the little rural college was uneventful, but he soon became known not only in Brunswick but generally throughout the country for his capability as a teacher. He applied himself to his work with great devotion and earnestness, preparing text books and foreign classics for the benefit of his pupils and doing everything in his power to attain a stimulating influence over them.

In 1831 he married a Portland girl named Mary Storer Potter, a second daughter of Barrett Potter who was a neighbor and friend of Longfellow's own family. She had scholarly tastes and, what was perhaps more important in the wife of a young professor, was able successfully to administer her husband's household affairs on the slender income that the Bowdoin trustees considered an adequate salary. In addition to the sum of eight hundred dollars a year for his professional work Longfellow received an extra hundred for his duties as college librarian. His labors were by no means light, and he found the sum that he received meager enough to meet his growing expenses, while he was obliged to rise early each morning to perform his literary work. And even then there appeared to be nothing about this work to indicate the rise of a great poet. It consisted mostly of prose, a large part of which was sketches of his European experiences, written after the manner of Washington Irving. These sketches were published in the New England Magazine under the title of "The Schoolmaster." Many writers and biographers have commented on the fact that wdth the exception of his very earliest poems his first work was scant in verse production and that he seemed to show no particular talent or even inclination for poetry.

As a teacher, however, his ability was evident from the first. Three years after he had taken up his work in Bowdoin he had won a reputation of the first order that resulted in his receiving a letter from Josiah Quincy of Harvard College, informing him that Professor Ticknor had given notice of his coming resignation as Smith Professor of Modern Languages and asking Longfellow to take his place. The letter implied that a preliminary stay in Europe for further study would be advisable, and Longfellow promptly accepted both the hint and the position, preparing at once for a second foreign tour in which his wife was to accompany him. He sailed with her in the spring of 1835, going first to London, where he met Thomas Carlyle; thence after a brief stay to Sweden and from there to Holland.

In Holland there came to Longfellow the first real

[II]

sorrow that he had ever experienced, for his young wife died in Amsterdam after an illness of several weeks. What this meant to him, alone and among strangers, can be imagined — especially as his married life had been the happiest conceivable. His letters, which strove to put on a brave front, had a note of the utmost despondency, but he remained abroad and went on with his work probably from a sense of duty to the college he was about to enter.

That winter he spent in Heidelberg, studying deeply and meeting several men that greatly interested him, among them the poet Bryant, who was hitherto unknown to him, although he had molded so much of Longfellow's early writing.

In 1836 Longfellow returned to America and took up his residence in Cambridge as a Harvard professor. He boarded in the old Craigie house which had been built almost a hundred years before and which was used as General Washington's headquarters during the siege of Boston in the Revolution. This old house was naturally famous in Cambridge and one of its most interesting landmarks even before it gained the added fame of being the residence of Longfellow. The house is said to have been built in 1759 by Colonel John Vassal and was taken by

Washington as headquarters and residence. Later it was purchased by Andrew Craigie who had served as surgeongeneral in the Continental army. He became an elaborate entertainer and is reported to have had among his guests no less personages than the famous Talleyrand and Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father. Mrs. Craigie still lived in the old house when Longfellow went to Cambridge and was exceedingly loath to take him as a lodger until she found out who he was. But when he declared himself the author of "Outre Mer," a book of European sketches then recently published, a copy of which was lying on her sideboard at the time of Longfellow's call upon her, the good lady promptly relented, showed him through the house and taking him into a pleasant chamber announced to him that it had been General Washington's once and that he could have it for his own.

Longfellow published his second book, the novel, "Hyperion," soon after he commenced his duties at Harvard. The previous book that had made such an impression upon his landlady had been running in magazine form before his second European tour. He was also publishing in the Knickerbocker Magazine a number of short:

poems among which was "The Psalm of Life," that at first appeared anonymously. It received wide attention throughout the country with so much speculation as to its authorship that Longfellow decided to republish it under his own name, bringing it out with a number of other verses in 1839 in a little book that he called "Voices of the Night," most of the poems in it being reprinted from the Knickerbocker Magazine.

"Hyperion" had appeared two or three months earlier and according to some biographers Longfellow has been criticized for the apparent lack of taste that he exhibited in it. The main purpose of the book, it has been claimed, was nothing else than the wooing of Miss Frances Elizabeth Appleton, a lady that Longfellow had met some years before in Switzerland. Certainly she is obviously the heroine, Mary Ashburton, while the author's own experiences and emotions are but thinly veiled under the romantic narrative.

The experiment did not fail, or rather Longfellow succeeded in spite of it. Four years later he married Frances Appleton, a remarkable and charming woman who was to become identified in a large measure with much of his later work, for the poet's second wife had essentially the nature best fitted to aid her husband in his creative labors, and entered with all her heart into his literary life.

Before Longfellow's second marriage, however, and after the publication of "Hyperion," he produced some of his most distinctive and characteristic work. "The Skeleton in Armor," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "Excelsior," and the much discussed and somewhat severely criticized "Poems on Slavery," had all been published. These last cost Longfellow for a time a considerable part of his popularity, a loss that in no way affected his composure, although the poems were criticized not only on account of the issue with which they dealt but for reasons of poetic inferiority. Even those reformers who had largely induced Longfellow to employ his pen on this dynamic and highly explosive subject felt that his note was somewhat too slight for the magnitude of his theme, and compared his verse unfavorably with that of Whittier. It is known and mentioned, however, that Whittier himself wrote to Longfellow expressing his appreciation of the poems, declaring that they had rendered important service to the Liberty movement; and certainly the criticism that fell on Longfellow was shared and shared generously by Whittier, Emerson and all others who were writing against slavery.

In 1843 Longfellow published "The Spanish Student," a dramatic poem of no particular merit that enjoyed almost equal popularity, however, with some of his better work that had preceded it. By this time his fame was national and well established, and he was beginning to make the peculiar and general appeal in the homes of Americans that has fallen to the lot of no other writer, either of verse or prose, while his strong tendency toward Americanism was becoming broader and deeper.

It seemed, indeed, at this time in Longfellow's career, as if Fortune could not do too much for her favorite, who throughout his life, with the exception of the one great tragedy of his later years, was destined to enjoy so large an amount of happiness. His second wife was not only a woman who in every way could awaken his inspiration, but she was possessed of a sufficient fortune so that the thought of poverty need never trouble him or his family. His position in the university and in the nation was even then assured. He was still young, and in spite of his academic duties had sufficient time at his command to develop his growing genius and to satisfy the poetic craving of his nature.

A scholarly work on the poets and the poetry of Europe, written jointly by Longfellow and Professor Felton was published in 1845. It was composed of several hundred translations of poems in various languages from Icelandic to Portuguese with critical commentaries and introductions and it showed Longfellow's tremendous versatility in and acquaintance with foreign tongues. In the same year there appeared notes in his diary showing that already he was considering the long, hexameter poem, "Evangeline." In 1846 he published "The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems," which included many of his popular favorites, among them "The Arrow and the Song."

Then came "Evangeline" on which he had been working for some time and which was destined to be the most popular of any of his poems. He had never been to Nova Scotia, or Acadia, to acquaint himself with the scenes of his new literary venture, but the description, on the whole, rings true in spite of minor inconsistencies.

Robertson tells us a curious story of "Evangeline's"

inception — how Longfellow one day was dining at his home with Nathaniel Hawthorne and a clergyman who told the poet of a subject in which he was endeavoring without success to awaken Hawthorne's interest. He then related the history of a young Acadian girl who had been driven into exile with all the rest of her people during the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755; how she became separated from her lover and wandered for many years in search of him until she found him in a hospital at the point of death. "That Longfellow at once took the lovely legend," writes Robertson, "is not so striking a fact, as that Hawthorne, true to the strange taste of his 'miasmatic conscience' felt the want of a sin to study in the story and so would have none of it."

The success of "Evangeline" was rapid and so universal that thirty-seven thousand copies were sold in the first ten years. The effect of the poem upon Nova Scotia and French Canada is still evident. It is said that the French Canadians hold Longfellow higher than any other poet and that many of them have learned English just for the pleasure of reading Evangeline in the original. Evangeline herself has been portrayed upon the pamphlets and time-tables of Canadian railroads that have been prompt to see the advertising possibilities in the poem. The poem itself has been translated into ten foreign languages, and to-day it is still read widely.

"Kavanagh" followed "Evangeline" — a novel for which Americans seem to have little inclination, and after its publication there was a lull in Longfellow's literary output. But "The Seaside and the Fireside" was published in Boston in 1850 and "The Golden Legend" in 1851. Then, in 1855, appeared what to many people will always stand as the high-water mark of Longfellow's genius, "The Song of Hiawatha" in which the spirit and traditions of the Indians were so thoroughly portrayed, with such fresh and delightful simplicity, that it stands high and alone as the poetic expression of the Indian legend.

For some time past Longfellow had been working on this Indian adventure and from the entries regarding it that we read in quotations from his journal we can see that it fascinated and delighted him. Finally it was put on press in a first edition of 5000 copies and the response was immediate and enthusiastic on the part of the reading public. Violent controversies arose among the critics but on the whole their judgment was favorable. Emerson read the poem with interest and sent to Longfellow a letter of tempered praise. Bayard Taylor wrote in the same manner, though on the whole more warmly. Hawthorne and Parsons joined in commending it and letters of appreciation and criticism poured on the poet who had apparently awakened the entire nation through the original application of his verse.

By this time Longfellow had resigned his professorship in order to be entirely free for literary effort. Even if he had not been comparatively wealthy he would then have been in a position to earn a comfortable income from his writing. He was paying the pleasant penalty of his fame in the host of visitors and the curious that besieged him constantly and in the ceaseless incoming tide of letters from all over the country, many of which he tried to answer in his own hand. But although he had given himself completely to writing it was three years after "Hiawatha" had taken the country by storm before "The Courtship of Miles Standish" was published and five years later before "Tales of a Wayside Inn" was given to the press.

In those five years, however, there had come to Longfellow a sudden and hideous tragedy. Early in July,

'this is the forest primeval" — Page i^j

1861, Mrs. Longfellow, while with her children in the library of Craigie House, was burned to death from the accidental falling of a match and Longfellow himself received severe burns in his efforts to rescue her. The horror and pity of this event were indescribable and for a long time afterward Longfellow could not speak of the anguish that he had experienced. He never completely recovered from the shock and though in time he resumed his writing, it seemed as if his greatest work had been completed.

'Tlower de Luce," "The New England Tragedies" and a translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy" appeared successively in the years from 1867 to 1870 and "Christus, a Mystery" followed them two years later in an effort to consummate what Longfellow believed to be "a higher strain" of poetry. The different parts of this poem had already been published, "The Divine Tragedy," "The Golden Legend" and "The New England Tragedies" forming the whole.

From this time on new tributes were constantly given to Longfellow. In 1868 he visited Europe again and was presented to Queen Victoria and to a large number of England's greatest men. Degrees and honors were conferred on him by foreign universities. He was accorded respect and admiration wherever he went. From the time of his return to America, his life was quiet and even until the day of his death. "Aftermath," "The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems," "Poems of Places," "Keramos," "Ultima Thule," "In the Harbor" and "Michael Angelo" were the new and collected issues of his writings. He died in 1882 and two years later his bust was placed in the poets' corner of Westminster Abbey, an honor that had been conferred upon no other American poet.

The land of Acadia, that is now called Nova Scotia, is the scene of many stories and events in history that have made it a fitting place to have become the background of a narrative so romantic as that of the Acadian exile and of the lifelong separation of Evangeline from her lover, Gabriel; for the earliest tale that deals with this country is nearly a thousand years old, dating back hundreds of years before Columbus to the time when the savage and adventurous Norsemen sailed in open boats into unknown seas and came to a land that they called Markland, lying far in the western ocean. This land is believed to have been discovered by a Viking captain named Leif Ericsson, who sailed into the west from the shores of Greenland coming at last to a strange and marvelous country that seems to have been no other than Acadia itself; but for nearly five hundred years afterward no white man is known to have visited its shores to confirm the tales of Ericsson and his comrades concerning it.

In that time, however, and perhaps for thousands of years before, Acadia was the home of a tribe of Indians called Micmacs, who came and went across the Basin of Minas in their birch canoes and who hunted moose and beaver in the Acadian forests. Like the white settlers that followed them, the Micmacs appear to have been under the spell of the country where they lived and to have believed in many legends concerning it. Some of these legends claim that they were created by the sun itself, and it is certain that they worshiped the sun as their chief god and life giver; but other stories tell how they were made in human form by their hero-god, the mighty Glooscap, who shaped them from the ash-tree and who also turned his uncle, the turtle, into a man, finding him a wife from the tribe that he had just created. The Micmacs believed too in a demon called Mendon who exercised his baleful powers upon them in many ways and whom they tried to appease by prayers and sacrifices whenever evil came upon them, although Glooscap, their chief hero, was supposed to watch over them and protect them from all harm.