He sailed on the ship Cadmus, Captain Allen, and wrote to his mother from Havre that his passage of thirty days had been a dreary6 blank, and that the voyage was very tiresome7 because of the continual talking of French and broken English, adding, “For Frenchmen, you know, talk incessantly8, and we had at least a dozen of them with us.” In spite of this rather fatiguing9 opportunity, he was not at once at home in French, but wrote ere long, “I am coming on famously, I assure you.” He wrote from Auteuil, where he soon went, “Attached to the house is an extensive garden, full of fruit-trees, and bowers10, and alcoves11, where the boarders ramble12 and talk from morning till night. This makes the situation an excellent one for me; I can at any time hear French conversation,—for the French are always talking. Besides, the conversation is the purest of French, inasmuch as persons from the highest circles in Paris are residing here,—amongst others, an old gentleman who was 47 of the household of Louis the Sixteenth, and a Madame de Sailly, daughter of a celebrated13 advocate named Berryer, who was the defender14 of Marshal Ney in his impeachment15 for treason. There is also a young student of law here, who is my almost constant companion, and who corrects all my mistakes in speaking or writing the French. As he is not much older than I am, I do not feel so much embarrassed in speaking to him as I do in speaking to others. These are some of the advantages which I enjoy here, and you can easily imagine others which a country residence offers over that of a city, during the vacation of the literary institutions at Paris and the cessation of their lectures.”
It is to be noticed from the outset that the French villages disappointed him as they disappoint many others. In his letters he recalls “how fresh and cheerful and breezy a New England village is; how marked its features—so different from the town, so peculiar17, so delightful18.” He finds a French village, on the other hand, to be like a deserted19 town, having “the same paved streets, the same dark, narrow alleys20 without sidewalks, the same dingy21 stone houses, each peeping into its neighbor’s windows, the same eternal stone walls, shutting in from the eye of the stranger all the beauty of the place and opposing an inhospitable barrier to the lover 48 of natural scenery.” But when he finds himself among rural scenes, he has the delight felt by many an American boy since his days, as in the picture following:—
“From Orléans I started on foot for Tours on the fifth of October. October is my favorite month of the twelve. When I reflected that if I remained in Paris I should lose the only opportunity I might ever enjoy of seeing the centre of France in all the glory of the vintage and the autumn, I ‘shut the book-lid’ and took wing, with a little knapsack on my back, and a blue cap,—not exactly like Quentin Durward, but perhaps a little more. More anon of him. I had gone as far as Orléans in the diligence because the route is through an uninteresting country.
“I began the pedestrian part of my journey on one of those dull, melancholy22 days which you will find uttering a mournful voice in Sewall’s Almanack: ‘Expect—much—rain—about—this—time!’ ‘Very miscellaneous weather, good for sundry23 purposes,’—but not for a journey on foot, thought I. But I had a merry heart, and it went merrily along all day. At sundown I found myself about seven leagues on my way and one beyond Beaugency. I found the route one continued vineyard. On each side of the road, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but vines, save here and there a 49 glimpse of the Loire, the turrets24 of an old chateau25, or spire26 of a village church. The clouds had passed away with the morning, and I had made a fine day’s journey, cutting across the country, traversing vineyards, and living in all the luxury of thought which the occasion inspired. I recollect27 that at sunset I had entered a path which wound through a wide vineyard where the villagers were still at their labors28, and I was loitering along, talking with the peasantry and searching for an auberge to pass the night in. I was presently overtaken by a band of villagers; I wished them a good evening, and finding that the girls of the party were going to a village at a short distance, I joined myself to the band. I wanted to get into one of the cottages, if possible, in order to study character. I had a flute29 in my knapsack, and I thought it would be very pretty to touch up at a cottage door, Goldsmith-like,—though I would not have done it for the world without an invitation. Well, before long, I determined to get an invitation, if possible. So I addressed the girl who was walking beside me, told her I had a flute in my sack, and asked her if she would like to dance. Now laugh long and loud! What do you suppose her answer was? She said she liked to dance, but she did not know what a flute was! What havoc30 that made among my romantic 50 ideas! My quietus was made; I said no more about a flute, the whole journey through; and I thought nothing but starvation would drive me to strike up at the entrance of a village, as Goldsmith did.”[11]
Thus, wherever he goes, his natural good spirits prevail over everything. Washington Irving, in his diary, speaks of Longfellow at Madrid as having “arrived safely and cheerily, having met with no robbers.” Mrs. Alexander Everett, wife of the American minister at Madrid, writes back to America, “His countenance31 is itself a letter of recommendation.” He went into good Spanish society and also danced in the streets on village holidays. At the Alhambra, he saw the refinement32 of beauty within the halls, and the clusters of gypsy caves in the hillside opposite. After eight months of Spain he went on to Italy, where he remained until December, and passed to Germany with the new year. He sums up his knowledge of the languages at this point by saying, “With the French and Spanish languages I am familiarly conversant33 so as to speak them correctly and write them with as much ease and fluency34 as I do the English. The Portuguese35 I read without difficulty. And with regard to my proficiency36 in the Italian, I have only to say that all at the hotel where I lodge37 51 took me for an Italian, until I told them I was an American.” He settled down to his studies in Germany, his father having written, with foresight38 then unusual, “I consider the German language and literature much more important than the Italian.” He did not, however, have any sense of actual transplantation, as is the case with some young students, for although he writes to his sister (March 28, 1829), “My poetic39 career is finished. Since I left America I have hardly put two lines together,” yet he sends to Carey & Lea, the Philadelphia publishers, to propose a series of sketches40 and tales of New England life. These sketches, as given in his note-book, are as follows:—
“1. New England Scenery: description of Sebago Pond; rafting logs; tavern41 scene; a tale connected with the ‘Images.’
“3. Husking Frolic: song and tales; fellow who plays the fife for the dance; tale of the Quoddy Indians; description of Sacobezon, their chief.
“5. Thanksgiving Day: its merry-making, and tales (also of the Indians).
52
“10. Reception of Lafayette in a country village.
“13. Down East: the missionary44 of Acadie.”[12]
A few days after, he wrote from G?ttingen to his father, “I shall never again be in Europe.” We thus see his mind at work on American themes in Germany, as later on German themes in America, unconsciously predicting that mingling45 of the two influences which gave him his fame. His earlier books gave to studious Americans, as I can well recall, their first imaginative glimpses of Europe, while the poet’s homeward-looking thoughts from Europe had shown the instinct which was to identify his later fame with purely46 American themes. It is to be noticed that whatever was artificial and foreign in Longfellow’s work appeared before he went to Europe; and was the same sort of thing which appeared in all boyish American work at that period. It was then that in describing the Indian hunter he made the dance go round by the greenwood tree. He did not lay this aside at once after his return from Europe, and Margaret Fuller said of him, “He borrows incessantly and mixes what he borrows.” Criticising the very prelude47 to “Voices of the Night,” she pointed16 out the phrases “pentecost” and “bishop’s-caps” as indications that he was not merely “musing 53 upon many things,” but on many books which described them. But the habit steadily48 diminished. His very gift at translation, in which he probably exceeded on the whole any other modern poet, led him, nevertheless, always to reproduce old forms rather than create new ones, thus aiding immensely his popularity with the mass of simple readers, while coming short of the full demands of the more critical. To construct his most difficult poems was thus mainly a serene49 pleasure, and something as far as possible from that conflict which kept Hawthorne all winter, by his wife’s testimony50, with “a knot in his forehead” while he was writing “The Scarlet51 Letter.”
It is always to be borne in mind that, as Mr. Scudder has pointed out in his admirable paper on “Longfellow and his Art,” the young poet was really preparing himself in Europe for his literary work as well as for his professional work, and half consciously. This is singularly confirmed by his lifelong friend, Professor George W. Greene, who, in dedicating his “The Life of Nathanael Greene” to his friend, thus recalls an evening spent together at Naples in 1828:—
“We wanted,” he says, “to be alone, and yet to feel that there was life all around us. We went up to the flat roof of the house where, as 54 we walked, we could look down into the crowded street, and out upon the wonderful bay, and across the bay to Ischia and Capri and Sorrento, and over the house-tops and villas52 and vineyards to Vesuvius. The ominous53 pillar of smoke hung suspended above the fatal mountain, reminding us of Pliny, its first and noblest victim. A golden vapor54 crowned the bold promontory55 of Sorrento, and we thought of Tasso. Capri was calmly sleeping, like a sea-bird upon the waters; and we seemed to hear the voice of Tacitus from across the gulf56 of eighteen centuries, telling us that the historian’s pen is still powerful to absolve57 or to condemn58 long after the imperial sceptre has fallen from the withered59 hand. There, too, lay the native island of him whose daring mind conceived the fearful vengeance60 of the Sicilian Vespers. We did not yet know Niccolini; but his grand verses had already begun their work of regeneration in the Italian heart. Virgil’s tomb was not far off. The spot consecrated61 by Sannazaro’s ashes was near us. And over all, with a thrill like that of solemn music, fell the splendor62 of the Italian sunset.”[13]
As an illustration of this obvious fact that Longfellow, during this first European visit, while nominally training himself for purely educational work, was fitting himself also for a 55 literary career, we find from his letter to his father, May 15, 1829, that while hearing lectures in German and studying faithfully that language, he was, as he says, “writing a book, a kind of Sketch-Book of scenes in France, Spain, and Italy.” We shall presently encounter this book under the name of “Outre-Mer.” He connects his two aims by saying in the same letter, “One must write and write correctly, in order to teach.” Again he adds, “The further I advance, the more I see to be done. The more, too, I am persuaded of the charlatanism63 of literary men. For the rest, my fervent64 wish is to return home.” His brother tells us that among his note-books of that period, we find a favorite passage from Locke which reappears many years after in one of his letters and in his impromptu65 address to the children of Cambridge, in 1880: “Thus the ideas as well as the children of our youth often die before us, and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we are approaching; where, though the brass66 and marble remain, yet the inscriptions67 are effaced68 by time, and the imagery moulders69 away.”[14] He also included a quotation70 from John Lyly’s “Endymion,” which ten years later furnished the opening of his own “Hyperion.” 56 “Dost thou know what a poet is? Why, fool, a poet is as much as one should say—a poet.” When we consider what he had just before written to his sister, it only furnishes another illustration of the fact, which needs no demonstration71, that young authors do not always know themselves.
He reached home from Europe, after three years of absence, on August 11, 1829, looking toward Bowdoin College as his abode72, and a professorship of modern languages as his future position. Up to this time, to be sure, the economical college had offered him only an instructorship73. But he had shown at this point that quiet decision and firmness which marked him in all practical affairs, and which was not always quite approved by his more anxious father. In this case he carried his point, and he received on the 6th of September this simple record of proceedings75 from the college:—
“In the Board of Trustees of Bowdoin College, Sept. 1st, 1829: Mr. Henry W. Longfellow having declined to accept the office of instructor74 in modern languages.
“Voted, that we now proceed to the choice of a professor of modern languages.
“And Mr. H. W. Longfellow was chosen.”
Thus briefly76 was the matter settled, and he was launched upon his life’s career at the age of 57 twenty-two. Of those who made up his circle of friends in later years, Holmes had just graduated from Harvard, Sumner was a Senior there, and Lowell was a schoolboy in Cambridge. Few American colleges had at that time special professors of modern languages, though George Ticknor had set a standard for them all. Longfellow had to prepare his own text-books—to translate “L’Homond’s Grammar,” to edit an excellent little volume of French “Proverbes Dramatiques,” and a small Spanish Reader, “Novelas Espa?olas.” He was also enlisted77 in a few matters outside, and drew up the outline of a prospectus78 for a girls’ high school in Portland, such high schools being then almost as rare as professorships of modern languages. He was also librarian. He gave a course of lectures on French, Spanish, and Italian literature, but there seems to have been no reference to German, which had not then come forward into the place in American education which it now occupies. As to literature, he wrote to his friend, George W. Greene, “Since my return I have written one piece of poetry, but have not published a line. You need not be alarmed on that score. I am all prudence79 now, since I can form a more accurate judgment80 of the merit of poetry. If I ever publish a volume, it will be many years first.” It was 58 actually nine years. For the “North American Review” he wrote in April, 1831, an essay on “The Origin and Progress of the French Language.” He afterwards sent similar papers to the same periodical upon the Italian and Spanish languages and literatures, each of these containing also original translations. Thus he entered on his career as a teacher, but another change in life also awaited him.
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1
nominally
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| 在名义上，表面地； 应名儿 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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bowers
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| n.（女子的）卧室( bower的名词复数 )；船首锚；阴凉处；鞠躬的人 | |
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alcoves
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| n.凹室( alcove的名词复数 )；（花园）凉亭；僻静处；壁龛 | |
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ramble
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| v.漫步，漫谈，漫游；n.漫步，闲谈，蔓延 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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impeachment
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| n.弹劾；控告；怀疑 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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sundry
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| adj.各式各样的，种种的 | |
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turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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chateau
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| n.城堡，别墅 | |
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spire
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| n.(教堂)尖顶，尖塔，高点 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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flute
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| n.长笛；v.吹笛 | |
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havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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conversant
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| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
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fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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serene
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| adj. 安详的，宁静的，平静的 | |
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50
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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51
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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52
villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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vapor
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| n.蒸汽，雾气 | |
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55
promontory
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| n.海角；岬 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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absolve
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| v.赦免，解除（责任等） | |
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condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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59
withered
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| adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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charlatanism
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| n.庸医术，庸医的行为 | |
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fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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impromptu
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| adj.即席的，即兴的；adv.即兴的(地)，无准备的(地) | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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67
inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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effaced
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| v.擦掉( efface的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；超越；使黯然失色 | |
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moulders
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| v.腐朽( moulder的第三人称单数 )；腐烂，崩塌 | |
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quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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72
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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instructorship
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| （大学）讲师职位（或职务） | |
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instructor
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| n.指导者，教员，教练 | |
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75
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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prospectus
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| n.计划书；说明书；慕股书 | |
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prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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