The White Mr. Longfellow | Page 2

came civil
manners, and the willingness and ability to be agreeable and interesting;
but the question of riches or poverty did not enter. Even the question of
family, which is of so great concern in New England, was in abeyance.
Perhaps it was taken for granted that every one in Old Cambridge
society must be of good family, or he could not be there; perhaps his
mere residence tacitly ennobled him; certainly his acceptance was an
informal patent of gentility. To my mind, the structure of society was
almost ideal, and until we have a perfectly socialized condition of
things I do not believe we shall ever have a more perfect society. The
instincts which governed it were not such as can arise from the sordid
competition of interests; they flowed from a devotion to letters, and
from a self-sacrifice in material things which I can give no better notion
of than by saying that the outlay of the richest college magnate seemed
to be graduated to the income of the poorest.
In those days, the men whose names have given splendor to Cambridge
were still living there. I shall forget some of them in the alphabetical
enumeration of Louis Agassiz, Francis J. Child, Richard Henry Dana,
Jun., John Fiske, Dr. Asa Gray, the family of the Jameses, father and
sons, Lowell, Longfellow, Charles Eliot Norton, Dr. John G. Palfrey,
James Pierce, Dr. Peabody, Professor Parsons, Professor Sophocles.
The variety of talents and of achievements was indeed so great that Mr.
Bret Harte, when fresh from his Pacific slope, justly said, after listening
to a partial rehearsal of them, "Why, you couldn't fire a revolver from
your front porch anywhere without bringing down a two-volumer!"
Everybody had written a book, or an article, or a poem; or was in the
process or expectation of doing it, and doubtless those whose names
escape me will have greater difficulty in eluding fame. These kindly,
these gifted folk each came to see us and to make us at home among
them; and my home is still among them, on this side and on that side of
the line between the living and the dead which invisibly passes through
all the streets of the cities of men.

II.
We had the whole summer for the exploration of Cambridge before
society returned from the mountains and the sea-shore, and it was not
till October that I saw Longfellow. I heard again, as I heard when I first
came to Boston, that he was at Nahant, and though Nahant was no
longer so far away, now, as it was then, I did not think of seeking him
out even when we went for a day to explore that coast during the
summer. It seems strange that I cannot recall just when and where I saw
him, but early after his return to Cambridge I had a message from him
asking me to come to a meeting of the Dante Club at Craigie House.
Longfellow was that winter (1866-7) revising his translation of the
'Paradiso', and the Dante Club was the circle of Italianate friends and
scholars whom he invited to follow him and criticise his work from the
original, while he read his version aloud. Those who were most
constantly present were Lowell and Professor Norton, but from time to
time others came in, and we seldom sat down at the nine-o'clock supper
that followed the reading of the canto in less number than ten or twelve.
The criticism, especially from the accomplished Danteists I have
named, was frank and frequent. I believe they neither of them quite
agreed with Longfellow as to the form of version he had chosen, but,
waiving that, the question was how perfectly he had done his work
upon the given lines: I myself, with whatever right, great or little, I may
have to an opinion, believe thoroughly in Longfellow's plan. When I
read his version my sense aches for the rhyme which he rejected, but
my admiration for his fidelity to Dante otherwise is immeasurable. I
remember with equal admiration the subtle and sympathetic scholarship
of his critics, who scrutinized every shade of meaning in a word or
phrase that gave them pause, and did not let it pass till all the reasons
and facts had been considered. Sometimes, and even often, Longfellow
yielded to their censure, but for the most part, when he was of another
mind, he held to his mind, and the passage had to go as he said. I make
a little haste to say that in all the meetings of the Club, during a whole
winter of Wednesday evenings, I myself, though I faithfully followed
in an Italian Dante with the rest, ventured upon one suggestion only.

This was kindly, even seriously, considered by the poet, and