The White Mr. Longfellow | Page 9

I had put in correspondence with Longfellow. The honor
was wholly unexpected, and it brought Longfellow a distress which
was chiefly for the gentleman who had procured him the impossible
distinction. He showed me the pretty collar and cross, not, I think,
without a natural pleasure in it. No man was ever less a bigot in things
civil or religious than he, but he said, firmly, "Of course, as a
republican and a Protestant, I can't accept a decoration from a Catholic
prince." His decision was from his conscience, and I think that all
Americans who think duly about it will approve his decision.

VI.
Such honors as he could fitly permit himself he did not refuse, and I
recall what zest he had in his election to the Arcadian Academy, which
had made him a shepherd of its Roman Fold, with the title, as he said,

of "Olimipico something." But I fancy his sweetest pleasure in his vast
renown came from his popular recognition everywhere. Few were the
lands, few the languages he was unknown to: he showed me a version
of the "Psalm of Life" in Chinese. Apparently even the poor lost
autograph-seeker was not denied by his universal kindness; I know that
he kept a store of autographs ready written on small squares of paper
for all who applied by letter or in person; he said it was no trouble; but
perhaps he was to be excused for refusing the request of a lady for fifty
autographs, which she wished to offer as a novel attraction to her guests
at a lunch party.
Foreigners of all kinds thronged upon him at their pleasure, apparently,
and with perfect impunity. Sometimes he got a little fun, very, very
kindly, out of their excuses and reasons; and the Englishman who came
to see him because there were no ruins to visit in America was no fable,
as I can testify from the poet himself. But he had no prejudice against
Englishmen, and even at a certain time when the coarse-handed British
criticism began to blame his delicate art for the universal acceptance of
his verse, and to try to sneer him into the rank of inferior poets, he was
without rancor for the clumsy misliking that he felt. He could not
understand rudeness; he was too finely framed for that; he could know
it only as Swedenborg's most celestial angels perceived evil, as
something distressful, angular. The ill-will that seemed nearly always
to go with adverse criticism made him distrust criticism, and the
discomfort which mistaken or blundering praise gives probably made
him shy of all criticism. He said that in his early life as an author he
used to seek out and save all the notices of his poems, but in his latter
days he read only those that happened to fall in his way; these he cut
out and amused his leisure by putting together in scrapbooks. He was
reluctant to make any criticism of other poets; I do not remember ever
to have heard him make one; and his writings show no trace of the
literary dislikes or contempts which we so often mistake in ourselves
for righteous judgments. No doubt he had his resentments, but he
hushed them in his heart, which he did not suffer them to embitter.
While Poe was writing of "Longfellow and other Plagiarists,"
Longfellow was helping to keep Poe alive by the loans which always
made themselves gifts in Poe's case. He very, very rarely spoke of

himself at all, and almost never of the grievances which he did not fail
to share with all who live.
He was patient, as I said, of all things, and gentle beyond all mere
gentlemanliness. But it would have been a great mistake to mistake his
mildness for softness. It was most manly and firm; and of course it was
braced with the New England conscience he was born to. If he did not
find it well to assert himself, he was prompt in behalf of his friends,
and one of tho fine things told of him was his resenting some censures
of Sumner at a dinner in Boston during the old pro-slavery times: he
said to the gentlemen present that Sumner was his friend, and he must
leave their company if they continued to assail him.
But he spoke almost as rarely of his friends as of himself. He liked the
large, impersonal topics which could be dealt with on their human side,
and involved characters rather than individuals. This was rather strange
in Cambridge, where we were apt to take our instances from the
environment. It was not the only thing he was strange in there; he was
not to that manner born; he lacked the final intimacies which can come
only of