FEINBERG/WHITMAN LITERARY FILE Prose "Death of Longfellow"  (Apr. 3, 1882) Critic. A Ms. draft. (DCN72)
Box 33 Folder 33
Includes verso letter from O. Coburn, Mar. 27, 18821882 Apr. 3 Death of Longfellow; an essay. A.MS. written on
scraps of paper, pasted together. (7p. 27 x 16 1/2 cm. and less)
Trial pages. At head of first page "Sent to N.Y. Critic pub. April 8 '82."
In Specimen Days, 1882-83, p. 193-94.
(72)directions read as follows: "To printers: big head--make 3 lines--first line
caps, 2d & 3d lines italics;--Mind the 'thick lead' marked occasionally in
the foll[x'd out lines]owing copy--or if more convenient put two thin ones.--The next page
is 16 1/2"; on page 502 (Walt Whitman's paging): "502. '3, '4, '5 & '6 take
in pp. 177, '8, '9, '80 & '81 in Democratic Review don't cut the leaves (then
follow on with the other copy) Remember this is all to go in brevier--(all
"Collect Appendix.")[*Sent to N.Y. Critic
pub April 8 '82*]

Death of Longfellow
Camden April 3 - '82 -
I have just returned from a [week]
couple of weeks down in [the] some
[old] [again] [piney] [Jersey] primitive woods, where I love to
go occasionally, away from parlors, 
pavement and [more] the newspapers and
magazines[.], [It was] [And][there] - and where, in the shade
of pines & cedars and a tangle of old laurel
trees and vines, [in the silence, the mottled light, and the spring earth-smell,] the news of Longfellow's
Death first reached me! For want of any thing
better, [I give some of the reflections
in response as my] let me [twist ] lightly twine
[some of the reflections that floated
through on the]  [In] 
[as with the reflections] 
[as with] [The] a sprig of [this] the
sweet ground-ivy [so] trails so plentifully[,] [here], in the [thick] dead leaves at my
feet [with] [as] with [some] [very the] reflections [from] of
[of] [that] [that] that half hour [there] alone, there in the [woods] silence [of] [and lay it]
[the Jersey woods] [in] the mottled light, [and] with the [earthy] spring
smells of [spring] the Jersey woods, and lay it
as my [hurried] contribution [to] on
the dead [poets fame] bard's grave.Longfellow, in his voluminous
works, seems to me
(not only to be eminent in the forms
of poetical expression that mark [and]
the present age, [and] (an idiocracy, almost
a sickness of verbal melody) but
is always dearest as poetry to the
human heart and [mind] taste [and taste] -
and probably must be so in the nature
of things.
He is certainly the sort of [the] bard and counteractant [perhaps] most needed [of] to bring what
[all] for [in] [the] our [strong] materialistic [rank], self-assertive,
[combative] money-worshipping Anglo-Saxon
race, and especially [here] for [today] the present age in America -
2for
--an age tyrannically regulated with
reference to the manufactur[ed]r
the merchant, the financier,
[the day] the politician and the
day laborer;--[He is] for whom and among
whom he is

the [bard] poet of melody, courtesy, deference,
[the] [bard] poet of the mellow twilight of the past,
and of all sympathetic gentleness,
I [have] should [even] have to think long if I
were asked to name a man who has
done more, and in the more[st] valuable directions,
for America.[*E*]

[Skowhegan March 27 '89
Mr. Whitman,
Please accept my
thanks for the portrait of
yourself which I received
safely a few days ago
I am very much gratified 
to have it.
Yours very sincerely,
Chris. A Coburn]There never
was a more intuitive judge and
selecter of poems. His translations
of many German and Scandinavian
pieces are said to be better
than the vernaculars.
[He does not urge and lash]
his influence [is] [works] [nourishes] is like
good drink and air.
[There is] : not tepid [or] [goody-goody]
[merely] either, but always vital,
with flavor, motion, grace. [He does
not urge and lash.]
He strikes a splendid average
--does not sing [for] the exceptional
passions or humanity's jagged
[in] escapades, does not [strike] deal hard blows --
is not revolutionary -- brings nothing new--
On the contrary, his poems [He brings to the universal]
soothe and heal and
if they [arouse] excite it is [the] a 
healthy and normal excitement
[All is culled, polished,
adorned.] His very anger is
gentle at second hand, as
in "The [Slaves  Dr] The Iron Girl" 
and the "Witnesses".Without jealousies, without any mean passions,
Never has the personality [life]
character, daily and yearly life of a poet more
[completely] faithfully assimilated [this idea] his
own [gentle] loving, cultured, guileless, courteous
ideal, and [fully] exemplified it.
In [life's] the world's arena, he
[He] had some great sorrows -- but
[where] he had triumphs, and recognitions
[too] also, and [the greatest] of the grandest,
[Probably] Extensive and heart felt as is to-day [already] and has been for a long while the fame
of Longfellow. [and has been for some years] a long while.
It  is probable nay certain that [some years]
hence [before the close] some years hence
it will be deeper and greater.unpublishedThere is no undue element of pensiveness
in his [writings] collected works -- even in the early
translation, the Manrique, [it is as]
the movement is as of strong
and solemn steady wind or tide, holding
up and buoying--
Death is not avoided as a required[?] theme [of the &] of the volume, but,
there is [even] something [about[?]] winning in all his
[renderings and] original verses and renderings
on this dread subject -- as [even[?] after] "The Happiest Land,"
dispute,
WWJTo the ungracious [criticism] complaint charge of his
[imitativeness and] want of [any] racy nativity
and special originality I should say that
the world [cannot be] [can] [on] need [only] only be reverently too thankful - cannot never be  thankful for enough
[one of these] [one of these human and divine
singing bards,] for every duck [a] singing-bird vouchsafed 
out of the centuries, without asking that the notes
should be different from any other songster.
[What then the poet now past away]
[This - that native or not America
most needs strains just like these] he brings -
- (adding what I have heard Longfellow
himself say that before the New World
can be worthily original and announce
herself, and her own heroes, she must be well saturated 
with the originality of others, and [give
full] respectfully consider "the heroes that 
lived before Agamemnon".)6