On the last day of 1853, Longfellow wrote in his diary, “How barren of all poetic production and even prose production this last year has been! For 1853 I have absolutely nothing to show. Really there has been nothing but the college work. The family absorbs half the time, and letters and visits take out a huge cantle.” Yet four days later he wrote, January 4, 1854, “Another day absorbed in the college. But why complain? These golden days are driven like nails into the fabric. Who knows but they help it to hold fast and firm?” On February 22, he writes, “You are not misinformed about my leaving the professorship. I am ‘pawing to get free.’” On his birthday, February 27, he writes, in the joy of approaching freedom, “I am curious to know what poetic victories, if any, will be won this year.” On April 19 he writes, “At eleven o’clock in No. 6 University Hall, I delivered my last lecture—the last I shall ever deliver, here 203 or anywhere.”[80] The following are the letters explaining this, and hitherto unpublished, but preserved in the Harvard College archives. Cambridge, February 16, 1854.
Gentlemen,—In pursuance of conversations held with Dr. Walker, the subject of which he has already communicated to you,—I now beg leave to tender you my resignation of the “Smith Professorship of the French and Spanish Languages and Literatures,” which I have held in Harvard College since the year 1835.
Should it be in your power to appoint my successor before the beginning of the next Term, I should be glad to retire at once. But if this should be inconvenient, I will discharge the duties of the office until the end of the present Academic Year.
I venture on this occasion, Gentlemen, to call your attention to the subject of the salaries paid to the several Instructors in this Department, and to urge, as far as may be proper, such increase as may correspond to the increased expenses of living in this part of the country at the present time.
With sentiments of the highest regard, and sincere acknowledgments of your constant courtesy 204 and kindness, during the eighteen years of my connection with the College,
I have the honor to be, Gentlemen,
Your Obt. Servt.
Henry W. Longfellow.[81]
To the President and Corporation of Harvard University.
[TO PRESIDENT WALKER.]
Cambridge, Feb. 16, 1854.
My dear Sir,—I inclose you my note to the Corporation. Will you be kind enough to look at it, before handing it to them; for if it is not in proper form and phrase, I will write it over again.
I also inclose the letters of Schele de Vere, and remain,
Very faithfully Yours
Henry W. Longfellow[82]
P. S. I have not assigned any reasons for my resignation, thinking it better to avoid a repetition of details, which I have already explained to you.
[TO THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE.]
Gentlemen,—Having last Winter signified to you my intention of resigning my Professorship 205 at the close of the present College year, I now beg leave to tender you my resignation more formally and officially.
It is eighteen years since I entered upon the duties of this Professorship. They have been to me pleasant and congenial; and I hope I have discharged them to your satisfaction, and to the advantage of the College in whose prosperity I shall always take the deepest interest.
In dissolving a connection, which has lasted so long, and which has been to me a source of so much pleasure and advantage, permit me to express to you my grateful thanks for the confidence you have reposed in me, and the many marks of kindness and consideration which I have received at your hands.
With best wishes for the College and for yourselves, I have the honor to be, Gentlemen,
Your Obedient Servant
Henry W. Longfellow
Smith Professor of French and Spanish, and Professor of Belles Lettres.[83]
Cambridge, August 23, 1854.
[TO PRESIDENT WALKER.]
Nahant, Aug. 23, 1854.
My dear Sir,—I inclose you the Letter of resignation we were speaking of yesterday. I 206 have made it short, as better suited to College Records; and have said nothing of the regret, which I naturally feel on leaving you, for it hardly seems to me that I am leaving you; and little of my grateful acknowledgments; for these I hope always to show, by remaining the faithful friend and ally of the College.
I beg you to make my official farewells to the members of the Faculty at their next meeting, and to assure them all and each of my regard and friendship, and of my best wishes for them in all things.
With sentiments of highest esteem, I remain
Dear Sir,
Yours faithfully
Henry W. Longfellow[84]
His retirement was not a matter of ill health, for he was perfectly well, except that he could not use his eyes by candle-light. But friends and guests and children and college lectures had more and more filled up his time, so that he had no strength for poetry, and the last two years had been very unproductive. There was, moreover, all the excitement of his friend Sumner’s career, and of the fugitive slave cases in Boston, and it is no wonder that he writes in his diary, with his usual guarded moderation, “I am not, 207 however, very sure as to the result.” Meanwhile he sat for his portrait by Lawrence, and the subject of the fugitive slave cases brought to the poet’s face, as the artist testified, a look of animation and indignation which he was glad to catch and retain. On Commencement Day, July 19, 1854, he wore his academical robes for the last time, and writes of that event, “The whole crowded church looked ghostly and unreal as a thing in which I had no part.” He had already been engaged upon his version of Dante, having taken it up on February 1, 1853,[85] after ten years’ interval; and moreover another new literary project had occurred to him “purely in the realm of fancy,” as he describes it, and his freedom became a source of joy.
He had been anxious for some years to carry out his early plan of works upon American themes. He had, as will be rememb............