A REESE LIBRARY >} THK VERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Accessions M',V (7 Slulf No.- May 1, 1849* j 1ST OF BOOKS TICKNOR, REED AND FIELDS, Corner of OTasjutiflton anto School Streets, BOSTON. LONGFELLOW'S POEMS. i. LONGFELLOW'S EVANGELINE ; A TALE OF ACADIE. Just published. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. II. LONGFELLOW'S VOICES OF THE NIGHT. A New Edition. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. ill. * LONGFELLOW'S BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS. A New Edition. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. IV. LONGFELLOW'S SPANISH STUDENT. A Play in Three Acts. A New Edition. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. v. LONGFELLOW'S BELFRY OF BRUGES AND OTHER POEMS. A New Edition. In one volume, IGmo, price 75 cents VI. THE WAIF. A Collection of Poems. Edited by LONGFELLOW. A New Edition. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. VII. THE ESTRAY. A Collection of Poems. Edited by LONGFELLOW. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. PROSE WORKS. LONGFELLOW'S KAVANAGH. A TALE. Ju Published. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. II. LONGFELLOW'S OUTRE-MER. A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea. N A New Edition. In one volume, 16mo, price $1.00. in. LONGFELLOW'S HYPERION. A ROMANCE. A New Edition. In one volume, 16mo, price $1.00. A LIST OF BOOKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED POETRY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. POEMS. In one volume, 16mo. .New Edition, Enlarged. Just out. Price $1.00. ALFRED TENNYSON. POEMS. A New Edition. Enlarged. In two volumes, ICmo, price $1.50. in. ALFRED TENNYSON. THE PRINCESS. A MEDLEY. Just out. In one volume, 16mo, price 50 cents. IV. WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. POEMS, NARRATIVE and LYRICAL. A New Edition, Enlarged. In one volume, 16mo, price 75 cents. v. WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. MINSTRELSY, AN- CIENT and MODERN. Wrth an HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION and NOTES. In two volumes, IGmo, price $1.50. RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. POEMS OF MANY YEARS. In one volume, IGmo, price 75 cents. VII. LEIGH HUNT. STORY OF RIMINI and Other Poems. In one volume, 16mo, price 50 cents. Till. REJECTED ADDRESSES. 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Designed as an INTRO- DUCTION to Russell's "AMERICAN ELOCUTIONIST." Compiled by WILLIAM RUSSELL, author of " Lessons in Enunciation," etc. With a Supplement on PURITY OF TONE, by G. J. WEBB, Professor, Boston Academy of Music. Improved Edition. In one volume, 12mo, price 621-2 cents. vni. ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MINERALOGY. Comprising an INTRODUCTION TO THE SCIENCE. By WILLIAM PHILLIPS. Fifth Edition, from the Fourth London Edition. By ROBERT ALUN. Containing the Latest Discoveries in American and Foreign Mineralogy, with numerous Additions to the Introduction, by FRANCIS ALGER. With numerous Engravings. One volume, ]2mo, price $3.00. THE USE OF THE BLOWPIPE IN CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY. By J. J. BERZELIUS. Translated from the 4th Enlarged and Corrected Edition, by J. D. WHITNEY. With Plates. In one volume, 12mo, price $1.50. x. A BRIEF PRACTICAL TREATISE ON MOR- TARS IN BUILDING. With an Account of the Processes employed on the Public Works in Boston Harbor. By Lieut. WILLIAM IJ. 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For the Study of the Pronunciation of the French Lan- guage, after a Plan entirely New, which will enable the Student to acquire with facility a Correct Pronunciation, with or without the assist- ance of a Teacher. New (Stereotype) Edition. 1 volume, 12mo, half- embossed morocco, 50 cents. The above Series is used in the Universities of Cambridge, Hanover, and Vir- ginia, as well as in many other Colleges, Academies, and Schools, in JVewJ England and elseichere. K AVA N A G H. K AVANAGH, A TALE. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. The Highly ptll^)ose never is o'ertook, Unless the deed go with it. SHAKSPEARE. BOSTON: TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. M DCCC XLIX. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by H. W. LONGFELLOW, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. OF THE UUI7EESIT? KAVANAGH. 1. GREAT men stand like solitary towers in the city of God, and secret passages running deep beneath external nature give their thoughts inter- course with higher intelligences, which strength- ens and consoles them, and of which the laborers on the surface do not even dream ! Some such thought as this was floating vaguely through the brain of Mr. Churchill, as he closed his school-house door behind him ; and if in any degree he applied it to himself, it may perhaps be pardoned in a dreamy, poetic man like him ; for we judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. And moreover his wife consider- ed him equal to great things. To the people in 4 KAVANAGH, the village, he was the school-master, and nothing more. They beheld in his form and countenance no outward sign of the divinity within. They saw him daily moiling and delving in the common path, like a beetle, and little thought that under- neath that hard and cold exterior, lay folded deli- cate golden wings, wherewith, when the heat of day was over, he soared and revelled in the pleasant evening air. To-day he was soaring and revelling before the sun had set ; for it was Saturday. With a feel- ing of infinite relief he left behind him the empty school-house, into which the hot sun of a Sep- tember afternoon was pouring. All the bright young faces were gone ; all the impatient little hearts were gone ; all the fresh voices, shrill, but musical with the melody of childhood, were gone ; and the lately busy realm was given up to silence, and the dusty sunshine, and the old gray flies, that buzzed and bumped their heads against the window-panes. The sound of the outer door, creaking on its hebdomadal hinges, was like a sen- tinel's challenge, to which the key growled re- sponsive in the lock ; and the master, casting a furtive glance at the last caricature of himself in red chalk on the wooden fence close by, entered A TALE. 5 with a light step the solemn avenue of pines that led to the margin of the river. At first his step was quick and nervous ; and he swung his cane as if aiming blows at some in- visible and retreating enemy. Though a meek man, there were moments when he remembered with bitterness the unjust reproaches of fathers and their insulting words ; and then he fought im- aginary battles with people out of sight, and struck them to the ground, and trampled upon them ; for Mr. Churchill was not exempt from the weak- ness of human nature, nor the customary vexa- tions of a school-master's life. Unruly sons and unreasonable fathers did sometimes embitter his else sweet days and nights. But as he walked, his step grew slower, and his heart calmer. The coolness and shadows of the great trees comfort- ed and satisfied him, and he heard the voice of the wind as it were the voice of spirits calling around him in the air. So that when he emerged from the black woodlands into the meadows by the river's side, all his cares were forgotten. He lay down for a moment under a syca- more, and thought of the Roman Consul Licinius, passing a night with eighteen of his followers in the hollow trunk of the great Lycian plane-tree. 6 KAVANAGH, From the branches overhead the falling seeds were wafted away through the soft air on plumy tufts of down. The continuous murmur of the leaves and of the swift-running stream seemed rather to deepen than disturb the pleasing solitude and silence of the place ; and for a moment he imagined himself far away in the broad prairies of the West, and lying beneath the luxuriant trees that overhang the banks of the Wabash and the Kaskaskia. He saw the sturgeon leap from the river, and flash for a moment in the sunshine. Then a flock of wild-fowl flew across the sky to- wards the sea-mist that was rising slowly in the east ; and his soul seemed to float away on the river's current, till he had glided far out into the measureless sea, and the sound of the wind among the leaves was no longer the sound of the wind, but of the sea. Nature had made Mr. Churchill a poet, but des- tiny made him a school-master. This produced a discord between his outward and his inward ex- istence. Life presented itself to him like the Sphinx, with its perpetual riddle of the real and the ideal. To the solution of this dark problem he devoted his days and his nights. He was forced to teach grammar when he would fain A TALE. 7 have written poems ; and from day to day, and from year to year, the trivial things of life post- poned the great designs, which he felt capable of accomplishing, but never had the resolute courage to begin. Thus he dallied with his thoughts and with all things, and wasted his strength on trifles ; like the lazy sea, that plays with the pebbles on its beach, but under the inspiration of the wind might lift great navies on its outstretched palms, and toss them into the air as playthings. The evening came. The setting sun stretched his celestial rods of light across the level land- scape, and, like the Hebrew in Egypt, smote the rivers and the brooks and the ponds, and they be- came as blood. Mr. Churchill turned his steps homeward. He climbed the hill with the old windmill on its sum- mit, and below him saw the lights of the village ; and around him the great landscape sinking deeper and deeper into the sea of darkness. He passed an orchard. The air was filled with the odor of the fallen fruit, which seemed to him as sweet as the fragrance of the blossoms in June. A few steps farther brought him to an old and neglected church-yard ; and he paused a moment to look at the white gleaming stone, under which slumbered KAVANAGH, the old clergyman, who came into the village in the time of the Indian wars, and on which was re- corded that for half a century he had been " a painful preacher of the word." He entered the village street, and interchanged a few words with Mr. Pendexter, the venerable divine, whom he found standing at his gate. He met, also, an ill- looking man, carrying so many old boots that he seemed literally buried in them ; and at intervals encountered a stream of strong tobacco smoke, exhaled from the pipe of an Irish laborer, and pervading the damp evening air. At length he reached his own door. A TALE. II. WHEN Mr. Churchill entered his study, he found the lamp lighted, and his wife waiting for him. The wood fire was singing on the hearth like a grasshopper in the heat and silence of a Summer noon ; and to his heart the chill autum- nal evening became a Summer noon. His wife turned towards him with looks of love in her joy- ous blue eyes ; and in the serene expression of her face he read the Divine beatitude, " Blessed are the pure in heart." No sooner had he seated himself by the fireside than the door was swung wide open, and on the threshold stood, with his legs apart, like a minia- ture colossus, a lovely, golden boy, about three years old, with long, light locks, and very red cheeks. After a moment's pause, he dashed for- ward into the room with a shout, and established 10 KAVANAGH, himself in a large arm-chair, which he converted into a carrier's wagon, and over the back of which he urged forward his imaginary horses. He was followed by Lucy, the maid of all work, bear- ing in her arms the baby, with large, round eyes, and no hair. In his mouth he held an India rub- ber ring, and looked very much like a street-door knocker. He came down to say good night, but after he got down, could not say it ; not being able to say any thing but a kind of explosive " Papa ! " He was then a good deal kissed and tormented in various ways, and finally sent off to bed blowing little bubbles with his mouth, Lucy blessing his little heart, and asseverating that no- body could feed him in the night without loving him ; and that if the flies bit him any more she would pull out every tooth in their heads ! Then came Master Alfred's hour of triumph and sovereign sway. The fire-light gleamed on his hard, red cheeks, and glanced from his liquid eyes, and small, white teeth. He piled his wagon full of books and papers, and dashed off to town at the top of his speed ; he delivered and re- ceived parcels and letters, and played the post- boy's horn with his lips. Then he climbed the back of the great chair, sang " Sweep ho ! " as A TALE. 11 from the top of a very high chimney, and, sliding down upon the cushion, pretended to fall asleep in a little white bed, with white curtains ; from which imaginary slumber his father awoke him by crying in his ear, in mysterious tones, " What little boy is this ! " Finally he sat down in his chair at his mother's knee, and listened very attentively, and for the hundredth time, to the story of the dog Jumper, which was no sooner ended, than vociferously called for again and again. On the fifth repetition, it was cut as short as the dog's tail by Lucy, who, having put the baby to bed, now came for Master Alfred. He seemed to hope he had been forgot- ten, but was nevertheless marched off to bed, without any particular regard to his feelings, and disappeared in a kind of abstracted mood, repeat- ing softly to himself his father's words, " Good night, Alfred !" His father looked fondly after him as he went up stairs, holding Lucy by one hand, and with the other rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. " Ah ! these children, these children ! " said Mr. Churchill, as he sat down at the tea-table ; " we ought to love them very much now, for we shall not have them long with us ! " 12 KAVANAGH, " Good heavens ! " exclaimed his wife, u what do you mean ? Does any thing ail them ? Are they going to die ? " " I hope not. But they are going to grow up, and be no longer children." " O, you foolish man ! You gave me such a fright ! " " And yet it seems impossible that they should ever grow to be men, and drag the heavy artil- lery along the dusty roads of life." " And I hope they never will. That is the last thing I want either of them to do." " O, I do not mean literally, only figuratively. By the way, speaking of growing up and growing old, I saw Mr. Pendexter this evening, as I came home." " And what had he to say ? " cc He told me he should preach his farewell sermon to-morrow." " Poor old man ! I really pity him." " So do I. But it must be confessed he is a dull preacher ; and I dare say it is as dull work for him as for his hearers." " Why are they going to send him away ? " " O, there are a great many reasons. He does not give time and attention enough to his A TALE. 13 sermons and to his parish. He is always at work on his farm ; always wants his salary raised ; and insists upon his right to pasture his horse in the parish fields." " Hark ! " cried his wife, lifting up her face in a listening attitude. " What is the matter ? " " I thought I heard the baby ! " There was a short silence. Then Mr. Church- ill said, " It was only the cat in the cellar." At this moment Lucy came in. She hesitated a little, and then, in a submissive voice, asked leave to go down to the village to buy some rib- bon for her bonnet. Lucy was a girl of fifteen, who had been taken a few years before from an Orphan Asylum. Her dark eyes had a gypsy look, and she wore her brown hair twisted round her head after the manner of some of Murillo's girls. She had Milesian blood in her veins, and was impetuous and impatient of contradiction. When she had left the room, the school-master resumed the conversation by saying, " I do not like Lucy's going out so much in the evening. I am afraid she will get into trouble. She is really very pretty." 14 KAVANAGH, Then there was another pause, after which he added, " My dear wife, one thing puzzles me exceed- bgly." " And what is that ? " u It is to know what that man does with all the old boots he picks up about the village. I met him again this evening. He seemed to have as many feet as Briareus had hands. He is a kind of centipede." " But what has that to do with Lucy ? " " Nothing. It only occurred to me at the moment ; and I never can imagine what he does with so many old boots." A TALE. 15 III. WHEN tea was over, Mr. Churchill walked to and fro in his study, as his custom was. And as he walked, he gazed with secret rapture at the books, w r hich lined the walls, and thought how many bleeding hearts and aching heads had found consolation for themselves and imparted it to others, by writing those pages. The books seemed to him almost as living beings, so instinct were they with human thoughts and sympathies. It was as if the authors themselves were gazing at him from the walls, with countenances neither sorrowful nor glad, but full of calm indifference to fate, like those of the poets who appeared to Dante in his vision, walking together on the dolor- ous shore. And then he dreamed of fame, and thought that perhaps hereafter he might be in some degree, and to some one, what these men 16 KAVANAGH, were to him ; and in the enthusiasm of the moment he exclaimed aloud, u Would you have me be like these, dear Mary ? " Like these what ? " asked his wife, not com- prehending him. " Like these great and good men, like these scholars and poets, the authors of all these books ! " She pressed his hand and said, in a soft, but excited tone, u O, yes ! Like them, only perhaps better ! " u Then I will write a Romance ! " u Write it ! " said his wife, like the angel. For she believed that then he would become famous for ever ; and that all the vexed and busy world would stand still to hear him blow his little trumpet, whose sound was to rend the adaman- tine walls of time, and reach the ears of a far-off and startled posterity. A TALE. 17 IV. " I WAS thinking to-day," said Mr. Churchill a few minutes afterwards, as he took some papers from a drawer scented with a quince, and arranged them on the study table, while his wife as usual seated herself opposite to him with her work in her hand, "I was thinking to-day how dull and prosaic the study of mathematics is made in our school-books ; as if the grand science of num- bers had been discovered and perfected merely to further the purposes of trade." " For my part," answered his wife, u I do not see how you can make mathematics poetical. There is no poetry in them." " Ah, that is a very great mistake ! There is something divine in the science of numbers. Like God, it holds the sea in the hollow of its hand. It measures the earth ; it weighs the stars ; 2 18 KAVANAGH, it illumines the universe ; it is law, it is order, it is beauty. And yet we imagine that is, most of us that its highest end and culminating point is book-keeping by double entry. It is our way of teaching it that makes it so prosaic." So saying, he arose, and went to one of his book-cases, from the shelf of which he took down a little old quarto volume, and laid it upon the table. "Now here," he continued, "is a book of mathematics of quite a different stamp from ours." " It looks very old. What is it ? " "It is the Lilawati of Bhascara Acharya, translated from the Sanscrit." "It is a pretty name. Pray what does it mean ? " " Lilawati was the name of Bhascara's daugh- ter ; and the book was written to perpetuate it. Here is an account of the whole matter." He then opened the volume, and read as fol- lows : " It is said that the composing of Lilawati was occasioned by the following circumstance. Lila- wati was the name of the author's daughter, con- cerning whom it appeared, from the qualities of the Ascendant at her birth, that she was destined A TALE. 19 to pass her -life unmarried, and to remain without children. The father ascertained a lucky hour for contracting her in marriage, that she might be firmly connected, and have children. It is said that, when that hour approached, he brought his daughter and his intended son near him. He left the hour-cup on the vessel of water, and kept in attendance a time-knowing astrologer, in order that, when the cup should subside in the water, those two precious jewels should be united. But as the intended arrangement was not according to destiny, it happened that the girl, from a curiosity natural to children, looked into the cup to observe the water coming in at the hole ; when by chance a pearl separated from her bridal dress, fell into the cup, and, rolling down to the hole, stopped the influx of the water. So the astrologer waited in expectation of the promised hour. When the operation of the cup had thus been delayed be- yond all moderate time, the father was in conster- nation, and examining, he found that a small pearl had stopped the course of the water, and the long- expected hour was passed. In short, the father, thus disappointed, said to his unfortunate daugh- ter, I will write a book of your name, which shall remain to the latest times, for a good name is 20 KAVANAGH, a second life, and the groundwork of eternal ex- istence." As the school-master read, the eyes of his wife dilated and grew tender, and she said, " What a beautiful story ! When did it hap- pen ? " " Seven hundred years ago, among the Hin- doos." " Why not write a poem about it ? " " Because it is already a poem of itself, one of those things, of which the simplest statement is the best, and which lose by embellishment. The old Hindoo legend, brown with age, would not please me so well if decked in gay colors, and hung round with the tinkling bells of rhyme. Now hear how the book begins." Again he read ; " Salutation to the elephant-headed Being who infuses joy into the minds of his worshippers, who delivers from every difficulty those that call upon him, and whose feet are reverenced by the gods ! Reverence to Ganesa, who is beautiful as the pure purple lotos, and around whose neck the black curling snake winds itself in playful folds ! " " That sounds rather mystical," said his wife. A TALE. 21 " Yes, the book begins with a salutation to the Hindoo deities, as the old Spanish Chronicles begin in the name of God, and the Holy Virgin. And now see how poetical some of the examples are." He then turned over the leaves slowly and read, u One-third of a collection of beautiful water- lilies is offered to Mahadev, one-fifth to Huri, one-sixth to the Sun, one-fourth to Devi, and six which remain are presented to the spiritual teach- er. Required the whole number of water-lilies." " That is very pretty," said the wife, " and would put it into the boys' heads to bring you pond-lilies." " Here is a prettier one still. One-fifth of a hive of bees flew to the Kadamba flower ; one- third flew to the Silandhara ; three times the dif- ference of these two numbers flew to an arbor ; and one bee continued flying about, attracted on each side by the fragrant Ketaki and the Malati. What was the number of the bees ? " " T am sure I should never be able to tell." " Ten times the square root of a flock of geese " Here Mrs. Churchill laughed aloud ; but he continued very gravely, 22 KAVANAGH, u Ten times the square root of a flock of geese, seeing the clouds collect, flew to the Manus lake ; one-eighth of the whole flew from the edge of the water amongst a multitude of water-lilies ; and three couple were observed playing in the water. Tell me, my young girl with beautiful locks, what was the whole number of geese ? " " Well, what was it ? " " What should you think ? " " About twenty." " No, one hundred and forty-four. Now try another. The square root of half a number of bees, and also eight-ninths of the whole, alighted on the jasmines, and a female bee buzzed respon- sive to the hum of the male inclosed at night in a water-lily. O, beautiful damsel, tell me the num- ber of bees." " That is not there. You made it." u No, indeed I did not. I wish I had made it. Look and see." He showed her the book, and she read it her- self. He then proposed some of the geometrical questions. " In a lake the bud of a water-lily was ob- served, one span above the water, and when A TALE. 23 moved by the gentle breeze, it sunk in the water at two cubits' distance. Required the depth of the water." " That is charming, but must be very difficult. I could not answer it." " A tree one hundred cubits high is distant from a well two hundred cubits ; from this tree one monkey descends and goes to the well ; an- other monkey takes a leap upwards, and then de- scends by the hypothenuse ; and both pass over an equal space. Required the height of the leap." " I do not believe you can answer that ques- tion yourself, without looking into the book," said the laughing wife, laying her hand over the solu- tion. " Try it." "With great pleasure, my dear child," cried the confident school-master, taking a pencil and paper. After making a few figures and calcula- tions, he answered, " There, my young girl with beautiful locks, there is the answer, forty cubits." His wife removed her hand from the book, and then, clapping both in triumph, she exclaimed, " No, you are wrong, you are wrong, my beautiful youth with a bee in your bonnet. It is fifty cubits ! " 24 KAVANAGH, " Then I must have made some mistake." " Of course you did. Your monkey did not jump high enough." She signalized his mortifying defeat as if it had been a victory, by showering kisses, like roses, upon his forehead and cheeks, as he passed be- neath the triumphal arch- way of her arms, trying in vain to articulate, " My dearest Lilawati, what is the whole number of the geese ? " A TALE. 25 UinVEBSITY v. AFTER extricating himself from this pleasing dilemma, he said, " But I am now going to write. I must really begin in sober earnest, or I shall never get any thing finished. And you know I have so many things to do, so many books to write, that really I do not know where to begin. I think I will take up the Romance first." . " It will not make much difference, if you only begin ! " " That is true. I will not lose a moment." " Did you answer Mr. Cartwright's letter about the cottage bedstead ? " " Dear me, no ! I forgot it entirely. That must be done first, or he will make it all wrong." " And the young lady who sent you the poetry to look over and criticize ? " 26 KAVANAGH, " No ; I have not had a single moment's leis- ure. And there is Mr. Hanson, who wants to know about the cooking-range. Confound it ! there is always something interfering with my Romance. However, I will despatch those mat- ters very speedily." And he began to write with great haste. For a while nothing was heard but the scratching of his pen. Then he said, probably in connection with the cooking-range,