The Longfellow War — 1902 historical reading — reading text

it is absurd.” Of course it is — very absurd; and the only thing more absurd that I can call to mind at present, is the supposition that any person ever entertained an idea of denying it. But are we to understand the denying it, or the absurdity of denying it, or the absurdity of supposing that any person intended to deny it, as the true answer to the original queries? But let me aid Outis to a distinct conception of his own irrelevance. I accuse his friend, specifically, of a plagiarism. This accusation Outis rebuts by asking me with a grave face — not whether the friend might not, in this individual case, and in the compass of eight short lines, have happened upon ten or twelve peculiar identities of thought and identities of expression with the author from whom I charge him with plagiarising — but simply whether I do not admit the possibility that once in the course of eternity some two individuals might not happen upon a single identity of thought, and give it voice in a single identity of expression. Now, frankly, I admit the possibility in question, and would request my friends to get ready for me a straight-jacket if I did not. There can be no doubt in the world, for example, that Outis considers me a fool: — the thing is sufficiently plain: and this opinion on the part of Outis is what mankind have agreed to denominate an idea; and this idea is also entertained by Mr. Aldrich, and by Mr. Longfellow — and by Mrs. Outis and her seven children — and by Mrs. Aldrich and hers — and by Mrs. Longfellow and hers — including the grand-children and great grand-children, if any, who will be instructed to transmit the idea in unadulterated purity down an infinite vista of generations yet to come. And of this idea thus extensively entertained, it would really be a very difficult thing to vary the expression in any material degree. A remarkable similarity would be brought about, indeed, by the desire of the parties in question to put the thought into as compendious a form as possible, by way of bringing it to a focus at once and having done with it upon the spot. Outis will perceive, therefore, that I have every desire in the world to afford him that “fair play” which he considers “a jewel,” since I admit not only the possibility of the class of coincidences for which he contends, but even the impossibility of there not existing just as many of these coincidences as he may consider necessary to make out his case. One of the species he details as follows, at some length: Some years ago, a letter was written from some part of New England, describing one of those scenes, not very common during what is called “the January thaw,” when the snow, mingled with rain, and freezing as it falls, forms a perfect covering of ice upon every object. The storm clears away suddenly, and the moon comes up. The letter proceeds — “every tree and shrub, as far as the eye can reach, of pure transparent glass — a perfect garden of moving, waving, breathing crystals . ... Every tree is a diamond chandelier, with a whole constellation of stars clustering to every socket,” &c. This letter was laid away where such things usually are, in a private drawer, and did not see the light for many years. But the very next autumn brought out, among the splendid annuals got up in the country, a beautiful poem from Whittier, describing the same, or rather a similar scene, in which the line “The trees, like crystal chandeliers,” was put in italics by every reviewer in the land, for the exceeding beauty of the imagery. Now the letter was written, probably, about the same time with the poem, though the poem was not published till nearly a year after. The writers were not, and never have been, acquainted with each other, and neither could possibly have seen the work of the other before writing. Now, was there any plagiarism here?” After the fashion of Outis himself I shall answer his query by another. What has the question whether the chandelier friend committed a plagiarism, to do with the question whether the Death-Bed friend committed a plagiarism, or whether it is possible or impossible that plagiarism, generally, can be committed? But, merely for courtesy's sake, I step aside from the exact matter in hand. In the case mentioned I should consider material differences in the terms of description as more remarkable than coincidences. Since the tree really looked like a chandelier, the true wonder would have been in likening it to anything else. Of course, nine common-place men out of ten would have maintained it to be a chandelier-looking tree. No poet of any pretension, however, would have committed himself so far as to put such a similitude in print. The chandelier might have been poetically likened to the crystallized tree — but the converse is a platitude. The gorgeous unaltered handiwork of Nature is always degraded by comparison with the tawdry gew-gaws of Art — and perhaps the very ugliest thing in the world is a chandelier. If “every reviewer in the land put the passage into Italics on account of the exceeding beauty of the imagery,” then every printer's devil in the land should have been flogged for not taking it out of Italics upon the spot, and putting it in the plainest Roman — which is too good for it by one half. I put no faith in the nil admirari, and am apt to be amazed at every second thing which I see. One of the most amazing things I have yet seen, is the complacency with which Outis throws to the right and left his anonymous assertions, taking it for granted that because be (Nobody) asserts them, I must believe them as a matter of course. However — he is quite in the right. I am perfectly ready to admit anything that he pleases, and am prepared to put as implicit faith in his ipse dixit as the Bishop of Autun did in the Bible — on the ground that he knew nothing about it at all. We will understand it, then, not merely as an anonymous assertion but as an absolute fact, that the two chandelier authors “were not and never have been acquainted with each other, and that neither could have seen the work of the other before writing.” We will agree to understand all this as indisputable truth, I say, through motives of the purest charity, for the purpose of assisting a friend out of trouble, and without reference to the consideration that no third person short of Signor Blitz or Professor Rogers could in any conceivable manner have satisfied himself of the truth of the twentieth part of it. Admitting this and everything else, to be as true as the Pentateuch, it follows that plagiarism in the case in question was a thing that could not by any possibility be — and do I rightly comprehend Outis as demonstrating the impossibility of plagiarism where it is possible, by adducing instances of inevitable similarity under circumstances where it is not? The fact is, that through want of space and time to follow Outis through the labyrinth of impertinences in which he is scrambling about, I am constrained, much against my sense of decorum, to place him in the high-road of his argument, so that he may see where he is, and what he is doing, and what it is that he is endeavouring to demonstrate. He wishes to show, then, that Mr. Longfellow is innocent of the imitation with which I have charged him, and that Mr. Aldrich is innocent of the plagiarism with which I have not charged him; and this duplicate innocence is expected to be proved by showing the possibility that a certain, or that any uncertain series of coincidences may be the result of pure accident. Now of course I cannot be sure that Outis will regard my admission as a service or a disservice, but I admit the possibility at once; and not only this, but I would admit it as a possibility were the coincidences a billion, and each of the most definitive peculiarity that human ingenuity could conceive. But, in admitting this, I admit just nothing at all, so far as the advancement of Outis’ proper argument is concerned. The affair is one of probabilities altogether, and can be satisfactorily settled only by reference to their Calculus.(1) I shall continue, if not conclude the subject in the next “Journal”, and our readers may take it for granted that there will be some very “interesting developments” before I have done. III. [March 22, 1845.] “PRAY,” inquires Outis of Mr. Willis, “did you ever think the worse of Dana because your friend John Neal charged him with pirating upon Paul Allen, and Bryant too, in his poem of THE DYING RAVEN?” I am sincerely disposed to give Outis his due, and will not pretend to deny his happy facility in asking irrelevant questions. In the present case, we can only imagine Mr. Willis’ reply: — “My dear Sir,” he might say, “I certainly do not think much the worse of Mr. Dana, because Mr. Neal charged him with the piracy, but be so kind as not to inquire what might have been my opinion had there been any substantiation of the charge.” I quote Outis’ inquiry, however, not so much to insist upon its singular luminousness, as to call attention to the argument embodied in the capital letters of “THE DYING RAVEN.” Now, were I, in any spasm of perversity, to direct Outis’ catechetical artillery against himself, and demand of him explicitly his reasons for causing those three words to be printed in capitals, what in the world would he do for a reply? As a matter of course, for some moments, he would be profoundly embarrassed — but, being a true man, and a chivalrous one, as all defenders of Mr. Longfellow must be, he could not fail, in the end, to admit that they were so printed for the purpose of safely insinuating a charge which not even an Outis had the impudence openly to utter. Let us imagine his thoughts while carefully twice underscoring the words. Is it impossible that they ran thus? — “I am perfectly well aware, to be sure, that the only conceivable resemblance between Mr. Bryant's poem and Mr. Poe's poem, lies in their common reference to a raven; but then, what I am writing will be seen by some who have not read Mr. Bryant's poem, and by many who have never heard of Mr. Poe's and among these classes I shall be able to do Mr. Poe a serious injustice and injury, by conveying the idea that there is really sufficient similarity to warrant that charge of plagiarism, which I, Outis, the ‘acquaintance of Mr. Longfellow,’ am too high-minded and too merciful to prefer.” Now, I do not pretend to be positive that any such thoughts as these ever entered the brain of Outis. Nor will I venture to designate the whole insinuation as a specimen of “carping littleness, too paltry for any man who values his reputation as a gentleman;” for in the first place, the whole matter, as I have put it, is purely supposititious, and in the second, I should furnish ground for a new insinuation of the same character, inasmuch as I should be employing Outis’ identical words. The fact is, Outis has happened upon the idea that the most direct method of rebutting one accusation, is to get up another. By showing that I have committed a sin, he proposes to show that Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Longfellow have not. Leaving the underscored DYING RAVEN to argue its own case, he proceeds, therefore, as follows: — Who, for example, would wish to be guilty of the littleness of detracting from the uncommon merit of that remarkable poem of this same Mr. Poe's, recently published in the Mirror, from the American Review, entitled The Raven, by charging him with the paltriness of imitation? And yet, some snarling critic, who might envy the reputation he had not the genius to secure for himself, might refer to the frequent, very forcible, but rather quaint repetition, in the last two lines of many of the stanzas, as a palpable imitation of the manner of Coleridge, in several stanzas of the Ancient Mariner. Let the put them together. Mr. Poe says — “Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore, Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore.”