observe in what very different ways the two writers made
prey of their daily experiences for literary material. A favorite
haunt of Longfellow's was the bridge between Boston and Cambridgeport,
the same which he put into verse in his poem, the _Bridge_. "I always
stop on the bridge," he writes in his journal; "tide waters are
beautiful. From the ocean up into the land they go, like messengers,
to ask why the tribute has not been paid. The brooks and rivers answer
that there has been little harvest of snow and rain this year.
Floating sea-weed and kelp is carried up into the meadows, as returning
sailors bring oranges in bandanna handkerchiefs to friends in the
country." And again: "We leaned for awhile on the wooden rail and
enjoyed the silvery reflection on the sea, making sundry comparisons.
Among other thoughts we had this cheering one, that the whole sea was
flashing with this heavenly light, though we saw it only in a single
track; the dark waves are the dark providences of God; luminous, though
not to us; and even to ourselves in another position." "Walk on the
bridge, both ends of which are lost in the fog, like human life midway
between two eternities; {483} beginning and ending in mist." In
Hawthorne an allegoric meaning is usually something deeper and subtler
than this, and seldom so openly expressed. Many of Longfellow's
poems--the _Beleaguered City_, for example--may be definitely divided
into two parts; in the first, a story is told or a natural phenomenon
described; in the second, the spiritual application of the parable is
formally set forth. This method became with him almost a trick of
style, and his readers learned to look for the _haec fabula docet_ at
the end as a matter of course. As for the prevailing optimism in
Longfellow's view of life--of which the above passage is an
instance--it seemed to be in him an affair of temperament, and not, as
in Emerson, the result of philosophic insight. Perhaps, however, in
the last analysis optimism and pessimism are subjective--the expression
of temperament or individual experience, since the facts of life are
the same, whether seen through Schopenhauer's eyes or through
Emerson's. If there is any particular in which Longfellow's
inspiration came to him at first hand and not through books, it is in
respect to the aspects of the sea. On this theme no American poet has
written more beautifully and with a keener sympathy than the author of
the _Wreck o