Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: The Children's Poet -- And More

Photogaph by
Julia Margaret Cameron
(1815-1879)
in Public Domain

About a year ago, I had the pleasure of reviewing for Sacramento/San Francisco Book Review, Sydelle Pearl's lovely book, Dear Mr. Longfellow, Letters to and from the Childrens Poet.  I was particularly interested in that book (we get to choose from an extensive list) because in school I had learned "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere." At home, my mother had read The Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem, to my brother and me when we were children, and I had never forgotten the tom-tom beat in the lines of Hiawatha.

Pearl's book charmed me. She interspersed bits and pieces of Longfellow's life with the letters children wrote to him and his replies. (You can read the review, now at City Book Review, HERE.) I hadn't thought of him as a "children's poet," but apparently children loved his poems.

Longfellow (February 27, 1807 - March 24, 1882), was a Victorian Era poet and has been considered one of America's greatest poets. "The Children's Hour," a poem written to his three daughters, is still one of the sweetest poems I've ever read, and you can read it HERE. A versatile poet, he also went on to write a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, published in 1867.

When my husband and I went on a cruise along the St. Lawrence River last October, I had the opportunity to purchase a copy of Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie, another epic poem, this one a tragic love story, and perhaps Longfellow's most famous poem. I was intrigued, because the poem is about the historic deportations of Acadians from Nova Scotia in 1755-1763, and our cruise actually stopped at two cities in Nova Scotia: Sydney and Halifax. (You can read a little more about the Nova Scotia part of our cruise HERE.)

Coincidentally, one of the women on our cruise was Cajun. Cajuns' ancestors were the Arcadians who were expelled from Arcadia by the British after the French and Indian War, primarily because they wouldn't take an oath of allegiance that might commit them to fighting the French in the future. Some went to Louisiana, some to Texas, some back to France and then Louisiana. Generations later, some families returned to Canada and live there today.

I'm a history buff, and so, after hearing the history and meeting someone with distant ties to the subject matter, of course I had to buy the book.

Evangeline is written in a very different form from either "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" or The Song of Hiawatha. The meter is "dactylic hexameter" or "heroic hexameter", a form used in the Greek epics (think the Iliad) or Latin epics (think Virgil's Aenid), neither of which I have read, because I always found those long masterpieces daunting. I do have to admit that Evangeline is a tough read. For example, compare:

        "Listen, my children, and you shall hear
         The midnight ride of Paul Revere . . ."

         or:

         "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee,
          By the shining Big-Sea-Water . . ."

         to:

          "In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
          Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré
          Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward . . ."

          Beautiful and haunting writing, yes, but 77 pages of it was taxing at times. Still, it's an extremely moving tale of unforgettable, star-crossed lovers, the way Romeo and Juliet are unforgettable. No daggers or poison, here, only the separation of Gabrielle and Evangeline during the Arcadian expulsion. They are separated when the villagers are all rounded up and loaded onto ships. They are reunited by accident when Evangeline -- who has joined the Sisters of Mercy, after years of searching for him -- finds her beloved Gabrielle in Philiadelphia, a victim in the smallpox epidemic. He dies in her arms, and she dies soon after.

Evangeline is apparently based on a true story: The "Gabrielle" of the poem was based on Louis Areceneaux. "Evangeline" was based on an orphan named Emmaline, whose adoptive family went first to Maryland then to Louisiana.

The particular edition of Evangeline I have is a paperback, published by Nimbus Publishing, You can get a copy of the book HERE.

In the meantime, Longfellow still ranks as one of my favorite American poets.


Do you have favorite poems or poets? Please share one or two. I'm always on the look-out for a good poetic read.

Blog Break Until Feburary 1st

Dear Blog Friends,

Right now I'm working on a writing project that has a deadline. Please come back February 1st. Meanwhile, I'll still surf around, reading yours and commenting.

Thanks so much for your patience.

What the Dickens! - A Bit of Christmas, Victorian Style

Last week-end we went to the Dickens Fair in San Francisco with friends. It was like actually entering the Victorian world. More than 700 costumed players took part in the event, and many visitors dressed in Victorian costume to enter into the spirit of things. I wasn't always sure when I was speaking to an actor or to an enthusiast, which added to the overall "magical" effect of the day. Everyone, of course, spoke with an English accent, confusing me at first, until I "got it".

A rather complacent fellow.

A  convivial lass.

Let the celebration begin!

 Take a look at these folks. They were, no doubt, some of the actors. And they played their roles convincingly.

Dickens and friend stopping for a
photo. Very accommodating.

My friend, Susan, spied on Charles Dickens at his meal: A short
time later, Rajan and I encountered the Great Man himself:

The Dickens' enjoying supper.

The Great Man himself.

Unbeknownst to Dickens (we peeked in the window), after he left the house, the butler and maid were preparing to sit at his table to enjoy a bit of their own cheer. The gentleman at the door, watching Dickens leave, didn't seem to bea bit  aware of this.

Sly maid.

Abetting butler.

Oblivious gentleman.

Dickens was not the only famous man we met, however. I was amazed, as we wandered down Nickleby Road, to encounter another famous person. Well. Two famous people—none other than that most renowned detective and his literary colleague. Yes! Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson!

Sherlock, pondering a case.

Pondering it in depth you
might say.

Watson seemed to ponder it, too.

You may not
believe this, but as
savvy as Sherlock Holmes is, he didn't seem to get what a blog is. And he acted like he had never heard of Facebook.
I mean, really?

Still, when the Phantom of the Opera clued me in and suggested the duo might be amenable to being featured in The Strand, they concurred. Holmes and Watson, please think of this as a feature article in The Strand.

The Phantom, cluing me in.

On and on we wandered, through lanes and alleys, and even the London Docks! And what a busy place THAT was!

It's a hard life at the docks.  You
drink a lot. And you make friends
with parrots.

Tempers can still be touchy.

But, a little song and dance helps.

       There was a surprise at the docks, though. The fellow in red you see below claimed to be a Baron. He said he was organizing an expedition to America, and would I like to come along? He said his intentions were honorable, but he didn't invite my husband . .  . Doesn't that sound suspicious?

Baron Karl Friedrich
Hieronymus Von Münchausen
 and his seagoing friend.

The Baron explains about the expedition.
The matey's expression makes me think
the Baron isn't telling everything.

An honorable baron? What
do you think?

I thought he looked a little sly, myself. So . . , Rajan and I moseyed on, encountering some interesting people on the way:

A couple working out a spat.

A fanatic.

Someone doing Xmas shopping.

A violinist inside a violin shoppe.

Someone chatting with a bartender.

Hungry diners.

Waltzers at Fezziwig's Dance Party.
There was some Polka, too.

A puppeteer for a rather . . . creepy
puppet show. The puppets were monsters

And not least of all, when we went for lunch with our friends in Pickwick Place, my friend, Susan was able to snap a picture of the Queen in a procession that was most impressive. You know how processions can be. We could barely get a glimpse. Still, Susan managed to catch a quick picture on theat invention of the future, the Smart Phone. (Ah, if only Sherlock could have seen this happen, he would have been out of his mind with excitement. Next year, Sherlock, I promise to come clean that I'm not really from The Strand, but am from the future.) Because next year we will return for sure.

The Queen - Victoria, that is.

Thanks friends, for stopping by. Have you ever been to the Dickens Fair? Which character in this collection did you find the most interesting?

New Free Kindle Download of The Fourth Wish

With the holidays drawing close, I'm offering a second free Kindle download for The Fourth Wish, this time for three days: Sunday, December 15th through Tuesday, December 17th. The last one put the book as #1 in its category. But what made me happiest was the prospect of so many young people being able to read it. Here is where to go on those dates:

The story takes place over the winter holidays. It involves magic and wishes, complex family situations, and I've been told it's very humorous. A good read for both boys and girls, ages 8 to 12.

I hope you will check it out.

Meanwhile, what are some of your favorite titles for readers of that age group?

Victorian Remedies, Then and Now

This image (or other media file)
 is in the public domain because
 its copyright has expired

With Thanksgiving Day past, Christmas Day to come, and New Year's Eve to follow, the aftermath of the holiday season brings more than fond memories of festive meals. The traditional Christmas dinner in particular, going back to Victorian England (stuffed poultry of some kind, mashed potatoes with gravy, and cranberry sauce, plum pudding, fruitcake, and perhaps mince pie), much of which we still cook today, can leave indigestion in its wake. 

Today we might take a Tums or an Alka-Selzer or some other over the counter antacid to settle our stomachs. But in nineteenth century England, these remedies weren’t available. The famous Mrs. Beeton (Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, published in 1861) suggested Hepar Sulph (calcium sulphide) for chronic indigestion. For indigestion produced by overeating, she recommended nux vomica (strychnine). She also supported Dr. John Cook Bennett’s recommendation of the curative power of the tomato, “almost a sovereign remedy for dyspepsia and indigestion.”

While modern homeopathy today includes small amounts of nux vomica to treat indigestion as one remedy, most medical doctors would be loathe to recommend strychnine. And calcium sulfide figures in today’s homeopathic remedies for infections rather than for indigestion. As for the curative power of the tomato, its high acid content often triggers indigestion rather than curing it.

Overeating can also cause headaches, according to Dudley Delany, R.N., M.A., D.C. (Winter, 1986/87, issue of Health World). For headaches caused by indigestion, once again, Mrs. Beeton recommends nux vomica, a cure also accepted in current homeopathic practice for this type of headache. But few of us today would be comfortable doctoring our families with strychnine or want to follow the helpful hint in an 1882 issue of Girl’s Own Paper to “Sponge the head all over night and morning with water as hot as you can bear it, and rub it dry with a coarse towel.” ( www.mostly-victorian.com?GOP1882/medicus03.pdf)

Today’s over the counter medicines usually treat either headache or indigestion, not both. Antacids provide digestive comfort, but can cause headaches. The caffeine in aspirin can aggravate indigestion and the acetaminophen in Tylenol can cause an upset stomach. However, according to the editors of Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs (1987 Rodale Press, Inc., p. 384), mint, especially peppermint, is a home remedy that really works for both indigestion and headache. A mint infusion is recommended for indigestion or upset stomach. Freshly picked, crushed mint leaves applied to the forehead can relieve a headache. 

Would any of Mrs. Beeton’s remedies be useful today? Perhaps her hot liquid cure for a cold—raisins, stick licorice, sugar candy, rum, and a bit of vinegar, boiled then simmered and drunk warm at bedtime—would partially pass muster. The Mayo Clinic Staff agrees that warm liquids make a patient more comfortable and suggests that warm lemon water with honey can loosen congestion and prevent dehydration (www.mayoclinic.com/health/cold-remedies/ID00036 ) while a cold runs its course. The staff also recommends bed rest, saltwater gargles, and over the counter medications to relieve discomfort, since a cold cannot really be cured—a fact that would surprise Mrs. Beeton. Of her own cure, Mrs. Beeton promises, “The worst cold is generally cured by this remedy in two or three days; and, if taken in time, is considered infallible.”

Free Give Away of The Fourth Wish, November 12th/13th

Hello, friends, just a note to say
My Middle Grade fantasy, The Fourth Wish, that takes place over the Winter holidays, makes a good read for kids to enjoy with Xmas coming up soon.

You can download a free Kindle copy of my MG fantasy, THE FOURTH WISH Tuesday and Wednesday, November 12th and 13th at 

http://www.amazon.com/Elizabeth-Varadan/e/B003VOTCFG/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1308264854&sr=1-1

Meanwhile, stop by my Fourth Wish blog if you like to read about travel. It's the first post on our cruise to Canada. (First stop, Quebec City).

The Alpine Path

The Alpine Path: L. M. Montgomery: 9781450581912: Amazon.com: Books

The Alpine Path is the title of a memoir Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote in 1917. On the cruise to Canada (mentioned in my last post), I had expected to visit her home and the museum on Prince Edward Island. We actually went by the house that inspired, Anne of Green Gables and the rest of the series. But we did not go into the Anne of Green Gables Museum, housed in her cousins' home and used as the setting for a later series. (An excursion had been planned for the entire group that was wonderful in a different way and that I will be sharing in a few days on my Fourth Wish Blog.)

 We did pass the Green Gables Farmhouse in Cavendish that had been Montgomery's setting for the Anne books (actually her grandparents' home in which she lived during her early years), and the cemetery where she was buried. (Her grave is between those two dark green bushes a little right of center and far back.)

Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1874-1942

The MacNeil farmhouse, prototype
for Green Gables in the series

Though I didn't get a chance to go into the museum, I visited the book section in a souvenir shop at one of our stops and was lucky enough to come across a copy of her memoir. It was an intriguing read. Born in the Victorian Era, she went on to become one of the most popular children's writers of the early 20th century. The memoir ends in 1912, describing her honeymoon trip to the British Isles, but she went on to write many books after that.

Her memoir's title, The Alpine Path, is taken from the last lines of a poem she clipped out of a magazine when she was young, "The Fringed Gentian." (She doesn't name the author, but it is not William Cullen Bryant's poem, nor Emily Dickinson's.) She describes her own path to publication as being the hard, steep path described in these lines of the poem: 

                Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep

                   How I may upward climb

               The Alpine path, so hard, so steep,

                   That leads to heights sublime.

When Anne was twenty-one months old, her mother died of tuberculosis and her grieving father sent her to live with her maternal grandparents, the MacNeils, at the farmhouse in Cavendish. From an early age, she kept journals full of poems and stories. In her own words, "I wrote aout all the little incidents of my existence . . . descriptions of my favorite haunts, biographies of my many cats, histories of visits . . . even critical reviews of the books I had read." The MacNeils home is the one that inspired her Anne books.

Poems and stories are what gave her her start in the publishing world. She had written them all through her college years and through three years of teaching. Always she persevered, and if there is one recurring theme throughout this memoir, it is the necessity for a writer to persevere. In time, it payed off. She had been published without payment for some time, but in 1895, while taking an English literature course at Dalhousie College in Halifax, she started getting paid for her verses.

When her grandfather died in 1898, she returned to the farm and stayed with her grandmother for the next thirteen years, except for a brief period as proof reader for the Daily Echo in Halifax. By then, she was making a living from her stories and poems, although she fretted about having to write "potboilers" with morals tacked on at the end. It's ironic that I never have thought  of Montgomery as a poet or short story writer--mainly because she is so famous for her novels, particularly the Anne series, which bought her international fame. 

The book that made her famous.

It bothered her that her later books never were quite as famous as the Anne series. After eight books, Montgomery had grown tired of the character of Anne, and wrote the Emily trilogy, Pat of Silverbush, and its sequel, and The Story Girl and its sequel. The Story Girl was her favourite of all her novels, but none of them ever achieved the popularity of the Anne books. She also wrote two adult novels, Magic for Marigold, and The Blue Castle, and, as if proving her point, I have never heard of either of these books until I read the preface to her memoir.

She married Ewen MacDonald in July of 1912 after her grandmother died the previous winter. She  continued to write many of the books listed in the paragraph above. She was writing a new book as late as 1939, a sequel to Jane of Lantern Hill, a more serious novel that was apparently the beginning of a new series. But she never finished the sequel. She died three years later, at the age of 68, survived by her husband and two sons. 

I was moved to learn that she wasn't pleased to have her other work shadowed by the Anne books. I suppose the earmark of a fine writer is to want to keep reaching out for new ventures, and she certainly did that. Speaking for myself, though, I would be more than thrilled to create a character of such lasting, international fame as Anne, who continues to captivate even today.

Anne of Green Gables, a character who still endures