A Chat About New Books [pp. 270-283]

A CHAT ABOUT NEW Boorcs.
Again he returns to the joylessness of New England holidays.
He writes on a second May-day:
"The word May is a perfumed word. It is an illuminated initial. It
means love, youth, song, and all that is beautiful in life. But what a Mayday is this! Bleak and cheerless. And the little girls with bare necks,
and rose-wreaths on their heads, remind me less of dancing than of death.
They look like little victims. A sad thought for May-day!"
The poet did not know the joyful spiritual significance that
May has for Catholics, whether the flowers bloom or not. It
is the month of the Mystical Rose, and its fragrance is not dependent on the bloom of earthly flowers.
In the first volume there are many charming and genial bits
of travel. Longfellow, even in his every-day prose, had the gift
of idealizing common things. Every now and then a beautiful and picturesque picture is presented. Fresh from the hotbed of Puritanism, he was in I827 not impressed with the real
spirituality of the Spaniards. But he was struck by some of
the religious practices of the people, particularly the constant
reverence shown in the streets when the Blessed Sacrament was
carried to a sick person:
"But the other night I witnessed a spectacle far more imposing. I was
at the opera; and in the midst of the scene the tap of a drum at the door
and the sound of the friar's bell announced the approach of the Host. In
an instant the music ceased; a hush ran through the house; the actors on
the stage in their brilliant dresses kneeled and bowed their heads; and the
whole audience turned towards the street and threw themselves on their
knees. It was a most singular spectacle; the sudden silence, the immense
kneeling crowd, the group upon the stage, and the decorations of the scene,
produced the most peculiar sensations in my mind."
The notes in which the poet gives glimpses of his second visit
to Europe, in I869, are not so full of color as the early impression,
but they are lit up by his genial humor, if tinged at times with
sadness.
" Yesterday," he writes at Rome on February 7, "I dined with the Dominican friars at their convent of San Clemente. Archbishop Manning
was there, and the chief of the Sant' Offizio, whose name I do not remember. We had a jovial dinner and good wine, and every dish Italian, not to
say Ialianisszino. After dinner we went into a small coffee-room, where
the inquisitor tried to light a fire, with small success. Some one cried out:
'Ah! padre, the days have gone by when fires can be lighted by inquisitors!' There was a great roar of laughter, in which the padre aforesaid
joined heartily."
The last verse Longfellow wrote was on March I5, I882. It
was the closing stanza of the "Bells of San Blas." These jour
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