Longfellow Writes An Aspiring Poet On the Source of Success: “It is in your own hands”

Longfellow was a poet and a teacher, and one of the five Fireside Poets.  He studied at Bowdoin, where he met Nathaniel Hawthorne, and recognized early his love of literature and writing.  His senior year, he wrote his father, “I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature.  My whole soul burns most ardently after it… If I can ever rise in the world, it must be by the exercise of my talents in the wide field of literature.”

His prophecy came true.  He went on to write some of the great American works of the period, traveling to Europe and teaching at Harvard.  He was both a great and influential poet and a mentor to and molder of aspiring writers.  in 1854, he retired from Harvard, and turned to writing and to translation, in which task he translated Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.”

In 1875, an aspiring young author, Elisha Norman Gunnison, wrote asking him to comment on his poem.  He assured Longfellow that his opinion would make or break his career.  This response from Longfellow shows what the great writer felt was the most important factor in success – his and that of others: the writer himself.

Autograph letter signed, Cambridge, July 28, 1875, to Gunnison, who had written asking Longfellow to comment on his “long poem of the New England Coast,” presumably a reference to his subsequently published “One Summer’s Dream.”

“I should be happy to comply with your request if I could.  But it is impossible. I am suffering with Neuralgia, which so affects my eyes that reading and writing are painful, and I am forced to decline looking over any MS.  Whatever may be the defects of your education, judging from the poems you send me you have unmistakably the gift of song.  You exaggerate when you say that my decision may make or mar your future.  A jury of twelve men could not do that. It is in your own hands.  You will go to Cornell. You could not do a wiser or better thing. I know President White.  He is a gentleman in whose advice you can place implicit confidence. With best wishes for your success, I am my dear sir, yours Truly, Henry W. Longfellow.   P.S. I return the extract from the “Express,” thinking you may want it; but take the liberty to keep the poems.”