By this time in 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had lost his wife and recently learned of his son’s secret enrollment in the Union Army. In the letter below, addressed to his publisher and longtime friend James Thomas Fields, Longfellow requests to have his name withdrawn from consideration for a club, citing his preference for solitude. The engravings Longfellow refers to are from Tales of a Wayside Inn, a collection of poems set in an inn of the same name that he visited with Fields in 1862.
To James Thomas Fields
Camb. [October] 28. 1863
My Dear Fields,
If it is not too late to say so, I had rather not be voted for at the Club just yet. I do not feel like joining now. If I were a member, I should not go there once a year. Then what is the use of being a member? I do not feel at all up to it. Perhaps you can withdraw my name without embarrassment. If you can please do so.
Strange as you may think it, I find no longer any pleasure in such things, nor take any interest in going about among men. Whenever I try it, I fail utterly. I had rather be here at my work as long as the day continues; for the night cometh in which no man shall work.
I forgot to ask you how the engraving gets on. We ought to begin printing as soon as possible; for behind the printing is the binding.
Ever Yours
H.W.L.
From The Letters of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Edited by Andrew Hilen. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972. pp. 363-4.
FURTHER READING
Find here Longfellow’s poetic eulogy “Auf Wiedersehen”, honoring the death of James Thomas Fields.
Find here the prelude to Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn.