Four Letters from Qeorge Henry Boker to John Seely Hart

Four Letters from Qeorge Henry Boker to John Seely Hart HE four letters published here are part of a collection of thirty-nine letters owned by Cornell University.1 A sig- Tnificant figure in the history of American drama, George Henry Boker (i823-1890), the son of Charles S. Boker, a prominent Philadelphia businessman and President of the Girard Bank, graduated from Princeton in 1842. Following his marriage in 1844, Boker settled on Walnut Street where, over the objections of his father, he pursued a literary career. In 1848, he published his first play, Calaynos. By 1856, when he published his two-volume 'Plays and Poems, he had completed three more tragedies, including his best known play Francesca da %jmini (1855), f°ur comedies, and numer- ous poems. Unfortunately, Boker's works attracted only slight attention; and their neglect, a lawsuit brought by the Girard Bank against his father's estate, and the upheaval of the Civil War effectively ended Boker's literary ambitions until 1882 when Lawrence Barrett's successful revival of Francesca da %imini rekindled Boker's interest in the theatre. But although he completed two plays, Njydia (1885) and Qlaucus (1886), they were never produced. Recognized in his time for the poetry he wrote in support of the Union, for his role in establishing Philadelphia's Union League, and for his diplomatic service, Boker saw his ambition of being a great writer go unfulfilled. Thirteen years older than Boker, John Seely Hart (1810-1877), the recipient of the thirty-nine letters, graduated from Princeton in 1830 and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1834. In l%3&> he purchased Edge Hill School, which he ran until 1841 when he became principal of Central High School in Philadelphia. Between 11 am grateful to the American Philosophical Society for a grant that assisted in this research and to the Cornell University Library for permission to publish the letters, which are reproduced here without corrections to the original spelling and punctuation. 39 40 OLIVER H. EVANS January 1849 and 1851, Hart edited Sartairis ^Magazine and was throughout his life a prolific writer on education, the Sunday School Move- ment, literature and composition. In 1870, he published Composition and %hetoricy becoming Professor of Rhetoric at Princeton in 1872. When he retired from Princeton, Hart was writing on Shakespeare; his jQtfe of Shakespeare appeared posthumously in the Avon edition of Shakespeare's works.2 Since this collection of Boker's letters has never been discussed— indeed, neither the collection nor Hart himself is mentioned in Edward Sculley Bradley's Qeorge Henry 'Bolter, Toet and Tatriofi— it is useful to place these four letters within the entire collection. It begins in November 1848 and ends with a letter dated October 23, 1875.4 Unlike Boker's letters to Bayard Taylor, then, the letters to Hart were not written at fairly regular intervals over the course of many years. Instead, they fall into four groups, each having a particular focus. The first group, nineteen letters written between November 1848 and May 1851, was addressed to Hart in his capacity as editor of Sartains. Hart sent Boker many of the poems submitted to Sartairts, and Boker advised him as to whether or not they should be published. In examining these poems, Boker was most concerned with matters of technique; but while these letters indicate something of Boker's critical perspective, the poets mentioned (e.g.y Frances Osgood, Alice Casey, Caroline and Edith May) are now forgotten. The poems Boker examined seem for the most part to have been ones Hart was uncertain about accepting, and thus those of such poets as Longfellow or Poe either were not sent to Boker or, if they were, Boker did not feel it necessary to comment on them. Following the letter of May 1851, the correspondence breaks off until September 12, 1854. This second group consists of eight rela- tively insignificant letters written between then and June 23, 1868. Most respond to requests for poems or reviews or congratulate Hart on his having published a new book. 2 For a fuller account of Hart's life, see F[rank] M[onaghan], "Hart, John Seely," Dictionary of American Biography. 3 Philadelphia, 1927. 4 Dates given are exact. Several letters have no date other than the month and year; one letter, written to Hart while he was editor of Sartain's, is undated. 1980 GEORGE HENRY BOKER LETTERS 4I In 1870 the correspondence again becomes more frequent. Be- tween March 26 and September 13, Boker wrote eight letters to Hart that form a third group. All except the last of these letters, which discourages Hart from seeking a diplomatic appointment for Boker, are concerned with Hart's Composition and %hetoric. The first of these eight letters indicates that other letters having to do with Hart's book were written; unfortunately, they appear to have been lost. In those that survive, Boker advises Hart on matters of prosody, literary theory, and style. Like the letters of 1849-1851, they demonstrate Boker's concern with, and considerable knowledge of, poetic technique. While the entire collection of letters is of interest to students of Boker and the literary period of which he was a part, the last four letters, those printed here, are particularly significant. The first three were written while Boker was Minister to Turkey, the last while he was Minister to Russia. As the first letter indicates, Boker renewed his correspondence with Hart more or less by accident. Hart, ill at the time, welcomed the correspondence. Since both men were nearing the ends of their careers, the letters provided Boker an opportunity to reflect on his earlier life and his present situation. They contain biographical information that supplements and cor- rects Bradley's biography. Moreover, Boker's comments on his works provide new historical information on them, and his dis- cussion of Shakespeare illuminates Boker's understanding of Shakespearian drama and hence sheds light on his own plays. Most importantly, the letters provide an intimate glimpse of Boker himself. Boker was not given to expressing his feelings openly, and he particularly kept hidden his frustration and disappointment over the failure of his literary career. As his friend Charles Godfrey Leland noted, Boker "trained himself from boy- hood to self restraint, calmness, and the nil admirari air."6 In fact, so well did Boker keep his disappointment hidden that even Marie Taylor, Bayard Taylor's second wife, wrote in her memoirs that Boker "seemed satisfied with the fame" his work enjoyed.6 5 Charles Godfrey Leland, Memoirs (1893; rpt. Detroit, 1968), 223. 6 Marie Hansen Taylor with Lilian Bayard Taylor Kiliani, On Two Continents: Memoirs of Half a Century (New York, 1905), 157. 4^ OLIVER H. EVANS January But Boker was not satisfied with his literary career, and his intense disappointment is expressed in these letters. In their intimacy and intensity, the letters recall Boker's letters to Taylor during the 1850s. But whereas the letters to Taylor were written when Boker still had some hope of fulfilling his literary ambitions, these letters to Hart were written when Boker knew his ambitions would never be realized; they indicate the extent and depth of Boker's disappointment. Creighton University OLIVER H. EVANS I Legation des Etats-Unis d'Amerique Constantinople le 4 Novembre, 1874. My dear Father Hart, I have often meditated writing to you this note, and I have often promised myself the pleasure which it now gives me to bear, in your sight, these fruits of my meditations; but something has always arisen between me and my good resolutions, to postpone the ful- filment of that which I have always regarded as a plain duty, the neglect of which has been a burden upon my conscience. Because I have been naughty and remiss, you must not therefore suppose that your image has not lived warmly in my memory surrounded with a sort of saintly halo, the product of a thousand tender and grateful remembrances. There, old man! I always loved you, and I always shall love you, and no silence of mine will ever prove anything more than simply that I am not giving utterance to that which is within my heart. I hate to prose over neglected duties. They are bad enough in themselves, to a man with a modicum of conscience, without being used as texts for sermons. If you did not always look so awfully grave and thoughtful over everything that is presented to you, I should never have thought of beginning a note to you in this solemn manner. Never say after this that I have no sympathies, when, as you see in this instance, they have led me to the point of making myself abhorrently stupid for your dear sake. "Ah!" you exclaim, "if I had only trounced that boy when I had the chance and the 1980 GEORGE HENRY BOKER LETTERS 43 right, what might I have not done for his impudence!" Spare your regrets! All the birch blisters in the world could not have taken the innate insolence out of me. It was always deeper than that skin which might have received the honor of your superficial applications. Do you remember the time when I ran away from Edge Hill, and my poor mother, pretending to me that she believed that I had covered myself with irreclaimable disgrace, sent me back to you with my tail between my legs, and under vows to bear the severest punishment from you without a murmur and with a lively expecta- tion of having to endure something borrowed, but aggravated from a profound study of the arts of the Spanish Inquisition? Do you remember how you received me? It was with a smile, and a kind hand upon my head—ach Qott\ that head is gray now!—and with: "George, I hope that you have found nothing disagreeable in your residence with me!" in a tone of the deepest anxiety.

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