NOTES AND DOCUMENTS Five J^etters from George Henry Boker to William Gilmore Simms In the long process of reconciliation which followed the Civil War American writers played a much more admirable role than did the politicians in the Reconstruction Congress. The attitude of Emerson, Lowell, Whittier, and Boker toward the defeated South was far more kindly and intelligent than that of Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner. This period witnessed the beginning of a notable friendship between Bayard Taylor and Sidney Lanier. Although his part in the process of reconciliation is not so well known, Taylor's friend, George Henry Boker, the distinguished Philadelphia poet and dramatist, befriended at least two poverty-stricken Southern authors, William Gilmore Simms and Paul Hamilton Hayne.1 Simms's situation at the close of the Civil War was a sad one. During Sherman's march through the Carolinas he had lost his house and his library of ten thousand volumes. A still greater misfortune was that the war had practically destroyed the market for his literary wares. Even in the late sixties few Northern magazines would accept contributions from Southern writers. Eventually, through the assist- ance of Boker and a few others, Simms did manage to find those who would publish his work; and his death in 1870 was due largely to the effect of overwork upon his enfeebled constitution. Although Simms had been a frequent visitor to New York since the early 1830^, Boker was not among the Northern writers whom he had known. He had, however, published in the Southern Quarterly Review in 18 50 two favorable reviews of Boker's plays.2 Soon after the publication in 1867 °f S. Adams Lee's The "Book of the Sonnet > Boker saw in a Southern journal a review by Simms: who treated Boker's contributions with generous and unstinting praise. Boker wrote the Southerner a letter of thanks. The ensuing correspondence in- 1 See my article, "George Henry Boker, Paul Hamilton Hayne, and Charles Warren Stoddard: Some Unpublished Letters," American Literature, IV, 146-165 (May, 1933). 2 The review of Boker's Anne Boleyn, which appeared in Sept., 1850, is signed "J. L./ Philadelphia." The same hand was apparently responsible for the review of Calaynos which had appeared in January of the same year. 66 1939 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS 67 augurated a friendship between the two. Learning of Simms' financial distress, Boker offered him at least temporary relief by securing him a generous share of space in the new Lippincott's Magazine? y The first number of J^ifpncott sy edited by John Foster Kirk, ap- peared in January, 1868. In March of that year appeared Simms's "The Story of Chastelard." With the possible exception of Scribner's Monthly, founded in the year of Simms's death, Jfifpncott's Maga- zine was more hospitable to Southern writers than any other Northern magazine of the period.4 In the year 1869, when all the five letters here given were written, Boker was in an unhappy situation. His native city had never really recognized his literary importance. The war had taken him largely away from literature. His plays had never received either the critical recognition due them or suitable theatrical performance. He was still engaged in a protracted lawsuit undertaken to remove the cloud from his dead father's reputation. He was beginning to hope for a diplo- matic appointment, but it was not until November, 1871, that he was made Minister to Turkey. The five letters are published, by permission of the Columbia Uni- versity Library, from the originals in the Ferris Collection. Simms's friend, W. Hawkins Ferris, who lived in Brooklyn, held a position in the U. S. Sub-Treasury in Wall Street. In this period he was collect- ing autographs, and Simms sent him many of the letters he received— many more apparently than are now in the Ferris Collection. The five letters here published are probably not all that Boker wrote to Simms. Simms's letters to Boker are not among the Boker manuscripts now in the Princeton University Library.5 The five letters given below throw some light upon Boker's own literary work. The last two, for example, make clear his conception of the duty of the historical dramatist to follow closely his sources. EDITOR, ^American J^iterature JAY B. HUBBELL Philadelphia, January 5, 1869. My dear Sir, There is no truth in the report that I am, ever was, or ever shall be the Editor of "Lippincott's Magazine." I prize my liberty too dearly, and I have so 3 Edward Sculley Bradley, George Henry Boker: Poet and Patriot (Philadelphia, 1927), p. 245. 4 Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1865-1885 (Cambridge, Mass., 1938), p. 397. 5 Information from Professor Bradley. 68 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS January thorough a contempt for mere work, that I should not think of entering upon what dunces call a "useful employment" unless I were driven to it by dire neces- sity. So whatever may be the future history of the Magazine, I shall not be responsible for it. The magazine will henceforth be sent to your new address. By the way, the real Editor begged me to say to you that he will be happy to have another prose article from you as soon as possible. Mark you! prose: our finer ware seems to be getting of no use to publishers, and to command no remunerative price in the literary market. "Poetry," the publishers say to me, "is a drug." I therefore have naturally concluded that I am a druggist; and I am carefully bottling up and labelling my wares, and waiting until this prose becomes a pestilence, when perhaps I may uncork, and be thought "of use" again—and be damned to them! O Simms, Simms, Simms, William Gilmore Sirnms! what an age we live in for such fellows as we are! If we had lived two hundred years ago, we might have been comfortably immortal for the last century, laurel-crowned and all that; and we might now be standing together in some cool corner of hell, throwing stones at the angels, in our contempt for their imperfect kind of immortality. But—Well, you know all about it—you have suffered and are wise; so I shall hold my tongue. My eyes still plague me—that is the precise word to describe that which they do—and before long I shall go to Europe for rest and advice. To crown my sor- rows, my wife is again ill and confined to her bed. But, Lord, Lord, what is the use of growling at miseries, while our growls neither mitigate the present griefs nor keep of [f] the coming ones? Yours sincerely, W. Gilmore Simms, Esqr. Geo. H. Boker Philadelphia, September 9th, 1869 My dear Sir, I have just returned from a stay of two months in the northern part of Penn- sylvania, whither your note was sent to me. Have you or have you not been in the North, according to the design expressed in your letter? I have inquired of Mr. Lippincott concerning you, and he has not heard that you paid your intended visit to New York. I cannot but feel anxious lest your health broke down, or some accident to you or yours occurred that prevented your trip. Let me know about this. I addressed a copy of my new volume, "Konigsmark" &c, to you a few days ago. I hope the thing may please you better than it does me. I am really alarmed at the slight interest which I feel in this venture. I fear that I shall never again experience those emotions which I once felt on issuing a set of poems; or, what is worse, never be able to pump up sufficient enthusiasm to induce me to write enough to fill another volume. There was a deal said at Washington about sending me on a mission, but as none has been offered to me so far, I judge that I have been left out in the cold. So be it! I should have received the offer, and considered it. Now such an offer would come too late to be regarded as a compliment, and I should probably de- cline it. My friends abroad advise me not to accept any mission, to come abroad 1939 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS 69 untrammeled if I come at all. They say a minister's position is most perplexing, the duties most burdensome and disagreeable, and in addition that three times the allowed pay will not support the office anywhere, save only in Belgium. But I long ago dismissed the whole subject from my mind, as not worth a care. I regret to know that you have been suffering from a confined life. Do you feel justified in wasting life thus for the accomplishment of any literary work? Could you not make as much out of Magazines &c, by lighter labor within the same space of time? I often hear Mr. Lippincott regret that you send him no more of your able critical articles, and I am sure that his Magazine needs precisely that which you withhold from it. My present intention is to go abroad as soon as I can get my house in proper order to do so. I have been kept here for years by various causes chiefly matters of business; but I begin to see my way clear for a flight, and it will be a long one, I assure you. With my best wishes, I remain, my dear Sir, Sincerely yours, Geo.