The Writer's Almanac Daily Newsletter
Today: "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet
Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016
To My Dear and Loving Husband
by Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love letâs so persever,
That when we live no more we may live ever.
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet. Public Domain. (buy
now)
Today is the birthday of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (books by
this author), born in Portland, Maine (1807). He entered Bowdoin
College at the age of 15, and one of his classmates was Nathaniel
Hawthorne; the two would remain lifelong friends. When Longfellow
graduated, the college gave him a chair in modern languages, and he
worked with translations for the rest of his life.
In 1831, he married Mary Potter, and they went on an extended tour of
Europe. While they were in the Netherlands, Mary died from
complications after a miscarriage. Longfellow was bereft and found
solace in reading German poetry, and when he returned to America to
teach at Harvard, he began writing poetry of his own. He wrote about
uniquely American subjects, and he was the first American poet to be
taken seriously abroad. His collection Ballads and Other Poems (1841)
became wildly popular; it included his poems "The Wreck of the
Hesperus" and "The Village Blacksmith." He wrote several popular
narrative poems, including the book-length Evangeline (1847), The Song
of Hiawatha (1855), and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858). He also
undertook the first American translation of Dante's Inferno (1867). He
began the project to console himself after his second wife, Fanny, died
when her dress caught fire in 1861.
It was on this date in 1860 that presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln
gave a speech against slavery at Cooper Union in New York City. The
popular pro-slavery argument of the day argued that Congress had no
right to regulate slavery in new territories. The Dred Scott case of
1857 upheld that viewpoint, maintaining that the framers of the
Constitution did not intend Congress to limit slavery. Lincoln believed
that decision was wrong, and he spent months before the speech
researching the positions of the 39 Founding Fathers on the issue of
slavery.
That evening, the great hall was filled with 1,500 New Yorkers, curious
to see this candidate, a lawyer who had very little formal education, a
man whom they knew something of from his series of highly publicized
debates with Douglas. One eyewitness remarked: "When Lincoln rose to
speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall, - oh, how tall!
and so angular and awkward that I had, for an instant, a feeling of
pity for so ungainly a man." Once Lincoln began to speak, however, "his
face lighted up as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured.
I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual
peculiarities. Presently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet like the
rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man."
Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, was not present, but he had
read the speech beforehand. It was, he said, "constructed with a view
to accuracy of statement, simplicity of language, and unity of thought.
In some respects like a lawyer's brief, it was logical, temperate in
tone, powerful - irresistibly driving conviction home to men's reasons
and their souls."
The speech - one of his longest and one of his least-quoted - was
reprinted widely; the New York Times printed it in its entirety, on the
front page, the next day. It made Lincoln famous, and he was invited to
speak at engagements all over the country. That summer, the Republican
Party named him their candidate for the 1860 presidential election.
He ended the speech with the words, "Let us have faith that right makes
might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we
understand it."
Today is the birthday of John Steinbeck (books by this author), born in
Salinas, California (1902). His parents were hardworking and well
respected, though never wealthy. Steinbeck decided when he was 14 that
he wanted to be a writer, and from that day he never seriously
considered anything else. He went to Stanford University to make his
parents happy, but he only took classes in things that interested him:
mostly literature and creative writing. He joined the English Club and
would read his stories aloud for its members; the club's president
commented later that, as far as he could tell, Steinbeck didn't have
any other talents or interests. "He was a writer," the club president
said, "but he was that and nothing else." Steinbeck attended college
sporadically, sometimes taking a quarter off to get a job in a sugar
factory near Salinas, or work shoulder to shoulder with itinerant ranch
hands throughout the valley. He dropped out of college for good in
1925. In 1930, he married Carol Henning. She took various jobs to
support them so that he could write full time. She also helped edit his
manuscripts, and encouraged him to pare down some of his more ornate
language. His first few novels didn't sell well, but eventually he
found his stride when he began writing about the California that he
knew and loved so well. "I think I would like to write the story of
this whole valley," he wrote to a friend in 1933, "of all the little
towns and all the farms and the ranches in the wilder hills. I can see
how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world."
In 1937, he published the book that made him a household name: Of Mice
and Men (1937). He intended it to serve both as a novel and a play
script, and both were big hits; the Broadway version, adapted by George
S. Kaufman, won the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play in 1937.
But many people were shocked by the text's vulgar language, and it
still appears on many lists of banned books today. Steinbeck's next
offering was the story of the Joads, a family that left the Oklahoma
Dust Bowl in search of the literal and figurative greener pastures of
California. This was, of course, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Again, it
received wide praise as well as a fair amount of condemnation. Oklahoma
Congressman Lyle Boren called it a "dirty, lying, filthy manuscript."
Californians didn't like his portrayal of greedy farm owners who
exploited the migrant workers. But the novel won a National Book Award
and the Pulitzer Prize, and at one point it sold 10,000 copies a week.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®
