Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[241] to him on April 11, 1871, and which was to harmonize the discord of ‘The New England Tragedies’ was destined never to be fulfilled. In the mean time, however, he carried them to Europe with him, and seems to have found their only admirer in John Forster, who wrote to him in London: ‘Your tragedies are very beautiful— beauty everywhere subduing and chastening the sadness; the pictures of nature in delightful contrast to the sorrowful and tragic violence of the laws; truth and unaffectedness everywhere. I hardly know which I like best; but there are things in “Giles Corey” that have a strange attractiveness for me.’ Longfellow writes to Fields from Vevey, September 5, 1868: ‘I do not like your idea of calling the ‘Tragedies’ sketches. They are not sketches, and only seem so at first because I have studiously left out all that could impede the action. I have purposely made them simple and direct.’ He later adds: ‘As to anybody's “adapting” these ‘Tragedies’ for the stage, I do not like the idea of it at all. Prevent this if possible. I should, however, like to have the opinion of some good actor— not a sensational actor—on that point. I should like to have Booth look at them.’ Six weeks later, having gone over to London to secure the copyright on these poems, he writes: ‘I saw also Bandmann, the tragedian, who expressed ’