Friends

*2001M-8, box 1. Purchased with the Bayard Livingston and Kate Gray Kilgour fund, 2001. Houghton Library.

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This letter, addressed to "Nathaniel Hawthorne at Dr. Peabody's West Street," shows Longfellow from his relaxed, playful side:

"Dearest Hawthornius, Don't forget that you are to dine with me on Tuesday next-that is to say, the day after tomorrow-at 3 o'clock. I want very much to see you, and to tell how truly delighted I was with your last story, The Birth Mark. Not the comet himself can unfold a more glorious tail. But you should have made a Romance of it, and not a short story only. More of that on Tuesday; till when Yours very truly H.W.L."

Longfellow had read "The Birth-mark" in the March 1843 issue of James Russell Lowell's periodical, The Pioneer. The comet he mentions was the so-called "Great March Comet" of 1843, the record-holder for the longest tail in history. Note Longfellow's pun on tale/tail, and, also, how seamlessly the length of the comet's tail becomes part of an attempt to convince Hawthorne to write a longer "tale" (a novel) instead of limiting himself to shorter works.