Beschreibung
An den Dichter Gustav Pfizer (1807-1890) in Stuttgart: „I Had this morning the pleasure of receiving your friendly note, with the newspapers, You were so kind as to send, & for which I beg you to receive my best thanks. I am glad the translation of your poem pleases you. With the original I was exceedingly struck. It was put in my hands by a friend who had just lost both wife and child: accompanied by a request, that I would translate it for him, which the beauty of the poem would have prompted me to do even without his request. In America it found universal favor & spoke consolation to more than one heart, which found in it the expression of its own sorrow. I mention this, because I am sure it must give You sincere pleasure to know, that in a land so far away from Your fireside, You have been the interpreter and consoler of many who were suffering. No truth seems to be spoken in vain. At some time or other – in some place or other – it finds an ear to receive it, and a voice to repeat it. | I have read with pleasure Your „Nebenbuhler in Reutlingen“. It is a beautiful little Ballad; and I was particularly struck with the description of the Smith at work, with his „nervigen Arm, die hohe Gestalt, | das Feueraug, Haar das wie Mähnen wallt“. I should be very much pleased to visit you in Stuttgart, if it is possible that I may accomplish it. I was there six years ago on my way to the Tyrol and was much pleased with the town. Dannecker was then living. My coming however will depend upon circumstances which I cannot myself control, though I wish and hope to visit the south of Germany once more before I return to America. Meanwhile I remain with great regard very truly yours Henry W. Longfellow […] P.S. My best thanks for your translation of the Indian Hunter – a poem of my early youth – and which now seems to me better than I ever thought it before.“ – Longfellow’s translation of Gustav Pfizer’s „Der Junggesell“ was first printed in „The Token and Atlantic Souvenir“ (Boston 1842; S. 22 f.). – Provenienz: Gustav und Paul Pfizer.
