JLib. ^ \ ^ ^. .v\, -7/, -.0 0^ ^c ,^^ ^'■^JTTP^^ C •.c«\SXv^*^. O Vol. II. No. lo. Five cents. Per Year, Fifty cents (.(.-'^ tv^ Xittle 3ournei?5 SERIES FOR 1896 Xlttle Jomnc^s to tbe Ibomes ot Bmerican Butbors The papers below specified, were, with the exception of that contributed by the editor, Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a series entitled Homes of American Authors, It is now nearly half a century since this series (which won for itself at the time a very noteworthy prestige) was brought before the public ; and the present publishers feel that no apology is needed in presenting to a new generation of American readers papers of such distinctive biographical interest and literary value. No. I, Emerson, by Geo. "W. Curtis. " 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland. ** 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard. ** 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs. '* 5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant. •* 6, ^Valt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard. *• 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. Wm. Curtis. '• 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin. *' 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman. *' 10, Longfellow^ by Geo. Wm. Curtis. " II, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard. ** 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene. The above papers, which will form the series of Little Journeys for the year 1896, will be issued monthly, beginning January, in the same general style as the series of 1895, at 50cts. a year. Single copies, 5 cts., postage paid. Entered at the Post Office, New Rochelle, N Y., as second class matter Copyright, 1896, by G. P. Putnam's sons 27 A 29 West 23D Street, New York 24 Bedford Street, Strand, London The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. -^•b' > l'< C*^ LONGFELLOW. 297 This is the place. Stand still, my steed, Let me review the scene ; And summon from the shadowy Past The forms that once have been. A Gleam of Sunshine. 298 LONGFELLOW. BY GKORGE: Wn^LIAM CURTIS.* ONK calm afternoon in the summer of 1837, a young man passed down the elm-shaded walk that separated the old Craigie House in Cam- bridge from the highroad. Reaching the door, he paused to observe the huge, old-fashioned brass knocker and the quaint handle, — relics, evidently, of an epoch of colonial state. To his mind, however, the house and these signs of its age, were not interesting from the romance of antiquity alone, but from their association with the early days of * Written in 1853 for Putnam's Homes of Ameri- can Authors, 299 Xon^tellow our revolution, when General Washing- ton, after the battle of Bunker Hill, had his headquarters in the mansion. Had his hand, perhaps, lifted this same latch, lingering as he clasped it in the whirl of a myriad emotions? Had he, too, paused in the calm summer afternoon, and watched the silver gleam of the broad river in the meadows — the dreamy blue of the Milton hills beyond? And had the tranquillity of that landscape penetrated his heart with ** the sleep that is among the hills," and whose fairest dream to him was a hope now realized in the peaceful prosperity of his country ? At least the young man knew that if the details of the mansion had been some- what altered, so that he could not be per- fectly sure of touching what Washington touched, yet he saw what Washington saw — the same placid meadow-lands, the same undulating horizon, the same calm stream. And it is thus that an old house of distinct association, asserts its claim and secures its influence. It is a nucleus 300 Xonatellow of interest, — a heart of romance, from which pulse a thousand reveries enchant- ing the summer hours. For although every old country mansion is invested with a nameless charm, from that anti- quity which imagination is forever crowd- ing with the pageant of a stately and beautiful life, yet if there be some clearly outlined story, even a historic scene pecu- liar to it, then around that, as the bold and picturesque foreground, all the ima- gery of youth, and love, and beauty, in a thousand-fold variety of development, is grouped, and every room has its poetic passage, every window its haunting face, every garden-path its floating and fading form of a quite imperishable beauty. So the young man passed not unac- companied down the elm-shaded path, and the air and the scene were affluent of radiant phantoms. Imaginary ladies, of a state and dignity only possible in the era of periwigs, advanced in all the solemnity of mob-caps to welcome the stranger. Grave old courtiers, beruffled, 301 %omtc\lovo bewigged, sworded, and laced, trod iu- audibly, with gracious bow, the spacious walk; and comely maidens, resident in mortal memory now only as shrivelled and tawny duennas, glanced modest looks, and wondered what new charm had risen that morning upon the some- what dull horizon of their life. These, arrayed in the richness of a poet's fancy, advanced to welcome him. For well they knew whatever of peculiar interest adorned their house would blossom into permanent forms of beauty in the light of genius. They advanced to meet, as the inhabitants of foreign and strange towns approach, with supplication and submission, the leader in whose eyes flames victory, sure that he would do for them more than they could do for them- selves. But when the brazen clang of the huge knocker had ceased resounding, the great door slowly opened, and no phantom serving-man, but a veritable flesh and blood retainer of the hostess of the man- 302 Uon^tellow sion invited the visitor to enter. He in- quired for Mrs. Craigie. In answer, the door of a little parlor was thrown open, and the young man beheld a tall, erect figure, majestically crowned with a tur- ban, beneath which burned a pair of keen gray eyes. A commanding gravity of deportment, harmonious with the gentle-woman's age, and with the ances- tral respectability of the mansion, assured profound respect ; while, at a glance, it was clear to see that combination of re- duced dignity condescending to a lower estate, and that pride of essential supe- riority to circumstances, which is tradi- tional among women in the situation of the turbaned lady. There was kindli- ness mellowing the severity of her reply to her visitor's inquiry if there was a room vacant in the house. ''I lodge students no longer," she re- sponded gravely, possibly not without regret — as she contemplated the appli- cant — that she had vowed so stem a reso- lution. 303 Xongtellow "But I am not a student,'* answered the stranger; **I am a professor in the University/' ^^A professor?" said she inquiringly, as if her mind failed to conceive a pro- fessor without a clerical sobriety of ap- parel, a white cravat, or at least specta- cles. ** Professor Longfellow," continued the guest, introducing himself. **Ah! that is different," said the old lady, her features slightly relaxing, as if professors were, ex-officio^ innocuous, and she need no longer barricade herself behind a stern gravity of demeanor. **I will show you what there is." Thereupon she preceded the Professor up the stairs, and gaining the upper hall, paused at each door, opened it, permitted him to perceive its delightful fitness for his purpose, — kindled expectation to the utmost — then quietly closed the door again, observing : ** You cannot have that." It was most Barmecide hospital- ity. The professorial eyes glanced rest- 304 Xon^tellow lessly around the fine old-fashioned points of the mansion, marked the wooden carv- ings, the air of opulent respectability in the past, which corresponds in New Eng- land to the impression of ancient nobility in old England, and wondered in which of these pleasant fields of suggestive asso- ciation he was to be allowed to pitch his tent. The turbaned hostess at length opened the door of the southeast comer room in the second story, and, while the guest looked wistfully in and awaited the customary, ''You cannot have that,'* he was agreeably surprised by a variation of the strain to the effect that he might occupy it. The room was upon the front of the house, and looked over the meadows to the river. It had an atmosphere of fas- cinating repose, in which the young man was at once domesticated, as in an old home. The elms of the avenue shaded his windows, and as he glanced from them, the summer lay asleep upon the landscape in the windless day. 305 %ongtcllow '^ This/' said the old lady, with a slight sadness in her voice, as if speaking of times forever past and to which she her- self properly belonged, — ** this was Gen- eral Washington's chamber." A light more pensive played over the landscape, in the Poet's eyes, as he heard her words. He knew that such a pres- ence had consecrated the house, and pecu- liarly that room. He felt that whoever fills the places once occupied by the great and good, is himself held to greatness and goodness by a sympathy and necessity sweet as mysterious. Forever after, his imagination is a more lordly picture-gal- lery than that of ancestral halls. Through that gallery he wanders, strong in his hu- mility and resolve, valiant as the last scion of noble Norman races, devoting himself, as of old knights were devoted, by earnest midnight meditation and holy vows, to Act, — act in the living Present ! Heart within and God overhead ! The stately hostess retired, and the next day the new lodger took possession of his 306 Xon^tellow room. He lived entirely apart from the old lady, although under the same roof. Her manner of life was quiet and unob- trusive. The silence of the ancient man- sion, which to its new resident was truly "the still air of delightful studies,'* was not disturbed by the shrill cackle of a country household. In the morning, af- ter he had settled himself to the day's occupation, the scholar heard the faint and measured tread of the old lady as she descended to breakfast, her silken gown rustling along the hall as if the shadowy brocade of some elder dame departed, who failed to discover in the ghostly still- ness of the well-known passage, that she had wandered from her sphere. Then, after due interval, if, upon his way to the day's collegiate duties, the professor en- tered the hostess's little parlor to offer her good morning, he found her seated by the open window, through which stole the sweet New England air, lifting the few gray locks that straggled from the tur- ban, as tenderly as Greek winds played 307 Xongtellow with Helenas curls. Upon her lap lay an open volume of Voltaire, possibly, for the catholicity of the old lady's mind enter- tained whatever was vigorous and free, — and from the brilliant wit of the French- man, and his icy precision of thought and statement, she turned to the warm day that flooded the meadows with summer, and which in the high tree-tops above her head sang in breez}-, fitful cadences of a beauty that no denizen of the sum- mer shall ever see, and a song sweeter than he shall ever hear. It was because she had heard and felt this breath of na- ture that the matron in her quaint old age could enjoy the page of the French- man, even as in her youth she could have admired the delicacy of his point-lace ruffles, nor have less enjoyed, by reason of that admiration, the green garden -walk of Ferney, in which she might have seen them. Or at times, as the scholar studied, he heard footsteps upon the walk, and the old knocker clanged the arrival of guests, 308 Hongtellow who passed into the parlor, and, as the door opened and closed, he could hear, far away and confused, the sounds of stately conversation, until there was a prolonged and louder noise, a bustle, the jar of the heavy door closing, the dying echo of footsteps, — and then the deep and ghostly silence again closed around the small event as the sea ripples into calm over a sinking stone. Or more dreamily still, as at twilight the poet sat musing in his darkening room — hearing the *^ footsteps of angels'* sounding, melo- dious and low, through all the other ** voices of the night,''— he seemed to catch snatches of mournful music thril- ling the deep silence with sorrow, and, listening more intently, he heard dis- tinctly the harpsichord in the old lady's parlor, and knew that she was sitting, turbaned and wrinkled, where she had sat in the glowing triumph of youth, and with wandering fingers was drawing in feeble and uncertain cadence from the keys, tunes she had once dashed from 309 %ongtcUo\v them in all the fulness of harmony. Or when, the summer following the poet's arrival, the blight of canker-worms fell upon the stately old trees before the house, and struck them mortally, so that they gradually wasted and withered away, — if then the young man entered her par- lor and finding her by the open window, saw that the worms were crawling over her dress and hanging from her white tur- ban, and asked her if they were not disa- greeable and if she would do nothing to destroy them, she raised her eyes from another book than Voltaire's, and said to him gravely : ** Why, sir, they are our fellow-worms, and have as good a right to live as we." And as the poet returned to his chamber, musing more than ever upon the Saturn Time that so remorse- lessly consumes his own children, and picturing the gay youth of the grave old hostess, he could not but pause, leaning upon the heavy balusters of the stairs and remember the tradition of the house, that once, as an old hostess, like his own, 310 Xongtellow lay waiting for death in her chamber, she sent for her young guest, like himself, to come and take last leave of her, and as he entered her room, and advancing to her bedside, saw her lying stretched at length and clutching the clothes around her neck, so that only her sharply fea- tured and shrunken face was visible, — the fading eye opened upon him for a moment and he heard from the withered lips this stern whisper of farewell : ** Young man, never marry, for beauty comes to this ! '^ The lines of the Poet had fallen in pleasant places. With the old house and its hostess, and its many known and un- known associations, there was no lack of material for thought and speculation. A country house in New England which is not only old, but by the character of its structure and its coherent history, sug- gests a life of more interest and dignity than that of a simple countryman ** whose only aim was to increase his store,'* is interesting in the degree of its rarity. 3" Xongtellow The traveller upon the highroad before the Craigie House, even if he knew noth- ing of its story, would be struck by its quaint dignity and respectability, and make a legend, if he could not find one already made. If, however, his lot had been cast in Cambridge, and he had been able to secure a room in the mansion, he would not rest until he had explored the traditions of its origin and occupancy, and had given his fancy moulds in which to run its images. He would have found in the churchyard of Cambridge a free- stone tablet supported by five pillars, upon which, with the name. Col. John Vassal, died in 1747, are sculptured the words, Vas-sol, and the emblems, a gob- let and sun. Whether this device was a proud assertion of the fact, that the fortunes of the family should be always as A beaker full of the warm South, happily no historian records ; for the beaker has long since been drained to the dregs, and of the stately family noth- 312 Xongtellow ing survived in the early part of the poet's residence in the house, but an old black man who had been bom, a slave, in the mansion during the last days of the Vassals, and who occasionally re- turned to visit his earliest haunts, like an Indian the hunting-grounds of his extinct tribe. This Col. John Vassal is supposed to have built the house towards the close of the first half of the last century. Upon an iron in the back of one of the chimneys, there is the date, 1759, which probably commemorates no more than the fact of its own insertion at that period, inasmuch as the builder of the house would hardly commit the authen- tic witness of its erection to the mercies of smoke and soot. History capitulates before the exact date of the building of the Craigie House, as completely as before that of the foundation of Thebes. But the house was evidently generously built,, and Col. John Vassal having lived there in generous style, died, and lies under 313 Xongtellow the free-stone tablet. His son John fell upon revolutionary times, and was a royalist. The observer of the house will not be surprised at the fact. That the occupant of such a mansion should, in colonial troubles, side with the govern- ment, was as natural as the fealty of a Douglas or a Howard to the king. The house, however, passed from his hands, and was purchased by the provin- cial government at the beginning of serious work with the mother country. After the battle of Bunker Hill, it was allotted to George Washington as his headquarters. It was entirely unfur- nished, but the charity of neighbors £lled it with necessary furniture. The southeastern room upon the lower floor, at the right of the front door, and now occupied as a study by Mr. Longfellow, was devoted to the same purpose by Washington. The room over it, as Madame Craigie has already informed us, was his chamber. The room upon the lower floor, in the rear of the study, 314 / Xon^tellow which was afterwards enlarged and is now the Poet's library, was occupied by the aides-de-camp of the commander-in- chief. And the southwest room, upon the lower floor, was Mrs. Washington's drawing room. The rich old wood carv- ing in this apartment is still remarkable, still certifies the frequent presence of fine society. For, although during the year in which Washington occupied the mansion, there could have been as little desire as means for gay festivity ; yet Washington and his leading associates were all gentlemen — men who would have graced the elegance of a court with the same dignity that made the plainness of a republic admirable. Many of Wash- ington's published letters are dated from this house. And could the walls whisper, we should hear more and better things of him than could ever be recorded. In his chamber are still the gay-painted tiles peculiar to fine houses of the period ; and upon their quaint and grotesque images the glancing eyes of the Poet's 315 Xongtellow children now wonderingly linger, where the sad and doubtful ones of Washington must have often fallen as he meditated the darkness of the future. Many of these peculiarities and mem- ories of the mansion appear in the Poet's verses. In the opening of the poem To a Child the tiles are painted anew. The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing girl, the brave Bashaw "With bearded lip and chin ; And, leaning idly o'er his gate, Beneath the imperial fan of state, The Chinese mandarin. The next figure that distinctly appears in the old house is that of Thomas Tracy, a personage of whom the household traditions are extremely fond. He was a rich man, in the fabulous style of the Bast ; such a nabob as Oriental imagina- tions can everywhere easily conjure, while practical experience wonders that they are so rare. He carried himself with a rare lavishness. Servants drank costly wines from carved pitchers in the incred- ible days of Thomas Tracy ; and in his 316 %ongtcllo\v stately mansion, a hundred guests sat down to banquets, and pledged their hosts in draughts whose remembrance keeps his name sweet, as royal bodies were preserved in wine and spices. In the early days of national disorder, he sent out privateers to scour the seas and bleed Spanish galleons of their sunniest juices, and reap golden harvests of fruits and spices, of silks and satins, from Bast and West Indian ships, that the bounti- ful table of Vassal House might not fail, nor the carousing days of Thomas Tracy become credible. But these ''spacious times '' of the large-hearted and large- handed gentleman suddenly ended. The wealthy man failed ; no more hundred guests appeared at banquets ; no more privateers sailed into Boston Bay, reek- ing with riches from every zone ; Spain, the Brazils, the Indies, no more rolled their golden sands into the pockets of Thomas Tracy ; servants, costly wines, carved pitchers, all began to glimmer and go, and finally Thomas Tracy and 317 Xongtellow his incredible days vanished as entirely as the gorgeous pavilions with which the sun in setting piles the summer west. After this illuminated chapter in the history of the house, Captain Joseph Lee, a brother of Madame Tracy, appears in the annals, but does not seem to have illustrated them by any special gifts or graces. Tradition remains silent, pining for Thomas Tracy, until it lifts its head upon the entry into the house of Andrew Craigie, Apothecary-General to the North- em Provincial Army, who amassed a for- tune in that office, which, like his great predecessor, he presently lost ; but not until he had built a bridge over the Charles River, connecting Cambridge with Boston, which is still known by his name. Andrew Craigie did much for the house, even enlarging it to its present form ; but tradition is hard upon him. It declares that he was a huge man, heavy and dull ; and evidently looks upon his career as the high lyric of Thomas Tracy's, muddled into tough prose. In 318 Xon^tcllow the best and most prosperous days of Andrew Craigie, the estate comprised two hundred acres. Upon the site of the present observatory, not far from the mansion, stood a summer-house, but whether of any rare architectural de- vice, whether, in fact, any orphic genius of those days made a summer house, which, like that of Mr. Emerson's, only ** lacked scientific arrangement'' to be quite perfect, does not appear. Like the apothecary to the Northern army, the summer-house is gone, as likewise an aqueduct that brought water a quarter of a mile. Tradition, so enamotured of Tracy is generous enough to mention a dinner- party given by Andrew Craigie every Saturday, and on one occasion points out peruked and powdered Talleyrand among the guests. This betrays the presence in the house of the best society then to be had. But the prosperous Craigie could not avoid the fate of his opulent prede- cessor, who also gave banquets. Things rushed on too rapidly for him. The 319 Xongtcllow bridge, aqueduct, and summer-liouse, two hundred acres and an enlarged house, were too much for the fortune acquired in dealing medicaments to the Northern army. The *^ spacious times '* of Andrew Craigie also came to an end. A visitor walked with him through his large and handsome rooms, and struck with admi- ration, exclaimed : ** Mr. Craigie, I should think you could lose yourself in all this spaciousness. '* *' Mr. '' (tradition has forgotten the name), said the hospitable and ruined host, "I have lost myself in it," — and we do not find him again. After his disappearance Mrs. Craigie, bravely swallowing the risings of pride, and still revealing in her character and demeanor the worthy mistress of a noble mansion, let rooms. Bdward Bverett re- sided here just after his marriage, and while still professor in the college of which he was afterward President. Wil- lard Phillips, Jared Sparks, now the head of the University, and Joseph B. Worces- 320 %ongtcl[ow ter, the Ivexicographer, have all resided here, sometimes sharing the house with Mrs. Craigie, and, in the case of Mr. Worcester, occupying it jointly with Mr. Longfellow when the grave old lady removed her stately turban for the last time. The Craigie House is now the Poet's, and has again acquired a distinctive in- terest in history. It was in Portland, Maine, in the year 1807, and in an old square wooden house upon the edge of the sea, that L/ongfellow was born. The old house stood upon the outskirts of the town, separated only by a street from the water. In the lower story there is now a shop, — a bookseller's doubtless, muses imagination, — so that the same house which gave a singer to the world may offer to the world his songs to justify its pride in him. He graduated at Bruns- wick with Hawthorne, whom then the Poet knew only as a shy youth in a bright-buttoned coat, flitting across the college grounds. During his college 321 Xon^tellow days he wooed the muses, as all students "WOO ; and in the United States Library Gazette^ then published in Boston, the world learned how his suit prospered. In 1826 Longfellow first visited Europe. He loitered through France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, and England, and returned to America in 1829. Appointed Professor in his Alma Mater, he devoted himself to the scholar's life, poring long and earnestly over the literature of lands which he knew so well and truly that their literature lived for him and was not a hard hieroglyph only. During these quiet professorial years he contributed articles to the North American Review^ 2l proceeding not unprecedented among New England scholars, and in which Emerson, the Everetts, and all the more illustrious of the literary men of the North, have been participants. The forms of foreign travel gradually grouped them- selves in his mind. Vivid pictures of European experience, such as illuminate the memory of every young and romantic 322 %ongtcllovc traveller, constantly flashed along his way, and he began to retrace them in words, that others might know, accord- ing to the German proverb, that ** behind the mountains there are men also." In this way commenced the publication of Outre Mery or Sketches from Beyond the Sea^ a work of foreign reminiscences, tales and reveries of the life peculiar to Europe. It was published, originally, in numbers, by Samuel Colman, a towns- man of the author's. Like the Sketch- Booky it was issued whenever a number was prepared, but unlike the author of the Sketch-Book^ the Professor could not write as his motto, '* I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for" ; for in the midst of the quiet professorial days, still a very young man, the Poet was married, — a fleeting joy ending by the death of his wife in Rotterdam in 1835. In Brunswick, also, and at this time, he made the translation of the ode upon Coplas de Manrique, by his son Don Joze Manrique, a rich, mourn fully- 323 Xongtellovv rolling Spanish poem. The earlier verses of the young man had made their mark. In school reading-books, and in volumes of elegant extracts, and preserved in many a daintily ribboned manuscript, the April Day, Woods in Winter^ Hymn of the Moravian Nuns at Bethle- hem, Burial of the Minnisink, and others, were readily found. As yet the Poet was guiltless of a volume, but his name was known, and upon the credit of a few fugitive pieces he was mentioned first after the monopolizing masters of American verse. In the year 1835 he received the ap- pointment of Professor in Harvard Col- lege, Cambridge, which he accepted, but sailed for Europe again in the course of the year. Upon leaving he committed the publication of Outre Mer to the Harpers in New York, who issued the entire work in two volumes. The second European visit was confined to the north of Europe, Denmark, England, Sweden, Germany, a long pause in Holland, and 324 Xongtellow turned, and in December of the same year removed to Cambridge to reside. Here, again, the North American Re- view figures a little in the literary life of the Poet. He wrote several articles for it during the leisure of his engagements as Professor of Modem Literature, and, at length, as we have seen, one calm after- noon in the summer of 1837, Longfellow first took lodgings in the Craigie House, with which the maturity and extent of his reputation was to be so closely associated. Some wan ghost of Thomas Tracy, lordly with lace and gracious in per- fumed pomp, surely the Poet saw advan- cing, holding in his hand some one of these antique carved pitchers brimmed with that costly wine, and exhorting him to drain potent draughts, that not by him should the fame of the incredible days be tarnished, but that, as when a hun- dred guests sat at the banquet, and a score of full-freighted ships arrived for Thomas Tracy, the traveller should say, 325 longfellow A purple light shines over all, It beams from the luck of Edenhall. The vow was pledged, and now under the few elms that remain of those which the fellow- worms of Mrs. Craigie blighted, the ghost of Thomas Tracy- walks appeased. In his still southeastern upper cham- ber, in which Washington had also slept, the Poet wrote Hyperion in the years 1838-9. It is truly a romance, a beaker of the wine of youth, and was instantly received as such by the public. That public was, and must always be, of the young. No book had appeared which so admirably expressed the romantic expe- rience of every poetic young mind in Kurope, and an experience which will be constantly renewed. Probably no Amer- ican book had ever so passionate a popu- larity as Hyperion, It was published in the summer of 1839 by Colman, who had then removed to New York, but at the time of publication he failed, and it was undertaken by John Owen, the Univer- 326 Xongtellow sity publisher in Cambridge. It is a singular tribute to the integrity of the work, and a marked illustration of the peculiarity of American development, that Horace Greeley, famous as a politi- cal journalist, and intimately associated with every kind of positive and practical movement, was among the very earliest of the warmest lovers of Hyperion, It shows our national eclecticism of senti- ment and sense, which is constantly be- traying itself in a thousand and other ways. Here, too, in the southeast chamber, were written the Voices of the Nighty published in 1840. Some of the more noted, such as the Psalm of Life ^ had already appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine. Strangely enough as a fact in American literary history, the fame of the romance was even surpassed, and one of the most popular books of the day was Longfellow^ s Poems, They were read everywhere by every one, and were republished and have continued to 327 longtellow be republished in Bngland and in various other countries. The secret of his popu- larity as a poet is probably that of all similar popularity, namely, the fact that his poetry expresses a universal senti- ment in the simplest and most melodious manner. Bach of his most noted poems is the song of a feeling common to every mind in moods into which every mind is liable to fall. Thus A Psalm of Life, Footsteps of Angels, To the River Charles, Excelsior, The Bridge, A Gleam of Sunshine, The Day is Done, The Old Clock on the Stairs, The Arrow and the Song, The Fire of Driftwood, Twilight, The Open Window, are all most adequate and inexpressibly deli- cate renderings of quite universal emo- tions. There is a humanity in them which is irresistible in the fit meas- ures to which they are wedded. If some elegiac poets have strung rosaries of tears, there is a weakness of woe in their verses which repels ; but the quiet, pensive thought, — the twilight of the 328 %ongtcllow mind, in which the little facts of life are saddened in view of their relation to the eternal laws, time and change, — this is the meditation and mourning of every manly heart ; and this is the alluring and permanent charm of I/Ongfellow's poetry. In 1842 the Ballads and other Poems were published, and in the same year the Poet sailed again for Europe. He passed the summer upon the Rhine, residing some time at Boppart, where he saw much of the ardent young German poet Freiligrath. He returned after a few months, composing the poems on slavery during the homeward passage. Upon landing, he found the world drunken with the grace of Fanny Kllsler, and learned, from high authority, that her saltations were more than poetry, where- upon he wrote the fragrant Spanish Student^ which smells of the utmost South, and was a strange blossoming for the garden of Thomas Tracy. In 1843 Longfellow bought the house. The two hundred acres of Andrew Craigie 329 Xonetcllow had shrunken to eight. But the meadow- land in front sloping to the river was secured by the Poet, who thereby se- cured also the wide and winning pros- pect, the broad green reaches, and the gentle Milton hills. And if, sitting in the most midsummer moment of his life, he yielded to the persuasions of the siren landscape before him, and the vague voices of the ancestral house, and dreamed of a fate fairer than any Vassal, or Tracy, or Craigie knew, even when they mused upon the destiny of the proudest son of their house, — was it a dream too dear, a poem impossible ? In 1846 the Belfry of Bruges collec- tion was published, in 1847 the Evan- geline^ in 1850 Seaside and Fireside^ and in 185 1 the last and best of his works, up to the present time — The Golden Legend, In this poem he has obeyed the highest humanity of the poet's call- ing, by revealing, — which alone the poet can, — not coldly, but in the glowing and affluent reality of life, this truth, that the 330 Xongtellow same human heart has throbbed in all ages and under all circumstances, and that the devotion of Love is for ever and from the beginning the true salvation of man. To this great and fundamental value of the poem is added all the dra- matic precision of the most accomplished artist. The art is so subtly concealed that it is not suspected. The rapid reader exclaims, "^^ Why ! there is no modern blood in this; it might have been ex- humed in a cloister." Yes, and there is the triumph of art. So entirely are the intervening years annihilated that their existence is not suspected. Taking us by the hand, as Virgil Dante, the Poet introduces us directly to the time he chooses, and we are at once flushed and warmed by the same glorious and eternal heart which is also the light of our day. This is the stroke which makes all times and nations kin, and which, in any in- dividual instance, certifies the poetic power. The library of the Poet is the long 331 XonQtellow northeastern room upon the lower floor. It opens upon the garden, which retains still the quaint devices of an antique de- sign, harmonious with the house. The room is surrounded with handsome book- cases, and one stands also between two Corinthian columns at one end, which impart dignity and richness to the apart- ment. A little table by the northern window, looking upon the garden, is the usual seat of the Poet. A bust or two, the rich carvings of the cases, the spa- ciousness of the room, a leopard-skin lying upon the floor, and a few shelves of strictly literary curiosities, reveal not only the haunt of the elegant scholar and poet, but the favorite resort of the family circle. But the northern gloom of a New England winter is intolerant of this se- rene delight, this beautiful domesticity, and urges the inmates to the smaller room in front of the house communica- ting with the library, and the study of General Washington. This is still dis- tinctively *Uhe study,*' as the rear room 332 Xon^fellow is "the library." Books are here, and all the graceful detail of an elegant household, and upon the walls hang crayon portraits of Bmerson, Sumner, and Hawthorne. Kmerging into the hall, the eyes of the enamoured visitor fall upon the massive old staircase with the clock upon the landing. Directly he hears a singing in his mind : Somewhat back from the village street, Stands the old-fashioned country seat, Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw, And from its station in the hall An ancient timepiece says to all, Forever— never ! Never — for ever ! But he does not see the particular clock of the poem, which stood upon another staircase in another quaint old mansion, — although the verse truly belongs to all old clocks in all old country-seats, just as the *^ Village Blacksmith '' and his smithy are not alone the stalwart man and dingy shop under the "spreading chestnut tree '' which the Professor daily passes 333 %ongtcllow upon his way to his college duties, but belong wherever a smithy stands. Through the meadows in front flows the placid Charles. River that in silence windest Thro' the meadows, bright and free, Till at length thy rest thou findest In the bosom of the sea ! So calmly, likewise, flows the Poet's life. No longer in his reveries can mingle more than the sweet melancholy of the old house's associations. No tradition records a ghost in those ghostly cham- bers. As if all sign of them should pass away, not only Mrs. Craigie's fellow- worms destroyed the elms in front, but a noble linden tree in the garden, faded as she failed, and languished into decay after her death. But the pensive grand- eur of an old mansion sheds a softer than the '* purple light " of the luck of Eden- hall upon the Poet's fancies and his page. 334 Merits in Bellce^Xettrea Renaissance Fancies and Studies. By Vernon Lee. Being a sequel to ** Euphorion.** i2mo, cloth. Sketches from Concord and Appledore. Being Literary Essays. By Frank Pres- ton Stearns, author of **The Life of Tintoretto," etc. Includes — Concord Thirty Years Ago — Emerson — Hawthorne — Whittier — The Alcotts — Celia Thaxter — Wasson — Wendell Phillips, etc. 8vo, cloth, with many illustrations, $2.00. Lorenzo de* Medici. And Florence in the Fifteenth Century. By Edward Arm- strong. Very fully illustrated from pho- tographs of contemporary paintings. 1 2mo, cloth, $1.50 ; half leather, gilt top, $1.75. 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