p /,' HUR€LeWE:HD£RS JM JblTTLE:! tILK U all IIM^ toU^^ntm^ ti ^11 if tlim The purpose of this series of books is to place before little folk true, attractive, and unforgettable accounts of a few of the makers of American literature. Our country began July fourth, seventeen hundred and seventy-six, by making history with swords and ploughshares, and she was very young when the first of her writers, Wash- ington Irving, was born, April third, seventeen hundred and eighty -three. Within thirty years of that time, twelve or _,^___^k-^.^ more children were born into this new world who later in life were also to write American books of enduring value and world-wide acceptance. As little children and young men Doctor Edward Everett Hale and Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson came in living touch with these brilliant writers in a way that no doubt helped to make them the men of worth they are, and to make them also the writers of many books, not a few of them for little folk. Most fittingly and graciously they have given to young readers of these Laurel Leaves from the riches of their living and doing. The kindly tribute of many other authors and friends to the little ones' interest is also warmly and sincerely appreciated. The generous and valuable permission for reprints of text and illustrations from Houghton, Mifflin and Com- pany and other publishers commands the grateful and faithful services of Mary E. Phillips. I T ^-*- -«>- i - '-^ V" j^^p iirV^ixvmr^ A LITTLE LIGHT Dr. Edward Everett Hale's Letter to THE Little Folk The Boyhood of Thomas Wentworth HiGGlNSON The Children's Longfellow .f> .♦' i e^jcnjhoy^irojtiine ApJ/ai ^v)ells in man alone j cJife XWo JLic essoxis i. V^™ ■^CjU2S OTU.^ 1 . Centrepiece : Psalm of Life 2. Half-title: Authors. Copyright by Notman Photographic Company 3. Frontispiece: Thou Little Child 4. Titlepage : Marchese Ridolfo Peruzzi de' Medici ; Margherita Umberta Peruzzi de' Medici. Montebone photographs. By courtesy of the Marchesa Peruzzi de' Medici 5. Centrepiece: Copyright page 6. Dedication : Decoration. Edith V. Kraemer and Marion B. Kraemer. By permission of Geo. J. Kraemer, Esq. 7. Centrepiece: Lew Wallace, Jr., 1895. By courtesy of Mrs. Lew Wallace i i illii M ll , i m i j iillil ypqjnj[''fTjnltmMll!^^ 8. Preface: Decoration 9. Centrepiece 10. Contents: Etliel. By courtesy of Mrs. S. S. Sherman 11. Centrepiece: Little Paul. George H. Story. By courtesy of artist 12. Illustrations. Gwendolyn Marion and Vivien Waldo Story. By courtesy of Mrs. Waldo Story 13. Edward Everett Hale, D.D. Photograph copyrighted by the Lend-a- Hand Society Marginal decoration : St. John. Murillo 14. Dr. Hale in his study. By courtesy of S. S. McClure 15. Dr. Hale with Dr. Holmes in the latter's study. By courtesy of S. S. McClure 16. Dr. Hale and his children. By courtesy of S. S- McClure 17. Shepherd of Jerusalem. By permission of Soule Art Publishing Co. 18. The Good Shepherd. Molitar. By permission of Soule Art Publish- ing Co. Guardian Angel. Plockhorst. By permission of Soule Art Pub- lishing Co. 19. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Photograph by Marceau. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 20. The Landing of the Pilgrims. From an old print Rev. Francis Higginson. From " American Explorers." By courtesy Longmans, Green, & Co. 21. Rev. John Higginson. From miniature. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson Old House at Guilford, Conn. From a photograph. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 22. Home of John Hancock. From an old print John Hancock. Copley. From a photograph copyrighted by Baldwin Coolidge 23. Stephen Higginson, Jr. From a miniature. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson Louisa Storrow Higginson. From a porcelain. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 24. Colonel Higginson's Birthplace. By courtesy of Mr. Bachelder 25. Colonel Higginson of Civil War time. By courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 26. Colonel Higginson's Loyal Legion Badge 27. Edward Everett. From an old print 28. The Village Blacksmith. Herring. By permission of Soule Art Publishing Co. 29. Birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes. From a photograph copy- righted by Wilfred H. French 30. Mount Auburn. From an old print. By courtesy of Charles Goodspeed 31. Harvard Square. From an old print. By courtesy of Charles Goodspeed Marginal decoration : " Old Cambridge ' ' and " Life of Birds.' ' Essays by T. W. Higginson 32. The Washington Elm. From an old print. By courtesy of Charles Goodspeed Marginal decoration : * * In a Fair Country." Essay by T. W. Higginson 33. Henry D. Thoreau. By courtesy of Charles Goodspeed 34. Ralph Waldo Emerson. By courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 35. Colonel Higginson at twenty. From a daguerreotype. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson Colonel Higginson's home at twenty. From a photograph. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 36. Marginal decoration: "The Birthday in Fairyland" story and " Water-lilies" essay by T. W. Higginson 37. Marginal decoration :" Epictetus." Essay by T. W. Higginson 38. William Wells. From a colored portrait. By courtesy of his grand- son, William Wells Newell 39. Marginal decoration : " Cheerful Yesterdays." By T. W. Higginson 40. Marginal decoration 41. "John Brown." F. B. Sanborn. By courtesy of author and Little, Brown, & Co. 42. Marginal decoration 43. Colonel Higginson's present home 44. Hallway of Colonel Higginson's present home. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 45. Marginal decoration : " Procession of the Flowers." Poem by T. W. Higginson 46. Marginal decoration : " Procession of the Flowers " 47. Marginal decoration 48. Interior of building of First Religious Society, Newburyport, Mass. By permission of C. D. Howard T. W. Higginson, D.D. 1847. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 49. University Hall 50. Harvard University, 1836. From an old print. By courtesy of Charles Goodspeed 51. Celia Thaxter and her grandson. By courtesy of Houghton, MifTlin & Co. 52. James Russell Lowell. Rowes. By courtesy of Prof. Charles Eliot Norton Mrs. Maria White Lowell. From a pencil sketch. By courtesy of Mrs. Estes Howe 53. Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Margaret Fuller's Love Letters. By courtesy of D. Appleton & Co. 54. Colonel Higginson as Chief-of -Staff of Governor Long. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson Governor Long. From a photograph. By permission of J. C. Purdy. 55. Minerva, Venus, Diana. From foreign photographs 56. Juno, Ceres, Vesta. From foreign photographs 57. Colonel Higginson in his study. By courtesy of Colonel Higgin- son. The Higginson family coat-of-arms. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 58. Margherita, Queen-mother of Italy. From a photograph by Brogi, Florence Petrarch. From a photograph by Alinari, Florence 59. Marginal decoration: "Out-door Papers," ** The Afternoon Land- scape." Essays by T. W. Higginson 60. Glimpsewood. From a photograph by H. D. Allison, Dublin, N. H. Mrs. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. From a photograph by Tupper. Courtesy of Colonel Higginson 61. Colonel Higginson and his daughter Margaret Waldo Higginson. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 62. Wentworth Higginson Barney. By courtesy of Colonel Higginson 63. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his grandson. From a photo- graph. By permission Longfellow's Birthplace. By courtesy of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 64. Silhouettes of Longfellow's father and mother. From a print Longfellow's cradle. From a print 65. The Wadsworth-Longfellow Home, Portland, Me. Copyright by Lamson Studio 66. Silhouette, General Peleg Wadsworth. From an old print 67. Silhouette, Lucia Wadsworth. From an old print Marginal decoration : Parson Smith. " A Gleam of Sunshine." 68. Marginal decoration : " Building of the Ship " 69. The Longfellow Home in Gorham. Copyright by Lamson Studio 70. Marginal decoration : Priscilla 71. Marginal decoration: Miles Standish. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 72. Marginal decoration : John Alden and Priscilla. Copyright by Soule Art PubUshing Co. 73 . Wadsworth Hall, Hiram, Me. Copyright by Lamson Studio 74. The Breezy Hall of the Hiram home. Copyright by Lamson Studio 75. General Peleg and Elizabeth Wadsworth. From silhouettes. With authority 76. Songo River. Copyright by Lamson Studio Marginal decoration: Mrs. Edward F. Thompson n . The Hanging of the Crane. From an old print 78. Art wins the Heart. Thuman. Copyright by Soule Photo Co. 79. Marginal decoration : " The Castle Builder " 80. Marginal decoration : "Childhood" 81 . The Enterprise and Boxer. By courtesy of Nathan Goold, Librarian Maine Historical Society 82. Eastern Cemetery. By courtesy of Nathan Goold, Librarian Maine Historical Society 83 . State Street, Portland. Copyright by Lamson Studio 84. Marginal decoration : " The Children of the Lord's Supper " 85. Marginal decoration : " The Windmill " 86. " The Rainy Day " Desk. From a sketch 87. Longfellow's book-plate and motto. With authority 88. Marginal decoration : "Prelude" 89. Marginal decoration : " The Bridge of Cloud " 90. Deering's Woods. Copyright by Lamson Studio 91. The Spinet of his Mother's Youth. Copyright by Soule Art Pub- Ushing Co. 92. The Family Sitting-room. By permission The Evening Mail-coach. By courtesy of Miss Gertrude Higgins 93. Winter Evenings in the Kitchen. A sketch 94. The Light-house, Cape Elizabeth, Copyright by Lamson Studio Marginal decoration : Desk and trundle-bed. Sketches 95- Portland Harbor by Moonlight. Copyright by Lamson Studio 96. Rev. Ichabod Nichols, D.D. By courtesy of Mr. H. W. Bryant Marginal decoration : Old Parish Cliurch and Verse. By courtesy of Nathan Goold, Librarian Maine Historical Society 97. Marginal decoration : " Flowers " 98. Marginal decoration: Don Quixote; " Coplas de Manrique" 99. Angelita. "Maidenhood" 100. Lovell's Pond. Copyright by Lamson Studio 101 . Marginal decoration : North Wind and Arrow of Criticism 102. Marginal decoration : " New England Tragedies " 103. Early Days of Bo wdoin College. From an old print. By courtesy of Charles Goodspeed 104. Marginal decoration: " Hiawatha." From a sketch 105. Marginal decoration : Minnehaha and Hiawatha. From sketches 106. Marginal decoration : "Flower-de-luce" 107. Marginal decoration :" Palingenesis " 108. Silhouette of Longfellow in 1825. By courtesy of Nathan Goold, Librarian Maine Historical Society 109. Horace. From a sketch of bust 110. The Forest Primeval. From a photograph from nature 111. "Evangeline." Faed. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 112. Marginal decoration: " Castles in Spain." From an old print 113. Professor Longfellow's Brunswick Home. By courtesy of Nathan Goold, Librarian of Maine Historical Society 114. Josiah Quincy. From a print. 115. Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh Carlyle. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 116. Marginal decoration : " The Reaper and the Flowers " 117. Craigie House pleasant window. From Austin's " Longfellow." By courtesy of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 118. Craigie House. By courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 119. Mrs. Craigie. From Longfellow's pen-sketch and a portrait 120. The Hallway of Craigie House. From an old print 121. Henry W. and Frances Elizabeth Longfellow. By courtesy of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 122. The Old Clock on the Stairs. From Austin's " Longfellow." By courtesy of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 123. " Charles Sumner." From an old print 124. " The Angel and the Child." Kaulbuch. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing' Co. 125. " Sandalphon." Sketch 126. Drawing-room of Craigie House. By courtesy of Mrs. J. H. Thurston 127. To Earthly Home. Kaulbach. Copyright by Soule Art Publish- ing Co. 128. Elmwood. From an old print 129. "These are my three little girls." Read. By permission 130. "The Wayside Inn." By permission of D. Appleton Co. 131. " Paul Revere's Ride." From a photograph. Copyright by Holliday 132. An Unseen Presence. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 133. "Judas Maccabaeus." Ceseri. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 134. Charles Appleton Longfellow. From a photograph. By permission 135. Henry W. Longfellow. From a photograph. By permission Charles Sumner. From a photograph. By permission 136. Hans Sachs. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. Albrecht Durer. Durer. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 137. Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. By courtesy of Miss C. F. Neal 138. Dante, Beatrice, Ponte Vecchio. Sborgi. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 139. Abbe Liszt. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 140. Longfellow's Study in 1844. From' Austin's "Longfellow." By courtesy of Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. 141. Longfellow. From a photograph by Warren Dear Little Folk. Papperitz. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 142. " The Spreading Chestnut-tree." From a water-color. By permission "My Arm Chair." From a photograph. By permission 143. "The River Charles." From an old print. By courtesy of Houghton , Mifflin & Co. 144. Longfellow's Shady Walk. By permission 145 . Christmas Bells. Blashfield. Copyright by Soule Art Publishing Co. 146. Transfiguration. Raphael. Copyright by Alinari ^UEN I was a little boy almost every book we had was written in England for English children, so it happened that we read about sky- larks and robin redbreasts, China oranges and bullfinches, and did not read about mocking birds, orioles, whippoorwills, and our own good sturdy ^^i^. ^iF robin, who is a bigger bird than the robin red- breast of England. We read about dukes and duchesses and parks and avenues and calendars and bakeshops, and we did not really know how our own country was governed. But this is all seventy years ago, and in those ,..., seventy years a great many American men and _J^\f douhle ; and AJocJ^iny Jbird }|ow }]e undid, me women, who were American boys and girls as you are, have written American books. They have written books about our winters, which are very ^ different from English winters, and about our K summers, which are very different from English Y" summers ; about our schools, which are different ^ from English schools ; about our homes, which ^ are different from English homes ; about our trees and meadows and parks, which are not like Eng- lish trees or English meadows or English parks. ^ Now, and in this book in your hand, a friend of mine and of yours has brought together some passages of poetry good for you to read, good for you to commit to memory, good for you to re- peat in the twilight as you sit on the piazza with papa and mamma and uncle Edward. And these are all written by American men and women who were once just such boys and girls as you are now. When you read them, and when you commit them to memory, I think you will be better able to see the beauty of God's world and to see in part why He has made it what it is. When you go to play, or when you swim in the water, or when you go to sleep on the haycock, you will know better how near He is to you and how much you have to thank Him for. Edward E. Hale. And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing that shall put a bar between you and your family, your home and your country, pray God in his mercy to take you that instant home to his own heaven. Stick by your family, boy ; forget you have a self, while you do everything for them. Think of your home, boy. ^^Ect^' psalwi xci .jSP»^ w)h(Q)0(dL <5/ (b THE English Higginsons were churchmen, but of Puritan tendencies. Clergymen, officials, militia officers, and scholars at all times were counted within their family fold. The Reverend Francis Higginson was born in England in 1?58. ■0^"'^::,,. He had the degree of A. M. from Cambridge Uni- versity in England, and later in life, for religion's sake, left the land of his birth. As his native shores faded from sight he said : " Farewell, dear England ! Farew^ell, the Christian church in Eng- land and all the Christian friends there!" He landed at Salem, Massachusetts, on June 29, 1629, and died a year later. John, his son, also a clergyman, was born at Claybrook, England, 1616, came to America with his father, was appointed chaplain of the fort at Saybrook, Connecticut, and was married in the old house still standing at Guilford, supposed to be the oldest house in the United States. He died at Salem, 1708. His son John was a Salem merchant and lieutenant-colonel MAS5. CEJ\fTIML FEB. Be MARCH 1789 of the militia regiment; and in the third generation from this last came Stephen Higginson, born at Salem in 174?, who was a member of the Conti- nental Congress in 1783, and was the probable author of the once celebrated "Laco" letters, criticising John Hancock. He was also an officer in command of troops sent to quell Shay's rebellion. Stephen's son Stephen — the father of the subject of this sketch — was born at Salem, November 20, 1770, and was one of the leading merchants of Boston until ruined, like many others, by Jefferson's embargo, after which he retired from business and finally became steward (now called bursar) of Harvard College. By his generous good-will and J^edmm tfme kindly deeds he became known far and near in his prosperous days as the " Howard " or " Man of Ross" of his day. Many trees that now make Harvard College yard so attractive were planted by him, but the lamps he hung over each entrance were soon put out as being thought too expensive. The Harvard Divinity School which he organized still lives. In 180? Stephen Higginson married a second wife, Louisa Storrow. She was the nineteen-year- old daughter of Captain Thomas Storrow — an English officer detained as prisoner at Portsmouth, New Hampshire — and of Anne Appleton, who at the early age of seventeen married and sailed to England with him in 1777. ^olonel Higginsons hirtlipldee^ , X2 7 Krkland 5t Cambridge, TJIasSo ■/^ •,rn^'' A^^^ v--*^"' :*is3r^%«-#" He adds : " While we were not schoolmates, we were most constantly together out of school hours." They often "tumbled about" the very same library as did the Autocrat himself, in actual contact with books. Of these good times in this interesting old homestead — the poet's birthplace and once a landmark on the college grounds — and also of Dr. Holmes' father. Colonel Higginson writes: '*Many an hour we spent poring over the pictures in the large old Rees' Cyclopaedia; afterwards, when weary, piling up the big volumes pM^ptSLd^iE (^ (Xy^ Ih^o^ ^toi^.^ for fortifications to be mutually assailed by can- nonading apples from a perpetual barrel in the closet. Mean- while the kindly old grandfather, working away at his sermons, never seemed disturbed by our rompings; and I vividly remember one evening when he went to the window and, scratching with his knife-blade through the thick frost, shaped outlines of the rough brambles below and made a constellation of the stars above, with the added motto, per aspera ad astra, — then ex- plaining to us its meaning, that through difficulties we must seek the stars." Their out-of-door ram- bles have been happily described as follows : "Charles Parsons and myself, as we lay under Lowell's willows 'at the Causey's end, after a \^m<£)}l aLl(3Vrs ^^^^^^^^Q^rc..^^ M^'T^^ri Bm^'^e ^J- day at Mount Auburn, — then sweet Auburn still ' — to sort out our butterflies, or divide our walnuts in autumn, chanted uproariously the ' Hunter's Chorus ' : ' We roam through the forest and over the mountains ; No joy of the court or banquet like this.' We always made a pause after the word ' court,' T^e life ^ hkwGl^ The^^Vashlngton Jxhrv and we supposed ourselves to be hurling defiance at monarchies." "Every boy of active tastes — and mine v^ere eminently such," writes the Colonel, " must be- come either a sportsman or a naturalist." Why he was not a sportsman appears from his pen in the following incident : " Coming down Divinity Avenue one day with an older boy, George Ware, In^fmr aouniry \::0 ^^^rea^cu' 1 ,^l»o» ■'. '^0«AU$}futv — r--^ _^^ who rejoiced in a bow and arrow, we stopped at the mulberry-tree which still stands at the head of the street, and he aimed at a beautiful cedar- bird which was feeding on mulberries. By ex- traordinary chance he hit it, and down came the pretty creature, fluttering through the air with the cruel wound through its breast. I do not know whether the actual sportsman suffered pangs of remorse, but I know that I did — and feel them yet. Later I learned from Thoreau to study birds through an opera-glass." With a thought of Robert Browning's an Emerson incident comes from Colonel Higgin- son's pen, as follows : *' The most charming of Browning's poems is that in which he com- pares his contact with a man who had once seen Shelley to picking up an eagle's feather on a path. Every direct glimpse of a great man is an eagle's feather to us," the Colonel says. As a boy of eleven, his first eagle's feather was found on hearing Emerson give a lecture at the old Lyceum Building, Harvard Square. He thus continues : "In the old building there was a hole — originally made for a stovepipe — in the floor among the upper seats, which, being left open, became gradu- ally a stairway for us village boys, who naturally dropped down it very soon, with much unneces- cAIxm/^-^!:^ <:>vH.>tT^^ % "^s". ^J^^^^^ sary noise, when we got tired of lectures, which was usually very early. " Emerson set my playmates flying very soon, but I kept my seat; and when I descended decorously at the very end of the lecture, 1 was received with indignation and contempt by my playmates. I pleaded guilty, as did the old woman of Concord who, when asked if she understood Emerson's lectures, replied, ' Not a word, but I like to go and see him stand up there and look as if he thought every one was as good as he was/ I, too, liked to see him and hear his voice. This was my first eagle's feather." When lecturing at Concord once, he spent the night at Emerson's house. The home-going morning came in a stormy one, and the scholarly Emerson thought himself none too great nor good to put on his visitor's overshoes. Of this occa- sion the Colonel remarks, " Never since have I felt that I could have any one less eminent per- form that service for me.'' Besides a pretty fairy story written at twenty, and his many lovely verses for little folk, school children owe much to Colonel Higginson for his ^eSetiis^ IJ^e sls^^^ "Young Folks' History of the United States," published in 187?. "Young Folks' Book of American Explorers," appearing in 1877, rnay also well claim the attention of all young scholars. We are not told at what age the boy himself first began school life, but the Colonel does say: " I went to a woman's school till I was eight, being then placed for five years in the large private school of William Wells. Mr. Wells was himself a graduate of Harvard, and later the Boston pub- lisher of Wells and Lily classics and other important works. He counted Daniel Webster and Edward Everett among his personal friends, so when a fire destroyed his entire stock of books, he began this Cambridge school, and Boston families highly regarded him as well qualified to prepare students for college. In " Cheerful Yesterdays " appears : " Mr. Wells was an Englishman of the old stamp, — erect, vigorous, manly — who ab- horred a mean or a cowardly boy." He was a master well known to spoil no child by sparing the rod, and is described as always carrying a rattan in his hand, which frequently V M V. -=^^ ^ ^ leerfiil ^esterdBys descended on back and arm of the laggard. Concerning this rattan, Colonel Higginson says : ** Being fond of study, and learning easily, I usually escaped the rod." Mr. Wells is said to have "taught nothing but Latin and Greek," but the joy the little lad took in learning these appears in the Colonel's paper " On a Latin Text- Book.'' Wells' own Latin Grammar was conceded to be "a positive boon to his scholars," and no doubt Mr. Wells helped on to the college Greek, by which in 1865 Colonel Higginson was enabled to translate the complete works of Epictetus, that old stoic of Greece who taught philosophy at Rome in the first Christian century. Mr. Wells' eldest daughter was the French teacher. It is re- lated that she sometimes added zeal to their learning that language by tapping the little boys on the head with her thimble. However, Mr. Wells encouraged physical as well as mental activity, **and," writes the Colonel, '' the boys had much ball-playing and running games. It was a great ad- vantage for outdoor training that my school was a mile oflf, and I paced the distance felt. i^ fo and fro twice a day. Sometimes I had com- panions — my elder brother for a time, and his classmates, Lowell and Story. I remember treading along close behind them once as they discussed Spenser's Taerie Queene,' which they had been reading, and which led us younger boys to christen a favorite play-place, 'The Bower of Blisse.' Often I went alone, made up stories as 1 went — little incidents or observations of my own — into some prolonged tale with a fine name, having an imaginary hero. For a long time his name was D'Arlon, from * Philip van Artevelde,' which my mother was reading to us." At other times the boy watched the robins, bluebirds, and insect life of moth and beetle. These Cambridge children had their dancing lessons from the elder Papanti in private houses. " We were all, it now seems to me," writes the Colonel, "a set of desperate little lovers, with formidable rivalries, suspicions, and jeal- ousies; we had names of our own devising mo ****** for each juvenile maiden, by which she could be men- tioned without peril of discovery. But this sporting soon became secondary (we being Cambridge boys) to the college life, to which no girls might aspire; and before I was fourteen I myself was launched." No doubt right of might ruled at times, for the Colonel informs us he escaped : " Thanks to an elder brother, the strongest boy in school, I went free from the frequent pummellings visited by larger boys on smaller." This school-day right- might injustice was perhaps the first seedling indignation at unequal contest planted the lad's mind. Many years afterwards it blossomed into the active part taken by the young clergyman, Higginson, in the very exciting fugitive-slave frays before the Civil War. It was this spirit which led him across the path of the fa- mous John Brown of those uncertain days. These stories are well told in " Cheerful Yesterdays." Now and then Spanish boys came from the West Indies and were, '' with their dark skins and high-sounding names — such as Victoriano Rosello — as good as dime novels to us. They swore superb oaths, which we naturally borrowed ; and once they drew knives upon one another with an air which the ' Pirates' Own Book' offered nothing to surpass." The spirit of mischief usual to boys appeared " in pulleys for raising desk-lids, and in two small holes in every seat for needles worked by pulleys, for the sudden impaling of a fellow student"; and then "the under-desk-hidden readings of ' Baron Trenck,' * The Three Spaniards,' and ' The Devil on Two Sticks'" were as exciting- ly attractive as stolen waters are sweet. ■^^,^^\flmym//^j^^^ The spirit of chivalry was also there among those Wells' school lads; and that young Higginson was duly impressed by such refining influences is told us as follows : " For a time one fair girl, Mary Story, William Story's sister, glided to her desk in the corner, that she might recite Virgil with the older class." This incident, we are informed, implanted in the boy's mind the first idea of his life-long preference for the equal edu- cation for girls with boys. Cohml ^igginsons ^HatU^dy ►From the sheltering ways of boy- hood days to his presenf ideal abid- ing place in Cambridge, the charm of happy home influences seems ever to have fol- lowed Colo- ^ nel Higginson. In those early years his mother, as the wise, kind, and gentle director of these influences, has made her memory almost a life worship with her youngest child. Concerning her care and affection, to-day's Literary Dean of Boston and Cambridge writes : " To have lain on the hearth-rug and heard one's mother read aloud is a liberal education." In the evenings Mrs. Higginson read all of Waverley novels to yf^ Umsit^ekoe hum ?rj tte e Hhe hoiiy brsfjch shone or? 'pm old o^ky/3^ * tvr: yt^ \j'^^\ her children. Spenser's *' Faerie Queene" also claimed place in these readings. Among the thousand volumes the family saved from days of affluence were " Boswell's Life of Johnson," "Hoole's Tasso and Ariosto," "Ber- wick's Birds and Quadrupeds," — always a delight to children, — "Plutarch's Lives," Miss Burney's and Miss Edgeworth's works, and "Sir Charles Grandison." In time all these with others were read by the boy. It was his habit to collect all disused text-books in out-of-the-way places to make a little library of his very own. Frequent additions were made to this library by the gift- books of late issues from George Ticknor, Jared Sparks, and John Holmes to his aunt and brother. " Besides this," the Colonel writes, '' the family belonged to a book-club " — one of the first of that time. He continues: " Of this club my eldest brother was secretary, and I was permitted to keep, with pride and delight, the account of the books as they came and went." And yet, born and reared as he was in this atmosphere of books, book-lovers, and book-makers, breathing in the air of their actual touch, from the apple-battle of book-forts to this day's love for writing them, one need scarcely wonder that Colonel Higginson says : " Yet as a matter of fact, 1 never had books enough, nor have I ever had to this day." The musical as well as the intellectual atmos- phere of the Higginson home deeply impressed this music-loving boy. Concerning it he writes many >: : ? F years afterwards: "My youngest sister was an excellent pianist — one of the first in this region to play Beethoven." Several memories of her and others, he adds, " brought back vividly the happi- ness with which, when sent to bed at eight o'clock, I used to leave the door of my little bedroom ajar in order that I might go to sleep to music. 1 still recall the enchantment with which I heard one moonlight summer night the fine old glee, ' To Greece we give our Shining Blades,' sung by Miss Davis, her brother (Admiral Davis), Miss Harriet Mills (afterwards his wife), and William Story, as a serenade under my sister's window; it made me feel, in Keats' phrase, * as if 1 was going to a tournament.' I now recall with pleasure that while my mother disapproved of all but sacred music on Sunday, she ruled that all good music was sacred. Greatly to my bliss I escaped almost all those rigors of the old New England theology which have darkened the lives of so many. We were expected to read the New Testament, but there was nothing enforced about the Old. Even Sunday brought no actual terrors. I have the sweetest image of my mother ready dressed for church — usually bearing a flower in her hand — waiting for my sisters' appearance." This pleasant experience in touch with religion was no doubt one reason for young Higginson's entering Harvard Divinity School in 1847. He began his clerical career with the First Religious Society at Newburyport, a church two hundred years old. That young Higginson was of attractive personal appearance from childhood comes from various sources. In fact his mother cautioned her son against making faces lest he should spoil his own, as she believed one of his boy friends had done. Of his rapid physical growth he himself writes: " I was six feet tall at fourteen." He adds of his shyness what it is not so easy to believe : " I had experienced all the agonies of bashfulness in the society of the other sex, though greatly attracted to it " ; and continues : " A word or two from my mother had in a single day corrected this." This mother gave him to understand that his companions of social successes were not his superiors in school or on the playground, and '' Why not cope with them elsewhere?" By a process unique he lost his diffidence in a single evening. Invited to a company and knowing what young ladies would be there, he put down on paper what he would say to each if he chanced to be near. '' It worked like a charm," he says, " and I heard next day that everybody was surprised at the transformation. It set me free." At thirteen years of age young Higginson be- came a " Child of the College," and we are assured that the entrance examination of those days was by no means the boy's play that it is sometimes asserted to have been. Of his own advent he writes: "It was a blissful moment when I at last found myself, one summer morning, standing on the steps of University Hall, looking about with a new sense of ownership on the trees my father planted. Never since in life have I had such a vivid sense of a career, an opportunity, a battle to be won." He was the youngest of the class of 1841, and was among the number who after- wards won distinction in different walks of life Bi\?cr^it/ As a Child of the Col- lege, young Higginson fulfilled to family and friends his promising preparations for student life. Writing of various instructors, he says of one, *'I need not say what it was to read French with Longfellow." He tells us his only really intimate friend in the class was Francis Edward Parker, some two years older than himself. Of this friend he says : " I fre- quently spent nights in his room, and we had few secrets from each other and were running neck-and-neck for the first place during the time of our greatest intimacy. My marks were often second in the class, sometimes equalling — oh, day of glory ! — those of my classmate, Francis Edward Parker." Charles C. Perkins, authority on Italian art and founder of art instruction in Boston, was Higginson's room-mate during the * * ** * ^ senior year. Of Levi Lincoln Thaxter he writes as one " who did more for my literary tastes than all other friends. He was an ardent student of literature, much under the influence of his cousin, Maria White, and of Lowell, her betrothed. Thaxter first led me to Emerson and to Hazlitt ; we were both lovers of Longfellow. Thaxter's modesty, reticence, and later fame of his wife, Celia, have obscured him to the world; but he was one of the most loyal and high-minded of men." In his ** Contemporaries " Colonel Hig- ginson gives interesting accounts of many of ^m]^^ M|xi^ these gifted persons among" whom he has lived and moved as one of them. A little later on he came in touch with that brilliant circle of attractive young people known as **The Brothers and Sisters/' of which James Russell Lowell and Maria White were called the "King" and "Queen." The Whites of Watertown, their cousins, the Thaxters, the Storys from Cambridge, and Hales and Tuckermans from Boston, and Kings from Salem were members of this fascinating and gifted court life. George William Curtis, Mar- garet Fuller, and Charles Dana of Brook Farm — all famous afterwards — were also counted among the young man's friends. Thus richly enfolded within such home, college, and social influences, Thomas Wentworth Higginson was graduated from Harvard College when he was four months less than eighteen years of age. Colonel Higginson's " Ideals of Womanhood" at different ages are given in an attractive and original way in his essay on " The Greek Goddesses." Incidentally Colonel Higgin- son writes : " I owe indirectly to a single remark made by my mother all the opening of my eyes to the intellectual disadvantages of her sex. In 1837 Mrs. Rufus King, a very GREEK "^ accomplished and highly edu- cated Cincinnati woman, came to reside in Cambridge. She was making some criticisms at our house upon the inequalities between the sexes. My mother exclaimed, in her ardent way, ' But only think, Mrs. King, what an education you have obtained!' *Yes,' was the reply, ' but how did I obtain it ? ' Then followed the pathetic story of her early struggles for knowledge. It sank into my heart at the age of fifteen or thereabouts." Colonel Higginson has never failed. ;. in loyalty to this impulse, nor fal- tered in service to earnest workers of the gentler sex. I GODDESSES 1 ^>rE5TJA ^ \^E5TA ' iiMi iiiffwfrfwiw^ii M i l 1 1 III ii i i M i iii iiiiii n HLjiiuiiiiiiiMin' WTT From his Cambridge study — for his house is a library, a wide world of books — his influence, kind and ever wise, is constantly felt among all book-makers and countless readers everywhere. ©UToDOOK. Here it is interesting to note the pleasure ex- pressed by the Queen-Mother of Italy for the charm and perfection of the Colonel's latest translation of the Italian poet Petrarch. So full of attractive interest in efforts, service, — national and individual, — and various suc- cesses has been the life of Thomas Wentworth Higginson from his graduation at Harvard College in 1841 until to-day that the writer of this sketch must refer interested readers to his '' Collected Works." They contain very nearly everything worth knowing of people and events with which his distinguished position at different times has brought him in touch. Even the summers do not find Colonel Higgin- son idle, but truly an earnest worker close to nature's heart at Glimpsewood, a poet's nook hidden among the shrubbery and trees close to the shore of lovely Dublin Lake, New Hampshire. Here, where old Monadnock worships itself in many streams, with his talented wife and their only child, Margaret, life, all jn all, must seem to Thomas Wentworth Higginson one glad, sweet song. .nrisB^" 'h2 W!I^ £^ws- llBm& /ifeniv^oi^ SHi* ey&' fe asarden one v^icZe hz^Yiajaet srirea^cU for iljee. dainiiesb rev^eJler of- tlje joyous eaoctlj I ^^ io a,3iuUeTfh/d ENRY WADSWORTH, second son of the Honorable Stephen and Zilpah Wadsworth Longfellow, was born on February twenty-seventh, ^eighteen hundred and seven, in the large old-fashioned house still standing on the corner of Fore and Hancock Streets, Portland, Maine. His parents were spending the winter with his father's sister O o o o e ^eryef the mem o o o o o ig sl^ea o o o o o QR t^y l^eski. The Gld^^W^adsw^di-HierngfeUew^ieuse :PORTIiAND, Mi^INE jduring the absence of her husband, Captain Sanuiel Stephenson, whom business called to the ^^^ West Indies. The new baby was named for his ^ mother's brother, a United States Navy lieutenant ^^ of nineteen, who, servini^" before Tripoli under ||, g Commodore Preble, preferred death to slavery, fLand perished in the blowin^i^ up of the tire-ship ^ Intrepid, September fourth, eighteen hundred and ^^ four When little Henry was less than a year old, Mr. ? Longfellow removed his family to what is now : known as*' The Wadsworth-Longfellow Home" on Congress Street, left by will of the poet's (§)%/, stay af /je)me,my hfearf, and rest; §\ general Teleg "^adsv^oxtl) youngest sister, Mrs. Anne Longfellow Pierce, to the Maine Historical Society. By its historian, Nathan Goold, and other able mem- bers, this house has been^ made a world's shrine to the literary and historic name it bears. It was the tlrst brick house in Portland, and was builf by the poet's grandfather. Gen- eral Peleg Wadsworth, during the^ years of seventeen hundred and eighty- ^^ five and six. His daughter Zilpah, Henry's mother, gives this picture of her father: "Imagine to yourself a man of middle age, well proportioned, with a military air, and who carried himself so truly that many thought him tall. His dress, a bright scarlet coat, buff small- clothes and vest, full ruffled bosom, ruffles over the hands, white stockings, shoes with silver buckles, white cravat bow in front, hair well powdered and tied be- hind in a club, so called." And General Wadsworth was the grand man his daughter so describes. It was on the broad stone stoop of his Congress Street home — the grandest house in town, of its time — that Zilpah Wadsworth, at twenty years of age, prc- (q may hmldmore spienelie[ [jabifatie^ns, sented a banner from the young ladies of Portland to the first uniformed militia company in Maine; and it was here, on January first, eighteen hundred and four, that she became the bride of Stephen Longfellow IV. Soon after their marriage they began housekeeping elsewhere, but returned to this house within a year after the birth of Henry Wadsworth. In eighteen hundred and twenty-nine this Portland home was left by will to Mrs. Longfellow and her sister Lucia Wadsworth, who lived with her, and as " Aunt Lucia " was ever like a second mother to the Longfellow little folk. Here six of these were born, and from its doorway five of them went to their eternal rest. Long ago, in the sixteen hundreds — and be- fore — of old England, the Longfellow and Wadsworth families were both found in Yorkshire county. However, William, the American founder of the Longfellow family, was born in Hampshire county, in sixteen hundred and fifty-seven, and when twenty-one years old came over the sea to Newbury, Massachusetts, where he married Anne Sewall, sister of the first chief-justice of that state. This William has been described as "not so much Jutong^ Avas ilie goodman^s sermon^ ^eij ih seemed not so to me ; tor he spake qf^th the heacuiifvL z_^ndsiilllthoiA^ht^ihee.. J^eHuildwg (^il^eJ^Jpip of a Puritan as some." He was followed by another William and four Stephens in descent to the birth of the poet's brother Stephen V. The first Stephen, born in Newbury, became a black- smith and married Abigail, daughter of the Rev- erend Edward Thompson. Their fifth child, Stephen II, a bright boy, born in seventeen hun- dred and twenty-three, was sent to Harvard Col- lege, where he took two degrees. After teaching a while at York, where he married Tabitha Bragdon, he was invited, through Parson Thomas Smith of Portland, Maine — then called Falmouth — to become schoolmaster of that town. Here he steadily gained so high a character that he was asked to fill many of its important offices. When the British, in seventeen hundred and seventy-five, burned his town home, he moved to Gorham, Maine. This Stephen was said to be " a man of piety, integrity, and honor," and ''his favorite reading was history and poetry." His oldest son, Stephen III, was born at Fal- mouth, in seventeen hundred and fifty, and married Patience Young, of York, in seventeen hundred and seventy-three. In time he became known as a judge. In seventeen hundred and eighty-seven he bought .V — ' Klvelonof we will laiineh essel as goodly^, ajid siTong andstajnehf iiered a ^^intry sea t weea V li=s. lije J(xonqfelh\^ Qorljaonliome his father's Gorham farm, where, two years before, the Longfellow love of the beautiful led him to set out many trees along the roadsides and all around the place, and which were al- ways called the Longfellow elms. For this and other ways unusual to his time, he showed **he was not like other men." We are told that there was a haunted wood on the Portland way to Gorham; then came the home-view, with the blacksmith's shop across the road where the oxen and horses were shod; and beyond was the *' singing brook" and its bridge. Under the home windows grew syringas and sweetbriars, and dark-red " low damask " roses bloomed in their time of coming. Judge Longfellow e green trees -y^l^isperecL iov? and inilcl y It Was a sound of Joy ! ^ey vt?(2re yny pls^fm2Ajes'v)ljen a cJ^ilcl^ Cflnd rooked me in tl)eir dorms so ^^ild • fe\ ^tillt^ey looked at me and smiled^ Js if H^/Jere aiioy; t^- was said to be " a fine-looking gentleman with the bearing of the old school; an erect, portly figure, rather tall ; wearing almost to the close of his life the old-style dress." The Judge's daugh- ter Abigail, Mrs. Samuel Stephenson, was given the neighboring land east of this Gorham home ; and so it came about that with his mates and Stephenson cousins the young town-boy Henry had many days of delightful freedom. They played at farming, following the mowers at hay- time; going for the cows in the pennyroyal pasture at evening; picking wild strawberries; peeping into the dairy to see the cheese-presses, and butter making in the tall churns ; then watch- ing the great spinning-wheel and the spinner walking to and fro as she fed the spindle from the heap of carded wool. Then when autumn came there was fun, frolic, and work of corn-husk- ing. These were among the many vacation attractions which charmed a poet's childhood and made every thought of his grandfather a pleasant one. It was in this Gorham home that to Judge .ongfellow and his wife. Patience Young, you , as JC sat t];sre sinyin(^ was born on March twenty-third, seventeen hun- dred and seventy-six, their second son, Stephen IV, who afterwards became the father of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet. The Wadsworths were the descendants of seven Mayflower pilgrims — Elder William Brewster and his wife Mary, Love Brewster, William Mullins and wife, Priscilla Mullins, and John Alden. Knowing this adds to " The Courtship of Miles Standish " still another charm. However, Christo- pher came from England to Duxbury, Massachu- setts, about sixteen hundred and thirty-two ; and fourth in descent from him was Deacon Peleg Wadsworth, father of General Peleg Wadsworth of military fame, and maternal grandfather of the poet. General Wadsworth was born in seventeen hundred and forty-eight, and was graduated from Harvard College in seventeen hundred and sixty- nine. He then taught school at Plymouth, Massachusetts, and about three years later mar- ried Elizabeth Bartlett, daughter of Samuel Bartlett of that town. General Wadsworth took a stirring part in the Revolutionary War, during which he was captured, imprisoned, and escaped, and with his equally brave wife faced many other perils a^nd Ijefrei-te-cl bjocL dj^fed. in ijis zxinor^ -Jfyw fer_s within these uncertain times. What thrilling stories his cocked hat and canteen might tell of those times, if they could, to the visitor of to-day to the Wadsworth-Longfellow home at Portland. His army service was full of zeal and honor, and made him a major-general in Massachusetts. After the war General Wadsworth, then forty-one, bought at twelve and a half cents an acre seventy-eight hundred acres of public lands in what is now the town of Hiram, Maine. His deed dates March tenth, seventeen hundred and ninety. Five years later he built his house. January first, eighteen hundred and seven, he began housekeeping there, and ended his days at Wadsworth Hall. Much has been written of this home, from its attic — the happy hunting-ground of children — filled with old chests, loom, spinning-wheel, tin kitchens, etc., to the cellar under the whole house. A yoke of oxen with a load of vegetables could be driven one way into this great cellar, and after unloading into the bins, driven out another. The furnishings of Wadsworth Hall were such as might be ex- pected in a home built and lived in by a distin- guished family for over a century. The old barn — a boy's paradise — was one hundred feet long. io ! as i,e ivrmd to chpso^'h 9 Jriseilla v\?as standirgfiesidei;!??! The poet's " Life " tells us : " Sometimes vacation journeys were a long day's drive to Hiram, where grandfather Wadsworth had built himself a house." His grandchildren " looked with a kind of awe upon his upright form, the cocked hat and buckled shoes." As they sat in the breezy hall they never tired of hearing him tell the thrilling story of his capture by the British, his prison life in Fort George, at Castine, and his wonderful escape. There were also tales of his college life, and later stirring events to claim their wide-eyed attention. He was a man to attract the young in many ways. While a member of Congress, General Wadsworth wrote his life in fifteen letters to his children, then in his Portland home, and where a little ^ook of them can now be seen. On July twentieth, eighteen hundred and twenty-five, his honored wife, In il^e. fzirro\^ed. land. "jSje toilsome ^:ndpaiieni oxett stand; ]R.aJn in Summeir. " his comforter in hours of trial, the grace and ornament of his prosperous home," left him for- ever. He followed her November twelfth, eighteen hundred and twenty-nine, and sleeps but a few rods from the doorway of this old Hiram home. Perhaps no more beautiful tribute could be given his worth and influence than that appearing on his headstone : " He was a Patriot, a Philanthropist, and a Christian." The first-born of his eleven children, Alexander Scammel, died inside the American lines at Dorchester Heights; sailor Henry has already been named with honor. But Zilpah, his oldest daughter, most concerns the children's Longfellow, as she became his mother. J})en ^^}iii) nostrils ^/?idQ disiendedy J^xe^king Jrom ];is iron e])QjrL^ JhadunfoldirLg \A?ide l;is pinions^ lo tJjose stars ]je soared a^ain. r Bli23hd}r\^d^\i/or6h general Telecf^lA/adshlorth Not a day's ride from the Hiram home is the wind- ing Songo, the " dream " river of a poem Longfel- low wrote in eighteen hundred and seventy-five. * * * His father, Stephen Longfellow IV, was noted for his purity of character, gentlemanly bearing, fine spirits, cordial manners, and his scholarship. In seventeen hundred and ninety- eight he was graduated from Harvard College in the same class with the Reverend Doctor William Ellery Channing and Judge Joseph Story among others. Admitted to the Cumberland Bar in eighteen hundred and one, he soon made and kept a high position as a lawyer and statesman. In eighteen hundred and twenty-eight he received IJnd tie Ti^ssliaU he filled ^t|j wusm In ilje mirror ef lis iicle ICki^led il^iekei,s on eesejj side Jiang invejrtecL ^ * * * «« * ^im>^ the LL.D. degree from Bowdoin College, of which he was trustee for many years. For the year of eighteen hundred and thirty-four he was president of the Maine Historical Society, and in eighteen hundred and forty-nine he left this world with an, undying record of "high integrity, public spirit, hospitality, and generosity." Mrs. Longfellow, the poet's mother, was beauti- ful. She had a slight but upright figure ; and although an invalid in later years, she always had cJei?: sireajn t 1 ^^55^2 itifsonoy or iit^dre3nn ^^ 1-=^^di2^ sloW %rou£f}) husl) a^ P glad to hear that you have been a good boy at school and you are likely to get a billet. You must save all your billets until I get home. If I can get time I shall write you and Stephen another letter and tell you about the State" House, and the theatre, and other things that are in Boston." What a happy boy Henry must have been 1 Not only the promised drum, or something as good was coming, but also '* another letter" telling of so many pleasant things. President Jefferson's embargo, or order, not allowing merchant-ships to leave port caused his father's doubt about send- ing the drum. The State House and theatre letter of course was eagerly watched for by these boys, as theatres were not then to be seen in WM^TW^ l\\ ^^^& their city. In his ■r VJ it rains , and iije \^in^is rie\7ei^ ^ ^ iry \ ■\ ^ ^ \ w -^ \ Hkkry W. Lo3rcpBi:.i.OMr. "Old Portland Pa- pers" Nathan Goold says : " Then a boy had a year to look for- ward to once going to a circus, and a quarter to spend on Fourth of July. It made the heart of the average boy glad, and many girls, too." The circus and menagerie were eagerly attended. "Grand and lofty tumbling" and much fine riding were done over and over again for his sisters to see at home. The steed was a large wooden rocking-horse, and the make-believe circus-tent was the back porch, over which grew the poet's " Rainy Day" vine. On such a day it must have been that too much force in leaping over its head brought the horse with a broken neck over with his master. Alas for the horse I — but the poet was spared us. Yet with all his fun and frolic, even as a boy, Longfellow disliked loud noises, and it is whispered that he coaxed the maid one Fourth of July to put cotton in his ears, although he with strong feeling denied being afraid. Later in life he had the motto l^on clamor, sed amor — not noise, but love — put on one of his book-plates. i>je -rja>^£ w^^ ma^ friends \ \ \ 7, V -9 » ^^1 n 1 1 \ \ ^ftl 1 ^j\ N vT^V \ ^ '^CV\ T^ \ \f, m 1 ! 1 f f 1 i \ X Xn \ v r i\ ,, //. V. \ \^ ^X \ V "tLe hesh of all inzisieiacina ^ sorry to find that your room is cold. I fear learn- ing will not flourish, nor your ideas properly expand in a frosty atmosphere; and 1 fear the muses will not visit you, and that I shall have no poetic eflfusion presented on New Year's Day." Whatever the boy may have suffered from the cold, his classmates found him " cheerful, genial, social, and agreeable." Yet lively as he was, it seems that his tastes never found outlet in college escapades or mischief. With his books and chosen companions, rambles in the pines along the river banks, family letters — especially those to and from his father, then member of Congress at Washington — well filled the college days. These family letters give much of interest in the young man's life at this time. In one of the first he modestly differs from " perhaps the most learned man in England " in writing to his mother of Dr. Johnson's criticism on the poet Thomas Gray. A later letter dated November ninth, eighteen hundred and twenty-three, finds him deeply inter- ested in Heckewelder's book on Indians, and being impressed with its truth, he writes of the red men : **They have been most barbarously maltreated by the whites, both in word and deed." The part M) ihe lo^e of olclJ\foio2n.z5. ZBrovicjljt i^e Tuoonl^ljh^ sidirhcj^^Jirelui^t^ ,3ii2M)a,iha, ^.xkcrLdsoxnesb cfall -tie y?oimi€'^:L. taken by young Longfellow and a classmate in the junior exhibition the following December was a dialogue between a North American hidian and a European. Mr. Bradbury says: "He had the character of King Philip, and I of Miles Standish." Without doubt these early thoughts on the in- justice to the Indian were the seedling which grew to the volume of wonder-writing found later in the song of " Hiawatha." It is the poesy of Indian tradition and legendary lore. From his letters of that time we find that Henry Longfellow at fifteen thought '' Locke on the Human Understanding" "neither remarkably hard nor uninteresting," and that he wished he might be in Washington where it was warm, for he writes : " Winter has commenced pretty violently with us," — and as walking was not good, he adds : " I have marked out an image on my closet door about my own size. I strip off" my coat, and considering this image in defence, make my motions as if in actual combat; and I have become quite skilful as a pugilist." At this time too he is missing the good things he had to eat at home. " More from necessity than inclination 1 have become as spare Daniel was when he In t^ecflory of i^e STo ii)e Islands of ilje JTo ■Qjellsmd.ofi^e Ji< J-Lou ari iijedxis ^j^aiT amoiwf ihefairesh ^ Babylon on pulse." Then follows his interest in the fifth number of the "Sketch Book," and he hopes to have the pleasure of reading Irving's new novel, and also " The Pilot," by the author of The Spy." Perhaps more to follow his father's interests in Congressional proceedings, the boy at this time takes Carter's paper, " The New York Statesman," as his own love of politics was ever a mild one. During March eighteen hundred and twenty- four the young man, at sixteen, made his first visit to Boston, and in letters describes with enthusiasm the State House, Charlestown, Navy Yard, Athenaeum, and a private ball given by Miss Emily Marshall — the city belle of her time. He danced with the graceful daughter of the Russian consul, and ends his description of theatre-going with, "so much for the Shakespeare jubilee." Yet March finds him again at Brunswick, reading Horace, attending lectures, and from time to time throughout his entire college life dipping his poeti- cal pen into ink; and the verses written were printed now and then in various papers of the day. What- ever their value, he later approved his father's gentle, tactful warning during that period of hasty printing. K^ flov^er- de-lvee ^hloom Qn^anileb ihe Tivd ^ Jxinc/er io Jdss -tlj-^ feei I W flower ef sonq^ hloom.. on^ and mzke Joire^i Ti;e -vPorld. more /air anct sw^eet er 'er .oweT-de -1 ^Lee Kjanjrom. tlje asljes in our^earis onee more. jB/e-rose of^ouik restore ? Henry Longfellow had now reached the age when the student must soon face the serious question : " What are you going to do when you leave college ? " In kindly pleasant letters be- tween his wise father and himself there is some interesting reading on this subject. The son feels that the life-callings of a clergyman, a doctor, or a lawyer are not much to his liking; he writes, "1 cannot make a lawyer of any eminence, because I have not a talent for argument; I am not good enough for a minister, — and as to physic, I utterly and absolutely detest it." In another letter he adds : "Whatever I do study ought to be engaged in with all my soul, — for I will be eminent in something." And later on he confesses : " The fact is I have a most voracious appetite for knowl- edge." In truth, he longed for the literary life he afterwards lived, and the eminence he so brilliantly won in it then appeared to his young eyes as a prophetic vision. With this in mind, December, eighteen hundred and twenty-four, he writes his father that he wishes to spend one year at Cam- bridge *' studying the best authors in polite litera- ture," and also adding to his knowledge of Italian and French. Concerning Cambridge his father ruDT -w^ili L >?ainly c^uestion Ji/ose pag'es of ilje i^siie iook M^i^ielj IjoicL :pj. ing(( e^iesis i:S>Kvv>f Vf. ^^^-yy^c^^tSlXyvo AD.mf answered : " I have always thought it might be beneficial; if my health should not be impaired and my finances should allow, I should be very happy to gratify you." The first handsome book owned by Henry Longfellow was a fine copy of Chatterton's works, and it is interesting to know that he earned with his pen at this time the fourteen dollars he paid for it. His Commencement Ode was originally written on Chatterton, but by his father's advice the subject was changed to "Our Native Writers." This brilliant Bowdoin class of 182? was one of great ambitions and intense struggle for rank in scholarship. Among such names as Hawthorne, Pierce, Cheever, Bradbury, Abbott, and others, Longfellow's "stood justly among the first." About this time Madame Bowdoin gave a memorial fund to Bowdoin College, towards founding a chair of modern languages ; and as a fine translation from an Ode of Horace made by Longfellow appealed to those in authority, his '\name was warmly presented to fill it. His father returned to Portland with this news and the added suggestion that the young man should visit Europe to further fit himself for the position. Such an v^e Ija-^efeei) io seale and elimh V? d^prees^iy move and, 2tiore y ^oud^ 5U2t2:w.Hs of OUT iiine . Jjje Jliadiiei' of uaiub Jtiwicshi. zTie. •rase. 'M.6. U Si opening to the longed-for literary life gave the young graduate unbounded delight. However, this time of the year being unfavorable for sailing- packets, Longfellow spent the autumn and winter in reading Blackstone in his father's office, and in the " little room " off from it many a verse was scribbled and some papers written for various periodicals — more for pleasure perhaps than profit. All this with family and social duties filled the time until late April, when he left home for New York, whence he was to sail for France. A European trip in those days was a rare event for a young man of nineteen, and his was to be a three years' pilgrimage in search of knowledge. The lad was followed by the blessings of his mother, well beloved, and by the counsels of a father kindly wise. They had news from him at Boston, where he heard Dr. Channing preach and dined with Professor Ticknor, who gave him letters to Southey, Washington Irving, and others abroad. In Philadelphia he was so impressed with the attractive appearance of the Pennsylvania Hospital that many years after he made it the scene of the last meeting between Gabriel and Evangeline. In this beautiful poem of exquisite pathos " the poet jlie \jeicjljis iyoreai man reael;ea d^nd, liepi vVere nob atiainei }^ sudcleiij^liffjji^ Jojfuh 'tlje^, vv^J;ile -b^jo^ir eoitLpdonions alepi ^ V\/ere -boilsiWf lip^^?arci in ilje nigiji . ±}j& Xt adder tr^ p2d.nb jJkmus-hiixs. ?i-fc^ £^i^j ^i^t siroiig in. tlje. i)ovLT of ^lieiioxLj .« JcjiPart oeizna. r/exd out io t^ee in cL^s of ^cn:e. ! full of memory pictures of the eight months spenf in that country where he never went again. He studied in many lands their native tongue, and came in touch with many gifted and famous persons, and with earnest, faithful work well qualified him- self for his college appointment. On his return voyage he wrote : " Travelling has its joys — : but happier is he whose heart rides quietly at anchor in the peaceful haven of home." At twenty-two Professor Longfellow took up his residence at Brunswick College and devoted himself to the double duty of librarian and teacher. He also made time to edit some French and Span- ish books, and their worth attracting the attention of Professor George Ticknor — who held a like position at Harvard — made one incident among others that afterwards led to the younger pro- fessor succeeding to the elder's chair of languages at the Cambridge college. However, one of those Bowdoin College days tells of all, as follows: '*! rise at six — hear a French recitation immediately. At seven I break- fast, — master of my time till eleven — when I hear a Spanish lesson. After that lunch : — Twelve I go into the library till one. Leisure till five/' then "a French recitation. At six I take /jtaruis nW i^eiasiii/atll/avisJaion^ii; Uasties in ^ain ^ noi iLzili of s tone J^vh cf vv!i?fte summer elaucls j ancLhloM/n Iriio hljis liijhle mist of rij^ine t ^A/asth ffs jcrt. I'^^axxi E-of. Jfc^ii^W. iLaiijfeJloW VLsan^lS-tt^rlsoT^f^Uci^ coflFee: — walk and visit friends till nine: study till twelve, sleep till six. Such is my daily routine of life." Later on is added : " 1 am more and more delighted with the profession I have embraced." At twenty-four Henry Longfellow proved him- self " no mere book-worm or dry-as-dust scholar. His heart was touched by the second daughter of his father's friend, Judge Barrett Potter. Mrs. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the niece of this gentle lady, writes: "The Portland young men called Mary Potter's girlhood home 'the nunnery' because her stern father kept such strict watch over his three beautiful, motherless daughters." Another record says of Mary : " Her character and person were alike lovely. Under the shadow of dark hair, eyes of deep blue lighted a face unusually ^JbicL sl^e siis ancl ^a^zes at 2ne Wifcl/ iljose deep and teizder eye? y liike blje stars , so siill ancL saiirrt -Jilce ^ :ies Voo^jsteziis of. — •mKjels' -Si-MTisvvVci, THIkine. attractive in expression." If she knew not Greek and Latin it seems she did know her mathematics. A lover's picture of her appears in these lines : The being beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me. They were married in September, eighteen hundred and thirty-one, and never was wedded life happier than theirs in a house still standing under its elms in Federal Street, Brunswick. The young husband describes his study, to the right of the entrance, thus : " The shadow of the honey- suckle lies on my study floor, and through the open window comes the fragrance of the wild-briar and mock-orange: the birds are carolling in the ITender - — a^Tid, ^oumx/ - andL hri^yij^ amA Jorief. T^ ''v,-n^TS»i. — JkrTvc^ oft xyvofnyc^ trees — while the murmur of bees, the cooing of doves, and the whirring of a little humming-bird send up a sound of joy to meet the rising sun." Much writing as well as professional work was done at Brunswick until De- cember first, eighteen hundred and thirty- four, when a letter of that date from Josiah Quincy, President of Harvard, advised the young man of Professor Ticknor's intended resignation from the chair of modern languages at Harvard, and that inquiries had led the writer to name Professor Longfellow for the vacancy. The suggestion was made that a year or more in Europe for German might be well. When advising his father of President Quincy's letter, Longfellow writes : " Good fortune has come at last, and I shall certainly not reject it." The Bowdoin Chair of Modern Languages, held for more than five years, was resigned, the attrac- tive Brunswick home given up, and April, eighteen jBat tlje£ioocl deei^t})roii£l) tlje a^es hi^imj in Ijistorie pa^es , Mr^ljterj/rov^5 eond c/leaom immortdl, MiUBonsiimed ]qy moiij orrasi • "^eJ^i ormaJxJSaxcfn J& lipomas Caxl^l&^^^^A^ c/ane /l/elsi; CarZyZt hundred and thirty-five, found Longfellow and his wife aboard the Philadelphia on his second trip to Europe. He left, ready for publication, his two volumes of '' Outre-Mer." During this foreign visit Professor Longfellow and his lovely wife met many brilliant and noted persons. A letter from Emerson brought them in touch with Thomas Carlyle and his attractive wife. Mrs. Longfellow describes this lady as " a lovely woman, with very pleasing and simple man- ners," and ''also very talented and accomplished." Carlyle remembered Emerson's stay with ^nhm/id'. ; '■'■ ■ ■ ^Bjej sl/all all Moom iTLfielcU of Jij^i/-_ them as '* a visit of an angel." What Professor and Mrs. Longfellow wrote from Northern Europe is full of charm and instruction. It was during their stay at Rotterdam that the young wife, on November twenty-ninth, eighteen hundred and thirty-five, was called away, when life was fairest. Of her short life Mrs. Higginson writes : " Its briefness saddens, till I recall my aunt's successor. Then I remember that altho the violet withered a lily bloomed in its stead." The poet bore his sorrow with a courage born of a silent, tender, and religious faith. In ** The Footsteps of Angels " are lines on this lost wife : With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine. Even in his sorrow none knew better than he that his world's work must be done. The " Psalm of Life," written in eighteen hundred and thirty- nine, and which Mrs. Julia Ward Howe calls " this music so brave, clear, and human," reveals his solemn measure of life's worth in these lines : Life is real ! Life is earnest ! And the grave is not its goal ; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. jjiaJl I J;aN?e ns^aofljt tlfat is fear /sari]; J;e; 3fa>?e nav£fl[t hut i^e iearcled jfrain ? lljoi^l^ ilje ireai^ of ti/ese flovJers is 5v?eei to me, a Will jfiv^e tl/em all iacli ^d^TL • " /aees of fxmili^r friends seemed sirangre;^ Therefore he was " up and doing," studying his Ger- man the following winter at Heidel- berg, where he meets with pleas- ure the poet Bryant among others. Later he sees Switzerland ; but on October eighth, eighteen hundred and thirty- six, he sails from Havre for home shores. The following December found Professor Longfellow in his Kirkland Street rooms at Cambridge, and launched in the full tide of his Harvard College duties. With such friends as Professor Felton, Charles Sumner, Hilliard, Judge Joseph Story, and Simon Greenleaf, this Cambridge, still a village, had much to offer of brilliant and delight- ful associations to the young poet. And he, by his refined tastes, sunny man- ners, and bright mind, soon became a favorite. About this time, through Nathaniel Hawthorne sending his "Twice Told E?r i\je onefaeel looked, for vlas not tl^ere y Il/e oYie lov) y^oiee Was 2nuie j (0nb^ an zinseen presence filled ilje air^ haffled itrf pursuii. H^^iJhlj oraie. Tales " to Longfellow, these two gifted men again came together with a friendship to last their lives. For little folk the children's Longfellow can never be parted from Craigie House. For them it stands another shrine to the poet's name and ever-present influence. Not its builder, Colonel Vassall, of seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, who left it for England's sake; nor all the glory or gayety given it by being George Washington's some-months home; nor all the grand Craigie dinners given to princes in high life, have for little ones the love-compelling charm it has as "Craigie House — The Home of Longfellow." ^2iee,a^ onee vJitijiiiiyese Walls, &ne ^f!/l)(mL memory ofi reealls , Jatl/er of Ijis Qouniirff cL\/ielb . When left a widow without much money, Mrs. Craigie kept a few rooms for herself and wisely rented the others. The poet's first call at Craigie House was on a fine ><^<>oic><<>cK;>D£><^acw>©ooo<^^ su miner aiter- noon in eighteen hundred and thirty-seven. He went to see a law-student who lived in the south- east chamber, but gave it up the following August, when Longfellow took this room and the one next to it for his bedroom. Mrs. Craigie has been described as " sitting in her southeast parlor, in her white muslin turban and gray silk gown among her window plants and singing birds," and having a kindly feeling for the worms of her elm trees. But rather an awe-inspiring lady so gowned and crowned she seemed to the poet as "she stood with her hands crossed behind her, snapping her gray eyes, and saying she had resolved to take no more students into the house." When he made Enjoy tl;e ^princf of Juov^e aJicL olouh^y xo some^oocl ax^el lea\?e ii)e res-fe } jfor JiiKe v?ill ies^el; il;ee soon il)e -bxuiljf ere are no hircls in lasb^eaxs nesi I % Ai isTicb ai'A^s Kay j3;e3iallM?^ of Lure^ij^ie 3-fouse, himself known her manner changed, and he adds : "She then took me all over the house and showed me every room in it." She gave him the rooms named. They were cared for by the farmer's wife, Miriam — "a pius giantess" who lived in the back of the house, and also gave him his meals, but at so high a price that she was called " Miriam the profit-ess" by the poet's friend, Felton. Long- fellow wrote his father: "The new rooms are above all praise." September twelfth, eighteen hundred and thirty- eight,thetlrst mention of "Hyperion" appears in the poet's journal. This romance was published the clio and do\y/n tljese eeljoir£j stairs ; potinded his jnajesiiQ tread 2—^ ^' JLlaiigfelloi^ next year, and is said to have much of his own life in it — incidents of travel — and its heroine the portrait of a lovely girl of nineteen, whom he met in Switzerland, and again after her family and self had returned to their Boston home, in its Mary Ashburton the poet-lover described his future wife, Frances Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Nathan Appleton, of Boston. Miss Appleton at twenty- five was " a woman of stately presence, cultivated intellect, and deep religious feeling. Her calm and quiet face at times seemed to make the very air bright with its smile." On the first day of college vacation, July thirteenth, eighteen hundred and forty-three, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow brought ^4 • yo ome sv?eei name- ^ y/};ose evfery syjlaiie is a earess Would Lest hefii tijee^ lui I eannoi elgoose, , fpy^ still iii/e s^m^j )Jikmeless or named^^^iUhai^ loMiness . irs "lije Mi &lo^k an tl/e ^ia^i her a bride to the Craigie House rooms. Two weeks later a visit was made to his parents at the Port- land home. They then went to the Appleton's summer home at Nahant, and afterwards to other relatives of his wife, who lived in an old- fashioned country house at Pittsfield. Under its poplars the poet writes of it in ''The Old Clock on the Stairs": Somewhat back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat. Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw. And of the clock he adds : Half-way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands. The April before this holiday Longfellow wrote his father of Mrs. Craigie : "She is determined to die as she has lived, pretty much her own way.' JJjere £roicp5 of merr^ e^ildven jpl^ecL^ J^ere^ozcbhs md iwaidens dreamii^ sirred} @ yreeious Ijours I ®cioLd.en jpriine , jflzhl e^luettee cf lo\^e and tiim I ife®M(3'J/)cieoMt^et vOl^i zsverei Corm£^ ol) coiae \vHlj me j ^j^ L dined with us. We drank the baby's health under the title of Chevalier Neu- kome, on account of his being a new- comer and a great musician — in his way." This was baby Ernest, who appears in Longfel- low's poem, " To a Child," as Dear child ! how radiant on thy mother's knee, With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles, Thou gazest at the painted tiles. And of him the journal notes: "Feb. 8, 1847.* Earnest took his first walk in Beacon Street, and ^ made patriotic struggles to enter John Hancock's premises. How splendidly he looked in his white cocked-up hat and plumes, his blue coat and red ' gaiters." So spoke the battle- blood of old Peleg , Wadsworth in these great-grandsons. Longfellow loved his boys ; but oh, his very heart went out to " little girls." Indeed, he once confessed to the jfin ai20el Wrtl? 2^ radiant fa.ee. ^ .-jtho^e a cradle herd io looii^ Seemed l/is ovjia. ima^e {ijere io ixaee ^s in tlje W^-bers of a lorook . i o oooooo \ \ poet Lowell, "I like little girls the best." Of a daughter his jour- nal notes: *'Oct. 30, 1847. Little Fanny christened. She looked charm- ingly, and behaved well throughout." The following September is added of this baby girl these words: "Our little child was buried to-day." The room was full of angels where she lay, And when they had departed she was gone. That the little sons were well beloved, and went 1 sioool on tl/e ]jrid^e ai Tmdnio/lj'b ; Jlsihe clocks v)ere siril6.l^ ilje};oiii: Jlnd tye. -moon, rose o^er tl/e eiiyj JBeljincUl/e cUrk eijvixe^ iovidr , ZDray^iru^-y^ooia^ at 6r3igie.'Mause-^ % x> to school, we know from the journal's date of "April 10, 1850. The boys' first day at school. I took them down to the old house under the Washington elm, and left them sitting in their little chairs among the other children. God bless the little fellows ! " The next date is a happy one : ''February 22d, 1851. Washington's birthday and the christening of our little daughter; — the brightest, gayest of girls." On going to college ll]ed^er5e . . i " My oldest boy, not yet twenty, is a lieu- tenant of cavalry in the Army of the Potomac. In the last battle on the Rapidan he was shot through both shoulders, and had a very narrow escape of it. He is now at home and doing very well. ^ Your lotus pillow is now giving comfort to a younger head than mine, — the young officer's. The two anxious journeys to bring him back — with watching and waiting — have not done me much good/' After a period of work and quiet a visit was made to the old world. From England to Rome was passed quaint old Nuremberg, of which the poet wrote some charming verses in 1848. But at this time Longfellow writes of Europe to Charles Sumner: " March 9, 1868. We are going lat the end of May. I do not like breaking up of ^ / v?J;a"tplea5acn-fc ^isiojns ]gd:unb me jfis Iga^^^e upon ilje sea / Jnll ij^e old rom&.niie legend ^nll Tny dreams ^ eome Jiaek to me Jije S&txe-ir of -Hhe &e& Aaxis (^ael/s ^Ihiree^ ^iixei: lome, but 1 suppose it is for the best. I need a good shaking up, and expect to get it." On May twenty-third a brilliant dinner-party was given by Mr. James T. Fields, his publisher, to the poet, whose journal notes the event thus: **A parting dinner at Fields'. Verv beautiful with flowers and all pleasant things. Holmes read a charming poem, and we enjoyed ourselves extremely." May twenty-seventh Longfellow, with a happy party of his children and friends, sailed from New York, aboard the steamer " Russia " for Liverpool. Thence to the English lakes country — a writer's paradise — and afterwards to Cambridge, of old England, where, June sixteenth, in the presence lau2:eai^ of tlje Cfejxile erafty — in ^uae Jvlios- ^delfrY «bJsTziae& Jozzr iy tlje oloek ! and ^eir oaoij (h^ ; — Fwz: ^ the. Qlotli. ^Lan^ffelloy^'s Study Jxom. 1$^H- peerless genius of their no less peerless friend ! He is now, at sixty-two, snow-crowned above his massive brow, the beard full and pure white about his fine, fresh-colored face, and from the eyes of blue falls the fair light of a sweet and gentle soul; and thus he was, by rich use of rich gifts and heaven's grace, a poet. Longfellow's great heart went out to little children ; in simplicity and innocence he was one of them. That is why they loved him and made him their king and gave him his " splendid ebon throne" — for so he called their gift to him on (2)a(ily as sort\& old. inediaa'^dl Izrd^hi; ^a^ed. ai ii;2 otitis ]ge eoulcl no longer iy^ieMj So 1 loeljolcL iljese hooks ujoon. iiljeir sijeLf^ yiv oxna,jvh&2vb3 and arms of ohljei: cla^sj^ ior tJ/gr remind me jf itiy otljejr selfj _ — ooKs Some, -bo me^ ^ ^/e, e^xidirerL ! his seventy-second birthday. On a brass plate beneath its cushion is inscribed: TO THE AUTHOR OF THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH THIS CHAIR MADE FROM THE WOOD OF THE SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE ' IS PRESENTED AS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATEFUL REGARD AND VENERATION BY THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE WHO WITH THEIR FRIENDS JOIN IN BEST WISHES AND CONGRATULATIONS ON THIS ANNIVERSARY February 27th, 1879 Carved about the seat are these lines from " The Village Blacksmith " : And children coming home from school Look in at the open door ; They love to see the flaming forge, JnncL -bhe aTAesizoxis iljai -pe2fj)lexecL jne. oxne iroine^ (0 ye al^ilclrejn ! -JmcL \A?J;ii>pejf xzl jrtiy ear ;afr -blje-Joircls actxd. t^e Winds aoce sin£fm^ JizL yozir suntvy ainwsfoljejre. - ,->^ yozir '7 ^e Sjpy^ea.diiiCj Qljeshiuzi Ticee. And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaflf from a threshing-floor. The chair keeps its honored place by the poet's study hearth-stone ; and by the kindly good-will of his daughter, Miss Alice Longfellow, children come every Saturday afternoon to see this Craigie House study, where his ever-present influence is as music in the air. A few lines of his poem " From My Arm-Chair " will best tell the happi- ness it gave their "king." -Jrtm JL a -ki:^ ; i};aii JL sijould c?all m^ av)iL &x Jjy vi2^ai jreasozi^ or vi?i/at J^i^ijt define ^ Can JL joroel&jytLJt Jnijne f ~ 3P^^^=fi*'*^ Ixciyi. IV^ ^rm. C^jiSx. -~rlsiiy a lesson , deejo concl lonq ) -:m Only, perhaps, by right divine of song It may to me belong ; Only because the spreading chestnut tree Of old was sung by me. On a bookcase just back of this chair stands a water-color of the spreading chestnut tree. Thus enthroned was the children's Longfellow then ; and in the hearts of the children of men his reign will be forever. About the last letter the poet ever wrote was one of thanks to a little girl for a birthday remem- brance. Two days later he delighted the hearts of four Boston school-boys by showing them his study, the river-view from its windows, and writing his name in their albums. -Jl/£?a Jjast leeiT a Qenerozis eirOeyi ; 1 can ^i\)e. ijjee Jozii a ^onej, - jioxe iijan iljis }^ ti^^jmane. reziiijtids ine. &f tijree fariench, all tirue and. tried ; 'jmoL tJ;2vt Jfia^me like jtia^c^ie. hinds me Glozei: ; elose-jc to iljy side . « Jbar frojmt^e ^^^orlcL eoaoLiioise v)iRineclzba.te-^ ^, ^ y^-^ i^l ■I 3**< tp • 4, ' - * ■^\ • laiiiiii'i ■^"- 4'll .^.\. ; *i\' , Z. ^T^wiiKa.. fir JlLGn^;/yiov7i (§l;a^*^VvSlk On March fifteenth, eighteen hundred and eighty- two, " The Bells of San Bias " — his poem — rang out the last notes of the poet's earthly music in these lines : Out of the shadows of night The world moves into light ; It is daybreak everywhere ! And so it was for the children's Longfellow on March twenty-fourth, eighteen hundred and eighty- two, when the Cambridge bells tolled the sorrowful story to all the world ; for the poet's sweet, full, and blameless earthly life was spent. Three days later, under the gently falling snow, they carried him ^\ 1 l^eard iJ^e trailinei efBocments of ilje ^mljij (fvv^eep tj^ronfflj ^ezmdoclole J/aJJs X s^v) Ijex saJole skirts ^llpcincjed. v/iiih lic/iji Jcrom t^e. celestial WaJla / fcJns^ in our io'\^er sloof We raiw o^er m^b^II ^ncL roof to Mount Au- burn. Many and touching are the pretty stories told of Longfellow's devotion to children, and their love for him; yet per- haps no one of them all is so sweetly solemn as that given by the Reverend W.H. Savage in the Janu- ary eighteen hundred and ninety-five "Arena'': "*Was that God?' asked a little boy on whose forehead the aged poet had left a kiss, as he went away after a call at a friend's house. And none of the boy's elders felt quite ready to answer in the negative, for just then God seemed not far away from every one of them." War }/?d