Tribune Extras Lecture and Letter Scries. 



determined to conquer. Holmes speaks somewhere of 

 one who " pi-rf jrrns a little with the lead pencil." Little 

 performances were not what Longfellow was after in 

 life. Let me give you a glimpse of him as he app-'ar-.Ml 

 years ago, from that little book, "A Year in Spain," and 

 which contains au excellent account of Mr. Longfellow, 

 whom the writer met ia his wanderings. lie says : 



My companion was just fr.im college aul fall 

 of the ardor excited by classical pursuits, with health 

 unbroken and with a curiosity which had never yet 

 been satisfied. He had suuiiy locks, a fresh complexion, 

 clear blue eyes, and ull the indications of a joyous 

 temperament. 



This is a true and interesting picture of the young 

 scholar in his first travels into the grand old world of 

 art. and romance. There are those called poets who live 

 in the sleepy Hollows of thought, "where it is all the 

 time afternoon." But Longfellow is not one of these. 

 He has made himself controller of that high art called 

 poetry by romiuir in contact ac all points with the treat 

 interests of humanity, H.iving been kissed by the fairy 

 queeii of song in his cradle he henceforth became her 

 living subject to do her noblest and best work. 



ins rnorurxD AXD SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIP. 

 Some scholars never carry their understandings about 

 with them, but leave them dozing on the liurary shelves. 

 A mere scholarly man could not have written us Loug- 

 fcllow wrote. A man may be very expert in all the 

 dead languages, but utterly unlearned in any living one. 

 A quotation quoted from a quotation is not the most 

 enlivening to the present race. This all-alive and sharply 

 modernized world of ours has outgrown the dead-letter 

 times, strange as it may seem perhaps in Oxford and 

 Cambridge. Longfellow's scholarship is profound and 

 special, but, ii never clogs for a moment the impetus ot 

 his nineteenth century genius. He can answer correctly 

 more questions than almost any man of his time out of 

 the pages of the past, but he never intrudes his wisdom 

 into his poetry. It is there, v*3ry deep do ,vn, 

 like the roots of things, but the garlands of 

 song cover up and conceal the river of knowledge 

 that is flowing beneath them. If ho were not known 

 as the great poet, he would certainly bo recognized 

 everywhere as a preeminent scholar and thinker. In 

 poetry, we are ape to have many acquaintances but very 

 few frit-nils. Wilh how many men and women are we 

 on speaking terms In poetry, but how few we really love 

 and cannot live wituout! Our supreme favorites iu the. 

 poetic art you <-:m easily catalogue, and Longfellow is 

 one of them. There is never any coldness, never any 

 unsympaihetif relation between him and his readers. I 

 dare say you all remember those beautiful dedicatory 

 stanzas in the new volume, published in 1819. where he 

 flows out in that deep, tender strain of salutation to all 

 who have ever sent him messages of friendship founded 

 on a perusal of his writings. 



MORE WIDELY QUOTED THAN ANY POET SIXCE POPE. 

 Since Pope, no poet has been more quoted than Long- 

 fi 1 ow. lie has gilded to i in- stock of English letters and 

 speech HH many lines, couplets, and verges as any other 

 of a hundred years. This is u sure test of poetic thought 

 and inspiration. You must look to Shakespeare and a 

 few other great onus lor a larg.-r currency of expression 

 than our American L'Mitrfcllow had. The mottoes on 

 thousands of title-page* are from him ; if yon go to En 

 gland, you will h ar him cited iu Parliament. In 

 Westminster Hall, and iu the cathedral ; every 

 pulpit admits him, for his thought is wide 



enough to embrace all creeds and all spiritual- 

 ities in his hallowed and responsive verse. It is be- 

 cause ho humanizes everything he touches, that his 

 lyre has nothing alien to any soil. I have heard hiui 

 quoted by au American monk with a cowl, and I have 

 heard him snug by a band of humble worshipers in a 

 e... nip-meeting among the bills of New-Hampshire. No 

 he ,rl but can receive him and find consolation in his 

 melodies, and this is one reason why ho is one of the 

 most popular of all poets writing English. Someone 

 seeing a copy of one of his books lying in a low drink- 

 ing saloon has said, " This is indeed true fame." The 

 poorest cottager, if he have any books at all, must be 

 sure to have something that Longfellow wrote. Being 

 overtaken in the country by night, I found lodging 

 in a humble house, I was shown to a little 

 room next tbe roof, and there the only book 

 beside the Bible was his " Voices of the Night," and 

 I was forced to repeat. "This is indeed true fame." 

 No poet has ever paid tenderer tributes to his> friends 

 than Longfellow, and that is a good sign. When Haw- 

 thorne, his friend and fellow-student, was buried on that 

 beautiful May day, iu 18G4, the heart of the poet seemed 

 to be weeping in that tender requiem that followed al- 

 most immediately after the funeral procession of the 

 great romancer. Iu the lines addressed to the River 

 Charles there is a verse commemorating three friend- 

 ships, one of which was Charles Sumuer's. He sings in 

 his own melodious way: 



" More than this, thy name reminds rue 



Of three friends, all true and tried. 

 And that name like music binds uie 



Closer, closer, to thy side. 

 Friends, my soul with joy remembers, 



How like covered flames they start, 

 When I fan the living embers 



On the hearthstone of my heart." 



HOW THE " PSALM OF LIFE " WAS WRITTEN. 

 It is always interesting to know under wh.it circum- 

 stances a poet has framed an immortal poem or sonnet 

 or soug. As I happen to know something of the origin 

 and birth of many of Longfellow's poems, l,-t mo divulge 

 a few secrets in regard to them. Tae "Psalm of Life " 

 came into existence on a bright Summer morning iu 

 July, 1838, iu Cambridge, as the poet sat between two 

 windows at the small table in the corner of his chamber. 

 It was a voice from his inmost heart and he kept it 

 some time in manuscript, unwilling to part with it. It 

 expressed his own feelings at that time, when he was 

 rallying from the depression of a deep allliction, and 

 he hid the poem in his own heart for many 

 months. lie was accused of taking the, famous verse, 

 " Art i- long and time is fljeiing." from Bishop's poem, 

 but I happen to know that was not in his mind, and that 

 the thought came to him with as much freshness and 

 originality as if nothing had been written before. 

 "There is a reaper whose name is death " crystallized tit 

 once, without cll'ort, in the poet's mind, and he wrote 

 it rapidly down, with tears Idling his eyes as he com- 

 posed it. "The Light of the Stars" was composed as the 

 poet looked out upon a calm and beautiful bummer even- 

 ing, exactly suggestive of the poem. The moon, a little 

 strip of silver, was just setting behind Mount Auburn, 

 and Mais was blazing iu the south. That flue ballad, 

 " The Wreck' of the Hesperus," was written in isuo. A 

 violent storm had occurred the night before, ami as the 

 poet sat smoking bis pipe about midnight by the fire, the 

 wrecked Hesperus came sailing into his mind. Ho went 

 to beJ, but the poem bad seized him, aud he could not 



