LONGFELLOW 



3496 



LONGFELLOW 



dress, and before her husband could extinguish 

 the flames, burned her fatally. As he had 

 met his other grief in silence, so he met this; 

 but much of the light-hearted and buoyant 

 character was gone from his verse, and it was 

 only his courage which enabled him to go on 

 with his work. 



In 1863 the appearance of the Tales of a 

 Wayside Inn, in which is included the popu- 

 lar favorite, Paul Revere' s Ride, showed that 

 he had once more in a measure found him- 

 self. His care for his children was constant, 

 and in 1868-69 his three daughters accompanied 

 him on a final visit to Europe. Edinburgh, 



as courteously as were grown people. On the 

 poet's seventy-second birthday, the school chil- 

 dren of Cambridge presented him with an 

 armchair made from the chestnut tree which 

 he himself had made famous in The Village 

 Blacksmith. The gift delighted him, and he 

 wrote a poem about it, of which a copy was 

 given to every child who came to see him. 



Finally came illness, pain and feebleness, but 

 they wrung no complaint from him, and his 

 kindliness and courtesy never left him. His 

 mind, too, remained vigorous, and The Bells 

 of San Bias was written less than two weeks 

 before his death, which occurred on the twen- 



LONGFELLOW MEMORIAL 

 Erected at Cambridge, in 1916. The sculptured figures, from left 



Sandalphon, the Village Blacksmith, 



Oxford and Cambridge universities honored 

 him, and everywhere an enthusiastic popular 

 welcome awaited him. The remainder of his 

 life passed quietly, and to escape sad mem- 

 ories he did a vast amount of work in his 

 later years. Besides original poems, there came 

 from his pen an excellent translation of Dante's 

 Divine Comedy, and translations, from eight 

 different languages, of many poems which 

 appeared in the Poems of Places, in thirty-one 

 volumes, which he himself edited. To the end 

 of his life he personally attended to his cor- 

 respondence and received his numerous visitors 

 kindly. One writer has said of him, "Perhaps 

 the most remarkable traits in Longfellow's 

 character were his accessibility and his chari- 

 ty." Rarely, if ever, did he refuse to see a 

 caller, however much of an intrusion the call 

 might seem to be, and children were received 



to right, are Miles Standis 

 the Spanish Student, Evangeline and Hiawatha. 



ty-fourth of March, 1882. He was buried ii 

 Mount Auburn Cemetery, at Cambridge, ne 

 Agassiz, Sumner and Felton, his friends; ai 

 his bust was placed in the Poet's Corner 

 Westminster Abbey, an honor no other Ameri- 

 can has had. 



Summary. Longfellow's character and life 

 have both been compared to a poem well- 

 balanced, beautiful, strong, with nothing 

 hide or excuse. Lowell said of him that his 

 "choicest verse is harsher toned than he," ai 

 such was the impression of everyone who met 

 him. His very appearance carried out this 

 thought: of medium height, with features 

 heavy, but sensitive, he had a dignity, a sunny 

 gravity, which set him apart at first glance as 

 a man of no ordinary character. Like Emer- 

 son, he was all his life innocent with the innc 

 cence of a child. 



