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2 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGTELLOW. HE statement was once made by a pro fessor of literature to his class, that the “province of true poetry was only to amuse,” and the rhythmic cadences of Poe, the thundering measures of Whit man and even some of the pleasant rhymes of Longfellow were cited as ex amples of this axiom. But this sweep ing assertion was one which so few per- T sons endorse tliat we are inclined to be a trifle re sentful at the imputation that anything Longfellow ever wrote was designed purely for pleasure—that is, pleasure of the senses apart from the natural exaltation that follows some inspiring emotion which this poet’s words so often create. During a certain period of adolescence, when the youthful mind turns naturally toward poetry as a vehicle for the expression of emotions wliich are felt rather than understood. Longrellow has been eminently a safety-valve and a protection from more fervid and less feeling rhymes. Each one of us who has safely passed the shoals and quick-sands of youthful exuberance, will remember the thrill with which we quoted the soothing couplets from “The Bridge,” “The Day is Done,” or even “Excelsior,” and, maybe, “The Psalm of Life.” It was something of a shock to discover that these sweet and tender thoughts, clothed in so much of poetic imagery, were, after ah, not the highest form of poetic expression. Youth is loth to surrender an ideal, especially a poetic one, and the average mind of the ordinary work-a-day person has a cu rious tendency to cling to youthful impressions. Thus many of us have never awakened to the fact that Longfellow, himself, is one of those “Humbler poets whose songs gush from the heart Like showers from clouds in summer or tears to the eyelids start,” which he has himself so well described. A poet pre-eminently beloved and widely quoted; a poet who seldom rose to great heights, and yet whose every line is so replete with helpful sentiment and high moral tone that even when we learn to ad mit that tne laurel of poetic greatness will not be given him by the generations of the future, we rever ence him for the influence he has exerted in the past and the hold he still maintains on the people of the present. The Poet’s Hundredth Anniversary. Just a hundred years ago. on the 27th of the current month, was the poet Longfellow, born in the famous old Wadsworth-Longtellow home in Portland, Maine, the home of Longfellow’s maternal grandfather, and which was, also, the early married home of his mother, Zilpah Wadsworth, after she had married Stephen Longfellow. The latter was graduated from Harvard College in 1794, and was one of a class of distinguished Americans, among whom were William Ellery Channing and Joseph Story. The Longfellow family was a prominent one and the young Henry was reared in an atmosphere of culture and intellectual refinement. Early in his career he showed a marked tendency toward lit erature, which evidenced itself by a love of good books and an instinctive choosing of the best in literature. He is said to have written his first poem when he was but thirteen years old, and that he succeeded in having it published. Naturally, this effusion, “The Battle of Lovell’s Pond,” was chiefly an unconscious imitation of the many stir ring ballads of adventure which the youth had read, but it was well versified, and what we might term “remarkable” for a small boy. His College Career. We judge Henry Longfellow must have done ex ceedingly well at school, for in a letter sent to his father from the master of the Portland Academy, the latter said of the young student: “He is one of the best boys we have in the school. He spells and reads very well. He also can add and multiply The Golden Age for February 21, 1907. The "Best Belobed of American Writers. By S. T. DALSHEIMER. numbers. His conduct last quarter was very correct and amiable.” That this record was a forerunner of his future career as a student, we can gather from the fact that he entered Bowdoin College at the early age of fifteen. One of his classmates at ■this institution was Nathaniel Hawthorne, and in the class just above him were Emerson and Thoreau. Being contemporary with these famous writers and thinkers it is somewhat remarkable that he never found himself beset with the many doubts and fears and questionings as to things Eternal which as sailed these other eminent scholars. Longfellow never joined the “Transcendentalists” whose chief members were culled from the ranks of the literary men of the times, and during the perplexing days of Brook Farm, when Emerson, Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, and even, for a time, the fastidious Hawthorne, attempted “The Simple Life” as an evidence of their belief in the evil moral in fluence of luxury, Longfellow pursued an unbroken course of study abroad, where he went to prepare HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. himself for the acceptance of a professorship at Bowdoin College, where the Chair of Modern Lan guages had been offered him. “Hyperion.” Shortly after assuming his duties in this position he married Miss Mary Storer Porter, of Portland, but the young couple lived at Brunswick, Maine, the town in which Bowdoin was situated. In 1835 the young man and his young wife went abroad, and it was during that trip that the first great grief of his life came to Longfellow. Mrs. Longfellow died in Rotterdam, and the poet sounded the depths of human suffering. It was as a result of this expe rience that he wrote “Hyperion,” a volume of prose sketches which have a certain continuity of thought, although with no attempt at a plot. ‘Some of Longfellow’s most effective and lasting work, however, is incorporated in this volume, and al though many adverse criticisms have been launched at “Hyperion,” yet for beauty of style, purity of thought and nobility of sentiment, it has few equals. The text of the narrative seems to have been the keynote of the poet’s own life, and as it is written in a personal vein, it portrays the poet’s own life and the attitude of mind on which he builded his future course. He says: “Look not mournfully in to the past; it comes not back aeain. Wisely im prove the present; it is thine; go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear and with a manly heart.” The story of this book, if story it can be called, is of a young student who travels all over Europe seeking diversion for a sad and heavy heart; he meets a young woman to whom he is powerfully attracted, but who does not return his interest, and they part, each going separate ways, never to meet again. Thus “the minor key” is maintained • throughout, and is only lightened by occasional flights of fancy, such as the following bit of true philosophy: “Welcome Disappointment!” says the poet; ‘ ( Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend; thy voice is stern and harsh; but it is the voice of a friend! Oh! there is something sublime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without com plaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success!” “The Emperor, Isaac Angelus, made a treaty with Saladin and tried to purchase the Holy Sepulchre with gold. Richarcl-Lion-Heart scorned such alli ance, and sought to recover it by battle. Thus do weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle. . . : . It is a treacher ous peace that is purchased by indulgence. Rather take this sorrow to thy heart and make it a part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again. ” There is a certain ruggedness about Longfellow’s prose expression which we do not find in his verses, and students of this writer have regretted that so much of his writings have been polished so smooth ly as almost to have a sense of artificiality about •them. Longfellow is distinctively a poet of the home, the fireside and the sentiments that dominate the everyday life; he loves children and sings most sweetly of their charms and graces. In every home ly incident he finds a poetic parallel, as, for in stance, in “The Hanging of the Crane,” he com pares the founding of a new home to a “New star just sprung to birth, and swung on its harmonious way, ’inong the myriad homes of earth.” During Longfellow’s life, the country passed through the throes of Civil War and the slavery question. Like other New Englanders, he felt keen ly the wrong's of slavery, and he founded his opin ions on what he believed to be the true Christian spirit. In writing to his friend, George Lunt, on the subject of slavery, he said: “I believe slavery to be an unrighteous institution, based on the false maxim that Might makes Right. I have great faith in doing what is righteous and fear no evil conse quences.” His attitude toward religion was that of unwav ering faith which all his writings amply evidence. He accepted Providential decrees in the same spirit of humble resignation that marked his attitude to ward his first sorrow. His Later Life. In 1843, Longfellow married Miss Frances Eliza beth Appleton, and it has been said that she was really the heroine of “Hyperion,” as he met her in Switzerland as he did “Mary” in that story, al though the real incident had a happier ending than that of the imagined (?) one. Miss Appleton was admirably suited to make a wife for a poet who needed, at the same time, an intellectual companion, and their life together at the stately old Craigie House at Cambridge, is typical of all that is best in American society. There the poet and his wife gathered around them the leading literary lights of the day, and it was a period when the literature of America blossomed as it never has before nor since. Longfellow, himself, was a most distinguish ed looking person, and in the interesting memoirs of Cail Schurz, ’ which are just being published, he i efers to meeting Longfellow at a public dinner and lemaiking his commanding personal beauty” which prompted him to inquire the name of the poet. (Concluded on Page 12.)