Page images
PDF
EPUB

FEBRUARY 27

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

I

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whom the Encyclopædia Britannica calls the best loved singer of the English race, was born Feb. 27, 1807, at Portland, Me. He entered Bowdoin college as sophomore at 15, and was graduated in 1825, Hawthorne being a classmate and afterward among his intimate friends. He spent three years and a half in Europe to fit himself for the chair of modern languages at Bowdoin, and served from 1829 to 1835 as professor there. On receiving the same appointment in Harvard college he spent fifteen months abroad in further preparation, and from 1836 to 1854 held that place at Harvard. The rest of his life he gave to literary work, residing at Cambridge. In 1843 he paid a third visit to Europe, and in 1868-69 a fourth. In 1879 he wrote of

[graphic]

the recurrence in his life of the number 18. He was 18 years old when he graduated from college; 18 years later he married his second wife; he lived with her 18 years; it was in 1879, 18 years since she died; his professorship at Harvard lasted 18 years; and he was then four times 18 years old. He died March 24, 1882.

II

As a college professor he was liked by the students and was personally an inspiration to many of them. During the six years he was at Bowdoin he found himself more and more chafed at the restraints of a country town, and his 18 years at Harvard grew at the last to be almost an intolerable burden. He wrote in his diary on June 18, 1851 :

Examination in my department; always to me a day of anguish and of exhaustion1.

He did himself very little teaching, his responsibility being mainly to direct the work of the native teachers in each language and to deliver lectures; but every year he felt more and more that this was consuming in treadmill work the time and strength he ought to give to authorship, and when at last released he snapped his bonds with a feeling of relief.

Early Literary Work

III

35

For never was man more absorbed in purpose than he in his literary work. He began to write poetry when he was in school, and it may gratify other aspiring writers to know that his first poetry showed little promise of the eminence he afterward obtained. He was made class poet, but for eight years he gave up further efforts in this direction, thinking that perhaps his strength lay in prose. He had published elementary textbooks in his own subjects even while at Bowdoin, and he contributed articles, mainly upon these subjects, to the North American

WASHINGTON IRVING, 1783-1859

Review and other magazines. He also wrote two stories for The Token, and he began a series of sketches of travel called "The Schoolmaster", which afterwards appeared as Outre-Mer (be

[graphic]

yond the sea), coming out in parts like Irving's "Sketch Book". In 1839 he pub

lished "Hyperion ", and in 1849 "Kavaanagh", both in prose, but of a pensive, poetical character, which of themselves would never have made him famous.

IV

In 1832 he delivered the poem before the Bowdoin chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa society, and the next year gave the same poem before the Harvard chapter, Edward Everett being the orator. But it was not until his establishment in the Craigie house that he began once more the serious effort to write poetry, the "Psalm of Life" published in the Knickerbocker of October, 1838, being the first token he gave of extraordinary ability. He afterwards wrote:

I kept it some time in manuscript, unwilling to show it to anyone, it being a voice from my inmost heart at a time when I was rallying from depression.

He received multitudes of testimonials that it had been an inspiration to others.

V

(Here let some pupil recite "The Psalm of Life", found in any collection of Longfellow's poems. In the Household edition

« PreviousContinue »