Again I find a record of a dinner at Cambridge: "The day was springlike, and the air full of the odors of fresh blossoms. As we came down over the picturesque old staircase, he was standing with a group of gentlemen near by, and I heard him say aloud unconsciously, in a way peculiar to himself, 'Ah, now we shall see the ladies come downstairs!' Nothing escapes his keen observation—as delicate as it is keen."
And in the same vein the journal rambles on:—
"Friday.—Longfellow came into luncheon at one o'clock. He was looking very well;… his beautiful eyes fairly shone. He had been at Manchester-by-the-Sea the day before to dine with the Curtises. Their truly romantic and lovely place had left a pleasant picture in his mind. Coming away by the train, he passed in Chelsea a new soldiers' monument which suggested an epigram to him that he said, laughingly, would suit any of the thousand of such monuments to be seen about the country. He began somewhat in this style:—
"'The soldier asked for bread,
But they waited till he was dead,
And gave him a stone instead,
Sixty and one feet high!'
"We all returned to Cambridge together, and, being early for our own appointment elsewhere, he carried us into his library and read aloud
'The Marriage of Lady Wentworth.' E——, with pretty girlish ways and eyes like his own, had let us into the old mansion by the side door, and then lingered to ask if she might be allowed to stay and hear the reading too. He, consenting, laughingly, lighted a cigar and soon began. His voice in reading was sweet and melodious, and it was touched with tremulousness, although this was an easier poem to read aloud than many others, being strictly narrative. It is full of New England life and is a beautiful addition to his works. He has a fancy for making a volume, or getting some one else to do it, of his favorite ghost stories, 'The Flying Dutchman,' 'Peter Rugg,' and a few others."
On another occasion the record says:—
"Passed the evening at Longfellow's. As we lifted the latch and entered the hall door, we saw him reading an old book by his study lamp. It was the 'Chansons d'Espagne,' which he had just purchased at what he called the massacre of the poets; in other words, at the sale that day of the library of William H. Prescott. He was rather melancholy, he said: first, on account of the sacrifice and separation of that fine library; also because he is doubtful about his new poem, the one on the life of our Saviour. He says he has never before felt so cast down.
"What an orderly man he is! Well-ordered, I should have written. Diary, accounts, scraps, books,—everything where he can put his hand upon it in a moment."
"December, 1871.—Saturday Mr. Longfellow came in town and went with us to hear twelve hundred school children sing a welcome to the Russian Grand Duke in the Music Hall. It was a fine sight, and Dr. Holmes's hymn, written for the occasion, was noble and inspiring. Just before the Grand Duke came in I saw a smile creep over Longfellow's face. 'I can never get over the ludicrousness of it,' he said. 'All this array and fuss over one man!' He came home with us afterwards, and lingered awhile by the fire. He talked of Russian literature,— its modernness, and said he had sent us a delightful novel by Tourguéneff, 'Liza,' in which we should find charming and vivid glimpses of landscape and life like those seen from a carriage window. We left him alone in the library for a while, and returning found him amusing himself over the 'Ingoldsby Legends.' He was reading the 'Coronation of Victoria,' and laughing over Count Froganoff, who could not get 'prog enough,' and was 'found eating underneath the stairs.' He wants to have a dinner for Bayard Taylor, whose coming is always the signal for a series of small festivities. His own 'Divine Tragedy' is just out, and everybody speaks of its simplicity and beauty."