At the close of the same year he established himself at Cambridge, and there began a career of large usefulness and success at Harvard University. At the same time he wrote extensively both prose and verse, and by the time of his third visit to Europe, in 1842, had produced the prose romance Hyperion as well as the volumes of verse entitled Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems and the drama The Spanish Student.
At this period of his life, Longfellow's journals and letters show much unrest and even at times a loss of interest in his work. His trip abroad for his health did not restore the satisfaction and contentment that he had once known. The needs of both heart and mind must be supplied in order that he might be at peace. Consequently we are not surprised by his marriage, in July, 1843, to Frances Appleton, the heroine of the romance Hyperion, and a most admirable and attractive young woman, fitted in every way to be the companion of the poet. The couple went to live in the Craigie House [Footnote: This house is celebrated not only as the poet's home but as having been at one time the headquarters of Washington.] at Cambridge, and entered upon a life of almost ideal domestic harmony.
Year after year passed, with little to mar the calm of the Longfellow home. The professor's days were filled with lectures to the college classes, with composition of original verse or translation from foreign literature and with letter writing, answers to unnumbered requests for autographs and calls from distinguished persons or from obscure but aspiring writers. Only a man of rare patience and kindness would have given such a great portion of his time as Longfellow gave during these and all the subsequent years of his life to answering the many inexcusable and often ridiculous requests for explanation of the motives and meaning of his writings, for help in obtaining public recognition, for criticism of poems that the writers submitted and for a variety of other favors.
Often there were visits to the opera or attendance at concerts, always in company with Mrs. Longfellow. Sometimes the day was darkened by the illness of one of the children. Then again, with the little ones of the household, the Harvard professor, casting aside his dignity, with all serious cares, would enter with all, his heart into some childish game. Such a good time did he have that he found it worth while to make in his journal such entries as: "Worked hard with the children, making snow-houses in the front yard, to their infinite delight;" "After dinner had all the children romping in the haymow;" "Coasted with my boys (Charles and Ernest) for two hours on the bright hill-side behind the Catholic Church;" "After tea, read to the boys the Indian story of The Red Swan." Frequently he accompanied on pleasure excursions his three daughters, the young girls described for us in the familiar lines:
"Grave Alice and laughing Allegra
And Edith with golden hair."
From time to time the journal records an idea for a poem or the beginning of the work of composition, sometimes expressing the doubts and fears that attend this beginning. Thus under date of November 16, 1845, is the statement:
"Before church, wrote 'The Arrow and the Song,' which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and glanced on to the paper with arrowy speed. Literally an improvisation."
Later, on November 28, is recorded: "Set about 'Gabrielle,'[Footnote: The poem Evangeline, to which the poet at first intended to give the title Gabrielle.] my idyl in hexameters, in earnest. I do not mean to let a day go by without adding something to it, if it be but a single line. F. and Sumner are both doubtful of the measure. To me it seems the only one for such a poem." And again, on December 7, "I know not what name to give to—not my new baby, but my new poem. Shall it be 'Gabrielle,' or 'Celestine,' or 'Evangeline'?" In the journal for 1854 is noted on June 22, "I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indian, which seems to me the right one and the only. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a whole. I have hit upon a measure, too, which I think the right and only one for such a theme;" and on June 28, "Work at 'Manabozho'; or, as I think I shall call it, 'Hiawatha,'—that being another name for the same personage."
As these literary projects came to fill more and more the poet's thought, he began to feel increasingly hampered by the work of his college classes. So urgent did the desire become to rid himself of duties that grew constantly more irksome, that at length, in 1854, he resigned his professorship. The mingled relief and regret thus afforded are expressed in his journal under date of September 12: "Yesterday I got from President Walker a note, with copy of the vote of the Corporation, accepting my resignation, and expressing regrets at my retirement. I am now free! But there is a good deal of sadness in the feeling of separating one's self from one's former life."
For several years thereafter Longfellow's life flowed along peacefully. These were most profitable years, for he was always an industrious worker and would not allow moodiness or disinclination to work to deprive him of opportunities for worthy labor. His three greatest works, Evangeline, Hiawatha and The Courtship of Miles Standish, appeared at intervals of a few years. But this period of comparative ease and quiet was brought to an abrupt close by the tragic death of Mrs. Longfellow in 1861. Her dress had taken fire from a lighted match that had fallen to the floor, and as a result she died the next day.