Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made

by James Dabney McCabe

In 1840, he published the "Voices of the Night," which he had heard sounding to him in his haunted chamber. This was his first volume, and its popularity was even greater than that of "Hyperion," although some of the poems had appeared before, in the "Knickerbocker Magazine." In 1841, he published his volume of "Ballads, and Other Poems," which but added to his fame, and the next year bade the old house under the elms a temporary adieu, and sailed for Europe, where he passed the summer on the Rhine. On the voyage home, he composed his "Poems on Slavery," and soon after his return wrote "The Spanish Student," a drama, "which smells of the utmost South, and was a strange blossoming for the garden of Thomas Tracy."

In 1843 the stately mistress of the old house died, and Professor Longfellow bought the homestead of Andrew Craigie, with eight acres of land, including the meadow, which sloped down to the pretty river. There have been very few prouder or happier moments in his life than that in which he first felt that the old house under the elms was his. Yet he must have missed the stately old lady who first had admitted him to a place in it, and whom he had grown to love as a dear friend. She seemed so thoroughly a part and parcel of the place, that he must have missed the rustle of her heavy silks along the wide and echoing halls, and have listened some time for the sound of her old-fashioned spinet in the huge drawing-room below, and, entering the room where she was wont to receive her guests, he must have missed her from the old window where she was accustomed to sit, with the open book in her lap, and her eyes fixed on the far-off sky, thinking, no doubt, of the days when in her royal beauty, she moved a queen through the brilliant home of Andrew Craigie. A part of the veneration which he felt for the old house had settled upon its ancient mistress, and the poet doubtless felt that the completeness of the quaint old establishment was broken up when she passed away.

In 1846, Mr. Longfellow published "The Belfry of Bruges, and Other Poems;" in 1847, "Evangeline" (by many considered his greatest work); in 1850, "Seaside and Fireside;" in 1851, "The Golden Legend;" in 1855, "The Song of Hiawatha;" in 1858, "The Courtship of Miles Standish;" in 1863, "The Wayside Inn;" in 1866, "The Flower de Luce;" in 1867, his translation of the "Divina Commedia," in three volumes; and in 1868, "The New England Tragedies." Besides these, he published, in 1845, a work on the "Poets and Poetry of Europe," and in 1849, "Kavanagh," a novel.

Mr. Longfellow continued to discharge his duties in the University for seventeen years, winning fresh laurels every year, and in 1854 resigned his position, and was succeeded in it by Mr. James Russell Lowell. He now devoted himself exclusively to his profession, the income from his writings affording him a handsome maintenance. In 1855. "The Song of Hiawatha" was given to the public, and its appearance may be styled an event in the literary history of the world. It was not only original in the story it told, and in the method of treatment, but the rhythm was new. It was emphatically an American poem, and was received by the people with delight. It met with an immense sale, and greatly increased its author's popularity with his countrymen.

In 1861 a terrible affliction befell the poet in his family. He had married, some years after the death of his first wife, a lady whose many virtues had endeared her to all who knew her. She was standing by the open fire in the sitting-room, one day in the winter of 1861, when her clothing took fire, and before her husband, summoned by her cries, could extinguish the flames, she was terribly burned. Her injuries were internal, and she soon afterwards died.

In 1868, Mr. Longfellow again visited Europe, and remained abroad more than a year. His reception by all classes of the people of the Old World was eminently gratifying to his countrymen. This welcome, so genuine and heartfelt, was due, however, to the genius of the man, and not to his nationality.

He had overstepped the bounds of country, and had made himself the poet of the English-speaking race. A man of vast learning and varied acquirements, thoroughly versed in the ways of the world, he is still as simple and unaffected in thought and ways as when he listened to and wondered at the dashing of the wild waves on the shore in his boyhood's home. A most gifted and accomplished artist, he has been faithful to nature in all things. Earnest and aspiring himself, he has given to his poems the ring of a true manhood. There is nothing bitter, nothing sarcastic in his writings. He views all things with a loving eye, and it is the exquisite tenderness of his sympathy with his fellow-men that has enabled him to find his way so readily to their hearts. Without seeking to represent the intensity of passion, he deals with the fresh, simple emotions of the human soul, and in his simplicity lies his power. He touches a chord that finds an echo in every heart, and his poems have a humanity in them that is irresistible. We admire the "grand old masters," but shrink abashed from their sublime measures. Longfellow is so human, he understands us so well, that we turn instinctively to his simple, tender songs for comfort in sorrow, or for the greater perfection of our happiness.

Perhaps I can not better illustrate the power of his simplicity than by the following quotations:

There is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!