‘The fresh air lodged within his cheek
As light within a cloud.’
“We all flocked about him like a swarm of brothers, heartily welcoming him to Boston. When we told him how charmed we all were with his travels, he blushed like a girl, and tears filled his sensitive eyes. ‘It is one of the most absorbingly interesting books I ever read!’ cried one of our number, heightening the remark with an expletive savoring more of strength that of early piety. Taylor looked up, full of happiness at the opinion so earnestly expressed, and asked, with that simple naivete which always belonged to his character, ‘Do you really think so? Well, I am so glad.’
“Then we began to lay out plans for a week’s holiday with him; to-morrow we would go to such a place down the harbor; next day to another point of interest; after that we would all assemble at a supper party in his honor, at Parker’s (at that time a subterranean eating-house in Court Street), and following that festivity we would take him to see old Booth in Richard. We went on filling up the seven days with our designs upon him, when he protested, with an explosive shout of laughter, that he must be back again in New York the next day. Then we showered warm exhortations upon him to postpone his exit, but he assured us that go back he must, for he had promised to do so. Well, then, if that were the case, and we saw by his countenance that he meant what he said, we must adjourn at once to ‘Webster’s,’ a famous beefsteak house in those ancient days, and, as Whipple facetiously remarked, quoting the old ballad:
‘Put a steak in his inside
Where the four cross-roads did meet.’
“So thitherward we rollicked along into Washington Street, and performed that pleasant duty, Taylor all the while brimming over with radiant spirits, his young heart already illumined with the delight of recognition and praise.
“In the afternoon we handed him over to Longfellow, whom he was anxious to meet, and who gave him such a welcome as he never forgot. In one of the last conversations I had with Taylor, a few weeks before he sailed for the Embassy, he said, with deep feeling: ‘From the first, Longfellow has been to me the truest and most affectionate friend that ever man had. He always gives me courage to go on, and never fails to lift me forward into hopeful regions whenever I meet him. He is the dearest soul in the world, and my love for him is unbounded.’
“Whittier, Holmes, Emerson, Hawthorne, among many others in New England, always rejoiced to see Taylor’s welcome face returning to us. Whenever he came to lecture in Boston or Cambridge, it was the signal for happy dinners and merry meetings at each other’s houses. His fiftieth birthday occurring during one of these visits to Boston, was celebrated by an informal dinner in my own house, at which Longfellow proposed his health, and Holmes garlanded him with pleasurable words of friendship and praise.