The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1877-08-16
Longfellow's Home and Habits.
From the Boston Herald.

| Mr.. LOngtellOWS' study is a large square
| room, situated in the southeastern por-
| ton of the house, on the right of the
front door opening from without. 1t adj
joins his library and commands a view OF
| Charles river and the Milton hills Ell
| shrouded i'll the blue, misty haze that
distance drops upon all objects. 1t is
| handsomely but somewhat somberly fur
nished. 1t contains many books and
| pictures, and on the walls are portraits OF
Hawthorne, Emerson, Sumner, and other
| friends. lie is never tidgety or nervous
when composing indeed, the work is
| pretty well planned in his head before it
! is committed to paper. He writes east
! ly and slowly, and weighs well what he
has to express before he outlines it in
| lead pencil, for he never uses a pen. and
| seldom grasses OF interlnes what he has
| reduced to writing.
! MIR LongtellOW has been twice married,
his first wife, whom he married while a
professor in Bowdon, having died in
| Rotterdam, and his second having per
| ished horribly from injuries received in a
burning accident which occurred at home
in 1861, while the lady was playing with
her children. His family consists of five
children, two boys, Ernest and Charles,
and three girls. Although seventy years
Old Mr.. Longfellow has in his manner
little of the sentiment which pervadcs
his poem, "Morituri salutamus' dying,
We Salute Iou) He dresses in a suit OF
Black broadcloth, has long white hair,
and an aspect full of genial warmth and
refined humOr, is very much of a demo-
GRAFT generally speaking), converses free
~, and has a marvellous faculty, when he
chooses to exercise it, of putting one quite
at his ease. He spends his winters in
Cambridge and his summers at his cot
tage at Nahant. He rises early, takes a
comparatively light breakfast and if the
day is not rainy sets out for a walk, which
takes up an hour or two, according to his
inclination, His gait is firm and hearty,
and as he walks he holds himself perfectly
upright He does not ramble two morn
ings in the same direction, but varies his
route daily. One day he goes Oft toward
Mt. Auburn, another he bends his steps
toward Cambridgeport, and occasionally
he walks to Boston to see his friend
James L. Fields, or mayhap to drop in
upon his publishers, Osgood & Co. Every
day or two he calls on his printers, WEIGH,
BigeloW & Co., at the University press,
and receives or returns proofs of his works,
If he has any thing in type, which is most
ly the case. He studies his matter care
fully after it is in print, and generally
submits his proofs to John owen, his
former publisher and friend Little if
any of his poetry as published is written
on the spur of the moment. "The Divine
Tpnfr 1,r1 10
after it was nearly all in type. During
late years he has been in the habit of
publishing his poems in the magazines,
and, after having obtained sufficient
number, adding few new ones to them
and issuing them in book form. He
brings his 'copy" to the office of the
University press, which is only half a
mile or so from his own residence, written
in lead-pencil, in small back hand, very
much like the average newspaper mans
style OF handwriting, clear and mostly
free from interlneatlOnS and eraSures
His magazine poems are always revised
and corrected, or at least altered more or
less before their publication in book form,
so that the reader rarely encounters one
in exactly the same shape us in the peri
odical. He is at present engaged on a
series entitled, "Poems of Places" This
work requires considerable reading, note
making and sorting out Of old poems and
productions, and the poet rarely has a
poem in print nowadays. France and
Italy have already been published, and
the printers are now at work on "Spain."
The manner in which copy is furnished is
as follows: When the printers are out
the poet sends up boy with a wheel
barrow or other vehicle laden with books
containing poems which he wants to in
clude in his collection, with a written re-