Morning journal and courier., 1888-07-20

Fanny Fern and N. F. Vylllfs-LOng- fellows Rirthplace-Along the Maine Coast-seme RomeIy and Home-Lov- ing People.
 CAsT1NE, Maine, July 16. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: One may have the good fortune to have been born in the great, grand West; but whether it be through hsredity, or because the American finds glorious history back of him here, one feels the constant home coming thrill wherever he may turn within the boundaries of old Acadia. And l think if I had my way about it I would never cease writing good things of that dearest of old American seaport towns, Portland, the s'lovely leafy city," of which Fanny Fern wrote so pathetically when tenderly telling the story of her own eventful life.
 Many, many long years after this" (her childhood e2poriences) she wrote: 'I visi- { ted my birthplace, Portland, from which my mother removed when I was six months old. I wandered up and down the streets of that | lovely leafy city and tried to find the church where good Dr. Payson used to preach. Then too wanted to see the house where was born-the house where he laid hands of
 
 | purple with what they thought was the | death agony But where it was that the ' little flicke-.1g life begun I could not find out"
 Poor heartl She found no one who l seemed to care.
 But hundreds of thousands of those whose | hairs are now silvering, and whose eyes in ! the youth tide grew misty above her "Fern Leaves" ," did care I cared. And they and I cared where her brother, Nathaniel Parker l willis-that great soul wrongly environed l and forever prodded past the calmness which
 gives supreme opportunity, whose tender I spirit stole out of its tortured tenement,
 Down Q path beyond the grave. on his sixty-frst birthday, that dreary 20th
 of January, 1867, at sweet Idlewild-on-Hud- ] son-was born; and few years ago, not minding whether Portland people liked it or not, I dug among the misty records and placed the spot, so it may be known for all time. So if you ever wander to the quaint 1 old city, that you may know where it is, for good Portland folk like money-bags better than monuments, will set it down here. It ! is at 72 Franklin street Gin the old days,. Es- sex street.) The lot, which is on the west side of Franklin street, and just one lot south of Federal, begins fifty and six-tenths feet south of Federal, has 8 frontage on Franklin of fifty-one feet and is seventy feet deep. It is now occupied by smart looking, comfortable two-story brick house,
 whose one prim door-plate announces it to be the home of 'fAhren." Lincoln Park,
 Portland's single central city park, begins here at the intersection of Franklin and Fed- eral streets and runs up west a bit, jostling business affairs and attractive homes: and how good and gracious thing it would be If, somewhere about the corner of this prst~ ty spot, there could be built an enduring record which should point out to the travel CT of our own or foreign land the place
 where were born
 To the honor and renown
 Of this rare old seaport town
 l s man and woman who charmed and bet-
 tered life at the American freside, and
 whose pure and graceful if not always in-
 spired pens Loyalty served to enrich Ameri-
 san literature.
 And there were others in old Portland
 town whose memory will touch this side of | your thought and memory. Midway be- ! tween the busy places of Portland and Mum | ioY hill, where once stood ancient Fort Sum- \
 Youth" in this wise
 remember the bulwarks upon the shore
 | And the fort upon the hill;
 The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar.
 And the bugte wild and shr1ll-
 | is the old Eastern cemetery, where are bur
 jed score or more who have figured in his tory and song Again the Middle street side ! of this Is cumbrous supporting wall. ] Running toward the harbor is Hancock ! street. aristocratic in former times. At the I corner of this and Fore street is the square, prim, ''hipped" roof, dilapidated structure,
 built by Merchant Samuel Stephenson. In | this Longfellow was born. His boyhood and youth were passed in the stately brick house still standing on Congress street, l where resides his sister, Mrs. Annie Longfel- low Pierce. Now, as then, its square front
 comes up to within easy gossiping distance of the street; as then it's great ohimneys I plunge through low s'hipped" roof; its lines of square little windows are still true and prim and grim; it's low, eolonnaded DOT 7 ! tico suggests the entrance to some puritan , church; and now as then three majestic elmf break the winds that sweep up from the sea It was brave old time when these two homes were built, more than century ago The precision of solemn form had no lesssned. The unctuousnsss of morals anC piety was grace itself. Something like ! courtly aristocraey from the colonial tinaet , ! was still with the New England people ! The quaint old things of the still older day. were tenaciously regarded. There was ther 5 still heredity in cue, ancestry in 8 rufaet 5 | shirt-frill, reverence in knee-buekles. Tht brass door-knocksrs took on flavor of her I aldry; the old Dutch clocks sounded solemn protest against the heresy of innovation I while the and-iron and the crane (woulG 3 | they were again with usD stood rugged guard , ! over the folklore and the home-shine-I l that word may be made-of the freside Longfellow was born into this stately bu 3 mellow time and atmosphere. From i ! came the American medi@val of age-mel f lowed form and tint, subduing and softenine
 the heaven-reaching Gothic of his perfeo
 and me1odious numbers. This Identification 3 ! of expression with impression is not mer' 1 matter of fancy. It becomes with Longfel ! low loving birth-mark upon the sunny ] face of his rhymes from the tSea Diver, : published in the United States Literary Ga , ! zette August 10th, 1895, when the poet wa but nineteen, of which and of other earl, poems that were being got together for per manent housing, he wrote: 'I say with tn
 Bishop of Avranches on similar occasion l T cannot be displeased to see these childrel of mine, which have neglected and a1mss exposed, brought from their wanderings il ] lanes and alleys, and safely lodged in orde , to go forth to the world together in more de
 corous garb, ID to the very last poem the sil 2 ver-hairsd, silver-voiced minstrel sang, "Ma, 8 River,n published in the Atlantic Monthly il Q May, 1SS2-a period of uninterrupted litera