Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1907-02-27
GLIMPSES OF
LONGFELLOW

Mullins, the charming story of whose
| love and marriage the poet was after
ward to Tell in the Courtship of Mics;
Standish.
When the baby Henry was less
than a year old the family moved
! back to the red brick house on Con-
gress street, next to the old Preple
mansion for many years now known
as the Preble House, which was their
| permanent home. This house was
built by General Peleg Wadsworth,
! the poets maternal grandfather, be-
! fore he took up his residence in the
town of Hiram upon the tract Of lana
granted him by the Government for
| his services during the Revolutionary
War, and is the one that is known 10
| all the world as the 'Longfellow
House"-the Mecca of many literary
pilgrims 1t has been made deposit
tory for many relics and mementoes
of the poet old furniture used by the
family, pictures, china, books, brass
ware, etc, and is visited every season
by hundreds of tourists from all parts
of the world. Since the building
passed into the possession of the
Maine Historical Society an annex
has been built to it containing the IL
brary and general possessions of the
society this forming Il most interest
ing and valuable addition to the Solld
attractions Of Portland. 1t is Il pleas
ure to state that row, for the first
time. the historical collection is placed
in such a situation and in such a form
as to be easy of access to the inter-
cstcd public.
In the Longfellow House Henry
passed his childhood. In Portland he
got the liking for The sea, ana for
|, ships, and for sailors, which was to
Civ" 4 salt water flavor to so many
of his ballads. Here, as he grew to
boyhood, he browscd among the
books OF his fathers library, feeling
his love for literature steadily grow
ing. He was a schooIboy OF - when
the first numbers Of Irving's Sketch
Book" appeared, and he read it with
ever Increasing wonder and delight"
as he afterwards said, "spellbOund by
its pleasant humor, its melancholy
tenderness, its atmosphere of revery."
When only IA years old he passed
the entrance examination to Bowdoin
College, where he was to have Ma
thaniel Hawthorne. Franklin Pierce,
Horatio Bridge, Jonathan Ciliey and
James w. Bradbury as classmates. In
the first part of his course be rOOn1ed
in the house on Federal street in
which the wife Of Prof. Stowe later
wrote Uncle Toms Cabin" In his
senior year he occupied 81 North
Winthrop hall. Long before his
college course was over he had made
up his mind to become a man of
letters. In his last year at Bowdoin,
being then IS years old, he wrote to his
father:-"1 most eagerly aspire after
future eminence in literature: my
whole soul burns ardently for it, and
every earthly thought centers in it."
In scholarship he ranked third in a
class of young men. Upon his gradual
ton professorship of modern
languages was founded in Bowdoin,
and the position was offered to Long
Fellow, with permission to spend
several years in Europe, fitting himself
for his duties.
lie eagerly accepted the offer; and
MS soJourn in France and Spain. in
ltaly and Germany, made him master
Oh the four great European languages.
win their marvellous literature. He
studied hard and wrote little while he
was away In 1929, being then %
Years old, he returned to his native |
ldhd ana settled down to teach his fell
~" cOuntrymen what he had learned |
abroad ''e'
III 1851 he married Miss Mary Pot
yer. In addition to his teaching worl<
III .iie college,. he found time to write
Ii'icdl articles on foreign literature |
ne seems TO have had but few poeticaI |
impulses at this period. and his
'houshts expressed themselves mora
nat uraiiE IN prose. The influence of /
irving was visible in a series Of r,r,h
ing travel sketches. finally revise,
ior Punication as book in 1922 -,
uer the title "Outre Mer: = piIe,ir,
age Beyond the Sea" This work h,s
not little of tho chor,, ar ,,'
i'''h' with deeper poetic
touch. i"iii'ii'lc
=. ne year after this first venture into
Longfellow was called ia M
oHSofShlp OF Modern Langaupes IN
III, harvard College. succeeding C:nn,.a
. "hii"r. Again he went to Eurono f7,r
study, being absent for q van,
aI'u d half, b@t his journey was sad
ny the death of his Wife who
tlsu IN Rotterdam. He returned
toward the end of 1892 ana took w his
ABODE i'll Cambridge. in tho old Crnigin
house once the headquarters of WASH
1nston. There he was to reside for tho
rest OF his life--45 years.
His work for the college was not 50
but that he had time to de.
vote 10 literature. The impulse to
write poetry returned. vet the newt
DOCK that he published was the prose
hyperion. which appeared in 1899 and
which, though it has little plot or &c.
1oh. may be truly called a romance.
me youthful and poetic hero, a pas
sionatc pilgrim in Europe, was more
or less a reflection of Longfellow him
self He still saw life through The
stained glass windows of European
literature
few months later. in the same
year, he published his first volume of