Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Part 18

Craigie House, his residence, has already been described. In this stately old edifice dwelt the venerable poet, who was usually to be found in his ample study, rich with the acc.u.mulations of literary luxury. One might find him seated with Coleridge's inkstand before him, perhaps answering one of the vast acc.u.mulations of letters from the school children of Western cities--an enormous ma.s.s of correspondence, which was a little while a delight, and then became a burden. Before him was a carved bookcase containing a priceless literary treasure,--the various editions of his works, and, which was far more valuable, the successive ma.n.u.scripts of each, carefully preserved and bound under his direction, and often extending to three separate copies: the original ma.n.u.script, the ma.n.u.script as revised for the printer, and the corrected proofs. More than once his friends urged him to build a fireproof building for these unique memorials, as Was.h.i.+ngton did for his own papers elsewhere; but the calm and equable author used to reply, "If the house burns, let its contents go also."

The wonder of Mr. Longfellow's later years was not so much that he kept up his incessant literary activity as that he did it in the midst of the constant interruptions involved in great personal popularity and fame.

He had received beneath his roof every notable person who had visited Boston for half a century; he had met them all with the same affability, and had consented, with equal graciousness, to be instructed by Emerson and Sumner, or to be kindly patronized--as the story goes--by Oscar Wilde. From that room had gone forth innumerable kind acts and good deeds, and never a word of harshness. He retained to the last his sympathy with young people, and with all liberal and progressive measures. Indeed, almost his latest act of public duty was to sign a pet.i.tion to the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature for the relief of the disabilities still placed in that State upon the testimony of atheists.

Mr. Longfellow's general health remained tolerably good, in spite of advancing years, until within about three months of his death. After retiring to bed in apparent health one night, he found himself in the morning so dizzy as to be unable to rise, and with a pain in the top of his head. For a week he was unable to walk across the room on account of dizziness, and although it gradually diminished, yet neither this nor the pain in the head ever entirely disappeared, and there was great loss of strength and appet.i.te. He accepted the situation at once, retreated to the security of his own room, refused all visitors outside of the family, and had a printed form provided for the acknowledgment of letters, leaving his daughters to answer them. During the last three months of his life he probably did not write three dozen letters, and though he saw some visitors, he refused many more. He might sometimes be seen walking on his piazza, or even in the street before the house, but he accepted no invitations, and confined himself mainly within doors.

His seventy-fifth birthday, February 27, was pa.s.sed very quietly at home, in spite of the many celebrations held elsewhere. On Sunday, March 19, he had a sudden attack of illness, not visibly connected with his previous symptoms. It was evident that the end was near, and he finally died of peritonitis on Friday afternoon, March 24, 1882.

It will perhaps be found, as time goes on, that the greatest service rendered by Longfellow--beyond all personal awakening or stimulus exerted on his readers--was that of being the first conspicuous representative, in an eminently practical and hard-working community, of the literary life. One of a circle of superior men, he was the only one who stood for that life purely and supremely, and thus vindicated its national importance. Among his predecessors, Irving had lived chiefly in Europe, and Bryant in a newspaper office. Among his immediate friends, Holmes stood for exact science, Lowell and Whittier for reform, Sumner for statesmans.h.i.+p, Emerson for spiritual and mystic values; even the shy Hawthorne for public functions at home and abroad. Here was a man whose single word, sent forth from his quiet study, reached more hearts in distant nations than any of these, and was speedily reproduced in the far-off languages of the world. Considered merely as an antidote to materialism, such a life was of incalculable value. Looking at him, the reign of the purely materialistic, however much aided by organizing genius, was plainly self-limited; the modest career of Longfellow outshone it in the world's arena. Should that reign henceforth grow never so potent, the best offset to its most arrogant claims will be found, for years to come, in the memory of his name.

{106 _The Home Circle_, London, October, 1850, iii. 249.}

{107 _My Reminiscences_, by Lord Ronald Gower, American edition, ii.

227, 228.}

{108 _Ib._, American edition, ii. 228.}

APPENDIX

I

GENEALOGY

[From _Life_, etc., by Samuel Longfellow, iii. 421.]

The name of Longfellow is found in the records of Yorks.h.i.+re, England, as far back as 1486, and appears under the various spellings of Langfellay, Langfellowe, Langfellow, and Longfellow. The first of the name is James Langfellay, of Otley. In 1510 Sir Peter Langfellowe is vicar of Calverley. In the neighboring towns of Ilkley, Guiseley, and Horsforth lived many Longfellows, mostly yeomen: some of them well-to-do, others a charge on the parish; some getting into the courts and fined for such offences as "cutting green wode," or "greenhow," or "carrying away the Lord's wood,"--wood from the yew-trees of the lord of the manor, to which they thought they had a right for their bows. One of the name was overseer of highways, and one was churchwarden in Ilkley.

It is well established, by tradition and by doc.u.ments, that the poet's ancestors were in Horsforth. In 1625 we find Edward Longfellow (perhaps from Ilkley) purchasing "Upper House," in Horsforth; and in 1647 he makes over his house and lands to his son William. This William was a well-to-do clothier who lived in Upper House, and, besides, possessed three other houses or cottages (being taxed for "4 hearths"), with gardens, closes, crofts, etc. He had two sons, Nathan and William, and four or five daughters. William was baptized at Guiseley (the parish church of Horsforth), October 20, 1650.

The first of the name in America was this William, son of William of Horsforth. He came over, a young man, to Newbury, Ma.s.sachusetts, about 1676. Soon after, he married Anne Sewall, daughter of Henry Sewall, of Newbury, and sister of Samuel Sewall, afterward the first chief justice of Ma.s.sachusetts. He received from his father-in-law a farm in the parish of Byfield, on the Parker River.{109} He is spoken of as "well educated, but a little wild," or, as another puts it, "not so much of a Puritan as some." In 1690, as ensign of the Newbury company in the Ess.e.x regiment, he joined the ill-fated expedition of Sir William Phipps against Quebec, which on its return encountered a severe storm in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. One of the s.h.i.+ps was wrecked on the island of Anticosti, and William Longfellow, with nine of his comrades, was drowned. He left five children. The fourth of these, Stephen (1), left to s.h.i.+ft for himself, became a blacksmith. He married Abigail, daughter of Rev. Edward Tompson, of Newbury, afterward of Marshfield. Their fifth child, Stephen (2), born in 1723, being a bright boy, was sent to Harvard College, where he took his first degree in 1742, and his second in 1745. In this latter year (after having meanwhile taught a school in York) he went to Portland in Maine (then Falmouth), to be the schoolmaster of the town.{110}

He gained the respect of the community to such a degree that he was called to fill important offices; being successively parish clerk, town clerk, register of probate, and clerk of the courts. When Portland was burned by Mowatt in 1775, his house having been destroyed, he removed to Gorham, where he resided till his death, in 1790. It was said of him that he was a man of piety, integrity, and honor, and that his favorite reading was history and poetry. He had married Tabitha, daughter of Samuel Bragdon, of York. Their eldest son, Stephen (3), was born in 1750, inheriting the name and the farm; and in 1773 he married Patience Young, of York. He represented his town in the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature for eight years, and his county for several years after as senator. For fourteen years (1797-1811) he was judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and is remembered as a man of sterling qualities, great integrity, and sound common-sense. His second child, Stephen (4), born in Gorham in 1776, graduated at Harvard College in 1798, studied law in Portland, and in 1801 was admitted to the c.u.mberland Bar, at which he soon attained and kept a distinguished position. In 1814, as a member of the Federalist party, to whose principles he was strongly attached, he was sent as a representative to the Ma.s.sachusetts legislature. In 1822 he was elected representative to Congress, which office he held for one term. In 1828 he received the degree of LL. D. from Bowdoin College, of which he was a Trustee for nineteen years. In 1834 he was elected President of the Maine Historical Society. He died in 1849, highly respected for his integrity, public spirit, hospitality, and generosity.

In 1804 he had married Zilpah, daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, of Portland. Of their eight children, Henry Wadsworth was the second. He was named for his mother's brother, a gallant young lieutenant in the Navy, who on the night of September 4, 1804, gave his life before Tripoli in the war with Algiers. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born on the 27th February, 1807; graduated at Bowdoin College in 1825; in 1829 was appointed Professor of Modern Languages in the same college; was married in 1831 to Mary Storer Potter (daughter of Barrett Potter of Portland), who died in 1835; in 1836 was appointed Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard College, which office he held till 1854. He was again married in July, 1843, to Frances Elizabeth Appleton, daughter of Nathan Appleton, of Boston. She died in 1861.

Their children were Charles Appleton, Ernest Wadsworth, Frances (who died in infancy), Alice Mary, Edith, and Anne Allegra. He died on the 24th March, 1882.

{109 In 1680 Samuel Sewall wrote to his brother in England: "Brother Longfellow's father W'm. lives at Horsforth, near Leeds. Tell him bro.

has a son William, a fine likely child, and a very good piece of land, and greatly wants a little stock to manage it. And that father has paid for him upwards of an hundred pounds to get him out of debt." In 1688 William Longfellow is entered upon the town records of Newbury as having "two houses, six plough-lands, meadows," etc. The year before, he had made a visit to his old home in Horsforth.}

{110 This was the letter from the minister of the town inviting him:--

FALMOUTH, November 15, 1744.

SIR,--We need a school-master. Mr. Plaisted advises of your being at liberty. If you will undertake the service in this place, you may depend upon our being generous and your being satisfied. I wish you'd come as soon as possible, and doubt not but you'll find things much to your content.

Your humble ser't,

THOS. SMITH.

P. S. I write in the name and with the power of the selectmen of the town. If you can't serve us, pray advise us per first opportunity.

The salary for the first year was 200, in a depreciated currency.}

EDWARD LONGFELLOW, of Horsforth.

William, b. 1620; d. 1704.

Nathan, William, Mary. Lucy.

d. 1687. b. 1650; em.

to America; Isabella. Martha.

m. 10 Nov., 1676 to Anne Sewall; d. 31 Oct., 1690.

William. Stephen, Anne. Stephen (1), Elizabeth, Nathan.

d. in b. 22 Sept., 1685; m. Benj.

infancy. m. 13 Mar., 1713 to Woodman.

Abigail Tompson; d. 17 Nov., 1764.

William. Stephen (2), Samuel.

b. 7 Feb., 1723; Ann. (H. C., 1742) Abigail.

(Portland, 1745); Edward. m. 19 Oct., 1749 Elizabeth.

to Tabitha Bragdon; Sarah. d. Gorham, 1 May, 1790. Nathan.

Stephen (3), Samuel, b. 3 Aug., 1750; m. 13 Dec., 1773 Tabitha.

to Patience Young; d. Gorham, 1824. Abigail.

Tabitha, Stephen (4), Abigail, Ann.

m. Lothrop Lewis. b. 23 Mar., 1776; m. Saml.

(H. C., 1798) Stephenson. Catherine.

m. 1 Jan., 1804 to Zilpah Wadsworth; Samuel.

d. ----, Aug., 1849.