MISCELLANEOUSMEMORIES OF LONGFELLOWTopsham, Maine, February 10, 1885.Editors of the Orient:Dear Sirs,—I have received your note requesting me to furnish some reminiscences of Longfellow. I would say in reply that although yielding to no one in my admiration of the character and genius of Mr. Longfellow or regard for his memory, I still feel quite unable to contribute anything that would meet your expectations or serve your purpose, from the fact that my knowledge of him began and to a large extent closed in very early youth before his powers had developed. Nevertheless, as everything even remotely connected with him or his is valued and treasured, I will endeavor to comply with your request.Hon. Stephen Longfellow, the father of Henry, was a friend of my father’s and resided near us. Judge Potter, the father ofthe poet’s first wife, lived almost directly opposite to us; and in an adjoining house a sister of the late Eben Steele taught a school which I attended with two of the daughters of Judge Potter and other children. The Potter children, being the nearest neighbors, were my playmates. I can see them now with their little blue aprons and happy faces. There was something very attractive in the expression of Mary Potter’s features, the future wife of the poet. It remains as fresh in my recollection to-day as it was then. I used to hear a great deal about angels, but cherished very incoherent ideas in regard to them, and one evening when my mother was teaching me a hymn, the conclusion of which was:—“May angels guard me while I sleepTill morning light appears,”I astonished her by asking if Mary Potter was not an angel.Though she was quiet and retiring, it made one happy to be in her society; and she enjoyed fun as well as the rest of us, only in a more quiet way. One morning there was a platform laid around the pump in the schoolyard and a man employed to paint it red. Ongoing to dinner he put his paint-pot and brush under the edge of the platform where we discovered it. The Potters wore red morocco shoes and I wore black ones. Some other children who rejoiced in red shoes were very proud of them, which excited my envy. I painted my own and the shoes of several others a staring red, and we strutted among our mates with great satisfaction, which, however, was somewhat abated upon the arrival of the schoolmistress.It was the custom at that time in Portland to send children to the Academy very soon after leaving the primary school, and there I first met Henry Longfellow; but he was a large boy fitting for college, and I was a little one. I can therefore only give you the impression made (by his habits and bearing) upon the mind of a boisterous boy who had with him nothing in common. But I recollect perfectly the impression made upon myself and others by his deportment, and from these impressions draw the inferences I communicate. He was a very handsome boy, retiring without being reserved; there was no chill in his manners. There was a frankness about him that won you at once; he looked you square in theface. His eyes were full of expression, and it seemed as if you could look down into them as into a clear spring. There were many rough boys in the school, a great deal of horse-play and a good many rough-and-tumble games at recess, and the boys who were not inclined to engage in them often excited the ill-will of their ruder mates who were prone to imagine that the former felt above them. As a result the quiet boys sometimes fell victims to this feeling and were dragged out and rudely treated. But no one ever thought of taking such liberties with Longfellow, nor did such suspicions ever attach to him. Not even John Bartels or John Goddard ever meddled with him. I think John Goddard expressed the common sentiment of the school when, after some boy had remarked upon Longfellow’s retiring habits, he exclaimed: “Oh, let him alone. He don’t belong to our breed of cats.” He had no relish for rude sports, but he loved to bathe in a little creek on the border of Deering’s Oaks. And he would sometimes tramp through the woods with a gun; but this was mostly through the influence of others. He loved much better to lie under a tree and read. Small boys think it a greataffair to tag after larger ones, especially if the larger ones carry guns, and I have often picked up the dead squirrels that he and others used to shoot in the oaks. And he and John Kinsman or Edward Preble would boost me into a tree to shake off acorns for them.His early associations were very strong, and as is the fact in respect to most of us, they strengthened with age and cropped out everywhere in his verse. One familiar with the scenes and events of his youth can readily trace to their source the allusions in many of his verses. It was doubtless after gathering the mayflower on some half-holiday or tramping through the woods that, as he lay beneath some one of those old oaks on the verge of the forest, with limbs thirty feet in length within reach of the hand, and looked up through the branches and watched the clouds go by, he received those impressions which took form in the following lines:—“Pleasant it was when woods were greenAnd winds were soft and low,To lie amid some sylvan scene,Where the long drooping boughs betweenShadows dark and sunlight sheenAlternate come and go.”Though Longfellow was a thoughtful, he certainly was not a melancholy boy, and the minor key to which so much of his verse is attuned, and that tinge of sadness which his countenance wore in later years, were due to that first great sorrow which came upon him in the loss of her to whom I have referred, and which was chiselled still deeper by subsequent trials. He never buried her, and that beautiful tribute to her memory in the “Footsteps of Angels” is as true as tender.He was ever ready to extend a helping hand to others. After leaving school we took different paths and never met again till 1870, when I received a communication from him through Mr. James T. Fields, saying that he had kept run of me and wished me to call upon him at a time fixed by him. I went and was most cordially received. I asked him how he had kept run of me. He replied through his brother Alexander, his sister Mrs. Pierce, and Mr. James Greenleaf, his brother-in-law, an intimate friend and later schoolmate of mine. We reviewed the past, and almost the first question he asked in relation to it was about the scholars in that Academy, and he mentioned almost every name but the one Iknew was most dear to him. This is what led me to say that he never buried her.But what a change in that care-worn face, marked with the deep lines of thought and sorrow, from the smooth-cheeked boy of my early recollections, unconscious of care and to whom the future was rainbow tinted and full of hope. The eyes, however, had not lost their wonted expression, and the same sweet smile was on his lips, and he encouraged me in the kindest manner to continue in the course I had just then commenced, in words that it does not become me to repeat, but which will never be forgotten. And from that time to his death I found that neither success nor sorrow had narrowed the sympathies or chilled the heart of Henry Longfellow.
Topsham, Maine, February 10, 1885.Editors of the Orient:
Dear Sirs,—I have received your note requesting me to furnish some reminiscences of Longfellow. I would say in reply that although yielding to no one in my admiration of the character and genius of Mr. Longfellow or regard for his memory, I still feel quite unable to contribute anything that would meet your expectations or serve your purpose, from the fact that my knowledge of him began and to a large extent closed in very early youth before his powers had developed. Nevertheless, as everything even remotely connected with him or his is valued and treasured, I will endeavor to comply with your request.
Hon. Stephen Longfellow, the father of Henry, was a friend of my father’s and resided near us. Judge Potter, the father ofthe poet’s first wife, lived almost directly opposite to us; and in an adjoining house a sister of the late Eben Steele taught a school which I attended with two of the daughters of Judge Potter and other children. The Potter children, being the nearest neighbors, were my playmates. I can see them now with their little blue aprons and happy faces. There was something very attractive in the expression of Mary Potter’s features, the future wife of the poet. It remains as fresh in my recollection to-day as it was then. I used to hear a great deal about angels, but cherished very incoherent ideas in regard to them, and one evening when my mother was teaching me a hymn, the conclusion of which was:—
“May angels guard me while I sleepTill morning light appears,”
“May angels guard me while I sleepTill morning light appears,”
“May angels guard me while I sleepTill morning light appears,”
“May angels guard me while I sleep
Till morning light appears,”
I astonished her by asking if Mary Potter was not an angel.
Though she was quiet and retiring, it made one happy to be in her society; and she enjoyed fun as well as the rest of us, only in a more quiet way. One morning there was a platform laid around the pump in the schoolyard and a man employed to paint it red. Ongoing to dinner he put his paint-pot and brush under the edge of the platform where we discovered it. The Potters wore red morocco shoes and I wore black ones. Some other children who rejoiced in red shoes were very proud of them, which excited my envy. I painted my own and the shoes of several others a staring red, and we strutted among our mates with great satisfaction, which, however, was somewhat abated upon the arrival of the schoolmistress.
It was the custom at that time in Portland to send children to the Academy very soon after leaving the primary school, and there I first met Henry Longfellow; but he was a large boy fitting for college, and I was a little one. I can therefore only give you the impression made (by his habits and bearing) upon the mind of a boisterous boy who had with him nothing in common. But I recollect perfectly the impression made upon myself and others by his deportment, and from these impressions draw the inferences I communicate. He was a very handsome boy, retiring without being reserved; there was no chill in his manners. There was a frankness about him that won you at once; he looked you square in theface. His eyes were full of expression, and it seemed as if you could look down into them as into a clear spring. There were many rough boys in the school, a great deal of horse-play and a good many rough-and-tumble games at recess, and the boys who were not inclined to engage in them often excited the ill-will of their ruder mates who were prone to imagine that the former felt above them. As a result the quiet boys sometimes fell victims to this feeling and were dragged out and rudely treated. But no one ever thought of taking such liberties with Longfellow, nor did such suspicions ever attach to him. Not even John Bartels or John Goddard ever meddled with him. I think John Goddard expressed the common sentiment of the school when, after some boy had remarked upon Longfellow’s retiring habits, he exclaimed: “Oh, let him alone. He don’t belong to our breed of cats.” He had no relish for rude sports, but he loved to bathe in a little creek on the border of Deering’s Oaks. And he would sometimes tramp through the woods with a gun; but this was mostly through the influence of others. He loved much better to lie under a tree and read. Small boys think it a greataffair to tag after larger ones, especially if the larger ones carry guns, and I have often picked up the dead squirrels that he and others used to shoot in the oaks. And he and John Kinsman or Edward Preble would boost me into a tree to shake off acorns for them.
His early associations were very strong, and as is the fact in respect to most of us, they strengthened with age and cropped out everywhere in his verse. One familiar with the scenes and events of his youth can readily trace to their source the allusions in many of his verses. It was doubtless after gathering the mayflower on some half-holiday or tramping through the woods that, as he lay beneath some one of those old oaks on the verge of the forest, with limbs thirty feet in length within reach of the hand, and looked up through the branches and watched the clouds go by, he received those impressions which took form in the following lines:—
“Pleasant it was when woods were greenAnd winds were soft and low,To lie amid some sylvan scene,Where the long drooping boughs betweenShadows dark and sunlight sheenAlternate come and go.”
“Pleasant it was when woods were greenAnd winds were soft and low,To lie amid some sylvan scene,Where the long drooping boughs betweenShadows dark and sunlight sheenAlternate come and go.”
“Pleasant it was when woods were greenAnd winds were soft and low,To lie amid some sylvan scene,Where the long drooping boughs betweenShadows dark and sunlight sheenAlternate come and go.”
“Pleasant it was when woods were green
And winds were soft and low,
To lie amid some sylvan scene,
Where the long drooping boughs between
Shadows dark and sunlight sheen
Alternate come and go.”
Though Longfellow was a thoughtful, he certainly was not a melancholy boy, and the minor key to which so much of his verse is attuned, and that tinge of sadness which his countenance wore in later years, were due to that first great sorrow which came upon him in the loss of her to whom I have referred, and which was chiselled still deeper by subsequent trials. He never buried her, and that beautiful tribute to her memory in the “Footsteps of Angels” is as true as tender.
He was ever ready to extend a helping hand to others. After leaving school we took different paths and never met again till 1870, when I received a communication from him through Mr. James T. Fields, saying that he had kept run of me and wished me to call upon him at a time fixed by him. I went and was most cordially received. I asked him how he had kept run of me. He replied through his brother Alexander, his sister Mrs. Pierce, and Mr. James Greenleaf, his brother-in-law, an intimate friend and later schoolmate of mine. We reviewed the past, and almost the first question he asked in relation to it was about the scholars in that Academy, and he mentioned almost every name but the one Iknew was most dear to him. This is what led me to say that he never buried her.
But what a change in that care-worn face, marked with the deep lines of thought and sorrow, from the smooth-cheeked boy of my early recollections, unconscious of care and to whom the future was rainbow tinted and full of hope. The eyes, however, had not lost their wonted expression, and the same sweet smile was on his lips, and he encouraged me in the kindest manner to continue in the course I had just then commenced, in words that it does not become me to repeat, but which will never be forgotten. And from that time to his death I found that neither success nor sorrow had narrowed the sympathies or chilled the heart of Henry Longfellow.