Authors and Friends | Page 6

years of retirement and work at Bowdoin, began to look about him and to contemplate another flight. Before his plans were laid, however, Professor Ticknor relinquished his position at Harvard, which was immediately offered to Mr. Longfellow under what were for that period the most delightful conditions possible. President Quincy wrote to him, "The salary will be fifteen hundred dollars a year. Residence in Cambridge will be required.... Should it be your wish, previously to entering upon the duties of the office, to reside in Europe, at your own expense, a year or eighteen months for the purpose of a more perfect attainment of the German, Mr. Ticknor will retain his office till your return."
During his second visit to Europe in the year 1835, this time accompanied by his wife, she became ill and died at Rotterdam, "closing her peaceful life by a still more peaceful death." Longfellow continued his journey and his studies. Into his lonely hours, which no society and no occupation could fill, came, his brother tells us, "the sense and assurance of the spiritual presence of her who had loved him and who loved him still, and whose dying lips had said, 'I will be with you and watch over you.'" At Christmas of the same year a new grief fell upon him in the death of his brother-in-law and dearest friend. He received it as an added admonition "to set about the things he had to do in greater earnestness."
"Henceforth," he wrote, "let me bear upon my shield the holy cross."
No history of Longfellow can hope to trace the springs which fed his poetic mind without recording the deep sorrows, the pain, the loneliness of his days. Born with especial love of home and all domesticities, the solitary years moved on, bringing him a larger power for soothing the grief of others because he had himself known the darkest paths of earthly experience.
He continued his lonely studies at Heidelberg during the winter, but with the spring, when the almond-trees were blossoming, the spirit of youth revived and he again took up his pilgrimage and began the sketches published some years later as the consecutive story of "Hyperion." In the opening chapter of that book he says: "The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection,--itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars arise and the night is holy. Paul Flemming had experienced this, though still young."
Seven long, weary years elapsed between the death of his young wife and the second and perfect marriage of his maturity. In spite of the sorrow and depression which had overwhelmed him, he knew that his work was the basis upon which his life must stand, and in those few years he planted himself firmly in his professorship, published "Outre Mer," and the early poems which won for him an undying reputation as a poet. During this period, too, he made the great friendships of his life, of which he allowed no thread to break during the long years to come. His characteristic steadiness of aim never failed even in this trying period. He enjoyed the singular advantage of travel in a Europe which is now chiefly a demesne of the past and of the imagination. Having known all the picturesqueness and beauty of England, he settled himself in the old Vassall (or Craigie) House, in Cambridge, with serene enjoyment and appreciation. This house was then in a retired spot, and overwrought as he frequently found himself, the repose of the place was helpful to him. In 1842 he again visited Europe, for the third time. His health suffered from solitude and the continued activities of his mind. "I sometimes think," he said, "that no one with a head and a heart can be perfectly well." Therefore in the spring he obtained leave of absence for six months, and went abroad to try the water cure at Marienberg. One of the chief events of this journey was the beginning of his friendship with Freiligrath. The two men never met again face to face, but they began a correspondence which only ended with their lives. It is in one of his letters to Freiligrath that he writes: "Be true to yourself and burn like a watch-fire afar off there in your Germany." His mind was full of poems; much of his future work was projected although little was completed. He wrote one sonnet called "Mezzo Cammin," never printed until after his death; perhaps he thought it too expressive of personal sadness.
Upon the return voyage, which was a stormy one, he accomplished a feat that many