I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars; I loiter round my cresses.

And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.



HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

By GRACE E. SELLON

Among the most distinguished and interesting buildings in the town of Portland, Maine, is the rather severe-looking house built in the latter part of the eighteenth century by General Peleg Wadsworth. From the very date of its erection, this structure became the object of not a little pride among the citizens of Portland as the first in the town to be made of brick; but this local fame grew in the course of a century to world-wide celebrity when the dwelling came to be known as the childhood home of the most loved of American poets.

In 1808 the daughter of General Wadsworth, with her husband, Stephen Longfellow, and their two little children, removed from the house in the eastern part of Portland, where their second son, Henry, had been born a little over a year before, to live in the Wadsworth home. There the young mother, surrounded by the scenes endeared to her as those in which her own youth had been spent, devoted herself to the care and training of her children, while the father continued to pursue an honorable career as a lawyer and able representative, in public affairs, of the Federalist party. As the years passed, the little family grew considerably until it came to consist of four girls and five boys. Yet the mother found time for close companionship with all of her children and active interest in the affairs of each. And the father, though much occupied with duties outside of the home, watched carefully the progress made by his boys and girls and tried to put in their way the advantages that would help them to become rightminded and useful men and women.



Indeed, so wholesome and well-ordered was the Longfellow home that it must have been a pleasant place to look in upon when all the family had assembled at evening in the living room. While the mother read perhaps from a book of verse, for she was especially fond of poetry, and the father gave himself up to some work on history, theology or law, the children would study quietly for probably an hour or more. Then, their lessons prepared, they would draw up in a little group to listen to a story, possibly from the Arabian Nights, or would gather about the piano in the parlor where Henry would sing to them the popular songs of that day. Sometimes the music would become so irresistibly gay that the children would begin to dance to its accompaniment and to awaken the echoes of the staid old dwelling-house with sounds of unrestrained delight that would have fallen with startling effect upon the ears of their Puritan ancestors.

Always a leader in these amusements was Henry Longfellow. His lively nature found especial delight in social pleasures. In fact, when he was but eight months old his mother discovered that he wished "for nothing so much as singing and dancing." Then, too, he was fond of playing ball, of swimming, coasting and skating and of all the other ordinary games and sports. However, he was an especially thoughtful boy, and even from his earliest years was a very conscientious student and took pride in making a good record at school. During the years passed at the Portland Academy, where he was placed when six years old, he worked so industriously and with such excellent results that although he found it very hard—too hard in fact—to be perfect in deportment, his earnest efforts were recognized by the master of the school who sent home from time to time a billet or short statement in which Henry's recitations and his general conduct were highly praised. The billet was a matter of no small consequence to the boy, at least in the earliest part of his school life, for in his first letter—a few lines written with much labor when he was seven years old, and sent to his father in Boston—one of the four sentences that make up the curt little note announces with due pride, "I shall have a billet on Monday."

While the boy was pursuing his regular studies at school, he found interest in reading other books than those required in his school course—various English classics contained in his father's library. Like the delight that he felt in such reading, was that which he found in rambling through the woods on the outskirts of the town and about the farms of his two grandfathers and of his uncle Stephenson. He liked the quiet of natural scenes, and was moved with deep wonder by the ever-changing beauty of the woods and fields, the ocean and the mountains. Because of this genuine love for nature and his tender regard for every living creature, he could not share his companions' pleasure in hunting expeditions. Indeed, it is said that on one occasion when he had shot a robin, he became so filled with pity and sorrow for the little dead bird that he could never again take part in such cruel sport.

It was not long before the effect of the combined influences of Henry Longfellow's reading of classic poets and of his rambles about the country surrounding his native town was made apparent in an event that doubtless seemed to him then to be the most important that had befallen in his career of thirteen years. He had been visiting his grandfather Wadsworth at Hiram, and while there had gone to a near-by town where is situated Lovell's Pond, memorable as the scene of a struggle with the Indians.

Henry had been so moved by the story that he could relieve his feelings only by telling it in verse. The four stanzas thus produced he so longed to see in print that he could not resist the desire to convey them secretly to the letter-box of the Portland Gazette, and deposit them there with mingled hope and mistrust. With what keen expectation he awaited the appearance of the newspaper perhaps only other youthful authors in like positions can fully feel. When at length the paper arrived, Henry must wait until his father had very deliberately opened it, read its columns and then without comment had laid it aside, before he could learn the fate of his verses.

But when, at length, he had the opportunity to scan the columns of the paper, he forgot all his anxiety and the hard period of waiting. There on the page before him he saw:

The Battle of Lovell's Pond

Cold, cold is the north wind and rude is the blast That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast, As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear, Sings a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier.

The war-whoop is still, and the savage's yell Has sunk into silence along the wild dell; The din of the battle, the tumult, is o'er And the war-clarion's voice is now heard no more.

The warriors that fought for their country—and bled, Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed; No stone tells the place where their ashes repose, Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.

They died in their glory, surrounded by fame, And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim; They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast, And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.

Henry.

It is little wonder that through the day he read the verses again and again and that his thoughts were filled with the excitement and joy of success. That evening while visiting at the home of Judge Mellen, the father of one of his closest friends, he was sitting interestedly listening to a conversation on the subject of poetry, when he was startled by seeing the judge take up the Gazette and hearing him say: "Did you see the piece in to-day's paper? Very stiff, remarkably stiff; moreover, it is all borrowed, every word of it." So unexpected and harsh was the censure that Henry felt almost crushed and could hardly conceal his feelings until he could reach home. Not until he had gone to bed and was shielded from all critical eyes did he give vent to his bitter disappointment.

In the following year (1821), his course at the Academy having come to an end, he took the entrance examinations for Bowdoin College. Though both he and his elder brother passed these successfully, they did not go to the College at Brunswick for another year. Henry then entered upon his course of study with such earnestness and enthusiasm that in a class, consisting of students several of whom later became notable, he ranked as one of the first. Like his classmate Hawthorne, he was especially devoted to the study of literature. So genial and courteous was his bearing toward all, and such a lively interest did he take in all the worthier activities of the life at the college, that though he chose as his intimate friends only those whose tastes agreed with his own, he was generally liked and admired.

Perhaps the success of his course at Bowdoin increased his confidence in his ability to write for publication, though indeed it had been proved that the outcome of his first venture along this line had not after all destroyed the budding hopes of the young writer. For previous to entering college he had continued to make contributions to the Gazette. Other compositions in both prose and verse were now sent at various times to the Portland periodical; and in October, 1824, appeared in a Boston magazine entitled The United States Literary Gazette the first of a series of seventeen poems composed by H. W. L.

A constant sympathizer and admirer during these early years of authorship was Henry's friend William Browne, a boy whose literary aspirations had led him to form with Henry, before the latter entered Bowdoin, a sort of association by which various literary enterprises were attempted. Indeed, it seems probable that at this time Henry looked rather to such companions than to his parents for appreciation of his developing ability. At all events, we find him writing to his father in March, 1824:

"I feel very glad that I am not to be a physician—that there are quite enough in the world without me. And now, as somehow or other this subject has been introduced, I am curious to know what you do intend to make of me—whether I am to study a profession or not; and if so, what profession. I hope your ideas upon this subject will agree with mine, for I have a particular and strong prejudice for one course of life, to which you, I fear, will not agree. It will not be worth while for me to mention what this is, until I become more acquainted with your own wishes."

Later, however, urged by the unpleasant prospect of being compelled to obey his father's desire that he become a lawyer, Henry decided that he must express his own hopes quite plainly. In a letter of December, 1824, appears the passage:

"The fact is—and I will not disguise it in the least, for I think I ought not—the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature; my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centers in it. There may be something visionary in this, but I flatter myself that I have prudence enough to keep my enthusiasm from defeating its own object by too great haste. Surely, there never was a better opportunity offered for the exertion of literary talent in our own country than is now offered. To be sure, most of our literacy men thus far have not been professedly so, until they have studied and entered the practice of theology, law, or medicine. But this is evidently lost time. I do believe that we ought to pay more attention to the opinion of philosophers, that 'nothing but Nature can qualify a man for knowledge.'

"Whether Nature has given me any capacity for knowledge or not, she has at any rate given me a very strong predilection for literary pursuits, and I am almost confident in believing that, if I can ever rise in the world, it must be by the exercise of my talent in the wide field of literature. With such a belief, I must say that I am unwilling to engage in the study of the law."

Nevertheless, Stephen Longfellow was not convinced by his son's words of the wisdom of the course proposed, and at length replied in no uncertain terms: "A literary life, to one who has the means of support, must be very pleasant. But there is not wealth enough in this country to afford encouragement and patronage to merely literary men. And as you have not had the fortune (I will not say whether good or ill) to be born rich, you must adopt a profession which will afford you subsistence as well as reputation." In the same letter, however, he granted willingly Henry's request to be allowed a year at Cambridge for the study of general literature. In response, the young student, after thanking his father for the privilege of the proposed attendance at Cambridge, writes: "Nothing delights me more than reading and writing. And nothing could induce me to relinquish the pleasures of literature, little as I have yet tasted them. Of the three professions I should prefer the law. I am far from being a fluent speaker, but practice must serve as a talisman where talent is wanting. I can be a lawyer. This will support my real existence, literature an ideal one."

Henry's career at Bowdoin was now drawing to a close, and it is likely that like most other students he regarded his graduation with some degree of regret. For in addition to the deeper pleasure that he had gained from his studies, he had found not a little enjoyment in the social life at the college. His handsome appearance made him an attractive figure at all gatherings; and his amiability and courtesy caused him to be as well liked by the young women whom he met on these occasions as by his classmates. In fact, the unusual refinement expressed by his clear, fair complexion, the sincerity reflected in his blue eyes, with their steadfast gaze, and the erect bearing of his slender figure, won confidence and admiration everywhere.

Whatever anxiety Henry Longfellow may have felt in looking forward to the period that lay beyond his graduation from Bowdoin College was wholly cleared away by a most surprising event that occurred at the time of the closing exercises. A gift of money had been made to the college for the purpose of founding a Professorship of the Modern Languages, and it was now decided to establish this position. It is said that one of the trustees of the college who had been very favorably impressed by Henry Longfellow's translation of an ode of Horace, proposed that he be appointed to the new office. As a result, it was made known to the young graduate that if he would prepare himself by a period of study in Europe, the professorship would be his to accept.

This unexpected good fortune was so gratifying to Henry's parents as well as to himself that they decided at once to send him abroad at their own expense. However, the plan could not be immediately carried out; it was necessary to wait several months for a favorable sailing season. The period of delay Henry spent partly in the composition of various articles and poems, and partly in studying law. At length, when spring was well advanced, he set sail from New York and a month later reached the French city of Havre. Then began the period of three years spent in travel through France, Spain, Italy and Germany, during which he gave himself diligently to the study of the languages and literatures of these countries and to extensive observation of manners and customs, works of art, points of historic interest and to all else that is of value to an eager, open-minded student. Thus he imbibed much of the national spirit of these lands and came into such vital appreciation of this spirit as it is expressed in literature that later he was able to become a most successful translator and to use foreign legends with excellent effect in his own compositions.

During his second year abroad, in the midst of most satisfactory progress, Henry received from his father the startling news that Bowdoin College had withdrawn the offer of the professorship. The mingled feelings thus awakened, and especially the reserve strength of the young man's character, are made plain in his reply:

"I assure you, my dear father, I am very indignant at this. They say I am too young! Were they not aware of this three years ago? If I am not capable of performing the duties of the office, they may be very sure of my not accepting it. I know not in what light they may look upon it, but for my own part, I do not in the least regard it as a favor conferred upon me. It is no sinecure; and if my services are an equivalent for my salary, there is no favor done me; if they be not, I do not desire the situation. . . . I feel no kind of anxiety for my future prospects. Thanks to your goodness, I have received a good education. I know you cannot be dissatisfied with the progress I have made in my studies. I speak honestly, not boastingly. With the French and Spanish languages I am familiarly conversant, so as to speak them correctly, and write them with as much ease and fluency as I do the English. The Portuguese I read without difficulty. And with regard to my proficiency in the Italian, I have only to say that all at the hotel where I lodge took me for an Italian until I told them I was an American."

Nevertheless, when Henry returned to Portland in the summer of 1829, he received the appointment to the desired professorship at Bowdoin College, and went to live at Brunswick. His success was assured from the start, for he had thoroughly prepared himself for his work, was enthusiastic in his desire to share with his classes the impressions received from the culture of the Old World, and was so young in years and at heart that he could readily awaken the interest and sympathy of youthful students. The earnestness and industry with which he devoted himself to his duties at this time may be judged from the following extract from a letter dated June 27, 1830:

"I rise at six in the morning, and hear a French recitation of Sophomores immediately. At seven I breakfast, and am then master of my time till eleven, when I hear a Spanish lesson of Juniors. After that I take a lunch; and at twelve I go into the library, where I remain till one. I am then at leisure for the afternoon till five, when I have a French recitation of Juniors. At six, I take coffee; then walk and visit friends till nine; study till twelve, and sleep till six, when I begin the same round again. Such is the daily routine of my life. The intervals of college duty I fill up with my own studies. Last term I was publishing text-books for the use of my pupils, in whom I take a deep interest. This term I am writing a course of lectures on French, Spanish and Italian literature. I shall commence lecturing to the two upper classes in a few days. You see, I lead a very sober, jog-trot kind of life. My circle of acquaintances is very limited. I am on very intimate terms with three families, and that is quite enough. I like intimate footings; I do not care for general society."

In the following year (1831) the routine of his life at Brunswick was interrupted by his marriage with Mary Storer Potter, one of the most beautiful and generally liked young women of Portland. Her education and tastes were such that they enabled her to share heartily her husband's interests, and this sympathetic association in the work to which he was devoted seemed to fill the measure of the young professor's happiness.

During the years spent in teaching at Bowdoin the career of Henry Longfellow as a professional writer had run parallel with that of teaching. In response to an invitation he had contributed various prose articles to the North American Review had written some poetry, and by 1835 had completed his Outre-Mer, a collection of prose sketches of his travels.

Not long before the publication of this work the author had received a most desirable offer of the Smith professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard University, with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year. In accepting the position the young man decided upon a trip abroad for the purpose of further study. Accordingly, with his wife he set sail for Hamburg in June, 1835. They stayed for a short time in London, where they met Carlyle, traveled then to Stockholm and Copenhagen, where the summer was passed in learning the Swedish and Danish languages, and in October reached Amsterdam. Here Mrs. Longfellow fell ill, and while she was recovering her husband undertook the study of Dutch. In Rotterdam Mrs. Longfellow again became ill, and died in that city on October 29. The loss fell so heavily upon Longfellow that he could not speak nor write of it. However, he disciplined himself to work and spent several months at Heidelberg, gaining a fuller knowledge of the German language and literature. In this city he met for the first time the poet Bryant. After traveling in Switzerland he returned to America late in 1836.

At the close of the same year he established himself at Cambridge, and there began a career of large usefulness and success at Harvard University. At the same time he wrote extensively both prose and verse, and by the time of his third visit to Europe, in 1842, had produced the prose romance Hyperion as well as the volumes of verse entitled Voices of the Night and Ballads and Other Poems and the drama The Spanish Student.

At this period of his life, Longfellow's journals and letters show much unrest and even at times a loss of interest in his work. His trip abroad for his health did not restore the satisfaction and contentment that he had once known. The needs of both heart and mind must be supplied in order that he might be at peace. Consequently we are not surprised by his marriage, in July, 1843, to Frances Appleton, the heroine of the romance Hyperion, and a most admirable and attractive young woman, fitted in every way to be the companion of the poet. The couple went to live in the Craigie House [Footnote: This house is celebrated not only as the poet's home but as having been at one time the headquarters of Washington.] at Cambridge, and entered upon a life of almost ideal domestic harmony.

Year after year passed, with little to mar the calm of the Longfellow home. The professor's days were filled with lectures to the college classes, with composition of original verse or translation from foreign literature and with letter writing, answers to unnumbered requests for autographs and calls from distinguished persons or from obscure but aspiring writers. Only a man of rare patience and kindness would have given such a great portion of his time as Longfellow gave during these and all the subsequent years of his life to answering the many inexcusable and often ridiculous requests for explanation of the motives and meaning of his writings, for help in obtaining public recognition, for criticism of poems that the writers submitted and for a variety of other favors.

Often there were visits to the opera or attendance at concerts, always in company with Mrs. Longfellow. Sometimes the day was darkened by the illness of one of the children. Then again, with the little ones of the household, the Harvard professor, casting aside his dignity, with all serious cares, would enter with all, his heart into some childish game. Such a good time did he have that he found it worth while to make in his journal such entries as: "Worked hard with the children, making snow-houses in the front yard, to their infinite delight;" "After dinner had all the children romping in the haymow;" "Coasted with my boys (Charles and Ernest) for two hours on the bright hill-side behind the Catholic Church;" "After tea, read to the boys the Indian story of The Red Swan." Frequently he accompanied on pleasure excursions his three daughters, the young girls described for us in the familiar lines:

"Grave Alice and laughing Allegra And Edith with golden hair."

From time to time the journal records an idea for a poem or the beginning of the work of composition, sometimes expressing the doubts and fears that attend this beginning. Thus under date of November 16, 1845, is the statement:

"Before church, wrote 'The Arrow and the Song,' which came into my mind as I stood with my back to the fire, and glanced on to the paper with arrowy speed. Literally an improvisation."

Later, on November 28, is recorded: "Set about 'Gabrielle,'[Footnote: The poem Evangeline, to which the poet at first intended to give the title Gabrielle.] my idyl in hexameters, in earnest. I do not mean to let a day go by without adding something to it, if it be but a single line. F. and Sumner are both doubtful of the measure. To me it seems the only one for such a poem." And again, on December 7, "I know not what name to give to—not my new baby, but my new poem. Shall it be 'Gabrielle,' or 'Celestine,' or 'Evangeline'?" In the journal for 1854 is noted on June 22, "I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indian, which seems to me the right one and the only. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a whole. I have hit upon a measure, too, which I think the right and only one for such a theme;" and on June 28, "Work at 'Manabozho'; or, as I think I shall call it, 'Hiawatha,'—that being another name for the same personage."

As these literary projects came to fill more and more the poet's thought, he began to feel increasingly hampered by the work of his college classes. So urgent did the desire become to rid himself of duties that grew constantly more irksome, that at length, in 1854, he resigned his professorship. The mingled relief and regret thus afforded are expressed in his journal under date of September 12: "Yesterday I got from President Walker a note, with copy of the vote of the Corporation, accepting my resignation, and expressing regrets at my retirement. I am now free! But there is a good deal of sadness in the feeling of separating one's self from one's former life."

For several years thereafter Longfellow's life flowed along peacefully. These were most profitable years, for he was always an industrious worker and would not allow moodiness or disinclination to work to deprive him of opportunities for worthy labor. His three greatest works, Evangeline, Hiawatha and The Courtship of Miles Standish, appeared at intervals of a few years. But this period of comparative ease and quiet was brought to an abrupt close by the tragic death of Mrs. Longfellow in 1861. Her dress had taken fire from a lighted match that had fallen to the floor, and as a result she died the next day.

The poet's grief and feeling of loss were inexpressible, yet he maintained an appearance of calm. After a long time he became able to resume his work, and in the years that remained to him, he produced, besides minor writings, the two series of The Tales of a Wayside Inn. But he never ceased to miss the close companionship of his wife. He found consolation in caring for his children, sharing alike their pleasures and their more serious interests. Then, too, he had several intimate friends whose affection was always a source of great joy to him. With the exception of a fourth trip to Europe, he passed the rest of his life quietly, giving to the world the fruits of his matured poetic powers, continually extending kindly encouragement to struggling writers, and dispensing charity without parade of his kindness. So fully were all the promises of his youth realized in his character and his intellectual life during this final period, that when death came in 1882, after a brief period of illness, the people of his own land and those of many other nations as well felt that a great and good man had passed from earth.

One who reads the journal and the letters in which the home life of Longfellow is plainly pictured is impressed perhaps even more than by his poems with the fitness of his title, The Children's Poet. One cannot fail to find, in such words as those in the following extract from a letter, the gentleness of his regard for children: "My little girls are flitting about my study, as blithe as two birds. They are preparing to celebrate the birthday of one of their dolls; and on the table I find this programme, in E.'s handwriting, which I purloin and send to you, thinking it may amuse you. What a beautiful world this child's world is! So instinct with life, so illuminated with imagination! I take infinite delight in seeing it go on around me, and feel all the tenderness of the words that fell from the blessed lips: 'Suffer the little children to come unto me.' After that benediction how can any one dare to deal harshly with a child!" To this loving interest children everywhere have responded. On the poet's seventy- second birthday, about seven hundred children of Cambridge gave him an armchair made of the chestnut-tree celebrated in The Village Blacksmith. A poem was written in answer to the gift, and a copy of this was given to every child who came to visit the poet and sit in his chair. And children did come to visit him in great numbers. On one occasion, in the summer of 1880, the journal records: "Yesterday I had a visit from two schools: some sixty girls and boys, in all. It seems to give them so much pleasure that it gives me pleasure." The last letter that the poet is known to have written was one addressed to a little girl who had sent him a poem on his seventy-fifth birthday; and only four days before his death he received a visit from four Boston boys in whose albums he placed his autograph.

The strongest claim to the high regard in which Longfellow's poems are held is based on the very qualities that endear him to his child- readers. All his life, even in the midst of affliction and sorrow, he was governed by true, deep kindness for all living things, and by a spirit of helpfulness that is the most beautiful thing expressed in his poetry. Then, too, he was willing always to write simply, that all might be benefited by his pure, high thinking. So consistently and with such power did he put into practice the religion of good will and service to others that his life seems to have been a realization of the desire expressed in Wordsworth's lines:

"And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety."

Some of Longfellow's poems that children like most are named in the following paragraphs:

Perhaps the most interesting for the youngest readers are Paul Revere's Ride and The Wreck of the Hesperus; The Children's Hour, in which the poet tells of the daily play-time with his little girls; and The Village Blacksmith, together with the verses From My Arm-Chair, written when the children gave the chair made from the chestnut tree that had once shaded the Village Blacksmith.

Story-telling poems that children of from ten to twelve years of age can enjoy are: The Happiest Land, The Luck of Edenhall, The Elected Knight, Excelsior, The Phantom Ship, The Discoverer of the North Cape, The Bell of Atri, The Three Kings, The Emperor's Bird's Nest and The Maiden and the Weathercock. The Windmill and the translation Beware are especially lively, little poems; and The Arrow and the Song and Children are quite as cheerful though quieter. More serious is The Day Is Done, well liked for the restful melody; The Old Clock on the Stairs, with its curious refrain; and the famous Psalm of Life, the lesson of which has helped many a young boy and girl.

Among the story-poems for children older than twelve years are Longfellow's greatest works, Evangeline, Hiawatha and The Courtship of Miles Standish; and the minor poems, Elizabeth, The Beleaguered City and The Building of the Ship. Nature poems that appeal to readers of this age are the Hymn to the Night, The Rainy Day, The Evening Star, A Day of Sunshine, The Brook and the Wave, Rain in Summer, and Wanderer's Night Songs.

Children who are fond of imagining will enjoy The Belfry of Bruges and Travels by the Fireside, and those who like song-poems may select The Bridge or Stay, Stay at Home, My Heart.

Nearly all of the poems that have been named are found in collections of Longfellow's works under the titles of the volumes in which they were originally published. A Psalm of Life, for example, is one of the group entitled Voices of the Night; and Paul Revere's Ride is one of the Tales of a Wayside Inn.



FOOTSTEPS OF ANGELS

By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

When the hours of Day are numbered, And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that slumbered, To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted, And, like phantoms grim and tall, Shadows from the fitful firelight Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door; The beloved, the true-hearted, Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished Noble longings for the strife, By the roadside fell and perished, Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly, Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly, Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,* Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit's voiceless prayer, Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, Breathing from her lips of air.

O, though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died!

*[Footnote: This refers to Longfellow's first wife, Mary Storer Potter, whom he married in 1831. On his second visit to Europe, Mrs. Longfellow died at Rotterdam in 1835.]



TO H. W. L., ON HIS BIRTHDAY, 27TH FEBRUARY, 1867.

By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

I need not praise the sweetness of his song, Where limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds Smooth as our Charles, when, fearing lest he wrong The new moon's mirrored skiff, he slides along, Full without noise, and whispers in his reeds.

With loving breath of all the winds his name Is blown about the world, but to his friends A sweeter secret hides behind his fame, And Love steals shyly through the loud acclaim, To murmur a God bless you! and there ends.

* * * * *

Surely if skill in song the shears may stay And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss, If our poor life be lengthened by a lay, He shall not go, although his presence may, And the next age in praise shall double this.

Long days be his, and each as lusty-sweet As gracious natures find his song to be; May Age steal on with softly-cadenced feet Falling in music, as for him were meet Whose choicest verse is harsher-toned than he!

While this little tribute may not be as simple to read as some of the things in this book, yet it is beautiful to those who can read it.



One of the fine things about good poetry is that it will not only bear study and examination, but will yield new beauty and new pleasure as it is better understood. For instance, take the first stanza above. Lowell says Longfellow's poetry is sweet and easily understood and that one line follows another smoothly. To make us see how smoothly, he makes a beautiful comparison, draws for us an exquisite picture. As smooth, he says, as is our own river Charles when at night, fearing to disturb by so much as a single ripple the reflection of the crescent moon, a mirrored skiff, it glides along noiselessly but whispering gently to the reeds that line its shores.

Again, Lowell says that the very winds love Longfellow, and waft his name about the world, giving him fame and honor; but his friends know him to be a man with a loving heart, and so they steal up to him and murmur through the noisy shoutings of the crowd a simple God bless you! which they know Longfellow will appreciate on his birthday more than all his fame.

To understand the first line in the third stanza, we must know of the three Fates who in the old Greek myth controlled the life of every man. One spun the thread of life, a second determined its course, and the third stood by with shears ready to cut the thread where death was due. Lowell says if being a skillful poet will make a man immortal, if our life can be lengthened by a song, then Longfellow shall not leave us even though his body goes, and in another generation his fame shall be doubly great.



THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH

By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Under a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp and black and long; His face is like the tan; His brow is wet with honest sweat,— He earns whate'er he can; And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night. You can hear his bellows blow; You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, With measured beat and slow, Like sexton ringing the village bell When the evening sun is low.

And children, coming home from school, Look in at the open door; They love to see the naming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor.



He goes on Sunday to the church, And sits among his boys; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice, Singing in the village choir, And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice, Singing in Paradise! He needs must think of her once more, How in the grave she lies; And with his hard, rough hand he wipes A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling—rejoicing—sorrowing, Onward through life he goes; Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought!

What a clear little poem this is! From beginning to end there is scarcely a thing that needs to be explained. We can see the two pictures almost as though they had been painted for us in colors. If anything is obscure, it is the comparison of the sparks to the chaff from a threshing-floor. And if that isn't clear to us it is because times have changed, and we no longer see grain threshed out on a floor. His "limpid verse to limpid verse succeeds, smooth as our Charles!"

Longfellow uses skill in the song. He shows us the old blacksmith at his forge and draws us with the other children to see his work. We learn to love the strong old man, independent, proud and happy. We sympathize with him as he weeps and admire him so much that we delight at the lesson Longfellow so skillfully places at the end.



THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS

By HENRY WADSWOHTH LONGFELLOW

It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company.

Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds That ope in the month of May.

The skipper he stood beside the helm His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South.

Then up and spake an old Sailor, Had sailed the Spanish Main, "I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane.

"Last night the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he.

Colder and colder blew the wind A gale from the Northeast; The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast.



Down came the storm, and smote amain, The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length.

"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale, That ever wind did blow."

He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast.

"O father! I hear the church-bells ring. O say, what may it be?" "'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"— And he steered for the open sea.

"O father! I hear the sound of guns. O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!"

"O father! I see a gleaming light. O say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes.

Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That saved she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee.

And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf, On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.

The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck.

She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull.

Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,

With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, Ho! ho! the breakers roared!

At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast.

The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise.

Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe!



A DOG OF FLANDERS [Footnote: This story has been abridged somewhat]

By LOUISE DE LA RAMEE

Nello and Patrasche were left all alone in the world. They were friends in a friendship closer than brotherhood.

Nello was a little Ardennois; Patrasche was a big Fleming. They were both of the same age by length of years, yet one was still young and the other already old. They had dwelt together almost all their days; both were orphaned and destitute and owed their lives to the same hand.

Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little Flemish village, a league from Antwerp.

It was the hut of an old man—a poor man—of old Jehan Daas, who in his time had been a soldier and who remembered the wars that had trampled the country as oxen tread down the furrows, and who had brought from his service nothing except a wound which had made him a cripple.

When Jehan Daas had reached his full eighty his daughter had died in the Ardennes, hard by Stavelot, and had left him in legacy her two- year-old son. The old man could ill contrive to support himself, but he took up the additional burden uncomplainingly, and it soon became welcome and precious to him. Little Nello—which was but a pet diminutive for Nicholas—throve with him, and the old man and the little child lived in the poor little hut contentedly.

They were terribly poor—many a day they had nothing at all to eat. They never by any chance had enough. To have had enough to eat would have been to have reached paradise at once. But the old man was gentle and good to the boy and the boy was a beautiful, innocent, truthful, tender-hearted creature; and they were happy on a crust and a few leaves of cabbage and asked no more of earth or heaven, save, indeed, that Patrasche should be always with them, since without Patrasche where would they have been?

Jehan Daas was old and crippled and Nello was but a child—and Patrasche was their dog.

A dog of Flanders—yellow of hide, large of limb, with wolflike ears that stood erect, and legs bowed and feet widened in the muscular development wrought in his breed by the many generations of hard service. Patrasche came of a race which had toiled hard and cruelly from sire to son in Flanders many a century—slaves of slaves, dogs of the people, beasts of the shafts and harness, creatures that lived training their sinews in the gall of the cart, and died breaking their hearts on the flints of the street.

Before he was fully grown he had known the bitter gall of the cart and collar. Before he had entered his thirteenth month he had become the property of a hardware dealer, who was accustomed to wander over the land north and south, from the blue sea to the green mountains. They sold him for a small price because he was so young.

This man was a drunkard and a brute. The life of Patrasche was a life of abuse.

His purchaser was a sullen, ill-living, brutal Brabantois, who heaped his cart full with pots and pans, and flagons and buckets, and other wares of crockery and brass and tin, and left Patrasche to draw the load as best he might while he himself lounged idly by the side in fat and sluggish ease, smoking his black pipe and stopping at every wine shop or cafe on the road.

One day, after two years of this long and deadly agony, Patrasche was going on as usual along one of the straight, dusty, unlovely roads that lead to the city of Rubens.

It was full midsummer and exceedingly warm. His cart was heavy, piled high with goods in metal and earthenware. His owner sauntered on without noticing him otherwise than by the crack of the whip as it curled around his quivering loins.

The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every wayside house, but he had forbidden Patrasche to stop for a moment for a draft from the canal. Going along thus, in the full sun, on a scorching highway, having eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and, which was far worse for him, not having tasted water for nearly twelve; being blind with dust, sore with blows, and stupefied with the merciless weight which dragged upon his loins, Patrasche, for once, staggered and foamed a little at the mouth and fell.

He fell in the middle of the white, dusty road, in the full glare of the sun; he was sick unto death and motionless. His master gave him the only medicine in his pharmacy—kicks and oaths and blows with the oak cudgel—which had been often the only food and drink, the only wage and reward, ever offered to him.

But Patrasche was beyond the reach of any torture or of any curses. Patrasche lay, dead to all appearances, down in the white powder of the summer dust. His master, with a parting kick, passed on and left him.

After a time, among the holiday makers, there came a little old man who was bent, and lame, and feeble. He was in no guise for feasting. He was poor and miserably clad, and he dragged his silent way slowly through the dust among the pleasure seekers.

He looked at Patrasche, paused, wondered, turned aside, then kneeled down in the rank grass and weeds of the ditch and surveyed the dog with kindly eyes of pity.

There was with him a little, rosy, fair-haired, dark-eyed child of a few years old, who pattered in amid the bushes, that were for him breast high, and stood gazing with a pretty seriousness upon the poor, great, quiet beast.

Thus it was that these two first met—the little Nello and the big Patrasche. They carried Patrasche home; and when he recovered he was harnessed to the cart that carried the milk cans of the neighbors to Antwerp. Thus the dog earned the living of the old man and the boy who saved him.

There was only one thing which caused Patrasche any uneasiness in his life, and it was this: Antwerp, as all the world knows, is full at every turn of old piles of stones, dark, and ancient, and majestic, standing in crooked courts, jammed against gateways and taverns, rising by the water's edge, with bells ringing above them in the air, and ever and again out of their arched doors a swell of music pealing.

There they remain, the grand old sanctuaries of the past, shut in amid the squalor, the hurry, the crowds, the unloveliness, and the commerce of the modern world, and all day long the clouds drift, and the birds circle, and the winds sigh around them, and beneath the earth at their feet there sleeps—Rubens.

And the greatness of the mighty master still rests upon Antwerp. Wherever we turn in its narrow streets his glory lies therein, so that all mean things are thereby transfigured; and as we pace slowly through the winding ways, and by the edge of the stagnant waters, and through the noisome courts, his spirit abides with us, and the heroic beauty of his visions is about us, and the stones that once felt his footsteps, and bore his shadow, seem to rise and speak of him with living voices. For the city which is the tomb of Rubens still lives to us through him, and him alone.

Now, the trouble of Patrasche was this:

Into these great, sad piles of stones, that reared their melancholy majesty above the crowded roofs, the child Nello would many and many a time enter and disappear through their dark, arched portals, while Patrasche, left upon the pavement, would wearily and vainly ponder on what could be the charm which allured from him his inseparable and beloved companion.



Once or twice he did essay to see for himself, clattering up the steps with his milk cart behind him, but thereon he had been always sent back again summarily by a tall custodian in black clothes and silver chains of office, and, fearful of bringing his little master into trouble, he desisted and crouched patiently before the church until such time as the boy reappeared.

What was it? wondered Patrasche.

He thought it could not be good or natural for the lad to be so grave, and in his dumb fashion he tried all he could to keep Nello by him in the sunny fields or in the busy market places.

But to the church Nello would go. Most often of all he would go to the great cathedral; and Patrasche, left without on the stones by the iron fragments of the Quentin Matsys's gate, would stretch himself and yawn and sigh, and even howl now and then, all in vain, until the doors closed and the child perforce came forth again, and, winding his arms about the dog's neck, would kiss him on his broad, tawny-colored forehead and murmur always the same words:

"If I could only see them, Patrasche! If I could only see them!"

What were they? pondered Patrasche, looking up with large, wistful, sympathetic eyes.

One day, when the custodian was out of the way and the doors left ajar, he got in for a moment after his friend, and saw. "They" were two great covered pictures on either side of the choir.

Nello was kneeling, wrapt as in an ecstasy, before the altar picture of the "Assumption," and when he noticed Patrasche and rose and drew the dog gently out into the air, his face was wet with tears, and he looked up at the veiled places as he passed them and murmured to his companion:

"It is so terrible not to see them, Patrasche, just because one is poor and cannot pay! He never meant that the poor should not see them when he painted them, I am sure. And they keep them shrouded there—- shrouded in the dark—-the beautiful things! And they never feel the light, and no eyes look upon them unless rich people come and pay. If I could only see them I would be content to die."

But he could not see them, and Patrasche could not help him, for to gain the silver piece that the church exacts for looking on the glories of the "Elevation of the Cross" and the "Descent from the Cross" was a thing as utterly beyond the powers of either of them as it would have been to scale the heights of the cathedral spire.

The whole soul of the little Ardennois thrilled and stirred with an absorbing passion for art.

Going on his way through the old city in the early daybreak before the sun or the people had seen them, Nello, who looked only a little peasant boy, with a great dog drawing milk to sell from door to door, was in a heaven of dreams whereof Rubens was the god. Nello, cold and hungry, with stockingless feet in wooden shoes, and the winter winds blowing among his curls and lifting his poor, thin garments, was in rapture of meditation wherein all that he saw was the beautiful face of the Mary of "Assumption," with the waves of her golden hair lying upon her shoulders and the light of an eternal sun shining down upon her brow. Nello, reared in poverty, and buffeted by fortune, and untaught in letters, and unheeded by men, had the compensation or the curse which is called genius.

No one knew it—he as little as any. No one knew it.

"I should go to my grave quite content if I thought, Nello, that when thou growest a man thou couldst own this hut and the little plat of ground and labor for thyself and be called Baas by thy neighbors," said the old man Jehan many an hour from his bed.

Nello dreamed of other things in the future than of tilling the little rood of earth, and living under the wattle roof, and being called Baas by neighbors, a little poorer or a little less poor than himself. The cathedral spire, where it rose beyond the fields in the ruddy evening skies or in the dim, gray, misty morning, said other things to him than this. But these he told only to Patrasche, whispering, childlike, his fancies in the dog's ear when they went together at their work through the fogs of the daybreak or lay together at their rest amongst the rustling rushes by the water's side.

There was only one other besides Patrasche to whom Nello could talk at all of his daring fancies. This other was little Alois, who lived at the old red mill on the grassy mound, and whose father, the miller, was the best-to-do husbandman in all the village.

Little Alois was a pretty baby, with soft, round, rosy features, made lovely by those sweet, dark eyes that the Spanish rule has left in so many a Flemish face.

Little Alois often was with Nello and Patrasche. They played in the fields, they ran in the snow, they gathered the daisies and bilberries, they went up to the old gray church together, and they often sat together by the broad wood fire in the millhouse.

One day her father, Baas Cogez, a good man, but stern, came on a pretty group in the long meadow behind the mill.

It was his little daughter sitting amidst the hay, with the great, tawny head of Patrasche on her lap, and many wreaths of poppies and blue cornflowers round them both. On a clean, smooth slab of pine wood the boy Nello drew their likeness with a stick of charcoal.

The miller stood and looked at the portrait with tears in his eyes, it was so strangely like, and he loved his own child closely and well. Then he roughly chid the little girl for idling there whilst her mother needed her within, and sent her indoors crying and afraid. Then, turning, he snatched the wood from Nello's hands.



"Dost much of such folly?" he asked. But there a tremble in his voice.

Nello colored and hung his head. "I draw everything I see," he murmured.

Baas Cogez went into his millhouse sore troubled in his mind. "This lad must not be so much with Alois," he said to his wife that night. "Trouble may come of it hereafter. He is fifteen now and she is twelve, and the lad is comely." And from that day poor Nello was allowed in the millhouse no more.

Nello had a secret which only Patrasche knew. There was a little outhouse to the hut, which no one entered but himself—a dreary place but with an abundant clear light from the north. Here he had fashioned himself rudely an easel in rough lumber, and here, on the great sea of stretched paper, he had given shape to one of the innumerable fancies which possessed his brain.

No one ever had taught him anything; colors he had no means to buy; he had gone without bread many a time to procure even the poor vehicles that he had there; and it was only in black and white that he could fashion the things he saw. This great figure which he had drawn here in chalk was only an old man sitting on a fallen tree—only that. He had seen old Michel, the woodman, sitting so at evening many a time.

He never had had a soul to tell him of outline or perspective, of anatomy or of shadow, and yet he had given all the weary, worn-out age, all the sad, quiet patience, all the rugged, careworn pathos of his original, and given them so that the old, lonely figure was a poem, sitting there, meditative and alone, on the dead tree, with the darkness of descending night behind him.

It was rude, of course, in a way, and had many faults no doubt; and yet it was real, true to nature, true to art, mournful, and, in a manner, beautiful.

Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours watching its gradual creation after the labor of each day was done, and he knew that Nello had a hope—vain and wild perhaps, but strongly cherished—of sending this great drawing to compete for a prize of 200 francs a year, which it was announced in Antwerp would be open to every lad of talent, scholar or peasant, under eighteen, who attempted to win it with unaided work of chalk or pencil. Three of the foremost artists in the town of Rubens were to be the judges and elect the victor according to his merits.

All the spring and summer and autumn Nello had been at work upon this treasure, which, if triumphant, would build him his first steps toward independence and the mysteries of the arts, which he blindly, ignorantly and yet passionately adored.

The drawings were to go in on the 1st of December and the decision to be given on the 24th, so that he who should win might rejoice with all his people at the Christmas season.

In the twilight of a bitter winter day, and with a beating heart, now quick with hope, now faint with fear, Nello placed the great picture on his little green milk cart and left it, as enjoined, at the doors of a public building.

He took heart as he went by the cathedral. The lordly form of Rubens seemed to rise from the fog and darkness and to loom in its magnificence before him, whilst the lips, with their kindly smile, seemed to him to murmur, "Nay, have courage! It was not by a weak heart and by faint fears that I wrote my name for all time upon Antwerp."

The winter was sharp already. That night, after they reached the hut, snow fell, and it fell for many days after that, so that the paths and the divisions of the fields were all obliterated, and all the smaller streams were frozen over and the cold was intense upon the plains. Then, indeed, it became hard work to go round for milk, while the world was all dark, and carry it through the darkness to the silent town.

In the winter time all drew nearer to each other, all to all except to Nello and Patrasche, with whom none now would have anything to do, because the miller had frowned upon the child. Nello and Patrasche were left to fare as they might with the old, paralyzed, bedridden man in the little cabin, whose fire often was cold, and whose board often was without bread, for there was a buyer from Antwerp who had taken to drive his mule in of a day for the milk of the various dairies, and there were only three or four of the people who had refused the terms of purchase and remained faithful to the little green cart. So that the burden which Patrasche drew had become light, and the centime pieces in Nello's pouch had become, alas! light likewise.

The weather was wild and cold. The snow was six feet deep; the ice was firm enough to bear oxen and men upon it everywhere. At this season the little village always was gay and cheerful. At the poorest dwelling there were possets and cakes, sugared saints and gilded Jesus. The merry Flemish bells jingled everywhere on the horses, everywhere within doors some well-filled soup pot sang and smoked over the stove, and everywhere over the snow without laughing maidens pattered in bright kerchiefs and stout skirts going to and from mass. Only in the little hut it was dark and cold.



Nello and Patrasche were left utterly alone; for one night in the week before the Christmas day death entered there and took away from life forever old Jehan Daas. who had never known of life aught save poverty and pain. He had long been half dead, incapable of any movement except a feeble gesture, and powerless for anything beyond a gentle word. And yet his loss fell on them both with a great horror in it; they mourned him passionately. He had passed away from them in his sleep, and when in the gray dawn they learned their bereavement, unbearable solitude and desolation seemed to close around them. He had long been only a poor, feeble, paralyzed old man who could not raise a hand in their defense, but he had loved them well; his smile always had welcomed their return. They mourned for him unceasingly, refusing to be comforted, as in the white winter day they followed the deal shell that held his body to the nameless grave by the little church. They were his only mourners, these two whom he had left friendless upon the earth— the young boy and the old dog.

Nello and Patrasche went home with broken hearts. But even of that poor, melancholy, cheerless home they were denied the consolation. There was a month's rental overdue for the little place, and when Nello had paid the last sad service to the dead he had not a coin left. He went and begged grace of the owner of the hut, a cobbler who went every Sunday night to drink his pint of wine and smoke with Baas Cogez. The cobbler would grant no mercy. He claimed in default of his rent every stick and stone, every pot and pan in the hut, and bade Nello and Patrasche to be out of it by to-morrow.

All night long the boy and the dog sat by the fireless hearth in the darkness, drawn close together for warmth and sorrow. Their bodies were insensible to the cold, but their hearts seemed frozen in them.

When the morning broke over the white, chill earth it was the morning of Christmas eve. With a shudder Nello clasped close to him his only friend, while his tears fell hot and fast on the dog's forehead.

"Let us go, Patrasche; dear, dear Patrasche!" he murmured. "We will not wait to be kicked out. Let us go."

They took the old accustomed road into Antwerp. The winner of the drawing prize was to be proclaimed at noon, and to the public building where he had left his treasure Nello made his way. On the step and in the entrance hall there was a crowd of youths—some of his age, some older, all with parents or relatives or friends. His heart was sick with fear as he went amongst them, holding Patrasche close to him.

The great bells of the city clashed out the hour of noon with brazen clamor. The doors of the inner hall were opened; the eager, panting throng rushed in. It was known that the selected picture would be raised above the rest upon a wooden dais.

A mist obscured Nello's sight, his head swam, his limbs almost failed him. When his vision cleared he saw the drawing raised on high; it was not his own. A slow, sonorous voice was proclaiming aloud that victory had been adjudged to Stephan Kiesslinger, born in the burg of Antwerp, son of a wharfinger in that town.

When Nello recovered consciousness he was lying on the stones without, and Patrasche was trying with every art he knew to call him back to life. In the distance a throng of youths of Antwerp were shouting around their successful comrade and escorting him with acclamation to his home upon the quay.

He rallied himself as best he could, for he was weak from fasting, and retraced his steps to the village. Patrasche paced by his side with his head drooping and his strong limbs feeble under him from hunger and sorrow.

The snow was falling fast; a keen hurricane blew from the north; it was bitter as death on the plains. It took them long to traverse the familiar paths, and the bells were sounding four of the clock as they approached the hamlet. Suddenly Patrasche paused, arrested by a scent in the snow, scratched, whined, and drew out with his teeth a small case of brown leather. He held it up to Nello in the darkness. Where they were there stood a little Calvary, and a lamp burned dully under the cross. The boy mechanically turned the bag to the light. On it was the name of Baas Cogez and within it were notes for 6,000 francs.

The sight aroused the lad a little from his stupor. He thrust it in his shirt and stroked Patrasche and drew him onward.

Nello made straight for the millhouse and went to the house-door and struck on the panels. The miller's wife opened it, weeping, with little Alois clinging close to her skirts.

"Is it thee, thou poor lad?" she asked kindly through her tears. "Get thee gone ere the Baas sees thee. We are in sore trouble to-night. He is out seeking for a power of money that he has let fall riding homeward, and in this snow he never will find it. And God knows it will go nigh to ruin us. It is heaven's own judgment for the things we have done to thee."

Nello put the note case within her hand and signed to Patrasche within the house.

"Patrasche found the money to-night," he said quickly. "Tell Baas Cogez so. I think he will not deny the dog shelter and food in his old age. Keep him from pursuing me, and I pray of you to be good to him."

Ere woman or dog knew what he did he had stooped and kissed Patrasche, then had closed the door hurriedly on him and had disappeared in the gloom of the fast falling night.

It was six o'clock at night when, from an opposite entrance, the miller at last came, jaded and broken, into his wife's presence. "It is lost forever," he said, with an ashen cheek and a quiver in his voice. "We have looked with lanterns everywhere. It is gone—the little maiden's portion and all."

His wife put the money into his hand and told him how it had come back to her. The strong man sank, trembling, into a seat and covered his face with his hands, ashamed, almost afraid.

"I have been cruel to the lad," he murmured at length. "I deserve not to have good at his hands."

Little Alois, taking courage, crept close to her father, and nestled against him her curly, fair head.

"Nello may come here again, father?" she whispered. "He may come to- morrow, as he used to do?"

The miller pressed her in his arms. His hard, sunburned face was pale and his mouth trembled. "Surely, surely," he answered his child. "He shall bide here on Christmas day and any other day he will. In my greed I sinned, and the Lord chastened me. God helping me, I will make amends to the boy—I will make amends."

When the supper smoked on the board and the voices were loudest and gladdest, and the Christ child brought choicest gifts to Alois, Patrasche, watching always an occasion, glided out when the door was unlatched by a careless newcomer, and as swiftly as his weak and tired limbs would bear him, sped over the snow in the bitter, black night. He had only one thought—to follow Nello.

Snow had fallen freshly all evening long. It was now nearly ten o'clock. The trail of the boy's footsteps was almost obliterated. It took Patrasche long and arduous labor to discover any scent which could guide him in pursuit. When at last he found it, it was lost again quickly, and lost and recovered, and again lost, and again recovered a hundred times and more. It was all quite dark in the town. Now and then some light gleamed ruddily through the crevices and house shutters, or some group went homeward with lanterns, chanting drinking songs. The streets were all white with ice, and high walls and roofs loomed black against them. There was scarce a sound save the riot of the wind down the passages as it tossed the creaking signs.

So many passers-by had trodden through and through the snow, so many diverse paths had crossed and recrossed each other that the dog had a hard task to retain any hold of the track he followed. But he kept on his way though the cold pierced him to the bone and the jagged ice cut his feet, and the hunger in his body gnawed like a rat's tooth. But he kept on his way—a poor, gaunt, shivering, drooping thing—in the frozen darkness, that no one pitied as he went—and by long patience traced the steps he loved into the heart of the burg and up to the steps of the great cathedral.

"He is gone to the things that he loved," thought Patrasche. He could not understand, but he was full of sorrow and of pity for the art passion that to him was so incomprehensible and yet so sacred.

The portals of the cathedral were unclosed after the midnight mass. Some heedlessness in the custodians, too eager to go home and feast or sleep, or too drowsy to know whether they turned the keys aright, had left one of the doors unlocked. By that accident the footfalls Patrasche sought had passed through into the building, leaving the white marks of the snow upon the dark stone floor.

By that slender white thread, frozen as it fell, he was guided through the intense silence, through the immensity of the vaulted space—guided straight to the gates of the chancel—and stretched there upon the stones, he found Nello. He crept up noiselessly and touched the face of the boy.

"Didst thou dream that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I—a dog?" said that mute caress.

The lad raised himself with a low cry and clasped him close.

"Let us lie down and die together," he murmured. "Men have no need of us, and we are all alone."

In answer Patrasche crept closer yet and laid his head upon the young man's breast. The tears stood in his great, brown, sad eyes. Not for himself; for himself he was happy.

Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through the vastness of the aisles. The moon, that was at her height, had broken through the clouds. The snow had ceased to fall. The light reflected from the snow without was clear as the light of dawn. It fell through the arches full upon the two pictures above, from which the boy, on his entrance, had flung back the veil. "The Elevation" and "The Descent from the Cross" for one instant were visible as by day.

Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to them. The tears of a passionate ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his face.

"I have seen them at last!" he cried aloud. "Oh God, it is enough!"

When the Christmas morning broke and the priests came to the temple they saw them lying on the stones together. Above, the veils were drawn back from the great visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the thorn-crowned head of God.

As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man who wept as women weep.

"I was cruel to the lad," he murmured, "and now I would have made amends—yea, to the half of my substance—and he should have been to me as a son."

There came also as the day grew apace a painter who had fame in the world and who was liberal of hand and of spirit.

"I seek one who should have had the prize yesterday had worth won," he said to the people, "a boy of rare promise and genius. An old woodcutter on a fallen tree at eventide, that was all his theme. I would find him and take him with me and teach him art."

And a little child with curling fair hair, sobbing bitterly as she clung to her father's arm, cried aloud: "O Nello, come! We have all ready for thee. The Christ child's hands are full of gifts, and the old piper will play for us; and the mother says thou shalt stay by the hearth and burn nuts with us all the Noel week long—yes even to the feast of the kings! And Patrasche will be happy! O Nello, wake and come!"

But the young, pale face, turned upward to the great Rubens with a smile upon its mouth, answered them all, "It is too late."

For the sweet sonorous hells went ringing through the frost, and the sunlight shone upon the plains of snow, and the populace trooped gay and glad through the streets, but Nello and Patrasche no more asked charity at their hands. All they needed now Antwerp gave unbidden.

When they were found the arms of the boy were folded so closely around the dog that it was difficult to draw them away. The people of the little village, contrite and ashamed, took the little boy tenderly in their arms and bore him away to his last resting place. Patrasche was not forgotten, for all the villagers felt the strength of his devotion.

* * * * *

Of all the characters in this story, which is the most important and the most interesting? The author has showed us which she considers the most important by the title she has given to the tale—A Dog of Flanders. Let us see just what she has told us about Patrasche, that we may know whether he is worthy of being the hero of a story.

First, as to his appearance, we are given the following facts:

1. Yellow of hide.

2. Large of limb.

3. Wolflike ears.

4. Legs bowed and feet widened.

5. Large, wistful, sympathetic eyes.

6. Great, tawny head.

7. (Later) Drooping and feeble; gaunt.

The picture which the author paints for us of Patrasche's appearance is not beautiful; we do not love him just for his looks. As to his character and abilities, we are told, or are enabled to find out from his actions, the following things:

1. Strong and industrious. He used to draw the heavy cart of the hardware dealer.

2. Grateful. He loved those who had saved his life, and worked for them willingly.

3. Careful of his young master. He was troubled when Nello went into the dim churches.

4. Wise. He felt that it was good for Nello to be as much as possible in the sunny fields or among happy people.

5. Sympathetic. He looked at Nello with wistful, sympathetic eyes.

6. Understanding. He realized that the picture that Nello was drawing was something which meant much to him.

7. Loving. He grieved passionately with Nello at the old man's death.

8. Acute of sense. He discovered the pocket book in the snow.

9. Faithful. He refused to stay in the miller's warm kitchen while Nello was out in the cold.

10. Persistent and patient. He never gave up the search, difficult though it was, until he had found his master.

11. Unselfish. He was happy for himself, but he wept because his master was unhappy.

Do you think a dog could have all these qualities, or do you think the author, in her anxiety to have us like the dog, has given him characteristics which he could not really possess? Have you not, yourself, known dogs that were as intelligent, as affectionate and as faithful as Patrasche?



ALICE AND PHOEBE CARY

By ANNA McCALEB

In the writings of Alice and Phoebe Cary are to be found many references which show how fondly they remembered the little brown house in which they were born. This house was on a farm in the Miami Valley in Ohio, eight miles north of Cincinnati. Alice was born April 26th, 1820, and Phoebe, September 24th, 1824, and there was one brother between them. Robert Gary, the father, was a kindly, gentle man, fond of reading, especially romances and poetry. The education for which he had so much longed he had been unable to obtain, and this made him quiet and diffident with strangers, although in his own family he was most loving and most companionable. Even the animals on the farm loved him, and the horses and cattle would follow him about watching for the kindly word and pat, or for the lump of salt or sugar which he was so certain to have for them. This Robert Cary was a descendant of Sir Robert Cary, a famous English knight of the time of Henry V, and Phoebe was always very proud of this ancestry of hers—so proud, in fact, that she had the Gary arms engraved on a seal ring.

It would seem that the enthusiastic admiration which the daughters all their life had for their mother was nothing beyond her deserts, for she seems to have been far from an ordinary woman. Despite the fact that she had nine children, and that she did the work for the entire family, she managed to keep up her interest in public affairs, and to read history, essays, biography and politics, as often as books on such subjects came to her hand.

In the little brown house with its overhanging cherry tree, which tapped the roof and scratched the attic window-panes, and with its sweetbrier under the window, the children lived a simple and happy life. Naturally in a family of this size they divided themselves into groups, and Alice and Phoebe, who in their later life were so inseparable, do not seem to have singled each other out as companions in their childhood. Alice's special comrade was her next older sister, Rhoda, Thom she persisted to her dying day in thinking of as the real genius of the family, while the constant playmate of the active Phoebe was her next younger brother. The children spent much time out-of- doors, gathering nuts and flowers in their season, and gaining that love of nature which stayed with them all their lives. As they grew older, they were sent to the district school, and were taught household tasks, Alice taking readily enough to housekeeping, while Phoebe became, even as a child, remarkably proficient with the needle.

The struggle to keep out of debt was a constant one with the Cary family, and Alice said long years afterward, "For the first fourteen years of my life it seemed as if there was actually nothing in existence but work." However, By 1832 family affairs had improved somewhat, and a new and larger house was built upon the farm. It seemed as if all the ill luck of the family dated from the building of the new house, in which they were never as happy as they had been in the little brown house.

When she was a woman, Alice told with perfect faith the "family ghost story," which concerned this new house. She said that just before the removal of the family to the new house, they were all driven to the shelter of the old house by a sudden and violent summer storm. As Alice herself stood at the window looking out, she exclaimed to her mother, "Why is Rhoda at the new house with baby Lucy, and why does she have the door open?"

They all looked, and all saw Rhoda standing in the doorway of the new house, with the baby in her arms.

"She was probably out with the child and took shelter in the nearest place when the storm came up," said the mother, and then she called loudly, "Rhoda!"

The figure in the doorway did not move, and in a few moments Rhoda came down from upstairs, where she had left little Lucy asleep, declaring that she had not been near the new house.

The family believed most sincerely that this was a warning of trouble to come, and certain it is that in 1833, within one month of each other, Rhoda and little Lucy died. Lucy had been Alice's special charge, as Rhoda had been her special companion, and the girl's heart was almost broken by this double loss. How deep and lasting her grief was may be seen from a remark that she made to one of her friends, speaking of Lucy's death.

"I was not fourteen when she died—I am almost fifty now. It may seem strange when I tell you that I do not believe that there has been an hour of any day since her death in which I have not thought of her and mourned for her."

In 1835 Mrs. Cary died, and two years later the father married again. The stepmother, a hard-headed, practical woman, could see nothing but laziness in the desire of Alice and Phoebe to read and write. During the day she insisted that they must keep busy about the house; in the evening she refused to allow them to burn candles, and thus the girls often worked with no light except what was afforded by a saucer of lard with a twist of rag stuck into it for a wick. For books they had but the Bible, a Hymn Book, a History of the Jews, Lewis and Clark's Travels, Pope's Essays, Charlotte Temple, a romance, and a mutilated novel, The Black Penitents. The last pages of this novel were missing, and Alice often declared that it was a lifelong regret to her that she never learned how the story "turned out."

With these meager helps and with no incentives to work except their own desires, Alice and Phoebe constantly wrote poems and stories. At the age of fourteen, Phoebe, without telling her father or even her sister, sent a poem to a Boston publisher. She heard nothing from it, but some time later came upon it, copied in a Cincinnati paper from the Boston journal. She laughed and cried in her excitement, but still she told no one.

About this time the father and stepmother removed to another house which had been built on the farm, and left the children in possession of the old one, so that their life was decidedly happier and their chances for work were multiplied.

Alice from this time on published numerous poems, chiefly in church papers, and her writings began to attract attention throughout the country. There was a freshness and charm about her little poems which won for them the favorable opinion of some of the best judges of poetry in the country. Of her "Pictures of Memory," Poe said that it was one of the most rhythmically perfect lyrics in the English language. Whittier wrote to the sisters, and Horace Greeley visited them in 1849, and thus slowly they gained the recognition and the encouragement which led them in 1850 to a rather daring step.

This was no less than a removal to New York. Alice went first, but she soon sent for Phoebe and their younger sister Elmina. In thus setting out for the great city and settling down to earn her living, Alice Cary was no doubt influenced by a rather painful circumstance which had taken place in her life. There had come to their neighborhood, some little time before, a man, her superior in age and education, who had recognized her unusual gifts and attractiveness, and had spent much time with her. She came to love him deeply and sincerely, and it would seem that he was but little less attracted by her. However, his family managed to persuade him that his best interests demanded that he should not marry this country-bred girl, and he returned to his home, leaving Alice to watch and hope for his coming. The gradual relinquishment of her dream and the final conviction that the sort of home life for which she felt herself most fitted was not after all to be hers, led Alice Cary to feel that she must take up some definite work to support herself and to help her sisters. She herself said later, in speaking about the removal to New York, "Ignorance stood me in the stead of courage and of books"—she knew so little about the great city to which she was going that she feared it little.

The sisters made up their minds from the first that they would have a home; they had a horror of the boarding-house atmosphere. Their first home was but two, or three rooms, high up in a big building in an unfashionable part of the town. Alice papered rooms, Phoebe painted doors and framed pictures; but the impress of their individuality was on the rooms, and every one who entered them felt their coziness and "hominess." Papers and magazines paid but little for contributions in those days, and it was only by living in the most economical and humble way that they managed to avoid their great horror—debt. But their life was by no means barren, for they became acquainted with many pleasant people, who were always glad and proud to be invited to the little tea parties in the three rooms under the roof.

The publication in 1852 of Alice's Clovernook Papers brought to her increasing recognition and new friends. These simple, original little sketches of rural scenery and rural life were just the things which Alice Cary knew best how to write, and they became very popular all over the country. Before 1856 the sisters had removed to the pretty house in Twentieth Street which was their home for the rest of their lives. Alice bought the house and the furnishings; indeed it was she who did most of the planning for the household, and who paid most of the bills. She worked early and late, driven always by the obligations to be met. A biographer says of her: "I have never known any other woman so systematically and persistently industrious as Alice Cary." Phoebe worked indeed, but spasmodically—she waited on her moods.

The home life of the sisters was most pleasant and simple. They had no "society manners;" the witty Phoebe was as willing to flash out her brightest puns for Alice's enjoyment as she was for a drawing-room full of appreciative listeners; while Alice's gentleness and sweetness were shown constantly to her sister and were not reserved for company only. Their great occasions were their Sunday evening receptions, and the people who gathered then under their roof were far from an ordinary company. Horace Greeley, Bayard Taylor, Richard and Elizabeth Stoddard, Justin McCarthy, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Ole Bull, P. T. Barnum, Elizabeth Cady Stanton—these were but a part of the brilliant company which delighted to gather on Sunday evening and enjoy the sweetness and womanliness of Alice, and the wit of Phoebe.

Interrupted by the death of the beloved younger sister Elmina, this life in the Twentieth Street house went on for over twelve years, until in 1868 Alice Cary became a confirmed invalid. After she was confined to her room, however, she wanted life and brightness about her, and had the door of her room always left open, that she might hear the cheerful sounds of the household.



During their life in New York, Phoebe had had numerous offers of marriage, but it had never cost her anything to say, "I don't want to marry anybody." Soon after the beginning of Alice's invalid days, however, Phoebe received an offer of marriage from a man whom she felt that she could love, and with whom she was sure she could be happy. She had always felt that in the home she was second to Alice, and she confessed once to a friend, "Sometimes I feel a yearning to have a life of my very own; my own house and work and friends; and to feel myself the center of all."