into being "The Five Little Peppers." It is such a pleasure to hear her tell how these little "Peppers,” in thought, came to stay with her and follow her everywhere — until at last she could not help setting down some of their doings. She sent the manuscript to "Wide Awake"; the children called for more; and as the "Peppers" grew up, their most original words and deeds filled eleven volumes of stories.

Mrs. Lothrop, with tact and exquisite taste, has preserved Hawthorne's home as nearly as possible as it was in his day. There is the same dining-room where "the sunshine comes in warmly and brightly thro' the better half of a winter's day "; Hawthorne's bedroom; the table upon which he and his wife revised manuscripts; the tower-study with its remarkable pictorial illustrations, and the standingdesk where he wrote; and back of the house the pineclad slope which Mrs. Hawthorne named his "Mount of Vision." The "School of Philosophy is near, with closed doors.

Here it was, at "The Wayside," that Mrs. Lothrop planned a Hawthorne "Centenary"; and on July fourth, fifth and sixth, 1904, many eminent men and women gathered in this building to honour the memory of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Here on the hillside Beatrice Hawthorne, granddaughter of "The Wizard of New England," unveiled a bronze tablet, set in a rough boulder, on which is inscribed:

"This tablet placed

At the centennial exercises
July 4, 1904
Commemorates

Nathaniel Hawthorne

He trod daily this path to the hill
To formulate

As he paced to and fro

Upon its summit

His marvellous romances."

And was there ever such another town as Concord! For apart from those of whom we have spoken, it cherishes memories of Webster and Kossuth and Agassiz and Lafayette and Harriet Hosmer; yes and of many more who came either "to drink in wisdom" at its " School of Philosophy," or to bask in the presence of its sages. Then Concord has its battle-ground and monuments and inscribed tablets; its literary homes; its library, with one alcove given to its own authors; and its Sleepy Hollow Cemetery -"voiceless yet eloquent with great names."

XXIV

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882)

IN a great square house in Portland, "City by the Sea," on February twenty-seventh, 1807, Henry W. Longfellow was born. It was a quiet, well-ordered home, with a winsome mother, devoted to art, music, and poetrythe father, a leading lawyer and member of Congress. From the former, the boy inherited a love for those things that made him as a man, the most popular poet in America; from the latter, genuine courtesy, and clear, practical habits of thought and action. And there was for him, also, another source of wealth: the perpetual fascination of the rock-girt bay, with sunrise and moonlight playing over it the sleet and storm and fog-bell - the beacon-light, and the sunny isles all these very early inspired him with

"The beauty and the mystery of ships,
And the magic of the sea."

Henry was a most youthful prodigy. He attended a dame's school at three; was half through his Latin grammar at seven; was delighted with Irving's "Sketch-Book" at twelve; and at thirteen, slipped his first poem, "The Battle of Lovell's

Pond," into the letter-box of "The Portland Gazette." Two or three times he peeked into the window to see the printers at work upon the paper; and his joy was equal to that of Whittier's, on a similar occasion, when he saw his verses in print. Long years later, he said: "I don't think any other literary success in my life has made me quite so happy."

At fourteen, Longfellow entered Hawthorne's class at Bowdoin College; and his studious and genial nature made him friends among both professors and students. He had already determined to be eminent in something, and it was during his four years here that he more and more eagerly aspired to a literary career. The prudent father looked coldly on such a project, for literature would never give his son support. So the latter finally decided on law for his "real existence," while literature should be his "ideal one."

However, good fortune waited on him, for it appears that Madame Bowdoin had left one thousand dollars in her will, to establish in the college a chair of modern languages. The faculty appreciated Longfellow's scholarly way and the ease with which he mastered a foreign tongue, and they knew his great desire. So young as he was, he was offered the professorship, if he would first go abroad and qualify for it, and he sailed away and was gone three years. He worked He worked very hard and returned a master in French, Spanish, Italian, and German; and in

1829, when but twenty-two years old, entered upon his college duties. He prepared his own text-books, kept well abreast of his pupils, and filled them with enthusiasm for their work.

In 1831, he married "a beauteous being," Miss Mary Potter. Two years later, he published Outre-Mer," a collection of sketches, describing his life abroad. They resemble Irving's, though written in a lighter, more graceful vein. And Longfellow's reputation was so assured at Bowdoin, that after six years of service, he was called to a greater honour no less than to succeed George Ticknor, in the chair of modern languages at Harvard- and again he went abroad to equip himself - this time in Germany, Scandinavia, Denmark, and Holland. A great sorrow came to him while in Rotterdam, and this was the death of his "beauteous being."

But he spent three years in very earnest preparation, and so was enabled, in 1836, to assume his professorship at Cambridge. Modern languages, with the wealth of modern literature which they unlock, was a comparatively new subject to the students, who before had been content with ancient classics; and Longfellow was rapidly popular as a lecturer, because he brought to them such rich treasures in art and song and tradition. He really created a new atmosphere of modern culture, and now he had time to write.