THE POET’S SECOND MARRIAGE
You will remember that at the time his first wife died Longfellow was
in Holland. For a long time after that he kept very much secluded, and
in the “Footsteps of Angels” we have seen how deeply the thought of his
first wife was impressed on his memory. But while he was traveling in
Switzerland the year after her death, he met Mr. Nathan Appleton, a rich
man of Boston who was traveling with his family. His daughter Frances
Elizabeth was very beautiful and had many admirers. Perhaps Longfellow
fell in love with her then, but if he did, it was doubtless because she
seemed very cold toward him.
When he got back to Cambridge and was settled in the Craigie House, he
wrote a sort of novel entitled “Hyperion,” which, like “Outre-Mer”,
described his journeyings in Europe, but which also had a romantic love
story, in which most people thought that the hero, Paul Flemming, a
young American man of letters, was Longfellow himself and the heroine,
Mary Ashburton, was Miss Appleton. In the story, Mary Ashburton refused
Paul Flemming’s offer of marriage. It is not probable, however, that
Longfellow said anything about love at that time; but when the novel was
published and became popular it was whispered about that the young lady
was very indignant.
Nevertheless, the Appletons and Longfellow had had a very pleasant time
together in Europe. Once they stopped at the hotel called “The Raven.”
It was in the town of Zurich. First Mr. Appleton wrote his name in the
register with some compliment to the house. Then the landlord presented a
very long bill, which made Mr. Appleton angry and he was vexed because he
had written something complimentary to the house.
“But I have not written my name,” said Mr. Longfellow; “and, if you will
allow me, I will treat the innkeeper as he deserves.”
He took the register, and this is what he wrote in it:
Beware of the Raven of Zurich!
’Tis a bird of omen ill,
With a noisy and unclean nest,
And a very, very long bill.
Longfellow went home first, and for six or seven years lived, as we have
seen, in Cambridge; but later he often visited Pittsfield, where the
Appleton summer mansion was and where Miss Frances Elizabeth was staying,
and there she finally consented to be his wife. They were married, and
Mr. Appleton bought the Craigie House and presented it to them to keep
house in.
Longfellow had five children, two sons and three daughters. When the
Appletons lived at Lynn, one of the sons, Charles, was tipped over while
in a sailboat and of course got soaking wet. In place of his shoes Mr.
Appleton gave him a pair of old slippers. Longfellow returned them later
with this parody of his own “Psalm of Life”:
Slippers that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er the Bay of Lynn,
A forlorn or shipwrecked nephew,
Seeing, may purloin again.
His daughters, who became the comfort of his old age, are beautifully
referred to in the poem called “The Children’s Hour”:
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamp light,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
In 1861, twenty years before the poet himself died, Mrs. Longfellow was
burned to death. She was sitting at her library table amusing her two
youngest children by making seals. A bit of the burning wax fell on her
light gauze dress, which was in a moment all aflame. She cried out, and
Longfellow came running from the next room and threw a rug about her;
but she was so burned that she soon died, though several doctors came
almost immediately. Longfellow himself was also frightfully burned, but
not dangerously.
This, and the death of his other wife, were the two great sorrows of
his life. Except for these two misfortunes, it would seem as though he
were always fortunate, living, as it were, in a bed of roses—always
successful, never poor, never discontented with his lot. But after the
death of his second wife he was very gloomy for a long time.
It may be said that the sadness of the deaths of both wives made him
write some of his best poems.
Three years after the death of Mrs. Longfellow, Hawthorne died.
Longfellow wrote a beautiful poem called “Hawthorne,” which closes with
this stanza:
Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clew regain?
The unfinished window in Aladdin’s tower,
Unfinished must remain!