A little over three years later he was invited to succeed Ticknor as Smith professor of modern languages at Harvard, with the inti mation that he would do well to spend some months in Germany before beginning his work. He sailed with his wife in April 1835, and spent the summer in Sweden and Denmark, studying the Scandinavian literatures, which were destined to have a strong influence upon his writings. In the autumn Holland was vis ited, and there at Rotterdam, after a protracted illness, his young wife died. Much affected, Longfellow went to Heidelberg and settled down for study, yielding his bereaved spirit all the more willingly to the influence of German sentiment and the not yet outworn romanticism of the epoch. Then, after some pleasant trav eling in Switzerland, he returned home in October 1836.
Two months later found him at work in Cambridge and soon he was established in the famous Craigie House. He devoted himself to his lecturing and to superintending his assist ants — foreigners, who gave him not a little trouble. He was no recluse, and enjoyed es pecially the society of such men as the historian W. H. Prescott (q.v.)Charles Sumner (q.v.), and that *heartiest of 'Greek professors,* as he was called by Dickens, whom Longfellow also knew pleasantly, Cornelius C. Felton (q.v.). Soon he resumed his long-abandoned habit of writing verses, and after gaining. popularity in the magazines through such pieces as 'The Psalm of Life,' he issued his first volume of poems, (Voices of the Night,' late in 1839. It made an instant appeal, partly through its sound, moral didacticism, partly through its sentiment and its melody, both of which had been in considerable measure derived from Longfellow's study of German poetry. Earlier in the same year he had published a prose work equally or more indebted to German literature —'Hyperion, a Romance,' which was also very popular. This idealized record of his foreign experiences and the later prose tale of New England village life, 'Kavanagh' (1849), have long since ceased to hold the majority of read ers, but 'Hyperion' was very important in his work as a transmitter of Old World culture. Late in 1841 his second volume of verse, 'Bal lads and Other Poems,' with such moving pieces as 'The Wreck of the Hesperus' se cured him in his position as the most popular of American poets — the singer whose songs have gone straightest to the largest number of hearts. There is evidence that he deliberately sought to move the people's feelings, and never was conscious literary effort more thoroughly successful.
In 1842 he paid a third visit to Europe, forming his memorable friendship with the German poet Freiligrath andgetting the in spiration for such poems as 'The Belfry of Bruges.' While sailing back he wrote his 'Poems on Slavery,' published late in the year.
His gentle nature did not fit him to be a mili tant poet like Whittier, but his slave lyrics were effective through their sincerity and their met rical and descriptive power.
In July 1843, he married Miss Frances Eliza beth Appleton, of Boston, a beautiful, cultured and wealthy young woman whom he had met on his second visit to Europe and had portrayed as Mary Ashburton in 'Hyperion.' She bore him children, made his home a hospitable cen tre and ministered to him in an ideal way until her tragic death. The next 17 years formed a period of quiet work and maturing fame. His drama 'The Spanish Student' (1843) was a failure, but 'The Poets and Poetry of Europe' (1845) and The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems' (1846) did him credit, and the beauti ful idyll 'Evangeline' (1847) not only won all hearts, but enabled his admirers to proclaim him as an American poet who had succeeded in a fairly elaborate work of art. The not yet naturalized hexameters and the bookish origin of the descriptions have not effectively counter acted the narrative power and the pathos of the story, and 'Evangeline) seems destined to hold its own with readers yet unborn.
Longfellow had already planned a still more elaborate work on which he labored for many years, but which he was never able to make a success. This was a Mystery,' finally completed in 1872, a poem designed to picture Christendom in the apostolic, the mediaeval and the modern periods. The second portion, The Golden Legend' (1851), was the part first published and was by far the best. Its pictures of mediaeval -life have deservedly won high praise, but the general public has re mained singularly cold to. the merits of the work.
Meanwhile, the duties of his professorship, little onerous though they seem to have been, weighed more and more heavily on Longfellow, who was also troubled with weak eyes, fre quent attacks of neuraligia and the importuni ties of autograph hunters and other bores. In 1854 he resigned his chair and thenceforth de voted himself entirely to literary work and pleasant social life. His Indian epic 'Hiawatha' (1855), written in the trochaic measure of the Finnish 'Kalevala,> was immediately popular, and three years later in 'The Courtship of Miles Standish,' he reached his highest point as a narrative poet. Excellent though 'Evange line,' 'The Golden Legend' and 'Hiawatha' had been, they had, nevertheless, been too plainly the work of a sophisticated poet writing in his library; 'Miles Standish,' dealing as it did with the past of Longfellow's native New England, drew part of its inspiration from the poet's own life and character, molded as they were by tradition and environment.