In appearance. Longfellow was of medium stature, and had rather pronounced, heavy fea tures, cast in a mold of benignity. Kindliness was one of the chief traits of his character. As a teacher and writer he was always con scientious and industrious. He numbered among his personal friends the most famous writers and statesmen of New England. as Emerson, Hawthorne, 'Lowell, Holmes, Whittier, and Sum ner.
Poems of Longfellow's such as the "Psalm of Life" and "Excelsior" have gone to the heart of the American public, and ballads such as "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Skeleton in Armor,'' and "The Norman Tiaron" are on the tongue of many a schoolboy. The secret of his success is that he was essentially a popular izer of ideas. This office manifests itself in two ways: He has given, in the first place, expres sion to the general and commonplace emotions of American civilization of the better sort, with its simplicity, its plain aspiration, and its lack of subtlety. Such are his poems on slavery, which express the feeling which any humane man might have at the mention of the word. but lack the fire and deep emotion which a more accurate knowledge stirred in such a poet as Whittier. The "Psalm of Life," "The Build ing of the Ship." and "The Village Blacksmith" are the phrasing of thoughts dear to the heart of the average man. Akin to these arc the large number of poems. of which "Hiawatha," "Evan I.:while," "The Courtship of Miles Standish," and "Paul Revere's Ride" may be taken as examples. dealing with American life in a quasi-historioal and narrative way. Doubtless quite unlike the reality which they are supposed to represent, these poems may he regarded as valuable and popular for the same general reason that made Cooper's novels famous—that they pictured an interesting and previously unknown world.
In the second place, Longfellow did much to open the eyes of Americans to the beauty of European life. lIc may be said to have done as much as any other American to spread the culture of modern languages in his own land. Timis he did in verse mum+ more widely than by his actual teaching as Smith professor of modern languages. About half of his verse deals directly with scenes, legends, and stories of European civilization. Longfellow sincerely loved beauty
and romance wherever it was to be found, and the pleasant sentiment of such poems as "The Belfry of Bruges" or the narratives of the Tales of a Wayside Inn did much to awaken sponding glow in the hearts of his countrymen. His service to American scholarship in his trans lation and annotation of Dante's Dirine Comedy was great.
Longfellow is justly popular as the poet who has done more than almost any other American to phrase in an artistic and agreeable way the healthy feelings of life. He is surpassed by other Americans in various ways, as by Emerson in profundity and subtlety, by Lowell in vigor and wealth of ideas, by Holmes in wit, by Bryant in stateliness, by Poe in sense of form and beauty: but in general artistic sense, in taste, in kindliness, in morality, he is outstripped by none. He has been called superficial, his poetry academic, his prose rhetorical, but he is cer tainly one of the most widely diffused forces in the emotional life of Americans. Nor should it be forgotten that in his narrative poems he pos sesses a freshness and vigor that deserve high praise, and that he is often really inspired when dealing with the sea.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. The work of Longfellow is Bibliography. The work of Longfellow is definitively published in the Riverside Edition in 11 vols. (Boston, 1880-90). The chief sources for his biography are the Life of Henry Wads worth Longfellow (Boston• 1880), by his brother, the Rev. Samuel Longfellow. and the same edi tor's Final Memorials of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Boston, 1887). These two books were later gathered in three volumes of memoirs. Con sult. also: Robertson. in the "Great Writers Series" (London, ISS7 , and the critical articles in the literary histories, such as Stedman. The Ports of America (New York. 1885) : Richardson, meriean Literature (New York, 1887-SS) ; and Wendell. .1 Literary History of America (New York, 1900) : Carpenter. Henry Wadsworth Long fellow, in the "Beacon Biographies?' (Boston, 1901) ; ITigginson, Old Cambridge (New York, IS89), and a life of Longfellow in "American Men of Letters" (Boston, 1902) ; Howells, Liter ary Friends and Acquaintance (New York, 1900).