LONGFELLOW.

247

on the top of one of which is the little stone, planted round with Arbor Vitæ, that marks his grave.

"November we have been spending in Boston, and spending delightfully-for it is a beautiful city; and it seems to me I have made more new acquaintances in the last two months than in the whole of my life before, and many, nay, most of them people of such intelligence, culture and geniality that I found it tantalizing to have but brief intercourse with them, and hope much to return to Boston before I leave America, that some of these acquaintanceships may ripen into friendship.

"I sent your introduction to Mr. Eliot Norton, who at once called on me; and a very interesting conversation we had.

"With Mr. Horace Scudder (to whom also you gave me an introduction) I had a delightful time. He and his pretty, graceful wife were as cordial as possible; and invited a large and interesting circle of friends to meet me-Col. Higginson, Mr. Van Brunt, the architect of Memorial Hall, Mr. Gilman, who is editing, I am told, a very fine edition of Chaucer, and a number of the Harvard professors.

"At Mr. Holland's I met Longfellow, President Eliot, and others. I afterwards called on Mr. Longfellow; he is the most kindly, good-natured, unaffected man possible, quite unspoiled by his great popularity; and lives in the jolliest old house with a happy family circle around."

In a letter written from 112, Madison Avenue, a picture of Concord in winter is suggested:-"My dear Mrs. Holland: I feel inclined to write a letter all

questions, for I would dearly like a written picture of pleasant Concord, of the comings and goings, the talkings and readings of that friendly delightful circle in the midst of which I felt more at home after a three weeks residence than I should after three years here. And how does the River look? is it a great plain of ice stretching all over the meadows, with here and there trees and bushes sticking up through it? And do you get over to Mrs. Le Brun's for cosy evening chats? and is the book nearly through the press [The Reign of the Stoics, by Frederick Holland]? and does your husband walk to the tops of those pleasant hills to take a look at the wintry world and get as much health out of it as out of the more luxurious boating? Well, I do not expect answers to everything, or indeed anything, till you have leisure and inclination.

"As a place to live in I like it [New York] less than anywhere else I have been in America; what with its piled up human habitations, its dirty, noisy streets, its icy winds, it seems to me behind Boston in everything but size and noise: I suppose, too, I must add in those same icy winds and that, that dear old place would be still more trying to me in that particular.

The visit to New York, and America, draws to a close in 1879.

Writing, March the third, to William Rossetti she says: "We are having a pleasant winter in New York. . . We have had some of our most delightful evenings at Mr. Gilder's. Do you know him as a young poet? He is one of the editors of Scribner's [now the Editor of The Century], and one

DEAR OLD ENGLAND.

249

of the best friends the young artists have here: he augurs a good time' for them soon, and thinks that the appreciation of art is growing rapidly in America.

"Our only drawback here, is that Walt Whitman is

so far off: we hear from him pretty often.

My little grandson-I need not tell you, his advent has made me long more than ever to be back in dear old England again.

"We set sail for England June the seventh, 1879."

CHAPTER XX.

THE RETURN.

1879-1882. AGE 51-54.

"Durham, August 1.

"DE

EAR MR. ROSSETTI: I do not know whether you have heard from any of our common friends that we reached old England again a few weeks

"Our little red tiled village, Lower Shincliffe, lies among wooded hills, fine corn fields and tall colliery chimneys, within sight of Durham Cathedral-noblest sample of Normanesque we have in England. Eight and twenty years ago, just after our marriage, my husband and I spent a week in this most picturesque of English cities. And now here I am again after all my wanderings, spending my evenings with my son and his wife and their beautiful little boy just ten months old.

"You will be glad to hear that Macmillan is at last willing to undertake a new edition of the Blake. "Mr. Whitman was still staying in New York when He came down to see us the day before, lookHe never will entirely recover from his lame

we left.

ing well.