Perhaps no one of the masters who have touched the spirits of humanity
to finer issues has been more affectionately followed through his ways
and haunts than Longfellow. But the lives of men and women "who rule
us from their urns" have always been more or less cloistral. Public
curiosity appeared to be stimulated rather than lessened in Longfellow's
case by the general acquaintance with his familiar figureand by his
unceasing hospitality. He was a tender father, a devoted friend, and a
faithful citizen, and yet something apart and different from all these.
From his early youth Longfellow was a scholar. Especially was his
power of acquiring language most unusual.
As his reputation widened, he was led to observe this to be a gift as
well as an acquirement. It gave him the convenient and agreeable power
of entertaining foreigners who sought his society. He said one
evening, late in life, that he could not help being struck with the
little trouble it was to him to recall any language he had ever
studied, even though he had not spoken it for years. He had found
himself talking Spanish, for instance, with considerable ease a few
days before. He said he could not recall having even read anything in
Spanish for many years, and it was certainly thirty since he had given
it any study. Also, it was the same with German. "I cannot imagine,"
he continued, "what it would be to take up a language and try to
master it at this period of my life, I cannot remember how or when I
learned any of them;--to-night I have been speaking German, without
finding the least difficulty.
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