There
is a passage among Mr. Fields's notes, however, in which he describes
an incident during Longfellow's last visit to England, which should
not be overlooked. Upon his arrival, the Queen sent a graceful
message, and invited him to Windsor Castle, where she received him
with all the honors; but he told me no foreign tribute touched him
deeper than the words of an English hod-carrier, who came up to the
carriage door at Harrow, and asked permission to take the hand of the
man who had written the "Voices of the Night."
There was no break nor any change in the friendship with his publisher
during the passing of the years; but in 1861 there is a note
containing only a few words, which shows that a change had fallen upon
Longfellow himself, a shadow which never could be lifted from his
life. He writes:--
"MY DEAR FIELDS,--I am sorry to say No instead of Yes; but so it must
be. I can neither write nor think; and I have nothing fit to send you
but my love, which you cannot put into the magazine."
For ever after the death of his wife he was a different man. His
friends suffered for him and with him, but he walked alone through the
valley of the shadow of death. "The blow fell entirely without
warning, and the burial took place upon the anniversary of her
marriage day. Some hand placed on her beautiful head, lovely and
unmarred in death, a wreath of orange blossoms."
There was a break in his journal at this time.
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