ctures and other duties that I have none
left for writing. Then my eyes are suffering, and the years are
precious; and if I wish to do anything in literature it must be
done now. Few men have written good poetry after fifty."

Again:--

"I get very tired of the routine of this life. The bright autumn
weather draws me away from study, and the brown branches of the
leafless trees are more beautiful than books. We lead but one life
here on earth. We must make that beautiful. And to do this, health
and elasticity of mind are needful, and whatever endangers or
impedes these must be avoided."

And again:--

"The day of rest--the 'truce of God' between contending cares--is
over, and the world begins again to swing round with clash and
clang, like the wings of a windmill. Grind, grind, grind."

Some hint of real work may be found in this:--

"The seventy lectures to which I am doomed next year hang over me
like a dark curtain. Seventy lectures! who will have the patience
to hear them? If my eyes were strong I should delight in it. But it
will eat up a whole year, and I was just beginning so cheerily on
my poem and looking forward to pleasant work on it next year."

Oh, the pity of it! Many men could have lectured to college boys on the
modern languages and literature, if not as well as Longfellow, at least
well enough; but who was there who could write his poems? That he
should drudge on through his best years, giving only the odds and ends
of his time to his real life-work, seems an infinite pity. What might he
not have done in those earlier years could he have gone fresh and
untired to his musings and his dreams?

Emerson was wiser than he, when early in life he resolved to be content
with the most modest means and to have possession of himself. He never
drudged in a profession, but gave his full strength to his literary
work. Longfellow should have done this at least ten years before he did.
But five children had come into the family during the years of his last
marriage, and poetry has not long been a paying investment in this
country, although Longfellow in the later years received large sums for
his work. He probably dropped his college work as soon as he felt that
he could afford to do so; and after that, much of his important work was
done. But it was not done with the buoyancy and freshness which the
earlier years might have f