this sweet and high-minded
letter, that a copy of "Hyperion" itself lies before me which is
inscribed on the first page in pencil to "Miss Eliza A. Potter, from her
affectionate friend and brother, the Author." That he preserved through
life a warm friendliness toward all the kindred of his first wife is
quite certain.

{61 _Life_, ii. 8.}

{62 Beacon Biographies (_Longfellow_), p. 77.}

{63 Garrison's _Memoirs_, iii. 280.}

{64 Western MSS., Boston Public Library.}

{65 _Life_, ii. 20.}

{66 Scudder's _Lowell_, i. 93.}

{67 _Correspondence of R. W. Griswold_, p. 151.}

{68 MS.}

{69 _White, Red, and Black_, ii. 237.}

{70 MS.}

CHAPTER XV

ACADEMIC LIFE IN CAMBRIDGE

There exists abundant evidence, to which the present writer can add
personal testimony, in regard to Longfellow's success as an organizer of
his immediate department of Harvard University and in dealing with his
especial classes. He was assigned, for some reason, a room in University
Hall which was also employed for faculty meetings, and was therefore a
little less dreary than the ordinary class-room of those days. It seemed
most appropriate that an instructor of Longfellow's well-bred aspect and
ever-courteous manners should simply sit at the head of the table with
his scholars, as if they were guests, instead of putting between him and
them the restrictive demarcation of a teacher's desk. We read with him,
I remember, first the little book he edited, "Proverbes Dramatiques,"
and afterwards something of Racine and Moliere, in which his faculty of
finding equivalent phrases was an admirable example for us. When
afterwards, during an abortive rebellion in the college yard, the
students who had refused to listen to others yielded to the demand of
their ringleader, "Let us hear Professor Longfellow; he always treats us
like gentlemen," the youthful rebel unconsciously recognized a step
forward in academical discipline. Longfellow did not cultivate us much
personally, or ask us to his house, but he remembered us and
acknowledged our salutations. He was, I think, the first Harvard
instructor who addressed the individual student with the prefix "Mr." I
recall the clearness of his questions, the simplicity of his
explanations, the well-bred and skilful propriety with which he led us
past certain indiscreet phrases in our French authors, as for instance
in Balzac's "Peau de Chagrin." Most of all comes back to memory the
sense of triump