CHAPTER VII

THE “BEING BEAUTEOUS”

When he had been a professor at Bowdoin College but little over a year, Longfellow married a young lady named Mary Storer Potter. She was the daughter of a well-known judge who lived in Portland, and was something of a scholar too. It is said she was especially fond of mathematics, and had been taught to calculate eclipses. In those days girls were sent to school very little, and none of them ever went to college. The old Puritan fathers thought girls were better off at home doing housework. But Longfellow’s wife was more fortunate.

She was at the same time good-looking and very pleasant to every one, and so the young professor and his young wife were invited about a great deal, and everybody thought them a very happy pair.

They were very happy together for two or three years; then Longfellow was asked to go to Harvard College to be professor of modern languages there. To prepare for this new and more prominent position he went to Europe again. Of course his wife went with him. They traveled about for some time; but she was not well, and finally she died.

Most of the poem entitled “Footsteps of Angels” is about her, and it shows just what he thought of her. It is worth remembering that this is the poet’s own real wife who died when they were both quite young. Here is a part of the poem. The last stanzas refer to her.

When the hours of day are numbered, And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that slumbered, To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted, And, like phantoms grim and tall, Shadows from the fitful firelight Dance upon the parlor wall;

Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door; The beloved, the true-hearted, Come to visit me once more;

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And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given, More than all things else to love me, And is now a saint in heaven.

With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine, Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine.

And she sits and gazes at me, With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies.

Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit’s voiceless prayer, Soft rebukes, in blessings ended, Breathing from her lips of air.

Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died!