is not like a handsome suburban residence. Longfellow could look across
the Cambridge marshes and see the sunsets reflected in the water of the
Charles River.

Here he lived from 1843, when he married Miss Appleton, a daughter of one
of the wealthiest merchant-bankers of Boston, until his death by
pneumonia in March, 1882. The situation seemed suited to him, and he
always remained a true poet and devoted to the muses:

Integer vitae scelerisque purus.

He did not believe in a luxurious life except so far as luxury added to
refinement, and everything in the way of fashionable show was very
distasteful to him. His brother Samuel once said, "I cannot imagine
anything more disagreeable than to ride in a public procession;" and the
two men were more alike than brothers often are. We notice in the poet's
diary that he abstains from going to a certain dinner in Boston for fear
of being called upon to make a speech. Craigie House gave Longfellow the
opportunity in which he most delighted,--of entertaining his friends and
distinguished foreign guests in a handsome manner; but conventional
dinner parties, with their fourteen plates half surrounded by wine-
glasses, were not often seen there. He much preferred a smaller number of
guests with the larger freedom of discourse which accompanies a select
gathering. Many such occasions are referred to in his diary,--as if he
did not wish to forget them.

He was the finest host and story-teller in the country. His genial
courtesy was simply another expression of that mental grace which made
his reputation as a poet, and his manner of reciting an incident,
otherwise trivial, would give it the same additional quality as in his