Professor Ticknor was kind to him, giving him letters to Washington
Irving, Professor Eichhorn, and Robert Southey. Dr. Charles Lowell,
the father of the future poet, gave him a letter to Mrs. Grant, of
Laggan, and President Kirkland was interested in his welfare. Thus he
started away with such help and advice as the world could give him.

From that moment his career was simply a question of development. How
he could turn the wondrous joys, the strange and solitary experiences
of life into light and knowledge and wisdom which he could give to
others; this was the never-ending problem of his mind; to this end he
turned the labor of his days.

His temperament did not allow him the effervescent expression common
to the young. On the contrary, when writing to his sisters from Italy
during these student days, he says: "But with me all deep impressions
are silent ones." And thus the sorrows of life, of which he early bore
so heavy a burden, found little expression. He wore them in his heart,
whence they came again in his poems to soothe the spirit of humanity.
The delightful story of his three years of study and absence can be
traced step by step in the journals and letters edited by his brother;
but however interesting it is to follow him in every detail, it is
nevertheless true that the singleness of aim and strength of character
which distinguished Longfellow, combined with extreme delicacy and
sensitiveness of perception, were his qualities from the beginning and
remained singularly unchanged to the end.

His history is not without its tragedies, but they were cooerdinated in
his spirit to a sense of the unity of life. He was the psalmist, the
interpreter. How could he render again the knowledge of divine
goodness and divine love which were revealed to him? First came the