dilapidated and tumble-down foreigners who pass this way!" The
regulation of such a house in New England was far more difficult than
it is at present, and Cambridge farther away from Boston, with its
conveniences and privileges, than appeared. What anxieties if the
hourly omnibus should be crowded! and what a pleasant slow ride into
the far green land it seemed!

Nevertheless, this was his chosen home, his house beautiful, and such
he made it, not only to his own eyes, but to the eyes of all who
frequented it. The atmosphere of the man pervaded his surroundings and
threw a glamour over everything. Even those who were most intimate at
Craigie House felt the indescribable influence of tenderness,
sweetness, and calm which filled the place. Neither Longfellow nor his
wife was a brilliant talker; indeed, there were often periods of
speechlessness; but in spite of mental absences, a habit of which he
got the better in later years, one was always sure of being taken at
one's best and of coming away with a sense of having "breathed a
nobler air."

"Society and hospitality meant something real to him," his eldest
daughter writes. "I cannot remember that there were ever any formal or
obligatory occasion of entertainment. All who came were made welcome
without any special preparation, and without any thought of personal
inconvenience."

The decorations and splendors of the great world neither existed nor
were needed there. His orange-tree, "that busie plant," always stood
in his study window, and remains, still cherished, to-day. The
statuette of Goethe, to which he refers in "Hyperion," stands yet on
the high desk at which he stood to write, and books are everywhere.