bottles of wine, and after them came a note saying he had sent them
off without finding time to label them. 'They are wine of Avignon,' he
added, 'and should bear this inscription from Redi:--

"'Benedetto
Quel claretto
Che si spilla in Avignone.'"

About this period Longfellow invited an old friend, who had fallen
into extreme helplessness from ill health, to come and make him a
visit. It was a great comfort to his friend, a scholar like himself,
"to nurse the dwindling faculty of joy" in such companionship, and he
lingered many weeks in the sunshine of the old house. Longfellow's
patience and devoted care for this friend of his youth was a signal
example of what a true and constant heart may do unconsciously, in
giving expression and recognition to the bond of a sincere friendship.
Long after his friend was unable to rise from his chair without
assistance or go unaccompanied to his bedroom, Longfellow followed the
lightest unexpressed wish with his sympathetic vision and performed
the smallest offices unbidden. "Longfellow, will you turn down my coat
collar?" I have heard him say in a plaintive way, and it was a
beautiful lesson to see the quick and cheerful response which would
follow many a like suggestion.

In referring to this trait of his character, I find among the notes
made by Mr. Fields on Longfellow: "One of the most occupied of all our
literary men and scholars, he yet finds time for the small courtesies
of existence, those minor attentions that are so often neglected. One
day, seeing him employed in cutting something from a newspaper, I
asked him what he was about. 'Oh,' said he, 'here is a little