File:Home school of American literature- (1897) (14769540133).jpg

Identifier: homeschoolofamer00bird (find matches)
Title: Home school of American literature:
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Birdsall, William Wilfred, 1854-1909, (from old catalog) comp. and ed Jones, Rufus Matthew, 1863- (from old catalog) joint comp. and ed
Subjects: American literature English literature
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa., Elliott publishing co
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
ldat large is perhaps more valuable ? Certainly these two great poets are inferior tohim in the power to sweep the chords of daily human experiences and call forth thesweetness and beauty in common-place every day human life. It is on these themesthat he tuned his harp without ever a false tone, and sang with a harmony so well nighperfect that the universal heart responded to his music. This common-place songhas found a lodgement in every household in America, swaying the hearts of menand women whose sorrows have been soothed and whose lives raised by his gentleverse. Such songs have power to quiet The restless pulse of care, And come like the benediction That follows after prayer. i; Longfellows life from the very beginning moved on even lines. Both he andWilliam CuUen Bryant were descendants of John Alden, whom Longfellow hasmade famous in The Courtship of Miles Standish. The Longfellows were afamily in comfortable circumstances, peaceful and honest, for many generations back. 58 II
Text Appearing After Image:
I HENRY WADSWOKTH LONGFELLOW. 59 The poet went to school with Nathaniel P. Willis and other boys who at an early-age were thinking more of verse making than of pleasure. He graduated at Bow-doin College in 1825 with Nathaniel Hawthorne, John S. C. Abbott, and otherswho afterwards attained to fame. Almost immediately after his graduation he wasrequested to take the chair of Modern Languages and Literature in his alma mater,which he accepted; but before entering upon his duties spent three years in Ger-many, France, Spain and Italy to further perfect himself in the languages andliterature of those nations. At Bowdoin College Longfellow remained as Professorof Modern Languages and Literature until 1835, when he accepted a similar posi-tion in Harvard University, which he continued to occupy until 1854, when he

Note About Images