ne, and were much
delighted with the new land they visited. To read in the public square
at midnight; to pass through groves of pine and fir with rose-colored
cones; to hear the watchman call from the church tower four times toward
the four quarters of the heaven, "Ho, watchmen, ho! Twelve the clock
hath stricken. God keep our town from fire and brand, and enemy's
hand;" to have boys and girls run before to open the gates; to hear the
peasants cry, "God bless you," when you sneezed,--all these little
things gave them the delight which young travellers alone can
experience.

But alas! that delight was of short duration. Mrs. Longfellow was taken
sick in Amsterdam in October, and they were detained there for a month.
She seemed to recover, and they journeyed on to Rotterdam, where she
fell ill again and died the 29th of November. Her husband wrote of her
that "she closed her peaceful life by a still more peaceful death, and
though called away when life was brightest, went without a murmur and in
perfect willingness to the bosom of her God." Mr. Longfellow immediately
resumed his journey, going on to Dusseldorf and from there to Bonn. He
took a carriage and journeyed along the banks of the Rhine, by the
"castled crag of Drachenfels" and the other storied places of that
famous river, in complete silence, though with a pleasant companion by
his side. They visited castles and cathedrals, and wonderful ruins, and
some of the most picturesque points of that picturesque land, but in a
gloom which nothing could break or even lighten. So on to Heidelberg,
where they were to sojourn for a time, and where Mr. Longfellow was to
pursue his studies. Here he found Mr. Bryant, whom he had never met, but
who cheered and soothed him as only a fellow-countryman and a man
like-minded with himself could have done. Mr. Bryant did not remain long
in Heidelberg, however, though his wife and daughters stayed through the
winter and continued to cheer Mr. Longfellow's loneliness. He made work
his chief consoler, however, and accomplished a great deal in the line
of his chosen career.

Like Paul Fleming, into whose story he wove many of the experiences of
this part of his life, "he buried himself in books, in old dusty books.
He worked his way diligently through the ancient poetic lore of Germany
into the bright sunny land where walk the modern bards and sing." Into
the Silent Land he walked with Salis; he wept with the melancholy
Werther, or laug