a friend to
stated exercise, I believe, nor fond of walking, as Lowell was; he had
not, indeed, the childish associations of the younger poet with the
Cambridge neighborhoods; and I never saw him walking for pleasure except
on the east veranda of his house, though I was told he loved walking in
his youth. In this and in some other things Longfellow was more European
than American, more Latin than Saxon. He once said quaintly that one got
a great deal of exercise in putting on and off one's overcoat and
overshoes.

I suppose no one who asked decently at his door was denied access to him,
and there must have been times when he was overrun with volunteer
visitors; but I never heard him complain of them. He was very charitable
in the immediate sort which Christ seems to have meant; but he had his
preferences; humorously owned, among beggars. He liked the German
beggars least, and the Italian beggars most, as having most savair-faire;
in fact, we all loved the Italians in Cambridge. He was pleased with the
accounts I could give him of the love and honor I had known for him in
Italy, and one day there came a letter from an Italian admirer, addressed
to "Mr. Greatest Poet Longfellow," which he said was the very most
amusing superscription he had ever seen.

It is known that the King of Italy offered Longfellow the cross of San
Lazzaro, which is the Italian literary decoration. It came through the
good offices of my old acquaintance Professor Messadaglia, then a deputy
in the Italian Parliament, whom, for some reason I cannot remember, I had
put in correspondence with Longfellow. The honor was wholly unexpected,
and it brought Longfellow a distress which was chiefly for the gentleman
who had procured him the impossible distinction. He showed me the pretty
collar and cross, not, I think, without a natural pleasure in it. No man
was ever less a bigot in things civil or religious than he, but he said,
firmly, "Of course, as a republican and a Protestant, I can't accept a
decoration from a Catholic prince." His decision was from his
conscience, and I think that all Americans who think duly about it will
approve his decision.

VI.

Such honors as he could fitly permit himself he did not refuse, and I
recall what zest he had in his election to the Arcadian Academy, which
had made him a shepherd of its Roman Fold, with the title, as he said, of
"Olimipico something." But I fancy his sweetest pleasure in his vast
renown cam