to you the centre of
a world of happiness. With your affection, and your "young
Astyanax," the "yellow house" becomes a golden palace.

For my part, Life seems to be to me "a battle and a march." I am
sometimes well,--sometimes ill, and always restless. My late
expedition to Germany did me a vast deal of good; and my health is
better than it has been for years. So long as I keep out of doors
and take exercise enough, I feel perfectly well. So soon as I shut
myself up and begin to study, I feel perfectly ill. Thus the
Sphinx's riddle--the secret of health--is discovered. In Germany I
led an out-of-door life; bathing and walking from morning till
night. I was at Boppard on the Rhine, in the old convent of
Marienberg, now a Bathing establishment. I travelled a little in
Germany; then passed through Belgium to England. In London I staid
with Dickens; and had a very pleasant visit. His wife is a gentle,
lovely character; and he has four children, all beautiful and good.
I saw likewise _the_ raven, who is stuffed in the entry--and his
successor, who stalks gravely in the garden.

I am very sorry, my dear Margaret, that I cannot grant your request
in regard to Mary's Journal. Just before I sailed for Europe, being
in low spirits, and reflecting on the uncertainties of such an
expedition as I was then beginning, I burned a great many letters
and private papers, and among them this. I now regret it; but alas!
too late.

Ah! my dear Margaret! though somewhat wayward and restless, I most
affectionately cherish the memory of my wife. You know how happily
we lived together; and _I_ know that never again shall I be loved
with such devotion, sincerity, and utter forgetfulness of self. Make
her your model, and you will make your husband ever happy; and be to
him as a household lamp irradiating his darkest hours.

Give my best regards to him. I should like very much to visit you;
but know not how I can bring it about. Kiss "young Astyanax" for me,
and believe me ever affectionately your brother

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Meanwhile a vast change in his life was approaching. He had met, seven
years before in Switzerland, a maiden of nineteen, Frances Elizabeth
Appleton, daughter of Nathan Appleton, a Boston merchant; and though his
early sketch of her in "Hy