se. One can
hardly wonder that the bard's muse became a little festive under
circumstances so very favorable. His earlier circle of friends known as
"the five of clubs" included Professor Felton, whom Dickens called "the
heartiest of Greek professors;" Charles Sumner; George S. Hillard,
Sumner's law partner; and Henry R. Cleveland, a retired teacher and
educational writer. Of these, Felton was a man of varied learning, as
was Sumner, an influence which made Felton jocose but sometimes dogged,
and Sumner eloquent, but occasionally tumid in style. Hillard was one of
those thoroughly accomplished men who fail of fame only for want of
concentration, and Cleveland was the first to advance ideas of school
training, now so well established that men forget their ever needing an
advocate. He died young, and Dr. Samuel G. Howe, a man of worldwide fame
as a philanthropist and trainer of the blind, was put in to fill the
vacancy. All these five men, being of literary pursuits, could scarcely
fail of occasionally praising one another, and were popularly known as
"the mutual admiration society;" indeed, there was a tradition that some
one had written above a review of Longfellow's "Evangeline" by Felton,
to be found at the Athenaeum Library, the condensed indorsement, "Insured
at the Mutual." At a later period this club gave place, as clubs will,
to other organizations, such as the short-lived Atlantic Club and the
Saturday Club; and at their entertainments Longfellow was usually
present, as were also, in the course of time, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell,
Agassiz, Whittier, and many visitors from near and far. Hawthorne was
rarely seen on such occasions, and Thoreau never. On the other hand, the
club never included the more radical reformers, as Garrison, Phillips,
Bronson Alcott, Edmund Quincy, or Theodore Parker, and so did not call
out what Emerson christened "the soul of the soldiery of dissent."

It would be a mistake to assume that on these occasions Longfellow was a
recipient only. Of course Holmes and Lowell, the most naturally
talkative of the party, would usually have the lion's share of the
conversation; but Longfellow, with all his gentle modesty, had a quiet
wit of his own and was never wholly a silent partner. His saying of
Ruskin, for instance, that he had "grand passages of rhetoric, Iliads in
nutshells;" of some one else, that "Criticism is double edged. It
criticises him who receives and him who gives;" his description of