t a cottage
door, Goldsmith-like,--though I would not have done it for the world
without an invitation. Well, before long, I determined to get an
invitation, if possible. So I addressed the girl who was walking beside
me, told her I had a flute in my sack, and asked her if she would like
to dance. Now laugh long and loud! What do you suppose her answer was?
She said she liked to dance, but she did not know what a flute was! What
havoc that made among my romantic ideas! My _quietus_ was made; I said
no more about a flute, the whole journey through; and I thought nothing
but starvation would drive me to strike up at the entrance of a village,
as Goldsmith did."{11}

Thus, wherever he goes, his natural good spirits prevail over
everything. Washington Irving, in his diary, speaks of Longfellow at
Madrid as having "arrived safely and cheerily, having met with no
robbers." Mrs. Alexander Everett, wife of the American minister at
Madrid, writes back to America, "His countenance is itself a letter of
recommendation." He went into good Spanish society and also danced in
the streets on village holidays. At the Alhambra, he saw the refinement
of beauty within the halls, and the clusters of gypsy caves in the
hillside opposite. After eight months of Spain he went on to Italy,
where he remained until December, and passed to Germany with the new
year. He sums up his knowledge of the languages at this point by saying,
"With the French and Spanish languages I am familiarly conversant so as
to speak them correctly and write them with as much ease and fluency as
I do the English. The Portuguese I read without difficulty. And with
regard to my proficiency in the Italian, I have only to say that all at
the hotel where I lodge took me for an Italian, until I told them I was
an American." He settled down to his studies in Germany, his father
having written, with foresight then unusual, "I consider the German
language and literature much more important than the Italian." He did
not, however, have any sense of actual transplantation, as is the case
with some young students, for although he writes to his sister (March
28, 1829), "My poetic career is finished. Since I left America I have
hardly put two lines together," yet he sends to Carey & Lea, the
Philadelphia publishers, to propose a series of sketches and tales of
New England life. These sketches, as given in his note-book, are as
follows:--

"1. New England Scenery: description of Sebag