Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

[150] that he liked the last two poems in the volume best, and thought them perhaps as good as anything he had written,—these being ‘Maidenhood’ and ‘Excelsior.’ It was also in this year that he conceived the plan of the ‘Spanish Student’ and of ‘a long and elaborate poem by the holy name of “Christ,” the theme of which would be the various aspects of Christendom in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages.’ It shows the quiet persistence of the poet's nature that this plan, thus conceived in 1841, was brought to a final conclusion, more than thirty years after, in 1873, and under the very name originally conceived, that of ‘Christus.’ Thus much for this year of poetic achievement. His journals, as published by his brother, show the activity of social life which the year also included; and, above all, his regular academic work was of itself continuous and exhausting. In the schedule of university lectures, announced in the college catalogue for 1841-2, one finds the following entry: ‘On the French, Spanish, Italian, and German languages and literature, by Professor Longfellow.’ In the list of officers there appear only three instructors as doing the detailed work of instruction under this professor, and the lecturing was done entirely by him, occupying three hours a week, on the afternoons of Monday, Wednesday, and