Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The lady thus described was one who lives in the memory of all who knew her, were it only by her distinguished appearance and bearing, her ‘deep, unutterable eyes,’ in Longfellow's own phrase, and her quiet, self-controlled face illumined by a radiant smile. She was never better described, perhaps, than by the Hungarian, Madame Pulszky, who visited America with Kossuth, and who wrote of her as ‘a lady of Junonian beauty and of the kindest heart.’¹ Promptly and almost insensibly she identified herself with all her husband's work, a thing rendered peculiarly valuable from the fact that his eyes had become overstrained, so that he welcomed an amanuensis. Sometimes she suggested subjects for poems, this being at least the case with ‘The Arsenal at Springfield,’ first proposed by her within the very walls of the building, a spot whose moral was doubtless enhanced by the companionship of Charles Sumner, just then the especial prophet of international peace. She also aided him effectually in his next book, ‘The Poets and Poetry of Europe,’ in which his friend Felton also cooperated, he preparing the biographical notices while Longfellow made the selections and also some of the translations.

I add this letter from his betrothed, which