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‘
[189]
my dear friend, my soul is wrapped up in poetry.
The scales fell from my eyes suddenly, and I beheld before me a beautiful landscape, with figures, which I have transferred to paper almost without an effort, and with a celerity of which I did not think myself capable.
Since my return from Portland I am almost afraid to look at it, for fear its colors should have faded out. And this is the reason why I do not describe the work to you more particularly.
I am not sure it is worth it. You shall yourself see and judge before long.’
He thus afterwards describes it to his father: ‘I have also written a much longer and more difficult poem, called “The Spanish student,” — a drama in five acts; on the success of which I rely with some self-complacency.
But this is a great secret, and must not go beyond the immediate family circle; as I do not intend to publish it until the glow of composition has passed away, and I can look upon it coolly and critically.
I will tell you more of this by and by.’
Longfellow's work on ‘The Poets and Poetry of Europe’ appeared in 1845, and was afterwards reprinted with a supplement in 1871.
The original work included 776 pages,1 the supplement adding 340 more.
The supplement is
1 Mistakenly described by the Rev. Samuel Longfellow as ‘nearly four hundred pages.’ Life, II. 3.
Boston and New York, Hougton, Mifflin and company, 1902.
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