Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

His fame at this time was widely established, yet a curious indication of the fact that he did not at once take even Cambridge by storm, as a poet, is in a letter from Professor Andrews Norton, father of the present Professor Charles E. Norton, to the Rev. W. H. Furness of Philadelphia. The latter had apparently applied to Mr. Norton for advice as to a desirable list of American authors from whom to make some literary selections, perhaps in connection with an annual then edited by him and called ‘The Diadem.’ Professor Norton, as one of the most cultivated Americans, might naturally be asked for some such counsel. In replying he sent Mr. Furness, under date of January 7, 1845, a list of fifty-four eligible authors, among whom Emerson stood last but one, while Longfellow was not included at all. He then appended a supplementary list of twenty-four minor authors, headed by Longfellow.² We have already seen Lowell, from a younger point of view, describing Longfellow, at about this time, as the head of a ‘clique,’ and we now find Andrews Norton, from an older point of view, assigning him only the first place among authors of the second grade. It is curious