Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

‘ [252] present here this morning. Having occasion to speak in this place some two years ago, I remember that I then expressed the hope that some day or other the Abbey of Westminster would become the Valhalla of the whole Englishspeak-ing race. I little expected then that a beginning would be made so soon,—a beginning at once painful and gratifying in the highest degree to myself,—with the bust of my friend. Though there be no Academy in England which corresponds to that of France, yet admission to Westminster Abbey forms a sort of posthumous test of literary eminence perhaps as effectual. Every one of us has his own private Valhalla, and it is not apt to be populous. But the conditions of admission to the Abbey are very different. We ought no longer to ask why is so-and-so here, and we ought always to be able to answer the question why such a one is not here. I think that on this occasion I should express the united feeling of the whole English-speaking race in confirming the choice which has been made,—the choice of one whose name is dear to them all, who has inspired their lives and consoled their hearts, and who has been admitted to the fireside of all of them as a familiar friend. Nearly forty years ago I had occasion, in speaking of Mr. Longfellow, to suggest an analogy between him and the English poet Gray; and I ’