Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In looking back over Longfellow's whole career, it is certain that the early criticisms upon him, especially those of Margaret Fuller, had an immediate and temporary justification, but found ultimate refutation. The most commonplace man can be better comprehended at the end of his career than he can be analyzed at its beginning; and of men possessed of the poetic temperament, this is eminently true. We now know that at the very time when ‘Hyperion’ and the ‘Voices of the Night’ seemed largely European in their atmosphere, the author himself, in his diaries, was expressing that longing for American subjects which afterwards predominated in his career. Though the citizen among us best known in Europe, most sought after by foreign visitors, he yet gravitated naturally to American themes, American friends, home interests, plans, and improvements. He always voted at elections, and generally with the same party, took an interest in all local affairs and public improvements, headed subscription papers, was known by sight among children, and answered readily to their salutations. The same quality of citizenship was visible in his literary work. Lowell, who was regarded in England as an almost defiant American, yet had a distinct liking,