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Chapter 8: appointment at Harvard and second visit to Europe
While he was thus occupied with thoughts and studies which proved to be more far-seeing than he knew, the young professor was embarrassed by financial difficulties in which the college found itself; and he began after three years to consider the possibility of a transfer to other scenes, perhaps to some professorship in New York or
Virginia.
The following letter, hitherto unpublished, gives us the view taken in the
Longfellow house of another project, namely, that of his succeeding to the charge of the then famous Round Hill School at
Northampton, about to be abandoned by its projector,
Joseph G. Cogswell.
The quiet judgment of the young wife thus sums it up in writing to her sister-in-law:—
Sunday afternoon [February, 1834].
. . .
Henry left us Friday noon in the mail for
Boston, as George will tell you. I do not like the idea of his going to
Northampton at all—although it would be a most beautiful