Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

‘ [220] in a country where he finds all doors and all hearts open to him? Besides, I myself am a Cumberland man,—I was born in the County of Cumberland, in the State of Maine, three thousand miles from here,—and you all know that the familiar name of a town or country has a homelike sound to our ears. ... You can think then how very grateful it is to me—how very pleasant—to find my name has a place in your memories and your affections. For this kindness I most heartily thank you, and I reciprocate all the good wishes which you have expressed for perpetual peace and amity between our two nations.’¹

He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at Cambridge, and the scene was thus described by a London reporter:—

‘Amid a score or so of Heads of Houses and other Academic dignitaries conspicuous by their scarlet robes, the one on whom all eyes were turned was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The face was one which would have caught the spectator's glance, even if not called to it by the cheers which greeted his appearance in the red robes of an Ll. D. Long, white, silken hair and a beard of patriarchal whiteness enclosed a fresh-colored countenance, with fine-cut features and deep-sunken eyes, overshadowed by massive eyebrows. ’