Dear Mr. Longfellow by Sydelle Pearl

Author:Sydelle Pearl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Published: 2012-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Carrie's mother, Alice M. Middleton, wrote to Henry on February 3, 1880, and thanked him for making her daughter so happy. She warned him that he would be getting many letters because his reply to Carrie was going to be published in a newspaper called the Cincinnati Commercial.6

Carrie's mother was right! Henry received a great deal of mail after his letter to Carrie was published. Henry wrote to a friend on February 7, 1880, “Perhaps you may have seen in the papers, that the Schools of Ohio are going to celebrate my birth-day. Countless letters pour in upon me from schoolboys and girls….Add to all these, others from Superintendents and Teachers, and the case becomes formidable.”7 Even though Henry complained about the number of birthday letters that he received, he must have been pleased to know that he was remembered by children. Henry saved the newspaper clippings from around the country that described birthday celebrations held in his honor and put them into a special scrapbook.8

During the last year of his life, Henry was quite ill. When the mayor of Portland, William Senter, invited Henry to attend a celebration of his seventy-fifth birthday, Henry wrote to him and said “My physician has prescribed absolute rest; and I do not see any chance of my being able to go to Portland in February, so slow is recovery from nervous prostration.”9

Henry keenly felt the weight of the birthday letters upon him. In his journal entry for February 21, 1881, Henry wrote, “Some forty or more schools in the West are preparing to celebrate my seventy-fourth birthday; and all write me letters and request letters. I send to each some stanza, with signature and good wishes.”10 On February 24, Henry wrote: “Am receiving from ten to twenty letters daily with all kinds of questions and requests.”11 The next day he wrote “Letters, letters, letters! Some I answer, but many, and most, I cannot.”12

On the back of some of the letters sent to him, Henry wrote “answered.”13 On one envelope, he wrote “Six letters from schoolgirls at Waltham.”14 According to page 1 of the Cambridge Chronicle for Saturday, March 5, 1881, under the heading “Old Cambridge,” it said:

“—Mr. Longfellow the other day, sent this little verse to the Columbus school children, who celebrated his birthday:

If any thought of mine e'er sung or told

Has ever given delight or consolation,

Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold

By every friendly sign and salutation.”15

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