It will be remembered that Longfellow was now a widower without children, his wife having died during his second journey to Europe. When he came to settle in Cambridge he was attracted by the spacious rooms and the quiet and aristocratic air of the Craigie House, famous as the headquarters of Washington when he was in Cambridge as commander-in-chief during the Revolutionary War. George William Curtis has told the story of Longfellow’s first visit to this house and how he came to live there, and we give it here very nearly in Mr. Curtis’s own words. In the summer of 1837, a young man passed down the elm-shaded walk that separated the old Craigie House from the high road. Reaching the door he paused to observe the huge old-fashioned brass knocker and the quaint handle, relics, evidently, of an epoch of colonial state. To his mind, however, the house, and these signs of its age, were not interesting from the romance of antiquity alone, but from their association with the early days of our Revolution, when General Washington, after the battle of Bunker Hill, had his headquarters in the mansion. Had his hand, perhaps, lifted the same latch, lingering, as he pressed it, in a whirl of myriad emotions? Had he, too, paused in the calm summer afternoon, and watched the silver gleam of the broad river in the meadows, the dreamy blue of the Milton hills beyond? And had the tranquillity of that landscape penetrated his heart with “the sleep that is among the hills,” and whose fairest dream to him was a hope now realized in the peaceful prosperity of his country? He was ushered in and found himself face to face with Mrs. Craigie, a good old lady who had seen better days. He asked if there was a room vacant in the house. “I lodge no students,” was her reply. Longfellow was so young-looking she took him to be a student. “I am not a student,” answered the visitor, “but a professor in the university.” “A professor?” she inquired. She thought a professor ought to be dressed like a clergyman. “Professor Longfellow,” continued the guest, introducing himself. “Ah! that is different,” said the lady, her features slightly relaxing, as if professors were naturally harmless and she need no longer barricade herself behind a stern gravity of demeanor. “I will show you what there is.”