[33] “[Mrs. Longfellow] was the first stranger that ever said a kind word to me about my poems. She spoke to me of my _Year’s Life_, then just published. I had then just emerged from the darkest and unhappiest period of my life, and was peculiarly sensitive to sympathy. My volume, I knew, was crude and immature, and did not do me justice; but I knew also that there was a _heart_ in it, and I was grateful for her commendation.”--J. R. L. to H. W. Longfellow, 13 August, 1845. [34] “Especially grateful is the praise of one in whose conversation I have marked a hearty appreciation of those greatest reformers, our glorious old English Poets.”--J. R. L. to Robert Carter, 2 September, 1842. [35] Mr. Woodberry, in editing “Lowell’s Letters to Poe,” in _Scribner’s Monthly_ for August, 1894, explains the situation thus: “The contract bound Lowell and Carter to furnish the publishers five thousand copies on the twentieth of each month under a penalty of five hundred dollars in case of failure and the publishers to take that number at a certain price. The March number was eight days late, and the publishers, in the face of what was probably seen to be an unfortunate speculation, claimed the forfeit but offered to waive it if the contract should be altered so as to require them to take only so many copies as they could sell. The result was that the editors were obliged to stop printing from a lack of credit, and were left with a large indebtedness for manufacture as well as to contributors. It appears from Poe’s letters that he was paid his small claim a year later.” [36] Carter had just been to see Maria White. [37] “The Maiden’s Death.” [38] In a letter written after he had at last seen Miss White, Mr. Briggs writes: “I hardly know what I could say to M. W. unless what I felt inclined to when I saw her, ‘_Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis_.’” [39] “L’Envoi,” beginning “whether my heart hath wiser grown or not.” [40] _The Broadway Journal_, which Mr. Briggs was just projecting. [41] Mr. Briggs had written to Lowell: “I suppose that you are going to impose upon yourselves the heathenish ceremonies of a wedding, and in the most solemn period of your lives, give yourselves up to the most foolish of all the world’s follies. Tut! you will be sick of white satins and raisins for the next century. Is’t the first of the month that you are to be married? I would like to know the day that I may keep you in remembrance. Page will be here and I will have him down to Bishop’s Terrace, and we will keep it up with becoming solemnity. One of my darling fowls shall be sacrificed.” [42] The exact succession of his books was _A Year’s Life_, 1841; _Poems_, 1843 (dated 1844); _Conversations on Some of the Old Poets_, 1845.