Later, on November 28, is recorded: "Set about 'Gabrielle,'[Footnote: The poem Evangeline, to which the poet at first intended to give the title Gabrielle.] my idyl in hexameters, in earnest. I do not mean to let a day go by without adding something to it, if it be but a single line. F. and Sumner are both doubtful of the measure. To me it seems the only one for such a poem." And again, on December 7, "I know not what name to give to--not my new baby, but my new poem. Shall it be 'Gabrielle,' or 'Celestine,' or 'Evangeline'?" In the journal for 1854 is noted on June 22, "I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indian, which seems to me the right one and the only. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a whole. I have hit upon a measure, too, which I think the right and only one for such a theme;" and on June 28, "Work at 'Manabozho'; or, as I think I shall call it, 'Hiawatha,'--that being another name for the same personage." As these literary projects came to fill more and more the poet's thought, he began to feel increasingly hampered by the work of his college classes. So urgent did the desire become to rid himself of duties that grew constantly more irksome, that at length, in 1854, he resigned his professorship. The mingled relief and regret thus afforded are expressed in his journal under date of September 12: "Yesterday I got from President Walker a note, with copy of the vote of the Corporation, accepting my resignation, and expressing regrets at my retirement. I am now free! But there is a good deal of sadness in the feeling of separating one's self from one's former life." For several years thereafter Longfellow's life flowed along peacefully. These were most profitable years, for he was always an industrious worker and would not allow moodiness or disinclination to work to deprive him of opportunities for worthy labor. His three greatest works, _Evangeline_, _Hiawatha_ and _The Courtship of Miles Standish_, appeared at intervals of a few years. But this period of comparative ease and quiet was brought to an abrupt close by the tragic death of Mrs. Longfellow in 1861. Her dress had taken fire from a lighted match that had fallen to the floor, and as a result she died the next day.