Some years after came the affliction which. cast a deep shadow upon his happy successful life. His wife one evening in light summer dress was writing a letter, and, lighting a candle to seal it, dropped the match among her draperies. The flame spread at once and she expired in agony; Longfellow was himself badly burned in his effort to extinguish the flames and always carried the scars. I did not see him in those years but have heard that his mood changed, he was no longer careful and debonair but often melancholy and dishevelled. Yet the sweetness of his spirit persisted to the end. The critics of late have been busy with Longfellow. His gift was inferior, they say, and his sentiment shallow. Let them carp as they will, he holds, as few poets have done, the hearts of men and women; still more he holds the hearts of children, and the life of multitudes continues to be softened and beautified by the gentle power of what he has written. Two or three years since it was my good fortune to be present at the celebration in Sanders Theatre of the centenary of Longfellow's birth. There was fine encomium from distinguished men, but to me the charming part of the occasion was the tribute of the school children who thronged upon the stage and sang with fresh, pure voices, the _Village Blacksmith_, the simple lines set to as simple music, "Under the spreading chestnut-tree, the village smithy stands." In my time the old tree still cast its shade over the highway which had scarcely yet ceased to be a village street. The smithy, too, was at hand and the clink of hammer upon anvil often audible; the blacksmith, I suppose had gone to his account. During the children's performance a voice noticeably clear and fine sounded in the high upper gallery, a happy suggestion of the voice of the mother singing in paradise as the daughter sang below. Honour to the poet who, while so many singers of our time vex us with entanglements metaphysical and exasperating, had thought always for the simplest hearts and attuned his lyre for them!