" The son then chose the law,
saying, "This will support my real existence; literature, my ideal one."
Bowdoin College, however, came to the rescue, and offered him the
professorship of modern languages on condition that he would go abroad for
study. He accepted the offer, and remained abroad three years. His travel
sketches on this trip were published in book form in 1835, under the title
of _Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea_. This is suggestive of the
_Sketch Book_ (p. 119), the earliest book which he remembered reading.
After five years' service at Bowdoin, he accepted Harvard's offer of the
professorship of modern languages and again went abroad. This journey was
saddened by the death of his first wife. His prose romance; _Hyperion_, was
one of the fruits of this sojourn abroad. The second Mrs. Longfellow, whose
real name was Frances Appleton, appears in this book under the name of Mary
Ashburton. Her father bought the Craigie House, which had been Washington's
headquarters in Cambridge, and gave it to Longfellow as a residence. In
1854, after eighteen years' teaching at Harvard, he resigned, for his means
were then ample to enable him to devote his full time to literature.
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