(Excerpt from Random Memories This is not meant for a ser...)
Excerpt from Random Memories This is not meant for a serious autobiography. In deed, those who know me know that I am seldom serious. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
https://www.amazon.com/Memories-Classic-Reprint-Wadsworth-Longfellow/dp/036548072X?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=036548072X
Ernest Wadsworth Longfellow was the son of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Frances (Appleton) Longfellow. He was born on November 23, 1845 at the Craigie House, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. "The Castle-Builder" described him as "a gentle boy, with soft and silken locks.
Longfellow's formal education began at a dame school facing the Washington Elm and was continued at Ambrose Wellington's school, Cambridge, and the Dixwell School, Boston. Not being proficient in languages, as his father notably was, but displaying good scholarship in mathematics, Ernest tried vainly for a West Point appointment. He was temperamentally inclined to it, and, contrary to the elder Longfellow's pacifist views, he had a life-long interest in military science. He entered the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard College during the Civil War, in which he hoped to serve, but the conflict ended just before he was graduated in engineering in 1865.
When the Union armies were disbanded, engineers were numerous and Longfellow, perhaps mistakenly, felt that competition might be too keen in the profession for which he had been trained. Having seen much of art in his parents' home and elsewhere, and having shown ability in mechanical drawing, he decided to become an artist. With his uncle, the Reverend Samuel Longfellow, he went to London and then proceeded to Paris where he studied art from 1865-1869 under French artists such as Ernest Hébert, who found his draftsmanship good, and Leon Bonnat. He also studied under Thomas Couture (1876 - 1878), whose work he had admired and from whom he received valuable instructions.
In 1866 Longfellow opened a studio in the Studio Building, Tremont Street, Boston where he had as neighbors George Inness, Appleton Brown, and B. C. Porter. In the same year he inherited a fortune from the estate of his mother, who was burned to death in 1861.
He exhibited his paintings at the National Academy of Design in 1871 and 1875; the Williams & Everett gallery in Boston in 1875; the 1876 World's Fair in Philadelphia. In 1879 he painted the portrait of his father which hangs at Bowdoin College. An earlier portrait, for which he had less regard, hangs at Craigie House.
As the years passed Longfellow usually spent winters in New York or abroad and summers at Magnolia, Massachusetts. Possessed of ample means he had little incentive to commercialize his work. While his painting was always well drawn and intelligently thought out, it has generally been thought cold and unsympathetic. He was also disadvantaged as an artist by feeling that in matters of art his own time was out of joint; a bitter tone toward his professional contemporaries often appears in his memoirs. He died at the Hotel Touraine, Boston, after a long illness, and was buried from the Craigie House. He left his collection of paintings and $200, 000 to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
Ernest achieved some renown as a painter, being called “one of our rising young artists” by The Art Journal in July 1877. He was well known for his landscape paintings and portraits. His famous works were "Camp at Mooeshead Lake, Maine", "Italian Landscape", "Landscape in France" (1877), and "Vesuvius Before Eruption" (1880).
(Excerpt from Random Memories This is not meant for a ser...)
book
book
book
Quotations: "Any one who has had the misfortune to be the son of an illustrious parent knows how hard it is to be taken seriously by people. "
In 1879 Ernest Wadsworth was elected a vice-president of the Boston Art Club.
In May 1868 Longfellow was married to Harriet Spelman, the daughter of Israel Spelman. They did not have any children.
