SOURCE: “Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie,” in Henry W. Longfellow: Biography, Anecdotes, Letters, Criticism, D. Lothrop Company, 1882, pp. 73-79.

In the following essay, Kennedy gives an account of Longfellow's inspiration for Evangeline.

Of this poem [Evangeline] upwards of thirty-seven thousand copies were sold in ten years: the whole reading world was full of enthusiasm over it. It was reviewed by The North-American Review, The American Whig Review (in which Poe had published his Raven a few years previous), The New-Englander, The Southern Literary Messenger, Brownson's Quarterly, and The Eclectic. In England it was favorably reviewed in Fraser's, The Irish Quarterly, Blackwood's, The Athenæum, and The Examiner. The picture of Evangeline, which, not long after the publication of the poem, was designed by Faed, is universally known and admired, and gave Mr. Longfellow himself much pleasure.

The origin of the poem is this: Hawthorne one day came to...