Grand-Pré and Longfellow's Evangeline. When was the last time you turned down an invitation because staying in seemed easier? On April 5, 1840, a small group of friends gathered for dinner in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In attendance were two of America's most acclaimed authors: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Another guest, Boston reverend Horace Conolly, told a story that he hoped one of them would turn into a novel. Reverend Conolly had heard the story fr