At this period, between the years 1866 and 1874, when he unwillingly went
abroad for a twelvemonth, Lowell was seen in very few Cambridge houses,
and in still fewer Boston houses. He was not an unsocial man, but he was
most distinctly not a society man. He loved chiefly the companionship of
books, and of men who loved books; but of women generally he had an
amusing diffidence; he revered them and honored them, but he would rather
not have had them about. This is over-saying it, of course, but the
truth is in what I say. There was never a more devoted husband, and he
was content to let his devotion to the sex end with that. He especially
could not abide difference of opinion in women; he valued their taste,
their wit, their humor, but he would have none of their reason. I was by
one day when he was arguing a point with one of his nieces, and after it
had gone on for some time, and the impartial witness must have owned that
she was getting the better of him he closed the controversy by giving her
a great kiss, with the words, “You are a very good girl, my dear,” and
practically putting her out of the room. As to women of the flirtatious
type, he did not dislike them; no man, perhaps, does; but he feared them,
and he said that with them there was but one way, and that was to run.
I have a notion that at this period Lowell was more freely and fully
himself than at any other. The passions and impulses of his younger
manhood had mellowed, the sorrows of that time had softened; he could
blamelessly live to himself in his affections and his sobered ideals. His
was always a duteous life; but he had pretty well given up making man
over in his own image, as we all wish some time to do, and then no longer
wish it. He fulfilled his obligations to his fellow-men as these sought
him out, but he had ceased to seek them. He loved his friends and their
love, but he had apparently no desire to enlarge their circle. It was
that hour of civic suspense, in which public men seemed still actuated by
unselfish aims, and one not essentially a politician might contentedly
wait to see what would come of their doing their best. At any rate,
without occasionally withholding open criticism or acclaim Lowell waited
among his books for the wounds of the war to heal themselves, and the
nation to begin her healthfuller and nobler life. With slavery gone,
what might not one expect of American democracy!
His life at Elmwood was of an entire simplicity. In the old colonial
mansion in which he was born, he dwelt in the embowering leafage, amid
the quiet of lawns and garden-plots broken by few noises ruder than those
from the elms and the syringas where
“The oriole clattered and the cat-bird sang.”
From the tracks on Brattle Street, came the drowsy tinkle of horse-car
bells; and sometimes a funeral trailed its black length past the corner
of his grounds, and lost itself from sight under the shadows of the
willows that hid Mount Auburn from his study windows. In the winter the
deep New England snows kept their purity in the stretch of meadow behind
the house, which a double row of pines guarded in a domestic privacy. All
was of a modest dignity within and without the house, which Lowell loved
but did not imagine of a manorial presence; and he could not conceal his
annoyance with an over-enthusiastic account of his home in which the
simple chiselling of some panels was vaunted as rich wood-carving. There
was a graceful staircase, and a good wide hall, from which the
dining-room and drawing-room opened by opposite doors; behind the last,
in the southwest corner of the house, was his study.
There, literally, he lived during the six or seven years in which I knew
him after my coming to Cambridge. Summer and winter he sat there among
his books, seldom stirring abroad by day except for a walk, and by night
yet more rarely. He went to the monthly mid-day dinner of the Saturday
Club in Boston; he was very constant at the fortnightly meetings of his
whist-club, because he loved the old friends who formed it; he came
always to the Dante suppers at Longfellow’s, and he was familiarly in and
out at Mr. Norton’s, of course. But, otherwise, he kept to his study,
except for some rare and almost unwilling absences upon university
lecturing at Johns Hopkins or at Cornell.
For four years I did not take any summer outing from Cambridge myself,
and my associations with Elmwood and with Lowell are more of summer than
of winter weather meetings. But often we went our walks through the
snows, trudging along between the horsecar tracks which enclosed the only
well-broken-out paths in that simple old Cambridge. I date one memorable
expression of his from such a walk, when, as we were passing Longfellow’s
house, in mid-street, he came as near the declaration of his religious
faith as he ever did in my presence. He was speaking of the New
Testament, and he said, The truth was in it; but they had covered it up
with their hagiology. Though he had been bred a Unitarian, and had more
and more liberated himself from all creeds, he humorously affected an
abiding belief in hell, and similarly contended for the eternal
punishment of the wicked. He was of a religious nature, and he was very
reverent of other people’s religious feelings. He expressed a special
tolerance for my own inherited faith, no doubt because Mrs. Lowell was
also a Swedenborgian; but I do not think he was interested in it, and I
suspect that all religious formulations bored him. In his earlier poems
are many intimations and affirmations of belief in an overruling
providence, and especially in the God who declares vengeance His and will
repay men for their evil deeds, and will right the weak against the
strong. I think he never quite lost this, though when, in the last years
of his life, I asked him if he believed there was a moral government of
the universe, he answered gravely and with a sort of pain, The scale was
so vast, and we saw such a little part of it.
As to tine notion of a life after death, I never had any direct or
indirect expression from him; but I incline to the opinion that his hold
upon this weakened with his years, as it is sadly apt to do with men who
have read much and thought much: they have apparently exhausted their
potentialities of psychological life. Mystical Lowell was, as every poet
must be, but I do not think he liked mystery. One morning he told me
that when he came home the night before he had seen the Doppelganger of
one of his household: though, as he joked, he was not in a state to see
double.
He then said he used often to see people’s Doppelganger; at another time,
as to ghosts, he said, He was like Coleridge: he had seen too many of
‘em. Lest any weaker brethren should be caused to offend by the
restricted oath which I have reported him using in a moment of transport
it may be best to note here that I never heard him use any other
imprecation, and this one seldom.
Any grossness of speech was inconceivable of him; now and then, but only
very rarely, the human nature of some story “unmeet for ladies” was too
much for his sense of humor, and overcame him with amusement which he was
willing to impart, and did impart, but so that mainly the human nature of
it reached you. In this he was like the other great Cambridge men,
though he was opener than the others to contact with the commoner life.
He keenly delighted in every native and novel turn of phrase, and he
would not undervalue a vital word or a notion picked up out of the road
even if it had some dirt sticking to it.
He kept as close to the common life as a man of his patrician instincts
and cloistered habits could. I could go to him with any new find about
it and be sure of delighting him; after I began making my involuntary and
all but unconscious studies of Yankee character, especially in the
country, he was always glad to talk them over with me. Still, when I had
discovered a new accent or turn of speech in the fields he had
cultivated, I was aware of a subtle grudge mingling with his pleasure;
but this was after all less envy than a fine regret.
At the time I speak of there was certainly nothing in Lowell’s dress or
bearing that would have kept the common life aloof from him, if that life
were not always too proud to make advances to any one. In this
retrospect, I see him in the sack coat and rough suit which he wore upon
all out-door occasions, with heavy shoes, and a round hat. I never saw
him with a high hat on till he came home after his diplomatic stay in
London; then he had become rather rigorously correct in his costume, and
as conventional as he had formerly been indifferent. In both epochs he
was apt to be gloved, and the strong, broad hands, which left the
sensation of their vigor for some time after they had clasped yours, were
notably white. At the earlier period, he still wore his auburn hair
somewhat long; it was darker than his beard, which was branching and
full, and more straw-colored than auburn, as were his thick eyebrows;
neither hair nor beard was then touched with gray, as I now remember.
When he uncovered, his straight, wide, white forehead showed itself one
of the most beautiful that could be; his eyes were gay with humor, and
alert with all intelligence. He had an enchanting smile, a laugh that
was full of friendly joyousness, and a voice that was exquisite music.
Everything about him expressed his strenuous physical condition: he would
not wear an overcoat in the coldest Cambridge weather; at all times he
moved vigorously, and walked with a quick step, lifting his feet well
from the ground.