HOME AGAIN
Lowell landed in America again in June, 1885. It was nearly seven years
since he left us on his way to Spain. And these were seven years which
had changed, in a thousand regards, the conditions of his old American
home.
In August, 1891, he died, seventy-two years old,—six years after this
return. Of these years we have in his letters a record of pathetic
interest, and every one who knew him and who loved him will say that of
the seven decades of life—to which more than once he alludes—he never
seemed more cheerful and companionable and cordial and wise than in the
seventh. “And young,” he would often have said himself. He discusses
old age and its coming in his letters to near friends,—yet perhaps more
than is wise, certainly more than is necessary. But once and again he
tells his correspondent that he is as young as a boy. He signs himself,
in writing to Gilder, “Giacopo il Rigiovinato.” And he writes out:—
_From the Universal Eavesdropper_:
ANECDOTE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Passing along the Edgeware Road with a friend two years ago, their
eyes were attracted by a sign with this inscription, “Hospital for
Incurable Children.” Turning to his companion, with that genial smile
for which he is remarkable, Lowell said quietly, “There’s where
they’ll send _me_ one of these days.”
But, all the same, seven years of Europe had changed Elmwood and
Cambridge and Harvard College and New England and America and the
world. In a way, of course, Lowell knew this as well as any man. He
knew it better than most men knew it. And there were a good many sad
things in his arrival, as there must be after seven years. So many
deaths of old friends! So many changes in the daily life of the people
around him! And he, almost without a vocation; obliged to establish his
new avocations!
Some years before this, Mr. Lothrop Motley, in all the triumph of his
well-earned success after the publication of his first volumes of
history, came back to his old home—shall I say for a holiday? I do not
know but that he meant to reside here. Not many months after he
arrived, however, he told me, to my surprise, that he was going back to
Europe. He was going to work in Holland on the archives again; to
continue his great historical enterprise. I need not say that I
expressed my regret that he was to leave us so soon. But he replied,
almost sadly, that there was no place here in Boston for a man who was
not at work: “You ought to hang out a long pendant from one of the
forts in the harbor to the other, and write on it, ‘No admittance
except on business.’” This was fatally true then of Boston; it is near
the truth now.
And Lowell was no longer a diplomatist; nor had he any special abuses
to reform; he had no regular lectures to deliver; he had no wife with
whom to talk and read and make dinner linger long, and breakfast and
lunch. He was in a changed world, and for that world had to prepare
himself.
Perhaps it is as well to say that Boston also was changed; the Boston
of 1885 was not the Boston of 1838. The late Mr. Amos Adams Lawrence
said to me, not long before his death, that his father used to say that
in the beginning of the century Boston was governed by the great
national merchants: such men as “Billy Gray,” one of whose ships
discovered the Columbia River; or as Colonel Perkins, who handled the
trade of the East in the spirit in which a great artist composes a
great picture; or as William Tudor, who supplied ice to the tropics,
and when a winter failed him in New England, sent his schooners up into
Baffin’s Bay to cut ice from the icebergs.
Mr. Lawrence said that when this sort of men gave up the government of
Boston, it fell into the hands of the great mechanics: such men as
developed the quarries at Quincy; as built Bunker Hill Monument, and in
later days have built the Mechanics’ Hall, have united Boston with San
Francisco and all the Pacific coast by rail. And then, he said, the
government of Boston passed into the hands which hold it now,—into the
hands of the distillers and brewers and retailers of liquor.
So far as the incident or accident of administration goes, this bitter
satire is true; and it expresses one detail of the change between the
Boston of the middle of this century and the Boston to which Lowell
returned in June of 1885. Now, such a change affects social order; it
affects conversation; in spite of you, it affects literature. Thus it
affects philanthropy. The Boston of 1840 really believed that a visible
City of God could be established here by the forces which it had at
command. It was very hard in 1885 to make the Boston of that year
believe any such thing.
But Lowell was no pessimist. He was proud of his home, and I think you
would not have caught him in expressing in public any such contrast as
I have ventured upon in these lines. On the other hand, the letters
which Mr. Norton has published in his charming volumes confirm entirely
the impression which Lowell’s old friends received from him: that he
was glad, so glad, to be at home; that he had much to do in picking up
his dropped stitches; and that he liked nothing better than to renew
the old associations. It was, so to speak, unfortunate that he could
not at once return to Elmwood. In fact, he did not establish himself
there for three years. But, on the other hand, at Southborough,
five-and-twenty miles from Boston, where he lived at the home of Mrs.
Burnett, his daughter, he had a beautiful country around him, and, what
was always a pleasure to him, the exploration of new scenery.
I asked a near friend of his if Lowell were the least bit wilted after
his return. “Wilted? I should say not a bit. Bored? yes; worried, a
little. But,” he added, as I should do myself, “the last talk I had
with him, or rather listened to, I shall never forget.”
He spent the winter of 1889 in Boston with his dear sister, Mrs.
Putnam, from whose recollections I was able to give the charming
account which he furnished to us of his childhood for the first pages
of this series. We have lost her from this world since those pages were
first printed. And he was, of course, near his old friends and kindred:
Dr. Holmes, John Holmes, all the Saturday Club, Dr. Howe, Charles
Norton,—his intimate and tender friendship with whom was one of the
great blessings of his life. These were all around him. But there was
no Longfellow, no Appleton, no Emerson, no Agassiz, no Dana, no Page;
Story was in Europe.
For occupation, he had just as many opportunities for public speaking
as he chose to use. He had to prepare for the press the uniform edition
of his works, both in prose and in poetry. It seems to me that he was
too fastidious and rigid in this work. I think he left out a good deal
which ought to have been preserved there. And this makes it certain
that the little side-scraps which the newspapers preserved, or such as
linger in some else forgotten magazine, will be regarded as among the
treasures of collectors. More than that, many a boy and many a girl
will owe to some such scraps inspirations which will last them through
life. He occasionally published a poem, and occasionally delivered an
address or lecture. But he took better care of himself than in the old
days. There was no such crisis before the country as had engaged him
then; and, in a way, it may be said that he enjoyed the literary
leisure which he deserved.
[Illustration: WILLIAM PAGE]
He was, alas! at many periods during these six years a very sad
sufferer from sickness. There is something very pathetic in the manly
way in which he alludes to such suffering. From no indulgence of his
own, he was a victim of hereditary gout; and you find in the letters
allusions to attacks which kept him in agony, which sometimes lasted
for six weeks in succession. Then the attack would end instantly; and
Lowell would write in the strain which has been referred to, as if he
were a boy again, skating on Fresh Pond or tracing up Beaver Brook to
its sources.
Simply, he would not annoy his friends by talking about his pains. If
he could cheer them up by writing of his recovery, he would do so.
I remember that on the first visit I made him after he was
reëstablished at Elmwood, when I congratulated him because he was at
home again, he said, with a smile still, “Yes, it is very nice to be
here; but the old house is full of ghosts.” Of course it was. His
father and mother were no longer living; Mrs. Burnett, who was with him
there, was the only one of his children who had survived; and the
circle of his brothers and sisters had been sadly diminished. He and
his brother, Robert Lowell, died in the same year. Still, he was here
with his own books; he had the old college library under his lee, and
he had old friends close at hand. Once or twice in his letters of those
days he goes into some review of his own literary endeavor. Certainly
he had reason to be proud of it. Certainly he was not too proud; and I
think he did have a feeling of satisfaction that his neighbors and his
country appreciated the motive with which he had worked and the real
success which he had attained.
As the great address at Birmingham sums up conveniently the political
principles which governed his life, whether in literature or in
diplomacy, so the address at the quarter-millennium celebration of
Harvard College at Cambridge may be said to present a summary of such
theories as he had formed on education, and of his hopes and his fears
for the future of education. There are two or three aphorisms there
which I think will be apt to be quoted fifty years hence, perhaps, as
they are not quoted to-day. In the midst of a hundred or more of
gentlemen who had served with him in the college he had the courage to
say, “Harvard has as yet developed no great educator; for we imported
Agassiz.”
On the 30th of April, 1889, there was a magnificent festival in the
city of New York, at which he spoke. It is already forgotten by the
people of that city and of the country, but at the moment it engaged
universal attention. It was the celebration of the centennial of the
establishment of the United States as a nation; the centennial of the
birth of the Constitution; of the inauguration of Washington. It was,
of course, the fit occasion for the expression of the people’s
gratitude for the blessings which have followed on the establishment of
the federal Constitution.
[Illustration:
Copyrighted by Mrs. J.H. Thurston.
MR. LOWELL IN HIS STUDY AT ELMWOOD
_Taken in the spring of 1891_]
For this celebration the most admirable arrangements were made in New
York by the committee which had taken the matter in hand. In the
evening a banquet was served at the Metropolitan Opera-House, and many
of the most distinguished speakers in the country had gladly accepted
the invitation to be present. Among them Lowell naturally was one. But
to those who listened, it seemed as if all these great men were in a
sort awed by the greatness of the occasion. His address, perhaps
because so carefully prepared, was for the purpose no better than any
of the others. They could not help it. Every man who spoke was asking
himself how his speech would read in the year 1989. There was no
spontaneity; instead of it there was decorum and consideration, the
determination to think wisely, and none of the eloquence which “belongs
to the man and the occasion.” For hour after hour the patient stream of
considerate commonplace flowed on, till at two in the morning the new
President of the United States made the closing speech. The expectation
of this address, and that alone, had held the great audience together.
He was probably the only man who had not had a chance “to make any
preparation.” He had gone through the day alive with the feeling of the
day, drinking in its inspirations; and with such preparation as six
hours at the dinner-table would give him, he rose to say what the day
had taught him. He made one of the most magnificent addresses to which
I have ever listened. He led with him from height to height an audience
jaded and tired by the dignity of lawyers, the dexterity of
politicians, and the commonplace of scholars. In fifteen minutes he had
established his own reputation as a great public orator among the
thousand men who were fortunate enough to hear him.
And yet, such is the satire of what we call history that, because the
other speeches had been written out and could be sent to the
journals,—because even a New York morning newspaper has to go to press
at some time,—this absolutely extemporaneous speech of the one man who
proved himself equal to the occasion did not get itself reported in any
adequate form, and will never go down into history. There is, however,
no danger that any of the other addresses of that great ceremonial will
be read at the end of the hundred years.
His cousin says that Mr. Lowell was chiefly occupied by his addresses
and other prose essays in the first years after his return, but that he
wrote a few poems. Most of these will be found in the “Atlantic.” For
the Lowell Institute he prepared a course of lectures on the old
English dramatists, which have been published since his death. Of his
addresses he printed but few, but the address on “The Independent in
Politics,” which he delivered in 1888 before the New York Reform Club,
was printed by that club.
[Illustration: ROOM ADJOINING THE LIBRARY, ELMWOOD]
Of his Cambridge life after his return to Elmwood his cousin writes:
“The house was haunted by sad memories, but at least he was once more
among his books. The library, which filled the two rooms on the ground
floor to the left of the front door, had been constantly growing, and
during his stay in Europe he had bought rare works with the intention
of leaving them to Harvard College. Here he would sit when sad or
unwell and read Calderon, the ’Nightingale in the Study,’ in whom he
always found a solace. Except for occasional attacks of the gout, his
life had been singularly free from sickness, but he had been at home
only a few months when he was taken ill, and, after the struggle of a
strong man to keep up as long as possible, he was forced to go to bed.
In a few days his condition became so serious that the physicians
feared he would not live; but he rallied, and, although too weak to go
to England, as he had planned, he appeared to be comparatively well.
When taken sick, he had been preparing a new edition of his works, the
only full collection that had ever been made, and he had the
satisfaction of publishing it soon after his recovery. This was the
last literary work he was destined to do, and it rounded off fitly his
career as a man of letters.”
Of these six years perhaps his friends remember his conversation most.
Like other great men and good men, he did not insist on choosing the
subject for conversation himself, but adapted himself to the wishes and
notions of the people around him. His memory was so absolute, his fancy
was so free, and his experience so wide that he seemed as much at home
in one subject as in another. But when he had quite his own way among a
circle of people more or less interested in books or literature, the
talk was quite sure to drift round into some discussion of etymologies,
of dialect, or of the change of habit which comes in as one or two
centuries go by. And when his curiosity was once excited about a
word—as I said when I was speaking of his talk with Mr. Murray—he would
hold on to that word as a genealogist holds on to the biography of a
great-grandmother of whom he only knows half the name. Here are one or
two passages from notes which illustrate what I mean: “I used to know
some about Pennsylvania Dutch, but forget their names.” “I wish I could
have studied the Western lingo more, for it has colored our national
speech most.” “I think perhaps W.P. Garrison might put you on the track
of something about the Southern _patois_.”
“Pitch into the abuse of ‘will’ and ‘shall,’ ‘would’ and ‘should;’ when
we were boys, no New Englander was capable of confounding them. I am
expecting a statute saying that a murderer ‘_will_ be hanged by the
neck till he _is_ dead.’ Alas the day!” And again, “_Daddock_ I knew,
but never met it alive; _dodder_, for a tree whose wood is beginning to
grow pulpy with decay, I have heard, and the two words may be cousins.
The latter, however, I believe to be a modern importation.” Murray and
the dictionaries confirm his quick guess between the relation of one of
these words to the other.
We have a fine American proverb, “Get the best.” In later years I have
tried to make some Western State adopt it for its state seal. I have
never seen it in any earlier use than in one of Lowell’s pleasant
letters describing a canoe voyage in Maine; and I wrote to him rather
late in his life to ask him if he were the inventor of the phrase. It
has been adopted, as the reader may be apt to remember, by the authors
of Webster’s Dictionary, and is a sort of trade-mark to their useful
volumes. I am sorry to say that Lowell himself did not remember whether
he had picked it up in conversation, or whether he coined it in its
present form. For myself, I like to associate it with him.
I find, as I said, I am always reading with pleasure his estimate of
his own work in the close of his life. It seems to me to be free from
mock modesty on the one hand, as it is from vanity on the other. He
seems to me to be as indifferent about style as I think a man ought to
be. If a man knows he is well dressed, he had better not recall his
last conversation with his tailor; he had better go and come and do his
duty. Other people may say about the dress what they choose. In
Lowell’s self-criticism, if one may call it so, you see the same
frankness and unconsciousness, the same freedom from conceit of any
kind, which you see in those early expressions which have been cited as
illustrations of his boyhood and his youth. If he had said what he
wanted to, he knew he had. If he had failed, he knew that. But it
seemed to him almost of course that if a man knew what he wanted to say
he should be able to say it.
One wishes that this unconsciousness of method could work itself into
the minds of literary men more often and more thoroughly. Let a man eat
his dinner and let him enjoy it, but do not let the guests discuss the
difference between the taste of red pepper and of black pepper. It is
as true in literature as everywhere else that the life is more than
meat, and the body than raiment. There will probably be sophists and
critics and fencing-masters and dancing-masters in all phases of
society. They will certainly give much pleasure to each other, and
perhaps they will give pleasure to the world; but it may be doubted
whether they will be of much use to anybody. I suppose Grant enjoyed a
dress parade when he saw it well done, but when they asked Grant how
long it took to make a light infantryman, he said, “About half an
hour.” Let us remember this as we listen, a little bored, to what
people have to tell us about style.
There are some curious discussions as to the places and the duties of
prose and of poetry; what you had better say in prose, what you had
better say in verse. But I am disposed to think that such discussions
with him were merely matters of amusement or possible speculation.
Everybody who is really familiar with Lowell’s writing will remember
many passages where the prose may be said to be the translation of his
own poetry, or the poetry to be the translation of his own prose. And
with such training as his, with such absolute command of language, with
his accurate ear and perfect sense of rhythm, it would be of course
that he should “lisp in numbers, for the numbers came.”
[Illustration: MR. LOWELL TO DR. HALE]
To the very end of his life, his conversation, and his daily walk
indeed, were swayed by the extreme tenderness for the feelings of
others which his sister noticed when he was a little boy. He would not
give pain if he could help it. He would go so much more than halfway in
trying to help the person who was next him that he would permit himself
to be bored, really without knowing that he was bored. He would
overestimate, as good men and great men will, the abilities of those
with whom he had to do. So his geese were sometimes swans, as Mr.
Emerson’s were, and those of other lovers of mankind.
His letters are never more interesting than in these closing years;
and, as I have suggested, the fun of his conversation sparkled as
brightly and happily as it ever did. Mr. Smalley, in an amusing
passage, has described his ultra-Americanism in England. A pretty
Englishwoman said, “Mr. Hawthorne has insulted us all by saying that
all English women are fat; but while Mr. Lowell is in the room I do not
dare say that all American women are lean.” When Lowell came home he
would take pleasure in snubbing the Anglomaniacs who are sometimes
found in New England, who want to show by their pronunciation or the
choice of their words that they have crossed the ocean. I think that
every one who is still living, of the little dinner-party where he
tortured one of these younger men, will remember the fun of his
attacks. This was one of the men whom you run against every now and
then, who thought he must say “Brummagem” because Englishmen said so a
hundred years ago; and on this occasion he was taking pains to
pronounce the word “clerk” as if it rhymed with “lark,”—“as she is
spoken in England, you know!” Lowell just pounced upon him as an eagle
might pounce on a lark, to ask why he did so, why, if it were our
fashion to pronounce the word “as she is spelled,” we might not do so,
whether on the whole this were not the old pronunciation, and so on,
and so on.
Never was anything more absurd than the idea which the Irish
sympathizers took up, that a residence in London had spoiled his
fondness for the old idioms and the other old home ways. Indeed, I
think his stay in Southborough was specially pleasant to him because he
learned in another part of Middlesex County how to renew some of those
studies of “Early America” which he had begun before he knew in
Cambridge.
As one turns over the volume of his letters, he finds traces of the
fancies which shot themselves in a wayward fashion into his
conversation. One of the fads of his later life was the taking up of
the notion which we generally refer to Lord Beaconsfield, that almost
everything remarkable in modern life may be traced back, later or
earlier, to a Hebrew origin. He would discourse at length on the Hebrew
traits in Browning, and he affected to have discovered the line of
genealogy where, a century or two ago, a streak of the blood of Abraham
came into the lines of the Brownings. He was quite sure—I am sorry to
say I have forgotten how—that he had a line of Jewish blood himself, a
line which he could trace out somewhere this side of the times of
Ivanhoe. Then there was the hereditary descent of his mother’s family
from the Hebrides, which has been referred to. The Spences were of
Traill origin,—his brother Robert carried the Traill name. And Lowell
liked to think that he had in his make-up something of the element
which in a Lochiel you would call second-sight. Sometimes he alludes to
that in his letters; he has only to shut his eyes, he says, and he can
see all the people whom he has known, whom he wants to see, and carry
on his conversation with them. I have already said that when I
painfully worked through the poems of James Russell, our James
Russell’s great-grandfather, rendering that homage to the shade of that
poet which no one else has rendered for a hundred years, I had to
remind myself that he, alas! had no second-sight, and that he differed
from his great-grandson precisely in this, that he was not of Norna’s
blood and could not work Norna’s miracles.
One of the men of letters whose impressions of such a life every one is
glad to read writes to me of Lowell’s work: “Mr. Lowell excelled at
once in original and critical work, thus giving the lie to the sneer
that a critic is a person who has failed as a creator. Both as a poet
and an essayist he revealed himself as a genuine cosmopolitan. He had
the wisdom of the scholar and the horse sense of the man of the world.
He was equally at home in the splendid realm of the imagination and in
the prosaic domain of hard facts; and it may be said of him, as
Macaulay said of Bunyan, that he gave to the abstract the interest of
the concrete. As a satirist and humorist he produced in the ‘Biglow
Papers’ a work which is unique in our literature. He was not given to
moralizing; his was as far as possible from being a dull didactic
brain; but all to which he put his pen was wholesome and in the best
sense stimulating, free from morbidness and that pessimism of
‘John P.
Robinson, he’
who declared that
‘They didn’t know everythin’ down in Judee.’”
In one of Lowell’s letters written to England after his return he says
that in America they had invented a new torture while he was away, in
the shape of calling upon authors to read their own works aloud for the
benefit of charities. I am always grateful to this form of torture when
it brings as agreeable compensation as I remember on an occasion when
we were both reading, I think, for the pleasure of an audience which
had contributed to the purchase of the Longfellow Park at Cambridge.
For this gave me the pleasure of talking to Lowell for the two hours
while the “entertainment” lasted, as we sat upon the stage in the
Boston Museum. It is rather a curious thing, to a person as little used
to a stage as I am, to find how wholly the footlights separate you, not
simply from the personal touch of the people in the audience, but from
them, until it comes to be your turn to address them. Even at a public
dinner, when you sit by some agreeable person, you have not exactly the
chance for conversation with him which you have when both of you are in
mediæval chairs dug out from the property-room, and reading is going on
quite in front of you which you may attend to or not, as you both
choose. Of course the fortune of a charity was made, if Lowell were
willing to read poetry or prose which he had written.
As the reader remembers, he lectured again in Boston in one or two full
courses to large audiences at the Lowell Institute. He did not
absolutely refuse calls from distant cities, but I think traveling
became somewhat a burden to him, and after he was once in Elmwood, the
associations of the old books and the old life were so pleasant that it
was more difficult to draw him away from home.
For his summer holiday, however, he could run across the ocean and
visit his English friends in the country, or go back to his pleasant
Whitby surroundings. Whitby had for him a particular charm, and one
really wishes that he had been in the mood at some time to make a
monograph on Whitby, so interesting are some of the references which he
makes to it in his letters.
“I am really at Whitby, whither I have been every summer but 1885 for
the last six years. This will tell you how much I like it. A very
primitive place it is, and the manners and ways of its people much like
those of New England. The people with whom I lodge, but for accent,
might be of Ashfield. It is a wonderfully picturesque place, with the
bleaching bones of its Abbey standing aloof on the bluff and dominating
the country for leagues. Once, they say, the monks were lords as far as
they could see. The skeleton of the Abbey still lords it over the
landscape, which was certainly one of the richest possessions they had,
for there never was finer. Sea and moor, hill and dale; sea dotted with
purple sails and white (fancy mixes a little in the purple, perhaps);
moors flushed with heather in blossom, and fields yellow with corn, and
the dark heaps of trees in every valley blabbing the secret of the
stream that fain would hide to escape being the drudge of man.”
We shall find this “hiding of the stream” again. “I know not why wind
has replaced water for grinding; and the huge water-wheels green with
moss and motionless give one a sense of repose after toil that to a
lazy man like me is full of comfort.” “I wish you could see the
‘yards,’ steep flights of stone steps hurrying down from the west cliff
and the east, between which the river whose name I can never remember
crawls into the sea.” The river is the Esk River, but not that which
Lochinvar swam where “ford there was none.”
A year afterwards Lowell writes from Whitby: “I am rather lame to-day,
because I walked too much and over very rough paths yesterday. But how
could I help it? For I will not give in to old age. The clouds were
hanging ominously in the northwest, and soon it began to rain in a
haphazard kind of way, as a musician who lodges over one lets his
fingers idle among the keys before he settles down to the serious
business of torture. So it went on drowsily, but with telling effects
of damp, till we reached Falling Foss, which we saw as a sketch in
water-colors, and which was very pretty.
“Thunderstorms loitered about over the valley like ’Arries on a Bank
Holiday, at a loss what to do with their leisure, but ducking us now
and then by way of showing their good humor. However, there were
parentheses of sunshine, and on the whole it was very beautiful.”
Again, the next year, in 1889, he says: “I was received with enthusiasm
by the Misses Galilee, the landladies; they vow they will never let my
rooms so long as there is any chance of my coming. I like it as much as
ever. I never weary of the view from my window; the Abbey says to me,
‘The best of us get a little shaky at last, and there get to be gaps in
our walls.’ And then the churchyard adds, ‘But you have no notion what
good beds there are at my inn—.’ The mill runs no longer, but the
stream does, down through a leafy gorge in little cascades and swirls
and quiet pools with skyscapes in them, and seems happy in its
holiday.” We shall come to this “happy holiday” again. Will the reader
observe that it is of a series of summers spent in this charming
retirement at Whitby, that we hear people speak who talk of his summers
in England as if the grand society he had met there had spoiled him for
America.
One cannot read Lowell for five minutes without seeing how large his
life was, and how little he was fettered by the commonplace gyves of
space or time or flesh or sense. He never preaches as Dr. Young would
do, or Mr. Tupper, or Satan Montgomery. But, all the same, he is living
in the larger life, and so are you if he calls you into his company.
Writing to Miss Norton, he says:—
“I don’t care where the notion of immortality came from.... It is
there, and I mean to hold it fast. Suppose we don’t know. How much
_do_ we know, after all?... The last time I was ill, I lost all
consciousness of my flesh. I was dispersed through space in some
inconceivable fashion and mixed with the Milky Way.... Yet the very
fact that I had a confused consciousness all the while of the Milky
Way as something to be mingled with, proved that I was there as much
an individual as ever.
“There is something in the flesh that is superior to the flesh,
something that can in finer moments abolish matter and pain. And it
is to this we must cling....
“... I think the evolutionists will have to make a fetich of their
protoplasm before long. Such a mush seems to me a poor substitute for
the rock of ages, by which I understand a certain set of higher
instincts which mankind have found solid under all weathers.”
If I am writing for those who have read Lowell carefully and loyally,
they know that he knew that “the human race is the individual of which
different men and women are separate cells or organs.” They know that
he knew that “honor, truth, and justice are not provincialisms of this
little world,” but belong to the life and language of the universe.
They know that he knew that he belonged to the universe and was the
infinite child of the infinite God. He says sometimes in joke that he
hates to go to church. I am afraid that most men who could preach as
well as he would say the same thing with the chances of the ordinary
religious service. But he also says, “If Dr. Donne or Jeremy Taylor, or
even Dr. South, were the preacher, perhaps”—
As it happens, I recollect no expressions of his more enthusiastic than
those in which he described public services of religion. His mother had
belonged to the Church of England, and his love for the Prayer Book was
associated with his earliest recollections of her.
For the rest, I am sure I should be most sorry to have any one think
that a man of his large, religious nature, who lived in the eternities,
could be satisfied with the average ecclesiastical function of to-day.
It was a disappointment to him that his health forbade one more visit
to his dear Whitby, which he had proposed for the summer of 1890. On
the last day of his last visit there, as I suppose, he wrote the
beautiful poem, not so well known as it should be, with which I will
close this series of reminiscences. He wrote it happily, and he liked
it.
It begins with a gay description of the flow and joyous dash of young
life. As time passes on, the lively brook is held back by dams
sometimes; it is set to work to feed mankind, or to help men somehow;
it is pent in and almost prisoned. But not for always. Why should not
his brook burst its bonds and leap and plash and sparkle as happily as
when it was born?
I print this poem because the circumstances of its composition and
publication prevented its insertion in what are generally spoken of as
the complete editions edited by himself. He says to his daughter, in
speaking of it, “A poem got itself written at Whitby which seems to be
not altogether bad; and this intense activity of the brain has the same
effect as exercise on my body, and somehow braces up the whole
machine.” It is a pleasure to feel that he read this beautiful poem
himself with something of the satisfaction which every one will find in
it. And it is impossible that it should not suggest the conditions of
his own closing life. “My Brook,” he calls it. And one need not run
back to the memories of “Beaver Brook” to fancy the walk or the ride in
which some mountain brook in the North Riding renewed the old Cambridge
experiences. The charming brook of his youth, gay and joyous, had
passed through one and another channel of hard work and of close
discipline; but, as he says, there was no reason why, as he and his
brook came nearer to the ocean, there should not be the same joy and
freedom that there was when he and his brook began on life.
Just after he had written this charming poem—better than that, just
when he liked it—it happened that he received an earnest request from
that excellent friend of literature, Mr. Robert Bonner, asking him to
send something which he might print. On the impulse of the moment
Lowell sent this poem. Mr. Bonner kept it for illustration. He
illustrated it beautifully, and it appeared before the world fifteen
months after, at Christmas of the year 1890, in the New York “Ledger.”
By the courtesy of Mr. Bonner’s sons, I am able to print it all—as the
fit close of these papers. I could not otherwise have given so charming
a review by the poet of his own life and his eternal hopes.
[Illustration:
FIRST TWO AND LAST TWO STANZAS OF “MY BROOK”
_From the original manuscript_]
MY BROOK.[10]
It was far up the valley we first plighted troth,
When the hours were so many, the duties so few;
Earth’s burthen weighs wearily now on us both—
But I’ve not forgotten those dear days; have you?
Each was first-born of Eden, a morn without mate,
And the bees and the birds and the butterflies thought
’Twas the one perfect day ever fashioned by fate,
Nor dreamed the sweet wonder for us two was wrought.
I loitered beside you the whole summer long,
I gave you a life from the waste-flow of mine;
And whether you babbled or crooned me a song,
I listened and looked till my pulses ran wine.
’Twas but shutting my eyes; I could see, I could hear,
How you danced there, my nautch-girl, ’mid flag-root and
fern,
While the flashing tomauns tinkled joyous and clear
On the slim wrists and ankles that flashed in their turn.
------------------
Ah, that was so long ago! Ages it seems,
And, now I return sad with life and its lore,
Will they flee my gray presence, the light-footed dreams,
And Will-o’-Wisp light me his lantern no more?
Where the bee’s hum seemed noisy once, all was so still,
And the hermit-thrush nested secure of her lease,
Now whirr the world’s millstones and clacks the world’s mill—
No fairy-gold passes, the oracles cease!
The life that I dreamed of was never to be,
For I with my tribe into bondage was sold;
And the sungleams and moongleams, your elf-gifts to me,
The miller transmutes into work-a-day gold.
------------------
What you mint for the miller will soon melt away;
It is earthy, and earthy good only it buys,
But the shekels you tost me are safe from decay;
They were coined of the sun and the moment that flies.
Break loose from your thralldom! ’Tis only a leap;
Your eyes ’tis but shutting, just holding your breath;
Escape to the old days, the days that will keep.
If there’s peace in the mill-pond, so is there in death.
Leap down to me, down to me! Be, as you were,
My nautch-girl, my singer; again let them glance,
Your tomauns, the sun’s largess, that wink and are there,
And gone again, still keeping time as you dance.
Make haste, or it may be I wander again;
It is I, dear, that call you; Youth beckons with me;
Come back to us both, for, in breaking your chain,
You set the old summers and fantasies free.
You are mine and no other’s; with life of my life
I made you a Naiad, that were but a stream;
In the moon are brave dreams yet, and chances are rife
For the passion that ventures its all on a dream.
------------------
Leapt bravely! Now down through the meadows we’ll go
To the Land of Lost Days, whither all the birds wing,
Where the dials move backward and asphodels blow;
Come flash your tomauns again, dance again, sing!
Yes, flash them and clash them on ankle and wrist,
For we’re pilgrims to Dreamland, O Daughter of Dream!
There we find again all that we wasted or misst,
And Fancy—poor fool!—with her bauble’s supreme.
As the Moors in their exile the keys treasured still
Of their castles in Spain, so have I; and no fear
But the doors will fly open, whenever we will,
To the prime of the Past and the sweet of the year.
And so “my brook” passes into the ocean.
-----------------------
INDEX
-----------------------
INDEX
Abolitionism, 51, 56, 60.
Adams, Charles Francis, his opinion of Spain, 216, 217;
member of the Saturday Club, 202;
minister to Spain, 239.
Adams, President John Quincy, his action regarding Cuba, 221.
Adams, Samuel, credits Mayhew with idea of colonial federation, 9.
Address at the quarter-millennial celebration of Harvard, by
J.R. L., 268.
Admiralty law, 218.
Advertiser. _See_ Boston Advertiser.
Agassiz, Louis, lecturer before Lowell Institute, 197–199;
professor at Harvard, 197, 198, 268;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Alcott, A. Bronson, 43.
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 149, 151;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Alfonso XII., of Spain, 216, 223, 224.
Allen, Thomas J., 67.
Allen & Ticknor, booksellers, 65, 155.
Allston, Washington, friend of Dr. Charles Lowell, 12;
his pictures in Boston, 58.
Almakkari’s History, translated by Gayangos, 235.
Alpha Delta Phi, at Harvard, 26–29;
society formed at Hamilton College, N.Y., 27.
Amadeo, king of Spain, abdication of, 208, 216.
Amadis, 18.
American Academy, 152.
American ministers to England, 239.
Andrew, Governor, 182, 202.
Andrews, C.C., 248.
Anglomaniacs, snubbed by J.R. L., 275.
Anti-Slavery Society, 173, 174.
Anti-Slavery Standard. _See_ National Anti-Slavery Standard.
Appleton, Thomas Gold, 202, 266.
“Arcturus, The,” 84.
Armstrong, Governor, 155.
Atlantic Monthly, The, 83, 145, 150–152, 156–162, 165–167, 171,
179, 270.
Atlas, The Boston, edited by Richard Hildreth, 69.
Aubépine, Monsieur d’, _nom de plume_ of Hawthorne, 84.
Bachi, Pietro, professor at Harvard, 128.
Bacon, John, 26.
Balliol College, Oxford, compared with Harvard, 22.
Ball’s Bluff, battle of, 183.
Bancroft, George, 68, 152, 155, 239.
“Band of Brothers and Sisters, The,” 71, 72.
Barrett, Elizabeth. _See_ Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.
Barrows, Mr., extracts from J.R. L.’s letters to, 242.
Battle of the Nile, The (song), 75.
“Baxter’s Boys They Built a Mill,” 75.
Beaver Brook, 177, 267, 284.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 104.
Beefsteak Club, 126.
Bellini, Charles, professor of modern languages at Harvard, 126.
Bellows, Henry Whitney, trained in English by E.T. Channing, 19.
Bells and Pomegranates, 85.
Bible, first American, 154.
Bigelow, Jacob, lectures in Boston, 106.
Biglow, Hosea, 210, 211.
Biglow Papers, 44, 115, 124, 163, 176, 177;
first series, popular in England, 98, 99;
occasion of, 162;
second series, 164, 167, 181;
criticism of, 277, 278.
Birmingham address. _See_ Democracy.
Blackwood (magazine), 37, 82, 160.
Blaine, James G., relations with J.R. L., 259.
Blockade-running during the Civil War, 218–220.
Board of Fellows of Harvard University, 15.
Bonner, Robert, publishes Lowell’s poem, My Brook, in New York
Ledger, 284.
Boston Advertiser, edited by Nathan Hale, 35, 79, 114;
publishes J.R. L.’s lectures, 114.
Boston as a publishing centre, 152, 153.
Boston Athenæum, 68, 152.
Boston, in the forties, 55–58;
changes in, 264, 265.
Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion, The, 29, 35, 82, 84–87,
95, 147.
Boston Latin School, 128, 182.
Boston Lyceum, 110.
Boston Public Library, 66.
Boston “school of history,” 68.
Bowen, Francis, professor at Harvard, 50, 170.
Bowker, R.R., 257, 258.
Bradbury & Soden, publishers, 82, 83.
Braham, John, the singer, 58.
Briggs, Charles F., 84, 176.
Brooks, Charles T., 44, 185.
Brooks, Phillips, 202.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 84, 90.
Browning, Robert, 85, 258.
Browning’s Hebrew traits, 276.
Brownson, Orestes A., 57.
Bryant, William Cullen, 97.
Brunetti Latini, teacher of Dante, 49.
Buchanan, James, member of the Ostend conference, 217.
“Buddha of the West,” 203.
Bunyan, remark of Macaulay concerning, 277.
Burnett, Mabel Lowell, daughter of J.R. L., 143, 144, 188, 265, 267.
“Byles,” pseudonym of Edmund Quincy, 176.
Cabot, J. Elliot, member of the Saturday Club, 157, 158, 202;
remark quoted, 203.
Calderon, Serafin Estebanez (the poet), J.R. L.’s love for, 271.
Calderon Collantes, Fernando, 216.
Calderon de la Barca, Madam, governess in the Spanish royal family,
224, 225.
Calderon de la Barca, Pedro, 224.
Cambridgeport Women’s Total Abstinence Society, 111.
Canovas, Señor, 227, 228.
Carlyle, his books reprinted in America; their influence on Lowell,
21;
remark on Rousseau, 46;
his popularity in Cambridge, 60, 61;
London lectures, 105, 106;
his Chartism, 136.
Carpenter, George O., 67.
Carter, James, 40.
Carter, Robert, friend of J.R. L., 86, 91, 114.
Cathedral, The, Emerson’s criticism of, 164.
Changeling, The, 150.
Channing, Edward Tyrrel, professor at Harvard, 18, 19, 21, 35,
41, 128;
lectures in Boston, 67.
Channing, Walter, 22.
Channing, William Ellery (the younger), 43.
Channing, William Francis, abolitionist, 22.
Chase, Thomas, professor at Harvard, 170.
Chapman, Mrs., abolitionist, 175.
Chauncy, Charles, president of Harvard, 194.
Cheerful Yesterdays, 100.
Cherokee warrior of Lowell’s class poem, 51.
Child, Francis J., professor at Harvard, 170, 184–187;
his War Songs for Freemen, 185, 186.
Child, Lydia Maria, contributor to the National Anti-Slavery Standard,
97, 98.
Choate, Joseph H., 40.
Choate, Rufus, lectures in Boston, 67;
J.R. L.’s article on, 166.
Christian Examiner, 152.
Church, the, position of, on the issues between North and South, 100.
Cincinnati Public Library, Rufus King a founder of, 32.
Civil Service Reform, 261.
Civil War, beginning of, 180.
Clarke, James Freeman, his classical scholarship, 14;
trained in English by E.T. Channing, 19;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Clarendon Press, Oxford, 254.
Class Day at Harvard, 39.
Class poem, Lowell’s, 51–53.
Cleveland, Grover, elected president, 259;
does not retain J.R. L. as minister to England, 261.
Cleveland, Henry Russell, contributor to the North American
Review, 61.
Clough, Arthur Hugh, in Cambridge, 135, 136;
acquaintance with Emerson, 136, 137.
“Club, The,” 71.
“Coercion Act,” 243.
Coleridge’s poems published in Philadelphia, 23.
College life in America in J.R. L.’s time, 127–131.
College societies at Harvard, 16.
Commemoration Ode, 8, 164;
delivery of, 188–191.
Commencement dinners at Harvard, 117.
Commission of Thirty, 206.
Concord, Mass., scene of Lowell’s “rustication,” 43–54.
Congregational church, schism in, 10.
Constitution of the United States, celebration of the adoption of,
268, 270;
J.R. L.’s address, 269.
Cooke, George Willis, 201.
Cooke, Josiah Parsons, professor at Harvard, 170, 197.
Coolidge, James Ivers Trecothick, classmate of J.R. L., 27, 32;
contributor to Harvardiana, 36;
class orator, 39.
Corner Bookstore. _See_ Old Corner Bookstore.
Cotton, John, 103, 104.
Courier, The, 162.
Craigie House, 137.
Crocker & Brewster, publishers, 153, 155.
Cromwell’s Head, sign of, 65.
Cuba, negotiations in regard to, between United States and Spain, 208,
217, 221, 227, 228.
Cummings & Hilliard, publishers, 155.
Curtis, George Ticknor, 71.
Cushing, Caleb, J.R. L.’s article on, 166.
Custer, Gen. George A., 182.
Cutler, Elbridge Jefferson, instructor at Harvard, 132, 133, 135, 185.
Daguerreotype, announced by Daguerre, in 1839, 31.
Daily Advertiser. _See_ Boston Advertiser.
Dallas, George M., 156.
Dana, Richard Henry, president of Phi Beta Kappa, 117;
member of the Saturday Club, 202, 266;
friend of J.R. L., 253.
Dana Law School, 183.
Dante, J.R. L.’s lectures on, 130, 140, 142, 144.
Dante, quotation from, 49.
Death of Queen Mercedes (sonnet), 233.
Democracy, Lowell’s address at Birmingham, 237, 252, 253, 268.
Democratic Review, Hawthorne’s stories in, 84.
Dictionary House, 255.
Diplomatic Correspondence, edited by Sparks, 69.
Diplomatic correspondence of J.R. L., 242–244.
Donne, Dr., 282.
Douglas, Stephen A., 200.
Dublin University Magazine, 160.
Dunlap, Frances. _See_ Lowell, Frances Dunlap.
Duyckinck, E.A., editor of The Arcturus, 84.
Dwight, John Sullivan, 202.
Ebeling collection of early American authorities, 68.
Edinburgh Review, The, 62, 168, 235.
Election in November, The, 171.
Eliot, Charles William, president of Harvard, 40, 120, 129, 130, 170,
193, 196, 202.
Eliot, Samuel, his classical scholarship, 14;
pupil of William Wells, 14.
Elliott, Dr., oculist, 89, 90.
Ellis, Rev. Dr. Rufus, classmate of J.R. L., 32;
contributor to Harvardiana, 36;
commencement orator, 54.
Ellsler, Fanny, 58.
Elmwood, home of James Russell Lowell’s family, 1;
occupied by Thomas Oliver in 1774, 1;
confiscated by the state after Oliver’s departure, 2;
lived in by Elbridge Gerry, 3;
used as a hospital during the Revolution, 3;
description, 3, 6, 11, 12;
occupied by J.R. L. after his marriage, 98, 126, 143, 145, 150,
209;
return to, after residence abroad, 263–265, 267, 270;
Dr. Hale’s last visit to Dr. Charles Lowell there, 101;
birthplace of James Jackson Lowell, 182.
Emerson, Ellen, 202.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, trained in English by E.T. Channing, 19;
his copy of Tennyson’s first volume of poems, 21;
Lowell’s first acquaintance with, 48, 49;
address before Cambridge divinity school, 48;
contributes to the North American Review, 61, 63;
literary work as a profession, 63, 64;
English Traits, sale of, 63, 64;
connection with Mr. Phillips, 64;
remarks quoted, 69, 129;
lectures in London, 105;
at Dartmouth College, 108;
in Boston, 59, 67, 110;
friendship with Arthur Hugh Clough, 136, 137;
publication of books, 152;
member of the Saturday Club, 157, 158;
English Traits, 63, 64, 154;
criticism of Lowell’s The Cathedral, 164;
Phi Beta Kappa addresses, 202–205;
member of the Saturday Club, 157, 201;
Bowdoin prize dissertations, 202;
not infallible in judging character, 275.
Emerson, William, 202.
Emigrant Aid Company, destruction of hotel of the, 180.
English Traits, sale of, 63, 64.
English attitude towards America in 1863, 251.
English friends and acquaintances of J.R. L., 257–259.
Esk River, 280.
Euripides, 128.
Eustis, Henry Lawrence, 27.
Eustis, John Fenwick, 26.
Evarts, William M., 214, 231, 239.
Evening Post, edited by Bryant and Gay, 177.
Everett, Alexander, 69, 152;
as minister to Spain, offers $100,000,000 for Cuba, 217;
remark quoted, 153.
Everett, Edward, lectures in Boston, 57, 67, 106;
author, 69, 152;
remark quoted, 128;
president of Harvard, 133, 143;
his opinion of the Transcendentalists, 203;
congressman, 212;
opinion of American enthusiasm for things English, 237;
minister to England, 239.
Everett, William, 40, 212.
Fable for Critics, 58, 124, 163.
Fair Oaks, battle of, 183.
Fantasy, 85.
Federal party, 17.
Federation of colonies suggested by Mayhew, 9.
Felton, Cornelius Conway, president of Harvard, 41, 129, 130, 134,
170, 193, 194;
contributor to the North American Review, 61, 194;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Fenians, 241.
Field, John W., friend of J.R. L., 253.
Fields, James T., 57, 65–67;
editor of The Atlantic Monthly, 151, 166;
bookseller and publisher, 154, 155.
Fields, Osgood & Co., publishers, 169.
Fingal, relation to Fenians, 241.
First Class Book, 20.
First Snowfall, The, 12, 150.
Fish, Hamilton, instructions to Mr. Sickles regarding Spanish
affairs, 208, 225.
Fitful Head, The, 4.
Five of Clubs, The, 60.
Flaxman’s pictures, 86.
Forbes, John Murray, 202.
Foreign press on America, 209, 210.
Fox, Charles James, 9.
Franklin, Benjamin, minister to France, 213.
Frazer’s Magazine, 160.
Frelinghuysen, F.T., letter of J.R. L. to, 244.
French travelers in America, reference to, 121.
Frost, Rev. Barzillai, Lowell’s tutor during his “rustication,”
41, 43–47;
instructor at Harvard, 44.
Frost, Mrs. Barzillai, 47.
Fuller, Margaret, 58.
Gage, General, in Boston, 2.
Galilee, the Misses, Whitby landladies, 281.
Galignani’s newspaper, 209.
Gardiner, Colonel, of Preston Pans, 224.
Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 272.
Garrison, William Lloyd, establishes the Liberator, 56, 57, 174;
influence as a lecturer, 101, 103, 104;
reference to, by J.R. L., 175.
Garrisonians, 173.
Gay, Sydney Howard, journalist and historian, 97, 149, 173–179.
Gayangos, Pascual de, 235, 236.
George, Henry, arrested in Ireland, 241.
German literature at Harvard, 19.
Gerry, Elbridge, lived at Elmwood, 3.
Getting Up, 85.
“Giacopo il Rigiovinato,” 262.
Gilder, R.W., 262.
Gladstone, William Ewart, his first knowledge of Emerson, 108;
prime minister, 249;
his retirement, 250.
Godey’s Lady’s Book, 82.
Gower, Levison. _See_ Granville, Lord.
Graham’s Magazine, 82.
Grant, U.S., his action regarding Cuba, 221, 226;
anecdote of, 274.
Granville, Lord, association with Lowell, 240, 241, 246–250.
Gray, Asa, professor at Harvard, 196, 197.
“Gray, Billy,” 264.
Greeley, Horace, editor of the Tribune, 97, 175;
attitude towards Lincoln, 178, 179.
Greenleaf, Simon, professor of law at Harvard, 32, 81.
Guyot, Arnold, story of his dinner-party, 199.
Hale, Charles, 251.
Hale, Horatio, member of Wilkes’s exploring expedition, 25, 26;
prints vocabulary of Micmac Indian language, 26, 27.
Hale, John Parker, minister to Spain, 218.
Hale, Nathan, Jr., at Harvard, 27, 29, 30;
editor, 35, 36, 83–86, 114;
member of the “Band,” 70, 73, 74.
Hale, Sarah Everett, 71, 72.
Hall, Newman, 194.
Hancock, Governor, 18.
Hartington, Lord, 248.
Harris, Clarendon, 154.
Harrison, President, speech at New York, at the centennial of the
adoption of the Constitution, 269, 270.
Hart, ——, referred to in J.R. L.’s correspondence, 242.
Hart, Albert B., review of diplomatic relations between United
States and Spain, in Harper’s Monthly, 218, 221.
Harvard College, sends Pietas et Gratulatio to George III., 7;
life at, 15–26, 36;
library, 16, 68, 271;
Phi Beta Kappa and Commencement dinners, 117;
modern language work, 126, 127, 130;
growth of the college, 128–130, 133, 134, 192;
professors contemporary with Lowell, 170;
quarter-millennial celebration, 198.
Harvard men in the Civil War, 180.
Harvard Society of Alumni, J.R. L. president of, 117.
Harvardiana, 25, 29, 30, 35–39, 93, 94;
Lowell one of the editors of, 25, 35–39.
Haskell, Daniel N., 67.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, in Concord, 43, 44;
in Boston, 58;
a contributor to the Boston Miscellany of Literature and
Fashion, 84;
publishes books, 152;
member of the Saturday Club, 202;
remark on English women, 275.
Hayes, Rutherford B., elected President, 212, 213;
appoints J.R. L. minister to England, 234, 238.
Hayward, Charles, one of the editors of Harvardiana, 25–27.
Heath, Frank, college friend of J.R. L., prominent in Confederate
army, 95.
Hebrew origins studied by J.R. L., 276.
Hecuba, 128.
Hedge, Dr. F.H., his Phi Beta Kappa address, 128, 129;
contributor to War Songs for Freemen, 185.
Hercules and the Hydra, 211.
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 46.
Hermann, Friedrich B.W. von, 58.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, pupil of William Wells, 13;
his
classical scholarship, 14;
trained in English by E.T. Channing, 19;
Cheerful Yesterdays, 100;
a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, 166.
Hildreth, Richard, historian, 69, 152.
Hildreth, Samuel Tenney, one of the editors of Harvardiana, 25–27.
Hill, Thomas, president of Harvard, 129, 130, 134, 193, 194–196.
Hillard, George Stillman, contributor to North American Review, 61.
Hilliard & Gray, publishers, 153, 155.
Historical Society, library of, 68.
Hoar, George Frisbie, 202.
Hoar, Judge, president of Phi Beta Kappa, 117;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Hoar family, in Concord, 44.
Hoffman, August Heinrich, 46.
Holden, Mr., 122.
Holmes, John, his classical scholarship, 14, 188, 266.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, pupil of William Wells, 13;
classical scholarship, 14;
trained in English by E.T. Channing, 19;
after-dinner speaker, 40;
heard in public in Boston in the 40’s, 57, 67;
note to J.R. L. quoted, 118, 119;
member of the Saturday Club, 157, 158, 201;
referred to in speaking of the Atlantic, 160;
My Hunt after the Captain, 161;
the Autocrat, 165;
contributor to War Songs for Freemen, 185;
calls Emerson the Buddha of the West, 203;
later companionship with J.R. L., 266.
“Hospital for Incurable Children” (anecdote), 263.
Hotel France et Lorraine, Lowell’s home in Paris, 206, 207.
House of Commons, visited by Charles Lowell, 19.
Howe, Dr. and Mrs. Estes, 145, 266.
Howe, Mrs. Julia Ward, 185, 186.
Howells, William Dean, contributor to and editor of The Atlantic
Monthly, 151;
contributor to the North American, 169;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Hughes, Thomas, friend of J.R. L. and guest at Elmwood, 258, 259.
Hughes, Mrs. Thomas, 259.
Hunt, William Morris, 202.
Hunter, Mrs. Leo, 257.
Hutten, Heinrich von, member of Kossuth’s suite, 138;
translates Uncle Tom’s Cabin into German, 138.
Hutten, Ulrich von, 138.
Immortality, Lowell’s belief in, 281, 282.
In Memoriam, published by Ticknor & Fields, 65;
anecdote concerning, 65, 66.
Independent in Politics, The, address before New York Reform Club,
270.
Inglis, Fanny. _See_ Calderon de la Barca, Madam.
Irish-Americans not satisfied with J.R. L. as minister to England,
238.
Irish sympathizers’ criticism of J.R. L., 276.
Irving, Washington, minister to Spain, 213.
Isabella II., of Spain, 220.
Jackson, Judge, 58.
James, Henry, 202.
Jefferson, Thomas, hated by Josiah Quincy, 18;
at William and Mary’s College, 126.
Jennison, James, professor at Harvard, 170.
Jewish strain in Lowell family, 276.
Jowett, Life of, 22;
his opinion of sermons, 99.
July reviewed by September, 171.
Jungfrau, first ascent of, by Agassiz, 198.
Kansas, struggle for freedom of, 101, 171, 218.
Keats, John, his poems, published in Philadelphia, 23;
J.R. L.’s admiration of, 89.
King, Augusta Gilman, 71, 72.
King, Caroline Howard, 71.
King, John Gallison, friend of J.R. L., 70, 74, 79.
King, John Glen, distinguished lawyer, 79.
King, Rufus, at Harvard, 27, 29–33, 35, 36;
lawyer and citizen of eminence in Cincinnati, 31, 32;
member of the Constitutional Convention of Ohio, 32;
Dean of the Faculty of the Cincinnati Law School, 32;
contributor to Harvardiana, 36.
King, Rufus (the elder), leader of Federalist party, 31.
King, Thomas Starr, settles in Boston, 67;
bright sayings, 106, 107.
“King’s Arms, The,” 74.
Knickerbocker Magazine, 82, 83, 160.
Koerner, Gustav, minister to Spain, 218.
Lane, General, 183.
Lane, George M., professor at Harvard, 170.
Lass of the Pamunky, The, 186.
Laud, Bishop, 103, 104.
Lawrence, Abbott, minister to England, 239.
Lawrence, Amos Adams, anecdote of, 264.
Lecture system. _See_ Lyceum system.
Ledger. _See_ New York Ledger, 284.
Leland, Charles Godfrey, 186.
Leland, Henry Perry, 186.
Lexington, battle of, 2.
Liberator, The, 56, 174.
Liberty Bell, The, 97–101.
Libraries in Boston before 1850, 66, 68.
Lilliburlero, 186.
Lilliput circle of Boston and Cambridge, 51.
Lincoln, Abraham, 172, 178, 200, 201, 218.
Lincoln, Robert, reminiscence of Lowell, 142, 143;
anecdote of his entrance to Harvard, 200, 201.
Lippitt, George Warren, at Harvard, 27, 29, 30, 35, 36;
secretary of legation at Vienna, 29;
Unitarian preacher, 32, 33.
Literary Messenger, The, 82.
Lochinvar, 280.
London Quarterly Review, The, 62, 168.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, “Smith professor” at Harvard, 19–21, 40,
41, 128, 130;
contributor to the North American Review, 61, 62;
succeeded in his professorship by J.R. L., 127;
friendship with J.R. L., 135, 137;
kindness to Heinrich von Hutten, 138, 144;
member of the Saturday Club, 157, 202;
contributor to the Atlantic, 165, 166;
anecdote of, 187;
dies during J.R. L.’s residence in England, 266.
Longfellow, Samuel, 31.
Longfellow Park, 278.
Loring, Caleb Williams, 161.
Loring, Charles Greeley, Boston lawyer, 81.
Loring, Frederick Wadsworth, 131, 132, 185.
Loring, George Bailey, intimate friend of J.R. L., 36, 58, 80;
contributor to Harvardiana, 36, 109, 132.
Louis Napoleon. _See_ Napoleon III.
Lovering, Joseph, professor at Harvard, 134, 170.
Lowell, A. Lawrence, extracts from, and references to, his memoir
of J.R. L., 149, 162–164, 172, 210, 260, 270.
Lowell, Blanche, daughter of J.R. L., 149.
Lowell, Charles, brother of J.R. L., 12.
Lowell, Charles, father of J.R. L., minister of West Church, Boston,
1, 6–12, 53, 54, 96, 101.
Lowell, Charles Russell, nephew of J.R. L., killed during the Civil
War, 180–182.
Lowell, Frances Dunlap, wife of J.R. L., 145, 205, 207, 208, 234,
235, 240, 241, 259, 260.
Lowell, Francis Cabot, founder of the city of Lowell, 7.
Lowell, Harriet Spence, mother of J.R. L., 3, 4, 276, 283.
Lowell, James Jackson, nephew of J.R. L., killed during the Civil
War, 180–184.
Lowell, James Russell, parentage, 1, 3;
boyhood, 1, 3–5, 11–14;
early views on slavery, 8;
college days, 15–21;
one of the editors of Harvardiana, 25, 35;
member of Alpha Delta Phi, 27;
early poems, 30, 34, 39;
appointed class poet, 39;
“rusticated” in consequence of indifference to college rules, 40,
41;
stay at Concord, 43–54;
class poem, 50–53;
choice of a profession, 58, 59, 69;
intimate friends 70–77;
abandons law for literature, 81, 82, 85;
a contributor to The Boston Miscellany of Literature and Fashion,
35, 82–86;
with Robert Carter establishes The Pioneer, which dies after three
months, 86–91;
goes to New York for treatment of his eyes, 88–90;
marries Maria White, 1844, 92;
publishes A Year’s Life, 1841, 93, 94;
spends winter of 1844–45 in Philadelphia, 96;
writes for The Liberty Bell and the National Anti-Slavery Standard,
97, 98, 173, 175;
publishes The Biglow Papers, first series, 98;
lectures in behalf of the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, and
on literary subjects, 100, 101, 109–117;
gives Lowell Institute course, 112–117;
president of the Harvard Society of Alumni, 117–121;
president of the Phi Beta Kappa of Cambridge, 117–121;
death of Mrs. Lowell, 125;
goes to Europe, 125;
“Smith professor” at Harvard, 125, 127, 130, 132–135, 137–139,
141–144, 164, 170, 171, 193–201;
marries Miss Frances Dunlap, 145;
editorial work, 145–169, 179, 180;
member of the Saturday Club, 157, 158, 201;
goes abroad, 163;
political essays, 171, 175;
contributor to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, 175–177;
losses of relatives in the Civil War, 180;
visits Paris, 205–208;
Rome, 209;
returns to Elmwood, 209;
his stand in political matters, 211;
presidential elector, 212, 213;
offered several foreign missions, appointed to Spain, 192, 213, 214;
difficulties of the position, 215–221, 225;
life in Madrid, 228–234;
transferred to England, 234;
life in London, 238–261;
death of the second Mrs. Lowell, 241, 259;
tour on the Continent, 253;
returns to America, 261, 262;
last years, 262–284;
public addresses and readings, 266, 269, 278, 279;
Lowell Institute lectures, 270, 279;
later literary work, 270, 271;
etymological study, 271, 272;
death, 262.
Lowell, John, minister at Newburyport, 6.
Lowell, John [2d], judge, 6, 7;
his opposition to slavery, 6;
a verse-writer, 7.
Lowell, John [3d], founder of the Lowell Institute, 7, 9, 112, 113.
Lowell, John, judge, great grandson of John Lowell [2d] above, 202.
Lowell, John Amory, 197.
Lowell, Mabel. _See_ Burnett, Mabel Lowell.
Lowell, Maria White, wife of J.R. L., 71, 72, 75, 76, 78, 86, 87,
91–93;
writes for The Liberty Bell and National Anti-Slavery Standard, 97;
death of, 125, 163.
Lowell, Mary. _See_ Putnam, Mary Lowell.
Lowell, Percival, 7.
Lowell, Rebecca, sister of J.R. L., 11.
Lowell, Robert Traill Spence, brother of J.R. L., 11, 267, 276.
Lowell, Rose, daughter of J.R. L., 149, 163.
Lowell, Walter, son of J.R. L., 163.
Lowell, William, brother of J.R. L., 11, 12.
Lowell factory girls, 83.
Lowell Institute, the, 7, 66, 67, 112, 113;
lectures before, by J.R. L., 112, 113, 270, 279.
“Lyceum system,” 99, 100, 102–110, 112, 152;
influence of, in developing anti-slavery sentiment, 104.
Lyman, Mrs., Life of, 167.
Lyttelton, Lady, friend of J.R. L. and Mrs. L., 259.
Macaulay, T.B., remark on Bunyan, 277.
Macaulay’s History, published in Boston, 156.
Man without a Country, The, published in The Atlantic Monthly,
161, 162.
Mann, Horace, 194.
Mansfield, Lord, decision of, in regard to slavery in England
(Somerset case), 6.
Mason, John Y., member of the Ostend conference, 217.
Mason and Slidell, J.R. L.’s writing concerning, 260.
Massachusetts Bay Colony, 102, 103.
Massachusetts Bill of Rights, anti-slavery clauses, 6, 8.
Massachusetts Historical Society, 68, 110, 152.
Massachusetts Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge, 110.
Mayhew, Thomas, pastor of West Church, first suggested federation of
American colonies, 9.
McClellan, Gen. George B., 181.
McCoil, Fein, 241.
McInerny, John, Irish suspect, 244.
McLeod, Mrs., teacher in Boston, 224.
McMicken bequest, 32.
Mead, Edwin D., article on the Pioneer, 87, 88.
Mechanics’ Association, 110.
Mechanics’ Institutes, 105.
Memorial Hall, Cambridge, 118.
Mercantile Library Association, 66, 67, 110.
Mercedes, queen of Alphonso XII., 232, 233.
Mexican War, 162.
Miller, William, Second Adventist, 57.
Minister’s position in New England in the 18th century, 9.
Miscellany, The Boston. _See_ #Boston Miscellany of Literature
and Fashion.
Missouri Compromise, 8, 96.
Modern language instruction at Harvard, 15, 126, 130;
at William and Mary’s, 126.
Modoc Indians, 210.
Monroe, James, publisher, 154.
Montgomery, Robert, 281.
Monthly Anthology, The, 62, 152.
Montpensier, Duchess of, 219.
Morris, Gouverneur, opinion of, on the Union, 18.
Morse, John T., jr., his Life of Dr. Holmes, 11, 201.
Mosby, Colonel, 182.
Motley, John Lothrop, publishes Merrymount, 69;
member of the Saturday Club, 157, 158, 202;
contributor to the Atlantic, 165, 166;
the North American, 169;
minister to Austria, 213;
to England, 239;
anecdote of, 263.
Moxon, Edward, 85.
Murray’s Dictionary, 253–257, 272.
Music (poem), 12.
“Mutual Admiration Society,” 57, 59–66, 134, 169.
My Brook, 284–286.
My First Client, 80, 85.
Napoleon III. (Louis Charles Napoleon Bonaparte), his action during
the American Civil War, 218–220.
Nation, The, occasion of its composition, 210.
National Anti-Slavery Standard, 97, 101, 149, 163, 171–179.
Natural History Society at Harvard, foundation of, 23.
New England Emigrant Aid Company, 212.
New England Magazine, first, 82;
present series, 87, 201.
New Tariff Bill, The, 171.
New York Ledger, 284.
New York Reform Club, 270.
New York Tribune, The, during the Civil War, 175–179.
Niagara, described by Rev. Barzillai Frost, 45.
“Nightingale in the Study, The,” 271.
Nolan, Philip, 217.
Norna, 4, 277.
North American Review, early character and influence of, 59–64, 82,
152, 167, 168;
edited by Palfrey, 59–61;
by Edward and Alexander Everett, 62, 63;
by Lowell and Norton, 145, 167–169, 171, 179.
North, Christopher, 37.
Norton, Caroline, 188.
Norton, Grace, letters to, 229, 281.
Norton, Charles Eliot, friend of J.R. L. and editor of his letters,
33, 78, 80, 122, 135, 265, 266;
editor, with J.R. L., of the North American Review, 151, 168, 169;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Ode, 85, 86.
Odeon, 57.
Old and New, edited by Nathan Hale, 35;
by E.E. Hale, 164, 216.
Old Corner Bookstore, 57, 64, 66.
Old English Dramatists, first draft of, 29;
published in Boston Miscellany, 85;
reception by the press, 92;
later series, 270, 279.
Oliver, Thomas, lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, lives at
Elmwood in 1774, 1;
resigns his commission, 2.
Oriental Society, 235.
Ostend, conference at, 217.
Oxford Dictionary. _See_ Murray’s Dictionary.
Page, William, 73, 266.
Paine, John Knowles, 189.
Palfrey, John Gorham, member of Harvard divinity faculty, editor of
the North American Review, 59–61;
reads Carlyle’s French Revolution, 61;
remark quoted, 68;
devotes himself to historical work, 69.
Palmerston, Lord, 249.
Parker, Theodore, lectures in Boston
and elsewhere, 101, 103, 104, 106.
Parkman, Francis, 202.
Parsons, T.W., 57.
Payne, John Howard, diplomatic correspondence concerning final
disposition of his remains, 245–247.
Peabody, Andrew Preston, acting president of Harvard, 196.
Peabody, Elizabeth, 58, 84.
Peirce, Benjamin, professor at Harvard, 24, 41, 128, 134.
Peirce, James Mills, professor at Harvard, 170, 202.
Perkins, Colonel, 264.
Perry, Horatio, secretary of American Legation at Madrid, 219.
Perseus and the dragon, 211.
Phi Beta Kappa dinners at Harvard, 40, 117, 203.
Phi Beta Kappa fraternity, 27;
J.R. L., president of Cambridge chapter, 117;
Dr. Hedge’s address, 128.
Philippines, the, 159.
Philistinism, 211.
Phillips, Moses Dresser, publisher. _See_ Phillips & Sampson.
Phillips, Wendell, 57;
as a lecturer, 101, 103, 104, 106, 108.
Phillips & Sampson, publishers, 64, 150–159.
Philological Society undertakes a dictionary, 254.
Photography, invention of, 31;
first photograph taken in New England, 31.
Pickens-and-Stealin’s Rebellion, The, 171.
Pickering correspondence, 217.
Pierce, Franklin, administration of, 180, 218.
Pierce, John, of Brookline, 10.
Pierpont, John, 174.
Pietas et Gratulatio, 7.
Pillsbury, Parker, 103.
Pioneer, The, established by Lowell and Robert Carter, 86–91, 95,
147, 149.
Polk, James K., 156, 217.
Portfolio, The, 82.
Power of Music, The, 13.
Power of Sound, The, 121–123.
Prescott, William Hickling, 69, 152, 159;
contributor to the Atlantic, 165, 166;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Present Crisis, The, 150.
President’s Policy, The, 171.
Prose and poetry, Lowell’s use of, 274.
Publishing houses in Boston, 152–157.
Putnam, Mary Lowell, sister of J.R. L., 4, 5, 11, 12, 266.
Putnam, William Lowell, nephew of J.R. L., killed during the Civil
War, 180, 181, 184, 185.
Quarter-Millennial celebration at Harvard, 198, 268.
Question of the Hour, The, 171.
Quincy, Edmund, 176.
Quincy, Josiah, president of Harvard, 15, 17, 18, 40, 41, 125, 133,
192, 193;
mayor of Boston, 17, 18;
belief in guidance of a “Daimon,” 18.
Randolph, John, defied by Josiah Quincy, 18.
Rebellion, The, its Causes and Consequences, 171.
Reconstruction, 171.
Reno, General, 181.
Renouf, Edward Augustus, classmate of J.R. L., 32.
Riano, Don Juan, archæologist, 236.
Riverside Press, 165.
Rogers, Nathaniel P., editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard,
173, 174.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 46.
“Row up,” 47.
Rowfant Club, Cleveland, issues limited edition of Lowell’s first
course of Lowell Institute lectures, 114.
Royal Library at Madrid, 127.
Russell, Francis Lowell Dutton, 180.
Russell, James, great-grandfather of J.R. L., 7, 277.
Russell, Lord John, 249.
Russell, Warren Dutton, 180.
Sagasta, Spanish premier, 222, 223.
St. John in Patmos, 44.
Salamanca, General, 227.
Salignac’s drill corps, 184.
Sampson, Charles, publisher, 153, 154.
Santiago de Cuba, 225.
Saturday Club; first dinner-party, 156, 157;
history and membership, 201, 202, 266.
Sawyer, Warren, 67.
Saxton, General, 187.
Scates, Charles Woodman, at Harvard, 27, 29, 30, 35, 36;
lawyer in Carolina, 29;
friend of J.R. L., 33, 50.
Schmitt, Captain, 183.
Scotch the Snake or Kill it?, 171.
Second-sight possessed by J.R. L., 3, 4, 277.
Sedgwick, Mrs. T., 186.
Serenade, The, 74, 75.
Shelley’s poems published in Philadelphia, 23.
Shepherd of King Admetus, The, 85.
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 9.
Sickles, D.E., 208, 225.
Silliman, Benjamin, 57.
Sixth Massachusetts Regiment in Baltimore, 181.
Skillygolee, 37.
Skillygoliana, 37, 38.
Slattery, John, Irish suspect, 244.
Slaves freed in Massachusetts, 6.
Smalley, George W., on J.R. L. as minister to England, 252, 260,
261, 275.
Smith, Abiel, benefactor of Harvard, 125, 126.
Smith, Adam, 126.
Smith professorship at Harvard, 19, 20, 126, 127, 130.
Societies at Harvard, 16, 26–29.
Somerset case. _See_ Mansfield, Lord, 6.
Sonnet to Keats, 85.
Sophocles, Professor, 170.
Soulé, Pierre, minister to Spain, 217, 218.
South, Dr., 282.
Southborough, J.R. L.’s residence in, 265, 276.
Southern Literary Magazine, 82.
Spain, American relations with, 208, 215–221, 225–228.
Spanish people, 222, 230, 231.
Sparks, Jared, president of Harvard, 41, 69, 129, 130, 133, 152, 193.
Spectator, The, quoted, 260.
Spence family, J.R. L.’s maternal ancestors, 3, 276.
Star Chamber, 104.
Stearns, Elijah Wyman, 50.
Stearns, Edward, 67.
Stedman, Edmund C., 169.
Stephen, Leslie, 180, 181.
Sterling, John, 106.
Story, Judge Joseph, professor of law at Harvard, 32, 81.
Story, Mary, 71, 72.
Story, William Wetmore, classmate of Lowell and Dr. Hale, 23;
visits West Point, 23;
assists Nathan Hale in the Boston Miscellany, 35;
contributes to Harvardiana, 36;
member of “The Band,” 70, 74, 76;
legal work, 79;
with Lowell in Rome, 163, 209;
work as a sculptor, 209;
later meeting with Lowell, 253;
separation, 266.
Stowe, Calvin Ellis, anecdote of, 187.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 83.
Strauss’s Leben Jesu, 59.
Summer Shower, poem by Longfellow, 20.
Sumner, Charles, his classical scholarship. 14;
trained in English by E.T. Channing, 19;
contributor to North American Review, 61;
lectures in Boston, 67;
member of the Saturday Club, 202.
Supreme Court of Mass, frees slaves, 6.
Taylor, Jeremy, 282.
Tacitus, Wells’s edition of, printed in Cambridge, 13.
Talbot, William H. Fox, inventor of photography, 31.
Tempora Mutantur, occasion of its composition, 210.
Tennyson’s poems at Harvard, 21.
Texas, annexation of, 96.
Thayer, J.B., 40.
Thiers, President, Lowell’s judgment of, 206.
Thomas, Isaiah, publisher of the first American Bible, 154.
Thoreau, Henry D., at Harvard, 25;
in Concord, 43, 44.
Thorndike, Israel, benefactor of Harvard, 68.
“Three Thousand New England Clergymen,” memorial addressed to, 101.
Thursday lecture, 103.
Ticknor, George, first “Smith professor” at Harvard, 20, 126, 127.
Ticknor & Fields, booksellers, 65, 154, 155.
Tilden, Samuel J., 212, 213.
Times, The London, 209, 210.
To Lamartine, 177.
To Perdita Singing, 85.
Tory refugees, 1.
Traill, Mary, grandmother of J.R. L., 3.
Traill, Robert, of Orkney, great-grandfather of J.R. L., 3.
Traill family, ancestors of J.R. L., 3, 276.
Transcendentalists, 202, 203.
Treadwell, Daniel, instructor in science at Harvard, 23.
Trench, Dean, 254.
Tribune. _See_ New York Tribune.
Trimmers, Miss, 11.
Troil, Minna, 3.
Tuckerman. Jane Frances, 72.
Tuckerman. John Francis, 72, 74.
Tudor, William, 58, 264.
Tupper, Martin, 281.
Turgot, Soulé’s duel with, 217.
Two, The, 85.
Tyler, John, President of the U.S., his position on the annexation
of Texas, 96;
his third veto, 111.
Ultra-Americanism of Lowell, 275.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin translated into German, 138.
Undergraduates’ attitude toward instructors, 140, 141.
Underwood, F.H., 157, 159.
University Hall, Harvard College, on title-page of Harvardiana, 37.
University of Cincinnati, foundation of, 32.
Ursuline Convent, Charlestown, 78.
Useful Knowledge Society, 105.
Vallandigham, Clement Laird, 162.
Virginius massacre, 208, 225.
Virtuoso’s Collection, A., 84.
Vision of Sir Launfal, The, 163.
“Voluntaries” at Harvard, 15.
Walker, James, president of Harvard, 57, 133, 134, 170, 193, 200.
Walpole, Horace, 63.
Ware, Henry, lectures in Boston, 106.
War Songs for Freemen, 185.
Warren, George, 67.
Washburn, Edward A., classmate of J.R. L., 32;
contributor to Harvardiana, 36.
Washington in Cambridge, 3;
visits Boston in 1792, 18;
visits Governor Shirley in Boston in 1756, 65.
Webster, Daniel, 57, 59, 67.
Webster’s Dictionary, motto of, 272, 273.
Weekly Pasquil, 176.
Wells, William, teacher of J.R. L., 13.
Welsh, John, minister to England, 239.
Wendell, Barrett, his paper on Lowell, 139, 140.
West Church, Boston, 9, 11.
West Indies in the Civil War, 218–220.
West Point, visit to, 23.
What is there in the Midnight Breeze? hitherto unpublished poem
by J.R. L., 34, 35.
Wheeler, Charles Stearns, one of the editors of Harvardiana, 25–27.
Whipple, Edwin P., 67, 158, 202.
Whitby, a favorite resort of J.R. L., 240, 279–281, 283.
White, Maria. _See_ Lowell, Maria White.
White, William Abijah, brother of Maria White Lowell, 70, 74, 78, 79.
White, William Orne, his classical scholarship, 14.
Whitman, Walt, 84.
Whittier, John G., 202.
Wilberforce, William, 9.
Wilbur, Parson, 44, 45.
Williams, Henry, 27.
Willis, N.P., his criticism of Lowell as an editor, 88, 148;
as a poet, 90.
Wilson, Henry, 175, 179.
Winthrop, John, 160.
Winthrop, Robert C., 67.
Winthrop, Theodore, killed near Hampton, 161;
a contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, 161.
World’s Fair, The (poem), 210.
Worthington, Governor, of Ohio, 31.
“Yankee Plato,” 203.
Year’s Life, A, 12, 74, 93–95.
Young, Edward, 281.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
-----
Footnote 1:
That copy is still preserved,—among the treasures of Mr. Emerson’s
library in Concord,—beautifully bound, for such was his habit with
books which he specially loved.
Footnote 2:
Margaret Fuller was nine years older than Lowell. A good deal of her
early life was spent in Cambridge; and his banter in the _Fable for
Critics_, which was really too sharp, belongs, not to his manhood’s
serious views, but to a boy’s humor.
Footnote 3:
In the preface Bancroft says that he has formed the design of writing
our history “to the present time.” “The work will extend to four,
perhaps five, volumes.” In fact, four volumes carried him to 1776.
When he died he had published twelve, which brought him to 1789. One
volume of this series, which advances the history only one year,
followed its predecessor after two years.
Footnote 4:
I have that little volume now, enriched with James’s marks and
annotations, and full of pleasant memories.
Footnote 5:
_The Serenade._
Footnote 6:
The oldest form of this song is—
“The siege of Belle Isle,
I was there all the while.”
This carries it back as far as 1761.
Footnote 7:
Seeing that Miss Barrett herself recognized the fact that these
American magazine publishers were among the first people who ever
paid her any money, it is sufficiently English that in the same
volume of her correspondence which contains her acknowledgment there
is talk about “American piracy.” One would like to know whether Mrs.
Browning did not receive in the long run more money from American
than from English publishers.
Footnote 8:
Alas, to be eclipsed again!
Footnote 9:
This anecdote arrested attention when it was first published, and I
received more than one note explaining to me that it could not be
true.
All the same it is true. And I took care to verify the dates of the
several steps of the story.
Footnote 10:
Copyright, 1890, by Robert Bonner’s Sons.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note:
Illustrations and photographs were not included in pagination. The
captions are retained, but have been re-positioned to avoid falling
mid-paragraph.
Minor errors in punctuation and formatting have been silently
corrected.
Minor inconsistencies and errors which are obviously due to the printer
have been corrected, as noted in the table below.
Several page references in the Index were missing, and have been added.
The reference to Lady Lyttelton appeared on p. 259. Likewise, the
reference to ‘A Virtuoso’s Collection’ appeared on p. 84.
On p. 260, the sentence beginning ‘And Mr. Smalley at the time
wrote...’ seems to call for a new paragraph.
In the final poem, ‘My Brook’, the line ‘And Will-o’-Wisp light me his
lantern no more?’ was not indented, though the regular form of the poem
would indicate that it should have been.
p. 115 dilustered _sic._ delustered?
p. 217 show what Jef[f]erson thought Added. Line-break error.
p. 258 Amelia [Blandford] Edwards _sic._ Blanford
* * * * *
The following are transcriptions of the several reproduced documents
given in the text. Those which are hand-written are sometimes
illegible, and are annotated as such.
* * * * *
Transcription of document between p. 50-51.
TO THE CLASS OF ’38,
BY THEIR OSTRACIZED POET, (SO CALLED,)
J.R. L.
I.
Classmates, farewell! our journey’s done,
Our mimic life is ended,
The last long year of study’s run,
Our prayers their last have blended!
CHORUS.
Then fill the cup! fill high! fill high!
Nor spare the rosy wine!
If Death be in the cup, we’ll die!
_Such_ death would be divine!
II.
Now forward! onward! let the past
In private claim its tear,
For while _one_ drop of wine shall last,
We’ll have no sadness here!
CHORUS.
Then fill the cup! fill high! fill high!
Although the hour be late,
We’ll hob and nob with Destiny,
And drink the health of Fate!
III.
What though ill-luck may shake his fist,
We heed not him or his,
We’ve booked our names on Fortune’s list,
So d—n his grouty phiz!
CHORUS.
Then fill the cup! fill high! fill high!
Let joy our goblets crown,
We’ll bung Misfortune’s scowling eye,
And knock Foreboding down!
IV.
Fling out youth’s broad and snowy sail,
Life’s sea is bright before us!
Alike to us the breeze or gale,
So hope shine cheerly o’er us!
CHORUS.
Then fill the cup! fill high! fill high!
And drink to future joy,
Let thought of sorrow cloud no eye,
Here’s to our eldest boy!
V.
Hurrah! Hurrah! we’re launched at last,
To tempt the billows’ strife!
We’ll nail our pennon to the mast,
And DARE the storms of life!
CHORUS.
Then fill the cup! fill high once more!
There’s joy on time’s dark wave;
Welcome the tempest’s angry roar!
’T is music to the brave.
* * * * *
Transcription of document between p. 52-53.
VALEDICTORY EXERCISES OF THE HARVARD CLASS OF 1838
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
VALEDICTORY EXERCISES OF THE SENIOR CLASS OF
1838,
TUESDAY JULY 17, 1838.
1. VOLUNTARY. BY THE BAND.
2. PRAYER. BY THE REV. DR. WARE JR.
3. ORATION. BY JAMES I.T. COOLIDGE. _Boston._
4. POEM. By JAMES R. LOWELL.^* _Boston._
5. ODE. BY JOHN F.W. WARE. _Cambridge._
TUNE. “_Auld Lang Syne._”
THE voice of joy is hushed around,
Still is each heart and tongue;
We part for aye,—at duty’s call
We break the pleasing spell.
We meet to part,—no more to meet
Within these sacred walls,—
No longer Wisdom to her shrine
Her wayward children calls.
We met as strangers at the fount
Whence Learning’s waters flow,—
And now we part, the prayers of friends
Attend the path we go.
CHORUS.
And on the clouds that shade our way,
If Friendship’s star shine clear,
No grief shall dim a brother’s eye,
No sorrow tempt a tear.
Yet often when the soul is sad,
And worldly ills combine,
Our hearts shall hither turn, and breathe
One sigh for “Auld Lang Syne.”
Then, brothers, blessed be your lot,
May Peace forever dwell
Around the hearths of those we’ve known
And loved so long,—farewell.
CHORUS.
Farewell,—our latest voice sends up
A heartfelt wish of love,—
That we may meet again, and form
One brotherhood above.
6. BENEDICTION.
* On account of the absence of the Poet the Poem will be omitted.
* * * * *
Transcription of handwritten note between p. 92-93.
List of Copies of the “Conversation” to be given away
by “the Don”
1 W.L. Garrison with author’s respects.
2 C. F. Briggs by Wily & Putnam N.Y.
3 Mrs Chapman with author’s affectionate regards.
4 T. W. Parson, copy of poems & Conversations with author’s love.
(a note to go with these).
5 John S. Dwight (left at Munroe's bookstore Boston) with
author’s love.
6 W. Page with author’s love.
7 R. C. " " "
8 Rev^d D^r Lowell Dedication Copy. ask Owen to send it up.
9 Charles R. Lowell j^r with uncle’s love (No 1, Winter Place)
10 Rev^d Chandler Robbins with authors sincere regard (Munroe's
bookstore)
13 J.R.L. 3 through Antislavery office Care J. M. M^cKim
14 Mr Nichols (printing office) with author’s sincere regards.
15 { R.W. Emerson with author’s affectionate respects.
{
16 { N. Hawthorne, with author’s love.
Both then in one package directed to Hawthorne & left at Miss
Peabody’s
17 Frank Shaw with author’s love.
18 C.W. Storey jr with happy New Year.
I suppose Mr Owen will allow me 20 copies as he
did of the poems.
If the “Don” thinks of any more which I [illegible]
forgotten let him send them with judicious inscriptions.
19 “To Miss S.C. Lowell with the best newyear’s wishes of her
affectionate nephew the author.”
(Mr Owen will send this up.)
20 Joseph T. Buckingham Esq with author’s regards & thanks.