"In person Lowell is of medium height, rather slender, but sinewy
and active. His movements are deliberate rather than impulsive,
indicating what athletes call staying qualities. His hair at
maturity was dark auburn or ruddy chestnut in color, and his full
beard rather lighter and more glowing in tint. The eyes of men of
genius are seldom to be classified in ordinary terms, though it is
said their prevailing color is gray. . . . Lowell's eyes in repose
have clear blue and gray tones, with minute, dark mottlings. In
expression they are strongly indicative of his moods. When fixed
upon study, or while listening to serious discourse, they are grave
and penetrating; in ordinary conversation they are bright and
cheery; in moments of excitement they have a wonderful lustre.
Nothing could be finer than his facial expression while telling a
story or tossing a repartee. The features are alive with
intelligence; and eyes, looks, and voice appear to be working up
dazzling effects in concert, like the finished artists of the
Comedie Francaise."
As a conversationalist Mr. Lowell is unrivalled. His wit is apparently
inexhaustible, and irradiates his whole conversation, as it does all his
writing except his serious poetry. His "Fireside Travels" was pronounced
by Bryant the wittiest book ever written; and it is not more witty than
much of his conversation. The brilliancy of his conversation and the
charm of his manners unite to make him one of the most fascinating
companions in the world; and this charm is felt by all who come in
contact with the man, and is not a thing reserved for his more favored
companions. One who has witnessed an encounter of wit between Lowell and
Dr. Holmes has witnessed one of the finest exhibitions of mental
pyrotechnics of the day. His reading has been wide and varied, and he
has all his resources at command. His observation of men and things has
also been keen, and every variety of anecdote and illustration come
forth from apparently inexhaustible sources as the needs of the moment
demand. His love of Nature and his observation of all her finer moods
make him a most delightful out-of-doors companion. In the beautiful
environs of Cambridge he used to take those long walks which furnished
him with such a fund of accurate observation of the sights and sounds of
the natural world. No man has a keener eye for a bird than he, nor a
quicker ear to distinguish between their songs; and no unusual sound of
insect life escapes his scrutiny,--he is keenly alert to know what is
going on under his feet as well as over his head. The most modest flower
does not escape his eye, nor any peculiarly marked leaf, nor any rich
bed of leafy mould. He sees everything with his poet's eye, even to
"those rifts where unregarded mosses be." He has never been what is
called a society man, though latterly he has gone more into general
society. Formerly, dinner-parties and balls were his pet aversions, as
one might suspect from his poem "Without and Within:"--
"My coachman, in the moonlight there,
Looks through the sidelight of the door;
I hear him with his brethren swear,
As I could do,--but only more.
"Flattening his nose against the pane,
He envies me my brilliant lot;
Blows on his aching fists in vain,
And dooms me to a place more hot.
* * * * *
"Meanwhile, I inly curse the bore
Of hunting still the same old coon;
And envy him outside the door,
In golden quiets of the moon.
"I envy him the ungyved prance
By which his freezing feet he warms,
And drag my lady's chain and dance,--
The galley-slave of dreary forms.
"Oh, could he have my share of din,
And I his quiet!--past a doubt,
'T would still be one man bored within,
And just another bored without."
But he was always fond of good company, and collected around him in
Cambridge, in the old days, a brilliant circle of congenial friends. Of
these, Longfellow, and Professor Felton, and Agassiz, and Dr. Estes Howe
his brother-in-law, were perhaps the closest; but John Holmes and Edmund
Quincy and Robert Carter were very warm friends,--members of the famous
Whist Club, and royal companions all. Dr. Holmes was not far away, and
always a constant visitor at Cambridge; and James T. Fields was a
cherished friend. William Page, the painter, and W. W. Story, the
sculptor, were also among his earlier friends. It was to the latter that
the series of letters collected under the title of "Fireside Travels"
were addressed. But there is scarcely a man of note in the literary
world whom he has not known in the course of his life; and he has made
friends of nearly all he has known. He has been a busy worker, too, all
his life,--industrious, concentrated, and indefatigable. A man who could
write the whole of "Sir Launfal" in two days knows how to toil, and has
been accustomed to concentrate his faculties. Mr. Lowell has an utter
disbelief in the materialistic theory of the Universe, and expresses it
many times in his later poems. He at least--
"envies science not her feat
To make a twice-told tale of God."