CHAPTER XV

THE ENGLISH MISSION

1880-1885

The two and a half years that Lowell passed at Madrid formed an

excellent preparation for the more important post which he was to occupy

near the Court of St. James. The etiquette of a high diplomatic position

does not differ greatly in the different capitals; if anything, more

punctilio would be observed in Madrid than in London. It was something,

at any rate, to have become wonted to the function of a minister

plenipotentiary. But this was a trifle compared with the advantage which

Lowell enjoyed in the possession now of self-confidence. He had tried on

the coat and found it fitted him well; he could wear it in London where

he would be in a far more conspicuous position. He had practised the

diplomatic art in a country where the language was foreign and the race

unfamiliar, and if in his short residence he could, with some assurance,

analyze the internal political conditions, he might hope more quickly to

be able to apprehend nice discriminations in the current politics of a

country where he was at home in language, literature, and history.

It is scarcely to be doubted that his performance of diplomatic duties

in Spain had made it easy for the President to appoint him to the

highest foreign station. But it is also likely that the choice was made

mainly upon the ground of Lowell’s fitness to act as a mediator between

the two countries. With the exception of Motley, there never had been an

American minister to England who was first and foremost a man of

letters, and yet in no other field of human endeavor was there so great

a community of intelligence. Literature had been honored in its

representatives in many courts of Europe and in consular offices, but

the presumption is that heretofore political and commercial relations

with England had been of so complex a character that it was thought

desirable to have a trained man of affairs or of law and statesmanship

at the post. Moreover, it was a great political prize, and men of

letters are, as a rule, non-combatants in politics. But Lowell had been

initiated in Spain, and it was a far more simple process, so far as

political effect might be considered, to transfer him to England than to

have made that a direct appointment.

The educated men of America were delighted with the appointment. They

felt at once that they had a spokesman. And it may fairly be said that

Americans generally were gratified; for a man of letters who has won

high recognition, especially if his work has been in the field of

poetry, history, or general literature, occupies a secure place in the

regard of his countrymen, and is subject to less suspicion or jealousy

than one in any other conspicuous position. By its very nature a

literary reputation is widespread and not local. A very great lawyer,

unless he has also been in the public eye as a member of government, is

taken on trust by all but his professional brethren. A great author

through the process of growing great has become known to increasing

numbers of his countrymen. It is doubtful if any other author, save

Longfellow, would at once have been so accepted by Americans as their

proper representative in London.

On the other side, though the English as a great reading body are not

very familiar with American literature, the leaders of opinion, the

class that stands nearest the government, know it generously, and while

it would be necessary to make the acquaintance of a representative of

American law, business, or politics, a representative of American

letters and scholarship would already be a familiar name. Certain it is

that Lowell in going to London went at once into the midst of friends.

He had been there but two or three days when he wrote: “I am overwhelmed

already with invitations though I have not put my arrival in the

papers;” and a few days later: “I lunched with Tennyson yesterday. He is

getting old and looks seedy. I am going in to take a pipe with him the

first free evening. Pipes have more thawing power than anything else.”

And yet it must not be forgotten that Lowell himself had been a frank

critic of England and carried in his own mind a temper which it might

seem would be in the way of a perfectly cordial relation. In his

political papers and in the second series of the “Biglow Papers” he had

been very outspoken. His well-known article on “A Certain Condescension

in Foreigners,” with its pungent sentences, was not easily to be

overlooked, and there is a letter[74] which Mr. Norton prints, written

in 1865, that may be taken as a truthful report of the attitude held by

Lowell toward England during the great war, and modified only slightly

by time. There was therefore a little consciousness on his part as if he

were not wholly a _persona grata_, and also that he must stand by his

colors, which gave him a certain brusqueness in his early public

appearances. It did not take long, however, for him to adjust himself in

his new relations, for after all it was the greater England to which he

was sent, and the world with which he came immediately into contact was

very hospitable. At the same time, throughout his stay in England he

showed a certain vigilance as the champion of American institutions,

speech, and manners which gave him the air of combativeness. An

Englishman who was often his host said: “I like Mr. Lowell. I like to

have him here. I keep him as long as I can, and I am always in terror

lest somebody shall say something about America that would provoke an

explosion.” Mr. Smalley, who quotes this, adds that Lowell had seen the

inside of more country houses in England than any American who ever

lived; and that there was not one in which he had not let fall some

good American seed.[75]

“Sometimes,” says Max Müller, “even the most harmless remark about

America would call forth very sharp replies from him. Everybody knows

that the salaries paid by America to her diplomatic staff are

insufficient, and no one knew it better than he himself. But when the

remark was made in his presence that the United States treated their

diplomatic representatives stingily, he fired up, and discoursed most

eloquently on the advantages of high thoughts and humble living.”[76]

The official business which occupies an American minister in England is

the formal occasion for accrediting him to the Court; but there has been

a growing disposition to treat this as after all a secondary

consideration beside the less tangible one of increasing good feeling

between the peoples of the two countries. Special envoys, telegrams, and

despatches might serve for the transaction of business, but just as the

countless personal letters which pass between correspondents on both

sides of the Atlantic go to make the invisible web which unites the two

nations, so the personal intercourse which the American minister has

with Englishmen may have a weighty effect in preserving an _entente

cordiale_.

The English more than any other nation have cultivated the dinner-table

and the social meeting for the purpose of exchanging ideas regarding

public affairs. Where an American public man will send for a reporter

of a widely read newspaper if he has some important message to deliver

to his constituents or the people at large, the Englishman will accept

an invitation to a dinner of some society, and take that occasion for

making a speech which will be reported and commented on in all the great

dailies of the city and the provinces. Dinners, unveilings,

cornerstones, meetings of societies,--these all become the accepted

occasions for the propagation of ideas, and the most unrhetorical people

in civilization blurt out their views at such times with a certain scorn

of eloquence and admiration of candor. Moreover, the smallness of the

great legislative chambers conduces to the conversational tone, and thus

public speakers are trained to the disuse of oratory.

It was natural that Lowell should be in demand on such occasions, and it

was inevitable that he should make a remarkable impression. He had for

years cultivated the art of speaking to small assemblies when he had a

congenial subject and a responsive audience. He had the readiness of a

practised writer, and he had above all a spontaneousness of nature which

made him one of the best of conversationalists. It was but a slight

remove from his lecture-room at Harvard, or his study at Elmwood, to an

English dinner-table, and the themes on which he was called upon to

speak were very familiar to him. Literature, the common elements of

English and American life, the distinctiveness of America, these were

subjects on which he was at home, and he brought to his task a manner

quiet yet finished by years of practice. Had set orations been his

business, he would scarcely have made so remarkable an impression as he

made by his off-hand speeches. Yet it must not be supposed that these

were careless, impromptu affairs. He was helped by his readiness, but he

did not rely upon it. He thought out carefully his little address, and

sometimes wrote it out in advance even when he made no use of

manuscript. It was not unalloyed pleasure. “I am to speak at the Academy

dinner to-morrow,” he writes to a friend, after he had had a couple of

years practice in such functions, “which does not make me happy,--and

not a fit word to say has yet occurred to me. They think I like to

speak, I ‘do it so easily.’” He was not one to rise with the declaration

that he had nothing to say, and then to say it. He respected his

audience, and above all, with all his bonhomie, he never forgot that he

was not a private guest, but the representative of a great nation. Not

that he always harped on the one string of a community of nature and

interest in the two countries, but he remembered that he was invited not

simply as a man of letters but as the American minister.

When Lowell went to England he apprehended difficulty in maintaining the

position of an American minister on his salary, which could not greatly

be increased from his modest fortune. Indeed, he said frankly that it

would have been quite impossible to play the host as it should be

played, except for the unhappy fortune which compelled Mrs. Lowell to

withdraw from society. His friends told him, with that candor which

makes English society at once so refreshing and so amusing, that since

Mrs. Lowell could not entertain, he was quite at liberty to accept all

manner of invitations, and be under no obligation to return them. So his

public duties called him in many directions socially, and he was able,

besides doing a little business by the way in these diversions, to see

the best of the intellectual life of the day. He had a choice group of

friends who had known him before he was a public man, and his position

gave shim the entrée in all society, but he whispered: “I think on the

whole I find no society so good as what I have been accustomed to at

home.”

All this brought him, moreover, an endless correspondence which quite

effectually interfered with the friendly letters which had been so

natural an outlet of his moods. “Did you ever happen,” he writes to Mr.

Field, 20 August, 1880, “to be watching the top of a post when a

snowstorm was beginning? You would have seen first a solitary flake come

wavering down and make a lodgment, then another and another, till

finally a white nightcap covered the whole knob. My head is very like

that wooden protuberance, and that’s the way letters descend upon it.

While I am answering one a dozen more have fallen, and if I let a day go

by, I am overwhelmed. And days go by without my knowing it. You tell

Mabel that five have passed since you wrote--which is simply absurd. I

think it was about fifteen minutes ago that I got it.”

“During Mr. Lowell’s service as Minister to England,” writes Mr. R. R.

Bowker, who was at this time resident in London, “Mrs. Lowell was

constantly an invalid, as the after effect of typhus fever while in

Spain, and it was delightful to see Mr. Lowell’s gallantry--for no other

word expresses it--as she was brought down in her invalid chair to the

dining-room or drawing-room. But she never lost the happy laugh so

characteristic of her, and her charm of direct and pleasant manner. Her

condition made it impossible for Mr. Lowell to give receptions or large

dinners, so that his household guests were confined to a few Americans.

In an invitation to dine on Christmas day of 1880, he writes: ‘We shan’t

be very jolly, but there will be a spice of home.’ It was at that

dinner, I think, that Mrs. Lowell had quite set her heart on having

cranberry sauce with the turkey, and so had obtained from that wonderful

American storehouse at 45 Piccadilly a supply of cranberries. But the

servants, who had mostly come with the Lowells from Spain, could not be

made to understand what was wanted, and it was only when, two or three

courses after the turkey, Mrs. Lowell hit upon calling for the ‘compote

rouge’ that we obtained our cranberry sauce as a separate course....

“Mr. Lowell was always charmingly gallant, and on one occasion at the

house in Lowndes Square there was present a young American actress from

whom he asked some recitation. She offered to read the balcony scene

from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ but said she had no Romeo, whereupon Mr. Lowell

volunteered, the Juliet reciting from behind the sofa, and the most

charming of Romeos, though somewhat elderly for the part, reading from

in front.”

The duties of his office in the first part of his service were not

onerous except as multitudinous details bring weariness, but the long

illness of President Garfield during the summer of 1881 brought a strain

upon the emotions, and called for the constant exercise of a refined

courtesy. For, aside from the formal exchange of sympathy which would be

inevitable under such circumstances, there was that spontaneous and

varied expression of grief on all sides, to which Lowell refers with so

much feeling and such exquisite reserve of speech in the address on

Garfield which was given at the Memorial Meeting in Exeter Hall, 24

September, 1881, and is preserved in “Literary and Political Addresses.”

Lowell was there speaking to Americans in the presence, as it were, of

all England, and the note of sobriety and deep feeling and strong faith

which he struck still has the beauty and richness with which it fell on

the ears of his sympathetic audience. He was constantly called upon

during that anxious season of the President’s illness to respond to

letters of sympathy. A despatch which he sent to the Secretary of State

a fortnight after the blow shows the same dignity in his official

communication, and illustrates also the atmosphere in which he was

living throughout the summer. It is No. 219, and is dated 16 July,

1881:--

“Warm expressions of sympathy with the President, with Mrs. Garfield,

and with the people of the United States, and of abhorrence of the

atrocious attempt on the President’s life have reached this Legation

from all parts of England and Scotland. From the Queen to the artisan,

the feeling has been universal and very striking in its manifestation.

The first question in the morning and the last at night for the first

ten days after the news came was always: ‘How is the President?’ Had the

President’s life not been spared, the demonstration of feeling would

have been comparable with that which followed the assassination of Mr.

Lincoln.

“The interest of the Queen was shown in an unusually marked way, and was

unmistakable in its sincerity and warmth. By her special request all our

telegrams were at once forwarded to her at Windsor. At Marlborough

House, on the 14th she sent for me, in order to express in person her

very great satisfaction that the condition of the President was so

encouraging.

“I need not waste words in telling you with what profound anxiety your

telegrams were awaited, nor how much encouragement and consolation were

brought by the later ones. I may be permitted to thank you, however, for

the entire composure which characterized them, and which enabled me to

maintain my own while prophets of evil were hourly sending me imaginary

news.

“The impression produced here by the President’s dignity and fortitude

may be almost called a political event, for I believe that it has done

more to make a juster estimate of American character possible here than

many years of commercial or even social intercourse would have done.”

It was with a great sense of relief from tension, after the death of the

President, that Lowell took a leave of absence, and made a short trip to

Italy. “I am just starting,” he writes to T. W. Higginson, 8 October,

1881, “for the continent on a leave of absence which I sorely need. Wish

me joy, I am going to Italy! Whether I may not find somebody else in my

chair at the Legation when I come back is one of those problems that I

cannot solve, and care little about, though now that I have made

friendships here I should like to stay on a little longer. Did you know

that I have five grandchildren?”

Unfortunately Mrs. Lowell was not sufficiently restored to health to

accompany him, but he had the good fortune to find Mr. and Mrs. Field at

the end of his journey. “We reached Flushing,” he wrote Mrs. Lowell from

Frankfort, 10 October, “at half-past six in the morning and there took

the train for this place. We travelled several thousand miles, as it

seemed to me, through Holland, every now and then seeing a hunchbacked

church gathering its village under its wings like a clucking hen when

she sees the hawk in the air, at every turn a windmill and low fields

bordered with trees that always look just beginning to grow--Heaven

knows why. After crossing the Prussian frontier, the dead level

continued as far as Cologne. The only difference was that the trees

were larger and often one saw pretty linden-alleys leading up to the

little towns. The railway officials had a more close-buttoned military

air, and were always saluting invisible superiors.”

On the 12th he wrote from Weimar: “I left Frankfort at noon on Monday

and got here towards seven in the evening. The first half of the journey

was through one of the loveliest valleys (of the broad and basking kind)

I ever saw. The only name I recognized in this part of the way was

Offenbach, where Goethe had his adventures with Lilli a hundred and more

years ago, but after passing Elm the names grew more familiar and

famous. _Fulda_, Gotha, Erfurt, _Eisenach_. Weimar is a neat little

capital which looks about as large as Salem, and where the one stranger

is as much stared at as there. _Why_ it is a capital, and especially why

it should be where it is, puzzles me. The park is really delightful,

with fine trees and one of the most beautiful streams running through it

I ever saw. The water is so clear as to seem almost luminous, the

water-mosses are as green as those of the sea, and some horse-chestnuts

that had fallen in shone like live coals. I walked about the town all

the forenoon.”

He paid a visit to Goethe’s house and the next day went on to Dresden,

where he reflected that it was just twenty-five years since he was

living there, a young man then, an old man now, but that he should find

the Sistine Madonna and a few other old friends as young as ever. From

Dresden he went to Venice, and there he found his friend Mr. Field. “He

is as young and social as ever,” he wrote to Mr. Norton, 31 October;

“has made the acquaintance here of everybody he didn’t know before, and

goes with me to Florence on Thursday. The Brownings have also been here,

but go to-morrow morning. The weather has been _brutto assai_, only two

partly fine days during the time I have been here, and to-day it rains.

We hear of three inches of snow at Vicenza, and I can well believe it,

so cold has it been. _Che tempo straongante!_ Still, Venice has been

beautiful and dear for all that. Browning begins to show his seventy

years (he will be seventy next February) a little, though his natural

[force] be not abated. I hear that I am to stay in England, all rumors

to the contrary notwithstanding.[77] Fanny continues better. She did not

venture to come with me. I shall probably go on as far as Rome, and get

back to London in time for the best fogs.”

To Mrs. Lowell be wrote from Venice, 1 November: “To-day the sky is

bright for the third time since my arrival. All the other days have been

cloudy or rainy, with a cold _tramontana_ blowing steadily and

strongly.... You remember that Lady Gordon told me I should find a

_bateau mouche_ plying on the Grand Canal. I did not expect to be

personally inconvenienced by it; but as it lessened the custom of the

gondoliers they have all struck work this morning, and one can’t get a

_barca_ for love or money. Poor fellows, they will find, as others have

done, that steam is stronger than they.... I have given up Rimini owing

to the cold, and shall start for Florence day after to-morrow with

Field, who is younger and livelier than ever,--and makes more

acquaintances every day than I should in a year.”

The two spent a week in Florence and then went to Rome where they

foregathered with Story, and after a few days there Lowell set out alone

on his return to London. He made a brief stay in Paris, and wrote thence

to Mr. Field, 29 November, 1881: “I walked a good deal yesterday and

felt very well, but to-day my head aches and things have come back. I

met young Longfellow, who was to start for London last evening; also

Thornton Lothrop, who came back with me to my hotel (where, by the way,

I have a small suite--drawing-room, dining-room, two bedrooms with their

own door of entrance on the staircase--first floor--for twenty-five

francs, _service y compris_), and gave me heaps of Boston and Cambridge

news. I am going to breakfast with him at the Bristol presently. I

called at the Hôtel de Lorraine[78] and met the Revolution in person.

The whole Hôtel de France part--the whole inside that is--was a heap of

rubbish in the street. With some trouble I penetrated to Madame

Guillaume, who led me into a tiny cavern in the rear, where I found

Madame Garrier transformed into a cave-dweller. I expected to hear the

growl of the _ursus speluncæ_, or whatever they call him. The darkness

of a pocket (without any _chink_ in it) would be illumination compared

with it.... But Madame was very cordial. Presently Marie came in grown a

tall girl and with very pretty manners. I took her out into the light

and found her the image of her father. Him I did not see. Doubtless he

was talking politics or taking snuff with some gossip or other of his. I

remember he always disappeared in moments of crisis like the repair of

the _salle à manger_ which took place in my time. He is a singed cat,

having seen two revolutions and the Commune.”

It was after his return to London that Lowell was in the thickest of the

contention which began not long after his appointment to the post of

American minister and continued through more than half of his term, as

long, that is, as the period of acute disturbance of the relations

between England and Ireland. Other international questions arose during

his term of service, but none that called for the exercise of so much

sound diplomatic discretion, or gave rise to so much angry criticism.

Lowell’s judgment regarding Irish affairs was not the result merely of

what he now saw and heard in London. No American who had followed public

questions at home could escape the formation of some opinion respecting

the Irish character and the relation in which Ireland stood to England,

and through her emigrants to America. In 1848, when Smith O’Brien,

Meagher, and other Irish leaders were agitating for reform through

insurrection, Lowell commented on the situation in one of his editorial

articles in the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_. He had no faith in the

measures which these leaders proposed; he thought the only radical cure

for the evils of Ireland lay in peasant proprietorship and education.

“The only permanent safeguard,” he writes, “against famine is to give

the people a deeper interest in the soil they cultivate and the crops

they raise. It is the constant sense of insecurity that has made the

Irish the shiftless and prodigal people which they are represented to be

by all travellers. Education will be of no avail unless at the same time

something be given them on which they can bring it to a practical

bearing. Take away English opposition and the present insurrection is

directed against--what? We confess ourselves at a loss for an answer.

The only insurrection which has done Ireland any real service was the

one headed by Father Mathew. The true office of the Irish Washington

would be to head a rebellion against thriftlessness, superstition, and

dirt. The sooner the barricades are thrown up against these the better.

Ireland is in want of a revolution which shall render troops less

necessary rather than more so.”

When Lowell was earnestly opposing the suicidal course of the South

before the actual outbreak of the war for the Union, secession being

then the shibboleth, he took Scotland and Ireland in their relation to

Great Britain for parallel historic instances in support of his

position. “There is no such antipathy,” he wrote, “between the North

and the South as men ambitious of a consideration in the new republic,

which their talents and character have failed to secure them in the old,

would fain call into existence by asserting that it exists. The

misunderstanding and dislike between them is not so great as they were

within living memory between England and Scotland, as they are now

between England and Ireland. There is no difference of race, language,

or religion. Yet, after a dissatisfaction of near a century and two

rebellions, there is no part of the British dominion more loyal than

Scotland, no British subjects who would be more loath to part with the

substantial advantages of their imperial connection than the Scotch; and

even in Ireland, after a longer and more deadly feud, there is no sane

man who would consent to see his country irrevocably cut off from power

and consideration to obtain an independence which would be nothing but

Donnybrook Fair multiplied by every city, town, and village in the

island. The same considerations of policy and advantage, which render

the union of Scotland and Ireland with England a necessity, apply with

even more force to the several States of our Union.”[79]

When, therefore, Lowell found himself in England as the representative

of the United States at a period when the chronic irritation between

England and Ireland was at an acute stage through the operation of the

so-called coercion act, it is not surprising that be should take a very

lively interest in affairs. As a part of his diplomatic duty, he kept

his government informed not so much of the facts which were the news of

the day, as of the interpretation to be put upon the political

situation. Accordingly, on 7 January, 1881, he wrote to Mr. Evarts, then

Secretary of State:--

“Seldom has a session of Parliament begun under more critical

circumstances. The abnormal condition of Ireland and the question of

what remedy should be sought for it have deeply divided and embittered

public opinion. Not only has the law been rendered powerless and order

disturbed (both of them things almost superstitiously sacred in

England), but the sensitive nerve of property has been rudely touched.

The opposition have clamored for coercion, but while they have persisted

in this it is clear that a change has been gradually going on in their

opinion as to how great concessions would be needful. It seems now to be

granted on all sides that the Irish people have wrongs to be redressed

and just claims for rights to be granted. I think that the government

have at least gained so much by the expectant and humane policy which

they have persevered in under very great difficulties, and in spite of a

criticism the more harassing as it seemed to have some foundation in

principles hitherto supposed to be self-evident.

“Added to this was the fact (at least I believe it to be a fact) that

there was a division of opinion in the Cabinet itself. This probably led

to the one mistake in policy that has been made by the prosecution of

Mr. Parnell and some of his associates--a mistake, because, in the

exceedingly improbable contingency of the jury agreeing to convict, the

belief will be universal in Ireland that they have been packed, and the

government will have a dozen martyrs on its hands of whom it would be at

a loss how to dispose,--a half-ludicrous position which could not fail

to involve a loss of prestige.

“There can be no doubt that Mr. Parnell was unpleasantly surprised by

the land league, and has been compelled to identify himself with a

movement having other and more comprehensive (perhaps more desperate)

aims than that which he originated. So far as can be judged, a great

deal of the agitation in Ireland is factitious, and large numbers of

persons have been driven by timidity to profess a sympathy with it which

they do not feel. This, of course, strengthens the probability of its

being possible to allay it by generally acceptable measures of reform. I

am sure that the reasonable leaders or representatives of Irish opinion

see the folly of expecting that England would ever peaceably consent to

the independence of Ireland; that they do not themselves desire it; and

that they would be content with a thorough reform of the land laws and a

certain amount of local self-government. Both of these measures, you

will observe, are suggested in the speech from the throne. You will

readily divine that one of the great difficulties with which the

ministry has had to struggle has been the presentiment that a change in

the conditions of land tenure in Ireland will be followed by something

similar, certainly by an agitation for something similar, on this aide

the Irish channel.

“The Cabinet, I am safe in saying, are earnestly desirous of doing

justice to Ireland, and not only that, but of so shaping reform as to

make the cure as lasting as such a cure can be. No government can

consent to revolution (though this was deemed possible in some quarters

as respects some governments twenty years ago), but the present ministry

are willing to go all lengths that are feasible and wise in the way of

reform and reparation. Their greatest obstacle will be the overweening

expectations and inconsiderate temper of the Irish themselves, both of

them the result of artificial rather than natural causes. For no reform

will be effectual that does not gradually nullify the unhappy effects

produced by the influence, through many generations, of the pitiable

travesty of feudal relations between landlord and tenant, making that

relation personal instead of mercantile, and thus insensibly debauching

both.

“The condition of Ireland is not so disturbed now as it has been at

several periods during the last eighty years, and precisely the same

system of organization was brought to bear against the collection of

tithes fifty years ago that has now been revived to resist the payment

of what are considered excessive rents. The landlords are represented as

the minions of a foreign and hated domination, and the use of the

epithet _foreign_ has at least this justification, that there is

certainly an imperfect sympathy between the English and Irish characters

which prevents each from comprehending either the better qualities of

the other or, what is worse, the manner of their manifestion.

“I cannot perceive that the public opinion of the country has withdrawn

itself in any appreciable measure from sympathy with the Cabinet, though

there is considerable regret among thoughtful liberals that coercion

should have been deemed necessary and that the proposed reforms should

not have gone farther. If the Irish could only be brought to have as

much faith in Mr. Gladstone as he has desire for their welfare, there

might be more hope than I can now see for a permanent solution of the

Irish question.”

Mr. Evarts acknowledged the despatch with commendation for its lucid

treatment of the subject, but Lowell soon found himself involved in

something closer at hand than academic discussion. About three weeks

after this despatch, he had occasion to write again of the state of

affairs, and to note the final passage of the so-called coercion bill.

At the close of this despatch his wrote: “The wild and whirling words of

some Irishmen and others from America have done harm to something more

than the cause of Irish peasantry, by becoming associated in the public

mind with the country whose citizenship they put off or put on as may be

most convenient. In connection with this, I beg leave to call your

attention to an extraordinary passage in the letter of Mr. Parnell to

the Irish National Land League, dated Paris, February 18, 1881, in which

he makes a distinction between ‘the American people’ and ‘the Irish

nation in America.’ This double nationality is likely to be of great

practical inconvenience whenever the coercion bill becomes law. The same

actor takes alternately the characters of a pair of twins who are never

on the stage simultaneously.”[80]

In his capacity of critic, Lowell heartily condemned the measure taken

by the British government. In a letter to the American consul in Cork,

he wrote: “The ‘coercion act,’ so-called, is an exceptional and

arbitrary measure. Its chief object is to enable the authorities to

arrest persons whom they suspect of illegal conduct, without being

obliged to produce any proof of their guilt. Its very substance and main

purpose are to deprive suspected persons of the speedy trial they

desire. This law is, of course, contrary to the spirit and foundation

principles of both English and American jurisprudence; but it is the law

of the land and it controls all parties domiciled in the proclaimed

districts of Ireland, whether they are British subjects or not, and it

is manifestly entirely futile to claim that naturalized citizens of the

United States should be excepted from its operation.”[81]

But Lowell was not a mere looker-on in London, He was charged with the

very delicate duty of discriminating between men who were American

citizens and innocent of any infraction of British laws and men who used

the cloak of naturalization, whether genuine or pretended, to cover

illicit actions and designs. He had to uphold the real dignity of the

American citizen, and at the same time to avoid entangling his country

and Great Britain by an unwary protection of some one who had no title

to protection. The cases which now began to succeed each other with

confusing rapidity involved not only a mass of correspondence and the

sifting of evidence, but the application constantly of personal

judgment, and the exercise of much ingenuity in the reading of

character. An illustration may be found in a despatch of Lowell to his

government, dated 4 June, 1881. After an analysis of the political

situation, he says:--

“I think that the necessity of a radical and prompt reform in the

relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland is forcing conviction into

the mind of even the Conservative Party, though the violence of language

and the incitement to violence of action on the part of those who claim

to be the true friends of Ireland are doing much to endanger the success

of remedial measures.

“Among the most violent are often the Irishmen who have been naturalized

in America, and then gone back to Ireland with the hope, and sometimes,

I am justified in saying, with the deliberate intention, of disturbing

the friendly relations between the United States and England. Such a one

called upon me the other day. His name was----, naturalized in 1875 at

Baltimore, and going over to Ireland immediately after on the plea that

his health could not resist the American climate. He is now at least a

remarkably robust and florid man. He told me that he was a draper in

Charleville, County Cork, and hearing that a warrant was out for his

arrest, he had come over to London to claim my protection. He had been

acting as treasurer of the Land League in that place. He professed not

to know on what grounds the warrant had been issued, but I satisfied

myself in the course of our conversation that he knew perfectly well it

was for seditious language and incitement to violence. He favored me

with a good deal of this sort of rhetoric with a manner that implied no

earnestness of conviction, and as if repeating something he had learned

by rote. He several times repeated that the ‘best thing would be a war

between England and the United States.’ After hearing this man’s talk,

my belief was that he had purposely exposed himself to the chances of

arrest in the hope of adding to the difficulties of the government. I

asked him if he had considered the enormous interests at stake, quite

apart from any moral consideration, and that England was our greatest

customer for cattle, corn, and cotton? He merely repeated what he had

said before as to the desirability of war. ---- declared that he meant to

return to America whenever his health would permit, but admitted that it

would take at least five years to wind up his business, and I think his

intention may fairly be questioned. As he declared himself ready to be

quiet for the future if not arrested, I thought it prudent to mention

his name unofficially to Lord Granville, and to suggest that the warrant

should not be put in force unless further offence were given.

“I have spoken at some length of his case, because I think it of some

importance that the Department should be informed as to the kind of

persons who may ask its intervention, and as to the doctrines they

preach. Under ordinary circumstances they would be harmless, and are

made mischievous only by the excited state of the country. My own

judgment is that the ministry have gone to the extreme limit of public

opinion in their concessions to Irish necessities; that they are

perfectly honest in their desire to be generously just; and that the

best friends of Ireland are not those who, however sincerely, throw

obstacles in their way. The real cure, which I believe to be a larger

measure of Home Rule, will be made easier by the better state of things

which, in the opinion of those best competent to judge, is likely to

result from the passage of the Land Bill.”

In the early stages of what proved to be a long and vexatious series of

Irish-American cases, Lowell laid down a course of action which he seems

to have adhered to consistently. The United States consul at Dublin had

on his hands a case which was especially troublesome, because the claim

of the arrested man to American protection rested on statements of

citizenship which were contradictory, and created naturally a suspicion

as to the validity of the claim. After cautioning the consul to make

certain enquiries, he adds: “If the fact of his American citizenship

should thus be ascertained to your satisfaction, I desire then that you

should carefully examine into the grounds of his arrest, and if the

precise facts justify the belief that no substantial charge of his

complicity with treasonable or seditious objects can be made out, you

will communicate this to the authorities in Ireland and request his

discharge or to be informed why he is detained. You will please

intimate, in respectful terms and without any warmth or suggestion of

threats, that you are making these enquiries under my instructions, and

are acting precisely as British consuls in the United States acted soon

after the civil war, under the directions of the British minister at

Washington, in cases of summary arrests of British subjects. It is my

duty to protect, so far as I can, all citizens of the United States,

whether native or naturalized, who are shown to be innocent of designs

to subvert civil order, and I should not perhaps require in such cases

evidence of innocence so full and conclusive as that which might be

required in a court of law. At the same time I shall by no means try to

screen any persons who are evidently guilty of offending against the

criminal laws of Great Britain.”

Mr. Blaine, who had succeeded Mr. Evarts as Secretary of State, on being

advised of Lowell’s action in this case, wrote that it received “the

entire commendation of the Department as discreet and proper.” And a

few weeks later, as the case became somewhat more involved, he wrote

again: “The prudence you have shown in dealing with ----’s claim to

citizenship is commendable, and the statements as to the law in his

case, made in your letters to him, are in full accord with the

interpretation of this Department.” Mr. Blaine then laid down

instructions to meet certain hypothetical cases, and not long after had

occasion to call Lowell’s attention to another apparent act of injustice

in the arrest of a naturalized American citizen. The friends of the man

in America had besieged Mr. Blaine in his behalf, and Mr. Blaine wrote

an eloquent despatch to Lowell, in which he said: “If American citizens

while within British jurisdiction offend against British laws, this

government will not seek to shield them from the legal consequences of

their acts, but it must insist upon the application to their cases of

those common principles of criminal jurisprudence which in the United

States secure to every man who offends against its laws, whether he be

an American citizen or a foreign subject, those incidents to a criminal

prosecution which afford the best safeguard to personal liberty and the

strongest protection against oppression under the forms of law, which

might otherwise be practised through excessive zeal.”

Lowell replied somewhat dryly: “It will give me great pleasure to

communicate to Lord Granville the views you have so clearly and

eloquently expressed as to the injustice of some of the features of the

so-called ‘Protection act,’[82] and especially its retroactive

character. But I would respectfully suggest whether any step would be

gained toward the speedy trial or release of ---- by an argument against

the law itself under which he was apprehended. So long as Lord Granville

expressly declines to make any distinction between British subjects and

American citizens in the application of this law, a position which I

presume may be justified by precedents in our own diplomatic history, I

submit to your better judgment whether the only arguments I can use in

favor of ---- must not be founded upon some exceptional injustice in the

way in which he has been treated. If this shall appear by the report of

the consul to have been practised, I shall press for his trial or

release with great earnestness. But if it shall be shown that he has

experienced no more harshness than the majority of his fellow-prisoners

have suffered, I do not feel by any means sure that your instructions

would authorize me to make any special application on his behalf.”

Lowell finally secured the release of the man by pointing out that his

health was suffering by his imprisonment, and it is not unlikely that

Lord Granville was glad of so good an excuse to remove one of the

perplexities by which his government was embarrassed.

The whole unhappy business may be said to have been at its height when,

in February, 1882, a resolution of the House of Representatives called

upon the President for detailed information respecting the arrest of

American citizens in Ireland. The State Department accordingly called on

the American minister in London to furnish this information, and in his

despatch dated 14 March, 1882, Lowell recounts all the cases which up to

that time had come under his notice, with all the correspondence

relating thereto. There were ten, and the number was increased by a few

more before the business was settled. At the close of the despatch,

enumerating the ten cases, Lowell says very pertinently:--

“I may be permitted to add that I have had repeated assurances from the

highest authority that there would be great reluctance in arresting a

naturalized citizen of the United States were he known to be such. But

it is seldom known, and those already arrested have acted in all

respects as if they were Irishmen, sometimes engaged in trade, sometimes

in farming, and sometimes filling positions in the local government.

This I think is illustrated by a phrase in one of Mr. ----’s letters, to

the effect that he never called himself an American. He endeavors, it is

true, in a subsequent letter, to explain this away as meaning _American

born_; but it is obviously absurd that a man living in his native

village should need to make any such explanation. Naturalized Irishmen

seem entirely to misconceive the process through which they have passed

in assuming American citizenship, looking upon themselves as Irishmen

who have acquired a right to American protection, rather than as

Americans who have renounced a claim to Irish nationality.”

It is not surprising that the whole affair caused much fury of words

both in Congress and out. An organization existed which was bent on

making all the trouble it could for the British government, and there

was still plenty of political capital in Irish wrongs. A great

mass-meeting was held in New York at which Lowell was denounced

severely, and from this time till his return from England every

opportunity was taken by a certain class of men to sneer at him for what

they were pleased to regard as his apostasy from American principles. He

was defended, however, both in Congress and in the press. His course was

well summed up in an editorial article, in which the writer says:--

“Mr. Lowell, who has been denounced by Mr. Randall for his ‘sickening

sycophancy to English influence,’ has treated the matter not as an

English, Irish, or American question, but purely as a point of

international law. He has had no sympathy with the coercion legislation,

and has even taken pains to characterize it as exceptional and

arbitrary.... That law [the ‘protection’ law] legalized the arrest of

the suspects in districts where the writ of _habeas corpus_ had been

suspended, and where the natives were not allowed the privilege of a

jury trial. To have demanded their unconditional release, when no

discrimination had been made between them and the natives, would have

been an open affront to a friendly power. What Mr. Lowell did was to

follow the best precedents of criminal jurisdiction in international

cases, several of which had been established during the American civil

war, when British subjects were arbitrarily arrested and denied the

privilege of trial. At the same time, he has conducted the negotiations

with the Foreign Office with so much tact and decision that we are

inclined to expect a speedy clearance of the Irish jails from suspects

whose citizenship in the United States is authenticated.” And the next

day the same journal said: “Mr. Lowell’s negotiations for the release of

the Irish-American suspects have been crowned with partial success.

Before the mass-meeting at Cooper Institute disgraced itself by heaping

reproaches upon him, the Department of State had received official

information that all but three of these prisoners had been set at

liberty in response to the request of the United States minister.... Mr.

Frelinghuysen[83] reports that the negotiations have been carried on

between the two governments for some time ‘in a spirit of entire

friendship.’ This result had been promoted by the cordial relations

existing between Lord Granville and Mr. Lowell. The fact that our

government has been represented in these negotiations by one of our

foremost men of letters has been a most fortunate circumstance. Mr.

Lowell had won the respect and admiration of the best men in English

public life, and when he came to plead for these suspects his personal

character and popularity were of direct service to them.... Mr. Mr.

Lowell made, as our cable despatches have stated, every effort

consistent with diplomatic usage, and at the same time performed a most

delicate duty with such consummate tact as to remove all sources of

irritation.”[84]

The whole situation was plainly one that called for great tact, and for

that delicate use of language in which the shadows of words are not to

be left out of account. It was probably with reference to this

particular encounter that the London _Spectator_ said shortly after

Lowell’s death: “There was a question at one time whether the late Lord

Granville or Mr. Lowell were the more accomplished and subtle in

conveying, without offence, the suggestion or conviction which it might

be the duty of either of them to impress on any one to whom the

communication might not be welcome. And probably this is a point which

would be very differently determined by different people. But though

equal in courtesy and grace of manner to Lord Granville, we should say

that Mr. Lowell had the greater power of the two to impress his meaning,

even where it was a meaning painful and difficult to enforce, without

conveying even the slightest tincture of personal discourtesy. Lord

Granville was perhaps even fuller of the _suaviter in modo_, but Mr.

Lowell never forgot the necessity, where the necessity existed, of

conveying also the impression of the _fortiter in re_. With all his

grace, there was a plainness of purpose in him which could not be

mistaken.”[85]

Lowell himself, writing to Dr. Holmes shortly before leaving England,

recalls the situation and says: “Some of my Irishmen had been living in

their old homes seventeen years, engaged in trade or editing nationalist

papers, or members of the poor-law guardians (like MacSweeney), and

neither paying taxes in America nor doing any other duty as Americans. I

was guided by two things--the recognized principles of international

law, and the conduct of Lord Lyons when Seward was arresting and

imprisoning British subjects. We kept one man in jail seven months

without trial or legal process of any kind, and, but for the

considerateness and moderation of Lyons, might have had war with

England. I think I saved a misunderstanding here.... When I had at last

procured the conditional (really unconditional) release of all the

suspects, they refused to be liberated. When I spoke of this to Justin

McCarthy (then the head of the Irish Parliamentary party, Parnell being

in Kilmainham), he answered cheerfully, ‘Certainly: _they are there to

make trouble_.’”[86] One of the intimations of what lay in his mind

throughout all the delicate business may be read in a note to Mr. John

W. Field, 19 January, 1884: “I wonder, by the way, when we shall see an

American politician able to appreciate and shrewd enough to act on

Curran’s saying about his countrymen, that ‘an Irishman is the worst

fellow in the world to run away from.’”

And after his return to America, he wrote to Lady Lyttelton: “You must

make up your mind to let Ireland have her head. She may no doubt choose

to go over a precipice, though I don’t think that she would, and at any

rate a whole legion of devils would go with her as with the Gadarene

swine; at best it is all up playing Sisera, for the stars in their

courses are rather beyond reach even of the newspapers.” That Lowell had

a keen appreciation of the genuine spirit of patriotism which moved the

Irish in America in his generation may be discerned by any one who will

read the closing sentences in his address on “The Independent in

Politics.”

Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton in an article[87] published just after

Lowell’s death, tried to sum up his intellectual qualities in a word,

and thought he found the expression in “sagacity.” “In life,” he says,

“his most striking characteristic--a characteristic indicated not only

by the watchful gray eyes and the apparently conscious eyebrows that

overshadowed them, but in every intonation of his voice, and every

movement of his limbs--was a marvellous sagacity.” “What is called his

wit,” he adds, “is merely this almost preternatural sagacity in rapid

movement. What is called his humor is this same sagacity at rest and in

a meditative mood.” Without pushing this analysis so far, there is no

doubt that in his diplomatic capacity Lowell did draw upon his native

genius for quick perception and interpretation. The gift which he had

multiplied by use in the criticism of literature and in the diagnosis of

political situations at home, was at his service both in Madrid and

London. It made him not a mere fencer in a diplomatic game, but a man of

resources in the serious representation of his country’s interests. That

he could couch his demands or protests in witty phrase added to his

power of persuasion; and he could not associate as an equal with English

statesmen without applying his sagacity to their problems even where

these did not immediately concern his own people. Perhaps it was after

Majuba that he wrote in one of his despatches: “I asked Lord Lyons

whether he did not think suzerainty might be defined as ‘leaving to a

man the privilege of carrying the saddle and bridle after you have

stolen his horse.’ He assented.”

* * * * *

There was, perhaps, something in the adjustment of Lowell to his

surroundings which set the springs of poetry flowing intermittently. At

any rate, he was content, conscious that he was of service in a high

position, happy both in his own health--“I have never seen a climate

that suited me so well,” he wrote--and in his wife’s improvement, and

surrounded by congenial companions. These things do not necessarily make

for poetry, but Lowell had by this time come into that mellow stage when

what he did had about it an absence of apparent effort, when his ripe

experience and equipoise of life found easy expression, and poetry was

a solace and a pastime. To be sure, there is something to make one smile

behind his hand when one sees the American minister sending his “Phœbe”

across the Atlantic and following it with almost daily corrections, yet

one listens to the note with the feeling that the poet is putting into

the reminiscence of a far-off sound not a little of his present

apprehension of himself. Nay, the poem in its first form broke at last

into two stanzas, wisely omitted in the final recension, which are

almost bald in their apologetic confession:--

“Let who has felt compute the strain

Of struggle with abuses strong,

The doubtful course, the helpless pain

Of seeing best intents go wrong.

“We who look on with critic eyes

Exempt from action’s crucial test,

Human ourselves, at least are wise

In honoring one who did his best.”

On New Year’s Day, 1882, Lowell sent another poem, “Estrangement,” to

Mr. Gilder for the _Century_. “I am pleased,” he wrote, “that you liked

the little poem I sent you, and the more that you asked for another.

Here is one you are welcome to, if you like it. I rather do, but that is

nothing, and I shall like you none the less if you don’t. Treat me like

a gentleman and not like a poet,--I mean as you would a gentleman and

not a poet. I am tough and have myself played Herod to many an infant

muse, and mine is approaching her second childhood.”

His social life drew from him occasional verses, as when he planted a

tree at Inverary, or thanked Miss Dorothy Tennant, who afterward married

Henry M. Stanley, for a drawing of little street Arabs, or sent a sonnet

home in honor of Whittier’s seventy-fifth birthday, or gave a posset cup

to a god-child. He was happy in pleasing young friends with verses,

sometimes inserting them in books which he gave them, or writing them in

their albums.

Early in 1882 he was saddened by the sudden death of R. H. Dana, one of

the earliest of his friends and lately fresh in his recollection since

he had seen much of him in his recent stay in Rome. “We had known each

other,” he wrote to Mr. George Putnam, “at least fifty-five years. He is

a great loss, and the more that his career was incomplete. He never

filled the place he ought in public affairs. One weakness neutralized

the legitimate effect of his very remarkable abilities. Death seems to

be hitting right and left among my contemporaries. So far as I am

concerned, I take the warning with perfect equanimity.” It was somewhat

in the same mood that he wrote to his friend Field: “I have no news

except that for about a week I have been _having a head_ again. I have

temporarily reformed and live cleanly like Falstaff. No wine, no black

coffee, and--you won’t believe it, but ’tis true--no baccy till

afternoon and then a short allowance. You see I am in earnest. At the

same time that I take these precautions I confess that I don’t _hanker

arter_ much more of this world, and shouldn’t mind much if--. I notice

that the men in my platoon are dropping right and left. I wish I

relished life as much as you. Give my love to----, who will see by the

way I spell her name that I am in good humor though I feel as if I had

Luke’s iron crown on.”

He was drawn in colored chalks at this time by Mr. Sandys, and another

portrait also was painted by Mrs. Merritt, which now hangs in the

Faculty Room in University Hall at Harvard. “I am off for private view

at Academy,” he writes to Mr. Field, 28 April, 1882; “two portraits of

myself there. They are very unlike each other, and my duty to the artist

requires me to try and look as much like each as I can. What am I to do?

They will be in different rooms doubtless, and so I can manage it

perhaps.”

It was a light matter to toy with verse now and then, but as for prose,

the most be attempted beyond his despatches to his government were the

speeches he made now and then. Mr. Aldrich had asked for a paper on a

certain subject for the _Atlantic_, and he replied, 8 May, 1882: “If I

could, how gladly I would! But I am piece-mealed here with so many

things to do that I cannot get a moment to brood over anything, as it

must be brooded over if it is to have wings. It is as if a setting hen

should have to mind the doorbell. Now, you must wait till I come home to

be Boycotted in my birthplace by my Irish fellow-citizens (who are kind

enough to teach me how to be American) who fought all our battles and

got up all our draft-riots. Then, in the intervals of firing through my

loopholes of retreat I may be able to do something for the _Atlantic_. I

am now in the midst of the highly important and engrossing business of

arranging for the presentation at Court of some of our fair citoyennes.

Whatever else you are, never be a minister!” Mr. Bowker relates of

Lowell that “at one time he had given offence to an American lady of

doubtful reputation, who had asked him to present her at Court, and on

his dexterously evading that responsibility, had asked him point blank

whether he was unwilling because he had heard certain things about her.

He could not answer in the negative, and she went off vowing vengeance.

A few months afterwards, when the Irish criticisms were hottest, she

reappeared and had the effrontery to tell him that she had stirred up

the whole business herself, out of revenge. Mr. Lowell added, on telling

this story, that he proposed to accomplish at least one thing, to keep

his country respectable, even if he had to resign to do it.”

One of the most admirable of his little speeches was that on unveiling

the bust of Fielding at Taunton, 4 September, 1883. He spoke as an

author, as one who had reflected upon the great office of literature,

and as a critic who could measure Fielding’s power by the standard of

Shakespeare and Cervantes, and perhaps even more effectively as one of

the English race who was enough differentiated by his American birth,

and enough instructed by his familiarity with racy men of the soil, to

appreciate the essential English manliness of the great writer. This

address is indeed one of the most striking commentaries on the fitness

of Lowell to act as a spokesman for the common Englishry of two

countries. His point of view was at once that of an onlooker and of one

indigenous. Three years later, when reprinting the address in his volume

“Democracy and other Addresses,” he refers to one passage in the speech

as follows: “I am constantly bothered by the disenchanting effect of my

sense of humor (of which I speak in the Fielding address) which makes me

too fair to both sides. This often makes me distrustful of myself. I am

sometimes inclined to call Genius not ‘an infinite capacity for taking

pains’ (though that is much), but an infinite capacity for being

one-sided.”

There was a somewhat humorous episode in Lowell’s career in the autumn

of 1883. It is a time-honored custom at the ancient and sturdy little

University of St. Andrews for the student body to elect once a year a

Lord Rector of the University whose duties are limited to a single

address. There is a tacit understanding that politics shall not enter

into the election, and that the choice shall be the students’ own,

without interference from the officers of the faculty. This does not of

course preclude an interest on the part of professors, and Shairp,

Campbell, and Baynes especially took a lively interest in the proposal

that Lowell should succeed Sir Theodore Martin. At first Mr. Mallock

appeared as opposition candidate, but his name was withdrawn when it was

found that he had been set up by some indiscreet person with a view to

bettering his chances for Parliament, and the Right Hon. Edward Gibson

was proposed. A protest was lodged against Lowell’s nomination on the

ground that he was an alien. The whole business created a lively

discussion in and out of print, and _Punch_ entered the lists with these

lines:--

“An alien? Go to! If fresh, genial wit

In sound Saxon speech be not genuine grit,

If the wisdom and mirth he has put into verse for us

Don’t make him a ‘native,’ why, so much the worse for us.

Whig, Tory, and Rad should club votes, did he need ’em,

To honor the writer who gave _Bird o’ Freedom_

To all English readers. A few miles of sea

Make Lowell an alien? Fiddle-de-dee!

’Tis crass party spirit, Bœotian, dense,

That is alien indeed--to good taste and good sense.”

The excitement ran high, and Lowell was elected by a considerable

majority. But his opponents pushed the matter further, and demonstrated

that he was really ineligible by reason of his “extra-territoriality.”

As Lowell put it in writing to Professor Child: “My official

extra-territoriality will, perhaps, prevent my being rector at St.

Andrews, because it puts me beyond the reach of the Scottish Courts in

case of malversation in office. How to rob a Scottish University

suggests a serious problem.” To avoid further complications Lowell

resigned. He good-humoredly told his friends at home that his only

regret was in being prevented from adding the dignified line “Univ.

Sanct. Andr-Scot-Dom. Rect.” to his name in the Harvard catalogue. His

student friends could do nothing but accept the situation. Later, they

begged him, when they knew he was to be at St. Andrews, to address them

unofficially. It was not long before the expiration of his term as

American minister, and he wrote, 27 January, 1885:--

“Circumstances over which I have no control will prevent my being with

you at St. Andrews next Friday. I feel deeply touched by the continued

kindness of the students of your ancient University, and greatly honored

by their wish to see me and hear me. I am somewhat consoled in my

disappointment by the reflection that neither your eyes nor your ears

will lose so much as is kindly implied by the invitation with which you

have honored me. It is I who miss a pleasure whose loss I shall always

regret; for young friends have a charm and value of their own, as he

feels most sensibly who has reached a period in life when old ones are

only too frequently saying good-by forever.”

When the commotion over the rectorship was going on, Lowell was having a

holiday in Paris, where he was able to take Mrs. Lowell for a couple of

months. An anonymous writer in the _Atlantic Monthly_,[88] who saw the

Lowells at this time, has recorded some impressions created by Lowell’s

conversation, and among them one respecting his interest in the Jewish

race. When he was writing his paper on Rousseau, his interest was

awakened, and the interest took a personal turn as he associated his

own family name of Russell with that of the French philosopher. He was

led to enquire into the representation of the race in America, and no

doubt his interest was heightened by his sojourn in Spain. But it was

after he went to England, where be had manifold opportunities for making

observations, that the whole subject of the Jewish element in society

came to be a very frequent topic of conversation with him. It was just

such a subject as would appeal to his love of paradox, his subtle

curiosity, and his liking for brilliant forays into new territory. It

does not appear that Lowell ever set down in writing his deliberate

convictions. Rather he kept this theme for the pastime of conversation,

driving the ball indeed at times with an energy which would suggest the

professional athlete.

“One evening,” says the writer in the _Atlantic_, “I was dining with Mr.

and Mrs. Lowell and three other friends, and he began to lament the

renaming of old streets which was going on, and the obliteration of the

last traces of the Paris of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,--the

Paris of the schoolmen and their open-air debates. He spoke of the local

history that lay in the mere names of streets and squares,--Rue du

Fouarre, Rue des Gauvais Garçons, and several more of which he gave the

origin and legend. In the midst of this picturesque and learned

disquisition he stumbled upon the class of a celebrated philosopher of

those times, seated on their bundles of straw,--a well-known teacher

whose name I cannot now recall,--and stated that he was a Jew.

“He instantly began to talk of the Jews, a subject which turned out to

be almost a monomania with him. He detected a Jew in every hiding-place

and under every disguise, even when the fugitive had no suspicion of

himself. To begin with nomenclature: all persons named for countries or

towns are Jews; all with fantastic, compound names, such as Lilienthal,

Morgenroth; all with names derived from colors, trades, animals,

vegetables, minerals; all with Biblical names, except Puritan first

names; all patronymics ending in _son_,--_sohn_, _sen_, or any other

version; all Russels, originally so called from red-haired Israelites;

all Walters, by long descended derivation from wolves and foxes in some

ancient tongue; the therefore Cecilia Metella, no doubt St. Cecilia too,

consequently the Cecils, including Lord Burleigh and Lord Salisbury; he

cited some old chronicle in which he had cornered one Robert de Cæcilia

and exposed him as an English Jew. He gave examples and instances of

these various classes with amazing readiness and precision, but I will

not pretend that I have set down even these few correctly. Of course

there was Jewish blood in many royal houses and in most noble ones,

notably in Spain. In short, it appeared that this insidious race had and

permeated the human family more universally than any other influence

except original sin. He spoke of their talent and versatility, and of

the numbers who had been illustrious in literature, the learned

professions, art, science, and even war, until by degrees, from being

shut out of society and every honorable and desirable pursuit, they had

gained the prominent positions everywhere.

“Then he began his classifications again: all bankers were Jews,

likewise brokers, most of the great financiers,--and that was to be

expected; the majority of barons, also baronets; they had got possession

of the press, they were getting into politics; they had forced their

entrance into the army and navy; they had made their way into the

cabinets of Europe and become prime ministers; they had slipped into

diplomacy and become ambassadors. But a short time ago they were packed

into the Ghetto: now they inhabited palaces, the most aristocratic

quarters, and were members of the most exclusive clubs. A few years ago

they could not own land; they were acquiring it by purchase and mortgage

in every part of Europe, and buying so many old estates in England that

they owned the larger part of several counties.

“Mr. Lowell said more, much more, to illustrate the ubiquity, the

universal ability of the Hebrew, and gave examples and statistics for

every statement, however astonishing, drawn from his inexhaustible

information. He was conscious of the sort of infatuation which possessed

him, and his dissertation alternated between earnestness and drollery;

but whenever a burst of laughter greeted some new development of his

theme, although he joined in it, he immediately returned to the charge

with abundant proof of his paradoxes. Finally he came to a stop, but not

to a conclusion, and as no one else spoke, I said, ‘And when the Jews

have got absolute control of finance, the army and navy, the press,

diplomacy, society, titles, the government, and the earth’s surface,

what do you suppose they will do with them and with us?’ ‘That,’ he

answered, turning towards me, and in a whisper audible to the whole

table, ‘that is the question which will eventually drive me mad.’”

On the return of the Lowells from Paris to London they moved into a

larger and more commodious house still in Lowndes Square, but No. 31.

“We have been having a mild winter,” Lowell writes to Mr. Field, 19

January, 1884, “with only a couple of days or so of frost thus far.

Everything is looking as green as summer (by everything I mean the grass

in the Parks) and the thrushes are using up all their best songs before

the curtain of spring rises. The Season hasn’t begun yet, but I am

dining out more or less as usual. Fanny goes too sometimes, but can’t

stand much of it. You will have seen that I have resigned my rectorship,

but I was at once chosen president of the Birmingham and Midland

Institute so that I might have another chair to sit down in.”

It was in the double office of American minister and poet that he took

part in the ceremonies attending the unveiling of the bust of Longfellow

in Westminster Abbey, 2 March, 1884. But the personal relation which he

bore the poet was uppermost in his mind, especially as he was renewing

his intercourse with the family in the person of two of Longfellow’s

daughters who were living in England at this time and were present at

the unveiling. The occasion was not one for critical judgment, but in

the course of his brief speech he made a felicitous point on sonnet

writing. “I have been struck particularly,” he said, “with this quality

of style in some of my late friend’s sonnets, which seem to me in unity

and evenness of flow among the most beautiful and perfect we have in the

language. They remind one of those cabinets in which all the drawers are

opened at once by the turn of the key in a single lock, whereas we all

have seen sonnets with a lock in every line with a different key to

each, and the added conundrums of secret drawers.”

In April came the tercentenary commemoration of the University of

Edinburgh, when Lowell was present and received the degree of Doctor of

Laws. The same degree was conferred on him at his own University a few

weeks later.

In May he was called on for two addresses. On the seventh of the month

he attended the annual dinner of the Provincial Newspaper Society at the

Inns of Court Hotel, London, and a few words which he then said, because

spoken apparently without premeditation, are worth recording as

expressing a judgment held by him with great sincerity. “I have my own

theory,” he said, “as to what after-dinner speaking should be. I think

it should be in the first place short; I think it should be light; and

I think it should be both extemporaneous and contemporaneous. I think it

should have the meaning of the moment in it, and nothing more. But I

confess that when I get up here and face you, representing what you call

the Provincial Press--and if you will allow me by way of an

interjection, I may state that it has been my fortune to live in a

number of countries, where it has sometimes been my duty to study the

National Press, and I have always and everywhere found it provincial: I

have never yet encountered a truly cosmopolitan newspaper--when I feel

myself standing for the first time in the presence of a collection of

editors, I experience a very serious emotion. I feel as if I were

talking to the ear of Dionysius, at the other end of which the world was

listening. I do not see any reporters here--I am glad I do not. I cannot

help taking this opportunity, with so many persons who have the

formation of public opinion before me, of saying one or two words on the

growing change which has taken place in the methods of forming public

opinion. I am not sure that you are always aware to how great an extent

you have supplanted the pulpit, to how great an extent you have

supplanted even the deliberative assembly. You have assumed

responsibilities, I should say, heavier than man ever assumed before.

You wield an influence entirely without precedent hitherto in human

history. I do not wish the dinner to be too solemn, but, as I tell you,

I have been solemnized standing in this presence. I came here intending

only to say a few words of kindly thanks for the friendliness which you

have shown toward the country I have the honor to represent, and to me

as representing it. But, I cannot forbear to say that, if I were an

editor, I should have written up in the room in which I write, ‘Woe to

me if I preach not the gospel:’ I mean so much of the Word of God as is

manifest to me, and I should strive to preach that word, and to convey

it to my fellow-men. I have always thought the case of clergymen a hard

one, because they are expected to be inspired once a week. But what is

this to yours who must be inspired every day, and who have undertaken to

edit the whole world every morning? There has been nothing, as I was

just saying, that has, in the history of man, occupied such a position

as the Press. You have the formation of public opinion. There is not a

man here who values any more than I do, or ever have done, the opinion

of Tom, or the opinion of Dick, or the opinion of Harry. But when Tom,

Dick, and Harry agree, then we begin to call it public opinion. I am not

sure that it always deserves that name; but I am sure of this, that

public opinion is of value in precise proportion to the material it is

made of. I am sure of this, that two factors go towards the making of

that material. One is the editor, and the other is the reader.”

Three days later, 10 May, 1884, he delivered, as president of the

Wordsworth Society, the address on that poet which is included in his

“Literary and Political Addresses.” He deprecated the notion that he

could add materially to what he had written of Wordsworth in his more

deliberate earlier paper,[89] for as he says: “Without unbroken time

there can be no consecutive thought, and it is my misfortune that in the

midst of a reflection or of a sentence I am liable to be called away by

the bell of private or public duty.” The speech contains one or two

critical passages which may be added to the sum of Lowell’s comment on

Wordsworth; but to the student of Lowell’s mind as affected by new

conditions and registering itself in new terms, the speech is more

interesting because of the main thought in it, that which occupies him

upon passing in review the work of Dr. Knight who had by his new edition

of the poet enabled the student to perceive more clearly the development

of Wordsworth’s thought. Precisely that examination which we are

desirous of making of Lowell, Lowell set out to make of Wordsworth; but

the eye of the student reveals something of the mind that prompts the

eye’s excursion, and Lowell was in a way suggesting the movement of his

own thought when, upon enquiring what was the solution by which

Wordsworth attempted as he grew in years to justify his own early

radicalism with his later conservatism, he found a very powerful

influence in that religious conception which dominated Wordsworth’s

later thought. “I see no reason to think,” he says, “that he ever

swerved from his early faith in the beneficence of freedom, but rather

that he learned the necessity of defining more exactly in what freedom

consisted, and the conditions, whether of time or place, under which

alone it can be beneficent, of insisting that it must be an evolution

and not a manufacture, and that it should coördinate itself with the

prior claims of society and civilization.” But the roots of freedom were

planted in the individual nature, and there they were to be nourished.

Development of character--yes, but by what means? “Observation convinced

him that what are called the safeguards of society are the staff also of

the individual members of it; that tradition, habitude, and heredity are

great forces, whether for impulse or restraint. He had pondered a

pregnant phrase of the poet Daniel, where he calls religion ‘mother of

Form and Fear.’ A growing conviction of its profound truth turned his

mind towards the church as the embodiment of the most potent of all

traditions, and to her public offices as the expression of the most

socially humanizing of all habitudes.”

Lowell was analyzing Wordsworth’s poetry with a view to reaching

definite understanding of the principles which prompted it, and

especially which led to the gradual yet none the less sure change in the

philosophy of the poetry. I think in the whole interesting discussion

which Lowell here entered upon one may read his own mind, more or less

conscious of change in its attitude and finding in the mirror of another

poet some image of itself. In becoming wonted to English life, Lowell

was lessening a certain protest against institutional religion which was

characteristic of the community into which he was born, and had been a

part of his own intellectual and moral expression. In a letter to Mrs.

Herrick written in 1875, he had answered a question of hers regarding

his religious faith:--

“You ask me if I am an Episcopalian. No, though I prefer the service of

the Church of England, and attend it from time to time. But I am not

much of a church-goer, because I so seldom find any preaching that does

not make me impatient and do me more harm than good. I confess to a

strong lurch towards Calvinism (in some of its doctrines) that

strengthens as I grow older. Perhaps it may be some consolation to you

that my mother was born and bred an Episcopalian.”

In this passage Lowell betrays very naturally his New England mind. He

inherited the prevailing notion that the Episcopal Church was an

exotic,--he speaks of attending the service of the Church of England,

when he probably is thinking of his occasional visits with his daughter

to Christ Church in his own Cambridge; and he could not help looking

upon the sermon as the central point in religious worship. But the

preference which he had for the service was easily strengthened by

association with it where it was the rule and not the exception; not

only so, but that observation which he used so keenly showed him in

England the existence of a highly organized society, very congenial to

him, in which not only was church-going a matter of course, but religion

as a spirit was not dissociated from the forms of worship, rather it was

thought of largely in those terms. Hence it was that Lowell in adjusting

himself as he did to the life about him was undergoing more or less

conscious a change in the attitude of his mind toward the whole field of

religion.

To some this would seem an indication that Lowell was becoming

Anglicized. But how confidently could this be asserted of his political

faith? That was a very integral part of his nature. From youth to age he

had declared and reiterated his faith in freedom, in the largest

liberty, and especially in that political equality which was the basis

of all that was holiest and most enduring in the America of which he was

so passionate a lover,--the America which he saw in a vision, and was

able to see even through the vapors which might rise from mephitic

ground. When the autumn of 1884 came, the political signs pointed to a

change of party in the administration of government at home, and in the

event of an accession to power of the Democratic party, it was plain

that Lowell would be recalled from his post as minister near the Court

of St. James. Four years of friendly intercourse with Englishmen and

Englishwomen, of a somewhat more intimate acquaintance with the springs

of government than falls to the lot of the mere looker-on; not only

that, but the advantage which an alienated American has of viewing his

country from a new vantage ground, for distance in space has some of the

properties of distance in time, and an American in Europe has almost the

point of view of an American of the next century,--all this may well

have led Lowell to reflect on the fundamentals of politics, and have

served to give point to his reflections when he came to give the address

expected of the incoming president of the Birmingham and Midland

Institute. Moreover, the place where he was to speak reminded him of

that great industrial factor which enters so powerfully into modern

conceptions of the state.

It is fair, therefore, to take his address on Democracy, given 6

October, 1884, as a careful and deliberate expression of his political

faith. Yet it must be borne in mind that he was somewhat hampered by his

official position as well as inspired by it. He stood for the great

democratic country, was its spokesman, but he was not speaking to his

own countrymen, and might easily be misconstrued by foreigners if he

attempted to weigh Democracy in balances designed for apothecaries’

stuff, and not for hay wagons. As he himself said four years later: “I

was called upon to deliver an address in Birmingham, and chose for my

theme ‘Democracy.’ In that place I felt it incumbent on me to dwell on

the good points and favorable aspects of democracy as I had seen them

practically illustrated in my native land. I chose rather that my

discourse should suffer through inadequacy than run the risk of seeming

to forget what Burke calls ‘that salutary prejudice called our country,’

and that obligation which forbids one to discuss family affairs before

strangers. But here among ourselves it is clearly the duty of whoever

loves his country to be watchful of whatever weaknesses and perils there

may be in the practical working of a system never before set in motion

under such favorable auspices, or on so large a scale.”[90]

One need not be nicer than his author, and it is clear from what Lowell

wrote afterward that he was somewhat surprised at the importance

attached to this utterance at Birmingham. In truth, it was the natural

and in a measure the unstudied expression of a man whose convictions

were not lightly held, had been tested by long experience, and were the

warp and woof of his political loom. Studied the address was, so far as

it became him not to disregard his official self, and above all not to

suffer his creed to be modified by his surroundings; but, bating all

this, the speech was the mellow judgment of a man who was about to

retire from a post where he had been an intermediary between the two

freest nations on earth, and it represented his deliberate thought upon

the foundations of that freedom.

He strikes the keynote of his discourse in his opening sentence: “He

must be a born leader or misleader of men, or must have been sent into

the world unfurnished with that modulating and restraining balance-wheel

which we call a sense of humor, who, in old age, has as strong a

confidence in his opinions and in the necessity of bringing the universe

into conformity with them as he had in youth.” Here was Lowell, not

unmindful of the zeal of his youth, standing up in the serenity of age

and about to repeat his credo in accents which could not be the

self-same as those with which he had early sung. Wherein, then, does

“Democracy” disclose essential agreement with its author’s ardent faith

in youth, or departure from the ideals then enjoyed? The one note always

struck by Lowell when he was singing of freedom and democracy was that

of the impregnable defence of these great truths in free and

conscience-governed character, and it is this note with which his

address concludes: “Our healing is not in the storm or in the whirlwind,

it is not in monarchies, or aristocracies, or democracies, but will be

revealed by the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the

heart, prompting us to a wider and wiser humanity.” And in testing

current views by his unalterable faith in humanity, he cleaves with no

uncertain stroke. At the time of his address Henry George’s doctrine was

preached by its most eloquent expounder, Henry George himself, and

Lowell says frankly: “I do not believe that land should be divided

because the quantity of it is limited by nature,” but a moment after,

“Mr. George is right in his impelling motive; right, also, I am

convinced, in insisting that humanity makes a part, by far the most

important part, of political economy.” So, too, he distinguishes at once

between a socialism which means “the practical application of

Christianity to life, and has in it the secret of an orderly and benign

reconstruction,” and State Socialism, whose disposition is to “cut off

the very roots in personal character--self-help, forethought, and

frugality--which nourish and sustain the trunk and branches of every

vigorous commonwealth.”

What strikes one as most final in this discourse as an exponent of

Lowell’s attitude is his thinking through to the substance of things and

his indifference to names or to terms except as they define realities.

“Democracy in its best sense,” he declares, “is merely the letting in of

light and air.” He never did believe in violent changes; in his most

ardent crusade against the gigantic evil of slavery, he refused to go

with his associates who were ready to sever a union which seemed to

protect slavery. But with growing age it may be said that he was more

averse to any change except that which was scarcely perceptible at any

one moment of its progress. “Things in possession,” he says, “have a

very firm grip,” and I think the whole address is tinged with a sense of

inertia, almost of weariness, even though it rises to moments of fine

courage and the expression of an unshaken faith. Was this anything more

than the brooding tone of a man who after all his experience was

unquestionably a man of thought rather than a man of affairs?

The election of Cleveland to the presidency made it clear that Lowell

was to bring to a close his diplomatic life in England, though some of

his friends both there and in America clung to the illusion that the

light way in which he wore the party dress might make it possible for a

Democratic president to retain in office a man who had made himself so

acceptable. Some even went so far as to see in such a policy the

initiation of a new course in administration, by which ambassadors and

ministers representing the United States should hold their appointments

irrespective of change of party in administration, since the foreign

policy of the government was practically continued on the same line,

whichever party was in power. Shortly before the election Lowell wrote

to Mr. Norton: “I follow your home politics with a certain personal

interest. The latest news seems favorable to Blaine. I suppose in either

event I am likely to be recalled, and I should not regret it but for two

reasons,--certain friendships I have formed here, and the climate, which

is more kindly to me than any I ever lived in. It is a singularly manly

climate, full of composure and without womanish passion and

extravagance.” After the election he wrote to the same friend: “As for

myself, my successor was already named, and the place promised him in

case of Blaine’s election. This I knew long ago, and I cannot quite make

up my mind whether it is my weakness of good-nature and _laizzez-faire_

that makes me willing to stay, or a persuasion of what is best for me.

Everybody here is so continually lamenting my departure that I dare say

my judgment isn’t worth much in the matter. My position is complicated

in two ways,--the necessity of engaging a house, and now by Mabel’s

intention of coming abroad for some time with her children. This would

change the aspect of things entirely, for they are naturally the

strongest magnets that draw me homewards. If she come, I may stay,

whatever Cleveland thinks best.” To Mr. Field he wrote, 11 December,

1884: “We are well and waiting to hear our fate. I should be indifferent

but for a few friendships here. All England is writing to express

regret. But I am old enough to think that they will survive the loss of

me.... Fanny is better than at any time since she left Spain, and quite

willing to stay here now that the chances are against it. But she _will_

not believe that anybody would recall me! She doesn’t know the depths of

human depravity.”

So wonted had Lowell become to his English surroundings that some of his

friends in England laid plans to keep him with them, and sounded him as

to his willingness to be nominated for the professorship of English

language and literature which had lately been established in Oxford.

“Had he consented to stand,” says an editorial article in the _London

Times_,[91] “not even a Board determined to sink Literature in Philology

could have passed over his claims. But he declined for two reasons.

There were claims of family over in Massachusetts; and, greatly as he

loved the mental atmosphere of England, he thought it his duty not to

accept a definitely English post. And the sense of duty is strong in

that old Puritan stock from which he sprang.”

But there came an event which made all speculation regarding his plans

vain and illusory. On

[Illustration: _Mrs. Frances Dunlap Lowell_]

the 19th of February, 1885, Mrs. Lowell died after a short, sharp

illness. The loss struck a chill in his heart which made him dumb for

the most part, but he wrote to his friends, Mr. and Mrs. John W. Field,

who had been sharers in his profound anxiety during those painful days

in Madrid:--

LONDON, 6 March, 1885.

DEAR OLD FRIENDS,--What shall I say to you, even though I have the

sad comfort of feeling that whatever I say will be said to those

who loved her and knew the entire beauty of her character. But I

must at least say how deeply grateful I am to you whose friendly

devotion in Madrid did so much to prolong a life so precious. She

was given back to us for five years, and for the last two of them

was hopeful enough about her health to enjoy her life. She had

grown easy in her ceremonial duties, and (since the death of her

mother and sisters) had no desire to return home. It is all

bitterly sad.

It seems there was no hope from the first,--though I naturally

thought it an attack like that of three years ago which she would

pull through. The doctors all believed as I did. But they think now

that there was some organic and incurable lesion of the

brain,--perhaps a tumor,--and that this disturbance was the cause

of her fever in Spain instead of being its consequence.

Everybody here has done for me everything that kindness could

do,--especially Lady Lyttelton, Mrs. Smalley, and Mrs. Stephen.

Lady L. has been all that the tenderest sister could be.

God bless you, dear old friends!

Good-by, affectionately yours,

J. R. LOWELL.

To an old and attached friend of his wife he wrote: “You will have a sad

pleasure in knowing that she suffered no pain. In her last consciousness

when I asked her if she suffered, she shook her head. But I cannot write

about these things coolly, and hate to put sentiment on paper where it

lacks the witness of sincerity which the voice carries with it. And yet

I am glad to write to you who knew how noble she was. You knew also her

goodness and perfect faith, and are as sure as I am that she sees God.”

In fulfilling a wish of his wife, Lowell wrote to his old friend, Mrs.

W. W. Story, 31 March: “I send you General Wallace’s book by to-day’s

post. It was touchingly characteristic that I should find it on her

writing-desk done up and addressed to you. She never forgot or neglected

a duty. But, not knowing the requirements of the Post Office, she had

closed it at both ends, and sealed it. So I was obliged, much to my

regret, to have it done up in the right way. But I ordered her original

address to be left inside that it might show she had not forgotten.

“I am on the whole glad to be rid of my official trammels and trappings.

I do not know yet when my successor will arrive, but hardly look for

him before July. I shall then go home, but whether to stay or not will

be decided after I have looked about me there. If I decide to stay I

shall certainly visit the Old World pretty regularly, and shall be sure

to turn up in Rome.”

Lowell added one more to his public addresses before leaving England,

that delivered on unveiling the bust of Coleridge, in Westminster Abbey,

7 May, 1885. It is a slight, graceful performance, but in it I think we

may hear now and then that echo of his own thought about himself which

we have more than once caught in his addresses, as when he says: “His

critical sense rose like a forbidding apparition in the path of his

poetic production;” and again: “We are here to-day not to consider what

Coleridge owed to himself, to the family, or to the world, but what we

owe to him. Let us at least not volunteer to draw his frailties from

their dread abode. Our own are a far more profitable subject of

contemplation. Let the man of imaginative temperament, who has never

procrastinated, who has made all that was possible of his powers, cast

the first stone.”

Early in June, 1885, Lowell left England, that held his wife’s grave,

and returned lonely to his old home.