JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
In the old manor-house of Elmwood in Cambridge, close to what is now mount Auburn Cemetery, our finest representative man of letters, James Russell Lowell, was born and bred. His father and his grandfather before him lived here, the former a Unitarian clergyman of the old school, well read, earnest, somewhat narrow, but an essentially religious man. His mother was a gifted woman, and a woman of high culture for those days. She read foreign languages, was a musician, and a woman of high breeding, and she stamped her own individuality strongly upon at least three of her children.
The house is a large three-story structure, built of wood, and is eminently picturesque. The tone of the rooms is sombre, and the furniture is antique and solid. Nearly everything remains as it was in the poet's childhood; although the study has been removed from the second floor to two connected rooms on the first, spacious and impressive, and lined with well-selected books. The poet has lived in this house throughout his entire life,—a thing which seldom happens to an American citizen. In the hall are ancestral portraits, a stately Dutch clock, and the portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Lowell taken by Page in their youth. The grounds about Elmwood have been kept as nearly as possible in a state of nature. They are ample, and filled with magnificent trees. The elms of Cambridge are among the most beautiful to be found anywhere, and on this estate, though not very numerous, there are fine specimens. In front of the house are splendid ash-trees, and a thick hedge of trees surrounds the whole enclosure. This hedge bristles with pines, droops with willows, and is overtopped by gigantic horse-chestnuts. Near the house are pines, elms, lilacs, syringas; and at the back, apple and pear trees. Huge masses of striped grass light up the thick turf here and there; and all over the grounds the birds, unmolested from time immemorial, build and sing in perfect freedom and content. Long ago Longfellow sang of the herons of Elmwood, and they are still to be found in the wooded slopes behind the house, where the Lowell children played in their happy childhood.
Mr. Lowell entered Harvard College in his sixteenth year, and, though never what was called a brilliant student, was graduated in due time, and entered upon the study of law. He passed through the usual course and took his degree of LL. B., but he was not noted for his love of study in the law school, more than in college. He was noted for his love of reading in both places, but it was of books outside the established course. His literary bent was strongly marked from the first, and his poetic talent developed itself at an early day. When only twenty-two years of age he published his first volume of poems, much like the youthful poems of other bards, and far inferior to the work of Bryant at the same age. Three years later he put forth a volume of verses much more worthy of his genius, some of them being favorites still,—like the "Shepherd of King Admetus," "The Forlorn," "The Heritage," which achieved the immortality of the school-books, and a few others.
There was not a large sale for books of poetry in this country at that time, and these first ventures of Lowell fared much like other books of that day. If he was not quite as badly off as poor Thoreau, who, a year after his first thousand was printed, wrote to a friend that he was now the owner of a library of about a thousand volumes, over nine hundred of which he wrote himself, he certainly was not far ahead of that original writer in the matter of sales. His books, however, attracted some attention, and could hardly be classed under the head he proposes for certain books, in the "Fable for Critics," namely, "literature suited to desolate islands,"—
"Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented,
As the climax of woe would to Job have presented."
Mr. Lowell was married in 1844 to Miss Maria White, of Watertown near Cambridge, the lady to whom some of his first poems were addressed, and who was herself a writer of very sweet and tender verse. Mrs. Lowell was most beautiful and accomplished, a fit wife for a poet, and the maker of a restful but inspiring home. Beautiful children came to them to gladden their lives for a little season; but all except one were recalled in early infancy, and the grief of the parents was both acute and lasting. Many a time, as he tells us, he—
"looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow
When that mound was heaped so high."
And only in after-years he—
"Remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plunged woe."
For many years a pair of tiny baby-shoes, half-worn, hung over a picture-frame in the poet's study, and told their sad tale of the little feet that had gone on before. Like Sydney Smith, Lowell learned to think that "children are horribly insecure,—that the life of a parent is the life of a gambler;" and he held the one who still remained to him with a trembling grasp for a long time. Happily, she was spared to him, and still adds interest and pleasure to his life.
Mr. and Mrs. Lowell went to Europe in 1851, and spent a year in travel, partly for the benefit of Mrs. Lowell's health, which was always delicate. They spent the greater part of their time in Italy, although they made brief tours in France, Switzerland, and England. About a year after their return Mrs. Lowell died, and another little mound in Sweet Auburn was
"Folded close under deepening snow."
During the nine years of their married life all had been peaceful and beautiful, and now there seemed nothing left but—
"To the spirit its splendid conjectures,
To the flesh its sweet despair,"
and many hopeless tears over—
"the thin-worn locket
With its anguish of deathless hair."
For a long time the heart of the poet would admit of no consolation. He replied to every attempt to soften his grief,—
"There's a narrow ridge in the graveyard,
Would scarce stay a child in his race;
But to me and my thought it is wider
Than the star-sown vague of Space.
"Your logic, my friend, is perfect,
Your morals most drearily true;
But since the earth clashed on her coffin,
I keep hearing that, and not you.
"Console if you will, I can bear it;
'Tis a well-meant alms of breath;
But not all the preaching since Adam,
Has made Death other than Death.
"It is pagan; but wait till you feel it,—
That jar of the earth, that dull shock,
When the ploughshare of deeper passion
Tears down to our primitive rock.
"Communion in spirit! forgive me,
But I, who am earthy and weak,
Would give all my incomes from dream-land
For a touch of her hand on my cheek.
"That little shoe in the corner,
So worn and wrinkled and brown,
With its emptiness confutes you,
And argues your wisdom down."
On the same day that Mrs. Lowell died a child was born to Mr. Longfellow, who sent to his friend the beautiful poem, "The Two Angels."
"'T was at thy door, O friend, and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath
Pausing, descended, and with voice divine
Whispered a word that had a sound like death."
In 1854 Mr. Lowell was appointed as Mr. Longfellow's successor to the chair of belles-lettres in Harvard University,—a place for which he was most admirably fitted by nature and by training. He went abroad again and studied for two years, chiefly in Dresden, when he returned and began his lectures, which were much enjoyed by his cultivated audience. He dwelt with loving care upon Dante, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Cervantes, in particular, and made a deep impression upon all who listened to him.
In 1857 Mr. Lowell was married for the second time, to Miss Frances Dunlap of Portland, Maine, who had had charge of the education of his daughter while he was abroad. They returned to the ancestral home at Elmwood soon after the marriage, and continued to reside there until the poet was appointed Minister to Spain by President Hayes, when they repaired together to that country. Upon his transfer to the Court of St. James, they removed to London, where both were universally and justly popular. Few ladies have received such warm encomiums in England as Mrs. Lowell, and few have as richly deserved them. No man whom our nation has sent to represent us in England has been so highly praised by the English press as Mr. Lowell, and probably no one has been so much liked by the class of people with whom he came chiefly in contact. There seemed to be much wonder in court circles there that America could produce so finished a gentleman as Mr. Lowell; and perhaps they had had some reason to doubt this, if they judged by the average American tourist. They wondered, too, at his delightful public speaking,—a thing to which Englishmen are not as much accustomed as Americans. They have a heavy, labored way of speaking, extremely painful to listeners accustomed to the ease of American speakers; and they were never weary of listening to the pleasing and graceful oratory of Mr. Lowell. He was called upon constantly to address the people, upon all sorts of occasions, and invariably received the highest praise for his efforts. Much regret was felt in England when he was called home; much also in this country by those who had the honor of the nation at heart, although the whole people were glad to welcome him back to his native land once more. Mrs. Lowell died during their residence in London, and the sympathies of the world went out to the husband in his affliction.
Mr. Lowell came to the aid of the despised Abolitionists at an early day. While it was still inviting social ostracism and public indignity to do so, he bravely lifted up his voice in their defence, and began lending his vigorous and powerful pen to the cause they represented. All the traditions of his life seemed to bind him to the conservative classes; but he broke away from them, and boldly faced their derision and their sneers, to do what seemed right in his own eyes. As far back as the publication of the "Fable for Critics," he had dared to praise Whittier, whom all the conservatives affected to despise,—
"For singing and striking in front of the war,
And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor."
It still required bravery as well as kindliness to say of the despised Quaker:—
"All honor and praise to the right-hearted bard
Who was true to The Voice when such service was hard;
Who himself was so free he dared sing for the slave,
When to look but a protest in silence was brave!
All honor and praise to the women and men
Who spoke out for the dumb and the down-trodden then!"
And greater bravery still was required in those days to dare introduce the name of Parker into literature without denunciation or derision. Of the church which had put its ban upon "the Orson of parsons" he said:—
"They had formerly damned the Pontifical See,
And the same thing, they thought, would do nicely for P.;
But he turned up his nose at their murmuring and shamming,
And cared (shall I say) not a d—— for their damning.
So they first read him out of their church, and next minute
Turned round and declared he had never been in it.
But the ban was too small, or the man was too big;
For he recks not their bells, books, and candles a fig
(He don't look like a man who would stay treated shabbily,
Sophroniscus' son's head o'er the features of Rabelais);
He bangs and bethwacks them,—their backs he salutes
With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the roots."
He concluded his long description of the great arch-heretic in these words:—
"Every word that he speaks has been fierily furnaced
In the blast of a life that has struggled in earnest.
There he stands, looking more like a ploughman than priest,
If not dreadfully awkward, not graceful at least;
His gestures all downright, and some, if you will,
As of brown-fisted Hobnail in hoeing a drill;
But his periods fall on you, stroke after stroke,
Like the blows of a lumberer felling an oak:
You forget the man wholly, you're thankful to meet
With a preacher who smacks of the field and the street;
And to hear, you're not over particular whence,
Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Latimer's sense."
The first of the Biglow Papers had appeared even before this,—as early as 1846, during the progress of the Mexican war,—and had showed his countrymen very plainly where he was to be found in the coming struggle. These brilliant coruscations of wit were the first gleams of light which irradiated the sombre anti-slavery struggle. The Abolitionists were men too much in earnest to enliven their arguments with wit or humor, and the whole conflict thus far had been stern and solemn in the extreme. This had prevented much popular enthusiasm, except in natures as earnest as their own; and many men who had before been indifferent to the subject were at once attracted and interested by the raillery and satire of Lowell. They enjoyed his keen thrusts, and began to talk with one another about them, and unconsciously imbibed a little of their spirit. Some of the more jingling rhymes caught the ear of the street, and in a little while
"John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wun't vote for Governor B."
was heard on every hand. And even across the sea, we are told, travellers would hear some one repeating the catch,—
"But John P.
Robinson he
Sez they didn't know everything down in Judee."
The first series of these papers undoubtedly had a powerful influence in forming public opinion upon the subject of the abolition of slavery; and the second series exerted a still more potent influence in favor of sustaining the government in the prosecution of the war, and in urging it to the emancipation of the slaves. Early in the war he wrote,—
"It's slavery that's the fangs and thinkin' head,
And ef you want salvation, cresh it dead."
He suffered much in his own family from the war, three of his favorite nephews being killed,—one at Winchester, one at Seven Pines, and one at Ball's Bluff. Another relative was the gallant Colonel Shaw, who led the colored troops in the assault on Fort Wagner, and who there gave up his heroic life. In the "Commemoration Ode"—the greatest poem which Lowell has ever written—he celebrates the death of these young heroes in fitting verse, and gives their names to immortality. The effect of the poem at the time was simply overpowering, so many other hearts were bleeding with his own; and it at once took its place as one of the noblest poems in the language. The poet William W. Story came over from Rome purposely to hear Lowell deliver this ode, and felt abundantly paid for the journey by the pathos and sublimity of the scene, which has seldom been equalled in this country.
Mr. Underwood tells us that—
"In person Lowell is of medium height, rather slender, but sinewy and active. His movements are deliberate rather than impulsive, indicating what athletes call staying qualities. His hair at maturity was dark auburn or ruddy chestnut in color, and his full beard rather lighter and more glowing in tint. The eyes of men of genius are seldom to be classified in ordinary terms, though it is said their prevailing color is gray. . . . Lowell's eyes in repose have clear blue and gray tones, with minute, dark mottlings. In expression they are strongly indicative of his moods. When fixed upon study, or while listening to serious discourse, they are grave and penetrating; in ordinary conversation they are bright and cheery; in moments of excitement they have a wonderful lustre. Nothing could be finer than his facial expression while telling a story or tossing a repartee. The features are alive with intelligence; and eyes, looks, and voice appear to be working up dazzling effects in concert, like the finished artists of the Comédie Française."
As a conversationalist Mr. Lowell is unrivalled. His wit is apparently inexhaustible, and irradiates his whole conversation, as it does all his writing except his serious poetry. His "Fireside Travels" was pronounced by Bryant the wittiest book ever written; and it is not more witty than much of his conversation. The brilliancy of his conversation and the charm of his manners unite to make him one of the most fascinating companions in the world; and this charm is felt by all who come in contact with the man, and is not a thing reserved for his more favored companions. One who has witnessed an encounter of wit between Lowell and Dr. Holmes has witnessed one of the finest exhibitions of mental pyrotechnics of the day. His reading has been wide and varied, and he has all his resources at command. His observation of men and things has also been keen, and every variety of anecdote and illustration come forth from apparently inexhaustible sources as the needs of the moment demand. His love of Nature and his observation of all her finer moods make him a most delightful out-of-doors companion. In the beautiful environs of Cambridge he used to take those long walks which furnished him with such a fund of accurate observation of the sights and sounds of the natural world. No man has a keener eye for a bird than he, nor a quicker ear to distinguish between their songs; and no unusual sound of insect life escapes his scrutiny,—he is keenly alert to know what is going on under his feet as well as over his head. The most modest flower does not escape his eye, nor any peculiarly marked leaf, nor any rich bed of leafy mould. He sees everything with his poet's eye, even to "those rifts where unregarded mosses be." He has never been what is called a society man, though latterly he has gone more into general society. Formerly, dinner-parties and balls were his pet aversions, as one might suspect from his poem "Without and Within:"—
"My coachman, in the moonlight there,
Looks through the sidelight of the door;
I hear him with his brethren swear,
As I could do,—but only more.
"Flattening his nose against the pane,
He envies me my brilliant lot;
Blows on his aching fists in vain,
And dooms me to a place more hot.
"Meanwhile, I inly curse the bore
Of hunting still the same old coon;
And envy him outside the door,
In golden quiets of the moon.
"I envy him the ungyved prance
By which his freezing feet he warms,
And drag my lady's chain and dance,—
The galley-slave of dreary forms.
"Oh, could he have my share of din,
And I his quiet!—past a doubt,
'T would still be one man bored within,
And just another bored without."
But he was always fond of good company, and collected around him in Cambridge, in the old days, a brilliant circle of congenial friends. Of these, Longfellow, and Professor Felton, and Agassiz, and Dr. Estes Howe his brother-in-law, were perhaps the closest; but John Holmes and Edmund Quincy and Robert Carter were very warm friends,—members of the famous Whist Club, and royal companions all. Dr. Holmes was not far away, and always a constant visitor at Cambridge; and James T. Fields was a cherished friend. William Page, the painter, and W. W. Story, the sculptor, were also among his earlier friends. It was to the latter that the series of letters collected under the title of "Fireside Travels" were addressed. But there is scarcely a man of note in the literary world whom he has not known in the course of his life; and he has made friends of nearly all he has known. He has been a busy worker, too, all his life,—industrious, concentrated, and indefatigable. A man who could write the whole of "Sir Launfal" in two days knows how to toil, and has been accustomed to concentrate his faculties. Mr. Lowell has an utter disbelief in the materialistic theory of the Universe, and expresses it many times in his later poems. He at least —
"envies science not her feat
To make a twice-told tale of God."
"The Ages one great minster seem,
That throbs with praise and prayer."
And his hope for the world is expressed in "Godminster Chimes," where he says:—
"O chime of sweet Saint Charity,
Peal soon that Easter morn
When Christ for all shall risen be,
And in all hearts new born!
That Pentecost when utterance clear
To all men shall be given,
When all shall say My Brother here,
And hear My Son in heaven!"
Of his own personal trust he gives a picture in "Sea-Weed:"—
"The drooping sea-weed hears, in night abyssed,
Far and more far the wave's receding shocks,
Nor doubts, for all the darkness and the mist,
That the pale shepherdess will keep her tryst,
And shoreward lead again her foam-fleeced flocks.
"For the same wave that rims the Carib shore
With momentary brede of pearl and gold,
Goes hurrying thence to gladden with its roar
Lorn weeds bound fast on rocks of Labrador,
By love divine on one sweet errand rolled.
"And though Thy healing waters far withdraw,
I too can wait, and feed on hope of Thee
And of the clear recurrence of Thy law,
Sure that the parting grace my morning saw
Abides its time to come in search of me."
