CHAPTER III
COLLEGE AND THE MUSES
Soon after he entered college, young Lowell made the acquaintance of a senior, W.H. Shackford, to whom many of his published letters of college life are addressed. Another intimate friend was George Bailey Loring, who afterward became distinguished in politics. To one or other of these men he was constantly writing of his literary ambitions, always uppermost in his mind.
Josiah Quincy was president of Harvard when Lowell was there, and afterward Lowell wrote an essay on "A Great Public Character," which describes this distinguished president. In it he refers to college life in a way that shows he thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Almost every one," he writes, "looks back regretfully to the days of some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so bright, never had wine so much wit and good-fellowship in it, never were we ourselves so capable of the various great things we have never done…. This is especially true of college life, when we first assume the titles without the responsibilities of manhood, and the president of our year is apt to become our Plancus very early."
In another of his essays he tells one of the standing college jokes, which is worth repeating. The students would go into one of the grocery stores of the town, whose proprietor was familiarly called "The Deacon."
"Have you any sour apples, Deacon?" the first student to enter would ask.
"Well, no, I haven't any just now that are exactly sour," he would answer; "but there's the bellflower apple, and folks that like a sour apple generally like that."
Enter the second student. "Have you any sweet apples, Deacon?"
"Well, no, I haven't any now that are exactly sweet; but there's the bellflower apple, and folks that like a sweet apple generally like that."
"There is not even a tradition of any one's ever having turned the wary Deacon's flank," says
Lowell, "and his Laodicean apples persisted to the end, neither one thing nor another."
It did not take young Lowell long to find out that he had a weakness for poetry (as his seniors sometimes spoke of it). Writing to his friend Loring, probably at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, 1836, he says, "Here I am alone in Bob's room with a blazing fire, in an atmosphere of 'poesy' and soft coal smoke. Pope, Dante, a few of the older English poets, Byron, and last, not least, some of my own compositions, lie around me. Mark my modesty. I don't put myself in the same line with the rest, you see…. Been quite 'grouty' all the vacation, 'black as Erebus.' Discovered two points of very striking resemblance between myself and Lord Byron; and if you will put me in mind of it, I will propound next term, or in some other letter, 'Vanity, thy name is Lowell!'"
And again, in a letter to his mother, he says, "I am engaged in several poetic effusions, one of which I dedicated to you, who have always been the patron and encourager of my youthful muse. If you wish to see me as much as I do you, I shall be satisfied."
This is Mrs. Lowell's answer to the last wish. She and Dr. Lowell were then making a visit to Europe: "Babie Jamie: Your poetry was very pleasing to me, and I am glad to have a letter, but not to remind me of you, for you are seldom long out of my head…. Don't leave your whistling, which used to cheer me so much. I frequently listen to it here, though far from you." In later years Lowell would often tell how he used to whistle as he came near home from school, in order to let his mother know he was coming, and she seldom failed to be sitting at her window to welcome him.
Early in 1837 Lowell was elected to the Hasty Pudding Club. "At the very first meeting I attended," he writes to his friend, Shackford, "I was chosen secretary, which is considered the most honorable office in the club, as the records are kept in verse (mind, I do not say poetry). This first brought my rhyming powers into notice, and since that I have been chosen to deliver the next anniversary poem by a vote of twenty out of twenty-four."
Not long afterward he writes to his friend Loring, "I have written about a hundred lines of my poem (?), and I suspect it is going to be pretty good. At least, some parts of it will take." And after a few lines he goes on, "I am as busy as a bee—almost. I study and read and write all the time." A little later he writes a letter to Loring in Scotch dialect verse.
This was not the sort of work, however, that the college authorities expected of him. He was lazy and got behind his classes, so that near the end of his course he was rusticated, or suspended from college for some weeks. He had been chosen class poet, but on account of his suspension he could not read his poem, though it was printed.
He was sent to Concord during this interval to carry on his studies under the minister of the town. Here he found it pretty dull, though Emerson and Thoreau were there. But he did not then care for either one of them. In one of his letters he said, "I feel like a fool. I must go down and see Emerson and if he doesn't make me feel more like one, it won't be for want of sympathy. He is a good-natured man in spite of his doctrines."
Of Thoreau he said, "I met (him) last night, and it is exquisitely amusing to see how he imitates Emerson's tone and manner. With my eyes shut I shouldn't know them apart."
In the autumn he came back to Cambridge and took his degree of
Bachelor of Arts with his class.