CHAPTER XI
PROFESSOR, EDITOR, AND DIPLOMAT
There was a touching and very warm affection between Longfellow and Lowell. Mrs. Lowell says of it, "I have never seen such a beautiful friendship between men of such distinct personalities, though closely linked together by mutual tastes and affections. They criticise and praise each other's performances with frankness not to be surpassed, and seem to have attained that happy height of faith where no misunderstanding, no jealousy, no reserve exists." Often in his diary Longfellow speaks of "walking to see Lowell," who was either "musing before his fire in his study," or occupied in his "celestial study, with its pleasant prospect through the small square windows."
Longfellow was some dozen years the elder; and when the time came that he wished to retire from the professorship of belles-lettres in Harvard College, he was very desirous that Lowell should take the place. There were others who wanted it; but it was arranged that Lowell should become Longfellow's successor. Lowell had never before been a professor and he did not particularly like the work. In 1867 he speaks of "beginning my annual dissatisfaction of lecturing next week." Still, he was popular with the students and highly successful because of his fine gift of literary criticism. Here, for instance, is his definition of poetry: "Poetry, as I understand it, is the recognition of something new and true in thought or feeling, the recollection of some profound experience, the conception of some heroic action, the creation of something beautiful and pathetic."
In his diary Longfellow sometimes refers to Mrs. Lowell, "slender and pale as a lily"; and once when he and Charles Sumner had gone to see Lowell and found that he was not at home, Longfellow adds, "but we saw his gentle wife, who, I fear, is not long for this world."
His words were prophetic. She gradually failed in strength. Of their four children, three died while mere babes. In 1853 Mrs. Lowell herself died.
The appointment to Longfellow's professorship did not come until a little over a year after the death of Mrs. Lowell. During her life Mr. Lowell's income was very small and irregular, a few hundred dollars a year in payment of royalties on his books and for articles and poems contributed to various periodicals. With his appointment to the Harvard professorship he became financially independent for the first time. To prepare for it he went abroad, spending most of his time at Dresden.
He returned sooner than he expected, and for a reason that very well illustrates his business habits. When he set out he had a limited amount of money. This he placed with London bankers, arranging to draw on them for such sums as he might need from time to time. He asked that when he had drawn down to a certain sum the bankers should notify him, and then he would immediately prepare to return home. He settled down, and thought that he was getting on moderately well and had a considerable sum still to draw. What was his surprise when he was notified by his bankers that he had drawn his account down to the amount he had mentioned! As there was nothing better for him to do, he packed his trunk and went home.
Some years after that, he received a letter from these London bankers informing him that an error had been made in his account, and that a draft for a hundred pounds sterling (five hundred dollars) which had been drawn by some other person named Lowell had by mistake been charged to his account. This money, with compound interest, was now at his disposal. The bankers suggested, however, that if he was not in immediate need of the money, they would use it for an admirable investment they knew of which might considerably increase it within a year. At the end of a year he received a draft for seven hundred pounds. This he used to refurnish Elmwood. "Now, you, who are always preaching figures and Poor Richard, and business habits," said he, in telling the story to some friends, "what do you say to that? If I had kept an account and known how it stood, I should have spent that money and you would not now be sitting in those easy chairs, or walking on Wilton carpet. No; hang accounts and figures!"
In 1857 the Atlantic Monthly was started, and Lowell was made editor, with a salary of three thousand dollars a year, of course in addition to his salary as a Harvard professor. Though he was the editor, he recognized that the success of the magazine would be made by Holmes. Said he, "You see, the doctor is like a bright mountain stream that has been dammed up among the hills and is waiting for an outlet into the Atlantic. You will find that he has a wonderful store of thought—serious, comic, pathetic, and poetic,—of comparisons, figures, and illustrations. I have seen nothing of his preparation, but I imagine he is ready. It will be something wholly new, and his reputation as a prose writer will date from this magazine." When you recollect the success of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" you cannot help remarking that Lowell was a veritable prophet.
President Hayes, soon after his inauguration, offered Lowell an appointment as minister to Austria, but Lowell declined. When he was asked if he would accept an appointment as minister to Spain, he consented, and thither he went in the early part of President Hayes' administration. After a time he was transferred to London, where he became a striking diplomatic figure.
He was one of the most popular and polished gentlemen ever sent as ambassador to a European nation, and as such his presence at the Court of Saint James was highly appreciated by the English people. When, in 1884, on the election of Cleveland to the presidency, he prepared to leave London, many glowing tributes were paid him by the English press, but none was more hearty than this, printed in Punch:
Send you away? No, Lowell, no.
That phrase, indeed, is scarce well chosen.
We're glad, of course, to have you go
More like a brother than a cousin;
True, we must "speed the parting guest,"
If such a guest from us must sever;
But what we all should like the best
Would be to keep you here forever.
You've won our hearts; your words, your ways,
Are what we like. Without desiring
To sicken you with fulsome praise,
We think you've seen no signs of tiring.
Of graceful speech, of pleasant lore,
How much to you the English mind owes!
We're sad to think we'll see no more
Of you—save through your Study Windows.
Well, well, the best of friends must part;
That's commonplace, like Gray, but true, sir.
Commend us to the Yankee heart;
If you can come again, why, do, sir.
What Biglow calls our "English sarse,"
Is not all tarts and bitters, is it?
Farewell!—if from us you must pass,
But try, do try, another visit!
After his return from England, Mr. Lowell did comparatively little literary work. Some years before this, he had married the lady who was educating his only daughter. He now spent the most of his time at Elmwood among his books and in the society of his friends. In 1888 a volume of his later poems appeared, bearing the title of "Heartsease and Rue." About the same time "Democracy," a collection of the addresses which he had delivered in England, was published. But neither of these volumes added materially to his fame.
On the twelfth of August, 1891, the famous poet, essayist, and man of affairs died. He was nearly seventy-three years of age.
* * * * *
[NOTE.—The thanks of the publishers are due Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission to use extracts from "Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by Charles Eliot Norton," and to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for permission to use extracts from the Poetical Works of Lowell.]