James Russell Lowell and His Friends

by Edward Everett Hale

He was an American through and through, and, as his own celebrated address, which I shall speak of again, showed to the world, he comprehended democracy in its possibilities, in its future, and in its present better than almost any man of his time. He was better able to show it to the leaders of the feudal communities in which he lived, better than any other American who could have been chosen. For all this,—it would be better to say because of this,—he went and came in England with that sort of delight which Mr. Edward Everett fifty years before described so well:—

“An American looks at Westminster Abbey and Stratford-on-Avon with an enthusiasm which the Englishman laughs at as a sort of provincial rawness.”

This enthusiasm of the American in England is so genuine that one may not speak with adequate contempt of the sneers with which banished Irishmen ridiculed it, when they had occasion to speak of Mr. Lowell while he stayed in the home of his ancestors.

As minister to England Mr. Lowell rendered essential service to his country. His firmness, serenity, courtesy, and diligence enabled him to keep on the best terms with the members of the English cabinet with whom he had to do. He was to a remarkable degree, as we shall see, a favorite with all classes of the English people. He satisfied the administration of President Hayes, who sent him. He did not satisfy the more talkative leaders of the Irish-Americans, who, to use a happy phrase of his, were like an actor who “takes alternately the characters of a pair of twins who are never seen on the stage simultaneously.”

But nobody could have satisfied them. They were in a false position,—so false that even diplomacy of the old fashion could not have satisfied it. No man can serve two masters, and no man can be a citizen of two nations at the same time. So those gentlemen found out who, while, as Irishmen, they pressed the Irish people to revolt, fell back under the ægis of America when they got into trouble. For the others, for those who had really made themselves Americans, and meant to remain such, Mr. Lowell was more than the advocate. He was their fearless guardian. And in such guardianship he was always successful. Here, let it be said, first and last, he knew nothing of the morals of that diplomacy of the older fashion. He might have directed a dispatch wrong, so that Lord Granville should read what was meant for Mr. Evarts, and Mr. Evarts what was meant for Lord Granville, and no harm would have been done. That was his way,—as, be it said, it is the way of gentlemen, and, in general, of our national negotiations.

At the same time Lowell made friends in England among all classes of people. For a generation the line of American ministers had generally been good. From time to time we sent one or two fools there, usually to get them out of the way of home aspirations and ambitions. But Mr. Everett, Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Bancroft, Mr. Adams, Mr. Welsh, and Mr. Motley were all conscientious, intelligent gentlemen, who really were as much interested in English history and English literature as Englishmen were, and “really, you know, they spoke English very well, with almost no accent, you know.”

Diplomacy, and the whole business of ambassadory, is, in fact, about as much out of place in our time as chain mail is, or as orders of precedence are. But people of sense try to make a new diplomacy in which each nation can approach, not the government of the other, but the people. Mr. Lowell, who could think on his feet, who could speak well in public, who had always something to say, and who, indeed, liked to say it, had a real “calling” in this line. In his English stay he made several public speeches which did more good than any “state paper,” so called, could have done. In private society he was a favorite, as he was everywhere. In 1882 somebody told me in London the story of an invitation which Lord Granville, the foreign minister, had sent him. Lord Granville, in a friendly note, asked him to dinner, saying at the same time that he knew how foolish it was to give such short notice “to the most engaged man in London.” Lowell replied that “the most engaged man is glad to dine with the most engaging.”

Also, London is an excellent place in which to study, and to learn without studying. And, from the first, Lowell enjoyed London and England. Mrs. Lowell was able sometimes to receive her friends, and even to bear the fatigue of a reception at court, and of presenting to the queen American ladies who visited London. She made herself most welcome in the circle, not large, whom she was able to meet in that way. The delicacy of her health, however, prevented her husband from attempting the more public social functions of hospitality, of that kind that consists mostly in calling people together to dinners or evening parties. But he was, all the same, cordial to all comers from his own nation, ready and successful in promoting their object, while, as has been said, he was at ease among all classes in England. His holidays, if we may call them so, were spent privately in visits with friends, and for six or seven summers in Whitby,—the Whitby of “Marmion,” in the north of England,—a place of which he was very fond.

WHITBY