James Russell Lowell and His Friends

by Edward Everett Hale

There was an inner circle of companionship, in which Lowell enjoyed the entire love of all the others, some record of which is necessary if we would begin to understand even the outside of his life at that time. I find it hard to determine how far I shall put on paper the memories of this circle. I know very well that it is easy to say too little and easy to say too much.

In college life, especially in their senior year, five of the young men in this company had lived at Cambridge in the closest intimacy. These were Lowell, William Wetmore Story, John Gallison King, William Abijah White, and my brother Nathan. There is no need of saying how this intimacy grew up. White and King were cousins. Story and Lowell were both Cambridge boys, and had been at Wells’s school together. Lowell and Hale were together in Alpha Delta and in “Harvardiana.” So far I need not try to distinguish this company from companies of college seniors such as many of my readers have known.

But there was a distinction, unique so far as I have seen, in the fact that four of these young men had sisters of nearly their own age, all charming young women, whose tastes, interests, and studies were precisely the same as their brothers’, and whose complete intimacy and tender, personal, self-sacrificing love for each other was absolute. I am asked by a friend whom I consult with regard to this narrative to say, what I had not said at first but what is true, that they were of remarkable personal beauty. No girls ever lived with one heart and one soul in more complete union and harmony than these five. They were Anna Maria White, who married Lowell; Mary Story, who married George Ticknor Curtis; Augusta Gilman King and Caroline Howard King, and Sarah Everett Hale. In their personal talk, in their constant letters, they spoke of themselves as “The Band.” But I need not say that where there was such an intimacy as theirs, or where there was such an intimacy as their brothers’, the brothers and the sisters were equally intimate. The home of each was the home of all. These homes were in Boston, Watertown, Cambridge, and Salem. Lowell was made as intimate in each of these homes as he was in his own father’s house. Among all these ten there was the simplest and most absolute personal friendship.

While the girls called this association “The Band,” the boys were more apt to call it “The Club.” Not that it ever had any place of meeting, any rules, any duties, or any other conditions of any club that was ever heard of; but that, generally speaking, where one of them was, there was another. If one had money, all had it. If one had a book, all had it. If one went to Salem to a dance, the probability was that all five went; what was certain was that two or three went. If, at the party, one of the young men was bored by a German savant or by a partner he could not leave, he made a secret signal, and one of the others came to the rescue. And so of their sisters.

I am able to speak of the ladies of this group with the more freedom because four of them died in early life. Maria White married Lowell. Mary Story, afterwards Mary Curtis, died in May, 1848. Augusta King and my sister died unmarried.

Whenever they met at Salem, they were sure to meet also Dr. John Francis Tuckerman, and his sister, Jane Frances Tuckerman. I suppose any full catalogue of the Band, if one attempted such a thing, would include these two names. But Tuckerman was not a classmate of Lowell’s; he was studying medicine while the others were studying law, and Lowell was not thrown into such personal intimacy with him as with the others.

I am favored, by the person best competent to write, with a few reminiscences:—

Dear E——: You have asked me to write for you what I can remember of James Lowell’s connection with the Band of Brothers and Sisters. I will gladly try to do so, though it would be as impossible to produce on paper the charm of that brilliant circle as to catch a falling star and imprison it for future examination!

But perhaps I can make a picture for you of one of the Band meetings at my father’s house, at which James Lowell was present, which may give some faint idea of that gay group of friends.

It is in April, 1842, and for weeks sounds of preparation have been echoing through the old house. Two beds are placed in each of the spacious bedrooms, the larder is supplied with dainties, a feeling of expectation pervades the air, and a sense of general festivity is diffused through the house, which has put on its holiday dress to greet the coming guests. As they were all friends of James Lowell’s at that time, perhaps a slight sketch of some of them may interest your readers.