Like that which tried the fathers’ faith sublime
(Which God avert!), if Tyranny should strive
On limbs New-England-made to lock her gyve,
Let Kansas answer from her reddened fields,
‘’Tis bastard, and not Pilgrim blood, that yields!’”
Until his death, his well-earned reputation as a public speaker made constant calls on him for service in such directions. But no lover of Lowell will suppose that lecturing to large audiences or to small was much more than an “avocation” with him. The “Fable for Critics,” the “Biglow Papers,” and other books belong to years when he was hard at work as a college professor. His contributions to the journals which were influential in reform still continued, though not so frequent as before.
CHAPTER IX
HARVARD REVISITED
The happiness of Lowell’s happy home was shattered by the death of his wife, October 27, 1853. He spent the summer of the next year at Beverly, on the seashore of Massachusetts, in the summer of 1855 went again to Europe, and returned in 1856. He at once resumed his residence at Cambridge, and, with the opening term of the autumn, entered heartily and energetically on his duty as “Smith Professor.”
For there was once a gentleman named Abiel Smith. He is wholly unknown to fame. But I wish at this late moment to express the gratitude, hitherto never fitly spoken, of thousands upon thousands of those whom he has blessed. He left to Harvard College, as early as 1815, the foundation for the Smith Professorship of the Modern Languages.