There is a gap of nearly a year in this correspondence as preserved, and the next letter, under date of 26 February, 1837, is filled with extracts from a long poem he is writing, in Spenserian stanza, and even occasionally with a word borrowed from Spenser; but the spirit that stirs the lines is Campbell. The theme is an imaginary journey up the Hudson, and West Point suggests the two stanzas:
“Follow this narrow path to where the grass
Grows fresher on yon gently-rising mound,
To that lone brook, whose ripples as they pass
Spread to the air a sleep-compelling sound;
Here, Poland’s hero erst a refuge found.
Go ask whose good right arm hurl’d back the slave,
When Russia’s eagle o’er his country frown’d,
Who led her little band of patriots brave;
And weeping Freedom points to Kosciusko’s grave.
“Spirit of Freedom! who didst erst inspire
Our nation ground beneath oppression’s sway,
With trust in God, with thine own holy fire;
Who nerv’dst the mother fond to send away
Her first-born boy to brave the bloody fray,
Bid him farewell, with full averted eyes,
Ne ask, though longing, for a moment’s stay,
Still hover o’er us, if thou didst not rise
With Washington’s pure spirit to thy native skies!”
The other correspondent whose letters from Lowell are preserved was George Bailey Loring, a boy of his own age, the son of a clergyman who was Dr. Lowell’s friend, so that the friendship partook of an hereditary character; with him Lowell had frank intimacy during their college days and in the years immediately following. Their ways in life separated, and they had less community of interests and tastes when they came to manhood. Dr. Loring went early into public life and held various offices, being Commissioner of Agriculture at one time and at another United States Minister to Portugal.
In this fuller series of letters which is largely contained in Mr. Norton’s two volumes, Lowell is the frank, unformed boy, giving vent to nonsense, a lad’s hasty impulse, and the foolery which goes on in the name of sentiment. The equality of age created a different relation between them from that which Lowell bore to Shackford, and the familiarity of their intercourse called out all manner of intellectual pranks and youthful persiflage. The jingle and lively verses which Lowell threw out for the amusement of his comrade show him playing carelessly with the instrument which he was already beginning to discover as fitting his hand.
Lowell’s unaffected interest in boyish things is much more apparent in these random letters than in the more careful epistles to his older friend, though he is by no means silent on the side of his intellectual life. In his first letter, dated 23 July, 1836, he talks about the things that two college boys have on their minds at the beginning of vacation. “You must excuse me if this be not a very long or entertaining epistle, as I am writing from my brother’s office (with a very bad pen) in a great hurry. I shall not go to Canada and shall not start for P[ortsmouth] probably for three weeks. My circular came on last night, 14 prayers, 56 recitations, whew! The class supper was glorious, toasts went off very well. Those about Parker and the Temperance Society were most applauded. I am going to join the ‘Anti-Wine’ I think. The ‘Good Schooner Susan, R. T. S. L. owner and master,’ will make an excursion to Nahant this day. Distinguished Passenger etc. We shall go to church at Nahant Sunday and return Monday morning. By the way I ‘made up’ with —— and —— at the supper. I had a seat reserved (!) for me (as an officer) on the right hand of the distinguished president (?) A prettier table I never saw.”
The letters to his college friends were naturally written mainly in vacation time, and in Christmas week of the same year, 1836, he writes: “I am going to a ball to-night at the house of a young lady whom I never heard of.... I’ve begun and written about forty lines of my H. P. C.[19] prœmium. I shall immortalize I——k W——. I extol him to the skies and pari passu depreciate myself.” He went to the ball, and a few days later wrote: “I think I told you I was going to a party or ball (call it what you will): well, I went, made my bow, danced, talked nonsense with young ladies who could talk nothing but nonsense, grew heartily tired and came away. I saw a great many people make fools of themselves, and charitably took it for granted that I did the same.... I may add something in the morning, so no more from your aching headed and perhaps splenetic, but still affectionate friend, J. R. L.”
In these letters Lowell twits his friend with his attentions to girls, and intersperses his jibes with poor verses; he has become a zealous autograph hunter, and the letters he laid his hands on in his father’s house from home and foreign notabilities illustrate the wide connections of the family, and the part it had had in the great world. In the midst of it all he will burst forth into almost passionate expression of his love for nature and his strong attachment to his birthplace and its neighborhood; and again quote freely from the books he is reading, and tell of the progress he is making in his more serious poetical ventures, and the books he is adding to his library. He made no boast of immunity when he laughed at his friend for too much susceptibility. Here is a passage from a letter written in the summer of 1837, when he was closing his junior year:—
... “Didn’t I have a glorious time yesterday? That I did if smiles from certain lips I
‘prize
Above almost, I don’t know what, on earth’