In the next place (turn back a page or two and you will find that I have laid down a “firstly”), if I have any vocation, it is the making of verse. When I take my pen for that, the world opens itself ungrudgingly before me, everything seems clear and easy as it seems sinking to the bottom would be as one leans over the edge of his boat in one of those dear coves at Fresh Pond. But, when I do prose, it is invitâ Minerva. I feel as if I were wasting time and keeping back my message. My true place is to serve the cause as a poet. Then my heart leaps on before me into the conflict. I write to you frankly as becomes one who is to be your fellow-worker. I wish you to understand clearly my capabilities that you may not attribute that to lukewarmness or indolence which is truly but an obedience to my Demon. Thirdly (I believe it is thirdly), I have always been a very Quaker in following the Light and writing only when the Spirit moved. This is a tower of strength which one must march out of in working for a weekly newspaper, and every man owes it to himself, so long as he does the duty which he sees, to remain here impregnably intrenched.

Now, it seems to me that we contributors should write just enough to allow you this privilege of only writing when the wind sits fair. Having stated the poetical cons, I will now state the plain pros of the matter. I will help you as much as I can and ought. I had rather give the cause one good poem than a thousand indifferent prose articles. I mean to send all the poems I write (on whatever subject) first to the Standard, except such arrows as I may deem it better to shoot from the ambushment of the Courier, because the old Enemy offers me a fairer mark from that quarter. I will endeavor also to be of service to you in your literary selections.

I have told you what I expect to do. You must tell me in return what you expect me to do. I agree with you entirely in your notions as to the imprint and the initials.[58] The paper must seem to be unanimous. Garrison is point blank the other way. But his vocation has not been so much to feel the pulse of the public as to startle it into a quicker heat, and if we who make the paper can’t settle it, who shall? I have one or two suggestions to make, but shall only hint at them, hoping to see you at Dedham on the 14th prox^o. It seems to me eminently necessary that there should be an entire concert among us, and that, to this end, we should meet to exchange thoughts (those of us who are hereabout) and to wind each other up. We ought to know what each one’s “beat” is, and what each is going to write.

Then, too, would it not be well to have a Weekly Pasquil (I do not call it Punch to avoid confusion), in which squibs and facetiæ of one kind or other may be garnered up? I am sure I come across enough comical thoughts in a week to make up a good share of any such corner, and Briggs and yourself and Quincy could help.

You will find a squib of mine in this week’s Courier. I wish it to continue anonymous, for I wish Slavery to think it has as many enemies as possible. If I may judge from the number of persons who have asked me if I wrote it, I have struck the old hulk of the Public between wind and water. I suppose you will copy it, and if so I wish you would correct a misprint or two.... Give our best regards to your wife, and believe me, very truly your friend,

J. R. Lowell.

I shall send you a poem next week.[59]

The “squib” to which Lowell refers in this letter was the first of the afterward famous “Biglow Papers,” introduced by the rustic letter of Ezekiel Biglow to Mister Eddyter. The poem was the one beginning

“Thrash away, you’ll hev to rattle
On them kettle-drums o’ yourn,”