[11] “In the Half-way House.”
[12] See Correspondence of J. L. Motley, ii. 167. Copied in Letters, i. 334.
[13] In a letter written to Mr. R. W. Gilder, 7 February, 1887, Lowell says: “I spent the night with my friend Norton last Wednesday. There I found a pile of the N. A. R.... By the way the January, ’64, number was ‘second edition.’ I fancy the old lady making her best curtsey at being thus called out before the footlights. The article was reprinted as a political tract and largely circulated. Lincoln wrote a letter to the publishers which I forgot to look for.”
[14] The fairy story was “Gold-Egg: a Dream Fantasy,” which appeared in the Atlantic for May, 1865.
[15] Letters of James Russell Lowell, i. 345, 346. Copyrighted 1893, by Harper & Brothers. Mrs. S. B. Herrick, whose friendship with Lowell will be referred to later, writes: “I was speaking to Mrs. Lowell of my strong admiration for its fire and eloquence, and she told me that after Mr. Lowell had agreed to deliver the poem on that occasion, he had tried in vain to write it. The last evening before the date fixed, he said to her: ‘I must write this poem to-night. Go to bed and do not let me feel that I am keeping you up, and I shall be more at ease.’ He began it at ten o’clock. At four in the morning he came to her door and said: ‘It is done and I am going to sleep now.’ She opened her eyes to see him standing haggard, actually wasted by the stress of labor and the excitement which had carried him through a poem full of passion and fire, of 523 lines in the space of six hours.”
[16] Lowell writes again of this and makes proposed changes and additions in a letter to Col. T. W. Higginson, 28 March, 1867. See Letters, i. 379.
[17] There was a curious psychical incident connected with the delivery of the Ode which came to light afterward but apparently was not recorded till several years later. The incident is fully set forth in two letters to Dr. William James, which were published in the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research, March, 1889, where Dr. Royce printed a “Report of the Committee on Phantasms and Presentiments.” The first letter is from the gentleman in whose experience the incident occurred:—
My dear Mr. James,—I passed the night before commemoration day on a lounge in Hollis 21, the room of my college chum H., who had been tutor since our graduation, three years before. I woke (somewhat early, I should say) saying to myself these words: “And what they dare to dream of dare to die for.” I was enough awake to notice the appropriateness of the words to the occasion, but was sleepy enough to wonder whether they really expressed a lofty thought, or were lofty only in sound. Before I had made up my mind I dropped to sleep again.
In the afternoon I was in about the middle of the tent. Mr. Lowell stood under Hollis at nearly the same table. I heard very distinctly as he read “Those love her best.” I felt that something was coming which was familiar, and as he ended the line I felt that I could repeat the next one, and I did so, ahead of him. But as we proceeded I was confounded with the fact that apparently my line would not rhyme with his. As I said “die for,” he said “do.” I spent some minutes in trying to determine whether I liked his sentiment or mine the most.
That is all. After twenty-one years, details are dim. Some years ago, just before Mr. Lowell sailed for England, I sent him a statement, more detailed probably than this; but no doubt it became carbonic acid and water before he left the house.