I have written in an unrhymed alliterated measure, in very short verse and stanzas of five lines each. It does not aim at following the law of the Icelandic alliterated stave, but hints at it and also at the asonante, without being properly either. But it runs well and is melodious, and we think it pretty good here, as does Howells.”
Again we quote a passage from Emerson’s unprinted journal, dated December, 1868: “In poetry, tone. I have been reading some of Lowell’s new poems in which he shows unexpected advance on himself, but perhaps most in technical skill and courage. It is in talent rather than in poetic tone, and rather expresses his wish, his ambition, than the uncontrollable interior impulse which is the authentic mark of a new poem, and which is unanalyzable, and makes the merit of an ode of Collins or Gray or Wordsworth or Herbert or Byron, and which is felt in the pervading tone rather than in brilliant parts or lines; as if the sound of a bell, or a certain cadence expressed in a low whistle, or booming or humming to which the poet first timed his step as he looked at the sunset, or thought, was the incipient form of the piece, and was regnant through the whole.”
There were two essays written in the fall of 1868 which are very expressive of Lowell’s nature. “My Garden Acquaintance” records delightfully that attachment to one spot which was made possible not merely by long life at Elmwood, but by that sympathy with life which enabled him to suck the juices from nature, not by roving, but by that attitude of listening and observing which sometimes belongs to home-keeping wits. “A Certain Condescension in Foreigners,” though it was at first sight a clearing of his mind such as his letters repeatedly show, grows warm with that passion for his country and the ideas it stood for, which had been burned into him by his personal experience in the war and by his constant brooding over the deep realities which underlay the meaning of the war. He returned to political writing under stress of need for copy in the January North American with “A Look Before and After.” The Review itself had become somewhat more of a burden to him, for Mr. Norton went abroad in the summer of 1868 for an indefinite stay, and though Mr. E. W. Gurney, who took his place, was competent, Lowell felt the responsibility rather more than when he had easily left the main business to Mr. Norton. Moreover, the special work which he and his friend had undertaken had, in a measure, been accomplished, and the Review, though winning a succes d’estime, had not that worldly success which reconciles one to drudgery. There is a half-vexed, half-humorous letter to Mr. Fields, dated Elmwood 10 P.M. Thursday, 1868, which was 24 September. “The express has just brought,” he writes, “your note asking for the log of the North American on her present voyage. The N. A. is teak-built, her extreme length from stem to stern post 299 feet 6 inches, and her beam (I mean her breadth of beam) 286 feet 7 inches and a quarter. She is an A 1 risk at the Antediluvian. These statements will enable you to reckon her possible rate of sailing. During the present trip I should say that all the knots she made were Gordian, and of the tightest sort. I extract from log as follows:—
“11 July. Lat. 42° 1´, the first officer, Mr. Norton, lost overboard in a fog, with the compass, caboose, and studden-sails in his pocket, also the key of the spirit-room.
“25 July. Lat. 42° 10´, spoke the Ark, Captain Noah, and got the latest news. 26, 27, 28, dead calm. 29, 30, 31, and 1 August, head winds N. N. E. to N. E. by N. 15 August. Double reef in foretopsl, spoke the good ship Argo, Jason commander, from Colchos with wool.
“17 August, dead calm, schooner Pinta, Capt. Columbus, bound for the New World, and a market, bearing Sou Sou West half South on our weather bow. Got some stores from him.
“20. Capt. Lowell cut his throat with the fluke of the sheet anchor.
“So far the log.
“Now for the comment. Toward the 1st September I received notice that the Review was at a standstill. Mr. Gurney was at Beverly, ill and engaged to be married. I had not a line of copy, nor knew where to get one. I communicated with G. and got what he had—viz: two articles, one on Herbert Spencer, and t’other on Leibnitz. I put the former in type, but did not dare to follow with the latter, for I thought it would be too much even for the readers of the N. A. By and by, I raked together one or two more,—not what I would have but what I could. James’s article on Spanish G.”[36] is good and ought to go in. So of the Siege of Delhi. We want something interesting, and we must have some literary notices. As I receive none of the books, of course I had to depend on others for these, and I have got as many as I could. I have edited the number for October because it was absolutely necessary,—not, surely, because I desired it. I have read all the proof and have done all that I agreed not to do when I made my engagement with Crosby & Nichols. All I promised to give them was my name on the cover, and I supposed T. & F. succeeded to their agreement. I have much more than kept my word. The October number can’t be printed by Saturday.