James Russell Lowell, A Biography; vol 2/2

by Horace Elisha Scudder

Lowell was analyzing Wordsworth’s poetry with a view to reaching definite understanding of the principles which prompted it, and especially which led to the gradual yet none the less sure change in the philosophy of the poetry. I think in the whole interesting discussion which Lowell here entered upon one may read his own mind, more or less conscious of change in its attitude and finding in the mirror of another poet some image of itself. In becoming wonted to English life, Lowell was lessening a certain protest against institutional religion which was characteristic of the community into which he was born, and had been a part of his own intellectual and moral expression. In a letter to Mrs. Herrick written in 1875, he had answered a question of hers regarding his religious faith:—

“You ask me if I am an Episcopalian. No, though I prefer the service of the Church of England, and attend it from time to time. But I am not much of a church-goer, because I so seldom find any preaching that does not make me impatient and do me more harm than good. I confess to a strong lurch towards Calvinism (in some of its doctrines) that strengthens as I grow older. Perhaps it may be some consolation to you that my mother was born and bred an Episcopalian.”

In this passage Lowell betrays very naturally his New England mind. He inherited the prevailing notion that the Episcopal Church was an exotic,—he speaks of attending the service of the Church of England, when he probably is thinking of his occasional visits with his daughter to Christ Church in his own Cambridge; and he could not help looking upon the sermon as the central point in religious worship. But the preference which he had for the service was easily strengthened by association with it where it was the rule and not the exception; not only so, but that observation which he used so keenly showed him in England the existence of a highly organized society, very congenial to him, in which not only was church-going a matter of course, but religion as a spirit was not dissociated from the forms of worship, rather it was thought of largely in those terms. Hence it was that Lowell in adjusting himself as he did to the life about him was undergoing more or less conscious a change in the attitude of his mind toward the whole field of religion.

To some this would seem an indication that Lowell was becoming Anglicized. But how confidently could this be asserted of his political faith? That was a very integral part of his nature. From youth to age he had declared and reiterated his faith in freedom, in the largest liberty, and especially in that political equality which was the basis of all that was holiest and most enduring in the America of which he was so passionate a lover,—the America which he saw in a vision, and was able to see even through the vapors which might rise from mephitic ground. When the autumn of 1884 came, the political signs pointed to a change of party in the administration of government at home, and in the event of an accession to power of the Democratic party, it was plain that Lowell would be recalled from his post as minister near the Court of St. James. Four years of friendly intercourse with Englishmen and Englishwomen, of a somewhat more intimate acquaintance with the springs of government than falls to the lot of the mere looker-on; not only that, but the advantage which an alienated American has of viewing his country from a new vantage ground, for distance in space has some of the properties of distance in time, and an American in Europe has almost the point of view of an American of the next century,—all this may well have led Lowell to reflect on the fundamentals of politics, and have served to give point to his reflections when he came to give the address expected of the incoming president of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. Moreover, the place where he was to speak reminded him of that great industrial factor which enters so powerfully into modern conceptions of the state.

It is fair, therefore, to take his address on Democracy, given 6 October, 1884, as a careful and deliberate expression of his political faith. Yet it must be borne in mind that he was somewhat hampered by his official position as well as inspired by it. He stood for the great democratic country, was its spokesman, but he was not speaking to his own countrymen, and might easily be misconstrued by foreigners if he attempted to weigh Democracy in balances designed for apothecaries’ stuff, and not for hay wagons. As he himself said four years later: “I was called upon to deliver an address in Birmingham, and chose for my theme ‘Democracy.’ In that place I felt it incumbent on me to dwell on the good points and favorable aspects of democracy as I had seen them practically illustrated in my native land. I chose rather that my discourse should suffer through inadequacy than run the risk of seeming to forget what Burke calls ‘that salutary prejudice called our country,’ and that obligation which forbids one to discuss family affairs before strangers. But here among ourselves it is clearly the duty of whoever loves his country to be watchful of whatever weaknesses and perils there may be in the practical working of a system never before set in motion under such favorable auspices, or on so large a scale.”[90]

One need not be nicer than his author, and it is clear from what Lowell wrote afterward that he was somewhat surprised at the importance attached to this utterance at Birmingham. In truth, it was the natural and in a measure the unstudied expression of a man whose convictions were not lightly held, had been tested by long experience, and were the warp and woof of his political loom. Studied the address was, so far as it became him not to disregard his official self, and above all not to suffer his creed to be modified by his surroundings; but, bating all this, the speech was the mellow judgment of a man who was about to retire from a post where he had been an intermediary between the two freest nations on earth, and it represented his deliberate thought upon the foundations of that freedom.

He strikes the keynote of his discourse in his opening sentence: “He must be a born leader or misleader of men, or must have been sent into the world unfurnished with that modulating and restraining balance-wheel which we call a sense of humor, who, in old age, has as strong a confidence in his opinions and in the necessity of bringing the universe into conformity with them as he had in youth.” Here was Lowell, not unmindful of the zeal of his youth, standing up in the serenity of age and about to repeat his credo in accents which could not be the self-same as those with which he had early sung. Wherein, then, does “Democracy” disclose essential agreement with its author’s ardent faith in youth, or departure from the ideals then enjoyed? The one note always struck by Lowell when he was singing of freedom and democracy was that of the impregnable defence of these great truths in free and conscience-governed character, and it is this note with which his address concludes: “Our healing is not in the storm or in the whirlwind, it is not in monarchies, or aristocracies, or democracies, but will be revealed by the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and the heart, prompting us to a wider and wiser humanity.” And in testing current views by his unalterable faith in humanity, he cleaves with no uncertain stroke. At the time of his address Henry George’s doctrine was preached by its most eloquent expounder, Henry George himself, and Lowell says frankly: “I do not believe that land should be divided because the quantity of it is limited by nature,” but a moment after, “Mr. George is right in his impelling motive; right, also, I am convinced, in insisting that humanity makes a part, by far the most important part, of political economy.” So, too, he distinguishes at once between a socialism which means “the practical application of Christianity to life, and has in it the secret of an orderly and benign reconstruction,” and State Socialism, whose disposition is to “cut off the very roots in personal character—self-help, forethought, and frugality—which nourish and sustain the trunk and branches of every vigorous commonwealth.”

What strikes one as most final in this discourse as an exponent of Lowell’s attitude is his thinking through to the substance of things and his indifference to names or to terms except as they define realities. “Democracy in its best sense,” he declares, “is merely the letting in of light and air.” He never did believe in violent changes; in his most ardent crusade against the gigantic evil of slavery, he refused to go with his associates who were ready to sever a union which seemed to protect slavery. But with growing age it may be said that he was more averse to any change except that which was scarcely perceptible at any one moment of its progress. “Things in possession,” he says, “have a very firm grip,” and I think the whole address is tinged with a sense of inertia, almost of weariness, even though it rises to moments of fine courage and the expression of an unshaken faith. Was this anything more than the brooding tone of a man who after all his experience was unquestionably a man of thought rather than a man of affairs?

The election of Cleveland to the presidency made it clear that Lowell was to bring to a close his diplomatic life in England, though some of his friends both there and in America clung to the illusion that the light way in which he wore the party dress might make it possible for a Democratic president to retain in office a man who had made himself so acceptable. Some even went so far as to see in such a policy the initiation of a new course in administration, by which ambassadors and ministers representing the United States should hold their appointments irrespective of change of party in administration, since the foreign policy of the government was practically continued on the same line, whichever party was in power. Shortly before the election Lowell wrote to Mr. Norton: “I follow your home politics with a certain personal interest. The latest news seems favorable to Blaine. I suppose in either event I am likely to be recalled, and I should not regret it but for two reasons,—certain friendships I have formed here, and the climate, which is more kindly to me than any I ever lived in. It is a singularly manly climate, full of composure and without womanish passion and extravagance.” After the election he wrote to the same friend: “As for myself, my successor was already named, and the place promised him in case of Blaine’s election. This I knew long ago, and I cannot quite make up my mind whether it is my weakness of good-nature and laizzez-faire that makes me willing to stay, or a persuasion of what is best for me. Everybody here is so continually lamenting my departure that I dare say my judgment isn’t worth much in the matter. My position is complicated in two ways,—the necessity of engaging a house, and now by Mabel’s intention of coming abroad for some time with her children. This would change the aspect of things entirely, for they are naturally the strongest magnets that draw me homewards. If she come, I may stay, whatever Cleveland thinks best.” To Mr. Field he wrote, 11 December, 1884: “We are well and waiting to hear our fate. I should be indifferent but for a few friendships here. All England is writing to express regret. But I am old enough to think that they will survive the loss of me.... Fanny is better than at any time since she left Spain, and quite willing to stay here now that the chances are against it. But she will not believe that anybody would recall me! She doesn’t know the depths of human depravity.”

So wonted had Lowell become to his English surroundings that some of his friends in England laid plans to keep him with them, and sounded him as to his willingness to be nominated for the professorship of English language and literature which had lately been established in Oxford. “Had he consented to stand,” says an editorial article in the London Times,[91] “not even a Board determined to sink Literature in Philology could have passed over his claims. But he declined for two reasons. There were claims of family over in Massachusetts; and, greatly as he loved the mental atmosphere of England, he thought it his duty not to accept a definitely English post. And the sense of duty is strong in that old Puritan stock from which he sprang.”