No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'."
During the closing year of the war, one of the students who attended his lectures on Dante at Harvard College wrote of a visit to his preceptor:
"I found the serene possessor of Elmwood in good spirits, ate a Graham biscuit and drank some delicious milk with him and his wife, then enjoyed a very pleasant conversation. He read some of Shakspeare's sonnets, to make me think better of them, and succeeded.... He gave me a very welcome copy of Macaulay's essays and poems, and the little visit was another oasis in school life's dearth of home sociability. Mabel, his only child, was not there at supper, but came home some time after: 'salute your progenitor!' and the answer was a daughter's kiss."
After spending years abroad, part of the time as Minister to Spain, then as Minister to England, Lowell returned to Elmwood. To a friend who congratulated him on being at home again, he said, "Yes, it is very nice here; but the old house is full of ghosts." His cousin, as quoted by Dr. Hale, says of these closing six years of the poet's life:
"The house was haunted by sad memories, but at least he was once more among his books. The library, which filled the two rooms on the ground floor to the left of the front door, had been constantly growing, and during his stay in Europe he had bought rare works with the intention of leaving them to Harvard College. Here he would sit when sad or unwell and read Calderon, the 'Nightingale in the Study,' whom he always found a solace. Except for occasional attacks of the gout, his life had been singularly free from sickness, but he had been at home only a few months when he was taken ill, and, after the struggle of a strong man to keep up as long as possible, he was forced to go to bed. In a few days his condition became so serious that the physician feared he would not live; but he rallied, and, although too weak to go to England, as he had planned, he appeared to be comparatively well. When taken sick, he had been preparing a new edition of his works, the only full collection that had ever been made, and he had the satisfaction of publishing it soon after his recovery. This was the last literary work he was destined to do, and it rounded off fittingly his career as a man of letters."
He died in August, 1891, when he was seventy-two years old.
Elmwood remains in the possession of the Lowell heirs. The ten acres of the poet's boyhood days have been reduced to two or three, but the house is much the same as when the poet lived in it.
Photo by Ph. B. Wallace, Philadelphia
CRAIGIE HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.