JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
From the crayon portrait by Rowse in the Harvard College Library
Here, to begin with, is a note written to accompany one of Lowell’s most familiar poems, “After the Burial,” when he sent the manuscript to the editor of the “Atlantic.” Lowell’s practice of shunning capitals at the beginning of his letters, except for the first personal pronoun, is observed in the quotations that follow:—
Elmwood, 8th March, 1868
My dear Fields:—
when I am in a financial crisis, which is on an average once in six weeks, I look first to my portfolio and then to you. The verses I send you are most of them more than of age, but Professors don’t write poems, and I even begin to doubt if poets do—always. But I suppose you will pay me for my name as you do others, and so I send the verses hoping you may also find something in them that is worth praise if not coin. Consolation and commonplace are twin sisters and I doubt not one sat at each ear of Eve after Cain’s misunderstanding with his brother. In some folks they cause resentment, and this little burst relieved mine under some desperate solacings after the death of our first child, twenty-one years ago. I trust there is nothing too immediately personal to myself in the poem to make the publishing of it a breach of that confidence which a man should keep sacred with himself.
With kind regards to Mrs. Fields, I remain always yours,
J. R. Lowell
Another typical letter, dated “Elmwood, 12th July, 1868, ¼ to 9 AM wind W. by N. Therm 88°,” begins:—
My dear Fields:—