THE STORY OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
[Illustration: JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.]
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
CHAPTER I
ELMWOOD
James Russell Lowell was born on the 22d of February, 1819, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elmwood, the home of the Lowells, was to the west of the village of Cambridge, quite near Mount Auburn cemetery. When James Russell was a boy, Elmwood was practically in the country, and was surrounded on nearly all sides by woods, meadows, and pastures. The house stood on a triangular piece of land surrounded by a very high and thick hedge, made up of all sorts of trees and shrubs, such as pines, spruces, willows, and oaks, with smaller shrubs at the bottom so as to form a thick wall of green. In front of the house were some fine English elms, quite different from the American variety, and from these the house got its name. It was a large, square, old-fashioned wooden house, and though it had stood for over a hundred years, it remained during Lowell's life in perfect condition.
The house was surrounded by a fine, well-kept lawn, and at the back were pasture, orchard, and garden, while half a mile away lay Fresh Pond, the haunt of herons and other shy birds and land creatures. From the upper windows one could look out on beautiful Mount Auburn cemetery, which was to the south, while to the east was a low hill called Symonds's Hill, beyond which could be seen a bright stretch of the Charles River.
Elmwood faced on a lane, between two roads. In his essay in "Fireside Travels," entitled "Cambridge Thirty Years Ago," Lowell describes the scene towards the village as it was in his childhood. Approaching "from the west, by what was then called the New Road (it is called so no longer, for we change our names whenever we can, to the great detriment of all historical association), you would pause on the brow of Symonds's Hill to enjoy a view singularly soothing and placid. In front of you lay the town, tufted with elms, lindens, and horse-chestnuts…. Over it rose the noisy belfry of the college, the square brown tower of the church, and the slim yellow spire of the parish meeting-house, by no means ungraceful, and then an invariable characteristic of New England religious architecture. On your right the Charles slipped smoothly through green and purple salt meadows, darkened here and there with the blossoming black grass as with a stranded cloud-shadow. Over these marshes, level as water but without its glare, and with softer and more soothing gradations of perspective, the eye was carried to a horizon of softly rounded hills. To your left upon the Old Road you saw some half dozen dignified old houses of the colonial time, all comfortably fronting southward." One of these, the largest and most stately, was the Craigie House, famous as the headquarters of Washington in 1776, and afterwards as the home of Longfellow. And at the end of the New Road toward Cambridge was a row of six fine willows, which had remained from the stockade built in early days as a defense against the Indians.
And here is Harvard Square, where stand the buildings of the famous college:
"A few houses, chiefly old, stood around the bare Common, with ample elbow-room, and old women, capped and spectacled, still peered through the same windows from which they had watched Lord Percy's artillery rumble by to Lexington, or caught a glimpse of the handsome Virginia general who had come to wield our homespun Saxon chivalry. People still lived who regretted the unhappy separation from the mother island. . . The hooks were to be seen from which swung the hammocks of Burgoyne's captive redcoats. If memory does not deceive me, women still washed clothes in the town spring, clear as that of Bandusia. Commencement had not ceased to be the great holiday of the Puritan Commonwealth, and a fitting one it was—the festival of Santa Scholastica, whose triumphal path one may conceive strewn with leaves of spelling-books instead of bay."
James was the youngest of four brothers and two sisters, a handsome boy, and his mother's darling. He always thought he inherited his love of nature and poetic aspirations from her, whose family was from the Orkneys—those islands at the extreme north of Scotland.
His father was a strikingly handsome man, gracious and of rare personal qualities, and a faithful pastor over his flock. Often he took his youngest son on long drives with him, when he went to exchange pulpits with neighboring clergymen. Because of his wide family connection, and his father's position, James saw not a little of New England society as it was in those days, pure Yankee through and through.
CHAPTER II
AN IMPETUOUS YOUNG MAN
Young James was sent first to a dame school, as a private school for very small children kept by a lady in her own house was called in those days. But when he was eight or nine he was sent to a boarding school near Elmwood—going, of course, only as a day scholar. This school was kept by an Englishman named Wells, who had belonged to a publishing firm in Boston which had failed. This teacher was very sharp and severe, but he made all his boys learn Latin, as you may see by reading the learned notes and introductions to the "Biglow Papers," supposed to have been written by "Parson Wilbur," but in reality by Lowell himself.
We sometimes find it difficult to believe that a great man whom we admire was ever an ordinary human being, with faults and errors like our own. But when we do find natural, childish letters, or read anecdotes of youthful naughtiness, we immediately feel like shaking hands with the scapegrace, and a real liking for him begins.
Lowell was so reserved in after life, and so very correct and elegant both in his writing and in his deportment, that when we come across two letters written at about nine years of age, badly punctuated and badly spelled, but displaying all the natural spirits of a boy, we begin at once to feel at home with him and to have a genuine affection for the man we had before only admired as a very great and learned author. Here are the two letters just as they were written. It will be a good exercise for you to rewrite them, correcting the spelling, punctuation, and other faults.
Jan. 25, 1827.
My dear brother The dog and the colt went down to-day with our boy for me and the colt went before and then the horse and slay and dog—I went to a party and I danced a great deal and was very happy—I read french stories—The colt plays very much—and follows the horse when it is out. Your affectionate brother,
James R. Lowell.
I forgot to tell you that sister mary has not given me any present but
I have got three books
Nov. 2, 1828.
My Dear Brother,—I am now going to tell you melancholy news. I have got the ague together with a gumbile. I presume you know that September has got a lame leg, but he grows better every day and now is very well but limps a little. We have a new scholar from round hill, his name is Hooper and we expect another named Penn who I believe also comes from there. The boys are all very well except Nemaise, who has got another piece of glass in his leg and is waiting for the doctor to take it out, and Samuel Storrow is also sick. I am going to have a new suit of blue broadcloth clothes to wear every day and to play in. Mother tells me I may have any sort of buttons I choose. I have not done anything to the hut, but if you wish I will. I am now very happy; but I should be more so if you were there. I hope you will answer my letter if you do not I shall write you no more letters, when you write my letters you must direct them all to me and not write half to mother as generally do. Mother has given me the three volumes of tales of a grandfather
farewell Yours truly James R. Lowell.
You must excuse me for making so many mistakes. You must keep what I have told you about my new clothes a secret if you don't I shall not divulge any more secrets to you. I have got quite a library. The Master has not taken his rattan out since the vacation. Your little kitten is as well and as playful as ever and I hope you are to for I am sure I love you as well as ever. Why is grass like a mouse you cant guess that he he he ho ho ho ha ha ha hum hum hum.
Young Lowell's life was so very quiet and uneventful that we have very little account of his boyhood and youth. We know, however, that he was fond of books and was rather lazy, and did pretty much as he pleased. A poem which in later years he dedicated to his friend Charles Eliot Norton gives a very good picture of the life at Elmwood:
The wind is roistering out of doors,
My windows shake and my chimney roars;
My Elmwood chimneys seem crooning to me,
As of old, in their moody, minor key,
And out of the past the hoarse wind blows,
As I sit in my arm-chair and toast my toes.
"Ho! ho! nine-and-forty," they seem to sing,
"We saw you a little toddling thing.
We knew you child and youth and man,
A wonderful fellow to dream and plan,
With a great thing always to come,—who knows?
Well, well! 'tis some comfort to toast one's toes.
"How many times have you sat at gaze
Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze,
Shaping among the whimsical coals
Fancies and figures and shining goals!
What matters the ashes that cover those?
While hickory lasts you can toast your toes.
"O dream-ship builder! where are they all,
Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested and tall,
That should crush the waves under canvas piles,
And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles?
There's gray in your beard, the years turn foes,
While you muse in your arm-chair and toast your toes."
I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore,
My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated roar;
If much be gone, there is much remains;
By the embers of loss I count my gains,
You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows
In the fanciful flame as I toast my toes.
Lowell entered Harvard College when he was but fifteen years old, very nearly the youngest man in his class. In those days the college was small, there were few teachers, and only about fifty students in a class.
CHAPTER III
COLLEGE AND THE MUSES
Soon after he entered college, young Lowell made the acquaintance of a senior, W.H. Shackford, to whom many of his published letters of college life are addressed. Another intimate friend was George Bailey Loring, who afterward became distinguished in politics. To one or other of these men he was constantly writing of his literary ambitions, always uppermost in his mind.
Josiah Quincy was president of Harvard when Lowell was there, and afterward Lowell wrote an essay on "A Great Public Character," which describes this distinguished president. In it he refers to college life in a way that shows he thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Almost every one," he writes, "looks back regretfully to the days of some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so bright, never had wine so much wit and good-fellowship in it, never were we ourselves so capable of the various great things we have never done…. This is especially true of college life, when we first assume the titles without the responsibilities of manhood, and the president of our year is apt to become our Plancus very early."
In another of his essays he tells one of the standing college jokes, which is worth repeating. The students would go into one of the grocery stores of the town, whose proprietor was familiarly called "The Deacon."
"Have you any sour apples, Deacon?" the first student to enter would ask.
"Well, no, I haven't any just now that are exactly sour," he would answer; "but there's the bellflower apple, and folks that like a sour apple generally like that."
Enter the second student. "Have you any sweet apples, Deacon?"
"Well, no, I haven't any now that are exactly sweet; but there's the bellflower apple, and folks that like a sweet apple generally like that."
"There is not even a tradition of any one's ever having turned the wary Deacon's flank," says
Lowell, "and his Laodicean apples persisted to the end, neither one thing nor another."
It did not take young Lowell long to find out that he had a weakness for poetry (as his seniors sometimes spoke of it). Writing to his friend Loring, probably at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, 1836, he says, "Here I am alone in Bob's room with a blazing fire, in an atmosphere of 'poesy' and soft coal smoke. Pope, Dante, a few of the older English poets, Byron, and last, not least, some of my own compositions, lie around me. Mark my modesty. I don't put myself in the same line with the rest, you see…. Been quite 'grouty' all the vacation, 'black as Erebus.' Discovered two points of very striking resemblance between myself and Lord Byron; and if you will put me in mind of it, I will propound next term, or in some other letter, 'Vanity, thy name is Lowell!'"
And again, in a letter to his mother, he says, "I am engaged in several poetic effusions, one of which I dedicated to you, who have always been the patron and encourager of my youthful muse. If you wish to see me as much as I do you, I shall be satisfied."
This is Mrs. Lowell's answer to the last wish. She and Dr. Lowell were then making a visit to Europe: "Babie Jamie: Your poetry was very pleasing to me, and I am glad to have a letter, but not to remind me of you, for you are seldom long out of my head…. Don't leave your whistling, which used to cheer me so much. I frequently listen to it here, though far from you." In later years Lowell would often tell how he used to whistle as he came near home from school, in order to let his mother know he was coming, and she seldom failed to be sitting at her window to welcome him.
Early in 1837 Lowell was elected to the Hasty Pudding Club. "At the very first meeting I attended," he writes to his friend, Shackford, "I was chosen secretary, which is considered the most honorable office in the club, as the records are kept in verse (mind, I do not say poetry). This first brought my rhyming powers into notice, and since that I have been chosen to deliver the next anniversary poem by a vote of twenty out of twenty-four."
Not long afterward he writes to his friend Loring, "I have written about a hundred lines of my poem (?), and I suspect it is going to be pretty good. At least, some parts of it will take." And after a few lines he goes on, "I am as busy as a bee—almost. I study and read and write all the time." A little later he writes a letter to Loring in Scotch dialect verse.
This was not the sort of work, however, that the college authorities expected of him. He was lazy and got behind his classes, so that near the end of his course he was rusticated, or suspended from college for some weeks. He had been chosen class poet, but on account of his suspension he could not read his poem, though it was printed.
He was sent to Concord during this interval to carry on his studies under the minister of the town. Here he found it pretty dull, though Emerson and Thoreau were there. But he did not then care for either one of them. In one of his letters he said, "I feel like a fool. I must go down and see Emerson and if he doesn't make me feel more like one, it won't be for want of sympathy. He is a good-natured man in spite of his doctrines."
Of Thoreau he said, "I met (him) last night, and it is exquisitely amusing to see how he imitates Emerson's tone and manner. With my eyes shut I shouldn't know them apart."
In the autumn he came back to Cambridge and took his degree of
Bachelor of Arts with his class.
CHAPTER IV
HOW LOWELL STUDIED LAW
While at Concord, Lowell wrote to his friend Loring, as though explaining himself.
"Everybody almost is calling me 'indolent.' 'Blind dependent on my own powers' and 'on fate.' Confound everybody! since everybody confounds me. Everybody seems to see but one side of my character, and that the worst. As for my dependence on my own powers, 'tis all fudge. As for fate, I believe that in every man's breast are the stars of his fortune, which, if he choose, he may rule as easily as does the child the mimic constellations in the orrery he plays with. I acknowledge, too, that I have been something of a dreamer, and have sacrificed, perchance, too assiduously on that altar to the 'unknown God,' which the Divinity has builded not with hands in the bosom of every decent man, sometimes blazing out clear with flame, like Abel's sacrifice, heaven-seeking; sometimes smothered with greenwood and earthward, like that of Cain. Lazy quota! I haven't dug, 'tis true, but I have done as well, and 'since my free soul was mistress of her choice, and could of books distinguish her election,' I have chosen what reading I pleased and what friends I pleased, sometimes scholars and sometimes not."
Once out of college he had to take up some profession. Had poetry been a profession, he would have taken that; but such a choice at that time would have been considered sheer folly. He did not consider that he had any "call" to be a minister, still less a doctor. As there was nothing else left, he began the study of law. It is truly amusing to see how he manages to "wriggle along" until he takes his degree of LL.B. and is admitted to the bar.
First, he announces that he is "reading Blackstone with as good a grace and as few wry faces as he may." Only a few days later he declares, "A very great change has come o'er the spirit of my dreams. I have renounced the law." He is going to be a business man, and sets about looking for a place, in a store. He is going to give up all thoughts of literary pursuits and devote himself to money-making. He also says, "I have been thinking seriously of the ministry, but then—I have also thought of medicine, but then—still worse!"
A few days pass by. He goes into Boston and hears Webster speak in a case before the United States Court. "I had not been there an hour before I determined to continue in my profession and study as well as I could."
Still, it was hard work to keep at his law studies. He is soon writing to his friend George Loring, "I sometimes think that I have it in me, and shall one day do somewhat; meantime I am schooling myself and shaping my theory of poesy."
Six weeks later: "I have written a great deal of pottery lately. I have quitted the law forever." Then he inquires if he can make any money by lecturing at Andover. He already has an engagement to lecture at Concord, where he has hopes to "astonish them a little."
A fortnight later we find him in a "miserable state. The more I think of business the more really unhappy do I feel, and think more and more of studying law." What he really wants to do all the time is to write poetry. "I don't know how it is," he says, "but sometimes I actually need to write somewhat in verse." Sunday is his work day in the "pottery business."
As for the law, it is settled at last. He writes to his friend,
"Rejoice with me, for to-morrow I shall be free. Without saying a word
to any one, I shall quietly proceed to Dane Law College to recitation.
Now shall I be happy again as far as that is concerned."
A fortnight later he declares, "I begin to like the law, and therefore it is quite interesting. I am determined that I will like it and therefore I do."
In the summer of 1840 he completed his studies and was admitted to the bar. A little later he opened an office in Boston. Misfortune had overtaken his father, and his personal property had been nearly swept away. It was now necessary for the young man to earn his own living. His friends were therefore glad that he had his profession to depend on.
CHAPTER V
LOVE AND LETTERS
Lowell always had a presentiment that he should never practice law. He was always dreaming of becoming independent in some other way. "Above all things," he declares, "should I love to sit down and do something literary for the rest of my natural life."
He did not then think of marrying, and it does not require much to support a single man. Though he opened a law office in Boston, it does not appear that he did any business. He wrote a story entitled "My First Client," but one of his biographers unkindly suggests that this may have been purely imaginary.
All through his letters we see his ambitious yearning. "George," says he in one place, "before I die your heart shall be gladdened by seeing your wayward, vain, and too often selfish friend do something that shall make his name honored. As Sheridan once said, 'It's in me, and' (we'll skip the oath) 'it shall come out!'"
His bachelor dreams were soon dissipated, however. He went to visit a friend of his, W.A. White, and there met the young man's sister Maria. He thought her a very pleasant and pleasing young lady, and he discovered that she knew a great deal of poetry. She could repeat more verse than any other one of his acquaintances, though he laments that she was more familiar with modern poets than with the "pure wellsprings of English poesy."
The friendship grew apace. In the same fall that he began the pretended practice of law he became engaged to her, and she caused a fresh and voluminous outpouring of verse. His productions were printed in various periodicals, such as the Knickerbocker Magazine, to which Longfellow had contributed, and the Southern Literary Messenger, which Poe once edited.
Miss White was a most charming and interesting young lady. She was herself a poet, and had a delicate intellectual sympathy that enabled her to enter into her lover's ambitions, and assist him even in the minutest details of his work.
It is fair to suppose that Lowell's friends brought every possible pressure to bear upon him to make him give up poetry and dig at the law. His father's financial losses had left him without an inherited income; he was engaged to a beautiful girl and anxious to be married; in some way he must earn his living, and if possible do more. Such was not the effect, however. He devoted himself to poetry with an almost feverish activity. He has made up his mind that he will do something great; for only so can he hope possibly to make literature a paying profession.
It was Maria who inspired most of his verse at this time. One of his best poems even to this day was written directly for her. It is called "Irene'." It may be taken as the best possible description of his lady herself:
Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear;
Calm beneath her earnest face it lies,
Free without boldness, meek without a fear,
Quicker to look than speak its sympathies;
Far down into her large and patient eyes
I gaze, deep-drinking of the infinite,
As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night,
I look into the fathomless blue skies.
As the struggle between money and law on the one side and literature on the other still went on, he expressed his feelings on the subject to his friend Loring in the following stanza, which puts the whole argument into a nutshell:
They tell me I must study law.
They say that I have dreamed and dreamed too long,
That I must rouse and seek for fame and gold;
That I must scorn this idle gift of song,
And mingle with the vain and proud and cold.
Is, then, this petty strife
The end and aim of life,
All that is worth the living for below?
O God! then call me hence, for I would gladly go!
Thus he had finally come to the conclusion that he would rather die than give up literature.
"Irené" won the good opinion of many. The young poet, though but twenty-one, felt that he was beginning to be a lion. His next definite step was to publish a volume of verses. Says he, "I shall print my volume. Maria wishes me to do it, and that is enough."
So his first volume, "A Year's Life," was published, with the motto in
German, "I have lived and loved."
The young poet's friends were very much opposed to this publication, for the reason that a rising young lawyer is not helped on in his profession at all by being known as a poet. Who would employ a poet to defend his business in a court room? No one! A hard-headed business man is wanted. Walter Scott was a lawyer of much such a temperament as Lowell's, and when he put forth a similar volume he suffered as it was certain that Lowell would suffer. But it is probable that Lowell was now fully determined to give up law altogether.
"I know," he declares passionately, "that God has given me powers such as are not given to all, and I will not 'hide my talent in mean clay.' I do not care what others may think of me or of my book, because if I am worth anything I shall one day show it. I do not fear criticism as much as I love truth. Nay, I do not fear it at all. In short, I am happy. Maria fills my ideal and I satisfy her. And I mean to live as one beloved by such a woman should live. She is every way noble. People have called 'Irene' a beautiful piece of poetry. And so it is. It owes all its beauty to her."
It is very plain that she was on the side of the poet, not of the worldly-minded persons who advocated the law, business, money-making. She did not dread the prospect of being a poor man's wife. To be the wife of a poet, a man of courage and ambition and nobleness of heart, was far more to her. The turning point in Lowell's life was past; and he had been led to that turning point by the little woman who was soon to become his wife.
CHAPTER VI
THE UNCERTAIN SEAS OF LITERATURE
As far as is known, Lowell never earned a dollar by the law. He soon began to pick up a five or a ten dollar bill here and there by writing for current periodicals. His book brought him some reputation, but not much. A few hundred copies were sold, and most of the reviews and criticisms were favorable. He received a slating from the Morning Post in Boston, however, just as an inkling of what a literary man might expect.
Three years of hard literary work now followed. Lowell wrote assiduously and heroically, getting what happiness he could in the meantime out of his love. He was young and strong, and life was not a burden. He tells us of having spent an evening at the house of a friend "where Maria is making sunshine just now," and he declared that he had been exceedingly funny. He had in the course of the evening recited "near upon five hundred extempore macaronic verses; composed and executed an oratorio and opera" upon a piano without strings, namely the center-table; drawn "an entirely original view of Nantasket Beach"; made a temperance address; and given vent to "innumerable jests, jokes, puns, oddities, quiddities and nothings," interrupted by his own laughter and that of his hearers. Besides this, he had eaten "an indefinite number of raisins, chestnuts(!), etc., etc., etc., etc., etc."
In 1842 Lowell and Cobert G. Carter, who was about the same sort of a business man as the poet himself, started a periodical which they called the Pioneer. They had no capital; but they did have literary connections, and they were able to get together for the three numbers they published a larger number of contributions from distinguished contributors than has often fallen to the lot of any American periodical. It is true that these men were not as famous in those days as they have since become; still, their names were known and their reputations were rapidly growing. The best known were Poe, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Whittier and Emerson; but there were not a few others whose names are well known to-day. The magazine had a high literary character, and was well worthy of the future greatness of the contributors. Unfortunately, it takes something more than literary excellence to make a successful magazine. Sometimes the literary quality is too high for the public to appreciate. This was true of the Pioneer. A magazine also requires a large capital and commercial ability in the business office. It is not at all strange that the venture did not succeed. It could not have done so. Three numbers only were issued, and those three left behind them a debt which the young publishers were unable to pay until some time after.
At the same time that Lowell was having trouble with his magazine, he found his eyes becoming affected, and he was obliged to spend the greater part of the winter of 1842-43 in New York to undergo treatment. Here he made many new literary acquaintances, among others that of Charles F. Briggs, who started the Broadway Journal with the assistance of Poe. In the meantime, he kept on writing poetry with more vigor than ever, and in 1843 published a second volume of verse, containing his best work since "A Year's Life" appeared.
His contributions to the periodicals included much prose as well as poetry. Among other things, he wrote a series of "Conversations on some of the Old Poets," which was published in a volume the same year that the second book of poems came out. It consisted mainly of essays on Chaucer, Chapman, Ford, and the old dramatists. He never cared to reprint this first excursion into the realm of literary criticism; but it opened up a field which he was to work with distinction in after years.
Lowell's prose is delicate, airy, and fanciful, but at the same time keenly critical and sharp in its thought. "Fireside Travels" and "From My Study Window" are books which are known all over the world and which are everywhere voted "delightful".
CHAPTER VII
HOSEA BIGLOW, YANKEE HUMORIST
In December, 1844, Lowell felt that his income from his literary work, though very small and precarious, was sufficient to justify him in marrying, and accordingly he was united to Miss White. She was delicate in health, and after their marriage the couple went to Philadelphia, where they spent the winter in lodgings. Lowell became a regular contributor to the Freeman, an antislavery paper once edited by Whittier. From this he derived a very small but steady income; and the next year he was engaged to write every week for the Anti-Slavery Standard on a yearly salary of five hundred dollars. This connection he maintained for the next four years.
In June, 1846, the editor of the Boston Courier, a weekly paper well known in the "Hub" for its literary character even to this day, received a strange communication. It was a letter signed "Ezekiel Biglow," enclosing a poem written by his son Hosea. This is the way the letter began:
Jaylem, June, 1846.
Mister Eddyter:—Our Hosea wuz down to Boston last week, and he see a cruetin Sarjunt a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a drummin and fifin arter him like all nater, the sarjunt he thout Hosea hedn't gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a kindo's though he 'd jest cum down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy woodn't take none o his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 pounder out on.
The letter was rather a long one, and closed thus. Referring to the verses enclosed, the writer says:—
If you print em I wish you'd jest let folks know who hosy's father is, cos my ant Kesiah used to say it's nater to be curus ses she, she aint livin though and he's a likely kind o lad.
Ezekiel Biglow.
The poem itself began with this stanza:
Thrash away, you'll hev to rattle
On them kittle-drums o' yourn,—
'Taint a knowin' kind o' cattle
Thet is ketched with mouldy corn;
Put in stiff, you fifer feller,
Let folks see how spry you be,—
Guess you'll toot till you are yeller
'Fore you git ahold o' me!
The letter and the poem were printed together in the Courier, and immediately were the talk of the town. You will remember that in 1846 the war with Mexico was just beginning, and many people were opposed to it as the work of "jingo" politicians, controlled in some degree by the slavery power. Southern slaveholders wished to increase the territory of the United States in such a way as to enlarge the territory where slavery would be lawful. The antislavery people of New England were violently opposed to the war, and this poem by the Yankee Hosea Biglow immediately became popular, because it put in a humorous, common-sense way what everybody else had been saying with deadly earnest.
Charles Sumner saw the common sense of the poem, but didn't see the fun in the bad spelling. Said he, "This Yankee poet has the true spirit. He puts the case admirably. I wish, however, he could have used good English." Evidently Sumner did not suspect that so cultured and polished a poet as James Russell Lowell was the author of a stanza like this:
'Wut 's the use o' meetin'-goin'
Every Sabbath, wet or dry,
Ef it's right to go amowin'
Feller-men like oats and rye?
I dunno but wut it's pooty
Trainin' round in bobtail coats.—
But it's curus Christian dooty,
This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats.
The fact is, however, Lowell had written all this, even the letter with bad spelling purporting to come from Ezekiel Biglow. He was deeply interested in the antislavery cause, in good politics and sound principles; yet he saw that it would be useless for him to get up and preach against what he did not like. There were plenty of other earnest, serious-minded men like Garrison and Whittier who were fighting against the evil in the straightforward, blunt way. Lowell was as interested as they in having the wrongs righted; but he was more cool-headed than the rest. He considered the matter. A joke, he said to himself, will carry the crowd ten times as quickly as a serious protest; and people will listen to one of their own number, a common, every-day, sensible fellow with a spark of wit in him, where they would go away bored by polished and cultured writing full of Latin quotations. This is how he came to begin the Biglow papers. Their instant success proved that he was quite right.
Of course it was not long before shrewd people began to see that this fine humor, with its home-thrusts, was not in reality written by a country bumpkin. Through the rough dialect and homely way of stating the case, there shone the fine intellect of a cultivated and skillful writer. The Post guessed that James Russell Lowell was the real author. This was regarded only as a rumor, however, and many people scouted the idea that a young poet, whose books sold only in small numbers and were known only to literary people, could have written anything as good as this.
"I have heard it demonstrated in the pauses of a concert," wrote Lowell afterward, "that I was utterly incompetent to have written anything of the kind."
It was early in this same summer of 1846 that Lowell made his contract to write regularly for the Anti-Slavery Standard; and he soon began sending the "Biglow" poems to that paper instead of to the Courier.
The most popular of the whole series of poems by Hosea Biglow was the one on John P. Robinson. Robinson was a worthy gentleman who happened to come out publicly on the side of a political wire-puller. Immediately Hosea caught up his name and wrote a comic poem on voting for a bad candidate for office. Looked at in that light, the poem applies just as well to political candidates to-day as it did then. Here are a few stanzas of the poem. You will want to turn to "Lowell's Poetical Works" and read the whole piece.
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS.
Guvener B. is a sensible man;
He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.
My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?
We can't never choose him o' course—thet's flat;
Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?)
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that,
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.
Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:
He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan—
He's been true to one party—an' thet is himself;
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.
Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;
He don't vally principle more'n an old cud;
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.
The side of our country must ollers be took,
An' President Polk, you know, he is our country.
An' the angel that writes all our sins in a book
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry;
And John P.
Robinson he
Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.
There is a story that Mr. Robinson couldn't go anywhere after this poem was published without hearing some one humming or reciting,
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.
School children shouted it everywhere, people on the street repeated it as they met, and the funny rhyme was heard even in polite drawing-rooms, amid roars of laughter. Mr. Robinson went abroad, but scarcely had he landed in Liverpool before he heard a child crooning over to himself,
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.
In Genoa, Italy, it was a parody, telling what John P.—Robinson he—would do down in Judee.
CHAPTER VIII
PARSON WILBUR
In the course of time the "Biglow Papers" were published in book form. Not only was Lowell's name not yet connected publicly with the Yankee humor, but the poems were provided with an elaborate introduction, notes and comments, by the learned pastor of the church at Jaalam, Homer Wilbur. His notes and introduction are filled with Latin quotations, and he appears as much a scholar as Hosea Biglow does a natural. He says he tried to teach Hosea better English, but decided to let him work out his own ideas in his own way. Still, he endorses Hosea's principles, and is in every way thoroughly his friend.
This Parson Wilbur is almost as much of a character in the book as Hosea himself, and his prose, printed at the beginning and end of each poem in small type, is almost as clear and effective and interesting as Hosea's poems. We are always tempted to skip anything printed in small type, and placed in brackets; but in this case that would be a great mistake.
Speaking of "What Mr. Robinson Thinks," Parson Wilbur says, "A bad principle is comparatively harmless while it continues to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind comprehend it fully till it is printed in that large type which all men can read at sight, namely the life and character, the sayings and doings, of particular persons….
"Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true satirist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon falsehood, and as Truth and Falsehood start from the same point, and sometimes even go along together for a little way, his business is to follow the path of the latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The danger of the satirist is, that continual use may deaden his sensibility to the force of language. He becomes more and more liable to strike harder than he knows or intends. He may put on his boxing gloves, and yet forget that the older they grow, the more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. Moreover, in the heat of contest, the eye is insensibly drawn to the crown of victory, whose tawdry tinsel glitters through the dust of the ring which obscures Truth's wreath of simple leaves."
There is another very interesting passage which is said to be an extract from one of the Parson's sermons, describing the modern newspaper.
"Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theater, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. Behold the huge earth sent to me hebdomidally in a brown paper wrapper."
You see that what he says is very learned in its choice of words; but if you read it carefully you will find it interesting.
But after all, Parson Wilbur is a humorous character, though he has his sense, too. At the end of his introduction are some fragmentary notes which are intended as a general satire on editors of books. He goes on at some length to say that he thought he ought to have his picture printed in the book which he professes to be editing. But he has only two likenesses, one a black profile, the other a painting in which he is made cross-eyed. He speaks of it as "strabismus," which sounds very learned of course, and he goes on to explain that in actual fact this is not a bad thing, for he can preach very directly at his congregation, and no one will think the preacher has him particularly in his eye. He also says Mrs. Wilbur objected to having a cross-eyed picture reproduced, and he is therefore driven to take the position of those great people who refuse to have their features copied at all. Then he puts in a lot of absurd genealogical notes.
At the beginning of the book there are also a number of imaginary notices of "the independent press." Of course there are no such papers as those mentioned, and the praise and the blame are alike satirical.
In the original volume of "Biglow Papers," part of a page at the end of these "Notices of the Press" remained unfilled, and the printer asked Lowell if he could not send in something to occupy that space. As poetry came easiest, Lowell wrote a number of stanzas about "Zekle's Courtin'." There were only six stanzas in the original edition. Lowell wrote more, but told the printer to break off when the page was filled. This the printer did, and the stanzas which were not put in type were lost, as Lowell had kept no copy. This piece became so popular that friends urged the poet to finish the story, and he wrote a few more stanzas. Then he wrote still others. In the course of time it developed into the long poem printed with the second series of "Biglow Papers," under the title of "The Courtin'."
This is the way it runs in the first version; but you will want to read it also in its complete form:
Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the sekle,
His heart kep' goin' pitypat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on tother,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He could n't ha' told ye, nuther.
Sez he, "I'd better call agin;"
Sez she, "Think likely, Mister;"
The last word pricked him like a pin,
An'—wal, he up and kist her.
When in the course of the publication of the second series of "Biglow Papers," twenty years after the first, it was announced that Parson Wilbur was dead, people who had read the first series felt very much as though they had lost a personal friend. The public had learned to love the pedantic, vain old man as if he were a real human being. Lowell had created in him a great character of fiction, almost as if he were a novelist instead of a poet.
CHAPTER IX
A FABLE FOR CRITICS
Lowell's next attempt in the satirical and humorous line was a long poem written somewhat after the style of the old Latin fable writers, and hence called "A Fable for Critics." It was written in double rhymes, for the most part, which are very hard to make, and not altogether easy to read; but they help the humorous impression.
This poem was published anonymously, and in it the author hits off all the prominent authors of the day, speaking as the god Apollo. Of course he did not attach his name to it, and as it appeared anonymously he felt that he could say what he liked—in other words, tell the truth about his friends and acquaintances, or at least give his opinion of them. Incidentally, he pokes fun at the literary fads of the day.
Among other things, to give the impression that he was not the author of the poem, he puts in a free criticism of himself:
There is Lowell, who's striving Parnassus to climb
With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme.
He might get on alone, spite of brambles and boulders,
But he can't with that bundle he has on his shoulders.
The top of the hill he will never come nigh reaching
Till he learns the distinction 'twixt singing and preaching;
His lyre has some chords that would ring pretty well,
But he'd rather by half make a drum of the shell,
And rattle away till he's old as Mathusalem,
At the head of a march to the last new Jerusalem.
Evidently he thought that he paid too much attention to politics, as in the "Biglow Papers," and to lecturing, and various side issues, when he ought to be cultivating pure poetry more assiduously; or rather, he would have liked to be a simple poet and do nothing else, not even earn a living.
The way he characterizes in this poem the great writers whom we know is both amusing and interesting, and he generally tells the truth. For instance, he writes—
There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three fifths of him genius and two fifths sheer fudge.
The best of his criticisms are not satirical, but true and appreciative.
Thus, Hawthorne:
There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare
That you hardly at first see the strength that is there;
A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet,
So earnest, so graceful, so lithe, and so fleet,
Is worth a descent from Olympus to meet.
His reference to Whittier, too, is a noble tribute by one poet to another:
There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart
Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,
And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect,
Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect.
Bryant was the oldest of the American poets, and the generation to which Lowell belonged had been taught to look up to him as the head of American poetical literature. Of course the younger poets felt that they ought to receive a share of the homage, and perhaps they were a little jealous of Bryant.
There is Bryant, as quiet, as cool, and as dignified,
As a smooth, silent iceberg that never is ignified,
Save when by reflection 't is kindled o' nights
With a semblance of flame by the chill Northern Lights.
This is not at all complimentary, it would seem, but a little farther along Lowell makes up for it in part by saying—
But, my dear little bardlings, don't prick up your ears,
Nor suppose I would rank you and Bryant as peers;
If I call him an iceberg I don't mean to say,
There is nothing in that which is grand in its way;
He is almost the one of your poets that knows
How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Repose.
You will remember that in one of his college letters, written while he was at Concord because rusticated, Lowell did not seem to care for Emerson. He afterward became his great admirer, and in this fable leads off with Emerson, saying:
There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one,
Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on,
Whose prose is grand verse, while his verse, the Lord knows,
Is some of it pr—No, 'tis not even prose.
Irving and Holmes are two more of his favorites. Of the first he says:
What! Irving? Thrice welcome, warm heart and fine brain,
You bring back the happiest spirit from Spain,
And the gravest sweet humor, that ever were there
Since Cervantes met death in his gentle despair.
Holmes he happily hits off thus:
There's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit;
A Leyden jar always full charged, from which flit
The electrical tingles of hit after hit.
His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric
Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satiric;
In a measure so kindly, you doubt if the toes
That are trodden upon are your own or your foe's.
And he ends by saying:
Nature fits all her children with something to do;
He who would write and can't write, can surely review,
Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his
Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies.
Lowell was a good critic, and clearly saw the merit of the really great writers of his time. We have quoted his characterizations of those he admires. His keen thrusts at those who are not half as great as they would have us believe are both amusing and true, and no doubt made their victims smart sharply enough, for instance that—
One person whose portrait just gave the least hint
Its original had a most horrible squint.
CHAPTER X
THE TRUEST POETRY
While Lowell was becoming famous indirectly as the anonymous author of the "Biglow Papers" and "A Fable for Critics," he was writing and publishing over his own name sweet, simple lines that came straight from his heart and which will no doubt be remembered when the uncouth Yankee dialect of Hosea Biglow and the hard rhymes of the "Fable" are forgotten. The simpler a true poet is the more beautiful and really poetic he is likely to be. The simplest thing Lowell ever wrote was "The First Snow-Fall," composed in 1847 after the death of his little daughter Blanche, with the sorrow for whose loss was mingled the joy at the coming of another child.
THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.
The snow had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.
I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood;
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.
Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
And I told of the good All-father
Who cares for us here below.
Again I looked at the snow-fall,
And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high.
I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar that renewed our woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
"The snow that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall!"
Then with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;
And she, kissing back, could not know
That my kiss was given to her sister,
Folded close under deepening snow.
Lowell's greatest poem, "The Vision of Sir Launfal," was written in the same simple, beautiful spirit of "The First Snow-Fall," and that is why we all like to read it over and over again. "Sir Launfal" was a favorite with Mrs. Lowell from the beginning. She probably knew better that it was a great poem than the poet himself did.
The "Prelude" to the first part is beautiful because it contains so much that cannot but touch the heart of every one, however he may dislike poetry. A great poem like this cannot be read hastily, nor must we stop with reading it once. Great poetry must be read so many times that it is committed entirely to memory before we begin to reach the end of the beauties in it. Each time we reread we see new beauties, we feel new thrills.
Over his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,
And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay;
Then, as the touch of his loved instrument
Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flashes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.
The first time you read this passage it may mean little to you; but as you read again and again you gradually picture in your mind a grand cathedral, just filling with people for the morning worship. The organist begins with a few light notes, fanciful, merely suggestive; then louder and louder swells the strain; the music begins to bring up before your mind pictures of waterfalls, cities, men and women with passionate hearts; at last, in the grand flood of the music, you forget yourself, the world around you, the church, the thronging congregation, everything.
After this pretty and suggestive prelude, describing the musician, we read such passages as this, which suggest the theme as by a "faint auroral flash":
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
A little farther along the music seems to broaden and deepen:
Now is the high-tide of the year,
And whatever of life hath ebbed away
Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,
Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,
We are happy now because God wills it.
You must read the rest of the poem for yourself, ever remembering that to read poetry so that you understand it and love it means that you yourself are a poet at heart; and if you come to love a great poem you may be proud of your achievement.
CHAPTER XI
PROFESSOR, EDITOR, AND DIPLOMAT
There was a touching and very warm affection between Longfellow and Lowell. Mrs. Lowell says of it, "I have never seen such a beautiful friendship between men of such distinct personalities, though closely linked together by mutual tastes and affections. They criticise and praise each other's performances with frankness not to be surpassed, and seem to have attained that happy height of faith where no misunderstanding, no jealousy, no reserve exists." Often in his diary Longfellow speaks of "walking to see Lowell," who was either "musing before his fire in his study," or occupied in his "celestial study, with its pleasant prospect through the small square windows."
Longfellow was some dozen years the elder; and when the time came that he wished to retire from the professorship of belles-lettres in Harvard College, he was very desirous that Lowell should take the place. There were others who wanted it; but it was arranged that Lowell should become Longfellow's successor. Lowell had never before been a professor and he did not particularly like the work. In 1867 he speaks of "beginning my annual dissatisfaction of lecturing next week." Still, he was popular with the students and highly successful because of his fine gift of literary criticism. Here, for instance, is his definition of poetry: "Poetry, as I understand it, is the recognition of something new and true in thought or feeling, the recollection of some profound experience, the conception of some heroic action, the creation of something beautiful and pathetic."
In his diary Longfellow sometimes refers to Mrs. Lowell, "slender and pale as a lily"; and once when he and Charles Sumner had gone to see Lowell and found that he was not at home, Longfellow adds, "but we saw his gentle wife, who, I fear, is not long for this world."
His words were prophetic. She gradually failed in strength. Of their four children, three died while mere babes. In 1853 Mrs. Lowell herself died.
The appointment to Longfellow's professorship did not come until a little over a year after the death of Mrs. Lowell. During her life Mr. Lowell's income was very small and irregular, a few hundred dollars a year in payment of royalties on his books and for articles and poems contributed to various periodicals. With his appointment to the Harvard professorship he became financially independent for the first time. To prepare for it he went abroad, spending most of his time at Dresden.
He returned sooner than he expected, and for a reason that very well illustrates his business habits. When he set out he had a limited amount of money. This he placed with London bankers, arranging to draw on them for such sums as he might need from time to time. He asked that when he had drawn down to a certain sum the bankers should notify him, and then he would immediately prepare to return home. He settled down, and thought that he was getting on moderately well and had a considerable sum still to draw. What was his surprise when he was notified by his bankers that he had drawn his account down to the amount he had mentioned! As there was nothing better for him to do, he packed his trunk and went home.
Some years after that, he received a letter from these London bankers informing him that an error had been made in his account, and that a draft for a hundred pounds sterling (five hundred dollars) which had been drawn by some other person named Lowell had by mistake been charged to his account. This money, with compound interest, was now at his disposal. The bankers suggested, however, that if he was not in immediate need of the money, they would use it for an admirable investment they knew of which might considerably increase it within a year. At the end of a year he received a draft for seven hundred pounds. This he used to refurnish Elmwood. "Now, you, who are always preaching figures and Poor Richard, and business habits," said he, in telling the story to some friends, "what do you say to that? If I had kept an account and known how it stood, I should have spent that money and you would not now be sitting in those easy chairs, or walking on Wilton carpet. No; hang accounts and figures!"
In 1857 the Atlantic Monthly was started, and Lowell was made editor, with a salary of three thousand dollars a year, of course in addition to his salary as a Harvard professor. Though he was the editor, he recognized that the success of the magazine would be made by Holmes. Said he, "You see, the doctor is like a bright mountain stream that has been dammed up among the hills and is waiting for an outlet into the Atlantic. You will find that he has a wonderful store of thought—serious, comic, pathetic, and poetic,—of comparisons, figures, and illustrations. I have seen nothing of his preparation, but I imagine he is ready. It will be something wholly new, and his reputation as a prose writer will date from this magazine." When you recollect the success of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" you cannot help remarking that Lowell was a veritable prophet.
President Hayes, soon after his inauguration, offered Lowell an appointment as minister to Austria, but Lowell declined. When he was asked if he would accept an appointment as minister to Spain, he consented, and thither he went in the early part of President Hayes' administration. After a time he was transferred to London, where he became a striking diplomatic figure.
He was one of the most popular and polished gentlemen ever sent as ambassador to a European nation, and as such his presence at the Court of Saint James was highly appreciated by the English people. When, in 1884, on the election of Cleveland to the presidency, he prepared to leave London, many glowing tributes were paid him by the English press, but none was more hearty than this, printed in Punch:
Send you away? No, Lowell, no.
That phrase, indeed, is scarce well chosen.
We're glad, of course, to have you go
More like a brother than a cousin;
True, we must "speed the parting guest,"
If such a guest from us must sever;
But what we all should like the best
Would be to keep you here forever.
You've won our hearts; your words, your ways,
Are what we like. Without desiring
To sicken you with fulsome praise,
We think you've seen no signs of tiring.
Of graceful speech, of pleasant lore,
How much to you the English mind owes!
We're sad to think we'll see no more
Of you—save through your Study Windows.
Well, well, the best of friends must part;
That's commonplace, like Gray, but true, sir.
Commend us to the Yankee heart;
If you can come again, why, do, sir.
What Biglow calls our "English sarse,"
Is not all tarts and bitters, is it?
Farewell!—if from us you must pass,
But try, do try, another visit!
After his return from England, Mr. Lowell did comparatively little literary work. Some years before this, he had married the lady who was educating his only daughter. He now spent the most of his time at Elmwood among his books and in the society of his friends. In 1888 a volume of his later poems appeared, bearing the title of "Heartsease and Rue." About the same time "Democracy," a collection of the addresses which he had delivered in England, was published. But neither of these volumes added materially to his fame.
On the twelfth of August, 1891, the famous poet, essayist, and man of affairs died. He was nearly seventy-three years of age.
* * * * *
[NOTE.—The thanks of the publishers are due Messrs. Harper & Brothers for permission to use extracts from "Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by Charles Eliot Norton," and to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for permission to use extracts from the Poetical Works of Lowell.]