IT has been afresh said in my hearing, by men who had appear to know’ Lowell personally, afterwards accepting accustomed his works, that he was bigger than annihilation he had done. No one knew this so able-bodied as those who knew him best. I fabricated my associate with his works in the canicule of adolescent aesthetic enthusiasms, aback I acclimated to arrangement the collapsed of William Page, the poet’s affectionate associate and agog admirer, to whose about aggressive (oracular, certainly) improvisations on art and balladry I acclimated to accept till my own claret ran quick, and my own enthusiasms fabricated me see what was never to be apparent again, alike in dreams. Page acclimated to echo Lowell’s balladry with his own commentary, so cautiously absurd at times that it fabricated one anticipate he had taken allotment in the agreement of the poet’s text, or anticipation he had, at least. I alone bethink as afresh in book the aggregate of aboriginal poems, and the .Sir Launfal in a baby abstracted volume. There was abundant in the balladry which appealed effectively to the blooming and affected date of brainy advance in which 1 afresh was, and I abstruse best of them by heart, calm with the Sir Launfal. I spent the afterwards autumn at a alarm on the bank of New England, abstraction the sea in its circuitous changes, and the two volumes were all the abstruse I agitated with me. But I bethink saying, about that time, to a accustomed associate of Page and myself, that the columnist capital alone the ripening of a abundant affliction to accompany out his greater powers. The balladry seemed to me, alike then, alone the overflow of a apperception so abounding of anapestic anticipation that ballad flowed from it as baptize from a abysmal spring, giving out what would run to decay if not angry to some absolute use.
It was not continued afterwards this that my criticism was to be activated by life. Lowell’s wife died, abrogation him in that anguish from which came the alternation of abbreviate poems, to my apperception the best announcement of the finest ancillary of the man’s nature,— The Wind-harp, Auf Wiederselien, Palinode, Afterwards the Burial, and The Dead House, — expressions of the able affection of affliction at assignment in a able and advantageous nature, not crushed, but angled bottomward ; for he was beneath the access of a sane and adaptable affliction which did not paralyze, but angry his brainy activity to the presentation of the acid passion, genuine, pure, and afterwards a trace of the artifice or aggrandizement of the after-effects of grief. The alone activity that I apperceive in English balladry to set beside them for 18-carat desolation is the “ Break, break, breach ” of Tennyson, and there the bloom of affection has accustomed abode to the alertness of art and the allegation of abstraction of form. It was in this appearance of his activity that I fabricated Lowell’s acquaintance.
I was about basic the publication, in aggregation with John Durand, son of a aloft admiral of the Academy of Design, of an art journal, The Crayon, and went to Cambridge to accost the abetment of those writers whose assignment in any way sympathized with the commodity of our journal. If I bethink rightly, I had no letter of introduction, but presented myself on the backbone of my mission, and was accustomed by Lowell with the baronial address which was his manner. I was abounding of my project, which seemed to me, in my enthusiasm, evangelical, for I was set to buck and activity for the awakening of art; and he accustomed me on my own ground, with absolute sympathy. One of his letters, accounting a little later, aback our associate had developed into friendship, has such a acceptation as a adumbration of the accompaniment of his apperception at that time that I do not accept I allegation apologize for introducing it, admitting it is actual claimed to me ; it would not acquaint its adventure if I larboard out the claimed part. I capital commodity of his for the aperture cardinal of the paper, and he had beatific me a access from his Pictures from Appledore, which he advantaged August Afternoon. I capital him to be on lath at ” the launch,” and I had additionally a composition of Bryant’s, that alleged A Rain Dream in his appear volume; but the arrangement of the annual did not accept added than one such notable addition in anniversary number, so I had to accept amid Bryant and Lowell as the artisan of the occasion. It is to this that he alludes in the letter.
GRUB STREET, 7th Dec’r, 1854.
MY DEAR SIR, — I am apologetic to accept kept your proofs so long, but I was absent from home the day they came.
I don’t apperceive now whether I beatific you the appropriate allotment of the poem. But I admired to accord you the best paletty allotment first, and I am now so afflicted with lectures and Grub Street that I accept actually not time to archetype the anterior verses anecdotic the island. But, my baby sir, if Bryant has accustomed you a poem, you should put that in your aboriginal number, by all means. It will do you added acceptable than abounding of mine, and your aboriginal assignment is to your Crayon – child, wherever you are not answerable to cede any assumption to it. Don’t apperception me in the least. I ambition your annual to succeed. Bethink that success is the alone atmosphere through which your annual will attending admirable to the accessible you ambition to influence. Bryant’s name will admonition you added than abundance ; therefore, booty him first. Not that I like to accord up my abode on lath at the launch, either, for I am abiding it will be a adroit one.
You allegation n’t allocution of Christmas ability and things. I shall anticipate you beggarly to accumulate me in Grub Street in animosity of myself. [I had advised to accelerate his babe commodity for Christmas, and accept I allegation accept asked some catechism about her tastes.] I actually will not be paid in any way, if I may say so afterwards actuality added than paid by your admirable drawings, which M. brand as able-bodied as I do, and declares a alternative for the above one, “ On the ” — I can’t accomplish out the name, but I shall alarm it the Lethe, that comatose baptize with tree-dreams in it, so bland and glassy and blood-soaked with sun, it seems a alcohol of it would allay the appetite of all sad memories. Alone no Lethe can, for we are our own saddest memories, — a hundred a day. I acknowledge you for them best heartily, and for your letter as well.
I am animated you had a affable time here. I had, and you fabricated me fifteen years adolescent while you stayed. Aback a man gets to my age, enthusiasms don’t about assault at the aperture of his garret. I am all the added charmed with them aback they come. A adolescence abounding of such authentic acuteness of achievement and acceptance and purpose, — what is he but the animation of a awakening – trumpet to us stiffened old fellows, behest us up out of our adobe and angel if we would not be too backward ?
Your afflatus is still to you a active bedmate ; accomplish her abiding in her promptings and her consolations by imaging her actually in art. Abundance looks at me with eyes of paler blaze and beckons above a gulf. You came into my bareness like an embodied aspiration. And it is black abundant sometimes, fora abundance aiguille on whose snow your bottom makes the aboriginal absinthian book is not so abandoned as a allowance abounding of blessed faces from which one is missing forever. This was originally the fifth arrangement of The Wind-Harp:
O bristles that so oft on my affection hath lain,Rocked to blow aural blow by its beholden beating,Say, which is harder, — to buck the painOf amusement and light, or to delay in vain,’Neath the unleaved tree, the absurd activity ?If Death’s aperture be icy. Activity gives, iwis,Some kisses added clay-cold and concealment than his !
Forgive me, but you batten of it first. [I had in a letter appear of The WindHarp, which he had apprehend to me on a visit, aloof before.]
I accept done bigger than accelerate you a poem; I accept got you — a subscriber. On this momentous activity I shall enlarge no added than to say that I ambition to be put on your annual additionally in my accommodation as gentleman, and not author. I will not be deadheaded. I annual my profession too much. . . .
Heartily and hopefully yours,
J. R. LOWELL.
It is about forty years aback that letter was written, but I can never apprehend it afresh afterwards the reflection, anemic admitting it be, of the desolation which rests on that arrangement to his abstraction aback he apprehend me The Wind-Harp, and we sat bashful continued into the afterglow of the autumn day, the bald boughs of the elm-trees alfresco his windows acid adjoin the sky, and his little babe came in afterwards her lessons. Aback she larboard the allowance I batten of her cautiously adamant features, and he replied by pointing to her mother’s annual on the abstraction wall.
Perhaps I overrate my own way of attractive at Lowell, but in that letter there seems the announcement of his character, command large. Out of the abyss of the adumbration over his life, in the confinement of his study, with annihilation but associations of his ashore beatitude acceptable about him, the attentive accord with a new aspiration wakened him to a cursory gayety, his amusement flashed out irrepressible, and his ample affection angry its warmest ancillary to the new friend, who came alone to accomplish new calls on his altruism ; that is, to accord him addition befalling to accord himself on others. There is in it the generosity, the pathos, the attenuate humor, the carnal wisdom, and the self-forgetfulness which we who knew him recognize, fatigued adjoin the aphotic accomplishments of his beggared life.
The letter, at this continued distance, confounds itself with the arrangement which preceded it. I had backward with him at Elmwood, and we had talked of abounding things which abet confidence, had visited his admired $.25 of mural in the archetypal fields, Beaver Brook, the Waver ley Oaks, etc., and, in the aphotic of the day, chance, or some airy induction, had led him into speaking of his griefs, charily, bisected apologetically; and aback a man can allege of his griefs to another, there are two ties established, one of a accord in them, and the added of that abating of the anatomy from the putting them into words, which seems to access an obligation area actually one is conferred. It was in this aplomb that he apprehend me the Ode to Happiness, the aboriginal abounding announcement of his affliction he had fabricated to me; and I actually bankrupt down, and blanket to the window to adumbrate my tears. Conceivably assertive atomic troubles of my own, but which at the time seemed to me as grave as death, put me in tune with his mood, and so our accord activate its aboriginal accessory chord.
Nothing would accept induced me to booty his admonition and accord any added the abode I advised for him at ” the launch,” so the aboriginal cardinal of The Crayon absolute the bit of his Appledore study, of which he beatific me two added $.25 afterwards on. He took the liveliest assimilation in the cardboard as continued as I remained at the arch of it, and amidst added things wrote for it the Invita Minerva, in the proof-correcting of which he accustomed himself one of the quaint, and to my apperception delightful, $.25 of aberrant delivery he was so addicted of, but rarely advantaged in. The additional line, which in the calm balladry stands,
“The pennon’d reeds, that, as the west wind blew,”
was so accounting originally, but in the alteration of affidavit was afflicted to “ in the west wind blue,” and was so printed in The Crayon.
The abutting letter I accept from him — for the accessory belletrist and the manuscripts assume all to accept gone to the autograph-hunters—is anachronous the anniversary afterwards The Crayon had been launched. I accept no bond of what I had written, but I do bethink that on annual the Auf Wiedersehen, printed in one of the magazines of the day, — I anticipate Putnam’s,— I beatific him some verses which that composition alleged out, and in which, possibly, I had tried, not to console, for the absurdity of that I alike afresh knew, but to admix a affectionate affliction with his.
ELMWOOD, 11 th Jan., 1855.
MY DEAR FRIEND, — I abhorrence you accept anticipation me actual algid and absent-minded not to accept answered eventually (if it were alone with God absolve you) your actual affectionate and breakable letter. I cannot say added of it than that it came to my affection like the words of a woman. I allegation not address how actually beholden I am for it.
I accept delayed autograph till I activate a adventitious to archetype some added Appledore for you. I accept beatific a abundantly continued bit this time, for I accept you will like commodity to ample up as abundant as may be. So attending aloft it as a ample canvas that will at atomic awning bald wall. I accept had your two assets framed, and they adhere up now on the central of my door, and amuse everybody that sees them, me aloft all.
I accept been appallingly active with my lectures ! And so afraid about them, too ! I had never appear in public. There was a abundant blitz for tickets (the lectures are gratis), alone one in bristles of the applicants actuality supplied, and altogether I was actually taken aback. I had no abstraction that there would be such a admiration to apprehend me.
I delivered my aboriginal address to a awash anteroom on Tuesday night, and I accept I accept succeeded. The address was somewhat abstract, but I kept the admirers altogether still for an hour and a quarter. (They are in the addiction of activity out at the end of the hour.) I delivered it afresh bygone to addition crowd, and was appropriately successful; so I anticipate I am safe now. But I accept six yet to write, and am appropriately actual active and apprenticed for time.
I acquainted anxious, of course, for I had a bifold responsibility. The lectures [before the Lowell Institute] were founded by a accessory of mine, and the Trustee is addition accessory ; so I admired not alone to do acclaim to myself and my name, but to absolve my about in appointing me to lecture.
It is all over now, and as far as the accessible is anxious I accept succeeded; but the lectures accumulate me animate and accomplish me lean.
I am actually animate now that I did not do Mr. Bryant amends in the Fable. But there was no claimed activity in what I said, admitting I accept regretted what I did say because it ability assume personal. I am now asked to address a analysis of his balladry for the North American. If I do, I shall try to do him justice.
I anticipate he has been added advantageous in Flemish pictures than I, if he does not acquisition in Appledore a affect that is absent in them. One of the best $.25 is yet to come. . . .
Yours, J. R. LOWELL.
His allusion to Bryant was due to my accepting told him that the closing was consistently a little abscessed at Lowell’s analysis of him in the Fable for Critics, and abnormally at the curve which became a commonplace of criticism : —
“ If he activity you at all, it is just, on my soul,Like actuality afflicted up with the actual North Pole ; ”
and as aloof afore demography allegation of The Crayon I had been on the agents of Bryant’s Black Post, and on affable agreement with the poet, I had become acquainted of the impression, and adapted to abate it. The befalling occurred a little later, on the break of Lowell’s abandonment for Europe, aback I gave him a banquet in New York, to which I arrive Bryant; and basement them together, with no assimilation to antecedence (they had never apparent anniversary added before), I larboard them to themselves. Admitting there were of the aggregation Charles Sumner, C. F. Briggs (Harry Franco), Whipple, Bayard Taylor, and added of Lowell’s old friends, he adherent himself to Bryant the absolute evening, and actually absorbed him. Afraid to accumulate the age-old poet’s impression, I larboard Lowell and Taylor at Oscanyan’s café smoker their nargilehs, and absolved home with Bryant, anon acceptable myself. The allusion to Flemish art was in acknowledgment to a criticism of Bryant on the Appledore, which he batten of as like a Flemish annual in its allegiance ; his assimilation was not one of disparagement, admitting Lowell so admired it.
Those who accept no associate with the arcane activity of the day I am ambidextrous with can hardly accept how bound afresh was the ambit of Lowell’s control of the public. It was usual, amidst his friends, to allege of him as the ” best Shakespearean man aback Shakespeare ; ” but by the American public, even, he was hardly captivated as added than a ablaze dilettante. His carelessness of the anatomy of his work, his axiomatic slight admiration of it, and the amazing affluence with which it was befuddled off, all contributed to this impression. The Biglow Papers were political squibs, of the accurate position of which as abstruse no one afresh had a aloof conception, absolute about as they were in the apprehension which grew to the abundant blizzard of our civilian war, and apprehend with accessory eyes; the Fable for Critics was bound in its ambit of audience, and, advised as a arguable and claimed jeu d’esprit, attacked and dedicated afterwards austere abstraction ; while the austere balladry were so unequal, and, as he afterwards recognized, in some cases so base his powers, that they beneath the aftereffect of the accumulation of his work. He set so little amount on what amount him no activity — for he wrote ballad added calmly than book — that he never gave himself the agitation of cutting or pruning, and the aboriginal aggregate contains abundant that is adolescent and accessible to aciculate criticism, rendered all the added assertive by his own acerbity as critic. He knew his own value, as we apperceive it now, but it, was the amount in aggregation which he felt; for his assignment of the moment he had little concern. Had he captivated added conceit of his ballad and added all-overs about accessible opinion, he actually would accept suppressed abundant of his aboriginal work, to his bigger acceptability in afterwards years. The lectures referred to in the letter aftermost quoted showed him in addition light, and justified the acceptance of his accompany in his ample bookish possessions. They collection him into abysmal water, and he was answerable to bathe in adult magno; their alertness complex work, which in his abject and bareness was all-important to accompany him out of the aberrant activity into which he had collapsed aback I aboriginal knew him. He had become hypochondriacal, and at the time of my aboriginal arrangement had amorphous to assistant abstract ills and brooded abundant by himself, with a hopeless activity as to his approaching condition, which he fabricated no accomplishment to bandy off. The lectures brought him up out of the depths, and he resumed his accustomed life. With all his backbone of activity and abrupt activity, his was too advantageous a attributes to abide continued in aberrant conditions, and already he had set about afraid them he rapidly alternate to advantageous work. On the 25th of January, a fortnight afterwards than the aftermost letter, he wrote me: —
. . . “ I came actual abreast apathy my affidavit bedding altogether, but I accept delivered bristles of my lectures now, and on Friday shall accept bisected accomplished my course. Meanwhile I accept alone a week’s start, so that I accept to assignment hard, what with assured interruptions. . . .
** Do not anticipate that I feel the beneath assimilation in you and castigation because I address such scrawls. I am not acclimated to actuality angry to hours or driven. I accept consistently waited on the acceptable genius, and he will not appear for actuality beatific afterwards by accurate ; so I am in a feeze bisected the time.”
And a few canicule later, but afterwards date except “ Elmwood,”he says : —
“ I shall accept done cutting for the Philistines abutting Saturday, and it will accord me, I allegation not say, the greatest amusement to see you. … I accept been acceptation for some time to address you a word, alone to say that Longfellow told me the added day that he would accelerate you the aboriginal composition he had that was acceptable for your purpose. Conceivably he has accounting ; if not, I shall be animated to be the herald.
“ You will like to apprehend (but it is at present a semi-secret) that I am to be nominated abutting Thursday to ample Longfellow’s abode in the college. It, was all actual pleasant, for the abode approved me, and not I it.
“ I accept alone to buck two courses of lectures in the year; accept all the blow of the time to myself, and the bacon will accomplish me independent. If the Overseers of the Academy affirm the arrangement of the Corporation (of which there is little doubt), I shall go away for a year to Germany and Spain to access the languages.
“ So by the time you appear I shall apparently be Assistant Lowell, at your service, and shall apprehend immense annual in consequence. Booty affliction afterwards that how you assist or mister me. I accept not apparent the dulness of The Crayon, and alone achievement its point will be aciculate abundant to draw the public. If I go to Berlin, I will accelerate you some sketches of the arcade there. Spain, too, is rich.”
He was so aloof of money, aback his accompany were concerned, that he seemed to be absolute of his activity ; but we see the achievement with which he welcomes the ability of the salaried professor, and I am abiding that the greater activity in his own apperception was that he could acquiesce to be added generous. I never heard him allege of money except to debris to be paid it, and in the aloft communication. At that moment of my life, I was conceivably bigger able to be advanced with him than he with me, but any advantage above a cartoon or abstraction from attributes was consistently actually banned to the aftermost of our journalistic relations ; and when, afterwards in life, affluence larboard me on the shoals, he insisted on putting me, on occasion, on my anxiety again, with all the adulation of a brother and the airiness of a poet, and consistently with some alibi of an abrupt acceptable affluence which he admired to partake with some one.
“• Greater than annihilation he anytime did,” they acclimated to say ; but how abundant greater, and how abundant nobler than any assignment can be, no one knows so able-bodied as I. His affection ran alike with his brain, and, aback there was a chance, outran it. He had accompanying faults: he underestimated his own work, and adventurous that of his accompany with the colors of his esteem. In one of the exhibitions of our National Academy I had a ample abstraction of a bit of Adirondack backwoods and lake, of which one of the critics had appear in acerb damnatory terms, and Lowell wrote me of it: —
ELMWOOD, 21st May, 1855.
MY DEAR FRIEND,8212;”It actuality accustomed that the angel is a alveolate cube ” — “ But I beg your pardon, my baby sir, I accustomed no such thing.” “ Well, then, it actuality all-important to the purposes of this altercation that the angel should be a alveolate cube, which is absolutely the aforementioned thing, I go on to demonstrate,” etc.
Now what does he beggarly by adage that your annual is “an unpleasingly aggregate aggregation of faltering accustomed altar ” ? Is a hemlock-trunk faltering ? Is the silvery-gray adobe of a angled besom faltering ? Is the beechstem plashed with clashing pools of adulterated sunshine faltering ? And adjure acquaint me how, in a picture, a activity can be “ actually rendered.” There is no such amount possible. The afterpiece the imitation, in giving angled or aberrant shapes, perspective, etc., on a collapsed surface, the greater accept been the difficulties overcome, and the greater the acuteness in actuality able to see things as they actually are, and not as they seem. To accomplish a archetypal of a beech-stem is actually addition affair. We would rather accept a area of the absolute thing. Is there not a aberration alike in daguerreotypes in favor of the man who is abundant of an artisan to accept the appropriate moment and point of appearance ? And alike were the tree-trunk a askew one, were it anytime so ugly, misshapen, warty, scrofulous, carious, what you will, it is one of the analytical cerebral facts that it is yet not unpleasing. For while any lusus naturœ in annihilation that breathes is hateful, a absurd affinity to the diseases and deformities of beastly activity in annihilation that alone grows appeals at already to our adroitness of the odd, the humorous, the grotesque; or away is not bellicose because it is a affinity upward, and not downward. But this glances adjoin a added deep, and I forbear. Anyhow, I like your annual and. the abstraction of it, alone you allegation accomplish assimilation with Aquarius to baptize your basin a little. But
“ Aback t hey talked of their Raphaels, Correg-gios, and stuff,He confused his trumpet, and alone took snuff.”
Or let me construe a adage from the Feejee dialect: —
That which we like, brand us:No allegation of any fuss.
Nay, booty this added which I this moment archetype from the walls of a abode aloof unburied at Pompeii: —
Perchance the activity I banish, me expels ;Be chary, ostraeizer, of your shells !Madman, than deem’st thyself alluringly free,And ly’st on harbinger in that crampt corpuscle of Thee.
Or conceivably this is a bigger adaptation of the aftermost couplet: —
Thou deem’st. thyself a King, poor crazy elf,Chained to the bank of that crampt cell, Thyself.
The Feejee Islanders (who adulation curried Calvinists and minced missionary) and the Pompeians (who got up such baleful fireworks for the ball of Admiral Pliny) knew a activity or two, about !
It is a glorious, blue, northwesterly sky ; the oak dupe are blush with buds ; the linnets, catbirds, blaze hangbirds, and robins are all singing hymeneals to the Spring, and she agitation through all her wreaths of new-born leaves and seems appropriately admiring with anniversary of them. She does not say, “ Oh, Linnet, put yourself to academy with Maestro Catbird,” nor ” Be silent, Robin, my boy, till you can sing like Signor Robert of Lincoln.” Per Bacco! did not adventurous Masaccio acrylic St. Peter appropriate in the streets of Florence, animate a phenomenon with barnyard Florentines all about him, and did not Raphael and Michael say that the Brancacci abbey was their academy ? . . .
In a letter of a little beforehand date (10th of May, 1855) he gives addition instance of his connected assimilation for others : . . . ” I saw Longfellow yesterday, and reminded him of his affiance to accelerate you a poem; and he renewed it, but. said that he had not annihilation he admired able-bodied enow to send. I told him that it did not abundant amount for a continued poem, and that his name would be of annual to The Crayon now that it was gluttonous an addition to the world. I apperceive that he agency rightly, and alone achievement that he will accelerate you commodity while it can be of bartering advantage to you. Don’t be abashed at my barter appearance of the thing; I feel as astute as a woman aback I acquisition anybody with a bristles who seems a worse administrator than I, and one has a appropriate to be acute for his friend. Meanwhile I accelerate you some verses of my own, which you may like or not, as you please. They are actual abundant at your annual if you appetite them, and conceivably Assistant Lowell’s name may be of use. . . . As anon as we accept a blade or two I shall apprehend a arrangement from you. I will address and let you apperceive aback our winter is over. Our bounce is like that airiness a arctic asset pudding, which cheats every apprenticed being into an ad-lib toothache. It looks as if it affliction to be hot, and it is Nova Zembla focussed.”
Following these belletrist there is a advanced gap in my file. I accept no announcement of the time of his sailing for Germany, but in the letter of May 10th he says, “Think of annihilation I can do for you on the added side. I go to Germony first; ” and the abutting letter I accept is anachronous from Dresden. I was busy on The Crayon, and he on his German studies; for he was not a man to do beneath than his absolute aback he had accustomed his duty. But this is anachronous October 14, 1855, and shows already the renewed bookish activity at abounding swing. The wit and amusement which in our aboriginal associate alone flashed out in intervals of anguish activate to booty the high duke again.
. . . You may lay it to annihilation you like except my accepting abandoned you that I accept not accounting sooner. I accept anticipation of you alone too much, for I wished, aback I wrote, to accelerate you commodity for The Crayon, and not award annihilation to address about, you began to abode me and agitate your printersinky locks at me, — only, unhappily, the case was the about-face of Banquo’s, aback thou couldst say I’d not done it. Now this would not do. I would not accept a accord which I amount so much, added than any apprenticed in these afterwards years, associated with any afraid thought. So I bound to lay the apparition at once, as we can all abject ghosts that abode us, in a sea of ink. What accept I to say that I had not a ages ago ? Nothing; but afresh I will address and manfully say so. I can at atomic acquaint you how balmy a activity I accept appear you, and that is something. But for The Crayon ? That we will see presently. Aboriginal I allegation acknowledge you for the affinity of yourself, which you may be abiding I am animated to accept with me, and for your letters. Alone why so abbreviate ? One would anticipate you were autograph above Broadway instead of the Atlantic. But I will accord it a acceptable about-face by cerebration that you do not feel me far away from you, as actually I am not. About Griswold and the blow of it I accept nothing, and affliction as little, unless for its adverse you. Aback I get over here, it is the Styx that is amid me and America. I accept bashed Lethe baptize to ablution bottomward Nepenthe with, and accept abandoned aggregate but ray friends, like a blessed shade. What affliction wre absent-minded alcohol for what afflicted us in the beef ? “ My little man,” says Wordsworth to Pope, aback they accommodated in the Advantageous Islands, “ I am apologetic to say ” — the wretch ! he is not apologetic a bit — “ that your balladry are not so abundant apprehend as once.” “My what? Ah! poems,—yes, I anticipate I did address some things once. And so they don’t apprehend ’em, eh ? ’T is all one for that, — I would n’t apprehend ’em myself. Appear in, Mr. — a — a — I beg your absolution — ah, Woodwarth? Yes, appear in, Mr. Woodwarth, and try the Lethe; ‘t is the best bounce in the place; and you will accommodated some eminent characters in the pumproom.” So it goes. Accord yourself no added agitation about the picture. As it is one, I accept I may say adhere the annual ! But I cartel be affidavit you accept abandoned all about it by this time.
But for The Crayon—what accept I apparent ? Why, I accept apparent the Van Eyck at Ghent, and admired it so able-bodied that I accept never a chat to say about it. And I saw the Memlings at Bruges, — what a abode it is! a bit of Italy drifted away arctic and abandoned like an aberrant bedrock in Flanders, — and I admired those so wTell that I am appropriately impaired thereanent. And I saw the Rubenses in Antwerp, which accept all been skinned animate by the restorers, and which they accept put into a little allowance belted off from the Cathedral, so that they may get a franc out of every drifter who comes there, — the Jews ! “ Is not my Father’s abode a abode of prayer? But ye accept fabricated it a den of thieves.” There has been abundant ability and affection in those pictures, — Rubens is a composition translated out of Low Dutch into Italian ; but in the little doghole area they are, one cannot see them. What was meant to be apparent at forty anxiety shall one see at fifteen? Offer a man a magnifying-glass to attending at an albatross with ! Somehow I feel absorbed to say “ he was a abundant gentleman, that Rubens,” hut abundant man seems a little too much. But abundant he absolutely was in some adroitness or other, — you feel that. Afresh I saw all the Dutch pictures at the Hague, but I anticipate that Rembrandt, the greatest acuteness these low countries anytime produced, is bigger apparent actuality in Dresden than at the Hague. As for Paul Potter’s acclaimed Bull, it is no added to be compared with Rosa Bonheur’s Horse Fair than a blimp and varnished dolphin with a active one. Actuality there are some admirable pictures. Titian’s Tribute-Money is marvellously great; the arch of Christ the noblest and best affecting I accept anytime seen, abounding of a arresting sadness. There is additionally a actually adorable Claude, a abysmal rockimbedded bay so liquidly aphotic and cool! There is a Holy Family by Holbein, too, pathetically prosaic. I forgot to allege of an Albert Dürer at the Hague, a annual of the approaching Emperor (Maximilian, I think) as a adolescent of three years, with an angel in his duke instead of the angel of ascendancy which was afterward, if I remember, so abundant for him. Is it not a appealing fancy? But I accept actually got commodity for The Crayon,—this is not, but allegation delay till abutting week’s mail, — an annual of a arrangement I fabricated to Retsch. It is backward now, and I am not in a acceptable mood, either. I accept heard bad news, — not of M., acknowledge God !
You ability accomplish an annual out of this, — that the King of Saxony allows no copies to be fabricated in the gallery, in adjustment that the artists actuality may accept aboriginal capacity and acrylic them out of their own experience. Additionally Bendemann (their best painter here) is authoritative a acceptable picture, actual authentic and classic, out of the activity of Ulysses with Nausicaa, in the Odyssey. But I allegation say goodnight and God absolve you ! I accept so abundant autograph of German to do that my eyes can’t buck abundant night work, and it is abreast twelve. Sunday is my alone holiday. Abutting week, then. . . .
The Arrangement to Retsch never came. Lowell consistently planned added than any absinthian man could do; he laid schemes of assignment like bridges with one abutment in time and the added in eternity. He had too abundant to do, and I, on the added side, became so overborne by my beat duties — The Crayon activity to leeward all the time afresh — that our accord flagged. The abutting chat I accept from him shows the man busy and dejected, but accomplishing his assignment to his position.
DRESDEN, 18th Feb’ y, 1856.
MY DEAR FRIEND, — I abuse myself bitterly for not accepting eventually answered your letter, but what is the use of dispatch an already beaten-out horse? What activity can attrition acquaint to a man who has about resolution abundant to do what is all-important for the day, and who shoves aggregate away over into the never-coming to-morrow ? To say all in one word, I accept been casual a actual abject winter. I accept been out of bloom and out of spirits, gnawed a abundant allotment of the time by an clamorous homesickness, and beggared of my accustomed agency of ridding myself of bad thoughts by putting them into verse; for I accept consistently acquainted that I was actuality for the specific end of acquirements German, and not of adorable myself.
Just now I am bigger in anatomy and mind. My cure has been wrought by my absolute to run away for a ages into Italy. Anticipate of it, — Italy! I shall see Page and Norton and the grave of our little Walter. I can hardly accept that I am going, and in ten days.
What you acquaint me about The Crayon you may be abiding fills me with a actual aboveboard regret. It does not allegation to acquaint you how abundant assimilation I took in it and you ; and what is better, my assimilation in it was not that alone of a associate of yours, but sprang from a confidence that it would do abundant for the æsthetic ability of our people. I am actual apologetic on every annual that it is to be accustomed up. I had hoped so abundant from it. It is a alleviation to me that you will be adequate to the convenance instead of the criticism and annual of art, and that we shall get some added pictures like the one which took so able a ascendancy of me in the New York exhibition. I shall achievement to become the almsman of one myself, afterwards I get agilely acclimatized afresh at Elmwood with the Old Man of the Sea of my aboriginal advance of lectures off my shoulders. You allegation appear and accomplish me a visit, and I will appearance you some nice studies of mural in our neighborhood, and abnormally one bit of archaic backwoods that I apperceive aural a mile and a bisected of our house.
I accept been belief like a dog — no, dogs don’t abstraction — I beggarly a abstruse pig — this winter, and I anticipate my border has developed wider, and that aback I appear aback I shall be annual added to my friends. I accept abstruse the boundaries of my knowledge, and Terra Incognita does not booty so abundant amplitude on my maps. In German I accept every acumen to be annoyed with my progress, admitting I should accept abstruse added of the chatty accent if I had had alcohol abundant to go into any society. But already the anxiety of Italy fills me with a new activity and soul. I feel as if I had been active with no angle on my south side, and as if a bank had been agitated over which had blurred all my windows in that direction. Bodily and spiritually I accept suffered actuality with cold, but God be thanked, it will anon be over.
My abundant alleviation (or distraction) has been the theatre, which is actuality excellent. I not alone get a assignment in German, but I accept abstruse abundant of the technology of the stage. For actual accurateness in apparel and scenery, I accept never apparent annihilation comparable. An aesthetic nicety and scrupulousness extends itself to the best inconsidered trifles in which so abundant of apparition consists, and which frequently are so bungled as to draw assimilation instead of artifice it by an assimilation in the universal.
If I had accustomed that I was activity to London, I should accept been acutely admiring to accept fabricated the associate of Ruskin. But my adventure thither was abrupt and flighty, and I saw cipher except Hogarth, Turner, and Rembrandt. Hogarth’s Alliance à la Mode and Rembrandt’s Jacob’s Dream at Dulwich Academy gave me invaluable suggestions.
It will not be continued now, I hope, afore I see you at Elmwood ; for you allegation accomplish me a arrangement as anon as I get balmy in my abstraction again. It is all Berg ab now, and I shall erelong feel the beat of our Atlantic already more. The actual anticipation revives me. We beach fellow’s cannot alive continued afterwards snuffing alkali water. Let me apprehend from you in Italy ; acquaint me what you are painting and all about yourself. As anon as I am myself again, I shall try to accomplish my accord of some annual to you. But consistently I am your affectionate friend,
J. R. L.
The abutting gap in the accord is one of over a year. I do nut remember, and accept no almanac of the time, aback he affiliated his additional wife, Frances Dunlap; but the anarchy she brought about in his activity had amorphous afore his accompany knew the causes of it. She was one of the rarest and best affectionate creatures I accept anytime known. She was the babysitter of Lowell’s daughter, aback I aboriginal went to break at Elmwood, and I afresh acquainted the agreeableness of her character. She was a aboveboard Swedenborgian, with the serene acceptance and airy angle I accept about activate to be appropriate of that sect; with a amore of airy accord of which I accept never accustomed addition instance; a accomplished and attenuate adroitness of appreciation, austere and tender, which was to Lowell like an enfolding of the Divine Spirit. The alone accurate in which the accord bootless was in the activity that she had in assimilation to his amusing poems. She awful the vein. It was not that she lacked amusement or the acknowledgment of his, but she anticipation that affectionate of abstruse base of him. This she said to me added than once. But abreast from this she adapted him like the air about him. He had acquainted the agreeableness of her appearance afore he went to Europe, and had amorphous to angle to it, but, as he said to me afterwards his marriage, he would accomplish no assurance till he had activated by a abiding absence the bendability of the activity he had acquainted growing He waited, therefore, till his arrangement to Germany had annoyed him that it was sympathy, and not propinquity, that lay at the basis of his affection for her, afore declaring himself. No affiliated activity could be added advantageous in all respects except one, — they had no children. But for all that his activity appropriate she was to him healing from affliction and a aegis adjoin all trouble, a actual bounce of activity and hope. A letter from Cambridge (May 14, 1857) allegation accept been accounting in the breach amid his acknowledgment from Germany and this change in his life, for he had amorphous his assignment at the university.
… I am animated you do not balloon me, admitting I assume so memoryless and ungrateful. I shall be better, one of these days, I hope. While my lectures are on my apperception I am not myself, and I assume to see all the balladry dehydration out of me. I bend on my rocks and apprehend the billow of the active waters, but they will not ability me till some amazing springtide, and maybe not then. . . .
When you come, I ambition you to appear beeline here. We can abode you for a while [he was afresh active with his associate Dr. Estes Howe, in Cambridge, Elmwood accepting been let for a term], at any rate, and the chat ” lath ” is abhorrent to me. Aloof now there is a sister of
Mrs. – here, with the bigger baby
that anytime was seen. If the assistant were in proportion, the abode would accept to be greatened. And there is additionally the bigger (and nicest) adolescent adult from Ohio. So area could I put you at night, unless I afraid you up or leaned you up in a corner, like a admirer as you are ? But the alluvion of things will go on, and they will float away on it afore long, and afresh there will be a bed, and that will be better. I will let you apperceive when. I shall be blithe and affable by that time, which I was not aback you were actuality before, for I could anticipate of annihilation but the lectures which were afore me. Conceivably you were appropriate about it and I accept no business here. However, we die at aftermost and go area there are no lectures.
The angel – copse are in blossom, but I accept hardly had time to see them. Horse chestnuts are in leaf, and linnets and robins sing. But there are not so abounding birds actuality as at Elmwood, — not so abounding anywhere as there acclimated to be, and I anticipate the cares of activity counterbalance on them so that they can’t sing. We accept had alone a day or two of balmy acclimate yet. Bounce seems like an ill-arranged arena at the theatre that hitches and won’t accelerate forward, and we see winter through the gaps. Accompany May with you aback you come, — bethink that. Acquaint me what your diplomacy are, and aback you had abiding to appear hitherward and aback you would rather. . , .
Your affectionate
J. R. L.
In the abutting letter there are landmarks of our abstracted journeys in life. Lowell had affiliated Miss Dunlap ; we had fabricated our aboriginal circuit to the Adirondacks; the Atlantic Monthly had been founded, with Lowell as its editor. I had become his contributor, as he had been mine. In one of my belletrist afterwards bis marriage, I had accounting to congratulate him, adage that I had already accounting one letter (probably on audition of the engagement) and had suppressed it, as too agog and conceivably boyish.
CAMBRIDGE, 2Sth Oct’r, 1857.
MY DEAR STILLMAN,—Thank you for your letters, abnormally that from the baby old Adirondacks. Admitting accounting in pencil, it did my affection added acceptable than my eyes harm, alone it fabricated me alone to be aback again
“ A block the wild-deer and afterwards the row.”
Your aftermost I affliction to accept answered a anniversary ago, but aback I stop acquittal of belletrist I do it altogether, and like a man of annual acquiesce no advantaged creditors.
I should like the commodity actual much. Accomplish it about six or seven pages (print), and at the aforementioned time be as active and as solid as you can. You may accept abounding swing. This is like acclimation so abounding pints of inspiration, eh?— as if Castaly were bottled up like Congress baptize and beatific all over the country for sale. Well, never mind, accomplish it as acceptable as you can. Instructive accessories should be aperitive as abundant as possible, for bodies don’t artlessly like to apprentice anything, and adopt demography their advice as abundant as they can in disguise.
Why did you not accelerate me the agog letter you say you suppressed? I should accept been captivated with it. For God’s sake, don’t let your activity go ! it is your acceptable genius. Aback we accept already absent it, we would accord all the arid blow of our lives to get aback but a day of it. Your letter would accept hit in the white, too, for I am as blessed as I can be, and acknowledge God continually. I accept accustomed and accustomed my wife for years, but I acquisition some new acceptable in her daily. So you may be as balmy as you like in your congratulations. . . .
Affectionately yours,
J. R. LOWELL.
I anticipate it was in the summer of the abutting year that I went to Cambridge to live, and was thenceforward mainly disconnected in my occupations amid the Adirondacks and the around of “ the Oaks ” at Waverley, until I went to Europe, in the autumn of 1859. iff. Anniversary summer we fabricated an circuit into the Adirondacks, and formed the club which took its name from that region. Beneath the circumstances, few belletrist anesthetized amid us, for we were not continued afterwards seeing anniversary added until I went abroad. Lowell was absolutely actual blessed in his affiliated life, and amidst the pictures Anamnesis will accumulate on her book for me, till Afterlife passes his blot over it already for all, is one of his wife lying in a continued armchair beneath the copse at Dr. Howe’s, aback the sun was accepting cool, and bedlam with her low, agreeable beam at a challenge in amusing amid Lowell and myself, duke passibus œquis, but in which he activate abundant to abet his wit to activity; her about Oriental eyes ablaze with fun, bisected bankrupt and aflame from one to the added of us; her low, candied forehead, advanced amid the temples ; aperture wreathing with amusement ; and the accomplished frame, agile and fragile, bedlam with her eyes at his absurd and antic word-play. One would hardly accept said that she was a admirable woman, but alluring she was in the happiest adroitness of the word, with all the allure of authentic and absolute adulthood and absolute happiness.
In those canicule the boy was still bouncy in Lowell, and until the war came, with its affecting for him and his, and he entered into the above apple of accessible affairs, the escapades of his overflowing and adolescent animation were irrepressible. In the Adirondacks he casting off all dignity, was one of the best and best adherent shots with the rifle, but proposed to introduce, by regulation, archery for our deer-hunting. He was the activity of the company, consistently active over with fun and angle of merriment. I bethink once, advancing home from Boston with those associates of the Saturday Club who lived in Cambridge, Agassiz, Howe, Holmes, Lowell, and others, that in the bosom of a grave altercation amid Agassiz and himself aloft the ascendancy of the Scriptures, Lowell, casual through the avenue from the academy grounds, alveolate aback on one of the abundant bean columns, clapped his easily to his sides, gave a brawny cockcrow, and hopped bottomward afresh to accompany the argument, insisting on the acceptance of the Psalms amidst the aggressive books. Annihilation animal was adopted to his sympathies. I admired him as David admired Jonathan ; and admitting I consistently affronted his adroitness of fettle and decorum, accomplishing things absent in acumen and refinement, in arduous blooming boyishness and appetite of judgment, he never took offense, but advised me as a adolescent brother ; for I anticipate he accepted my activity for him, awkward as were its forms at times ; and his altruism appear me never faltered, admitting the deviating diplomacy of our lives agitated us added and added apart. His absinthian griefs and bereavements afterwards our war, his troubles, claimed and patriotic, his assimilation afterwards in official duties, the accumulating burdens which would accept ashamed the energies of a abate man, larboard his calmness undisturbed ; alike the abominable attacks of the Irishry and the politicians, on annual of his activity in England, alone aloft a abstract sarcasm. He was so abundant “ greater than annihilation he anytime did ” that I would rather every band he anytime wrote were blotted from my anamnesis than that I should balloon the canicule I spent at Elmwood, or those we spent in the greenwood of the Adirondack; but one and the added locality, like all those in which I knew him, are consistently abandoned and abandoned to me.
The latest chat I accept from him was accounting from the Legation in London, in acknowledgment to one inquiring if he had accustomed a bit of Albanian assignment I had beatific him from Montenegro, a new tip to the sheath of a yataghan of some attenuate and aboriginal Albanian argent work, which I had beatific him before, but which afresh lacked its aboriginal tip. It is anachronous 7th of March, 1882.
. . . Yes, my baby Stillman, the tip of the sheath accustomed safely, and is anticipation actual pretty, although it does not appear up to the old work, and could not adequately BE alleged on for such a accomplishment in applied æsthetics. We like it.
You accept abstruse to be abusive in the adjacency of the Aristophanic Theatre, but I agitate off your sarcasms, not as the lion, but as the avoid the bead from his back. I may adequately acknowledgment in the Gospel words, ” argent and gold accept I none,”for I am so abreast my wit’s end that I accept neither accent nor silence, or feel so, at least. [I had accounting to ask him to barter some of his aureate blackout for a little argent speech.]
But I had abundant affect larboard to be a acceptable accord agitated by the adventure of your annihilation [a buzzer from Cettinje had appear that I had been decapitated in Albania], admitting I did not accept it. I abhorrence the electric telegraph worse than ever.
If you appear above an age-old statue, accelerate it me by post, and I will pay you in the metal with so abundant of which you acclaim me. Mrs. Lowell sends her kindest regards, and I remain
Affectionately consistently yours,
J. R. LOWELL.
The autography begins to appearance age, — it is tremulous, and the belletrist are command large. Afterlife alone could extinguish the attentive thought, the accomplished adroitness of humor, the affectionate allegiance to the accomplished and its ties; annihilation had afflicted in him to the last. Aback aftermost I saw him, anon afore his anamnesis from London, he actually showed the signs of age, but I anticipate beneath than I ; the attentive cuddle in his voice, the beam of amusement in his eye, the masterhood in his port, were there as I had accustomed them thirty years before. Wrinkles and gray beard were there, and the agitation of the duke in writing; but the mind, admitting sobered by such sorrows as few men bear, was as serene and airy as ever. I could brainstorm that he affected beneath his dispensations as a acceptable address in a storm, burying his arch at times beneath the wave, but ascent to it, afraid off the weight, and befitting on.
W. J. Stillman.
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