Chapter XIX: Appendix: A. the Lowell Ancestry (4)

Walton, Isaak, J. R. L. on, ii. 389.

“Wanderer,” yacht, i. 440.

Ward, Nathaniel, ii. 367.

_Washers of the Shroud, The_, ii. 33.

Washington, early visit of J. R. L. to, i. 19.

Washington, George, takes command of American army, i. 2;
his headquarters, 3.

Watertown, Massachusetts, the home of the Whites, i. 76;
temperance celebration at, 88.

Watts-Dunton, Theodore, on J. R. L.’s characteristics, ii. 293.

Waverley Oaks, J. R. L.’s early rambles to, i. 19.

Webster, Daniel, J. R. L. hears him plead, i. 67;
attitude toward, on part of anti-slavery men, 201;
article on, by J. R. L., and poem on, by Whittier, 201;
J. R. L. treats elaborately, 220-227;
characterized by Sydney Smith, 221;
as a writer, ii. 365.

Webster, John, J. R. L. on, ii. 354.

“Wedgwood’s Dictionary” reviewed by J. R. L., i. 433.

“Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, A,” reviewed by J. R. L., i. 292.

Weimar, J. R. L. visits, ii. 271.

Weiss, John, contributor to the _Standard_, i. 193.

Wells, William, J. R. L.’s schoolmaster living in Fayerweather house, i. 3;
carries forward the traditions of English scholarship, 22, 23.

Wells, Mrs. William, J. R. L. recalls the kindness of, i. 23.

Welsh, James, ii. 332, note.

Wendell, Barrett, on Lowell as a teacher, i. 392, 394, 395.

_What will Mr. Webster do?_, i. 220.

“Where will it End?” by Edmund Quincy, ii. 2.

Whipple, Edwin Percy, i. 411.

Whist Club, i. 271;
holds its last meeting, ii. 407.

Whitby, J. R. L.’s fondness for, ii. 356.

White, Abijah, father of M. W., i. 76;
characterized by J. R. L., 76;
death of, 177;
his estate, 177;
which proves less than expected, 182.

White, Maria, J. R. L. makes the acquaintance of, i. 76;
his first impressions of her, 77;
her portrait by Page, 79;
appears in a vision to J. R. L., 80;
and at commencement, 80;
her confession of love, 82;
embodied in _A Year’s Life_, 82-86;
the type to which she belonged, 87;
“Queen of the May” at a temperance festival, 88;
a member of the Band, 89;
a poet, 90;
encourages J. R. L. to print, 93;
her attitude towards the _Pioneer_, 108;
characterized by C. F. Briggs, 120;
her influence over J. R. L., 121;
veiled under poetic names in poems, 126;
her transcendentalism, 129;
letter of, to C. F. Briggs, 129-132;
criticises title of Briggs’s journal, 130;
her views on the marriage rite, 131, 132;
makes a cover design for _Conversations_, 132;
is married to J. R. L., 150.
_See_ Lowell, Maria White.

White, Richard Grant, goes to hear J. R. L. lecture, i. 373;
letter to, from J. R. L. on policy of the _Atlantic_, 423;
from same on American literary criticism, 431;
his Shakespeare reviewed by J. R. L., 432;
letter to, from J. R. L. on the worries of editing, 442;
on the delights of Elmwood, 453;
asks for another _Biglow_, ii. 32;
J. R. L. writes to, about his own work on Shakespeare, 77;
dedicates a book to J. R. L., 146.

White, Thomas W., editor of _Southern Literary Messenger_, i. 92.

White, William Abijah, brother of M. W., i. 76;
an active reformer, 87;
prompts Rölker, 379.

Whitman, Walt, his poem “My Captain,” ii. 70.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, characterized by J. R. L. in the _Pioneer_, i. 105;
compared with J. R. L., 139;
editor of _Pennsylvania Freeman_, 152;
his “Ichabod” and “The Lost Occasion,” 201;
his poetry reviewed by J. R. L., 229;
censured by Gay, 229;
in _A Fable for Critics_, 254;
his indebtedness to the _Atlantic_, 417;
J. R. L. to him on “Skipper Ireson’s Ride,” 417, 418;
his rhymes criticized by J. R. L., ii. 103;
his title conflicts with one by J. R. L., 118;
J. R. L. writes a sonnet on his birthday, 296;
his “Captain’s Well,” 400.

_Widow’s Mite, The_, ii. 206.

Wilbur, Parson, proposes to educate Hosea Biglow, i. 268;
another Jedediah Cleishbotham, 262;
faintly hints at J. R. L.’s father, 263;
in the flesh, 263, note;
as seen in second series, ii. 36;
his voice and J. R. L.’s, 37;
his death and table-talk, 38;
his views on the war, 39.

Wild, Hamilton, ii. 181.

Wilkinson, William Cleaver, criticism of, on J. R. L., ii. 197 and note.

Williams, Frank Beverly, prepares notes to the _Biglow Papers_, i. 256.

Willis, Nathaniel Parker, J. R. L. makes the acquaintance of, i. 111;
his kindness to J. R. L., 112;
in _A Fable for Critics_, 243, 245;
comments on J. R. L.’s kindness to Mrs. Clemm, 282.

_Windharp, The_, i. 368.

Women, J. R. L.’s dependence on, ii. 324.

Wood, Shakespeare, i. 332.

Woodberry, George Edward, his “Edgar Allen Poe” referred to, i. 160;
edits J. R. L.’s letters to Poe, 165, note.

Woodman, Horatio, i. 405.

“Words and their Uses,” by R. G. White, ii. 146.

Wordsworth, William, politics and poetry of, i. 236;
address on, by J. R. L., ii. 308.

_World’s Fair, The_, 191;
copied, 192
J. R. L.’s comments on, 193.

“World’s Progress, The,” J. R. L. writes an introduction to, ii. 344.

“Wuthering Heights” commented on by J. R. L., i. 297.

Wyman, Jeffries, i. 405.

Wyman, Dr. Morrill, ii. 402.

_Year’s Life, A_, a poetic record of J. R. L.’s experience, i. 82.

“Yesterdays with Authors,” ii. 149, note.

END OF VOLUME II

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[1] “Take up arms against a sea of troubles.”

[2] “The Pocket Celebration of the Fourth,” in the _Atlantic_ for August, 1858, and “A Sample of Consistency,” in the same for November, 1858.

[3] _Letters_, i. 307-309.

[4] James Jackson Lowell.

[5] William Lowell Putnam.

[6] It was very likely after reading this poem that Emerson wrote in his diary, 17 January, 1862: “We will not again disparage America now that we have seen what men it will bear. What a certificate of good elements in the soil, climate, and institutions is Lowell, whose admirable verses I have just read! Such a creature more accredits the land than all the fops of Carolina discredit it.”

[7] See _Letters_, i. 318.

[8] Eight years later, when writing in his happiest mood the paper “A Good Word for Winter,” the memory of these boys came back with the suggestion of snow-forts, and tears trembled in the passage which slipped from his pen.

[9] _Letters_, i. 343.

[10] In an interesting letter to J. B. Thayer (_Letters_, ii. 191), Lowell says, comparing his odes with those of Gray and Coleridge: “All these were written for the closet--and mine for recitation. I chose my measures with my ears open. So I did in writing the poem on Rob Shaw. That _is_ regular because meant only to be read, and because also I thought it should have in the form of its stanza something of the formality of an epitaph.”

[11] “In the Half-way House.”

[12] See _Correspondence of J. L. Motley_, ii. 167. Copied in _Letters_, i. 334.

[13] In a letter written to Mr. R. W. Gilder, 7 February, 1887, Lowell says: “I spent the night with my friend Norton last Wednesday. There I found a pile of the N. A. R.... By the way the January, ’64, number was ‘second edition.’ I fancy the old lady making her best curtsey at being thus called out before the footlights. The article was reprinted as a political tract and largely circulated. Lincoln wrote a letter to the publishers which I forgot to look for.”

[14] The fairy story was “Gold-Egg: a Dream Fantasy,” which appeared in the _Atlantic_ for May, 1865.

[15] _Letters of James Russell Lowell_, i. 345, 346. Copyrighted 1893, by Harper & Brothers. Mrs. S. B. Herrick, whose friendship with Lowell will be referred to later, writes: “I was speaking to Mrs. Lowell of my strong admiration for its fire and eloquence, and she told me that after Mr. Lowell had agreed to deliver the poem on that occasion, he had tried in vain to write it. The last evening before the date fixed, he said to her: ‘I must write this poem to-night. Go to bed and do not let me feel that I am keeping you up, and I shall be more at ease.’ He began it at ten o’clock. At four in the morning he came to her door and said: ‘It is done and I am going to sleep now.’ She opened her eyes to see him standing haggard, actually wasted by the stress of labor and the excitement which had carried him through a poem full of passion and fire, of 523 lines in the space of six hours.”

[16] Lowell writes again of this and makes proposed changes and additions in a letter to Col. T. W. Higginson, 28 March, 1867. See _Letters_, i. 379.

[17] There was a curious psychical incident connected with the delivery of the Ode which came to light afterward but apparently was not recorded till several years later. The incident is fully set forth in two letters to Dr. William James, which were published in the _Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research_, March, 1889, where Dr. Royce printed a “Report of the Committee on Phantasms and Presentiments.” The first letter is from the gentleman in whose experience the incident occurred:--

MY DEAR MR. JAMES,--I passed the night before commemoration day on
a lounge in Hollis 21, the room of my college chum H., who had been
tutor since our graduation, three years before. I woke (somewhat
early, I should say) saying to myself these words: “And what they
dare to dream of dare to die for.” I was enough awake to notice
the appropriateness of the words to the occasion, but was sleepy
enough to wonder whether they really expressed a lofty thought, or
were lofty only in sound. Before I had made up my mind I dropped to
sleep again.

In the afternoon I was in about the middle of the tent. Mr.
Lowell stood under Hollis at nearly the same table. I heard very
distinctly as he read “Those love her best.” I felt that something
was coming which was familiar, and as he ended the line I felt
that I could repeat the next one, and I did so, ahead of him. But
as we proceeded I was confounded with the fact that apparently my
line would not rhyme with his. As I said “die for,” he said “do.”
I spent some minutes in trying to determine whether I liked his
sentiment or mine the most.

That is all. After twenty-one years, details are dim. Some years
ago, just before Mr. Lowell sailed for England, I sent him a
statement, more detailed probably than this; but no doubt it became
carbonic acid and water before he left the house.

The second letter is from Lowell, to whom Mr. W.’s letter had been sent by Dr. James:--

17th Feb., 1888.

DEAR DR. JAMES,--My Commemoration Ode was very rapidly written, and
came to me unexpectedly, for I had told Child, who was one of the
committee (I suppose), that he must look for nothing from me. I sat
up all the night before the ceremony, writing and copying out what
I had written during the day. I think most of it was composed on
that last day. I have no doubt the verse quoted by Mr. W. came to
me in a flash, but whether during that last night or not I cannot
say. Perhaps my MS. would show, if I had kept it, or if anybody
else has. Child will remember my taking him apart under an elm,
between Massachusetts and the Law School, that morning, that I
might read him a part of the Ode, to see if it would do, for ’twas
so fresh that I knew not, having probably not even had time to read
it over. It was such a new thing in more senses than one.

I recollect Mr. W.’s letter, and think it was substantially like
that to you. I did not burn it, I am sure, and ’twill, no doubt,
turn up somewhere in my hay-stack of letters when I am “up back of
the meetin’-house,” as Yankees used to say while there were any
Yankees left....

There is one painful suggestion in the fact of Mr. W.’s
anticipation, which I hardly venture to speak of. Was the verse
already _do_? Did I steal it? Not to my knowledge; but perhaps it
might be well to set a literary detective on my trail.

I return the letter. Faithfully yours, J. R. LOWELL.

[18] Quoted by A. V. G. Allen in his _Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks_, i. 552.

[19] An interesting venture was made by Little, Brown & Co. in the summer of 1864, which unfortunately proved too uncertain to be carried through. Lowell was to have edited a series of volumes illustrative of the Old Dramatists, from Marlowe down. He prepared one volume, which was put into type but never published. A set of proofs is in the library of Harvard University.

[20] “James Russell Lowell,” in the _Atlantic Monthly_, January, 1892.

[21] “Shakespeare Once More,” iii. 33.

[22] “Chaucer,” iii. 292.

[23] “Thoreau,” i. 361.

[24] This was no doubt Cranch’s _Kobboltozo_.

[25] “To J. B. on sending me a seven-pound trout,” _Atlantic Monthly_, July, 1866.

[26] The lost copy of Donne turned up, and after Lowell’s death his daughter and Mr. Norton used it for the production of a special edition by the Grolier Club in 1895.

[27] See _supra_, i. 300-302.

[28] What Lowell thought of the impeachment business may be inferred from a passage in a letter written to Mr. Godkin, 20 December, 1867: “I was sorry to see you [in the _Nation_] relaxing a little about impeachment. For myself, I have seen no sufficient reason to change my old opinion of its folly. They remind me of the boy’s playing at hanging, who finds he has done it all right,--only forgotten to cut himself down. We _might_ be able to stand it, we are a wonderful people, of course, but the other lesson of standing A. J. to the end of his tether is worth ten of this. The South is as mad now as it ever will be.”

[29] With a single exception, for which see _infra_, p. 122.

[30] _Letters_, i. 349.

[31] “Rousseau,” in _Literary Essays_, ii. 256.

[32] _Letters_, i. 408.

[33] After all Whittier changed his mind and gave his book the title “Among the Hills.”

[34] The bookbinder who wanted the lettering for the volume.

[35] Originally designed to make part of _The Nooning_.

[36] George Eliot’s _The Spanish Gipsy_.

[37] It was Gobright’s _Recollections_.

[38] Lowell amplified this thought in his paper on Chaucer, _Literary Essays_, iii. 299, 300.

[39] _Letters_, ii. 5. There was a reciprocity of feeling, if we may judge from the striking fact that on the right, within the gate which leads to the impressive common tomb of the Army of Tennessee, in New Orleans, is an inscription taken from Lowell’s poem, “On the Capture of Fugitive Slaves near Washington.”

“Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.”

[40] Perhaps it was on this journey that she told Mrs. Fields she never thought of her father as a poet, but just her father.

[41] _Letters_, ii. 52.

[42] _Letters_, ii. 35.

[43] _Letters_, ii. 38.

[44] See _Letters_, ii. 64-67. Also the Cambridge edition of Lowell’s poems, p. 479.

[45] On Goodwin’s _Plutarch’s Morals_.

[46] _Yesterdays with Authors_, published first in the _Atlantic_, where Lowell also read it, as “Our Whispering Gallery.”

[47] The first volume of Forster’s _Dickens_ was published in advance of the others.

[48] _Letters_, ii. pp. 81-128.

[49] Mr. Norton with his family was at St. Germain, near Paris.

[50] The difficulty has since been obviated by the system of sabbatical years at Harvard, with half salary.

[51] After three weeks spent with Mr. Norton and his family at their hotel in Paris, Mr. and Mrs. Lowell moved across the river, upon the departure of their friends to London. As will be seen later, this little hotel became their familiar home whenever they were in Paris. They endeared themselves to their host and hostess, and long after there hung, perhaps still hangs, in the office, a large photograph of Lowell.

[52] A well known second-hand bookseller in Boston.

[53] Mrs. Burnett’s first child had lately been born.

[54] _Letters_, ii. 125.

[55] See _Letters_, ii. 115.

[56] “While the wise nose’s firm-built aquiline.”

[57] One clause of his will reads: “I give to the corporation of Harvard College, the Library thereof, my copy of Webster on Witchcraft, formerly belonging to Increase Mather, President of the College; and also any books from my library of which the College Library does not already possess copies, or of which the copies or editions in my library are for any reason whatever preferable to those possessed by the College Library.” He had at the time of his death about seven thousand books in his library.

[58] He was wont to assemble on the fly-leaf of a volume notable words that had struck him when reading the text, and it is worth noting that the careful index to the Riverside edition of Lowell’s writings contains under the heading “Words and Phrases” some seven score examples.

[59] The verse in “Agassiz” which cut deepest was that containing the lines

“And all the unwholesomeness
The Land of Broken Promise serves of late
To teach the Old World how to wait.”

When he reprinted in the poem in _Heartsease and Rue_, Lowell made some verbal changes, and in this passage substituted “the Land of Honest Abraham” for the “Land of Broken Promise.” One may ponder over the change and settle it with himself which stings more, irony or sarcasm.

[60] The letter was also printed by Mr. Norton in _Letters_, with a few of the omitted passages filled in.

[61] The reference is to a volume by Mr. William Cleaver Wilkinson, entitled _A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters_, published in 1874, which contained three papers on “Mr. Lowell’s Poetry,” “Mr. Lowell’s ‘Cathedral,’” and “Mr. Lowell’s Prose.” In a letter to Mrs. Clifford (_Letters_, ii. 290) Lowell refers to this book apparently when he says: “You will be glad to hear that a man once devoted an entire volume to the exposure of my _solecisms_, or whatever he chose to call them. I never read it--lest it should spoil my style by making it conscious.” The papers on Lowell constitute, however, less than a third of Mr. Wilkinson’s book.

[62] See, for further detail, Mr. E. P. Bliss’s statement in _Letters_, ii. 160, 161, footnote.

[63] Mr. Blaine.

[64] _Letters_, ii. 171.

[65] _Letters_, ii. 173-178.

[66] _Literary Friends and Acquaintances_, pp. 237, 238.

[67] Elmwood, 5 June, 1877. _Letters_, ii. 104.

[68] To Miss Grace Norton. _Letters_, ii. 195, 196.

[69] _Letters_, ii. 200-202.

[70] Copied in _Impressions of Spain_, pp. 53-72.

[71] Señor Cánovas del Castillo.

[72] See, for the larger part, _Impressions of Spain_, pp. 23-42.

[73] “Bare is back without a brother behind it.”

_Norse Proverb._

[74] _Letters_, i 343.

[75] _New York Tribune_, 16 August, 1891.

[76] _Auld Lang Syne_, p. 179.

[77] The succession of Mr. Arthur to the presidency naturally set flying all sorts of rumors about a fresh deal in high offices.

[78] The old inn at which he and the Fields had formerly stayed.

[79] “E Pluribus Unum,” _Political Essays_, pp. 67, 68. Printed first in the _Atlantic Monthly_, February, 1861.

[80] Despatch No. 132, dated 26 February, 1881.

[81] _Foreign Relations_, 1881, p. 543.

[82] The title of the act, called sometimes the “coercion” sometimes the “protection” act, was “An act for the better protection of person and property in Ireland.”

[83] Mr. Frelinghuysen had succeeded Mr. Blaine as Secretary of State.

[84] _The New York Tribune_, 5, 6 April, 1882.

[85] _The Spectator_, 1 August, 1891.

[86] _Letters_, ii. 293, 294.

[87] _The Athenæum_, 22 August, 1891.

[88] January, 1897. “Conversations with Mr. Lowell.”

[89] _Literary Essays_, iv.

[90] “The Place of the Independent in Politics,” in _Literary and Political Addresses_.

[91] 13 August, 1891.

[92] Report No. 1188, 49th Congress, 1st session, p. 28.

[93] All these remarks were stenographically reported and subjected probably to little revision, certainly to none by the speaker.

[94] Mr. James Welsh, representing the Typographical Union.

[95] See _supra_, vol. i. p. 293.

[96] “I went also,” he says, after hunting up the magazine in the Athenæum, “to see Whittier, who was in town. He was very cordial. There is a wrinkled freshness about him as of a russet apple in April, but I fear we shan’t have him much longer.”

[97] A month before Mr. Gilder had asked for a poem, and Lowell had put him off thus: “Rhymes for Gilder indeed! He doesn’t need ’em for he can make ’em. But I have a pocketful. I give you one at a time:--

“Love to Mrs. Gilder
_And_ to all the childer.”

After that, in a series of brief notes called out by the Landor article, there was a peppering of these lines, each note ending in a couplet, as--

“Give my love to Mrs. Gilder,
Hope this weather hasn’t chill’d her.”

“Love to Mrs. Gilder,
Glad that it thrilled her.”

“Love to Mrs. Gilder:
At her birth kind fairies filled her
(to be continued in my next).”

“(Continued)

Cup with all sweet gifts and trilled her
(to be continued)”

but in his next he is obliged to write: “I have lost my cue in the epic poem to Mrs. Gilder’s address. I thought I could carry it in my memory, but find that her pocket has holes in it.”

[98] That is, by parting with more of his land in Cambridge.

[99] _Letters_, ii. 337.

[100] See “A Poet’s Yorkshire Haunts,” in the _Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1895.

[101] Chickering Hall, New York, 28 November, 1887.

[102] In one of the verses of this poem Lowell had used the picturesque phrase:--

“Let the bull-fronted surges glide
Caressingly along thy side,
Like glad hounds leaping by the huntsman’s knees.”

In answer to a criticism from a friend, he wrote: “There is no mixed metaphor. I don’t compare the waves to bulls, but merely say they are bull-fronted,--and so they are, with the foam curling over between their horns as in the bulls which I have often interviewed in the pastures here--with a stout stone wall between us _viersteht sich_. That I afterward say they leap like hounds implies no confusion of images. My dog Vixen has a bull-front, if ever there was one, and is always leaping about my knees, as my trousers can testify.---- saw the waves and heard ’em butt against the prow. Ask her. I always see what I describe while I am thinking of it. I see the waves now, as if I were in mid ocean on board the good barque Sultana in ’51.” To the same friend he wrote a month later: “I am glad you found something in the Téméraire for all that,--or try to be glad. But when I saw it in print, it saddened me.”

[103] Dr. Mitchell likewise received an honorary degree in medicine from the University of Bologna on this occasion.

[104] In a note to me at the same time he wrote: “I begin to examine my cards curiously, expecting to find that of Old Age overlooked in some corner.”

[105] _The Westminster Gazette_, 21 August, 1893.

[106] The poem was by Mr. Bliss Carman.

[107] “Small-Beer Chronicle,” in _Roundabout Papers_.

[108] An examination made after Lowell’s death showed that the bleeding with which the sickness began eighteen months or more previously was the first step in the course of the growth of a cancer of the kidney. The disease had extended to the liver, and at the last to the lungs.

[109] See an interesting note by W. J. Stillman in the _Spectator_, 1 July, 1899.

[110] For these details I am indebted to statements made by Mrs. Mary Lowell Putnam and to _The Historic Genealogy of the Lowells of America from 1639 to 1899_. Compiled and edited by Delmar R. Lowell.

[111] As Mrs. Lowell’s paternal ancestry went back but two generations on this side of the Atlantic, it has been thought well to trace her grandmother’s descent from Robert Cutt [the name later becoming Cutts], who was in the same generation with John Lowell, the son of the first Perceval Lowell. I am indebted for most of this material to _Genealogy of the Cutts family in America_, compiled by Cecil Hampden Cutts Howard. Albany: Joel Munsell’s Sons. 1892.

[112] Abbreviated afterward in this record as “Standard.”