450 



LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. 



logical one, but simply that it is contrary to 

 good usage a very sufficient reason. ' 111 ' as an 

 adverb was at first a vulgarism, precisely like 

 the rustic's when he says, I was treated bad.' " 

 In concluding his brief and forcible comparison 

 and comments, Lowell says : 



I profess myself a fanatical purist, but with a hearty 

 contempt for the speech-gilders who aft'ect purism 

 without any thorough, or even pedagogic, knowledge 

 of the engendure, growth, and affinities of the noble 

 language about whose mesalliances they seem to be 

 so solicitous. Should we be nothing because some- 

 body had contrived to be something (and that per- 

 haps in a provincial dialect) ages ago? and to be 

 nothing by that very attempt to be that something 

 which they had already been, and therefore which 

 nobody could be again, without being a bore? Is 

 there no way left, then, I thought, of being natural, 

 of being naif which means nothing more than na- 

 tive, of belonging to the age and country in which 

 you are born i The Yankee, at least, is a new phe- 

 nomenon ; let us try to be that. I should have en- 

 tirely failed in my design if I had not made it ap- 

 pear that high, and even refined, sentiment may co- 

 exist with the shrewder and more concise elements 

 of Yankee character. To me the dialect was native, 

 was spoken all about me when a boy, at a time when 

 an Irish day-laboror was as rare as an American one 

 now. When I write in it, it is as in a mother-tongue, 

 and I am carried back far beyond any studies of it to 

 long-ago noonings in my father's hay fields, and to 

 the talk of Sam and Job over their jug of blackstrap 

 under the shadow of the ash tree, which still dapples 

 the grass whence they have been gone so'long. 



The hay fields to which he alludes lay back of 

 the house in Cambridge in which he was born, 

 and in which he died. It was a large frame 

 building, standing in the midst of great elm 

 trees, secluded from the street and over-looking 

 the river Charles. The place was called " Elm- 

 wood," and was a historic Tory mansion when 

 Rev. Charles Lowell bought it. It is shown in 

 the accompanying engraving. 



During his senior year Lowell's habit of brows- 

 ing instead of studying cost him a rustication. 

 The moral of lapses from text-book good-behav- 

 ior would be easier to point if he had not 

 spent that period of disgrace in Concord, Mass., 

 where he was invited familiarly to Emerson's 

 house, forming there the acquaintance of Tho- 

 reau, Alcott, and the coterie of men that make 

 a notable group in American literary annals. 

 The funny side of transcendentalism appealed 

 at once to him, and when he was readmitted to 

 college the class poem in which he gave his 

 mates a chance to laugh with him was not the 

 ideal Sunday-school punishment for evil courses, 

 for it brought him praise even outside the sacred 

 halls and the appreciative ears for which it was 

 intended. After graduation, Lowell, like all his 

 ancestors, read law, but this also probably was 

 mixed with literary browsing, as he soon aban- 

 doned its practice, the only result being a story 

 published in the " Boston Miscellany " entitled 

 " My First Client." Another respect in which 

 Lowell was exceptionally fortunate was that 

 his first love was early, worthy, and enduring. 

 It was given to Maria White, a gifted and beau- 

 tiful New England maiden, to whom he ad- 

 dressed the poems that appeared in his first pub- 

 lished volume, '* A Year's Life." One of the - 

 best known of thi^se is entitled " My Love," 

 which contains these "stanzas: 



Not as all other women are 



Is she that to my soul is dear ; 

 Her glorious fancies come from tar, 

 Beneath the silver evening star, 



And yet her heart is ever near. 

 I love her with a love as still 



As the broad river's peaceful might. 

 Which, by high tower and lowly mill. 

 Seems following its own wayward will, 



And yet doth ever flow aright. 

 And on its full deep breast serene, 



Like quiet isles my duties lie ; 

 It flows around them and between, 

 And makes them fresh, and fair, and green, 



Sweet homes wherein to live and die. 



Not quite so well known is the one begin- 

 ning : 



True love is but a humble, low-born thing, 

 And hath its food served up in earthenware. 



For love is blind but with the fleshly eye, 



That so its inner sight may be more clear ; 



And outward shows of beauty only so 



Are needful at the first, as is a hand 



To guide and to uphold an infant's steps : 



Fine natures need them not ; their earnest look 



Pierces the body's mask. of thin disguise, 



And beauty ever is to them revealed 



Behind the unshapeliest, meanest lump of clay 



With arms outstretched and eager face ablaze, 



Yearning to be but understood and loved. 



Several of these early poems are remarkable as 

 showing that love not only taught him " the 

 secret of grief," but taught him even thus early 

 the secret that grief may be the truest teacher 

 of love, a divine knowledge that is generally re- 

 vealed only through experience. The following 

 extract contains one of the most striking expres- 

 sions of this : 



My love, I have no fear that thou shouldst die ; 



Albeit, I ask no fairer life than this, 



Whose numbering clock is still thy gentle kiss, 



While Time and Peace with hands ehlocked fly; 



Yet care I not where in eternity 



We live and love, well knowing that there is 



No backward step for those who feel the bliss 



Of faith as their most lofty yearnings high ; 



Love hath so purified my being's core 



Meseems I scarcely should bo startled, even, 



To find, some morn, that thou hadst gone before: 



Since, with thy love, this knowledge too was given, 



Which each calm day doth strengthen more and 



more, 

 That they who love are but one step from heaven. 



The same spiritual exaltation, incomprehensi- 

 ble to those who know it not, was afterward em- 

 bodied by Lowell in a sonnet written after the 

 loss of his child : 



I thought our love at full, but I did err ; 

 Joy's wreath drooped o'er mine eyes; I could not see 

 That sorrow in our happy world must be 

 Love's deepest spokesman and interpreter; 

 But. as a mother feels her child first stir 

 Under her heart, so felt I instantly 

 Deep- in my soul another bond to thee 

 Thrill with that life we saw depart from her. 

 ,O mother of our angel child ! twice dear ! 

 Death knits as well as parts, and still, I wis, 

 Her tender radiance shall enfold us here, 

 Even as the light, borne up by inward bliss, 

 Threads the void glooms of space without a fear 

 To print on farthest stars her pitying kiss. 



From the time of his marriage, in 1844, Low- 

 ell's writings took a more serious tone and 



