EES FROM JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



545 



the irresponsible manner in which her people an object of hatred in every court in Europe, 



have treated questions of great and far- and that has ministered directly to England's 



reaching public import. The irony of the isolation. It is such irresponsibility among 



Paris bookseller who, when asked for a copy men of influence that is rendering wise and 



of the French constitution, replied that he conservative settlement of our own foreign 



did not keep periodical literature, was sad as questions increasingly difficult, and an asser- 



well as mordant. It was this same irresponsi- tion of true American dignity well-nigh im- 



bility in lofty station that made Palmerston possible. 



Edward M. Chapman. 



THEEE LETTERS FROM JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



f' the spring of 1890 a discus- there is a better singer among them. I have 

 sion arose between a friend heard one this year who entertained me with 

 and myself in regard to the some very agreeable variations on their ha- 

 foUowing sentence in Lowell's bitual ding-dong. 

 « My Garden Acquaintance » : « As for their singing during the day, I am 

 « The robins are not good solo surprised that your friend has never heard 

 singers; but their chorus, as, their < rain-song,) which times itself by the 

 like primitive fire-worshipers, fore-feeling of a shower in the air. Nay, I 

 tney hail the return of light and warmth to heard the performer of which I have just 

 the earth, is unrivaled.)) spoken at about half-past four in the after- 



The argument was rather one-sided. My noon. If yours don't begin matins until five 

 friend spoke with the conviction born of his o'clock they are lazy creatures. Ours salute 

 long and close observation of the robin. I the day. But perhaps they don't build with 

 could only urge my confidence in the cor- you ? That -would make a difference in the 

 rectness of Mr. Lowell's statement. singing; for though, as I think, rather hour- 



At length, feeling my inability to defend geois, it is love that makes them sing, as it 

 my favorite author, I resolved to write and ask ma,Ae Polonius, no doubt, when he (suffered 

 Mr. Lowell himself to explain the passage. By great extremity for love.) 

 return mail I received a letter in Mr. Lowell's « All the same, though I can't quite give in 

 own hand, which read as follows: to your friend, I like her ^ all the better for 



taking sides with a bird against a man. The 

 « Elmwood, Cambridge, Mass., worst of them are better than we deserve. 



May 2, 1890. « Faithfully yours, 



« Dear Miss Clarke: I used to be thought « J. R. Lowell.)) 



a fairly good observer; indeed, Darwin once 



paid me the doubtful compliment of saying to I received this letter just as I was starting 

 me, ( You ought to have been a naturalist.) I on a visit to the home of the Hon. Charles 

 have lived in the same house (except when in Anderson, a brother of Colonel Robert Ander- 

 Europe) for seventy-one years, and robins son, and ex-Governor of Ohio. I resolved to 

 find good building-sites in my trees. I once delay answering the letter— for of course 

 counted seventy on my lawn at the same I must write and thank Mr. Lowell —until I 

 time. As the males sing without any refer- had shown it to Governor Anderson. As I 

 ence to each other of a morning, and as there anticipated, Governor Anderson was much 

 are many, I spoke of it, loosely, perhaps, as interested in the letter. He told me that 

 a chorus. Considered as a thrush, the robin years before, when he was a lawyer in Cin- 

 is surely inferior to most of his kind; I am cinnati, he had entertained Mr. Lowell during 

 tempted to say all of them. Now and then i He evidently thought the friend a woman. 



Vol. LL-69. 



