History of American Literature Part 25

"Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-- Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth G.o.d within the shadow, keeping watch above his own."

Lowell's twenty-ninth year, 1848, is called his _annus mirabilis_, the wonderful year of his life. He had published small volumes of poems in 1840, 1843, and 1847, but in 1848 there appeared three of his most famous works,--_The Biglow Papers, First Series_, _A Fable for Critics_, and _The Vision of Sir Launfal._

As Mrs. Lowell's health was delicate, Lowell took her abroad, in 1851, for a year's stay. Thackeray came over on the same s.h.i.+p with them, on their return in 1852, and proved a genial companion. The next year Mrs. Lowell died. When he thought of the inspiration which she had given him and of the thirteen years of her companions.h.i.+p, he said, "It is a million times better to have had her and lost her, than to have had and kept any other woman I ever saw."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. MARIA WHITE LOWELL]

LATER WORK.--After his great bereavement in 1853, Lowell became one of America's greatest prose writers. In 1855 he was appointed Longfellow's successor in the Harvard professors.h.i.+p of modern languages and polite literature, a position which he held, with the exception of two years spent in European travel, until 1877. The duties of his chair called for wide reading and frequent lecturing, and he turned much of his attention toward writing critical essays. The routine work of his professors.h.i.+p often grew irksome and the "Spence negligence" was sometimes in evidence in his failure to meet his cla.s.ses. As a teacher, he was, however, frequently very stimulating.

He was the editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, from its beginning in 1857 until 1861. All of the second series of the _Biglow Papers_ appeared in this magazine. From 1864 to 1872 he was one of the editors of the North American Review.

In 1877 he became the minister of the United States to Spain. The Spanish welcomed him to the post that Was.h.i.+ngton Irving had once filled. In 1880 Lowell was transferred to England, where he represented his country until 1885. No other American minister has ever proved a greater success in England. He was respected for his literary attainments and for his ability as a speaker. He had the reputation of being one of the very best speakers in the Kingdom, and he was in much demand to speak at banquets and on special occasions. Many of his articles and speeches were on political subjects, the greatest of these being his address on _Democracy_, at Birmingham, in 1884.

Although his later years showed his great achievements in prose, he did not cease to produce poetry. The second series of the _Biglow Papers_ was written during the Civil War. His _Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration_ in 1865, in honor of those who fell in freeing the slave,

"Who in warm life-blood wrote their n.o.bler verse,"

his three memorial poems: (1) _Ode Read at the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at Concord Bridge_ (1875), (2) _Under the Old Elm_ (1875), written in commemoration of Was.h.i.+ngton's taking command of the Continental forces under that tree, a century before, and (3) _Ode for the Fourth of July_, 1876, are well-known patriotic American poems.

After returning from England and pa.s.sing from the excitement of diplomatic and social life to a quiet New England home, he wrote:--

"I take my reed again and blow it free Of dusty silence, murmuring, 'Sing to me.'

And, as its stops my curious touch retries, The stir of earlier instincts I surprise,-- Instincts, if less imperious, yet more strong, And happy in the toil that ends with song."

In 1888 he published a volume of poems called _Heartsease and Rue_. He died in 1891 and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, near his "Elmwood" home, not far from the last resting place of Longfellow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOWELL'S STUDY, ELMWOOD]

POETRY.--Lowell wrote many short lyrical poems, which rank high. Some of them, like _Our Love is not a Fading Earthly Flower_, _O Moonlight Deep and Tender_, _To the Dandelion_, and _The First Snow-Fall_ are exquisite lyrics of nature and sentiment. Others, like _The Present Crisis_, have for their text, "Humanity sweeps onward," and teach high moral ideals. Still others, like his poems written in commemoration of some event, are instinct with patriotism.

He is best known for three long poems, _The Biglow Papers_, _A Fable for Critics_ and _The Vision of Sir Launfal_. All of these, with the exception of the second series of _The Biglow Papers_, appeared in his wonderful poetic year, 1848.

He will, perhaps, be longest known to posterity for that remarkable series of papers written in what he called the Yankee dialect and designed at first to stop the extension of slavery and afterwards to suppress it. These are called "Biglow Papers" because the chief author is represented to be Hosea Biglow, a typical New England farmer. The immediate occasion of the first series of these _Papers_ was the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846.

Lowell said in after years, "I believed our war with Mexico to be essentially a war of false pretences, and that it would result in widening the boundaries and so prolonging the life of slavery." The second series of these _Papers_, dealing with our Civil War, began to be published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1862. The poem lives to-day, however, not for its censure of the war or for its attack on slavery, but for its expression of the mid-nineteenth century New England ideals, hard common sense, and dry humor. Where shall we turn for a more incisive statement of the Puritan's att.i.tude toward pleasure?

"Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, Ez though't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; But yit we du contrive to worry thru, Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, Ez stiddily ez though't wuz a redoubt."

The homely New England common-sense philosophy is in evidence throughout the _Papers_. We frequently meet, such expressions as:--

"I like the plain all wool o' common-sense Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelve-month hence."

"Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold."

"Democracy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor."

"But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it."

"An' you've gut to git up airly, Ef you want to take in G.o.d."

In the second series of the _Papers_, there is one of Lowell's best lyrics, _The Courtin'_. It would be difficult to find another poem which gives within the compa.s.s of four lines a better characterization of many a New England maiden:--

"... she was jes' the quiet kind Whose naturs never vary, Like streams that keep a summer mind, Snowhid in Jenooary."

This series contains some of Lowell's best nature poetry. We catch rare glimpses of

"Moons.h.i.+ne an' snow on field an' hill All silence an' all glisten,"

and we actually see a belated spring

"Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds."

_The Vision of Sir Launfal_ has been the most widely read of Lowell's poems. This is the _vision_ of a search for the Holy Grail. Lowell in a letter to a friend called the poem "a sort of story and more likely to be popular than what I write about generally." But the best part of the poem is to be found in the apotheosis of the New England June, in the _Prelude to Part I.:_--

"And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays."

The poem teaches a n.o.ble lesson of sympathy with suffering:--

"Not what we give, but what we share,-- For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,-- Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me."

Lowell said that he "scrawled at full gallop" _A Fable for Critics_, which is a humorous poem of about two thousand long lines, presenting an unusually excellent criticism of his contemporary authors. In this most difficult type of criticism, Lowell was not infallible; but a comparison of his criticisms with the verdicts generally accepted to-day will show his unusual ability in this field. Not a few of these criticisms remain the best of their kind, and they serve to focus many of the characteristics of the authors of the first half of the nineteenth century. It will benefit all writers, present and prospective, to read this criticism on Bryant:--

"He is almost the one of your poets that knows How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Repose; If he sometimes fall short, he is too wise to mar His thought's modest fulness by going too far; 'Twould be well if your authors should all make a trial Of what virtue there is in severe self-denial, And measure their writings by Hesiod's staff, Who teaches that all has less value than half."

Especially humorous are those lines which give a recipe for the making of a Was.h.i.+ngton Irving and those which describe the idealistic philosophy of Emerson:--

"In whose mind all creation is duly respected As parts of himself--just a little projected."

Prose.--Lowell's literary essays ent.i.tle him to rank as a great American critic. The chief of these are to be found gathered in three volumes: _Among My Books_ (1870), _My Study Windows_ (1871), _Among My Books_, _Second Series_ (1876). These volumes as originally issued contain 1140 pages. If we should wish to persuade a group of moderately intelligent persons to read less fiction and more solid literature, it is doubtful if we could accomplish our purpose more easily than by inducing them to dip into some of these essays. Lowell had tested many of them on his college students, and he had noted what served to kindle interest and to produce results. We may recommend five of his greater literary essays, which would give a vivid idea of the development of English poetry from Chaucer to the death of Pope. These five are: _Chaucer_, in _My Study Windows; Spenser_, in _Among My Books, Second Series; Shakespeare Once More_, and _Dryden_, in _Among My Books, First Series_; and _Pope_, in _My Study Windows_. If we add to these the short addresses on _Wordsworth_ and _Coleridge_, delivered in England, and printed in the volume _Democracy and Other Addresses_ (1886), we shall have the incentive to continue the study of poetry into the nineteenth century.

Lowell's criticism provokes thought. It will not submit to a pa.s.sive reading. It expresses truth in unique and striking ways. Speaking of the French and Italian sources on which Chaucer drew, Lowell says:--

"Should a man discover the art of trans.m.u.ting metals, and present us with a lump of gold as large as an ostrich egg, would it be in human nature to inquire too nicely whether he had stolen the lead? ...

"Chaucer, like Shakespeare, invented almost nothing. Wherever he found anything directed to Geoffrey Chaucer, he took it and made the most of it....

"Sometimes he describes amply by the merest hint, as where the Friar, before setting himself softly down, drives away the cat. We know without need of more words that he has chosen the snuggest corner."

Lowell usually makes the laziest readers do a little pleasant thinking. It is common for even inert students to investigate his meaning; for instance, in his statements that in the age of Pope "everybody ceremoniously took a bushel basket to bring a wren's egg to market in," and that everybody "called everything something else."

The high ideals and sterling common sense of Lowell's political prose deserve special mention. In _Democracy_ (1886), which should be read by every citizen, Lowell shows that old age had not shattered his faith in ideals. "I believe," he said, "that the real will never find an irremovable basis until it rests on the ideal." Voters and lawmakers are to-day beginning to realize that they will go far to find in the same compa.s.s a greater amount of common sense than is contained in these words:--

"It is only when the reasonable and the practicable are denied that men demand the unreasonable and impracticable; only when the possible is made difficult that they fancy the impossible to be easy. Fairy tales are made out of the dreams of the poor." [Footnote: _Democracy and Other Addresses_, p. 15.]

General Characteristics.--Lowell has written verse which shows sympathetic treatment of nature. His lines _To the Dandelion_:--

"Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold * * * * *

... thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be,"