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FIFTY COPIES PRINTED 
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MEMORIALS OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 MEMORIALS 
 
 
 
 OF 
 
 
 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL 
 
 
 
 LOWELL: 1819-1891 
 
 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM 
 
 
 
 CURTIS : 1824-1892 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED 
 
 
 
 M C M I I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
^, 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY HARPER AND BROTHERS 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1888, 
 BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1900, 
 
 BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 
NOTE 
 
 " Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady Hill 
 We met, " — 
 
 SO wrote Lowell to Curtis. Hap- X 
 
 pily their host is still at Shady 
 I Hill, and to these " Memorials 
 of Two Friends" he has kindly 
 consented to add his Ashfield address 
 on George William Curtis. 
 
 For permission to print the address 
 on James Russell Lowell I am indebted 
 to the courtesy of Messrs. Harper & 
 Bros. Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 
 granted the privilege of using "An 
 Epistle to George William Curtis.'' 
 
 E. B. H. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 James Russell Loweli i 
 
 By George William Curtis 
 
 An Epistle to George William 
 
 Curtis 55 
 
 By James Russell Lowell 
 
 The Life and Character of George 
 
 William Curtis 69 
 
 By Charles Eliot Norton 
 
JAMES RUSSELL 
 LOWELL 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 AN ADDRESS BY 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CUR IIS 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND 
 MDCCCXCII 
 
 THE birthday of Washington 
 not only recalls a great his- 
 toric figure, but it reminds 
 us of the quality of great 
 citizenship. His career is at once our 
 inspiration and our rebuke. Whatever 
 is lofty, fair and patriotic in public con- 
 duct, instinctively we call by his name ; 
 whatever is base, selfish, and unworthy, 
 is shamed by the lustre of his life. Like 
 the flaming sword turning every way 
 that guarded the gate of Paradise, 
 Washington's example is the beacon shin- 
 ing at the opening of our annals and 
 lighting the path of our national life. 
 
 But the service that makes great citi- 
 zenship is as various as genius and tcm- 
 3 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 perament. Washington's conduct of the 
 war was not more valuable to the country 
 than his organization of the Government, 
 and it was not his special talent but his 
 character that made both of those serv- 
 ices possible. In public affairs the gla- 
 mour of arms is always dazzling. It is the 
 laurels of Miltiades, not those of Homer, 
 or Solon, or Gorgias, which disturb and 
 inspire the young Themistocles. But 
 while military glory stirs the popular 
 heart, it is the traditions of natural gran- 
 deur, the force of noble character, im- 
 mortal works of literature and art, which 
 nourish the sentiment that makes men 
 patriots and heroes. The eloquence of 
 Demosthenes aroused decadent Greece 
 at least to strike for independence. The 
 song of Koerner fired the resistless charge 
 of Liitzow's cavalry. A pamphlet of our 
 Revolution revived the flickering flame 
 of colonial patriotism. The speech, the 
 song, the written word, are deeds no less 
 than the clash of arms at Chseronea and 
 Yorktown and Gettysburg. 
 4 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 It is not only Washington the soldier 
 and the statesman, but Washington the 
 citizen, whom we chiefly remember. 
 Americans are accused of making an ex- 
 cellent and patriotic Virginia gentleman a 
 mythological hero and demi-god. But 
 what mythological hero or demi-god is a 
 figure so fair? We say nothing of him 
 to-day that was not said by those who 
 saw and knew him, and in phrases more 
 glowing than ours, and the concentrated 
 light of a hundred years discloses nothing 
 to mar the nobility of the incomparable 
 man. 
 
 It was while the personal recollections 
 and impressions of him were still fresh, 
 while, as Lowell said, "Boston was not 
 yet a city and Cambridge was still a 
 country village," that Lowell was born in 
 Cambridge seventy-three years ago to- 
 day. His birth on Washington's birth- 
 day seems to me a happy coincidence, 
 because each is so admirable an illustra- 
 tion of the two forces whose union has 
 made America. Massachusetts and Vir- 
 
M K M () R I A L S O F 
 
 ginia, although of very different origin and 
 character, were the two colonial leaders. 
 In Virginia politics, as in the aristocratic 
 salons of Paris on the eve of the French 
 revolution, there was always a theoretical 
 democracy ; but the spirit of the State 
 was essentially aristocratic and conserva- 
 tive. Virginia was the Cavalier of the 
 Colonics, Massachusetts was the Puritan ; 
 and when .lohn Adams, New Fngland per- 
 sonitied,said in the Continental Congress 
 that Washington ought to be General, 
 the Puritan and the Cavalier clasped 
 hands. The union of Massachusetts and 
 Virginia for that emergency foretold the 
 final union of the States, after a mighty 
 travail of dilfercncc, indeed, and long 
 years of stritc. 
 
 The higher spirit of conservatism, its 
 reverence for antiquity, its susceptibility 
 to the romance of tradition, its instinct 
 for continuity and development, and its 
 antipathy to violent rupture; the grace 
 and charm and courtesy of established 
 social order, in a word, the feminine ele- 
 6 
 
1 W O F R I K N D S 
 
 ment in national life, however far from 
 actual embodiment in Virginia or in any 
 colony, was to blend with the masculine 
 force and creative energy of the Puritan 
 spirit and produce all that we mean by 
 America. I'his was the consummation 
 which the Continental Congress did not 
 see, but which was none the less forecast 
 when John Adams summoned Washing- 
 ton to the chief revolutionary command. 
 It is the vision which still inspires the life 
 and crowns the hope of every generous 
 American, and it has had no truer inter- 
 preter and poet than Lowell. Well was 
 he born on the anniversary of Washing- 
 ton's birth, for no American was ever 
 more loyal to the lofty spirit, the gran- 
 deur of purpose, the patriotic integrity 
 which invest the name of Washington 
 with imperishable glory; and none ever 
 felt more deeply the scorn of ignoble and 
 canting Americanism. 
 
 The house in which Lowell was born 
 has long been known as Elmwood, a 
 stately house embowered in lofty trees, 
 7 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 still full, in their season, of singing birds. 
 It is one of the fine old mansions of which 
 a few yet linger in the neighborhood of 
 Boston, and it still retains its dignity of 
 aspect, but a dignity somewhat impaired 
 by the encroaching advance of the city 
 with its display of the architectural taste 
 of a later day. The house has its tradi- 
 tions, for it was built before the Revolution 
 by the last loyal Lieutenant-governor of 
 Massachusetts, whose stout allegiance to 
 the British crown was never shaken, and 
 who left New England with regret when 
 New England, also not without natural 
 filial regret, left the British empire. It is 
 a legend of Elmwood that Washington was 
 once its guest, and after the Revolution it 
 was owned by Elbridge Gerry, a signer of 
 the Declaration of Independence, who oc- 
 cupied it when he was Vice-president. 
 
 Not far from Elmwood, LowelTs life- 
 long home, is the house which is doubly 
 renowned as the headquarters of Wash- 
 ington and the home of Longfellow. 
 Nearer the colleges stands the branching 
 8 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 elm — twin heir with the Charter Oak of 
 patriotic story — under which Washington 
 took command of the revolutionary army. 
 Indeed, Cambridge is all revolutionary 
 ground, and rich with revolutionary tra- 
 dition. Lexington common is but six 
 miles away. Along the West Cambridge 
 road galloped Paul Revere to Concord. 
 Yonder marched the militia to Bunker 
 Hill. Here were the quarters in which 
 Burgoyne's red-coats were lodged after 
 the surrender at Saratoga. But peaceful 
 among the storied scenes of war stands 
 the University, benign mother of educated 
 New England, coeval with the Puritan 
 settlement which has given the master 
 impulse to American civilization. 
 
 The American is fortunate who, like 
 Lowell, is born among such historic scenes 
 and local associations, and to whose cra- 
 dle the good fairy has brought the gift of 
 sensitive appreciation. His birthplace 
 was singularly adapted to his genius and 
 his taste. The landscape, the life, the fig- 
 ures of Cambridge constantly appear both 
 9 
 
M K M () U I A L S O F 
 
 in his prose and verse, but he hiys Httle 
 stress upon its historic reminiscences. It 
 is the picturesqueness, the character, the 
 humor of the Hfe around him which at- 
 tract him. This apparent inditlerence to 
 the historic charm of the neighborhood 
 is ilkistrated in a httle story that Lowell 
 tells of his first visit to the White Moun- 
 tains. In the Franconia Notch he stopped 
 to chat with a recluse in a saw-mill busy 
 at work, and asked him the best point of 
 view for the Old Man of the Mountain. 
 The busy workman answered, "Dun no; 
 never see it." Lowell continues, "Too 
 young and too happy to feel or alfect the 
 Horatian inditVerence, I was sincerely 
 astonished, and 1 expressed it. I'he log- 
 compelling man attempted no justifica- 
 tion, but after a little asked, 'Come from 
 Baws'n ?' ' Yes ' (with peninsular pride). 
 '• Goodie to see in the vycinity o' Baws'n ?' 
 'Oh, yes!' I said. 'I should like, 'awl 
 I should like to stan' on Bunker Hill. 
 You've ben there o fie n, likely?' 'No-o,' 
 unwillingly, seeing the little end of the 
 
 10 
 
r w () F K I i: N n s 
 
 horn in clear vision at the terminus of 
 this Socratic perspective. ' 'Aw4, my 
 young frien', youVe larned ncow thet 
 wut a man kin see any day he never doos 
 see. Nawthin' pay, nawthin' vally.' " 
 
 Lowell entered college at fifteen and 
 graduated at nineteen, in 1838. His lit- 
 erary taste and talent were already evi- 
 dent, for in literature even then he was an 
 accomplished student, and he was the poet 
 of his class, although at the close of his 
 last year he was rusticated at Concord, — 
 a happy exile, — where he saw Himerson, 
 and probably Henry Thoreau and Mar- 
 garet Fuller, who was often a guest in 
 Emerson's house. It was here that he 
 wrote the Class poem which gave no 
 melodious hint of the future man, and 
 disclosed the fact that this child of Cam- 
 bridge, although a student, was as yet 
 wholly uninfluenced by the moral and 
 intellectual agitation called, derisively, 
 Transcendentalism. 
 
 Of this agitation John Quincy Adams 
 writes in his diary in 1840: "A young man 
 1 1 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 named Ralph Waldo PZmerson, a son of 
 my once-loved friend William Emerson, 
 and a classmate of my lamented son 
 George, after failing in the every day 
 avocation of a Unitarian preacher and 
 school-master, starts a new doctrine of 
 transcendentalism; declares all the old 
 revelations superannuated and worn out, 
 and announces the approach of new rev- 
 elations and prophecies. Garrison and 
 the non-resistant Abolitionists, Brownson 
 and the Marat Democrats, phrenology 
 and animal magnetism all come in, fur- 
 nishing each some plausible rascality as 
 an ingredient for the bubbling cauldron 
 of religion and politics/' There could be 
 no better expression of the bewildered 
 and indignant consternation with which 
 the old New England of fifty years ago 
 regarded the awakening of the newer 
 New England, of which John Quincy 
 Adams himself was to be a characteristic 
 leader, and which was to liberalize still 
 further American thought and American 
 politics, enlarging religious liberty, and 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 abolishing human slavery. Like other 
 Boston and Harvard youth of about his 
 time, or a Httle eadier, — Charles Sumner, 
 Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, Loth- 
 rop Motley, Oliver Wendell Holmes, — 
 Lowell seemed to be born for studious 
 leisure or professional routine, as yet un- 
 heeding and unconscious of the real forces 
 thatw^ere to mould his life. Of these forces 
 the first and the most enduring was an 
 early and happy passion for a lovely and 
 high-minded woman who became his 
 wife — the Egeria who exalted his youth 
 and confirmed his noblest aspirations ; a 
 heaven-eyed counsellor of the serener air 
 who filled his mind with peace and his 
 life with joy. 
 
 During these years Lowell greatly im- 
 pressed his college comrades, although 
 no adequate literary record of the prom- 
 ise which they felt survives. When he 
 left college and studied law the range of 
 his reading was already extraordinarily 
 large, and his observation of nature sin- 
 gularly active and comprehensive. His 
 13 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 mind and memory, like the Green Vaults 
 of Dresden, were rich with treasures accu- 
 mulated from every source. But his ear- 
 liest songs echoed the melodies of other 
 singers and foretold no fame. They were 
 the confused murmuring of the bird while 
 the dawn is deepening into day. Partly 
 his fastidious taste, his conservative dis- 
 position, and the utter content of happy 
 love, lapped him in soft Lydian airs which 
 the angry public voices of the time did 
 not disturb. But it was soon clear that 
 the young poet whose early verses sang 
 only his own happiness would yet fulfill 
 Schiller's requirement that the poet shall 
 be a citizen of his age as well as of his 
 country. 
 
 One of his most intimate friends, the 
 late Charles F. Briggs, for many years a 
 citizen of Brooklyn, and known in the lit- 
 erary New York of forty years ago as 
 Harry Franco, said of him, with fine in- 
 sight, that Lowell was naturally a politi- 
 cian, but a politician like Milton — a man, 
 that is to say, with an instinctive grasp of 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 the higher politics, of the duties and re- 
 lations of the citizen to his country, and 
 of those moral principles which are as es- 
 sential to the welfare of States as oxygen 
 to the breath of human life. "He will 
 never narrow himself to a party which 
 does not include mankind,'' said his friend, 
 " nor consent to dally with his muse when 
 he can invoke her aid in the cause of the 
 oppressed and suflFering." This was the 
 just perception of aflfectionate intimacy. 
 It foretold not only literary renown but 
 patriotic inspiration, and consequent po- 
 litical influence in its truest and most 
 permanent form. In Lowell's mind, as in 
 Milton's, the spirit of the question of 
 Sir Philip Sidney to Hubert Languet 
 presently roused a quickening glow : " To 
 what purpose should our thought be 
 directed to various kinds of knowledge, 
 unless room be aflforded for putting it 
 into practice so that public advantage 
 may be the result ? " It was not a Puritan 
 nor a republican who wrote the words, 
 but they contain the essential spirit of 
 15 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 Puritan statesmanship and scholarship 
 on both sides of the ocean. 
 
 The happy young scholar at Elmwood, 
 devoted to literature and love, and un- 
 heeding the great movement of public af- 
 fairs, showed from time to time that be- 
 neath the lettered leisure of his life there 
 lay the conscience and moral virility that 
 give public effect to genius and accom- 
 plishment. LowelFs development as a 
 literary force in public affairs is uncon- 
 sciously and exquisitely portrayed in the 
 prelude to Sir Launfal in 1848: — 
 
 " Over his keys the musing organist 
 Beginning doubtfully and far away, 
 First lets his fingers wander as they list, 
 And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his 
 lay ; 
 Then as the touch of his loved instrument 
 Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his 
 theme. 
 First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent 
 Along the wavering vista of his dream." 
 
 In 1844-45 his theme was no longer 
 doubtful or far away. Although Mr. Gar- 
 16 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 rison and the early abolitionists refused 
 to vote, as an act sanctioning a govern- 
 ment which connived at slavery, yet the 
 slavery question had already mastered 
 American politics. In 1 844 the Texas con- 
 troversy absorbed public attention, and in 
 that and the following year Lowell's po- 
 ems on Garrison, Phillips, Giddings, Pal- 
 frey, and " On the Capture of Fugitive 
 Slaves near Washington," like keen flashes 
 leaping suddenly from a kindling pyre, an- 
 nounced that the antislavery cause had 
 gained a powerful and unanticipated ally 
 in literature. These and other of his 
 poems, especially that on "The Present 
 Crisis," have a Tyrtaean resonance, a 
 stately rhetorical rhythm, that make their 
 dignity of thought, their intense feeling, 
 and picturesque imagery, superbly effect- 
 ive in recitation. They sang themselves 
 on every antislavery platform. Wendell 
 Phillips winged with their music and tipped 
 with their flame the darts of his fervid ap- 
 peal and manly scorn. As he quoted them 
 with suppressed emotion in his low, me- 
 17 
 
M P: M O R I A L S OF 
 
 lodious, penetrating- voice, the white 
 plume of the resistless Navarre of elo- 
 quence gained loftier grace, that relent- 
 less sword of invective a more flashing 
 edge. 
 
 The last great oration of Phillips was 
 the discourse at Harvard University on 
 the centenary of the Phi Beta Kappa. It 
 w^as not the least memorable in that long 
 series of memorable orations at Harvard 
 of which the first in significance was 
 Buckminster's in 1809, and the most fa- 
 miliar was Kdward h^verett's in 1824, its 
 stately sentences culminating in the mag- 
 nificent welcome to Lafayette, who was 
 present. It was the first time that Phil- 
 lips had been asked by his Alma Mater to 
 speak at one of her festivals, and he 
 rightly comprehended the occasion. He 
 was never more himself, and he held an 
 audience culled from many colleges and 
 not predisposed to admire, in shuddering 
 delight by the classic charm of his man- 
 ner and the brilliancy of his unsparing 
 censure of educated men as recreant to 
 18 
 
T W (3 FRIENDS 
 
 political progress. The orator was nearly 
 seventy years old. He was conscious 
 that he should never speak again upon a 
 greater occasion nor to a more distin- 
 guished audience, and as his discourse 
 ended, as if to express completely the 
 principle of his own life and of the cause 
 to which it had been devoted and the 
 spirit which alone could secure the happy 
 future of his country if it was to justify 
 the hope of her children, he repeated the 
 words of Lowell : 
 
 '■'■ New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes 
 ancient good uncouth ; 
 
 They must upward still, and onward, who 
 would keep abreast of Truth ; 
 
 Lo, before us gleam her camp tires! we our- 
 selves must pilgrims be. 
 
 Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly 
 through the desperate winter sea, 
 
 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the 
 Past's blood-rusted key." 
 
 When Lowell wrote the lines he was 
 twenty-five years old. He was thorough- 
 ly stirred by the cause which Edmund 
 
 19 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 Quincy in reply to Motley's question, 
 "What public career does America of- 
 fer?" had declared to be "the noblest in 
 the world." But Lowell felt that he was 
 before all a poet. When he was twenty- 
 seven he wrote : " If I have any vocation 
 it is the making of verse. When I take 
 my pen for that, the world opens itself un- 
 grudgingly before me; everything seems 
 clear and easy, as it seems sinking to the 
 bottom would be, as one leans over the 
 edge of his boat in one of those clear 
 coves at Fresh Pond. But when I do 
 prose it is invita Minerva. I feel as if I 
 were wasting time and keeping back my 
 message. My true place is to serve the 
 cause as a poet. Then my heart leaps be- 
 fore me into the conflict." Already the 
 musing organist had ceased to dream, and 
 he was about to strike a chord in a 
 strange and unexpected key, and with a 
 force to which the public conscience 
 would thrill in answer. 
 
 Lowell was an intense New Englander. 
 There is no finer figure of the higher 
 20 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Puritan type. The New England soil 
 from which he sprang was precious to 
 him. The New England legend, the New 
 England language, New England charac- 
 ter and achievement, were all his delight 
 and familiar study. Nobody who has 
 attempted to depict the Yankee ever knew 
 him as Lowell knew him, for he was at 
 heart the Yankee that he drew. The 
 Yankee early became the distinctive rep- 
 resentative of America. He is the Uncle 
 Sam of comedy and caricature. Even the 
 sweet-souled Irving could not resist the 
 universal laugh, and gave it fresh occasion 
 by his portrait of Ichabod Crane. Those 
 who preferred the cavalier and courtier 
 as a national type, traced the Yankee's 
 immediate descent from the snivelling, 
 sanctimonious, and crafty zealots of Crom- 
 well's parliament. Jack Downing and 
 Sam Slick, the coarser farces and stories 
 broadly exaggerated this conception, and, 
 in our great controversy of the century, 
 the antislavery movement was derided 
 as the superserviceable, sneaking fanati- 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 cism of the New England children of 
 Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-in-the- 
 land-Busy, whom the southern sons of 
 gallant cavaliers and gentlemen would 
 teach better morals and manners. The 
 Yankee was made a byword of scorn, and 
 identified with a disturber of the national 
 peace and the enemy of the glorious 
 Union. Many a responsible citizen, many 
 a prosperous merchant in New York and 
 Boston and Philadelphia, many a learned 
 divine, whose honor it was that they were 
 Yankees, felt a half-hearted shame in the 
 name, and grudged the part played by 
 their noses in the conversation. They 
 seemed perpetually to hear a voice of con- 
 tempt saying, "Thy nose bewrayeth 
 thee." 
 
 This was the figure which, with the in- 
 stinct of genius, with true New England 
 pride and the joy of conscious power, 
 Lowell made the representative of liber- 
 ty-loving, generous, humane, upright, 
 wise, conscientious, indignant America. 
 He did not abate the Yankee a jot or a 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 tittle. He magnified his characteristic 
 drawl, his good-natured simplicity, his 
 provincial inexperience. But he revealed 
 his unbending principle, his supreme good- 
 sense, his lofty patriotism, his unquailing 
 courage. He scattered the clouds of 
 hatred and ignorance that deformed and 
 caricatured him, and showed him in his 
 daily habit as he lived, the true and 
 worthy representative of America, with 
 mother wit preaching the gospel of Christ, 
 and in plain native phrase applying it to 
 a tremendous public exigency in Chris- 
 tian America. The Yankee dialect of 
 New England, like the Yankee himself, 
 had become a jest of farce and extrava- 
 ganza. But, thoroughly aroused, Lowell 
 grasped it as lightly as Hercules his club, 
 and with it struck a deadly blow at the 
 Hydra that threatened the national life. 
 Burns did not give to the Scottish tongue 
 a nobler immortality than Lowell to the 
 dialect of New England. 
 
 In June 1846, the first Biglow paper, 
 which, in a letter written at the time, 
 23 
 
M E M O R I A L S OF 
 
 Lowell called "a squib of mine,'' was pub- 
 lished in the Boston Courier. That squib 
 was a great incident both in the history 
 of American literature and politics. The 
 serious tone of our literature from its 
 grave colonial beginning had been al- 
 most unbroken. The rollicking laugh of 
 " Knickerbocker" was a solitary sound in 
 our literary air until the gay note ot 
 Holmes returned a merry echo. But humor 
 as a literary force in political discussion 
 was still more unknown, and in the fierce 
 slavery controversy it was least to be an- 
 ticipated. Banter in so stern a debate 
 would seem to be blasphemy, and humor 
 as a weapon of antislavery warfare was 
 almost inconceivable. The letters of Ma- 
 jor Jack Downing, a dozen years before 
 the Biglow Papers^ were merely political 
 extravaganza to raise a derisive laugh. 
 They were fun of a day and forgotten. 
 Lowell's humor was of another kind. It 
 was known to his friends, but it was not 
 a characteristic of Lowell the author. In 
 his early books there is no sign of it. It 
 24 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 was not a humorist whom the good- 
 natured WilHs welcomed in his airy way, 
 thinking, perhaps, that another dainty and 
 graceful trifler had entered the charmed 
 circle of literature that pleases but not 
 inspires. 
 
 But suddenly, and for the first time, 
 the absorbing struggle of freedom and 
 slavery for control of the Union was il- 
 luminated by a humor radiant and pierc- 
 ing, which broke over it like daylight, and 
 exposed relentlessly the sophistry and 
 shame of the slave power. No speech, no 
 plea, no appeal was comparable in popu- 
 lar and permanent effect with this pitiless 
 tempest of fire and hail, in the form of 
 wit, argument, satire, knowledge, insight, 
 learning, common-sense, and patriotism. 
 It was humor of the purest strain, but 
 humor in deadly earnest. In its course, 
 as in that of a cyclone, it swept all before 
 it — the Press, the Church, criticism, schol- 
 arship, and it bore resistlessly down upon 
 the Mexican War, the pleas for slavery, 
 the Congressional debates, the conspicu- 
 25 
 
M i: M () R I A L S () F 
 
 ous public men. Its contemptuous scorn 
 of the public cowardice that acquiesced 
 in the aq-gressions of the slave power 
 startled the dormant manhood of the 
 North and of the country. 
 
 '' ' The North hain't no kind o' bisncss with 
 nothin', 
 An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; 
 We ain't iumic riled by their frettin' and 
 trot hill'. 
 We're nscJ lo Javin' the siring on our shives,' 
 Sez .U)hn C]. C.ann)un, sez he ; — 
 Sez Mister Foote, 
 ' 1 siiould like to shi)ot 
 The holl i;anu, bv the i;reat horn spoon! ' sez he. 
 
 " ' The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on st)thes, 
 Thet's the reason 1 want to sjMead Free- 
 dom's aree ; 
 It puts all the cunninest on us in othce, 
 
 An' reelises our Maker's orij^'nal idee,' 
 Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he ; — 
 ' Thet's ez plain,' sez Cass, 
 ' As thet some one's an ass, 
 It's ez clear ez the sun is at noi>n,' sez he. 
 
 '" 'Now don't i;o to sav Fm the triend o[ op- 
 pression, 
 
 26 
 
r W () K H I K N D S 
 
 l>ui keep all your spare hrcaih fcr coolin' 
 your broih, 
 Fcr I oilers jicv strove fai least thet's my im- 
 pression) 
 To make cussed free with the rights o' the 
 
 North; 
 Sez John C Calhoun, sez he; — 
 ' Yes,' sez Davis o' Miss., 
 'I'he perfection o' bliss 
 Is in skinnin' thei same old coon,' sez he." 
 
 Such lines, as with a stroke of h'^ht- 
 nin^r, were l)Lirnet] into the hearts and con- 
 science of the North. Read to-day, they 
 recall, as nothin^^ else can recall, the in- 
 tensity oF the feeling which swiftly flatned 
 into civil war. 
 
 Apart from their special impulse and 
 influence, the Billow Papers were essen- 
 tially and purely American. It is some- 
 times said that the best American poetry 
 is only luij^lish poetry written on this side 
 of the ocean. i>ut the Hi^lojv Papers are 
 as distinctively American as"'ram o'Shan- 
 ter" is Scotch, or the " Divine (>omedy ' 
 Italian. They could have been written 
 nowhere else but in Yankee New I']n^land 
 27 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 by a New England Yankee. With Uncle 
 Tom's Cabin, they are the chief literary 
 memorial of the contest — a memorial 
 which, as literature, and for their own de- 
 light, our children's children will read, as 
 we read to-day the satires that scourge 
 the long-vanished Rome which Juvenal 
 knew, and the orations of Burke that dis- 
 cuss long-perished politics. So strong was 
 Lowell's antislavery ardor that he proudly 
 identified himself with the Abolitionists. 
 Simultaneously with the publication of 
 the first series of the Biglojv 'Papers, he 
 became a corresponding editor with Ed- 
 mund Quincy of the Anti-Slavery Stand- 
 ard, the organ of the American Anti- 
 slavery Society, and in a letter to his 
 friend, Sydney Howard Gay, the editor of 
 the paper, he says : " I was not only will- 
 ing but desirous that my name should 
 appear, because I scorned to be indebted 
 for any share of my modicum of popular- 
 ity to my abolitionism, without incurring 
 at the same time whatever odium might 
 be attached to a complete identification 
 28 
 
TWO P^RIENDS 
 
 with a body of heroic men and women 
 whom not to love and admire would 
 prove me to be unworthy of those senti- 
 ments, and whose superiors in all that 
 constitutes true manhood and woman- 
 hood I believe never existed." 
 
 But his antislavery ardor was far from 
 being his sole and absorbing interest and 
 activity. Lowell's studies, more and more 
 various and incessant, were so compre- 
 hensive that he took, if not like Bacon, 
 all knowledge, yet all literature for his 
 province, and in 1855 he was appointed 
 to the chair of modern languages and 
 belles-lettres in Harvard University, suc- 
 ceeding Longfellow and Ticknor, an illus- 
 trious group of American scholars which 
 gives to that chair a distinction unparal- 
 leled in our schools. His love and mastery 
 of books were extraordinary, and his de- 
 votion to study so relentless, that in those 
 earlier years he studied sometimes four- 
 teen hours in the day, and pored over 
 books until his sight seemed to desert 
 him. And it was no idle or evanescent 
 29 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 reading. Probably no American student 
 was so deeply versed in the old French 
 romance, none knew Dante and the Ital- 
 ians more profoundly ; German literature 
 was familiar to him, and perhaps even 
 Ticknor in his own domain of Spanish 
 lore was not more a master than Lowell. 
 The whole range of English literature, 
 not only its noble Elizabethan heights, 
 but a delightful realm of picturesque and 
 unfrequented paths, were his familiar park 
 of pleasance. 
 
 Yet he was not a scholarly recluse, a 
 pedant, or a bookworm. The student 
 of books was no less so acute and 
 trained an observer of nature, so sym- 
 pathetic a friend of birds and flowers, so 
 sensitive to the influences and aspects of 
 out-of-door life, that as Charles Briggs 
 with singular insight said, that he was 
 meant for a politician, so Darwin with 
 frank admiration said, that he was born 
 to be a naturalist. He was as much the 
 contented companion of Izaak Walton 
 and White of Selborne as of Donne or 
 30 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Calderon. His social sympathies were no 
 less strong than his fondness for study, 
 and he was the most fascinating of com- 
 rades. His extraordinary knowledge, 
 whether of out-door or of in-door deri- 
 vation, and the racy humor in which his 
 knowledge was fused, overflowed his con- 
 versation. There is no historic circle of 
 wits and scholars, not that of Beaumont 
 and Ben Jonson where, haply, Shake- 
 speare sat, nor Dryden's, nor Pope's, nor 
 Addison's, nor Dr. Johnson's Club, nor 
 that of Edinburgh, nor any Parisian salon 
 or German study, to which Lowell's abun- 
 dance would not have contributed a gold- 
 en drop and his glancing wit a glittering 
 repartee. It was not of reading, merely, 
 it was of the reading of a man of Lowell's 
 intellectual power and resource that Ba- 
 con said, " reading maketh a full man." 
 He had said in 1846 that it was as a 
 poet that he could do his best work. But 
 the poetic temperament and faculty do 
 not exclude prose, and like Milton's swain, 
 "he touch'd the tender stops of various 
 31 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 quills." The young poet early showed 
 that prose would be as obedient a familiar 1 
 to his genius as the tricksy Ariel of verse. » 
 Racy and rich, and often of the most so- 
 norous or delicate cadence, it is still the 
 prose of a poet and a master of the diflfer- 
 ences of form. His prose, indeed, is often 
 profoundly poetic — that is, quick with im- 
 agination, but always in the form of prose, 
 not of poetry. It is so finely compact of 
 illustration, of thought and learning, of 
 wit and fancy and permeating humor, 
 that his page sparkles and sways like 
 a phosphorescent sea. "Oblivion," he 
 says, "looks in the face of the Grecian 
 muse only to forget her errand." And 
 again : " The garners of Sicily are empty 
 now, but the bees from all climes still 
 fetch honey from the tiny garden-plot 
 of Theocritus." Such concentrated sen- 
 tences are marvels of felicity, and, al- 
 though unmetred, are as exquisite as 
 songs. 
 
 Charles Emerson said of Shakespeare, 
 "he sat above this hundred-handed play 
 32 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 of his imagination pensive and conscious," 
 and so Lowell is remembered by those 
 who knew him well. Literature was his 
 earliest love and his latest delight, and 
 he has been often called the first man of 
 letters of his time. The phrase is vague, 
 but it expresses the feeling that while he 
 was a poet and a scholar and a humor- 
 ist and a critic, he was something else 
 and something more. The feeling is per- 
 fectly just. Living all summer by the sea, 
 we watch with fascinated eyes the long- 
 flowing lines, the flash and gleam of mul- 
 titudinous waters, but beneath them all 
 is the mighty movement of unfathomed 
 ocean, on whose surface only these undu- 
 lating splendors play. Literature,whether 
 in prose or verse,was the form of Lowell's 
 activity, but its master impulse was not 
 aesthetic but moral. When the activities 
 of his life were ended. In a strain of clear 
 and tender reminiscence he sang : 
 
 " I sank too deep in the soft-stuffed repose 
 That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs and 
 woes ; 
 
 33 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 Too well these Capuas could my muscles 
 
 waste, 
 Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste; 
 These still had kept me could I but have quelled 
 The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled." 
 
 Literature was his pursuit, but patriot- 
 ism was his passion. His love of country 
 was that of a lover for his mistress. He 
 resented the least imputation upon the 
 ideal America, and nothing was finer than 
 his instinctive scorn for the pinchbeck 
 patriotism which brags and boasts and 
 swaggers, insisting that bigness is great- 
 ness, and vulgarity simplicity, and the will 
 of the majority the moral law. No man 
 perceived more shrewdly the American 
 readiness of resource, the Yankee good- 
 nature, and the national rectitude. But 
 he was not satisfied with an easy stand- 
 ard. To him the best, not the thriftiest, 
 was most truly American. Lowell held 
 that of all men the American should be 
 master of his boundless material re- 
 sources, not their slave; worthy of his un- 
 equalled opportunities, not the syco- 
 34 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 phant of his fellow Americans nor the 
 victim of national conceit. No man re- 
 joiced more deeply over our great achieve- 
 ments or celebrated them with ampler or 
 prouder praise. He delighted with Yan- 
 kee glee in our inventive genius and rest- 
 less enterprise, but he knew that we did not 
 invent the great muniments of liberty, — 
 trial by jury, the habeas corpus, constitu- 
 tional restraint, the common school, — of 
 all which we were common heirs with civil- 
 ized Christendom. He knew that we have 
 Niagara and the prairies and the Great 
 Lakes, and the majestic Mississippi ; but 
 he knew also with another great Ameri- 
 can that 
 
 " Earth proudly wears the Parthenon 
 As the best gem upon her zone. 
 And morning opes with haste her Hds 
 To gaze upon the pyramids." 
 
 As he would not accept a vulgar carica- 
 ture of the New Englander as a Yankee, 
 so he spurned Captain Bobadil as a type 
 of the American, for he knew that a na- 
 35 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 tion may be as well-bred among nations 
 as a gentleman among gentlemen, and 
 that to bully weakness or to cringe to 
 strength are equally cowardly, and there- 
 fore not truly American. 
 
 Lowell's loftiest strain is inspired by 
 this patriotic ideal. To borrow a German 
 phrase from modern musical criticism, it 
 is the kit ;7/o/// which is constantly heard 
 in the poems and the essays, and that in- 
 spiration reached its loftiest expression, 
 both in prose and poetry, in the discourse 
 on Democracy and the Commemoration 
 ode. The genius of enlightened Greece 
 breathes audibly still in the oration of 
 Pericles on the Peloponnesian dead. 
 The patriotic heart of America throbs 
 forever in Lincoln's Gettysburg address. 
 But now^here in literature is there a more 
 magnificent and majestic personification 
 of a country whose name is sacred to its 
 children, nowhere a profounder passion 
 of patriotic loyalty, than in the closing 
 lines of the Commemoration ode. The 
 American whose heart, swayed by that 
 36 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 lofty music, does not thrill and palpitate 
 with solemn joy and high resolve, does 
 not yet know what it is to be an Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 Like all citizens of high public ideals, 
 Lowell was inevitably a public critic and 
 censor, but he was much too good a Yan- 
 kee not to comprehend the practical con- 
 ditions of political life in this country. 
 No man understood better than he such 
 truth as lies in John Morley's remark : 
 " Parties are a field where action is a long 
 second best, and where the choice con- 
 stantly lies between two blunders.'' He 
 did not therefore conclude that there is 
 no alternative, that "naught is every- 
 thing and everything is naught.'' But he 
 did see clearly that while the government 
 of a republic must be a government of 
 party, yet that independence of party is 
 much more vitally essential in a republic 
 than fidelity to party. Party is a servant 
 of the people, but a servant who is foolish- 
 ly permitted by his master to assume 
 sovereign airs, like Christopher Sly, the 
 
 37 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 tinker, whom the Lord's attendants ob- 
 sequiously salute as master : 
 
 " Look how thy servants do attend on thee, 
 Each in his office ready at thy beck." 
 
 To a man of the highest public spirit like 
 Lowell, and of the supreme self-respect 
 which always keeps faith with itself, no 
 spectacle is sadder than that of intelli- 
 gent, superior, honest public men pros- 
 trating themselves before a party, profess- 
 ing what they do not believe, affecting 
 what they do not feel, from abject fear 
 of an invisible fetich, a chimera, a name, 
 to which they alone give reality and force, 
 as the terrified peasant himself made the 
 spectre of the Brocken before which he 
 quailed. The last great patriotic service 
 of Washington, and none is more worthy 
 of enduring commemoration on this anni- 
 versary, was the Farewell Address with 
 its strong and stern warning that party 
 government may become a ruthless des- 
 potism, and that a majority must be 
 watched as jealously as a king, 
 38 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 With his lofty patriotism and his ex- 
 traordinary public conscience, Lowell was 
 distinctively the Independent in politics. 
 He was an American and a republican 
 citizen. He acted with parties as every 
 citizen must act if he acts at all. But the 
 notion that a voter is a traitor to one 
 party when he votes with another was 
 as ludicrous to him as the assertion that 
 it is treason to the White Star steamers 
 to take passage in a Cunarder. When 
 he would know his public duty, Lowell 
 turned within, not without. He listened, 
 not for the roar of the majority in the 
 street, but for the still small voice in his 
 own breast. For while the method of 
 republican government is party, its basis 
 is individual conscience and common- 
 sense. This entire political independence 
 Lowell always illustrated. He was born 
 in the last days of New England Federal- 
 ism. His Uncle, John Lowell, was a 
 leader in the long and bitter Federalist 
 controversy with John Quincy Adams. 
 The Whig dynasty succeeded the Federal 
 39 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 in Massachusetts, but Loweirs first pub- 
 lic interest was the antislavery agitation, 
 and he identified himself with the Aboli- 
 tionists. He retained, however, his indi- 
 vidual view, and did not sympathize with 
 the policy that sought the dissolution of 
 the Union, and which refused to vote. 
 In i85o, he says, in a private letter to his 
 friend Gay, alluding to some difference 
 of opinion with the Antislavery Society, 
 '' there has never been a oneness of sen- 
 timent," that is to say, complete identity, 
 "between me and the Society," and a 
 passage in a letter written upon election 
 day in November, i85o, illustrates his 
 independent position: "I shall vote the 
 Union ticket (half Free Soil, half Demo- 
 cratic), not from any love of the Demo- 
 crats, but because I believe it to be the 
 best calculated to achieve some practical 
 result. It is a great object to overturn 
 the Whig domination, and this seems to 
 be the only lever to pry them over with. 
 Yet I have my fears that if we get a 
 Democratic governor he will play some 
 40 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 trick or other. Timco Danaos et dona 
 ferentes, if you will pardon stale Latin to 
 Parson Wilbur." 
 
 This election is memorable because it 
 overthrew the Whig domination in Mas- 
 sachusetts, and made Charles Sumner 
 the successor of Daniel Webster in the 
 Senate. It restored to the State of Sam- 
 uel Adams the same political leadership 
 before the Civil War that she had held 
 before the Revolution. The Republican 
 party, with whose antislavery impulse 
 Lowell was in full accord, arose from the 
 Whig ruins, and whether in a party or 
 out of a party, he was himself the great 
 illustration of the political independence 
 that he represented and maintained. As 
 he allowed no church or sect to dictate 
 his religious views or control his daily 
 conduct, so he permitted no party to di- 
 rect his political action. He was a Whig, 
 an Abolitionist, a Republican, a Demo- 
 crat, according to his conception of the 
 public exigency, and never as a partisan. 
 From 1 863 to 1872 he was joint editor, 
 41 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 with his friend Mr. Norton, of the North 
 American Review^ and he wrote often of 
 pubhc affairs. But his papers all belong 
 to the higher politics, which are those of 
 the man and the citizen, not of the parti- 
 san, a distinction which may be traced in 
 Burke's greatest speeches, where it is easy 
 to distinguish what is said by Burke, 
 the wise and patriotic Englishman, for 
 such he really was, from what is said by 
 the Whig in opposition to the Treasury 
 Bench. 
 
 But whatever his party associations and 
 political sympathies, Lowell was at heart 
 and by temperament conservative, and 
 his patriotic independence in our politics 
 is the quality which is always uncon- 
 sciously recognized as the truly conserva- 
 tive element in the country. In the 
 tumultuous excitement of our popular 
 elections the real appeal on both sides is 
 not to party, which is already committed, 
 but to those citizens who are still open to 
 reason, and may yet be persuaded. In 
 the most recent serious party appeal, the 
 42 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 orator said, " above all things political 
 fitness should lead us not to forget that 
 at the end of our plans we must meet 
 face to face at the polls the voters of the 
 land w^ith ballots in their hands demand- 
 ing as a condition of the support of our 
 party, fidelity and undivided devotion to 
 the cause in w^hich we have enlisted 
 them." This recognizes an independent 
 tribunal which judges party. It implies 
 that beside the host who march under 
 the party color and vote at the party 
 command, there are citizens who may 
 or may not wear a party uniform, but 
 who vote only at their own individual 
 command, and who give the victory. 
 They may be angrily classified as politi- 
 cal Laodiceans, but it is to them that 
 parties appeal, and rightly, because ex- 
 cept for this body of citizens, the despot- 
 ism of party would be absolute and the 
 republic would degenerate into a mere 
 oligarchy of "bosses." 
 
 There could be no more signal tribute 
 to political independence than that which 
 43 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 was oflfered to Lowell in 1876. He was 
 a Republican elector, and the result of 
 the election was disputed. A peaceful 
 solution of the difference seemed for some 
 months to be doubtful, although the con- 
 stitution apparently furnished it, for if an 
 elector, or more than one, should differ 
 from his party and exercise his express 
 and unquestionable constitutional right, 
 in strict accord with the constitutional in- 
 tention, the threatened result might be 
 averted. But in the multitude of electors 
 Lowell alone was mentioned as one who 
 might exercise that right. The sugges- 
 tion was at once indignantly resented as 
 an insult, because it was alleged to imply 
 possible bad faith. But it was not so de- 
 signed. It indicated that Lowell was felt 
 to be a man who, should he think it to 
 be his duty under the indisputable con- 
 stitutional provision, to vote differently 
 from the expectation of his party, he 
 would certainly do it. But those who 
 made the suggestion did not perceive that 
 he could not feel it to be his duty, be- 
 44 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 cause nobody saw more clearly than he 
 that an unwritten law with all the force 
 of honor forbade. The constitutional in- 
 tention was long since superseded by a 
 custom sanctioned by universal approval 
 which makes the Presidential elector the 
 merest ministeral agent of a party, and 
 the most wholly ceremonial figure in our 
 political system. 
 
 By the time that he was fifty years old 
 Lowell's conspicuous literary accomplish- 
 ment and poetic genius, with his political 
 independence, courage, and ability had 
 given him a position and influence unlike 
 those of any other American, and when in 
 1877 he was appointed Minister to Spain, 
 and in 1880 transferred to England, there 
 was a feeling of blended pride and sat- 
 isfaction that his country would be not 
 only effectively, but nobly represented. 
 Mr. Emerson once said of an English 
 minister, "He is a charming gentleman, 
 but he does not represent the England 
 that 1 know." In Lowell, however, no 
 man in the world who honored America 
 45 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 and believed in the grandeur of American 
 destiny but would find his faith and hope 
 confirmed. \o oivc your best, says the 
 oriental proverb, is to do your utmost. 
 The cominn of such a man, therefore, 
 was the highest honor that America could 
 pay to iMigland. If we may personify 
 America, we can fancy a certain grim 
 humor on her part in presenting this son 
 of hers to the mother-country, a sapling 
 ol the older oak more sinewy and sup- 
 ple than the parent stock. No eminent 
 American has blended the Cavalier and 
 the Puritan traditicMi, the romantic con- 
 servatism and the wise radicalism of the 
 pjiglish blood in a finer cosmopolitanism 
 than Lowell. It was this generous com- 
 prehension of both which made him pe- 
 culiarly and intelligently at home in Eng- 
 land, and which also made him much 
 more than his l^xcellency the Ambassa- 
 dor of American literature to the Court 
 of Shakespeare, as the London Spectator 
 called him upon his arrival in London, 
 for it made him the representative to 
 46 
 
T w () V n I i: N \^ s 
 
 r^ngland of an American scholarship, a 
 wit, an intellectual resource, a complete 
 and splendid accomplishment, a social 
 j^race and charm, a felicity of public and 
 private speech, and a weight of good 
 sense, which pleasantly challenged I'^ng- 
 land to a continuous and friendly bout in 
 which America did not suffer. 
 
 During his oflicial residence in l^^ng- 
 land, Lowell seemed to have the fitting 
 word for every occasion, and to speak it 
 with memorable distinction. If a me- 
 morial of Dean Stanley were erected in 
 his Chapter House, or of Fielding at 
 'I'aunton, or of Coleridge at Westminster 
 Abbey, or of (iray at Cambridge, the de- 
 sire of literary iMigland turned instinct- 
 ively to Lowell as the orator whose voice 
 would give the best expression, and 
 whose character and renown the greatest 
 dignity, to the hour. In Wordsworth's 
 i^^ngland, as President of the Wordsworth 
 Society, he spoke of the poet with an af- 
 fectionate justice which makes his speech, 
 with the earlier essay, the finest estimate 
 47 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 of Wordsworth's genius and career ; and 
 of Don Quixote he spoke to the Work- 
 ingman's College with a poetic appreci- 
 ation of the genius of Cervantes and a 
 familiarity with Spanish literature which 
 was a revelation to British workmen. 
 Continuously at public dinners, with con- 
 summate tact and singular felicity, he 
 spoke with a charm that seemed to dis- 
 close a new art of oratory. He did not 
 decline even political speech, but of course 
 in no partisan sense. His discourse on 
 Democracy at Birmingham, in October, 
 1884, was not only an event, but an 
 event without precedent. He was the 
 minister of the American republic to the 
 British monarchy, and, as that minister, 
 publicly to declare in England the most 
 radical democratic principles as the ulti- 
 mate logical result of the British Consti- 
 tution, and to do it with a temper, an ur- 
 banity, a moderation, a precision of state- 
 ment, and a courteous grace of humor, 
 which charmed doubt into acquiescence 
 and amazement into unfeigned admira- 
 48 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 tion and acknowledgment of a great ser- 
 vice to political thought greatly done — 
 this was an event unknown in the annals 
 of diplomacy, and this is what Lowell 
 did at Birmingham. 
 
 No American orator has made so clear 
 and comprehensive a declaration of the 
 essential American principle, or so simple 
 a statement of its ethical character. Yet 
 not a word of this republican to whom 
 Algernon Sydney would have bowed, and 
 whom Milton would have blessed, would 
 have jarred the tory nerves of Sir Roger 
 de Coverley, although no English radical 
 was ever more radical than he. The 
 frantic French democracy of '93, gnash- 
 ing its teeth in the face of royal power, 
 would have equality and fraternity if every 
 man were guillotined to secure it. The 
 American Republic, speaking to mon- 
 archical Europe a century later by the 
 same voice with which Sir Launfal had 
 shown the identity of Christianity with 
 human sympathy and succor, set forth in 
 the address at Birmingham the truth that 
 49 
 
MEMORIALS O F 
 
 democracy is simply the practical appli- 
 cation of moral principle to politics. 
 There were many and great services in 
 Lowell's life, but none of them all seem 
 to me more characteristic of the man 
 than when, holding the commission of his 
 country and in his own person represent- 
 ing its noblest character, standing upon 
 soil sacred to him by reverend and ro- 
 mantic tradition, his American heart loyal 
 to the English impulse which is the im- 
 pulse of constitutional liberty, for one 
 memorable moment he made monarchical 
 England feel for republican America the 
 same atfectionatc admiration that she felt 
 for him, the republican American. His 
 last official words in England show the 
 reciprocal feeling : " While I came here 
 as a far-off cousin," he said, ''•I feel that 
 you are sending me away as something 
 like a brother." He died : the poet, the 
 scholar, the critic, the public counsel- 
 lor, the ambassador, the patriot, and the 
 sorrowing voice of the English laureate 
 and of the English Queen, the highest 
 
 50 
 
T W O F H I R N D S 
 
 voices of English literature and political 
 power, minglini^ with the universal voice 
 of his own country, showed how instinct- 
 ively and surely the true American, faith- 
 ful to the spirit of Washington and of 
 Abraham Lincoln, reconciles and not ex- 
 asperates international feeling. 
 
 So varied, so full, and fair is the story 
 of Lowell's life, and such services to the 
 mind and heart and character of his 
 country we commemorate on this hal- 
 lowed day. In the golden morning of 
 our literature and national life there is 
 no more fascinating and inspiring figure. 
 His literary achievement, his patriotic 
 distinction, and his ennobling influence 
 upon the character and lives of generous 
 American youth, gave him at last power 
 to speak with more authority than any 
 living American for the intellect and con- 
 science of America. Upon those who 
 know him well, so profound was the im- 
 pression of his resource and power that 
 their words must seem to be mere eulogy. 
 All that he did was but the hint of this su- 
 5» 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 pcrb affluence, this comprehensive grasp; 
 the overflow of an exhaustless supply, so 
 that it seemed to be only incidental, not 
 his life s business. Even his literary pro- 
 duction was impromptu. " Sir Launfal" 
 was the work of two days. The " Fable 
 for Critics" was an amusement amid se- 
 verer studies. The discourse on Democ- 
 racy was largely written upon the way to 
 Birmingham. Of no man could it be said 
 more truly that 
 
 '' Half his strength he put not forth." 
 
 But that must be always the impression 
 of men of so large a mould and of such 
 public service that they may be properly 
 commemorated on this anniversary. Like 
 mountain summits, bright with sunrise, 
 that announce the day, such Americans 
 are harbingers of the future which shall 
 justify our faith, and fulfil the promise of 
 America to mankind. In our splendid 
 statistics of territorial extension, of the 
 swift civilization of the Western world, 
 of the miracles of our material invention : 
 52 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 in that vast and smiling landscape, the 
 home of a powerful and peaceful people, 
 humming with industry and enterprise, 
 rich with the charm of every climate, from 
 Katahdin that hears the distant roar of 
 the Atlantic to the Golden Gate through 
 which the soft Pacific sighs, and in every 
 form of visible prosperity, we see the re- 
 splendent harvest of the mighty sowing, 
 two hundred years ago, of the new conti- 
 nent with the sifted grain of the old. But 
 this is not the picture of national great- 
 ness, it is only its glittering frame. In- 
 tellectual excellence, noble character, pub- 
 lic probity, lofty ideals, art, literature, 
 honest politics, righteous laws, conscien- 
 tious labor, public spirit, social justice, 
 the stern, sel -criticising patriotism which 
 fosters only what is worthy of an enlight- 
 ened people, not what is unworthy — such 
 qualities and achievements, and such 
 alone, measure the greatness of a state, 
 and those who illustrate them are great 
 citizens. They are the men whose lives 
 are a glorious service and whose memo- 
 53 
 
MEMORIALS 
 
 ries are a benediction. Among that 
 great company of patriots let me to-day, 
 reverently and gratefully, blend the name 
 of Lowell with that of Washington. 
 
AN EPISTLE 
 
 TO 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 
AN EPISTLE TO 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 
 " De prodome, 
 Des qu'il s'atorne a grant bonte 
 Ja n'iert tot dit ne tot conte, 
 Que leingue ne puet pas retraire 
 Tant d'enor com prodom set faire." 
 Crestien de Troies, 
 Li Romans dou Chevalier au Lyon, -jSG-ygo. 
 
 1874. 
 
 CURTIS, whose Wit, with Fancy arm in 
 arm. 
 Masks half its muscle in its skill to 
 charm, 
 And who so gently can the Wrong expose 
 As sometimes to make converts, never foes. 
 Or only such as good men must expect, 
 Knaves sore with conscience of their own defect, 
 I come with mild remonstrance. Ere I start, 
 A kindlier errand interrupts my heart. 
 And I must utter, though it vex your ears, 
 The love, the honor, felt so many years. 
 
 Curtis, skilled equally with voice and pen 
 
 To stir the hearts or mould the minds of men, — 
 
 That voice whose music, for I've heard you sing 
 
 57 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 Sweet as Casella, can with passion ring, 
 
 That pen whose rapid ease ne'er trips with haste, 
 
 Nor scrapes nor sputters, pointed with good 
 
 taste. 
 First Steele's, then Goldsmith's, next it came to 
 
 you. 
 Whom Thackeray rated best of all our crew, — 
 Had letters kept you, every wreath were yours ; 
 Had the World tempted, all its chariest doors 
 Had swung on flattered hinges to admit 
 Such high-bred manners, such good-natured wit; 
 At courts, in senates, who so lit to serve? 
 And both invited, but you would not swerve. 
 All meaner prizes waiving that you might 
 In civic duty spend your heat and light. 
 Unpaid, untrammelled, with a sweet disdain 
 Refusing posts men grovel to attain. 
 Good Man all own you ; what is left me, then. 
 To heighten praise with but Good Citizen ? 
 
 But why this praise to make you blush and stare. 
 
 And give a backache to your Easy-Chair? 
 
 Old Crestien rightly says no language can 
 
 Express the worth of a true Gentleman, 
 
 And I agree; but other thoughts deride 
 
 My first intent, and lure my pen aside. 
 
 Thinking of you, I see my firelight glow 
 
 On other faces, loved from long ago, 
 
 Dear to us both, and all these loves combine 
 
 58 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 With this I send and crowd in every line; 
 Fortune with me was in such generous mood 
 That all my friends were yours, and all were 
 
 good; 
 Three generations come when one I call, 
 And the fair grandame, youngest of them all, 
 In her own Florida who found and sips 
 The fount that fled from Ponce's longing lips. 
 How bright they rise and wreath my hearthstone 
 
 round, 
 Divine my thoughts, reply without a sound, 
 And with them many a shape that memory 
 
 sees. 
 As dear as they, but crowned with aureoles 
 
 these ! 
 What wonder if, with protest in my thought. 
 Arrived, I find 't was only love I brought? 
 I came with protest; Memory barred the road 
 Till I repaid you half the debt I owed. 
 
 No, 't was not to bring laurels that I came. 
 Nor would you wish it, daily seeing fame, 
 (Or our cheap substitute, unknown of yore,) 
 Dumped like a load of coal at every door, 
 Mime and heta^ra getting equal weight 
 With him whose toils heroic saved the State. 
 But praise can harm not who so calmly met 
 Slander's worst word, nor treasured up the debt. 
 Knowing, what all experience serves to show, 
 
 59 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 No nuui can soil us but the mud wc throw. 
 You have heard harsher voices and more loud, 
 As all must, not sworn liegemen of the crowd, 
 And !ar aloof your silent mind could keep 
 As when, in heavens with winter-midnight deep, 
 The perfect moon hangs thoughtful, nor can 
 
 know 
 What hounds her lucent calm drives mad below. 
 But to my business, while you rub your eyes 
 And wonder how you ever thought me wise. 
 Dear friend and old, they say you shake your 
 
 head 
 And wish some bitter words of mine unsaid : 
 1 wish they might be, — there we are agreed; 
 1 hate to speak, still more what makes the need : 
 But I must utter what the voice within 
 Dictates, for acquiescence dumb were sin ; 
 I blurt ungrateful truths, if so they be. 
 That none may need to say them after me. 
 'T were my felicity could I attain 
 The temperate zeal that balances your brain ; 
 But nature still o'erleaps reflection's plan. 
 And one must do his service as he can. 
 Think vou it were not pleasanter to speak 
 Smooth words that leave unflushed the brow and 
 
 cheek? 
 To sit, well-dined, with cynic smile, unseen 
 In private box, spectator of the scene 
 Where men the comedy of life rehearse, 
 60 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Idly to judge which better and which worse 
 Each hireling actor spoiled his worthless part? 
 Were it not sweeter with a careless heart, 
 In happy commune with the untainted brooks, 
 To dream all day, or, walled with silent books, 
 To hear nor heed the World's unmeaning noise, 
 Safe in my fortress stored with lifelong joys? 
 
 I love too well the pleasures of retreat 
 
 Safe from the crowd and cloistered from the 
 
 street ; 
 The fire that whispers its domestic joy, 
 Flickering on walls that knew me still a boy, 
 And knew my saintly father; the full days. 
 Not careworn from the world's soul-squandering 
 
 ways, 
 Calm days that loiter with snow-silent tread. 
 Nor break my commune with the undying dead ; 
 Truants of Time, to-morrow like to-day. 
 That come unbid, and claimless glide away 
 By shelves that sun them in the indulgent Past, 
 Where Spanish castles, even, were built to last, 
 Where saint and sage their silent vigil keep. 
 And wrong hath ceased or sung itself to sleep. 
 Dear were my walks, too, gathering fragrant 
 
 store 
 Of Mother Nature's simple-minded lore : 
 I learned all weather-signs of day or night ; 
 No bird but I could name him by his flight, 
 6i 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 No distant tree but by his shape was known, 
 Or, near at hand, by leaf or bark alone. 
 This learning won by loving looks I hived 
 As sweeter lore than all from books derived. 
 I know the charm of hillside, field, and wood. 
 Of lake and stream, and the sky's downy brood. 
 Of roads sequestered rimmed with sallow sod, 
 But friends with hardback, aster, goldenrod, 
 Or succory keeping summer long its trust 
 Of heaven-blue fleckless from the eddying dust : 
 These were my earliest friends, and latest too. 
 Still unestranged, whatever fate may do. 
 For years I had these treasures, knew their worth, 
 Estate most real man can have on earth. 
 I sank too deep in this soft-stuffed repose 
 That hears but rumors of earth's wrongs and 
 
 woes; 
 Too well these Capuas could my muscles waste. 
 Not void of toils, but toils of choice and taste; 
 These still had kept me could I but have quelled 
 The Puritan drop that in my veins rebelled. 
 But there were times when silent were my books 
 As jailers are, and gave me sullen looks. 
 When verses palled, and even the woodland path. 
 By innocent contrast, fed my heart with wrath, 
 And I must twist my little gift of words 
 Into a scourge of rough and knotted cords 
 Unmusical, that whistle as they swing 
 To leave on shameless backs their purple sting. 
 62 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 How slow Time comes ! Gone, who so swift as 
 
 he? 
 Add but a year, 't is half a century 
 Since the slave's stifled moaning broke my sleep. 
 Heard 'gainst my will in that seclusion deep, 
 Haply heard louder for the silence there, 
 And so my fancied safeguard made my snare. 
 After that moan had sharpened to a cry. 
 And the cloud, hand-broad then, heaped all our 
 
 sky 
 With its stored vengeance, and such thunders 
 
 stirred 
 As heaven's and earth's remotest chambers heard, 
 I looked to see an ampler atmosphere 
 By that electric passion-gust blown clear, 
 I looked for this; consider what I see — 
 But I forbear, 't would please nor you nor me 
 To check the items in the bitter list 
 Of all I counted on and all I mist. 
 Only three instances I choose from all. 
 And each enough to stir a pigeon's gall : 
 Office a fund for ballot-brokers made 
 To pay the drudges of their gainful trade ; 
 Our cities taught what conquered cities feel 
 By aediles chosen that they might safely steal ; 
 And gold, however got, a title fair 
 To such respect as only gold can bear. 
 I seem to see this ; how shall I gainsay 
 What all our journals tell me every day? 
 63 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 Poured our young martyrs their high-hearted 
 
 blood 
 That we might trample to congenial mud 
 The soil with such a legacy sublimed? 
 Methinks an angry scorn is here well-timed : 
 Where hnd retreat ? How keep reproach at bay ? 
 Where'er I turn some scandal fouls the way. 
 
 Dear friend, if any man I wished to please, 
 'T were surely you whose humor's honied ease 
 Flows flecked with gold of thought, whose gen- 
 erous mind 
 Sees Paradise regained by all mankind. 
 Whose brave example still to vanward shines. 
 Checks the retreat, and spurs our lagging lines. 
 Was I too bitter? Who his phrase can choose 
 That sees the life-blood of his dearest ooze? 
 I loved my Country so as only they 
 Who love a mother tit to die for may; 
 I loved her old renown, her stainless fame, — 
 What better proof than that I loathed her shame ? 
 That many blamed me could not irk me long, 
 But, if you doubted, must I not be wrong? 
 'T is not for me to answer : this I know, 
 That man or race so prosperously low- 
 Sunk in success that wrath they cannot feel. 
 Shall taste the spurn of parting Fortune's heel ; 
 For never land long lease of empire won 
 Whose sons sate silent when base deeds were done, 
 
 64 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 POSTSCRIPT 
 1887 
 
 Curtis, so wrote I thirteen years ago, 
 
 Toss't it unfinished by, and left it so; 
 
 Found lately, I have pieced it out, or tried. 
 
 Since time tor callid juncture was denied. 
 
 Some of the verses pleased me, it is true, 
 
 And still were pertinent, — those honoring you. 
 
 These now I offer: take them, if you will. 
 
 Like the old hand-grasp, when at Shady Hill 
 
 We met, or Staten Island, in the days 
 
 When life was its own spur, nor needed praise. 
 
 If once you thought me rash, no longer fear; 
 
 Past my next milestone waits my seventieth year. 
 
 I mount no longer when the trumpets call ; 
 
 My battle-harness idles on the wall, 
 
 The spider's castle, camping-ground of dust. 
 
 Not without dints, and all in front, I trust. 
 
 Shivering sometimes it calls me as it hears 
 
 Afar the charger's tramp and clash of spears ; 
 
 But 't is such murmur only as might be 
 
 The sea-shell's lost tradition of the sea, 
 
 That makes me muse and wonder Where ? and 
 
 When ? 
 While from my cliff 1 watch the waves of men 
 That climb to break midway their seeming gain, 
 And think it triumph if they shake their chain. 
 Little I ask of Fate ; will she refuse 
 Some days of reconcilement with the Muse? 
 
 65 
 
M F M O R I A L S O F 
 
 I take my rood again and blow it tree 
 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. 
 
 Home am 1 come: not, as 1 hoped might be. 
 To the old haunts, too full oi ghosts for me. 
 But to the olden dreams that time endears, 
 And the loved books that younger grow with 
 
 years ; 
 To country rambles, timing with my tread 
 Some happier verse that carols in my head, 
 Yet all with sense of something vainly mist, 
 Oi something lost, but when I never wist. 
 How emptv seems to me the populous street. 
 One tigure gone I daily loved to meet, — 
 The clear, sweet siriger with the crowti ot' snow 
 Not whiter than the thoughts that housed below ! 
 And, ah, what absence feel I at my side. 
 Like Dante when he missed his laurelled guide. 
 What sense of diminution in the air 
 Once so inspiring, Emerson not there ! 
 But life is sweet, though all that makes it sweet 
 Lessen like sound oi' friends' departing feet. 
 And death is beautiful as teet of friend 
 Coming with welcome at our iourney's end ; 
 For me Fate gave, whaie'er she else denied, 
 66 
 
T W O F i< I i: N J) s 
 
 A nature sloping to the southern side; 
 
 I thank her for it, though when clouds arise 
 
 Such natures double-darken gloomy skies. 
 
 I muse upon the margin of the sea, 
 
 Our common pathway to the new To Be, 
 
 Watching the sails, that lessen more and more, 
 
 Of good and beautiful embarked before; 
 
 With bits of wreck I patch the boat shall bear 
 
 Me to that unexhausted Otherwhere, 
 
 Whose friendly-peopled shore 1 sometimes see. 
 
 By soft mirage uplifted, beckon me. 
 
 Nor sadly hear, as lower sinks the sun. 
 
 My moorings to the past snap one by one. 
 
iHi-: mm: and chakacii^k 
 
 OF- 
 
 (]K()\<(]\': WIIJJAM CdKTIS 
 
AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BY 
 
 CHARLES ELIOT NORTON, 
 
 AT ASHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS, IN 
 THE TOWN HALL, AUGUST I2TH, 
 1896, ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 DEDICATION OF A BRONZE TABLET 
 BEARING AN INSCRIPTION IN HONOR 
 OF MR. CURTIS. 
 
THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS 
 
 NO blessing can befall a com- 
 munity greater than the 
 choice of it by a good man for 
 his home ; for the example of 
 such a man sets a standard of conduct, 
 and his influence, unconsciously not less 
 than consciously exerted, tends to lift 
 those who come within its circle to his 
 own level. In the quiet annals of this 
 little town there are many incidents of 
 local and personal interest ; but the inci- 
 dent of chief importance to its inhabitants 
 of this generation and of coming times 
 was its selection in 1865, by George Wil- 
 liam Curtis, for his summer home. Hither 
 for twenty-seven summers he came to find 
 refreshment among these hills and woods, 
 to show himself the best of neighbors, and 
 to exhibit those social virtues and charms 
 73 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 which would have made him beloved and 
 admired by any society which he might 
 have chosen to adorn. 
 
 It is well that the Club named in his 
 honor should set up a tablet to commemo- 
 rate his residence in Ashheld, in this hall 
 where his presence has been so familiar, 
 and where his voice has been so often 
 heard. It is well that the town should 
 accept this tablet, to be sacredly preserved 
 so long as its own ever-renewed life shall 
 last, as a permanent record of great ser- 
 vices rendered to it. It is well that we, 
 the town's people, should meet to dedi- 
 cate this tablet, the inscription upon 
 which records our lasting and grateful 
 affection for the good man whose name it 
 bears. 
 
 Happily there are many men in the 
 world, even in a little community like this, 
 whom we, speaking in familiar phrase, 
 should call, and rightly call, good men, — 
 men who perform fairly well the simple 
 duties of life ; who try to be, or, at least 
 intend to be, estimable husbands, fathers, 
 74 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 sons, brothers, neif^hbors; but there are 
 few anywhere whose goodness stands, 
 year in, year out, the wear and tear of 
 common days, whose virtues are never 
 dimmed by slow-collecting rust, or by 
 the dust which rises from even worthy 
 toil and unavoidable cares. So, too, it 
 often happens that among many virtues 
 the one is lacking which is required to 
 give savor to all the rest ; that some black 
 drop in the blood betrays itself in morose- 
 ness ; that feebleness of imagination (the 
 great defect of man) shows itself in fail- 
 ure of sympathetic consideration for those 
 who most stand in need of patient and 
 tender regard. 
 
 No, the good man, in the full sense of 
 the word, the man whose virtues never 
 suffer eclipse, and whose goodness is not 
 merely good, but delightful, is one of the 
 rarest gifts of Heaven. Happiest and 
 most welcome of men is the good man 
 whose temperament and disposition com- 
 bine to make him as pleasant as he is 
 good ; whose virtues arc the sweet flow- 
 75 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 ering of his nature, trained by experience 
 and perfected by self-discipline ; whose 
 character is based on simpHcity of heart 
 and who fulfils the New Commandment 
 because for him it is the natural mode 
 of self-expression. And if to such a man 
 be added great gifts alike of body and of 
 soul, the fine form expressing the fine 
 spirit, the sweet voice attuned to the 
 sweet disposition ; if in him outward 
 grace be the type of grace of mind, and 
 physical vigor the emblem of intellectual 
 power ; if he be endowed with poetic im- 
 agination, quickening the moral and in- 
 vigorating the intellectual elements of 
 his nature ; and if all be crowned by a 
 spirit of devotion to public interests, — 
 then we have such a man as he who fills 
 our memories and our hearts to-day. 
 
 You have seen him in his daily walk 
 during almost thirty years ; can you recall 
 one act, one word of his that was not 
 friendly and pleasant? I, who knew him 
 from youth to age, I, whose life was 
 blessed by his friendship for forty-three 
 76 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 years, find in my memory of him such 
 pleasantness that my words come short 
 to express it. No one could meet him 
 without being better for the meeting. 
 " He makes you feel good," an old Ash- 
 field man said of him. 
 
 In his relations with others, whether in 
 private life or in public affairs, he was 
 singularly exemplary; I mean he set an 
 example of simple excellence to each of us, 
 fitted to the various needs and conditions 
 of our lives. And yet his modesty was 
 such, and his simplicity so entire, that he 
 walked among us quite unconscious of the 
 virtue which proceeded from him, never 
 assuming an air of superiority, or claim- 
 ing the distinction which was his due. 
 
 Seldom has there been so general a 
 favorite as he, and seldom a man who 
 received more flattery with less harm to 
 the sincerity of his nature. When he 
 returned home from Europe in 1850, a 
 youth of twenty-six, with keen perceptions 
 of the delights of life, with accomplish- 
 ments and graces and tastes that opened 
 
 17 
 
M i: M O RIALS O K 
 
 every door to him, with Uterary ambitions 
 which were soon to be qratitied by the 
 brilliant success o( his tirst bt)ok, with the 
 youth of both sexes crowding round him 
 at Newport, at Saratoi^a, at New York, 
 to tolK>w his aliurini; lead, and to catch 
 tVom him, it thev mii^ht, the secret of his 
 charm, — at this time he stood at the part- 
 ing o{' the ways. As Izaak Walton said 
 of his friend. Sir Henry Wotton, ''His 
 company seemed to be one of the delights 
 of mankind." He was flattered and ca- 
 ressed, and for a time he lloated on the 
 swift current of pleasure. It would have 
 been so easy to yield to the temptations 
 of the world I But his pure, youthful 
 heart cherished other ideals. He heard 
 the voice of duty saying, "Come, follow 
 me;" and he obeyed. The path along 
 which she led was difficult. The times 
 were dark. He recognized the claim 
 which, in a democracy like ours, the 
 country has on every one of her sons for 
 the best service which he can render. 
 He had a most public soul, and he gave 
 
T W () \' \i I !•: N I) s 
 
 himself, without reserve, to the cause of 
 justice, of freedom, and of popular intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 His first books, records of impressions 
 of PZastern travel, had shown that he 
 possessed literary gifts of a high order, 
 with a style fluent, facile and elegant, 
 capable of conveying clearly the images 
 of a sensitive and poetic spirit. And the 
 books which followed them gave proof of 
 his delicate sensibilities, and quick and dis- 
 criminating perceptions. They showed 
 him to he a lover of nature and of the 
 arts, a shrewd observer of men, an acute 
 critic of life, a delicate and tender humor- 
 ist. The way of simple literary distinc- 
 tion lay open to him. He felt its charm. 
 His nature was averse to conflict. I>ut 
 the times called for strenuous action, and 
 with full con.sciousness of the attractions 
 of the ease and pleasure which he was 
 relinquishing, he turned from the pursuit 
 of literature as an end in itself, and de- 
 voted his literary gifts and accomplish- 
 ments to political and patriotic service. 
 79 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 In August, 185G, just forty years ago, 
 at the height of the struggle between the 
 forces of freedom and those of slavery 
 before the war, Mr. Curtis, then thirty- 
 two years old, delivered, at Wesleyan 
 University at Middletown, Connecticut, an 
 oration on "The Duty of the American 
 Scholar/' It was at once a profession of 
 faith and an appeal to the young scholars 
 of the land to be true to those moral 
 principles which, in a period of material 
 prosperity, are apt to be subordinated to 
 mere temporary interests. It was the 
 first of that long series of speeches which 
 secured to Mr. Curtis a place in the front 
 rank of orators. He had spoken often 
 before in public, but on this occasion he 
 found and manifested his unequivocal vo- 
 cation as a master of the art of persuasive 
 and pow^erful eloquence. To all her other 
 gifts to him Nature had added those of 
 the orator. He was of a fine presence and 
 easy grace of carriage, tall and straight; he 
 had strongly marked and expressive fea- 
 tures, with the masculine nose and long 
 80 
 
TWO F R I P: N D S 
 
 upper lip that mark the born public 
 speaker. His voice (it still echoes in our 
 ears) was of wide compass, sweet and rich 
 in tone, perfectly under control, and its 
 harmony was enhanced by his free bear- 
 ing and efTective gesture. Not often has 
 a finer instrument of speech been vouch- 
 safed to a man. 
 
 "Do you ask me," said he, in his dis- 
 course at Middletown, — "do you ask me 
 our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, as the 
 American scholar is a man, and has a 
 voice in his own government, so his inter- 
 est in political affairs must precede all 
 others. ... He must recognize that the 
 intelligent exercise of political rights, 
 which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a 
 duty in a republic. If it clash with his 
 ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, 
 let it clash, but let him do his duty. The 
 course of events is incessant, and when 
 the good deed is slighted the bad deed is 
 done. Young scholars, young Ameri- 
 cans, young men, we are all called upon 
 to do a great duty. Nobody is released 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 from it. It is a work to be done by hard 
 strokes everywhere. Brothers, the call 
 has come to us." 
 
 From the date of this oration to the 
 end of his life Mr. Curtis never put off 
 the harness or relinquished the arms of 
 public service. He took an active part in 
 the local politics of the county in which 
 he lived, he became a prominent figure in 
 the politics of the State of New York, he 
 exercised a powerful influence by voice 
 and by pen in shaping the policy of the 
 Republican party in its best years, as 
 well as of the national administration. 
 When the war came, that war which to 
 the generation born since its close 
 seems so remote, but which to us, who 
 lived through it, is in a sense always 
 present, giving poignancy to the disap- 
 pointment of many of the high-raised 
 hopes of that heroic time, — when the 
 war came, Curtis threw himself into 
 the contest with passionate zeal, — pas- 
 sionate, but not blind or irrational. In 
 the bitter sacrifices of the war he shared. 
 82 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 In 1862 one of his younger brothers fell 
 dead at Fredericksburg, at the head of 
 his regiment, thus gloriously ending a 
 stainless life of twenty-six years. His 
 brother-in-law, the fair young Colonel 
 Robert Shaw, dying at the head of his 
 black regiment in the assault on Fort 
 Sumter, and "buried with his niggers," 
 became the immortal type to all genera- 
 tions of Americans of the hero of human 
 brotherhood. Of the work which had to 
 be done at home, no less essential than 
 that in the field, no man did more, or 
 more eflfectively, than Curtis. As politi- 
 cal editor of Harper's Weekly^ he exer- 
 cised an influence not second to that of 
 any other public writer of the time in 
 shaping and confirming popular opinion 
 and sentiment. Nor did his service in 
 this respect end with the war. 
 
 Sound in judgment, with clear foresight, 
 with convictions based upon immutable 
 principles, absolutely free from motives 
 of jealousy or ignoble ambition, with no 
 personal ends to serve, neither seeking 
 83 
 
M i: M () K I A L S () 1'^ 
 
 nor dcsirini; public ollicc or other station 
 than that which he liekl, lie acquired not 
 only i^eneral public conlideiice and esteem, 
 but secured also the respect of those who 
 most widely dilVered from him. No man 
 of such inlluence, especially with the rea- 
 sonable class of his fellow citizens, could, 
 indeed, escape the enmity of selllsh politi- 
 cians whose interests he opposed and 
 Ui^^ainst wdiose schemes he contended. 
 More than once he became the object of 
 bitter denunciation. He was charged 
 with weakness, with folly, with treachery 
 to his jxirty. The charges never dis- 
 turbed his serenity, nor drew from him a 
 reply of jKission or of jiersonal retort. 
 He was indeed not open to any attack 
 that could break in on the quiet of his 
 soul or ruille the evenness ol his temper. 
 I (.lo not believe that in any controversy 
 in which he was eui^aged lie ever used an 
 ungenerous \\o\\\ or cast a personal im- 
 putation upon his opp(Mient. He did not 
 spare the base, the treacherous, and the 
 malignant, but he never dealt an unfair 
 «4 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 blow, or in the heat of conflict forgot 
 "the law in calmness made/' Words- 
 worth, in the " Character of the Happy 
 Warrior," has drawn the portrait of our 
 friend, as one — 
 
 " Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright. 
 
 Who comprehends his trust, and to the same 
 Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim ; 
 And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait 
 For wealth, or honors, or tor worldly state ; 
 Whom they must follow ; on whose head must 
 
 fall, 
 Like showers of manna, if they come at all : 
 Whose powers shed round him in the com- 
 mon strife. 
 Or mild concerns of ordinary life, 
 A constant influence, a peculiar grace." 
 
 As he, in fine, who — 
 
 " Plays in the many games of life, that one 
 Where what he most doth value must be won." 
 
 It was not, however, to service only as 
 a political writer and speaker that Mr. 
 Curtis devoted himself during his long 
 85 
 
M i: M () 111 A I. S O F 
 
 ycais of incessant toil. Month after 
 month, iVoni tlie l']asy Cvliairof ''Harper's 
 Magazine/' he was scatterin*;- broadcast 
 seeds of civiHzation which took root far 
 and wiile. In this loni;- series of brief es- 
 says treating of a thousand topics, always 
 fresli, always timely, the grace and skill 
 o[' his literaiy art were abundantly dis- 
 played, lie found here a free field for 
 the expression o( his humor, his senti- 
 ment, his fancy, his good sense, his criti- 
 cal judgment, his strong moral conyic- 
 tions, his wide sympathies. Manners and 
 cust(Miis, arts, letters, passing events, life 
 and death, all the concerns oi' men, fur- 
 nished subjects for the wise and pleasant 
 discourse in which his own delightful 
 nature was lielightfully mirrored. But 
 ephemeral in toj^ic and slight in fabric as 
 were the most of these little papers, they 
 were more than merely literary essays, — 
 they were bodies of dc>ctrine ; and it would 
 be hard to estimate too highly the inllu- 
 ence they exerted in refining the taste, 
 quickening the n\oral sensibilities, and 
 86 
 
TWO \< n \ !•: N n s 
 
 raising the standard of fcclin^'^ in a multi- 
 tude of readers wlio stood in need (d tliat 
 culture which their brief lessons were 
 eminently fitted to impart. It was an 
 incstimahle benefit to many a youth ol 
 sScant opportunities for association with 
 the best, to have this monthly intercourse 
 with such a teacher. 
 
 Conscious of his power and of his in- 
 fluence, aware that from his editor's seat 
 he was helping to shape the j)olicy of 
 parties, to mould the character and to de- 
 termine the destiny of the nation, it is not 
 strange, however surprising to men of a 
 lower order, that Mr. Curtis never sought 
 for public office, and was never tempted by 
 repeated offers of high station in the pub- 
 lic service. Most men would have found 
 it too hard to resist the charm of distinc- 
 tion, and of opportunity for the display of 
 talent upon the conspicuous field which 
 these offers opened to him. The allure- 
 ment was, indeed, great, but it was not 
 overmastering, lie comj)ared one duty 
 with another, and he chose that for which 
 «7 
 
M V M (^ R 1 A 1. S O F 
 
 experience liad proved his eoinpetenoe. 
 lie was helped in hisehoiee bv his prefer- 
 ence torsii\iple nuules ot lite, and tor quiet 
 domestic joys and social pleasutes. He 
 loved his home and his tViends too well to 
 quit tliem tor stram^e couits and brilliant 
 comjiany. And so trom vear to vear he 
 maintained tranquilly his industrious, 
 laborious, unseltish, useful career, with 
 steadv increase ot his poweis, with sieadv 
 i^rowth in the respect and regard in which 
 he was held by the public, and with the 
 ever-decpenini; love ot his triends. 
 
 Ot all the manv public questions of im- 
 portance which claimed attention in the 
 vears tollowinj^ the war, none was o( 
 •greater concern than the retorm oi the 
 civil service. The '* spoils svstem " had 
 become rooted in the practice of the i^ov- 
 ernment, both local and national, and in 
 the popular theory o( its administration. 
 This svstem, bv which public otVice was 
 held to be not a place o( trust to be 
 awarded onlv to such as were competent 
 bv character and intellii^eiu'e to discharge 
 SS 
 
'I w o I ' j< I I-: N 1) s 
 
 its duties, but a place ofemolument ^iven 
 as reward or incentive for partisan or 
 personal services, — this debasing and cor- 
 rupting system had in the course of years 
 become the source of evils which threat- 
 ened the very foundation of our institu- 
 tions. One of the least of these evils was 
 the lowering of the quality of the public 
 service and the degradation of the charac- 
 ter of the public servant. To hold public 
 office was no longer a badge of honor, 
 but a token of loss of personal indepen- 
 dence and a badge of servitude to a patron. 
 ']"he system poisoned the moral springs 
 of political effort and action; it perverted 
 the nature and the results of elections ; it 
 fostered corruption in every department of 
 the government, and tended to vitiate the 
 popular conception of the duty of a citi- 
 zen in a republic, and of the very ends for 
 which the government exists. To con- 
 tend against this system, intrenched as it 
 was behind the lines of long custom, de- 
 fended by the host of selfish, unprincipled, 
 and ignorant politicians, and openly sup- 
 
M E M O R I A L S OF 
 
 ported by both the great parties alike, 
 seemed an ahiiost hopeless task. But Mr. 
 Curtis did not shrink from the contest. 
 He had faith in the i^ood sense of the mass 
 of the people, if once they could be roused 
 from their temper of optimistic inditVer- 
 ence. The ti^ht had already be^un when 
 he entered it, but he had scarcely entered 
 it before he became its leader. 
 
 In 1S71 he was appointed by President 
 Grant upon the commission to form rules 
 for admission to the public service and 
 regulations to promote its efficiency. He 
 was made chairman of the commission, 
 and their report — the basis of all that has 
 been done in the establishment of the 
 reform — was mainly his work. But the 
 opposition to the project of reform was 
 strenuous, was persistent. The aims of 
 the reformers were often baf!led, often de- 
 feated. But they were not disheartened. 
 In 1880 the New York Civil Service Re- 
 form Association was founded ; in 1881, 
 the National League for the same end, — 
 and of both was xMr. Curtis chosen presi- 
 90 
 
T w o F H I r: N D s 
 
 dent. In both he held this oflice till his 
 death. The duties were arduous, and 
 were performed by him with consum- 
 mate fideh'ty and ability. He was a mag- 
 nificent standard-bearer. Slowly, but 
 steadily, the cause advanced. He did not 
 live to see its triumph, but he never 
 doubted that it would win the victory. 
 
 It was in the summer of 1864 that Mr. 
 Curtis first came to Ashfield. He spent 
 a few days here as my guest; but he saw 
 enough of the pleasant village, and the 
 beautiful country in which it lies, to in- 
 duce him to come back to it with his 
 family the next summer, and thenceforth 
 to make it his summer home. Resident 
 here during a good portion of each year, 
 for almost the full term of a generation, 
 his life became closely associated with that 
 of this community, and Ashfield has the 
 right to claim him as her child by adoption 
 and his own choice. 
 
 The last thirty years, which have wit- 
 nessed perhaps greater changes in the 
 world than any other similar period ever 
 91 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 knew, have brought many changes to our 
 little town. When Mr. Curtis first came 
 here it was more secluded and remote and 
 more tranquil than it is to-day. It possessed 
 much of the character of an earlier time. 
 It had, indeed, already lost a good part of 
 its population and something of that inde- 
 pendence of the rest of the world which, 
 if the ten-mile-square township had been 
 detached from the earth in the earlier years 
 of the century, and sent spinning in space 
 in an orbit of its own, would have enabled 
 it to maintain itself comfortably on its own 
 resources, mental and material. The sev- 
 enty varieties of industry which had then 
 been practised by its people had already 
 diminished by more than half. There was 
 hardly a farmhouse in which the whirr 
 of the spinning-wheel and the clash of the 
 loom was still heard. 
 
 Its little trade with the outer world was 
 still carried on mainly by the numerous ped- 
 dlers, who resorted to Mr. Bement's store, 
 as a centre from which to draw supplies 
 to replenish the stock of their inexhausti- 
 
 q2 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ble carts. The old-fashioned tavern, with 
 its long tradition of good cheer, with its 
 sanded floor and hospitable bar-room, 
 afforded accommodation to a few travel- 
 lers ; and from its stables, early every 
 morning, the coach set out on its slow 
 journey along the variously picturesque 
 road to the railroad at South Deerfield, 
 whence it returned late in the afternoon. 
 The invasion of summer boarders had not 
 begun. The Academy was in a condition 
 of suspended animation, and its old build- 
 ing was sadly out of repair. There was 
 no public library, and the subscription 
 library which had once existed, existed no 
 longer. The two Orthodox churches, sep- 
 arated only by the width of the street, but 
 divided from each other by the gulf of a 
 bitter quarrel of long standing, rang their 
 rival bells in harsh discord every Sunday, 
 and each congregation prayed for good- 
 will on earth, and devoted their schis- 
 matic brethren to eternal damnation. The 
 Hoosac Tunnel, which was to open a way 
 toward the sunset, was hardly begun, and 
 93 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 many a year was to pass before the thread 
 of electric wire should tie Ashfield to the 
 restless world beyond. For most of the 
 people life was monotonous, for many of 
 them it was, as it still is, a life of few 
 active pleasures, and of heavy toil ; and 
 many a man and woman fretting against 
 the narrow limits of the farm, and restless 
 with the dreams of a wider life, were 
 tempted to bid their little native town 
 farewell, and to try their fortunes in the 
 world which they saw in vision from the 
 mountain-top. 
 
 But Ashfield is a place where Nature is 
 beautiful, and where man, even yet, has 
 done but little to deface her beauty. Mr. 
 Curtis, lover of nature and of country 
 pleasures, was attracted by the loveliness 
 of the region ; and, tired of the bustle, the 
 interruptions, the noise, the multifarious 
 distractions of cities, was no less attracted 
 by its tranquillity and repose. He did 
 not come here to spend an idle and indo- 
 lent vacation. There was no interruption 
 in his work as editor of a journal, or as 
 94 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 active and leading participant in political 
 aflFairs. But though he sought no exemp- 
 tion from labor here, he found refreshment 
 in the fields and woods and in the placid 
 flow of the days ; he had the welcome so- 
 ciety of a few familiar friends, and he en- 
 joyed the easy and simple relations which 
 he speedily established with his neigh- 
 bors. They, in their turn, so soon as 
 their natural suspicion of a strange fa- 
 mous settler among them was overcome, 
 learned to hold him in affectionate respect. 
 They, — you, — all learned to know him as 
 one of the friendliest and most simple- 
 hearted of men, ready to take share in your 
 interests, eager to promote every object 
 for the benefit of the community, helpful 
 in difficulty, a reconciler of differences 
 among neighbors, a wise and sympathetic 
 counsellor ; kind always and generous, 
 for— 
 
 " July was in his sunny heart, 
 October in his liberal hand." 
 
 Who that has lived in Ashfield during 
 these years whose life has not been en- 
 95 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 rlched by his presence and his words ? 
 Who that attended them will forget the 
 autumn lectures which he gave annually 
 to increase the means for the purchase of 
 books for the library? Who that heard 
 his speeches at the Academy dinners, but 
 must remember them as the most eloquent 
 discourse to which he ever listened. Never, 
 not before the most brilliant audiences, 
 not before the most crowded and excited 
 assembly, did Mr. Curtis speak with more 
 splendid and impressive use of his great 
 power than in this little, bare hall of ours, 
 before the scant audience of three or four 
 hundred plain people. I recall especially 
 two occasions when he rose to such heights 
 of noble and impassioned speech as I never 
 knew him to surpass, — once when, indig- 
 nant with the base attacks made on Mr. 
 Lowell, he spoke of the character of the 
 true American, and in words that came 
 glowing from his heart, set forth his friend 
 as the living exemplar of that character ; 
 and once, when having himself been ex- 
 posed to slander, to abuse, and, worst of 
 96 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 all, to the misconstruction and misjudg- 
 ment of friends on whom he had relied, 
 he depicted with manly self-assertion the 
 duty and the position of the independent 
 in politics, in religion, or in whatever 
 field of party strife. These were memor- 
 able occasions, and it is well that they and 
 others like them, which have made this 
 modest hall one of the sacred buildings of 
 the Commonwealth, should be commem- 
 orated by a permanent record of him 
 upon its walls. 
 
 Of all the pleasures and benefits which 
 the retirement of Ashfield afforded him 
 there was perhaps none which Mr. Curtis 
 more highly valued than the opportunity 
 which the comparative leisure that he 
 found here gave to him for studious read- 
 ing, — such reading as might keep the 
 springs of his imagination fresh and full, 
 and might increase and perfect his use- 
 fulness as a public counsellor. " Histories," 
 says Bacon, " make men wise," and Cur- 
 tis was a wide reader of them. Few men 
 had a more exact acquaintance with the 
 97 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 political history ofthe United States, and 
 he was hardly less familiar with that of 
 Old England than of New. But he did 
 not confine himself to these, and the vol- 
 umes of Gibbon and of Motley stood as 
 near to his hand as those of Hume, Ma- 
 caulay, or Bancroft. Important as the 
 history of the United States may be, he 
 knew that it was not to be correctly un- 
 derstood or rightly interpreted except as 
 a small fragment of that of mankind, and 
 especially of that of the great English 
 race. He knew that such instruction in our 
 own history as is too often given in our 
 public schools was a source, not so much 
 of useful knowledge, as of dangerous 
 ignorance, illusion, and conceit. No people 
 can be exclusively bred on its own history 
 without falling into childish and barbaric 
 misconceptions as to its true place in the 
 ranks of civilized communities, and without 
 losing the benefit of those lessons, drawn 
 from the long, sad experience of man- 
 kind, upon the laying to heart of which 
 its own progress and security depend. 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 But Mr. Curtis' days here were not 
 wholly studious. The morning was for 
 work; the afternoon for a walk with 
 familiar companions, or for a long drive 
 over roads, each one of which possesses 
 its special charm of landscape, — it may be 
 the wide open view of hill and dale to 
 where Monadnock rises on the northern 
 horizon, a pyramid of Nature, the mon- 
 ument of solitary past ages to which the 
 pyramids of man seem but of yesterday, 
 or it may be where the shady road runs 
 between bright meadows whose walls are 
 the venerable records in stone of the 
 hard, laborious lives of the fathers of the 
 town. 
 
 How many are the happy evenings that 
 I recall of gay or serious talk, of poetry, 
 of music, of all the various pleasures 
 of friendliest social intercourse, and then 
 the lighted lantern, and the late Good- 
 Night ! 
 
 It was a wholesome and simple, pleas- 
 ant life. And controlling it all, diffused 
 through it, was the sweet, high, gener- 
 99 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 ous spirit of him who was its central fig- 
 ure, loving and beloved of young and old. 
 
 " That comely face, that manly brow, 
 That cordial hand, that bearing free, 
 I see them still, I see them now. 
 Shall always see ! 
 
 "And what but gentleness untired, 
 And what but noble feeling warm, 
 Wherever shown, howe'er inspired 
 Is grace, is charm?" 
 
 The path between his door and mine 
 is no longer worn as of old, the summer 
 has lost its chief delight, but Ashfield is 
 forever dearer for its memories of him ; 
 and not in my own heart only, but in all 
 our hearts, fellow-townsmen, the remem- 
 brance shall abide to quicken what is best 
 within us, to make us kinder and pleasant- 
 er to each other, more public-spirited, 
 better citizens and better men. 
 
 Even while he was alive and walking 
 with us his figure had an ideal stamp. 
 There was no need of the haze of time 
 and remoteness to give nobility to its out- 
 lines, or to bring it into the eye and pros- 
 
 lOO 
 
TWO FRIENDS 
 
 pect of our souls apparelled in more pre- 
 cious habit than it wore in daily life. The 
 actual man, our neighbor, editor of 
 " Harper's Weekly," member of political 
 conventions, occupied, as we all are, with 
 commonplace cares and duties, modest, 
 simple as the simplest, one of ourselves, — 
 he, even in the prose of life, was a poetic 
 figure, bearing himself above the dust 
 and worry of the earth, and living as a 
 denizen of a world, such as that place 
 which Plutarch says the poets feign for 
 the abode of the gods, — a secure and quiet 
 seat, free from all hazards and commo- 
 tions, untroubled with storms, unclouded, 
 and illumined with a soft serenity and a 
 pure light such as befits a blessed and im- 
 mortal nature. 
 
 Four years have passed since the death 
 of Mr. Curtis. The sense of personal be- 
 reavement and of public loss does not grow 
 less as time goes on. New questions have 
 arisen and new perils threaten us. The 
 times have grown darker. No lover of 
 his country can look forward without 
 
MEMORIALS OF 
 
 anxiety. At this moment of popular de- 
 lusion, of confusion of parties, of ex- 
 cited passions ; at this moment, when 
 only a choice of evils seems to lie be- 
 fore us, — we long to hear (alas! that we 
 should long in vain) that clear voice of 
 prudent and sagacious counsel to which 
 we were wont to listen for instruction and 
 guidance, enforcing upon the intelligence 
 and the conscience of the people the truth 
 that national safety and prosperity rest 
 securely only upon the foundation of 
 moral rectitude. 
 
 The perils that confront us are not 
 transient, nor to be overcome by a spas- 
 modic effort and the result of an elec- 
 tion. The infuriate clamor for war, the 
 eager cry for free silver and fiat money, 
 the demand for subsidy under the name 
 of protection, may be suppressed : but 
 they are only the symptoms of disease, 
 and to suppress them is no more a rem- 
 edy for the disease, than to check a fit 
 of coughing by an opiate is the remedy 
 for consumption. The disease is the 
 
 102 
 
TWO P^ R I E N D S 
 
 ignorance and the consequent lack of pub- 
 lic morality of a large part of the people 
 of our republic. To contend with this 
 ignorance, to enlighten it, and in enlight- 
 ening it to vanquish it, is our task. A 
 long, a difficult, an uncertain fight lies 
 before us. It is the fight of civilization 
 against barbarism in America. It is the 
 nev^ form of the "good old fight," fought 
 ever in different ages under different 
 names. 
 
 I was wrong just now in saying that 
 we could not hear the voice of our friend. 
 He speaks : " Whatever in human nature is 
 hopeful, generous, aspiring, — the love of 
 God and trust in man, — is arrayed on one 
 side.'' On that side he stood among the 
 foremost. On that side let us stand. 
 
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