vice. . .

You cannot imagine how interested they [Mr.

and Mrs. Derby] both are in the subject I have been writing you upon, - my nearest friends cannot feel more, they have witnessed the whole progress, and if you knew them, would be convinced they would not have let me act improperly, they both approve my conduct. I wish my Father would write to Mr. Derby and know what he says of Mr. B.'s character. I don't know but 'tis a subject too delicate to give his opinion, but I can conceive that my Father might request it without impropriety. . . . I long to hear from home. My love to all my friends, and believe me, with every sentiment of duty and affection, your daughter ELIZA

Martha sent me a most elegant Indispensable, white lutestring spangled with silver, and a beautiful bracelet for the arm made of her hair; she is too good- to love me as she says, more than ever.

In spite of ignorance, Mr. Longfellow admires Mr. Sumner's speech

NEV

January 27, 1870

[EVER having dealt with any other figures than figures of speech; never having known the difference between a bank-note and a greenback; never having suspected that there was any difference between them, you can imagine with what a dark-lantern I have read your speech on the Refunding and Consolidation of the National Debt.

I am as capable of forming an idea of it as a gentleman was the other day of estimating a lovely little Albani's Europa" which I showed him, when he said, "A chromolithograph, I presume."

66

However, I have faith in you; and faith is "the evi

having it, one must have seen something or other which inspires it. This is just my case. Having known you so wise and far-seeing in other matters, I believe you to be in this. . .

"No time like the old time"

(Charles Sumner to Henry W. Longfellow)

AT YOUR HOME, Sunday, Aug. 8, 1847

EARLY BELOVED HENRY,

DE

I came here yes

terday morning, and am monarch of all I survey; my right there is none to dispute. I seize a moment in the lull of the grinding labor of committing my address to memory, to send you and Fanny a benediction. I wander through the open rooms of your house, and am touched by an indescribable feeling of tenderness at the sight of those two rooms where we have mused and mourned so often together. Joy has washed from your mind those memories, but they cling to me still. I looked at the place where stood the extempore cot bedstead. I hope that is preserved; if I ever have a home of my own, I shall claim it as an interesting memorial. Then the places where we have sat and communed, and that window-seat, — all seemed to speak to me with soft voices. Most sacred is that room to me, more so than any other haunt of my life. I remember all your books as they then looked upon me gently from the shelves. Have you forgotten the verses of Suckling which we once read together? I leave for Amherst on Tuesday, and shall be back on Friday. Let me have a note from you or Fanny. I wish I were not quite so sad as I am disposed to be. Felton says my address is very fine. Howe says it will astonish by its practical character. It is more plain, less ornate, than the

others. Its title is "Fame and Glory." I have said nothing, however, which your "Psalm of Life" does not embody. One touch upon your harp sounds louder and longer than all I can do.

"No friends like our old friends'

C. S.

(James Russell Lowell to William Wetmore Story)

ELMWOOD, Sept. 25th, 1849

Y DEAR WILLIAM, . . There is one of your

MY

foreign experiences which I grudge you, only one which I envy, and that is the meeting with F. H. If he be still within reach of voice or letter, give him my love, fresh as ever after so many years' silence - nay, seeming all the fresher, like a flower upon a grave. Yet for that buried friendship I live in the faith of a joyful resurrection - and in the body. Here I sit alone this chilly September morning, with the rain just beginning to rattle on the roof, and the writing of his name has sent my heart back to the happy hopeful past when one was capable of everything because one had not yet tried anything. The years have taught me some sharp and some sweet wiser than this, to keep the old friends. its value to a friendship as to a tree, with no effort and no merit of ours. The lichens upon the bark, which the dandyfiers of Nature would scrape away, even the dead limbs here and there, are dear and sacred to us. Every year adds its compound interest of association and enlarges the circle of shelter and of shade. It is good to plant them early, for we have not the faith to do it when we are old. I write it sadly and with tears in my eyes. Later friends

none

lessons Every year adds

drink our lees, but the old ones drank the clear wine at

Auld Lang Syne

Who knew us when we were witty?

the brim of our cups. who when we were wise? who when we were green? . .

William Wetmore Story recalls the days lang syne (To James Russell Lowell)

MY

ROME, December 10th, 1864

Y DEAR JAMES,-I was taken ill a month ago at Paris, and while I was lying on my bed E. read to me your delightful book of "Fireside Travels," which I was fortunate enough to procure from London. As she read it all the old days revived, all the old passages of love and hope and joy which we have known together came before me, and my heart yearned toward you as to one of the oldest and best loved of all my old friends. For years our correspondence has ceased — why I know not; but my affection has never wavered for a moment, and I've eagerly sought from all who had seen you news and information about you and yours. But as I read your book—so genial, so rich in humour and fancy—I seemed as it were to be again talking with you, and I determined, as soon as I should be well and have a half hour of unoccupied time, to write and break this long silence, and thank you for the kindly mention of me which is scattered through your book, and for the dedication of it to me. I hear that there is a sonnet or some verses prefixed to the American edition, but this I have not seen, as it is omitted in the English edition.

How I wish you were again here as in the olden times, and that we again could wander about the streets of the city and through the mountain towns, or sit long evenings before the fire late into the night and talk as we used to do. There is one great drawback to me in my Roman life, and that is the want of some friend with whom I can thoroughly

sympathize and whom I can meet on the higher ranges of art and literature. For the most part, and with scarcely an exception among the American artists, art is (here) but a money-making trade, and I can have no sympathy with those who are artists merely to make their living. As for general culture there are none of our countrymen here who pretend to it, and I hunger and thirst after some one who might be to me as you were. But nobody makes good the place of old friends. We are knitted together with our youth as we never can be in our older age. . . . Has the wild love of travel gone out of your blood as it has out of mine? Are you growing respectable, solemn, professorial and dignified? I figure you to myself sometimes as sitting in the academic robes on the platform at Commencement, and cannot but smile as I see you there. Once in a while I hear your trumpet sound through the columns of the "Atlantic" or "North American," and more rarely I read some new poem. But why are the poems so rare? Do not let the dust of the University drop too thickly upon you. Do not yoke Pegasus down into the professor's harYou see I have not touched your hand and heard your voice for so long that I cannot do more than grope after you in the dark, wondering about you and fearing and hoping, and getting perhaps everything wrong.

ness.

This year I thought of going to America and seeing the old places again. But I hate to travel, and the expense, added to my dislike of worry, prevented me. Besides, I was not quite well in England, and loved better to lounge on the lawn at Mount Felix than to be tossed on the restless and roaring ocean but it is just possible that next year I may brace myself up to this terrible voyage, and then I shall see you. If I do come I hope to bring with to show as token of how I have spent

me some statue

...