be satisfied with remarking that side of an object which happens to catch our eye first when we first see it-these gradually make an observer. The faculty, once acquired, becomes at length another sense which works. mechanically.

I think I have sometimes noticed in you an impatience of mind which you should guard against carefully. Pin this maxim up in your memory-that Nature abhors the credit system, and that we never get anything in life till we have paid for it. Anything good, I mean; evil things we always pay for afterwards, and always when we find it hardest to do it. By paying for them, of course, I mean laboring for them. Tell me how much good solid work a young man has in him, and I will erect a horoscope for him as accurate as Guy Mannering's for young Bertram. Talents are absolutely nothing to a man except he have the faculty of work along with them. They, in fact, turn upon him and worry him, as Acteon's dogs did-you remember the story? Patience and perseverance-these are the sails and the rudder even of genius, without which it is only a wretched hulk upon the waters.

It is not fair to look a gift horse in the mouth, unless, indeed, it be a wooden horse, like that which carried the Greeks into Troy; but my lecture on patience and finish was apropos of your letter, which was more careless in its chirography and (here and there) in its composition than I liked. Always make a thing as good as you can. Otherwise it was an excellent letter, because it told what you had seen and what you were doing -certainly better as a letter than this of mine, which is

rather a sermon. But read it, my dear Charlie, as the advice of one who takes a sincere interest in you. I hope to hear from you again, and my answer to your next shall be more entertaining.

I remain your loving uncle,

J. R. LOWELL.

TO JAMES T. FIELDS

Elmwood, Oct. 14, 1849.

My dear Sir,— ... The reason I did not sooner answer your first note was, that I have an unfortunate unconsciousness of the lapse of time. I believe that I was born after my seasonable date, and that I was meant for an Antediluvian, for a month seems no more to me than the while between getting up and breakfast. I had a notion of writing something new for your "Book," and kept turning over in my head an essay upon Commencement as it used to be, till-behold, October!

As for "The First Client," I have read it over, and I confess it seems to me pretty poor stuff. I think something more creditable to me as a moral and intellectual being (as Dr. Ware used to say) might be selected.

Why can't you come out some afternoon and spend an evening with me? Say Monday. If you find it dull, you can escape in the omnibus, or, if you please, I can give you a bed and you can have a country morning before you are bricked up again in Boston.

* Mr. Fields was editing "The Boston Book," made up of a selection from the writings of Boston authors. "The First Client" was the name of a short story by Lowell, published originally in 1842, in the Boston Miscellany.

We can talk over that and other matters by the light of a cigar. I will be at home Monday, at any rate, and you would be pretty sure to find me any afternoon but Wednesday.

I remain very sincerely (and dilatorily)
Your friend,

J. R. LOWELL.

TO MRS. FRANCIS G. SHAW

Elmwood, Nov. 25, 1849.

.. I am glad you like my poems. I wish I didthat is, I wish they were better. And I think they will be one of these days when I have written better ones to cast back an enlightening glow on the old. But I am not flattered by your liking. You like them because Page does, and, between ourselves, that is his weakest point, as you, I see, with your woman's wit have discovered. Page is wiser than you, and likes them because he knows I am better than they, which you do not. . . .

TO C. F. BRIGGS

Elmwood, Nov. 25, 1849.

My new edition will be out about the 10th of December, and I think that with Ticknor's publishing I shall, for the first time, make something by my poems. I shall clear at least $100 by the first edition, and every subsequent one will be clear gain, as I shall have no expense about the plates. I expect to publish a wholly new volume in May, about which I shall write you in some other letter. I write this in haste, merely to show that I have not forgotten nor ceased to love you.

How soon I shall come to New York is uncertain. I am expecting a visit from Miss Bremer. Mr. Downing wrote me a note, saying how much she, etc., etc., about me, and so Maria wrote and asked her to tarry with us a short time. She wrote a charming letter in reply, and will be with us in the course of next week. . . .

I think you will find my poems improved in the new edition. I have not altered much, but I have left out the poorest and put others in their places. My next volume, I think, will show an advance. It is to be called "The Nooning." Now guess what it will be. The name suggests pleasant thoughts, does it not? But I shall not tell you anything about it yet, and you must not mention it. . . .

TO SYDNEY H. GAY

Elmwood, Dec. 22, 1849.

Print that as if you loved it. Let not a comma be blundered. Especially I fear they will put “gleaming" for "gloaming" in the first line unless you look to it. May you never have the key which shall unlock the whole meaning of the poem to you!...

* The design for a volume with this title was not carried out, though cherished for many years. See the prefatory note to "Fitzadam's Story" in "Heartsease and Rue."

"The First Snow-Fall."

III 1850-1856

DOMESTIC SORROW AND JOY.-VISIT TO EUROPE. DEATH OF HIS SON AT ROME.-DECLINE OF MRS. LOWELL'S HEALTH. -RETURN TO AMERICA.-DEATH OF MRS. LOWELL.LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH POETS. APPOINTMENT TO PROFESSORSHIP IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.-SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE.

LETTERS TO C. F. BRIGGS, E. M. DAVIS, S. H. GAY, FRANCIS G. SHAW, C. E. NORTON, MISS ANNA LORING, F. H. UNDERWOOD, MISS JANE NORTON, W. J. STILLMAN, JAMES T. FIELDS, JOHN HOLMES, DR. ESTES HOWE, MRS. ESTES HOWE.

THE happiness of Lowell's domestic life was a second time rudely broken in upon by the death of his little daughter Rose, in the spring of 1850—just three years after the death of her sister Blanche. These sorrows told heavily upon him, and still more upon his wife, whose health was always delicate and uncertain. They were made happy, at the end of the year, by the birth of a son, Walter, who became soon a child of uncommon loveliness and promise. Their circumstances were now such that they resolved to go to Europe in the summer of 1851, not without hope that the voyage and travel would be of benefit to Mrs. Lowell. Except to his father, Lowell wrote few letters during their absence. Some record