JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO EDWARD M. DAVIS My Dear Friend: ELMWOOD, July 24, 1845. If you had cast about for a hard question to ask me, you could not have been more successful than in desiring my advice in a course of reading. I suppose that very few men who are bred scholars ever think of such a thing as a course of reading after their freshman year in college. Their situation throws books constantly in their way, and they select by a kind of instinct the food which will suit their mental digestion, acquiring knowledge insensibly, as the earth gathers soil. This was wholly the case with myself. If I were in your case, I should read History. Hume and Smollett for England, Robertson for Scotland, Niebuhr and Gibbon for Rome, Mitford for Greece, Bancroft for America, Thucydides and Livy and Herodotus you can read in translations, also Tacitus. Read them always with a modern eye and note how exactly alike men have been in all ages of the world, as far as the external motives of life go. In the internal you will find a steady progress. You will see men in every age with high moral principle with inspiration. After you have once begun to read you will need no advice. One book will lead to another and that to a third. Farewell. I remain, with true love, your friend, From Letters of James Russell Lowell. J. R. L. X. LETTERS OF APPRECIATION 1. Of Music SIDNEY LANIER TO HIS WIFE (Extracts) 1874. To-day I played for the great Dr. Damrosch, and won him. I sang the Wind Song to him. When I finished he came and shook my hand, and said it was done like an artist: that it was wonderful, in view of my education; and that he was greatly astonished and pleased with the poetry of the piece and the enthusiasm of its rendering. He then closed the door on his next pupil, and kept him waiting in the front parlor a half-hour, while giving me a long talk. I had told him that I wished to pursue music. He said, “Do you know what that means? It means a great deal of work; it means a thousand sacrifices. It is very hazardous." I replied, I knew all that; but it was not a matter of mere preference, it was a spiritual necessity, I must be a musician, I could not help it. This seemed to please him; and he went on to speak as no other musician here could speak, of many things. He is the only poet among the craft here; and is a thoroughly cultivated man, in all particulars. He offered to do all he could in my behalf; and was, altogether, the gentleman and the wise artist. NEW YORK, August 15, 1870. Ah, how they have belied Wagner! I heard Theodore Thomas's orchestra play his overture to Tannhäuser. The "Music of the Future" is surely thy music and my music. Each harmony was a chorus of pure aspirations. The sequences flowed along, one after another, as if all the great and noble deeds of time had formed a procession and marched in review before one's ears, instead of one's eyes. These "great and noble deeds" were not deeds of war and statesmanship, but majestic victories of inner struggles of a man. This unbroken march of beautiful-bodied triumphs irresistibly invites the soul of a man to create other processions like it. I would I might lead a so magnificent file of glories into heaven. MACON, GA., March 3, 1870. If the year were an orchestra, to-day would be the calm-passionate, even, intense, quiet, full, ineffable flute therein. In this sunshine one is penetrated with flute-tones. The passion of the struggling births of a thousand spring-germs mingles itself with the peaceful smiles of the heavens and with the tender agitation of the air. It is a mellow sound, with a shimmer of light trembling through it. To-day is a prophecy of the new earth: as Music is a prophecy of another life. To-day floats down Time as one petal of a Lily on the bosom of a swift stream, silently it tells, at once, of the gap it has left in the full Lily, and of the ocean whither it drifts to be engulfed, to die, and to live again in other forms. To-day comes as a friend with some serene great joy in his eyes. He whispers his sacred exultation: and will not speak it aloud, for its holiness. From The Letters of Sidney Lanier. 2. Of Nature MARIA WHITE TO MRS. HAWTHORNE (Extracts) Is not June the crown of the year, the Carnival of Nature, when the trees pelt each other with blossoms, and are stirring and bending when no wind is near them, because they are so full of inward life, and must shiver for joy to feel how fast the sap is rushing up from the ground? On such days can you sing anything but "Oh, beautiful love?" Doesn't it seem as if Nature wore your livery and wished to show the joy of your heart in every possible form? The everlasting hum and seething of myriad life satisfies and soothes me. I feel as if something were going on in the world, else why all this shouting, and bedecking of every weed in its best, this endless strain from every tiny weed or great oaken flute? All that can not sing, dances; the gnats in the air and the long-legged spider on the water. Even the ants and beetles, the workers that are quoted for examples by hoarding men, run about doing nothing, putting their busy antennæ into everything, tumbling over the brown mold for sheer enjoyment, and running home at last without the little white paper parcel in their mouths which gives them so respectable an air. Doubtless the poor things are scolded by their infirm parents, who sit sunning themselves at the door of their house. Beetles seem to me to have a pleasant life, because they, who have fed for two or three years underground upon the roots, come forth at last winged, and find their nourishment in the blooms of the very same tree. It comforts me, because we have ourselves to eat many bitter roots here, whose perfect flower shall one day delight us. This, dear Sophia, has been a long ramble. I promised to copy that sonnet of James's for you, so I enclose it. With true sympathy and love, Affectionately yours, MARIA WHITE. By permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. From Memories of Hawthorne, by Rose Hawthorne WILLIAM COWPER TO JOHN JOHN, ESQUIRE My Dearest Johnny: WESTON, March 11, 1792. You talk of primroses that you pulled on Candlemas day; but what think you of me who heard a |