Formerly, dinner-parties and balls were his pet aversions, as one might suspect from his poem "Without and Within:"-- "My coachman, in the moonlight there, Looks through the sidelight of the door; I hear him with his brethren swear, As I could do,--but only more. "Flattening his nose against the pane, He envies me my brilliant lot; Blows on his aching fists in vain, And dooms me to a place more hot. * * * * * "Meanwhile, I inly curse the bore Of hunting still the same old coon; And envy him outside the door, In golden quiets of the moon. "I envy him the ungyved prance By which his freezing feet he warms, And drag my lady's chain and dance,-- The galley-slave of dreary forms. "Oh, could he have my share of din, And I his quiet!--past a doubt, 'T would still be one man bored within, And just another bored without." But he was always fond of good company, and collected around him in Cambridge, in the old days, a brilliant circle of congenial friends. Of these, Longfellow, and Professor Felton, and Agassiz, and Dr. Estes Howe his brother-in-law, were perhaps the closest; but John Holmes and Edmund Quincy and Robert Carter were very warm friends,--members of the famous Whist Club, and royal companions all. Dr. Holmes was not far away, and always a constant visitor at Cambridge; and James T. Fields was a cherished friend. William Page, the painter, and W. W. Story, the sculptor, were also among his earlier friends. It was to the latter that the series of letters collected under the title of "Fireside Travels" were addressed. But there is scarcely a man of note in the literary world whom he has not known in the course of his life; and he has made friends of nearly all he has known. He has been a busy worker, too, all his life,--industrious, concentrated, and indefatigable. A man who could write the whole of "Sir Launfal" in two days knows how to toil, and has been accustomed to concentrate his faculties. Mr. Lowell has an utter disbelief in the materialistic theory of the Universe, and expresses it many times in his later poems. He at least-- "envies science not her feat To make a twice-told tale of God." And to his reverential eyes-- "The Ages one great minster seem, That throbs with praise and prayer." And his hope for the world is expressed in "Godminster Chimes," where he says:-- "O chime of sweet Saint Charity, Peal soon that Easter morn When Christ for all shall risen be, And in all hearts new born! That Pentecost when utterance clear To all men shall be given, When all shall say _My Brother_ here, And hear _My Son_ in heaven!" Of his own personal trust he gives a picture in "Sea-Weed:"--