Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL _A BIOGRAPHY_ BY HORACE ELISHA SCUDDER IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I [Illustration: J.R. Lowell; _Mr. Lowell in 1889_] JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL A Biography BY HORACE ELISHA SCUDDER IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. [Illustration: The Riverside Press] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1901 COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HORACE E. SCUDDER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PUBLISHED NOVEMBER, 1901 TO G·O·S· “NAUGHT CAN BE UNWORTHY, DONE FOR YOU.” PREFACE The existence of the two volumes of _Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by Charles Eliot Norton_, has determined the character of this biography. If they had not been published, I might have made a _Life and Letters_ which would have been in the main Lowell’s own account of himself, in his voluminous correspondence, annotated only by such further account of him as his letters failed to supply. As it is, though I have had access to a great many letters not contained in Mr. Norton’s work, I have thought it desirable not so much to supplement the _Letters_ with other letters, as to complement those volumes with a more formal biography, using such letters or portions of letters as I print for illustration of my subject, rather than as the basis of the narrative. I have kept the _Letters_ always by my side as my main book of reference; by the courtesy of their editor and by arrangement with their publishers, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, I have now and then drawn upon them where it seemed especially desirable that Lowell should speak for himself, but their greatest use to me has been in their disclosure of Lowell’s personality, for they undoubtedly contain the cream of his correspondence. I have, however, had other important material for my use. First of all, Lowell’s collected writings in verse and prose, and some uncollected writings, both in print and manuscript. After all that a biographer can do, after all that Lowell himself can do through his letters, the substantial and enduring revelation of the man is in that free converse which he had with the world in the many forms which his literary activity took.