Yet all this time, with his frugal living and his vain effort to be even with the world, he could not refrain from obeying his generous impulses. His gift of “A Fable for Critics” to Briggs illustrates this spirit, and a passage in one of his letters shows the secret giver who is perhaps a little more lovable in the eyes of the Lord than the cheerful public one. Mr. Briggs had written to him 16 November, 1849: “On Monday evening Page and I were at Willis’s house, and in the course of a conversation about Poe, Willis mentioned that you had written him a very pleasant letter about Poe, and enclosed something really handsome for Mrs. Clemm. ‘I could not help thinking,’ said Willis, ‘that if Lowell had known what Poe wrote to me about him just previous to his death, he would hardly have been so liberal.” “What a contemptible idea of me Willis must have,” Lowell replied, “to think that anything Poe might say of me would make any difference in my feeling pity for his poor mother-in-law. I confess it does not raise my opinion of Willis. I knew before as well as I know now, that Poe must have been abusing me, for he knew that ever since his conduct toward you about the _Broadway Journal_ I had thought meanly of him. I think Willis would hardly care to see some letters of Poe to me in which _he_ is spoken of. My ‘pleasant letter’ to W. was about ten lines, rather less than more I fancy, and my ‘generous donation’ was five dollars! I particularly requested of him that it should be anonymous, which I think a good principle, as it guards us against giving from any unworthy motive. That Willis should publish it at the street corners only proves the truth of Swift’s axiom that any man may gain the reputation of generosity by £20 a year spent judiciously.” When Hawthorne lost his place in the Salem Custom House, Lowell with other of his friends made active effort to set him on his feet. He wrote to Mr. Duyckinck, 13 January, 1850: “Perhaps you know that Hawthorne was last spring turned out of an office which he held in the Salem Custom House, and which was his sole support. He is now, I learn, very poor, and some money has just been raised for him by his friends in this neighborhood. Could not something be also done in New York? I know that you appreciate him, and that you will be glad to do anything in your power. I take it for granted that you know personally all those who would be most likely to give. I write also to Mr. O’Sullivan, who is a friend of Hawthorne’s, but am ignorant whether he is now in New York. Of course Hawthorne is entirely ignorant that anything of the kind is going on, and it would be better that ‘a bird in the air’ should seem to have carried the news to New York, and that if anything be raised, it should go thence, directly, as a spontaneous gift.”