The article on Spenser, as I have said, was the last of the series of considerable studies of great authors which Lowell had been writing for the past ten years, and he now gathered the final sheaf into a second series of “Among My Books,” which he had hoped to bring out in the fall of 1875, but which did not appear until the spring of 1876. His activity in literature, and the accumulation of his published writings, were making him more steadily a conspicuous figure and calling out appreciation and criticisms. To Mrs. Herrick, who had been collecting material for an article on him, and had applied to him for facts and dates, he wrote, 6 October, 1875, after the appearance of her article: “If I were not pleased with what you have written about me, I must indeed be _difficult_, as the French say. It is not for me to comment on your discrimination, but I cannot be insensible to the truly feminine grace and delicate fervor of sympathy which run through the whole article.... You have given me a real pleasure and a real encouragement. I have never seen any of Mr. Wilkinson’s criticisms upon me,[61] but I know no reason to suspect any personal spite. He is ludicrously wide of the mark in what he says of the early reception of my writings at home and the later in England. I never belonged to any clique here, and the highest appreciation I ever received in England (degrees from Oxford and Cambridge) were when the Geneva delegation had left a very bitter feeling against everything American. I say this only for your friendly ears. I dare say I may seem to contradict myself sometimes, for my temper of mind is such that I never have the patience to read over again what I have once printed. As for my grammar, you may be quite easy. I know quite as much about English as Mr. W. is likely to do, and inherited my grammar, which is the best way of getting it. I think (from what others have told me) that you hit the nail on the head in saying that I have a kind of ‘vitality.’ But it is not wise to discuss one’s own qualities. I will only say that if nature had made me as strong in the _driving_ as in the _conceptive_ faculties I should have done more and better. “I am glad your article is fairly over and out of the way, for now I can enjoy the pleasure of your friendship without any feeling of awkwardness. That I have been a help to you is a help to myself, and I thank you for telling me of it so frankly. “When I wrote you last I was still very far from well. I am now (though not recovered) very much better, and my wits are beginning to clear again.”