Again, it is evident from the comparison that Lowell’s direct address in speaking to his class from the written lecture was in form of sentences little different from what he used when writing for the public. In each case, his spontaneity was uppermost; he was not especially aware, as he wrote, either of audience or of readers. In revising his articles for book publication he altered the impersonal _we_ of the reviewer to the _I_ of the author, and in doing so merely strengthened the natural voice in which he spoke. Such papers as “A Good Word for Winter,” or “My Garden Acquaintance,” are scarcely more direct in the relation of author and reader than are those papers which have the external form of book reviews. It was the personality of the man at home in a hospitable manner that found this expression, and just as some of his happiest letters were written to persons whom he scarcely knew, but happened to be called out by some apt occasion, so he wrote and lectured, except on the most formal themes, with a freedom which was neither disturbed nor excited by audience or readers. One may notice a difference in this respect between the political papers and the literary essays. The _I_ scarcely is at home in the former. The Dante Club had finished its task, and Longfellow’s translation was published in 1867. The affectionate relation between the two men found more than one poetic expression during their long neighborly existence, and when Longfellow’s sixtieth birthday occurred in 1867 Lowell wrote a poem, and printed it in the daily paper which he knew would be laid on Longfellow’s breakfast-table. On the appearance of the Dante he wrote, with Mr. Norton, a joint review which appeared in the _North American_. Of his own brief part he wrote in humorous dismay to his collaborator: “I could only wish that the latter part had been more critical if it were but for Longfellow’s sake. It’s lucky, perhaps, that I got almost crazy over the insertion I was to make in it, or I should have rushed into the thing myself--for, though I think his version (as you know) truly admirable, there are some things to be questioned in it. However, all the better that I couldn’t. I say I was almost crazy. You see I went up to Shady Hill--picking up Longfellow on the way and it was _very_ hot, and I brought away an armful of translations, just cutting out Howells, who was on the same errand. I came home with my prize, wet through with the only sure result of all earthly toils, and began to compare. Good heavens! I had Cayley and Ford, and Dayman and Ramsay (and lots of others that made me ’d--’ say), and Brooksbank and Wright, and last Rossetti. Well, I addled my brains over ’em--my tables were heaped, my floor stumbly with my a-versions, as I called them when I looked _at_ them, my in-versions when I read them. Now, to begin with, I have read Dante so much that I can’t remember a line of him--in short, ’twas _infandum renovare dolorem_.