SOME LITERARY QUERIES AND ANSWERS.

By HARRIET L. MASON, A.M.,

Professor of English Literature, Drexel Institute, Philadelphia.

QUERIES.

1. To what sad family affliction does Lowell's poem, 'The Darkened Mind," refer?

2. What event was it which gave the seriousness and earnestness to Lowell's life and saved him, perhaps, from being something of a dilettante?

3. What poem of Longfellow's refers to Lowell's wife's death? 4. What important magazines did Lowell edit?

5. How did the English people look upon Lowell during his residence in England as American minister?

6. What famous poem of Lowell's was written in forty-eight hours, without food or sleep?

7. What poems of Lowell's, that will fix forever in literature the Yankee dialect, made it respectable to be on the side of freedom?

8. What was the poem that the sculptor William Wetmore Story came purposely from Rome to hear Lowell deliver?

9. What is the rank of this poem, and what personal losses sustained by the poet made its utterance deeply impressive? 10. How does Lowell speak of Lincoln?

11. Upon what subject, usually a favourite with poets, does Lowell touch upon perhaps only once in his poems?

12. What has been said of Lowell's literary style in his communications to the government during his long years of political service?

13. What poem, written to fill a vacant page in "The Biglow Papers," is a Yankee idyl without a counterpart?

14. What charming evidence of Lowell's popularity and of his delightful grace in letter-writing is on record?

15. With respect to what poem, a memorial of his child, did Lowell say to the printers: "Print that as if you loved it. Let not a comma be blundered "?

16. What exquisite tribute to the poet's love for his wife is to be found in Lowell's poem, "The Dead House "?

17. How has England honoured Lowell's memory?

18. What poem of Lowell's, exquisite and haunting, hints at the doctrine of preëxistence?

66

19. What has been said of Lowell to illustrate the fact that, though a man of culture, of books, he was near to nature's heart"?

20. What poem of Lowell's, first published anonymously, was, on account of its fire, attributed to Whittier?

ANSWERS.

1. To the fact that the poet's mother, from whom he inherited his poetic and imaginative faculties, lost her mental power.

2. His marriage to Maria White, who turned his life into the strong movement of the time-abolition.

3. "The Two Angels." The night of Mrs. Lowell's death a child was born to Longfellow.

4. He was the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and then, with Charles Eliot Norton, for ten years the editor of the North American Review.

5. He won the respect and admiration of everybody. He was popular in social and public life and his patriotism was note

worthy. Gladstone's adoption of his home-rule policy was hastened by Lowell's influence over him when in England.

6. "The Vision of Sir Launfal," his best-known poem-famous for its contrasted pictures of summer and winter.

66

7. "The Biglow Papers." Hosea Biglow" was Lowell's pseudonym. These poems stamped Lowell once for all as an original poet.

8. "The Harvard Commemoration Ode," delivered near the college grounds after an address by General Meade, the hero of Gettysburg.

9. It is the classic poem of the Civil War, most noble and strong-the greatest national poem. Lowell had lost three favourite nephews in the war, and Colonel Shaw, leader of the first coloured regiment ever formed, whose monument has just been erected in Boston, was another relative.

10. See "The Harvard Commemoration Ode":

For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true."

II. "Pictures of Appledore" contains almost Lowell's only mention of the sea.

12. Not one of his communications was devoid of literary merit. "If there were many such dispatches written 'blue books' would be as popular as three-volume novels."

13. "The Courtin'":

"Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru' the winder.”

14. When Lowell was in London Lord Granville invited him to dine, and apologised in his note for sending such short notice "to the most engaged man in London." Lowell replied: “The most engaged man' is very glad to dine with the most engaging.” 15. "The First Snow-Fall."

16.

""Twas just a womanly presence,

An influence unexprest;

But a rose she had worn, on my grave sod,

Were more than long life with the rest!"

17. There was a memorial service at Westminster Abbey, and in 1893 a memorial window was put in the Chapter House of the Abbey.

18.

19.

In the Twilight":

66

Sometimes a breath floats by me,

An odour from Dreamland sent,
That makes the ghost seem nigh me

Of a splendour that came and went;
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
In what diviner sphere,

Of memories that stay not and go not,
Like music heard once by an ear

That cannot forget or reclaim it."

"He never lost the thrill of being out of doors."

20. "The Present Crisis":

"Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the desperate

winter sea,

Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key."

16

READERS' AND STUDENTS' NOTES.

1. Critics are not wholly agreed as to Lowell's place in literature, either as a poet or as a critic, though in each respect his rank is universally admitted to be high. Both his poetic work and his prose work lack an exactness and accuracy of finish, and oftentimes a fit proportion and artistic unity, which keep them from being of the very highest rank. Nevertheless, much of Lowell's work, both in prose and verse, is among the most notable yet written by an American, and a knowledge of the writings of no author is more indispensable to the student, or to the reader who wishes to feel assured that he is acquainted with American literature.

2. As a poet, Lowell occupied several wholly different sorts of ground, not often cultivated by one and the same person. He was a humourist, a satirist, a poet of nature, a poet of reflection, a poet of patriotism, and a poet of ethical and religious inspiration. The reader can scarcely believe that the same person wrote "The Courtin'" and the Commemoration Ode"; "The Changeling" and "What Mr. Robinson Thinks."

66

3. A great writer should always be studied first with reference to the work he produced that made most impression upon his fellow-countrymen at the time he produced it. This is the course we recommended in the case of Whittier. We would recommend it just as strongly in the case of Lowell. The work of Lowell's that produced most contemporaneous effect upon his fellowcountrymen was undoubtedly The Biglow Papers." Few