James Russell Lowell and His Friends by Edward Everett Hale

Lowell's whole life was a literary life, from the days of the "Boston Miscellany" and of the "Pioneer. " And I am well aware that these notes will be read with a certain special interest by young people who are asking themselves whether literature, as such, offers "a career" to those who are entering upon life.

It required much more resolution to determine on such a career in America in 1841 than it does now. I will attempt, therefore, in this paper, to bring together such illustrations of Lowell's life as a man of letters as we may have room for, which do not specially connect themselves with the political history of the times, or with his special work as a professor in Harvard College.