Any one who will look to-day at that picture will see that there could hardly be a more felicitous characterization of it than in these three words; but it was fancied at the time, most gratuitously, that she meant it for a hit at Longfellow himself; and hence followed a very needless irritation, which fortunately the amiable poet did not greatly share.
In regard to Lowell, the case was a little different, and her tone was blunter, though equally free from all personal grudge. She had welcomed very cordially his first volume of poems in the “Dial;” and again in 1845, when reviewing his “Conversations” in the “Tribune,” had taken pains to do him justice while pointing out, as in the case of Longfellow, that she felt bound to resist a certain tone of exaggeration in his admirers. She wrote of him: —
“He shows great justness of feeling, delicacy of perception, comprehensive views; and, for this country, an unusual refinement and extent of culture. We have been accustomed to hear Mr. Lowell so extravagantly lauded by the circle of his friends, that we should be hopeless of escaping the wrath of his admirers, for any terms in which our expressions of sympathy could be couched, but for the more modest and dignified tone of his own preface, which presents ground on which the world at large can meet him. With his admirers, we have often been reminded of a fervent Italian who raved at one of our country-women as ‘a heartless girl,’ because she would not go to walk with him alone at midnight. But Mr. Lowell himself speaks of his work as becomes one conversant with those of great and accomplished minds.”
