Bundle of typescript letters of James Russell Lowell to his cousin, Florence Russell,daughter...

Bundle of typescript letters of James Russell Lowell to his cousin, Florence Russell,daughter of Maj. Gen. Lechmere Coore Russell of Ashford Hall near Ludlow.

From Elmwood,14 February 1854

He asks her forgiveness for not writing before, as he has been very depressed. Miss Dunlap the governess is pretty, and Mabel (his daughter) is already fond of her. The winter in Vermont and New Hampshire has been intensely cold, with huge drifts of snow. He has little social life, but dines with literary men sometimes. He is writing pot-boilers to get money,and is making a little book out of his European experiences.

Elmwood,25 April, 1855

He has been giving a lecture tour,and found the lectures hard to write and even harder to give. He has been lecturing 4 times a week for six weeks,and has just returned from the West,which he hated, finding it like a bad steak "the outside done and the inside raw and all tough". The people, however, are manly and hospitable. He has been appointed Professor in Longfellow's place, and is to go abroad for a year to study.

From Paris, 18 October, 1855

He sympathises with her for the dullness of Shropshire Society. He has been studying French, German and Spanish, the latter with a young Castilian who is learning English, or rather American, in return. His nephew Alfred has just died in Italy of cholera, after 2 days illness.

Dresden,25 December, 1855.

He thanks her for the letter,and the stamps.

He dislikes his position as professor and, feels it is like a trap which he cannot escape. He is learning to speak and write German nearly as fast as English, and is continuing his studies of human nature.

Paris, 3 June, 1873

He hopes to come to England,and to see her when he comes to the Commemoration at Oxford. He is sorry to hear of her losses in Virginia, but cannot think what led her to invest there in the first place.

He is finding Paris quite delightful and they have just passed through a Revolution "as quietly as going to bed".