Chapter VI: The Brothers and Sisters

There was an inner circle of companionship, in which Lowell enjoyed the entire love of all the others, some record of which is necessary if we would begin to understand even the outside of his life at that time. I find it hard to determine how far I shall put on paper the memories of this circle. I know very well that it is easy to say too little and easy to say too much.

In college life, especially in their senior year, five of the young men in this company had lived at Cambridge in the closest intimacy. These were Lowell, William Wetmore Story, John Gallison King, William Abijah White, and my brother Nathan. There is no need of saying how this intimacy grew up. White and King were cousins. Story and Lowell were both Cambridge boys, and had been at Wells’s school together. Lowell and Hale were together in Alpha Delta and in “Harvardiana.” So far I need not try to distinguish this company from companies of college seniors such as many of my readers have known.

But there was a distinction, unique so far as I have seen, in the fact that four of these young men had sisters of nearly their own age, all charming young women, whose tastes, interests, and studies were precisely the same as their brothers’, and whose complete intimacy and tender, personal, self-sacrificing love for each other was absolute. I am asked by a friend whom I consult with regard to this narrative to say, what I had not said at first but what is true, that they were of remarkable personal beauty. No girls ever lived with one heart and one soul in more complete union and harmony than these five. They were Anna Maria White, who married Lowell; Mary Story, who married George Ticknor Curtis; Augusta Gilman King and Caroline Howard King, and Sarah Everett Hale. In their personal talk, in their constant letters, they spoke of themselves as “The Band.” But I need not say that where there was such an intimacy as theirs, or where there was such an intimacy as their brothers’, the brothers and the sisters were equally intimate. The home of each was the home of all. These homes were in Boston, Watertown, Cambridge, and Salem. Lowell was made as intimate in each of these homes as he was in his own father’s house. Among all these ten there was the simplest and most absolute personal friendship.

While the girls called this association “The Band,” the boys were more apt to call it “The Club.” Not that it ever had any place of meeting, any rules, any duties, or any other conditions of any club that was ever heard of; but that, generally speaking, where one of them was, there was another. If one had money, all had it. If one had a book, all had it. If one went to Salem to a dance, the probability was that all five went; what was certain was that two or three went. If, at the party, one of the young men was bored by a German _savant_ or by a partner he could not leave, he made a secret signal, and one of the others came to the rescue. And so of their sisters.

I am able to speak of the ladies of this group with the more freedom because four of them died in early life. Maria White married Lowell. Mary Story, afterwards Mary Curtis, died in May, 1848. Augusta King and my sister died unmarried.

Whenever they met at Salem, they were sure to meet also Dr. John Francis Tuckerman, and his sister, Jane Frances Tuckerman. I suppose any full catalogue of the Band, if one attempted such a thing, would include these two names. But Tuckerman was not a classmate of Lowell’s; he was studying medicine while the others were studying law, and Lowell was not thrown into such personal intimacy with him as with the others.

I am favored, by the person best competent to write, with a few reminiscences:—

DEAR E——: You have asked me to write for you what I can remember of
James Lowell’s connection with the Band of Brothers and Sisters. I
will gladly try to do so, though it would be as impossible to produce
on paper the charm of that brilliant circle as to catch a falling
star and imprison it for future examination!

But perhaps I can make a picture for you of one of the Band meetings
at my father’s house, at which James Lowell was present, which may
give some faint idea of that gay group of friends.

It is in April, 1842, and for weeks sounds of preparation have been
echoing through the old house. Two beds are placed in each of the
spacious bedrooms, the larder is supplied with dainties, a feeling of
expectation pervades the air, and a sense of general festivity is
diffused through the house, which has put on its holiday dress to
greet the coming guests. As they were all friends of James Lowell’s
at that time, perhaps a slight sketch of some of them may interest
your readers.

First, James himself, slight and small, with rosy cheeks and starry
eyes and waving hair parted in the middle, very like Page’s picture.
He was very reserved in manner, much absorbed in his lady-love, and
although his wit was always brilliant, it had not then ripened into
the delightful humor of after days. He and his friend William Page,
the artist, were at this time possessed with a divine fury for
Shakespeare’s Sonnets. The little book was forever in their hands,
and happy were they when they could catch a stray brother or sister
to listen to “just this one beauty,” which usually was followed by
twenty more; and happy, too, was the brother or sister, for although
James did not then read well, his voice being thin and without
resonance, his youthful, loving enthusiasm cast a spell over his
crooning, the charm of which nobody could resist.[4]

N.H., tall and graceful, perhaps the most highly gifted of that
bright circle, dropping the diamonds of his polished wit in a
languid, nonchalant manner, but capable of a rare awakening when the
right moment came.

W.W.S., versatile and vivacious, a capital mimic, an adept at bright
nonsense and gay repartee.

W.A.W. A good head and kind heart, always ready to cap a good story
with a better, which invariably began with, “I knew a man in
Watertown,” so that the man in Watertown came to be counted a regular
member of the Band.

J.G.K., the leader in the revels, lighting up every meeting with his
peculiar racy vein of humor, and J.F.T., the beauty of the Band and
the sweetest singer of his time.

And now, with the charming group of sisters, they have all arrived at
“The King’s Arms” (as they liked to call the cheerful old house) for
a week’s visit, and I will try to bring back one evening of that
happy time.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
_From the crayon by William Page in the possession of Mrs. Charles F.
Briggs, Brooklyn, N.Y._]

We were all in a peculiarly gay frame of mind, for a little plan,
devised by the sisters to surprise and please James, had proved
entirely successful. The “Year’s Life” was just published, but had
not been as warmly received by the public as we, with our _esprit de
corps_, thought it deserved; so it was arranged that when, on this
evening, James, as usual, asked for music, one of the number (our
prima donna) should sing one of his own songs, “From the closed
window gleams no spark,”[5] adapted to a lovely old air. The song was
a great favorite with both James and Maria, for whom it was written,
and as the well-known words rang through the room, it was delightful
to watch James’s face. Surprise, pleasure, tremulous feeling, and
finally a look of delight as he turned to Maria, flashed over it. He
had been a member of the Band for only a short time (through his
engagement to M.W.), and this friendly appreciation was doubly valued
by both of them.

In those days we always had a fourth meal at about ten o’clock, and
after an evening of music and dancing, and a good time generally, we
adjourned to the dining-room, where, seated at the large round table,
the great festivity began, and an unfailing flow of wit, sentiment,
fun, and scintillation was kept up into the small hours of the night.
Sometimes James Lowell would be called upon for one of his two songs,
“The Battle of the Nile,” or “Baxter’s Boys They Built a Mill.” If
“The Battle of the Nile” were chosen, we prepared for fun. The words
were only,

“The battle of the Nile,
I was there all the while,”[6]

in endless repetition, sung to a slow, droning tune. James had no
voice and little ear, though he loved music. He would begin in a
lifeless, indifferent manner, hardly raising his head, while we all
sat quietly round him. Presently W.S. would join with his deep bass,
then a clear soprano or a tenor would be heard, and so on, one after
another dropping in, until in the end the whole circle would be on
their feet, singing at the top of their voices, James leading them
with all the airs and graces of a finished conductor. Then James
would call upon my father for his favorite song,—

“In a mouldering cave where
The wretched retreat,
Britannia sat wasted with care.
She wept for her Wolfe”—

and at this point the whole party were expected to break out into
dolorous weeping. Then came songs and glees, in the choruses of which
we all heartily joined. Or M.W. would repeat “Binnorie, oh Binnorie,”
or W.S. sing “A Life on the Ocean Wave,” or some of the party sing
and act for us the oratorio of the “Skeptic,” with one awful chorus,
“Tremble Whipstick,” in which we were all expected to show violent
signs of trembling fear. It was all nonsense, but delightful
nonsense, the bubbling over of these gay young spirits.

But this is only a sketch of the lighter hours of the Band. We had
our serious times, when everything in heaven or on earth was
discussed with the airy audacity that belongs to youth, when all the
questions of the day—art, politics, poetry, ethics, religion,
philosophy—were bowled down by our light balls, with easy certainty
that we were quite able to settle the affairs of the world. There was
great variety of character and opinion among us, so that our
discussions did not lack spice and vigor; but for the short time he
was with us, when wit met wit in the bright mêlée, there was no
keener lance in rest among the “Knights of the Round Table” than
James Lowell’s.

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