LETTER FROM BOSTON by James Russell Lowell: Summary, Meaning & Analysis

_December, 1846._ Dear M---- By way of saving time, I'll do this letter up in rhyme, Whose slim stream through four pages flows Ere one is packed with tight-screwed prose, Threading the tube of an epistle, Smooth as a child's breath through a whistle. The great attraction now of all Is the 'Bazaar' at Faneuil Hall, Where swarm the anti-slavery folks As thick, dear Miller, as your jokes. 10 There's GARRISON, his features very Benign for an incendiary, Beaming forth sunshine through his glasses On the surrounding lads and lasses, (No bee could blither be, or brisker,)-- A Pickwick somehow turned John Ziska, His bump of firmness swelling up Like a rye cupcake from its cup. And there, too, was his English tea-set, 19 Which in his ear a kind of flea set, His Uncle Samuel for its beauty Demanding sixty dollars duty, ('Twas natural Sam should serve his trunk ill; For G., you know, has cut his uncle,) Whereas, had he but once made tea in't, His uncle's ear had had the flea in't, There being not a cent of duty On any pot that ever drew tea. There was MARIA CHAPMAN, too, With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue, 30 The coiled-up mainspring of the Fair, Originating everywhere The expansive force without a sound That whirls a hundred wheels around, Herself meanwhile as calm and still As the bare crown of Prospect Hill; A noble woman, brave and apt, Cumæan sibyl not more rapt, Who might, with those fair tresses shorn, The Maid of Orleans' casque have worn, 40 Herself the Joan of our Ark, For every shaft a shining mark. And there, too, was ELIZA FOLLEN, Who scatters fruit-creating pollen Where'er a blossom she can find Hardy enough for Truth's north wind, Each several point of all her face Tremblingly bright with the inward grace, As if all motion gave it light Like phosphorescent seas at night. There jokes our EDMUND, plainly son 51 Of him who bearded Jefferson, A non-resistant by conviction, But with a bump in contradiction, So that whene'er it gets a chance His pen delights to play the lance, And--you may doubt it, or believe it-- Full at the head of Joshua Leavitt The very calumet he'd launch, And scourge him with the olive branch. 60 A master with the foils of wit, 'Tis natural he should love a hit; A gentleman, withal, and scholar, Only base things excite his choler, And then his satire's keen and thin As the lithe blade of Saladin. Good letters are a gift apart, And his are gems of Flemish art, True offspring of the fireside Muse, Not a rag-gathering of news 70 Like a new hopfield which is all poles, But of one blood with Horace Walpole's. There, with cue hand behind his back, Stands PHILLIPS buttoned in a sack, Our Attic orator, our Chatham; Old fogies, when he lightens at 'em, Shrivel like leaves; to him 'tis granted Always to say the word that's wanted, So that he seems but speaking clearer The tiptop thought of every hearer; 80 Each flash his brooding heart lets fall Fires what's combustible in all, And sends the applauses bursting in Like an exploded magazine. His eloquence no frothy show, The gutter's street-polluted flow, No Mississippi's yellow flood Whose shoalness can't be seen for mud;-- So simply clear, serenely deep, 89 So silent-strong its graceful sweep, None measures its unrippling force Who has not striven to stem its course; How fare their barques who think to play With smooth Niagara's mane of spray, Let Austin's total shipwreck say. He never spoke a word too much-- Except of Story, or some such, Whom, though condemned by ethics strict, The heart refuses to convict. Beyond; a crater in each eye, 100 Sways brown, broad-shouldered PILLSBURY, Who tears up words like trees by the roots, A Theseus in stout cow-hide boots, The wager of eternal war Against that loathsome Minotaur To whom we sacrifice each year The best blood of our Athens here, (Dear M., pray brush up your Lempriere.) A terrible denouncer he, Old Sinai burns unquenchably 110 Upon his lips; he well might be a Hot-blazing soul from fierce Judea, Habakkuk, Ezra, or Hosea. His words are red hot iron searers, And nightmare-like he mounts his hearers, Spurring them like avenging Fate, or As Waterton his alligator. Hard by, as calm as summer even, Smiles the reviled and pelted STEPHEN, The unappeasable Boanerges 120 To all the Churches and the Clergies, The grim _savant_ who, to complete His own peculiar cabinet, Contrived to label 'mong his kicks One from the followers of Hicks; Who studied mineralogy Not with soft book upon the knee, But learned the properties of stones By contact sharp of flesh and bones, And made the _experimentum crucis_ 130 With his own body's vital juices; A man with caoutchouc endurance, A perfect gem for life insurance, A kind of maddened John the Baptist, To whom the harshest word comes aptest, Who, struck by stone or brick ill-starred, Hurls back an epithet as hard, Which, deadlier than stone or brick, Has a propensity to stick. His oratory is like the scream 140 Of the iron-horse's frenzied steam Which warns the world to leave wide space For the black engine's swerveless race. Ye men with neckcloths white, I warn you-- _Habet_ a whole haymow _in cornu_. A Judith, there, turned Quakeress, Sits ABBY in her modest dress, Serving a table quietly, As if that mild and downcast eye Flashed never, with its scorn intense, 150 More than Medea's eloquence. So the same force which shakes its dread Far-blazing blocks o'er Ætna's head, Along the wires in silence fares And messages of commerce bears. No nobler gift of heart and brain, No life more white from spot or stain, Was e'er on Freedom's altar laid Than hers, the simple Quaker maid. These last three (leaving in the lurch 160 Some other themes) assault the Church, Who therefore writes them in her lists As Satan's limbs and atheists; For each sect has one argument Whereby the rest to hell are sent, Which serve them like the Graiæ's tooth, Passed round in turn from mouth to mouth;-- If any _ism_ should arise, Then look on it with constable's eyes, 169 Tie round its neck a heavy _athe-_, And give it kittens' hydropathy. This trick with other (useful very) tricks Is laid to the Babylonian _meretrix_, But 'twas in vogue before her day Wherever priesthoods had their way, And Buddha's Popes with this struck dumb The followers of Fi and Fum. Well, if the world, with prudent fear Pay God a seventh of the year, And as a Farmer, who would pack All his religion in one stack, 181 For this world works six days in seven And idles on the seventh for Heaven, Expecting, for his Sunday's sowing, In the next world to go a-mowing The crop of all his meeting-going;-- If the poor Church, by power enticed, Finds none so infidel as Christ, Quite backward reads his Gospel meek, (As 'twere in Hebrew writ, not Greek,) 190 Fencing the gallows and the sword With conscripts drafted from his word, And makes one gate of Heaven so wide That the rich orthodox might ride Through on their camels, while the poor Squirm through the scant, unyielding door, Which, of the Gospel's straitest size, Is narrower than bead-needles' eyes, What wonder World and Church should call The true faith atheistical? 200 Yet, after all, 'twixt you and me, Dear Miller, I could never see That Sin's and Error's ugly smirch Stained the walls only of the Church; There are good priests, and men who take Freedom's torn cloak for lucre's sake; I can't believe the Church so strong, As some men do, for Right or Wrong, But, for this subject (long and vext) I must refer you to my next, 210 As also for a list exact Of goods with which the Hall was packed. READER! _walk up at once (it will soon be too late), and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate._ A FABLE FOR CRITICS;

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