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liked so much; I should except personal appearances, for Lowell's brow and eyes are Apollo-like, while all Holmes's face is small in outline and expression, though mobile and vivacious ....
Maria Lowell was a living poem.
She was his inspiration and his moral tonic beside, and he has been living on her memory ever since, in both respects....
The chief editor [Lowell of the “Atlantic” ] reads every article without knowing the author's name, so as to be perfectly impartial.
Apropos of the “Atlantic,”
Higginson wrote his mother in July, 1861:
You ask about the “Atlantic” --Fields will edit it, which is a great thing for the magazine; he having the promptness and business qualities which Lowell signally wanted; for instance, my piece about Theodore Parker lay nearly two months under a pile of anonymous manuscripts in his study while he was wondering that it did not arrive.
Fields's taste is very good and far less crotchety than Lowell's, who strained at gnats and swallowed camels, and Fields is always casting about for good things, while Lowell is rather disposed to sit still and let them come.
It was a torment to deal with Lowell and it is a real pleasure with Fields.
For instance, the other day Antoinette Brown Blackwell sent me a very pleasing paper on the proper treatment of old age — called “A Plea for the afternoon.”
I sent it to Fields by express and it reached him after twelve one noon (I don't know how many hours after). At seven that night I received it again by express, with
