on he could not read his poem, though it was printed.

He was sent to Concord during this interval to carry on his studies
under the minister of the town. Here he found it pretty dull, though
Emerson and Thoreau were there. But he did not then care for either
one of them. In one of his letters he said, "I feel like a fool. I
must go down and see Emerson and if he doesn't make me feel more like
one, it won't be for want of sympathy. He is a good-natured man in
spite of his doctrines."

Of Thoreau he said, "I met (him) last night, and it is exquisitely
amusing to see how he imitates Emerson's tone and manner. With my eyes
shut I shouldn't know them apart."

In the autumn he came back to Cambridge and took his degree of
Bachelor of Arts with his class.

CHAPTER IV

HOW LOWELL STUDIED LAW

While at Concord, Lowell wrote to his friend Loring, as though
explaining himself.

"Everybody almost is calling me 'indolent.' 'Blind dependent on my own
powers' and 'on fate.' Confound everybody! since everybody confounds
me. Everybody seems to see but one side of my character, and that the
worst. As for my dependence on my own powers, 'tis all fudge. As for
fate, I believe that in every man's breast are the stars of his
fortune, which, if he choose, he may rule as easily as does the child
the mimic constellations in the orrery he plays with. I acknowledge,
too, that I have been something of a dreamer, and have sacrificed,
perchance, too assiduously on that altar to the 'unknown God,' which
the Divinity has builded not with hands in the bosom of every decent
man, sometimes blazing out clear with flame, like Abel's sacrifice,
heaven-seeking; sometimes smothered with greenwood and earthward, like
that of Cain. Lazy quota! I haven't dug, 'tis true, but I have done as
well, and 'since my free soul was mistress of her choice, and could of
books distinguish her election,' I have chosen what reading I pleased
and what friends I pleased, sometimes scholars and sometimes not."

Once out of college he had to take up some profession. Had poetry been
a profession, he would have taken that; but such a choice at that time
would have been considered sheer folly. He did not consider that he
had any "call" to be a minister, still less a doctor. As there was
nothing else left, he began the study of law. It is truly amusing to
see how he manages to "wriggle along" until he takes his degree of
LL.B. and is admitted to the bar.

First, h