Although by birth as much of a New England Brahmin as
Holmes, and in his later years as much of a Boston and Cambridge
idol, he nevertheless touched our universal American life on many
sides, represented us worthily in foreign diplomacy, argued the
case of Democracy with convincing power, and embodied, as more
perfect artists like Hawthorne and Longfellow could never have
done, the subtleties and potencies of the national temperament.
He deserves and reveals the closest scrutiny, but his personality
is difficult to put on paper. Horace Scudder wrote his biography
with careful competence, and Ferris Greenslet has made him the
subject of a brilliant critical study. Yet readers differ widely
in their assessment of the value of his prose and verse, and in
their understanding of his personality.
The external facts of his career are easy to trace and must be
set down here with brevity. A minister's son, and descended from
a very old and distinguished family, he was born at Elmwood in
Cambridge in 1819. After a somewhat turbulent course, he was
graduated from Harvard in 1838, the year of Emerson's "Divinity
School Address.
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