Page 95 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

account. This money, with compound interest, was now at his disposal. The
bankers suggested, however, that if he was not in immediate need of the

money, they would use it for an admirable investment they knew of which
might considerably increase it within a year. At the end of a year he

received a draft for seven hundred pounds. This he used to refurnish
Elmwood. "Now, you, who are always preaching figures and Poor Richard,
and business habits," said he, in telling the story to some friends, "what do

you say to that? If I had kept an account and known how it stood, I should
have spent that money and you would not now be sitting in those easy

chairs, or walking on Wilton carpet. No; hang accounts and figures!"

In 1857 the Atlantic Monthly was started, and Lowell was made editor, with

a salary of three thousand dollars a year, of course in addition to his salary
as a Harvard professor. Though he was the editor, he recognized that the

success of the magazine would be made by Holmes. Said he, "You see, the
doctor is like a bright mountain stream that has been dammed up among the
hills and is waiting for an outlet into the Atlantic. You will find that he has

a wonderful store of thought--serious, comic, pathetic, and poetic,--of
comparisons, figures, and illustrations. I have seen nothing of his

preparation, but I imagine he is ready. It will be something wholly new, and
his reputation as a prose writer will date from this magazine." When you
recollect the success of the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" you cannot

help remarking that Lowell was a veritable prophet.

President Hayes, soon after his inauguration, offered Lowell an
appointment as minister to Austria, but Lowell declined. When he was
asked if he would accept an appointment as minister to Spain, he

consented, and thither he went in the early part of President Hayes'
administration. After a time he was transferred to London, where he

became a striking diplomatic figure.

He was one of the most popular and polished gentlemen ever sent as

ambassador to a European nation, and as such his presence at the Court of
Saint James was highly appreciated by the English people. When, in 1884,

on the election of Cleveland to the presidency, he prepared to leave
London, many glowing tributes were paid him by the English press, but