Note 2 — Chapter I · ELMWOOD AND THE LOWELLS

In 1853 Dr. Lowell contemplated the publication of a volume of sermons, and his then associate, Dr. Bartol, wrote privately to the son, discouraging the venture. He had not the heart openly to oppose Dr. Lowell. “I know,” he writes, “I can trust you to understand me fully when I say it is my persuasion and that of true and strong friends of your father in the parish, that a volume could never overtake his actual reputation, that what is best in him, his voice, his look, his manner, himself, cannot be printed, and that his peculiar glory is one that should scarcely be touched with ink.” There did appear, however, in 1855 a volume by Dr. Lowell, entitled Sermons; chiefly Occasional.