A few days pass by.  He goes into Boston and hears Webster speak in a case before the United States Court.  “I had not been there an hour before I determined to continue in my profession and study as well as I could.”

Still, it was hard work to keep at his law studies.  He is soon writing to his friend George Loring, “I sometimes think that I have it in me, and shall one day do somewhat; meantime I am schooling myself and shaping my theory of poesy.”

Six weeks later:  “I have written a great deal of pottery lately.  I have quitted the law forever.”  Then he inquires if he can make any money by lecturing at Andover.  He already has an engagement to lecture at Concord, where he has hopes to “astonish them a little.”

A fortnight later we find him in a “miserable state.  The more I think of business the more really unhappy do I feel, and think more and more of studying law.”  What he really wants to do all the time is to write poetry.  “I don’t know how it is,” he says, “but sometimes I actually need to write somewhat in verse.”  Sunday is his work day in the “pottery business.”

As for the law, it is settled at last.  He writes to his friend, “Rejoice with me, for to-morrow I shall be free.  Without saying a word to any one, I shall quietly proceed to Dane Law College to recitation.  Now shall I be happy again as far as that is concerned.”

A fortnight later he declares, “I begin to like the law, and therefore it is quite interesting.  I am determined that I will like it and therefore I do.”

In the summer of 1840 he completed his studies and was admitted to the bar.  A little later he opened an office in Boston.  Misfortune had overtaken his father, and his personal property had been nearly swept away.  It was now necessary for the young man to earn his own living.  His friends were therefore glad that he had his profession to depend on.

CHAPTER V

LOVE AND LETTERS

Lowell always had a presentiment that he should never practice law.  He was always dreaming of becoming independent in some other way.  “Above all things,” he declares, “should I love to sit down and do something literary for the rest of my natural life.”

He did not then think of marrying, and it does not require much to support a single man.  Though he opened a law office in Boston, it does not appear that he did any business.  He wrote a story entitled “My First Client,” but one of his biographers unkindly suggests that this may have been purely imaginary.

All through his letters we see his ambitious yearning.  “George,” says he in one place, “before I die your heart shall be gladdened by seeing your wayward, vain, and too often selfish friend do something that shall make his name honored.  As Sheridan once said, ’It’s in me, and’ (we’ll skip the oath) ‘it shall come out!’”