And after his return to America, he wrote to Lady Lyttelton: “You must make up your mind to let Ireland have her head. She may no doubt choose to go over a precipice, though I don’t think that she would, and at any rate a whole legion of devils would go with her as with the Gadarene swine; at best it is all up playing Sisera, for the stars in their courses are rather beyond reach even of the newspapers.” That Lowell had a keen appreciation of the genuine spirit of patriotism which moved the Irish in America in his generation may be discerned by any one who will read the closing sentences in his address on “The Independent in Politics.”
Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton in an article[87] published just after Lowell’s death, tried to sum up his intellectual qualities in a word, and thought he found the expression in “sagacity.” “In life,” he says, “his most striking characteristic--a characteristic indicated not only by the watchful gray eyes and the apparently conscious eyebrows that overshadowed them, but in every intonation of his voice, and every movement of his limbs--was a marvellous sagacity.” “What is called his wit,” he adds, “is merely this almost preternatural sagacity in rapid movement. What is called his humor is this same sagacity at rest and in a meditative mood.” Without pushing this analysis so far, there is no doubt that in his diplomatic capacity Lowell did draw upon his native genius for quick perception and interpretation. The gift which he had multiplied by use in the criticism of literature and in the diagnosis of political situations at home, was at his service both in Madrid and London. It made him not a mere fencer in a diplomatic game, but a man of resources in the serious representation of his country’s interests. That he could couch his demands or protests in witty phrase added to his power of persuasion; and he could not associate as an equal with English statesmen without applying his sagacity to their problems even where these did not immediately concern his own people. Perhaps it was after Majuba that he wrote in one of his despatches: “I asked Lord Lyons whether he did not think suzerainty might be defined as ‘leaving to a man the privilege of carrying the saddle and bridle after you have stolen his horse.’ He assented.”