My Garden Acquaintance — Text and Context

White's Shadow and Lowell's Garden

Lowell explicitly frames his essay as a response to White, but the comparison quickly becomes ironic. White's Selborne is a place where 'the world has no entrance' and 'no rumor of the revolt of the American Colonies seems to have reached him.' Lowell's garden, by contrast, is full of interruptions: a hummingbird 'couching his long bill like a lance,' orioles weaving nests from 'ravellings of woollen carpet in which scarlet predominated.' Where White's humor is 'inadvertent,' Lowell's is deliberate, as when he compares a bobolink's song to 'an Italian charlatan at a fair' advertising 'Opodeldoc.' The essay thus uses White as a foil, highlighting how Lowell's own encounters are less serene and more entangled with human presence.

The Birds as Landlords and Tenants

Lowell repeatedly reverses the expected hierarchy between observer and observed. He confesses to being 'bullied even by a hummingbird,' which drove him from a flower-bed. Orioles build a nest 'within ten feet of our drawing-room window' and he watches them 'through an opera-glass,' yet they seem to regard him as an interloper. This inversion is most explicit when he states, 'all my birds look upon me as if I were a mere tenant at will, and they were landlords.' The garden is not a passive backdrop but a contested space. Even the act of observation becomes a negotiation: the hummingbird's 'angry fire' and the oriole's boldness in stripping bark 'from a honeysuckle growing over the very door' suggest that Lowell's presence is tolerated rather than welcomed.

Instinct, Color, and the Limits of Generalization

A key episode involves a dispute with Edward E. Hale over whether orioles reject 'strands of brilliant color' in their nests. Lowell observes a nest 'wholly woven and felted with ravellings of woollen carpet in which scarlet predominated,' directly contradicting Hale's claim. Yet he hesitates to generalize: 'Would the same thing have happened in the woods? Or did the nearness of a human dwelling perhaps give the birds a greater feeling of security?' This caution recurs when he notes that in feeding young, the mother 'always alighted, while the father as uniformly remained upon the wing,' but adds, 'I do not think it ground enough for a generalization.' Lowell thus presents himself as a careful naturalist who values specific observation over sweeping rules, and who acknowledges the role of context—including his own presence—in shaping what he sees.

Lowell's essay rewards readers who enjoy watching a naturalist watch himself as much as he watches birds. The humor is dry, the observations precise, and the self-awareness unusual for its time. Pay attention to the moments when Lowell admits uncertainty or revises a received idea—these are where the essay's real interest lies. The garden, for Lowell, is not a retreat but a stage for small dramas of territory and perception.

There are days when Lowell’s garden feels like a letter from an old friend—each bird a sentence, each pause a comma. That same unhurried intimacy haunts the Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt — Volume 1 — A Closer Reading, where two minds trade notes across distance, half-observing, half-longing. I read them side by side, and the seasons blur into one quiet conversation.