"
Under such inspiration, "the Spence negligence" left him, and with rapid
steps he entered the temple of fame. In December, 1844, the month in which
he married her, he wrote the finest lines ever penned by him:--
"Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,--
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own."
Lowell's twenty-ninth year, 1848, is called his _annus mirabilis_, the
wonderful year of his life. He had published small volumes of poems in
1840, 1843, and 1847, but in 1848 there appeared three of his most famous
works,--_The Biglow Papers, First Series_, _A Fable for Critics_, and _The
Vision of Sir Launfal._
As Mrs. Lowell's health was delicate, Lowell took her abroad, in 1851, for
a year's stay. Thackeray came over on the same ship with them, on their
return in 1852, and proved a genial companion. The next year Mrs. Lowell
died. When he thought of the inspiration which she had given him and of the
thirteen years of her companionship, he said, "It is a million times better
to have had her and lost her, than to have had and kept any other woman I
ever saw.
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