A Note From The Editors

THE honors which attach to the name of JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL do not obscure for the conductors of The Atlantic Monthly the memory of his close connection with this magazine. As its first editor he struck a note in literature which it has been the tradition of the Monthly to preserve, and both his signed and unsigned papers and poems, ending with a recent communication to The Contributors’ Club, attest his generous support. His published volumes contain the greater part of these contributions, for the inspiration and delight of other generations, but both the conductors and the readers of The Atlantic remember with special pride and pleasure the works of art in prose and verse, and the noble appeals to the higher political spirit, as they came fresh from the mind of this master and statesman. His death, falling as this number of the magazine goes to press, brings quick praise from more than English-speaking peoples, and his own countrymen will continue long to mourn his silence, but his service to American letters and American life remains full of speech in his books. It is the hope of The Atlantic to honor him by maintaining the scholarly and generous aims which marked his conduct of the magazine when he directed its early numbers.