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Elmwood, 20th Oct, 1876 Dear Sir, My friendship with George Hoar & my respect for his character are of too long [date ? ] to be shaken by any difference of opinion on a question of expressing, for that (if I understod it rightly) was the point on which we divided at Cincinnati. Mr Hoar's action & influence then were at the time very strangely misrepresented at home. I thought then & think now that a[ little ?] of the proof that failed to convince him in Blaine's case would have been ample for the conviction of Butler, but I certainly liked him none the less for being faithful to his own opinion & to his friend. As to speaking in the Congress, it is quite out of the question. I long ago laid to heart the lesson never to attempt what I could not do with all my might
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& with the sympathy of all my faculties. I do not know what training might have done for me, but the habitude of years has made me the least fortunate man conceivable for a stump speaker. Moreover, even were it otherwise, I am so wholly out of sympathy with the manner in which the Republican Congress has been thus far mainly conducted & with the men who have been prominent in it, that my contribution would be at best but a bucket of cold water. George Hoar & I are at opposite points of the Congress on the Southern question. I feel therefore that I am only [ ?] loyalty with my friendship for him in [declining ?] to encumber him with what would be but awkward help. If I thought I could make an effective speech in his behalf, I would not hesitate a moment. Had it been earlier in the Congress, it might have been possible, but, apart from other considerations, I am just now suffering a depression from physical causes which peculiarly unfits me for any such exertion. What my wishes & hopes are I need not say, & George Hoar would be the last person to misunderstand them. I remain very truly yours J. R. Lowell
