James Russell Lowell was born on the 22d of February, 1819, in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Elmwood, the home of the Lowells, was to the
west of the village of Cambridge, quite near Mount Auburn cemetery.
When James Russell was a boy, Elmwood was practically in the country,
and was surrounded on nearly all sides by woods, meadows, and
pastures. The house stood on a triangular piece of land surrounded by
a very high and thick hedge, made up of all sorts of trees and shrubs,
such as pines, spruces, willows, and oaks, with smaller shrubs at the
bottom so as to form a thick wall of green. In front of the house were
some fine English elms, quite different from the American variety,
and from these the house got its name. It was a large, square,
old-fashioned wooden house, and though it had stood for over a hundred
years, it remained during Lowell's life in perfect condition.

The house was surrounded by a fine, well-kept lawn, and at the back
were pasture, orchard, and garden, while half a mile away lay Fresh
Pond, the haunt of herons and other shy birds and land creatures. From
the upper windows one could look out on beautiful Mount Auburn
cemetery, which was to the south, while to the east was a low hill
called Symonds's Hill, beyond which could be seen a bright stretch of
the Charles River.

Elmwood faced on a lane, between two roads. In his essay in "Fireside
Travels," entitled "Cambridge Thirty Years Ago," Lowell describes the
scene towards the village as it was in his childhood. Approaching
"from the west, by what was then called the New Road (it is called so
no longer, for we change our names whenever we can, to the great
detriment of all historical association), you would pause on the brow
of Symonds's Hill to enjoy a view singularly soothing and placid.
In front of you lay the town, tufted with elms, lindens, and
horse-chestnuts.... Over it rose the noisy belfry of the college, the
square brown tower of the church, and the slim yellow spire of the parish
meeting-house, by no means ungraceful, and then an invariable
characteristic of New England religious architecture. On your right
the Charles slipped smoothly through green and purple salt meadows,
darkened here and there with the blossoming black grass as with a
stranded cloud-shadow. Over these marshes, level as water but without
its glare, and with softer and more soothing gradations of
perspective, the eye was carried to a horizon of softly rounded hills.
To y