Chapter VII
"PASSION FLOWERS"
1852-1858; aet. 33-39
ROUGE GAGNE
The wheel is turned, the cards are laid; The circle's drawn, the bets are made: I stake my gold upon the red.
The rubies of the bosom mine, The river of life, so swift divine, In red all radiantly shine.
Upon the cards, like gouts of blood, Lie dinted hearts, and diamonds good, The red for faith and hardihood.
In red the sacred blushes start On errand from a virgin heart, To win its glorious counterpart.
The rose that makes the summer fair, The velvet robe that sovereigns wear, The red revealment could not spare.
And men who conquer deadly odds By fields of ice, and raging floods, Take the red passion from the gods.
Now, Love is red, and Wisdom pale, But human hearts are faint and frail Till Love meets Love, and bids it hail.
I see the chasm, yawning dread; I see the flaming arch o'erhead: I stake my life upon the red.
J. W. H.
We have seen that from her earliest childhood Julia Ward's need of expressing herself in verse was imperative. Every emotion, deep or trivial, must take metrical shape; she laughed, wept, prayed--even stormed, in verse.
Walking with her one day, her sister Annie, always half angel, half sprite, pointed to an object in the road. "Dudie dear," she said; "squashed frog! little verse, dear?"
We may laugh with the two sisters, but under the laughter lies a deep sense of the poet's nature.
As in her dreamy girlhood she prayed--
"Oh! give me back my golden lyre!"--
so in later life she was to pray--
"On the Matron's time-worn mantle Let the Poet's wreath be laid."
The tide of song had been checked for a time; after the second visit to Rome, it flowed more freely than ever. By the winter of 1853-54, a volume was ready (the poems chosen and arranged with the help of James T. Fields), and was published by Ticknor and Fields under the title of "Passion Flowers."
No name appeared on the title-page; she had thought to keep her incognito, but she was recognized at once as the author, and the book became the literary sensation of the hour. It passed rapidly through three editions; was, she says, "much praised, much blamed, and much called in question."
She writes to her sister Annie:--
"The history of all these days, beloved, is comprised in one phrase, the miseries of proof-reading. Oh, the endless, endless plague of looking over these proof-sheets--the doubts about phrases, rhymes, and expressions, the perplexity of names, especially, in which I have not been fortunate. To-morrow I get my last proof. Then a fortnight must be allowed for drying and binding. Then I shall be out, fairly out, do you hear? So far my secret has been pretty well kept. My book is to bear a simple title without my name, according to Longfellow's advice. Longfellow has been reading a part of the volume in sheets. He says it will make a sensation.... I feel much excited, quite unsettled, sometimes a little frantic. If I succeed, I feel that I shall be humbled by my happiness, devoutly thankful to God. Now, I will not write any more about it."
The warmest praise came from the poets,--the "high, impassioned few" of her "Salutatory." Whittier wrote:--
AMESBURY, 29th, 12 mo. 53.
MY DEAR FR'D,--
A thousand thanks for thy volume! I rec'd it some days ago, but was too ill to read it. I glanced at "Rome," "Newport and Rome," and they excited me like a war-trumpet. To-day, with the wild storm drifting without, my sister and I have been busy with thy book, and basking in the warm atmosphere of its flowers of passion. It is a great book--it has placed thee at the head of us all. I like its noble aims, its scorn and hate of priestcraft and Slavery. It speaks out bravely, beautifully all I have felt, but could not express, when contemplating the condition of Europe. God bless thee for it!
I owe an apology to Dr. Howe, if not to thyself, for putting into verse[34] an incident of his early life which a friend related to me. When I saw his name connected with it, in some of the papers that copied it, I felt fearful that I had wounded, perhaps, the feelings of one I love and honor beyond almost any other man, by the liberty I have taken. I can only say I could not well help it--a sort of necessity was before me, to say what I did.
[34] "The Hero." See Whittier's Poems.
I wish I could tell thee how glad thy volume has made me. I have marked it all over with notes of admiration. I dare say it has faults enough, but thee need not fear on that account. It has beauty enough to save thy "slender neck" from the axe of the critical headsman. The veriest "de'il"--as Burns says--"wad look into thy face and swear he could na wrang thee."
With love to the Doctor and thy lovely little folk,
I am Very sincerely thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER.
Emerson wrote:--
CONCORD, MASS., 30 Dec., 1853. DEAR MRS. HOWE,--
I am just leaving home with much ado of happy preparation for an absence of five weeks, but must take a few moments to thank you for the happiness your gift brings me. It was very kind in you to send it to me, who have forfeited all apparent claims to such favor, by breaking all the laws of good neighborhood in these years. But you were entirely right in sending it, because, I fancy, that among all your friends, few had so earnest a desire to know your thoughts, and, I may say, so much regret at never seeing you, as I. And the book, as I read in it, meets this curiosity of mine, by its poems of character and confidence, private lyrics, whose air and words [are] all your own. I have not gone so far in them as to have any criticism to offer you, and like better the pure pleasure I find in a new book of poetry so warm with life. Perhaps, when I have finished the book, I shall ask the privilege of saying something further. At present I content myself with thanking you.
With great regard, R. W. EMERSON.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, always generous in his welcome to younger writers, sent the following poem, never before printed:--
If I were one, O Minstrel wild. That held "the golden cup" Not unto thee, Art's stolen child, My hand should yield it up;
Why should I waste its gold on one That holds a guerdon bright-- A chalice, flashing in the sun Of perfect chrysolite.
And shaped on such a swelling sphere As if some God had pressed Its flowing crystal, soft and clear On Hebe's virgin breast?
What though the bitter grapes of earth Have mingled in its wine? The stolen fruits of heavenly birth Have made its hue divine.
Oh, Lady, there are charms that win Their way to magic bowers, And they that weave them enter in In spite of mortal powers;
And hearts that seek the chapel's floor Will throb the long aisle through, Though none are waiting at the door To sprinkle holy dew!
I, sitting in the portal gray Of Art's cathedral dim, Can see thee, passing in to pray And sing thy first-born hymn;--
Hold out thy hand! these scanty drops Come from a hallowed stream, Its sands, a poet's crumbling hopes, Its mists, his fading dream.
Pass on. Around the inmost shrine A few faint tapers burn; This altar, Priestess, shall be thine To light and watch in turn;
Above it smiles the Mother Maid, It leans on Love and Art, And in its glowing depth is laid The first true woman's heart!
O. W. H.
BOSTON, Jan. 1, 1854.
This tribute from the beloved Autocrat touched her deeply, the more so that in the "Commonwealth"[35] she had recently reviewed some of his own work rather severely. She made her acknowledgment in a poem entitled "A Vision of Montgomery Place,"[36] in which she pictures herself as a sheeted penitent knocking at Dr. Holmes's door.
[35] The Commonwealth was a daily newspaper published in the Anti-Slavery interest. Dr. Howe was one of its organizers, and for some time its editor-in-chief. She says, "Its immediate object was to reach the body politic which distrusted rhetoric and oratory, but which sooner or later gives heed to dispassionate argument and the advocacy of plain issues." She helped the Doctor in his editorial work, and enjoyed it greatly, writing literary and critical articles, while he furnished the political part.
[36] Printed in Words for the Hour, 1857.
I was the saucy Commonwealth: Oh! help me to repent.
* * * * *
Behind my embrasure well-braced, With every chance to hit, I made your banner, waving wide, A mark for wayward wit.
'Twas now my turn to walk the street, In dangerous singleness, And run, as bravely as I might, The gauntlet of the press.
And when I passed your balcony Expecting only blows, From height or vantage-ground, you stooped To whelm me with a rose.
A rose, intense with crimson life And hidden perfume sweet-- Call out your friends, and see me do My penance in the street.
* * * * *
She writes her sister Annie:--
"My book came out, darling, on Friday last. You have it, I hope, ere this time. The simple title, 'Passion Flowers,' was invented by Scherb[37] and approved by Longfellow. Its success became certain at once. Hundreds of copies have already been sold, and every one likes it. Fields foretells a second edition--it is sure to pay for itself. It has done more for me, in point of consideration here, than a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars. Parker quoted some of my verses in his Christmas sermon, and this I considered as the greatest of honors. I sat there and heard them, glowing all over. The authorship is, of course, no secret now...."
[37] A German scholar, at this time an habitué of the house.
Speaking of the volume long after, she says, "It was a timid performance upon a slender reed."
Three years later a second volume of verse was published by Ticknor and Fields under the title of "Words for the Hour." Of this, George William Curtis wrote, "It is a better book than its predecessor, but will probably not meet with the same success."
She had written plays ever since she was nine years old. In 1857, the same year which saw the publication of "Words for the Hour," she produced her first serious dramatic work, a five-act drama entitled "The World's Own." It was performed in New York at Wallack's Theatre, and in Boston with Matilda Heron and the elder Sothern in the leading parts. She notes that one critic pronounced the play "full of literary merits and of dramatic defects"; and she adds, "It did not, as they say, 'keep the stage.'"
Yet her brother Sam writes to her from New York: "Lenore still draws the best houses; there was hardly standing room on Friday night"; and again: "Mr. Russell went last night, a second time, bought the libretto, which I send you by this mail--declares that there is not a grander play in our language. He says that it is full of dramatic vigor, that the interest never flags--but that unhappily Miss H., with the soul and self-abandonment of a great actress, lacks those graces of elocution, which should set forth the beauties of your verses."
Some of the critics blamed the author severely for her choice of a subject--the betrayal and abandonment of an innocent girl by a villain; they thought it unfeminine, not to say indelicate, for a woman to write of such matters.
At that time nothing could be farther from her thoughts than to be classed with the advocates of Women's Rights as they then appeared; yet in "The World's Own" are passages which show that already her heart cherished the high ideal of her sex, for which her later voice was to be uplifted:--
I think we call them Women, who uphold Faint hearts and strong, with angel countenance; Who stand for all that's high in Faith's resolve, Or great in Hope's first promise.
* * * * *
Ev'n the frail creature with a moment's bloom, That pays your pleasure with her sacrifice, And, having first a marketable price, Grows thenceforth valueless,--ev'n such an one, Lifted a little from the mire, and purged By hands severely kind, will give to view The germ of all we honor, in the form Of all that we abhor. You fling a jewel Where wild feet tramp, and crushing wheels go by; You cannot tread the splendor from its dust; So, in the shattered relics, shimmers yet Through tears and grime, the pride of womanhood.
* * * * *
We must not forget the Comic Muse. Comparatively little of her humorous verse is preserved; she seldom thought it important enough to make two copies, and the first draft was often lost or given away. The following was written in the fifties, when Wulf Fries was a young and much-admired musician in Boston. Miss Mary Bigelow had invited her to her house "at nine o'clock" to hear him play, meaning nine in the morning. She took this for nine in the evening; the rest explains itself:--
Miss Mary Big'low, you who seem So debonair and kind, Pray, what the devil do you mean (If I may speak my mind)
By asking me to come and hear That Wulf of yours a-Friesing, Then leaving me to cool my heels In manner so unpleasing?
* * * * *
With Mrs. Dr. Susan you That eve, forsooth, were tea-ing: Confess you knew that I should come, And from my wrath were fleeing!
To Mrs. Dr. Susan's I Had not invited been: So when the maid said, "Best go there!" I answered, "Not so green!"
Within the darksome carriage hid I bottled up my beauty, And, rather foolish, hurried home To fireside and duty.
It's very pleasant, you may think, On winter nights to roam; But when you next invite abroad, This wolf will freeze at home!
While she was pouring out her heart in poem and play, and the Doctor was riding the errands of the hour and binding up the wounds of Humanity, what, it may be asked,--it was asked by anxious friends,--was becoming of the little Howes? Why, the little Howes (there were now five, Maud having been born in November, 1854) were having perhaps the most wonderful childhood that ever children had. Spite of the occasional winters spent in town, our memories centre round Green Peace;--there Paradise blossomed for us. Climbing the cherry trees, picnicking on the terrace behind the house, playing in the bowling-alley, tumbling into the fishpond,--we see ourselves here and there, always merry, always vigorous and robust. We were also studying, sometimes at school, sometimes with our mother, who gave us the earliest lessons in French and music; more often, in those years, under various masters and governesses. The former were apt to be political exiles, the Doctor always having many such on hand, some learned, all impecunious, all seeking employment. We recall a Pole, a Dane, two Germans, one Frenchman. The last, poor man, was married to a Smyrniote woman with a bad temper; neither spoke the other's language, and when they quarrelled they came to the Doctor, demanding his services as interpreter.
Through successive additions, the house had grown to a goodly size; the new part, with large, high-studded rooms, towering above the ancient farmhouse, which nevertheless seemed always the heart of the place. Between the two was a conservatory, a posy of all sweet flowers: the large greenhouse was down in the garden, under the same roof as the bowling-alley.
The pears and peaches and strawberries of Green Peace were like no others that ever ripened; we see ourselves tagging at our father's heels, watching his pruning and grafting with an absorption equalling his own, learning from him that there must be honor in gardens as elsewhere, and that fruit taken from his hand was sweet, while stolen fruit would be bitter.
We see ourselves gathered in the great dining-room, where the grand piano was, and the Gobelin carpet with the strange beasts and fishes, bought at the sale of the ex-King Joseph Bonaparte's furniture at Bordentown, and the Snyders' Boar Hunt, which one of us could never pass without a shiver; see ourselves dancing to our mother's playing,--wonderful dances, invented by Flossy, who was always première danseuse, and whose "Lady Macbeth" dagger dance was a thing to remember.
Then perhaps the door would open, and in would come "Papa" as a bear, in his fur overcoat, growling horribly, and chase the dancers into corners, they shrieking terrified delight.
Again, we see ourselves clustered round the piano while our mother sang to us; songs of all nations, from the Polish drinking-songs that Uncle Sam had learned in his student days in Germany, down to the Negro melodies which were very near our hearts.
Best of all, however, we loved her own songs: cradle-songs and nursery nonsense made for our very selves--
"(Sleep, my little child. So gentle, sweet and mild! The little lamb has gone to rest, The little bird is in its nest,--"
"Put in the donkey!" cries Laura. The golden voice goes on without a pause--
"The little donkey in the stable Sleeps as sound as he is able; All things now their rest pursue, You are sleepy too!)"
Again, she would sing passionate songs of love or battle, or hymns of lofty faith and aspiration. One and all, we listened eagerly; one and all, we too began to see visions and dream dreams.
Now and then, the Muse and Humanity had to stand aside and wait while the children had a party; such a party as no other children ever had. What wonder, when both parents turned the full current of their power into this channel?
Our mother writes of one such festival:--
"My guests arrived in omnibus loads at four o'clock. My notes to parents concluded with the following P.S.: 'Return-omnibus provided, with insurance against plum-cake and other accidents.' A donkey carriage afforded great amusement out of doors, together with swing, bowling-alley, and the Great Junk. While all this was going on, the H.'s, J. S., and I prepared a theatrical exhibition, of which I had made a hasty outline. It was the story of 'Blue Beard.' We had curtains which drew back and forth, and regular footlights. You can't think how good it was! There were four scenes. My antique cabinet was the 'Blue Beard' cabinet; we yelled in delightful chorus when the door was opened, and the children stretched their necks to the last degree to see the horrible sight. The curtain closed upon a fainting-fit done by four women. In the third scene we were scrubbing the fatal key, when I cried out, 'Try the "Mustang Liniment"! It's the liniment for us, for you know we must hang if we don't succeed!' This, which was made on the spur of the moment, overcame the whole audience with laughter, and I myself shook so that I had to go down into the tub in which we were scrubbing the key. Well, to make a long story short, our play was very successful, and immediately afterward came supper. There were four long tables for the children; twenty sat at each. Ice-cream, cake, blanc-mange, and delicious sugar-plums, oranges, etc., were served up 'in style.' We had our supper a little later. Three omnibus loads went from my door; the last--the grown people--at nine o'clock."
And again:--
"I have written a play for our doll-theatre, and performed it yesterday afternoon with great success. It occupied nearly an hour. I had alternately to grunt and squeak the parts, while Chev played the puppets. The effect was really extremely good. The spectators were in a dark room, and the little theatre, lighted by a lamp from the top, looked very pretty."
It was one of these parties of which the Doctor wrote to Charles Sumner: "Altogether it was a good affair, a religious affair; I say religious, for there is nothing which so calls forth my love and gratitude to God as the sight of the happiness for which He has given the capacity and furnished the means; and this happiness is nowhere more striking than in the frolics of the young."
Among the plays given at Green Peace were the "Three Bears," the Doctor appearing as the Great Big Huge Bear; and the "Rose and the Ring," in which he played Kutasoff Hedzoff and our mother Countess Gruffanuff, while John A. Andrew, not yet Governor, made an unforgettable Prince Bulbo.
It was a matter of course to us children, that "Papa and Mamma" should play with us, sing to us, tell us stories, bathe our bumps, and accompany us to the dentist; these were things that papas and mammas did! Looking back now, with some realization of all the other things they did, we wonder how they managed it. For one thing, both were rapid workers; for another, both had the power of leading and inspiring others to work; for a third, so far as we can see, neither ever wasted a moment; for a fourth, neither ever reached the point where there was not some other task ahead, to be begun as soon as might be.
Life with a Comet-Apostle was not always easy. Some one once expressed to "Auntie Francis" wonder at the patience with which she endured all the troublesome traits of her much-loved husband. "My dear," she replied, "I shipped as Captain's mate, for the voyage!"
Our mother, quoting this, says, "I cannot imagine a more useful motto for married life."
During the thirty-four years of her own married life the Doctor was captain, beyond dispute; yet sometimes the mate felt that she must take her own way, and took it quietly. She was fond of quoting the words of Thomas Garrett,[38] whose house was for years a station of the Underground Railway, and who helped many slaves to freedom.
[38] Of Wilmington, Delaware.
"How did you manage it?" she asked him.
His reply sank deep into her mind.
"It was borne in upon me at an early period, that if I told no one what I intended to do, I should be enabled to do it."
The bond between our mother and father was not to be entirely broken even by death. She survived him by thirty-four years; but she never discussed with any one of us a question of deep import, or national consideration, without saying, "Your father would think thus, say thus!" It has been told elsewhere[39] how she once, being in Newport and waked from sleep by some noise, called to him; and how he, in Boston, heard her, and asked, when next they met, "Why did you call me?" To the end of her life, if startled or alarmed, she never failed to cry aloud, "Chev!"
[39] Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe.
Children were not the only guests at Green Peace. Some of us remember Kossuth's visit; our mother often told of the day when John Brown knocked at the door, and she opened it herself. To all of us, Charles Sumner and his brothers, Albert and George, Hillard, Agassiz, Andrew, Parker were familiar figures, and fit naturally into the background of Green Peace.
Of these Charles Sumner, always the Doctor's closest and best-beloved friend, is most familiarly remembered. We called him "the harmless giant"; and one of us was in the habit of using his stately figure as a rule of measurement. Knowing that he was just six feet tall, she would say that a thing was so much higher or lower than Mr. Sumner. His deep musical voice, his rare but kindly smile, are not to be forgotten.
We do not remember Nathaniel Hawthorne's coming to the house, but his shy disposition is illustrated by the record of a visit made by our parents to his house at Concord. While they were in the parlor, talking with Mrs. Hawthorne, they saw a tall, slim man come down the stairs, and Mrs. Hawthorne called out, "Husband! Husband! Dr. Howe and Mrs. Howe are here!" Hawthorne bolted across the hall and out through the door without even looking into the parlor.
Of Whittier our mother says:--
"I shall always be glad that I saw the poet Whittier in his youth and mine. I was staying in Boston during the winter of 1847, a young mother with two dear girl babies, when Sumner, I think, brought Whittier to our rooms and introduced him to me. His appearance then was most striking. His eyes glowed like black diamonds--his hair was of the same hue, brushed back from his forehead. Several were present on this occasion who knew him familiarly, and one of these persons bantered him a little on his bachelor state. Mr. Whittier said in reply: 'The world's people have taken so many of our Quaker girls that there is none left for me.' A year or two later, my husband invited him to dine, but was detained so late that I had a tête-à-tête of half an hour with Mr. Whittier. We sat near the fire, rather shy and silent, both of us. Whenever I spoke to Whittier, he hitched his chair nearer to the fire. At last Dr. Howe came in. I said to him afterwards, 'My dear, if you had been a little later, Mr. Whittier would have gone up the chimney.'"
The most welcome visitor of all was Uncle Sam Ward. He came into the house like light: we warmed our hands at his fire and were glad. It was not because he brought us peaches and gold bracelets, Virginia hams (to be boiled after his own recipe, with a bottle of champagne, a wisp of new-mown hay and--we forget what else!), and fine editions of Horace: it was because he brought himself.
"I disagree with Sam Ward," said Charles Sumner, "on almost every known topic: but when I have talked with him five minutes I forget everything save that he is the most delightful companion in the world!"
A volume might be filled with Uncle Sam's mots and jests; but print would do him cold justice, lacking the kindling of his eyes and smile, the mellow music of his laugh. Memory pictures rise up, showing him and our mother together in every variety of scene. We see them coming out of church together after a long and dull sermon, and hear him whisper to her, "Ce pauvre Dieu!"
Again, we see them driving together after some function at which the address of one Potts had roused Uncle Sam to anger; hear him pouring out a torrent of eloquent vituperation, forgetting all else in the joy of freeing his mind. Pausing to draw breath, he glanced round, and, seeing an unfamiliar landscape, exclaimed, "Where are we?" "At Potsdam, I think!" said our mother quietly.
Hardly less dear to us than Green Peace, and far dearer to her, was the summer home at Lawton's Valley, in Portsmouth,[40] Rhode Island. Here, as at South Boston, the Doctor's genius for "construction and repairs" wrought a lovely miracle. He found a tiny farmhouse, sheltered from the seawinds by a rugged hillock; near at hand, a rocky gorge, through which tumbled a wild little stream, checked here and there by a rude dam; in one place turning the wheel of a mill, where the neighboring farmers brought corn to grind. His quick eye caught the possibilities of the situation. He bought the place and proceeded to make of it a second earthly paradise. The house was enlarged, trees were felled here, planted there; a garden appeared as if by magic; in the Valley itself the turbulent stream was curbed by stone embankments; the open space became an emerald lawn, set at intervals with Norway spruces; under the great ash tree that towered in the centre rustic seats and tables were placed. Here, through many years, the "Mistress of the Valley" was to pass her happiest hours; to the Valley and its healing balm of quiet she owed the inspiration of much of her best work.
[40] Near Newport, of which it is really a suburb.
The following letters fill in the picture of a time to which in her later years she looked back as one of the happiest of her life.
Yet she was often unhappy, sometimes suffering. Humanity, her husband's faithful taskmistress, had not yet set her to work, and the long hours of his service left her lonely, and--the babies once in bed--at a loss.
Her eyes, injured in Rome, in 1843, by the throwing of confetti (made, in those days, of lime), gave her much trouble, often exquisite pain. She rarely, in our memory, used them in the evening. Yet, in later life, all the miseries, little and big, were dismissed with a smile and a sigh and a shake of the head. "I was very naughty in those days!" she would say.
To her sister Louisa
GREEN PEACE, Feb. 18, 1853.
MY DEAREST LOUISA,--
I have kept a long silence with you, but I suppose that it is too evident before this time that letter-writing is not my forte, to need any further explanation of such a fact. Let me say, however, once for all, that I do not stand upon my reputation as a letter-writer. About my poetry and my music, I may be touchy and exacting--about my talents for drawing, correspondence, and housekeeping, I can only say that my pretensions are as small as my merits. With such humility, Justice herself must be satisfied. It is Modesty with her pink lining (commonly mistaken for blushes) turned outside. Are you surprised, my love, at the new style of my writing, and do you think I must have been taking lessons of Mr. Bristow? Learn that my eyes do not allow me to look attentively at my writing, and that I give a glance and a scribble, in a truly frantic and indiscriminate manner. Having ruined my own eyes, you see, I am doing my utmost to ruin the eyes of my friends. This is human nature--all evil seeks thus to propagate itself, while good is satisfied with itself, and stays where it is. When I think of this, I ask myself, does not the devil, then, send missionaries? You will agree with me that he at least sends ambassadors. I have passed, so far, a very studious winter. Never, since my youth, have I lived so much in reading and writing--hence these eyes! Of course, you exclaim, what madness! but, indeed, I should have a worse madness if I did not cram myself with books. The bareness and emptiness of life were then insupportable....
Of the nearly eighteen months since my return to America, I have passed fourteen at South Boston. Last winter I was fresh from my travels, and had still strength enough to keep up my relation with society, and to invite people a good deal to my house. But this year I am more worn down, my health quite impaired, and the exertion of going out or receiving at home is too much for me....
I have made acquaintance with the Russell Lowells, but we are too far apart to profit much by it. I cannot swim about in this frozen ocean of Boston life in search of friends. I feel as if I had struggled enough with it, as if I could now fold my arms and go down....
To the same
S. BOSTON, Dec. 20, 1853.
MY DEAR SISTER WEVIE,--
I have been of late a shamefully bad correspondent, and am as much ashamed of it as I ought to be. But, indeed, it hurts my eyes so dreadfully to write, and that you may find it difficult to believe, for perhaps you find writing less trying to the eyes than reading. Most people do, but with me the contrary is the case. I can read with tolerable comfort, but cannot write a single page, without positive pain. Well, that is enough about my eyes; now for other things. You say that you tremble to know the result of the Lace purchase. Well you may, wretched woman. Don't be satisfied with trembling; shake! shiver! shrink into nothing at all! Do you know, Madam, that my cursed bill from Hooker amounted to over $130? The rascal charged me ten per cent, which you and he probably divided together, or had a miscellaneous spree upon. You sent no specification of items. Madam, to this day, I do not know whether the earrings or the lace cost the most. People ask me the price of bertha, flounces and earrings, I can only reply that Mrs. Crawford drew upon me for an enormous sum of money, but that I have no idea how she spent it. Moreover, my poor little means (a favorite expression of Annie Mailliard's) have been entirely exhausted by you and Hooker. My purse is in a dangerous state of collapse--my credit all gone long ago. I want a coat, a bonnet, stockings, and pkthdkfs, but when for want of these things I am cold and snuffly, I go and take out the flounces, look at them, turn them over, and say: "Well, they are very warming for the price, aren't they?" Besides, you send me a bill, and don't send Aunt Lou McAllister any. Who paid for her Malachites? I have a great mind to say that I did, and pocket the money, which she is anxious to pay, if she could only get her account settled, which please to attend to at once, you lymphatic, agreeable monster! About the mosaics, straw for Bonnets, and worsted work, you were right in supposing that I would not be very angry. It was undoubtedly a liberty, your sending them, but it is one which I can make up my mind to overlook, especially as you will not be likely to do it again for some time.
Now, if you really want to know about the lace, I will tell you that I found it perfectly magnificent, and that every one who sees it admires it prodigiously. If this is the case now, before I have worn it, how much more will it be so when it shall show itself abroad heightened by the charms of my person! Admiration will then know no bounds. Newspaper paragraphs will begin thus: "The lovely wearer of the lace is about thirty-four years of age, but looks much older--in fact, nearly as antique as her own flounces," etc., etc. The ornaments are not less beautiful, in their kind. I wear them on distinguished occasions, and at sight of them, people who have closely adhered to the Decalogue all their lives incontinently violate the Tenth Commandment, and then excuse it by saying that Mrs. Howe does not happen to be their neighbor, living as she does beyond the reach of everything but Omnibuses and Charity. So you see that I consider the investment a most successful one, and may in future honor you with more commissions. I even justify it to myself on the ground that the Brooch and earrings will make charming pins for my three girls, while the lace, Mrs. Cary says, is as good as Real Estate. So set your kind heart completely at rest, you could not have done better for me, or if you could, I don't know it. As to my being without pocket handkerchiefs, you will be the first to reply that that is nothing new. Now for your charming presents; I was greatly delighted at them. The Mosaics are perfectly exquisite, the most beautiful I ever saw. The straw is very handsome, and will make me the envy of Newport, next summer. The worsted work appears to me rich and quaint, and shall be made up as soon as circumstances shall allow. For each and all accept my hearty thanks....
(No year. Probably from Portsmouth, Rhode Island, to her sister Annie)
Sunday, August 5.
... I went in town [Newport] the other day, and dined with Fanny Longfellow. The L.'s, Curtis,[41] Tommo,[42] and Kensett are all living together, but seem to make out tolerably. After dinner Fanny took me to drive on the Beach in her Barouche. I looked fine, wore my grey grapery with my drapery, and spread myself out as much as possible. Curtis took Julia in his one-horse affair on the Beach. Julia wore a pink silk dress, a white drawn bonnet with pink ribbons, and a little white shawl. Oh, she did look lovely. Mamma was not at all proud, oh, no! Well, thereafter, I dined elsewhere and did not want to tell Dudie where. So when she asked, "Where did you dine yesterday?" I replied: "I dined, dear, with Mrs. Jimfarlan, and her pig was at table. Now, before we sat down, Mrs. J. said to me, 'Mrs. Howe, if you do not love my pig, you cannot dine with me,' and I replied, 'Mrs. Jimfarlan, I adore your pig,' so down we sat." "Oh, yes, Mamma," says Julia, "and I know the rest. When you had got through dinner, and had had all you wanted, you rose, and told the lady that you had something to tell her in the greatest confidence. Then she went into the entry with you, and you whispered in her ear, 'Mrs. Jimfarlan, I hate your pig!' and then rushed out of the house."... I have had one grand tea-party--the Longos, Curtis, etc., etc. We had tea out of doors and read Tennyson in the valley. It was very pleasant.... The children spent Tuesday with the Hazards. I went over to tea. You remember the old beautiful place.[43] We have now a donkey tandem, which is the joy of the Island. The children go out with it, and every one who meets them is seized with cramps in the region of the diaphragm, they double up and are relieved by a hearty laugh.
[41] George William Curtis.
[42] Thomas Gold Appleton.
[43] Vaucluse, at Portsmouth.
To her sister Annie
October, 1854.
I will tell you how I have been living since my return from Newport. I get up at seven or a little before, and am always down at half-past for breakfast. After breakfast I despatch the chicks to school and clear off the table; then walk in the garden or around the house; then consult with the cook and order dinner, and see as far as I can to all sewing and other work. I get to my own room between ten and eleven, where I study and write until two P.M. Dinner is at half-past two. After that I take all the children in my room. I read to them and fix worsted work for them. I get half an hour's reading for myself sometimes, but not often, the days being so short. Then I walk with dear Julia, the dearest little friend in the world. The others often join us, and sometimes we have the donkey for a ride. I then go in and sing for the children, or play for them to dance, until tea-time. At a quarter past eight I go to put Dudie and Flossy to bed. I prolong this last pleasure and occupation of the day. When I come down I sit with idle fingers, unable, as you know, to do the least thing. Chev reads the papers to me. At ten I am thankful to retire. I do not suppose that this life is more monotonous than yours in Bordentown, is it?...
Oct. 19th. I was not able to finish this at one sitting, my best darling. I cannot write long without great pain. I had to go in town on Monday and Tuesday, and yesterday, for a wonder, Baby [Laura] was ill. She had severe rheumatic pains in both knees, and could not be moved all day. We sent for a physician, who prescribed various doses, and told us we should have a siege of it. To-day she is almost well, though we gave her no medicine. She is the funniest little soul in the world. You should hear her admonishing her father not to "worry so about everything." He is obliged to laugh in spite of himself.... I am very poor just now. I furnished my Newport house with the money for my book ["Passion Flowers"]. It was very little--about $200.
Spite of the troublesome eyes, and the various "pribbles and prabbles," she was in those days editor-in-chief of "The Listener," a "Weekly Publication." Julia Romana was sub-editor, and furnished most of the material, stories, plays, and poems pouring with astonishing ease from her ten-year-old pen; but there was an Editor's Table, sometimes dictated by the chief editor, often written in her own hand.
The first number of "The Listener" appeared in October, 1854. The sub-editor avows frankly that "The first number of our little paper will not be very interesting, as we have not had time to give notice to those who we expect to write for it."
This is followed by "Select Poetry, Mrs. Howe"; "The Lost Suitor" (to be continued), and "Seaside Thoughts." The "Editor's Table" reads:--
"It is often said that Listeners hear no good of themselves, and it often proves to be true. But we shall hope to hear, at least, no harm of our modest little paper. We intend to listen only to good things, and not to have ears for any unkind words about ourselves or others. Little people of our age are expected to listen to those who are older, having so many things to learn. We will promise, too, to listen as much as we can to all the entertaining news about town, and to give accounts of the newest fashions, the parties in high life (nurseries are generally three stories high) and many other particulars. So, we venture to hope that 'The Listener' will find favour with our friends and Miss Stephenson's select public."
This was Miss Hannah Stephenson's school for girls, which Julia and Florence were attending. "The Listener" gives pleasant glimpses of life at Green Peace, the Nursery Fair, the dancing-school, the new baby, and so forth.
Sometimes the "Table" is a rhyming one:--
What shall we do for an Editor's table? To make one really we are not able. Our Editorial head is aching, Our lily white hand is rather shaking. Our baby cries both day and night, And puts our "intelligence" all to flight. Yet, for the gentle Julia's sake, Some little effort we must make. We didn't go vote for the know-nothing Mayor, A know-nothing's what we cannot bear, We know our lessons, that's well for us, Or the school would be in a terrible fuss.
* * * * *
That's all for the present, we make our best bow, And are your affectionate
Editor Howe.
On January 14, 1855, we read:--
"Last evening began the opera season. Now, as all the Somebodies were there, we would not like to have you suppose, dear reader, that we were not, although perhaps you did not see us, with our little squeezed-up hat slipping off of our head, and we screwing up our eyebrows to keep it on. There was a moment when we thought we felt it going down the back of our neck, but a dexterous twitch of the left ear restored the natural order of things. Well, to show you that we were there, we'll tell you of what the Opera was composed. There was love of course, and misery, and plenty of both. The slim man married the lady in white, and then ran away with another woman. She tore her hair, and went mad. One of the stout gentlemen doubled his fists, the other spread out his hands and looked pitiful. The mad lady sang occasionally, and retained wonderful command of her voice. They all felt dreadfully, and went thro' a great deal, singing all the time. The thing came right at last, but we have no room to explain how."
In May, 1855, the paper died a natural death.
To her sister Annie
SOUTH BOSTON, Jan. 19, 1855.
MY SWEET MEATEST,--
... First of all you wish to know about the Bonnet, of course. I am happy to say that it is entirely successful, cheap, handsome, and becoming. Boston can show nothing like it. As to the green and lilac, I all but sleep in it. I never wear it, glory on my soul, without attracting notice. Those who don't know me, at lectures and sich, seem to say: "Good heavens, who is that lovely creature?" Those who do know me seem to be whispering to each other, "I never saw Julia Howe look so well!" So much for the green bonnet. As for the white one, since I took out the pinch behind, it fits and flatters--to the Opera, I will incontinently wear it. I have been there and still would go. Every woman seen in front, seems to have a cap with a great frill, like that of an old-fashioned night-cap; it is only when she turns sideways that you can see the little hat behind....
Did I write you that I have been to the Assembly? Chev went to the first without me, with his niece, the pretty one, of course, much to my vexation, so I spunked up, and determined to go to the second. A white silk dress was a necessary tho' unprofitable investment. Turnbull had, fortunately for me, made a failure, and was selling very cheap. I got a pretty silk for $17, and had it made by a Boston fashionable dressmaker, with three pinked flounces--it looked unkimmon. Next I caused my hair to be dressed by Pauline, the wife of Canegally. "Will you have it in the newest fashion?" asked she; "the very newest," answered I. She put in front two horrid hair cushions and, combing the hair over them, made a sort of turban of hair, in which I was, may I say? captivating. I was proud of my hair, and frequented rooms with looking-glasses in them, the rest of the afternoon. At the Ass-embly, Chev and I entered somewhat timidly, but soon took courage, and parted company. Little B---- (your neighbor of Bond St.) was there, wiggy and smiley, but oh! so youthful!! Life is short, they say, but I don't think so when I see little B---- trying to look down upon me from beneath, and doing the patronizing. There was something very nice about her, however, that is, her pearl necklace with a diamond clasp two inches long, and one and a half broad.... Oculist said weakness was the disease, and rest the remedy--oculist recommended veratrine ointment, frequent refreshing of eyes with wet cloth, cleared his throat every minute, and was an old humbug.
They are playing at the Boston Museum a piece, probably a farce, called "A Blighted Being." When I see the handbills posted up in the streets it is like reading one's own name. I must now bid you farewell and am ever with dearest love,
Your affectionate sister and A BLIGHTED BEING!!!!
To the same
SOUTH BOSTON, June 1, 1855.
... Well, my darling, it is a very uninteresting time with me. I am alive, and so are my five children. I made a vow, when dear Laura was so ill, to complain never more of dulness or ennui. So I won't, but you understand if I hadn't made such a vow, I could under present circumstances indulge in the howling in which my soul delighteth. I don't know how I keep alive. The five children seem always waiting, morally, to pick my bones, and are always quarrelling over their savage feast.... The stairs as aforesaid kill me. The Baby keeps me awake, and keeps me down in strength. Were it not for beer, I were little better than a dead woman, but, blessed be the infusion of hops, I can still wink my left eye and look knowing with my right, which is more, God be praised, than could have been expected after eight months of Institution. I have seen Opera of "Trovatore"--in bonnet trimmed with grapes I went, bonnet baptized with "oh d-Cologne," but Alexander McDonald was my escort, Chev feeling very ill just at Opera time, but making himself strangely comfortable after my departure with easy-chair, foot-stool, and unlimited pile of papers. Well, dear, you know they would be better if they could, but somehow they can't--it isn't in them....
To the same
SOUTH BOSTON, Nov. 27, 1855.
I have been having a wow-wow time of late, or you should have heard from me. As it is, I shall scribble a hasty sheet of Hieroglyphics, and put in it as much of myself as I can. Mme. Kossuth (Kossuth's sister divorced from former husband) has been here for ten days past; as she is much worn and depressed I have had a good deal of comforting up to do--very little time and much trouble. She is a lady, and has many interesting qualities, but you can imagine how I long for the sanctity of home. Still, my heart aches that this woman, as well bred as any one of ourselves, should go back to live in two miserable rooms, with three of her four children, cooking, and washing everything with her own hands, and sitting up half the night to earn a pittance by sewing or fancy work. Her eldest son has been employed as engineer on the Saratoga and Sacketts Harbor railroad for two years, but has not been paid a cent--the R.R. being nearly or quite bankrupt. He is earning $5 a week in a Bank, and this is all they have to depend upon. She wants to hire a small farm somewhere in New Jersey and live upon it with her children....
To her sisters
Thursday, 29, 1856.
... We have been in the most painful state of excitement relative to Kansas matters and dear Charles Sumner, whose condition gives great anxiety.[44] Chev is as you might expect under such circumstances; he has had much to do with meetings here, etc., etc. New England spunk seems to be pretty well up, but what will be done is uncertain as yet. One thing we have got: the Massachusetts Legislature has passed the "personal liberty bill," which will effectually prevent the rendition of any more fugitive slaves from Massachusetts. Another thing, the Tract Society here (orthodox) has put out old Dr. Adams, who published a book in favor of slavery; a third thing, the Connecticut legislature has withdrawn its invitation to Mr. Everett to deliver his oration before them, in consequence of his having declined to speak at the Sumner meeting in Faneuil Hall....
[44] In consequence of the assault upon him in the Senate Chamber by Preston Brooks of South Carolina.
To her sister Annie
CINCINNATI, May 26, 1857.
CASA GREENIS.
DEAREST ANNIE, Fiancée de marbre et Femme de glace,--
Heaven knows what I have not been through with since I saw you--dust, dirt, dyspepsia, hotels, railroads, prairies, Western steamboats, Western people, more prairies, tobacco juice, captains of boats, pilots of ditto, long days of jolting in the cars, with stoppages of ten minutes for dinner, and the devil take the hindmost. There ought to be no chickens this year, so many eggs have we eaten. Flossy was quite ill for two days at St. Louis. Chev is too rapid and restless a traveller for pleasure. Still, I think I shall be glad to have made the journey when it is all over--I must be stronger than I was, for I bear fatigue very well now and at first I could not bear it at all. We went from Philadelphia to Baltimore, thence to Wheeling, thence to see the Manns at Antioch--they almost ate us up, so glad were they to see us. Thence to Cincinnati, where two days with Kitty Rölker, a party at Larz Anderson's--Longworth's wine-cellar, pleasant attentions from a gentleman by the name of King, who took me about in a carriage and proposed everything but marriage. After passing the morning with me, he asked if I was English. I told him no. When we met in the evening, he had thought matters over, and exclaimed, "You must be Miss Ward!" "And you," I cried, "must be the nephew of my father's old partner. Do you happen to have a strawberry mark or anything of that kind about you?" "No." "Then you are my long-lost Rufus!" And so we rushed into each other's confidence and swore, like troopers, eternal friendship. Thence to Louisville, dear, a beastly place, where I saw the Negro jail, and the criminal court in session, trying a man for the harmless pleasantry of murdering his wife. Thence to St. Louis, where Chev left us and went to Kansas, and Fwotty and I boated it back here and went to a hotel, and the William Greenes they came and took us, and that's all for the present....
To the same
GARRET PLATFORM, LAWTON'S VALLEY, July 13, 1857.
... Charlotte Brontë is deeply interesting, but I think she and I would not have liked each other, while still I see points of resemblance--many indeed--between us. Her life, on the whole, a very serious and instructive page in literary history. God rest her! she was as faithful and earnest as she was clever--she suffered much.
... Theodore Parker and wife came here last night, to stay a week if they like it (have just had a fight with a bumble-bee, in avoiding which I banged my head considerably against a door, in the narrow limits of my garret platform); so you see I am still a few squashes ("some pumpkins" is vulgar, and I isn't)....
To her sisters
S. BOSTON, April 4, 1858.
... I am perfectly worn out in mind, body and estate. The Fair[45] lasted five days and five evenings. I was there every day, and nearly all day, and at the end of it I dropped like a dead person. Never did I experience such fatigue--the crowd of faces, the bad air, the responsibility of selling and the difficulty of suiting everybody, was almost too much for me. On the other hand, it was an entirely new experience, and a very amusing one. My table was one of the prettiest, and, as I took care to have some young and pretty assistants, it proved one of the most attractive. I cleared $426.00, which was doing pretty well, as I had very little given me.... For a week after the Fair I could do nothing but lie on a sofa or in an easy-chair, ... but by the end of the week I revived, and it pleased the Devil to suggest to me that this was the moment to give a long promised party to the Governor and his wife. All hands set to work, therefore, writing notes. With the assistance of three Amanuenses I scoured the whole surface of Boston society.... Unluckily I had fixed upon an evening when there were to be two other parties, and of course the cream of the cream was already engaged. I believe in my soul that I invited 300 people--every day everybody sent word they could not come. I was full of anxiety, got the house well arranged though, engaged a colored man, and got a splendid supper. Miss Hunt, who is writing for me, smacks her lips at the remembrance of the same, I mean the supper, not the black man. Well! the evening came, and with it all the odds and ends of half a dozen sets of people, including some of the most primitive and some of the most fashionable. I had the greatest pleasure in introducing a dowdy high neck, got up for the occasion, with short sleeves and a bow behind, to the most elaborate of French ball-dresses with head-dress to match, and leaving them to take care of each other the best way they could. As for the Governor [Nathaniel P. Banks], I introduced him right and left to people who had never voted for him and never will. The pious were permitted to enjoy Theodore Parker, and Julia's schoolmaster sat on a sofa and talked about Carlyle. I did not care--the colored man made it all right. Imagine my astonishment at hearing the party then and after pronounced one of the most brilliant and successful ever given in Boston. The people all said, "It is such a relief to see new faces--we always meet the same people at city parties." Well, darlings, the pickings of the supper was very good for near a week afterwards, and, having got through with my party, I have nearly killed myself with going to hear Mr. Booth, whose playing is beautiful exceedingly. Having for once in my life had play enough and a great deal too much, I am going to work to-morrow like an old Trojan building a new city. I am too poor to come to New York this spring; still it is not impossible. Farewell, Beloveds, it is church time, and this edifying critter is uncommon punctual in her devotions. So farewell, love much, and so far as human weakness allows imitate the noble example of
Your sister, JULIA.
[45] This Fair was got up by Mr. Robert C. Winthrop for the benefit of the poor.
VIII. LITTLE SAMMY: THE CIVIL WAR
1859-1863; aet. 40-44
There came indeed an hour of fate By bitter war made desolate When, reading portents in the sky, All in a dream I leapt on high To pin my rhyme to my country's gown. 'Tis my one verse that will not down. Stars have grown out of mortal crown.
J. W. H.
I honour the author of the "Battle Hymn," and of "The Flag." She was born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were a native of Massachusetts. We have had no such poetess in New England.
EMERSON'S Journals.
In the winter of 1859 the Doctor's health became so much impaired by overwork that a change of air and scene was imperative. At the same time Theodore Parker, already stricken with a mortal disease, was ordered to Cuba in the hope that a mild climate might check the progress of the consumption. He begged the Howes to join him and his wife, and in February the four sailed for Havana. This expedition is described in "A Trip to Cuba."
The opening chapter presents three of the little party during the rough and stormy voyage:--
"The Philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,--keeled up in an upper berth, convulsively embracing a blanket, what conservative more immovable than he? The Great Man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if, like Farinata,--
'avesse l'inferno in gran dispetto,'--
he had a very contemptible opinion of hell."
Several "portraits" follow, among them her own.
"A woman, said to be of a literary turn of mind, in the miserablest condition imaginable. Her clothes, flung at her by the Stewardess, seem to have hit in some places and missed in others. Her listless hands occasionally make an attempt to keep her draperies together, and to pull her hat on her head; but though the intention is evident, she accomplishes little by her motion. She is being perpetually lugged about by a stout steward, who knocks her head against both sides of the vessel, folds her up in the gangway, spreads her out on the deck, and takes her upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber, where, report says, he feeds her with a spoon, and comforts her with such philosophy as he is master of. N.B. This woman, upon the first change of weather, rose like a cork, dressed like a Christian, and toddled about the deck in the easiest manner, sipping her grog, and cutting sly jokes upon her late companions in misery;--is supposed by some to have been an impostor, and, when ill-treated, announced intentions of writing a book.
"No. 4, my last, is only a sketch;--circumstances allowed no more. Can Grande,[46] the great dog, has been got up out of the pit, where he has worried the Stewardess and snapped at the friend who tried to pat him on the head. Everybody asks where he is. Don't you see that heap of shawls yonder, lying in the sun, and heated up to about 212° Fahrenheit? That slouched hat on top marks the spot where his head should lie,--by treading cautiously in the opposite direction you may discover his feet. All between is perfectly passive and harmless. His chief food is pickles,--his only desire is rest. After all these years of controversy, after all these battles, bravely fought and nobly won, you might write with truth upon this moveless mound of woollens the pathetic words from Père La Chaise: Implora Pace."
[46] Her pet name for Theodore Parker. Vide Dante's Inferno.
The trip to Cuba was only the beginning of a long voyage for the Parkers, who were bound for Italy. The parting between the friends was sad. All felt that they were to meet no more. Parker died in Florence fifteen months later.
"A pleasant row brought us to the side of the steamer. It was dusk already as we ascended her steep gangway, and from that to darkness there is, at this season, but the interval of a breath. Dusk too were our thoughts, at parting from Can Grande, the mighty, the vehement, the great fighter. How were we to miss his deep music, here and at home! With his assistance we had made a very respectable band; now we were to be only a wandering drum and fife,--the fife particularly shrill, and the drum particularly solemn.... And now came silence, and tears, and last embraces; we slipped down the gangway into our little craft, and looking up, saw bending above us, between the slouched hat and the silver beard, the eyes that we can never forget, that seemed to drop back in the darkness with the solemnity of a last farewell. We went home, and the drum hung himself gloomily on his peg, and the little fife shut up for the remainder of the evening."
"A Trip to Cuba" appeared first serially in the "Atlantic Monthly," then in book form. Years after, a friend, visiting Cuba, took with her a copy of the little volume; it was seized at Havana by the customs house officers, and confiscated as dangerous and incendiary material.
On her return, our mother was asked to write regularly for the New York "Tribune," describing the season at Newport. This was the beginning of a correspondence which lasted well into the time of the Civil War. She says of it:--
"My letters dealt somewhat with social doings in Newport and in Boston, but more with the great events of the time. To me the experience was valuable in that I found myself brought nearer in sympathy to the general public, and helped to a better understanding of its needs and demands."
To her sister Annie
Sunday, November 6, 1859.
The potatoes arrived long since and were most jolly, as indeed they continue to be. Didn't acknowledge them 'cause knew other people did, and thought it best to be unlike the common herd. Have just been to church and heard Clarke preach about John Brown, whom God bless, and will bless! I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereof I am at present correcting the proof-sheets. I went to see his poor wife, who passed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting, poor soul! Folks say that the last number of my Cuba is the best thing I ever did, in prose or verse. Even Emerson wrote me about it from Concord. I tell you this in case you should not find out of your own accord that it is good. I have had rather an unsettled autumn--have been very infirm and inactive, but have kept up as well as possible--going to church, also to Opera, also to hear dear Edwin Booth, who is playing better than ever. My children are all well and delightful....
I have finished Tacitus' history, also his Germans.... Chev is not at all annoyed by the newspapers, but has been greatly overdone by anxiety and labor for Brown. Much has come upon his shoulders, getting money, paying counsel, and so on. Of course all the stories about the Northern Abolitionists are the merest stuff. No one knew of Brown's intentions but Brown himself and his handful of men. The attempt I must judge insane but the spirit heroic. I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed. His death will be holy and glorious--the gallows cannot dishonor him--he will hallow it....
On Christmas Day, 1859, she gave birth to a second son, who was named Samuel Gridley. This latest and perhaps dearest child was for three short years to fill his parents' life with a joy which came and went with him. His little life was all beautiful, all bright. We associate him specially with the years we spent at No. 13 Chestnut Street, Boston, a spacious and cheerful house which we remember with real affection. The other children were at school; little Sam was the dear companion of our mother's walks, the delight of our father's few leisure hours. For him new songs were made, new games invented: both parents looked forward to fresh youth and vigor in his sweet companionship. This was not to be. "In short measures, life may perfect be": little Sam died of diphtheritic croup, May 17, 1863.
This heavy sorrow for a time crushed both these tender parents to the earth. Our father became seriously ill from grief; our mother, younger and more resilient, found some relief in nursing him and caring for the other children; but this was not enough. She could not banish from her mind the terrible memory of her little boy's suffering, the anguish of parting with him. While her soul lifted its eyes to the hills, her heart sought some way to keep his image constantly before her. Her sad thoughts must be recorded, and she took up, for the first time since 1843, the habit of keeping a journal.
The first journal is a slender Diary and Memorandum Book. On May 13, the first note of alarm is sounded. Sammy "did not seem quite right." From that date the record goes on, the agonizing details briefly described, the loss spoken of in words which no one could read unmoved. But even this was not enough: grief must find further expression, yet must be repressed, so far as might be, in the presence of others, lest her sorrow make theirs heavier. This need of expression took a singular form. She wrote a letter to the child himself, telling the story of his life and death; wrote it with care and precision, omitting no smallest detail, gathering, as it were a handful of pearls, every slightest memory of the brief time.
A few extracts show the tenor of this letter:--
"MY DEAREST LITTLE SAMMY,--
"It is four weeks to-day since I saw your sweet face for the last time on earth. It did not look like your little face, my dear pet, it was so still, and sad, and quiet. But Death had changed it, and I had to submit, and was thankful to have even so much of you as that still face, for some days. Everybody grieved to part from you, dear little soul, but I suppose that I grieved most of all, because you belonged most to me. You were always with me, from the time you began to exist at all. The time of your birth was a sad one. It was the time of the imprisonment and death of John Brown, a very noble man, who should be in one of the many mansions of which Christ tells us, and in which I hope, dear, that you are nearer to Him than any of us can be....
"You arrived, I think, at three in the morning, very red in the face, and making a great time about it. You were a fine large Baby, weighing twelve pounds.... I have some of your baby dresses left, and shall hunt them up and lay them with the clothes you have worn lately.... I gave you milk myself.... I used to lay you across my breast when you cried, and you liked this so well that you often insisted upon sleeping in that position after you were grown quite large. It hurt me so much that I finally managed to break you of the habit, but not until you were more than a year old.... I had a nice crimson merino cloak made for you, trimmed with velvet, and lined with white silk. I bought also a very nice crochet cap, of white and crimson worsted, and in these you were taken to drive with me....
"During this first year of your life I had some troubles, and your Baby ways were my greatest comfort. I used to think: this Baby will grow up to be a man, and will protect me when I am old. For I thought, dear, that you should have outlived me many years. But you are removed from us to grow in another world, of which I know nothing but what Christ has told me....
"You used to keep me awake a good deal at night, and this sometimes made me nervous and fretful, though I was usually very happy with you. I would give a good deal for one of those bad nights now, though at the time they were pretty hard upon me....
"... Your second summer brings me to the winter that followed. It was quite a gay winter for us at old South Boston. Marie, the German cook, made very nice dishes, and I had many people to dine, and one or two pleasant evening parties. You still slept in my room, and when I was going to a party in the evening, Annie[47] used to bring my nice dress and my ornaments softly out of the room, that I might dress in the nursery, and not disturb your slumbers. I was always glad to get home and undress, and it was always sweet to come to the bed, and find you in it, sound asleep, and lying right across.... I learned to sleep on a very little bit of the bed, you wanted so much of it. This winter, I bought you a pair of snow-boots, of which you were very proud....
[47] The child's faithful nurse.
"We all got along happily, dear, till early in April (1863), when your father desired me to make a journey with Julia, who needed change of scene a little. So I had to go and leave you, my sweet of sweets....
"We were glad enough to see each other again, you and I, and I felt as if I could never part with you again. But I was only to have you for a few days, my darling....
"Thursday I sat up in your nursery, in the afternoon, as I usually did, with my book--you having your toys. When I had finished reading, I built houses with blocks for you, and rolled the balls and dumbbells across the floor to you. You rolled them back to me and this amused you very much. I go to sit up in your nursery in the afternoon now, with my book--the light shines in now as it used to do, and I hear the hand-organ and children's voices in the street. It seems to bring you a little nearer to me, my dear lost one, but not near enough for comfort."
The child's illness and death are described minutely, every symptom, every remedy, every anguish noted. Then follows:--
"It gives me dreadful pain to recall these things and write them down, my dearest. I don't do it to make myself miserable, but in order that I may have some lasting record of how you lived and died. You left little by which you might be remembered, save the love of kindred and friendly hearts, but in my heart, dear, your precious image is deeply sculptured. All my life will be full of grief for you, dearest Boy, and I think that I shall hardly live as long as I should have lived, if I had had you to make me happy. Perhaps it seems very foolish that I should write all this, and talk to you in it as if you could know what I write. But, my little darling, it comforts me to think that your sweet soul lives, and that you do know something about me. Christ said, 'This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise': and he knew that this was no vain promise. So, believing the dear Christ, I am led along to have faith in immortal life, of which, dear, I know nothing of myself.
"Your little funeral, dear, was bitter and agonizing. The good God does not send affliction without comfort, but the weeping eyes and breaking heart must struggle through much anguish before they can reach it...."
There was no hearse at this little funeral. The small white casket was placed on the front seat in the carriage in which she rode.
"We came near the gate of Mount Auburn, when I began to realize that the parting was very near. I now opened the casket, took your dear little cold hand in mine, and began to take silent farewell of you. And here, dearest child, I must stop. The remembrance of those last moments so cuts me to the heart, that I cannot say one word more about them, and not much about the life of loneliness and desolation which now began for me, and of which I do not see the end. God knows why I lost you, and how I suffer for you, and He knows how and when I shall see you again, as I hope to do, my dearest, because Christ says we are to live again after this life, and I know that if I am immortal, God will not inflict upon me the pain of an eternal separation from you. So, we shall meet again, sweet Angel Sammy. God grant that the rest of my life may be worthy of this hope, more dear than life itself....
"I must finish these words by saying that I am happy in believing that my dear Child lives, in a broader land, with better teaching and higher joys than I could have given him. I hope that the years to come will brighten, not efface, my mind's picture of him, and that among these, the cipher of one blessed year is already written, in which the picture will become reality, and the present sorrow the foundation of an eternal joy."
The following stanzas are chosen from among many poems on little Sammy's life and death:--
REMEMBRANCE
* * * * *
So thou art hid again, and wilt not come For any knockings at the veilèd door; Nor mother-pangs, nor nature, can restore The heart's delight and blossom of thy home.
And I with others, in the outer court, Must sadly follow the excluding will, In painful admiration, of the skill Of God, who speaks his sweetest sentence short.
At this time she writes to her sister Annie:--
"I cannot yet write of what has come to me. Chev and I feel that we are baptized into a new order of suffering--those who have lost children, loving them, can never be like those who have not. It makes a new heaven and a new earth. The new heaven I have not yet--the blow is too rough and recent. But the new earth, sown with tears, with the beauty and glory gone out of it, the spring itself, that should have made us happy together, grown tasteless and almost hateful. All the relish of life seems gone with him. I have no patience to make phrases about it--for the moment it seems utterness of doubt and of loss.
"No doubt about him. 'This night shalt thou be with me in Paradise' was said by one who knew what he promised. My precious Baby is with the Beautiful One who was so tender with the children. But I am alone, still fighting over the dark battle of his death, still questioning whether there is any forgiveness for such a death. Something must have been wrong somewhere--to find it out, I have tortured myself almost out of sanity. Now I must only say, it is, and look and wait for divine lessons which follow our bitter afflictions.
"God bless you all, darling. Ask dear Cogswell to write me a few lines--tell him that this deep cut makes all my previous life seem shallow and superficial. Tell him to think of me a little in my great sorrow.
"Your loving "JULIA."
She had by now definitely joined the Unitarian Church, in whose doctrines her mind found full and lasting rest; throughout this sorrowful time the Reverend James Freeman Clarke was one of her kindest helpers. Several years before this, she had unwillingly left Theodore Parker's congregation at our father's request. She records in the "Reminiscences" his views on this subject:--
"'The children (our two oldest girls) are now of an age at which they should receive impressions of reverence. They should, therefore, see nothing at the Sunday service which militates against that feeling. At Parker's meeting individuals read the newspapers before the exercises begin. A good many persons come in after the prayer, and some go out before the conclusion of the sermon. These irregularities offend my sense of decorum, and appear to me undesirable in the religious education of my family.'"
It was a grievous thing to her to make this sacrifice; she said to Horace Mann that to give up Parker's ministry for any other would be like going to the synagogue when Paul was preaching near at hand; yet, once made, it was the source of a lifelong joy and comfort.
Mr. Clarke was then preaching at Williams Hall; hearing Parker speak of him warmly, she determined to attend his services. She found his preaching "as unlike as possible to that of Theodore Parker. He had not the philosophic and militant genius of Parker, but he had a genius of his own, poetical, harmonizing. In after years I esteemed myself fortunate in having passed from the drastic discipline of the one to the tender and reconciling ministry of the other."
She has much to say in the "Reminiscences" about the dear "Saint James," as his friends loved to call him. The relation between them was close and affectionate: the Church of the Disciples became her spiritual home.
These were the days of the Civil War; we must turn back to its opening year to record an episode of importance to her and to others.
In the autumn of 1861 she went to Washington in company with Governor and Mrs. Andrew, Mr. Clarke and the Doctor, who was one of the pioneers of the Sanitary Commission, carrying his restless energy and indomitable will from camp to hospital, from battle-field to bureau. She longed to help in some way, but felt that there was nothing she could do--except make lint, which we were all doing.
"I could not leave my nursery to follow the march of our armies, neither had I the practical deftness which the preparing and packing of sanitary stores demanded. Something seemed to say to me, 'You would be glad to serve, but you cannot help anyone: you have nothing to give, and there is nothing for you to do.' Yet, because of my sincere desire, a word was given me to say, which did strengthen the hearts of those who fought in the field and of those who languished in the prison."
Returning from a review of troops near Washington, her carriage was surrounded and delayed by the marching regiments: she and her companions sang, to beguile the tedium of the way, the war songs which every one was singing in those days; among them--
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave. His soul is marching on!"
The soldiers liked this, cried, "Good for you!" and took up the chorus with its rhythmic swing.
"Mrs. Howe," said Mr. Clarke, "why do you not write some good words for that stirring tune?"
"I have often wished to do so!" she replied.
Waking in the gray of the next morning, as she lay waiting for the dawn, the word came to her.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord--"
She lay perfectly still. Line by line, stanza by stanza, the words came sweeping on with the rhythm of marching feet, pauseless, resistless. She saw the long lines swinging into place before her eyes, heard the voice of the nation speaking through her lips. She waited till the voice was silent, till the last line was ended; then sprang from bed, and groping for pen and paper, scrawled in the gray twilight the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." She was used to writing thus; verses often came to her at night, and must be scribbled in the dark for fear of waking the baby; she crept back to bed, and as she fell asleep she said to herself, "I like this better than most things I have written." In the morning, while recalling the incident, she found she had forgotten the words.
The poem was published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for February, 1862. "It was somewhat praised," she says, "on its appearance, but the vicissitudes of the war so engrossed public attention that small heed was taken of literary matters.... I knew and was content to know, that the poem soon found its way to the camps, as I heard from time to time of its being sung in chorus by the soldiers."
She did not, however, realize how rapidly the hymn made its way, nor how strong a hold it took upon the people. It was "sung, chanted, recited, and used in exhortation and prayer on the eve of battle." It was printed in newspapers, in army hymn-books, on broadsides; it was the word of the hour, and the Union armies marched to its swing.
Among the singers of the "Battle Hymn" was Chaplain McCabe, the fighting chaplain of the 122d Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He read the poem in the "Atlantic," and was so struck with it that he committed it to memory before rising from his chair. He took it with him to the front, and in due time to Libby Prison, whither he was sent after being captured at Winchester. Here, in the great bare room where hundreds of Northern soldiers were herded together, came one night a rumor of disaster to the Union arms. A great battle, their jailers told them; a great Confederate victory. Sadly the Northern men gathered together in groups, sitting or lying on the floor, talking in low tones, wondering how, where, why. Suddenly, one of the negroes who brought food for the prisoners stooped in passing and whispered to one of the sorrowful groups. The news was false: there had, indeed, been a great battle, but the Union army had won, the Confederates were defeated and scattered. Like a flame the word flashed through the prison. Men leaped to their feet, shouted, embraced one another in a frenzy of joy and triumph; and Chaplain McCabe, standing in the middle of the room, lifted up his great voice and sang aloud,--
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"
Every voice took up the chorus, and Libby Prison rang with the shout of "Glory, glory, hallelujah!"
The victory was that of Gettysburg. When, some time after, McCabe was released from prison, he told in Washington, before a great audience of loyal people, the story of his war-time experiences; and when he came to that night in Libby Prison, he sang the "Battle Hymn" once more. The effect was magical: people shouted, wept, and sang, all together; and when the song was ended, above the tumult of applause was heard the voice of Abraham Lincoln, exclaiming, while the tears rolled down his cheeks,--
"Sing it again!"
(Our mother met Lincoln in 1861, and was presented to him by Governor Andrew. After greeting the party, the President "seated himself so near the famous portrait of Washington by Gilbert Stuart as naturally to suggest some comparison between the two figures. On the canvas we saw the calm presence, the serene assurance of the man who had successfully accomplished a great undertaking, a vision of health and of peace. In the chair beside it sat a tall, bony figure, devoid of grace, a countenance almost redeemed from plainness by two kindly blue eyes, but overshadowed by the dark problems of the moment....
"When we had left the presence, one of our number exclaimed, 'Helpless Honesty!' As if Honesty could ever be helpless.")
The "Battle Hymn of the Republic" has been translated into Italian, Spanish, and Armenian. Written in the dark on a scrap of Sanitary Commission paper, it has been printed in every imaginable form, from the beautiful parchment edition presented to the author on her seventieth birthday by the New England Woman's Club, down to the cover of a tiny brochure advertising a cure for consumption. It has also been set to music many times, but never successfully. It is inseparably wedded to the air for which it was written, an air simple, martial, and dignified: no attempt to divorce the two could ever succeed.
From the time of writing it to that of her death, she was constantly besieged by requests for autograph copies of part or the whole of the hymn. Sometimes the petitioners realized what they asked, as when Edmund Clarence Stedman wrote:--
"I can well understand what a Frankenstein's monster such a creation grows to be--such a poem as the 'Battle Hymn,' when it has become the sacred scroll of millions, each one of whom would fain obtain a copy of it."
Reasonable or unreasonable, she tried to meet every such request; no one can ever know how many times she copied the hymn, but if a record had been kept, some one with a turn for multiplication might tell us whether the lines put together made up a mile, or more, or less.
She wrote many other poems of the war, among them "The Flag," which is to be found in many anthologies. As the "Battle Hymn" was the voice of the nation's, so this was the expression of her own ardent patriotism:--
There's a flag hangs over my threshold Whose folds are more dear to me Than the blood that thrills in my bosom Its earnest of liberty.
And dear are the stars it harbors In its sunny field of blue, As the hope of a further Heaven That lights all our dim lives through.
This was no figure of speech, but the truth. The war and its mighty issues filled her heart and mind; she poured out song after song, all breathing the spirit of the time, the spirit of hope, resolve, aspiration. Everything she saw connected itself in some way with the great struggle. Seeing her daughters among their young friends, gay as youth must be gay, even in war-time, she cries out,--
Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms, To deck our girls for gay delights! The crimson flower of battle blooms, And solemn marches fill the night.
Weave but the flag whose bars to-day Drooped heavy o'er our early dead, And homely garments, coarse and gray, For orphans that must earn their bread![48]
[48] "Our Orders."
"The Jeweller's Shop in War-Time," "The Battle Eucharist," "The Harvard Student's Song," all reveal the deep feeling of her heart; we remember her singing of "Left Behind" (set to her own music, a wild, mournful chant) as something so thrilling that it catches the breath as we think of it.
Being again in Washington in the spring of 1863, she visited the Army of the Potomac, in company with the wife of General Francis Barlow, and wrote on her return a sketch of the expedition. She carried "a fine Horace, which repeatedly annoyed me by tumbling in the dirt, a volume of Sully's Memoirs, and a little fag end of Spinoza, being his Tractat upon the Old Testament."
She saw the working of the Sanitary Commission; saw "Fighting Joe" Hooker, who looked like "the man who can tell nineteen secrets and keep the twentieth, which will be the only one worth knowing"; and William H. Seward, "looking singularly like a man who has balanced a chip on the fence, and who congratulates himself upon its remaining there"; saw, too, from the heights above Fredericksburg (within the danger line!), an artillery skirmish.
Departing, she writes:--
"Farewell, bristling heights! farewell, sad Fredericksburg! farewell, river of sorrows; farewell, soldiers death-determined, upon whose mournful sacrifice we must shut unwilling eyes. Would it were all at end! the dead wept and buried, the living justified before God. For the deep and terrible secret of the divine idea still lies buried in the burning bosom of the contest. Suspected by the few, shunned by the many, it has not as yet leapt to light in the sight of all. This direful tragedy, in whose third dreary act we are, hangs all upon a great thought. To interpret this, through waste and woe, is the first moral obligation of the situation.... This terrible development of moral causes and effects will enchain the wonder of the world until the crisis of poetical justice which must end it shall have won the acquiescence of mankind, carrying its irresistible lesson into the mind of the critics, into the heart of the multitude."
IX. NO. 13 CHESTNUT STREET, BOSTON
1864; aet. 45
PHILOSOPHY
Naked and poor thou goest, Philosophy! Thy robe of serge hath lain beneath the stars; Thy weight of tresses, ponderously free, Of iron hue, no golden circlet bars.
Thy pale page, Study, by thy side doth hold, As by Cyprigna's her persuasive boy: Twin sacks thou bear'st; one doth thy gifts infold, Whose modest tendering proves immortal joy.
The other at thy patient back doth hang To keep the boons thou'rt wonted to receive: Reproof therein doth hide her venomed fang, And hard barbaric arts, that mock and grieve.
Here is a stab, and here a mortal thrust; Here galley service brought the age to loss; Here lies thy virgin forehead rolled in dust Beside the martyr stake of hero cross.
They who besmirched thy whiteness with their pitch, Thy gallery of glories did complete; They who accepted of thee so grew rich, Men could not count their treasures in the street.
Thy hollow cheek, and eye of distant light, Won from the chief of men their noblest love; Olympian feasts thy temperance requite, And thy worn weeds a priceless dowry prove.
I know not if I've caught the matchless mood In which impassioned Petrarch sang of thee; But this I know,--the world its plenitude May keep, so I may share thy beggary.
J. W. H.
After the two real homes, Green Peace and Lawton's Valley, the Chestnut Street house was nearest to our hearts; this, though we were there only three years, and though it was there that we children first saw the face of sorrow. It was an heroic time. The Doctor was in constant touch with the events of the war. He was sent by Governor Andrew to examine conditions of camps and hospitals, in Massachusetts and at the seat of war; he worked as hard on the Sanitary Commission, to which he had been appointed by President Lincoln, as on any other of his multifarious labors: his knowledge of practical warfare and his grasp of situations gave him a foresight of coming events which seemed well-nigh miraculous. When he entered the house, we all felt the electric touch, found ourselves in the circuit of the great current.
So, these three years were notable for us all, especially for our mother; for beside these vital interests, she was entering upon another phase of development. Heretofore her life had been domestic, studious, social; her chief relation with the public had been through her pen. She now felt the need of personal contact with her audience; felt that she must speak her message. She says in her "Reminiscences": "In the days of which I now write, it was borne in upon me (as the Friends say) that I had much to say to my day and generation which could not and should not be communicated in rhyme, or even in rhythm."
The character of the message, too, was changing. In the anguish of bereavement she sought relief in study, her lifelong resource. Religion and philosophy went hand in hand with her. She read Spinoza eagerly: read Fichte, Hegel, Schelling; finally, found in Immanuel Kant a prophet and a friend. But it was not enough for her to receive; she must also give out: her nature was radiant. She must formulate a philosophy of her own, and must at least offer it to the world.
In September, 1863, she writes to her sister Louisa, "My Ethics are now the joke of my family, and Flossy or any child, wishing a second helping, will say: 'Is it ethical, Mamma?' Too much of my life, indeed, runs in this channel. I can only hope that the things I write may do good to somebody, how much or how little we ourselves are unable to measure."
Yet she could make fun of her philosophers: vide the following passage from one of her "Tribune" letters:--
"We like to make a clean cut occasionally, and distinguish ourselves from our surroundings. Else, we and they get so wedded that we scarcely know ourselves apart. Do I own these four walls, or do they own me, and detain me here for their pleasure and preservation? Do I want these books, or do their ghostly authors seize me wandering near the shelves, impanel me by the button-hole, and insist upon pouring their bottled-up wisdom into my passive mind? I once read a terrible treatise of Fichte upon the me and not me, in which he gave so many reasons why I could not be the washstand, nor the washstand I, that I began after a while to doubt the fact. Had I read further, I think I should never have known myself from house-furniture again. Let me here remark that many of these gymnastics of German metaphysics seem to have no other office than that of harmlessly emptying the brain of all its electricity. Their battery strikes no hammer, turns no wheel. Fichte, having decided that he was not the washstand, smoked, took beer, and walked out to meet some philosophic friend, who, viewing himself _inclusive___, as the Germans say, thought he might be that among other things. Fatherland meantime going to the Devil--strong hands wanted, clear, practical brains,--infinitesimal oppression to be undermined, the century helped on. 'I am not the washstand,' says Fichte; 'I am everything,' says Hegel. Fatherland, take care of yourself. Yet who shall say that it is not a vital point to know our real selves from the factitious personalities imposed upon us, and to distinguish between the symptoms of our fancy and the valid phenomena of our lives?"
The Journal says:--
"At 11.53 [September 24] finished my Essay on Religion, for the power to produce which I thank God. I believe that I have in this built up a greater coherence between things natural and things divine than I have seen or heard made out after this sort by anyone else. I therefore rejoice over my work, ... hoping it may be of service to others, as it has certainly been to me."
Two days later she adds, "I leave this record of my opinion of my work, but on reading it aloud to Paddock,[49] I found the execution of the task to have fallen far short of my conception of it. I shall try to rewrite much of the Essay."
[49] Miss Mary Paddock, our father's devoted amanuensis: one of the earliest and best-loved teachers at the Perkins Institution; often our mother's good helper; the faithful and lifelong friend of us all.
The Journal of 1864 is a quarto volume, with a full page for every day. There are many blank pages, but the record is much fuller than heretofore.
"January 15. Worked all the afternoon at my Essay on Distinction between Philosophy and Religion. Got a bad feeling from fatigue. A sort of trembling agony in my back and left side."
Yet she went to the opera in the evening, and saw "Faust," a "composition with more faults than merits." She concludes the entry with "Dilige et relinque is a good motto for some things."
"Sunday, January 17. It was announced from the pulpit that an Essay on the Soul and Body would be read by a friend at Wednesday evening meeting. That friend was myself, that essay my Lecture on Duality. This would be an honor, but for my ill-deserts. Be witness, O God! that this is no imaginary or sentimental exclamation, but a feeling too well founded on fact."
After the lecture she writes: "Mr. Clarke introduced me charmingly. I wore my white cap, not wishing to read in my thick bonnet. I had quite a full audience.... I consider this opportunity a great honor and privilege conferred upon me."
"January 28. At a quarter before 2 P.M. finished my Essay on Philosophy and Religion. I thank God for this, for many infirmities, some physical, some moral, have threatened to interrupt my work. It is done, and if it is all I am to do, I am ready to die, since life now means work of my best sort, and I value little else, except the comfort of my family. Now for a little rest!"
The "rest" of the following day consisted in paying eight visits between twelve and two o'clock and going to the opera in the evening.
She now began to read her philosophical essays aloud to a chosen circle of friends gathered in the parlor of No. 13 Chestnut Street. After one of these occasions she says: "Professor Rogers took me up sharply (not in temper), on my first statement and definition of Polarity. I suffered in this, but was bound to take it in good part. A thoroughbred dog can bear to be lifted by the ear without squealing. Endurance is a test of breeding...."
"May 27, 1864. My birthday; forty-five years old. This year, begun in intolerable distress, has been, I think, the most valuable one of my life. Paralyzed at first by Sammy's death, I soon found my only refuge from grief in increased activity after my kind. When he died I had written two-thirds of 'Proteus.' As soon as I was able, I wrote the remaining portion which treats of affection. At Newport I wrote my Introductory Lecture on 'How Not to Teach Ethics,' then 'Duality of Character,' then my first Lecture on Religion. Returned from Newport, I wrote my second and third essays on Religion. I read the six essays of my first course to a large circle of friends at my own house, not asking any payment. This done, I began to write a long essay on Polarity which is only partially completed, intending also to write on Limitations and the three degrees, should it be given to me to do so. I have read and re-read Spinoza's Ethics within the last thirteen months. His method in the arrangement of thought and motive has been of great use to me, but I think that I have been able to give them an extended application and some practical illustrations which did not lie within his scope."
The next day she writes: "Dreamed of dearest Sammy. Thought that he was in the bed, and that I was trying to nurse him in the dark as I have so often done. I thought that when his little lips had found my breast, something said in my ear, 'My life's life--the glory of the world.' Quoting from my lines on Mary Booth. This woke me with a sudden impression, Thus Nature remembers."
She decided this spring to read some of her essays in Washington. There were various difficulties in the way, and she was uncertain of the outcome of the enterprise. She writes:--
"I leave Bordentown [the home of her sister Annie] with a resolute, not a sanguine heart. I have no one to stand for me there, Sumner against me, Channing almost unknown to me, everyone else indifferent. I go in obedience to a deep and strong impulse which I do not understand nor explain, but whose bidding I cannot neglect. The satisfaction of having at last obeyed this interior guide is all that keeps me up, for no one, so far as I know, altogether approves of my going."
Spite of these doubts and fears, the enterprise was successful. Perhaps people were glad to shut their ears for a moment to the sound of cannon and the crying of "Latest news from the front!" and listen to the quiet words of philosophic thought and suggestion.
Side by side with work, as usual, went play. In January she records the first meeting of the new club, the "Ladies' Social," at the home of Mrs. Josiah Quincy. This club of clever people, familiarly known as the "Brain Club," was for many years one of her great pleasures. Mrs. Quincy was its first president. It may have been at this meeting that our mother, being asked to present in a few words the nature and object of the club, addressed the company as follows: "Ladies and Gentlemen; this club has been formed for the purpose of carrying on"--she paused, and began to twinkle--"for the purpose of carrying on!"
She describes briefly a meeting of the club at 13 Chestnut Street:--
"Entertained my Club with two charades. Pan-demon-ium was the first, Catastrophe __the second. For Pan I recited some verses of Mrs. Browning's 'Dead Pan,' with the gods she mentions in the background, my own boy as Hermes. For 'Demon' I had a female Faust and a female Satan. Was aided by Fanny McGregor, Alice Howe, Hamilton Wilde, Charles Carroll, and James C. Davis, with my Flossy, who looked beautifully. The entertainment was voted an entire success."
We remember these charades well. The words
"Aphrodite, dead and driven As thy native foam thou art ..."
call up the vision of Fanny McGregor, white and beautiful, lying on a white couch in an attitude of perfect grace.
We hear our mother's voice reciting the stately verses. We see her as the "female Faust," first bending over her book, then listening entranced to the promises of Mephistopheles, finally vanishing behind a curtain from which the next instant sprang Florence (the one child who resembled her) in all the gayety of her bright youth.
The next day she was, "Very weary all day. Put things to rights as well as I could. Read in Spinoza, Cotta, and Livy."
It was for the Brain Club that she wrote "The Socio-Maniac," a cantata caricaturing fashionable society. She set the words to music, and sang with much solemnity the "Mad Song" of the heroine whose brain had been turned by too much gayety:--
"Her mother was a Shaw, And her father was a Tompkins; Her sister was a bore, And her brother was a bumpkin; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!
"Her flounces were of gold, And her slippers were of ermine; And she looked a little bold When she rose to lead the Germin; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!
"For my part I never saw Where she kept her fascination; But I thought she had an aw- Ful conceit and affectation; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!"
New interests were constantly arising. In these days Edwin Booth made his first appearance in Boston. Our mother and father went to the Boston Theatre one rainy evening, "expecting to see nothing more than an ordinary performance. The play was 'Richelieu,' and we had seen but little of Mr. Booth's part in it before we turned to each other and said, 'This is the real thing!'"
Then they saw him in "Hamlet" and realized even more fully that a star had risen. He seemed
... beautiful as dreams of maidenhood, That doubt defy, Young Hamlet, with his forehead grief-subdued, And visioning eye.[50]
[50] "Hamlet at the Boston," Later Lyrics, 1866.
Mr. Booth's manager asked her to write a play for the young tragedian. She gladly consented; Booth himself came to see her; she found him "modest, intelligent, and above all genuine,--the man as worthy of admiration as the artist."
In all the range of classic fiction, to which her mind naturally turned, no character seemed to fit him so well as that of Hippolytus; his austere beauty, his reserve and shyness, all seemed to her the personification of the hunter-prince, beloved of Artemis, and she chose this theme for her play.
The writing of "Hippolytus" was accomplished under difficulties. She says of it:--
"I had at this time and for many years afterward a superstition about a north light. My eyes had given me some trouble, and I felt obliged to follow my literary work under circumstances most favorable for their use. The exposure of our little farmhouse [at Lawton's Valley] was south and west, and its only north light was derived from a window at the top of the attic stairs. Here was a platform just large enough to give room for a table two feet square. The stairs were shut off from the rest of the house by a stout door. And here, through the summer heats, and in spite of many wasps, I wrote my five-act drama, dreaming of the fine emphasis which Mr. Booth would give to its best passages and of the beautiful appearance he would make in classic costume. He, meanwhile, was growing into great fame and favor with the public, and was called hither and thither by numerous engagements. The period of his courtship and marriage[51] intervened, and a number of years elapsed between the completion of the play and his first reading of it."
[51] To Mary Devlin, an actress of great charm.
At last the time seemed ripe for the production of the play. E. L. Davenport, the actor manager of the Howard Athenæum, agreed to produce it: Charlotte Cushman was to play Phædra to Booth's Hippolytus. Rehearsals began, the author's dream seemed close upon fulfilment. Then came a slip never fully explained: the manager suddenly discovered that the subject of the play was a painful one; other reasons were given, but none that appeared sufficient to author or actors.
"My dear," said Miss Cushman, "if Edwin Booth and I had done nothing more than stand upon the stage and say 'good evening' to each other, the house would have been filled."
Briefly, the play was withdrawn. Our mother says: "This was, I think, the greatest 'let down' that I ever experienced. It affected me seriously for some days, after which I determined to attempt nothing more for the stage."
She never forgot the play nor her bitter disappointment.
Many memories cluster about the gracious figure of Edwin Booth. He came often--for so shy and retiring a man--to the Chestnut Street house. We children all worshipped at his shrine; the elder girls worked his initials on the under side of the chair in which he once sat, which was thereafter like no other chair; the younger ones gazed in round-eyed admiration, but the great man had eyes for one only of us all. We gave a party for him, and Beacon Street came in force to meet the brilliant young actor. Alas! the brilliant young actor, after the briefest and shyest of greetings to the company, retired into a corner with eight-year-old Maud, where he sat on the floor making dolls and rabbits out of his pocket handkerchief!
This recalls an oft-quoted anecdote of the time. Our mother wished Charles Sumner to see and know Booth. One evening when the Senator was at the house, she told him of her wish. The next day she writes in her Journal: "Sumner to tea. Made a rude speech on being asked to meet Booth. Said: 'I don't know that I should care to meet him. I have outlived my interest in individuals.' Fortunately, God Almighty had not, by last accounts, got so far."
Sumner was told of this in her presence. "What a strange sort of book," he exclaimed, "your diary must be! You ought to strike that out immediately."
She admired Charles Sumner heartily, but they disagreed on many points. He disapproved of women's speaking in public (as did the Doctor), and--with wholly kind intentions--did what he could to prevent her giving the above-mentioned readings in Washington. She notes this in her Journal.
"I wrote him a very warm letter, but with no injurious phrase, as I felt only grief and indignation, not dis-esteem, towards him. Yet the fact of having written the letter became extremely painful to me, when it was once beyond recall. I could not help writing a second on the day following, to apologize for the roughness of the first. This was a diplomatic fault, I think, but one inseparable from my character. C.S.'s reply, which I dreaded to read, was very kind. While I clearly saw his misapprehension of the whole matter, I saw also the thorough kindliness and sincerity of his nature. So we disagree, but I love him."
Mr. Sumner did not attend the readings, but he came to see her, and was, as always, kind and friendly. After seeing him in the Senate she writes: "Sumner looks up and smiles. That smile seems to illuminate the Senate."
Another passage in the Journal of March, 1864, is in a different note: "Maggie ill and company to dinner. I washed breakfast things, cleared the table, walked, read Spinoza a little, then had to 'fly round,' as my dinner was an early one. Picked a grouse, and saw to various matters. Company came, a little early. The room was cold. Hedge, Palfrey, and Alger to dinner. Conversation pleasant, but dinner late, and not well served. Palfrey and Hedge read Parker's Latin epitaph on Chev, amazed at the bad Latinity."
* * * * *
In June, 1864, a Russian squadron, sent to show Russia's good-will toward the United States, dropped anchor in Boston Harbor, and hospitable Boston rose up in haste to receive the strangers. Dr. Holmes wrote a song beginning,--
"Seabirds of Muscovy, Rest in our waters,"--
which was sung to the Russian national air at a public reception.
Our mother for once made no "little verse," but she saw a good deal of the Russian officers; gave parties for them, and attended various functions and festivities on board the ships. On Sunday, June 22, she writes:--
"To mass on board the Oslaba.... The service was like the Armenian Easter I saw in Rome.... It is a sacrifice to God instead of a lesson from Him, which after all makes the difference between the old religions and the true Christian. For even Judaism is heathen compared with Christianity. Yet I found this very consoling, as filling out the verities of religious development. I seemed to hear in the responses a great harmony in which the first man had the extreme bass and the last born babe the extreme treble. Theo. Parker and my dear Sammy were blended in it."
Soon after this the "seabirds of Muscovy" departed; then came the flitting to Newport, and a summer of steady work.
"Read Paul in the Valley. Thought of writing a review of his first two epistles from the point of view of the common understanding. The clumsy Western mind has made such literal and material interpretations of the Oriental finesses of the New Testament, that the present coarse and monstrous beliefs, so far behind the philosophical, æsthetic, and natural culture of the age, is imposed by the authority of the few upon the ignorance of the many, and stands a monument of the stupidity of all.
"Paul's views of the natural man are, inevitably, much colored by the current bestiality of the period. To apply his expressions to the innocent and inevitable course of Nature is coarse, unjust, and demoralizing, because confusing to the moral sense."
"I came to the conclusion to-day that an heroic intention is not to be kept in sight without much endeavor. Now that I have finished at least one portion of my Ethics and Dynamics, I find myself thinking how to get just credit for it, rather than how to make my work most useful to others. The latter must, however, be my object, and shall be. Did not Chev so discourage it, I should feel bound to give these lectures publicly, being, as they are, a work for the public. I do not as yet decide what to do with them."
Returning to 13 Chestnut Street, she found a multiplicity of work awaiting her. Ethics had to stand aside and make way for Poetry and Philanthropy. New York was to celebrate the seventieth birthday of William Cullen Bryant; she was asked to write a poem for the occasion. This she did joyfully, composing and arranging the stanzas mostly in the train between Newport and Boston.
On the day of the celebration, she took an early train for New York: Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was on the train. "I will sit by you, Mrs. Howe," he said, "but I must not talk! I am going to read a poem at the Bryant celebration, and must save my voice."
"By all means let us keep silent," she replied. "I also have a poem to read at the Bryant Celebration."
Describing this scene she says, "The dear Doctor, always my friend, overestimated his power of abstinence from the interchange of thought which was so congenial to him. He at once launched forth in his own brilliant vein, and we were within a few miles of our destination when we suddenly remembered that we had not taken time to eat our luncheon."
George Bancroft met them at the station, carried her trunk himself ("a small one!"), and put her into his own carriage. The reception was in the Century Building. She entered on Mr. Bryant's arm, and sat between him and Mr. Bancroft on the platform. The Journal tells us:--
"After Mr. Emerson's remarks my poem was announced. I stepped to the middle of the platform, and read my poem. I was full of it, and read it well, I think, as every one heard me, and the large room was crammed. The last two verses--not the best--were applauded.... This was, I suppose, the greatest public honor of my life. I record it for my grandchildren."
The November pages of the Journal are blank, but on that for November 21 is pasted a significant note. It is from the secretary of the National Sailors' Fair, and conveys the thanks of the Board of Managers to Mrs. Howe "for her great industry and labor in editing the 'Boatswain's Whistle.'"
Neither Journal nor "Reminiscences" has one word to say about fair or paper; yet both were notable. The great war-time fairs were far more than a device for raising money. They were festivals of patriotism; people bought and sold with a kind of sacred ardor. This fair was Boston's contribution toward the National Sailors' Home. It was held in the Boston Theatre, which for a week was transformed into a wonderful hive of varicolored bees, all "workers," all humming and hurrying. The "Boatswain's Whistle" was the organ of the fair. There were ten numbers of the paper: it lies before us now, a small folio volume of eighty pages.
Title and management are indicated at the top of the first column:--
THE BOATSWAIN'S WHISTLE.
----------------- Editorial Council.
Edward Everett. A. P. Peabody.
John G. Whittier. J. R. Lowell.
O. W. Holmes. E. P. Whipple.
----------------- Editor.
Julia Ward Howe.
Each member of the Council made at least one contribution to the paper; but the burden fell on the Editor's shoulders. She worked day and night; no wonder that the pages of the Journal are blank. Beside the editorials and many other unsigned articles, she wrote a serial story, "The Journal of a Fancy Fair," which brings back vividly the scene it describes. In those days the raffle was not discredited. Few people realized that it was a crude form of gambling; clergy and laity alike raffled merrily. Our mother, however, in her story speaks through the lips of her hero a pungent word on the subject:--
"The raffle business is, I suppose, the great humbug of occasions of this kind. It seems to me very much like taking a front tooth from a certain number of persons in order to make up a set of teeth for a party who wants it and who does not want to pay for it."
We should like to linger over the pages of the "Boatswain's Whistle"; to quote from James Freeman Clarke's witty dialogues, Edward Everett's stately periods, Dr. Holmes's sparkling verse; to describe General Grant, the prize ox, white as driven snow and weighing 3900 pounds, presented by the owner to President Lincoln and by him to the fair. Did we not see him drawn in triumph through Boston streets on an open car, and realize in an instant--fresh from our "Wonder-Book"--what Europa's bull looked like?
But of all the treasures of the little paper, we must content ourselves with this dispatch:--
Allow me to wish you a great success. With the old fame of the navy made bright by the present war, you cannot fail. I name none lest I wrong others by omission. To all, from Rear Admiral to honest Jack, I tender the nation's admiration and gratitude.
A. LINCOLN.
X. THE WIDER OUTLOOK
1865; aet. 46
THE WORD
Had I one of thy words, my Master, With a spirit and tone of thine, I would run to the farthest Indies To scatter the joy divine.
I would waken the frozen ocean With a billowy burst of joy: Stir the ships at their grim ice-moorings The summer passes by.
I would enter court and hovel, Forgetful of mien or dress, With a treasure that all should ask for, An errand that all should bless.
I seek for thy words, my Master, With a spelling vexed and slow: With scanty illuminations In an alphabet of woe.
But while I am searching, scanning A lesson none ask to hear, My life writeth out thy sentence Divinely just and dear.
J. W. H.
The war was nearly over, and all hearts were with Grant and Lee in their long duel before Richmond. Patriotism and philosophy together ruled our mother's life in these days; the former more apparent in her daily walk among us, the latter in the quiet hours with her Journal.
The Journal for 1865 is much fuller than that of 1864; the record of events is more regular, and we find more and more reflection, meditation, and speculation. The influence of Kant is apparent; the entries become largely notes of study, to take final shape in lectures and essays.
"A morning visit received in study hours is a sickness from which the day does not recover. I can neither afford to be idle, nor to have friends who are so."
"Man is impelled by inward force, regulated by outward circumstance. He is inspired from within, moralized from without.... A man may be devout in himself, but he can be moral only in his relation with other men...."
"Early to Mary Dorr's, to consult about the Charade. Read Kant and wrote as usual. Spent the afternoon in getting up my costumes for the Charade. The word was Au-thor-ship.... Authorship was expressed by my appearing as a great composer, Jerry Abbott performing my Oratorio--a very comical thing, indeed. The whole was a success."
No one who saw the "Oratorio" can forget it. Mr. Abbott, our neighbor in Chestnut Street, was a comedian who would have adorned any stage. The "book" of the Oratorio was a simple rhyme of Boston authorship.
"Abigail Lord, Of her own accord, Went down to see her sister, When Jason Lee, As brisk as a flea, He hopped right up and kissed her."
With these words, an umbrella, and a chair held before him like a violoncello, Mr. Abbott gave a truly Handelian performance. Fugue and counterpoint, first violin and bass tuba, solo and full chorus, all were rendered with a verve and spirit which sent the audience into convulsions of laughter.--This was one of the "carryings-on" of the Brain Club. After another such occasion our mother writes:--
"Very weary and aching a little. I must keep out of these tomfooleries, though they have their uses. They are much better than some other social entertainments, as after all they present some æsthetic points of interest. They are better than scandal, gluttony, or wild dancing. But the artists and I have still better things to do."
"January 23. It is always legitimate to wish to rise above one's self, never above others. In this, however, as in other things, we must remember the maxim: 'Natura nil facit per saltum.' All true rising must be gradual and laborious, in such wise that the men of to-morrow shall look down almost imperceptibly upon the men of to-day. All sudden elevations are either imaginary or factitious. If you had not a kingly mind before your coronation, no crown will make a king of you. The true king is somewhere, starving or hiding, very like. For the true value which the counterfeit represents exists somewhere. The world has much dodging about to produce the real value and escape the false one."
Throughout the Journal, we find a revelation of the conflict in this strangely dual nature. Her study was, she thought, her true home; yet no one who saw her in society would have dreamed that she was making an effort: nor was she! She gave herself up entirely to the work or the play of the hour. She was a many-sided crystal: every aspect of life met its answering flash. The glow of human intercourse kindled her to flame; but when the flame had cooled, the need of solitude and study lay on her with twofold poignancy. She went through life in double harness, thought and feeling abreast; though often torn between the two, in the main she gave free rein to both, trusting the issue to God.
The winter of 1864-65 was an arduous one. She was writing new philosophical essays, and reading them before various circles of friends. The larger audience which she craved was not for the moment attainable. She was studying deeply, reading Latin by way of relaxation, going somewhat into society (Julia and Florence being now of the dancing age), and entertaining a good deal in a quiet way. In February she writes: "Much tormented by interruptions. Could not get five quiet minutes at a time. Everybody torments me with every smallest errand. And I am trying to study philosophy!"
Probably we were troublesome children and made more noise than we should. Her accurate ear for music was often a source of distress to her, as one of us can witness, an indolent child who neglected her practising. As this child drummed over her scales, the door of the upstairs study would open, and a clear voice come ringing down, "B flat, dear, not B natural!"
It seemed to the child a miracle; she, with the book before her, could not get it right: "Mamma," studying Kant upstairs behind closed doors, knew what the note should be.
"Few of us consider the wide and laborious significance of the simplest formulas we employ. 'I love you!' opens out a long vista of labor and endeavor; otherwise it means: 'I love myself and need you.'..."
"Played all last evening for Laura's company to dance. My heart flutters to-day. It is a feeling unknown to me until lately."
Now, Laura would have gone barefoot in snow to save her mother pain or fatigue; yet she has no recollection of ever questioning the inevitability of "Mamma's" playing for all youthful dancing. Grown-up parties were different; for them there were hired musicians, who made inferior music; but for the frolics of the early 'teens, who should play except "Mamma"?
On March 10, she writes: "I have now been too long in my study. I must break out into real life, and learn some more of its lessons."
Two days later a lesson began: "I stay from church to-day to take care of Maud, who is quite unwell. This is a sacrifice, although I am bound and glad to make it. But I shall miss the church all the week."
The child became so ill that "all pursuits had to be given up in the care of her." The Journal gives a minute account of this illness, and of the remedies used, among them "long-continued and gentle friction with the hand." The words bring back the touch of her hand, which was like no other. There were no trained nurses in our nursery, rarely any doctor save "Papa," but "Mamma" rubbed us, and that was a whole pharmacopœia in itself.
At this time she gave her first public lecture before the Parker Fraternity. This was an important event to her; she had earnestly desired yet greatly dreaded it. She found the hall pleasant, the audience attentive. "When I came to read the lecture," she says, "I felt that it had a value."
"All these things in my mind point one way, viz.: towards the adoption of a profession of Ethical exposition, after my sort."
She had been asked to give a lecture at Tufts College, and says of this: "The difficulties are great, the question is to me one of simple duty. If I am sent for, and have the word to say, I should say it."
And again: "I determine that I can only be good in fulfilling my highest function--all else implies waste of power, leading to demoralization."
She declined the invitation, "feeling unable to decide in favor of accepting it."
"But I was sorry," she says, "and I remembered the words: 'He that hath put his hand to the plough and looketh back is not fit for the kingdom of heaven.' God keep me from so looking back!"
The Journal of this spring is largely devoted to philosophic speculations and commentaries on Kant, whose theories she finds more and more luminous and convincing; now and then comes a note of her own:--
"'I am God!' says the fool. 'I see God!' says the wise man. For while you are your own supreme, you are your own God, and self-worship is true atheism."
"It is better to use a bad man by his better side than a good man by his worse side."
"Christ said that he was older than Abraham. I think that he used this expression as a measure of value. His thoughts were further back in the primal Ideal necessity. He did not speak of any personal life antedating his own existence.... In his own sense, Christ was also newer than we are, for his doctrine is still beyond the attainment of all and the appreciation of most of us."
"There is no essential religious element in negation."
"Saw Booth in 'Hamlet'--still first-rate, I think, although he has played it one hundred nights in New York. 'Hamlet' is an æsthetic Evangel. I know of no direct ethical work which contains such powerful moral illustration and instruction."
"James Freeman [Clarke] does not think much of Sam's book, probably not as well as it deserves. But the knowledge of Sam's personality is the light behind the transparency in all that he does."[52]
[52] Lyrical Ventures, by Samuel Ward.
These were the closing months of the Civil War. All hearts were lifted up in thankfulness that the end was near. She speaks of it seldom, but her few words are significant.
"Monday, April 3.... Richmond was taken this morning. Laus Deo!"
On April 10, after "Maud's boots, $3.00, Vegetables, .12, Bread, .04," we read, "Ribbons for victory, .40. To-day we have the news of Lee's surrender with the whole remnant of his army. The city is alive with people. All flags hung out--shop windows decorated--processions in the street. All friends meet and shake hands. On the newspaper bulletins such placards as 'Gloria in excelsis Deo,' 'Thanks be to God!' We all call it the greatest day of our lives.
"Apples, half-peck, .50."
That week was one of joy and thankfulness for all. Thursday was Fast Day; she "went to church to fatigue Satan. Afterwards made a visit to Mrs. ---- who did not seem to have tired her devil out."
The joy bells were soon to be silenced. Saturday, April 15, was
"A black day in history, though outwardly most fair. President Lincoln was assassinated in his box at the theatre, last evening, by J. Wilkes Booth. This atrocious act, which was consummated in a very theatrical manner, is enough to ruin not the Booth family alone, but the theatrical profession. Since my Sammy's death, nothing has happened that has given me so much personal pain as this event. The city is paralyzed. But we can only work on, and trust in God."
Our father's face of tragedy, the anguish in his voice, as he called us down to hear the news, come vividly before us to-day, one of the clearest impressions of our youth. Our mother went with him next day to hear Governor Andrew's official announcement of the murder to the Legislature, and heard with deep emotion his quotation from "Macbeth":--
"Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of his taking-off," etc.
Wednesday, April 19, was:--
"The day of President Lincoln's funeral. A sad, disconnected day. I could not work, but strolled around to see the houses, variously draped in black and white. Went to Bartol's church, not knowing of a service at our own. Bartol's remarks were tender and pathetic. I was pleased to have heard them.
"Wrote some verses about the President--pretty good, perhaps,--scratching the last nearly in the dark, just before bedtime."
This is the poem called "Parricide." It begins:--
O'er the warrior gauntlet grim Late the silken glove we drew. Bade the watch-fires slacken dim In the dawn's auspicious hue. Staid the armèd heel; Still the clanging steel; Joys unwonted thrilled the silence through.
On April 27 she "heard of Wilkes Booth's death--shot on refusing to give himself up--the best thing that could have happened to himself and his family"; and wrote a second poem entitled "Pardon," embodying her second and permanent thought on the subject:
Pains the sharp sentence the heart in whose wrath it was uttered, Now thou art cold; Vengeance, the headlong, and Justice, with purpose close muttered, Loosen their hold, etc.
Brief entries note the closing events of the war.
"May 13. Worked much on Essay.... In the evening said to Laura: 'Jeff Davis will be taken to-morrow.' Was so strongly impressed with the thought that I wanted to say it to Chev, but thought it was too silly."
"May 14. The first thing I heard in the morning was the news of the capture of Jeff Davis. This made me think of my preluding the night before...."
* * * * *
Other things beside essays demanded work in these days. The great struggle was now over, and with it the long strain on heart and nerve, culminating in the tragic emotion of the past weeks. The inevitable reaction set in. Her whole nature cried out for play, and play meant work.
"Working all day for the Girls' Party, to-morrow evening. Got only a very short reading of Kant, and of Tyndall. Tea with the Bartols. Talk with [E. P.] Whipple, who furiously attacked Tacitus. Bartol and I, who know a good deal more about him, made a strong fight in his behalf."
"Working all day for the Party. The lists of men and women accepting and declining were balanced by my daughter F. with amusing anxiety.... The two sexes are now neck and neck. Dear little Maud was in high glee over every male acceptance. Out of all this hubbub got a precious forty-five minutes with Kant...."
The party proved "very gay and pleasant."
Now came a more important event: the Musical Festival celebrating the close of the war, which was given by the Handel and Haydn Society, at its semi-centennial, in May, 1865. Our mother sang alto in the chorus. The Journal records daily, sometimes semi-daily, rehearsals and performances, Kant squeezed to the wall, and getting with difficulty his daily hour or half-hour. Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise" and "Elijah"; Haydn's "Creation," Handel's "Messiah" and "Israel in Egypt"; she sang in them all.
Here is a sample Festival day:--
"Attended morning rehearsal, afternoon concert, and sang in the evening. We gave 'Israel in Egypt' and Mendelssohn's 'Hymn of Praise.' I got a short reading of Kant, which helped me through the day. But so much music is more than human nerves can respond to with pleasure. This confirms my belief in the limited power of our sensibilities in the direction of pure enjoyment. The singing in the choruses fatigues me less than hearing so many things."
After describing the glorious final performance of the "Messiah," she writes:--
"So farewell, delightful Festival! I little thought what a week of youth was in store for me. For these things carried me back to my early years, and their passion for music. I remembered the wholeness with which I used to give myself up to the concerts and oratorios in New York, and the intense reaction of melancholy which always followed these occasions."
And the next day:--
"Still mourning the Festival a little. If I had kept up my music as I intended, in my early youth, I should never have done what I have done--should never have studied philosophy, nor written what I have written. My life would have been more natural and passionate, but I think less valuable. Yet I cannot but regret the privation of this element in which I have lived for years. But I do believe that music is the most expensive of the fine arts. It uses up the whole man more than the other arts do, and builds him up less. It is more passional, less intellectual, than the other arts. Its mastery is simple and absolute, while that of the other arts is so complex as to involve a larger sphere of thought and reflection. I have observed the faces of this orchestra just disbanded. Their average is considerably above the ordinary one. But they have probably more talent than thought."
On May 31 we find a significant entry. The evening before she had attended the Unitarian Convention, and "heard much tolerable speaking, but nothing of any special value or importance." She now writes:--
"I really suffered last evening from the crowd of things which I wished to say, and which, at one word of command, would have flashed into life and, I think, into eloquence. It is by a fine use of natural logic that the Quaker denomination allows women to speak, under the pressure of religious conviction. 'In Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female,' is a good sentence. Paul did not carry this out in his church discipline, yet, one sees, he felt it in his religious contemplation. I feel that a woman's whole moral responsibility is lowered by the fact that she must never obey a transcendent command of conscience. Man can give her nothing to take the place of this. It is the divine right of the human soul."
The fatigue and excitement of the Festival had to be paid for: the inevitable reaction set in.
"June 3. Decidedly I have spleen in these days. Throughout my whole body, I feel a mingled restlessness and feebleness, as if the nerves were irritated, and the muscles powerless. I feel puzzled, too, about the worth of what I have been doing for nearly three years past. There is no one to help me in these matters. I determine still to work on and hope on. Much of the work of every life is done in the dark."
Again: "Spleen to-day, and utter discouragement. The wind is east, and this gives me the strange feeling, described before, of restlessness and powerlessness. My literary affairs are in a very confused state. I have no market. This troubles me.... God keep me from falling away from my purpose, to do only what seems to me necessary and called for in my vocation, and not to produce for money, praise, or amusement."
"Was melancholy and Godless all day, having taken my volume of Kant back to the Athenæum for the yearly rearrangement. Could not interest myself in anything.... Visited old Mrs. Sumner,[53] whose chariot and horses are nearly ready."
[53] The mother of Charles Sumner.
At this time there was some question of selling Lawton's Valley for economic reasons. The exigency passed, but the following words show the depth of her feeling on the subject: "If I have any true philosophy, any sincere religion, these must support me under the privation of the Valley. I feel this, and resolve to do well, but nature will suffer. That place has been my confidante,--my bosom friend,--intimate to me as no human being ever will be--dear and comforting also to my children...."
"June 11.... Thought of a good text for a sermon, 'In the world ye shall have tribulation,' the scope being to show that our tribulation, if we try to do well, is in the world, our refuge and comfort in the church. Thought of starting a society in Newport for the practice of sacred music, availing ourselves of the summer musicians and the possible aid of such ladies as Miss Reed, etc., for solos. Such an enterprise would be humanizing, and would supply a better object than the empty reunions of fashion...."
"Wednesday, June 21. Attended the meeting at Faneuil Hall, for the consideration of reconstruction of the Southern States. Dana made a statement to the effect that voting was a civic, not a natural, right, and built up the propriety of negro suffrage on the basis first of military right, then of duty to the negro, this being the only mode of enabling him to protect himself against his late master. His treatment was intended to be exhaustive, and was able, though cold and conceited. Beecher tumbled up on the platform immediately after, not having heard him, knocked the whole question to pieces with his great democratic power, his humor, his passion, and his magnetism. It was Nature after Art, and his nature is much greater than Dana's art."
A few days after this she writes: "... Sumner in the evening--a long and pleasant visit. He is a very sweet-hearted man, and does not grow old."
The Musical Festival had not yet exacted full arrears of payment; she was too weary even to enjoy the Valley at first; but after a few days of its beloved seclusion she shook off fatigue and was herself again, reading Kant and Livy, teaching the children, and gathering mussels on the beach.
She flits up to town to see the new statue of Horace Mann, "in order to criticise it for Chev's pamphlet";[54] meets William Hunt, who praises its simplicity and parental character; and Charles Sumner, who tells her it looks better on a nearer view.
[54] Dr. Howe raised the money for this statue.
The day after--"we abode in the Valley, when three detachments of company tumbled in upon us, to wit, Colonel Higginson and Mrs. McKay, the Tweedys and John Field, and the Gulstons. All were friendly. Only on my speaking of the rudeness occasionally shown me by a certain lady, Mrs. Tweedy said: 'But that was in the presence of your superiors, was it not?' I replied: 'I do not know that I was ever in Mrs. X.'s company under those circumstances!' After which we all laughed."
She was at this time sitting to Miss Margaret Foley for a portrait medallion and was writing philosophy and poetry. Family and household matters also claimed their share of attention.
"Finished reading over 'Polarity' [her essay]. Reading to the children, 'Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head'--my little Maud's eyes filled with tears."
"Much worried by want of preparedness for today's picnic. Managed to get up three chickens killed on short notice, a pan of excellent gingerbread, two cans of peaches, and a little bread and butter. Went in the express wagon.... At the picnic I repeated my Cambridge poem, ... and read 'Amanda's Inventory' and my long poem on Lincoln's death.... Duty depends on an objective, happiness upon a subjective, sense. The first is capable of a general and particular definition, the second is not."
"In the afternoon mended Harry's shirt, finished Maud's skirt, read Livy and Tyndall, and played croquet, which made me very cross."
"Exhumed my French story and began its termination. Mended a sheet badly torn."
After a long list of purchases--
"Worked like a dog all day. Went in town, running about to pick up all the articles above mentioned.... Came home--cut bread and butter and spread sandwiches till just within time to slip off one dress and slip on another. My company was most pleasant, and more numerous than I had anticipated...."
"Legal right is the universal compulsion which secures universal liberty."
"I feel quite disheartened when I compare this summer with the last. I was so happy and hopeful in writing my three Essays and thought they should open such a vista of usefulness to me, and of good to others. But the opposition of my family has made it almost impossible for me to make the use intended of them. My health has not allowed me to continue to produce so much. I feel saddened and doubtful of the value of what I have done or can do...."
"August 23.... Rights and duties are inseparable in human beings. God has rights without duties. Men have rights and duties. If a slave have not rights, he also has not duties...."
"With the girls to a matinée at Bellevue Hall. They danced and I was happy."
"My croquet party kept me busy all day. It was pleasant enough...."
"... 'My peace I give unto you' is a wonderful saying. What peace have most of us to give each other? But Christ has given peace to the world, peace at least as an ideal object, to be ever sought, though never fully attained."
"September 10.... Read Kant on state rights. According to him, wars of conquest are allowable only in a state of nature, not in a state of peace (which is not to be attained without a compact whose necessity is supreme and whose obligations are sacred). So Napoleon's crusade against the constituted authority of the European republic was without logical justification,--which accounts for the speedy downfall of his empire. What he accomplished had only the subjective justification of his genius and his ambition. His work was of great indirect use in sweeping away certain barriers of usage and of superstition. He drew a picture of government on a large scale and thus set a pattern which inevitably enlarged the procedures of his successors, who lost through him the prestige of divine right and of absolute power. But the inadequacy of his object showed itself through the affluence of his genius. The universal dominion of the Napoleon family was not to be desired or endured by the civilized world at large. The tortoise in the end overtook the hare, and slow, plodding Justice, with her loyal hack, distanced splendid Ambition mounted on first-rate ability, once and forever...."
"To Zion church, to hear ---- preach. Text, 'Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.' Sermon as far removed from it as possible, weak, sentimental, and illiterate. He left out the 'd' in 'receivedst,' and committed other errors in pronunciation. But to sit with the two aunts[55] in the old church, so familiar to my childhood, was touching and impressive. Hither my father was careful to bring us. Imperfect as his doctrine now appears to me, he looks down upon me from the height of a better life than mine, and still appears to me as my superior."
[55] Mrs. Francis and Mrs. McAllister.
"A little nervous about my reading. Reached Mrs. [Richard] Hunt's at twelve. Saw the sweet little boy. Mrs. Hunt very kind and cordial. At one Mr. Hunt led me to the studio which I found well filled, my two aunts in the front row, to my great surprise; Bancroft, too, quite near me. I shortened the essay somewhat. It was well heard and received. Afterwards I read my poem called 'Philosophy,' and was urged to recite my 'Battle Hymn,' which I did. I was much gratified by the kind reception I met with and the sight of many friends of my youth. A most pleasant lunch afterwards at Mrs. Hunt's, with Tweedys, Tuckermans, and Laura."
"I see no outlook before me. So many fields for activity, but for passivity, which seems incumbent upon me, only uselessness, obscurity, deterioration. Some effort I must make."
Many efforts were impending, though not precisely in the direction contemplated. First, a new abode must be found for the winter, as the owners of 13 Chestnut Street claimed it for themselves. She and the Doctor added house-hunting to their other burdens, and found it a heavy one. On October 6 she writes:--
"Much excited about plans and prospects. Chev has bought the house in Boylston Place.[56] God grant it may be for the best. Determine to have classes in philosophy, and to ask a reasonable price for my tickets....
[56] No. 19.
"The Sunday's devotion without the week's thought and use is a spire without a meeting-house. It leaps upward, but crowns and covers nothing.
"I have too often set down the moral weight I have to carry, and frisked around it. But the voice now tells me that I must bear it to the end, or lose it forever."
The move to Boylston Place was in November. Early in the month a "frisking" took place, with amusing results. Our mother went with Governor and Mrs. Andrew and a gay party to Barnstable for the annual festival and ball. The Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company acted as escort, and--according to custom--the band of the Company furnished the music. For some reason--the townspeople thought because the pretty girls were all engaged beforehand for the dance--the officer in command stopped the music at twelve o'clock, to the great distress of the Barnstable people who had ordered their carriages at two or later. The party broke up in disorder far from "admired," and our mother crystallized the general feeling in the following verses, which the Barnstableites promptly printed in a "broadside," and sang to the then popular tune of "Lanigan's Ball":--
THE BARNSTABLE BALL
A LYRIC
(Appointed to be sung in all Social Meetings on the Cape)
March away with your old artillery; Don't come back till we give you a call. Put your Colonel into the pillory; He broke up the Barnstable Ball.
Country folks don't go a-pleasuring Every day, as it doth befall; They with deepest scorn are measuring Him who broke up the Barnstable Ball.
He came down with his motley company, Stalking round the 'cultural hall; Couldn't find a partner to jump any, So broke up the Barnstable Ball.
Warn't it enough with their smoking and thundering, Sweeping about like leaves in a squall, But they must take to theft and plundering,-- Steal the half of the Barnstable Ball?
Put the music into their pocket, Order the figure-man not to bawl, Twenty jigs were still on the docket, When they adjourned the Barnstable Ball.
Gov'nor A. won't hang for homicide, That's a point that bothers us all; He must banish ever from his side Such as murdered the Barnstable Ball.
When they're old and draw'd with rheumatiz, Let them say to their grandbabes small, "Deary me, what a shadow of gloom it is To remember the Barnstable Ball!"
This autumn saw the preparation of a new volume of poems, "Later Lyrics." Years had passed since the appearance of "Words for the Hour," and our mother had a great accumulation of poems, the arrangement of which proved a heavy task.
"The labor of looking over the manuscript nearly made me ill.... Had a new bad feeling of intense pressure in the right temple."
And again:--
"Nearly disabled by headaches.... Determine to push on with my volume."
"Almost distracted with work of various sorts--my book--the new house--this one full of company, and a small party in the evening."
"All these days much hurried by proofs. Went in the evening to the opening of the new wards in the Women's Hospital--read two short poems, according to promise. These were kindly received...."
The next day she went with a party of friends to the Boys' Reform School at Westboro. "In the yard where the boys were collected, the guests were introduced. Quite a number crowded to see the Author of the 'Battle Hymn.' Two or three said to me: 'Are you the woman that wrote that "Battle Hymn"?' When I told them that I was, they seemed much pleased. This I felt to be a great honor."
The next day again she is harassed with correcting proofs and furnishing copy. "Ran to Bartol for a little help, which he gave me."
The Reverend C. A. Bartol was our next-door neighbor in Chestnut Street, a most kind and friendly one. His venerable figure, wrapped in a wide cloak, walking always in the middle of the road (we never knew why he eschewed the sidewalk), is one of the pleasant memories of Chestnut Street. We were now to leave that beloved street; a sorrowful flitting it was.
"Friday, November 3. Moving all day. This is my last writing in this dear house, No. 13 Chestnut Street, where I have had three years of good work, social and family enjoyment. Here I enjoyed my dear Sammy for six happy months--here I mourned long and bitterly for him. Here I read my six lectures on Practical Ethics. Some of my best days have been passed in this house. God be thanked for the same!"
XI. NO. 19 BOYLSTON PLACE: "LATER LYRICS"
1866; aet. 47
IN MY VALLEY
From the hurried city fleeing, From the dusty men and ways, In my golden sheltered valley, Count I yet some sunny days.
Golden, for the ripened Autumn Kindles there its yellow blaze; And the fiery sunshine haunts it Like a ghost of summer days.
Walking where the running water Twines its silvery caprice, Treading soft the leaf-spread carpet, I encounter thoughts like these:--
"Keep but heart, and healthful courage, Keep the ship against the sea, Thou shalt pass the dangerous quicksands That ensnare Futurity;
"Thou shalt live for song and story, For the service of the pen; Shalt survive till children's children Bring thee mother-joys again.
"Thou hast many years to gather; And these falling years shall bring The benignant fruits of Autumn, Answering to the hopes of Spring.
"Passing where the shades that darken Grow transfigured to thy mind, Thou shalt go with soul untroubled To the mysteries behind;
"Pass unmoved the silent portal Where beatitude begins, With an equal balance bearing Thy misfortunes and thy sins."
Treading soft the leaf-spread carpet, Thus the Spirits talked with me; And I left my valley, musing On their gracious prophecy.
To my fiery youth's ambition Such a boon were scarcely dear; "Thou shalt live to be a grandame, Work and die, devoid of fear."
"Now, as utmost grace it steads me, Add but this thereto," I said: "On the matron's time-worn mantle Let the Poet's wreath be laid."
J. W. H.
"My first writing in the new house, where may God help and bless us all. May no dark action shade our record in this house, and if possible, no surpassing sorrow."
After the wide sunny spaces of No. 13 Chestnut Street, the new house seemed small and dark; nor was Boylston Place even in those days a specially cheerful cul de sac; yet we remember it pleasantly enough as the home of much work and much play.
"November 19. Had the comforts of faith from dear James Freeman [Clarke] to-day. Felt restored to something like the peace I enjoyed before these two tasks of printing and moving broke up all leisure and all study. Determined to hold on with both hands to the largeness of philosophical pursuit and study, and to do my utmost to be useful in this connection and path of life...."
"Comforting myself with Hedge's book. Determined to pass no more godless days...."
She began to read Grote's Plato, and the Journal contains much comment on the Platonic philosophy. Another interest which came to her this autumn was that of singing with the Handel and Haydn Society. She and Florence joined the altos, while "Harry," then in college (Harvard, 1869), sang bass. We find her also, in early December, rehearsing with a small chorus the Christmas music for the Church of the Disciples, and writing and rehearsing a charade for the Club.
"December 12. Saw my new book at Tilton's. It looks very well, but I am not sanguine about its fate."
"Later Lyrics" made less impression than either of the earlier volumes. It has been long out of print; our mother does not mention it in her "Reminiscences"; even in the Journal, the book once published, there are few allusions to it, and those in a sad note: "Discouraged about my book," and so forth; yet it contains much of her best work.
"December 16. Sarah Clarke[57] and Foley[58] are to dine with me at 5.30. Went out at 10 A.M. to take Foley to see [William] Hunt, whom we found in his studio in a queer knitted coat. He showed an unfinished head of General Grant, in which it struck me that the eyes looked like the two scales of a balance in which men and events could be weighed."
[57] Sister of James Freeman Clarke. An artist of some note and a beloved friend of our mother.
[58] Margaret Foley, the sculptor.
The Journal for 1866 opens with a Latin aspiration: "Quod bonus, felix, faustusque sit hic annus mihi et meis amicis dilectis et generi humano!"
February finds her in New York, going to a "family party at Aunt Maria's.[59] Uncle John came. He was the eldest, my Harry the youngest member. I made a charade, Shoddy, in which Mary [Ward] and Flossy took part. Mary did very well. Flossy always does well. I enjoyed this family gathering more than anything since leaving home. It is so rare a pleasure for me. Family occasions are useful in bringing people together on the disinterested ground of natural affection, without any purpose of show or self-advancement. Relations should meet on more substantial ground than that of fashion and personal ambition. Nature and self-respect here have the predominance. In my youth I had no notion of this, though I always clung to those of my own blood."
From New York she went to Washington, where she gave a series of philosophical readings. Here, while staying at the house of Mrs. Eames, she had a violent attack of malarial fever, but struggled up again with her usual buoyancy.
"February 19. Weather rainy, so stayed at home; eyes weak, so could do little but lie in my easy-chair, avoid cold, and hang on to conversation. To-day the President[60] vetoed the bill for the Freedmen's Bureau. The reading of the veto was received by the Senate with intense, though suppressed, excitement. Governor Andrew read it to us. It was specious, and ingeniously overstated the scope and powers demanded for the Bureau, in order to make its withholdment appear a liberal and democratic measure. Montgomery Blair is supposed to have written this veto."
[59] The widow of her uncle, William G. Ward.
[60] Andrew Johnson.
At her first reading, she had "an excellent audience. The rooms were well filled and there were many men of note there.... Governor Andrew brought me in. Sam Hooper was there. I read 'The Fact Accomplished.' They received it very well. I was well pleased with my reception."
The next day she was so weary that she fell asleep while the Marquis de Chambrun was talking to her.
"February 23. To-day we learned the particulars of President Johnson's disgraceful speech, which awakens but one roar of indignation. To the Senate at 11.30. When the business hour is over, Fessenden moves the consideration of the House Resolution proposing the delay in the admission of members for the Southern States until the whole South shall be in a state for readmission. Sherman, of Ohio, moves the postponement of the question, alleging the present excitement as a reason for this. (He probably does this in the Copperhead interest.) At this Fessenden shows his teeth and shakes the Ohio puppy pretty well. Howe of Wisconsin also speaks for the immediate discussion of the question. Doolittle, of ----, speaking against it, Trumbull calls him to order. Reverdy Johnson pitches in a little. The Ayes and Noes are called for and the immediate consideration receives a good majority. Fessenden now makes his speech, reads the passage from the President's speech, calling the committee of fifteen a directory,--comments fully on the powers of Congress, the injustice of the President and his defiant attitude.... He has force as debater, but no grasp of thought.... In the evening I read the first half of 'Limitations' to a very small circle. A Republican caucus took all the members of Congress. Garrison also lectured. I was sorry, but did my best and said, 'God's will be done.' But I ought to have worked harder to get an audience."
"February 25.... Rode with Lieber[61] as far as Baltimore. He heard Hegel in his youth and thinks him, as I do, decidedly inferior to Kant, morally as well as philosophically....
[61] Dr. Francis Lieber, the eminent German-American publicist.
"The laws and duties of society rest upon a supposed compact, but this compact cannot deprive any set of men of rights and limit them to duties, for if you refuse them all rights, you deprive them even of the power to become a party to this compact, which rests upon their right to do so. Our slaves had no rights. Women have few."
After leaving Washington, she spent several days with her sister Annie in Bordentown, and there and in New York gave readings which seem to have been much more successful than those in Washington. After the New York reading she is "glad and thankful."
The visits in Bordentown were always a delight and refreshment to her. She and her "little Hitter" frolicked, once more two girls together: e.g., the following incident:--
The Reverend ---- Bishop was the Mailliards' pastor; a kindly gentleman, who could frolic as well as another. One day our Aunt Annie, wishing to ask him to dine, sat down at her desk and wrote:--
"My dear Mr. Bishop, To-day we shall dish up At one and a half The hind leg of a calf--"
At this point she was called away on household business. Our mother sat down and wrote:--
"Now B., if he's civil, May join in our revel; But if he is not, He may go to the devil!"
During the days that followed, Kant and charades divided her time pretty evenly.
"Kant's 'Anthropologia' is rather trifling, after his great works. I read it to find out what Anthropology is."
* * * * *
"Good is a direction; virtue is a habit."
* * * * *
"Wearied by endless running about to find help for my charade, ---- having disappointed me. Determine to undertake nothing more of the kind."
* * * * *
The charade (Belabor), which came off the following evening, was marked by a comic "To be or not to be," composed and recited by her in a "Hamlet costume, consisting of a narrow, rather short black skirt, a long black cloak and a black velvet toque, splendid lace ruff, amethyst necklace. It was very effective, and the verses gave reasonable pleasure."
"March 15.... Went to the Masonic Banquet, which was preceded by a long ceremony, the consecration of three new banners. The forms were curious, the music good, the occasion unique. The association appeared to me a pale ghost of knighthood, and the solemnities a compromise between high mass and dress parade. The institution now means nothing more than a military and religious toy."
In this year she met with a serious loss in the death of her uncle, John Ward. He had been a second father to her and her sisters; his kindly welcome always made No. 8 Bond Street a family home.
"April 4. The contents of uncle's will are known to-day. He had made a new one, changing the disposition of his property made in a previous will which would have made my sisters and me much richer. This one gives equally to my cousins, Uncle William's four sons, and to us; largely to Uncle Richard, and most kindly to Brother Sam and Wardie. We know not why this change was made, but once made, it must be acquiesced in, like other events past remedy. My cousins are wealthy already--this makes little difference to them, but much to us. God's will be done, however. I must remember my own doctrine, and build upon 'The Fact Accomplished.'"
This passage explains the financial worries which, from now on, often oppressed her. She was brought up in wealth and luxury; sober wealth, unostentatious luxury, but enough of both to make it needless for her ever to consider questions of ways and means. Her whole family, from the adoring father down to the loving youngest sister, felt that she must be shielded from every sordid care or anxiety; she was tended like an orchid, lest any rough wind check her perfect blossoming.
Her father left a large fortune, much of which was invested in blocks of real estate in what is now the heart of New York. Uncle John, best and kindest of men, had no knowledge of real estate and none of the foresight which characterized his elder brother. After Mr. Ward's death, he made the mistake of selling out the Manhattan real estate, and investing the proceeds in stocks and bonds. Later, realizing his grave error, he resolved to mitigate the loss to his three nieces by dividing among them the bulk of his property.
This failing, the disappointment could not but be a sensible one, even to the least money-loving of women. The Doctor's salary was never a large one: the children must be given every possible advantage of education and society; no door that was open to her own youth should be closed to them; again, to entertain their friends (albeit in simple fashion), to respond to every call of need or distress, was matter of necessity to both our parents: small wonder that they were often pressed for money. All through the Journals we find this note of financial anxiety: not for herself, but for her children, and later for her grandchildren. She accepted the restricted means; she triumphed over them, and taught us to hold such matters of little account compared with the real things of life; but they never ceased to bewilder her.
Yet to-day, realizing of what vital importance this seeming misfortune was to her; how but for this, her life and other lives might have lacked "the rich flavor of hope and toil"; how but for this she might have failed to lock hands with humanity in a bond as close as it was permanent, who can seriously regret Uncle John's devastating yet fruitful mistake?
In April again she writes:--
"Dull, sad and perplexed. My uncle not having made me a rich woman, I feel more than ever impelled to make some great effort to realize the value of my mental capacities and acquisitions. I am as well entitled to an efficient literary position as any woman in this country--perhaps better than any other. Still I hang by the way, picking up ten dollars here and there with great difficulty. I pray God to help me to an occasion or sphere in which I may do my utmost. I had as lief die as live unless I can be satisfied that I have delivered the whole value of my literary cargo--all at least that was invoiced for this world. Hear me, great Heaven! Guide and assist me. No mortal can."
The next day's entry is more cheerful.
"Feel better to-day. Made the acquaintance of Aldrich and Howells and their wives, at Alger's last evening. I enjoyed the evening more than usual. Aldrich has a very refined face. Howells[62] is odd-looking, but sympathetic and intelligent. Alger was in all his glory."
[62] Mr. Howells, in his Literary Boston Thirty Years Ago, thus speaks of her (1895): "I should not be just to a vivid phase if I failed to speak of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and the impulse of reform which she personified. I did not sympathize with this then so much as I do now, but I could appreciate it on the intellectual side. Once, many years later, I heard Mrs. Howe speak in public, and it seemed to me that she made one of the best speeches I had ever heard. It gave me for the first time a notion of what women might do in that sort if they entered public life; but when we met in those earlier days I was interested in her as perhaps our chief poetess. I believe she did not care to speak much of literature; she was alert for other meanings in life, and I remember how she once brought to book a youthful matron who had perhaps unduly lamented the hardships of housekeeping, with the sharp demand, 'Child, where is your religion?' After the many years of an acquaintance which had not nearly so many meetings as years, it was pleasant to find her, not long ago, as strenuous as ever for the faith or work, and as eager to aid Stepniak as John Brown. In her beautiful old age she survives a certain literary impulse of Boston, but a still higher impulse of Boston she will not survive, for that will last while the city endures."
"April 11.... Between a man governed by inner and one governed by outer control, there is the difference which we find between a reptile in a shell and a vertebrate. The one has his vertebræ within to support him, the other has them without to contain him."
"April 19. Very busy all day. Ran about too much, and was very tired. Had friends, in the evening, to meet young Perabo. I did not wish to give a party, on account of Uncle's death, but could not help getting together quite a lovely company of friends. Aldrich and wife were here, Alger, Bartol, Professor Youmans, Perabo, Dresel, Louisa D. Hunt, and others. It was a good time.... Saw my last cent go--nothing now till May, unless I can earn something."
"April 20. Began to work over and correct my poem for the Church Festival, which must be licked into shape, for the Gods will give me none other. So I must hammer at it slowly, and a good deal.... To write purely for money is to beg, first telling a story."
In these days the Doctor was very weary through excess of work. He longed for a change, and would have been glad to receive the mission to Greece, of which some prospect had been held out to him. She writes: "Chev full of the Greek mission, which I think he cannot get. I wish he might, because he wishes it. Surely a man so modest and meritorious in his public career might claim so small an acknowledgment as this. But as we are, he represents Charity, I the study of Philosophy--we cannot be more honored than by standing for these things."
It was thought that she might have some influence in obtaining the mission: accordingly she went to Washington, anxious to help if she might. She saw the President of the Senate, who promised support. While there she writes: "Governor Andrew took me to General Grant's, where I saw the General, with great satisfaction. Prayed at bedtime that I might not become a superficial sham and humbug."
Hearing that Charles Sumner had sought her at the house of Mrs. Eames, she sent a message to him by a common friend. She writes: "Sumner cannot make a visit at the hotel, but will see me at the Capitol. I know of nothing which exempts a man in public life from the duty of having, in private, some human qualities." Mr. Sumner did come to see her later, when she was staying with Mrs. Eames. She saw Secretary Seward, who was very ungracious to her; and President Johnson, whom she found "not one inclined to much speech." Before the latter interview her prayer was: "Let me be neither unskilful nor mean!"
The visit to Mrs. Eames was a sad one, being at the time of the death of Count Gurowski, a singular man whom she has described in her "Reminiscences"; but she met many notable persons, and had much interesting conversation with her host and hostess. She records one or two bits of talk.
"Mr. Eames saying that Mrs. X. was an intelligent but not an original woman, I said: 'She is not a silk-worm, but a silk-wearer!' Nine women out of ten would rather be the latter than the former."
"Mr. Eames saying that he often talked because he could not make the effort to be silent, I said: 'Yes, sir; we know that the vis inertiæ often shows itself in motion.'
"I record these sayings," she adds, "because they interested me, opening to myself little shades of thought not perceived before."
"May 27. Boston. My birthday. Forty-seven years old. J. F. C. preached on 'The seed is the word,' and gave a significant statement of the seminal power of Christianity. They sang also a psalm tune which I like, so that the day (a rainy one) seems to me auspicious. I have little to show for the past year's work, having produced no work of any length and read but little in public. The doctrine of the seed does, however, encourage us to continue our small efforts. The most effectual quickening of society is through that small influence which creeps like the leaven through the dough...."
"... Roman piety was the duteous care of one's relatives. It follows from this that the disregard of parents and elders common in America is in itself an irreligious trait, and one which education should sedulously correct."
On May 29 she attended the Unitarian Festival. She recalls the fact that at the last festival she was "tormented by the desire to speak. But I am now grown more patient, knowing that silence also is valuable...."
The Chevalier was not to receive the only reward he had ever sought for his labors. On May 31 she writes: "To-day the blow fell. A kind letter from Vice-President Foster informed me that Charles T. Tuckerman had been nominated for the Greek mission. This gave me an unhappy hour. Chev was a good deal overcome by it for a time, but rallied and bears up bravely. The girls are rather glad. I am content, but I do not see what can take the place of this cherished object to Chev...."
The following verses embody her thoughts on this matter:--
To S. G. H.
On his failure to receive the Grecian mission which he had been led to think might be offered to him. 1866.
The Grecian olives vanish from thy sight, The wondrous hills, the old historic soil; The elastic air, that freshened with delight Thy youthful temples, flushed with soldier toil.
O noble soul! thy laurel early wreathed Gathers the Christian rose and lilies fair, For civic virtues when the sword was sheathed, And perfect faith that learns from every snare.
Let, then, the modern embassy float by, Nor one regret in thy high bosom lurk: God's mission called thy youth to that soft sky; Wait God's dismissal where thou build'st His work!
"Divide et impera is an old maxim of despotism which does not look as if States' rights pointed in the direction of true freedom."
"It is only in the natural order that the living dog is better than the dead lion. Will any one say that the living thief is better than the dead hero? No one, save perhaps the thief himself, who is no judge."
The Journal is now largely concerned with Kant, and with Maine's work on "Ancient Law," from which she quotes freely. Here and there are touches of her own.
"Epicureans are to Stoics as circumference to centre."
"I think Hegel more difficult than important. Many people suppose that the difficulty of a study is a sure indication of its importance."
In these years the Doctor and our sister Julia were in summer time rather visitors than members of the family. The former was, as Governor Bullock said of him, "driving all the Charities of Massachusetts abreast," and could enjoy the Valley only by snatches, flying down for a day or a week as he could. Julia, from her early girlhood, had interested herself deeply in all that concerned the blind, and had become more and more the Doctor's companion and workfellow at the Perkins Institution, where much of his time was necessarily spent. She had classes in various branches of study, and in school and out gave herself freely to her blind pupils. A friend said to her mother, many years later, "It was one of the sights of Boston in the days of the Harvard Musical concerts to see your Julia's radiant face as she would come into Music Hall, leading a blind pupil in either hand."
Early in this summer of 1866 Julia accompanied the Doctor on a visit to the State Almshouse at Monson, and saw there a little orphan boy, some three years old, who attracted her so strongly that she begged to be allowed to take him home with her. Accordingly she brought him to the Valley, a sturdy, blue-eyed Irish lad. Julia, child of study and poetry, had no nursery adaptability, and little "Tukey" was soon turned over to our mother, who gladly took charge of him. He was nearly of the age of her little Sammy: something in his countenance reminded her of the lost child, and she found delight in playing with him. She would have been glad to adopt him, but this was not thought practicable. Julia had already tired of him; the Doctor for many reasons advised against it.
She grieved all summer for the child; but was afterward made happy by his adoption into a cheerful and prosperous home.
This was a summer of arduous work. The "Tribune" demanded more letters; Kant and Maine could not be neglected, and soon Fichte was added to them.
Moreover, the children must have every pleasure that she could give them.
"Worked hard all the morning for the croquet party in the afternoon, which was very pleasant and successful.
"Took Julia to the party on board the Rhode Island. She looked charmingly, and danced. I was quite happy because she enjoyed it."
Early August found her in Northampton, reporting for the "Tribune" the Convention of the American Academy of Science. The Doctor and Julia joined her, and she had "very busy days," attending the sessions and writing her reports.
"Read over several times my crabbed essay on the 'Two Necessities,' which I determine to read in the evening. I have with me also the essay on 'Limitations,' far more amusing and popular. But for a scientific occasion, I will choose a treatise which aims at least at a scientific treatment of a great question. This essay asserts the distinctness of the Ideal Order and its legitimate supremacy in human processes of thought. I make a great effort to get its points thoroughly in my mind. Go late to the Barnards'. The scientifics arrive very late, Agassiz gets there at 9. I begin to read soon after. The ladies of our party are all there. I feel a certain enthusiasm in my work and subject, but do not communicate it to the audience, which seemed fatigued and cold; all at least but Pierce, Agassiz, and Davis. Had I done well or ill to read it?... Some soul may have carried away a seed-grain of thought."
"August 11.... To Mount Holyoke in the afternoon. The ascent was frightful, the view sublime. In the evening went to read to the insane people at the asylum; had not 'Later Lyrics,' but 'Passion Flowers.' Read from this and recited from the other. Had great pleasure in doing this, albeit under difficulties. Finished second 'Tribune' letter and sent it."
Back at the Valley, she plunges once more into Fichte; long hours of study, varied by picnics and sailing parties.
"To church at St. Mary's. X. preached. The beginning of his sermon was liberal,--the latter half sentimental and sensational. 'The love of Christ constraineth us,' but he dwelt far too much on the supposition of a personal and emotional relation between the soul and Christ. It is Christian doctrine interpreted by human sympathy that reclaims us. Christ lives in his doctrine, influences us through that, and his historical personality. All else is myth and miracle. What Christ is to-day ideally we may be able to state, of what he is really, Mr. X. knows no more than I do, and I know nothing.
"Stayed to Communion, which was partly pleasant. But the Episcopal Communion struck me as dismal, compared to our own. It is too literal and cannibalistic;--the symbolism of the eating and drinking is too little made out. Our Unitarian Communion is a feast of joy. The blessedness of Christ's accomplishment swallows up the sorrow of his sacrifice. We have been commemorating the greatest act and fact of human history, the initiation of the gentler morals of the purer faith. We are glad,--not trivially, but solemnly, and our dear Master is glad with us, but not as if he aimed a direct personal influence at each one of us. This is too human and small a mode of operation.
"He is there for us as the sun is there and the brightness of his deed and doctrine penetrates the recesses of our mind and consciousness. But that he knows each one of us cannot and need not be affirmed.
'The moon looks On many brooks: The brook can see no moon but this.'
So that we see him, it matters not whether he sees us or no.
"Spinoza's great word;--if we love God, we shall not trouble ourselves about his loving us."
"I yesterday spoke to Joseph Coggeshall, offering to give a reading at the schoolhouse, in order to start a library fund. He appeared pleased with the idea. I proposed to ask .50 for each ticket."
"Chev suggests Europe. 'Je suis content du palazzo Pitti.'"
"I cannot study Fichte for more than forty-five minutes at a time. Reading him is not so bad as translating, which utterly overpowers my brain, although I find it useful in comprehending him."
"I begin to doubt the availability of Fichte's methods for me. I become each day more dispirited over him. With the purest intention he is much less of an ethicist than Kant. These endless refinements in rationale of the ego confuse rather than enlighten the moral sense. Where the study of metaphysics becomes de-energizing, it becomes demoralizing. Subtlety used in a certain way unravels confusion, in a certain other way produces it. Kant unwinds the silkworm's web, but Fichte tangles the skein of silk,--at least so it seems to me.
"Spent most of the afternoon in preparing for a tea party, cutting peaches and preparing bread and butter."
"Read 11th and 12th chapters of Mark in the Valley. At some moments one gets a clearer and nearer perception of the thought and personality of Christ than that which we commonly carry with us."
Early in October came the move "home to Boylston Place, leaving the Valley with great regret, but feeling more the importance of being with the children, as I draw nearer to them."
Our mother had remained after the rest of us, to close the house. In Boston she had the great pleasure of welcoming to this country her nephew, Francis Marion Crawford, then a boy of twelve years. Born and bred in Rome, a beautiful and petted child, he was now to learn to be an American schoolboy. She took him herself to St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire; and for a year or two he spent most of his holidays with us, to the delight of us all.
In this autumn of 1866 she undertook a new task, of which the first mention in the Journal reads: "I will here put the names of some writers of stories whom I may employ for the magazine."
A list of writers follows: and the next day she writes: "I saw J. R. Gilmour and agreed with him to do editorial service for thirty dollars per week for three months."
This magazine was the "Northern Lights." The first number appeared in January, 1867. It contained two articles by Mrs. Howe: the "Salutation" and a thoughtful poem called "The Two R's" (Rachel and Ristori). Later, we find her in the "Sittings of the Owl Club," making game of the studies she loved.
This owl went to Germany, This owl stayed at home; This owl read Kant and Fichte, This owl read none. This owl said "To-whit! I can't understand the dogmatic categorical!"
The "Northern Lights" gleam fitfully in the Journal.
"October 26. To write Henry James for story, Charles T. Brooks for sketches of travel. Saw and talked with Gilmour, who confuses my mind."
"October 29. Chev went with me to Ristori's début, which was in Medea."
"November 3. All of these days have been busy and interrupted. Maggi[63] has been reading Ristori's plays in my parlor every day this week and my presence has been compulsory. I have kept on with Fichte whose 'Sittenlehre' I have nearly finished. Have copied one or two poems, written various letters in behalf of the magazine, have seen Ristori thrice on the stage and once in private."
[63] Count Alberto Maggi, an Italian littérateur.
"November 10. Finished copying and correcting my editorial for the first number of my weekly. Finished also Fichte's 'Sittenlehre' for whose delightful reading I thank God, praying never to act quite unworthily of its maxims."
"November 11. Called on Mrs. Charles Sumner, and saw both parties, who were very cordial and seemed very happy."
"November 15. Crackers, .25, eggs, .43, rosewater for Frank Crawford, .48. Very weary and overdone. The twelve apostles shall judge the twelve tribes in that the Christian doctrine judges the Jews.
"I lead a weary life of hurry and interruption."
"November 18. Weary hearts must, I think, be idle hearts, for it is cheery even to be overworked. My studies and experience have combined to show me the difficulty of moral attainment, but both have made me feel that with every average human being there is a certain possible conjunction of conviction, affection, and personality which, being effected, the individual will see the reality of the ethical aspects of life and the necessary following of happiness upon a good will and its strenuous prosecution.
"I began Fichte's 'Wissenschaftslehre' two or three days ago.
"Gave a small party to Baron Osten Sacken.... Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must, makes the difference between the beggar and the thief."
"November 26. Very unwell; a good day's work, nevertheless."
"November 27. Better. Last week was too fatiguing for a woman of my age. I cannot remember my forty-seven years, and run about too much. The oratorio should, I fear, be given up."
"December 8. I came in from Lexington last night after the reading[64] in an open buggy with a strange driver, a boy of eighteen, who when we were well under way showed me a pistol,--a revolver, I think,--and said that he never travelled at night without one. As the boy's very face was unknown to me, the whole adventure seemed bizarre. He brought me home to my own house.... Am writing on 'Representation.'... Man asks nothing so much as to be helped to self-control."
[64] At the Lexington Lyceum for the Monument Fund.
"December 9. Heard J. F. C. as usual. 'She hath done what she could'--a good text for me at this moment. Independently of ambition, vanity, pride,--all of which prompt all of us, I feel that I must do what my hand finds to do, taking my dictation and my reward from sources quite above human will and approbation."
"December 19.... Vicomte de Chabreuil came. We had a long, and to me splendid, conversation. Were I young this person would occupy my thoughts somewhat. Very intelligent, simple, and perfectly bred, also a rosso,--a rare feature in a Frenchman."
"December 27. Let me live until to-morrow, and not be ridiculous! I have a dinner party and an evening party to-day and night, and knowing myself to be a fool for my pains, am fain to desire that others may not find it out and reproach me as they discover it.
"Got hold of Fichte a little which rested my weary brain.
"My party proved very pleasant and friendly."
"December 29.... I read last night at the Club a poem, 'The Rich Man's Library,' which contrasts material and mental wealth, much to the disparagement of the former. I felt as if I ought to read it, having inwardly resolved never again to disregard that inner prompting which leaves us no doubt as to the authority of certain acts which present themselves to us for accomplishment. Having read the poem, however, I felt doubtful whether after all I had done well to read it in that company. I will hope, however, that it may prove not to have been utterly useless. The imperfection of that which we try to do well sometimes reacts severely upon us and discourages us from further effort. It should not."
"December 31. Ran about all day, but studied and wrote also.
"Farewell, old Diary, farewell, old Year! Good, happy and auspicious to me and mine, and to mankind, I prayed that you might be, and such I think you have been. To me you have brought valued experience and renewed study. You have introduced me to Fichte, you have given me the honor of a new responsibility, you have made me acquainted with some excellent personages, among them Baron McKaye, a youth of high and noble nature; Perabo, an artist of real genius.... You have taught me new lessons of the true meaning and discipline of life,--the which should make me more patient in all endurance, more strenuous in all endeavor. You have shown me more clearly the line of demarcation between different talents, pursuits, and characters. So I thank and bless your good days, looking to the Supreme from whom we receive all things. The most noticeable events of the year just passed, so far as I am concerned, are the following: the invitation received by me to read at the Century Club in New York. This reading was hindered by the death of my brother-in-law, J. N. Howe. The death of dear Uncle John. My journey to Washington to get Chev the Greek appointment. Gurowski's death. Attendance at the American Academy of Science at Northampton in August. The editorship of the new weekly. My study of Fichte's 'Sittenlehre' and the appearance of my essay on the 'Ideal State' in the 'Christian Examiner.' My reading at Lexington for the Monument Association. My being appointed a delegate from the Indiana Place Church to the Boston Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches. My readings at Northampton, Washington, and elsewhere are all set down in their place. The bitter opposition of my family renders this service a very difficult and painful one for me. I do not, therefore, seek occasions of performing it, not being quite clear as to the extent to which they ought to limit my efficiency; but when the word and the time come together I always try to give the one to the other and always shall. God instruct whichever of us is in the wrong about this. And may God keep mean and personal passions far removed from me in the coming years. The teaching of life has of late done much to wean me from them, but the true human requires culture and the false human suppression every day of our lives and as long as we live."