III. PASSING FROM GIRLHOOD INTO WOMANHOOD
1841-1845.
I.
At Home again. Marriage of her Sister. Ill-Health. Letters. Spiritual Aspiration and Conflict. Perfectionism. "Very, very Happy." Work for Christ what makes Life attractive. Passages from Her Journal. A Point of Difficulty.
Not long after Elizabeth's return from Richmond, her sister was married to the Rev. Albert Hopkins, Professor in Williams College. The wedding had been delayed for her coming. "I would rather wait six years than not have you present," her sister wrote. This event brought her into intimate relations with a remarkable man; a man much beloved in his day, and whose name will often reappear in these pages.
The next two or three months showed that her Richmond life, although so full of happy experiences, had yet drawn heavily upon her strength. They were marked by severe nervous excitement and fits of depression. This, however, passed away and she settled down again into a busy home life. But it was no longer the home life of the past. The year of absence had left a profound impression upon her character. Her mind and heart had undergone a rapid development. She was only twenty-two on her return, and had still all the fresh, artless simplicity of a young girl, but there was joined to it now the maturity of womanhood. Of the rest of the year a record is preserved in letters to her cousin. These letters give many little details respecting her daily tasks and the life she led in the family and in the world; but they are chiefly interesting for the light they shed upon her progress heavenward. Her whole soul was still absorbed in divine things. At times her delight in them was sweet and undisturbed; then again, she found herself tossed to and fro upon the waves of spiritual conflict. Perfectionism was just then much discussed, and the question troubled her not a little, as it did again thirty years later. But whether agitated or at rest, her thoughts all centered in Christ, and her constant prayer was for more love to Him.
PORTLAND, Sept. 15, 1841.
The Lord Jesus is indeed dear to me. I can not doubt it. His name is exceedingly precious. Oh, help me, my dear cousin, to love Him more, to attain His image, to live only for Him! I blush and am ashamed when I consider how inadequate are the returns I am making Him; yet I can praise Him for all that is past and trust Him for all that is to come. I can not tell you how delightful prayer is. I feel that in it I have communion with God--that He is here--that He is mine and that I am His. I long to make progress every day, each minute seems precious, and I constantly tremble lest I should lose one in returning, instead of pressing forward with all my strength. No, not my strength, for I have none, but with all which the Lord gives me. How can I thank you enough that you pray for me!
Sept. 18th.--I am all the time so nervous that life would be insupportable if I had not the comfort of comforts to rejoice in. I often think mother would not trust me to carry the dishes to the closet, if she knew how strong an effort I have to make to avoid dashing them all to pieces. When I am at the head of the stairs I can hardly help throwing myself down, and I believe it a greater degree of just such a state as this which induces the suicide to put an end to his existence. It was never so bad with me before. Do you know anything of such a feeling as this? To-night, for instance, my head began to feel all at once as if it were enlarging till at last it seemed to fill the room, and I thought it large enough to carry away the house. Then every object of which I thought enlarged in proportion. When this goes off the sense of the contraction is equally singular. My head felt about the size of a pin's head; our church and everybody in it appeared about the bigness of a cup, etc. These strange sensations terminate invariably with one still more singular and particularly pleasant. I can not describe it--it is a sense of smoothness and a little of dizziness. If you never had such feelings this will be all nonsense to you, but if you have and can explain them to me, why I shall be indeed thankful. I have been subject to them ever since I can remember. I never met with a physician yet who seemed to know what is the matter with me, or to care a fig whether I got well or not. All they do is to roll up their eyes and shake their heads and say, "Oh!" ... As to the wedding, we had a regular fuss, so that I hardly knew whether I was in the body or out of it. The Professor was here only two days. He is very eminently holy, his friends say, and from what I saw of him, I should think it true. This was the point which interested sister in him. As soon as the wedding was over my spirits departed and fled. It is true enough that "marriage involves one union, but many separations."
Oct. 17th.--We had a most precious sermon this afternoon from the Baptist minister on the words, "Christ is all and in all." I longed to have you hear the Saviour thus dwelt upon. I did not know how full the Apostles were of His praise--how constantly they dwelt upon Him, till it was spread before me thus in one delightful view. Oh, may He become our all--our beginning and our ending--our first and our last! I do love to hear Him thus honored and adored. Let us, dear cousin, look at our Saviour more. Let us never allow aught to come between our hearts and our God. Speak to me as to your own soul, urging me onward, and if you do not see the fruits of your faithfulness here, may you see when sowing is turned to reaping.
Oct. 24th.--I must call upon you to rejoice with me that I have to-day got back my old Sunday-school class. I wondered at their being so earnest about having me again, yet I trust that God has given me this hold upon their affections for some good purpose.... I do not know exactly how to discriminate between the suggestions of Satan and those of my own heart, but for a week past, even while my inclinations and my will were set upon Christ, something followed me in my down-sittings and my uprisings, urging me to hate the Lord Jesus; asking if His strict requirements were not too strait to be endured; and it has grieved me deeply that such a thought could find its way into my mind. "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not" is my last refuge. How graciously did Jesus provide a separate consolation for each difficulty which He foresaw could meet His disciples on their way.
Nov. 8th.--Mother has been sick. The doctor feared inflammation of the brain; but she is better now. I have had my first experience as a nurse, and Dr. Mighels says I am a good one.
Whenever I think of God's wonderful, wonderful goodness to me and of my own sinfulness, I want to find a place low at the foot of the cross where I may cover my face in the dust, and yet go on praising Him. You do not know how all things have been made new to me within less than two years. Still, I struggle fiercely every hour of my life. For instance, my desire to be much beloved by those dear to me, is a source of constant grief. Some weeks ago, a person, who probably did not know this, told me that I was remarkably lovable and that everybody said so. I was so foolish, so wicked, as to be more pleased by this than I dare to tell--but enough so to give me after-hours of bitter sorrow. Sometimes it seems to me that I grow prouder every day, and I wanted to ask mother if she did not think so; but I thought perhaps God is showing me my pride as I had never seen it that I may wage war against this, His enemy and mine. I do not believe anybody else has such an evil nature as I. But let us never rest till we are satisfied with being counted as nothing, that our Saviour may be all in all. It seems no small portion of the joy I long for in heaven, to be thus self-forgetful in love to Christ. How strange that we do not now supremely love Him. How I do long to live with those who praise Him. I long to have every Christian with whom I meet speak of Him with love and exalt Him. [1]
Nov. 12th.--I have been very unwell and low-spirited. The cause of this, folks seem to agree, was over-exertion during mother's sickness. To tell the truth, I was so anxious about her that I did not try to save my strength at all, and excitement kept me up, so that I was not conscious of any special fatigue till all was over and the reaction came, when I just went into a dead-and-alive state and had the "blues" outrageously. It seemed as if I could do nothing but fold my hands and cry.
Sister is coming home this winter. I would like you to see this letter of hers. She is as nearly a perfectionist now as your father is. She begs me to read the New Testament and to pray for a knowledge of the truth. And so I have for a year and a half, and this is what I learn thereby: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked"--at least such I find mine to be. To be sure, that I am not perfect is no proof that I may not become so; however, I feel most sympathy with those who, like Martyn, Brainerd, and my father, had to fight their way through. Yet her remarks threw my mind into great confusion at first and I knew not what to do; thereupon I went at once with my difficulties to the Lord and tried to seek the truth, whatever it might be, from Him. It seems to me that I am safe while in His hands, and that if those things are essential, He will not withhold them from me. Truly, if there is a royal road to holiness, and if in one moment of time sin may be crushed and forever slain, I of all others should know it; for at present the way is thronged with difficulties. [2] It seems to me that I am made of wants"--I need everything. At the same time, how great is the goodness of God to me! I long to have my heart so filled with the one single image of my Redeemer, that it shall ever flow in spontaneous adoration. Such a Saviour! I am pained to the very depths of my soul because I love Him so little.... If I am only purified and made entirely the Lord's, let Him take His own course and make the refining process ever so painful.
"When the shore is won at last, Who will count the billows past?"
Dec. 16th.--Do you remember what father said about losing his will when near the close of his life? That remark has always made the subject of a lost will interesting to me. There is another place where he wishes he had known this blessedness twenty years before. [3]
Dec. 18th.--"I am very, very happy; and yet it is hardly a happiness which I can describe. You know what it is to rejoice in the sweet consciousness that there is a Saviour--a near and a present Saviour; and thus am I now rejoicing; grateful to Him for His holy nature, for His power over me, for His dealings with me, for a thousand things which I can only try to express to Him. Oh, how excellent above all treasures does He now appear! One minute of nearness to the Lord Jesus contains more of delight than years spent in intercourse with any earthly friend. I could not but own to-night that God can make me happy without a right hand or a right eye. Lord, make me Thine, and I will cheerfully give Thee all.
Dec. 22d.--"As to my Italian and Tasso, I am ashamed to tell you how slow I have been. Between company and housework and sewing I have my hands about full, and precious little time for reading and study. Still, I feel that I live a life of too much ease. I should love to spend the rest of my existence in the actual service of the Lord, without a question as to its ease and comfort. Reading Brainerd this afternoon made me long for his loose hold on earthly things. I do not know how to attain to such a spirit. Is it by prayer alone and the consequent sense of the worth of Divine things that this deadness to the world is to be gained--or, by giving up, casting away the treasures which withdraw the heart or have a tendency to withdraw it from God? This is quite an interesting question to me now, and I should really like it settled. The thought of living apart from God is more dreadful than any affliction I can think of.
Here are some passages from two leaves of her journal which escaped the flames. They touch upon another side of her life at this period.
December 1, 184l.--"I went to the sewing-circle this afternoon and had such a stupid time! Enough gossip and nonsense was talked to make one sick, and I'm sure it wasn't the fault of my head that my hair didn't stand on end. Now my mother is a very sensible mother, but when she urges me into company and exhorts me to be more social, she runs the risk of having me become as silly as the rest of 'em. She fears I may be harmed by reading, studying and staying with her, but heaven forbid I should find things in books worse than things out of them. I can't think the girls are the silly creatures they make themselves appear. They want an aim in life, some worthy object; give them that, and the good and excellent which, I am sure, lies hidden in their nature, will develop itself at once. When the young men rushed in and the girls began looking unutterable things, I rushed out and came home. I can't and won't talk nonsense and flirt with those boys! Oh, what is it I do want? Somebody who feels as I feel and thinks as I think; but where shall I find the somebody?
7th.--"Frolicked with G., rushed up stairs with a glass-lamp in my hand, went full tilt against the door, smashed the lamp, got the oil on my dress, on two carpets, besides spattering the wall. First consequence, a horrible smell of lamp-oil; Second, great quakings, shakings, and wonderings what my ma would say when she came home; Third, ablutions, groanings, ironings; Fourth, a story for the Companion long enough to pay for that 'ere old lamp. Letting alone that, I've been a very good girl to-day; studied, made a call, went to see H. R. with books, cakes, apples, and what's more, my precious tongue wherewith I discoursed to her.
14th.--"Busy all day. Carried a basket full of "wittles" to old Ma'am Burns, heard an original account of the deluge from the poor woman, wished I was as near heaven as she seems to be, studied, sewed, taught T. and E., tried to be a good girl and didn't have the blues once.
20th.--"Spent most of the afternoon with Lucy, who is sick. She held my hand in hers and kissed it over and over, and expressed so much love and gratitude and interest in the Sunday-school that I felt ashamed.
24th--Helped mother bake all the morning, studied in the afternoon, got into a frolic, and went out after dark with G. to shovel snow, and then paddled down to L----'s with a Christmas-pudding, whereby I got a real backache, legache, neckache, and all-overache, which is just good enough for me. I was in the funniest state of mind this afternoon! I guess anybody, who had seen me, would have thought so!
25th, Saturday.--Got up early and ran down to Sally Johnson's with a big pudding, consequence whereof a horrible pain in my side. I don't care, though. I do love to carry puddings to good old grannies.
Jan. 1, 1842.--Began the New Year by going to see Lucy, fainting, tumbling down flat on the floor and scaring everybody half out of their wits. I don't think people ought to like me, on the whole, but when they do, aint I glad? I wonder if perfectly honest-hearted people want to be loved better than they deserve, as in one sense I, with yet a pretty honest heart, do? I wonder how other folks think, feel inside? Wish I knew!
Most of the year 1842 was passed at home in household duties, in study, and in trying to do good. Never had she been busier, or more helpful to her mother; and never more interested in the things of God. It was a year of genuine spiritual growth and also of sharp discipline. The true ideal of the Christian life revealed itself to her more and more distinctly, while at the same time she had opportunity both to learn and to practise some of its hardest lessons. A few extracts from letters to her cousin will give an inkling of its character.
March 19, 1842.--Sometimes I have thought my desire to live for my Saviour and to labor for Him had increased. It certainly seems wonderful to me now that I could ever have wished to die, as I used to do, when I had done nothing for God. The way of life which appears most attractive, is that spent in persevering and unwearying toil for Him. There was a warmth and a fervency to my religious feelings the first year after my true hope which I do not find now and often sigh for; but I think my mind is more seriously determined for God than it was then, and that my principles are more fixed. Still I am less than the least of all.... I have read not quite five cantos of Tasso. You will think me rather indolent, but I have had a great deal to do, which has hindered study and reading.
May 3d--The Christian life was never dearer to me than it is now, but it throngs with daily increasing difficulties. You, who have become a believer in perfection, may say that this conflict is not essential, and indeed I have been so weary, of late, of struggling that I am almost ready to fly to the doctrine myself. I have certainly been made more willing to seek knowledge on this point from the Holy Spirit.
Sept. 30th--You speak of indulging unusually, of late, in your natural vivacity and finding it prejudicial. Here is a point on which I am completely bewildered. I find that if for a month or two I steadily set myself to the unwearied pursuit of spirituality of mind and entire weanedness from the world, a sad reaction will follow. My efforts slightly relax, I indulge in mirthful or worldly (in the sense of not religious) conversation, delight in it, and find my health and spirits better for it. But then my spiritual appetites at once become less keen, and from conversation I go to reading, from reading to writing, and then comes the question: Am I not going back?--and I turn from all to follow hard after the Lord. Is this a part of our poor humanity, above which we can not rise? This is a hard world to live in; and it will prove a trying one to me or I shall love it dearly. I have had temptations during the last six months on points where I thought I stood so safely that there was no danger of a fall. Perhaps it is good for us to be allowed to go to certain lengths, that we may see what wonderful supplies of grace our Lord gives us every hour of our lives.
October 1st--I have had two or three singular hours of excitement since I left writing to you last evening. If you were here I should be glad to read you a late passage in my history which has come to its crisis and is over with--thanks to Him, who so wonderfully guides me by His counsel. If I ever saw the hand of God distinctly held forth for my help, I have seen it here, coming in the right time, in the right way, all right.
* * * * *
II.
Returns to Richmond. Trials there. Letters. Illness. School Experiences. "To the Year 1843." Glimpses of her daily Life. Why her Scholars love her so. Homesick. A Black Wedding. What a Wife should be. "A Presentiment." Notes from her Diary.
In November of this year, at the urgent solicitation of Mr. Persico, Miss Payson returned to Richmond, and again became a teacher in his school. But everything was now changed, and that for the worse. Mr. Persico, no longer under the influence of his wife, who had fallen a prey to cruel disease, lost heart, fell heavily in debt, and became at length hopelessly insolvent. Later, he is said to have been lost at sea on his way to Italy. The whole period of Miss Payson's second residence in Richmond was one of sharp trial and disappointment. But it brought out in a very vivid manner her disinterestedness and the generous warmth of her sympathies. At the peril of her health she remained far into the summer of 1843, faithfully performing her duties, although, as she well knew, it was doubtful if she would receive any compensation for her services. As a matter of fact, only a pittance of her salary was ever paid. Of this second residence in Richmond no other record is needed than a few extracts from letters written to a beloved friend who was passing the winter at the South, and whose name has already been mentioned.
A sentence in the first of these letters deserves to be noted as affording a key to one side of her character, namely: "the depressing sense of inferiority which was born with me." All her earlier years were shadowed by this morbid feeling; nor was she ever quite free from its influence. It was, probably, at once a cause and an effect of the sensitive shyness that clung to her to the last. Perhaps, too, it grew in part out of her irrepressible craving for love, coupled with utter incredulity about herself possessing the qualities which rendered her so lovable. "It is one of the faults of my character," she wrote, "to fancy that nobody cares for me."
When, dear Anna, I had taken my last look at the last familiar face in Portland (I fancy you know whose face it was) I became quite as melancholy as I ever desire to be, even on the principle that "by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better." I dare say you never had a chance to feel, and therefore will not be able to understand, the depressing sense of inferiority which was born with me, which grew with my growth and strengthened with my strength, and which, though somewhat repressed of late years, gets the mastery very frequently and makes me believe myself the most unlovable of beings. It was with this feeling that I left home and journeyed hither, wondering why I was made, and if anybody on earth will ever be a bit the happier for it, and whether I shall ever learn where to put myself in the scale of being. This is not humility, please take notice--for humility is contented, I think, with such things as it hath.
To Miss Anna S. Prentiss. Richmond, Nov. 26, 1842
When I reached Richmond last night, tired and dusty and stupefied, I felt a good deal like crawling away into some cranny and staying there the rest of my life; but this morning, when I had remembered mother's existence and yours and that of some one or two others, I felt more disposed to write than anything else. Your note was a great comfort to me during two and a half hours at Portsmouth, and while on my journey. I thought pages to you in reply. How I should love to have you here in Richmond, even if I could only see you once a month, or know only that you were here and never see you! With many most kind friends about me, I still shall feel very keenly the separation from you. There is nobody here to whom I can speak confidingly, and my hidden spirit will have to sit with folded wings for eight months to come. To whom shall I talk about you, pray? On the way hither I fell in love with a little girl who also fell in love with me, and as I sat with her over our lonely fire at Philadelphia and in Washington, I could not help speaking of you now and then, till at last she suddenly looked up and asked me if you hadn't a brother, which question effectually shut my mouth. In a religious point of view I am sadly off here. There is a different atmosphere in the house from what there used to be, and I look forward with some anxiety to the future.
The "little girl" referred to received soon after a letter from Miss Payson. In enclosing it to a friend, more than thirty-seven years later, she wrote: "I cried bitterly when she left us for Richmond. She was out and out good and true. When my father was taking leave of us, the last night in Washington, she proposed that as we had enjoyed so much together, we should not separate without a prayer of thanks and blessing-seeking, a proposal to which my father most heartily responded." Here is an extract from the letter:
When I look over my school-room I am frequently reminded of you, for my thirty-six pupils are, most of them, about your age. I have some very lovable girls under my wing. I should be too happy if there were no "unruly members" among these good and gentle ones; but in the little world where I shall spend the greater part of the next eight months, as well as in the great and busy one, which as yet neither you or I know much about, I fancy there are mixtures of "the just and the unjust," of "the evil and the good." We have a very pleasant family this year. The youngest (for I omit the black baby in the kitchen) we call Lily. She is my pet and plaything, and is quite as affectionate as you are. Then comes a damsel named Beatrice, who has taken me upon trust just as you did. You may be thankful that your parents are not like hers, for she is to be educated for the world; music, French and Italian crowd almost everything else out of place, and as for religious influences, she is under them here for the first time. How thankful I feel when I see such cases as this, that God gave me pious parents, who taught me from my very birth, that His fear is the beginning of wisdom! My room-mate we call Kate. She is pious, intelligent, and very warm-hearted, and I love her dearly. She is an orphan--Mrs. Persico's daughter ...
I am rather affectionate by nature, if not in practice, and though I know that nearness to the Friend, whom I hope I have chosen, could make me happy in any circumstances, I do not pretend to be above the desire for earthly friends, provided He sees fit to give them to me. I believe my father used to say that we could not love them too much, if we only gave Him the first place in our hearts. Let us earnestly seek to make Him our all in all. It is delightful, in the midst of adversities and trials, to be able to say "There is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee," but it requires more grace, I think, to be able to use such language when the world is bright about us. You have known little of sorrow as yet, but if you have given your whole, undivided heart to God, you will not need affliction, or to have your life made so desolate that "weariness must toss you to His breast." There is a bright side to religion, and I love to see Christians walking in the sunshine. I trust you have found this out for yourself, and that your hope in Christ makes you happy in the life that now is, as well as gives you promise of blessedness in that which is to come.
Before she had been long in Richmond she was seized with an illness which caused her many painful, wearisome days and nights. Referring to this illness, in a letter to Miss Prentiss, she writes:
It is dull music being sick away from one's mother, but I have a knack at submitting myself to my fate; so my spirit was a contented one, and I was not for a moment unhappy, except for the trouble which I gave those who had to nurse me. I thought of you, at least two-thirds of the time. As my little pet, Lily L., said to me last night, when she had very nearly squeezed the breath out of my body, "I love you a great deal harder than I hug you"; so I say to you--I love you harder than I tell, or can tell you. A happy New-Year to you, dear Anna. How much and how little in those few old words! Consider yourself kissed and good-night.
The "New Year" was destined to be a very eventful one alike to her friend and to herself. She seemed to have a presentiment of it, at least in her own case, as some lines written on a blank leaf of her almanac for that year attest:
With mingling hope and trust and fear I bid thee welcome, untried year; The paths before me pause to view; Which shall I shun and which pursue? I read my fate with serious eye; I see dear hopes and treasures fly, Behold thee on thy opening wing Now grief, now joy, now sorrow bring. God grant me grace my course to run With one blest prayer--His will be done.
A little journal kept by her during the following months gives bright glimpses of her daily life. The entries are very brief, but they show that while devoted to the school, she also spent a good deal of time among her books, kept up a lively correspondence with absent friends, and contributed her full share to the entertainment of the household by "holding soirees" in her room, "reading to the girls," writing stories for them, and helping to "play goose" and other games.
To Miss Anna S. Prentiss, Richmond, Feb. 22, 1843.
Thanks to the Father of his Country for choosing to be born in Virginia! for it gives us a holiday, and I can write to you, dearest of Annas. You don't know how delighted I was to get your long-watched-for letter. You very kindly express the wish that you could bear some of my school drudgery with me. I would not give you that, but you should have love from some of these warm-hearted damsels, which would make you happy even in the midst of toil and vexation. I can't think what makes my scholars love me so. I'm sure it is a gift for which I should be grateful, as coming from the same source with all the other blessings which are about me. I believe my way of governing is a more fatiguing one than that of scolding, fretting, and punishing. There is a little bit of a tie between each of these hearts and mine--and the least mistake on my part severs it forever; so I have to be exceedingly careful what I do and say. This keeps me in a constant state of excitement and makes my pulse fly rather faster than, as a pulse arrived at years of discretion, it ought to do. I come out of school so happy, though half tired to death, wishing I were better, and hoping I shall become so; for the more my scholars love me, the more I am ashamed that I am not the pink of perfection they seem to fancy me.
Evening.--I have just come up here to my lonely room (which, if I hadn't the happiest kind of a heart in the world, would look right gloomy) and have read for the third time your dear, good letter, and all I wish is that I could tell you how I love you, and how angry I am with myself that I did not know and love you sooner. It seems so odd that we should have been born and "raised" so near each other and yet apart. You say you are a believer in destiny. So am I--particularly in affairs of the heart; and I hope that we are made friends now for something more than the satisfaction which we find in loving. I am in danger of forgetting that I am to stay in this world only a little while and then go home. Will you help me to bear it in mind?... How must the "Pilgrim's Progress" interest a mind that has never learned the whole book by rote in childhood. I have often wished I could read it as a first-told tale, and so I wish about the xiv. of John and some other chapters in the Bible.
Your incidental mention that you have family prayers every evening produced a thousand strange sensations in my mind. I hardly know why. Did I ever tell you how I love and admire the new Bishop Johns? And how if I am a "good Presbyterian," as they say here, I go to hear him whenever and wherever he preaches. I don't think him a great man, but he has that sincerity and truthfulness of manner which win your love at once. [4] ... What nice times you must have studying German! I dreamed the night I read your account of it that I was with you, and that you said I was as stupid as an owl. I have the queerest mind somehow. It won't work like those of other people, but goes the farthest way round when it wants to go home, and I never could do anything with it but just let it have its own way, and live the longer. They are having a nice time down in the parlor worshipping Miss Ford, the light and sunshine of the house, who leaves to-morrow for Natchez, and I am going down to help them. So, good-night.
To the same. April 24.
Since I wrote you last we have all had a good deal to put our patience and philosophy and faith to the test, and I must own that I have been for some weeks about as uncomfortable as mortal damsel could be. Everything went wrong with Mr. Persico, and his gloom extended to all of us. I never spent such melancholy weeks in my life, and became so homesick that I could hardly drag myself into school. In the midst of it, however, I made fun for the rest, as I believe I should do in a dungeon; and now it is all over, I look back and laugh still.
We had a black wedding--a very black one--in my schoolroom the other night; our cook having decided to take to herself a lord and master. It was the funniest affair I ever saw. Such comical dresses! such heaps of cake, wine, coffee, and candy! such kissings and huggings! The man who performed the ceremony prayed that they might obey each other, wherein I think he showed his originality and good sense, too. Then he held a book upside down and pretended to read, dear knows what! but the Professor--that is to say, Mrs. P.--laughed so loud when he said, "Will you take this _wo-_man to be your wedded husband" that we all joined in full chorus, whereupon the poor priest (who was only the sexton of St. James') was so confused that he married them over twice. I never saw a couple in their station in life provided with a tenth part of the luxuries with which they abounded. We worked all day Saturday in the kitchen, making and icing cake for them, and a nice frolic we had of it, too. Do you love babies? We have a black one in the lot whom I pet for want of something on which to expend my love.
When I find anything that will interest the whole family, I read it aloud for general edification. The girls persuaded me into writing a story to read to them, and locked me into my room till it was done. It was the first love-story I ever wrote, for hitherto I have not known enough about such things to be able to do it. This reminds me that you asked if I intend forgetting you after I am married. I have no sort of idea what I shall do, provided I ever marry. But if I ever fall in love I dare say I shall do it so madly and absorbingly as to become, in a measure and for a season, forgetful of everything and everybody else. Still, though I hate professions, I don't see how I can ever cease to love you, whatever else I forget or neglect. There is a restlessness in my affection for you that I don't understand--a half wish to avoid enjoyment now, that I may in some future time share it with you. And yet I have a presentiment that we may have sympathy in trials of which I now know nothing.
I am ashamed of myself, of late, that these subjects of love and matrimony find a place in my thoughts which I never have been in the habit of giving them, but people here talk of little else and I am borne on with the current. I think that to give happiness in married life a woman should possess oceans of self-sacrificing love and I, for one, haven't half of that self-forgetting spirit which I think essential.
I am glad you like the "Christian Year," and I see you are quite an Episcopalian. Well, if you are like the good old English divines, nobody can find fault with your choice. Mr. Persico was brought up a Catholic but professes to be a nothingarian now. For myself, this only I know that I earnestly wish all the tendencies of my heart to be heavenward, and I believe that the sincere inquirer after truth will be guided by the Infinite Mind. And so on that faith I venture myself and feel safe as a child may feel, who holds his father's hand. Life seems full of mysteries to me of late--and I am tempted to strange thoughtfulness in the midst of its gayest scenes.
How true was the "presentiment" described in this letter, will appear in her correspondence with the same friend more than a quarter of a century later.
To Anna S. Prentiss, Richmond, June 1, 1843
I believe you and I were intended to know each other better I have found a certain something in you that I have been wanting all my life. While I wish you to know me just as I am, faults and all, I can t bear to think of ever seeing anything but the good and the beautiful in your character, dear Anna, and I believe my heart would break outright should I find you to be otherwise than just that which I imagine you are. I don't know why I am saying this; but I have learned more of the world during the last year than in any previous half dozen of my life, and the result is dissatisfaction and alarm at the things I see about me. I wish I could always live, as I have hitherto done, under the shelter of my mother's wing.... I ought to ask your pardon for writing in this horrid style, but I was born to do things by steam, I believe, and can't do them moderately. As I write to, so I love you, dear Anna, with all my interests and energies tending to that one point. I was amused the other day with a young lady who came and sat on my bed when I was sick (for I am just getting well from a quite serious illness), and after some half dozen sighs, wished she were Anna Prentiss that she might be loved as intensely as she desired. This is a roundabout way of saying how very dear you are to me. What chatter-boxes girls are! I wonder how many times I've stopped to say "My dear, don't talk so much--for I am writing in school."
June 27th--Mr. ---- brought "The Home" to me and I have laughed and cried over it to my heart's content. Out of pure self-love, because they said she was like me, I liked poor Petra with the big nose, best of the bunch--though, to be sure, they liken me to somebody or other in every book we read till I begin to think myself quite a bundle of contradictions. I have a thousand and one things to say to you, but I wonder if as soon as I see you I shall straightway turn into a poker, and play the stiffy, as I always do when I have been separated from my friends. I am writing in a little bit of a den which, by a new arrangement, I have all to myself. What if there's no table here and I have to write upon the bureau, sitting on one foot in a chair and stretching upwards to reach my paper like a monkey? What do I care? I am writing to you, and your spirit, invoked when I took possession of the premises, comes here sometimes just between daylight and dark, and talks to me till I am ready to put forth my hand to find yours. Oh! Anna, you must be everything that is pure and good, through to the very depths of your heart, that mine may not ache in finding it has loved only an imaginary being. Not that I expect you to be perfect--for I shouldn't love you if you were immaculate--but pure in aim and intention and desire, which I believe you to be.
29th.--Do you want to know what mischief I've just been at? There lay poor Miss ----, alias "Weaky" as we call her, taking her siesta in the most innocent manner imaginable, with a babe-in-the-wood kind of air, which proved so highly attractive that I could do no less than pick her up in my arms and pop her (I don't know but it was head first), right into the bathing-tub which happened to be filled with fresh cold water. Poor, good little Weaky! There she sits shaking and shivering and laughing with such perfect sweet humor, that I am positively taking a vow never to do so again. Well, I had something quite sentimental to say to you when I began writing, but as the spirit moved me to the above perpetration of nonsense, I've nothing left in me but fun, and for that you've no relish, have you?
I made out to cry yesterday and thereby have so refreshed my soul as to be in the best possible humor just now. The why and wherefore of my tears, which by the way I don't shed once in an age, was briefly the withdrawal from school of one of my scholars, one who had so attached herself to me as to have become almost a part of myself, and whom I had taught to love you, dear Anna, that I might have the exquisite satisfaction of talking about you every day--a sort of sweet interlude between grammar and arithmetic which made the dull hours of school grow harmonious. She had a presentiment that her life was to close with our school session, from which I couldn't move her even when her health was good, and she says that she prays every day, not that her life may be lengthened, but that she may die before I am gone. I am superstitious enough to feel that the prayer may have its answer, now that I see her drooping and fading away without perceptible disease. The only time I ever witnessed the rite of confirmation was when the hands of the good bishop rested upon her head, and no wonder if I have half taken up arms in defense of this "laying-on of hands," out of the abundance of my heart if not from the wisdom of my head. Well, I've lost my mirthful mood, speaking of her, and don't know when it will come again.
I have taken it into my head that you will visit Niagara on your way home from the South and have half a mind to go there myself. Did your brother bring home the poems of R. M. Milnes? I half hope that he did not, since I want to see you enjoy them for the first time, particularly a certain "Household Brownie" story, with which I fell in love when President Woods sent us the volume.
Here follow a few entries in her diary:
May 1.---Holiday. Into the country all of us, white, black, and gray. Sue Empie devoted herself to me like a lover and so did Sue Lewis, so I was not at a loss for society. My girls made a bower, wherein I was ensconced and obliged to tell stories to about forty listeners till my tongue ached. July 18th.--Left Richmond. Aug. 2nd.--Left Reading for Philadelphia. 5th.--Williamstown and saw mother, sister and baby. 16th.--President Hopkins' splendid address before the Alumni--also that of Dr. Robbins. 18th.--Left Williamstown and reached Nonantum House at night. Saw Aunt Willis, Julia, Sarah, Ellen, etc. 22nd.--Came home, oh so very happy! Dear, good home! 23rd.--Callers all day, the second of whom was Mr. P. There have been nineteen people here and I'm tired! 25th.--What didn't I hear from Anna P. to-day! 31st.--Rode with Anna P. to Saccarappa to see Rev. Mr. and Mrs. H. B. Smith--took tea at the P.s and went with them to the Preparatory Lecture. I do nothing but go about from place to place. Sept. 1st.--Just as cold as cold could be all day. Spent evening at Mrs. B.'s, talking with Neal Dow. 9th.--Cold and blowy and disagreeable. Went to see Carrie H. Came home and found Mr. P. here; he stayed to tea--read us some interesting things--told us about Mary and William Howitt. 10th.--Our church was re-opened to-day. Mr. Dwight preached in the morning and Mr. Chickering in the afternoon.
September 11th she marked with a white stone and kept ever after as one of the chief festal days of her life, but of the reason why there is here no record. The diary for the rest of the year is blank with the exception of a single leaf which contains these sentences:
"Celle qui a besoin d'admirer ce qu'elle aime, celle, don't le jugement est pénétrant, bien que son imagination exaltée, il n'y a pour elle qu'un objet dans l'univers."
"Celui qu'on aime, est le vengeur des fautes qu'on a commis sur cette terre; la Divinité lui prête son pouvoir."
MAD. DE STAEL.
* * * * *
III.
Her Views of Love and Courtship. Visit of her Sister and Child. Letters. Sickness and Death of Friends. Ill-Health. Undergoes a Surgical Operation. Her Fortitude. Study of German. Fenelon.
The records of the next year and a half are very abundant, in the form of notes, letters, verses and journals; but they are mostly of too private a character to furnish materials for this narrative, belonging to what she called "the deep story of my heart." They breathe the sweetness and sparkle with the morning dew of the affections; and while some of them are full of fun and playful humor, others glow with all the impassioned earnestness of her nature, and others still with deep religious feeling. She wrote:
My heart seems to me somewhat like a very full church at the close of the services--the great congregation of my affections trying to find their way out and crowding and hindering each other in the general rush for the door. Don't you see them--the young ones scampering first down the aisle, and the old and grave and stately ones coming with proud dignity after them?... I feel now that "dans les mystères de notre nature aimer, encore aimer, est ce qui nous est resté de notre heritage céleste," and oh, how I thank God for my blessed portion of this celestial endowment!
Love in a word was to her, after religion, the holiest and most wonderful reality of life; and in the presence of its mysteries she was--to use her own comparison--"like a child standing upon the seashore, watching for the onward rush of the waves, venturing himself close to the water's edge, holding his breath and wooing their approach, and then, as they come dashing in, retreating with laughter and mock fear, only to return to tempt them anew." Her only solicitude was lest the new interest should draw her heart away from Him who had been its chief joy. In a letter to her cousin, she touches on this point:
You know how by circumstances my affections have been repressed, and now, having found liberty to love, I am tempted to seek my heaven in so loving. But, my dear cousin, there is nothing worth having apart from God; I feel this every day more and more and the fear of satisfying myself with something short of Him--this is my only anxiety. This drives me to the throne of His grace and makes me refuse to be left one moment to myself. I believe I desire first of all to love God supremely and to do something for Him, if He spares my life.
Early in December her sister, Mrs. Hopkins, with an infant boy, came to Portland and passed a part of the winter under the maternal roof. The arrival of this boy--her mother's first grandchild--was an event in the family history. Here is her own picture of the scene:
It was a cold evening, and grandmamma, who had been sitting by the fire, knitting and reading, had at last let her book fall from her lap, and had dropped to sleep in her chair. The four uncles sat around the table, two of them playing chess, and two looking on, while Aunt Fanny, with her cat on her knees, studied German a little, looked at the clock very often, and started at every noise.
"I have said, all along, that they wouldn't come," she cried at last. "The clock has just struck nine, and I am not going to expect them any longer. I knew Herbert would not let Laura undertake such a journey in the depth of winter; or, at any rate, that Laura's courage would tail at the last moment."
She had hardly uttered these words, when there was a ring at the doorbell, then a stamping of feet on the mat, to shake off the snow, and in they Came, Lou, and Lou's papa, and Lou's mamma, bringing ever so much fresh, cold air with them. Grandmamma woke up, and rose to meet them with steps as lively as if she were a young girl; Aunt Fanny tossed the cat from her lap, and seized the bundle that held the baby; the four uncles crowded about her, eager to get the first peep at the little wonder. There was such a laughing, and such a tumult, that poor Lou, coming out of the dark night into the bright room, and seeing so many strange faces, did not know what to think. When his cloaks and shawls and capes were at last pulled off by his auntie's eager hands, there came into view a serious little face, a pair of bright eyes, and a head as smooth as ivory, on which there was not a single hair. His sleeves were looped up with corals, and showed his plump white arms, and he sat up very straight, and took a good look at everybody.
"What a perfect little beauty!" "What splendid eyes!" "What a lovely skin!" "He's the perfect image of his father!" "He's exactly like his mother!" "What a dear little nose!" "What fat little hands, full of dimples!" "Let me take him!" "Come to his own grandmamma!" "Let his uncle toss him--so he will!" "What does he eat?" "Is he tired?" "Now, Fanny! you've had him ever since he came; he wants to come to me; I know he does!"
These, and nobody knows how many more exclamations of the sort, greeted the ears of the little stranger, and were received by him with unruffled gravity.
"Aunt Fanny" devoted herself during the following weeks to the care of her little nephew. Her letters written at the time--some of them with him in her arms--are full of his pretty ways; and when, more than a score of years later, he had given his young life to his country and was sleeping in a soldier's grave, his "sayings and doings" formed the subject of one of her most attractive juvenile books.
A few extracts from her letters will give glimpses of her state of mind during this winter, and show also how the thoughtful spirit, which from the first tempered the excitements of her new experience, was deepened by the loss of very dear friends.
PORTLAND, December 9, 1843.
Last evening I spent at Mrs. H.----'s with Abby and a crowd of other people. John Neal told me I had a great bump of love of approbation, and conscientiousness very large, and self-esteem hardly any; and that he hoped whoever had most influence over me would remedy that evil. He then went on to pay me the most extravagant compliments, and said I could become distinguished in any way I pleased. Thinks I to myself, "I should like to be the best little wife in the world, and that's the height of my ambition." Don't imagine now that I believe all he says, for he has been saying just such things to me since I was a dozen years old, and I don't see as I am any great things yet. Do you?
Jan. 3d, 1844.--Sister is still here and will stay with us a month or two yet. Her husband has gone home to preach and pray himself into contentment without her. Though he was here only a week, his quiet Christian excellence made us all long to grow better. It is always the case when he comes, though he rather lives than talks his religion. I never saw, as far as piety is concerned, a more perfect specimen of a man in his every-day life.
Do you pray for me every night and every morning? Don't forget how I comfort myself with thinking that you every day ask for me those graces of the Spirit which I so long for. Indeed, I have had lately such heavenward yearnings!... Why do you ask if I pray for you, as if I could love you and help praying for you continually and always. I have no light sense of the holiness a Christian minister should possess. I half wish there were no veil upon my heart on this point, that you might see how, from the very first hour of your return from abroad, my interest in you went hand-in-hand with this looking upward.
Jan. 22d.--We have all been saddened by the repeated trials with which our friends the Willises are visited this winter. Mrs. Willis is still very ill, and there is no hope of her recovery; and Ellen, the pet of the whole household--the always happy, loving, beautiful young thing--who had been full of delight in the hope of becoming a mother, lies now at the point of death; having lost her infant, and with it her bright anticipations. For fourteen years there had not been a physician in their house, and you may imagine how they are all now taken, as it were, by surprise by the first break death has threatened to make in their peculiarly happy circle. Our love for all the family has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength, and what touches them we all feel.
Feb. 8th.--How is it that people who have no refuge in God live through the loss of those they love? I am very sad this morning, and almost wish I had never loved you or anybody. Last night we heard of the death of Julia Willis' sister, and this morning learn that a dear little girl in whom we all were much interested, and whom I saw on Saturday only slightly unwell, is taken away from her parents, who have no manner of consolation in losing this only child. There is a great cloud throughout our house, and we hardly know what to do with ourselves. When I met mother and sister yesterday on my return from your house, I saw that something was the matter of which they hesitated to tell me; and of whom should I naturally think but of you--you in whom my life is bound up; and, when mother finally came to put her arms around me, I suffered for the moment that intensity of anguish which I should feel in knowing that something dreadful had befallen you. She told me, however, of poor Ellen's death, and I was so lost in recovering you again that I cared for nothing else all the evening, and until this morning had scarcely thought of the aching, aching hearts she has left behind. Her poor young husband, who loved her so tenderly, is half-distracted.
Oh, I have blessed God to-day that until He had given me a sure and certain hold upon Himself, He had not suffered me to love as I love now! It is a mystery which I can not understand, how the heart can live on through the moment which rends it asunder from that of which it has become a part, except by hiding itself in God. I have felt Ellen's death the more, because she and her husband were associated in my mind with you. I hardly know how or why; but she told me much of the history of her heart when I saw her last summer on my way home from Richmond, at the same time that she spoke much of you. She had seen you at our house before you went abroad, and seemed to have a sort of presentiment that we should love each other.
But I ought to beg you to forgive me for sending you this gloomy page; yet I was restless and wanted to tell you the thoughts that have been in my heart towards you to-day--the serious and saddened love with which I love you, when I think of you as one whom God may take from me at any moment. I do not know that it is unwise to look this truth in the face sometimes--for if ever there was heart tempted to idolatry, to giving itself up fully, utterly, with perfect abandonment of every other hope and interest, to an earthly love, so is mine tempted now.
Feb. 13th.--Mother is going to Boston with sister on Saturday, provided I am well enough (which I mean to be), as Mrs. Willis has expressed a strong wish to see her once more. We heard from them yesterday again. Poor Ellen's coffin was placed just where she stood as a bride, less than eight months ago, and her little infant rested on her breast. There is rarely a death so universally mourned as hers; she was the most winning and attractive young creature I ever saw.
Feb. 21st.--Are you in earnest? Are you in earnest? Are you really coming home in March? I am afraid to believe, afraid to doubt it. I am crying and laughing and writing all at once. You would not tell me so unless you really were coming, I know ... And you are coming home! (How madly my heart is beating! lie still, will you?) I almost feel that you are here and that you look over my shoulder and read while I write. Are you sure that you will come? Oh, don't repent and send me another letter to say that you will wait till it is pleasanter weather; it is pleasant now. I walked out this morning, and the air was a spring air, and gentlemen go through the streets with their cloaks hanging over their arms, and there is a constant plashing against the windows, of water dripping down from the melting snow; yes, I verily believe that it is warm, and that the birds will sing soon--I do, upon my word ... I wouldn't have the doctor come and feel my pulse this afternoon for anything. He would prescribe fever powders or fever drops, or something of the sort, and bleed me and send me to bed, or to the insane hospital; I don't know which. I could cry, sing, dance, laugh, all at once. Oh, that I knew exactly when you will be here--the day, the hour, the minute, that I might know to just what point to govern my impatient heart--for it would be a pity to punish the poor little thing too severely. I have been reading to-day something which delighted me very much; do you remember a little poem of Goethe's, in which an imprisoned count sings about the flower he loves best, and the rose, the lily, the pink, and the violet, each in turn fancy themselves the objects of his love. [5] You see I put you in the place of the prisoner at the outset, and I was to be the flower of his love, whatever it might be. Well, it was the "Forget-me-not." If there were a flower called the "Always-loving," maybe I might find out to what order and class I belong. Dear me; there's the old clock striking twelve, and I verily meant to go to bed at ten, so as to sleep away as much of the time as possible before your coming, but I fell into a fit of loving meditation, and forgot everything else. You should have seen me pour out tea to-night! Why, the first thing I knew, I had poured it all out into my own cup till it ran over, and half filled the waiter, which is the first time I ever did such a ridiculous thing in my life. But, dearest, I bid you good night, praying you may have sweet dreams and an inward prompting to write me a long, long, blessed letter, such as shall make me dance about the house and sing.
Feb. 22d.--Oh, I am frightened at myself, I am so happy! It seems as if even this whole folio would not in the least convey to you the gladness with which my heart is dancing and singing and making merry. The doctor seems quite satisfied with my shoulder, and says "it's first-rate;" so set your heart at rest on that point. I hope there'll be nobody within two miles of our meeting. Suppose you stop in some out of the way place just out of town, and let me trot out there to see you? Oh, are you really coming?
To G, E. S. March 4, 1844.
I must write a few lines to tell you, my dear cousin, that I am thinking of and praying for you on your birthday. I have but one request to offer either for you or for myself, and that is for more love to our Redeemer. I bless God that I have no other want.... I do not know why it is, but I never have thought so much of death and of the certainty that I, sooner or later, must die, as within a few months past. I am not exactly superstitious, but this daily and hourly half-presentiment that my life will not be a long one, is singularly subduing, and seems to lay a restraining hand upon future plans. I am not sorry, whatever may be the event, that it is so. I dread clinging to this world and seeking my rest in it. I am not afraid to die, or afraid that anything I love may be taken from me; I only have this serious and thoughtful sense of death upon my mind. You know how we have loved the Willis family, and can imagine how we felt the death of their youngest daughter, who was dear to everybody. And Mrs. Willis is, probably, not living. This has added to my previous feeling on the subject, which was, perhaps, first occasioned by the sudden and terrible loss of my poor friend, Mr. Thatcher, a year ago this month. [6] God forbid I should ever forget the lessons He saw I needed, and dare to feel that there is a thing upon earth which death may not touch. Oh, in how many ways He has sought to win my whole heart for His own!
March 22d.--I was interrupted last night by the arrival of G. L. P., after his four months' absence in Mississippi, improved in health, and in looks, and in spirits, and quite as glad to see me, I believe, as even you, in your goodness of heart, say my lover ought to be. But I will tell you the truth, my dear cousin, I am afraid of love. There is no other medium, save that of the happiness of loving and being loved, by which my affections could be effectually turned from divine to earthly things. Am I not then on dangerous ground? Yet God mercifully shows me that it is so, and when I think how He has saved me hitherto through sharp temptations, it seems wicked, distrust of Him, not to feel that He will save me through those to come. I know now there are some of the great lessons of life yet to be learned; I believe I must suffer as long as I have an earthly existence. Will not then God make that suffering but as a blessed reprover to bring me nearer Himself? I hope so.
During the winter her health had become so much impaired, that great anxiety was felt as to the issue. In a letter to her friend, Miss Ellen Thurston, dated April 20, 1844, she writes:
You remember, perhaps, that on the afternoon you were so good as to come and spend with me, I was making a fuss about a little thing on my shoulder. Well, I had at last to have it removed, and though the operation was not in itself very painful, its effects on my whole nervous system have been most powerful. I have lost all regular habits of sleep--for a week I do not know that I slept two hours--and am ready to fly into a fit at the bare thought of sitting still long enough to write a common letter. I have, however, the consolation of being pitied and consoled with, as there's something in the idea of cutting at the flesh which touches the heart, a thousand times more than some severer sufferings would do. I am getting quite thin and weak upon it, and I believe mother firmly expects me to shrink into nothing, though I am a pretty bouncing girl still.
Owing to some mishap the healing process was entirely thwarted, and after a very trying summer, the operation had to be repeated. This time it was performed by that eminent surgeon and admirable Christian man, Dr. John C. Warren of Boston, assisted by his son, Dr. J. M. W. Dr. Warren told Miss Payson's friend, who had accompanied an invalid sister to New York, that he thought it would require "about five minutes;" but it proved to be much more serious than he had anticipated. Miss Willis, in her letter from Geneva already quoted, thus refers to it:
My next meeting with Lizzy revealed a striking trait of her character, which hitherto I had had no opportunity of observing--her wonderful fortitude under suffering. I was at the seashore with my sister and family when, her little child being taken suddenly very ill in the night, I went up to Boston by an early train to bring down as soon as possible our family physician. On arriving at his house I was disappointed at being told that he could not come at once, being engaged to perform an operation that morning. While waiting for the return train, I called at my father's office and was surprised to hear that Lizzy was the patient. A painful tumor had developed itself on the back of her neck, and she had come up with her mother to Boston to consult Dr. Warren, who had advised its immediate removal.
I went at once to see her. She greeted me with even more than her usual warmth and after stating in a few words the object of her coming to Boston and that she was expecting the doctors every moment, she added: "You will stay with me, I am sure. Mother insists on being present, but she can not bear it. She will be sure to faint. If you will promise to stay, I can persuade her to remain in the next room." Seeing the distress in my face at the request, she said, "I will be very good. You will have nothing to do but sit in the room, to satisfy mother." It was impossible to refuse and I remained. There was no chloroform then to give blessed unconsciousness of suffering and every pang had to be endured, but she more than kept her promise to "be good." Not a sound or a movement betrayed suffering. She spoke only once. After the knife was laid aside and the threaded needle was passed through the quivering flesh to draw the gaping edges of the wound together, she asked, after the first stitch had been completed, in a low, almost calm tone, with only a slight tremulousness, how many more were to be taken. When the operation was over, and the surgeons were preparing to depart, she questioned them minutely as to the mark which would be left after healing. I was surprised that she could think of it at such a moment, knowing how little value she had always set on her personal appearance, but her mother explained it afterward by referring to her betrothal to you, and the fear that you would find the scar disfiguring. [7]
In a letter to Mrs. Stearns, [8] she herself writes, Sept. 6:
I had no idea of the suffering which awaited me. I thought I should get off as I did the first time. But I have a great deal to be thankful for. On Wednesday, to my infinite surprise and gladness, George pounced down upon me from New York, having been quite cut to the heart by the account mother gave him. Everybody is so kind, and I have had so many letters, and seen so many sympathising faces, and "dear Lizzy" sounds so sweet to my insatiable ears; and yet--and yet--I would rather die than live through the forty-eight hours again which began on Monday morning. Somebody must have prayed for me, or I never should have got through.
An extract from another of her letters, dated Portland, September 11th, belongs here:
I must tell you, too, about Dr. Warren (the old one). When mother asked him concerning the amount he was to receive from her for his professional services, he smiled and said: "I shall not charge you much, and as for Miss Payson, when she is married and rich, she may pay me and welcome--but not till then." I told him I never expected to be rich, and he replied, with what mother thought an air of contentment that said he knew all about it: "Well, we can be happy without riches," and such a good, happy smile shone all over his face as I have seldom been so fortunate as to see in an old man. As for the young one, he seemed as glad when I was dressed on Sunday with a clean frock and no shawl, as if it were really a matter of consequence to him to see his patients looking comfortable and well. I am getting along finely; there is only one spot on my shoulder which is troublesome, and they ordered me on a very strict diet for that--so I am half-starved this blessed minute. We went to Newburyport on Monday, and stayed there with Anna till yesterday afternoon. I think the motion of the cars hurt me somewhat, but by the time you get here I do hope I shall be quite well.
Evening.-- ... I have had such happy thoughts and prayers to-night! You should certainly have knelt with me in my little room, where, for the first time a year ago this evening, I asked God to bless us; and you too, perhaps, then began first to pray for me. Oh, what a wonderful time it was!... I hope you have prayed for me to-day--I don't mean as you always do, but with new prayers wherewith to begin the new year. God bless you and love you!
But this period was also one of large mental growth. It was marked especially by two events that had a shaping influence upon both her intellectual and religious character. One was the study of German. She was acquainted already with French and Italian; she now devoted her leisure hours to the language and works of Schiller and Goethe. These opened to her a new world of thought and beauty. Her correspondence contains frequent allusions to the progress of her German reading. Here is one in a letter to her cousin:
I have read George Herbert a good deal this winter. I have also read several of Schiller's plays--William Tell and Don Carlos among the rest--and got a great deal more excited over them than I have over anything for a long while. George has a large German library, but I don't suppose I shall be much the wiser for it, unless I turn to studying theology. Did you read in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, the "Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele"? I do think it did my soul good when I read it last July. The account she gives of her religious history reminded me of mine in some points very strongly.
The other incident was her introduction to the writings of Fenelon--an author whom, in later years, she came to regard as an oracle of spiritual wisdom. In the letter just quoted, she writes: "I am reading Fenelon's 'Maximes des Saints,' and many of his ideas please me exceedingly. Some of his 'Lettres Spirituelles' are delicious--so heavenly, so child-like in their spirit." [9]
[1] Jan, 1, 1845.--I used never to confide my religious feelings to any one in the world. I went on my toilsome, comfortless way quite by myself. But when at the end of this long, gloomy way, I saw and knew and rejoiced in Christ, then I forgot myself and my pride and my reserve, and was glad if a little child would hear me say "I love Him!"--glad if the most ignorant, the most hitherto despised, would speak of Him.Return to passage
[2] Later she writes: "I have had a long talk with sister to-day about Leighton. She claims him, as all the Perfectionists do, as one of their number; though, by the way, in the common acceptation of the word, she is not a Perfectionist herself, but only on the boundary-line of the enchanted ground. I am completely puzzled when I think on such subjects. I doubt if sister is right, yet know not where she is wrong. She does not obtrude her peculiar opinions on any one, and I began the conversation this afternoon myself."Return to passage
[3] "Oh, what a blessed thing it is to lose one's will! Since I have lost my will I have found happiness. There can be no such thing as disappointment to me, for I have no desires but that God's will may be accomplished." "Christians might avoid much trouble if they would only believe what they profess, viz.: that God is able to make them happy without anything but Himself. They imagine that if such a dear friend were to die, or such and such blessings to be removed, they should be miserable; whereas God can make them a thousand times happier without them. To mention my own case: God has been depriving me of one blessing after another; but as every one was removed, He has come in and filled up its place; and now, when I am a cripple and not able to move, I am happier than ever I was in my life before or ever expected to be; and if I had believed this twenty years ago, I might have been spared much anxiety."Return to passage
[4] The Right Rev. John Johns, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Virginia, was a man of apostolic simplicity and zeal, and universally beloved. An almost ideal friendship existed between him and Dr. Charles Hodge, of Princeton. Dear, blessed, old John, Dr. H. called him when he was seventy-nine years old. See Life of Dr. Hodge, pp. 564-569. Bishop Johns died in 1876.Return to passage
[5] Das Blümlein Wunderschön. Lied des gefangenen Grafen, is the title of the poem. Goethe's Samtliche Werke. Vol. I., p. 151.Return to passage
[6] See appendix A, p. 533.Return to passage
[7] The horrible operation is over, Heaven be praised! It was far more horrible than we had anticipated. They were an hour and a quarter, before all was done. I was very brave at first and wouldn't leave the room, but I found myself so faint that I feared falling and had to go. Lizzy behaved like a heroine indeed, so that even the doctors admired her fortitude. She never spoke, but was deadly faint, so that they were obliged to lay her down that the dreadful wound might bleed; then there was an artery to be taken up and tied; then six stitches to be taken with a great big needle. Most providentially dear Julia Willis came in about ten minutes before the doctors and though she was greatly distressed, she never faints, and staid till Lizzy was laid in bed.... She was just like a marble statue, but even more beautiful, while the blood stained her shoulders and bosom. You couldn't have looked on such suffering without fainting, man that you are.--From a letter of Mrs. Payson, dated Boston, Sept. 2, 1844.Return to passage
[8] Her friend, Miss Prentiss, had been married, in the previous autumn, to the Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, of Newburyport.Return to passage
[9] "Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Intérieure" is the full title of the famous little work first named. It appeared in January, 1697. If measured by the storm it raised in France and at Rome, or by the attention it attracted throughout Europe, its publication may be said to have been one of the most important theological events of that day. The eloquence of Bossuet and the power of Louis XIV. were together exerted to the utmost in order to brand its illustrious author as a heretical Quietist; and, through their almost frantic efforts, it was at last condemned in a papal brief. But, for all that, the little work is full of the noblest Christian sentiments. It pushes the doctrine of pure love, perhaps, to a perilous extreme, but still an extreme that leans to the side of the highest virtue. After its condemnation the Pope, Innocent XII., wrote to the French prelates, who had been most prominent in denouncing Fenelon: Peccavit excessu amoris divini, sed vos peccastis defectu amoris proximi--i.e., "He has erred by too much love of God, but ye have erred by too little love of your neighbor."Return to passage
IV. THE YOUNG WIFE AND MOTHER
1845-1850.
I.
Marriage and Settlement in New Bedford. Reminiscences. Letters. Birth of her First Child. Death of her Sister-in-Law. Letters.
On the 16th of April, 1845, Miss Payson was married to the Rev. George Lewis Prentiss, then just ordained as pastor of the South Trinitarian church in New Bedford, Mass. Here she passed the next five and a half years; years rendered memorable by precious friendships formed in them, by the birth of two of her children, by the death of her mother, and by other deep joys and sorrows. New Bedford was then known, the world over, as the most important centre of the whale-fishery. In quest of the leviathans of the deep its ships traversed all seas, from the tumbling icebergs of the Arctic Ocean to the Southern Pacific. But it was also known nearer home for the fine social qualities of its people. Many of the original settlers of the town were Quakers, and its character had been largely shaped by their friendly influence. Husbands and wives, whether young or old, called each other everywhere by their Christian names, and a charming simplicity marked the daily intercourse of life. Into this attractive society Mrs. Prentiss was at once welcomed. The Arnold family in particular--a family representing alike the friendly spirit, the refinement and taste, the wealth, and the generous hospitality of the place--here deserve mention. Their kindness was unwearied; flowers and fruit came often from their splendid garden and greenhouses; and, in various other ways, they contributed from the moment of her coming to render New Bedford a pleasant home to her.
But it was in her husband's parish that she found her chief interest and joy. His people at first welcomed her in the warmest manner on her sainted father's account, but they soon learned to love her for her own sake. She early began to manifest among them that wonderful sympathy, which made her presence like sunshine in sick rooms and in the house of mourning, and, in later years, endeared her through her writings to so many hearts. While her natural shyness and reserve caused her to shrink from everything like publicity, and even from that leadership in the more private activities of the church which properly belonged to her sex and station, any kind of trouble instantly aroused and called into play all her energies. The sickness and death of little children wrought upon her with singular power; and, in ministering aid and comfort to bereaved mothers, she seemed like one specially anointed of the Lord for this gentle office. Now, after the lapse of more than a third of a century, there are those in New Bedford and its vicinity who bless her memory, as they recall scenes of sharp affliction cheered by her presence and her loving sympathy.
The following reminiscences by one of her New Bedford friends, written not long after her death, belong here:
Oh, that I had the pen of a ready writer! How gladly would I depict her just as she came to New Bedford, a youthful bride and our pastor's wife, more than a third of a century ago! My remembrances of her are still fresh and delightful; but they have been for so many years silent memories that I feel quite unable fully to express them. And yet I will try to give you a few simple details. Several things strike me as I recall her in those days. Our early experiences in the struggle of life had been somewhat similar and this drew us near to each other. She was naturally very shy and in the presence of strangers, or of uncongenial persons, her reserve was almost painful; but with her friends--especially those of her own sex--all this vanished and she was full of animated talk. Her conversation abounded in bright, pointed sayings, in fine little touches of humor, in amusing anecdotes and incidents of her own experience, which she related with astonishing ease and fluency, sometimes also in downright girlish fun and drollery; and all was rendered doubly attractive by her low, sweet woman's voice and her merry, fitful laugh. Yet these things were but the sparkle of a very deep and serious nature. Even then her religious character was to me wonderful. She seemed always to know just what was prompting her, whether, nature or grace; and her perception of the workings of the two principles was like an instinct. While I, though cherishing a Christian hope, was still struggling in bondage under the law, she appeared to enjoy to the full the glorious liberty of the children of God. And when I would say to her that I was constantly doing that which I ought not and leaving undone so much that I ought to do, she would try to comfort me and to encourage me to exercise more faith by responding, "Oh, you don't know what a great sinner I am; but Christ's love is greater still." There was a helpful, assuring, sunshiny influence about her piety which I have rarely seen or felt in any other human being. And almost daily, during all the years of separation, I have been conscious of this influence in my own life.
I remember her as very retiring in company, even among our own people. But if there were children present, she would gather them about her and hold them spell-bound by her talk. Oh, she was a marvellous storyteller! How often have I seen her in the midst of a little group, who, all eyes and ears, gazed into her face and eagerly swallowed every word, while she, intent on amusing them, seemed quite unconscious that anybody else was in the room. Mr. H---- used to say, "How I envy those children and wish I were one of them!"
Mrs. Prentiss received much attention from persons outside of our congregation, and who, from their position and wealth, were pretty exclusive in their habits. But they could not resist the attraction of her rare gifts and accomplishments. New Bedford at that time, as you know, had a good deal of intellectual and social culture. This was particularly the case among the Unitarians, whose minister, when you came to us, was that excellent and very superior man, the Rev. Ephraim Peabody, D.D., afterwards of King's Chapel in Boston. One of the leading families of his flock was the "Arnold family," whose garden and grounds were then among the finest in the State and at whose house such men as Richard H. Dana, the poet, the late Professor Agassiz, and others eminent for their literary and scientific attainments, were often to be seen. This whole family were warmly attached to Mrs. Prentiss, and after you left New Bedford, often referred to their acquaintance with her in the most affectionate manner. And I believe Mr. Arnold and his daughter used to visit you in New York. The father, mother, daughter, and aunt are all gone. And what a change have all these vanished years wrought in the South Trinitarian society! I can think of only six families then worshipping there, that are worshipping there now. But so long as a single one remains, the memory of Mrs. Prentiss will still be precious in the old church.
The story of the New Bedford years may be told, with slight additions here and there, by Mrs. Prentiss' own pen. Most of her letters to her own family are lost; but the letters to her husband, when occasionally separated from her, and others to old friends, have been preserved and afford an almost continuous narrative of this period. A few extracts from some of those written in 1845, will show in what temper of mind she entered upon her new life. The first is dated Portland, January both, just after Mr. Prentiss received the call to New Bedford:
I have wished all along, beyond anything else, not so much that we might have a pleasant home, pleasant scenery and circumstances, good society and the like, as that we might have good, holy influences about us, and God's grace and love within us. And for you, dear George, I did not so much desire the intellectual and other attractions, about which we have talked sometimes, as a dwelling-place among those whom you might train heavenward or who would not be a hindrance in your journey thither. Through this whole affair I know I have thought infinitely more of you than of myself. And if you are happy at the North Pole shan't I be happy there too? I shall be heartily thankful to see you a pastor with a people to love you. Only I shall be jealous of them.
To her friend, Miss Thurston, she writes from New Bedford, April 28th:
I thank you with all my heart for your letter and for the very pretty gift, which I suppose to be the work of your own hands. I can not tell you how inexpressibly dear to me are all the expressions of affection I have received and am receiving from old friends. We have been here ten days, and very happy days they have been to me, notwithstanding I have had to see so many strange faces and to talk to so many new people. And both my sister and Anna tell me that the first months of married life are succeeded by far happier ones still; so I shall go on my way rejoicing. As to what your brother says about disappointment, nobody believes his doctrine better than I do; but life is as full of blessings as it is of disappointments, I conceive, and if we only know how, we may often, out of mere will, get the former instead of the latter. I have had some experience of the "conflict and dismay" of this present evil world; but then I have also had some of its smiles. Neither of these ever made me angry with this life, or in love with it. I believe I am pretty cool and philosophical, but it won't do for me at this early day to be boasting of what is in me. I shall have to wait till circumstances bring it out. I can only answer for the past and the present--the one having been blessed and gladdened and the other being made happy and cheerful by lover and husband. I'll tell you truly, as I promised to do, if my heart sings another tune on the 17th of April, 1848. I only hope I shall enter soberly and thankfully on my new life, expecting sunshine and rain, drought and plenty, heat and cold--and adapting myself to alternations contentedly--but who knows? We are boarding at a hotel, which is not over pleasant. However, we have two good rooms and have home things about us. I like to sit at work while Mr. Prentiss writes his sermons and he likes to have me--so, for the present, a study can be dispensed with. In a few weeks we hope to get to housekeeping. I like New Bedford very much.
To her husband she writes, June 18:
I can not help writing you again, though I did send you a letter last night. It is a very pleasant morning, and I think of you all the time and love you with the happiest tears in my eyes. I have just been making some nice crispy gingerbread to send Mrs. H----, as she has no appetite, and I thought anything from home would taste good to her. I hope this will please you. Mother called with me to see her yesterday. She looks very ill. I have no idea she will ever get well. We had a nice time at the garden last night. Mr. and Miss Arnold came out and walked with us nearly an hour, though tea was waiting for them, and Miss A. was very particularly attentive to me (for your dear sake!), and gave me flowers, beautiful ones, and spoke with much interest of your sermons. Oh, I am ready to jump for joy, when I think of seeing you home again. Do please be glad as I am. I suppose your mother wants you too; but then she can't love you as I do--I'm sure she can't--with all the children among whom she has to divide her heart. Give my best love to her and Abby. How I wish I were in Portland, helping you pack your books. But I can't write any more as we are going to Mrs. Gibbs' to tea. Mother is reading Hamlet in her room. She is enjoying herself very much.
Mrs. Gibbs, whose name occurs in this letter, was one of those inestimable friends, who fulfill the office of mother, as it were, to the young minister's wife. She was tenderly attached to Mrs. Prentiss and her loving-kindness, which was new every morning and fresh every evening, ceased only with her life. Her husband, the late Capt. Robert Gibbs, was like her in unwearied devotion to both the pastor and the pastor's wife.
The summer was passed in getting settled in her new home, and receiving visits from old friends. Early in the autumn she spent several weeks in Portland. After her return, Nov. 2, she writes to Miss Thurston:
I was in Portland after you had left, and got quite rested and recruited after my summer's fatigue, so that I came home with health and strength, if not to lay my hand to the plough, to apply it to the broom-handle and other articles of domestic warfare. Just what I expected would befall me has happened. I have got immersed in the whirlpool of petty cares and concerns which swallow up so many other and higher interests, and talk as anxiously about good "help" and bad, as the rest of 'em do. I sometimes feel really ashamed of myself to see how virtuously I fancy I am spending my time, if in the kitchen, and how it seems to be wasted if I venture to take up a book. I take it that wives who have no love and enthusiasm for their husbands are more to be pitied than blamed if they settle down into mere cooks and good managers.... We have had right pleasant times since coming home; never pleasanter than when, for a day or two, I was without "help," and my husband ground coffee and drew water for me, and thought everything I made tasted good. One of the deacons of our church--a very old man--prays for me once a week at meeting, especially that my husband and I may be "mutual comforts and enjoyments of each other," which makes us laugh a little in our sleeves, even while we say Amen in our hearts. We have been reading aloud Mary Howitt's "Author's Daughter," which is a very good story indeed--don't ask me if I have read anything else. My mind has become a complete mummy, and therefore incapable of either receiving or originating a new idea. I did wade through a sea of words, and nonsense on my way home in the shape of two works of Prof. Wilson--"The Foresters" and "Margaret Lindsay"--which I fancy he wrote before he was out of his mother's arms or soon after leaving them. The girls in Portland are marrying off like all possessed. It reminds me of a shovel full of popcorn, which the more you watch it the more it won't pop, till at last it all goes racketing off at once, pop, pop, pop; without your having time to say Jack Robinson between.
My position as wife of a minister secures for me many affectionate attentions, and opens to me many little channels of happiness, which conspire to make me feel contented and at home here. I do not know how a stranger would find New Bedford people, but I am inclined to think society is hard to get into, though its heart is warm when you once do get in. We are very pleasantly situated, and our married life has been abundantly blessed. I doubt if we could fail to be contented anywhere if we had each other to love and care for.
We went to hear Templeton sing last night. I was perfectly charmed with his hunting song and with some others, and better judges than I were equally delighted. I had a letter from Abby last week. She is in Vicksburg and in fine spirits, and fast returning health.
Her letters during 1846 glow with the sunshine of domestic peace and joy. In its earlier months her health was unusually good and she depicts her happiness as something "wonderful." All the day long her heart, she says, was "running over" with a love and delight she could not begin to express. But her letters also show that already she was having foretastes of that baptism of suffering, which was to fit her for doing her Master's work. In January she revisited Portland, where she had the pleasure of meeting Prof, and Mrs. Hopkins with their little boy, and of passing several weeks in the society of her own and her husband's family. But Portland had now lost for her much of its attraction. "I've seen all the folks," she wrote, "and we've said about all we've got to say to each other, and though I love to be at home, of course, it is not the home it used to be before you had made such another dear, dear home for me. Oh, do you miss me? do you feel a little bit sorry you let me leave you? Do say, yes.... But I can't write, I am so happy! I am so glad I am going home!" Early in December her first child was born. Writing a few weeks later to Mrs. Stearns, she thus refers to this event:
What a world of new sensations and emotions come with the first child! I was quite unprepared for the rush of strange feelings--still more so for the saddening and chastening effect. Why should the world seem more than ever empty when one has just gained the treasure of a living and darling child?
The saddening effect in her own case was owing in part, no doubt, to anxiety occasioned by the fatal illness of her husband's eldest sister, to whom she was tenderly attached. The following letter was written under the pressure of this anxiety:
To Miss Thurston, New Bedford, Jan. 31, 1847
I dare say the idea of Lizzy Payson with a baby seems quite funny to you, as it does to many of the Portland girls; but I assure you it doesn't seem in the least funny to me, but as natural as life and I may add, as wonderful, almost. She is a nice little plump creature, with a fine head of dark hair which I take some comfort in brushing round a quill to make it curl, and a pair of intelligent eyes, either black or blue, nobody knows which. I find the care of her very wearing, and have cried ever so many times from fatigue and anxiety, but now I am getting a little better and she pays me for all I do. She is a sweet, good little thing, her chief fault being a tendency to dissipation and sitting up late o' nights. The ladies of our church have made her a beautiful little wardrobe, fortunately for me.
I had a lot of company all summer; my sister, her husband and boy, Mr. Stearns and Anna, Mother Prentiss, Julia Willis, etc. I had also my last visit from Abby, whom I little thought then I should never see again. Our happiness in our little one has been checked by our constant anxiety with regard to Abby's health, and it is very hard now for me to give up one who has become in every sense a sister, and not even to have the privilege of bidding her farewell. George went down about a week since and will remain till all is over. I do not even know that while I write she is yet living. She had only one wish remaining and that was to see George, and she was quite herself the day of his arrival, as also the day following, and able to say all she desired. Since then she has been rather unconscious of what was passing, and I fervently trust that by this time her sufferings are over and that she is where she longed and prayed to be. [1] You can have no idea how alike are the emotions occasioned by a birth and a death in the family. They seem equally solemn to me and I am full of wonder at the mysterious new world into which I have been thrown. I used to think that the change I saw in young, giddy girls when they became mothers, was owing to suffering and care wearing upon the spirits, but I see now that its true source lies far deeper. My brother H. has been married a couple of months, so I have one sister more. I shall be glad when they are all married. Some sisters seem to feel that their brothers are lost to them on their marriage, but if I may judge by my husband, there is fully as much gain as loss. I am sure no son or brother could be more devoted to mother and sisters than he is. Of course the baby is his perfect comfort and delight; but I need not enlarge on this point, as I suppose you have seen papas with their first babies. A great sucking of a very small thumb admonishes me that the little lady in the crib meditates crying for supper, so I must hurry off my letter.
Abby Lewis Prentiss died on Saturday, January 30, 1847, at the age of thirty-two. Long and wearisome sufferings, such as usually attend pulmonary disease, preceded the final struggle. It was toward the close of a stormy winter's day, that she gently fell asleep. A little while before she had imagined herself in a "very beautiful region" which her tongue in vain attempted to describe, surrounded by those she loved. Among her last half-conscious utterances was the name of her brother Seargent. The next morning witnessed a scene of such wondrous splendor and loveliness as made the presence of Death seem almost incredible. The snow-fall and mist and gloom had ceased; and as the sun rose, clear and resplendent, every visible object--the earth, trees, houses--shone as if enameled with gold and pearls and precious stones. It was the Lord's day; and well did the aspect of nature symbolise the glory of Him, who is the Resurrection and the Life.
On receiving the news of his sister's death, her brother Seargent, writing to his mother, thus depicted her character:
My heart bleeds to the core, as I sit down to mingle my tears with yours, my dear, beloved mother. I can not realise that it is all over; that I shall never again, in this world, see our dear, dear Abby. Gladly would I have given my own life to preserve hers. But we have consolation, even in our extreme grief; for she was so good that we know she is now in heaven, and freed from all care, unless it be that her affectionate heart is still troubled for us, whom she loved so well. We can dwell with satisfaction, after we have overcome the first sharpness of our grief, upon her angel-like qualities, which made her, long before she died, fit for the heaven where she now is.... You have lost the purest, noblest, and best of daughters; I, a sister, who never to my knowledge did a selfish act or uttered a selfish thought. With the exception of yourself, dear mother, she was, of all our family circle, the best prepared to enter her Father's house.
Some extracts from letters written at this time, will show the tenderness of Mrs. Prentiss' sisterly love and sympathy, and give a glimpse also of her thoughts and occupations as a young mother.
To Mrs. Stearns, New Bedford, Feb. 17, 1847
If I loved you less, my dear Anna, I could write you twenty letters where I now can hardly get courage to undertake one. How very dearly I do love you I never knew, till it rushed upon my mind that we might sometime lose you as we have lost dear Abby. How mysteriously your and Mary's and my baby are given us just at this very time, when our hearts are so sore that we are almost afraid to expose them to new sufferings by taking in new objects of affection! But it does seem to me a great mercy that, trying as it is in many respects, these births and this death come almost hand in hand. Surely we three young mothers have learned lessons of life that must influence us forever in relation to these little ones!
I have been like one in the midst of a great cloud, since the birth of our baby, entirely unconscious how much I love her; but I am just beginning to take comfort in and feel sensible affection for her. I long to show the dear little good creature to you. But I can hardly give up my long-cherished plans and hopes in regard to Abby's seeing and loving our first child. Almost as much as I depended on the sympathy and affection of my own mother in relation to this baby, I was depending on Abby's. But I rejoice that she is where she is, and would not have her back again in this world of sin and conflict and labor, for a thousand times the comfort her presence could give. But you don't know how I dread going home next summer and not finding her there! It was a great mercy that you could go down again, dear Anna. And indeed there are manifold mercies in this affliction--how many we may never know, till we get home to heaven ourselves and find, perhaps, that this was one of the invisible powers that helped us on our way thither. I had a sweet little note from your mother to-day. I would give anything if I could go right home, and make her adopt me as her daughter by a new adoption, and be a real blessing and comfort to her in this lonely, dark time. Eddy Hopkins calls my baby his. How children want to use the possessive case in regard to every object of interest!
I find the blanket that Mrs. Gibbs knit for me so infinitely preferable, from its elasticity, to common flannel, that I could not help knitting one for you. If I say that I have thought as many affectionate thoughts to you, while knitting it, as it contains stitches, I fancy I speak nothing but truth and soberness--for I love you now with the love I have returned on my heart from Abby, who no longer is in want of earthly friends. Dear little baby thought I was knitting for her special pleasure, for her bright eyes would always follow the needles as she lay upon my lap, and she would smile now and then as if thanking me for my trouble. The ladies have given her an elegant cloak, and Miss Arnold has just sent her a little white satin bonnet that was made in England, and is quite unlike anything I ever saw. Only to think, I walked down to church last Sunday and heard George preach once more!
March 3d.--We could with difficulty, and by taking turns, get through reading your letter--not only because you so accurately describe our own feelings in regard to dear Abby, but because we feel so keenly for you. I often detect myself thinking, "Now I will sit down and write Abby a nice long letter"; or imagining how she will act when we go home with our baby; and as you say, I dream about her almost every night. I used always to dream of her as suffering and dying, but now I see her just as she was when well, and hear her advising this and suggesting that, just as I did when she was here last summer. Life seems so different now from what it did! It seems to me that my youth has been touched by Abby's death, and that I can never be so cheerful and light-hearted as I have been. But, dear Anna, though I doubt not this is still more the case with you, and that you see far deeper into the realities of life than I do, we have both the consolations that are to be found in Christ--and these will remain to us when the buoyancy and the youthful spirit have gone from our hearts.
March 12th. ... I had been reading a marriage sermon to George from "Martyria," and we were having a nice conjugal talk just as your little stranger was coming into the world. G. is so hurried and driven that he can not get a moment in which to write. He has a funeral this afternoon, that of Mrs. H., a lady whom he has visited for two years, and a part, if not all, of that time once a week. I have made several calls since I wrote you last--two of them to see babies, one of whom took the shine quite off of mine with his great blue-black eyes and eyelashes that lay halfway down his cheeks.
The latter part of April she visited Portland; while there she wrote to her husband, April 27:
Just as I had the baby to sleep and this letter dated, I was called down to see Dr. and Mrs. Dwight and their little Willie. The baby woke before they had finished their call, and behaved as prettily and looked as bright and lovely as heart could wish. Dr. Dwight held her a long time and kissed her heartily. [2] I got your letter soon after dinner, and from the haste and the je ne sais quoi with which it was written, I feared you were not well. Alas, I am full of love and fear. How came you to walk to Dartmouth to preach? Wasn't it by far too long a walk to take in one day? I heard Dr. Carruthers on Sunday afternoon. He made the finest allusion to my father I ever heard and mother thought of it as I did. To-day I have had a good many callers--among the rest Deacon Lincoln. [3] When he saw the baby he said, "Oh, what a homely creature. Do tell if the New Bedford babies are so ugly?" Mrs. S., thinking him in earnest, rose up in high dudgeon and said, "Why, we think her beautiful, Deacon Lincoln." "Well, I don't wonder," said he. I expect she will get measles and everything else, for lots of children come to see her and eat her up. Mother, baby and I spend to-morrow at your mother's. Do up a lot of sleeping and grow fat, pray do! And oh, love me and think I am a darling little wife, and write me loving words in your next letter. Wednesday.--We have a fine day for going up to your mother's. And the baby is bright as a button and full of fun. Aren't you glad?
To Mrs. Stearns, Portland, May 22, 1847
We have just been having a little quiet Saturday evening talk about dear Abby, as we sat here before the lighting of the lamps, and I dare say I was not the only one who wished you here too. I came up here from my mother's on Monday morning and have had a delightful week. I can not begin to tell you how glad I am that we are going to make you a little visit on our way home. I do so want to see you and your children, and show you our darling little baby that I can hardly wait till the time comes. I suppose you have got your little folks off to bed, and so if you will take a peep into the parlor here you will see how we are all occupied--mother in her rocking-chair, with her "specs" on, studying my Dewees on Children; George toe to toe with her, reading some old German book, and Lina [4] curled upon the sofa, asleep I fancy, while I sit in the corner and write you from dear Abby's desk with her pen. Mercy and Sophia watch over the cradle in the dining-room, where mother's fifteenth grandchild reposes, unconscious of the honor of sleeping where honorables, reverends, and reverendesses have slumbered before her. How strange it seems that my baby is one of this family--bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh! I need not say how I miss dear Abby, for you will see at once that that which was months ago a reality to you, has just become such to me. It pains me to my heart's core to hear how she suffered. Dear, dear Abby! how I did love her, and how thankful I am for her example to imitate and her excellencies to rejoice in! Your uncle James Lewis [5] spent last night here, and this morning he prayed a delightful prayer, which really softened my whole soul. I do not know when I have had my own wants so fervently expressed, or been more edified at family worship, and his allusion to Abby was very touching.
The following extracts from letters written to her husband, while he was absent in Maine, may be thought by some to go a little too much into the trifling details of daily life and feeling, but do not such details after all form no small part of the moral warp and woof of human experience?
To her husband New Bedford, August 27th.
I heard this morning that old Mrs. Kendrick was threatened with typhus fever, and went down soon after breakfast to see how she did, and, as I found Mrs. Henrietta had watched with her and was looking all worn out, I begged her to let me have her baby this afternoon, that she might have a chance to rest; so, after dinner, Sophia went down and got her. At first she set up a lamentable scream, but we huddled on her cloak and put her with our baby into the carriage and gave them a ride. She is a proper heavy baby, and my legs ache well with trotting round the streets after the carriage. Think of me as often as you can and pray for me, and I will think of you and pray for you all the time.
Tuesday Evening.--You see I am writing you a sort of little journal, as you say you like to know all I do while you are away. Our sweet baby makes your absence far less intolerable than it used to be before she came to comfort me.... I have felt all soul and as if I had no body, ever since your precious letter came this morning. I have so pleased myself with imagining how funny and nice it would be if I could creep in unperceived by you, and hear your oration! I long to know how you got through, and what Mr. Stearns and Mr. Smith thought of it. I always pray for you more when you are away than I do when you are at home, because I know you are interrupted and hindered about your devotions more or less when journeying. I have had callers a great part of to-day, among them Mrs. Leonard, Mrs. Gen. Thompson, Mrs. Randall, and Capt. Clark. [6] Capt. C. asked for nobody but the baby. The little creature almost sprang into his arms. He was much gratified and held her a long while, kissing and caressing her. I think it was pretty work for you to go to reading your oration to your mother and old Mrs. Coe, when you hadn't read it to me. I felt a terrible pang of jealousy when I came to that in your letter. I am going now to call on Miss Arnold.
Friday, Sept, 3d.--Yesterday forenoon I was perfectly wretched. It came over me, as things will in spite of us, "Suppose he didn't get safely to Brunswick!" and for several hours I could not shake it off. It had all the power of reality, and made me so faint that I could do nothing and fairly had to go to bed. I suppose it was very silly, and if I had not tried in every way to rise above it might have been even wicked, but it frightened me to find how much I am under the power of mere feeling and fancy. But do not laugh at me. Sometimes I say to myself, "What MADNESS to love any human being so intensely! What would become of you if he were snatched from you?" and then I think that though God justly denies us comfort and support for the future, and bids us lean upon Him now and trust Him for the rest, He can give us strength for the endurance of His most terrible chastisements when their hour comes.
Saturday.--I am a mere baby when I think of your getting sick in this time of almost universal sickness and sorrow and death.... Yesterday Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Leonard took me, with Sophia and baby, to the cemetery, and on a long ride of three hours--all of which was delightful. In the afternoon baby had an ill-turn which alarmed me excessively, because so many children are sick, but I gave her medicine and think she will soon be well again. Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Randall and others sent me yesterday a dozen large peaches, two melons, a lot of shell-beans and tomatoes, a dish of blackberries and some fried corn-cakes--not an atom of the whole of which shall I touch, taste, handle, or smell; so you need not fear my killing myself. Mrs. Capt. Delano, where the Rev. Mr. Brock from England stayed, has just lost two children after a few days' illness. They were buried in one coffin. Old Gideon Howland, the richest man here, is also dead. The papers are full of deaths. Our dear baby is nine months old to-day, and may God, if He sees best, spare her to us as many more; and if He does not, I feel as if I could give her up to Him--but we don't know what we can do till the time comes. I hear her sweet little voice down stairs and it sounds happy, so I guess she feels pretty comfortable.
Sabbath Evening.--The baby is better, and I dare say it is my imagination that says she looks pale and puny. She is now asleep in your study, where too I am sitting in your chair. I came down as soon as I could this morning, and have stayed here all day. It is so quiet and pleasant among your books and papers, and it was so dull up-stairs! I thought before your letter came, while standing over the green, grassy graves of Lizzie Read, Mary Rodman, and Mrs. Cadwell, [7] how I should love to have dear Abby in such a green, sweet spot, where we could sometimes go together to talk of her. I must own I should like to be buried under grass and trees, rather than cold stone and heavy marble. Should not you?
* * * * *
II.
Birth of a Son. Death of her Mother. Her Grief. Letters. Eddy's Illness and her own Cares. A Family Gathering at Newburyport. Extracts from Eddy's Journal.
Passing over another year, which was marked by no incidents requiring special mention, we come again to a birth and a death in close conjunction. On the 22d of October, 1848, her second child, Edward Payson, was born. On the 17th of November, her mother died. Of the life of this child she herself has left a minute record, portions of which will be given later. In a letter to his sister, dated New Bedford, November 21st, her husband thus refers to her mother's departure:
We have just received the sad intelligence of Mother Payson's death. She passed away very peacefully, as if going to sleep, at half-past five on Friday afternoon. Dear Lizzy was at first quite overwhelmed, as I knew she would be--for her attachment to her mother was uncommonly tender and devoted; but she is now perfectly tranquil and will soon, I trust, be able to think of her irreparable loss with a melancholy pleasure even. There is much in the case that is peculiarly fitted to produce a cheerful resignation. Mrs. Payson has been a severe sufferer; and since the breaking up of her home in Portland, she has felt, I think, an increasing detachment from the world. I was exceedingly struck with this during her visit here last winter. She seemed to me to be fast ripening for heaven. It is such a comfort to us that she was able to name our little boy! [8]
Mrs. Payson died in the 65th year of her age. She was a woman of most attractive and admirable qualities, full of cheerful life and energy, and a whole-hearted disciple of Jesus. A few extracts from Mrs. Prentiss' letters will show how deeply she felt her loss. To her youngest brother she writes:
How gladly I would go, if I could, to see you all, and talk over with you the thousand things that are filling our minds and hearts! We can not drain this bitter cup at one draught and then go on our way as though it had never been. The loss of a mother is never made up or atoned for; and ours was such a mother; so peculiar in her devotion and tenderness and sympathy! I can not mourn that her sorrowful pilgrimage is over, can not think for a moment of wishing she were still on earth, weeping and praying and suffering--but for myself and for you and for all I mourn with hourly tears. She has sacrificed herself for us.
To her friend, Miss Lord, she writes, Jan. 31:
It seems to me that every day and hour I miss my dear mother more and more, and I feel more and more painfully how much she suffered during her last years and months. Dear Louise, I thought I knew that she could not live long, but I never realised it, and even now I keep trying to hope that she has not really gone. Just in this very spot where I now sit writing, my dear mother's great easy-chair used to sit, and here, only a year ago, she was praying for and loving me. O, if I had only known she was dying then, and could have talked with her about heaven till it had grown to seeming like a home to which she was going, and whither I should follow her sooner or later! But it is all over and I would not have her here again, if the shadow of a wish could restore her to us. I only earnestly long to be fitting, day by day, to meet her again in heaven. God has mingled many great mercies with this affliction, and I do not know that I ever in my life so felt the delight of praying to and thanking Him. When I begin to pray I have so much to thank Him for, that I hardly know how to stop. I have always thought I would not for the universe be left unchastised--and now I feel the smart, I still can say so. Lotty's visit was a great comfort and service to me, but I was very selfish in talking to her so much about my own loss, while she was so great a sufferer under hers. Since she left my little boy has been worse than ever and pined away last week very rapidly. You can form no idea, by any description of his sufferings, of what the dear little creature has undergone since his birth. I feel a perfect longing to see Portland and mother's many dear friends there, especially your mother and a few like her. I am very tired as I have written a great part of this with baby in my lap--so I can write no more.
To Mrs. Stearns, Feb. 17, 1849.
Dear little Eddy has found life altogether unkind thus far, and I have had many hours of heartache on his account but I hope he may weather the storm and come out safely yet. The doctor examined him all over yesterday, particularly his head, and said he could not make him out a sick child, but that he thought his want of flesh owing partly to his sufferings but more to the great loss of sleep occasioned by his sufferings. Instead of sleeping twelve hours out of the twenty-four, he sleeps but about seven and that by means of laudanum. Isn't it a mercy that I have been able to bear so well the fatigue and care and anxiety of these four hard months? I feel that I have nothing to complain of, and a great deal to be thankful for. On the whole, notwithstanding my grief about my dear mother's loss, and my perplexity and distress about baby, I have had as much real happiness this winter as it is possible for one to glean in such unfavorable circumstances. By far the greatest trial I have to contend with, is that of losing all power to control my time. A little room all of my own, and a regular hour, morning and night, all of my own would enable me, I think, to say, "Now let life do its worst!"
I am no stranger, I assure you, to the misgivings you describe in your last letter; I think them the result of the wish without the will to be holy. We pray for sanctification and then are afraid God will sanctify us by stripping us of our idols and feel distressed lest we can not have them and Him too. Reading the life of Madame Guyon gave me great pain and anxiety, I remember. I thought that if such spiritual darkness and trial as she was in for many years, was a necessary attendant on eminent piety, I could not summon courage to try to live such a life. Of all the anguish in the world there is nothing like this--the sense of God, without the sense of nearness to Him. I wish you would always "think aloud" when you write to me. I long to see you and the children and Mr. S., and so does George. Poor G. has had a very hard time of it ever since little Eddy's birth--so much care and worry and sleeplessness and labor, and how he is ever to get any rest I don't see. These are the times that try our souls. Let nobody condole with me about our bodies. It is the struggle to be patient and gentle and cheerful, when pressed down and worn upon and distracted, that costs us so much. I think when I have had all my children, if there is anything left of me, I shall write about the "Battle of Life" more eloquently than Dickens has done. I had a pleasant dream about mother and Abby the other night. They came together to see me and both seemed so well and so happy! I feel perfectly happy now, that my dear mother has gone home.
To the Same, May 7, 1849.
I used to think it hard to be sick when I had dear mother hanging over me, doing all she could for my relief, but it is harder to be denied the poor comfort of being let alone and to have to drag one's self out of bed to take care of a baby. Mr. Stearns must know how to pity me, for my real sick headaches are very like his, and when racked with pain, dizzy, faint and exhausted with suffering, starvation and sleeplessness, it is terrible to have to walk the room with a crying child! I thought as I lay, worn out even to childishness, obliged for the baby's sake to have a bright sunlight streaming into the chamber, and to keep my eyes and ears on the alert for the same cause, how still we used to think the house must be left when my father had these headaches and how mother busied herself all day long about him, and how nice his little plate of hot steak used to look, as he sat up to eat it when the sickness had gone--and how I am suffering here all alone with nobody to give me even a look of encouragement. George was out of town on my sickest day. When he was at home he did everything in the world he could do to keep the children still, but here they must be and I must direct about every trifle and have them on the bed with me. I am getting desperate and feel disposed to run furiously in the traces till I drop dead on the way. Don't think me very wicked for saying so. I am jaded in soul and body and hardly know what I do want. If T. comes, George, at all events, will get relief and that will take a burden from my mind.... I want Lina to come this summer. There is a splendid swing on iron hooks under a tree, at the house we are going to move into. Won't that be nice for Jeanie and Mary's other children, if they come? I wish I had a little fortune, not for myself but to gather my "folks" together with. I shall not write you, my dear, another complaining letter; do excuse this.
This letter shows the extremity of her trouble; but it is a picture, merely. The reality was something beyond description; only young mothers, who know it by experience, can understand its full meaning. Now, however, the storm for a while abated. The young relative, whose loving devotion had ministered to the comfort of her dying mother, came to her own relief and passed the next six months at New Bedford, helping take care of Eddy. In the course of the spring, too, his worst symptoms disappeared and hope took the place of fear and despondency. Referring to this period, his mother writes in Eddy's journal:
On the Saturday succeeding his birth, we heard of my dear mother's serious illness, and, when he was about three weeks old, of her death. We were not surprised that his health suffered from the shock it thus received. He began at once to be affected with distressing colic, which gave him no rest day or night. His father used to call him a "little martyr," and such indeed he was for many long, tedious months. On the 16th of February, the doctor came and spent two hours in carefully investigating his case. He said it was a most trying condition of things, and he would gladly do something to relieve me, as he thought I had been through "enough to kill ten men." ... When Eddy was about eight months old, the doctor determined to discontinue the use of opiates. He was now a fine, healthy baby, bright-eyed and beautiful, and his colic was reducing itself to certain seasons on each day, instead of occupying the whole day and night as heretofore. We went through fire and water almost in trying to procure for him natural sleep. We swung him in blankets, wheeled him in little carts, walked the room with him by the hour, etc., etc., but it was wonderful how little sleep he obtained after all. He always looked wide awake and as if he did not need sleep. His eyes had gradually become black, and when, after a day of fatigue and care with him he would at last close them, and we would flatter ourselves that now we too should snatch a little rest, we would see them shining upon us in the most amusing manner with an expression of content and even merriment. About this time he was baptized. I well remember how in his father's study, and before taking him to church, we gave him to God. He was very good while his papa was performing the ceremony, and looked so bright and so well, that many who had never seen him in his state of feebleness, found it hard to believe he had been aught save a vigorous and healthy child. My own health was now so broken down by long sleeplessness and fatigue, that it became necessary for me to leave home for a season. Dr. Mayhew promised to run in every day to see that all went well with Eddy. His auntie was more than willing to take this care upon herself, and many of our neighbors offered to go often to see him, promising to do everything for his safety and comfort if I would only go. Not aware how miserable a state I was in, I resolved to be absent only one week, but was away for a whole month.
A part of the month, with her husband and little daughter, she passed at Newburyport. His brother, S. S. Prentiss--whose name was then renowned all over the land as an orator and patriot--had come North for the last time, bringing his wife and children with him. It was a never-to-be-forgotten family gathering under the aged mother's roof.
On my return (she continues in Eddy's journal) I found him looking finely. He had had an ill-turn owing to teething which they had kept from me, but had recovered from it and looked really beautiful. His father and uncle S. S. had been to see him once during our vacation, and we were now expecting them again with his Aunt Mary and her three children and his grandmother. We depended a great deal on seeing Eddy and Una together, as she was his twin cousin and only a few hours older than he. But on the very evening of their arrival he was taken sick, and, although they all saw him that night looking like himself, by the next morning he had changed sadly. He grew ill and lost flesh and strength very fast, and no remedies seemed to have the least effect on his disorder, which was one induced by teething.... For myself I did not believe anything could now save my precious baby, and had given him to God so unreservedly, that I was not conscious of even a wish for his life.... When at last we saw evident tokens of returning health and strength, we felt that we received him a second time as from the grave. To me he never seemed the same child. My darling Eddy was lost to me and another--and yet the same--filled his place. I often said afterward that a little stranger was running about my nursery, not mine, but God's. Indeed, I can't describe the peculiar feelings with which I always regarded him after this sickness, nor how the thought constantly met me, "He is not mine; he is God's." Every night I used to thank Him for sparing him to me one day longer; thus truly enjoying him a day at a time.
An extract from a letter to Miss Lord, written on the anniversary of her mother's death, will close the account of this year.
If I were in Portland now, I should go right down to see you. I feel just like having a dear, old-fashioned talk with you. I was thinking how many times death had entered that old Richmond circle of which you and I once formed a part; Mrs. Persico, Susan, Charlotte Ford, Kate Kennedy, and now our own dearest Lotty, all gone. I can not tell you how much I miss and grieve for Lotty. [9] I can not be thankful enough that I went to Portland in the summer and had that last week with her, nor for her most precious visit here last winter. Whenever you think of any little thing she said, I want you to write it down for me, no matter whether it seems worth writing or not. I know by experience how precious such things are. This is a sad day to me. Indeed, all of this month has been so, recalling as it has done, all I was suffering at this time last year, and all my dear mother was then suffering. I can hardly realise that she has been in heaven a whole year, and that I feel her loss as vividly as if it were but yesterday--indeed, more so. I do not feel that this affliction has done me the good that it ought to have done and that I hoped it would. As far as I have any excuse it lies in my miserable health. I want so much to be more of a Christian; to live a life of constant devotion. Do tell me, when you write, if you have such troubled thoughts, and such difficulty in being steadfast and unmovable? Oh, how I sigh for the sort of life I led in Richmond, and which was more or less the life of the succeeding years at home! My husband tries to persuade me that the difference is more in my way of life, and that then being my time for contemplation, now is my time for action. But I know, myself, that I have lost ground. You must bear me in mind when you pray, my dear Louise, for I never had so much need of praying nor so little time or strength for it.
* * * * *
III.
Further Extracts from Eddy's Journal. Ill-health. Visit to Newark. Death of her Brother-in-law, S. S. Prentiss. His Character. Removal to Newark. Letters.
The record of the new year opens with this entry in Eddy's journal:
January, 1850.--Eddy is now fourteen months old, has six teeth, and walks well, but with timidity. He is, at times, really beautiful. He is very affectionate, and will run to meet me, throw his little arms round my neck and keep pat-pat-patting me, with delight. Miss Arnold sent him, at New Year's, a pretty ball, with which he is highly pleased. He rolls it about by knocking it with a stick, and will shout for joy when he sees it moving. He is crazy to give everybody something, and when he is brought down to prayers, hurries to get the Bible for his father, his little face all smiles and exultation, and his body in a quiver with emotion. He is like lightning in all his movements, and is never still for an instant. It is worth a good deal to see his face, it is so brimful of life and sunshine and gladness.
Her letters, written during the winter and spring, show how in the midst of bodily suffering, depression, and sorrow her views of life were changing and her faith in God growing stronger. Three of her brothers were now in California, seeking their fortunes in the newly-discovered gold mines. To one of them she writes, March 10th:
I was delighted yesterday by the reception of your letter. I do not wonder that Lotty's death affected you as it did--but however sharp the instruments by which these lessons come to us, they are full of good when they do come. As I look back to the time when I did not know what death was doing and could do, I seem to myself like a child who has not yet been to school. The deaths of our dear mother and of Lotty have taken fast hold of me. Life is entirely changed. I do not say this in a melancholy or repining temper, for I would not have life appear otherwise than in its true light. All my sickly, wicked disgust with it has been put to the blush and driven away. I see now that to live for God, whether one is allowed ability to be actively useful or not, is a great thing, and that it is a wonderful mercy to be allowed to live and suffer even, if thereby one can glorify Him. I desire to live if it is God's will, though I confess heaven looks most attractive when either sin, sorrow, or sickness weary me. But I must not go on at this rate, for I could not in writing begin to tell you how different everything looks as I advance into a knowledge of life and see its awful sorrows and sufferings and changes and know that I am subject to all its laws, soon to take my turn in its mysterious close. My dear brother, let us learn by heart the lessons we are learning, and go in their strength and wisdom all our days.... Our children are well. Eddy has gone to be weighed (he weighed twenty-four pounds). He is a fine little fellow. I have his nurse still, and ought to be in excellent health, but am a nervous old thing, as skinny and bony as I can be. I can think of nothing but birds' claws when I look at my hands. But I have so much to be thankful for in my dear husband and my sweet little children, and love all of you so dearly, that I believe I am as rich as if I had the flesh and strength of a giant. I am going this week to hear Miss Arnold read a manuscript novel. This will give spice to my life. Warmest love to you all.
Again, May 10th, she writes:
It would be a great pleasure to me to keep a journal for you if I were well enough, but I am not. I have my sick headache now once a week, and it makes me really ill for about three days. Towards night of the third day I begin to brighten up and to eat a morsel, but hardly recover my strength before I have another pull-down, just as I had got to this point the door-bell rang, and lo! a beautiful May-basket hanging on the latch for "Annie," full of pretty and good things. I can hardly wait till morning to see how her eyes will shine and her little feet fly when she sees it. George has been greatly distressed about S. S., and has, I think, very little, if any, hope that he will recover. Dr. Tappan [10] spent Tuesday night here. We had a really delightful visit from him. He spoke highly of your classmate, Craig, who is just going to be married. He told us a number of pleasant anecdotes about father. Eddy has got big enough to walk in the street. He looks like a little picture, with his great forehead and bright eyes. He is in every way as large as most children are at two years. His supreme delight is to tease A. by making believe strike her or in some other real boy's hateful way. She and he play together on the grass-plat, and I feel quite matronly as I sit watching them with their balls and wheel-barrows and whatnots. This little scamp has, I fear, broken my constitution to pieces. It makes me crawl all over when I think of you three fagging all day at such dull and unprofitable labor. But I am sure Providence will do what is really best for you all. We think and talk of and pray for you every day and more than once a day, and, in all my ill-health and sufferings, the remembrance of you is pleasant and in great measure refreshing. I depend more upon hearing from you all than I can describe. What an unconquerable thing family affection is!
She thus writes, May 30th, to her old Portland friend, Miss Lord:
I have written very few letters and not a line of anything else the past winter, owing to the confusion my mind is in most of the time from distress in my head. Three days out of every seven I am as sick as I well can be--the rest of the time languid, feeble, and exhausted by frequent faint turns, so that I can't do the smallest thing in my family. I hardly know what it is so much as to put a clean apron on to one of my children. To me this is a constant pain and weariness; for our expense in the way of servants is greater than we can afford and everything is going to destruction under my face and eyes, while I dare not lift a finger to remedy it. I live in constant alternations of hope and despondency about my health. Whenever I feel a little better, as I do to-day, I am sanguine and cheerful, but the next ill-turn depresses me exceedingly. I don't think there is any special danger of my dying, but there is a good deal of my getting run down beyond the power of recovery, and of dragging out that useless existence of which I have a perfect horror. But I would not have you think I am not happy; for I can truly say that I am, most of the time, as happy as I believe one can be in this world. All my trials and sufferings shut me up to the one great Source of peace, and I know there has been need of every one of them.
I have not yet made my plans for the summer. Our doctor urges me to go away from the children and from the salt water, but I do not believe it would do me a bit of good. I want you to see my dear little boy. He is now nineteen months old and as fat and well as can be. He is a beautiful little fellow, we think, and very interesting. He is as gallant to A. as you please, and runs to get a cushion for her when their supper is carried in, and won't eat a morsel himself till he sees her nicely fixed. George has gone to Boston, and I am lonely enough. I would write another sheet if I dared, but I don't dare.
What she here says of her happiness, amidst the trials of the previous winter, is repeated a little later in a letter to her husband:
I can truly say I have not spent a happier winter since our marriage, in spite of all my sickness. It seems to me I can never recover my spirits and be as I have been in my best days, but what I lose in one way perhaps I shall gain in another. Just think how my ambition has been crushed at every point by my ill-health, and even the ambition to be useful and a comfort to those about me trampled underfoot, to teach me what I could not have learned in any other school!
In the month of June she went on a visit to Newark, New Jersey, where her husband's mother and sister now resided; Dr. Stearns having in the fall of 1849 accepted a call to the First Presbyterian church in that city. While she was in Newark news came of the dangerous illness, and, soon after, of the death at Natchez of her brother-in-law, Mr. S. S. Prentiss. The event was a great shock to her, and she knew that it would be a crushing blow to her husband. Her letters to him, written at this time, are full of the tender love and sympathy that infuse solace into sorrow-stricken hearts. Here is an extract from one of them, dated July 11th:
I can't tell you how it grieves and distresses me to have had this long-dreaded affliction come upon you when you were alone. Though I could do so little to comfort you, it seems as if I must be near you.... But I know I am doing right in staying here--doing as you would tell me to do, if I could have your direct wish, and you don't know how thankful I am that it has pleased God to let me be with dear mother at a time when she so needed constant affection and sympathy. Yes there are wonderful mercies with this heavy affliction, and we all see and feel them. Poor mother has borne all the dreadful suspense and then the second blow of to-day far better than any of us dared to hope, but she weeps incessantly. Anna is with her all she can possibly be, and Mr. Stearns is an angel of mercy. I have prayed for you a great deal this week, and I know God is with you, comforts you, and will enable you to bear this great sorrow. And yet I can't help feeling that I want to comfort you myself. Oh, may we all reap its blessed fruits as long as we live! Let us withdraw a while from everything else, that we may press nearer to God.
We were in a state of terrible suspense all day Tuesday, all day Wednesday, and until noon to-day; starting at every footfall, expecting telegraphic intelligence either from you or from the South, and deplorably ignorant of Seargent's alarming condition, notwithstanding all the warning we had had. With one consent we had put far off the evil day.... And now I must bid you good-night, my dearest husband, praying that you may be the beloved of the Lord and rest in safety by Him.
The early years of Mrs. Prentiss' married life were in various ways closely connected with that of this lamented brother; so much so that he may be said to have formed one of the most potent, as well as one of the sunniest, influences in her own domestic history. Not only was he very highly gifted, intellectually, and widely known as a great orator, but he was also a man of extraordinary personal attractions, endeared to all his friends by the sweetness of his disposition, by his winning ways, his wit, his playful humor, his courage, his boundless generosity, his fraternal and filial devotion, and by the charm of his conversation. His death at the early age of forty-one called forth expressions of profound sorrow and regret from the first men of the nation. After the lapse of nearly a third of a century his memory is still fresh and bright in the hearts of all, who once knew and loved him. [11]
Notwithstanding the shock of this great affliction, Mrs. Prentiss returned to New Bedford much refreshed in body and mind. In a letter to her friend Miss Lord, dated September 14th, she writes:
I spent six most profitable weeks at Newark; went out very little, saw very few people, and had the quiet and retirement I had long hungered and thirsted for. Since I have had children my life has been so distracted with care and sickness that I have sometimes felt like giving up in despair, but this six weeks' rest gave me fresh courage to start anew. I have got some delightful books--Manning's Sermons. [12] They are (letting the High-churchism go) most delightful; I think Susan would have feasted on them. But she is feasting on angels' food and has need of none of these things.
In October of this year Mrs. Prentiss bade adieu to New Bedford, never to revisit it, and removed to Newark; her husband having become associate pastor of the Second Presbyterian church in that place. In the spring of the following year he accepted a call to the Mercer street Presbyterian church in New York, and that city became her home the rest of her days. Although she tarried so short a time in Newark, she received much kindness and formed warm friendships while there. She continued to suffer much, however, from ill-health and almost entirely suspended her correspondence. A few letters to New Bedford friends are all that relate to this period. In one to Mrs. J. P. Allen, dated November 2d, she thus refers to an accident, which came near proving fatal:
Yesterday we went down to New York to hear Jenny Lind; a pleasure to remember for the rest of one's life. If anything, she surpassed our expectations. In coming home a slight accident to the cars obliged us to walk about a mile, and I must needs fall into a hole in the bridge which we were crossing, and bruise and scrape one knee quite badly. The wonder is that I did not go into the river, as it was a large hole, and pitch dark. I think if I had been walking with Mr. Prentiss I should not only have gone in myself, but pulled him in too; but I had the arm of a stronger man, who held me up till I could extricate myself. You can't think how I miss you, nor how often I wish you could run in and sit with me, as you used to do. I have always loved you, and shall remember you and yours with the utmost interest. We had a pleasant call the other day from Captain Gibbs. Seeing him made me homesick enough. I could hardly keep from crying all the time he stayed. It seems to us both as if we had been gone from New Bedford more months than we have days. Mr. Prentiss said yesterday that he should expect if he went back directly, to see the boys and girls grown up and married.
To Mrs. Reuben Nye, Newark, Feb 12, 1851.
Mr. Prentiss and Mr. Poor have just taken Annie and Eddy out to walk, and I have been moping over the fire and thinking of New Bedford friends, and wishing one or more would "happen in." I am just now getting over a severe attack of rheumatism, which on leaving my back intrenched itself in Mr. P.'s shoulder. I dislike this climate and am very suspicious of it. Everybody has a horrible cold, or the rheumatism, or fever and ague. Mr. Prentiss says if I get the latter, he shall be off for New England in a twinkling. I think he is as well as can be expected while the death of his brother continues so fresh in his remembrance. All the old cheerfulness, which used to sustain me amid sickness and trouble, has gone from him. But God has ordered the iron to enter his soul, and it is not for me to resist that will. Our children are well. We have had much comfort in them both this winter. Mother Prentiss is renewing her youth, it is so pleasant to her to have us all near her. (Eddy and A. are hovering about me, making such a noise that I can hardly write. Eddy says, "When I was tired, Poor tarried me.") Mr. Poor carries all before him. [13] He is very popular throughout the city, and I believe Mrs. P. is much admired by their people. Mr. Prentiss is preaching every Sabbath evening, as Dr. Condit is able to preach every morning now. I feel as much at home as I possibly could anywhere in the same time, but instead of mourning less for my New Bedford friends, I mourn more and more every day.
To Mrs. Allen she writes, Feb. 21:
I know all about those depressed moods, when it costs one as much to smile, or to give a pleasant answer, as it would at other times to make a world. What a change it will be to us poor sickly, feeble, discouraged ones, when we find ourselves where there is neither pain or lassitude or fatigue of the body, or sorrow or care or despondency of the mind!
I miss you more and more. People here are kind and excellent and friendly, but I can not make them, as yet, fill the places of the familiar faces I have left in New Bedford. I am all the time walking through our neighborhood, dropping into Deacon Barker's or your house, or welcoming some of you into our old house on the corner. Eddy is pretty well. He is a sweet little boy, gentle and docile. He learns to talk very fast, and is crazy to learn hymns. He says, "Tinkle, tinkle leetleeverybody, and give 'tatoes to beggar boys." Mother Prentiss seems to thrive on having us all about her. She lives so far off that I see her seldom, but Mr. P. goes every day, except Sundays, when he can't go--rain or shine, tired or not tired, convenient or not convenient. Since my mother's death he has felt that he must do quickly whatever he has to do for his own.
[1] "I found dear Abby still alive and rejoiced beyond expression to see me. She had had a very feeble night, but brightened up towards noon and when I arrived seemed entirely like her old self, smiling sweetly and exclaiming, "This is the last blessing I desired! Oh, how good the Lord is, isn't He?" It was very delightful. The doctor has just been in and he says she may go any instant, and yet may live a day or two. Mother is wonderfully calm and happy, and the house seems like the very gate of heaven.... I so wish you could have seen Abby's smile when I entered her room. And then she inquired so affectionately for you and baby: "Now tell me everything about them." She longs and prays to be gone. There is something perfectly childlike about her expressions and feelings, especially toward mother. She can't bear to have her leave the room and holds her hand a good deal of the time. She sends ever so much love."-- Extract from a letter, dated Portland, January 27, 1847.Return to passage
[2] The late Rev. William T. Dwight, D.D., pastor of the Third Church in Portland. He was a son of President Dwight, an accomplished man, a noble Christian citizen, and one of the ablest preachers of his day. For many years his house almost adjoined Mrs. Payson's, and both he and Mrs. Dwight were among her most cherished friends.Return to passage
[3] A devoted friend of her father's, one of his deacons, and a genial, warm-hearted, good man.Return to passage
[4] A niece of her husband, a lovely child, who died a few years later in Georgia.Return to passage
[5] Rev. James Lewis, a venerated elder and local preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then nearly eighty years of age. He died in 1855, universally beloved and lamented. He entered upon his work in 1800. During most of those fifty-five years he was wont to preach every Sabbath, often three times, rarely losing an appointment by sickness, and still more rarely by storms in summer or winter. He lived in Gorham, Maine, and his labors were pretty equally divided among all the towns within fifteen miles round. His rides out and back, often over the roughest roads or through heavy snows, averaged, probably, from fifteen to twenty miles. It was estimated that he had officiated at not less than 1,500 funerals, sometimes riding for the purpose forty miles. His funeral and camp-meeting sermons included, he could not have preached less than from 8,000 to 9,000 times. He never received a dollar of compensation for his ministerial services. Though a hard-working farmer, his hospitality to his itinerant brethren was unbounded. In several towns of Cumberland and adjoining counties, he was the revered patriarch, as half a century earlier he had been the youthful pioneer of Methodism. When he departed to be with Christ, there was no better man in all the State to follow after him.Return to passage
[6] One of a number of old whaling captains in her husband's congregation, in whom she was interested greatly. They belonged to a class of men sui generis--men who had traversed all oceans, had visited many lands, and were as remarkable for their jovial large-hearted, social qualities, when at home, as for their indomitable energy, Yankee push, and adventurous seamanship, when hunting the monsters of the deep on the other side of the globe.Return to passage
[7] Two bright girls and a young mother, who had died not long before.Return to passage
[8] Her sickness lasted six weeks, dating from the day of her being entirely confined to bed. Her life was prolonged much beyond what her physicians or any one else who saw her, had believed possible. During the last week her sufferings were less, and she lay quiet part of the time. Friday morning she had an attack of faintness, in the course of which she remarked "I am dying." She recovered and before noon sank into a somnolent state from which she never awoke. Her breathing became softer and fainter till it ceased at half-past five in the afternoon. Oh, what a transition was that! from pain and weariness and woe to the world of light! to the presence of the Saviour! to unclouded bliss! I felt, and so I believe did all assembled round her bed, that it was time for exultation rather than grief. We could not think of ourselves, so absorbed were we in contemplation of her happiness. She was able to say scarcely anything during her sickness, and left not a single message for the absent children, or directions to those who were present. Her extreme weakness, and the distressing effect of every attempt to speak, made her abandon all such attempts except in answer to questions. But the tenor of her replies to all inquiries was uniform, expressing entire acquiescence in the will of God, confidence in Him through Christ, and a desire to depart as soon as He should permit. Tranquillity and peace, unclouded by a single doubt or fear, seem to have filled her mind. There were several reasons which led us to decide that the interment should take place here; but on the following Saturday a gentleman arrived from Portland, sent by the Second Parish to remove the remains to that place, if we made no objection. As we made none, the body was disinterred and taken to P., my brother G. accompanying it. So that her mortal remains now rest with those of my dear father.--Letter from Mrs. Hopkins to her aunt in New Haven, dated Williamstown, Dec. 1, 1848.Return to passage
[9] The wife of her brother, Mr. Henry M. Payson.Return to passage
[10] The Rev. Benjamin Tappan, D.D., an old friend of her father's and one of the patriarchs of the Maine churches.Return to passage
[11] See appendix B, p. 534, for a brief sketch of his life.Return to passage
[12] Sermons by Henry Edward Manning, Archdeacon of Chichester (now Cardinal Manning), 1st, 2d, and 3d Series.Return to passage
[13] The Rev. D. W. Poor, D.D., now of Philadelphia. He had been settled at Fair Haven, near New Bedford, and was then a pastor in Newark.Return to passage
V. IN THE SCHOOL OF SUFFERING
1851-1858.
I.
Removal to New York and first Summer there. Letters. Loss of Sleep and Anxiety about Eddy. Extracts from Eddy's Journal, describing his last Illness and Death. Lines entitled "To my Dying Eddy."
Mrs. Prentiss' removal to New York was an important link in the chain of outward events which prepared her for her special life-work. It introduced her at once into a circle unsurpassed, perhaps, by any other in the country, for its intelligence, its domestic and social virtues, and its earnest Christian spirit. The Mercer street Presbyterian church contained at that time many members whose names were known and honored the world over, in the spheres of business, professional life, literature, philanthropy, and religion; and among its homes were some that seemed to have attained almost the perfection of beauty. In these homes the new pastor's wife soon became an object of tender love and devotion. Here she found herself surrounded by all congenial influences. Her mind and heart alike were refreshed and stimulated in the healthiest manner. And to add to her joy, several dear old friends lived near her and sat in adjoining pews on the Sabbath.
But happy as were the auspices that welcomed her to New York, the experience of the past two years had taught her not to expect too much from any outward conditions. She entered, therefore, upon this new period of her life in a very sober mood. Nor had many months elapsed before she began to hear premonitory murmurs of an incoming sea of trouble. Most of the summer of 1851 she remained in town with the children. An extract from a letter to her youngest brother, dated August 1, will show how she whiled away many a weary hour:
It has been very hot this summer; our house is large and cool, and above all, I have a nice bathing-room opening out of my chamber, with hot and cold water and a shower-bath, which is a world of comfort. We spent part of last week at Rockaway, L. I., visiting a friend. [1] I nearly froze to death, but George and the children were much benefited. I have improved fast in health since we came here. Yesterday I walked two and a half miles with George, and a year ago at this time I could not walk a quarter of a mile without being sick after it for some days. When I feel miserably I just put on my bonnet and get into an omnibus and go rattlety-bang down town; the air and the shaking and the jolting and the sight-seeing make me feel better and so I get along. If I could safely leave my children I should go with George. He hates to go alone and surely I hate to be left alone; in fact instead of liking each other's society less and less, we every day get more and more dependent on each other, and take separation harder and harder. Our children are well.
To her husband, who had gone to visit an old friend, at Harpswell, on the coast of Maine, she writes a few days later:
On Saturday very early Professor Smith called with the House of Seven Gables. I read about half of it in the evening. One sees the hand of the artist as clearly in such a work as in painting, and the hand of a skilful one, too. I have read many books with more interest, but never one in which I was so diverted from the story to a study of the author himself. So far there is nothing exciting in it. I don't know who supplied the pulpit on Sunday morning. The sermon was to young men, which was not so appropriate as it might have been, considering there were no young men present, unless I except our Eddy and other sprigs of humanity of his age. I suppose you will wonder what in the world I let Eddy go for. Well, I took a fancy to let Margaret try him, as nobody would know him in the gallery and he coaxed so prettily to go. He was highly excited at the permission, and as I was putting on his sacque, I directed Margaret to take it off if he fell asleep. "Ho! I shan't go to sleep," quoth he; "Christ doesn't have rocking-chairs in His house." He set off in high spirits, and during the long prayer I heard him laugh loud; soon after I heard a rattling as of a parasol and Eddy saying, "There it is!" by which time Margaret, finding he was going to begin a regular frolic, sagely took him out.
August 7th--The five girls from Brooklyn all spent yesterday here. They had a regular frolic towards night, bathing and shower-bathing. Afterwards we all went on top of the house. It was very pleasant up there. I took the children to Barnum's Museum, as I proposed doing. They were delighted, particularly with the "Happy Family," which consisted of cats, rats, birds, dogs, rabbits, monkeys, etc., etc., dwelling together in unity. I observed that though the cats forbore to lay a paw upon the rats and mice about them, they yet took a melancholy pleasure in looking at these dainty morsels, from which nothing could persuade them to turn off their eyes. I am glad that you got away from New Bedford alive and that you did not stay longer, but hearing about our friends there made me quite long to see them myself. Do have just the best time in the world at Harpswell, and don't let the Rev. Elijah drown you for the sake of catching your mantle as you go down. I dare not tell you how much I miss you, lest you should think I do not rejoice in your having this vacation. May God bless and keep you.
During the autumn she suffered much again from feeble health and incessant loss of sleep. "I have often thought," she wrote to a friend, "that while so stupefied by sickness I should not be glad to see my own mother if I had to speak to her." But neither sick days nor sleepless nights could quench the Brightness of her spirit or wholly spoil her enjoyment of life. A little diary which she kept contains many gleams of sunshine, recording pleasant visits from old friends, happy hours and walks with the children, excursions to Newark, and how "amazingly" she "enjoyed the boys" (her brothers) on their return from the pursuit of golden dreams in California. In the month of November the diary shows that her watchful eye observed in Eddy signs of disease, which filled her with anxiety. Before the close of the year her worst fears began to be realised. She wrote, Dec. 31: "I am under a constant pressure of anxiety about Eddy. How little we know what the New Year will bring forth." Early in January, 1852, his symptoms assumed a fatal type, and on the 16th of the same month the beautiful boy was released from his sufferings, and found rest in the kingdom of heaven, that sweet home of the little children. A few extracts from Eddy's journal will tell the story of his last days:
On the 19th of December the Rev. Mr. Poor was here. On hearing of it, Eddy said he wanted to see him. As he took now so little interest in anything that would cost him an effort, I was surprised, but told Annie to lead him down to the parlor; on reaching it they found Mr. Poor not there, and they then went up to the study. I heard their father's joyous greeting as he opened his door for them, and how he welcomed Eddy, in particular, with a perfect shower of kisses and caresses. This was the last time the dear child's own feet ever took him there; but his father afterwards frequently carried him up in his arms and amused him with pictures, especially with what Eddy called the "bear books." [2] One morning Ellen told him she was going to make a little pie for his dinner, but on his next appearance in the kitchen told him she had let it burn all up in the oven, and that she felt dreadfully about it. "Never mind, Ellie," said he, "mamma does not like to have me eat pie; but when I get well I shall have as many as I want."
On the 24th of December Mr. Stearns and Anna were here. I was out with the latter most of the day; on my return Eddy came to me with a little flag which his uncle had given him, and after they had left us he ran up and down with it, and as my eye followed him, I thought he looked happier and brighter and more like himself than I had seen him for a long time. He kept saying, "Mr. Stearns gave me this flag!" and then would correct himself and say, "I mean my Uncle Stearns." On this night he hung up his bag for his presents, and after going to bed, surveyed it with a chuckle of pleasure peculiar to him, and finally fell asleep in this happy mood. I took great delight in arranging his and A.'s presents, and getting them safely into their bags. He enjoyed Christmas as much as I had reason to expect he would, in his state of health, and was busy among his new playthings all day. He had taken a fancy within a few weeks to kneel at family prayers with me at my chair, and would throw one little arm round my neck, while with the other hand he so prettily and seriously covered his eyes. As their heads touched my face as they knelt, I observed that Eddy's felt hot when compared with A.'s; just enough so to increase my uneasiness. On entering the nursery on New Year's morning, I was struck with his appearance as he lay in bed; his face being spotted all over. On asking Margaret about it, she said he had been crying, and that this occasioned the spots. This did not seem probable to me, for I had never seen anything of this kind on his face before. How little I knew that these were the last tears my darling would ever shed.
On Sunday morning, January 4, not being able to come himself, Dr. Buck sent Dr. Watson in his place. I told Dr. W. that I thought Eddy had water on the brain; he said it was not so, and ordered nothing but a warm bath. On Thursday, January 8, while Margaret was at dinner, I knelt by the side of the cradle, rocking it very gently, and he asked me to tell him a story. I asked what about, and he said, "A little boy," on which I said something like this: Mamma knows a dear little boy who was very sick. His head ached and he felt sick all over. God said, I must let that little lamb come into my fold; then his head will never ache again, and he will be a very happy little lamb. I used the words little lamb because he was so fond of them. Often he would run to his nurse with his face full of animation and say, "Marget! Mamma says I am her little lamb!" While I was telling him this story his eyes were fixed intelligently on my face. I then said, "Would you like to know the name of this boy?" With eagerness he said, "Yes, yes, mamma!" Taking his dear little hand in mine, and kissing it, I said, "It was Eddy." Just then his nurse came in and his attention was diverted, so I said no more.
On Sunday, January 11, at noon, while they were all at dinner, I was left alone with my darling for a few moments, and could not help kissing his unconscious lips. To my utter amazement he looked up and plainly recognised me and warmly returned my kiss. Then he said feebly, but distinctly twice, "I want some meat and potato." I do not think I should have been more delighted if he had risen from the dead, once more to recognise me. Oh, it was such a comfort to have one more kiss, and to be able to gratify one more wish!
On Friday, January 16th, his little weary sighs became more profound, and, as the day advanced, more like groans; but appeared to indicate extreme fatigue, rather than severe pain. Towards night his breathing became quick and laborious, and between seven and eight slight spasms agitated his little feeble frame. He uttered cries of distress for a few minutes, when they ceased, and his loving and gentle spirit ascended to that world where thousands of holy children and the blessed company of angels and our blessed Lord Jesus, I doubt not, joyfully welcomed him. Now we were able to say, It is well with the child!
"Oh," said the gardener, as he passed down the garden-walk, "who plucked that flower? Who gathered that plant?" His fellow-servants answered, "The MASTER!" And the gardener held his peace.
The feelings of the mother's heart on Friday found vent in some lines entitled To My Dying Eddy; January 16th. Here are two stanzas:
Blest child! dear child! For thee is Jesus calling; And of our household thee--and only thee! Oh, hasten hence! to His embraces hasten! Sweet shall thy rest and safe thy shelter be.
Thou who unguarded ne'er hast left our threshold, Alone must venture now an unknown way; Yet, fear not! Footprints of an Infant Holy Lie on thy path. Thou canst not go astray.
In a letter to her friend Mrs. Allen, of New Bedford, dated January 28, she writes:
During our dear little Eddy's illness we were surrounded with kind friends, and many prayers were offered for us and for him. Nothing that could alleviate our affliction was left undone or unthought of, and we feel that it would be most unchristian and ungrateful in us to even wonder at that Divine will which has bereaved us of our only boy--the light and sunshine of our household. We miss him sadly. I need not explain to you, who know all about it, how sadly; but we rejoice that he has got away from this troublous life, and that we have had the privilege of giving so dear a child to God. When he was well he was one of the happiest creatures I ever saw, and I am sure he is well now, and that he is as happy as his joyous nature makes him susceptible of becoming. God has been most merciful to us in this affliction, and, if a bereaved, we are still a happy household and full of thanksgiving. Give my love to both the children and tell them they must not forget us, and when they think and talk of their dear brother and sisters in heaven, they must sometimes think of the little Eddy who is there too.
* * * * *
II.
Birth of her Third Child. Reminiscence of a Sabbath-Evening Talk. Story of the Baby's Sudden Illness and Death. Summer of 1852. Lines entitled "My Nursery."
The shock of Eddy's death proved almost too much for Mrs. Prentiss' enfeebled frame. She bore it, however, with sweet submission, and on the 17th of the following April her sorrow was changed to joy, and Eddy's empty place filled, as she thought, by the birth of Elizabeth, her third child, a picture of infantine health and beauty. But, although the child seemed perfectly well, the mother herself was brought to the verge of the grave. For a week or two her life wavered in the balance, and she was quite in the mood to follow Eddy to the better country. Her husband, recording a "long and most interesting conversation" with her on Sabbath evening, May 2d, speaks of the "depth and tenderness of her religious feelings, of her sense of sin and of the grace and glory of the Saviour," and then adds, "Her old Richmond exercises seem of late to have returned with their former strength and beauty increased many-fold." On the 14th of May she was able to write in pencil these lines to her sister, Mrs. Hopkins:
I little thought that I should ever write to you again, but I have been brought through a great deal, and now have reason to expect to get well. I never knew how much I loved you till I gave up all hope of ever seeing you again, and I have not strength yet to tell you all about it. Poor George has suffered much. I hope all will be blessed to him and to me. I am still confined to bed. The doctor thinks there may be an abscess near the hip-joint, and, till that is cured, I can neither lie straight in bed or stand on my feet or ride out. Everybody is kind. Our cup has run over. It is a sore trial not to be allowed to nurse baby. She is kept in another room. I only see her once a day. She begins to smile, and is very bright-eyed. I hope your journey will do you good. If you can, do write a few lines--not more. But, good-by.
Hardly had she penned these lines, when, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, another stunning blow fell upon her. On the 19th of May, after an illness of a few hours, Bessie, too, was folded forever in the arms of the Good Shepherd. Here is the mother's own story of her loss:
Our darling Eddy died on the 16th of January. The baby he had so often spoken of was born on the 17th of April. I was too feeble to have any care of her. Never had her in my arms but twice; once the day before she died and once while she was dying. I never saw her little feet. She was a beautiful little creature, with a great quantity of dark hair and very dark blue eyes. The nurse had to keep her in another room on account of my illness. When she was a month old she brought her to me one afternoon. "This child is perfectly beautiful," said she; "to-morrow I mean to dress her up and have her likeness taken." I asked her to get me up in bed and let me take her a minute. She objected, and I urged her a good deal, till at last she consented. The moment I took her I was struck by her unearthly, absolutely angelic expression; and, not having strength enough to help it, burst out crying bitterly, and cried all the afternoon while I was struggling to give her up.
Her father was at Newark. When he came home at dark I told him I was sure that baby was going to die. He laughed at me, said my weak health made me fancy it, and asked the nurse if the child was not well. She said she was--perfectly well. My presentiment remained, however, in full force, and the first thing next morning I asked Margaret to go and see how baby was. She came back, saying, "She is very well. She lies there on the bed scolding to herself." I cried out to have her instantly brought to me. M. refused, saying the nurse would be displeased. But my anxieties were excited by the use of the word "scolding," as I knew no baby a month old did anything of that sort, and insisted on its being brought to me. The instant I touched it I felt its head to be of a burning heat, and sent for the nurse at once. When she came, I said, "This child is very sick." "Yes," she said, "but I wanted you to have your breakfast first. At one o'clock in the night I found a little swelling. I do not know what it is, but the child is certainly very sick." On examination I knew it was erysipelas. "Don't say that," said the nurse, and burst into tears. I made them get me up and partly dress me, as I was so excited I could not stay in bed.
Dr. Buck came at ten o'clock; he expressed no anxiety, but prescribed for her and George went out to get what he ordered. The nurse brought her to me at eleven o'clock and begged me to observe that the spot had turned black. I knew at once that this was fearful, fatal disease, and entreated George to go and tell the doctor. He went to please me, though he saw no need of it, and gave the wrong message to the doctor, to the effect that the swelling was increasing, to which the doctor replied that it naturally would do so. The little creature, whose moans Margaret had termed scolding, now was heard all over that floor; every breath a moan that tore my heart in pieces. I begged to have her brought to me but the nurse sent word she was too sick to be moved. I then begged the nurse to come and tell me exactly what she thought of her, but she said she could not leave her. I then crawled on my hands and knees into the room, being unable then and for a long time after to bear my own weight.
What a scene our nursery presented! Everything upset and tossed about, medicines here and there on the floor, a fire like a fiery furnace, and Miss H. sitting hopelessly and with falling tears with the baby on a pillow in her lap--all its boasted beauty gone forever. The sight was appalling and its moans heart-rending. George came and got me back to my sofa and said he felt as if he should jump out of the window every time he heard that dreadful sound. He had to go out and made me promise not to try to go to the nursery till his return. I foolishly promised. Mrs. White [3] called, and I told her I was going to lose my baby; she was very kind and went in to see it but I believe expressed no opinion as to its state. But she repeated an expression which I repeated to myself many times that day, and have repeated thousands of times since--"God never makes a mistake."
Margaret went soon after she left to see how the poor little creature was, and did not come back. Hour after hour passed and no one came. I lay racked with cruel torture, bitterly regretting my promise to George, listening to those moans till I was nearly wild. Then in a frenzy of despair I pulled myself over to my bureau, where I had arranged the dainty little garments my darling was to wear, and which I had promised myself so much pleasure in seeing her wear. I took out everything she would need for her burial, with a sort of wild pleasure in doing for her one little service, where I had hoped before to render so many. She it was whom we expected to fill our lost Eddy's vacant place; we thought we had had our sorrow and that now our joy had come. As I lay back exhausted, with these garments on my breast, Louisa Shipman [4] opened the door. One glance at my piteous face, for oh, how glad I was to see her! made her burst into tears before she knew what she was crying for.
"Oh, go bring me news from my poor dying baby!" I almost screamed, as she approached me. "And see, here are her grave-clothes." "Oh, Lizzy, have you gone crazy?" cried she, with a fresh burst of tears. I besought her to go, told her how my promise bound me, made her listen to those terrible sounds which two doors could not shut out. As she left the room she met Dr. B. and they went to the nursery together. She soon came back, quiet and composed, but very sorrowful. "Yes, she is dying," said she, "the doctor says so; she will not live an hour." ... At last we heard the sound of George's key. Louise ran to call him. I crawled once more to the nursery, and snatched my baby in fierce triumph from the nurse. At least once I would hold my child, and nobody should prevent me. George, pale as death, baptized her as I held her in my trembling arms; there were a few more of those terrible, never-to-be-forgotten sounds, and at seven o'clock we were once more left with only one child. A short, sharp conflict, and our baby was gone.
Dr. B. came in later and said the whole thing was to him like a thunderclap--as it was to her poor father. To me it followed closely on the presentiment that in some measure prepared me for it. Here I sit with empty hands. I have had the little coffin in my arms, but my baby's face could not be seen, so rudely had death marred it. Empty hands, empty hands, a worn-out, exhausted body, and unutterable longings to flee from a world that has had for me so many sharp experiences. God help me, my baby, my baby! God help me, my little lost Eddy!
But although the death of these two children tore with anguish the mother's heart, she made no show of grief, and to the eye of the world her life soon appeared to move on as aforetime. Never again, however, was it exactly the same life. She had entered into the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, and the new experience wrought a great change in her whole being.
A part of the summer and the early autumn of 1852 were passed among kind friends at Newport, in Portland, and at the Ocean House on Cape Elizabeth. She returned much refreshed, and gave herself up cheerfully to her accustomed duties. But a cloud rested still upon her home, and at times the old grief came back again with renewed poignancy. Here are a few lines expressive of her feelings. They were written in pencil on a little scrap of paper:
MY NURSERY. 1852.
I thought that prattling boys and girls Would fill this empty room; That my rich heart would gather flowers From childhood's opening bloom.
One child and two green graves are mine, This is God's gift to me; A bleeding, fainting, broken heart-- This is my gift to Thee.
* * * * *
III.
Summer at White Lake. Sudden Death of her Cousin, Miss Shipman. Quarantined. Little Susy's Six Birthdays. How she wrote it. The Flower of the Family. Her Motive in writing it. Letter of Sympathy to a bereaved Mother. A Summer at the Seaside. Henry and Bessie.
The year 1853 was passed quietly and in better health. In the early summer she made a delightful visit at The Island, near West Point, the home of the author of "The Wide, Wide World." She was warmly attached to Miss Warner and her sister, and hardly less so to their father and aunt, whose presence then adorned that pleasant home with so much light and sweetness.
Early in August she went with her husband and child to White Lake, Sullivan Co., N. Y., where, in company with several families from the Mercer street church, she spent six weeks in breathing the pure country air, and in healthful outdoor exercise. [5]
About the middle of October she was greatly distressed by the sudden death of the young cousin, already mentioned, who was staying with her during her husband's absence on a visit to New Bedford. Miss Shipman was a bright, attractive girl, and enthusiastic in her devotion to Mrs. Prentiss. The latter, in a letter to her husband, dated Saturday morning, October 15th, 1853, writes:
I imagine you enjoying this fine morning, and can't rejoice enough, that you are having such weather. A. is bright and well and is playing in her baby-house and singing. Louise is still quite sick, and I see no prospect of her not remaining so for some time. The morning after you left I thought to be sure she had the small-pox. The doctor, however, calls it a rash. It makes her look dreadfully and feel dreadfully. She gets hardly a moment of sleep and takes next to no nourishment. Arrowroot is all the doctor allows. He comes twice a day and seems very kind and full of compassion. She crawled down this morning to the nursery, and seems to be asleep now. Mrs. Bull very kindly offered to come and do anything if Louise should need it, but I do not think she will be sick enough for that. I feel well and able to do all that is necessary. The last proof-sheets came last night, so that job is off my hands. [6] And now, darling, I can't tell you how I miss you. I never missed you more in my life, if as much. I hope you are having a nice visit. Give my love to Capt. and Mrs. Gibbs and all our friends. Your most loving little wife.
On the following Wednesday, October 19th, she writes to her husband's mother:
You will be shocked to hear that Louisa Shipman died on Sunday night and was buried yesterday. Her disease was spotted fever of the most malignant character, and raged with great fury. She dropped away most unexpectedly to us, before I had known five minutes that she was in danger, and I came near being entirely alone with her. Dr. M. happened to be here and also her mother-in-law; but I had been alone in the house with her all day. It is a dreadful shock to us all, and I feel perfectly stupefied. George got home in time for the funeral, but Dr. Skinner performed the services. Anna will go home to-morrow and tell you all about it. She and Mr. S. slept away, as the upper part of the house is airing; and to-night they will sleep at Prof. Smith's.
The case was even more fearful than she supposed while writing this letter. Upon her describing it to Dr. Buck, who called a few hours later, he exclaimed, "Why, it was malignant small-pox! You must all be vaccinated instantly and have the bedding and house disinfected." This was done; but it was too late. Her little daughter had the disease, though in a mild form; and one of her brothers, who was passing the autumn with her, had it so severely as barely to escape with his life. She herself became a nurse to them both, and passed the next two months quarantined within her own walls. To her husband's mother she wrote:
I am not allowed to see anyone--am very lonesome, and hope Anna will write and tell me every little thing about you all. The scenes I have lately passed through make me tremble when I think what a fatal malady lurks in every corner of our house. And speaking after the manner of men, does it not seem almost incredible that this child, watched from her birth like the apple of our eyes, should yet fall into the jaws of this loathsome disease? I see more and more that parents must leave their children to Providence.
In the early part of this year Mrs. Prentiss wrote Little Susy's Six Birthdays, the book that has given so much delight to tens of thousands of little children, wherever the English tongue is spoken. Like most of her books, it was an inspiration and was composed with the utmost rapidity. She read the different chapters, as they were written, to her husband, child and brother, who all with one voice expressed their admiration. In about ten days the work was finished. The manuscript was in a clear, delicate hand and without an erasure. Upon its publication it was at once recognised as a production of real genius, inimitable in its kind, and neither the popular verdict nor the verdict of the children as to its merits has ever changed.
Mrs. Prentiss, as has been stated already, began to write for the press at an early age. But from the time of her going to Richmond till 1853--a period of thirteen years--her pen was well nigh idle, except in the way of correspondence. When, therefore, she gave herself again to literary labor, it was with a largely increased fund of knowledge and experience upon which to draw. These thirteen years had taught her rich lessons, both in literature and in life. They had been especially fruitful in revealing to her the heart of childhood and quickening her sympathy with its joys and sorrows. And all these lessons prepared her to write Little Susy's Six Birthdays and the other Susy books.
The year 1854 was marked by the birth of her fourth child, and by the publication of The Flower of the Family. This work was received with great favor both at home and abroad. It was soon translated into French under the title, La Fleur de la Famille, and later into German under the title, Die Perle der Familie. In both languages it received the warmest praise.
In a letter to her friend Mrs. Clark, of Portland, she thus refers to this book:
I long to have it doing good. I never had such desires about anything in my life; and I never sat down to write without first praying that I might not be suffered to write anything that would do harm, and that, on the contrary, I might be taught to say what would do good. And it has been a great comfort to me that every word of praise I ever have received from others concerning it has been "it will do good," and this I have had from so many sources that amid much trial and sickness ever since its publication, I have had rays of sunshine creeping in now and then to cheer and sustain me.
To the same friend, just bereft of her two children, she writes a few months later:
Is it possible, is it possible that you are made childless? I feel distressed for you, my dear friend; I long to fly to you and weep with you; it seems as if I must say or do something to comfort you. But God only can help you now, and how thankful I am for a throne of grace and power where I can commend you, again and again, to Him who doeth all things well.
I never realise my own affliction in the loss of my children as I do when death enters the house of a friend. Then I feel that I can't have it so. But why should I think I know better than my Divine Master what is good for me, or good for those I love! Dear Carrie,'! trust that in this hour of sorrow you have with you that Presence, before which alone sorrow and sighing flee away. God is left; Christ is left; sickness, accident, death can not touch you here. Is not this a blissful thought?... As I sit at my desk my eye is attracted by the row of books before me, and what a comment on life are their very titles: "Songs in the Night," "Light on Little Graves," "The Night of Weeping," "The Death of Little Children," "The Folded Lamb," "The Broken Bud," these have strayed one by one into my small enclosure, to speak peradventure a word in season unto my weariness. And yet, dear Carrie, this is not all of life. You and I have tasted some of its highest joys, as well as its deepest sorrows, and it has in reserve for us only just what is best for us. May sorrow bring us both nearer to Christ! I can almost fancy my little Eddy has taken your little Maymee by the hand and led her to the bosom of Jesus. How strange our children, our own little infants, have seen Him in His glory, whom we are only yet longing for and struggling towards!
If it will not frighten you to own a Unitarian book, there is one called "Christian Consolation" by Rev. A. P. Peabody, that I think you would find very profitable. I see nothing, or next to nothing, Unitarian in it, while it is full of rich, holy experience. One sermon on "Contingent Events and Providence" touches your case exactly.
No event of special importance marked the year 1855. She spent the month of July among her friends in Portland, and the next six weeks at the Ocean House on Cape Elizabeth. This was one of her favorite places of rest. She never tired of watching the waves and their "multitudinous laughter," of listening to the roar of the breakers, or climbing the rocks and wandering along the shore in quest of shells and sea-grasses. In gathering and pressing the latter, she passed many a happy hour. In August of this year appeared one of her best children's books, Henry and Bessie; or, What they Did in the Country.
* * * * *
IV.
A Memorable Year. Lines on the Anniversary of Eddy's Death. Extracts from her Journal. Little Susy's Six Teachers. The Teachers' Meeting. A New York Waif. Summer in the Country. Letters. Little Susy's Little Servants. Extracts from her Journal. "Alone with God."
The records of the year 1856 are singularly full and interesting. It was a year of poignant suffering, of sharp conflicts of soul, and of great peace and joy. Its earlier months, especially, were shadowed by a dark cloud of anxiety and distress. And her feeble bodily state caused by care-worn days and sleepless nights, added to the trouble. Old sorrows, too, came back again. On the 16th of January, the anniversary of Eddy's death, she gave vent to her feelings in some pathetic verses, of which the following lines form a part:
Four years, four weary years, my child, Four years ago to-night, With parting cry of anguish wild Thy spirit took its flight; ah me! Took its eternal flight.
And in that hour of mortal strife I thought I felt the throe, The birth-pang of a grief, whose life Must soothe my tearless woe, must soothe And ease me of my woe.
Yet folded far through all these years, Folded from mortal eyes, Lying alas "too deep for tears," Unborn, unborn it lies, within My heart of heart it lies.
My sinless child! upon thy knees Before the Master pray; Methinks thy infant hands might seize And shed upon my way sweet peace; Sweet peace upon my way.
Here follow some extracts from her journal.
Jan 3d. 1856.--Had no time to write on New Year's day, as we had a host of callers. It was a very hard day, as I was quite unwell, and had at last to give up and go to bed.
15th--Am quite uneasy about baby, as it seems almost impossible she should long endure such severe pain and want of sleep. My life is a very anxious one. I feel every day more and more longing for my home in heaven. Sometimes I fear it amounts almost to a sinful longing--for surely I ought to be willing to live or die, just as God pleases.
Feb. 1st.--I have had no heart to make a record of what has befallen us since I last wrote. And yet I may, sometime, want to recall this experience, painful as it is. Dear little baby had been improving in health, and on Wednesday we went to dine at Mrs. Wainright's. We went at four. About eight, word came that she was ill. When I got home I found her insensible, with her eyes wide open, her breathing terrific, and her condition in every respect very alarming. Just as Dr. Buck was coming in, she roused a little, but soon relapsed into the same state. He told us she was dying. I felt like a stone, In a moment I seemed to give up my hold on her. She appeared no longer mine but God's. It is always so in such great emergencies. Then, my will that struggles so about trifles, makes no effort. But as we sat hour after hour watching the alternations of color in her purple face and listening to that terrible gasping, rattling sound, I said to myself "A few more nights like this, and I do believe my body and soul would yield to such anguish." Oh, why should I try to tell myself what a night it was. God knows, God only! How He has smitten me by means of this child, He well knows. She remained thus about twelve hours. Twelve hours of martyrdom to me such as I never had known. Then to our unspeakable amazement she roused up, nursed, and then fell into a sweet sleep of some hours.
Sunday, Feb. 3d.--The stupor, or whatever it is, in which that dreadful night has left me, is on me still. I have no more sense or feeling than a stone. I kneel down before God and do not say a word. I take up a book and read, but get hold of nothing. At church I felt afraid I should fall upon the people and tear them. I could wish no one to pity me or even know that I am smitten. It does seem to me that those who can sit down and cry, know nothing of misery.
Feb. 4th.--At last the ice melts and I can get near my God--my only comfort, my only joy, my All in all! This morning I was able to open my heart to Him and to cast some of this burden on Him, who alone knows what it is.... I see that it is sweet to be a pilgrim and a stranger, and that it matters very little what befalls me on the way to my blessed home. If God pleases to spare my child a little longer, I will be very thankful. May He take this season, when earthly comfort fails me, to turn me more than ever to Himself. For some months I have enjoyed a great deal in Him. Prayer has been very sweet and I have had some glimpses of joys indescribable.
6th.--She still lives. I know not what to think. One moment I think one thing and the next another. It is harder to submit to this suspense than to a real, decided blow. But I desire to leave it to my God. He knows all her history and all mine. He orders all these aggravating circumstances and I would not change them. My darling has not lived in vain. For eighteen months she has been the little rod used by my Father for my chastisement and not, I think, quite in vain. Oh my God! stay not Thy hand till Thou hast perfected that which concerneth me. Send anything rather than unsanctified prosperity.
Feb. 10th.--To help divert my mind from such incessant brooding over my sorrows, I am writing a new book. I had just begun it when baby's ill-turn arrested me. I trust it may do some little good; at least I would not dare to write it, if it could do none. May God bless it!
Feb. 14th.--Wanted to go to the prayer-meeting but concluded to take A. to hear Gough at the Tabernacle. Seeing such a crowd always makes me long to be in that happy crowd of saints and angels in heaven, and hearing children sing so sweetly made me pray for an entrance into the singing, praising multitude there. Oh, when shall I be one of that blessed company who sin not! My book is done; may God bless it to one child at least--then it will not have been wasted time.
The book referred to was Little Susy's Six Teachers. It was published in the spring, and at once took its place beside the Six Birthdays in the hearts of the children; a place it still continues to hold. The six teachers are Mrs. Love, Mr. Pain, Aunt Patience, Mr. Ought, Miss Joy, and the angel Faith. At the end of six years they hold a meeting and report to little Susy's parents what they have been doing. The closing chapter, herewith quoted, gives an account of this meeting, and may serve as a specimen of the style and spirit of all the Little Susy books.
"If Mr. Pain is to be at the meeting, I can't go," said Miss Joy.
She stood on tip-toe before the glass, dressing herself in holiday clothes.
"Perhaps he would be willing to leave his rod behind him," said Mrs. Love. "I will ask him at all events."
Mr. Pain thought he should not feel at home without his rod. He said he always liked to have it in his hands, whether he was to use it or not.
Miss Joy was full of fun and mischief about this time, so she slipped up slyly behind Mr. Pain while he was talking and snatched away the rod before he could turn round. Mrs. Love smiled on seeing this little trick, and they all went down to the parlor and seated themselves with much gravity. Little Susy sat in the midst in her own low chair looking wide awake, you may depend. Her papa and mamma sat on each side like two judges. Mrs. Love rocked herself in the rocking-chair in a contented, easy way; and Aunt Patience, who liked to do such things, helped Miss Joy to find the leaves of her report--which might have been rose-leaves, they were so small.
Mr. Ought looked very good indeed, and the angel Faith shone across the room like a sunbeam.
"Susy will be six years old to-morrow," said her papa. "You have all been teaching her ever since she was born. We will now listen to your reports and hear what you have taught her, and whether you have done her any good."
They were all silent, but everybody looked at Mrs. Love as much as to say she should begin. Mrs. Love took out a little book with a sky-blue cover and began to read:
"I have not done much for Susy, but love her dearly; and I have not taught her much, but to love everybody. When she was a baby I tried to teach her to smile, but I don't think I could have taught her if Miss Joy had not helped me. And when she was sick, I was always sorry for her, and tried to comfort her."
"You have done her a great deal of good," said Susy's papa, "we will engage you to stay six years longer, should God spare her life."
Then Mr. Pain took up his book. It had a black cover, but the leaves were gilt-edged and the cover was spangled with stars.
"I have punished Susy a good many times," said Mr. Pain. "Sometimes I slapped her with my hand; sometimes I struck her with my rod; sometimes I made her sick; but I never did any of these things because I was angry with her or liked to hurt her. I only came when Mrs. Love called me."
"You have taught her excellent lessons," said Susy's papa, "if it had not been for you she would be growing up disobedient and selfish. You may stay six years longer."
Then Mr. Pain made a low bow and said he was thinking of going away and sending his brother, Mr. Sorrow, and his sister, Mrs. Disappointment, to take his place."
"Oh, no!" cried Susy's mamma, "not yet, not yet! Susy is still so little!"
Then Mr. Pain said he would stay without a rod, as Susy was now too old to be whipped.
Then Miss Joy took up her book with its rainbow cover and tried to read. But she laughed so heartily all the time, and her leaves kept flying out of her hands at such a rate, that it was not possible to understand what she was saying. It was all about clapping hands and running races, and picking flowers and having a good time. Everybody laughed just because she laughed, and Susy's papa could hardly keep his face grave long enough to say:
"You have done more good than tongue can tell. You have made her just such a merry, happy, laughing little creature as I wanted her to be. You must certainly stay six years longer."
Then Mr. Ought drew forth his book. It had silver covers and its leaves were of the most delicate tissue.
"I have taught little Susy to be good," said he. "Never to touch what is not hers; never to speak a word that is not true; never to have a thought she would not like the great and holy God to see. If I stay six years longer I can teach her a great deal more, for she begins now to understand my faintest whisper. She is such a little girl as I love to live with."
Then Susy turned rosy-red with pleasure, and her papa and mamma got up and shook hands with Mr. Ought and begged him never, never to leave their darling child as long as she lived.
It was now the turn of Aunt Patience. Her book had covers wrought by her own hands in grave and gay colors well mingled together.
"When I first came here," she said, "Susy used to cry a great deal whenever she was hurt or punished. When she was sick she was very hard to please. When she sat down to learn to sew and to read and to write, she would break her thread in anger, or throw her book on the floor, or declare she never could learn. But now she has left off crying when she is hurt, and tries to bear the pain quietly. When she is sick she does not fret or complain, but takes her medicine without a word. When she is sewing she does not twitch her thread into knots, and when she is writing she writes slowly and carefully. I have rocked her to sleep a thousand times. I have been shut up in a closet with her again and again, and I hope I have done her some good and taught her some useful lessons."
"Indeed you have, Aunt Patience," said Susy's papa, "but Susy is not yet perfect. We shall need you six years longer."
And now the little angel Faith opened his golden book and began to read:
"I have taught Susy that there is another world besides this, and have told her that it is her real home, and what a beautiful and happy one it is. I have told her a great deal about Jesus and the holy angels. I do not know much myself. I am not very old, but if I stay here six years longer I shall grow wiser and I will teach Susy all I learn, and we will pray together every morning and every night, till at last she loves the Lord Jesus with all her heart and soul and mind and strength."
Then Susy's papa and mamma looked at each other and smiled, and they both said:
"Oh, beautiful angel, never leave her!"
And the angel answered:
"I will stay with her as long as she lives, and will never leave her till I leave her at the very door of heaven."
Then the teachers began to put up their books, and Susy's papa and mamma kissed her, and said:
"We have had a great deal of comfort in our little daughter; and, with God's blessing, we shall see her grow up a loving, patient, and obedient child--full of joy and peace and rich in faith and good works."
So they all bade each other good-night and went thankfully to bed.
The next entry in the journal notes a trait of character, or rather of temperament, which often excited the wonder and also the anxiety of her friends. It caused her no little discomfort, but she could never withstand its power.
March 21st.--I have been busy with a sewing fit and find the least interesting piece of work I can get hold of, as great a temptation as the most charming. For if its charm does not absorb my time and thoughts, the eager haste to finish and get it out of the way, does. This is my life. I either am stupefied by ill-health or sorrow, so as to feel no interest in anything, or am absorbed in whatever business, work or pleasure I have on hand.
But neither anxiety about her child, household cares, or any work she had in hand, so absorbed her thoughts as to render her insensible to the sorrows and trials of others. On the contrary, they served rather to call forth and intensify her kindly sympathies. A single case will illustrate this. A poor little girl--one of those waifs of humanity in which a great city abounds--had been commended to her by a friend. In a letter to this friend, dated March 17, 1856, she writes:
That little girl came, petticoat and all; we gave her some breakfast, and I then went down with her to Avenue A. On the way, she told me that you gave her some money. To my great sorrow we found, on reaching the school, that they could not take another one, as they were already overflowing. As we came out, I saw that the poor little soul was just ready to burst into tears, and said to her "Now you're disappointed, I know!" whereupon she actually looked up into my face and smiled. You know I was afraid I never should make her smile, she looked so forlorn. I brought her home to get some books, as she said she could read, and she is to come again to-morrow. A lady to whom I told the whole story, sent me some stockings that would about go on to her big toe; however, they will be nice for her little sister. The weather has been so mild that I thought it would not be worth while to make her a cloak or anything of that sort; but next fall I shall see that she is comfortably clad, if she behaves as well as she did the day she was here. Oh, dear! what a drop in the great bucket of New York misery, one such child is! Yet somebody must look out for the drops, and I am only too thankful to seize on this one.
In June she went, with the children, to Westport, Conn., where in rural quiet and seclusion she passed the next three months. Here are some extracts from her letters, written from that place:
Westport, June 25, 1856.
We had a most comfortable time getting here; both the children enjoyed the ride, and baby seemed unusually bright. Judge Betts was very attentive and kind to us. Mrs. G. grows more and more pleasant every day. We have plenty of good food, but she worries because I do not eat more. You know I never was famous for eating meat, and country dinners are not tempting. You can't think how we enjoy seeing the poultry fed. There are a hundred and eighty hens and chickens, and you should see baby throw her little hand full of corn to them. We went strawberrying yesterday, all of us, and the way she was poked through bars and lifted over stone-walls would have amused you. She is already quite sunburnt; but I think she is looking sweetly. I find myself all the time peeping out of the window, thinking every step is yours, or that every wagon holds a letter for me.
To Miss A. H. Woolsey, Westport, June 27.
Mr. P. enclosed your kind note in one of his own, after first reading it himself, if you ever heard of such a man. I had to laugh all alone while reading it, which was not a little provoking. We are having very nice times here indeed. Breakfast at eight, dinner at half-past twelve, and tea at half-past six, giving us an afternoon of unprecedented length for such lounging, strawberrying or egg-hunting as happens to be on the carpet. The air is perfectly loaded with the fragrance of clover blossoms and fresh hay. I never saw such clover in my life; roses are nothing in comparison. I only want an old nag and a wagon, so as to drive a load of children about these lovely regions, and that I hope every moment to attain. To be sure, it would be amazingly convenient if I had a table, and didn't have to sit on the floor to write upon a trunk; but then one can't have everything, and I am almost too comfortable with what I have. A. is busy reading Southey to her "children"; baby is off searching for eggs, and her felicity reached its height when she found an ambitious hen had laid two in her carriage, which little thought what it was coming to the country for. I think the dear child already looks better; she lives in the open air and enjoys everything.
Mrs. Buck lives about half a mile below us, and we run back and forth many times a day. I have already caught the country fashion of rushing to the windows the moment a wheel or an opening gate is heard. I fancy everybody is bringing me a letter or else want to send one to the office, and the only way to do that is to scream at passers-by and ask them if they are going that way. If you hear that I am often seen driving a flock of geese down the road, or climbing stone walls, or creeping through bar fences, you needn't believe a word of it, for I am a pattern of propriety, and pride myself on my dignity. I hope, now you have begun so charmingly, that you will write again. You know what letters are in the country.
To her Husband, Westport, June 27.
I wonder where you are this lovely morning? Having a nice time somewhere, I do hope, for it is too fine a day to be lost. If you want to know where I am, why I'm sitting at the window writing on a trunk that I have just lifted into a chair, in order to make a table. For table there, is none in this room, and how am I to write a book without one? If ever I get down to the village, I hope to buy, beg, borrow or steal one, and until that time am putting off beginning my new Little Susy. [7] That note from Miss Warner, by the by, spoke so enthusiastically of the Six Teachers that I felt compensated for the mortification of hearing -------- call it a "nice" book. You will be sorry to hear that I have no prospect of getting a horse. I am quite disappointed, as besides the pleasure of driving our children, I hoped to give Mrs. Buck and the boys a share in it. Only to think of her bringing up from the city a beefsteak for baby, and proposing that the doctor should send a small piece for her every day! Thank you, darling, for your proposal about the Ocean House. I trust no such change will be needful. We are all comfortable now, the weather is delicious, and there are so many pretty walks about here, that I am only afraid I shall be too well off. Everything about the country is charming to me, and I never get tired of it. The first few days nurse seemed a good deal out of sorts; but I must expect some such little vexations; of course, I can not have perfection, and for dear baby's sake I shall try to exercise all the prudence and forbearance I can.
Sunday.--We went to church this morning and heard a most instructive and, I thought, superior sermon from Mr. Burr of Weston, on progress in religious knowledge. He used the very illustration about the cavern and the point of light that you did.
July 7th.--We all drove to the beach on Saturday. It was just the very day for such a trip, and baby was enchanted. She sat right down and began to gather stones and shells, as if she had the week before her. We were gone three hours and came home by way of the village, quite in the mood for supper. Yesterday we had a pleasant service; Mr. Atkinson appears to be a truly devout, heavenly man to whom I felt my heart knit at the outset on this account, I am taking great delight in reading the Memoir of Miss Allibone. [8] How I wish I had a friend of so heavenly a temper! I fear my new Little Susy will come out at the little end of the horn. I am sure it won't be so good as the others. It is more than one quarter done.
July 21st.--What do you think I did this forenoon? Why, I finished Little Susy and shall lay it aside for some days, when I shall read it over, correct, and pack it off out of the way. Yes, I wish you would bring my German Hymn Book. I am so glad you liked the hymns I had marked! [9] And do get well so as not to have to leave off preaching the Gospel. My heart dies within me whenever I think of your leaving the ministry. Every day I live, it appears to me that the office of a Christian pastor and teacher is the best in the world. I shall not be able to write you a word to-morrow, as we are to go to Greenfield Hill to Miss Murray's, and you must take to-morrow's love to-night--if you think you can stand so much at once. God be with you and bless you.
July 30th.--Baby and I have just been having a great frolic. She was so pleased with your message that she caught up your letter and kissed it, which I think very remarkable in a child who, I am sure, never saw such a thing done. A. seems well and happy, and is as good as I think we ought to expect. I see more and more every day, that if there ever was such a thing as human perfection, it was as long ago as David's time when, as he says, he saw the "end" of it. How very kind the W.'s have been!
August 3d.--I got hold of Dr. Boardman's "Bible in the Family," at the Bucks yesterday, and brought it home to read. I like it very much. There is a vein of humor running through it which, subdued as it is, must have awakened a good many smiles. He quotes some lines of Coleridge, which I wonder I did not have as a motto for Susy's Teachers:
Love, Hope and Patience, these must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
To Miss Mary B. Shipman, Westport, August 11.
Dr. Buck, who has seen her twice since we came here, thinks baby wonderfully improved, and says every day she lives increases her chance of life. I have been exceedingly encouraged by all he has said, and feel a great load off my heart. Last Friday, on fifteen minutes' notice, I packed up and went home, taking nurse and biddies, of course. I was so restless and so perfectly possessed to go to meet George, that I could not help it. We went in the six o'clock train, as it was after five when I was "taken" with the fit that started me off; got home in a soft rain, and to our great surprise and delight found G. there, he having got homesick at Saratoga, and just rushed to New York on his way here. We had a great rejoicing together, you may depend, and I had a charming visit of nearly three days. We got back on Monday night, rather tired, but none of us at all the worse for the expedition. Mr. P. sits here reading the Tribune, and A. is reading "Fremont's Life." She is as brown as an Indian and about as wild.
A few passages from her journal will also throw light upon this period:
June 30th.--I am finding this solitude and leisure very sweet and precious; God grant it may bear the rich and abundant fruit it ought to do! Communion with Him is such a blessing, here at home in my own room, and out in the silent woods and on the wayside. Saturday, especially, I had a long walk full of blissful thoughts of Him whom I do believe I love--oh, that I loved Him better!--and in the evening Mrs. Buck came and we had some very sweet beginnings of what will, I trust, ripen into most profitable Christian communion. My heart delights in the society of those who love Him. Yesterday I had a more near access to God in prayer than usual, so that during the whole service at church I could hardly repress tears of joy and gratitude.
July 7th.--I do trust God's blessed, blessed Spirit is dealing faithfully with my soul--searching and sifting it, revealing it somewhat to itself and preparing it for the indwelling of Christ. This I do heartily desire. Oh, God! search me and know me, and show me my own guilty, poor, meagre soul, that I may turn from it, humbled and ashamed and penitent, to my blessed Saviour. How very, very thankful I feel for this seclusion and leisure; this quiet room where I can seek my God and pray and praise, unseen by any human eye--and which sometimes seems like the very gate of heaven.
July 23d.--This is my dear little baby's birthday. I was not able to sleep last night at all, but at last got up and prayed specially for her. God has spared her two years; I can hardly believe it! Precious years of discipline they have been, for which I do thank Him. I have prayed much for her to-day, and with some faith, that if her life is spared it will be for His glory. How far rather would I let her go this moment, than grow up without loving Him! Precious little creature!
27th.--This has been one of the most oppressive days I ever knew. I went to church, however, and enjoyed all the services unusually. As we rode along and I saw the grain ripe for the harvest, I said to myself, "God gathers in His harvest as soon as it is ripe, and if I devote myself to Him and pray much and turn entirely from the world I shall ripen, and so the sooner get where I am all the time yearning and longing to go!" I fear this was a merely selfish thought, but I do not know. This world seems less and less homelike every day I live. The more I pray and meditate on heaven and my Saviour and saints who have crossed the flood, the stronger grows my desire to be bidden to depart hence and go up to that sinless, blessed abode. Not that I forget my comforts, my mercies here; they are manifold; I know they are. But Christ appears so precious; sin so dreadful! so dreadful! To-day I gave way to pride and irritation, and my agony on account of it outweighs weeks of merely earthly felicity. The idea of a Christian as he should be, and the reality of most Christians--particularly myself--why, it almost makes me shudder; my only comfort is, in heaven, I can not sin! In heaven I shall see Christ, and see Him as He is, and praise and honor Him as I never do and never shall do here. And yet I know my dear little ones need me, poor and imperfect a mother as I am; and I pray every hour to be made willing to wait for their sakes. For at the longest it will not be long. Oh, I do believe it is the sin I dread and not the suffering of life--but I know not; I may be deluded. My love to my Master seems to me very shallow and contemptible. I am astonished that I love anything else. Oh, that He would this moment come down into this room and tell me I never, never, shall grieve Him again!
Some verses entitled "Alone with God," belong here:
Into my closet fleeing, as the dove Doth homeward flee, I haste away to ponder o'er Thy love Alone with Thee!
In the dim wood, by human ear unheard, Joyous and free, Lord! I adore Thee, feasting on Thy word, Alone with Thee!
Amid the busy city, thronged and gay, But One I see, Tasting sweet peace, as unobserved I pray Alone with Thee!
Oh, sweetest life! Life hid with Christ in God! So making me At home, and by the wayside, and abroad, Alone with Thee!
WESTPORT, August 22, 1856.
* * * * *
V.
Ready for new Trials. Dangerous Illness. Extracts from her Journal. Visit to Greenwood. Sabbath Meditations. Birth of another Son. Her Husband resigns his pastoral Charge. Voyage to Europe.
The summer at Westport was so beneficial to the baby and so full both of bodily and spiritual refreshment to herself, that on returning to town, she resumed her home tasks with unwonted ease and comfort. The next entry in her journal alludes to this:
November 27th.--Two months, and not a word in my journal! I have done far more with my needle and my feet than with my pen. One comes home from the country to a good many cares, and they are worldly cares, too, about eating and about wearing. I hope the worst of mine are over now and that I shall have more leisure. But no, I forget that now comes the dreaded, dreaded experience of weaning baby. But what then? I have had a good rest this fall. Have slept unusually well; why, only think, some nights not waking once--and some nights only a few times; and then we have had no sickness; baby better--all better. Now I ought to be willing to have the trials I need so much, seeing I have had such a rest. And heaven! heaven! let me rest on that precious word. Heaven is at the end and God is there.
Early in March, 1857, she was taken very ill and continued so until May. For some weeks her recovery seemed hardly possible. She felt assured her hour had come and was eager to go. All the yearnings of her heart, during many years, seemed on the point of being gratified. The next entry in her journal refers to this illness:
Sunday, May 24th, 1857.--Just reading over the last record how ashamed I felt of my faithlessness! To see dear baby so improved by the very change I dreaded, and to hear her pretty, cheerful prattle, and to find in her such a source of joy and comfort--what undeserved, what unlooked-for mercies! But like a physician who changes his remedies as he sees occasion, and who forbears using all his severe ones at once, my Father first relieved me from my wearing care and pain about this dear child, and then put me under new discipline. It is now nearly six months since I have been in usual health, and eight weeks of great prostration and suffering have been teaching me many needed lessons. Now, contrary to my hopes and expectations, I find myself almost well again. At first, having got my heart set toward heaven and after fancying myself almost there, I felt disappointed to find its gates still shut against me. [10]
But God was very good to me and taught me to yield in this point to His wiser and better will; He made me, as far as I know, as peaceful in the prospect of living as joyful in the prospect of dying. Heaven did, indeed, look very attractive when I thought myself so near it; I pictured myself as no longer a sinner but a blood-washed saint; I thought I shall soon see Him whom my soul loveth, and see Him as He is; I shall never wound, never grieve Him again, and all my companions will be they who worship Him and adore Him. But not yet am I there! Alas, not yet a saint! My soul is oppressed, now that health is returning, to find old habits of sin returning too, and this monster Self usurping God's place, as of old, and pride and love of ease and all the infirmities of the flesh thick upon me. After being encompassed with mercies for two months, having every comfort this world could offer for my alleviation, I wonder at myself that I can be anything but a meek, docile child, profiting by the Master's discipline, sensible of the tenderness that went hand-in-hand with every stroke, and walking softly before God and man! But I am indeed a wayward child and in need of many more stripes. May I be made willing and thankful to bear them.
Indeed, I do thank my dear Master that He does not let me alone, and that He has let me suffer so much; it has been a rich experience, this long illness, and I do trust He will so sanctify it that I shall have cause to rejoice over it all the rest of my life. Now may I return patiently to all the duties that lie in my sphere. May I not forget how momentous a thing death appeared when seen face to face, but be ever making ready for its approach. And may the glory of God be, as it never yet has been, my chief end. My love to Him seems to me so very feeble and fluctuating. Satan and self keep up a continual struggle to get the victory. But God is stronger than either. He must and will prevail, and at last, and in a time far better than any I can suggest, He will open those closed gates and let me enter in to go no more out, and then "I shall never, never sin."
As might be inferred from this record, she was at this time in the sweetest mood, full of tenderness and love. The time of the singing of birds had now come, and all nature was clothed with that wondrous beauty and verdure which mark the transition from spring to summer. The drives, which she was now able to take into the country, on either side of the river, gave her the utmost delight. On the 30th of May--the day that has since become consecrated to the memory of the Nation's heroic dead--she went, with her husband and eldest daughter, to visit and place flowers upon the graves of Eddy and Bessie. Never is Greenwood more lovely and impressive than at the moment when May is just passing into June. It is as if Nature were in a transfiguration and the glory of the Lord shone upon the graves of our beloved! Mrs. Prentiss made no record of this visit, but on the following day thus wrote in her journal:
May 31st.--Another peaceful, pleasant Sunday, whose only drawback has been the want of strength to get down on my knees and praise and pray to my Saviour, as I long to do. For well as I am and astonishingly improved in every way, a very few minutes' use of my voice, even in a whisper, in prayer, exhausts me to such a degree that I am ready to faint. This seems so strange when I can go on talking to any extent--but then it is talking without emotion and in a desultory way. Ah well! God knows best in what manner to let me live, and I desire to ask for nothing but a docile, acquiescent temper, whose only petition shall be, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" not how can I get most enjoyment along the way. I can not believe if I am His child, that He will let anything hinder my progress in the divine life. It seems dreadful that I have gone on so slowly, and backward so many times--but then I have been thinking this is "to humble and to prove me, and to do me good in the latter end." ... I thank my God and Saviour for every faint desire He gives me to see Him as He is, and to be changed into His image, and for every struggle against sin He enables me to make. It is all of Him. I do wish I loved Him better! I do wish He were never out of my thoughts and that the aim to do His will swallowed up all other desires and strivings. Satan whispers that will never be. But it shall be! One day--oh, longed-for, blessed, blissful day!--Christ will become my All in all! Yes, even mine!
This is the last entry in her journal for more than a year; her letters, too, during the same period are very few. In August of 1857, she was made glad by the birth of another son, her fifth child. Her own health was now much better than it had been for a long time; but that of her husband had become so enfeebled that in April, 1858, he resigned his pastoral charge and by the advice of his physician determined to go abroad, with his family, for a couple years; the munificent kindness of his people having furnished him with the means of doing so. The tender sympathy and support which she gave him in this hour of extreme weakness and trial, more than everything else, after the blessing of Heaven, upheld his fainting spirits and helped to restore him at length to his chosen work. They set sail for the old world in the steamship Arago, Capt. Lines, June 26th, amidst a cloud of friendly wishes and benedictions.
[1] The friend was Mr. Wm. G. Bull, who had a summer cottage at Rockaway. He was a leading member of the Mercer street church and one of the best of men. The poor and unfortunate blessed him all the year round. To Mrs. Prentiss and her husband he was indefatigable in kindness. He died at an advanced age in 1859.Return to passage
[2] Godman's "American Natural History."Return to passage
[3] Mrs. Norman White, mother of the Rev. Erskine N. White, D.D., of New York.Return to passage
[4] Her cousin, whose sudden death occurred under the same roof in October of the next year.Return to passage
[5] "We were all weighed soon after coming here," she wrote, "and my ladyship weighed 96, which makes me out by far the leanest of the ladies here. When thirteen years old I weighed but 50 pounds."Return to passage
[6] Referring to "Little Susy's Six Birthdays."Return to passage
[7] Little Susy's Little Servants.Return to passage
[8] A Life bid with Christ in God, being a memoir of Susan Allibone. By Alfred Lee, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Delaware.Return to passage
[9] See appendix C, p. 539.Return to passage
[10] Many years afterward, speaking to a friend of this illness, she related the following incident. One day she lay, as was supposed, entirely unconscious and in articulo mortis. Repeated but vain attempts had been made to administer a medicine ordered by the doctor to be used in case of extremity. Her husband urged one more attempt still; it might possibly succeed. She heard distinctly every word that was spoken and instantly reasoned within herself, whether she should consent or refuse to swallow the medicine. Fancying herself just entering the eternal city, she longed to refuse but decided it would be wrong and so consented to come back again to earth.Return to passage