Текст книги "Julia Ward Howe"

Автор книги: Laura E. Richards

Соавторы: Maud Howe Elliott
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Monday morning, 1846.

My dearest, sweetest Annie,—

... I have neglected you sadly this winter, and my heart reproaches me for it.... It has been strange to me, to return to life and to feel that I have any sympathy with living beings.... I have been singing and writing poetry, so you may know that I have been happy. Alas! am I not a selfish creature to prize these enjoyments as I do, above almost everything else in the world? God forgive me if I do wrong in following with ardor the strongest instincts of my nature, but I have been doing wrong all my life, in some way or other. I have been giving a succession of little musical parties on Saturday evenings, and I assure you they have been quite successful. I have to be sure only my little parlour in the Winthrop House, but even that is larger than the grand saloon at S. Niccolo da Tolentino which managed to hold so much fun on Friday evenings. I have found some musical friends to sing with me—Lizzie Cary, Mrs. Felton, Mr. Pelosos and William Story, of whom more anon.... Agassiz, the learned and charming Frenchman, is also one of my habitués on Saturday evenings, and Count Pourtalés, a Swiss nobleman of good family, who has accompanied Agassiz to this country! I illuminate my room with a chandelier and some candles, draw out the piano into the room, and order some ice from Mrs. Mayer's—so that the reception gives me very little trouble. My friends come at half-past eight and stay until eleven. I do not usually have more than twenty people, but once I have had nearly sixty, and those of the best people in Boston. Chev is very desirous of having a house in town, and is far more pleased with my success than I am. My next party will be on the coming Saturday. It is for Lizzie Rice and Sam Guild who are just married. Am I not an enterprising little woman?... Dear Annie, I am anxious to be with you, that I may really know how you are, and talk over all the little matters with you.... I always feel that this suffering must be some expiation for all the follies of one's life, whereupon I will improvise a couplet upon the subject.

Woman, being of all critters the darn'dest,

Is made to suffer the consarn'dest.

To her sister Louisa

May 17, 1847.

My sweetest beautifullest Wevie,—

... I have not written because I have been in a studious, meditative, and most uncommunicative frame of mind, and have very few words to throw at many dogs. It is quite delightful to take to study again, and to feel that old and stupid as one may be, there is still in one's mind a little power of improvement.... The longer I live the more do I feel my utter childlike helplessness about all practical affairs. Certainly a creature with such useless hands was never before seen. I seem to need a dry nurse quite as much as my children. What useful thing can I possibly teach these poor little monkeys? For everything that is not soul I am an ass, that I am. I have now been at Green Peace some six weeks, and it is very pleasant and quiet, but oh! the season is so backward; it is the 17th of May, and the trees are only beginning to blossom. Every day comes a cold east wind to nip off my nose, and the devil a bit of anything else comes to Green Peace. I am thin and languid. I have never entirely recovered from my fever,[29] but my mind is clearer than it has ever been since my marriage. I am able to think, to study and to pray, things which I cannot accomplish when my brain is oppressed....

Boston has been greatly enlivened during the past month by a really fine opera, the troupe from Havana, much better than the N. Y. troupe, with a fine orchestra and chorus, all Italians. The Prima Donna is an artist of the first order, and has an exquisite voice. I have had season tickets, and have been nearly every night. This is a great indulgence, as it is very expensive, and I have one of the best boxes in the house, but Chev is the most indulgent of husbands. I never knew anything like it. Think of all he allows me, a house and garden, a delicious carriage and pair of horses, etc., etc., etc. My children are coming on famously. Julia, or as she calls herself, Romana, is really a fine creature, full of sensibility and of talent. She learns very readily, and reasons about things with great gravity. She remembers every tune that she hears, and can sing a great many songs. She is very full of fun, and so is my sweet Flossy, my little flaxen-haired wax doll. I play for them on the piano, Lizzie beats the tambourine, and the two babies take hold of hands and dance. "Is not your heart fully satisfied with such a sight?" you will ask me. I reply, dear Wevie, that the soul whose desires are not fixed upon the unattainable is dead even while it liveth, and that I am glad, in the midst of all my comforts, to feel myself still a pilgrim in pursuit of something that is neither house nor lands, nor children, nor health. What that something is I scarce know. Sometimes it seems to me one thing and sometimes another. Oh, immortality, thou art to us but a painful rapture, an ecstatic burthen in this earthly life. God teach me to bear thee until thou shalt bear me! The arms of the cross will one day turn into angels' wings, and lift us up to heaven. Don't think from this rhapsody that I am undergoing a fit of pietistic exaltation. I am not, but as I grow older, many things become clearer to me, and I feel at once the difficulty and the necessity of holding fast to one's soul and to its divine relationships, lest the world should cheat us of it utterly.

To her sister Annie

June 19 [1847], Green Peace.

My dearest little Annie,—

... Boston has been in great excitement at the public debates of the Prison Discipline Society, which have been intensely interesting. Chev and Sumner have each spoken twice, in behalf of the Philadelphia system, and against the course of the Society. They have been furiously attacked by the opposite party. Chev's second speech drew tears from many eyes, and was very beautiful. Both of Sumner's have been fine, but the last, delivered last evening, was masterly. I never listened to anything with more intense interest,—he held the audience breathless for two hours and a half. I have attended all the debates save one—there have been seven.

To her sister Louisa

July 1, 1847.

My dearest old Wevie,—

I should have written you yesterday but that I was obliged to entertain the whole Club[30] at dinner, prior to Hillard's departure. I gave them a neat little dinner, soup, salmon, sweetbreads, roast lamb and pigeon, with green peas, potatoes au maitre d'hotel, spinach and salad. Then came a delicious pudding and blanc-mange, then strawberries, pineapple, and ice-cream, then coffee, etc. We had a pleasant time upon the whole. That is, they had; for myself it is easy to find companions more congenial than the Club. Still, I like them very well. I had last week a little meeting of the mutual correction club, which was far pleasanter to me. This society is organized as follows: Julia Howe, grand universal philosopher; Jane Belknap, charitable censor; Mary Ward, moderator; Sarah Hale, optimist. I had them all to dinner and we were jolly, I do assure you. My children looked so lovely yesterday, in muslin dresses of bright pink plaid, made very full and reaching only to the knee, with pink ribbands in their sleeves....

How I do wish for you this summer. My little place is so green, my flowers so sweet, my strawberries so delicious—the garden produces six quarts or more a day. The cow gives delicious cream. I even make a sort of cream cheese which is not by any means to be despised. Do you eat ricotta nowadays? Chev gave me a little French dessert set yesterday, which made my table look so pretty. White with very rich blue and gold. Oh, but it was bunkum! Dear old Wevie, you must give me one summer, and then I will give you a winter—isn't that fair? Chev promises to take me abroad in five years, if we should sell Green Peace well. They talk of moving the Institution, in which case I should have to leave my pretty Green Peace in two years more, but I should be sad to leave it, for it is very lovely. I don't know any news at all to communicate. The President[31] has just made a visit here; he was coolly but civilly received. His whole course has been very unpopular in Massachusetts, and nobody wanted to see the man who had brought this cursed Mexican War upon us. He was received by the Mayor with a brief but polite address, lodgings were provided for him, and a dinner given him by the city. But there was no crowd to welcome him, no shouts, no waving of handkerchiefs. The people quietly looked at him and said, "This is our chief magistrate, is it? Well, he is très peu de chose." I of course did not trouble myself to go and see him....I send you an extract from a daily paper. Can you tell me who is the authoress? It has been much admired. Uncle John was very much tickled to see somebody in print. Try it again, Blue Jacket.

The wayward moods shown in these letters sometimes found other expression. In those days her wit was wayward too: its arrows were always winged, and sometimes over-sharp. In later life, when Boston and everything connected with it was unspeakably dear to her, she would not recall the day when, passing on Charles Street the Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary, she read the name aloud and exclaimed, "Oh! I did not know there was a charitable eye or ear in Boston!" Or that other day, when having dined with the Ticknors, a family of monumental dignity, she said to a friend afterward, "Oh! I am so cold! I have been dining with the Tête Noir, the Mer(e) de Glace, and the Jungfrau!"

It may have been in these days that an incident occurred which she thus describes in "A Plea for Humour": "I once wrote to an intimate friend a very high-flown and ridiculous letter of reproof for her frivolity. I presently heard of her as ill in bed, in consequence of my unkindness. I immediately wrote, 'Did not you see that the whole thing was intended to be a burlesque?' After a while she wrote back, 'I am just beginning to see the fun of it, but the next time you intend to make a joke, pray give me a fortnight's notice.' It was now my turn to take to my bed."

In September, 1847, a heavy sorrow came to her in the death of her brother Marion, "a gallant, gracious boy, a true, upright and useful man." She writes to her sister Louisa: "Let us thank Him that Marion's life gave us as much joy as his death has given us pain.... Our children will grow up in love and beauty, and one of us will have a sweet boy who shall bear the dear name of Marion and make it doubly dear to us."

This prophecy was fulfilled first by the birth, on March 2, 1848, of Henry Marion Howe (named for the two lost brothers), and again in 1854 by that of Francis Marion Crawford.

The winter of 1847-48 was also spent in Boston, at No. 74 Mount Vernon Street; here the first son was born. The Doctor, recording his birth in the Family Bible, wrote after the name, "Dieu donné!" And, his mind full of the Revolution of 1848 in France, added, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!"

On April 18 she writes: "My boy will be seven weeks old to-morrow, and ... such a darling little child was never seen in this world before.... I shall have some fears lest his temperament partake of the melancholy which oppressed me during the period of his creation, but so far he is so placid and gentle, that we call him the little saint.... I have seen little of the world since his birth, and thought still less. I shall try to pursue my studies as I have through this last year, for I am good for nothing without them. I will rather give up the world and cut out Beacon Street, but an hour or two for the cultivation of my poor little soul I must and will have...."

To her sister Annie

[1848.]

Dearest Annie,—

... My literary reputation is growing apace. Mr. Buchanan Read has written to me from Philadelphia to beg some poetry for a book he is about to publish, and I am going to hunt up some trash for him in the course of the week. I find that my name has been advertised in relation to Griswold's book[32]—people come to ask Chev if that Mrs. Howe is his wife. I feel as if I should make a horribly shabby appearance. Do tell me if Griswold liked the poems....

To the same

Sunday, December 15, 1849.

... I do want to see you, best Annie, and to have a few long talks with you about theology, the soul, the heart, life, matrimony, and the points of resemblance between the patriarch Noah and Sir Tipsy Squinteye. Those talks, madam, are not to be had, so instead of the rich crême fouettée of our conversation, we will take an insipid water-ice of a letter together, the two spoons being ourselves, the sugar, ice and lemon representing our three husbands, all mixed up together, the whole to be considered good when one can't get anything better. I will be hanged, however, if you shall make me say which is which.

I pass my life after a singular manner, Annie. I am in the old room, in the old house, even in the old dressing-gown, which is of some value, inasmuch as it furnishes my rent. I am in the old place, but the old Dudie is not in me; in her stead is a spirit of crossness and dullness, insensible to all the gentler influences of life, knowing no music, poetry, wit, or devotion, intent mainly upon holding on to the ropes, and upon getting through the present without too much consciousness of it.... All society has been paralyzed by the shocking murder of Dr. Parkman. There has perhaps never been in Boston so horrible and atrocious an affair. The details of the crime are too heart-sickening to be dwelt upon. There can scarcely be a doubt of the guilt of Dr. Webster—the jury of inquest have returned a verdict of guilty, but he has still a chance for his life, as his trial in court does not come on for some months. The wisest people say that he will be convicted and hanged. I saw Dr. Parkman two or three days before he was missing—he was an old friend of Chev's.... I have not been able to see much company, yet we have had a few pleasant people at the house, now and then. Among these, a Mr. Twisleton, brother of Lord Saye and Sele, the most agreeable John Bull I have seen this many a day, or indeed ever....

The winter of 1849-50 was also spent at No. 74 Mount Vernon Street. Here, in February, 1850, a third daughter was born, and named Laura for Laura Bridgman. In the spring, our parents made a second voyage to Europe, taking with them the two youngest children, Julia Romana and Florence being left in the household of Dr. Edward Jarvis.

They spent some weeks in England, renewing the friendships made seven years before; thence they journeyed to Paris, and from there to Boppart, where the Doctor took the water cure. Julia seems to have been too busy for letter-writing during this year; the Doctor writes to Charles Sumner of the beauty of Boppart, and adds: "Julia and I have been enjoying walks upon the banks of the Rhine, and rambles upon the hillside, and musings among the ruins, and jaunts upon the waters as we have enjoyed nothing since we left home."

He had but six months' leave of absence; it was felt by both that Julia needed a longer time of rest and refreshment; accordingly when he returned she, with the two little children, joined her sisters, both now married, and the three proceeded to Rome, where they spent the winter.

Mrs. Crawford was living at Villa Negroni, where Mrs. Mailliard became her companion; Julia found a comfortable apartment in Via Capo le Case, with the Edward Freemans on the floor above, and Mrs. David Dudley Field on that below.

These were pleasant neighbors. Mrs. Freeman was Julia's companion in many delightful walks and excursions; when Mrs. Field had a party, she borrowed Mrs. Howe's large lamp, and was ready to lend her tea-cups in return. There was a Christmas tree—the first ever seen in Rome!—at Villa Negroni; "an occasional ball, a box at the opera, a drive on the Campagna."

Julia found a learned Rabbi from the Ghetto, and resumed the study of Hebrew, which she had begun the year before in South Boston. This accomplished man was obliged to wear the distinctive dress then imposed upon the Jews of Rome, and to be within the walls of the Ghetto by six in the evening. There were private theatricals, too, she appearing as "Tilburina" in "The Critic."

Among the friends of this Roman winter none was so beloved as Horace Binney Wallace. He was a Philadelphian, a rosso. He held that "the highest effort of nature is to produce a rosso"; he was always in search of the favored tint either in pictures or in living beings. Together the two rossi explored the ancient city, with mutual pleasure and profit.

Some years later, on hearing of his death, she recalled these days of companionship in a poem called "Via Felice,"[33] which she sang to an air of her own composition. The poem appeared in "Words for the Hour," and is one of the tenderest of her personal tributes:—

For Death's eternal city

Has yet some happy street;

'Tis in the Via Felice

My friend and I shall meet.

In the summer of 1851 she turned her face westward. The call of husband, children, home, was imperative; yet so deep was the spell which Rome had laid upon her that the parting was fraught with "pain, amounting almost to anguish." She was oppressed by the thought that she might never again see all that had grown so dear. Looking back upon this time, she says, "I have indeed seen Rome and its wonders more than once since that time, but never as I saw them then."

The homeward voyage was made in a sailing-vessel, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Mailliard. They were a month at sea. In the long quiet mornings Julia read Swedenborg's "Divine Love and Wisdom"; in the afternoons Eugène Sue's "Mystères de Paris," borrowed from a steerage passenger. There was whist in the evening; when her companions had gone to rest she would sit alone, thinking over the six months, weaving into song their pleasures and their pains. The actual record of this second Roman winter is found in "Passion Flowers."

CHAPTER VII

"PASSION FLOWERS"

1852-1858; aet. 33-39

ROUGE GAGNE

The wheel is turned, the cards are laid;

The circle's drawn, the bets are made:

I stake my gold upon the red.

The rubies of the bosom mine,

The river of life, so swift divine,

In red all radiantly shine.

Upon the cards, like gouts of blood,

Lie dinted hearts, and diamonds good,

The red for faith and hardihood.

In red the sacred blushes start

On errand from a virgin heart,

To win its glorious counterpart.

The rose that makes the summer fair,

The velvet robe that sovereigns wear,

The red revealment could not spare.

And men who conquer deadly odds

By fields of ice, and raging floods,

Take the red passion from the gods.

Now, Love is red, and Wisdom pale,

But human hearts are faint and frail

Till Love meets Love, and bids it hail.

I see the chasm, yawning dread;

I see the flaming arch o'erhead:

I stake my life upon the red.

J. W. H.

We have seen that from her earliest childhood Julia Ward's need of expressing herself in verse was imperative. Every emotion, deep or trivial, must take metrical shape; she laughed, wept, prayed—even stormed, in verse.

Walking with her one day, her sister Annie, always half angel, half sprite, pointed to an object in the road. "Dudie dear," she said; "squashed frog! little verse, dear?"

We may laugh with the two sisters, but under the laughter lies a deep sense of the poet's nature.

As in her dreamy girlhood she prayed—

"Oh! give me back my golden lyre!"—

so in later life she was to pray—

"On the Matron's time-worn mantle

Let the Poet's wreath be laid."

The tide of song had been checked for a time; after the second visit to Rome, it flowed more freely than ever. By the winter of 1853-54, a volume was ready (the poems chosen and arranged with the help of James T. Fields), and was published by Ticknor and Fields under the title of "Passion Flowers."

No name appeared on the title-page; she had thought to keep her incognito, but she was recognized at once as the author, and the book became the literary sensation of the hour. It passed rapidly through three editions; was, she says, "much praised, much blamed, and much called in question."

She writes to her sister Annie:—

"The history of all these days, beloved, is comprised in one phrase, the miseries of proof-reading. Oh, the endless, endless plague of looking over these proof-sheets—the doubts about phrases, rhymes, and expressions, the perplexity of names, especially, in which I have not been fortunate. To-morrow I get my last proof. Then a fortnight must be allowed for drying and binding. Then I shall be out, fairly out, do you hear? So far my secret has been pretty well kept. My book is to bear a simple title without my name, according to Longfellow's advice. Longfellow has been reading a part of the volume in sheets. He says it will make a sensation.... I feel much excited, quite unsettled, sometimes a little frantic. If I succeed, I feel that I shall be humbled by my happiness, devoutly thankful to God. Now, I will not write any more about it."

The warmest praise came from the poets,—the "high, impassioned few" of her "Salutatory." Whittier wrote:—

Amesbury, 29th, 12 mo. 53.

My dear Fr'd,—

A thousand thanks for thy volume! I rec'd it some days ago, but was too ill to read it. I glanced at "Rome," "Newport and Rome," and they excited me like a war-trumpet. To-day, with the wild storm drifting without, my sister and I have been busy with thy book, and basking in the warm atmosphere of its flowers of passion. It is a great book—it has placed thee at the head of us all. I like its noble aims, its scorn and hate of priestcraft and Slavery. It speaks out bravely, beautifully all I have felt, but could not express, when contemplating the condition of Europe. God bless thee for it!

I owe an apology to Dr. Howe, if not to thyself, for putting into verse[34] an incident of his early life which a friend related to me. When I saw his name connected with it, in some of the papers that copied it, I felt fearful that I had wounded, perhaps, the feelings of one I love and honor beyond almost any other man, by the liberty I have taken. I can only say I could not well help it—a sort of necessity was before me, to say what I did.

I wish I could tell thee how glad thy volume has made me. I have marked it all over with notes of admiration. I dare say it has faults enough, but thee need not fear on that account. It has beauty enough to save thy "slender neck" from the axe of the critical headsman. The veriest "de'il"—as Burns says—"wad look into thy face and swear he could na wrang thee."

With love to the Doctor and thy lovely little folk,

I am

Very sincerely thy friend,

John G. Whittier.

Emerson wrote:—

Concord, Mass., 30 Dec., 1853.

Dear Mrs. Howe,—

I am just leaving home with much ado of happy preparation for an absence of five weeks, but must take a few moments to thank you for the happiness your gift brings me. It was very kind in you to send it to me, who have forfeited all apparent claims to such favor, by breaking all the laws of good neighborhood in these years. But you were entirely right in sending it, because, I fancy, that among all your friends, few had so earnest a desire to know your thoughts, and, I may say, so much regret at never seeing you, as I. And the book, as I read in it, meets this curiosity of mine, by its poems of character and confidence, private lyrics, whose air and words [are] all your own. I have not gone so far in them as to have any criticism to offer you, and like better the pure pleasure I find in a new book of poetry so warm with life. Perhaps, when I have finished the book, I shall ask the privilege of saying something further. At present I content myself with thanking you.

With great regard,

R. W. Emerson.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, always generous in his welcome to younger writers, sent the following poem, never before printed:—

If I were one, O Minstrel wild.

That held "the golden cup"

Not unto thee, Art's stolen child,

My hand should yield it up;

Why should I waste its gold on one

That holds a guerdon bright—

A chalice, flashing in the sun

Of perfect chrysolite.

And shaped on such a swelling sphere

As if some God had pressed

Its flowing crystal, soft and clear

On Hebe's virgin breast?

What though the bitter grapes of earth

Have mingled in its wine?

The stolen fruits of heavenly birth

Have made its hue divine.

Oh, Lady, there are charms that win

Their way to magic bowers,

And they that weave them enter in

In spite of mortal powers;

And hearts that seek the chapel's floor

Will throb the long aisle through,

Though none are waiting at the door

To sprinkle holy dew!

I, sitting in the portal gray

Of Art's cathedral dim,

Can see thee, passing in to pray

And sing thy first-born hymn;—

Hold out thy hand! these scanty drops

Come from a hallowed stream,

Its sands, a poet's crumbling hopes,

Its mists, his fading dream.

Pass on. Around the inmost shrine

A few faint tapers burn;

This altar, Priestess, shall be thine

To light and watch in turn;

Above it smiles the Mother Maid,

It leans on Love and Art,

And in its glowing depth is laid

The first true woman's heart!

O. W. H.

Boston, Jan. 1, 1854.

This tribute from the beloved Autocrat touched her deeply, the more so that in the "Commonwealth"[35] she had recently reviewed some of his own work rather severely. She made her acknowledgment in a poem entitled "A Vision of Montgomery Place,"[36] in which she pictures herself as a sheeted penitent knocking at Dr. Holmes's door.

I was the saucy Commonwealth:

Oh! help me to repent.

*        *        *        *        *        *

Behind my embrasure well-braced,

With every chance to hit,

I made your banner, waving wide,

A mark for wayward wit.

'Twas now my turn to walk the street,

In dangerous singleness,

And run, as bravely as I might,

The gauntlet of the press.

And when I passed your balcony

Expecting only blows,

From height or vantage-ground, you stooped

To whelm me with a rose.

A rose, intense with crimson life

And hidden perfume sweet—

Call out your friends, and see me do

My penance in the street.

*        *        *        *        *        *

She writes her sister Annie:—

"My book came out, darling, on Friday last. You have it, I hope, ere this time. The simple title, 'Passion Flowers,' was invented by Scherb[37] and approved by Longfellow. Its success became certain at once. Hundreds of copies have already been sold, and every one likes it. Fields foretells a second edition—it is sure to pay for itself. It has done more for me, in point of consideration here, than a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars. Parker quoted some of my verses in his Christmas sermon, and this I considered as the greatest of honors. I sat there and heard them, glowing all over. The authorship is, of course, no secret now...."

Speaking of the volume long after, she says, "It was a timid performance upon a slender reed."

Three years later a second volume of verse was published by Ticknor and Fields under the title of "Words for the Hour." Of this, George William Curtis wrote, "It is a better book than its predecessor, but will probably not meet with the same success."

She had written plays ever since she was nine years old. In 1857, the same year which saw the publication of "Words for the Hour," she produced her first serious dramatic work, a five-act drama entitled "The World's Own." It was performed in New York at Wallack's Theatre, and in Boston with Matilda Heron and the elder Sothern in the leading parts. She notes that one critic pronounced the play "full of literary merits and of dramatic defects"; and she adds, "It did not, as they say, 'keep the stage.'"

Yet her brother Sam writes to her from New York: "Lenore still draws the best houses; there was hardly standing room on Friday night"; and again: "Mr. Russell went last night, a second time, bought the libretto, which I send you by this mail—declares that there is not a grander play in our language. He says that it is full of dramatic vigor, that the interest never flags—but that unhappily Miss H., with the soul and self-abandonment of a great actress, lacks those graces of elocution, which should set forth the beauties of your verses."

Some of the critics blamed the author severely for her choice of a subject—the betrayal and abandonment of an innocent girl by a villain; they thought it unfeminine, not to say indelicate, for a woman to write of such matters.

At that time nothing could be farther from her thoughts than to be classed with the advocates of Women's Rights as they then appeared; yet in "The World's Own" are passages which show that already her heart cherished the high ideal of her sex, for which her later voice was to be uplifted:—

I think we call them Women, who uphold

Faint hearts and strong, with angel countenance;

Who stand for all that's high in Faith's resolve,

Or great in Hope's first promise.

*        *        *        *        *        *

Ev'n the frail creature with a moment's bloom,

That pays your pleasure with her sacrifice,

And, having first a marketable price,

Grows thenceforth valueless,—ev'n such an one,

Lifted a little from the mire, and purged

By hands severely kind, will give to view

The germ of all we honor, in the form

Of all that we abhor. You fling a jewel

Where wild feet tramp, and crushing wheels go by;

You cannot tread the splendor from its dust;

So, in the shattered relics, shimmers yet

Through tears and grime, the pride of womanhood.

*        *        *        *        *        *

We must not forget the Comic Muse. Comparatively little of her humorous verse is preserved; she seldom thought it important enough to make two copies, and the first draft was often lost or given away. The following was written in the fifties, when Wulf Fries was a young and much-admired musician in Boston. Miss Mary Bigelow had invited her to her house "at nine o'clock" to hear him play, meaning nine in the morning. She took this for nine in the evening; the rest explains itself:—