Текст книги "Julia Ward Howe"

Автор книги: Laura E. Richards

Соавторы: Maud Howe Elliott
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They are playing at the Boston Museum a piece, probably a farce, called "A Blighted Being." When I see the handbills posted up in the streets it is like reading one's own name. I must now bid you farewell and am ever with dearest love,

Your affectionate sister and

A Blighted Being!!!!

To the same

South Boston, June 1, 1855.

... Well, my darling, it is a very uninteresting time with me. I am alive, and so are my five children. I made a vow, when dear Laura was so ill, to complain never more of dulness or ennui. So I won't, but you understand if I hadn't made such a vow, I could under present circumstances indulge in the howling in which my soul delighteth. I don't know how I keep alive. The five children seem always waiting, morally, to pick my bones, and are always quarrelling over their savage feast.... The stairs as aforesaid kill me. The Baby keeps me awake, and keeps me down in strength. Were it not for beer, I were little better than a dead woman, but, blessed be the infusion of hops, I can still wink my left eye and look knowing with my right, which is more, God be praised, than could have been expected after eight months of Institution. I have seen Opera of "Trovatore"—in bonnet trimmed with grapes I went, bonnet baptized with "oh d-Cologne," but Alexander McDonald was my escort, Chev feeling very ill just at Opera time, but making himself strangely comfortable after my departure with easy-chair, foot-stool, and unlimited pile of papers. Well, dear, you know they would be better if they could, but somehow they can't—it isn't in them....

To the same

South Boston, Nov. 27, 1855.

I have been having a wow-wow time of late, or you should have heard from me. As it is, I shall scribble a hasty sheet of Hieroglyphics, and put in it as much of myself as I can. Mme. Kossuth (Kossuth's sister divorced from former husband) has been here for ten days past; as she is much worn and depressed I have had a good deal of comforting up to do—very little time and much trouble. She is a lady, and has many interesting qualities, but you can imagine how I long for the sanctity of home. Still, my heart aches that this woman, as well bred as any one of ourselves, should go back to live in two miserable rooms, with three of her four children, cooking, and washing everything with her own hands, and sitting up half the night to earn a pittance by sewing or fancy work. Her eldest son has been employed as engineer on the Saratoga and Sacketts Harbor railroad for two years, but has not been paid a cent—the R.R. being nearly or quite bankrupt. He is earning $5 a week in a Bank, and this is all they have to depend upon. She wants to hire a small farm somewhere in New Jersey and live upon it with her children....

To her sisters

Thursday, 29, 1856.

... We have been in the most painful state of excitement relative to Kansas matters and dear Charles Sumner, whose condition gives great anxiety.[44] Chev is as you might expect under such circumstances; he has had much to do with meetings here, etc., etc. New England spunk seems to be pretty well up, but what will be done is uncertain as yet. One thing we have got: the Massachusetts Legislature has passed the "personal liberty bill," which will effectually prevent the rendition of any more fugitive slaves from Massachusetts. Another thing, the Tract Society here (orthodox) has put out old Dr. Adams, who published a book in favor of slavery; a third thing, the Connecticut legislature has withdrawn its invitation to Mr. Everett to deliver his oration before them, in consequence of his having declined to speak at the Sumner meeting in Faneuil Hall....

To her sister Annie

Cincinnati, May 26, 1857.

Casa Greenis.

Dearest Annie, Fiancée de marbre et Femme de glace,—

Heaven knows what I have not been through with since I saw you—dust, dirt, dyspepsia, hotels, railroads, prairies, Western steamboats, Western people, more prairies, tobacco juice, captains of boats, pilots of ditto, long days of jolting in the cars, with stoppages of ten minutes for dinner, and the devil take the hindmost. There ought to be no chickens this year, so many eggs have we eaten. Flossy was quite ill for two days at St. Louis. Chev is too rapid and restless a traveller for pleasure. Still, I think I shall be glad to have made the journey when it is all over—I must be stronger than I was, for I bear fatigue very well now and at first I could not bear it at all. We went from Philadelphia to Baltimore, thence to Wheeling, thence to see the Manns at Antioch—they almost ate us up, so glad were they to see us. Thence to Cincinnati, where two days with Kitty Rölker, a party at Larz Anderson's—Longworth's wine-cellar, pleasant attentions from a gentleman by the name of King, who took me about in a carriage and proposed everything but marriage. After passing the morning with me, he asked if I was English. I told him no. When we met in the evening, he had thought matters over, and exclaimed, "You must be Miss Ward!" "And you," I cried, "must be the nephew of my father's old partner. Do you happen to have a strawberry mark or anything of that kind about you?" "No." "Then you are my long-lost Rufus!" And so we rushed into each other's confidence and swore, like troopers, eternal friendship. Thence to Louisville, dear, a beastly place, where I saw the Negro jail, and the criminal court in session, trying a man for the harmless pleasantry of murdering his wife. Thence to St. Louis, where Chev left us and went to Kansas, and Fwotty and I boated it back here and went to a hotel, and the William Greenes they came and took us, and that's all for the present....

To the same

Garret Platform,

Lawton's Valley, July 13, 1857.

... Charlotte Brontë is deeply interesting, but I think she and I would not have liked each other, while still I see points of resemblance—many indeed—between us. Her life, on the whole, a very serious and instructive page in literary history. God rest her! she was as faithful and earnest as she was clever—she suffered much.

... Theodore Parker and wife came here last night, to stay a week if they like it (have just had a fight with a bumble-bee, in avoiding which I banged my head considerably against a door, in the narrow limits of my garret platform); so you see I am still a few squashes ("some pumpkins" is vulgar, and I isn't)....

To her sisters

S. Boston, April 4, 1858.

... I am perfectly worn out in mind, body and estate. The Fair[45] lasted five days and five evenings. I was there every day, and nearly all day, and at the end of it I dropped like a dead person. Never did I experience such fatigue—the crowd of faces, the bad air, the responsibility of selling and the difficulty of suiting everybody, was almost too much for me. On the other hand, it was an entirely new experience, and a very amusing one. My table was one of the prettiest, and, as I took care to have some young and pretty assistants, it proved one of the most attractive. I cleared $426.00, which was doing pretty well, as I had very little given me.... For a week after the Fair I could do nothing but lie on a sofa or in an easy-chair, ... but by the end of the week I revived, and it pleased the Devil to suggest to me that this was the moment to give a long promised party to the Governor and his wife. All hands set to work, therefore, writing notes. With the assistance of three Amanuenses I scoured the whole surface of Boston society.... Unluckily I had fixed upon an evening when there were to be two other parties, and of course the cream of the cream was already engaged. I believe in my soul that I invited 300 people—every day everybody sent word they could not come. I was full of anxiety, got the house well arranged though, engaged a colored man, and got a splendid supper. Miss Hunt, who is writing for me, smacks her lips at the remembrance of the same, I mean the supper, not the black man. Well! the evening came, and with it all the odds and ends of half a dozen sets of people, including some of the most primitive and some of the most fashionable. I had the greatest pleasure in introducing a dowdy high neck, got up for the occasion, with short sleeves and a bow behind, to the most elaborate of French ball-dresses with head-dress to match, and leaving them to take care of each other the best way they could. As for the Governor [Nathaniel P. Banks], I introduced him right and left to people who had never voted for him and never will. The pious were permitted to enjoy Theodore Parker, and Julia's schoolmaster sat on a sofa and talked about Carlyle. I did not care—the colored man made it all right. Imagine my astonishment at hearing the party then and after pronounced one of the most brilliant and successful ever given in Boston. The people all said, "It is such a relief to see new faces—we always meet the same people at city parties." Well, darlings, the pickings of the supper was very good for near a week afterwards, and, having got through with my party, I have nearly killed myself with going to hear Mr. Booth, whose playing is beautiful exceedingly. Having for once in my life had play enough and a great deal too much, I am going to work to-morrow like an old Trojan building a new city. I am too poor to come to New York this spring; still it is not impossible. Farewell, Beloveds, it is church time, and this edifying critter is uncommon punctual in her devotions. So farewell, love much, and so far as human weakness allows imitate the noble example of

Your sister,

Julia.

CHAPTER VIII

LITTLE SAMMY: THE CIVIL WAR

1859-1863; aet. 40-44

There came indeed an hour of fate

By bitter war made desolate

When, reading portents in the sky,

All in a dream I leapt on high

To pin my rhyme to my country's gown.

'Tis my one verse that will not down.

Stars have grown out of mortal crown.

J. W. H.

I honour the author of the "Battle Hymn," and of "The Flag." She was born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were a native of Massachusetts. We have had no such poetess in New England.

Emerson's Journals.

In the winter of 1859 the Doctor's health became so much impaired by overwork that a change of air and scene was imperative. At the same time Theodore Parker, already stricken with a mortal disease, was ordered to Cuba in the hope that a mild climate might check the progress of the consumption. He begged the Howes to join him and his wife, and in February the four sailed for Havana. This expedition is described in "A Trip to Cuba."

The opening chapter presents three of the little party during the rough and stormy voyage:—

"The Philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,—keeled up in an upper berth, convulsively embracing a blanket, what conservative more immovable than he? The Great Man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if, like Farinata,—

'avesse l'inferno in gran dispetto,'—

he had a very contemptible opinion of hell."

Several "portraits" follow, among them her own.

"A woman, said to be of a literary turn of mind, in the miserablest condition imaginable. Her clothes, flung at her by the Stewardess, seem to have hit in some places and missed in others. Her listless hands occasionally make an attempt to keep her draperies together, and to pull her hat on her head; but though the intention is evident, she accomplishes little by her motion. She is being perpetually lugged about by a stout steward, who knocks her head against both sides of the vessel, folds her up in the gangway, spreads her out on the deck, and takes her upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber, where, report says, he feeds her with a spoon, and comforts her with such philosophy as he is master of. N.B. This woman, upon the first change of weather, rose like a cork, dressed like a Christian, and toddled about the deck in the easiest manner, sipping her grog, and cutting sly jokes upon her late companions in misery;—is supposed by some to have been an impostor, and, when ill-treated, announced intentions of writing a book.

"No. 4, my last, is only a sketch;—circumstances allowed no more. Can Grande,[46] the great dog, has been got up out of the pit, where he has worried the Stewardess and snapped at the friend who tried to pat him on the head. Everybody asks where he is. Don't you see that heap of shawls yonder, lying in the sun, and heated up to about 212° Fahrenheit? That slouched hat on top marks the spot where his head should lie,—by treading cautiously in the opposite direction you may discover his feet. All between is perfectly passive and harmless. His chief food is pickles,—his only desire is rest. After all these years of controversy, after all these battles, bravely fought and nobly won, you might write with truth upon this moveless mound of woollens the pathetic words from Père La Chaise: Implora Pace."

The trip to Cuba was only the beginning of a long voyage for the Parkers, who were bound for Italy. The parting between the friends was sad. All felt that they were to meet no more. Parker died in Florence fifteen months later.

"A pleasant row brought us to the side of the steamer. It was dusk already as we ascended her steep gangway, and from that to darkness there is, at this season, but the interval of a breath. Dusk too were our thoughts, at parting from Can Grande, the mighty, the vehement, the great fighter. How were we to miss his deep music, here and at home! With his assistance we had made a very respectable band; now we were to be only a wandering drum and fife,—the fife particularly shrill, and the drum particularly solemn.... And now came silence, and tears, and last embraces; we slipped down the gangway into our little craft, and looking up, saw bending above us, between the slouched hat and the silver beard, the eyes that we can never forget, that seemed to drop back in the darkness with the solemnity of a last farewell. We went home, and the drum hung himself gloomily on his peg, and the little fife shut up for the remainder of the evening."

"A Trip to Cuba" appeared first serially in the "Atlantic Monthly," then in book form. Years after, a friend, visiting Cuba, took with her a copy of the little volume; it was seized at Havana by the customs house officers, and confiscated as dangerous and incendiary material.

On her return, our mother was asked to write regularly for the New York "Tribune," describing the season at Newport. This was the beginning of a correspondence which lasted well into the time of the Civil War. She says of it:—

"My letters dealt somewhat with social doings in Newport and in Boston, but more with the great events of the time. To me the experience was valuable in that I found myself brought nearer in sympathy to the general public, and helped to a better understanding of its needs and demands."

To her sister Annie

Sunday, November 6, 1859.

The potatoes arrived long since and were most jolly, as indeed they continue to be. Didn't acknowledge them 'cause knew other people did, and thought it best to be unlike the common herd. Have just been to church and heard Clarke preach about John Brown, whom God bless, and will bless! I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereof I am at present correcting the proof-sheets. I went to see his poor wife, who passed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting, poor soul! Folks say that the last number of my Cuba is the best thing I ever did, in prose or verse. Even Emerson wrote me about it from Concord. I tell you this in case you should not find out of your own accord that it is good. I have had rather an unsettled autumn—have been very infirm and inactive, but have kept up as well as possible—going to church, also to Opera, also to hear dear Edwin Booth, who is playing better than ever. My children are all well and delightful....

I have finished Tacitus' history, also his Germans.... Chev is not at all annoyed by the newspapers, but has been greatly overdone by anxiety and labor for Brown. Much has come upon his shoulders, getting money, paying counsel, and so on. Of course all the stories about the Northern Abolitionists are the merest stuff. No one knew of Brown's intentions but Brown himself and his handful of men. The attempt I must judge insane but the spirit heroic. I should be glad to be as sure of heaven as that old man may be, following right in the spirit and footsteps of the old martyrs, girding on his sword for the weak and oppressed. His death will be holy and glorious—the gallows cannot dishonor him—he will hallow it....

On Christmas Day, 1859, she gave birth to a second son, who was named Samuel Gridley. This latest and perhaps dearest child was for three short years to fill his parents' life with a joy which came and went with him. His little life was all beautiful, all bright. We associate him specially with the years we spent at No. 13 Chestnut Street, Boston, a spacious and cheerful house which we remember with real affection. The other children were at school; little Sam was the dear companion of our mother's walks, the delight of our father's few leisure hours. For him new songs were made, new games invented: both parents looked forward to fresh youth and vigor in his sweet companionship. This was not to be. "In short measures, life may perfect be": little Sam died of diphtheritic croup, May 17, 1863.

This heavy sorrow for a time crushed both these tender parents to the earth. Our father became seriously ill from grief; our mother, younger and more resilient, found some relief in nursing him and caring for the other children; but this was not enough. She could not banish from her mind the terrible memory of her little boy's suffering, the anguish of parting with him. While her soul lifted its eyes to the hills, her heart sought some way to keep his image constantly before her. Her sad thoughts must be recorded, and she took up, for the first time since 1843, the habit of keeping a journal.

The first journal is a slender Diary and Memorandum Book. On May 13, the first note of alarm is sounded. Sammy "did not seem quite right." From that date the record goes on, the agonizing details briefly described, the loss spoken of in words which no one could read unmoved. But even this was not enough: grief must find further expression, yet must be repressed, so far as might be, in the presence of others, lest her sorrow make theirs heavier. This need of expression took a singular form. She wrote a letter to the child himself, telling the story of his life and death; wrote it with care and precision, omitting no smallest detail, gathering, as it were a handful of pearls, every slightest memory of the brief time.

A few extracts show the tenor of this letter:—

"My dearest little Sammy,—

"It is four weeks to-day since I saw your sweet face for the last time on earth. It did not look like your little face, my dear pet, it was so still, and sad, and quiet. But Death had changed it, and I had to submit, and was thankful to have even so much of you as that still face, for some days. Everybody grieved to part from you, dear little soul, but I suppose that I grieved most of all, because you belonged most to me. You were always with me, from the time you began to exist at all. The time of your birth was a sad one. It was the time of the imprisonment and death of John Brown, a very noble man, who should be in one of the many mansions of which Christ tells us, and in which I hope, dear, that you are nearer to Him than any of us can be....

"You arrived, I think, at three in the morning, very red in the face, and making a great time about it. You were a fine large Baby, weighing twelve pounds.... I have some of your baby dresses left, and shall hunt them up and lay them with the clothes you have worn lately.... I gave you milk myself.... I used to lay you across my breast when you cried, and you liked this so well that you often insisted upon sleeping in that position after you were grown quite large. It hurt me so much that I finally managed to break you of the habit, but not until you were more than a year old.... I had a nice crimson merino cloak made for you, trimmed with velvet, and lined with white silk. I bought also a very nice crochet cap, of white and crimson worsted, and in these you were taken to drive with me....

"During this first year of your life I had some troubles, and your Baby ways were my greatest comfort. I used to think: this Baby will grow up to be a man, and will protect me when I am old. For I thought, dear, that you should have outlived me many years. But you are removed from us to grow in another world, of which I know nothing but what Christ has told me....

"You used to keep me awake a good deal at night, and this sometimes made me nervous and fretful, though I was usually very happy with you. I would give a good deal for one of those bad nights now, though at the time they were pretty hard upon me....

"... Your second summer brings me to the winter that followed. It was quite a gay winter for us at old South Boston. Marie, the German cook, made very nice dishes, and I had many people to dine, and one or two pleasant evening parties. You still slept in my room, and when I was going to a party in the evening, Annie[47] used to bring my nice dress and my ornaments softly out of the room, that I might dress in the nursery, and not disturb your slumbers. I was always glad to get home and undress, and it was always sweet to come to the bed, and find you in it, sound asleep, and lying right across.... I learned to sleep on a very little bit of the bed, you wanted so much of it. This winter, I bought you a pair of snow-boots, of which you were very proud....

"We all got along happily, dear, till early in April (1863), when your father desired me to make a journey with Julia, who needed change of scene a little. So I had to go and leave you, my sweet of sweets....

"We were glad enough to see each other again, you and I, and I felt as if I could never part with you again. But I was only to have you for a few days, my darling....

"Thursday I sat up in your nursery, in the afternoon, as I usually did, with my book—you having your toys. When I had finished reading, I built houses with blocks for you, and rolled the balls and dumbbells across the floor to you. You rolled them back to me and this amused you very much. I go to sit up in your nursery in the afternoon now, with my book—the light shines in now as it used to do, and I hear the hand-organ and children's voices in the street. It seems to bring you a little nearer to me, my dear lost one, but not near enough for comfort."

The child's illness and death are described minutely, every symptom, every remedy, every anguish noted. Then follows:—

"It gives me dreadful pain to recall these things and write them down, my dearest. I don't do it to make myself miserable, but in order that I may have some lasting record of how you lived and died. You left little by which you might be remembered, save the love of kindred and friendly hearts, but in my heart, dear, your precious image is deeply sculptured. All my life will be full of grief for you, dearest Boy, and I think that I shall hardly live as long as I should have lived, if I had had you to make me happy. Perhaps it seems very foolish that I should write all this, and talk to you in it as if you could know what I write. But, my little darling, it comforts me to think that your sweet soul lives, and that you do know something about me. Christ said, 'This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise': and he knew that this was no vain promise. So, believing the dear Christ, I am led along to have faith in immortal life, of which, dear, I know nothing of myself.

"Your little funeral, dear, was bitter and agonizing. The good God does not send affliction without comfort, but the weeping eyes and breaking heart must struggle through much anguish before they can reach it...."

There was no hearse at this little funeral. The small white casket was placed on the front seat in the carriage in which she rode.

"We came near the gate of Mount Auburn, when I began to realize that the parting was very near. I now opened the casket, took your dear little cold hand in mine, and began to take silent farewell of you. And here, dearest child, I must stop. The remembrance of those last moments so cuts me to the heart, that I cannot say one word more about them, and not much about the life of loneliness and desolation which now began for me, and of which I do not see the end. God knows why I lost you, and how I suffer for you, and He knows how and when I shall see you again, as I hope to do, my dearest, because Christ says we are to live again after this life, and I know that if I am immortal, God will not inflict upon me the pain of an eternal separation from you. So, we shall meet again, sweet Angel Sammy. God grant that the rest of my life may be worthy of this hope, more dear than life itself....

"I must finish these words by saying that I am happy in believing that my dear Child lives, in a broader land, with better teaching and higher joys than I could have given him. I hope that the years to come will brighten, not efface, my mind's picture of him, and that among these, the cipher of one blessed year is already written, in which the picture will become reality, and the present sorrow the foundation of an eternal joy."

The following stanzas are chosen from among many poems on little Sammy's life and death:—

REMEMBRANCE

*        *        *        *        *        *

So thou art hid again, and wilt not come

For any knockings at the veilèd door;

Nor mother-pangs, nor nature, can restore

The heart's delight and blossom of thy home.

And I with others, in the outer court,

Must sadly follow the excluding will,

In painful admiration, of the skill

Of God, who speaks his sweetest sentence short.

At this time she writes to her sister Annie:—

"I cannot yet write of what has come to me. Chev and I feel that we are baptized into a new order of suffering—those who have lost children, loving them, can never be like those who have not. It makes a new heaven and a new earth. The new heaven I have not yet—the blow is too rough and recent. But the new earth, sown with tears, with the beauty and glory gone out of it, the spring itself, that should have made us happy together, grown tasteless and almost hateful. All the relish of life seems gone with him. I have no patience to make phrases about it—for the moment it seems utterness of doubt and of loss.

"No doubt about him. 'This night shalt thou be with me in Paradise' was said by one who knew what he promised. My precious Baby is with the Beautiful One who was so tender with the children. But I am alone, still fighting over the dark battle of his death, still questioning whether there is any forgiveness for such a death. Something must have been wrong somewhere—to find it out, I have tortured myself almost out of sanity. Now I must only say, it is, and look and wait for divine lessons which follow our bitter afflictions.

"God bless you all, darling. Ask dear Cogswell to write me a few lines—tell him that this deep cut makes all my previous life seem shallow and superficial. Tell him to think of me a little in my great sorrow.

"Your loving

"Julia."

She had by now definitely joined the Unitarian Church, in whose doctrines her mind found full and lasting rest; throughout this sorrowful time the Reverend James Freeman Clarke was one of her kindest helpers. Several years before this, she had unwillingly left Theodore Parker's congregation at our father's request. She records in the "Reminiscences" his views on this subject:—

"'The children (our two oldest girls) are now of an age at which they should receive impressions of reverence. They should, therefore, see nothing at the Sunday service which militates against that feeling. At Parker's meeting individuals read the newspapers before the exercises begin. A good many persons come in after the prayer, and some go out before the conclusion of the sermon. These irregularities offend my sense of decorum, and appear to me undesirable in the religious education of my family.'"

It was a grievous thing to her to make this sacrifice; she said to Horace Mann that to give up Parker's ministry for any other would be like going to the synagogue when Paul was preaching near at hand; yet, once made, it was the source of a lifelong joy and comfort.

Mr. Clarke was then preaching at Williams Hall; hearing Parker speak of him warmly, she determined to attend his services. She found his preaching "as unlike as possible to that of Theodore Parker. He had not the philosophic and militant genius of Parker, but he had a genius of his own, poetical, harmonizing. In after years I esteemed myself fortunate in having passed from the drastic discipline of the one to the tender and reconciling ministry of the other."

She has much to say in the "Reminiscences" about the dear "Saint James," as his friends loved to call him. The relation between them was close and affectionate: the Church of the Disciples became her spiritual home.

These were the days of the Civil War; we must turn back to its opening year to record an episode of importance to her and to others.

In the autumn of 1861 she went to Washington in company with Governor and Mrs. Andrew, Mr. Clarke and the Doctor, who was one of the pioneers of the Sanitary Commission, carrying his restless energy and indomitable will from camp to hospital, from battle-field to bureau. She longed to help in some way, but felt that there was nothing she could do—except make lint, which we were all doing.

"I could not leave my nursery to follow the march of our armies, neither had I the practical deftness which the preparing and packing of sanitary stores demanded. Something seemed to say to me, 'You would be glad to serve, but you cannot help anyone: you have nothing to give, and there is nothing for you to do.' Yet, because of my sincere desire, a word was given me to say, which did strengthen the hearts of those who fought in the field and of those who languished in the prison."