Julia Ward Howe Part 13

Aga.s.siz, the learned and charming Frenchman, is also one of my _habitues_ on Sat.u.r.day evenings, and Count Pourtales, a Swiss n.o.bleman of good family, who has accompanied Aga.s.siz 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 Sat.u.r.day. 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 a.s.s, 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....

[29] She had had a severe attack of scarlet fever during the winter.

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. G.o.d 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 relations.h.i.+ps, 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 a.s.sure 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....

[30] The Five of Clubs. See _ante_.

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 bunk.u.m! 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 Inst.i.tution, 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, and n.o.body 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 _tres 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 auth.o.r.ess? It has been much admired. Uncle John was very much tickled to see _somebody_ in print.

Try it again, Blue Jacket.

[31] James K. Polk.

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, pa.s.sing 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 _Tete 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 donne!_" And, his mind full of the Revolution of 1848 in France, added, "_Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!_"

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....

[32] _Female Poets of America._

_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 _creme fouettee_ 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 pa.s.s 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 friends.h.i.+ps 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 companions.h.i.+p 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:--