Julia Ward Howe Part 21

"At 11.53 [September 24] finished my Essay on Religion, for the power to produce which I thank G.o.d. I believe that I have in this built up a greater coherence between things natural and things divine than I have seen or heard made out after this sort by anyone else. I therefore rejoice over my work, ... hoping it may be of service to others, as it has certainly been to me."

Two days later she adds, "I leave this record of my opinion of my work, but on reading it aloud to Paddock,[49] I found the execution of the task to have fallen far short of my conception of it. I shall try to rewrite much of the Essay."

[49] Miss Mary Paddock, our father's devoted amanuensis: one of the earliest and best-loved teachers at the Perkins Inst.i.tution; often our mother's good helper; the faithful and lifelong friend of us all.

The Journal of 1864 is a quarto volume, with a full page for every day.

There are many blank pages, but the record is much fuller than heretofore.

"_January 15._ Worked all the afternoon at my Essay on Distinction between Philosophy and Religion. Got a bad feeling from fatigue. A sort of trembling agony in my back and left side."

Yet she went to the opera in the evening, and saw "Faust," a "composition with more faults than merits." She concludes the entry with "_Dilige et relinque_ is a good motto for some things."

"_Sunday, January 17._ It was announced from the pulpit that an Essay on the Soul and Body would be read by a friend at Wednesday evening meeting. That friend was myself, that essay my Lecture on Duality. This would be an honor, but for my ill-deserts. Be witness, O G.o.d! that this is no imaginary or sentimental exclamation, but a feeling too well founded on fact."

After the lecture she writes: "Mr. Clarke introduced me charmingly. I wore my white cap, not wis.h.i.+ng to read in my thick bonnet. I had quite a full audience.... I consider this opportunity a great honor and privilege conferred upon me."

"_January 28._ At a quarter before 2 P.M. finished my Essay on Philosophy and Religion. I thank G.o.d for this, for many infirmities, some physical, some moral, have threatened to interrupt my work. It is done, and if it is all I am to do, I am ready to die, since life now means work of my best sort, and I value little else, except the comfort of my family. Now for a little rest!"

The "rest" of the following day consisted in paying eight visits between twelve and two o'clock and going to the opera in the evening.

She now began to read her philosophical essays aloud to a chosen circle of friends gathered in the parlor of No. 13 Chestnut Street. After one of these occasions she says: "Professor Rogers took me up sharply (not in temper), on my first statement and definition of Polarity. I suffered in this, but was bound to take it in good part. A thoroughbred dog can bear to be lifted by the ear without squealing. Endurance is a test of breeding...."

"_May 27, 1864._ My birthday; forty-five years old. This year, begun in intolerable distress, has been, I think, the most valuable one of my life. Paralyzed at first by Sammy's death, I soon found my only refuge from grief in increased activity after my kind. When he died I had written two-thirds of 'Proteus.' As soon as I was able, I wrote the remaining portion which treats of affection. At Newport I wrote my Introductory Lecture on 'How _Not_ to Teach Ethics,' then 'Duality of Character,' then my first Lecture on Religion. Returned from Newport, I wrote my second and third essays on Religion. I read the six essays of my first course to a large circle of friends at my own house, not asking any payment. This done, I began to write a long essay on Polarity which is only partially completed, intending also to write on Limitations and the three degrees, should it be given to me to do so. I have read and re-read Spinoza's Ethics within the last thirteen months. His method in the arrangement of thought and motive has been of great use to me, but I think that I have been able to give them an extended application and some practical ill.u.s.trations which did not lie within his scope."

The next day she writes: "Dreamed of dearest Sammy. Thought that he was in the bed, and that I was trying to nurse him in the dark as I have so often done. I thought that when his little lips had found my breast, something said in my ear, 'My life's life--the glory of the world.'

Quoting from my lines on Mary Booth. This woke me with a sudden impression, _Thus Nature remembers_."

She decided this spring to read some of her essays in Was.h.i.+ngton. There were various difficulties in the way, and she was uncertain of the outcome of the enterprise. She writes:--

"I leave Bordentown [the home of her sister Annie] with a resolute, not a sanguine heart. I have no one to stand for me there, Sumner against me, Channing almost unknown to me, everyone else indifferent. I go in obedience to a deep and strong impulse which I do not understand nor explain, but whose bidding I cannot neglect. The satisfaction of having at last obeyed this interior guide is all that keeps me up, for no one, so far as I know, altogether approves of my going."

Spite of these doubts and fears, the enterprise was successful. Perhaps people were glad to shut their ears for a moment to the sound of cannon and the crying of "Latest news from the front!" and listen to the quiet words of philosophic thought and suggestion.

Side by side with work, as usual, went play. In January she records the first meeting of the new club, the "Ladies' Social," at the home of Mrs.

Josiah Quincy. This club of clever people, familiarly known as the "Brain Club," was for many years one of her great pleasures. Mrs. Quincy was its first president. It may have been at this meeting that our mother, being asked to present in a few words the nature and object of the club, addressed the company as follows: "Ladies and Gentlemen; this club has been formed for the purpose of carrying on"--she paused, and began to twinkle--"for the purpose of _carrying on_!"

She describes briefly a meeting of the club at 13 Chestnut Street:--

"Entertained my Club with two charades. _Pan-demon-ium_ was the first, _Catastrophe_ __the second. For _Pan_ I recited some verses of Mrs.

Browning's 'Dead Pan,' with the G.o.ds she mentions in the background, my own boy as Hermes. For 'Demon' I had a female Faust and a female Satan.

Was aided by f.a.n.n.y McGregor, Alice Howe, Hamilton Wilde, Charles Carroll, and James C. Davis, with my Flossy, who looked beautifully. The entertainment was voted an entire success."

We remember these charades well. The words

"Aphrodite, dead and driven As thy native foam thou art ..."

call up the vision of f.a.n.n.y McGregor, white and beautiful, lying on a white couch in an att.i.tude of perfect grace.

We hear our mother's voice reciting the stately verses. We see her as the "female Faust," first bending over her book, then listening entranced to the promises of Mephistopheles, finally vanis.h.i.+ng behind a curtain from which the next instant sprang Florence (the one child who resembled her) in all the gayety of her bright youth.

The next day she was, "Very weary all day. Put things to rights as well as I could. Read in Spinoza, Cotta, and Livy."

It was for the Brain Club that she wrote "The Socio-Maniac," a cantata caricaturing fas.h.i.+onable society. She set the words to music, and sang with much solemnity the "Mad Song" of the heroine whose brain had been turned by too much gayety:--

"Her mother was a Shaw, And her father was a Tompkins; Her sister was a bore, And her brother was a b.u.mpkin; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!

"Her flounces were of gold, And her slippers were of ermine; And she looked a little bold When she rose to lead the Germin; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!

"For my part I never saw Where she kept her fascination; But I thought she had an aw- Ful conceit and affectation; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!"

New interests were constantly arising. In these days Edwin Booth made his first appearance in Boston. Our mother and father went to the Boston Theatre one rainy evening, "expecting to see nothing more than an ordinary performance. The play was 'Richelieu,' and we had seen but little of Mr. Booth's part in it before we turned to each other and said, 'This is the real thing!'"

Then they saw him in "Hamlet" and realized even more fully that a star had risen. He seemed

... beautiful as dreams of maidenhood, That doubt defy, Young Hamlet, with his forehead grief-subdued, And visioning eye.[50]

[50] "Hamlet at the Boston," _Later Lyrics_, 1866.

Mr. Booth's manager asked her to write a play for the young tragedian.

She gladly consented; Booth himself came to see her; she found him "modest, intelligent, and above all genuine,--the man as worthy of admiration as the artist."

In all the range of cla.s.sic fiction, to which her mind naturally turned, no character seemed to fit him so well as that of Hippolytus; his austere beauty, his reserve and shyness, all seemed to her the personification of the hunter-prince, beloved of Artemis, and she chose this theme for her play.

The writing of "Hippolytus" was accomplished under difficulties. She says of it:--

"I had at this time and for many years afterward a superst.i.tion about a north light. My eyes had given me some trouble, and I felt obliged to follow my literary work under circ.u.mstances most favorable for their use. The exposure of our little farmhouse [at Lawton's Valley] was south and west, and its only north light was derived from a window at the top of the attic stairs. Here was a platform just large enough to give room for a table two feet square. The stairs were shut off from the rest of the house by a stout door. And here, through the summer heats, and in spite of many wasps, I wrote my five-act drama, dreaming of the fine emphasis which Mr. Booth would give to its best pa.s.sages and of the beautiful appearance he would make in cla.s.sic costume. He, meanwhile, was growing into great fame and favor with the public, and was called hither and thither by numerous engagements. The period of his courts.h.i.+p and marriage[51] intervened, and a number of years elapsed between the completion of the play and his first reading of it."

[51] To Mary Devlin, an actress of great charm.

At last the time seemed ripe for the production of the play. E. L.

Davenport, the actor manager of the Howard Athenaeum, agreed to produce it: Charlotte Cushman was to play Phaedra to Booth's Hippolytus.

Rehearsals began, the author's dream seemed close upon fulfilment. Then came a slip never fully explained: the manager suddenly discovered that the subject of the play was a painful one; other reasons were given, but none that appeared sufficient to author or actors.

"My dear," said Miss Cushman, "if Edwin Booth and I had done nothing more than stand upon the stage and say 'good evening' to each other, the house would have been filled."

Briefly, the play was withdrawn. Our mother says: "This was, I think, the greatest 'let down' that I ever experienced. It affected me seriously for some days, after which I determined to attempt nothing more for the stage."

She never forgot the play nor her bitter disappointment.

Many memories cl.u.s.ter about the gracious figure of Edwin Booth. He came often--for so shy and retiring a man--to the Chestnut Street house. We children all wors.h.i.+pped at his shrine; the elder girls worked his initials on the under side of the chair in which he once sat, which was thereafter like no other chair; the younger ones gazed in round-eyed admiration, but the great man had eyes for one only of us all. We gave a party for him, and Beacon Street came in force to meet the brilliant young actor. Alas! the brilliant young actor, after the briefest and shyest of greetings to the company, retired into a corner with eight-year-old Maud, where he sat on the floor making dolls and rabbits out of his pocket handkerchief!

This recalls an oft-quoted anecdote of the time. Our mother wished Charles Sumner to see and know Booth. One evening when the Senator was at the house, she told him of her wish. The next day she writes in her Journal: "Sumner to tea. Made a rude speech on being asked to meet Booth. Said: 'I don't know that I should care to meet him. I have outlived my interest in individuals.' Fortunately, G.o.d Almighty had not, by last accounts, got so far."

Sumner was told of this in her presence. "What a strange sort of book,"

he exclaimed, "your diary must be! You ought to strike that out immediately."

She admired Charles Sumner heartily, but they disagreed on many points.

He disapproved of women's speaking in public (as did the Doctor), and--with wholly kind intentions--did what he could to prevent her giving the above-mentioned readings in Was.h.i.+ngton. She notes this in her Journal.