Julia Ward Howe Part 22

"I wrote him a very warm letter, but with no injurious phrase, as I felt only grief and indignation, not dis-esteem, towards him. Yet the fact of having written the letter became extremely painful to me, when it was once beyond recall. I could not help writing a second on the day following, to apologize for the roughness of the first. This was a diplomatic fault, I think, but one inseparable from my character. C.S.'s reply, which I dreaded to read, was very kind. While I clearly saw his misapprehension of the whole matter, I saw also the thorough kindliness and sincerity of his nature. So we disagree, but I love him."

Mr. Sumner did not attend the readings, but he came to see her, and was, as always, kind and friendly. After seeing him in the Senate she writes: "Sumner looks up and smiles. That smile seems to illuminate the Senate."

Another pa.s.sage in the Journal of March, 1864, is in a different note: "Maggie ill and company to dinner. I washed breakfast things, cleared the table, walked, read Spinoza a little, then had to 'fly round,' as my dinner was an early one. Picked a grouse, and saw to various matters.

Company came, a little early. The room was cold. Hedge, Palfrey, and Alger to dinner. Conversation pleasant, but dinner late, and not well served. Palfrey and Hedge read Parker's Latin epitaph on Chev, amazed at the bad Latinity."

In June, 1864, a Russian squadron, sent to show Russia's good-will toward the United States, dropped anchor in Boston Harbor, and hospitable Boston rose up in haste to receive the strangers. Dr. Holmes wrote a song beginning,--

"Seabirds of Muscovy, Rest in our waters,"--

which was sung to the Russian national air at a public reception.

Our mother for once made no "little verse," but she saw a good deal of the Russian officers; gave parties for them, and attended various functions and festivities on board the s.h.i.+ps. On Sunday, June 22, she writes:--

"To ma.s.s on board the Oslaba.... The service was like the Armenian Easter I saw in Rome.... It is a sacrifice to G.o.d instead of a lesson from Him, which after all makes the difference between the old religions and the true Christian. For even Judaism is heathen compared with Christianity. Yet I found this very consoling, as filling out the verities of religious development. I seemed to hear in the responses a great harmony in which the first man had the extreme ba.s.s and the last born babe the extreme treble. Theo. Parker and my dear Sammy were blended in it."

Soon after this the "seabirds of Muscovy" departed; then came the flitting to Newport, and a summer of steady work.

"Read Paul in the Valley. Thought of writing a review of his first two epistles from the point of view of the common understanding. The clumsy Western mind has made such literal and material interpretations of the Oriental finesses of the New Testament, that the present coa.r.s.e and monstrous beliefs, so far behind the philosophical, aesthetic, and natural culture of the age, is imposed by the authority of the few upon the ignorance of the many, and stands a monument of the stupidity of all.

"Paul's views of the natural man are, inevitably, much colored by the current b.e.s.t.i.a.lity of the period. To apply his expressions to the innocent and inevitable course of Nature is coa.r.s.e, unjust, and demoralizing, because confusing to the moral sense."

"I came to the conclusion to-day that an heroic intention is not to be kept in sight without much endeavor. Now that I have finished at least one portion of my Ethics and Dynamics, I find myself thinking how to get just credit for it, rather than how to make my work most useful to others. The latter must, however, be my object, and shall be. Did not Chev so discourage it, I should feel bound to give these lectures publicly, being, as they are, a work for the public. I do not as yet decide what to do with them."

Returning to 13 Chestnut Street, she found a multiplicity of work awaiting her. Ethics had to stand aside and make way for Poetry and Philanthropy. New York was to celebrate the seventieth birthday of William Cullen Bryant; she was asked to write a poem for the occasion.

This she did joyfully, composing and arranging the stanzas mostly in the train between Newport and Boston.

On the day of the celebration, she took an early train for New York: Dr.

Oliver Wendell Holmes was on the train. "I will sit by you, Mrs. Howe,"

he said, "but I must not talk! I am going to read a poem at the Bryant celebration, and must save my voice."

"By all means let us keep silent," she replied. "I also have a poem to read at the Bryant Celebration."

Describing this scene she says, "The dear Doctor, always my friend, overestimated his power of abstinence from the interchange of thought which was so congenial to him. He at once launched forth in his own brilliant vein, and we were within a few miles of our destination when we suddenly remembered that we had not taken time to eat our luncheon."

George Bancroft met them at the station, carried her trunk himself ("a small one!"), and put her into his own carriage. The reception was in the Century Building. She entered on Mr. Bryant's arm, and sat between him and Mr. Bancroft on the platform. The Journal tells us:--

"After Mr. Emerson's remarks my poem was announced. I stepped to the middle of the platform, and read my poem. I was full of it, and read it well, I think, as every one heard me, and the large room was crammed.

The last two verses--not the best--were applauded.... This was, I suppose, the greatest public honor of my life. I record it for my grandchildren."

The November pages of the Journal are blank, but on that for November 21 is pasted a significant note. It is from the secretary of the National Sailors' Fair, and conveys the thanks of the Board of Managers to Mrs.

Howe "for her great industry and labor in editing the 'Boatswain's Whistle.'"

Neither Journal nor "Reminiscences" has one word to say about fair or paper; yet both were notable. The great war-time fairs were far more than a device for raising money. They were festivals of patriotism; people bought and sold with a kind of sacred ardor. This fair was Boston's contribution toward the National Sailors' Home. It was held in the Boston Theatre, which for a week was transformed into a wonderful hive of varicolored bees, all "workers," all humming and hurrying. The "Boatswain's Whistle" was the organ of the fair. There were ten numbers of the paper: it lies before us now, a small folio volume of eighty pages.

t.i.tle and management are indicated at the top of the first column:--

THE BOATSWAIN'S WHISTLE.

----------------- Editorial Council.

Edward Everett. A. P. Peabody.

John G. Whittier. J. R. Lowell.

O. W. Holmes. E. P. Whipple.

----------------- Editor.

Julia Ward Howe.

Each member of the Council made at least one contribution to the paper; but the burden fell on the Editor's shoulders. She worked day and night; no wonder that the pages of the Journal are blank. Beside the editorials and many other unsigned articles, she wrote a serial story, "The Journal of a Fancy Fair," which brings back vividly the scene it describes. In those days the raffle was not discredited. Few people realized that it was a crude form of gambling; clergy and laity alike raffled merrily.

Our mother, however, in her story speaks through the lips of her hero a pungent word on the subject:--

"The raffle business is, I suppose, the great humbug of occasions of this kind. It seems to me very much like taking a front tooth from a certain number of persons in order to make up a set of teeth for a party who wants it and who does not want to pay for it."

We should like to linger over the pages of the "Boatswain's Whistle"; to quote from James Freeman Clarke's witty dialogues, Edward Everett's stately periods, Dr. Holmes's sparkling verse; to describe General Grant, the prize ox, white as driven snow and weighing 3900 pounds, presented by the owner to President Lincoln and by him to the fair. Did we not see him drawn in triumph through Boston streets on an open car, and realize in an instant--fresh from our "Wonder-Book"--what Europa's bull looked like?

But of all the treasures of the little paper, we must content ourselves with this dispatch:--

Allow me to wish you a great success. With the old fame of the navy made bright by the present war, you cannot fail. I name none lest I wrong others by omission. To all, from Rear Admiral to honest Jack, I tender the nation's admiration and grat.i.tude.

A. LINCOLN.

CHAPTER X

THE WIDER OUTLOOK

1865; _aet._ 46

THE WORD

Had I one of thy words, my Master, With a spirit and tone of thine, I would run to the farthest Indies To scatter the joy divine.

I would waken the frozen ocean With a billowy burst of joy: Stir the s.h.i.+ps at their grim ice-moorings The summer pa.s.ses by.

I would enter court and hovel, Forgetful of mien or dress, With a treasure that all should ask for, An errand that all should bless.

I seek for thy words, my Master, With a spelling vexed and slow: With scanty illuminations In an alphabet of woe.

But while I am searching, scanning A lesson none ask to hear, My life writeth out thy sentence Divinely just and dear.

J. W. H.