Julia Ward Howe Part 33

The three following years were important ones to the Howe family.

Lawton's Valley was sold, to our great and lasting grief: and--after a summer spent at Stevens Cottage near Newport--the Doctor bought the place now known as "Oak Glen," scarce half a mile from the Valley; a place to become only less dear to the family. No. 19 Boylston Place was also sold, and he bought No. 32 Mount Vernon Street, a sunny, pleasant house whose s.p.a.cious rooms and tall windows recalled the Chestnut Street house, always regretted.

Here life circled ever faster and faster, fuller and fuller. Our father, though beginning to feel the weight of years, had not yet begun to "take in sail," but continued to pile labor on labor, adding the new while never abandoning the old. For our mother clubs, societies, studies were multiplying, while for both family cares and interests were becoming more and more complicated. The children were now mostly grown. To the mother's constant thought and anxiety about their teeth, their hair, their eyes, their music, their dancing--to say nothing of the weightier matters of the law--was added the consideration of their ball dresses, their party slippers, their partners. She went with the daughters to ball and a.s.sembly; if they danced, she was happy; if not, there was grief behind the cheerful smile, and a sigh was confided to the Journal next day.

Romance hovered over No. 32 Mount Vernon Street. The Greek lessons which were to mean so much to Julia and Laura were brought to a sudden end by the engagement of Julia to the Greek teacher, Michael Anagnos.

Florence (who was now housekeeper, lightening our mother's cares greatly) was already engaged to David Prescott Hall; while Laura's engagement to Henry Richards was announced shortly after Julia's.

The three marriages followed at intervals of a few months. Meantime Harry, whose youthful pranks had been the terror of both parents, had graduated from Harvard, and was now, after two years[69] at the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, beginning his chosen work as a metallurgist.

[69] 1869-1871. He took the course of geology and mining engineering, graduating at the head of his cla.s.s.

She wrote of this beloved son:--

G.o.d gave my son a palace, And a kingdom to control; The palace of his body, The kingdom of his soul.

In childhood and boyhood this "palace" was inhabited by a tricksy sprite. At two years Harry was pulling the tails of the little dogs on the Roman Pincio; at eighteen he was filling the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the college authorities with the same emotions inspired by his father in the previous generation.

"Howe," said the old President of Brown University, when the Chevalier called to pay his respects on his return from Greece, "I am afraid of you now! There may be a fire-cracker under my chair at this moment!"

Once out of college, it fared with the son as with the father. The current of restless energy hitherto devoted to "monkey s.h.i.+nes" (as the Doctor called them) was now turned into another channel. Work, hardly less arduous and unremitting than his father's, became the habit of his life. Science claimed him, and her he served with the same singleness of purpose, the same intensity of devotion with which his parents served the causes that claimed them. He married, in 1874, Fannie, daughter of Willard Gay, of Troy, New York.

We love to recall the time at this house on Beacon Hill. We remember it as a cheerful house, ringing with song and laughter, yet with a steady undercurrent of work and thought; the "precious time," not to be interrupted; the coming and going of grave men and earnest women, all bent on high and hopeful errands, all seeking our two Wise Ones for counsel, aid, sympathy; the coming and going also of a steady stream of "lame ducks" of both s.e.xes and all nationalities, all requiring help, most of them getting it; yet, as ever, the father leaving State Charities and Reforms, the mother flying from Fichte or Xenophon, at any real or fancied need of any child. It is thus that we love to think of No. 32 Mount Vernon Street, the last of the many homes in which we were all together.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PEACE CRUSADE

1870-1872; _aet._ 51-53

ENDEAVOR

"What hast thou for thy scattered seed, O Sower of the plain?

Where are the many gathered sheaves Thy hope should bring again?"

"The only record of my work Lies in the buried grain."

"O Conqueror of a thousand fields!

In dinted armor dight, What growths of purple amaranth Shall crown thy brow of might?"

"Only the blossom of my life Flung widely in the fight."

"What is the harvest of thy saints, O G.o.d! who dost abide?

Where grow the garlands of thy chiefs In blood and sorrow dyed?

What have thy servants for their pains?"

"This only,--to have tried."

J. W. H.

When a branch is cut from a vigorous tree, Nature at once sets to work to adjust matters. New juices flow, new tissues form, the wound is scarfed over, and after a time is seen only as a scar. Not here, but elsewhere, does the new growth take place, the fresh green shoots appear, more vigorous for the pruning.

Thus it was with our mother's life, as one change after another came across it. Little Sam died, and her heart withered with him: then religion and study came to her aid, and through them she reached another blossoming time of thought and accomplishment Now, with the marriage and departure of the children, still another notable change was wrought, rather joyful than sorrowful, but none the less marking an epoch.

Up to this time (1871) the wide, sunny rooms of the house on Beacon Hill had been filled with young, active life. The five children, their friends, their music, their parties, their talk and laughter, kept youth and gayety at full tide: the green branches grew and blossomed.

For all five she had been from their cradle not only mistress of the revels and chief musician, but spur and beacon of mind and soul.

Now four of the five were transplanted to other ground. Many women, confronting changes like these, say to themselves, "It is over. For me there is no more active life; instead, the shelf and the chimney corner." This woman, lifting her eyes from the empty s.p.a.ces, saw Opportunity beckoning from new heights, and moved gladly to meet her.

Now, as ever, she "staked her life upon the red."

The empty s.p.a.ces must be filled. Study no longer sufficed: the need of serving humanity actively, hand and foot, pen and voice, was now urgent.

Her first work under this new impulse was for peace. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 made a deep and painful impression upon her. She had felt a bitter dislike for Louis Napoleon ever since the day when he "stabbed France in her sleep" by the _Coup d'etat_ of December, 1851; but she loved France and the French people; the overwhelming defeat, the bitter humiliation suffered by them filled her with sorrow and indignation. In a lecture on Paris she says: "The great Exposition of 1867 had drawn together an immense crowd from all parts of the world. Among its marvels, my recollection dwells most upon the gallery of French paintings, in which I stood more than once before a full-length portrait of the then Emperor.[70] I looked into the face which seemed to say: 'I have succeeded. What has any one to say about it?' And I pondered the slow movements of that heavenly Justice whose infallible decrees are not to be evaded."

[70] Napoleon III.

Her "Reminiscences" say: "As I was revolving these matters in my mind, while the war was still in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed. The question forced itself upon me, 'Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?' I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed."

This appeal is dated Boston, September, 1870.

APPEAL TO WOMANHOOD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder.

Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the b.l.o.o.d.y exchanges of the battle-field. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the a.s.sumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before.

Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, man as the brother of man, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of G.o.d.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

The appeal was translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Swedish, and sent broadcast far and wide.

In October our mother wrote to Aaron Powell, president of the American Peace Society: "The issue is one which will unite virtually the whole s.e.x. G.o.d gave us, I think, the word to say, but it ought to be followed by immediate and organizing action.... Now, you, my dear sir, are bound, as a Friend and as an Advocate of Peace, to take especial interest in this matter, so I call upon you a little confidently, hoping that you will help my unbusinesslike and unskilful hands to go on with this good work. I wish to avoid occasioning any confusion in the different meetings and organizations of the Woman Suffrage Movement. But I should wish to move for various meetings in which the matter of my appeal, the direct intervention of Woman in the Pacification of the World, should be discussed, and the final move of a general Congress promoted. Please take hold a little now and help me. I have wings but no feet nor hands--rather, only a voice, '_vox et praeterea nihil_.'"

The next step was to call together those persons supposedly interested in such a movement. In December, 1870, it was announced that a meeting "for the purpose of considering and arranging the steps necessary to be taken for calling a World's Congress of Women in behalf of International Peace" would be held in Union League Hall, Madison Avenue and Twenty-sixth Street, New York, on Friday, December 23. The announcement, which sets forth the need for and objects of such a congress, is signed by Julia Ward Howe, William Cullen Bryant, and Mary F. Davis.

The meeting was an important one: there were addresses by Lucretia Mott, Octavius Frothingham, and Alfred Love, the Peace prophet of Philadelphia; letters from John Stuart Mill, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and William Howard Furness, who adjures peace-lovers to "labor for the establishment of a Supreme Court to which all differences between nations shall be referred for settlement."

Mrs. Howe made the opening address, from which we quote these words:--

"So I repeat my call and cry to women. Let it pierce through dirt and rags--let it pierce through velvet and cashmere. It is the call of humanity. It says: 'Help others, and you help yourselves.'"