Julia Ward Howe Part 53

In later January she has "a peaceful day at Va.s.sar College.... In the afternoon met the teachers and read some poems, to wit, all of the Egyptian ones, and the poem on the Vestal dug up in Rome. At bedtime last night I had a thought of ghosts. I spoke of this to Maria Mitch.e.l.l to-day. She told me that Mr. Matthew Va.s.sar's body had been laid in this room and those of various persons since, which, had I known, I had been less comfortable than I was."

"_February 18._ Young Salvini [Alessandro] and Ventura to luncheon, also Lizzie Boott and Mrs. Jack [Gardner]. Salvini is beautiful to look at, having a finely chiselled Greek head. He is frank, cordial, and intelligent, and speaks very appreciatively of his parts, especially of Romeo."

"To the Intemperate Women's Home where I spoke from the text, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'"

_To Laura_

March 17, 1883.

DARLING CHILD,--

Just let drop everything, and take me up on your lap. I'se very tired, writing, tugging at all sorts of things. Long silence b'tween us.

Growing estrangement, eh? Richardses are better, eh? Which n.o.body can deny.... Have been hard at work upon a memoir of Maria Mitch.e.l.l, which is well-nigh finished.... Am spleeny to-day: the weather being according....

_To "Uncle Sam"_

March 28, 1883.

MY DARLING BROTHER,--

I owe you two good long letters, and am ashamed to think how long it is since you have seen my crabbed chirography. Of course, it is the old story. I have been dreadfully busy with all sorts of work, in all of which I take delight, while yet to quote St. Paul, "The good that I would I do not." To give you a few items, I have just finished a short memoir of Maria Mitch.e.l.l, Professor of Astronomy at Va.s.sar College. This was an interesting task, but had to be very carefully done. At the same time, I had to correct Maud's memoir of me, which is to be published in the same collection of biographies of _eminent_ women! I think I am eminent for undertaking ten times more than I can do, and doing about one tenth of it. Well--I have given three Sunday preachments at a sort of Woman's church which they have here. My themes were: "The Order of the Natural and the Spiritual," "Tares and Wheat," and "The Power of Religion in the Life." I was in New York last Wednesday, to preside over the mid-year Conference of the Woman's Congress.... I had a visit from Salvini the other day. He was most charming, and sent me a box for last evening's performance of "The Outlaw," in Italian: "Morte Civile." I went, with my Harry and Laura, I in my best attire. I had received some very beautiful roses, which I threw upon the stage, at the recall after the third Act. To-day I met Wendell Phillips in the street, and made him come in to see Marion, whose letter on English rule in India, printed in the New York "Tribune," he had liked very much. Phillips asked me how I came to live in this part of the city, and I told him about your gift of the house.... Marion is sitting by my fire, with Browning's "Jocoseria"

in his hands, from which he has been reading pa.s.sages. It sounds strange and silly....

_To the same_

OAK GLEN, May 10, 1883.

... --I have been here alone all these days, with many gentle ghosts of past companions.h.i.+p, and with a task at which I work steadily every day.

This is a life of Margaret Fuller, rewritten mostly from the memoirs already published, but also recast in my own thought. The publisher is in a hurry for it, and I have to work without intermission, _i.e._, as long as I can, every day; but with all the diligence in my power, I cannot get along very rapidly. When I have finished my stint, I refresh myself with a little Greek, and also with an Italian novel which I have brought with me. The place looks lovely, and I sat, this afternoon, on the western piazza, near that angle where you and I used to sit, last summer, and enjoyed a bath of suns.h.i.+ne....

_To Laura_

OAK GLEN, August 21, 1883.

MY MUCH NEGLECTED DARLING,--

I give you to-day my first hour, or half-hour, as the case may be, feeling that my long silence has been abominable, and must be broken, even if you should feel it to be your duty to throw an inkstand at my head, in return for my letter. It is partly Backbone's fault. Backbone has been so scrouged and put upon by the summer's work that he sometimes cuts up amazing. Said work is pretty well out of hand at this moment, the last chapters of "Margaret Fuller" being ready for the press.... I have so much felt the shocking uncharity of things in the way of diaries and letters which have been published within the last few years. Not the least bad exhibition in this kind has been made by Carlyle and his wife.

I have just finished reading the three volumes of her letters and memorials, which were indeed interesting to me by the mention in them of persons whom I myself have known. Still, the spirit of the book is painful. It is sad to see how she adopted, at times, her husband's harsh creed. I should think Froude, the editor, must be wanting in common taste and decency, to have allowed the letters to appear in all this crudeness. I am so glad that I never went near them, after that one tea-drink, a very bad one, forty years ago. Is this enough about the Carlyles? And is it strictly charitable? I dunno; I'm getting very old to know anything....

The "Life of Margaret Fuller" (in Roberts Brothers' series of "Famous Women") was a small book, yet it stood for much careful work, and was so recognized and received. The recognition sometimes took a singular form, _e.g._, a letter from a gentleman styling himself "Prof. Nat. & Geol.,"

who desires two copies of the "Margaret Fuller," and asks her to "accept for them a choice selection of '_Lithological_,' Cabinet of Geological Mineral specimens, representing the Glacial, and Emptus period, also the Crystalline formation of the Earth's Strata, in Coolings, Rubbings, and Scratchings of the Drift Age."

The exchange was not effected.

_To "Uncle Sam"_

December 15, 1883.

DARLING BRO' SAM,--

I must write you at once, or my silence will expand into a broad ocean which I shall be afraid to cross.... I have had a very laborious year, now screwed to my desk, and working at _timed_ tasks, now travelling widely, and scattering my spoken words.... Well, so much for desk-work, now for the witch broomstick on which I fly. The Congress was held in Chicago, in mid-October. From this place, I went to Minneapolis....

Harry and his wife are here, paying handsomely their share of our running expenses. The little house looks friendly and comfortable, and I hope, after a few more flights, to enjoy it very much. These will now be very short.... Boston is all alive with Irving's acting, Matthew Arnold's lectures, Cable's readings, and the coming opera. _Pere_ Hyacinthe also has been here, and a very eminent Hindoo, named Mozumdar.

I have lost many of these doings by my journeys, but heard Arnold's lecture on Emerson last evening. I have also heard one of Cable's readings. Arnold does not in the least understand Emerson, I think. He has a positive, square-jawed English mind, with no super-sensible _apercus_. His elocution is pitiable, and when, after his lecture, Wendell Phillips stepped forward and said a few graceful words of farewell to him, it was like the Rose complimenting the Cabbage....

The year 1883 closed with a climax of triumphant fatigue in the Merchants' and Mechanics' Fair, in which she was president of the Woman's Department. This was to lead to a far more serious undertaking in the autumn of 1884, that of the Woman's Department of the New Orleans Exposition. The Journal may bridge the interval between the two.

"_February 3, 1884._ Wendell Phillips is dead.

"To speak at the meeting in memory of Cheshub Chunder Sen at Parker Memorial Hall. Heard T. W. Higginson and Mrs. Cheney. H. spoke at length of Phillips and said too much about his later mistakes, I thought, saying nothing about his suffrage work, of which I took care to speak, when it was my turn. Several persons thanked me for my words, which treated very briefly of Phillips's splendid services to humanity."

[She spoke of him as "the most finished orator of our time," and as "the Chrysostom of modern reform."]

"_February 6._ Wendell Phillips's funeral. I am invited to attend memorial services at Faneuil Hall on Friday evening. I accept."

"_February 9...._ I was very glad that I had come to this, the People's meeting, and had been able to be heard in Faneuil Hall, the place of all others where the _People_ should commemorate Wendell Phillips. My task was to speak of his services to the cause of Woman. Others spoke of him in connection with Labor Reform, Anti-Slavery, Ireland, and Temperance."

_To Laura_

Just so, knowed you'd take advantage of my silence to write su'thin saucy. Until I got your kammunikation I felt kind o' penitent like--hadn't thanked for no Xmas nor nothing. Felt self to be shabby and piglike in conduct, though perfectly angelic in intention. Pop comes your letter--pop goes my repentance. "She's got even with me," I said: "If she went into a tailor's shop to get a cabbage leaf, to make an apple pie, what does it matter by what initials she calls herself? Who's going to distress themselves about the set of her cloak? And she do boast about it preposterous, and that are a fact."

Here endeth the first meditation, and I will now fall back upon the "Dearly beloved," for the rest of the service....

_To the same_

241 BEACON STREET, February 11, 1884.

_Oh, thou, who art not quite a Satan!_

Question is, dost thou not come very near it?...

I have been very busy, and have _orated_ tremendous, this winter. I didn't go for to do it, you know, but I cou'n' avoin it. [A household expression, dating back to her childhood, when a gentleman with a defect of speech, speaking of some trouble incurred by her father, said, "Poor Mr. Warn! he cou'n' avoin it!" This gentleman was a clergyman, and was once heard to a.s.sure his congregation that "their hens [heads] wou'n be crownen with glory!"]

"_February 12._ Hearing at State House, Committee of Probate, etc., on the pet.i.tion of Julia Ward Howe and others that the laws concerning married women may be amended in three respects. We had prepared three separate bills, one providing that the mother shall have equal rights with the father in their children, especially in determining their residence and their education. A second ruling that on the wife's death, the husband, who now gets all her real estate, may have one half, and the children the other, and that the widow shall have the same right to half the husband's real estate after his death. A third bill was devised to enable husband and wife to contract valid money obligations toward each other."

Through the untiring efforts of the Suffragists these bills were all pa.s.sed.