Julia Ward Howe Part 57

She considered Julia the most gifted of her children. The "Reminiscences" speak of her at some length, making mention of her beneficent life, and of her published works, a volume of poems ent.i.tled "Stray Chords," and "Philosophiae Quaestor," a slender volume in which she described the Concord School of Philosophy and her pleasure therein.

In our mother's house of life, each child had its special room, though no door was locked to any. In all things pertaining to philosophy, Julia was her special intimate. For help and sympathy in suffrage and club doings, she turned naturally to Florence, an ardent worker in these fields; with Harry she would specially enjoy music; with Laura would talk of books; while Maud was the "Prime Minister" in social and household matters. So, till the very last, we gray-haired children leaned on her, clung to her, as in the days when we were children indeed.

A few years before Julia's death, our mother wrote to Mrs. Cheney, who had lost her only daughter: "This combat of the soul with deadly sorrow is a single-handed one, so far as human help is concerned. I do believe that G.o.d's sweet angels are with us when we contend against the extreme of calamity."

Heavy as this affliction was, it brought none of the paralysis of grief caused by Sammy's death: rather, as after the pa.s.sing of the Chevalier, she was urged by the thought of her dead child to more and higher efforts.

In the quiet of Oak Glen she wrote this summer a careful study of Dante and Beatrice, for the Concord School of Philosophy.[99] July 20 found her at Concord, where she and Julia had been wont to go together. She says, "I cannot think of the sittings of the School without a vision of the rapt expression of her face as she sat and listened to the various speakers."[100]

[99] This was a summer school of ten years (1879-88) in which Emerson, Alcott, and W. T. Harris took part.

[100] _Reminiscences_, p. 440.

Spite of her grief in missing this sweet companions.h.i.+p she found the sessions of the School deeply interesting. She was "much more nervous than usual" about her lecture; which "really sounded a good deal better than it had looked to me. It was wonderfully well received."

We are told by the last living representative of the School of Philosophy, Mr. F. B. Sanborn, that she was the most attractive, and sometimes the most profound, of its lecturers; "had the largest audiences, and gave the most pleasure; especially when she joined delicate personal criticism or epigrammatic wit with high philosophy."

The meetings of the School were always a delight to her; the papers written for it were among her most valuable essays; indeed, we may look upon them as the flowering of all her deep and painful toil in the field of philosophy.[101]

[101] These essays were published in a volume ent.i.tled _Is Polite Society Polite?_

September finds her planning an "industrial circle" in each State; a woman's industrial convention hereafter; and attending a Suffrage Convention at Providence.

"Spoke of the divine right, not of kings or people, but of righteousness. Spoke of Ouida's article in the 'North American Review.'

It had been reported that I declined to answer it. I said: 'You cannot mend a stocking which is _all_ holes. If you hold it up it will fall to pieces of itself.'

"In the afternoon spoke about the Marthas, male and female, who see only the trouble and inconvenience of reform: of the Marys who rely upon principle."

After this we have "a day of dreadful hurry, preparing to go West and also to shut up this house. Had to work _tight_ every minute...."

This Western lecture trip was like many others, yet it had its own peculiar pleasures and mishaps.

"_October 12._ Dunkirk, lecture.... No one must know that I got off at the wrong station--Perrysburg, a forlorn hamlet. No train that would bring me to Dunkirk before 6.30 P.M. Ought to have arrived at 1.30. Went to the 'hotel,' persuaded the landlord to lend his buggy and a kindly old fellow to harness his horses to it, and drove twenty miles or more over the mountains, reaching Dunkirk by 5.10 P.M. When the buggy was brought to the door of the hotel, I said: 'How am I to get in?' 'Take it slow and learn to pedal,' said my old driver. Presently he said, 'I guess you ain't so old as I be.' I replied, 'I am pretty well on toward seventy.' 'Well, I am five years beyond,' said he. He drives an accommodation wagon between Perrysburg and Versailles, a small town where a man once wanted to set up a mill, and to buy land and water power, and they wouldn't sell either. Whereupon he went to Tonawanda and made the place. 'Guess they'd have done better to gin him the land and water, and to set up his mill for him,' said my man, Hinds."

On this trip she saw the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, taking the seven-mile walk; went as far as Kansas City; was received everywhere with delightful warmth.

_To Laura_

December 1, 1886.

You see, I was waiting for the winter to begin, in order to write you, and that you ought to have known. But bless you, in Gardiner, Maine, you don't know when real _Winter_ begins, 'cause you have so much sham winter. Well, better late than never. Here's thanking you very much for the delightful [tea] cozy. Maud said, "What are you going to do with it?" sarcastic-like. I replied, "Put it on my head"; to which she _inquit_, "Most natural thing for you to do." The sight of the monogram gave me real satisfaction and a sense of inborn dignity. You boil down to your monogram, after all, and this one was beyond my highest expectations. I am only thinking, dear, whether you would not have shown more respect by putting the crimson satin bow on the monogram side, and thus, as it were, calling attention to the distinguished initials.... I am grinding now in all of my mills, of which one is a paper for the "Woman Suffrage Bazaar," which paper I am doing my best to edit. I cannot in conscience ask you to send me anything for its columns, because, poor dear, you have to do so much work on your own account. At the same time, a trifling overflow into the hat would be very welcome....

Winter brought another grave anxiety. Florence in her turn developed rheumatic fever and became alarmingly ill. The mother-bird flew to her in terror. On the way she met Henry Ward Beecher and told him of her deep distress, made still more poignant by the thought of the little children who might be left motherless. She was scarcely comforted by his a.s.surance that he "had known stepmothers who were very good to their stepchildren"!

It was Christmas time, and she divided her time between the beloved patient and the children who must not lack their holiday cheer.

"_December 27._ The day was a very distressing one to me. I sat much of the time beside Flossy with a strange feeling that I could keep her alive by some effort of my will. I seemed to contend with G.o.d, saying, 'I gave up Julia, I can't give up Flossy--she has children.'..."

"_December 28._ Most of the day with dear Flossy, who seems a little better. I sat up with her until 1.30 A.M., and made a great effort of will to put her to sleep. I succeeded--she slept well for more than an hour and slept again for a good while without any narcotic."

Throughout the illness she fought against the use of narcotics.

The cloud of danger and anxiety pa.s.sed, and the year closed in happiness and deep thankfulness. The last entry reads:--

"G.o.d bless all my dear people, sisters, children, grandchildren, and cousins. G.o.d grant me also to serve while I live, and not to fail of the high and holy life. Amen!"

_To Laura_

Monday, January 31, 1887.

Now, you just look here.

Daughter began her school and music to-day. n.o.body's a-neglecting of her. What you mean? Grandma took her to Clarke church, prouder than a peac.o.c.k,--Grandma, I mean.

Congregation _inquit_: "Whose child is that?"

"Laura's," _responsa sum_.

"_Id cogitavi_" was the general answer. And she's pop'lar, she is.

Little fourteen-year-olds keep a-coming and a-coming. And I draws her bath, and tucks her up in bed. And she's having a splendid time. And I want some more of this paper. And my feelings won't allow me to say any more. No--my dearest sweetest pug pie, your darling won't be forgotten for a moment. We couldn't get at the lessons before, and last week, like strong drink, was raging.

'Fectionate

MA.

Maud was now engaged to John Elliott, a young Scottish painter, whose acquaintance they had made in Europe in 1878. The marriage took place on February 7, 1887. Though there were many periods of separation, the Elliotts, when in this country, made their home for the most part with our mother. The affection between her and her son-in-law was deep; his devotion to her constant. Through the years that were to follow, the comrades.h.i.+p of the three was hardly less intimate than that of the two had been.

The Journal carries us swiftly onward. In place of the long meditations on philosophy and metaphysics, we have brief notes of comings and goings, of speaking and preaching, writing and reading. She works hard to finish her paper on "Women in the Three Professions, Law, Medicine, and Theology," for the "Chautauquan." "Very tired afterwards."

She speaks at the Newport Opera House with Mrs. Livermore (who said she did not know Mrs. Howe could speak so well); she takes part in the Authors' Reading for the Longfellow Memorial in the Boston Museum, reciting "Our Orders" and the "Battle Hymn," with her lines to Longfellow recently composed.

"I wore my velvet gown, my mother's lace, Uncle Sam's _Saint Esprit_, and did my best, as did all the others."

The next day she speaks at a suffrage meeting in Providence, and makes this comment:--

"Woman suffrage represents individual right, integral humanity, ideal justice. I spoke of the att.i.tude and action of Minerva in the 'Eumenides';[102] her resistance to the Furies, who I said personified popular pa.s.sion fortified by ancient tradition; her firm stand for a just trial, and her casting the decisive ballot. I hoped that this would prefigure a great life-drama in which this gracious prophecy would be realized."

[102] Cf. aeschylus.

In a "good talk with Miss Eddy,"[103] she devises a correspondence and circular to obtain information concerning art clubs throughout the country. "I am to draft the circular."

[103] Miss Sarah J. Eddy, then of Providence, a granddaughter of Francis Jackson.

She makes an address at the Unitarian Club in Providence.

"The keynote to this was given me yesterday, by the sight of the people who thronged the popular churches, attracted, in a great measure no doubt, by the Easter decoration and music. I thought: 'What a pity that everybody cannot hear Phillips Brooks.' I also thought: 'They can all hear the lesson of heavenly truth in the great Church of All Souls and of All Saints; _there_ is room enough and to spare.'"