Julia Ward Howe Part 38

"Got to work at once making abstracts from memory.... Spoke more than an hour.... Got my money--would rather have paid it than have had such an experience. Felt as if my inner Guide had misled and deserted me. But some good to some one may come of what I said and tried to say."

She returned from this trip very weary, only to find "my lecture advertised, not one line of it written--subject, 'Men's Women and Women's Women.' Set to work at once, almost overpowered by the task, and the shortness of the time."

The lecture was finished in the morning, delivered in the afternoon.

"Warm congratulations at the close.... Such a sense of relief!"

On December 19 she notes the departure of "dear Flossy and her dearest little Boy.... House very desolate without them. This boy is especially dear to Doctor Howe and myself."

"_December 28._ Maria Mitch.e.l.l's Club lecture to-day was beautiful exceedingly. I might have envied her the steady grasp and unbroken advance of scientific study, did I not feel sure that G.o.d gives to each his own work. Mine, such as it is, would be helped and beautified by the knowledge which she imparts so easily, but perhaps all of her that I shall remember and try to follow is her spirit. Her silver hair seems l.u.s.trous with spiritual brightness, as do her dark eyes. Her movements are full of womanly grace, not ballroom grace."

From now on the movement is _sempre crescendo_. Work for peace, work for clubs; lecturing, preaching, tending the Doctor in his days of illness; taking the youngest daughter to b.a.l.l.s and parties; founding a club for her, too. She felt that the young girls of Maud's age needed the onward impulse as much as their elders; accordingly, in November, 1871, she called together a meeting of young women, and with their aid and good-will formed the Sat.u.r.day Morning Club of Boston. The energy with which this organization sprang into being showed that the time was ripe for it. That energy, handed on through two generations, is no less lively to-day; the name of the club recalls a hundred beautiful and interesting occasions.

The Journal hurries us on from day to arduous day. Even the aspiration of New Year's Day, 1873, breathes the note of hurry: "Dear Lord, let me this year be worthy to call upon thy name!"

February 5 finds her on another quest: "Mem. Never to come by this route again. Had to turn out at Utica at 4 A.M. Three hours in depot...."

"_March 1._ Went to Sat.u.r.day Morning Club. Found that John Fiske had failed them. Was told to improvise a lecture on the spot. Did so...."

"_March 5._ Went to hear the arguments in favor of rescinding the vote of censure against Charles Sumner...."

[In 1872, Sumner introduced in the Senate of the United States a resolution that the names of battles with fellow-countrymen should not be continued in the Army Register, nor placed on the regimental colors of the United States. This measure was violently opposed; the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts denounced it as "an insult to the loyal soldiery of the Nation, ... meeting the unqualified condemnation of the Commonwealth." For more than a year Sumner's friends, headed by John G.

Whittier, strove to obtain the rescinding of this censure; it was not till 1874 that it was rescinded by a large majority.]

"_March 10._ A morning for work in my own room, so rare a luxury that I hardly know how to use it. Begin with my Greek Testament...."

"_March 17._ Radical Club.... It was an interesting sitting, but I felt as if the Club had about done its work. People get to believing that talk turns the world: it is much, but it is nothing without work...."

"_May 27._ Fifty-four years old to-day. Thank G.o.d for what I have had and hope to have.... In the afternoon my dear children had a beautiful birthday party for me, including most of my old friends and some of the newer ones. Aga.s.siz came, and his wife; he brought a bouquet and kissed me. I had beautiful flowers.... Poor Chev was ill with a frightful headache. I was much touched by the dear children's affectionate device and shall remember this birthday."

This was the first of the Birthday Receptions, which were to be our happiest festivals through many happy years.

Monday, June 2, was the day she had appointed as Mothers' Peace Day, her annual Peace Festival.

"The day of many prayers dawned propitious, and was as bright and clear as I could have wished."

She was up early, and found the hall "beautifully decorated with many fine bouquets, wreaths, and baskets, the white dove of Peace rising above other emblems." There were two services, morning and evening, and many speakers. "Mr. Tilden and Mr. Garrison both did n.o.bly for me....

Thank G.o.d for so much!"

She had the great joy of hearing that the day was celebrated in other countries besides her own. In London, Geneva, Constantinople, and various other places, services were held, and men and women prayed and sang in behalf of peace: this she counted among the precious things of the year, and of several years to come.

"_June 6._ Quiet at last, and face to face with the eternal Gospel.

Weary and confused, anxious to wind up my business well, and begin my polyglot sheet...."

Yet on June 10 she is arriving in New York at 5.40 A.M., bound for a peace meeting.

"_June 11._ I got two bricks from the dear old house at the corner of Broadway and Bond Street, now all down and rebuilding. Will have one enamelled for myself. Ah, Lord, what a bitter lesson is in this tearing-down! How I was wanting in duty to the n.o.ble parent who built this grand home for me! I hope to help young people to understand something of parental love and its responsibilities. But parents also must study children, since each new soul may require a new method."

"_June 12._ Home very gladly. Helped Maud with her Latin. At 3.30 to rehea.r.s.e 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.' I Hermia and Snout. At 7.30 the reading, which was the pleasantest we have had."

[These readings were in the vestry of the Church of the Disciples. Mr.

Clarke, our mother, Erving Winslow, and others of the congregation took part: we remember the late Professor James Mills Pierce as Orlando in "As You Like It"; his beautiful reading of the part contrasting oddly with his middle-aged, long-bearded personality. Our mother's rendering of Maria in "Twelfth Night" was something to remember.]

"_June 17._ Up at five and to get a boat. Maud and the Lieutenant [Zalinski] rowed me to Fort Independence and back, a most refres.h.i.+ng excursion. Dear Dr. Hedge came out to make a morning visit. I kept him as long as I could. We talked of Bartol, Rubinstein, Father Taylor, and Margaret Fuller, whom he knew when she was fourteen years old. He urged me to labor for dress reform, which he considered much needed. Had preached two sermons on the subject which his dressy paris.h.i.+oners resented, telling him that their husbands approved of their fine clothes. I begged him to unearth these sermons and give them to us at the club. We spoke of marriage, and I unfolded rapidly my military and moral theory of human relations. Thought of a text for a sermon on this subject: 'Arise, take up thy bed and walk.' This because the ills of marriage which are deemed incurable are not. We must meet them with the energetic will which converts evil into good, and without which all good degenerates into evil."

July finds her at Oak Glen. She is full of texts and sermons, but makes time to write to f.a.n.n.y Perkins,[75] proposing "_Picnics with a Purpose_, sketching, seaside lectures, astronomical evenings." This thought may have been the germ from which grew the Town and Country Club, of which more hereafter.

[75] Mrs. Charles C. Perkins.

The writing of sermons seems to have crowded serious poetry out of sight in these days, but the Comic Muse was always at hand with tambourine and flageolet, ready to strike up at a moment's notice. There was much coming and going of young men and maidens at Oak Glen in those days, and much singing of popular songs of a melancholy or desperate cast. The maiden was requested to take back the heart she had given; what was its anguish to her? There were handfuls of earth in a coffin hid, a coffin under the daisies, the beautiful, beautiful daisies; and so on, and so on, _ad lachrymam_. She bore all this patiently; but one day she said to Maud, "Come! You and these young persons know nothing whatever of real trouble. I will make you a song about a real trouble!" And she produced, words and tune, the following ditty:--

COOKERY BOOKERY, OH!

My Irish cook has gone away Upon my dinner-party day; I don't know what to do or say-- Cookery bookery, oh!

_Chorus_:

Sing, saucepan, range, and kitchen fire!

Sing, coals are high and always higher!

Sing, crossed and vexed, till you expire!

Cookery bookery, oh!

She could cook every kind of dish, "Wittles" of meat and "wittles" of fish, And soup as fancy as you wish-- And she is gone away!

She weighed two hundred pounds of cheek, She had a voice that made me meek, I had to listen when she did speak-- Cookery bookery, oh!

My husband comes, a saucy elf, And eyes the saucepan on the shelf; Says he, "Why don't you cook yourself?"

Cookery bookery, oh!

_Chorus_:

Sing, saucepan, range, and kitchen fire!

Sing, coals are high and always higher!

Sing, crossed and vexed, till you expire!

Cookery bookery, oh!

_Jocosa Lyra!_ one chord of its gay music suggests another. It may have been in this summer that she wrote "The Newport Song," which also has its own lilting melody.

_Non sumus fas.h.i.+onabiles: Non damus dapes splendides:_ But in a modest way, you know, We like to see our money go: _Et gaudeamus igitur_, Our soul has nought to fidget her!

We do not care to quadrigate On Avenues in gilded state: No gold-laced footmen laugh behind At our vacuity of mind: But in a modest one-horse shay, We rumble, tumble as we may, _Et gaudeamus igitur_, Our soul has nought to fidget her!

When aestivation is at end, We've had our fun and seen our friend.

No thought of payment makes us ill, We don't know such a word as "bill": _Et gaudeamus igitur_, Our soul has nought to fidget her!