Julia Ward Howe Part 87

"_April 8._ Great trouble of mind about attending the Peace Convention in New York, which I have promised to do. Laura dead against it, reinforced by Wesselhoeft, Sr., who p.r.o.nounces it dangerous for me. I at last wrote to ask my dear minister about it."

"_April 9...._ A violent snowstorm keeps me at home. Minister and wife write, 'Don't go to Peace Convention.' I asked G.o.d in my prayer this morning to make going possible or impossible for me. I took C. G. A.'s letter as making it impossible, as I had decided to abide by his decision. Wrote a letter of explanation to Anna Garlin Spencer. I am much disappointed, but it is a relief not to cause Laura such painful anxiety as she would have felt if I had decided to go. She wept with joy when I gave it up. We had a very pleasant dinner party for the Barrett Wendells with their friends, Professor Ames, of Berkeley University, California, 'Waddy' Longfellow, Charles Gibson, Laura, Betty, and I."

She sent a letter to the Convention, which was read by Florence. In this, after recalling her Peace Crusade of 1872, she said:--

"Here and there, a sisterly voice responded to my appeal, but the greater number said: 'We have neither time nor money that we can call our own. We cannot travel, we cannot meet together.' And so my intended Peace Congress of Women melted away like a dream, and my final meeting, held in the world's great metropolis, did not promise to lead to any important result.

"What has made the difference between that time and this? New things, so far as women are concerned, viz.: the higher education conceded to them, and the discipline of a.s.sociated action, with which later years have made them familiar. Who shall say how great an element of progress has existed in this last clause? Who shall say what fretting of personal ambition has become merged in the higher ideal of service to the State and to the world? The n.o.ble army of women which I saw as a dream, and to which I made my appeal, has now come into being. On the wide field where the world's great citizens band together to uphold the highest interests of society, women of the same type employ their gifts and graces to the same end. Oh, happy change! Oh, glorious metamorphosis! In less than half a century the conscience of mankind has made its greatest stride toward the control of human affairs. The women's colleges and the women's clubs have had everything to do with the great advance which we see in the moral efficiency of our s.e.x. These two agencies have been derided and decried, but they have done their work.

"If a word of elderly counsel may become me at this moment, let me say to the women here a.s.sembled: Do not let us go back from what we have gained. Let us, on the contrary, press ever forward in the light of the new knowledge, of the new experience. If we have rocked the cradle, if we have soothed the slumbers of mankind, let us be on hand at their great awakening to make steadfast the peace of the world!"

She was glad afterward that she had not gone; but a significant corollary to the matter appears on April 25:--

"Providence--a pleasant trip, made possible by dear Laura's departure."

(That is, "dear Laura" knew nothing about it till afterward. How often we recalled the old Quaker's saying to her, "It was borne in upon me at an early period that if I told no one what I intended to do, I should be enabled to do it!")

In the last week of April ("dear Laura" being still absent) she spoke four times in public, on four successive days. These addresses were at the Kindergarten for the Blind ("I missed the snap which Michael's presence was wont to give; I spoke praise of him to the children, as one to be held in dear remembrance; to the visitors, as having left the public a sacred legacy in these schools, which he created with so much labor"), at Faneuil Hall, a meeting about Old Home Week, at the West Newton High School, and at Providence. On the fifth day she was at the Wintergreen Club, answering the question, "What is the Greatest Evil of the Present Day?"--"False estimates of values, vehement striving for what hinders rather than helps our spiritual development."

After this bout she was glad to rest a day or two, but in another week was ready for the Woman Suffrage Festival. "I to open it, evening, Faneuil Hall. A day of rus.h.i.+ng. Lady Mary and Professor Gilbert Murray to breakfast 9 A.M., which I much enjoyed. Then my little music man, who took three tunes; then a s.n.a.t.c.h at preparation for the evening's exercises. Jack and Elizabeth Chapman in the afternoon. At 4.45 got a little rest and sleep. At 5.40 drove to Faneuil Hall, which I found not so full as sometimes. Thought miserably of my speech. Light to read it very dim. I called to order, introduced Mr. White and the ladies'

quartette, then read my poor little scribble.... I was thankful to get through my part, and my speech in print wasn't bad at all."

In May she preached at the Church of the Disciples.

"A culmination of anxiety for this day, desired and yet dreaded. My head growled a little at waking, but not badly. My voice seemed all right, but how about the matter of my sermon? Was it all worth while, and on Whitsunday too? I wore my white cashmere dress. Laura went with me to church. C. G. A. was there. As he led me to the pulpit, the congregation rose. The service was very congenial and calming to my anxiety. I read the sermon quite audibly from beginning to end. It was listened to with profound attention, if I may say so."

"_May 20...._ Marion Crawford arrived soon after three for a little visit. He looks greatly improved in health since I last saw him. He must have pa.s.sed through some crisis and come out conqueror. He has all his old charm...."

She was lamenting the death of her cousin and childhood playfellow, Dr.

Valentine Mott Francis, when "a much greater affliction" fell upon her in the death of her son-in-law, David Prescott Hall. "This hurts me,"

she writes, "like a physical pain."

_To Florence_

OAK GLEN, July 3, 1907.

MY DEAREST DEAR FLOSSY,--

You are quite right in saying that we greatly need the consoling belief in a future life to help us bear the painful separation which death brings. Surely, the dear Christ believed in immortality, and promised it to faithful souls. I have myself derived great comfort from this belief, although I must confess that I know nothing about it. You may remember what [Downer] said to your dear father: "I don't know anything about it, but Jesus Christ certainly believed in immortality, and I pin my faith on him, and _run for luck_."... Alice and her trio of babes came safe to hand this morning. Frances at once began to spread the gravel from outdoors on the best staircase, but desisted when forbidden to do so.... Farewell, dearest child. You have had a grievous loss, and will feel it more and more. We must trust in G.o.d, and take our sorrows believing in the loving fatherhood. Maud writes me that she suffers an _irreparable_ loss in dear David's death....

Your loving MOTHER.

Much work was on hand this summer: a poem for Old Home Week in Boston, another for the Cooperstown Centennial, a paper on the "Elegant Literature of Fifty Years Since," one for the "Delineator" on "The Three Greatest Men I Have Known." These were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Dr. Howe. She spent much time and pains on this article. She read Elliot Cabot's "Life of Emerson," which she thought "certainly a good piece of work, but deficient, it seems to me, in the romantic sympathy which is the true interpretation of Emerson and of all his kind."

She "hammered" hard on the two poems, with good results.

"_July 14._ I can hardly believe it, but my miserable verses, re-read to-day, seemed quite possible, if I can have grace to fill out their sketchiness. Last word ton-ight: I think I have got a poem. _Nil desperandum!_"

"_July 24._ Difficult to exaggerate the record of my worry this morning.

I feel a painful uncertainty about going to Boston to read my poem for Old Home Week. Worse than this is my trouble about two poems sent me while in Boston, with original music, to be presented to the committee for Home Week, which I have entirely forgotten and neglected. To do this was far from my intention, but my old head fairly gave out in the confusion of the various occasions in which I was obliged to take an active part."

She yielded to entreaty and stayed at home, and was rewarded by "a most gratifying letter from Edward Everett Hale, telling me that Josiah Quincy read my poem with real feeling, and that it was warmly received."

"My prayer is answered. I have lived to see my dear girl again.... I give thanks earnestly and heartily, but seem for a time paralyzed by her presence."

With the early autumn came a great pleasure in a visit to the new "Green Peace," the house which her son had built at Bedford Hills, New York.

She was delighted with the house and garden; the Journal tells of all manner of pleasant gayeties.

"_September 12._ Fannie had a luncheon party even pleasanter than yesterday's. Rev. Mr. Luquer is a grandson of Dominick Lynch, who used to come to my father's house in my childhood and break my heart by singing 'Lord Ullin's Daughter.' I remember creeping under the piano once to hide my tears. He sang all the Moore melodies with great expression.... This, his descendant, looks a good deal like him. Was bred a lawyer. My good Uncle Cutler twice asked him whether he would study for the ministry. He said, 'No.' My uncle said the second time, 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' This word, he told me, came back to him. ... Worked a good deal on my poem. At least thought and thought much, and altered a little."

This was the poem which prefaces this chapter and which was written for the forthcoming Unitarian Convention in Boston. She had been at work on it for some time, first "_trying to try for it_," and later "hammering"

and polis.h.i.+ng with great care. "It came to me like a flash," she says, "but had to be much thought over and corrected." And again, "It was given to me something as was my 'Battle Hymn.'..."

"_October 25._ Wrote to a very b.u.mptious child, thirteen years old, who proffers me her friends.h.i.+p and correspondence, claiming to have written poems and magazine contributions praised by 'noted authors.' I sent her back her letter, with three or four corrections and a little advice, kindly meant, but which may not be so taken.... She will probably turn and rend me, but I really felt it might do her good."

"_November 14. Gardiner._ A good meditation. The sense of G.o.d in the universe seems to be an attribute of normal humanity. We cannot think of our own personal ident.i.ty without at the same time imagining a greater self from which we derive. This idea may be crude and barbarous, great minds have done much to make it otherwise; Christ most of all with His doctrine of divine love, providence, and forgiveness. The idea of a life beyond this one seems also to appertain to normal humanity. We had best accept this great endowment which philosophy seeks to a.n.a.lyze much as a boy will take a watch to pieces, but cannot put it together again so that it will work."

"_November 15._ Another long sitting and meditation. What have individual philosophers done for religion? As I recall what I could learn of the Kantian philosophy, I think that it princ.i.p.ally taught the limitations of human knowledge, correcting thereby the a.s.sumptions of systems of thought and belief to _absolute_ authority over the thinker and believer. He calls conscience 'the categorical imperative'; but that term in no wise explains either the origin or authority of the moral law. His rule of testing the rect.i.tude of the act by the way in which, if it were made universal, it would affect the well-being of society, is useful, but simply pragmatic, not in William James's sense. The German idealism, the theory by which we evolve or create all that occupies our senses and our mind, appears to me a monstrous expanse of egotism. No doubt, dialectics serve as mental athletics, and speculative thought may be useful as an exercise of the mental powers; but processes which may be useful in this way might be very unfit to be held as permanent possessions of persuasion. It occurs to me that it might be more blessed to help the souls in h.e.l.l than to luxuriate with saints in heaven."

"_November 20. Boston._ Began my screed on the 'Joys of Motherhood' for the 'Delineator.' Wrote _currente calamo_...."

"_November 23._ Rather an off day. Found T. W. Higginson's little volume of verses, presented to me on my seventieth birthday, and read a good deal in it. When the Colonel gave it to me, he read a little poem, 'Sixty and Six,' very charmingly. Seems to me that I ought to have read this little book through long before this time. One of the sweetest poems in it is about the blue-eyed baby that they lost after some six weeks' happy possession. I sent a pretty little baby wreath for it, feeling very sorry for them both."

"_November 28._ Much troubled about my Whittier poem."

"_December 3._ Thanks be to G.o.d! I have written my Whittier rhyme. It has cost me much labor, for I have felt that I could not treat a memory so reverend with cheap and easy verses. I have tried to take his measure, and to present a picture of him which shall deserve to live."[150]

[150] This poem appears in _At Sunset_.

Mr. and Mrs. Cobden-Sanderson, the English suffragists, were in Boston this winter. They dined with her, and proved "very agreeable. Mrs.

Sanderson's visit ought to help suffrage mightily, she is in such dead earnest for it. After dinner I proposed that each one should name his favorite Browning poem. I named 'Pippa,' Mrs. Sanderson 'Paracelsus,'

Mr. S., 'The Grammarian's Funeral,' etc., etc. The talk was so good that we could not stop it to hear the Victor, which I regretted."

Another delightful dinner of this winter was one given in her honor by her niece, Mrs. Richard Aldrich (Margaret Chanler), in New York. Among the guests were Kneisel, the violinist, and Sch.e.l.ling, the pianist. Mrs.

Aldrich demanded "Flibbertigibbet," and our mother played and recited it in such a manner that the two musicians were inspired to play, as the people in the story were to dance. Kneisel flew home for his violin, Sch.e.l.ling sat down at the piano, and the two played Bach for her and to her delight.

"The occasion was memorable!" she says.

Returning from New York, she was able to attend the Whittier Centennial at Haverhill.

"_December 17._ ... Sanborn came to take me.... I have been praying to be well for this occasion, my last public engagement for some weeks. I am thankful to have been able, at my advanced age, to read this poem at the Whittier Celebration and to be a.s.sured by one present that I had never been in better voice, and by others that I was generally heard without difficulty by the large audience."

"_December 31._ Oh, blessed year 1907! It has been granted me to write four poems for public occasions, all of which have proved acceptable; also three fatiguing magazine articles, which have for the time bettered my finances. I have lived in peace and goodwill with all men, and in great contentment with my own family, to which this year added a promising little great-grandson, taking away, alas! my dear son-in-law, David Prescott Hall. I found a very competent and friendly young musician who has taken down nearly all my songs.... A word was given me to speak, namely, 'Thanks for the blessed, wonderful year just past.'"