Julia Ward Howe Part 89

"And then I saw the victory. All of evil was gone from the earth. Misery was blotted out. Mankind was emanc.i.p.ated and ready to march forward in a new Era of human understanding, all-encompa.s.sing sympathy and ever-present help, the Era of perfect love, of peace pa.s.sing understanding."

Mrs. Humphry Ward was in Boston this spring, and there were many pleasant festivities in her honor.

A "luncheon with Mrs. Humphry Ward at Annie Fields'; very pleasant.

Edward Emerson there, easy and delightful...."

A fine reception at the Vendome, where she and Mrs. Ward stood under "a beautiful arch of roses" and exchanged greetings.

"A delightful call from Mrs. Humphry Ward. We had much talk of persons admired in England and America. She has great personal attraction, is not handsome, but very '_simpatica_' and is evidently whole-souled and sincere, with much 'good-fellows.h.i.+p.' We embraced at parting."

In strong contrast to this is her comment on a writer whose work did not appeal to her. "But she has merit; yes, she certainly has merit. In fact--" with a flash--"she is meret-ricious!"

May brought the Free Religious Banquet, at which she "compared the difference of sect to the rainbow which divides into its beauty the white light of truth"; and the State Federation of Women's Clubs, where another apt comparison occurred to her.

"I compared the old order among women to the juxtaposition of squares set cornerwise to each other; the intensity of personal feeling and interest infusing an insensible antagonism into our relations with each other. 'Now,' I said, 'the comparison being removed, we no longer stand cornerwise to each other, but so that we can fit into line, and stand and act in concert.'..."

"_Newport._ I begin to feel something of the 'labor and sorrow' of living so long. I don't even enjoy my books as I used to. My efforts to find a fit word for the Biennial [of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, to meet in Boston, June 22 and 23] are not successful...."

She soon revived under her green trees, and enjoyed her books as much as ever: "got hold of" her screed, wrote it, went up to Boston to deliver it, came back to meet an excursion party of "Biennial" ladies visiting Newport. (N.B. She was late for the reception, and her neighbor, Bradford Norman, drove her into Newport in his automobile "at a terrific clip." On alighting, "Braddie," she said, "if I were ten years younger, I would set up one of these h.e.l.l-wagons myself!")

She enjoyed all this hugely, but the fatigue was followed by distress so great that the next morning she "thought she should die with her door locked." (She _would_ lock her door: no prayers of ours availed against this. In Boston, an elaborate arrangement of keys made it possible for her room to be entered; at Oak Glen there was but the one stout door. On this occasion, after lying helpless and despairing for some time, she managed to unlock the door and call the faithful maid.)

On June 30 she writes:--

"Oh, beautiful last day of June! Perhaps my last June on earth.... I shall be thankful to live as long as I can be of comfort or help to any one...."

"_July 12...._ Sherman to Corse [Civil War], 'Can you hold out till I arrive?' Corse to Sherman, 'I have lost an arm, my cheekbone, and am minus one ear, but I can lick _all h.e.l.l_ yet.'"

"_July 30._ Have felt so much energy to-day that thought I must begin upon my old philosophizing essays.... Could find only 'Duality of Character.' What is the lesson of this two-foldness? This, that the most excellent person should remember the dual member of his or her firm, the evil possibility; and the most persistent offender should also remember the better personality which is bound up with its opposite, and which can come into activity, if invited to do so."

"_August 28._ Wrote an immediate reply to a Mrs. ----, who had written to ask leave to use a part of my 'Battle Hymn' with some verses of her own. I replied, refusing this permission, but saying that she should rewrite her own part sufficiently to leave mine out, and should not call it the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.' The metre and tune, of course, she might use, as they are not mine in any special sense, but my phrases _not_."

After writing an article for the "Delineator," on "What I should like to give my Country for a Christmas Gift," she dreads a failure of her productive power, but is rea.s.sured by Maud's verdict. "I took much pains with it, but think she overpraises it a little to raise my spirits." The gift she would choose was "a more vigilant national conscience." The little essay counts but seventy lines, but every word tells.

In early September she performed a "very small public service,"

unveiling in Newport a bronze tablet in honor of Count de Rochambeau.

She would have been glad to speak, but an anxious daughter had demurred, and at the moment she "only thought of pulling the string the right way."

"_September 21. Green Peace, New York._ A delightful drive with Mr. Seth Low in his auto. A good talk with him about the multi-millionnaires and the Hague Conferences which he has attended. We reached Green Peace in time for Mr. Frank Potter to sing about half of my songs. He has a fine tenor voice, well cultivated, and is very kind about my small compositions. I had not counted upon this pleasure. I dreaded this visit, for the troublesome journey, but it has been delightful. I am charmed to see my son so handsomely and comfortably established, and with a very devoted wife. Potter brought me some flowers and a curious orchid from Panama."

"_November 3. Oak Glen._ Yesterday and to-day have had most exquisite sittings in front of my house in the warm suns.h.i.+ne; very closely wrapped up by the dear care of my daughters."

These sittings were on what she called her boulevard, a gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce in front of the house, bordering on the road, and taking the full strength of the morning sun. Here, with the tall screen of cedars behind her, and a nut tree spreading its golden canopy over her head, she would sit for hours, drinking in the sweet air that was like no other to her.

A companion picture to this is that of the twilight hour, when she would sit alone in the long parlor, looking out on the sunset. Black against the glowing sky rose the pines of the tiny forgotten graveyard, where long-ago neighbors slept, with the white rose tree drooping over the little child's grave; a spot of tender and melancholy beauty. All about were the fields she loved, fragrant with clover and wormwood, vocal with time-keeping crickets. Here she would sit for an hour, meditating, or repeating to herself the Odes of Horace, or some familiar hymn. Horace was one of her best friends, all her life long. She knew many of the Odes by heart, and was constantly memorizing new ones. They filled and brightened many a sleepless or weary hour. Here, when the children came back from their walk, they would find her, quiet and serene, but ready instantly to break into laughter with them, to give herself, as always, entirely and joyously. Now and then she wrote down a meditation; here is one:--

"A thought comes to me to-day which gives me great comfort. This is that, while the transitory incidentals of our life, important for the moment, pa.s.s out of it, the steadfast divine life which is in our earthly experience, perseveres, and can never die nor diminish. I feel content that much of me should die. I interpret for myself Christ's parable of the tares sown in the wheat field. As regards the individual, these tares are our personal and selfish traits and limitations. We must restrain and often resist them, but we cannot and must not seek to eradicate them, for they are important agents not only in preserving, but also in energizing our bodily life. Yet they are, compared with our higher life, as the tares compared with the wheat, and we must be well content to feel that, when the death harvest comes, these tares will fall from us and perish, while the wheat will be gathered into the granary of G.o.d.

"I do not desire ecstatic, disembodied sainthood, because I do not wish to abdicate any one of the attributes of my humanity. I cherish even the infirmities that bind me to my kind. I would be human, and American, and a woman. Paul of Tarsus had one or two ecstasies, but I feel sure that he lived in his humanity, strenuously and energetically. Indeed, the list he gives us of his trials and persecutions may show us how much he lived as a man among men, even though he did once cry out for deliverance from the body of death, whose wants and pains were a sore hindrance to him in his unceasing labors. That deliverance he found daily in the service of Truth, and finally once for all, when G.o.d took him.

"Another thought upholds me. With the recurrence of the cycle, I feel the steady tramp and tread of the world's progress. This Spring is not identical with last Spring, this year is not last year. The predominant fact of the Universe is not the mechanical round and working of its forces, but their advance as moral life develops out of and above material life. Mysterious as the chain of causation is, we know one thing about it, viz.: that we cannot reverse its sequence. Whatever may change or pa.s.s away, my father remains my father, my child, my child.

The way before us is open--the way behind us is blocked with solid building which cannot be removed. And in this great onward order, life turns not back to death, but goes forward to other life, which we may call immortality. If I would turn backward, I stand still in paralyzed opposition to the mighty sweep of heavenly law. It must go on, and if I could resist and refuse to go with it, I should die a moral death, having isolated myself from the movement which is life. But, do what I will, I cannot resist it. I am carried on perforce, as inanimate rocks and trees are swept away in the course of a resistless torrent. Shall I then abdicate my human privilege which makes the forces of nature Angels to help and minister to me? Let me, instead, take hold of the guiding cords of life with resolute hands and press onward, following the ill.u.s.trious army whose crowned chiefs have gone before. They too had their weakness, their sorrow, their sin. But they are set as stars in the firmament of G.o.d, and their torches flash heavenly light upon our doubtful way, ay, even upon the mysterious bridge whose toll is silence.

Beyond that silence reigns the perfect harmony."

"_November 6._ Expecting to leave this dear place to-morrow before noon, I write one last record in this diary to say that I am very thankful for the season just at end, which has been busy and yet restful. I have seen old friends and new ones, all with pleasure, and mostly with profit of a social and spiritual kind. I have seen dear little Eleanor Hall, the sweetest of babies. Have had all of my dear children with me, some of my grandchildren, and four of my great-grands.

"Our Papeterie has had pleasant meetings.... I am full of hope for the winter. Have had a long season of fresh air, delightful and very invigorating.... _Utinam! Gott in Himmel sei Dank!_"

"_November 28. Boston._ Have been much troubled of late by uncertainties about life beyond the present. Quite suddenly, very recently, it occurred to me to consider that Christ understood that spiritual life would not end with death, and that His expressed certainty as to the future life was founded upon His discernment of spiritual things. So, in so far as I am a Christian, I must believe in the immortality of the soul, as our Master surely did. I cannot understand why I have not thought of that before. I think now that I shall nevermore lose sight of it.... Had a very fine call from Mr. Locke, author of the 'Beloved Vagabond,' a book which I have enjoyed."

"_December 5...._ I learned to-day that my dear friend of many years [the Reverend Mary H. Graves] pa.s.sed away last night very peacefully....

This is a heart sorrow for me. She has been a most faithful, affectionate and helpful friend. I scarcely know whether any one, outside of my family, would have pained me more by their departure...."

This was indeed a loss. "Saint Mouse," as we called her, was a familiar friend of the household: a little gray figure, with the face of a plain angel. For many years she had been the only person who was allowed to touch our mother's papers. She often came for a day or two and straightened out the tangle. She was the only approach to a secretary ever tolerated.

We used to grieve because our mother had no first-rate "Crutch"; it seemed a waste of power. Now, we see that it was partly the instinct of self-preservation,--keeping the "doing" muscles tense and strong, because action was vital and necessary to her--partly the still deeper instinct of giving her _self_, body and mind. She seldom failed in any important thing she undertook; the "ch.o.r.es" of life she often left for others to attend to or neglect.

The Christmas services, the Christmas oratorio, brought her the usual serene joy and comfort. She insists that Handel wrote parts of the "Messiah" in heaven itself. "Where else could he have got 'Comfort ye,'

'Thy rebuke,' 'Thou shalt break them,' and much besides?"

Late in December, 1908, came the horror of the Sicilian earthquake. She felt at first that it was impossible to reconcile omnipotence and perfect benevolence with this catastrophe.

"We must hold judgment in suspense and say, 'We don't and we can't understand.'"

She had several tasks on hand this winter, among them a poem for the Centenary of Lincoln's birth. On February 7 she writes:--

"After a time of despair about the poem for the Lincoln Centenary some lines came to me in the early morning. I arose, wrapped myself warmly, and wrote what I could, making quite a beginning."

She finished the poem next day, and on the 12th she went "with three handsome grandchildren" to deliver it at Symphony Hall before the Grand Army of the Republic and their friends.

"The police had to make an entrance for us. I was presently conducted to my seat on the platform. The hall was crammed to its utmost capacity. I had felt doubts of the power of my voice to reach so large a company, but strength seemed to be given to me at once, and I believe that I was heard very well. T. W. H. [Colonel Higginson] came to me soon after my reading and said, 'You have been a good girl and behaved yourself well.'"

The next task was an essay on "Immortality," which cost her much labor and anxious thought.

"_March 3...._ Got at last some solid ground for my screed on 'Immortality.' Our experience of the goodness of G.o.d in our daily life a.s.sures us of His mercy hereafter, and seeing G.o.d everywhere, we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

"_March 27._ I am succeeding better with my 'Immortality' paper. Had to-day a little bit of visioning with which I think that I would willingly depart, when my time comes. The dreadful fear of being buried alive disappeared for a time, and I saw only the goodness of G.o.d, to which it seemed that I could trust all question of the future life. I said to myself--'The best will be for thee and me.'"

It was in this mood that she wrote:--

"I, for one, feel that my indebtedness grows with my years. And it occurred to me the other day that when I should depart from this earthly scene, 'G.o.d's poor Debtor' might be the fittest inscription for my gravestone, if I should have one. So much have I received from the great Giver, so little have I been able to return."

"_April 5...._ Heard May Alden Ward, N.E.W.C., on 'Current Events.'

_Praecipue_ tariff reform. Proposed a small group to study the question from the point of view of the consumer. What to protect and how?

American goods cheaper in Europe than here. Blank tells me of pencils made here for a foreign market and sold in Germany and England at a price impossible here. I said that the real bottomless pit is the depth of infamous slander with which people will a.s.sail our public servants, especially when they are faithful and incorruptible, apropos of aspersions cast on Roosevelt and Taft. Mrs. Ward read a very violent attack upon some public man of a hundred or more years ago. He was quoted as a monster of tyranny and injustice. His name was George Was.h.i.+ngton."