The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss Part 34

Never was a busier set of people than we. In the evening I read to the children from the German books you sent them; am now on Thelka Von Grumpert's, which is a really nice book. I tell papa we are making an idol out of this place, but he says we are not.

_Tuesday._--We all set out to climb the mountain near Deacon Kellogg's.

We s.n.a.t.c.hed what we could for our dinner, and when we were ready to eat it, it proved to be eggs, bread and meat, cake, guava jelly, cider and water. We enjoyed the splendid view and the dinner, and then papa and the boys went home, and M., Nep and myself proceeded to climb higher, Nep so affectionate that he tired me out hugging me with his "arms,"

as H. calls them, and nearly eating me up, while M. was shaking with laughter at his silly ways. We were gone from 10 A.M. to nearly 6 P.M., and brought home in baskets, bags, pockets and bosom, about thirty natural brackets, some very large and fearfully heavy. One was so heavy that I brought it home by kicking it down the mountain. I have just got some flower seeds for fall planting, and the children are looking them over as some would gems from the mine.

_Thursday, September 1st._--Your letter has come, and we judge that you have quite given up Paris; what a pity to have to do it! We spent yesterday at Hager brook with Mrs. Humphrey and her daughters; papa drove us over in the straw wagon and came for us about 6 P.M. We had lobster salad and marmalade, bread and b.u.t.ter and cake, and we roasted potatoes and corn, and the H.'s had a pie and things of that sort. When they saw the salad they set up such shouts of joy that papa came to see what was the matter. We had a nice time. Today I have had proofs to correct and letters to write, and berries to dry, but not a minute to sit down and think, everybody needing me at once. All are busy as bees and send lots of love. Give ever so much to the Smiths.

_September 8th._--Here we are all sitting round the parlor table. The last three days have each brought a letter from you, and to-day one came from Mrs. S. to me, and one from Prof. S. to papa. I have no doubt that the decision for you to return is a wise one and hope you will fall in with it cheerfully. Dr. Schaff is here, and yesterday papa took him to Hager brook, and to-day to the quarries; splendid weather for both excursions, and Dr. S. seems to have enjoyed them extremely. Last evening he read to us some private letters of Bismarck, which were very interesting and did him great credit in every way. I had a long call from M. H. to-day; she looked as sweet as possible and I loaded her with flowers. Papa is writing Mr. B. to thank him for a basket of splendid peaches he sent us to-day. H. has just presented me with three pockets full of toadstools. M. walked with me round Rupert square this afternoon, and we met a crazy woman who said she wondered I did not go into fits, and asked me why I didn't. In return I asked her where she lived, to which she replied, "In the world." We are all on the _qui vive_ about the war news, especially Louis Napoleon's downfall, and you may depend we are glad he has used himself up. You can not bring anything to the children that will please them as seeds would. It delights me to see them so interested in garden work. Perhaps this will be my last letter.

Your loving Mammie.

III.

Further Glimpses of her Dorset Life.

The following Recollections of Mrs. Prentiss by her friend, Mrs.

Frederick Field, now of San Jose, California, afford additional glimpses of her home life in Dorset. The picture is drawn in fair colors; but it is as truthful as it is fair:

It was the first Sunday in September, 1866. A quiet, perfect day among the green hills of Vermont; a sacramental Sabbath, and we had come seven miles over the mountain to go up to the house of the Lord. I had brought my little two-months-old baby in my arms, intending to leave her during the service at our brother's home, which was near the church. I knew that Mrs. Prentiss was a "summer-boarder" in this home, that she was the wife of a distinguished clergyman, and a literary woman of decided ability; but it was before the "Stepping Heavenward" epoch of her life, and I had no very deep interest in the prospect of meeting her. We went in at the hospitably open door, and meeting no one, sat down in the pleasant family living-room. It was about noon, and we could hear cheerful voices talking over the lunch-table in the dining-room.

Presently the door opened, and a slight, delicate-featured woman, with beautiful large dark eyes, came with rapid step into the room, going across to the hall door; but her quick eye caught a glimpse of my little "bundle of flannel," and not pausing for an introduction or word of preparatory speech, she came towards me with a beaming face and outstretched hands:--

"O, have you a baby there? How delightful! I haven't seen one for such an age,--please, may I take it? the darling tiny creature!--a girl? How lovely!"

She took the baby tenderly in her arms and went on in her eager, quick, informal way, but with a bright little blush and smile,--"I'm not very polite--pray, let me introduce myself! I'm Mrs. Prentiss, and you are Mrs. F---, I know."

After a little more sweet, motherly comment and question over the baby,--"a touch of nature" which at once made us "akin," she asked, "Have you brought the baby to be christened?"

I said, No, I thought it would be better to wait till she was a little older.

"O, no!" she pleaded, "do let us take her over to the church now. The younger the better, I think; it is so uncertain about our keeping such treasures."

I still objected that I had not dressed the little one for so public an occasion.

"O, never mind about that," she said. "She is really lovelier in this simple fas.h.i.+on than to be loaded with lace and embroidery." Then, her sweet face growing more earnest,--"There will be more of us here to-day than at the next communion--_more of us to pray for her._"

The little lamb was taken into the fold that day, and I was Mrs.

Prentiss' warm friend forevermore. Her whole beautiful character had revealed itself to me in that little interview,--the quick perception, the wholly frank, unconventional manner, the sweet motherliness, the cordial interest in even a stranger, the fervent piety which could not bear delay in duty, and even the quaint, original, forcible thought and way of expressing it, "There'll be more of us here to pray for her to-day."

For seven successive summers I saw more or less of her in this "Earthly Paradise," as she used to call it, and once I visited her in her city home. I have been favored with many of her sparkling, vivacious letters, and have read and re-read all her published writings; but that first meeting held in it for me the key-note of all her wonderfully beautiful and symmetrical character.

She brought to that little hamlet among the hills a sweet and wholesome and powerful influence. While her time was too valuable to be wasted in a general sociability, she yet found leisure for an extensive acquaintance, for a kindly interest in all her neighbors, and for Christian work of many kinds. Probably the weekly meeting for Bible-reading and prayer, which she conducted, was her closest link with the women of Dorset; but these meetings were established after I had bidden good-bye to the dear old town, and I leave others to tell how their "hearts burned within them as she opened to them the Scriptures."

She had in a remarkable degree the lovely feminine gift of _home-making_. She was a true decorative artist. Her room when she was boarding, and her home after it was completed, were bowers of beauty.

Every walk over hill and dale, every ramble by brookside or through wildwood, gave to her some fresh home-adornment. Some shy wildflower or fern, or brilliant-tinted leaf, a bit of moss, a curious lichen, a deserted bird's-nest, a strange fragment of rock, a s.h.i.+ning pebble, would catch her pa.s.sing glance and reveal to her quick artistic sense possibilities of use which were quaint, original, characteristic. One saw from afar that hers was a poet's home; and, if permitted to enter its gracious portals, the first impression deepened into certainty.

There was as strong an individuality about her home, and especially about her own little study, as there was about herself and her writings.

A cheerful, sunny, hospitable Christian home! Far and wide its potent influences reached, and it was a beautiful thing to see how many another home, humble or stately, grew emulous and blossomed into a new loveliness.

Mrs. Prentiss was naturally a shy and reserved woman, and necessarily a pre-occupied one. Therefore she was sometimes misunderstood. But those who--knew her best, and were blest with her rare intimacy, knew her as "a perfect woman n.o.bly planned." Her conversation was charming.

Her close study of nature taught her a thousand happy symbols and ill.u.s.trations, which made both what she said and wrote a mosaic of exquisite comparisons. Her studies of character were equally constant and penetrating. Nothing escaped her; no peculiarity of mind or manner failed of her quick observation, but it was always a kindly interest.

She did not ridicule that which was simply ignorance or weakness, and she saw with keen pleasure all that was quaint, original, or strong, even when it was hidden beneath the homeliest garb. She had the true artist's liking for that which was simple and _genre_. The common things of common life appealed to her sympathies and called out all her attention. It was a real, hearty interest, too--not feigned, even in a sense generally thought praiseworthy. Indeed, no one ever had a more intense scorn of every sort of _feigning_. She was honest, truthful, _genuine_ to the highest degree. It may have sometimes led her into seeming lack of courtesy, but even this was a failing which "leaned to virtue's side." I chanced to know of her once calling with a friend on a country neighbor, and finding the good housewife busy over a rag-carpet.

Mrs. Prentiss, who had never chanced to see one of these bits of rural manufacture in its elementary processes, was full of questions and interest, thereby quite evidently pleasing the una.s.suming artist in a.s.sorted rags and home-made dyes. When the visitors were safely outside the door, Mrs. Prentiss' friend turned to her with the exclamation, "What tact you have! She really thought you were interested in her work!" The quick blood sprang into Mrs. Prentiss' face, and she turned upon her friend a look of amazement and rebuke. "Tact!" she said, "I despise such tact!--do you think _I would look or act a lie?_"

She was an exceedingly practical woman, not a dreamer. A systematic, thorough housekeeper, with as exalted ideals in all the affairs which pertain to good housewifery as in those matters which are generally thought to transcend these humble occupations. Like Solomon's virtuous woman she "looked well after the ways of her household." Methodical, careful of minutes, simple in her tastes, abstemious, and therefore enjoying evenly good health in spite of her delicate const.i.tution--this is the secret of her accomplis.h.i.+ng so much. Yet all this foundation of exactness and diligence was so "rounded with leafy gracefulness" that she never seemed angular or unyielding.

With her children she was a model disciplinarian, exceedingly strict, a wise law-maker; yet withal a tender, devoted, self-sacrificing mother.

I have never seen such exact obedience required and given--or a more idolized mother. "Mamma's" word was indeed _Law_, but--O, happy combination!--it was also _Gospel_!

How warm and true her friends.h.i.+p was! How little of selfishness in all her intercourse with other women! How well she loved to be of _service_ to her friends! How anxious that each should reach her highest possibilities of attainment! I record with deepest sense of obligation the cordial, generous, sympathetic a.s.sistance of many kinds extended by her to me during our whole acquaintance. To every earnest worker in any field she gladly "lent a hand," rejoicing in all the successes of others as if they were her own.

But if weakness, or trouble, or sorrow of any sort or degree overtook one she straightway became as one of G.o.d's own ministering spirits--an angel of strength and consolation. Always more eager, however, that _souls should grow than that pain should cease_. Volumes could be made of her letters to friends in sorrow. One tender monotone steals through them all,--

'Come unto me, my kindred, I enfold you In an embrace to sufferers only known; Close to this heart I tenderly will hold you, Suppress no sigh, keep back no tear, no moan.

"Thou Man of Sorrows, teach my lips that often Have told the sacred story of my woe, To speak of Thee till stony griefs I soften, Till hearts that know Thee not learn Thee to know.

"Till peace takes place of storm and agitation, Till lying on the current of Thy will There shall be glorying in tribulation, And Christ Himself each empty heart shall fill."

Few have the gift or the courage to deal faithfully yet lovingly with an erring soul, but she did not shrink back even from this service to those she loved. I can bear witness to the wisdom, penetration, skill, and fidelity with which she probed a terribly wounded spirit, and then said with tender solemnity, "_I think you need a great deal of good praying._"

O, "vanished hand," still beckon to us from the Eternal Heights! O, "voice that is still," speak to us yet from the s.h.i.+ning Sh.o.r.e!

"Still let thy mild rebuking stand Between us and the wrong, And thy dear memory serve to make Our faith in goodness strong."

[1] See the poem in the appendix to Golden Hours, with the "Reply of the New Year," written by Mrs. Prentiss.

[2] A clerical circle of New York.

[3] A Unitarian paper, published in New York.

[4] An a.s.sociation of ladies for providing garments and other needed articles in aid of families of Home and Foreign missionaries, especially of those connected in any way with their own congregation. Such a circle is found in most of the American churches.

[5] The pa.s.sage occurs in a letter to Madame Guyon, dated June 9, 1689.

For another extract from the same letter see appendix F, p. 557.

[6] On the Resurrection of Christ.

[7] Helen Rogers Blakeman, wife of W. N. Blakeman, M.D., was born on the 20th of December, 1811, in the city of New York. She was a granddaughter of the Rev. James Caldwell, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, the Revolutionary patriot. The tragical fate of her grandmother has pa.s.sed into history. When the British forces reached Connecticut Farms, on the 7th of June, 1780, and began to burn and pillage the place, Mrs.

Caldwell, who was then living there, retired with her two children--one an infant in her arms--to a back room in the house. Here, while engaged in prayer, she was shot through the window. Two bullets struck her in the breast and she fell dead upon the floor. The infant in her arms was Mrs. Blakeman's mother. On the father's side, too, she was of an old and G.o.d-fearing family.

[8] "Your precious lamb was very near my heart; few knew so well as I did all you suffered for and with her, for few have been over just the ground I have. But that is little to the purpose; what I was going to say is this,--'G.o.d never makes a mistake.' You know and feel it, I am sure, but when we are broken down with grief, we like to hear simple words, oft repeated. On this anniversary of my child's death, I feel drawn to you. It was a great blow to us because it came to hearts already sore with sorrow for our boy, and because it came so like a thunderclap, and because she suffered so. Your baby's death brought it all back."--_From the Letter to Mrs. W._

[9] "I must tell you what a busy day I had yesterday, being chaplain, marketer, mother, author, and consoler from early morning till nine at night.... A letter came from Cincinnati from the editor of the hymn-book of the Y.M.C.A., saying he had some of my hymns in it, and had stopped the press in order to have two more, which he wanted 'right away.' I was exactly in the mood; it was our little Bessie's anniversary, she had been in heaven _eighteen_ years; think what she has already gained by my one year of suffering! and I wanted to spend it for others, not for myself."--_Letter to her Husband, May 20_.

[10] Nidworth, and His Three Magic Wands, published by Roberts Brothers.