Julia Ward Howe Part 18

_To her sisters_

Thursday, 29, 1856.

... We have been in the most painful state of excitement relative to Kansas matters and dear Charles Sumner, whose condition gives great anxiety.[44] Chev is as you might expect under such circ.u.mstances; he has had much to do with meetings here, etc., etc. New England s.p.u.n.k seems to be pretty well up, but what will be done is uncertain as yet.

One thing we have got: the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature has pa.s.sed the "personal liberty bill," which will effectually prevent the rendition of any more fugitive slaves from Ma.s.sachusetts. Another thing, the Tract Society here (orthodox) has put out old Dr. Adams, who published a book in favor of slavery; a third thing, the Connecticut legislature has withdrawn its invitation to Mr. Everett to deliver his oration before them, in consequence of his having declined to speak at the Sumner meeting in Faneuil Hall....

[44] In consequence of the a.s.sault upon him in the Senate Chamber by Preston Brooks of South Carolina.

_To her sister Annie_

CINCINNATI, May 26, 1857.

CASA GREENIS.

DEAREST ANNIE, _Fiancee de marbre et Femme de glace_,--

Heaven knows what I have not been through with since I saw you--dust, dirt, dyspepsia, hotels, railroads, prairies, Western steamboats, Western people, more prairies, tobacco juice, captains of boats, pilots of ditto, long days of jolting in the cars, with stoppages of ten minutes for dinner, and the devil take the hindmost. There ought to be no chickens this year, so many eggs have we eaten. Flossy was quite ill for two days at St. Louis. Chev is too rapid and restless a traveller for pleasure. Still, I think I shall be glad to have made the journey when it is all over--I must be stronger than I was, for I bear fatigue very well now and at first I could not bear it at all. We went from Philadelphia to Baltimore, thence to Wheeling, thence to see the Manns at Antioch--they almost ate us up, so glad were they to see us. Thence to Cincinnati, where two days with Kitty Rolker, a party at Larz Anderson's--Longworth's wine-cellar, pleasant attentions from a gentleman by the name of King, who took me about in a carriage and proposed everything but marriage. After pa.s.sing the morning with me, he asked if I was English. I told him no. When we met in the evening, he had thought matters over, and exclaimed, "You must be Miss Ward!" "And you," I cried, "must be the nephew of my father's old partner. Do you happen to have a strawberry mark or anything of that kind about you?"

"No." "Then you are my long-lost Rufus!" And so we rushed into each other's confidence and swore, like troopers, eternal friendship. Thence to Louisville, dear, a beastly place, where I saw the Negro jail, and the criminal court in session, trying a man for the harmless pleasantry of murdering his wife. Thence to St. Louis, where Chev left us and went to Kansas, and Fwotty and I boated it back here and went to a hotel, and the William Greenes they came and took us, and that's all for the present....

_To the same_

GARRET PLATFORM, LAWTON'S VALLEY, July 13, 1857.

... Charlotte Bronte is deeply interesting, but I think she and I would not have liked each other, while still I see points of resemblance--many indeed--between us. Her life, on the whole, a very serious and instructive page in literary history. G.o.d rest her! she was as faithful and earnest as she was clever--she suffered much.

... Theodore Parker and wife came here last night, to stay a week if they like it (have just had a fight with a b.u.mble-bee, in avoiding which I banged my head considerably against a door, in the narrow limits of my garret platform); so you see I am still a few squashes ("some pumpkins"

is vulgar, and I isn't)....

_To her sisters_

S. BOSTON, April 4, 1858.

... I am perfectly worn out in mind, body and estate. The Fair[45]

lasted five days and five evenings. I was there every day, and nearly all day, and at the end of it I dropped like a dead person. Never did I experience such fatigue--the crowd of faces, the bad air, the responsibility of selling and the difficulty of suiting everybody, was almost too much for me. On the other hand, it was an entirely new experience, and a very amusing one. My table was one of the prettiest, and, as I took care to have some young and pretty a.s.sistants, it proved one of the most attractive. I cleared $426.00, which was doing pretty well, as I had very little given me.... For a week after the Fair I could do nothing but lie on a sofa or in an easy-chair, ... but by the end of the week I revived, and it pleased the Devil to suggest to me that this was the moment to give a long promised party to the Governor and his wife. All hands set to work, therefore, writing notes. With the a.s.sistance of three Amanuenses I scoured the whole surface of Boston society.... Unluckily I had fixed upon an evening when there were to be two other parties, and of course the cream of the cream was already engaged. I believe in my soul that I invited 300 people--every day everybody sent word they could not come. I was full of anxiety, got the house well arranged though, engaged a colored man, and got a splendid supper. Miss Hunt, who is writing for me, smacks her lips at the remembrance of the same, I mean the supper, not the black man. Well! the evening came, and with it all the odds and ends of half a dozen sets of people, including some of the most primitive and some of the most fashionable. I had the greatest pleasure in introducing a dowdy high neck, got up for the occasion, with short sleeves and a bow behind, to the most elaborate of French ball-dresses with head-dress to match, and leaving them to take care of each other the best way they could. As for the Governor [Nathaniel P. Banks], I introduced him right and left to people who had never voted for him and never will. The pious were permitted to enjoy Theodore Parker, and Julia's schoolmaster sat on a sofa and talked about Carlyle. I did not care--the colored man made it all right. Imagine my astonishment at hearing the party then and after p.r.o.nounced one of the most brilliant and successful ever given in Boston. The people all said, "It is such a relief to see new faces--we always meet the same people at city parties." Well, darlings, the pickings of the supper was very good for near a week afterwards, and, having got through with my party, I have nearly killed myself with going to hear Mr. Booth, whose playing is beautiful exceedingly. Having for once in my life had play enough and a great deal too much, I am going to work to-morrow like an old Trojan building a new city. I am too poor to come to New York this spring; still it is not impossible. Farewell, Beloveds, it is church time, and this edifying critter is uncommon punctual in her devotions. So farewell, love much, and so far as human weakness allows imitate the n.o.ble example of

Your sister, JULIA.

[45] This Fair was got up by Mr. Robert C. Winthrop for the benefit of the poor.

CHAPTER VIII

LITTLE SAMMY: THE CIVIL WAR

1859-1863; _aet._ 40-44

There came indeed an hour of fate By bitter war made desolate When, reading portents in the sky, All in a dream I leapt on high To pin my rhyme to my country's gown.

'Tis my one verse that will not down.

Stars have grown out of mortal crown.

J. W. H.

I honour the author of the "Battle Hymn," and of "The Flag." She was born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were a native of Ma.s.sachusetts. We have had no such poetess in New England.

EMERSON'S _Journals_.

In the winter of 1859 the Doctor's health became so much impaired by overwork that a change of air and scene was imperative. At the same time Theodore Parker, already stricken with a mortal disease, was ordered to Cuba in the hope that a mild climate might check the progress of the consumption. He begged the Howes to join him and his wife, and in February the four sailed for Havana. This expedition is described in "A Trip to Cuba."

The opening chapter presents three of the little party during the rough and stormy voyage:--

"The Philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,--keeled up in an upper berth, convulsively embracing a blanket, what conservative more immovable than he? The Great Man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if, like Farinata,--

'_avesse l'inferno in gran dispetto_,'--

he had a very contemptible opinion of h.e.l.l."

Several "portraits" follow, among them her own.

"A woman, said to be of a literary turn of mind, in the miserablest condition imaginable. Her clothes, flung at her by the Stewardess, seem to have hit in some places and missed in others. Her listless hands occasionally make an attempt to keep her draperies together, and to pull her hat on her head; but though the intention is evident, she accomplishes little by her motion. She is being perpetually lugged about by a stout steward, who knocks her head against both sides of the vessel, folds her up in the gangway, spreads her out on the deck, and takes her upstairs, downstairs, and in my lady's chamber, where, report says, he feeds her with a spoon, and comforts her with such philosophy as he is master of. N.B. This woman, upon the first change of weather, rose like a cork, dressed like a Christian, and toddled about the deck in the easiest manner, sipping her grog, and cutting sly jokes upon her late companions in misery;--is supposed by some to have been an impostor, and, when ill-treated, announced intentions of writing a book.

"No. 4, my last, is only a sketch;--circ.u.mstances allowed no more. Can Grande,[46] the great dog, has been got up out of the pit, where he has worried the Stewardess and snapped at the friend who tried to pat him on the head. Everybody asks where he is. Don't you see that heap of shawls yonder, lying in the sun, and heated up to about 212 Fahrenheit? That slouched hat on top marks the spot where his head should lie,--by treading cautiously in the opposite direction you may discover his feet.

All between is perfectly pa.s.sive and harmless. His chief food is pickles,--his only desire is rest. After all these years of controversy, after all these battles, bravely fought and n.o.bly won, you might write with truth upon this moveless mound of woollens the pathetic words from Pere La Chaise: _Implora Pace_."

[46] Her pet name for Theodore Parker. _Vide_ Dante's _Inferno_.

The trip to Cuba was only the beginning of a long voyage for the Parkers, who were bound for Italy. The parting between the friends was sad. All felt that they were to meet no more. Parker died in Florence fifteen months later.

"A pleasant row brought us to the side of the steamer. It was dusk already as we ascended her steep gangway, and from that to darkness there is, at this season, but the interval of a breath. Dusk too were our thoughts, at parting from Can Grande, the mighty, the vehement, the great fighter. How were we to miss his deep music, here and at home!

With his a.s.sistance we had made a very respectable band; now we were to be only a wandering drum and fife,--the fife particularly shrill, and the drum particularly solemn.... And now came silence, and tears, and last embraces; we slipped down the gangway into our little craft, and looking up, saw bending above us, between the slouched hat and the silver beard, the eyes that we can never forget, that seemed to drop back in the darkness with the solemnity of a last farewell. We went home, and the drum hung himself gloomily on his peg, and the little fife _shut up_ for the remainder of the evening."

"A Trip to Cuba" appeared first serially in the "Atlantic Monthly," then in book form. Years after, a friend, visiting Cuba, took with her a copy of the little volume; it was seized at Havana by the customs house officers, and confiscated as dangerous and incendiary material.

On her return, our mother was asked to write regularly for the New York "Tribune," describing the season at Newport. This was the beginning of a correspondence which lasted well into the time of the Civil War. She says of it:--

"My letters dealt somewhat with social doings in Newport and in Boston, but more with the great events of the time. To me the experience was valuable in that I found myself brought nearer in sympathy to the general public, and helped to a better understanding of its needs and demands."

_To her sister Annie_

Sunday, November 6, 1859.

The potatoes arrived long since and were most jolly, as indeed they continue to be. Didn't acknowledge them 'cause knew other people did, and thought it best to be unlike the common herd. Have just been to church and heard Clarke preach about John Brown, whom G.o.d bless, and will bless! I am much too dull to write anything good about him, but shall say something at the end of my book on Cuba, whereof I am at present correcting the proof-sheets. I went to see his poor wife, who pa.s.sed through here some days since. We shed tears together and embraced at parting, poor soul! Folks say that the last number of my Cuba is the best thing I ever did, in prose or verse. Even Emerson wrote me about it from Concord. I tell you this in case you should not find out of your own accord that it is good. I have had rather an unsettled autumn--have been very infirm and inactive, but have kept up as well as possible--going to church, also to Opera, also to hear dear Edwin Booth, who is playing better than ever. My children are all well and delightful....