Literary Hearthstones of Dixie Part 11

Her next home, in Oxford, Ohio, where Dr. Junkin had been elected to the presidency of Miami University, was not a dream of delight to the poetic soul of the young girl, for Scotch Calvinism, perhaps more rigid than the Calvinism of Calvin himself, which did not admit of fitting square dogmatic nails into round theological holes, insured a succession of oft-recurrent tempests for the family, as well as for the good doctor. The one letter which remains from the correspondence of Margaret Junkin at that time, though indicating a buoyant nature on the part of the writer, gives a sad view of financial difficulties, her mother's fragility, uncongenial climate, and the persecution directed against her father. Some of these misfortunes were obviated by a return to Easton, Dr. Junkin having been recalled to the presidency of Lafayette College, from which he had withdrawn a few years before because of a disagreement with the trustees on a question of government.

Not long afterward the failing health of Margaret's young brother Joseph led Dr. Junkin to accept the presidency of Washington College, Lexington, Virginia, in the hope that change of climate might bring health to the invalid. Thus in the fall of 1848 the step was taken which made Margaret Junkin one of our Southern poets, devoted to her adopted State and a loved and honored daughter thereof.

On the arrival in Lexington a younger member of the family wrote:

My first memory of Lexington is of arriving, at midnight, in a December snowstorm, after a twelve hours' ride from Staunton in an old stage coach. This was before there was a turnpike or plank road, and the ups and downs we had that night made an impression on our bodies as well as our minds.

A later memory gives us a pretty glimpse of daily life as it went on in that charming little Virginia town:

From the time we went to Lexington we all used to take delightful, long rambles, rather to the surprise of Lexington people, who were not quite so energetic. We found the earliest spring flowers on the "Cliffs," and "Cave Spring" was a favorite spot to walk to (several miles from town) stopping always for a rest at the picturesque ruins of old "Liberty Hall."

"Liberty Hall" was the name of an old school building outside of Lexington.

Writing reproachfully to a friend for not coming to visit her, Margaret tells of the "sweet pure air of our Virginia mountains," of the morning "overture of the birds," "such as all the Parodis and Linds and Albonis in the world could never equal." She tantalizes her friend with a glowing picture of a gallop "over misty hills, down into little green shaded glens, under overhanging branches all sparkling with silvery dew." She tells her that they might take a walk "to 'The Cliffs,' to see the sun go down behind yon wavy horizon of mountains, if its setting promised to be fine, and saunter back in the gloaming, just in time to have coffee handed in the free and easy social Virginia style in the library."

In Lexington, Margaret's first sorrow came to her, the death of her brother Joseph, whose health had not improved with the change to Lexington and who had been sent to Florida, where he found a "far-off lonely grave."

A description of the young poet at this time is given by a girl admirer:

Miss Maggie was the object of my secret, enthusiastic worship.

She was not exactly pretty, but her slight figure, fair complexion and beautiful auburn curls furnished a piquant setting for her refined, intelligent countenance which made up for the lack of mere beauty. I used to thrill with admiration as I watched her riding at a swift gallop, a little black velvet cap showing off her fairness, the long curls blowing about her face....

We wondered that a person who could write poetry, which seemed to our limited experience a sort of miraculous gift, should condescend to talk to us about our studies and games as if she were one of us.

It was in Lexington that her power reached its full development, and she even took prizes in magazines and newspapers for some stories with what her friends called "prim heroes and pasteboard heroines,"

cla.s.sifications which she good-naturedly accepted, as she readily acknowledged that she had no gift for story-telling.

In Lexington, Margaret's sister, Eleanor, met the grave and dignified Major T.J. Jackson, Professor of Mathematics in the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute, and in 1853 was married to him. Here the death of the sweet and gentle mother brought to the life of Margaret Junkin its crowning sorrow, and shortly afterward the lovely young wife of Major Jackson left the earthly home.

The Professor of Latin in the Virginia Military Inst.i.tute was Major J.T.L. Preston, grandson of Edmund Randolph. He was a man of great dignity of character and manner and of unusual scholarship. Though Margaret Junkin had at times requested her nearest of kin to seclude her in an asylum for the insane should she ever manifest a tendency to marry a widower with children, she proceeded quite calmly and with reason apparently unclouded, to fall in love with and marry Professor Preston, notwithstanding his possession of seven charming and amiable sons and daughters left over from a former congenial marriage. She proved a most devoted mother to her large family, who returned her affection in full measure. A volume of her poetry is dedicated to her eldest stepdaughter who, after the death of Margaret, was her most loving and appreciative biographer. To her great sorrow, one of the sons was killed in battle.

The marriage was followed by a visit to "Oakland" on the James River, the home of Major Preston's sister, Mrs. William Armstead c.o.c.ke, where at first the ornately dignified style of living rather dazed the bride accustomed as she had been to the simplicity of a home in which the only luxury was in giving help to others. Colonel William C. Preston, the eloquent South Carolina orator, met the "little red-headed Yankee"

with distinct aversion to her "want of style and presence," but was soon heard to declare with enthusiastic admiration that she was "an encyclopedia in small print." Here among ancestral trees she found inspiration and in the society of her new sister she enjoyed the most delightful soul companionship.

In the early years of her married life writing was laid aside while she devoted herself to the care of her family, the entertainment of the many visitors who came to the Preston house and the beautification of her new home, finding plenty of s.p.a.ce in the attractive house and extensive grounds with their n.o.ble trees, orchard, garden and meadow for the outlet of all her imagination. In this ideal home she was living her peaceful and happy life when the bugle call destroyed the serenity of the country. She suffered one of her greatest sorrows in the difference of political opinion between her Northern father and her Southern husband. The latter, holding that while secession was unwise, coercion was tyranny, followed Virginia when she cast in her lot with the seceding States. Dr. Junkin and his widowed youngest daughter, Julia, returned to Philadelphia, while Colonel Preston joined Stonewall Jackson's army.

Margaret Preston's worship of the muses was woven in with her devotion to the household G.o.ddesses, and in her journal the receiving of the first copy of her new volume of poems is sandwiched in between the making of twenty-two gallons of blackberry wine and thirty-three bottles of ketchup. House-cleaning and "Tintoretto"; pickles and "Mona Lisa"; hearth-painting and "Bacharach wine" were all closely connected in her every-day experience. From a ride through the blue hills she would return with a poem singing in her heart, radiant with sun, shaded with the mists of the darkening heights, and when it had bubbled over in laughter and dreams and tears and was safe upon the written page, she would go into the kitchen and produce such marvels of cookery as made her a housewife of more than local fame.

One of her dearest friends was Commodore Matthew F. Maury, who was connected with the Military Inst.i.tute in the early years after the war. On his death-bed his wife asked him if she might bury him in Hollywood near Richmond. "As you please, my dear," he said, "but do not carry me through the pa.s.s until the ivy and laurel are in bloom and you can cover my bier with their beauty." When the burial service was read over him lying in state in the Inst.i.tute library, Mrs.

Preston was not able to venture over the threshold, so she remained in the shelter of the porch, and when the family returned from the funeral she read them the lines she had composed in the hour that they had been gone:

THROUGH THE Pa.s.s

"Home, bear me home at last," he said, "And lay me where my dead are lying; But not while skies are overspread, And mournful wintry winds are sighing.

"Wait till the royal march of Spring Carpets your mountain fastness over,-- Till chattering birds are on the wing, And buzzing bees are in the clover.

"Wait till the laurel bursts its buds, And creeping ivy flings its graces About the lichened rocks, and floods Of sunshine fill the shady places.

"Then, when the sky, the air, the gra.s.s, Sweet Nature all, is glad and tender, Then bear me through the Goshen Pa.s.s Amid its flush of May-day splendor."

So _will_ we bear him! Human heart To the warm earth's drew never nearer, And never stooped she to impart Lessons to one who held them dearer.

Stars lit new pages for him; seas Revealed the depths their waves were screening; The ebbs gave up their masteries, The tidal flows confessed their meaning.

Of ocean paths the tangled clue He taught the nations to unravel; And mapped the track where safely through The lightning-footed thought might travel.

And yet unflattered by the store Of these supremer revelations, Who bowed more reverently before The lowliest of earth's fair creations?

What sage of all the ages past, Ambered in Plutarch's limpid story, Upon the age he served, has cast A radiance touched with worthier glory?

His n.o.ble living for the ends G.o.d set him (duty underlying Each thought, word, action) naught transcends In l.u.s.tre, save his n.o.bler dying.

Do homage, sky, and air, and gra.s.s, All things he cherished, sweet and tender, As through our gorgeous mountain pa.s.s We bear him in the May-day splendor!

The summer of 1884 Margaret Preston spent abroad in the places of which she had read with a loving enthusiasm which made them her own.

"Don't show me; let me find it," she would say, and go straight to the object of her quest. Her reading had brought her into companionship with all the beautiful minds of the world, and all the places that had been dear to them were sacred to her heart. Windermere was "redolent all over with the memories of Wordsworth, Southey, Kit North, Hartley Coleridge, Harriet Martineau, Dr. Arnold." "Ambleside--Wordsworth's Ambleside--Southey's; and such hills, such greenery, I never expect to see again. Then we took carriage to Grasmere Lake, a lovely little gem."

"I walked to Wordsworth's grave without being directed, and on reading his name on his stone, and Mary Wordsworth's on his wife's, I am free to confess to a rush of tears, Dora Quillinan, his daughter's, and dear old Dorothy, whom Coleridge, you know, p.r.o.nounced the grandest woman he had ever known. Suddenly turning I read the name of poor Hartley Coleridge and again I felt my eyes flow."

Perhaps few travellers have seen as much in a summer's wandering as did Margaret Preston, yet it was on her "blind slate" that she was forced to write of these things and of the "crowning delight of the summer," the tour through Switzerland. She said, "My picture gallery of memory is hung henceforth with glorious frescoes which blindness cannot blot or cause to fade."

Life in Preston House with all its enchantments came to an end for Margaret Preston with the pa.s.sing of the n.o.ble and loving man who had made her the priestess of that home shrine. The first two years after his death she spent with her stepdaughter, Mrs. Allan, who lived near the old home. Then she went to the home of Dr. George J. Preston, of Baltimore, where she was the centre of the home and took great delight in his children with their pretty "curly red heads." She never walked again except to take a few steps with a crutch.

From 819 North Charles Street she wrote: "Here my large airy room faces brick walls and housetops and when I sit at the library windows I only see throngs of pa.s.sers-by, all of whom are strangers to me."

Her life was beautiful and content, but she must often have longed for the old friends and the "laureled avenues" and the "edges of the glorious Goshen Pa.s.s lit with the wavering flames of the July rhododendrons."

March 29, 1897, Margaret Preston died as she had wished when she expressed her desire in her poem "Euthanasia," written in memory of a friend who had pa.s.sed away unconscious of illness or death:

With faces the dearest in sight, With a kiss on the lips I love best, To whisper a tender "Good-night"

And pa.s.s to my pillow of rest.

To kneel, all my service complete, All duties accomplished--and then To finish my orisons sweet With a trustful and joyous "Amen."

And softly, when slumber was deep, Unwarned by a shadow before, On a halcyon billow of sleep To float to the Thitherward sh.o.r.e.

Without a farewell or a tear, A sob or a flutter of breath, Unharmed by the phantom of Fear, To glide through the darkness of death!

Just so would I choose to depart, Just so let the summons be given; A quiver--a pause of the heart-- A vision of angels--then Heaven!

"THE 'MOTHER' OF 'ST. ELMO'"

AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON