Memoir of Mary L. Ware, Wife of Henry Ware, Jr. Part 12

"DEAR HENRY:--

"No letter from you yesterday; but I did not expect one, knowing that Sat.u.r.day and Sunday are busy days. I feel sure of one to-day, however, and while waiting its arrival with all the patience I can summon, I cannot please myself better than by talking a little to you; and if I am willing to believe that in this, as in many other matters, our tastes may correspond, pity my delusion, but do not destroy it,--it is the brightest dream of life to me.

"I find it is a very different thing to be lone Polly Pickard, beating about the world, conscious that it could not interfere with any one's comfort or convenience if she were out of it, and to call myself Mary Ware, with all the appendages which belong to her,--the cares and comforts, the duties and privileges, from which she cannot disconnect herself. It is almost incredible to me that a short year should have made one who was before utterly reckless of danger so careful and cautious,--I had almost said, anxious. And, oh! what a lesson it has taught me! I thought I was deeply sensible of my danger; I thought I realized fully the strength of the temptation which a.s.sailed me to rest satisfied with my earthly blessings, and to depend upon them entirely for my happiness. But this little separation has shown me the state of my mind in a truer light than I ever saw it before, and compelled me to confess, with deep sorrow, that my trial was greater than I could bear. I had borne sorrow and deprivation, loneliness and calumny, unmoved, erect, fearless,--but had sunk before the greater trial of satisfied affection. May this knowledge do me real good! And if it should please our kind Father to restore us to each other, let us strive with greater zeal to conquer this enemy. While we rejoice, as we must, in the blessings of His providence in calling us together, may we use our comforts without so abusing them as shall make them instruments of evil instead of good to our souls.

"Do not think I am nervous or inclined to croak. I am perfectly well, and while I look at these things seriously, I feel a cheerful courage to contend manfully, nothing doubting that strength will be given in aid of all right effort, and that all these trials, if rightly used, will be so many additional aids in attaining that heavenly-mindedness which alone can satisfy.

"All blessings attend you, dearest Henry. All send love. Your own

"MARY."

Expressions of self-distrust and extreme discouragement seem strangely unintelligible to many minds, when they come from those who are thought better than others, and are always striving and advancing. Yet these are the very persons to feel discouraged, because of the high mark they set for themselves. And the fact that they are thought better than others, with their keen insight of their own failings, is more apt to mortify and depress than to exalt the humble and earnest spirit. Never, perhaps, was Henry Ware doing more for others or himself than in the winter and spring of the year we are reviewing. Yet in a letter to his wife, written a few weeks after that which we just gave from her, we find the expression of a dissatisfaction with himself, even greater than hers. It was written on his birthday, and shows also his sense of the great blessing which the last year had brought him. "I never yet was satisfied with my mode of life for one year,--perhaps I may except one. But since that I have been growing worse and worse. I did think soberly, that, when I was settled down with you, I should turn over a new leaf; and I began; but, by foolish degrees, I have got back to all my accustomed carelessness and waste of powers, and am doing nothing in proportion to what I ought to do. Yet other people tell me I do a great deal, and I am stupid enough to take their judgment instead of my own.... These, dear Mary, are the morning reflections with which I open my thirty-fifth year. "Will the year be any better for them? I hope so, but I fear not; for I do not _feel_ the weight and solemnity of these considerations as they ought to be felt."

Different, indeed, from the antic.i.p.ations of either did the opening year prove. The season which had been the first of Mary's cooperation with Mr. Ware, was the last of his active service as a pastor. He had overtasked his energies, and that change was impending which affected the whole of their remaining work in life. On his return from Northampton, where he had been preaching, in the month of May, 1828, he was arrested at Ware by a violent fever, which was followed by extreme prostration, and confined him there several weeks. His wife was in Boston, and in a state of health that made travelling neither easy nor wholly safe. But she wrote so persuasively to the physician for leave to join her husband, that it could not be refused, and she was soon at his side. Under date of June 16th, she writes from Ware: "How grateful and happy I am, to be here! All the few feelings of doubt about the expediency of the jaunt, which others' fears forced upon my notice, have vanished, and my own strong convictions that it was best have become perfect certainty. With the unspeakable satisfaction of being with my husband, so unexpected to him, and scarcely hoped for by me, what can there be to dread which can be a balance for such blessings?"

As soon as Mr. Ware was well enough, they went on to Worcester, where they remained six weeks. And there, on the 13th of July, Mrs. Ware's first child was born; a son, who lived but few years, yet long enough to leave a deep impression of beauty and promise. Toward the last of August, Mr. Ware set out alone on a horseback journey for his health, riding through New Hampshire and Vermont to Montreal and Quebec, and returning in October. During the first part of this interval, his wife and infant child were at lodgings in Newton, where her next letter is dated, referring in the opening to a poetical epistle which she had received from her husband. That epistle, as published at length in the Memoir of Mr. Ware,[3] many will remember; but its tenderness, and its allusions to their common experience at this period, will furnish an excuse, if we insert a part of it, as a preface to the letter which follows.

"Dear Mary, 't is the fourteenth day Since I was parted from your side; And still upon my lengthening way In solitude I ride; But not a word has come to tell If those I left at home are well.

"I am not of an anxious mind, Nor p.r.o.ne to cherish useless fear; Yet oft methinks the very wind Is whispering in my ear, That many an evil may take place Within a fortnight's narrow s.p.a.ce.

"But no,--a happier thought is mine; The absent, like the present scene, Is guided by a Friend Divine, Who bids us wait, serene, The issues of that gracious will, Which mingles good with every ill.

"And who should feel this tranquil trust In that Benignant One above-- Who ne'er forgets that we are dust, And rules with pitying love-- Like us, who both have just been led Back from the confines of the dead?

"Then, dearest, present or apart, An equal calmness let us wear; Let steadfast Faith control the heart, And still its throbs of care.

We may not lean on things of dust,-- But Heaven is worthy all our trust."

[Footnote 3: Memoir of Henry Ware, p. 220.]

"_Newton, September 13, 1828._

"Thank you, dearest, for the pleasure your good long letters have given me; and if I am the more pleased that you called your Muse to aid you in my behalf, I hope it is one of the pardonable weaknesses of womankind, and trust your vanity will not take the alarm lest I should undervalue your own una.s.sisted powers of pleasing. It is indeed a great and unceasing source of delight to me, that, although separated externally in our way, our thoughts, our spirits, are pursuing the same course, and we may meet in meditation and prayer, sure that the same feelings of grat.i.tude and trust are ever present to us both. I thought much of this, last Sunday, when I made my first attempt to attend public worship. I had felt a great desire to go to meeting upon that day, being the eighth week from the birth of my child; and, moreover, because the first Sunday in September has been a memorable day to me every year since 1813. I did not attempt it in the morning, but in the afternoon rode over to hear Mr. Wallcut at the Upper Falls. I had felt well and strong at home, but it was quite too much for me; my mind was too weak to bear it quietly. The reflection upon all that had pa.s.sed since I last entered the house of G.o.d, which was forced upon me at one view, was indeed overwhelming. I could scarcely control myself sufficiently to join in the services. I longed to put every one out of the house, that I might prostrate myself bodily, and I did mentally, before that Being whose goodness had brought me to that hour. I did indeed think much of _you_; and there was a high and holy satisfaction in the idea that you were at the same time employed in the same way; and although all was uncertainty with regard to you, I doubted not, that, whether on earth or in heaven, I might safely rely upon this.

How did I rejoice in that faith which could remove from me all anxiety and fear concerning you, which could enable me so calmly to suffer you to go from me for such a length of time, notwithstanding the very many uncertainties which must belong to your situation. I sometimes wonder at the peace which pervades my mind, but I know I have a right to feel it; it has its basis upon an immovable foundation. Mr. Wallcut gave us a very useful, solemn discourse, and I was strengthened by the service, and not injured by the excitement.

"Heaven bless you! Your own

"MARY."

In September, Mrs. Ware returned to their own house in Boston,--that house in which she had been so happy, and to which she hoped soon to welcome her husband back again, in restored health. She writes at once.

"_Sheafe Street, September 26, 1828._

"Here we are, dear Henry, as comfortable as you could wish, in our own dear house, more grateful and happy than I could easily describe, every thing looking just as if we had not been away.

Never did the place look more comfortable,--I had almost said, beautiful;--I will say so, for there were so many delightful a.s.sociations with it that it possessed a moral beauty, if I may say so, exceeding any other it _could_ have had. I feel finely, and am sure I am as able to do all that is necessary as I ever was. It is not necessary just now that I should make any violent efforts; there is no call for it. Elizabeth is with me, as happy as a child can be; and the 'young rogue' likes his home so well that he has turned over a new leaf at once, and I believe means to behave well. All we want now is your presence, and that I trust we shall have in the right time. O, how willing does all this experience make one to leave all things in His hands, who has brought us through such troubled waters so safely, so joyfully! I have gained since Sunday; at least, I have none of the confused feeling I then had, which made me fear my head was too light for Boston. It is getting _home_, I believe; home and its peacefulness are the best restoratives. I trust you will find it so. I shall walk a little every day, and call first on those in affliction and the sick; there are but few, astonishingly few, for the time; none that you have not heard of, I believe. Peace be with you, dearest! Your

"MARY."

Mr. Ware did return to Sheafe Street in October, but not to remain. His health was not restored; he could not resume his pastoral duties, and he was not willing to remain in Boston and among his people unemployed. A friend's house in Brookline was kindly offered them, and early in November they took leave--as it proved, a final leave--of their parish, and of that house where they had pa.s.sed but a single year, yet one of the happiest of their lives. In the mind and memory of both of them, that abode seems to have been invested with peculiar interest. They have been heard to speak of the "Eden of Sheafe Street." Their children always revert to it with a tender fondness; and, beside theirs, there are many eyes that fill with tears even now, as they look back upon the happy hours and blessed influences enjoyed there, in their pastor's home. And she who helped to make that home what it was to pastor and people, loved to the last to live over again that precious season, though to her crowded with peculiar cares and trembling responsibilities.

They remained in Brookline that winter. In the spring of 1829, Mr. Ware virtually resigned his pastoral charge, and a colleague pastor was chosen, while a new professorship was planned for him in the Divinity School at Cambridge. At the same time, he was urged by generous friends, who offered the means, to go first with his wife to Europe, for entire rest and the recovery of his health. This unexpected opportunity he felt it right to use. And his wife, who was herself not well, thus speaks of it to Mrs. Paine, in a letter of several dates:--

"_Brookline, December 31, 1828._

"MY DEAR, KIND FRIEND:--

"I have been for a long time prohibited from using my eyes, or should ere this have despatched to you the epistle which for many a weary week has been prepared in my brain for you; and now being still under the same interdict, I can only venture to remind you that there is still in existence the same old friend, who has been wont upon this eve to pour forth to you a copious stream of egotism, who never longed for the time to come when she might do so, more than at this present; but who, for the trial of her patience, must lay aside her pen, and, wishing you every blessing, wait until she is at liberty to use her eyes to say more.

"_January 23._ Although still unable to use my eyes without suffering, I am strongly tempted, by an empty house and an unoccupied hour, to renew, in some small measure, the intercourse which has so long ceased between us, and cannot help seating myself, pen in hand, to give you a few moments. I have----

"_March 30._ I was interrupted by company at the above pauses; and since then, dear N----, what a revolution in the state of things around me! It seems like a dream that I am again on the eve of departure for Europe. It is indeed a dream from which I should like to awake; and yet I am so sure that it is right to do just what we are doing, that the spirit faints not, nor even falters. I do not, indeed, dare to think, but have busied myself in visiting my parish, and do not fear but that power will be given. Yet, dear N----, what a lot is mine! Surely I ought to be better for all this various blessing.

"Ever yours.

"M. L. W."

In closing the first and only year of Mary Ware's "parish life," we remember that it was also the first year of her married life, and an immediate entrance upon the office of a mother. To her views of this office we have already referred, but have feared to say all we know to be true of her discharge of its duties. There is a veil which we may not raise, a sanctuary which none can enter. Yet it is due to her and to her children,--it is due to the greatness of a trust whose difficulties all see, but few estimate kindly,--to speak of the glowing filial love, the reverent and grateful obligation, expressed by those who were permitted to call her "mother," and whose sense of indebtedness grows with their days. By the exercise of a sound discretion in exigencies unavoidable and seldom allowed for,--by freedom of intercourse through the day, and prayer and blessing at night,--by a tenderness that made counsel always kind and discipline never disheartening,--in a word, by a yearning affection which has caused a start and regret at any allusion to her not being "their own mother," she took possession of their hearts for life; and her death called forth, in the simple words of one, the unutterable sentiment of both,--"Surely G.o.d never gave a boy such a mother, or a man such a friend."

IX.

EUROPEAN TOUR.

On the 1st of April, 1829, Mrs. Ware sailed from Boston, with her husband, in the ship Dover, for Liverpool. One of the older children was left at board and in school, the other in Mr. William Ware's family, in New York; while the infant was confided to Mr. Ware's sister, Mrs.

Lincoln,--an arrangement that relieved the mother of anxiety, as far as was possible with any separation. But no parent will need to be told what she must have suffered, at best, in leaving behind her her first babe, not a year old, to cross the ocean and go into distant lands for an indefinite time, with a sick husband on whose restoration or return no calculation could be made. Yet we see in her not a moment's hesitation, we hear from her no expression of doubt or the least despondence. Physicians and judicious friends advised the step, her husband's health and power of usefulness, if not his life, might depend upon it; and this was enough, even if her own judgment had differed, as we have no reason to think it did. It was a feature of her mind very prominent, as it must be of every well-balanced mind, that she never suffered herself to be tortured with doubts or fears for the future when the present duty was clear, and never lamented that she had done that which seemed right and best, whatever the issue. As she writes, on one occasion, of her own habits of mind and long experience:--"There is no one thing that has been more important to my comfort, under any result of my plans, than the consciousness that they were decided upon after a full and careful deliberation of all other possible plans, and a calm judgment concerning them all. Then I felt I had done all that poor human nature could do; the rest was in G.o.d's hands,--it was all in G.o.d's hands. I was satisfied that this decision was in the order of his providence, and, come what might, I could never regret it, or spend one vain, impious _wish_ that I had taken another course. But, in order to make this decision satisfactory, I have always desired to know the whole truth, and be convinced that I had a perfect view of the whole case in hand; and have sought suggestions from others, not for my guidance, but that I might be sure I had deliberated upon all the varieties of plan which could be thought of."

This principle was now to be put to a severe test, the severest, perhaps, of her whole life. We have seen what she did, and what she suffered, in her former visit abroad. Totally different were the circ.u.mstances now, but none of them such as to make the trial less. Then she had been alone as a traveller, and also alone as to all exposure and peril. Now she was to feel and fear for the one most dear to her in life, one who was ill able to bear the fatigues and discomforts to which he must be subjected, and whom neither his own faith nor her serenity could keep from depression and discouragement. Through the whole period of their absence, which proved to be a year and a half, Mr. Ware could not be said to be well for a single day. Much of the time, he yielded to dejection and apprehension, as she had never known him before. He enjoyed much, but suffered more. Not bodily suffering wholly, or chiefly; but that which is much harder to bear,--the hardest of all,--a sense of helplessness and the increasing fear of uselessness; the conviction, in the very prime of life, that life's work must be left undone, a calling which he dearly loved be relinquished, and he either remain abroad a wanderer in search of health, or return home with only the capacity of projecting numerous plans and labors, not one of which would be ever accomplished. All this his wife shared, at least in its effect; against all this she had constantly to contend, bearing most of the responsibility of measures and results, her own health not strong, and soon subjected to peculiar and most anxious trials.

We have no desire to magnify these trials. We only wish to set them in their true light, as making an unusual--not an unprecedented, but an unusual--demand upon the trust, endurance, and energy of a wife and mother. She herself has been heard to say, that this was the most trying period of her life; that no other experience equalled it. Yet this would hardly be inferred from her letters at the time. They were necessarily few, but written with her usual cheerfulness and unfailing hopefulness.

Not all of them, however. One or two we have seen, such as cannot be used, that intimate, rather than express, peculiar suffering and solicitude. But this was in confidence, and for counsel; it being one of the peculiarities of the case that it presented many points where it was very difficult to decide whether wisdom and duty should carry them farther on, or turn them instantly back,--and the decision was with her.

We will not attempt to follow them closely in their foreign tour. Those who wish to trace its progress, and note the dates and incidents, will find them in the Memoir of Henry Ware by his brother. They visited England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and France, spending the winter in Italy. The first summer they pa.s.sed over much of the ground and sought the spots, in England, so familiar and memorable to Mary from her former experience. They visited Wordsworth, Southey, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Edgeworth; and pa.s.sed much time with Unitarian ministers, whom Mr. Ware wished particularly to see, that he might learn all he could of their position, cultivate a fraternal feeling, and open the way for a more frequent and friendly correspondence between those of the same household of faith in England and America. About the last of August they went to the Continent, taking Holland first, and thence through Switzerland into Italy, reaching Rome in December, and remaining there until April.

The few letters that Mrs. Ware wrote home will be given in the order of their dates, with little explanation or comment. Some are in the form of a journal; and here and there we see the hand of Mr. Ware, taking up the thread which his wife had dropped, and then leaving her to resume.

"_Greta Bridge, July 8, 1829._

"MY DEAR EMMA:--

"I slept last night in the very same room, at Barnard Castle, which you and I occupied four years ago. And having been in many places lately where we had been together, such as Studley, Ripon, and the George Inn at York, where we parted, and moreover, as you have visited me in my dreams, night after night, for a long time past, I feel that I must yield to the desire of writing to you, although it may be but a few lines of uninteresting matter. This place will, however, insure to the letter some value, for I remember well how you wished that the rain would abate, that you might see something of its beauties.

I wished it also then, but I wish it much more now, that I have had an opportunity of----

"Here the arrival of the coach which was to take us from this paradise cut short Mary's opportunity, and I dare say she will not remember what she was going to write; so that I, her subst.i.tute and lieutenant, go on to tell you how much we have mentioned your name while on these romantic grounds, and how glad we should have been to trace with you the paths of Rokeby and Greta in memory----