Reminiscences, 1819-1899 Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: JULIA WARD HOWE

_From a painting by Joseph Ames in 1847._]

The period between 1851 and the beginning of the civil war found Mr.

Sumner at his post in the Senate of the United States. His position was from the outset a difficult one. His election had displaced a popular idol. His views regarding the heated question of the time, the extension of slavery to the territories, were far in advance of those held by the majority of the senatorial body or by the community at large. His uncompromising method of attack, his fiery utterances, contrasting strangely with the unusual mildness of his disposition, exasperated the defenders of slavery. These, perhaps, seeing that he was no fighting man, may have supposed him deficient in personal courage. He, however, knew very well the risks to which he exposed himself. His friends advised him to carry arms, and my husband once told old Mrs. Sumner, his mother, that Charles ought to be provided with a pistol. "Oh, doctor,"

said the old lady, "he would only shoot himself with it."

In the most trying days of the civil war, this same old lady came to Dr.

Howe's office, anxious to learn his opinion concerning the progress of the contest. Dr. Howe in reply referred her to her own son for the desired information, saying, "Dear Madam Sumner, Charles knows more about public affairs than I do. Why don't you ask him about them?"

"Oh, doctor, if I ask Charles, he only says, 'Mother, don't trouble yourself about such things.'"

I was in Washington with Dr. Howe early in the spring of 1856. I remember being present in the senate chamber when a rather stormy debate took place between Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, and Henry Wilson, of Ma.s.sachusetts. Charles Sumner looked up and, seeing me in the gallery, greeted me with a smile of recognition. I shall never forget the beauty of that smile. It seemed to me to illuminate the whole precinct with a silvery radiance. There was in it all the innocence of his sweet and n.o.ble nature.

I asked my husband to invite Sumner to dine with us at Willard's Hotel, where we were staying. "No, no," he said, "Sumner would consider it _infra dig._ to dine with us at the hotel." He did, however, call upon us. In the course of conversation he said to me, "I shall soon deliver a speech in the Senate which will occasion a good deal of excitement. It will not surprise me if people leave their seats and show signs of unusual disturbance."

The speech was delivered soon after this time. It was a direct and forcible arraignment of the slave power, which was then endeavoring to change the free Territory of Kansas into a slave State. The disturbance which Mr. Sumner had antic.i.p.ated did not fail to follow, but in a manner which neither he nor any of his friends had foreseen.

At the hotel I had remarked a handsome man, evidently a Southerner, with what appeared to me an evil expression of countenance. This was Brooks of South Carolina, the man who, not long after this time, attacked Charles Sumner in his seat in the senate chamber, choosing a moment when the personal friends of his victim were not present, and inflicting upon him injuries which destroyed his health and endangered his life. I will not enlarge here upon the pain and distress which this event caused to us and to the community at large. For several weeks our senator's life hung in the balance. For a very much longer time his vacant seat in the senate chamber told of the severe suffering which incapacitated him for public work. This time of great trial had some compensation in the general sympathy which it called forth. Sumner had won the crown of martyrdom, and his person thenceforth became sacred, even to his enemies.

It was after a residence of many years in Washington that Mr. Sumner decided to build and occupy a house of his own. The spot chosen by him was immediately adjoining the well-known Arlington Hotel. The house was handsome and well appointed, adorned also with pictures and fine bronzes, in both of which he took great delight. Dr. Howe and I were invited to visit him there one evening, with other guests. Among these was Caleb Cushing, with whom Mr. Sumner soon became engaged in an animated discussion, probably regarding some question of the day. So absorbed were the two gentlemen in their argument that each of them frequently interrupted the other. The one interrupted would expostulate, saying, "I have not finished what I have to say;" at which the other would bow and apologize, but would presently offend again, in the same way.

At my own house in Boston, Mr. Sumner called one evening when we were expecting other company. The invited guests presently arrived, and he abruptly left the room without any parting word or gesture. I afterwards spoke of this to Dr. Howe, who said, "That is Sumner's idea of taking French leave." Whereupon our dear eldest said, "Why, mamma, Mr. Sumner's way of taking French leave is as if the elephant should undertake to walk incognito down Broadway."

The last important act of Mr. Sumner's public life was the elaborate argument by which he defeated the proposed annexation of Santo Domingo to the United States. This question presented itself during the first term of General Grant's administration. The proposal for annexation was made by the President of the Dominican Republic. General Grant, with the forethought of a military commander, desired that the United States should possess a foothold in the West Indies. A commission of three was accordingly appointed to investigate and report upon the condition of the island. The three were Hon. Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, Andrew D.

White, at that time president of Cornell University, and Dr. Howe. A thorough visitation of the territory was made by these gentlemen, and a report favorable to the scheme of annexation was presented by them on their return. Dr. Howe was greatly interested for the Dominicans, who had achieved political independence and separation from Hayti by a severe struggle, which was always liable to be renewed on the part of their former masters. Mr. Sumner, on the other hand, espoused the cause of the Haytian government so warmly that he would not wait for the report of the commission to be presented, but hastened to forestall public opinion by a speech in which he displayed all his powers of oratory, but showed something less than his usual acquaintance with facts. His eloquence carried the day, and the plan of annexation was defeated and abandoned, to the great regret of the commissioners and of the Dominicans themselves.

I shall speak elsewhere of my visiting Santo Domingo in company with Dr.

Howe. Our second visit there was made in the spring of the year 1874. I had gone one day to inspect a school high on the mountains of Samana, when a messenger came after me in haste, bearing this written message from my husband: "Please come home at once. Our dear, n.o.ble Sumner is no more." The monthly steamer, at that time the only one that ran to Santo Domingo, had just brought the news, deplored by many, to my husband inexpressibly sad.

In the winter of 1846-47 I one day heard Dr. Holmes speak of Aga.s.siz, who had then recently arrived in America. He described him as a man of great talent and reputation, who added to his mental gifts the endowment of a superb physique. Soon after this time I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the eminent naturalist, and of attending the first series of lectures which he gave at the Lowell Inst.i.tute.

The great personal attraction of Aga.s.siz, joined to his admirable power of presenting the results of scientific investigation in a popular form, made a vivid impression upon the Boston public. All his lecture courses were largely attended. These and his continued presence among us gave a new impetus to the study of natural science. In his hands the record of the bones and fossils became a living language, and the common thought was enriched by the revelation of the wonders of the visible universe.

Aga.s.siz's was an expansive nature, and his great delight lay in imparting to others the discoveries in which he had found such intense pleasure. This sympathetic trait relieved his discourse of all dryness and dullness. In his college days he had employed his hour of intermission at noon in explaining the laws of botany to a cla.s.s of little children. When required to furnish a thesis at the close of his university course, he chose for his theme the proper education of women, and insisted that it ought not to be inferior to that given to men.

I need hardly relate how a most happy marriage in later life made him one of us, nor how this opened the way to the establishment in his house of a school whose girl pupils, in addition to other valuable instruction, enjoyed daily the privilege of listening to his clear and lucid exposition of the facts and laws of his favorite science.

His memory is still bright among us. The story of his life and work is beautifully told in the "Life and Correspondence" published soon after his death by his widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Cary Aga.s.siz, well known to-day as the president of Radcliffe College. His children and grandchildren are among our most valued citizens. His son, Professor Alexander Aga.s.siz, inherits his father's devotion to science, while his daughter, Mrs. Quincy Shaw, has shown her public spirit in her great services to the cause of education. An enduring monument to his fame is the Cambridge Museum of Comparative Zoology, and I am but one of many still surviving who recall with grat.i.tude the enlargement of intellectual interest which he brought to our own and other communities.

Women who wish well to their own s.e.x should never forget that, on the occasion of his first lectures delivered in the capital of Brazil, he earnestly requested the emperor that ladies might be allowed to be present,--a privilege till then denied them on grounds of etiquette. The request was granted, and the sacred domain of science for the first time was thrown open to the women of South America.

I cannot remember just when it was that an English visitor, who brought a letter of introduction to my husband, spoke to me of the "Bothie of Tober-na-Fuosich" and its author, Arthur Hugh Clough. The gentleman was a graduate of Oxford or of Cambridge. He came to our house several times, and I consulted him with regard to the cla.s.sic rhythms, in which he was well versed. I had it in mind at this time to write a poem in cla.s.sic rhythm. It was printed in my first volume, "Pa.s.sion Flowers;"

and Mr. Sanborn, in an otherwise very friendly review of my work, characterized as "pitiable hexameters" the lines which were really not hexameters at all, nor intended to pa.s.s for such. They were pentameters constructed according to my own ideas; I did not have in view any special school or rule.

I soon had the pleasure of reading the "Bothie," which I greatly admired. While it was fresh in my mind Mr. Clough arrived in Boston, furnished with excellent letters of introduction both for that city and for the dignitaries of Cambridge. My husband at once invited him to pa.s.s some days at our house, and I was very glad to welcome him there. In appearance I thought him rather striking. He was tall, tending a little to stoutness, with a beautifully ruddy complexion and dark eyes which twinkled with suppressed humor. His sweet, cheery manner at once attracted my young children to him, and I was amused, on pa.s.sing near the open door of his room, to see him engaged in conversation with my little son, then some five or six years of age. In Dr. Howe's daily absences I tried to keep our guest company a little, but I found him very shy. I remember that I said to him, when we had made some acquaintance, that I had often wished to meet Thackeray, and to give him two buffets, saying, "This one is for your Becky Sharp and this one for Blanche Amory,"--regarding both as slanders upon my s.e.x. Mr. Clough suggested that in the great world of London such characters were not out of place. The device of Blanche Amory's book, "Mes Larmes," seemed to have afforded him much amus.e.m.e.nt.

It happened that, while he was with us, I dined one day with a German friend, who served us with quite a wonderful repast. The feast had been a merry one, and at the dessert two such sumptuous dishes were presented to us that I, having tasted of one of them, said to a friend across the table, "Anna, this is poetry!" She was occupied with the opposite dish, and, mindful of the old pleasantry to which I alluded, replied, "Julia, this is religion." At breakfast, the next morning, I endeavored to entertain those present with some account of the great dinner. As I enlarged a little upon the excellence of the details, Mr. Clough said, "Mrs. Howe, you seem to have a great appreciation of these matters." I disclaimed this; whereupon he rejoined, "Mrs. Howe, you are modest."

Some months later I met Mr. Clough at a friend's house, where some informal charades were about to be attempted. Being requested to take part in one, I declined; and when urged, I replied, "No, no, I am modest,--Mr. Clough once said so." He looked at me in some pretended surprise, and said, "It must have been at a very early period in our acquaintance." This "give and take" was all in great good humor, and Mr.

Clough was a delightful guest in all societies. Sorry indeed were we when, having become quite at home among us, he returned to England, there to marry and abide. I remember that he told me of one winter which he had pa.s.sed at his university without fire in his quarters. When I heard of his illness and untimely death, it occurred to me that the seeds of the fatal disease might have been sown during that season of privation.

CHAPTER IX

SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE

In June, 1850, after a seven years' residence in and near Boston, during which I labored at study and literary composition, I enjoyed an interval of rest and recreation in Europe. With me went Dr. Howe and our two youngest children, one of them an infant in arms. We pa.s.sed some weeks in London, and went thence to renew our acquaintance with the Nightingale family, at their summer residence in Derbyshire. Florence Nightingale had been traveling in Egypt, and was still abroad. Her sister, Parthenope, read us some of her letters, which, as may be imagined, were full of interest.

Florence and her companions, Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, had made some stay in Rome, on their way to Egypt. Margaret Fuller called one day at their lodgings. Florence herself opened the door, and said to the visitor, "Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge are not at home." Margaret replied, "My visit is intended for Miss Florence Nightingale;" and she was admitted to a tete-a-tete of which one would be glad to know something.

It was during this visit that I learned the sad news of Margaret's shipwreck and death.

Dr. Howe, with all his energy of body and of mind, was somewhat of a valetudinarian. The traces of a severe malarial fever, contracted by him in the Greek campaign of his youth, went with him through life. He was subject to frightful headaches, and these and other ailments caused him to take great interest in theories of hygiene, and among these in the then new system of hydropathy, as formulated by Priessnitz. At the time now spoken of he arranged to pa.s.s a period at Boppard on the Rhine, where a water-cure had recently been established. He became an outside patient of this inst.i.tution, and seemed to enjoy thoroughly the routine of bathing, douching, packing, etc. Beyond the limits of the water-cure the little town presented few features of interest. Wandering about its purlieus one day, I came upon a sort of open cave or recess in the rocks in which I found two rude cradles, each occupied by a silent and stolid baby. Presently two rough-looking women, who had been carrying stones from the riverside, came in from their work. The little ones now broke out into dismal wailing. "Why do they cry so?" I asked. "They ought to be glad to see you." "Oh, madam, they cry because they know how soon we must leave them again."

Tom Appleton disposed of the water-cure theory in the following fashion: "Water-cure? Oh yes, very fine. Priessnitz forgot one day to wash his face, and so he died."

My husband's leave of absence was for six months only, and we parted company at Heidelberg; he to turn his face homewards, I to proceed with my two sisters to Rome, where it had been arranged that I should pa.s.s the winter.

Our party occupied two thirds of the diligence in which we made a part of the journey. My sister L. had with her two little daughters, my youngest sister had one. These, with my two babies and the respective nurses, filled the _rotonde_ of the vehicle. The three mammas occupied the _coupe_, while my brother-in-law, Thomas Crawford, took refuge in the _banquette_. The custom-house officer at one place approached with his lantern, to ascertain the contents of the diligence. Looking into the _rotonde_, he remarked, "Baby baggage," and inquired no further.

Dr. Howe had charged me to provide myself with a watch when I should pa.s.s through Geneva, and had given me the address of a friend who, he said, would advise me where best to make the purchase. Following his instructions, I wrote Dr. G. a letter in my best French; and he, calling at our hotel, expressed his surprise at finding that I was not a Frenchwoman. He found us all at breakfast, and, after the first compliments, began a voluble tirade in favor of the use of emetics, which was scarcely in place at the moment. From this he went on to speak of the management of children.

"When my son was born," he said, "and showed the first symptoms of hunger, I would not allow him to be fed. If his cries had met with an immediate response he would have said to himself, 'I have a servant.' I made him wait for his food until he was obliged to say, 'I have a master.'" I thought of my own dear nurslings and shook my head. Learning that Mr. Crawford was a sculptor, he said, "I, too, in my youth desired to exercise that art, and modeled a bust, in which I made concave the muscle which should have been convex. A friend recommended to me the study of anatomy, and following it I became a physician."

We reached Rome late in October. A comfortable apartment was found for me in the street named Capo le Case. A donkey brought my winter's supply of firewood, and I made haste to hire a grand piano. The artist Edward Freeman occupied the suite of rooms above my own. In the apartment below, Mrs. David Dudley Field and her children were settled for the winter. Our little colony was very harmonious. When Mrs. Field entertained company, she was wont to borrow my large lamp; when I received, she lent me her teacups. Mrs. Freeman, on the floor above, was a most friendly little person, partly Italian by birth, but wholly English in education. She willingly became the companion and guide of my walks about Rome, which were long and many.

I had begun the study of Hebrew in America, and was glad to find a learned rabbi from the Ghetto who was willing to give me lessons for a moderate compensation.

My sister, Mrs. Crawford, was at that time established at Villa Negroni, an old-time papal residence. This was surrounded by extensive gardens, and within the inclosure were an artificial fish pond and a lodge which my brother-in-law converted into a studio. My days in Rome pa.s.sed very quietly. The time, which flew by rapidly, was divided between study within doors, the care and companionship of my little children, and the exploration of the wonderful old city. I dined regularly at two o'clock, having with me at table my little son and my baby secured in her high chair. I shared with my sisters the few dissipations of the season,--an occasional ball, a box at the opera, a drive on the Campagna. On Sunday mornings my youngest sister usually came to breakfast with me, and afterward accompanied me to the Ara Coeli Church, where a military ma.s.s was celebrated, the music being supplied by the band of a French regiment. The time, I need scarcely say, was that of the early years of the French occupation of the city, to which France made it her boast that she had brought back the Pope.

As I chronicle these small personal adventures of mine, I am constrained to blush at their insufficiency. I write as if I had forgotten the wonderful series of events which had come to pa.s.s between my first visit to Rome and this second tarrying within its walls. In the interval, the days of 1848 had come and gone. France had dismissed her citizen king, and had established a republic in place of the monarchy. The Pope of Rome, for centuries the representative and upholder of absolute rule, had stood before the world as the head of the Christianity which liberalizes both inst.i.tutions and ideas. In Germany the party of progress was triumphant. Europe had trembled with the birth-pangs of freedom. A new and glorious confederacy of states seemed to be promised in the near future. The tyrannies of the earth were surely about to meet their doom.

My own dear eldest son was given to me in the spring of this terrible and splendid year of 1848. When his father wrote "_Dieu donne_" under the boy's name in the family Bible, he added to the welcome record the new device, "_Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite_." The first Napoleon had overthrown rulers and dynasties. A greater power than his now came upon the stage,--the power of individual conviction backed by popular enthusiasm.

My husband, who had fought for Greek freedom in his youth, who had risked and suffered imprisonment in behalf of Poland in his early manhood, and who had devoted his mature life to the service of humanity, welcomed the new state of things with all the enthusiasm of his generous nature. To him, as to many, the final emanc.i.p.ation and unification of the human race, the millennium of universal peace and good-will, seemed near at hand. Alas! the great promise brought only a greater failure.

The time for its fulfillment had not yet arrived. Freedom could not be attained by striking an att.i.tude, nor secured by the issuing of a doc.u.ment. The prophet could see the plan of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven, but the fact remained that the city of G.o.d must be built by patient day's work. Such builders Europe could not bring to the front. The Pope retreated before the logical sequence of his own initiative. France elected for her chief a born despot of the meaner order, whose first act was to overthrow the Roman Republic. Germany had dreamed of freedom, but had not dreamed of the way to secure it.

Reaction everywhere a.s.serted itself. The light of the great hope died down.

Coming to Rome while these events were still fresh in men's minds, I could see no trace of them in the popular life. The waters were still as death; the wrecks did not appear above the surface. I met occasionally Italians who could talk calmly of what had happened. Of such an one I asked, "Why did Pio Nono so suddenly forsake his liberal policy?" "Oh, the Pope was a puppet moved from without. He never rightly understood the import of his first departure. When the natural result of this came about, he fled from it in terror." These things were spoken of only in the secrecy of very private interviews. In general intercourse they were not mentioned. Now and then, a servant, lamenting the dearness of necessaries, the paper money, etc., would say, "And this has been brought about by blessed [_benedetto_] Pio Nono!" People of higher condition eulogized thus the pontiff's predecessor: "Gregorio was at least a man of decided views. He knew what he wanted and how to obtain it." Once only, in a village not far distant from Rome, I heard an Italian peasant woman say to a prince, "We [her family] are Republicans." Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, Garibaldi, your time was not yet come.

The French were not beloved in Rome. I was told that the ma.s.s of the people would not endure the license of their conquerors in the matter of s.e.x, and that a.s.sa.s.sinations in consequence were frequent. In high society it was said that a French officer had endeavored to compel one of the Roman princes to invite to his ball a lady of doubtful reputation, by threatening to send a challenge in case of refusal. The invitation was nevertheless withheld, and the challenge, if sent, was never accepted. In the English and American circles which I frequented, I sometimes felt called upon to fight for the claim of Italy to freedom and self-government. At a dinner party, at which the altercation had been rather lively, I was invited to entertain the company with some music. Seating myself at the piano, I made it ring out the Ma.r.s.eillaise with a will. But I was myself too much disconcerted by the recent failure to find in my thoughts any promise of better things. My friends said, "The Italians are not fit for self-government." I may ask fifty years later, "Who is?"

The progress of ideas is not indeed always visible to superficial observers. I was engaged one day in making a small purchase at a shop, when the proprietor leaned across the counter and asked, almost in a whisper, for the loan of a Bible. He had heard of the book, he said, and wished very much to see a copy of it. Our _charge d'affaires_, Mr. Ca.s.s, mentioned to me the fact that an entire edition of Deodati's Italian translation of the New Testament had recently been seized and burned by order of the papal government.