Reminiscences, 1819-1899 Part 12

I cannot remember what it was which, soon after this time, led me to the study of Spinoza. I followed this with great interest, and became for a time almost intoxicated with the originality and beauty of his thoughts.

While still under his influence I spoke of him to Mr. Bancroft as "der unentbehrliche," the indispensable Spinoza. He demurred at this, acknowledged Spinoza's a.n.a.lysis of the pa.s.sions to be admirable, but a.s.sured me that Kant alone deserved to be called "indispensable;" and this dictum of his made me resolve to become at once a student of the "Critique of Pure Reason."

I found this at first rather dry, after the glowing and daring flights of Spinoza, but I soon learned to hold the philosopher of Konigsberg in great affection and esteem. I have read extensively in his writings, even in his minor treatises, and having attained some conception of his system, was inclined to say with Romeo: "Here I set up my everlasting rest."

I devoted some of the best years of my life to these studies, and to the writings which grew out of them. I remember one summer at my Valley near Newport, in which I felt that I had read and written quite as much as was profitable. "I must go outside of my own thoughts, I must do something for some one," I said to myself. Just then the teacher of my sister's children broke out with malarial fever. She was staying with my sister at a farmhouse near by. The call to a.s.sist in nursing her was very welcome, and when I was thanked for my services I could truly say that I had been glad of the opportunity of rendering them for my own sake.

The Kantian volumes occupied me for many months, even years. In fact, I have never gone beyond them. A new philosophy has sometimes appeared to me like a new disease. If we have found our master, and are satisfied with him, what need have we of starting again, to make the same journey with a new guide. Once we have got there, it seems better to abide.

The early years of my married life interposed a barrier between my literary dreams and their realization. Those years brought me much to learn and much to do.

The burden of housekeeping was new to me, a sister of mine, highly gifted in this respect, having charged herself with its duties so long as we were "girls together." I accordingly found myself lamentably deficient in household skill and knowledge. I endeavored to apply myself to the remedying of these defects, but with indifferent success. I was by nature far from observant, and often pa.s.sed through a room without much notion of its condition or contents, my thoughts being intent on other matters. The period, too, was one of transition as regards household service. The old-time American servants were no longer to be obtained. The Irish girls who supplied their place were for the most part ignorant and untrained, their performance calling for a discipline and instruction which I, never having received, was quite unable to give them.

During the first years of my residence at the Inst.i.tution for the Blind, Dr. Howe delighted in inviting his friends to weekly dinners, which cost me many unhappy hours. My want of training and of forethought often caused me to forget some very important item of the repast. My husband's eldest sister, who lived with us, and who had held the reins of the housekeeping until my arrival, was averse to company, and usually absented herself on the days of the dinner parties. In her absence, I often did not know where to look for various articles which were requisite and necessary. I remember one dinner for which I had relied upon a form of ice as the princ.i.p.al feature of the dessert. The company was of the best, and I desired that the feast should correspond with it.

The ice, which had been ordered from town, did not appear. I did my best to conceal my chagrin, but was scarcely consoled when the missing refreshment was found, the next morning, in a s...o...b..nk near our door, where the messenger had deposited it without word or comment. The same mischance might, indeed does sometimes happen at this later date. I should laugh at it now, but then I almost wept over it. Our kitchen and dining-room were on one floor, and a convenient slide allowed dishes to be pa.s.sed from one room to the other. On a certain occasion, my sister being with me, I asked her whether my dinner had gone off well enough.

"Oh yes," she replied; "only the slide was left open, and through it I saw the cook b.u.t.tering the venison."

I especially remember one summer which I resolved to devote to the study of cookery, for which there was then no school, and no teacher to be had at will. Having purchased Miss Catherine Beecher's Cook-book, I devoted some weeks to an experimental following of its recipes, with no satisfactory result. A little later, my husband secured the services of a very competent housekeeper, and my distresses and responsibilities were much diminished. After some years of this indulgence, I felt bound to make a second and more strenuous effort at housekeeping, and succeeded much better than before, having by this time managed to learn something of the nature and needs of household machinery.

As I now regard these matters, I would say to every young girl, rich or poor, gifted or dull: "Learn to make a home, and learn this in the days in which learning is easy. Cultivate a habit of vigilance and forethought. With a reasonable amount of intelligence, a woman should be able to carry on the management of a household, and should yet have time for art and literature in some sort."

In more recent years, having been called upon to take part in a public discussion regarding the compatibility of domestic with literary occupation, I endeavored to formulate the results of my own experience as follows:--

"If you have at your command three hours _per diem_, you may study art, literature, and philosophy, not as they are studied professionally, but in the degree involved in general culture.

"If you have but one hour in every day, read philosophy, or learn foreign languages, living or dead.

"If you can command only fifteen or twenty minutes, read the Bible with the best commentaries, and daily a verse or two of the best poetry."

As I write this, I recall the piteous image of two wrecks of women, Americans and wives of Americans, who severally poured out their sorrows to me, saying that the preparation of "three square meals a day," the washing, baking, sewing, and child-bearing, had filled the measure of their days and exceeded that of their strength: "And yet," each said, "I wanted the Greek and Latin and college course as much as any one could wish for it."

But surely, no love of intellectual pursuits should lead any of us to disparage and neglect the household gifts and graces. A house is a kingdom in little, and its queen, if she is faithful, gentle, and wise, is a sovereign indeed.

CHAPTER XI

ANTI-SLAVERY ATt.i.tUDE: LITERARY WORK: TRIP TO CUBA

Returning to Boston in 1851, I found the division of public sentiment more strongly marked than ever. The Fugitive Slave Law was much in the public mind. The anti-slavery people attacked it with might and main, while the cla.s.s of wealthy conservatives and their followers strongly deprecated all opposition to its enactments. During my absence Charles Sumner had been elected to the Senate of the United States, in place of Daniel Webster, who had hitherto been the political idol of the Ma.s.sachusetts aristocracy. Mr. Sumner's course had warmly commended him to a large and ever increasing const.i.tuency, but had brought down upon him the anger of Mr. Webster's political supporters. My husband's sympathies were entirely with the cla.s.s then derided as "a band of disturbers of the public peace, enemies of law and order." I deeply regretted the discords of the time, and would have had all people good friends, however diverse in political persuasion. As this could not be, I felt constrained to cast in my lot with those who protested against the new a.s.sumptions of the slave power. The social ostracism which visited Charles Sumner never fell upon Dr. Howe. This may have been because the active life of the latter lay without the domain of politics, but also, I must think, because the services which he continually rendered to the community compelled from all who knew him, not only respect, but also cordial good-will.

I did not then, or at any time, make any willful breach with the society to which I was naturally related. It did, however, much annoy me to hear those spoken of with contempt and invective who, I was persuaded, were only far in advance of the conscience of the time. I suppose that I sometimes repelled the attacks made upon them with a certain heat of temper, to avoid which I ought to have remembered Talleyrand's famous admonition, "Surtout point de zele." Better, perhaps, would it have been to rest in the happy prophecy which a.s.sures us that "Wisdom is justified of all her children." Ordinary society is apt to cla.s.s the varieties of individuals under certain stereotyped heads, and I have no doubt that it held me at this time to be a seeker after novelties, and one disposed to offer a premium for heresies of every kind. Yet I must say that I was never made painfully aware of the existence of such a feeling. There was always a leaven of good sense and good sentiment even in the worldly world of Boston, and as time went on I became the recipient of much kindness, and the happy possessor of a circle of substantial friends.

Shortly after my return to Boston, my husband spoke to me of a new acquaintance,--a Polish n.o.bleman, Adam Gurowski by name,--concerning whom he related the following circ.u.mstances. Count Gurowski had been implicated in one of the later Polish insurrections. In order to keep his large estates from confiscation he had made them over to his younger brother, upon the explicit condition that a sufficient remittance should be regularly sent him, to enable him to live wherever his lot should thenceforth be cast. He came to this country, but the remittances failed to follow him, and he presently found himself without funds in a foreign land. Being a man of much erudition, he had made friends with some of the professors of Harvard University. They offered him a.s.sistance, which he declined, and it soon appeared that he was working in the gardens of Hovey & Co., in or near Cambridge. His new friends remonstrated with him, pleading that this work was unsuitable for a man of his rank and condition. He replied, "I am Gurowski; labor cannot degrade me." This independence of his position commended him much to the esteem of my husband, and he was more than once invited to our house. Some literary employment was found for him, and finally, through influence exerted at Washington, a position as translator was secured for him in the State Department. He was at Newport during the summer that we pa.s.sed at the Cliff House, and he it was who gave it the t.i.tle of Hotel Rambouillet.

His proved to be a character of remarkable contradictions, in which really n.o.ble and generous impulses contrasted with an undisciplined temper and an insatiable curiosity. While inveighing constantly against the rudeness of American manners, he himself was often guilty of great impoliteness. To give an example: At his boarding-house in Newport a child at table gave a little trouble, upon which the count animadverted with great severity. The mother, waxing impatient, said, "I think, count, that you have no right to say so much about table manners; for you yesterday broke the crust of the chicken pie with your fist, and pulled the meat out with your fingers!"

His curiosity, as I have said, was unbounded. Meeting a lady of his acquaintance at her door, and seeing a basket on her arm, he asked, "Where are you going, Mrs. ----, so early, with that basket?" She declined to answer the question, on the ground that the questioner had no concern in her errand. On the evening of the same day he again met the lady, and said to her, "I know now where you were going this morning with that basket." If friends on whom he called were said to be engaged or not at home, he was at great pains to find out how they were engaged, or whether they were really at home in spite of the message to the contrary. One gentleman in Newport, not desiring to receive the count's visit, and knowing that he would not be safe anywhere in his own house, took refuge in the loft of his barn and drew the ladder up after him.

And yet Adam Gurowski was a true-hearted man, loyal to every good cause and devoted to his few friends. His life continued to the last to be a very checkered one. When the civil war broke out, his disapprobation of men and measures took expression in vehement and indignant protest against what appeared to him a willful mismanagement of public business.

William H. Seward was then at the head of the Department of State, and against his policy the count fulminated in public and in private. He was warned by friends, and at last officially told that he could not be retained in the department if he persisted in stigmatizing its chief as a fool, a timeserver, no matter what. He persevered, and was dismissed from his place. He had been on friendly terms with Charles Sumner, to whom he probably owed his appointment. He tormented this gentleman to such a degree as to terminate all relations between the two. Of this breach Mr. Sumner gave the following account: "The count would come to my rooms at all hours. When I left my sleeping-chamber in the morning, I often found him in my study, seated at my table, perusing my morning paper and probably any other matter which might excite his curiosity. If he happened to come in while a foreign minister was visiting me, he would stay through the visit. I bore with this for a long time. At last the annoyance became insupportable. One evening, after a long sitting in my room, he took leave, but presently returned for a fresh _seance_, although it was already very late. I said to him, 'Count, you must go now, and you must never return.' 'How is this, my dear friend?'

exclaimed the count. 'There is no explanation,' said I, 'only you must not come to my room again.'" This ended the acquaintance! The count after this spoke very bitterly of Mr. Sumner, whose procedure did seem to me a little severe.

Unfortunately the lesson was quite lost upon Gurowski, and he continued to make enemies of those with whom he had to do, until nearly every door in Washington was closed to him. There was one exception. Mrs. Charles Eames, wife of a well-known lawyer, was one of the notabilities of Washington. Hers was one of those central characters which are able to attract and harmonize the most diverse social elements. Her house had long been a resort of the worthies of the capital. Men of mark and of intelligence gathered about her, regardless of party divisions. No one understood Washington society better than she did, and no one in it was more highly esteemed or less liable to be misrepresented. Mrs. Eames well knew how provoking and tormenting Count Gurowski was apt to be, but she knew, too, the remarkable qualities which went far to redeem his troublesome traits of character. And so, when the count seemed to be entirely discredited, she stood up for him, warning her friends that if they came to her house they would always be likely to meet this unacceptable man. He, on his part, was warmly sensible of the value of her friendship, and showed his grat.i.tude by a sincere interest in all that concerned her. The courageous position which she had a.s.sumed in his behalf was not without effect upon the society of the place, and people in general felt obliged to show some respect to a person whom Mrs. Eames honored with her friendship.

I myself have reason to remember with grat.i.tude Mrs. Eames's hospitality. I made more than one visit at her house, and I well recall the distinguished company that I met there. The house was simple in its appointments, for the hosts were not in affluent circ.u.mstances, but its atmosphere of cordiality and of good sense was delightful. At one of her dinner parties I remember meeting Hon. Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Chief Justice of the United States, Secretary Welles of the Navy, and Senator Grimes of Iowa. I had seen that morning a life-size painting representing President Lincoln surrounded by the members of his Cabinet.

Mr. Chase, I think, asked what I thought of the picture. I replied that I thought Mr. Lincoln's att.i.tude rather awkward, and his legs out of proportion in their length. Mr. Chase laughed, and said, "Mr. Lincoln's legs are so long that it would be difficult to exaggerate them."

I came to Washington soon after the conclusion of the war, and heard that Count Gurowski was seriously ill at the home of his good friend. I hastened thither to inquire concerning him, and learned that his life was almost despaired of. Mr. Eames told me this, and said that his wife and a lady friend of hers were incessant in their care of him. He promised that I should see him as soon as a change for the better should appear. Instead of this I received one day a message from Mrs. Eames, saying that the count was now given up by his physician, and that I might come, if I wished to see him alive once more. I went to the house at once, and found Mrs. Eames and her friend at the bedside of the dying man. He was already unconscious, and soon breathed his last. At Mr.

Eames's request I now gave up my room at the hotel and came to stay with Mrs. Eames, who was prostrated with the fatigue of nursing the sick man and with grief for his loss. While I sat and talked with her Mr. Eames entered the room, and said, "Mrs. Howe, my wife has always had a menagerie here in Washington, and now she has lost her faithful old grizzly."

I was intrusted with some of the arrangements for the funeral. Mrs.

Eames said to me that, as the count had been a man of no religious belief, she thought it would be best to invite a Unitarian minister to officiate at his funeral. I should add that her grief prevented her from perceiving the humor of the suggestion. I accordingly secured the services of the Rev. John Pierpont, who happened to be in Washington at the time. Charles Sumner came to the house before the funeral, and actually shed tears as he looked on the face of his former friend. He remarked upon the beauty of the countenance, saying in his rather oratorical way, "There is a beauty of life, and there is a beauty of death." The count's good looks had been spoiled in early life by the loss of one eye, which had been destroyed, it was said, in a duel. After death, however, this blemish did not appear, and the distinction of the features was remarkable.

Among his few effects was a printed volume containing the genealogy of his family, which had thrice intermarried with royal houses, once in the family of Maria Lesczinska, wife of Louis XV. of France. Within this book he had inclosed one or two cast-off trifles belonging to Mrs.

Eames, with a few words of deep and grateful affection. So ended this troublous life. The Russian minister at Washington called upon Mrs.

Eames soon after the funeral, and spoke with respect of the count, who, he said, could have held a brilliant position in Russia, had it not been for his quarrelsome disposition. Despite his skepticism, and in all his poverty, he caused a ma.s.s to be said every year for the soul of his mother, who had been a devout Catholic. To the brother whose want of faith added the distresses of poverty to the woes of exile, Gurowski once addressed a letter in the following form: "To John Gurowski, the greatest scoundrel in Europe." A younger brother of his, a man of great beauty of person, enticed one of the infantas of Spain from the school or convent in which she was pursuing her education. This adventure made much noise at the time. Mrs. Eames once read me part of a letter from this lady, in which she spoke of "the fatal Gurowski beauty."

It was in the early years of this decade (1850-1860) that I definitively came before the world as an author. My first volume of poems, ent.i.tled "Pa.s.sion Flowers," was published by Ticknor and Fields, without my name.

In the choice and arrangement of the poems James T. Fields had been very helpful to me. My lack of experience had led me to suppose that my incognito might easily be maintained, but in this my expectations were disappointed. The authorship of the book was at once traced to me. It was much praised, much blamed, and much called in question. From the highest literary authorities of the time it received encouraging commendation. Mr. Emerson acknowledged the copy sent him, in a very kind letter. Mr. Whittier did likewise. He wrote, "I dare say thy volume has faults enough." For all this, he spoke warmly of its merits. Prescott, the beloved historian, made me happy with his good opinion. George Ripley, in the "New York Tribune," Edwin Whipple and Frank Sanborn in Boston, reviewed the volume in a very genial and appreciative spirit. I think that my joy reached its height when I heard Theodore Parker repeat some of my lines from the pulpit. Miss Catharine Sedgwick, in speaking of the poems to a mutual friend, quoted with praise a line from my long poem on Rome. Speaking of my first hearing of the nightingale, it says:--

"A note Fell as a star falls, trailing sound for light."

Dr. Francis Lieber quoted the following pa.s.sage as having a Shakespearean ring:--

"But, as none can tell Among the sunbeams which unconscious one Comes weaponed with celestial will, to strike The stroke of Freedom on the fettered floods, Giving the spring his watchword--even so Rome knew not she had spoke the word of Fate That should, from out its sluggishness, compel The frost-bound vastness of barbaric life, Till, with an ominous sound, the torrent rose And rushed upon her with terrific brow, Sweeping her back, through all her haughty ways, To her own gates, a piteous fugitive."

I make mention of these things because the volume has long been out of print. It was a timid performance upon a slender reed, but the great performers in the n.o.ble orchestra of writers answered to its appeal, which won me a seat in their ranks.

The work, such as it was, dealt partly with the stirring questions of the time, partly with things near and familiar. The events of 1848 were still in fresh remembrance: the heroic efforts of Italian patriots to deliver their country from foreign oppression, the struggle of Hungary to maintain her ancient immunities. The most important among my "Pa.s.sion Flowers" were devoted to these themes. The wrongs and sufferings of the slave had their part in the volume. A second publication, following two years later, and styled "Words for the Hour," was esteemed by some critics as better than the first. George William Curtis, at that time editor of "Putnam's Magazine," wrote me, "It is a better book than its predecessor, but will probably not meet with the same success." And so, indeed, it proved.

I had always contemplated writing for the stage, and was now emboldened to compose a drama ent.i.tled, "The World's Own," which was produced at Wallack's Theatre in New York. The princ.i.p.al characters were sustained by Matilda Heron, then in the height of her popularity, and Mr. Sothern, afterwards so famous in the role of Lord Dundreary. The play was performed several times in New York and once in Boston. It was p.r.o.nounced by one critic "full of literary merits and of dramatic defects." It did not, as they say, "keep the stage."

My next literary venture was a series of papers descriptive of a visit made to the island of Cuba in 1859, under the following circ.u.mstances.

Theodore Parker had long intended to make this year one of foreign travel. He had planned a journey in South America, and Dr. Howe had promised to accompany him. The sudden failure of Parker's health at this time was thought to render a change of climate imperative, and in the month of February a voyage to Cuba was prescribed for him. In this, Dr.

Howe willingly consented to accompany him, deciding also that I must be of the party.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMUEL GRIDLEY HOWE

_From a photograph about 1859._]

Our departure was in rough weather. George Ripley, formerly of Brook Farm and then of the "New York Tribune," an early friend of Parker, came to see us off. My husband insisted somewhat strenuously upon my coming to table at the first meal served on board, as this would secure me a place for the entire voyage. I felt very ill, and Parker, who was seated at the same table, looked at my husband and said, "_Natura duce_," for which I was very grateful. Presently the captain, who was carving a roast of beef, asked some one whether a slice of fat was likewise desired. At this I fled to my cabin without waiting for permission.

Parker also took refuge in his berth, and we did not meet again for some time. We had encountered a head wind in the Gulf Stream, and were rolled and tossed about in great discomfort. I persisted in being carried on deck every day. My stewardess once said to the stout steward who rendered me this service, "This lady has a great deal of energy and _no power_." My bearer, seeking, no doubt, to comfort me, growled in my ear, "Well now, I expect this sea-sickness is a dreadful thing." Soon a brighter day dawned upon us, and Parker appeared on deck, limp and helpless, and glad to lie upon a mattress. We had sad tales to tell of what we had suffered. A pretty lady pa.s.senger, who sat with us, held up a number of the "Atlantic Monthly" containing Colonel Higginson's well-remembered paper, "Ought Women to learn the Alphabet?" "Yes," cried her husband, "for they have got to teach it." By this time we had reached the southern seas, and I had entirely recovered from my sea-sickness. When I made my appearance, standing erect, and in my right clothes and mind, people did not recognize me, and asked, "Where did that lady come from?"

On our way to Havana we stopped for a day at Na.s.sau. Here we were entertained at luncheon by a physician of the island. Among the articles served to us was the tropical breadfruit, which might really be mistaken for a loaf fresh from the baker's oven. Before this we attended a morning drill of soldiers at the fort. In the book which I published afterwards, I spoke of the presiding officer as a lean Don Quixote on a leaner Rosinante. The colonel, for such was his rank, sent me word that he did not resent my mention of himself, but thought that I might have spoken more admiringly of his horse, of which he was very proud. A drive in the environs and an evening service at the church completed my experience of the friendly little island. When we reembarked for Cuba a gay party of young people accompanied us, all in light summer wear, fluttering with frills and ribbons. The rough sea soon sent them all below, to reappear only when we neared the end of our journey.