_The Perkins Institution for the Blind.—South Boston in the ’Fifties and
’Sixties.—Migratory Habits of the Howe Family.—“Cliff House” at
Newport.—George William Curtis and the Howe Children.—A Children’s
Party at the Longfellow Mansion.—Professor “Stubby” Child Plays with
Us in the Hay._
“I REMEMBER, I remember, the house where I was born.” Indeed, I can
hardly do otherwise, for the Perkins Institution for the Blind was one
of the landmarks of Boston in the nineteenth century. It was also, so to
speak, the intermittent home of our family for many years. My father
bought “Green Peace” and moved the family there soon after my birth,
hence we lived at the Institution only from time to time.
The “Doctor’s” wing of the great building was always at his disposal. In
the summer, when the family were at Newport, he often stayed there. It
was a refuge to us in time of trouble. Did our city house catch fire, or
other circumstances make a change desirable—presto! we departed,
servants and all, for the Institution! My brother-in-law, Henry
Richards, complained mildly during his courtship that no notice was
given of these intended hegiras. He would come to see sister Laura one
evening and bid her good-by, with every expectation of calling on her
the following day. When, twenty-four hours later, he rang the door-bell,
there was no response! The Howe family had folded their tents, like the
Arabs, and silently moved over to the Institution. It will be judged,
from this story, that the Doctor’s part was fully furnished, save that
the halls, like all those in the building, had uncarpeted marble floors.
For the Perkins Institution for the Blind had originally been a hotel,
the Mount Washington House.
The building, simple, massive, and dignified, stood on a hill commanding
a lovely view of Boston Harbor with its many islands. Just behind it
rose Dorchester Heights. As children we played among the earthworks
whence the cannon of Washington’s army had forced the British to
evacuate Boston. We did not then know that Col. Richard Gridley, one of
our ancestors, had planned those fortifications and the defenses of
Bunker Hill as well. He was a veteran of the French wars who had “won
laurels as an accomplished engineer at Louisburg.”[1]
Footnote 1:
Frothingham’s _Siege of Boston_.
When the Institution for the Blind was moved to South Boston, Ward
twelve was more highly esteemed as a place of residence than it is now.
A peninsula connected with the mainland only by Dorchester Neck, it
enjoys the full sweep of the famous Boston east wind. Hence it is cool
in summer, and the extended shore gives opportunities for sea-bathing.
One of the sad memories of my childhood is the booming of cannon fired
in the hope of bringing to the surface the bodies of those who had been
drowned while bathing.
South Boston has so many natural advantages of climate and scenery that
it was hoped the city would grow in that direction. But the situation
has its drawbacks. In order to reach Boston proper it is necessary
either to take a long and circuitous route through Dorchester, or else
to cross one of the bridges which span the harbor. These were, when I
can first remember, fitted with primitive wooden drawbridges through
which vessels seemed always to be passing, if one were in a hurry.
Boston was at this time a seaport in reality as well as in name, the
wharves filled with shipping. To a child it was alarming to see the
solid floor of the bridge divide in two portions and rise slowly in the
air, disclosing an open space of water. It diminished very much one’s
feeling of security. To be sure, after the vessel had finally passed
through, and the great wooden jaws had again snapped together, a large
iron bolt restrained further vagaries on their part. But what was to
prevent the draw from sinking down under the weight of the passing
vehicles? Then there were legends of adventurous and unfortunate little
boys who had been caught between the descending jaws. If you and your
driver were fair-minded persons, your carriage took its proper place in
the line and patiently waited its turn to cross. Despite the warning
sign, “Keep to the Right as the Law Directs,” there were people so
unfair as to try to form a second line and so cross ahead of earlier
comers. These we regarded with righteous indignation.
The neighborhood of the bridges was occupied by tenement-houses, making
the approach to South Boston rather squalid. The House of Correction and
other public institutions then established there lessened the
attractiveness of the peninsula. So when Boston began to expand in
earnest it took the usual course of cities and grew toward the west. The
Back Bay was duly filled in, for the new part of Boston is on made
ground. My father considered this much less wholesome than the original
soil.
In the days of my childhood, South Boston, while not a fashionable
suburb, counted many substantial and fairly well-to-do citizens among
its inhabitants. Toward the eastern end it was pleasantly open and still
retained a rural air. At City Point were semi-circles of granite, built
for the cannon of the Revolution. Facing it, with a mile of water
stretching between, was the grim gray outline of Fort Independence, not
yet reduced to innocuous desuetude by the changes in methods of warfare.
As there was already a baby girl, it was hoped that I would be a boy. My
father was much disappointed at my failure to fulfil this hope. He
declared that the only way to console him would be to name me for
Florence Nightingale, which was accordingly done. This was before the
Crimean War had made her famous. My parents, however, had spent some
days at “Embley,” the home of the Nightingale family, while on their
wedding-tour. Florence, then a young woman of twenty-three, was already
turning toward her life-work. She consulted my father, as a
philanthropist of experience, about the propriety of her studying
nursing and devoting her life to the care of the sick. He, of course,
counseled her to do so. Ever in advance of his own day and generation,
he would have had small patience with the people who even now consider a
nurse as a species of social pariah.
Miss Nightingale corresponded with my parents before she had taken up
her public work. The beautiful and devout spirit of her later years, as
well as an intense interest in the movements in behalf of political and
religious freedom, is manifest in these early letters. Touches of fun
remind us that she had a happy sense of humor. Throughout the
correspondence we see the great admiration of the young English
gentlewoman for the man whose life was dedicated to the cause which she
longed to take up.
She thus acknowledged the news of my birth and of the decision to name
the new baby after her, foreshadowing, also, her own future career.
EMBLEY, _December 26_.
I cannot pretend to express, my dear kind friends, how touched
and pleased I was by such a remembrance of me as that of your
child’s name.... If I could live to justify your opinion of me,
it would have been enough to have lived for, and such thoughts
as that of your goodness are great thoughts, “strong to consume
small troubles,” which should bear us up on the wings of the
Eagle, like Guido’s Ganymede, up to the feet of the God, there
to take what work He has for us to do for Him. I shall hope to
see my little Florence before long in this world, but, if not, I
trust there is a tie formed between us which shall continue in
Eternity—if she is like you, I shall know her again there,
without her body on, perhaps the better for not having known her
here with it.
... Good-by, my dearest friend, which word I am sure I never say
to you without its good old meaning, God be with you. You never
can tell me enough about yourself, or about Dr. Howe’s reforms.
I have no time to be ashamed of myself for writing you such a
long and barren letter in return—I _would_ write now, because,
from the day after Christmas Day, for a month, I shall not have
a moment to myself, except the solemn minute of the procession
in to dinner, when everybody knows that each person may have the
full and exclusive possession of his or her thoughts to him or
herself, till the dogs are fairly feeding.
If I could live to see anything like a Protestant Sisterhood of
Charity in England “my eyes would indeed have seen His
salvation,” but now I see nothing but a mist, and only hope,
when the mist clears away, to see something else.
Pray excuse me—I’m coming back—but only to say this time, what I
never can express, how very earnestly I am ever your loving and
grateful Florence.
Pray give our very kindest remembrances to Dr. Howe—and so fare
you well, very well, my dear, dear friends.
In a later letter she writes of the two babies:
... I often think of your little couple, and imagine what they
are like, and fancy the curious mixture there must be in them. I
see them standing in the doorway, looking at me with irresolute
eyes, and I sit quite still, that they may not go away—perhaps
the only intercourse that will be permitted me with them on
earth. It would be a curious speculation (if one’s acquaintance
were but large enough to enable one to collect a sufficient
number of facts to form a sort of experience) to find out _what_
materials in the parents’ characters kneaded together into what
sort of _pâte_ in the children’s—and the general laws of these
admixtures. I wonder, in this diving and grubbing age, that
people don’t make at least rough theories about it (there must
be some laws, if we could but find them out)—beginning with
Genesis, where we see that the “sons of _God_” which, I suppose,
only means the men great in wisdom and virtue and piety, who led
these antediluvian females to the Hymeneal altar, who, I am
afraid, were pagans or at the least something very bad by their
being called the “daughters of _men_,” we see that their
offspring, poor things! were strong and violent and restive and
whatever else we may suppose symbolized under the character of
“_giants_.” N. B.—This, upon second thoughts, looks like an
uncivil apologue, and, as I remember, poor Mrs. Fowler got into
a scrape by sealing a letter once with a wafer on which were two
donkeys with the motto “When shall we three meet again?” of
course implying that the receiver of the letter was the third
donkey (though preserve me from putting you into the same
category of souls as Mrs. Fowler’s correspondent!), yet I must
beg to assure you that the above is no parable.
The downfall from the heavens has been so prodigious these last
three weeks, that the river has been the driest place, and
standing in it up to one’s shoulders the best shelter from the
rain. Archbishop Whately is practising mesmerism at Dublin with
a Catholic priest. Miss Martineau’s last books are stupid—if the
revelations of the laws of Nature, which were made to her in a
state of mesmerism, have found their incarnation in her recent
Game-law Tales in sea-green covers, I wish her “_toutes sortes
de prospérités et un peu plus de goût_.” The laws of Nature are
uncommon dry ones—but I have come to the end of my paper, and
with all our kindest remembrances to Dr. Howe, believe me,
dearest Julia,
Yours till Doomsday i’ th’ afternoon,