Footnote 5:
A quotation from Mrs. Howe’s poem, “Our Orders.”
Prof. Cornelius C. Felton has already appeared in this eventful history
as a member of the “Five of Clubs.” In addition to being professor of
Greek, he was for a time president of Harvard College.
Among his friends he was genial and jolly, with a gift of hearty
laughter. “Heartiest of Greek professors,” Charles Dickens called him.
He was sturdy and thick-set, with close-curling black hair covering his
round head. At Memorial Hall, Cambridge, there is a portrait of him in
his robes of office. This picture is characterized by due dignity of
mien and bearing, but I like best to think of him with those merry eyes
gleaming behind his spectacles as his cheery laugh broke upon our ears.
Professor Felton related to us the story of his visit to the Maid of
Athens, who was no longer young and beautiful as in Byron’s day. He was
much impressed by the superior quality of her pickled olives, and told
us that he longed to repeat the poet’s verses, with a slight change.
Instead of saying,
Maid of Athens, ere we part
Give, oh, give me back my heart,
he wanted to exclaim,
Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give me a jar of pickled olives!
In her correspondence with my father Florence Nightingale appeals to him
for advice and assistance for the martyrs of the cause of progress,
political and religious. One of the latter was Arthur Hugh Clough, the
English poet, whom she thus introduced:
EMBLEY ROMSAY, _Oct. 28 (1852)_.
MY DEAR DR. HOWE,—I have never thanked you for your most kind
and valuable letter about my friend. But herewith comes my
friend in person, to profit by that most kind sentence of yours,
“Do not fail to give him a letter to me.”
His name is Arthur Hugh Clough, M.A. (late Fellow and Tutor of
Oriel College, Oxford). He was a favorite pupil of Dr. Arnold of
Rugby, and was elected Tutor of Oriel at twenty-two. He has
given up very high prospects, because he was unwilling to pledge
himself to inculcate the doctrines of the English Church. This
has stopped his progress in his own country. He comes to seek a
more impartial mother in yours.
He is about to marry a very charming cousin of mine—but his
untimely integrity has lessened his means, and he is now going
to try to make her a position in the New World.
He was Professor of English Literature at University College,
London. He is a first-rate classical scholar; he would undertake
to prepare young men for college who are anxious for advanced
classical knowledge, and also to teach (or lecture upon) English
Literature and Language.
He is known in England as an author and poet, and has been a
contributor to our more liberal Reviews.
I have tried to enlist your and Mrs. Howe’s sympathies in his
favour. But, indeed, my dear Dr. Howe, I know your kindness so
well that it seems as if I thought it impossible to trespass
upon it....
Believe me, with best love to dear Mrs. Howe and my godchild,
yours most truly and gratefully,