our handkerchiefs and aprons, and in due time were promoted to the
darning of father's stockings and the patching of his working-clothes.
We thought the being able to do these things for him a very great
affair, and mother praised us for our work. But when sister Jane once
put a patch over a hole in the knee of father's pantaloons, without
covering all the rent,--she had let the patch slip down a
little,--mother required her to rip it off and put it in the right
place: but there was not a word of scolding for Jane; it was all
softness, all kindness; she knew that Jane was a child. I think father,
however, would never have noticed that the patch was a little out of
place; and, indeed, I think it very likely he didn't care about having a
patch of any kind put on, for his mind was on work, and not on
appearances. But then it was my dear mother's way. We were taught that
the needle was to be the staff of our future lives. Whatever we
undertook must be done right; and then she had a just pride in making
father always look respectable.
Thus in time we came to feel as much pride in being good seamstresses as
did our mother. It was natural we should, for we believed all she taught
us, and there was no one to controvert her positions,--except sometimes,
when father heard her impressing her favorite dogma on our minds, he put
in a word of doubt, saying, that, before the needle could be made so
sure a dependence for poor women, there must be found a better market
for female labor than the slop-shops, and a more honorable race of
employers. To this questioning of her doctrine she made no reply,
knowing that she had us all to herself, and that a doubt from father,
only now and then uttered, would make no impression. But I remember it
all now.
I can remember, too, how proud I felt when mother called me to her, one
day, and gave me a piece of cotton cloth, of which she said I was to
make father a shirt. It was of unbleached stuff, heavy and strong, but
still nice and smooth. Father wore only one kind; and as it was to serve
for best as well as for common wear, I was to make it as nicely as I
could.
That afternoon all of us children were to go on a little
fishing-excursion to the meadows on the Delaware, among the ditches
which run all round the inside of the great embankment that has been
thrown up to keep out the river. There was a vast expanse of beautiful
green meadow inclosed by this embankment, on which great numbers of
cattle were annually fatted. As viewed from the bank, it was luxuriant
in the extreme; in fact, it was a prairie containing hundreds of acres,
trimmed up and cared for with the utmost skill and watchfulness, and
intersected with clean, open ditches, to secure drainage. Into these
ditches the tide flowed through sluices in the bank, and thus they were
always full of fish.
These beautiful meadows were the resort of thousands who resided in the
lower section of the city, for picnics and excursions. The roads through
them were as level as could possibly be, and upon them were continual
trotting-matches. In summer, the wide flats outside the embankment were
over-grown with reeds, among which gunners congregated in numbers
dangerous to themselves, shooting rail and reed-birds. On Sundays and
other holidays, the wide footpath on the high embankment was a moving
procession of people, who came out of the city to enjoy the fresh breeze
from the river. All who lived near resorted to these favorite grounds.
Several other little boys and girls were to come to our house and go
with us. We had long been in the habit of going to the meadows to fish
and play, where we had the merriest and happiest of times. Sometimes,
though the meadows were only half a mile from us, we took a slice or two
of bread-and-butter in a little basket, to serve for dinner, so that we
could stay all day; for the meadows and ditches extended several miles
below the city, and we wandered and played all the way down to the Point
House. On these trips we caught sun-fish, roach, cat-fish, and sometimes
perch, and always brought them home. We generally got prodigiously
hungry from the exercise we took, and sat down on the thick grass under
a tree to eat our scanty dinners. These dinner-times came very early in
the day; and long before it was time to go home in the afternoon, we
became even more hungry than we had been in the morning,--but our
baskets had been emptied.
I think these young days, with these innocent sports and recreations,
were among the happiest of my life. I do not think the fish we caught
were of much account, though father was always glad to see them; and I
remember how he took each one of our baskets, as we came into the
kitchen, looked into it, and turned over and counted the fishes it
contained. My brother Fred generally had the most, and I had the fewest:
but it seems that even for other things than fishes I never had a taking
way about me. Father was very fond of them, for mother had a way of
frying their little thin bodies into a nice brown crisp, which made us
all a good breakfast. So father had made us lines, with corks and hooks,
tied them to nice little poles, and showed us how to use them and keep
them in order, and had a corner in the shed in which he taught us to set
them up out of harm's way. Occasionally he even went with us to the
meadows himself.
But while I am speaking of these dear times, I must say that we always
came home happy, though tired and dirty. Sometimes we got into great
mud-holes along the ditch-bank, so deep as to leave a shoe sticking
fast, compelling us to trudge home with only one. Then, when we found a
place where the fish bit sharply, all of us rushed to the spot, and
pushed into the wild rose-bushes that grew in clumps upon the bank: for
I generally noticed, that, where the bushes overhung the water and made
a little shade, the fish were most abundant. In the scramble to secure a
good foothold, the briers tore our clothes and bonnets, sometimes so as
to make us fairly ragged, besides scratching our hands and faces
terribly. Occasionally one of us slipped into the ditch, and was helped
out dripping wet; but we never mentioned such an incident at home. Then
more than once we were caught in a heavy shower, with nothing but a
rose-bush or a willow-tree for shelter; and there were often so many of
us that it was like a hen with an unreasonably large brood of
chickens,--some must stay out in the wet, and all such surplusage got
soaked to the skin.
But we cared nothing for any of these things. Indeed, I am inclined to
think that we were happy in proportion as we got tired, hungry, wet, and
dirty. Mother never scolded us when we came home in this condition.
Though we smelt terribly of mud and fish, and were often smeared over
with the dried slime of a great slippery eel which had swallowed the
hook, and coiled himself in knots all over our lines, and required three
or four of the boys to cut off his head and get the hook out, yet all
she did was to make us wash ourselves clean, after which she gave us a
supper that tasted better than all the suppers we get now, and then put
us to bed. We were tired enough to go right to sleep; but it was the
fatigue of absolute happiness,--light hearts, light consciences, no
care, nothing but the perfect enjoyment of childhood, such as never
comes to us but once.
This is a long digression, but it could not be avoided. I said, that,
when mother told me I was to make a shirt for father, we were that very
afternoon to go down among these dear old meadows and dirty ditches to
fish and play. Our lines were all in order, and a new hook had been put
on mine, as on the last excursion the old one had caught in what the
boys call a "blind eel," that is, a sunken log,--and there it probably
remains to this day. Fred had dug worms for us, and they had coiled
themselves up into a huge ball in the shell of an old cocoa-nut, ready
to be impaled on our hooks. Everything was prepared for a start, and we
were only waiting for dinner to be over: though I can remember, that,
whenever we had such an afternoon before us, we had very little appetite
to satisfy. The anticipation and glee were such that the pervading
desire was not to eat, but to be off.
But when mother gave me the shirt to make, I felt so proud of the trust,
that all desire to go to the meadows left me. I felt a new sensation, a
new ambition, a new pride. It was very strange that I should thus
suddenly give up the ditches, the fishing, the scratching, and the dirt;
for none of us loved them more dearly than myself. But they were old and
familiar, and father's shirt was a novelty; and novelty is one of the
great attractions for the young. So they went without me, and after
dinner I sat down to make my first shirt.
It was to be made in the plainest way; for father had no pride about his
dress. I cut it out myself, basted it together, then sewed it with my
utmost care. There was to be no nice work about collar or wristband,--no
troublesome plaits or gussets,--no machine-made bosom to set in,--only a
few gathers,--and all plain work throughout. My mother looked at me
occasionally as the shirt progressed, but found no fault. She did not
once stop me to examine it; but I feel sure she must have scrutinized it
carefully after I had gone to bed. I was so particular in this, my first
grand effort to secure the honors of a needlewoman, that quite two days
were occupied in doing it.
When all done, I took it to mother, proud of my achievement, telling
her, that, if she had more cotton, I was ready to begin another. She
looked over it with a slowness that I am sure was intentional, and not
at all necessary. The wristbands were all right, the buttons in the
proper places, the hemming she said was done well. Then, taking it up by
the collar, and holding the garment at full length before her, so that I
could see it all, she asked me if I saw anything wrong. I looked
closely, but could see no mistake. At last she exclaimed,--
"Why, my dear Lizzie, this is only a bag with arms to it! How is your
father to get into it?"
She turned it all round before me, and showed me that I had left no
opening at the bosom and neck,--father could never get it over his head!
I cannot tell how astonished and mortified I felt. I cried as only such
a child could cry. I sobbed and begged her not to show it to father, and
promised to alter it immediately, if she would only tell me how. But,
oh, how kind my dear mother was in soothing my excited feelings! There
was not a word of blame. She made me comparatively calm by immediately
opening the bosom as it should have been done, and showing me how to
finish it. I hurried up to my chamber to be alone and out of sight. They
called me to dinner, but my appetite had gone. Though my little heart
was full, and my hand trembled, yet long before night the work was done.
Oh, how the burden rose from my spirits when my dear mother took me in
her arms, kissed me tenderly, and said that my mistake was nothing but a
trifle that I would be sure to remember, and that the shirt was far
better made than she had expected! When father came in to supper, I took
it to him and told him that _I_ had made it. He looked both surprised
and pleased, kissed me with even more than his usual kindness,--I think
mother must have privately told him of my blunder,--and said that he
would surely remember me at Christmas.
I know that incidents like these can be of little interest to any but
myself. But what more exciting ones are to be expected in such a history
as mine? If they are related here, it is because I am requested to
record them. Still, every poor sewing-girl will consider that the making
of her first shirt is an event in her career, a difficulty to be
surmounted,--and that, even when successfully accomplished, it is in
reality only the beginning of a long career of toil.
MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.
A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE.
THOMAS MOORE.
More than forty years have passed since I first conversed with the poet
Thomas Moore. Afterwards it was my privilege to know him intimately. He
seldom, of late years, visited London without spending an evening at our
house; and in 1845 we passed a happy week at his cottage, Sloperton, in
the county of Wilts:--
"In my calendar
There are no whiter days!"
The poet has himself noted the time in his diary (November, 1845).
It was in the year 1822 I made his acquaintance in Dublin. He was in the
full ripeness of middle age,--then, as ever, "the poet of all circles,
and the idol of his own." As his visits to his native city were few and
far between, the power to see him, and especially to _hear_ him, was a
boon of magnitude. It was, indeed, a treat, when, seated at the piano,
he gave voice to the glorious "Melodies" that are justly regarded as the
most valuable of his legacies to mankind. I can recall that evening as
vividly as if it were not a sennight old: the graceful man, small and
slim in figure, his upturned eyes and eloquent features giving force to
the music that accompanied the songs, or rather to the songs that
accompanied the music.
Dublin was then the home of much of the native talent that afterwards
found its way to England; and there were some, Lady Morgan especially,
whose "evenings" drew together the wit and genius for which that city
has always been famous. To such an evening I make reference. It was at
the house of a Mr. Steele, then High Sheriff of the County of Dublin,
and I was introduced there by the Rev. Charles Maturin. The name is not
widely known, yet Maturin was famous in his day--and for a day--as the
author of two successful tragedies, "Bertram" and "Manuel," (in which
the elder Kean sustained the leading parts,) and of several popular
novels. Moreover, he was an eloquent preacher, although probably he
mistook his calling when he entered the Church. Among his many
eccentricities I remember one: it was his habit to compose while walking
about his large and scantily furnished house; and always on such
occasions he placed a wafer on his forehead,--a sign that none of his
family or servants were to address him then, to endanger the loss of a
thought that might enlighten a world. He was always in "difficulties."
In Lady Morgan's Memoirs it is stated that Sir Charles Morgan raised a
subscription for Maturin, and supplied him with fifty pounds. "The first
use he made of the money was to give a grand party. There was little
furniture in the reception-room, but at one end of it there had been
erected an old theatrical-property throne, and under a canopy of crimson
velvet sat Mr. and Mrs. Maturin!"
Among the guests at Mr. Steele's were the poet's father, mother, and
sister,--the sister to whom he was so fervently attached. The father was
a plain, homely man,--nothing more, and assuming to be nothing more,
than a Dublin tradesman.[F] The mother evidently possessed a far higher
mind. She, too, was retiring and unpretending,--like her son in
features,--with the same gentle, yet sparkling eye, flexible and smiling
mouth, and kindly and conciliating manners. It was to be learned long
afterwards how deep was the affection that existed in the poet's heart
for these humble relatives,--how fervid the love he bore them,--how
earnest the respect with which he invariably treated them,--nay, how
elevated was the pride with which he regarded them from first to last.
The sister, Ellen, was, I believe, slightly deformed; at least, the
memory to me is that of a small, delicate woman, with one shoulder
"out." The expression of her countenance betokened suffering, having
that peculiar "sharpness" which usually accompanies severe and
continuous bodily ailment.[G] I saw more of her some years afterwards,
and knew that her mind and disposition were essentially lovable.
To the mother--Anastasia Moore, _nee_ Codd, a humbly descended, homely,
and almost uneducated woman[H]--Moore gave intense respect and devoted
affection, from the time that reason dawned upon him to the hour of her
death. To her he wrote his first letter, (in 1793,) ending with these
lines--
"Your absence all but ill endure,
And none so ill as--THOMAS MOORE."
And in the zenith of his fame, when society drew largely on his time,
and the highest and best of the land coveted a portion of his leisure,
with her he corresponded so regularly that at her death she possessed
(it has been so told me by Mrs. Moore) four thousand of his letters.
Never, according to the statement of Earl Russell, did he pass a week
without writing to her _twice_, except during his absence in Bermuda,
when franks were not to be obtained, and postages were costly.
When a world had tendered to him its homage, still the homely woman was
his "darling mother," to whom he transmitted a record of his cares and
his triumphs, his anxieties and his hopes, as if he considered--as I
verily believe he did consider--that to give her pleasure was the chief
enjoyment of his life. His sister--"excellent Nell"--occupied only a
second place in his heart; while his father received as much of his
respect as if he had been the hereditary representative of a line of
kings.
All his life long, "he continued," according to one of the most valued
of his correspondents, "amidst the pleasures of the world, to preserve
his home fireside affections true and genuine, as they were when a boy."
To his mother he writes of all his facts and fancies; to her he opens
his heart in its natural and innocent fulness; tells her of each thing,
great or small, that, interesting him, must interest her,--from his
introduction to the Prince, and his visit to Niagara, to the acquisition
of a pencil-case, and the purchase of a new pocket-handkerchief. "You,
my sweet mother," he writes, "can see neither frivolity nor egotism in
these details."
In 1806, Moore's father received, through the interest of Lord Moira,
the post of Barrack-Master in Dublin, and thus became independent. In
1815, "Retrenchment" deprived him of this office, and he was placed on
half-pay. The family had to seek aid from the son, who entreated them
not to despond, but rather to thank Providence for having permitted them
to enjoy the fruits of office so long, till he (the son) was "in a
situation to keep them in comfort without it." "Thank Heaven," he writes
afterwards of his father, "I have been able to make his latter days
tranquil and comfortable." When sitting beside his death-bed, (in 1825,)
he was relieved by a burst of tears and prayers, and by "a sort of
confidence that the Great and Pure Spirit above us could not be
otherwise than pleased at what He saw passing in my mind."
When Lord Wellesley, (Lord-Lieutenant,) after the death of the father,
proposed to continue the half-pay to the sister, Moore declined the
offer, although, he adds,--"God knows how useful such aid would be to
me, as God alone knows how I am to support all the burdens now heaped
upon me"; and his wife at home was planning how "they might be able to
do with one servant," in order that they might be the better able to
assist his mother.
The poet was born at the corner of Aungier Street, Dublin, on the 28th
of May, 1779, and died at Sloperton, on the 25th of February,[I] 1852,
at the age of seventy-two. What a full life it was! Industry a
fellow-worker with Genius for nearly sixty years!
He was a sort of "show-child" almost from his birth, and could barely
walk when it was jestingly said of him, he passed all his nights with
fairies on the hills. Almost his earliest memory was having been crowned
king of a castle by some of his playfellows. At his first school he was
the show-boy of the schoolmaster: at thirteen years old he had written
poetry that attracted and justified admiration. In 1797 he was "a man of
mark"; at the University,[J] in 1798, at the age of nineteen, he had
made "considerable progress" in translating the Odes of Anacreon; and in
1800 he was "patronized" and flattered by the Prince of Wales, who was
"happy to know a man of his abilities," and "hoped they might have many
opportunities of enjoying each other's society."
His earliest printed work, "Poems by Thomas Little," has been the
subject of much, and perhaps merited, condemnation. Of Moore's own
feeling in reference to these compositions of his mere, and thoughtless,
boyhood, it may be right to quote two of the dearest of his friends.
Thus writes Lisle Bowles of Thomas Moore, in allusion to these early
poems:--
"'----Like Israel's incense laid
Upon unholy earthly shrines':--
Who, if, in the unthinking gayety of premature genius, he joined the
sirens, has made ample amends by a life of the strictest virtuous
propriety, equally exemplary as the husband, the father, and the
man,--and as far as the muse is concerned, _more_ ample amends, by
melodies as sweet as Scriptural and sacred, and by weaving a tale of the
richest Oriental colors, which faithful affection and pity's tear have
consecrated to all ages." This is the statement of his friend
Rogers:--"So heartily has Moore repented of having published 'Little's
Poems,' that I have seen him shed tears,--tears of deep
contrition,--when we were talking of them."
I allude to his early triumphs only to show, that, while they would have
spoiled nine men out of ten, they failed to taint the character of
Moore. His modest estimate of himself was from first to last a leading
feature in his character. Success never engendered egotism; honors never
seemed to him only the recompense of desert; he largely magnified the
favors he received, and seemed to consider as mere "nothings" the
services he rendered and the benefits he conferred. That was his great
characteristic, all his life. We have ourselves ample evidence to adduce
on this head. I copy the following letter from Mr. Moore. It is dated
"Sloperton, November 29, 1843."
"MY DEAR MR. HALL,--
"I am really and truly ashamed of myself for having let so
many acts of kindness on your part remain unnoticed and
unacknowledged on mine. But the world seems determined to
make me a man of letters in more senses than one, and almost
every day brings me such an influx of epistles from mere
strangers that friends hardly ever get a line from me. My
friend Washington Irving used to say, 'It is much easier to
get a book from Moore than a letter.' But this has not been
the case, I am sorry to say, of late; for the penny-post has
become the sole channel of my inspirations. How _am_ I to
thank you sufficiently for all your and Mrs. Hall's kindness
to me? She must come down here, when the summer arrives, and
be thanked _a quattr' occhi_,--far better way of thanking
than at such a cold distance. Your letter to the mad
Repealers was far too good and wise and gentle to have much
effect on such rantipoles."[K]
The house in Aungier Street I visited so recently as 1864. It was then,
and still is, as it was in 1779, the dwelling of a grocer,--altered only
so far as that a bust of the poet is placed over the door, and the fact
that he was born there is recorded at the side. May no modern
"improvement" ever touch it!
"The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."
This humble dwelling of the humble tradesman is the house of which the
poet speaks in so many of his early letters and memoranda. Here, when a
child in years, he arranged a debating society, consisting of himself
and his father's two "clerks." Here he picked up a little Italian from a
kindly old priest who had passed some time in Italy, and obtained a
"smattering of French" from an intelligent _emigre_, named La Frosse.
Here his tender mother watched over his boyhood, proud of his opening
promise, and hopeful, yet apprehensive, of his future. Here he and his
sister, "excellent Nell," acquired music, first upon an old harpsichord,
obtained by his father in discharge of a debt, and afterwards on a
piano, to buy which his loving mother had saved up all superfluous
pence. Hence he issued to lake country walks with unhappy Robert Emmet.
Hither he came--not less proudly, yet as fondly as ever--when college
magnates had given him honor, and the King's Viceroy had received him as
a guest.
In 1835 he records "a visit to No. 12, Aungier Street, where I was
born." "Visited every part of the house; the small old yard and its
appurtenances; the small, dark kitchen, where I used to have my bread
and milk; the front and back drawing-rooms; the bedrooms and
garrets,--murmuring, 'Only think, a grocer's still!'" "The many thoughts
that came rushing upon me, while thus visiting the house where the first
nineteen or twenty years of my life were passed, may be more easily
conceived than told." He records, with greater unction than he did his
visit to the Prince, his sitting with the grocer and his wife at their
table, and drinking in a glass of their wine her and her husband's "good
health." Thence he went, with all his "recollections of the old shop
about him," to a grand dinner at the Viceregal Lodge!