In and Near Boston--Edward Everett Hale--Thomas Wentworth
Higginson--Julia Ward Howe--Mary A. Livermore--A Day at the Concord
School--Harriet G. Hosmer--"Dora D'Istria," our Illustrious Visitor.
Edward Everett Hale was kind to me, as he was to all who came within
his radius. He once called to warn me to avoid, like poison, a
rascally imposter who was calling on many of the authors in and near
Boston to get one thousand dollars from each to create a publishing
company, so that authors could have their books published at a much
cheaper rate than in the regular way. This person never called on me,
as I then had no bank account. He did utterly impoverish many other
credulous persons, both writers, and in private families. All was
grist that came to his mill, and he ground them "exceeding small."
I met Mr. Hale one early spring at Pinehurst, North Carolina, with his
wife and daughter. He always had a sad face, as one who knew and
grieved over the faults and frailties of humanity, but at this time
he was recovering from a severe fall, and walked with a slow and
feeble step. When he noticed me sitting on the broad piazza, he came,
and taking a chair beside me, began to joke in his old way, telling
comical happenings, and inquired if I knew where Noah kept his bees.
His answer: "In the Ark-hives, of course." Once when I asked his
opinion of a pompous, loud-voiced minister, he only said, "Self, self,
self!"
I wonder how many in his audiences or his congregation could
understand more than half of what he was saying. I once went to an
Authors' Reading in Boston where he recited a poem, doubtless very
impressive, but although in a box just over the stage, I could not get
one word. He placed his voice at the roof of his mouth, a fine
sounding board, but the words went no farther than the inside of his
lips. I believe his grand books influence more persons for better
lives than even his personal presence and Christ-like magnetism.
Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson never failed me. Once only I ventured
alone into the Authors' Club Saturday meeting, and none of my own
friends happened to be there. Evidently I was not known. Mr. Higginson
saw the situation at once, and coming quickly to me escorted me to a
comfortable seat. He ordered two cups of tea with wafers, and
beckoned to some delightful men and women to whom he introduced me as
his friend Miss Sanborn, thus putting me at my ease. He was also ever
patient about my monomania of trying to prove that women possess both
wit and humour. He spoke of his first wife as the wittiest woman he
had ever known, giving convincing proof. A few men were on my side,
but they could be counted on one hand omitting the thumb. But I worked
on this theme until I had more than sufficient material for a
good-sized volume. If a masculine book reviewer ever alluded to the
book, it was with a sneer. He generally left it without a word, as men
still ignore the fact when a woman wins in an essay-writing
competition against men in her class or gets the verdict for her
powers in a mixed debate. At last Mr. Higginson wrote me most kindly
to stop battering on that theme. "If any man is such a fool as to
insist that women are destitute of wit or humour, then he is so big a
fool that it is not worth while to waste your good brains on him. T.W.
Higginson." That reproof chilled my ardour. Now you can hardly find
any one who denies that women possess both qualities, and it is
generally acknowledged that not a few have the added gift of comedy.
As most biographers of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe dwell on her other gifts
as philanthropist, poet, and worker for the equality of women with
men, I call attention to her effervescent, brilliant wit. Julia Ward
Howe was undeniably witty. Her concurrence with a dilapidated
bachelor, who retained little but his conceit, was excellent. He said:
"It is time now for me to settle down as a married man, but I want so
much; I want youth, health, wealth, of course; beauty, grace--" "Yes,"
she interrupted sympathetically, "you poor man, you do want them all."
Of a conceited young man airing his disbelief at length in a magazine
article, she said: "Charles evidently thinks he has invented atheism."
After dining with a certain family noted for their chilling manners
and lofty exclusiveness, she hurried to the house of a jolly friend,
and, seating herself before the glowing fire, sought to regain a
natural warmth, explaining: "I have spent three hours with the Mer de
Glace, the Tête-Noire, and the Jungfrau, and am nearly frozen."
Pathos and humour as twins are exemplified by her tearful horror over
the panorama of Gettysburg, and then by her saying, when urged by Mrs.
Livermore to dine with her: "O no! my dear, it's quarter past two, and
Mr. Howe will be wild if he does not get--not his burg--but his
dinner."
Mrs. Howe's wit never failed her. I once told her I was annoyed by
seeing in big headlines in the morning's paper, "Kate Sanborn
moralizes," giving my feeble sentiments on some subject which must
have been reported by a man whom I met for the first time the evening
before at a reception, though I was ignorant of the fact that I was
being interviewed. She comforted me by saying: "But after all, how
much better that was than if he had announced, 'Kate Sanborn
demoralizes.'" Or when Charles Sumner refusing to meet some friends of
hers at dinner explained languidly: "Really, Julia, I have lost all my
interest in individuals." She retorted, "Why, Charles, God hasn't got
as far as that yet!" Once walking in the streets of Boston with a
friend she looked up and read on a public building, "Charitable Eye
and Ear Infirmary." She said: "I did not know there were any
charitable eyes and ears in Boston." She showed indomitable courage to
the last. A lady in Boston, who lived opposite Mrs. Howe's home on
Beacon Street, was sitting at a front window one cold morning in
winter, when ice made the steps dangerous. A carriage was driven up to
Mrs. Howe's door to take her to the station to attend a federation at
Louisville. She came out alone, slipped on the second step, and rolled
to the pavement. She was past eighty, but picked herself up with the
quickness of a girl, looked at her windows to see if anyone noticed
it, then entered the carriage and drove away.
Was ever a child as unselfish as Mary Rice, afterwards Mary Livermore?
Sliding on ice was for her a climax of fun. Returning to the house
after revelling in this exercise, she exclaimed: "Splendid, splendid
sliding." Her father responded: "Yes, Mary, it's great fun, but
wretched for shoes."
Those words kept ringing in her ears, and soon she thought how her
father and mother had to practise close economy, and she decided: "I
ought not to wear out my shoes by sliding, when shoes cost so much,"
and she did not slide any more. There was no more fun in it for her.
She would get out of bed, when not more than ten years old, and
beseech her parents to rise and pray for the children. "It's no matter
about me," she once said to them, "if they can be saved, I can bear
anything."
She was not more than twelve years old, when she determined to aid her
parents by doing work of some kind; so it was settled that she should
become a dressmaker. She went at once into a shop to learn the trade,
remained for three months, and after that was hired at thirty-seven
cents a day to work there three months more. She also applied for
work at a clothing store, and received a dozen red flannel shirts to
make up at six and a quarter cents a piece. When her mother found this
out, she burst into tears, and the womanly child was not allowed to
take any more work home. We all know Mrs. Livermore's war record and
her power and eloquence as an orator.
I would not say she was a spiritualist, but she felt sure that she
often had advice or warning on questions from some source, and always
listened, and was saved from accidents and danger. And she said that
what was revealed to her as she rested on her couch, between twilight
and dusk, would not be believed, it was so wonderful.
Mrs. Livermore had a terrible grief to bear,--the lifelong illness of
her daughter from a chronic and incurable disease. She told me, when I
was at her house, that she kept on lecturing, and accepting
invitations, to divert her mind somewhat. She felt at times that she
could not leave her unfortunate child behind, when she should be
called from earth, but she was enabled to drive that thought away.
From a child, always helping others, self-sacrificing, heroic, endowed
with marvellous energy and sympathy, hers was a most exceptional life;
now "Victor Palms" are her right.
I spent one day at the famous Concord School of Philosophy during its
first season. Of course I understood nothing that was going on.
Emerson, then a mere wreck of his former self, was present, cared for
by his wife or his daughter Ellen. Alcott made some most remarkable
statements, as: "We each can decide when we will ascend." Then he
would look around as if to question all, and add: "Is it not so? Is it
not so?" I remember another of his mystic utterances: "When the mind
is izzing, it is thinking things. Is it not so? Is it not so?" Also,
"When we get angry or lose our temper, then fierce four-footed beasts
come out of our mouths, do they not, do they not?"
After Mr. Harris, the great educational light, had closed his remarks,
and had asked for questions, one lady timidly arose and inquired: "Can
an atom be said to be outside or inside of potentiality?"
He calmly replied that "it could be said to be either inside or
outside potentiality, as we might say of potatoes in a hat; they are
either inside or outside the hat." That seemed to satisfy her
perfectly.
Mr. Frank B. Sanborn read his lecture on American Literature, and I
ventured to ask: "How would you define literature?"
He said: "Anything written that gives permanent pleasure." And then
as he was a relative, I inquired, but probably was rather pert: "Would
a bank check, if it were large enough, be literature?" which was
generally considered as painfully trifling.
Jones of Jacksonville was on the program, and talked and talked, but
as I could not catch one idea, I cannot report.
It was awfully hot on that hill with the sun shining down through the
pine roof, so I thought one day enough.
As I walked down the hill, I heard a man who seemed to have a lot of
hasty pudding in his mouth, say in answer to a question from the lady
with him: "Why, if you can't understand that, you can have no idea of
the first principles (this with an emphatic gesture) of the Hegelian
philosophy."
Alcott struck me as a happy dreamer. He said to me joyously: "I'm
going West in Lou's chariot," and of course with funds provided by his
daughter.
An article written by her, entitled "Transcendental Wild Oats," made a
great impression on my mind.
It appeared in a long-ago _Independent_ and I tried in vain to find it
last winter. Houghton and Mifflin have recently published Bronson
Alcott's "_Fruitlands_," compiled by Clara Endicott Sears, with
"Transcendental Wild Oats" by Louisa M. Alcott, so it is brought to
the notice of those who will appreciate it.
I called once on Miss Hosmer, who then was living with relatives in
Watertown, Massachusetts, her old home; the house where she was born
and where she did her first modelling. Recently reading in Miss
Whiting's record of Kate Field's life, of Miss Hosmer as a universal
favourite in Rome, a dearly loved friend of the Brownings, and
associated with the literary and artistic coterie there, a living part
of that memorable group, most of whom are gone, I longed to look in
her eyes, to shake her hand, to listen to her conversation. Everyone
knows of her achievements as a sculptor.
After waiting a few minutes, into the room tripped a merry-faced,
bright-eyed little lady, all animation and cordiality as she said: "It
is your fault that I am a little slow in coming down, for I was
engrossed in one of your own books, too much interested to remember to
dress."
The question asked soon brought a flow of delightful recollection of
Charlotte Cushman, Frances Power Cobbe, Grace Greenwood, Kate Field,
and the Brownings. "Yes," she said, "I dined with them all one winter;
they were lovely friends." She asked if we would like to see
some autograph letters of theirs. One which seemed specially
characteristic of Robert Browning was written on the thinnest of paper
in the finest hand, difficult to decipher. And on the flap of the
envelope was a long message from his wife. Each letter was addressed
to "My dearest Hattie," and ended, "Yours most affectionately." There
was one most comical impromptu sent to her by Browning, from some
country house where there was a house party. They were greatly grieved
at her failure to appear, and each name was twisted into a rhyme at
the end of a line. Sir Roderick Murchison, for instance, was run in
thus:
As welcome as to cow is fodder-rick
Would be your presence to Sir Roderick.
A poor pun started another vein. "You must hear some of Miss Cobbe's
puns," said Miss Hosmer, and they were so daringly, glaring bad, as to
be very good. When lame from a sprain, she was announced by a pompous
butler at a reception as "Miss Cobble." "No, Miss Hobble," was her
instant correction. She weighed nearly three hundred pounds and, one
day, complaining of a pain in the small of her back her brother
exclaimed: "O Frances, where _is_ the small of your back?"
Miss Hosmer regarded Grace Greenwood (Mrs. Lippincott) as one of the
best _raconteurs_ and wittiest women she had known. She was with her
at some museum where an immense antique drinking cup was exhibited,
large enough for a sitz bath. "A goblet for a Titan," said Harriet.
"And the one who drained it would be a tight un," said Grace.
She thought the best thing ever said about seasickness was from Kate
Field, who, after a tempestuous trip, said: "Lemonade is the only
satisfactory drink on a sea voyage; it tastes as well coming up as
going down."
* * * * *
The last years of this brilliant and beloved woman were devoted to
futile attempts to solve the problem of Perpetual Motion. I wish she
had given us her memories instead.
Helen Ghika was born at Bucharest, Wallachia, the 22nd of
January, 1829. The Ghika family is of an ancient and noble
race. It originated in Albania, and two centuries ago the head
of it went to Wallachia, where it had been a powerful and
ruling family. In 1849, at the age of twenty, the Princess was
married to a Russian, Prince Koltzoff Massalsky, a descendant
of the old Vikings of Moldavia; her marriage has not been a
congenial one.
A sketch of the distinguished woman, Helen Ghika, the Princess
Massalsky, who, under the _nom de plume_ of Dora D'Istria, has
made for herself a reputation and position in the world of
letters among the great women of our century, will at least
have something of the charm of novelty for most American
readers. In Europe this lady was everywhere known, beloved by
many personal friends, and admired by all who had read her
works. Her thought was profound and liberal, her views were
broad and humane. As an author, philanthropist, traveller,
artist, and one of the strongest advocates of freedom and
liberty for the oppressed of both sexes, and of her suffering
sisters especially, she was an honour to the time and to
womanhood. The women of the old world found in her a powerful,
sympathizing, yet rational champion; just in her arguments in
their behalf, able in her statements of their needs, and
thoroughly interested in their elevation and improvement.
Her works embrace a vast range of thought, and show profound
study and industry. The subjects are many. They number about
twenty volumes on nationality, on social questions more than
eight, on politics eighteen or twenty. Her travels fill fifteen
books, and, beside all this, she wrote three romances, numerous
letters and articles for the daily papers, and addresses to be
read before various learned societies, of which she was an
honoured member. M. Deschanel, the critic of the _Journal des
Débats_, has said of her that "each one of her works would
suffice for the reputation of a man." As an artist, her
paintings have been much admired. One of her books of travel,
_A Summer on the Banks of the Danube_, has a drawing by its
author, a view of Borcia in Roumania. From a notable exhibition
at St. Petersburg she received a silver medal for two pictures
called "The Pine" and "The Palm," suggested to her by Heine's
beautiful little poem:
"A pine-tree sleeps alone
On northern mountain-side;
Eternal stainless snows
Stretch round it far and wide.
"The pine dreams of a palm
As lonely, sad, and still,
In glowing eastern clime
On burning, rocky hill."
This princess was the idol of her native people, who called
her, with the warm enthusiasm of their race, "The Star of
Albania." The learned and cultivated also did her homage. Named
by Frederika Bremer and the Athenians, "The New Corinne," she
was invested by the Greeks with the citizenship of Greece for
her efforts to assist the people of Candia to throw off the
oppressor's yoke, this being the first time this honour had
ever been granted to a woman.
The catalogue of her writings fills several pages, the list of
titles given her by learned societies nearly as many more and,
while born a princess of an ancient race and by marriage one
also, she counted these titles of rank as nothing compared with
her working name, and was more widely known as Dora D'Istria
than as the Princess Koltzoff Massalsky.
There is a romantic fascination about this woman's life as
brilliant as fiction, but more strange and remarkable in that
it is all sober truth--nay, to her much of it was even sad
reality. Her career was a glorious one, but lonely as the
position of her pictured palm-tree, and oftentimes only upheld
by her own consciousness of the right; she has felt the trials
of minds isolated by greatness. Singularly gifted by nature
with both mental and physical, as well as social superiority,
the Princess united in an unusual degree masculine strength of
character, grasp of thought, philosophical calmness, love of
study and research, joined to an ardent and impassioned love of
the grand, the true, and the beautiful. She had the grace and
tenderness of the most sensitive of women, added to mental
endowments rare in a man. Her beauty, which had been
remarkable, was the result of perfect health, careful training,
and an active nature. Her physical training made her a fearless
swimmer, a bold rider, and an excellent walker--all of which
greatly added to her active habits and powers of observation in
travelling, for she travelled much. Only a person of uncommon
bodily vigour can so enjoy nature in her wildest moods and
grandest aspects.
This quotation is from a long article which Mrs. Grace L. Oliver, of
Boston, published in an early number of _Scribner's Magazine_. I never
had known of the existence of this learned, accomplished woman, but
after reading this article I ventured to ask her to send me the
material for a lecture and she responded most generously, sending
books, many sketches of her career, full lists of the subjects which
had most interested her, poems addressed to her as if she were a
goddess, and the pictures she added proved her to have been certainly
very beautiful. "She looked like Venus and spoke like Minerva."
My audience was greatly interested. She was as new to them as to me
and all she had donated was handed round to an eager crowd. In about
six months I saw in the papers that Dora D'Istria was taking a long
trip to America to meet Mrs. Oliver, Edison, Longfellow, and myself!
I called on her later at a seashore hotel near Boston. She had just
finished her lunch, and said she had been enjoying for the first time
boiled corn on the cob. She was sitting on the piazza, rather shabbily
dressed, her skirt decidedly travel-stained. Traces of the butter used
on the corn were visible about her mouth and she was smoking a large
and very strong cigar, a sight not so common at that time in this
country. A rocking chair was to her a delightful novelty and she had
already bought six large rocking chairs of wickerwork. She was sitting
in one and busily swaying back and forward and said: "Here I do repose
myself and I take these chairs home with me and when de gentlemen and
de ladies do come to see me in Florence, I do show them how to repose
themselves."
Suddenly she looked at me and began to laugh immoderately. "Oh," she
explained, seeing my puzzled expression, "I deed think of you as so
_deeferent_, I deed think you were very tall and theen, with leetle,
wiggly curls on each side of your face."
She evidently had in mind the typical old maid with gimlet ringlets!
So we sat and rocked and laughed, for I was equally surprised to meet
a person so "different" from my romantic ideal. Like the two Irishmen,
who chancing to meet were each mistaken in the identity of the other.
As one of them put it, "We looked at each other and, faith, it turned
out to be nayther of us."
The Princess Massalsky sent to Mrs. Oliver and myself valuable tokens
of her regard as souvenirs.