CONCERNING CLUBS
1867-1871; _aet._ 48-52
"Behold," he said, "Life's great impersonate,
Nourished by labor!
Thy gods are gone with old-time faith and fate;
Here is thy Neighbor."
J. W. H., "A New Sculptor."
After such a rush of impression and emotion, the return to everyday life
could not fail to bring about a corresponding drop in our mother's
mental barometer. Vexations awaited her. The Boylston Place house had
been let for a year, and--Green Peace being also let on a long
lease--the reunited family took refuge for the winter in the "Doctor's
Wing" of the Perkins Institution.
Again, an extremely unfavorable critique of "Later Lyrics" in a
prominent review distressed her greatly; her health was more or less
disturbed; above all, the sudden death of John A. Andrew, the beloved
and honored friend of many years, saddened both her and the Doctor
deeply.
All these things affected her spirits to some extent, so that the
Journal for the remainder of 1867 is in a minor key.
"... In despair about the house...."
On hearing of the separation of Charles Sumner from his wife:--
"For men and women to come together is nature--for them to live
together is art--to live well, high art."
"_November 21._ Melancholy, thinking that I did but poorly last evening
[at a reading from her 'Notes on Travel' at the Church of the
Disciples].... At the afternoon concert felt a savage and tearful
melancholy, a profound friendlessness. In the whole large assembly I saw
no one who would help me to do anything worthy of my powers and
life-ideal. I have so dreamed of high use that I cannot decline to a
life of amusement or of small occupation."
"... I believe in God, but am utterly weary of man."
After a disappointment:--
"... To church, where my mental condition speedily improved. Sermon on
the Good Samaritan. Hymns and prayers all congenial and consoling. Felt
much consoled and uplifted out of all petty discords and
disappointments. A disappointment should be digested in patience, not
vomited in spleen. Bitter morsels nourish the soul, not less perhaps
than sweet. Thought of the following: Moral philosophy begins with the
fact of accepting human life."
In November came a new interest which was to mean much to her.
"Early in town to attend the Free Religious Club. Weiss's essay was well
written, but encumbered with illustrations rarely pertinent. It was
neither religion, philosophy, nor cosmology, but a confusion of all
three, showing the encyclopædic aim of his culture. It advocated the
natural to the exclusion of the supernatural. Being invited to speak, I
suggested real and ideal as a better antithesis for thought than
natural and supernatural. Weiss did all that his method would allow. He
is a man of parts. I cannot determine how much, but the Parkerian
standard, or a similar one, has deformed his reasoning powers. He seeks
something better than Christianity without having half penetrated the
inner significance of that religion.
"Alcott spoke in the idealistic direction. Also Wasson very well.
Lucretia Mott exceptionally well, a little rambling, but with true
womanly intuitions of taste and of morality."
This association of thinkers was afterwards known as the "Boston Radical
Club." She has much to say about it in her "Reminiscences."
"I did, indeed," she says, "hear at these meetings much that pained and
even irritated me. The disposition to seek outside the limits of
Christianity for all that is noble and inspiring in religious culture,
and to recognize especially within these limits the superstition and
intolerance which have been the bane of all religions--this disposition,
which was frequently manifested both in the essays presented and in
their discussion, offended not only my affections, but also my sense of
justice....
"Setting this one point aside, I can but speak of the Club as a high
congress of souls, in which many noble thoughts were uttered. Nobler
than any special view or presentation was the general sense of the
dignity of human character and of its affinity with things divine, which
always gave the master tone to the discussions."
She says elsewhere of the Radical Club:--
"The really radical feature in it was the fact that the thoughts
presented at its meetings had a root; were in that sense radical....
Here I have heard Wendell Phillips, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, John
Weiss and James Freeman Clarke, Athanase Coquerel, the noble French
Protestant preacher; William Henry Channing, worthy nephew of his great
uncle; Colonel Higginson, Doctor Bartol, and many others. Extravagant
things were sometimes said, no doubt, and the equilibrium of ordinary
persuasion was not infrequently disturbed for a time. But the
satisfaction of those present when a sound basis of thought was
vindicated and established is indeed pleasant in remembrance...."
"To Dickens's second reading, which I enjoyed very much. The 'wreck' in
'David Copperfield' was finely given. His appearance is against success;
the face is rather commonplace, seen at a distance, and very red if seen
through a glass: the voice worn and _blasé_."
"... Club in the evening, at which my nonsense made people laugh, as I
wished...."
"A little intoxicated with the pleasure of having made people laugh. A
fool, however, can often do this better than a wise man. I look
earnestly for a higher task. Yet innocent, intelligent laughter is not
to be despised."
"Was taken with verses in church. They did not prove nearly as good as I
had hoped...."
"Made three beds, to help Bridget, who had the washing alone. Read a
difficult chapter in Fichte."
"Studied and worried as usual,--Fichte and Greek...."
"Have not been strenuous enough about the Cretan Fair...."
Any lack of strenuousness about the Cretan Fair was amply atoned for.
An "Appeal" was published, written by her and signed by Julia Ward Howe,
Emily Talbot, Sarah E. Lawrence, Caroline A. Mudge, and Abby W. May.
"What shall we say? They are a great way off, but they are starving and
perishing, as none in our midst can starve and perish, and we Americans
are among the few persons to whom they can look for help."
In this cry for aid we hear the voice of both parents. The response was
cordial and generous. The fair was held in Easter Week, at the Boston
Music Hall, and recalled on a smaller scale the glories of the war-time
fairs. Of the great labor of preparation, the Journal gives a lively
impression; and "speaking for Crete" was added to the other burdens
borne by her and the Doctor.
She could not give up her studies; the entries for the winter of 1867-68
are a curious mingling of Fichte and committees, with here and there a
prayer for spiritual help and guidance, which shows her overwrought
condition.
Another interest had come to her from the visit to Greece: the study of
ancient Greek. Latin had been her lifelong friend, but she had always
longed for the sister classic; now the time was ripe for it. She made a
beginning in Athens, not only picking up a good deal of modern Greek,
but attacking the ancient language with the aid of primer and
phrase-book. A valuable teacher was at hand in Michael Anagnos,[67] who
was aiding the Doctor as secretary, and preparing himself for the
principal work of his life. Anagnos encouraged and assisted her in the
new study, which became one of her greatest delights. She looked forward
to a Greek lesson as girls do to a ball; in later life she was wont to
say, "My Greek is my diamond necklace!"
[67] Formerly Anagnostopoulos. He dropped the last three syllables soon
after coming to this country.
"_January 1, 1868._ May I this year have energy, patience, good-will and
good faith. May I be guilty of no treason against duty and my best self.
May I acquire more system, order, and wisdom in the use of things. May
I, if God wills, carry out some of my plans for making my studies useful
to others. This is much to ask, but not too much of Him who giveth all."
"_January 24._ A dreadfully busy day. Meeting of General Committee on
Cretan Fair.... Felt overcome with fatigue, and nervous and fretful, but
I am quite sure that I do not rave as I used to do...."
"_January 26._ Some mental troubles have ended in a determination to
hold fast till death the liberty wherewith Christ has made me free. The
joyous belief that his doctrine of influences can keep me from all that
I should most greatly dread, lifts me up like a pair of strong wings. 'I
shall run and not be weary. I shall walk and not faint.' At church the
first hymn contained this line:--
"'Her fathers' God before her moved'--
which quite impressed me, for my father's piety and the excellence of
other departed relatives have always of late years been a support and
pledge to me of my own good behavior."
* * * * *
"The thief's heart, the wanton's brow, may accompany high talent and
geniality of temperament; but thanks be to God they _need_ not."
"... Wished I could make a fine poetic picture of Paul preaching at Mars
Hill. On the one side, the glittering statues and brilliant
mythology--on the other, the simplicity of the Christian life and
doctrine. But to-day no pictures came."
* * * * *
"Got Anagnos to help me read two odes of Anacreon. This was a great
pleasure."
* * * * *
"Much business--no Greek lesson. I was feeble in mind and body, and
brooded over the loss of the lesson in a silly manner. Habit is to me
not second, but first nature, and I easily become mechanical and fixed
in my routine.... I confess that to lay down Greek now would be to die,
like Moses, in sight of the promised land. All my life I have longed for
this language...."
"All of these days are mixed of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. I am
pretty well content with my work, not as well with myself. I feel the
need of earnest prayer and divine help...."
"I had been invited to read the essay to the Radical Religious Club on
this day at 10 A.M. I asked leave for Anagnos and took him with me. My
dæmon [Socratic] had told me to read 'Doubt and Belief,' so I chose this
and read it. I find my dæmon justified. It seemed to have a certain
fitness in calling forth discussion. Mr. Emerson first spoke very
beautifully, then Mr. Alcott, these two sympathizing in my view. Wasson
followed, a little off, but with a very friendly contrast.... Much of
this talk was very interesting. It was all marked by power and
sincerity, but Emerson and Alcott understood my essay better than the
others except J. F. C. I introduced Anagnos to Emerson. I told him that
he had seen the Olympus of New England. Thought of my dear lost son,
dead in this house [13 Chestnut Street, where the meeting was held].
Anagnos is a dear son to me. I brought him home to dinner, and count
this a happy day."
* * * * *
"I have heard the true word of God to-day from Frederick Hedge--a sermon
on Love as the true bond of society, which lifted my weak soul as on the
strong wings of a cherub. The immortal truths easily lost sight of in
our everyday weakness and passion stood out to-day so strong and clear
that I felt their healing power as if Christ had stood and touched my
blinded eyes with his divine finger. So be it always! _Esto perpetua!_"
On April 13 the fair opened; a breathless week followed. She was much
exhausted after it, but in a few days "began to rehearse for
Festival."[68]
[68] The Handel and Haydn Festival.
"After extreme depression, I begin to take heart a little. Almighty God
help me!
"Greek lesson--rehearsal in the evening--choral symphony and
_Lobgesang_."
During the summer of 1868 she had great pleasure in reading some of her
essays at Newport, in the Unitarian Church. She notes in her
"Reminiscences" that one lady kissed her after the reading, saying,
"This is the way I want to hear women speak"; and that Mrs. P---- S----,
on hearing the words, "If God works, madam, you can afford to work
also!" rose and went out, saying, "I won't listen to such stuff as
this!"
The parlor readings brought her name into wider prominence. She began to
receive invitations to read and speak in public.
Mr. Emerson wrote to her concerning her philosophical readings: "The
scheme is excellent--to read thus--so new and rare, yet so grateful to
all parties. It costs genius to invent our simplest pleasures."
The winter of 1867-68 saw the birth of another institution which was to
be of lifelong interest to her: the New England Woman's Club. This, one
of the earliest of women's clubs, was organized on February 16, 1868,
with Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, in whose mind the idea had first taken
shape, as president. Its constitution announces the objects of the
association as "primarily, to furnish a quiet, central resting-place,
and place of meeting in Boston, for the comfort and convenience of its
members: and ultimately to become an organized social centre for united
thought and action."
How far the second clause has outdone and outshone the first, is known
to all who know anything of the history of women's clubs. From the New
England Woman's Club and its cousin Sorosis, founded a month later in
New York, has grown the great network of clubs which, like a beneficent
railway system of thought and good-will, penetrates every nook and
corner of this country.
Our mother was one of the first vice-presidents of the Club, and from
1871 to her death in 1910, with two brief intervals, its president.
Among all the many associations with which she was connected this was
perhaps the nearest to her heart. "My dear Club!" no other organization
brought such a tender ring to her voice. She never willingly missed a
meeting; the monthly teas were among her great delights. The Journal has
much to say about the Club: "a good meeting"; "a thoughtful, earnest
meeting," are frequent entries. "Why!" she cried once, "we may be living
in the Millennium without knowing it!"
In her "Reminiscences," after telling how she attended the initial
meeting, and "gave a languid assent to the measure proposed," she
adds:--
"Out of this small beginning was gradually developed the plan of the New
England Woman's Club, a strong and stately association, destined, I
believe, to last for many years, and having behind it, at this time of
my writing, a record of three decades of happy and acceptable service."
The Club movement was henceforth to be one of her widest interests. To
thousands of elder women in the late sixties and early seventies it
came like a new gospel of activity and service. They had reared their
children and seen them take flight; moreover, they had fought through
the war, their hearts in the field, their fingers plying needle and
thread. They had been active in committees and commissions the country
over; had learned to work with and beside men, finding joy and
companionship and inspiration in such work. How could they go back to
the chimney-corner life of the fifties? In answer to their question--an
answer from Heaven, it seemed--came the women's clubs, with their
opportunities for self-culture and for public service.
At first Society looked askance at the movement. What? Women's clubs?
They would take women away from the Home, which was their Sphere!
Shocking! Besides, it might make them Strong-Minded! Horrible! ("But,"
said J. W. H., "I would rather be strong-minded than weak-minded!")
Possibly influenced in some measure by such plaints as these, the early
clubs devoted themselves for the most part to study, and their range of
activities was strictly limited and defined. This, however, could not
last. The Doctor used to say, "You may as well refuse to let out the
growing boy's trousers as refuse larger and larger liberty to his
growing individuality!" Even so the club petticoats had to be lengthened
and amplified.
Our mother, with all her love of study, realized that no individual or
group of individuals must neglect the present with its living issues for
any past, however beautiful. She threw her energies into widening the
club horizon. "Don't tie too many _nots_ in your constitution!" she
would say to a young club; and then she would tell how Florence
Nightingale cut the Gordian knots of red tape in the Crimea.
Did the constitution enforce such and such limits? Ah! but committees
were not thus limited; let a committee be appointed, to do what the club
could not! (This was what the Doctor called "whipping the devil round
the stump!")
Many and many a reform had its beginning in one of those quiet Park
Street rooms of the "N. E. W. C." "When I want anything in Boston
remedied," said Edward Everett Hale, "I go down to the New England
Woman's Club!"
When the General Federation of Women's Clubs was formed in 1892, our
mother served on the board of directors for four years, and was then
made an honorary vice-president. She was also president of the
Massachusetts State Federation from 1893 to 1898, and thereafter
honorary president.
Dr. Holmes once said to her, "Mrs. Howe, I consider you eminently
clubable"; and he added that he himself was not. He told us why, when he
adopted the title of "Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table." The most
brilliant of talkers, he did not care to listen, as a good club member
must. Now, she too loved talking, but perhaps she loved listening even
more. No one who knew her in her later years can forget how intently she
listened, how joyously she received information of any and every kind.
She never was tired; she always wanted more. All human experience
thrilled her; the choreman, the dressmaker, the postman, the caller; one
and all, she hung on their words. After a half-hour with her, seeing her
face alight with sympathy, her delicate lips often actually forming the
words as he spoke them, the dullest person might go away on air, feeling
himself a born _raconteur_. What she said once of Mr. Emerson, "He
always came into a room as if he expected to receive more than he gave!"
was true of herself.
To return to the clubs! At a biennial meeting of the General Federation
in Philadelphia, she said: "What did the club life give me?
Understanding of my own sex; faith in its moral and intellectual growth.
Like so many others, I saw the cruel wrongs and vexed problems of our
social life, but I did not know that hidden away in its own midst was a
reserve force destined to give precious aid in the righting of wrongs,
and in the solution of discords. In the women's clubs I found the
immense power which sympathy exercises in bringing out the best
aspirations of the woman nature.... To guard against dangers, we must do
our utmost to uphold and keep in view the high object which has, in the
first instance, called us together; and let this be no mere party
catchword or cry, as East against West, or North against South. We can
afford to meet as citizens of one common country, and to love and serve
the whole as one."
She believed firmly in maintaining the privacy of club life. "The club
is a larger home," she said, "and we wish to have the immunities and
defences of home; therefore we do not wish the public present, even by
its attorney, the reporter."
The three following years were important ones to the Howe family.
Lawton's Valley was sold, to our great and lasting grief: and--after a
summer spent at Stevens Cottage near Newport--the Doctor bought the
place now known as "Oak Glen," scarce half a mile from the Valley; a
place to become only less dear to the family. No. 19 Boylston Place was
also sold, and he bought No. 32 Mount Vernon Street, a sunny, pleasant
house whose spacious rooms and tall windows recalled the Chestnut Street
house, always regretted.
Here life circled ever faster and faster, fuller and fuller. Our father,
though beginning to feel the weight of years, had not yet begun to "take
in sail," but continued to pile labor on labor, adding the new while
never abandoning the old. For our mother clubs, societies, studies were
multiplying, while for both family cares and interests were becoming
more and more complicated. The children were now mostly grown. To the
mother's constant thought and anxiety about their teeth, their hair,
their eyes, their music, their dancing--to say nothing of the weightier
matters of the law--was added the consideration of their ball dresses,
their party slippers, their partners. She went with the daughters to
ball and assembly; if they danced, she was happy; if not, there was
grief behind the cheerful smile, and a sigh was confided to the Journal
next day.
Romance hovered over No. 32 Mount Vernon Street. The Greek lessons
which were to mean so much to Julia and Laura were brought to a sudden
end by the engagement of Julia to the Greek teacher, Michael Anagnos.
Florence (who was now housekeeper, lightening our mother's cares
greatly) was already engaged to David Prescott Hall; while Laura's
engagement to Henry Richards was announced shortly after Julia's.
The three marriages followed at intervals of a few months. Meantime
Harry, whose youthful pranks had been the terror of both parents, had
graduated from Harvard, and was now, after two years[69] at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, beginning his chosen work as a
metallurgist.
[69] 1869-1871. He took the course of geology and mining engineering,
graduating at the head of his class.
She wrote of this beloved son:--
God gave my son a palace,
And a kingdom to control;
The palace of his body,
The kingdom of his soul.
In childhood and boyhood this "palace" was inhabited by a tricksy
sprite. At two years Harry was pulling the tails of the little dogs on
the Roman Pincio; at eighteen he was filling the breasts of the college
authorities with the same emotions inspired by his father in the
previous generation.
"Howe," said the old President of Brown University, when the Chevalier
called to pay his respects on his return from Greece, "I am afraid of
you now! There may be a fire-cracker under my chair at this moment!"
Once out of college, it fared with the son as with the father. The
current of restless energy hitherto devoted to "monkey shines" (as the
Doctor called them) was now turned into another channel. Work, hardly
less arduous and unremitting than his father's, became the habit of his
life. Science claimed him, and her he served with the same singleness of
purpose, the same intensity of devotion with which his parents served
the causes that claimed them. He married, in 1874, Fannie, daughter of
Willard Gay, of Troy, New York.
We love to recall the time at this house on Beacon Hill. We remember it
as a cheerful house, ringing with song and laughter, yet with a steady
undercurrent of work and thought; the "precious time," not to be
interrupted; the coming and going of grave men and earnest women, all
bent on high and hopeful errands, all seeking our two Wise Ones for
counsel, aid, sympathy; the coming and going also of a steady stream of
"lame ducks" of both sexes and all nationalities, all requiring help,
most of them getting it; yet, as ever, the father leaving State
Charities and Reforms, the mother flying from Fichte or Xenophon, at any
real or fancied need of any child. It is thus that we love to think of
No. 32 Mount Vernon Street, the last of the many homes in which we were
all together.