I found a new inmate of the house, a gray and scarlet parrot, named
Charlie, a great pet of the poet and his sister, and far-famed for his
wit and wisdom. He could say many things with great distinctness, and
although at first refusing rather spitefully to make my acquaintance,
when I invited him to come into the kitchen and get his supper he at
once hopped upon my hand and behaved in the most amicable manner. It
was very comical to see him dance to a tune of Mr. Whittier's
whistling. His master told us that he would climb toilsomely up the
spout, pausing at every step or two to say, in a tone of the deepest
self-pity, 'Poor Charlie!' and when he reached the roof screaming
impertinently at the passers-by. The Irish children said that he
called them 'Paddies,' and threatened him with dire vengeance. Mr.
Whittier said he did not know; he 'could believe anything of that
bird.' Charlie's favorite amusement was shaking the unripe pears from
the trees in the garden; and when he saw Miss Whittier approaching, he
would steal away with drooping head, like a child caught in a naughty
action. This gifted bird afterwards died, and was much missed by the
poet, who alluded to him in the poem entitled _The Common Question_.
"Mr. Whittier showed me a couple of stuffed birds which had been sent
to him by the Emperor of Brazil, after reading his _Cry of a Lost
Soul_, in allusion to the bird in South American forests which has so
intensely mournful a note that the Indians give it a name which
signifies a lost soul. The first birds which were sent did not reach
him, and the Emperor on hearing it sent two more. The bird is larger
than a mocking bird, and has sober gray plumage, very unlike the
bright-hued creatures usually seen in tropical forests.
"The Emperor was a warm admirer of Mr. Whittier, and one of the first
persons for whom he inquired on reaching Boston was the poet. There
was some delay about their meeting and Dom Pedro became very
impatient. At last they met in a house in Boston. Dom Pedro expressed
great delight at meeting the poet, and talked with him a long time,
paying very little attention to any one else. On leaving, he asked Mr.
Whittier to accompany him downstairs, and before entering his carriage
threw his arms around the astonished poet and embraced him warmly.
"Rare and beautiful were the qualities which met in Mr. Whittier: a
singularly unworldly and sweet disposition, and unwavering love of
truth and justice, a keen sense of humor, the highest type of
courage, and a firm faith in God's goodness, which no amount of
suffering ever shook. For years he was an invalid, a martyr to severe
headaches. He once told me that he had not for a long time written
anything without suffering. The nearest and dearest of his earthly
ties had been severed by death. But he never rebelled. His life
exemplified the spirit of resignation which is breathed throughout so
many of his poems.
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told.
"My husband and I made our last visit to him two years ago, at Oak
Knoll. He gave us his customary warm greeting and, although in
extremely feeble health, was as sweet and genial in spirit and as
entertaining in conversation as ever. He took us into his cosey little
library, and talked about his books and pictures and old friends, and
promised to send us his latest photograph,--which he afterwards did.
Fearing to weary him, we stayed but a short time. So frail he looked,
that in parting from him our hearts were saddened by the thought that
we might not look upon that dear face again. And so it proved. I shall
ever remember him as I saw him then, in his beautiful country home,
surrounded by devoted friends, awaiting calmly the summons to enter
into rest--in that serene and lovely old age which comes only to those
gifted ones whose lives are the embodiment of all that is noblest and
best and sweetest in their poetry.
"Farewell, beloved, revered friend! Thou art gone to join the loved
ones who beckoned to thee from those blessed shores of Peace. To thee,
how great the gain! To us, how infinite the loss! But thy influence
shall remain with us. Still shalt thou
... be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty--
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
LXIII
HENRY WARD BEECHER
It would be no compliment to call Henry Ward Beecher the American
Spurgeon. He may be that, but he is more. If we can imagine Mr.
Spurgeon and Mr. John Bright with a cautious touch of Professor
Maurice and a strong tincture of the late F.W. Robertson--if, I say,
it is possible to imagine such a compound being brought up in New
England and at last securely fixed in a New York pulpit, we shall get
a product not unlike Henry Ward Beecher....
Mr. Beecher was brought up in the country. His novel, _Norwood_--not
very readable, by the way, although full of charming passages--abounds
in woods and streams, hills and dales, and flowers. "The willows," he
tells us somewhere, "had thrown off their silky catkins, and were in
leaf; the elm was covered with chocolate-colored blossoms, the soft
maple drew bees to its crimson tassels." Would that all preachers and
writers used no more offensive and superfluous flowers of speech than
such as these....
When he wants to illustrate the comfort of a powerful, unseen, though
protective love, he tells us how, as a boy, he woke up one midsummer
night and listened, with a sense of half-uneasy awe, to the wild cry
of the marsh birds, whilst the moonlight streamed full into his room;
and then, as he grew more and more disturbed, he suddenly heard his
father clear his throat "a-hem," in the next room, and instantly that
familiar sound restored his equanimity. The illustration is simple,
but it hits the mark and goes home. His affectionate tributes to his
father and mother are constantly breaking forth in spite of himself.
"I thank God," he says, "for two things. First, that I was born and
bred in the country, of parents that gave me a sound constitution and
a noble example. I never can pay back what I got from my parents. Next
I am thankful that I was brought up in circumstances where I never
became acquainted with wickedness." How delightful it is to think of a
man who, without a taint of conscious insincerity, but simply out of
the fulness of his heart, can get up before four thousand people, and
say:
"I never was sullied in act, nor in thought when I was young. I grew
up as pure as a woman. And I cannot express to God the thanks which I
owe to my mother, and to my father, and to the great household of
sisters and brothers among whom I lived. And the secondary knowledge
of those wicked things which I have gained in later life in a
professional way, I gained under such guards that it was not harmful
to me." ...
He has a wonderful way of importing his leisure hours into the pulpit,
and making the great cooped-up multitude feel something of the joy and
freshness of his own exhilaration. One golden day above others seems
to have dwelt in his mind. He refers to it again and again.
"When I walked one day on the top of Mt. Washington--glorious day of
memory! Such another day I think I shall not experience till I stand
on the battlements of the New Jerusalem--how I was discharged of all
imperfections; the wide far-spreading country which lay beneath me in
beauteous light, how heavenly it looked, and I communed with God. I
had sweet tokens that he loved me. My very being rose right up into
his nature. I walked with him, and the cities far and near of New
York, and all the cities and villages which lay between it and me,
with their thunder, the wrangling of human passions below me, were to
me as if they were not."
Some of his sermons are full of vacation-rambles. He passes through
woods and gardens and plucks flowers and fragrant leaves, which will
all have to do service in Brooklyn Church; he watches the crowded
flight of pigeons from the treetops, and thinks of men's riches that
so make themselves wings and fly away. As he scales the mountains and
sees the summer storms sweep through the valleys beneath him, he
thinks of the storms in the human heart--"many, many storms there are
that lie low and hug the ground, and the way to escape them is to go
up the mountain sides and get higher than they are."
Mr. Beecher's travels in Europe were not thrown away upon his ardent
and artistic temperament. He has stood before the great pictures to
some purpose, and has not failed to read their open secret.
"Have you ever stood in Dresden to watch that matchless picture of
Raphael's, the 'Madonna di San Siste'? Engravings of it are all
through the world; but no engraving has ever reproduced the mother's
face. The Infant Christ that she holds is far more nearly represented
than the mother. In her face there is a mist. It is wonder, it is
love, it is adoration, it is awe--it is all these mingled, as if she
held in her hands her babe, and yet it was God! That picture means
nothing to me as it does to the Roman Church; but it means everything
to me, because I believe that every mother should love the God that is
in her child, and that every mother's heart should be watching to
discern and see in the child, which is more than flesh and blood,
something that takes hold of immortality and glory."
--Selected from the _Contemporary Review_.
LXIV
THE LONDON "TIMES" ON LOWELL
The London _Times_, sometimes nicknamed the _Thunderer_, was for many
years the most influential paper in the world. Emerson in his _English
Traits_ says, "No power in England is more felt, more feared, or more
obeyed." In view of the high position of this paper it is a matter of
interest to our American students of literature to read what this
paper had to say on the death of Lowell.
Here follows the larger part of the editorial from the _Times_:
The death of Mr. Lowell will probably be more keenly and widely felt
in England than would be that of any other American, or, indeed, of
any other man who was not a fellow-countryman of our own. To very many
in England it will be counted as a grave personal loss; and thousands
more will miss in him one whom through his writings they had admired,
felt with, laughed with, as with a friend. For a long time past, in
fact ever since he quitted the Legation, his long annual visits to
London have been regarded by a wide circle as one of the events of the
year, and he himself as one of the most valued guests. We had hoped
that this last June would again see him in his old London haunts,
bright, genial, interesting as ever; but a cruel fate decided that
this was not to be, and neither the Old World nor the New should know
him more. Never a strong man, he has succumbed, at a ripe age, it is
true, but prematurely, as all will think who knew how fresh his
intelligence and his sympathies were to the last. With him there
passes away one of the very few Americans who were the equals of any
son of the Old World--of any Frenchman or any Englishman--in that
indefinable mixture of qualities, which we sum up for want of a better
word, under the name of culture. How did he arrive at it? The answer
is, by natural gifts, by constant play of mind with mind in talk, and
by reading. On those who casually met Mr. Lowell in society, he
certainly did not make the impression of a book-worm, or of a man to
whom books were indispensable; but none the less is it true that
whenever official business was not too heavy, he invariably read for a
_minimum_ of four hours a day. This did not include the time that he
gave to ephemeral literature; it was the time that he spent in the
serious reading of books, generally old books. How many of us, not
professed students, can show a record as good, or half as good? He
read quickly, too, in various languages, his favorites being the
English of the Elizabethans, Spanish, old French, and modern French.
His excellent memory and wonderful assimilative power built up this
reading into the mental endowments that all the world admired.
When Mr. Lowell came to England as the representative of the United
States under the last Republican administration, London felt a
sympathetic curiosity as to the author of the famous _Biglow Papers_
and of so much excellent prose criticism. In a very short time the
feeling warmed into admiration and friendship. The official world
spoke well of the way in which the new minister performed his
duties--generally not very heavy, but always demanding tact and
prudence--of his position as minister. Menacing sounds, indeed, began
to be heard from across the ocean, when the Irish Fenians, who control
so much of the press of the United States, began to raise the cry that
Mr. Lowell sacrificed the interests of their dynamitard friends to a
brutal British government; but, as the Washington officials took no
notice, nobody here paid much attention to the matter. In social life,
the new minister began to be a power. He went everywhere--to the
houses of the great, to the houses of the men of letters, and to
places where such people most do congregate. His talk was excellent
give-and-take. He was neither a professional anecdotist, like another
famous American talker, Mr. Chauncey Depew, nor a man on the watch for
something to disagree with, like Mr. Blaine, nor even, as was his
admirable successor, Mr. Phelps, a man of long silences broken by
flashes of humor. Mr. Lowell seemed to know everything and have his
knowledge always to hand; he was quick in repartee; he mixed anecdote
with reflection in the happiest manner; he laughed at others' jests,
and they laughed at his. Still, one had to be a little careful with
him, for there were points on which he was extremely sensitive.
Nobody, for example, must talk in his presence of _Americanisms_, or
hint that the standard of language and literature observed in America
showed any deflection from the best standard of the race....
On one occasion Mr. Lowell was sorely tempted to make his permanent
home here. Just about the time of his ceasing to be minister, he was
seriously sounded as to his willingness to be nominated to the new
post of professor of English language and literature at Oxford. Had he
consented to stand, not even a board determined to sink literature in
philology could have passed over his claims. But he declined, for two
reasons. There were claims of family, over in Massachusetts, and,
greatly as he loved the mental atmosphere of England, he thought it
his duty not to accept a definitely English post. And the sense of
duty is strong in that old Puritan stock from which he sprang.
... But the distinguishing feature of Mr. Lowell was his adding to
these high literary gifts the strong practical side which made of him
a social power and a diplomatist. Naturally, such a man made a mark by
his speeches, and happy was the audience, at the unveiling of a
monument or at a literary dinner, that had the privilege of listening
to Mr. Lowell. Seldom in England, where this kind of speaking is not
cultivated as an art, have we witnessed such a perfect union of
self-possession, sense, and salt. The speech on Henry Fielding, the
speech in which he compared the sound of London to "the roaring loom
of time," the address on Democracy--to mention but a few--will not be
easily forgotten. Nor will those who had the privilege of experiencing
it, in however slight a degree, forget the sweet affectionateness
which, in spite of an occasional irritability and over-sensitiveness,
was at the root of Mr. Lowell's character. Corrupt politicians
disliked him and feared the barbed arrows of his indignant wit; but he
goes to the grave mourned by all that is best in America, and he takes
with him the heart-felt regard as well as the admiration, of this
elder branch of our common English race.
LXV
THE WRITING OF "AMERICA"
The Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Smith, author of _America_, died in Boston in
1895. On April 3, of the same year, he had received a grand public
testimonial in Music Hall in recognition of his authorship of
_America_. In the souvenir of that occasion Dr. Smith tells how he
came to write the poem that made him famous.
"In the year 1831 William C. Woodbridge, of New York, a noted
educator, was deputed to visit Germany and inspect the system of the
public schools, that if he should find in them any features of
interest unknown to our public schools here they might be adopted in
the schools of the United States. He found that in the German schools
much attention was given to music; he also found many books containing
music and songs for children. Returning home, he brought several of
these music-books, and placed them in the hands of Mr. Lowell Mason,
then a noted composer, organist, and choir leader. Having himself no
knowledge of the German language he brought them to me at Andover,
where I was then studying theology, requesting me, as I should find
time, to furnish him translations of the German words, or to write
new hymns and songs adapted to the German music.
"On a dismal day in February, 1832, looking over one of these books,
my attention was drawn to a tune which attracted me by its simple and
natural movement and its fitness for children's choirs. Glancing at
the German words at the foot of the page, I saw that they were
patriotic, and I was instantly inspired to write a patriotic hymn of
my own.
"Seizing a scrap of waste paper, I began to write, and in half an hour
I think the words stood upon it substantially as they are sung to-day.
I did not know at the time that the tune was the British _God Save the
King_. I do not share the regrets of those who deem it an evil that
the national tune of Britain and America is the same. On the contrary,
I deem it a new and beautiful tie of union between the mother and the
daughter, one furnishing the music (if, indeed, it is really English),
and the other the words.
"I did not propose to write a national hymn. I did not think that I
had done so. I laid the song aside, and nearly forgot that I had made
it. Some weeks later I sent it to Mr. Mason, and on the following
Fourth of July, much to my surprise, he brought it out at a children's
celebration in the Park Street Church, in Boston, where it was first
sung in public."
LXVI
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS AND HER FIRST STORY
Some years ago the author of _Gates Ajar_ told in an American magazine
how she began her literary career. From this account we quote:
"The town of Lawrence was three miles and a half from Andover. Up to
the year 1860 we had considered Lawrence chiefly in the light of a
place to drive to.... Upon the map of our young fancy the great mills
were sketched in lightly; we looked up from the restaurant ice-cream
to see the hands pour out for dinner, a dark and restless, but a
patient, throng, used in those days, to standing eleven hours and
quarter--women and girls--at their looms, six days of the week, and
making no audible complaints; for socialism had not reached Lawrence,
and anarchy was content to bray in distant parts of the geography at
which the factory people had not arrived when they left school....
"...One January evening, we were forced to think about the mills with
curdling horror that no one living in that locality when the tragedy
happened will forget.
"At five o'clock the Pemberton Mills, all hands being at the time on
duty, without a tremor of warning, sank to the ground.
"At the erection of the factory a pillar with a defective core had
passed careless inspectors. In technical language the core had
'floated' an eighth of an inch from its position. The weak spot in the
too thin wall of the pillar had bided its time, and yielded. The roof,
the walls, the machinery fell upon seven hundred and fifty living men
and women, and buried them. Most of these were rescued, but
eighty-eight were killed. As the night came on, those watchers on
Andover Hill who could not join the rescuing parties, saw a strange
and fearful light at the north.
"Where we were used to watching the beautiful belt of the lighted
mills blaze--a zone of laughing fire from east to west, upon the
horizon bar--a red and awful glare went up. The mill had taken fire. A
lantern, overturned in the hands of a man who was groping to save an
imprisoned life, had flashed to the cotton, or the wool, or the oil
with which the ruins were saturated. One of the historic
conflagrations of New England resulted.
"With blanching cheeks we listened to the whispers that told us how the
mill-girls, caught in the ruins beyond hope of escape, began to sing.
They were used to singing, poor things, at their looms--mill-girls
always are--and their young souls took courage from the familiar sound
of one another's voices. They sang the hymns and songs which they had
learned in the schools and churches. No classical strains, no 'music
for music's sake,' ascended from that furnace; no ditty of love or
frolic, but the plain, religious outcries of the people: _Heaven is my
Home_, _Jesus, Lover of my Soul_, and _Shall we Gather at the River?_
Voice after voice dropped. The fire raced on. A few brave girls still
sang:
Shall we gather at the river,
There to walk and worship ever?
"But the startled Merrimac rolled by, red as blood beneath the glare
of the burning mills, and it was left to the fire and the river to
finish the chorus.
"At the time this tragedy occurred, I felt my share of its horror,
like other people; but no more than that. My brother, being of the
privileged sex, was sent over to see the scene, but I was not allowed
to go.
"Years after, I cannot say just how many, the half-effaced negative
came back to form under the chemical of some new perception of the
significance of human tragedy.
"It occurred to me to use the event as the basis of a story. To this
end I set forth to study the subject. I had heard nothing in those
days about 'material,' and conscience in the use of it, and little
enough about art. We did not talk about realism then. Of critical
phraseology I knew nothing, and of critical standards only what I had
observed by reading the best fiction. Poor novels and stories I did
not read. I do not remember being forbidden them; but, by that
parental art finer than denial, they were absent from my convenience.
"It needed no instruction in the canons of art, however, to teach me
that to do a good thing, one must work hard for it. So I gave the best
part of a month to the study of the Pemberton Mill tragedy, driving to
Lawrence, and investigating every possible avenue of information left
at that too long remove of time which might give the data. I visited
the rebuilt mills, and studied the machinery. I consulted engineers
and officials and physicians, newspaper men, and persons who had been
in the mill at the time of its fall. I scoured the files of old local
papers, and from these I took certain portions of names, actually
involved in the catastrophe, though, of course, fictitiously used.
When there was nothing left for me to learn on the subject, I came
home and wrote a little story called "The Tenth of January,' and sent
it to the _Atlantic Monthly_, where it appeared in due time.
"This story is of more interest to its author than it can possibly be
now to any reader, because it distinctly marked for me the first
recognition which I received from literary people."
LXVII
SIDNEY LANIER
Next to Poe, Sidney Lanier ranks as the foremost of the poets of the
South. In character Lanier is one of the rarest and purest of souls.
His life was so chaste, his ideals so high, his devotion to his art so
unselfish that he has been called "the Sir Galahad among American
poets." Dr. Gilman, who in his capacity as president of Johns Hopkins
University had frequent opportunities to observe Lanier, who was an
instructor in this institution, has made the following comment,--"The
appearance of Lanier was striking. There was nothing eccentric or odd
about him, but his words, manners, ways of speech, were distinguished.
I have heard a lady say that if he took his place in a crowded
horse-car, an exhilarating atmosphere seemed to be introduced by his
breezy ways."