of Provence. Fields of great white poppies and other flowers
planted for seed in this district made the way beautiful on
either hand. Olive trees with rows of black cypress and old
tiled-roofed farmhouses, and the mountains always on the
horizon, filled the landscape. The first considerable house
we reached was the home of the poet. A pretty garden which
attracted our attention with a rare eglantine called La Reine
Joanne, and other charming things hanging over the wall made
us suspicious of the poet’s vicinity. Turning the corner of
this garden and driving up a short road, we found the courtyard
and door on the inner side as it were. We heard a barking
dog. “Take care,” said the driver, “there is a dangerous dog
inside.” We waited until Mistral himself came to meet us from
the garden; he was much amused. There was an old dog tied,
half asleep, on a bench and a young one by his side. He said
laughing, “These are all, and they could not be less dangerous.
The elder” (he let them loose while he spoke and they played
about us), “the elder I call Bouffe, from Boufflo Beel”
(Mistral does not speak any English, nor does his wife) “and
the reason is because I happened to be in the neighborhood of
Paris once just after Buffalo Bill had passed on toward Calais
with his troupe. I saw a little dog, unlike the dogs of our
country, who seemed to be lost, but the moment he saw me, he
thought I was ‘Boufflo Beel’ and adopted me for his master.
You see I look like him,” he said, putting his wide felt hat
a little more on one side! Yes, we did think so. “Well, the
little dog has been with us ever since. He possesses the most
wonderful intelligence and understands every word we say. One
day I said to him, ‘What a pity such a nice dog as you should
have no children!’ A few days later the servant said to me,
‘Bouffe has been away nearly two days, but he has now come
back bringing his wife.’ ‘Ah!’ I said, ‘take good care of them
both.’ In due time this other little dog, his son, arrived
in the world, and shortly after Bouffe carried his wife away
again, but kept the little dog. He is a wonderful fellow, to be
sure.”
We went into the house and sat down to talk awhile about poetry
and books. There was a large book-case full of French and
Provençal literature here, but it was rather the parlor and
everyday sitting-room than his work-room. Unhappily, they have
no children. Evidently they are exceedingly happy together and
naturally do not miss what they have never had. She opened the
drawing-room for us, which is the room of state. It is full
of interesting things connected with Provence and their own
life, but perfectly simple, in accord with the country-like
fashion of their existence. There is a noble bas-relief of
the head of Mistral, the drum or “tambour” of the Félibre, or
for the Farandole, and, without overloading, plenty of good
things—photographs, one or two pictures, not many, for the
house is not that of a rich man, plaster casts, and one or
two busts,—perhaps the presents of artists,—illustrations of
“Mirèio,” and things associated with their individual lives
or the life of Provence. Presently Mistral gave me his arm
and we went across the hall. Standing in the place of honor
opposite the front door and in the large corner made by the
staircase, is a fine copy of the bust of Lamartine, crowned
with an olive wreath. We paused a moment here while Mistral
spoke of Lamartine, and always with the sincere reverence which
he has expressed in the poem entitled “_Élégie sur la mort de
Lamartine_.” ...
The dining-room was still more Provençal, if possible, than the
rooms we had visited. The walls were white, which, with the
closed green blinds, must give a pleasant light when the days
are hot, yet bright even on grey days. Specimens of the pottery
of the country hang around, decorated with soft colors. The
old carved bread-mixing-and-holding affair, which belonged in
every well-to-do house of the old time, was there, and one or
two other old pieces of furniture, while the chairs, sofa, and
table were of quaint shape, painted green with some decorations.
The details are all petty enough, but they proved how sincerely
Mistral and his wife love their country and their surroundings
and endeavor to ennoble them and make the most of them. After
sitting at table and enjoying their hospitality, we went out
again into the garden where Madame Mistral gathered “Nerto”
(myrtle) for us, beside roses and other more beautiful but
more formidable things. “Nerto” is the title of one of his
last books (I hear) and the wife doubtless believed that we
should cherish a branch of her myrtle especially in memory of
the visit. She was quite right, but these things which are
“to last”—how frail they are; the things that remain are those
which are written on the heart.
We cannot forget these two picturesque beings standing in their
garden, filling our hands with flowers and bidding us farewell.
As we drove away into the sunny plain once more, we found it
speaking to us with a voice of human kindness echoing from
that poetic and friendly home. In a more personal vein, the
address to Lamartine by Mistral expresses better his mood of
the afternoon when we stood together looking at the bust and
recalling each our personal remembrance of the man.
An excursion from London, on September 12, devoted to a day with Henry
James, gave Mrs. Fields a memorable glimpse of the son of an old friend,
and an honest pleasure in learning at first hand of his appreciation of
Miss Jewett’s writings.
_Monday, September 13, 1898._—We left London about 11 o’clock
for Rye, to pass the day with Mr. Henry James. He was waiting
for us at the station with a carriage, and in five minutes we
found ourselves at the top of a silent little winding street,
at a green door with a brass knocker, wearing the air of
impenetrable respectability which is so well known in England.
Another instant and an old servant, Smith (who with his wife
has been in Mr. James’s service for 20 years), opened the door
and helped us from the carriage. It was a pretty interior—large
enough for elegance, and simple enough to suit the severe
taste of a scholar and private gentleman.
Mr. James was intent on the largest hospitality. We were asked
upstairs over a staircase with a pretty balustrade and plain
green drugget on the steps; everything was of the severest
plainness, but in the best taste, “not at all austere,” as he
himself wrote us.
We soon went down again after leaving our hats, to find a
young gentleman, Mr. McAlpine, who is Mr. James’s secretary,
with him, awaiting us. This young man is just the person to
help Mr. James. He has a bump of reverence and appreciates
his position and opportunity. We sat in the parlor opening on
a pretty garden for some time, until Mr. James said he could
not conceive why luncheon was not ready and he must go and
inquire, which he did in a very responsible manner, and soon
after Smith appeared to announce the feast. Again a pretty room
and table. We enjoyed our talk together sincerely at luncheon
and afterward strolled into the garden. The dominating note was
dear Mr. James’s pleasure in having a home of his own to which
he might ask us. From the garden, of course, we could see the
pretty old house still more satisfactorily. An old brick wall
concealed by vines and laurels surrounds the whole irregular
domain; a door from the garden leads into a paved courtyard
which seemed to give Mr. James peculiar satisfaction; returning
to the garden, and on the other side, at an angle with the
house, is a building which he laughingly called the temple
of the Muse. This is his own place _par excellence_. A good
writing-table and one for his secretary, a typewriter, books,
and a sketch by Du Maurier, with a few other pictures (rather
mementoes than works of art), excellent windows with clear
light, such is the temple! Evidently an admirable spot for his
work.
[Illustration: _Reduced facsimile of postscript of a letter from Henry
James, expressing the intention, which he could not fulfill, to provide
an Introduction to the “Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett”_]
After we returned to the parlor Mr. James took occasion to
tell Sarah how deeply and sincerely he appreciated her work;
how he re-reads it with increasing admiration. “It is foolish
to ask, I know,” he said, “but were you in just such a place
as you describe in the ‘Pointed Firs’?” “No,” she said, “not
precisely; the book was chiefly written before I visited
the locality itself.” “And such an island?” he continued.
“Not exactly,” she said again. “Ah! I thought so,” he said
musingly; and the language—“It is so absolutely true—not a word
overdone—such elegance and exactness.” “And Mrs. Dennet—how
admirable she is,” he said again, not waiting for a reply. I
need not say they were very much at home together after this.
Meanwhile the carriage came again to the door, for he had made
a plan to take us on a drive to Winchelsea, a second of the
Cinq Portes, Rye itself also being one. The sea has retreated
from both these places, leaving about two miles of the Romney
Marsh between them and the shore. Nothing could be more
like something born of the imagination than the old city of
Winchelsea.... Just outside the old gate looking towards Rye
and the sea from a lonely height is the cottage where Ellen
Terry has found a summer resting-place and retirement. It is a
true home for an artist—nothing could be lovelier. Unhappily
she was not there, but we were happy to see the place which she
described to us with so great satisfaction.
From Winchelsea Mr. James drove us to the station, where we
took the train for Hastings. He had brought his small dog, an
aged black and tan terrier, with him for a holiday. He put on
the muzzle, which all dogs just now must wear, and took it off
a great many times until, having left it once when he went to
buy the tickets and recovered it, he again lost it and it could
not be found; so as soon as he reached Hastings, he took a
carriage again to drive us along the esplanade, but the first
thing was to buy a new muzzle. This esplanade is three miles
long, but we began to feel like tea, so having looked upon
the sea sufficiently from this decidedly unromantic point of
view, we went into a small shop and enjoyed more talk under new
conditions. “How many cakes have you eaten?” “Ten,” gravely
replied Mr. James—at which we all laughed. “Oh, I know,” said
the girl with a wise look at the desk. “How do you suppose they
know?” said Mr. James musingly as he turned away. “They always
do!” And so on again presently to the train at Hastings, where
Mr. McAlpine appeared at the right instant. Mr. James’s train
for Rye left a few moments before ours for London. He took a
most friendly farewell and having left us to Mr. McA. ran for
his own carriage. In another five minutes we too were away,
bearing our delightful memories of this meeting.
Not because they record momentous events and encounters, but merely
as little pictures of the life which Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett led
together, these passages are brought to light. They are the last to be
presented here. For more than another decade beyond the summer of 1898,
Miss Jewett, sorely invalided through the final years as the result of a
carriage accident, remained the central personal fact in Mrs. Fields’s
interest and affections. Soon after her death, in June, 1909, Mrs. Fields
wrote about her to a common friend: “Of my dear Sarah—I believe one of
her noblest qualities was her great generosity. Others could only guess
at this, but I was allowed to know it. Not that she made gifts, but a
wide sympathy was hers for every disappointed or incompetent fellow
creature. It was a most distinguishing characteristic! Governor Andrew
spoke of Judge B—— once as ‘A friend to every man who did not need a
friend’! Sarah’s quick sympathy knew a friend was in need before she knew
it herself; she was the spirit of beneficence, and her quick delicate wit
was such a joy in daily companionship!”
Of this daily companionship an anonymous contributor to the “Atlantic
Monthly” for August, 1909, had been a fortunate witness. I need not ask
his permission to repeat a portion of what he then wrote:—
“There is but one familiar portrait of Miss Jewett. It has been so
often reprinted that many who have seen it, even without seeing her,
must think of her as immune from change, blessed with perpetual youth,
with a gracious, sympathetic femininity, with an air of breeding and
distinction quite independent of shifting fashions.
“This portrait is intimately symbolic of her work. It typifies with a
rare faithfulness the quality of all the products of her pen. In them
one found, and finds, the same abiding elements of beauty, sympathy, and
distinction. The element of sympathy—perhaps the greatest of these—found
its expression in a humor that provoked less of outward laughter than
of smiles within, and in a pathos the very counterpart of this delicate
quality. The beauty and the distinction may be less capable of brief
characterization, but they pervaded her art....
“This work of hers, in dealing with the New England life she knew and
loved, was essentially American, as purely indigenous as the pointed firs
of her own countryside. The art with which she wrought her native themes
was limited, on the contrary, by no local boundaries. At its best it had
the absolute quality of the highest art in every quarter of the globe.
And the spirit in which she approached her task was as broad in its
scope and sympathy as her art in its form. It was precisely this union
of what was at once so clearly American and so clearly universal that
distinguished her stories, in the eyes of both editor and reader, as the
best—so often—in any magazine that contained them.
“Her constant demand upon herself was for the best. There were no
compromises with mediocrity, either in her tastes or in her achievements.
It was the best aspect of New England character and tradition on which
her vision steadily dwelt. She was satisfied with nothing short of the
best in her interpretation of New England life. The form of creative
writing in which she won her highest successes—the short story—is the
form in which Americans have made their most distinctive contributions
to English literature: and her place with the few best of these writers
appears to be secure.
“If the familiar portrait typifies her work, it is equally true to the
person herself. The quick, responsive spirit of youth, with all its
sincerity, all its enjoyment in friendship or whatever else the day
might hold, was an immutable possession. So were all the other qualities
for which the features spoke. Through the recent years of physical
disability, due in the first instance to an accident so gratuitous that
it seemed to her friends unendurable, there was a noble patience, a
sweet endurance, that could have sprung only from an heroic strain of
character.”
For nearly six years Mrs. Fields survived Miss Jewett, bereaved as by the
loss of half her personal world, yet indomitable of spirit and energy,
so long as her physical forces would permit any of the old accustomed
exercises of hospitality and friendship. The selection and publication
of Miss Jewett’s letters was a labor of love which continued the sense
of companionship for the first two of the remaining years. Through the
four others there was a failing of bodily strength, though not at all of
mental and spiritual eagerness; and in her outward mien through all the
later years, there was that which must have recalled to many the ancient
couplet:—
No Spring, nor summer’s beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
Towards the end there was a brief return to the keeping of a sporadic
diary. Its final words, written January 25, 1913, were these: “The days
go on cheerfully. I have just read Mark Twain’s life, the life of a man
who had greatness in him. I am now reading his ‘Joan of Arc.’ I hope to
wait as cheerfully as he did for the trumpet call and as usefully, but I
am ready.”
When Mrs. Fields died and the Charles Street door was finally closed, at
the beginning of 1915, the world had entered upon its first entire year
of a new era. It is an era as sharply separated from that of her intimate
contemporaries, the American Victorians, as any new from any old order.
The figures of every old order take their places by degrees as “museum
pieces,” objects of curious and sometimes condescending study. But let
us not be too sure that in parting with the past we have let it keep
only that which can best be spared. We would not wish them back, those
Victorians of ours. They were the product of their own day, and would be
hardly at ease—poor things—in our twentieth-century Zion. Even some of us
who inhabit it gain a sense of rest in reëntering their quiet, decorous
dwelling-places. As we emerge again from one of them, may it be with a
renewed allegiance to those lasting “things that are more excellent,”
which belong to every generation of civilized men and women.
FOOTNOTES
[1] _A Shelf of Old Books_, by Mrs. Fields (1894), pictures many aspects
of the house and its contents.
[2] About two months later, Mrs. Fields wrote in her diary: “Emerson
says Hawthorne’s book is ‘pellucid but not deep.’ He has cut out the
dedication and letter, as others have done.”
[3] The greater part of this chapter appeared in the _Yale Review_ for
April, 1918.
[4] George Tyler Bigelow, of the Harvard Class of 1829.
[5] Harvard festivals were frequently noted. After the great day on which
Lowell gave his _Commemoration Ode_, Mrs. Fields wrote (July 22, 1865):
“What an ever-memorable day, the one at Harvard! The prayer of Phillips
Brooks, the ode of Lowell, the address of Dr. Putnam and the Governor,
and the heartfelt verses of Holmes, and the lovely music and the hymns.
But Lowell’s Ode!! How it overtops the whole of what is preserved on
paper beside! Charles G. Loring presided. ‘Awkwardly enough done,’ said
O. W. H.; ‘It is a delicate thing to introduce a poet, he should be
delivered to the table as a falconer delivers the falcon into the air,
but Mr. Loring puts you down hard on the table—ca-chunk.’”
[6] This anecdote of the revision of _The Last Leaf_, written in 1831, is
told a little differently in the annotations of Holmes’s Complete Works.
[7] See _Yesterdays with Authors_, p. 98, and _The Atlantic Monthly and
Its Makers_, p. 46.
[8] _The Dolliver Romance._
[9] Fields drew upon this paragraph for one in _Yesterdays with Authors_,
p. 112.
[10] Only a month after making this entry, Mrs. Fields wrote in her
journal: “A note came from Longfellow saying he had received a sad note
from Hawthorne. ‘I wish we could have a little dinner for him,’ he says,
‘of two sad authors and two jolly publishers—nobody else.’”
[11] In Rose Hawthorne Lathrop’s _Memories of Hawthorne_ the relation
between the two households is indicated in a sentence containing
the nicknames of Mr. and Mrs. Fields: “My father also tasted the
piquant flavors of merriment and luxury in this exquisite domicile of
Heart’s-Ease and Mrs. Meadows.”
[12] Thoreau’s younger sister.
[13] In 1865 Alcott printed privately and anonymously the essay,
_Emerson_, which appeared later in his acknowledged volume, _Ralph Waldo
Emerson, an Estimate of his Character and Genius_ (Boston, 1882). This
was evidently _The Rhapsodist_.
[14] Thoreau’s older sister.
[15] Josiah Phillips Quincy.
[16] An allusion to the controversy over the claims of Dr. Jackson and
Dr. Morton to the discovery of ether.
[17] Daughter of the Rev. William Henry Furness, of Philadelphia, and
translator of German novels.
[18] One of Lowell’s reminiscences at the Saturday Club, recorded two
years earlier by Mrs. Fields, suggests his essential youthfulness of
spirit. Apropos of a story told by Dr. Holmes, “Lowell said that reminded
him of experiments the boys at his school used to make on flies, to see
how much weight they could carry. One day he attached a thread, which he
pulled out of his silk handkerchief, to a fly’s leg, and to the other
end a bit of paper with ‘the master is a fool’ written on it in small
distinct letters. The fly flew away and lighted on the master’s nose; but
he, regardless of all but the lessons, brushed him off, and the fly rose
with his burden to the ceiling.”
[19] After an evening of high discussion at Mrs. Howe’s in an earlier
year, Mrs. Fields wrote in her journal (October 4, 1863): “The talk grew
deep, and after it was over, she [Mrs. Howe] recalled the saying of Mrs.
Bell, after a like evening, when she called for ‘a fat idiot.’”
[20] If Mrs. Fields had lived to see _The Early Years of the Saturday
Club_ (Boston, 1918), she would have found that I drew from the notes in
her own diary a large portion of the memoir of James T. Fields which it
contains.
[21] This was in the midst of Aldrich’s occupancy of Elmwood, during
Lowell’s two years’ absence in Europe.
[22] The greater part of this chapter appeared in _Harper’s Magazine_ for
May and June, 1922.
[23] A few passages from it, relating to Dickens, are included in _James
T. Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches_. When they are
occasionally repeated here, it is in their original form, and not as Mrs.
Fields edited them for publication.
[24] On this very day Lowell wrote in the course of a letter to Fields:
“James tells me you had a tremendous _queue_ this morning. Don’t fail
to get me tickets, and for the first night. I should like to see his
reception. It will leave a picture on the brain. And why should I not be
there to welcome him, as well as Tom, Dick, or Harry?”
[25] Even after Dickens’s return to England, his sayings found their way
into Mrs. Fields’s journal; as, for example:—
“_July 4, 1868._—J. made me laugh this morning (it was far too hot to
laugh) by telling me that Dickens said of Gray, the poet, ‘No man ever
walked down to posterity with so small a book under his arm!’”
[26] See Forster’s _Life_, III, 368, for the same story told by Dickens
in a letter to Lord Lytton, without naming Longfellow as the narrator.
[27] In _Yesterdays with Authors_ (see pp. 230-31), Fields made use, with
revisions and omissions, of this portion of his wife’s diary.
[28] Mrs. Stowe’s unhappily historic article on “The True Story of Lady
Byron’s Life” appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for September, 1869.
[29] On April 20, 1870, Longfellow wrote to Fields (See _Life of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow_, etc., edited by Samuel Longfellow, III, 148):—
“Some English poet has said or sung:
‘At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove.’
“I wish Hamlet would be still! I wish I could prove the sweets of
forgetfulness! I wish Fechter would depart into infinite space, and
‘leave, oh, leave me to repose!’ When will this disturbing star
disappear, and suffer the domestic planetary system to move on in the
ordinary course and keep time with the old clock in the corner?”
[30] A contemporary definition of Cincinnati.
[31] Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the moving spirit in the building of the Music
Hall and the installation of the organ. He presided at its dedication.
[32] See _ante_, page 111.
[33] “A Newport Romance,” published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for
October, 1871.
[34] Probably _Gabriel Conroy_ and _Two Men of Sandy Bar_.
[35] See _The Atlantic Monthly and Its Makers_, pp. 73-75.
INDEX
Page numbers set in =bold-faced type= indicate, generally speaking, the
more important references to the persons concerned. As a complete list
of the pages on which Mr. or Mrs. Fields, or both, are mentioned would
include substantially the whole book, only a few of the more significant
references to them have been selected for inclusion under their names.
Adams, Annie, marries =J. T. F.=, 11. And _see_ Fields, Annie.
Adams, Charles F., Jr., 278.
Adams, Lizzie, 20.
Adams, Zabdiel B., 11.
Agassiz, Alexander, 256, 257, 258.
Agassiz, Elizabeth C., 159.
Agassiz, Louis, 48, 93, 105, 141.
Alcott, A. Bronson, 63, =72-77=, 81, 82, 95.
Alcott, Mrs. A. Bronson, 63.
Alcott, Louisa M., 73.
Alden, Henry M., 57, 89.
Aldrich, Lilian (Woodman), 126, 203, 229, 290.
Aldrich, Thomas B., 11, 116, 126 and _n._, 127, =197= _ff._,
=226-229=, 290, =291-293=.
Andrew, John A., 11, 36 _n._, 302.
Andrew, Mrs. John A., 28, 213, 214.
Appleton, Thomas Gold, 115, 116, 126, 152, 154, 209, 211, 212,
213, 216, 246, 253.
Aristotle, 133.
Arnold, Matthew, 288.
Astor, John Jacob, 76, 77.
_Atlantic Monthly_, 6, 13, 14, 107, 111, 191 _n._, 209, 233,
252, 281, 282, 302.
Bacon, Francis, Lord, 112.
Baker, Sir Samuel, 149.
Barbauld, Anna L. A., 101.
Barker, Fordyce, 151, 185.
Barlow, Francis C., 61.
Barrett, Lawrence, 240.
Bartol, Cyrus A., 114, 215, 239.
Beal, James H., 143.
Beal, Louisa (Adams), 42, 143.
Beal, Thomas, 199.
Beecher, Henry Ward, 89, 224, 263, =267-269=, 270.
Bell, Helen (Choate), 98, 143, 288.
Bellows, Henry W., 199.
Bentzon, Th. _See_ Blanc, Marie T.
Bigelow, George T., 36.
Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs., 143, 144.
Blagden, Isa, 260.
Blake, Harrison G. O., 89, 90.
Blanc, Marie Thérèse, 288, 289, 293.
Blessington, Countess of, 274.
Blumenbach, Johann F., 128, 129.
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 58.
Booth, Edwin, 28, =198-203=, 210, =240-241=.
Booth, J. Wilkes, 28, 198, 199.
Booth, Junius Brutus, 196.
Booth, Mary (Mrs. Edwin), 241.
Booth, Mary A. (Mrs. J. B.), 198.
Boswell, James, 60.
Boutwell, George S., 89.
Bradford, George, 81, 82, 90.
Bright, John, 177.
Brontë, Charlotte, 131, 266.
Brooks, Phillips, 36 _n._, 94, 288.
Brown, John, _Pet Marjorie_, 59.
Browne, Charles F., 21.
Brownell, Henry Howard, 29.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 270.
Browning, Robert, 43, 142, 260, 269.
Brunetière, Ferdinand, 288.
Bryant, William Cullen, 239, 257.
“Buffalo Bill.” _See_ Cody, W. F.
Bugbee, James M., 126.
Bull, Ole, 225.
Burr, Aaron, 270, 271.
Butler, Benjamin F., 95.
Cabot, Mrs., 236.
Calderon de la Barca, Pedro, 110.
Carleton, G. W., 233.
Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 75, 142, 220.
Carlyle, Thomas, 73, 75, 79, 89, 141, 142, 165, 167, 190, 191,
220.
Channing, W. Ellery, 81, 98, 114.
Cheney, Arthur, 216.
Cheney, Ednah D., 114.
Child, Lydia M., 265, 266.
Childs, George W., 64.