Author of "The Gates Ajar," "The Madonna of the Tubs," etc.
ANDOVER GIRLS AS STUDENTS OF THEOLOGY.--THE DARK DAYS OF THE
WAR.--WRITING MAGAZINE STORIES AND SUNDAY-SCHOOL BOOKS.--THE
DIFFICULTY AND UNCERTAINTY OF WRITING FOR A LIVING.
One study in our curriculum at the Andover School I have omitted
to mention in its place; but, of them all, it was the most
characteristic, and would be most interesting to an outsider. Where
else but in Andover would a group of a dozen and a half girls be put
to studying theology? Yet this is precisely what we did. Not that we
called our short hour with Professor Park on Tuesday evenings by that
long word; nor did he. It was understood that we had Bible lessons.
But the gist of the matter was, that we were taught Professor Park's
theology.
We had our note-books, like the students in the chapel lecture-rooms,
and we took docile notes of the great man's views on the attributes of
the Deity, on election and probation, on atonement and sanctification,
on eschatology, and the rest.
Girls' with pink ribbons at white throats, and girls with blue silk
nets on their pretty hair, fluttered in like bees and butterflies, and
settled about the long dining-room table, at whose end, with a shade
over his eyes to shield them from the light, the professor sat in a
dark corner.
Thence he promulgated stately doctrines to those soft and dreaming
woman-creatures, who did not care a maple-leaf whether we sinned
in Adam, or whether the Trinity were separate as persons or as
attributes; but who drew little portraits of their dearest Academy
boys on the margins of their lecture-books, and passed these to their
particular intimates in surreptitious interludes between doctrines.
What must have been the professor's private speculations on those
Tuesday evenings? I had a certain sense of their probable nature, even
then; and glanced furtively into the dark corner for glimpses of the
distant, sarcastic smile which I felt must be carving itself upon the
lines of his strong face. But I never caught him at it; not once. With
the gravity befitting his awful topics, and with the dignity belonging
to his Chair and to his fame, the professor taught the butterflies,
to the best of my knowledge and belief, as conscientiously as he did
those black-coated beetles yonder, the theologues on the Seminary
benches.
[Illustration: "THE OLD BRICK ACADEMY," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER,
MASSACHUSETTS, WITH THE CLASS OF 1861 IN FRONT.
Of the class of 1861 over twenty went into the war, and several died
in battle or in war prisons. Lieutenant S.H. Thompson, son of the late
Professor William Thompson of East Windsor Seminary, was among this
number. Also, Sergeant J.H. Thompson, son of the late Dr. Joseph P.
Thompson of New York City. President Ward of Franklin College, the
Rev. Dr. Dougherty of Kansas City, and the Rev. Dr. Brand of Oberlin
College, were members of the class, and their portraits appear in the
picture. The valedictorian was Carlos F. Carter, brother of President
Carter of Williams College. He was drowned in the Jordan a few months
after graduation.]
I ought to say, just here, that, in a recent correspondence with
Professor Park upon this matter, I found him more or less unconscious
of having been so generous with his theology to the girls. I am giving
the pupil's impressions, not the teacher's recollections, of that
Bible-class; and I can give no other. Of course, I may be mistaken,
and am liable to correction; but my impressions are, that he gave us
his system of theology pretty straight and very faithfully.
I cannot deny that I enjoyed those stern lessons. Not that I had any
marked predilections towards theology, but I liked the psychology of
it. I experienced my first appreciation of the nature and value of
logic in that class-room, and it did me good, and not evil altogether.
There I learned to reason with more patience than a school-girl may
always care to suffer; and there I observed that the mysteries of time
and eternity, whatever one might personally conclude about them, were
material of reason.
In many a mental upheaval of later life, the basis of that theological
training has made itself felt to me, as one feels rocks or stumps or
solid things underfoot in the sickly swaying of wet sands. I may not
always believe all I was taught, but what I was taught has helped me
to what I believe. I certainly think of those theological lectures
with unqualified gratitude.
The Tuesday evenings grow warm and warmer. The butterflies hover about
in white muslins, and pretty little bows of summer colors glisten on
bright heads as they bend over the doctrines, around the long table.
On the screens of the open windows the June beetles knock their heads,
like theologues who wish they could get in. There is a moon without.
Visions of possible forbidden ecstasies of strolls under the arches of
the Seminary elms with the bravest boy in the Academy melt before the
gentle minds, through which depravity, election, predestination, and
justification are filing sternly. The professor's voice arises:
"A sin is a wrong committed against God. God is an Infinite Being;
therefore sin against Him is an infinite wrong. An infinite wrong
against an Infinite Being deserves an infinite punishment--"
Now, the professor says that he has no recollection of ever having
said this in the Bible-class; but there is the note-book of the girl's
brain, stamped with the sentence for these thirty years!
"I have sometimes quoted it at the Seminary," he writes, "for
the purpose of exposing the impropriety of it. I do not think any
professor ever quoted the statement, without adding that it is
untenable. The Andover argument was ----"[5] He adds the proper
controversial language, which, it seems, went solidly out of my head.
Tenable or untenable, my memory has clutched the stately syllogism.
Sharp upon the doctrines there falls across the silence and the
sweetness of the moonlit Hill a strange and sudden sound. It is
louder than theology. It is more solemn than the professor's system.
Insistent, urging everything before it--the toil of strenuous study,
the fret of little trouble, and the dreams of dawning love--the call
stirs on. It is the beat of a drum.
The boys of old Phillips, with the down on their faces, and that
eternal fire in their hearts which has burned upon the youth of all
the ages when their country has commanded: "Die for me!" are drilling
by moonlight.
The Academy Company is out in force, passing up and down the quiet,
studious streets. The marching of their feet beats solemnly at the
meeting of the paths where (like the gardens of the professors) the
long walks of the Seminary lawns form the shape of a mighty cross.
"An infinite wrong deserves an infinite punishment--" The
theologian's voice falls solemnly. The girls turn their grave faces to
the open windows. Silence helps the drum-beat, which lifts its cry to
Heaven unimpeded; and the awful questions which it asks, what system
of theology can answer?
* * * * *
Andover was no more loyal, probably, than other New England villages;
but perhaps the presence of so many young men helped to make her seem
so to those who passed the years from 1861 to 1865 upon the Hill.
Theology and church history and exegesis and sacred rhetoric retreated
from the foreground of that scholastic drama. The great Presence that
is called War swept up and filled the scene.
Gray-haired men went to their lecture-rooms with bowed heads, the
morning papers shaking in their hands. The accuracy of the Hebrew
verb did not matter so much as it did last term. The homiletic uses or
abuses of an applied text, the soundness of the new school doctrine of
free will, seemed less important to the universe than they were
before the Flag went down on Sumter. Young eyes looked up at their
instructors mistily, for the dawn of utter sacrifice was in them. He
was only an Academy boy yesterday, or a theologue; unknown, unnoticed,
saying his lesson in Xenophon, taking his notes on the Nicene Creed;
blamed a little, possibly, by his teacher or by his professor, for
inattention.
To-day he comes proudly to the desk. His step rings on the old, bare
floors that he will never tread again. "Sir, my father gives his
permission. I enlist at once."
To-day he is a hero, and the hero's light is glorious on his face.
To-day _he_ is the teacher, and the professor learns lessons in his
turn now. The boy whom he has lectured and scolded towers above him
suddenly, a sacred thing to see. The old man stands uncovered before
his pupil as they clasp hands and part.
The drum calls on, and the boys drill bravely--no boys' parade this,
but awful earnest now. The ladies of Andover sew red braid upon blue
flannel shirts, with which the Academy Company make simple uniform.
Then comes a morning when the professors cannot read the papers for
the news they bring; but cover streaming eyes with trembling hands,
and turn their faces. For the black day of the defeat at Bull Run has
darkened the summer sky.
Andover does not sew for the missionaries now. Her poor married
theologues must wait a little for their babies' dresses. Even the blue
flannel shirts for the drill are forgotten. The chapel is turned into
sudden, awful uses, of which the "pious founders" in their comfortable
graves did never dream. For there the women of the Hill, staying for
no prayer-meeting, and delaying to sing no hymns, pick lint and roll
bandages and pack supplies for the field; and there they sacrifice and
suffer, like women who knew no theology at all; and since it was not
theirs to offer life to the teeth of shot and shell, they "gave their
happiness instead."
* * * * *
The first thing which I wrote, marking in any sense the beginning of
what authors are accustomed to call their "literary career"--I dislike
the phrase and wish we had a better--was a war story.
As nearly as I can recall the facts, up to this time I had shown no
literary tendency whatever, since the receipt of that check for two
dollars and a half. Possibly the munificence of that honorarium seemed
to me to satiate mortal ambition for years. It is true that, during my
schooldays, I did perpetrate three full-grown novels in manuscript. My
dearest particular intimate and I shared in this exploit, and read our
chapters to each other on Saturday afternoons.
I remember that the title of one of these "books" was "The Shadow of
a Lifetime." It was a double title with a heroine to it, but I forget
the lady's name, or even the nature of her particular shadow. The
only thing that can be said about these three volumes is, that their
youthful author had the saving sense not to try the Christian temper
of a publisher with their perusal.
Yet, in truth, I have never regretted the precious portion of human
existence spent in their creation; for I must have written off in that
way a certain amount of apprenticeship which does, in some cases, find
its way into type, and devastate the endurance of a patient public.
The war story of which I speak was distinctly the beginning of
anything like genuine work for me. Mr. Alden tells me that it was
published in January, 1864; but I think it must have been written
a while before that, though not long, for its appearance quickly
followed the receipt of the manuscript. The name of the story was "A
Sacrifice Consumed." It was a very little story, not covering more
than four or five pages in print. I sent it to "Harper's Magazine,"
without introduction or what young writers are accustomed to call
"influence;" it was sent quite privately, without the knowledge of
any friend. It was immediately accepted, and a prompt check for
twenty-five dollars accompanied the acceptance. Even my father knew
nothing of the venture until I carried the letter and enclosure to
him. The pleasure on his expressive face was only equalled by its
frank and unqualified astonishment. He read the story when it came
out, and, I think, was touched by it--it was a story of a poor and
plain little dressmaker who lost her lover in the army--and his
genuine emotion gave me a kind of awed elation which has never been
repeated in my experience. Ten hundred thousand unknown voices could
not move me to the pride and pleasure which my father's first gentle
word of approval gave to a girl who cared much to be loved, and little
to be praised; and the plaudits of a "career" were the last things in
earth or heaven then occupying her mind.
[Illustration: ABBOT ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS.
From a photograph by Geo. H. Leek, Lawrence, Massachusetts, taken in
1864.]
Afterwards, I wrote with a distinct purpose, and, I think, quite
steadily. I know that longer stories went, soon and often, to the old
magazine, which never sent them back; and to which I am glad to pay
the tribute of a gratitude that I have never outgrown. There was
nothing of the stuff that heroines and geniuses are made of in a shy
and self-distrustful girl who had no faith in her own capabilities,
and, indeed, at that time, the smallest possible amount of interest in
the subject.
It may be a humiliating fact, but it is the truth, that had my first
story been refused, or even the second or the third, I should have
written no more.
For the opinion of important editors, and for the sacredness of market
value in literary wares, as well as in professorships or cotton cloth,
I had a kind of respect at which I sometimes wonder; for I do not
recall that it was ever distinctly taught me. But, assuredly, if
nobody had cared for my stories enough to print them, I should have
been the last person to differ from the ruling opinion, and should
have bought at Warren Draper's old Andover book-store no more cheap
printer's paper on which to inscribe the girlish handwriting (with the
pointed letters and the big capitals) which my father, with patient
pains, had caused to be taught me by a queer old travelling-master
with an idea. Professor Phelps, by the way, had an exquisite
chirography, which none of his children, to his evident
disappointment, inherited.
[Illustration: "THE STONE BUILDING," PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER,
MASSACHUSETTS.