Miss Larcom’s Books.
POETICAL WORKS. _Household Edition._ With Portrait, 12mo, $1.50; full
gilt, $2.00.
POEMS. 16mo, $1.25.
AN IDYL OF WORK. 16mo, $1.25.
WILD ROSES OF CAPE ANN, AND OTHER POEMS. 16mo, gilt top, $1.25.
CHILDHOOD SONGS. Illustrated, 12mo, $1.00.
EASTER GLEAMS. Poems. 16mo, parchment paper, 75 cents.
AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. 16mo, $1.00.
AT THE BEAUTIFUL GATE, AND OTHER SONGS OF FAITH. 16mo, $1.00.
THE UNSEEN FRIEND. 16mo, $1.00.
A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD, outlined from Memory. In Riverside Library for
Young People. 16mo, 75 cents.
_Holiday Edition._ 16mo, $1.25.
BREATHINGS OF THE BETTER LIFE. Edited by LUCY LARCOM. 18mo, $1.25.
ROADSIDE POEMS FOR SUMMER TRAVELLERS. Selected by LUCY LARCOM. 18mo,
$1.00.
HILLSIDE AND SEASIDE IN POETRY. Selected by LUCY LARCOM. 18mo, $1.00.
BECKONINGS FOR EVERY DAY. A Collection of Quotations for each day in
the year. Compiled by LUCY LARCOM. 16mo, $1.00.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
[Illustration]
LUCY LARCOM
LIFE, LETTERS, AND DIARY
BY
DANIEL DULANY ADDISON
[Illustration]
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1895
Copyright, 1894,
BY DANIEL DULANY ADDISON.
_All rights reserved._
_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
PREFACE
It was the purpose of Miss Larcom to write a sequel to her hook, “A
New England Girlhood,” in which she intended to give some account of
her life in the log-cabins on the Western prairies as a pioneer and
schoolmistress, and her experiences as a teacher in Wheaton Seminary,
and as an editor and literary woman. She also wished to trace the
growth of her religious ideas by showing the process through which she
was led to undergo changes that finally made her accept a less rigorous
theology than the one in which she had been reared. Her fascinating
style, with its wealth of reminiscence and interesting detail, would
have characterized her later book, as it did the former, but she died
before beginning it, and American literature has lost a valuable record
of a woman’s life. A keen observer, her contact with famous men and
women gave her an opportunity for a large knowledge of persons and
events; deeply interested in the questions of the day, her comments
would have been just and luminous; and her sensitiveness to impressions
was such that the varied influences upon her life would have been most
attractively presented. She was deeply spiritual, and the account
of her religious experiences would have supplemented the moral power
of her published works; but she was not permitted to give us, in
autobiographical form, the rich fruits of a well-spent life.
The only preparation she had made for this book was a few notes
suggesting a title and headings of the chapters. She proposed naming
it, “Hitherward: A Life-Path Retraced.” The suggestions for chapters
indicate the subjects that she intended to treat,--“The Charm of
Elsewhere;” “Over the Prairies;” “Log-Cabin Experiences;” “A Pioneer
Schoolmistress;” “Teacher and Student;” “Back to the Bay State;”
“Undercurrents;” “Beneath Norton Elms;” “During the War;” “With ‘Our
Young Folks;’” “Successful Failures;” and “Going On.”
After her death, her papers came into my possession. An examination
showed that there was material enough in her letters and diary to
preserve still some record of her later life, and possibly to continue
the narrative which she had given in “A New England Girlhood.”
It will be noticed that some years are treated more at length than
others, the reason for this being that more data have been accessible
for those periods; and also, as is the case with most lives, there
were epochs of intenser emotion, more lasting experiences, and deeper
friendships, the account of which is of greater value to the general
reader than the more commonplace incidents of her career.
Her life was one of thought, not of action. In their outward movement,
her days flowed on very smoothly. She had no remarkable adventures; but
she had a constant succession of mental vicissitudes, which are often
more dramatic and real than the outward events of even a varied life.
In her loves and sympathies, in her philosophy of living and her creed,
in her literary labors,--her poetry and her prose,--in her studies of
man, nature, and God, she revealed a mind continually venturing into
the known and unknown, and bringing back trophies of struggles and
victories, of doubts and beliefs, of despair and faith. My aim has been
to present the character of a New England woman, as it was thus moulded
by the intellectual and moral forces of American living for the last
fifty years; and to show how she absorbed the best from all sides, and
responded to the highest influences.
There are passages in her diaries that remind one of Pascal’s
“Thoughts,” for their frankness and spiritual depth; there are others
that recall Amiel’s Journal, with its record of emotions and longings
after light. If such a singularly transparent and pure life had
preserved for us its inner history, it would be more valuable than any
record of mere outward events. Some such inner history I have attempted
to give, by making selections from her journal and letters; and if, at
times, I have allowed her inmost thoughts and motives to be disclosed,
it has been with the feeling that such frankness would be helpful in
portraying a soul stirred with love for the beautiful, a heart loving
humanity, a spirit with the passion for God in it. She once said, “I am
willing to make any part of my life public, if it will help others.”
One soon sees that the religious element predominated in her character.
From her earliest years, these questions of the soul’s relation to man,
to nature, and to God were uppermost in her mind. She was impelled to
master them; and as Jacob wrestled with the angel, she could not let
Life go until she had received from it a blessing. She found her rest
and comfort in a Christianity which had its centre in no theory or
dogma, no ecclesiastical system, but in the person of Jesus. For Him
she had the most loyal love. He satisfied her soul; He interpreted
life for her; He gave her the inspiration for her work; and with
this belief, she went forth to live and to die, having the hope and
confidence of a larger life beyond.
She was a prophetess to her generation, singing the songs of a newer
faith, and breathing forth in hymns and lyrics, and even homely
ballads, her belief in God and immortality. Her two books, “As It Is
in Heaven” and “The Unseen Friend,” written in the last years of her
life, when she had felt the presence of an invisible Power, and had
caught glimpses of the spiritual world through the intimations of
happiness given her in this life, are messages to human souls, that
come with authority, and mark her as a strong spiritual force in our
American Christianity. She will be known, I feel, not only as a woman
with the most delicate perceptions of the sweetness of truth, and an
appreciation of its poetry, but as one who could grasp the eternal
facts out of the infinite, and clothe them with such beauty of imagery,
and softness of music, that other lives could receive from her a
blessing.
* * * * *
I must make public acknowledgment to those who have willingly rendered
me assistance,--to Miss Lucy Larcom Spaulding (now Mrs. Clark), who
gave me the privilege of using the rich material her aunt had left in
her guardianship; to Mrs. James Guild, who furnished me with facts
of great interest; to Mrs. I. W. Baker, the sister of Miss Larcom,
whose advice has proved most valuable; to Miss Susan Hayes Ward, who
put at my disposal the material used in the Memorial Number of “The
Rushlight,” the magazine of Wheaton Seminary; to Mr. S. T. Pickard,
for permitting me to use some of Mr. Whittier’s letters; to the Rev.
Arthur Brooks, D. D., who consented to my using the letters of his
brother, Bishop Brooks; to Prof. George E. Woodberry, whose sympathy
and suggestions have been of the greatest service to me; and to all who
have loaned the letters that so clearly illustrate the richness of Miss
Larcom’s personality.
DANIEL DULANY ADDISON.
BEVERLY, MASS., June 19, 1894.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. EARLY DAYS. 1824-1846 1
II. IN ILLINOIS. 1846-1852 21
III. LIFE AT NORTON. 1853-1859 44
IV. REFLECTIONS OF A TEACHER 69
V. THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR 83
VI. INTELLECTUAL EXPERIENCES 118
VII. LETTERS AND WORK. 1861-1868 148
VIII. WRITINGS AND LETTERS. 1868-1880 172
IX. RELIGIOUS CHANGES. 1881-1884 200
X. UNDERCURRENTS. 1884-1889 222
XI. MEMBERSHIP IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH 242
XII. LAST YEARS 257
INDEX 291
LUCY LARCOM.
CHAPTER I.
EARLY DAYS.
1824-1846.
Lucy Larcom was born on March 5, 1824, in the old seaside town of
Beverly, Massachusetts. She was next to the youngest in a family of
seven sisters and two brothers. Her father, Benjamin Larcom, a retired
shipmaster who became a shopkeeper selling West India goods, was a man
of strong natural ability, and her mother, Lois Barrett, “with bright
blue eyes and soft dark curling hair, which she kept pinned up under
her white lace cap,” was known for her sweetness. The Larcoms had lived
for generations on the borders of the sea. Mordecai Larcom, born 1629,
appeared in Ipswich in 1655, and soon after moved to Beverly, where
he obtained a grant of land. His son, Cornelius Larcom, born 1658,
purchased a place on the coast, in what is known as Beverly Farms.
David Larcom was born 1701, and his son, Jonathan, born 1742, was the
grandfather of Miss Larcom. The qualities of energy and self-reliance
that come from the cultivation of Essex County soil and the winning of
a livelihood as trader and sailor, were apparent in the branch of the
family that lived in Wallace Lane,--one of the by-streets of the quaint
village, that led in one direction through the fields to Bass River,
“running with its tidal water from inland hills,” and in the other
across the main street to the harbor, with its fishing schooners and
glimpses of the sea.
Her sensitive nature quickly responded to the free surroundings of
her childhood. The open fields with the wild flowers and granite
ledges covered with vines, and the sandy beaches of the harbor,
and the village streets with their quiet picturesque life, formed
her playground. The little daily events happening around her were
interesting: the stage-coach rattling down Cabot Street; the arrival
of a ship returning from a distant voyage; the stately equipage driven
from the doorway of Colonel Thorndike’s house; the Sunday services in
the meeting-house; the companionship of other children, and the charm
of her simple home life. These experiences are graphically recorded
in “A New England Girlhood,” where she testifies to her love for her
native town. “There is something in the place where we were born that
holds us always by the heart-strings. A town that has a great deal of
country in it, one that is rich in beautiful scenery and ancestral
associations, is almost like a living being, with a body and a soul. We
speak of such a town as of a mother, and think of ourselves as her sons
and daughters. So we felt about our dear native town of Beverly.”
In her poems there are numerous references to the town:--
“Steady we’ll scud by the Cape Ann shore,
Then back to the Beverly Bells once more.
The Beverly Bells
Ring to the tide as it ebbs and swells.”
In another place she says:--
“The gleam of
Thacher’s Isle, twin-beaconed, winking back
To twinkling sister-eyes of Baker’s Isle.”
Her childhood was a period which she always looked back upon with
fondness, for the deep impressions made upon her mind never were
obliterated. The continued possession of these happy remembrances as
she incorporated them into her womanhood, is shown by the way she
entered into the lives of other children, whether in compiling a book
of poems, like “Child Life,” known wherever there are nurseries,
or in writing her own book, “Childhood Songs,” or in some of her
many sketches in “Our Young Folks,” “St. Nicholas,” or the “Youth’s
Companion.” She knew by an unerring instinct what children were
thinking about, and how to interest them. She always took delight in
the little rivulets in the fields, or the brown thrush singing from
the tree, or the pussy-clover running wild, and eagerly watched for
the red-letter days of children, the anniversaries and birthdays.
She had happy memories of play in the old roomy barn, and of the
improvised swing hung from the rafters. She recalled the fairy-tales
and wonderful stories to which she listened with wide open eyes; the
reflection of her face in the burnished brass of the tongs; and her
child’s night-thoughts when she began to feel that there were mysteries
around her, and to remember that the stars were shining when she was
tucked in bed.
Lucy Larcom’s book-learning began very early. It seems almost
incredible that she should have been able to read at two and a half
years of age, but such is the general testimony of her family. She used
to sit by the side of her old Aunt Stanley, and thread needles for her,
listening to the songs and stories that the old lady told; and Aunt
Hannah, in the school held in her kitchen, where she often let the
children taste the good things that were cooking, managed not only to
keep her out of mischief, by her “pudding-stick” ferule, or by rapping
her on the head with a thimble, but taught her the “a, b, abs,” and
parts of the Psalms and Epistles.
The strongest influence in her development was that of her sister
Emeline, who inspired her with love for knowledge, and instilled in her
the highest ideals of girlhood. This sister supplied her, as she grew
older, with books, and guided her reading. Referring to this, she once
said:--
“I wish to give due credit to my earliest educators,--those
time-stained, thumb-worn books, that made me aware of living in a world
of natural grandeur, of lofty visions, of heroic achievements, of human
faithfulness, and sacrifice. I always feel like entering a protest
when I hear people say that there was very little for children to read
fifty years ago. There was very little of the cake and confectionery
style of literature, which is so abundant now; but we had the genuine
thing,--solid food, in small quantities, to suit our capacity,--and I
think we were better off for not having too much of the lighter sort.
What we had ‘stayed by.’”
The books that she read were “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Paul and Virginia,”
“Gulliver’s Travels,” Sir Walter Scott’s novels; and in poetry,
Spenser, Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge. She knew these volumes
almost by heart.
Lucy’s first love for poetry was fostered by the hymns she used to read
in church, during sermon time, when the minister from his lofty pulpit
entered upon a series of “finallys,” which did not seem to be meant for
her. Her fondness for hymns was so great that at one time she learned
a hundred. The rhythm of the musical accompaniment and the flow of
the words taught her the measured feet of verse before she ever heard
of an iambus or a choriambus. Finding that her own thoughts naturally
expressed themselves in rhyme, she used frequently to write little
verses, and stuff them down the crack in the floor of the attic. The
first poem that she read to the family was long remembered by them,
as, wriggling with embarrassment, she sat on a stool. Referring to her
poetry at this time, she says, “I wrote little verses, to be sure, but
that was nothing; they just grew. They were the same as breathing or
singing. I could not help writing them. They seemed to fly into my mind
like birds going with a carol through the air.”
There is an incident worth repeating, that illustrates her sweetness
and thoughtfulness of others. When her father died, she tried to
comfort her mother: “I felt like preaching to her, but I was too small
a child to do that; so I did the next best thing I could think of,--I
sang hymns, as if singing to myself, while I meant them for her.”
These happy days in the country village came to an end in the year
1835, when necessity forced Mrs. Larcom, after the death of her
husband, to seek a home in the manufacturing community of Lowell, where
there were more opportunities for the various members of her family to
assist in the general maintenance of the home.
In Lowell, there were corporation boarding-houses for the operatives,
requiring respectable matrons as housekeepers, and positions in the
mills offered a means of livelihood to young girls. Attracted by
these inducements, many New England families left their homes, in the
mountains of New Hampshire and along the seacoast, and went to Lowell.
The class of the employees in the mills was consequently different from
the ordinary factory hand of to-day. Girls of education and refinement,
who had no idea of remaining in a mill all their lives, worked in them
for some years with the object, often, of helping to send a brother to
college or making money enough to continue their education, or to aid
dear ones who had been left suddenly without support:--
“Not always to be here among the looms,--
Scarcely a girl she knew expected that;
Means to one end, their labor was,--to put
Gold nest-eggs in the bank, or to redeem
A mortgaged homestead, or to pay the way
Through classic years at some academy;
More commonly to lay a dowry by
For future housekeeping.”[1]
The intention of Mr. Francis Cabot Lowell and Mr. Nathan Appleton,
when they conceived the idea of establishing the mills, was to provide
conditions of living for operatives, as different as possible from the
Old World ideals of factory labor. They wisely decided to regard the
mental and religious education of the girls as of first importance,
and those who followed these plans aimed to secure young women of
intelligence from the surrounding towns, and stimulate them to seek
improvement in their leisure hours.
Besides the free Grammar School there were innumerable night schools;
and most of the churches provided, by means of “Social Circles,”
opportunities for improvement. So in Lowell there was a wide-awake set
of girls working for their daily bread, with a true idea of the dignity
of labor, and with the determination to make the most of themselves.
They reasoned thus, as Miss Larcom expressed it: “That the manufacture
of cloth should, as a branch of feminine industry, ever have suffered
a shadow of discredit, will doubtless appear to future generations a
most ridiculous barbarism. To prepare the clothing of the world seems
to have been regarded as womanly work in all ages. The spindle and the
distaff, the picturesque accompaniments of many an ancient legend--of
Penelope, of Lucretia, of the Fatal Sisters themselves--have, to be
sure, changed somewhat in their modern adaptation to the machinery
which robes the human millions; but they are, in effect, the same
instruments, used to supply the same need, at whatever period of the
world’s history.”
A few facts will show the character of these girls. One of the
ministers was asked how many teachers he thought he could furnish from
among the working-girls. He replied, “About five hundred.” A lecturer
in the Lowell Lyceum stated that four fifths of his audience were
factory girls, that when he entered the hall most of the girls were
reading from books, and when he began his lecture every one seemed
to be taking notes. Charles Dickens, after his visit to Lowell in
1842, wrote: “I solemnly declare that from all the crowd I saw in the
different factories, I cannot recall one face that gave me a painful
impression; not one young girl whom, assuming it to be a matter of
necessity that she should gain her daily bread by the labor of her
hands, I would have removed if I had the power.”
Mrs. Larcom kept a boarding-house for the operatives, and Lucy was
thrown in close association with these strong young women. She had
access to the little accumulation of books that one of them had
made,--Maria Edgeworth’s “Helen,” Thomas à Kempis, Bunyan’s “Holy War,”
Locke “On the Understanding,” and “Paradise Lost.” This formed good
reading for a girl of ten.
Lucy’s sister Emeline started in the boarding-house two or three little
fortnightly papers, to which the girls contributed. Each ran a troubled
existence of a few months, and then gave place to its successor,
bearing a new name. “The Casket,” for a time, held their jewels of
thought; then “The Bouquet” gathered their full-blown ideas into a
more pretentious collection. The most permanent of these literary
productions was one that started with the intention of being very
profound,--it was called “The Diving Bell.” The significance of the
name was carefully set forth in the first number:--
“Our Diving Bell shall deep descend,
And bring from the immortal mind
Thoughts that to improve us tend,
Of each variety and kind.”
Lucy soon became a poetical contributor; and when the paper was read,
and the guessing as to the author of each piece began--for they were
anonymous--the other girls were soon able to tell her work by its music
and thought. Among the yellow and worm-eaten pages of the once popular
“Diving Bell,” we find the following specimen of her earliest poetry:--
“I sit at my window and gaze
At the scenery lovely around,
On the water, the grass, and the trees,
And I hear the brook’s murmuring sound.
“The bird warbles forth his soft lays,
And I smell the sweet fragrance of flowers,
I hear the low hum of the bees,
As they busily pass the long hours.
“These pleasures were given to man
To bring him more near to his God,
Then let me praise God all I can,
Until I am laid ’neath the sod.”
From the interest excited by these little papers, the desire of the
girls became strong for more dignified literary expression; and by the
advice and assistance of the Rev. Abel C. Thomas, of the Universalist
Church, the “Lowell Offering” was started in October, 1840, and the
“Operative’s Magazine” originated in the Literary Society of the First
Congregational Church. These two magazines were united, in 1842, in
the “Lowell Offering.” The editors of the “Offering,” Miss Hariett
Farley and Miss Hariot Curtiss, factory girls, were women of superior
culture and versatility, and made the magazine a unique experiment
in our literature. In its pages were clever sketches of home life,
humorous and pathetic tales, charming fairy stories, and poems. Its
contributors, like the editors, were mill-girls. It was successful for
five years, at one time having a subscription list as high as four
thousand, which the girls tried to increase by traveling for it, as
agents. This periodical attracted wide attention by reason of its
unusual origin. Selections were made from it, and published in London,
in 1849, called, “Mind Among the Spindles;” and a gentleman attending
the literary lectures, in Paris, of Philarète Chasles, was surprised to
hear one in which the significance and merit of the “Lowell Offering”
was the sole theme. Our young author contributed to the “Offering,”
over the signatures “Rotha,” or “L. L.,” a number of poems and short
prose articles, proving herself to be of sufficient ability to stand as
a typical Lowell factory girl.
The principle of the interest of manufacturers in the lives of their
operatives was illustrated in Lowell, though it was not carried out
always as intelligently as it should have been. Children were allowed
to work too young. Lucy began to change the bobbins on the spinning
frames at eleven years of age, and the hours of work were sometimes
from five in the morning to seven at night. But the day passed
pleasantly for her, the bobbins having to be changed only every three
quarters of an hour; and the interval between these periods of work was
occupied by conversation with the girls in the same room, or by sitting
in the window overlooking the river. On the sides of one of these
windows she had pasted newspaper clippings, containing favorite poems,
which she committed to memory when she sat in this “poet’s corner.”
During these years of mill-work she formed some of the ruling ideas of
her life, those that we can see influencing her later thoughts, in her
poetry and prose, and, best of all, her living. Her sympathy for honest
industry, without any regard for its fictitious position in so-called
“society,” was developed by her acquaintance with those earnest girls
who were struggling for their own support and education. Her capacity
for friendship was continually tested; she opened her nature to the
influence of the other lives around her.
The questions in relation to human life and its meaning became part of
her deepest interests. In private conversations with her companions,
in the meetings at the churches, and in her own meditations, these
thoughts struggled for a hearing:--
“Oh, what questionings
Of fate, and freedom, and how evil came,
And what death is, and what the life to come,--
Passed to and fro among these girls!”[2]
The answers she gave were the truest. Her thought instinctively turned
to the Invisible Power of the Universe, not solely as an explanation
of things as they exist, or as a philosophical postulate, but as a
Spirit whose presence could be felt in nature, in persons, and in her
own heart. In other words, a love for God as a Being of Love began to
take possession of her; it seized upon her at times like the rushing
inspiration of the prophets; her trust was what is spoken of in
theology as an experimental knowledge. Her early training by Puritan
methods in the thought of a Sovereign Lord, deeply affected her, yet
she seems to have rediscovered God for herself, in the beauty that
her poet’s eye revealed to her--beauties of river and sea and sky, of
flowers rejoicing in their color and perfume, and of human sympathies.
Welling up in her own soul, she felt the waters troubled by the angel’s
touch, and was confident of God.
With this faith as a guide, the answers to other questions became
plain. Life itself was a gift which must be used in His service; no
evil thought or purpose should be allowed to enter and interfere with
the soul’s growth; duties were the natural outlets of the soul; through
them the soul found its happiness. When she thought of death, there was
only one logical way of looking at it: as a transition into a fuller
life, where the immortal spirits of men could draw nearer to each other
and to God. She seems never, from the very first, to have had any
doubts as to what the end of life meant. There was always the portal
ready to open into the richer Kingdom of Heaven.
The churches in Lowell stimulated her religious thought. At thirteen
years of age, she stood up before her beloved minister, Dr. Amos
Blanchard, and professed her belief in the Christian religion, and
for many years found refreshment in the Sunday services. But as she
grew older, she found many of the doctrines of Calvinistic Orthodoxy
difficult for her to accept, and she regretted the step she had
taken. The worship was not always helpful to her, especially the long
prayer:--
“That long prayer
Was like a toilsome journey round the world,
By Cathay and the Mountains of the Moon,
To come at our own door-stone, where He stood
Waiting to speak to us, the Father dear,
Who is not far from any one of us.”[3]
She admired the picturesque Episcopal church of St. Ann’s, with its
vine-wreathed stone walls, “an oasis amid the city’s dust.” The Church
for which this venerable edifice stood was to be her final religious
home, and in its stately services and sacred rites she was to find the
spiritual nourishment of her later years.
She took an interest in the movements of politics, especially the
question of slavery; she was an Abolitionist with the strongest
feelings, from the first. She had some scruples about working on the
cotton which was produced by slave labor:--
“When I have thought what soil the cotton plant
We weave is rooted in, what waters it--
The blood of souls in bondage--I have felt
That I was sinning against light, to stay
And turn the accursèd fibre into cloth
For human wearing. I have hailed one name--
You know it--‘Garrison’--as a soul might hail
His soul’s deliverer.”[4]
Whenever a petition for the abolition of slavery was circulated, to be
sent to Congress, it was always sure to have the name of Lucy Larcom
upon it. The poetry of Mr. Whittier had aroused her spirit, and though
she does not seem to have written any of her stirring anti-slavery
verses until years later, she was nursing the spark that during the
Civil War blew into a flame.
It was in 1843, while in Lowell, that she first met Mr. Whittier, who
was editing the “Middlesex Standard.” Being present at one of the
meetings of the “Improvement Circle,” he heard her read one of her
poems, “Sabbath Bells:”--
“List! a faint, a far-off chime!
’Tis the knell of holy time,
Chiming from the city’s spires,
From the hamlet’s altar fires,
Waking woods and lonely dells,
Pleasant are the Sabbath bells.”
This introduction began one of her most beautiful friendships; it
lasted for half a century. She learned to know and love the poet’s
sweet, noble sister, Elizabeth, and Lucy was treated by her like a
sister. There was something in Miss Larcom’s nature not unlike Mr.
Whittier’s,--the same love for the unobserved beauties of country
life, the same energy and fire, the same respect for the honest and
sturdy elements in New England life, the same affection for the sea and
mountains, and a similar deep religious sense of the nearness of God.
Having worked five years in the spinning-room, she was transferred at
her own request to the position of book-keeper, in the cloth-room of
the Lawrence Mills. Here, having more time to herself, she devoted
to study the minutes not required by her work, reading extracts from
the best books, and writing many of the poems that appeared in the
“Offering.”
It was her habit to carry a sort of prose sketch-book, not unlike an
artist’s, in which she would jot down in words the exact impression
made upon her by a scene or a natural object, using both as models from
which to draw pictures in words. In this way she would describe, for
instance, an autumn leaf, accurately giving its shape, color, number
of ribs and veins, ending with a reflection on the decay of beauty. In
turning over the leaves of this sketch-book, one finds descriptions of
the gnarled tree with its bare branches thrusting themselves forth in
spiteful crookedness; the butterfly lying helpless in the dust with
its green robes sprinkled with ashes; the wind in the pines singing a
melancholy tune in the summer sunlight; and other subjects of equal
beauty. As an illustration of these prose-poems, the suggestion for
which she derived from Jean Paul Richter, the following may be of
interest: it is called, “Flowers beneath Dead Leaves:”--
“Two friends were walking together beside a picturesque mill-stream.
While they walked they talked of mortal life, its meaning and its end;
and, as is almost inevitable with such themes, the current of their
thoughts gradually lost its cheerful flow.
“‘This is a miserable world,’ said one. ‘The black shroud of sorrow
overhangs everything here.’
“‘Not so,’ replied the other. ‘Sorrow is not a shroud; it is only the
covering Hope wraps about her when she sleeps.’
“Just then they entered an oak grove. It was early spring, and the
trees were bare; but the last year’s leaves lay thick as snowdrifts
upon the ground.
“‘The liverwort grows here, I think,--one of our earliest flowers,’
said the last speaker. ‘There, push away the leaves, and you will see
it. How beautiful, with its delicate shades of pink, and purple and
green, lying against the bare roots of the oak tree! But look deeper,
or you will not find the flowers: they are under the dead leaves.’
“‘Now I have learned a lesson which I shall not forget,’ said her
friend. ‘This seems to me to be a bad world; and there is no denying
that there are bad things in it. To a sweeping glance it will sometimes
seem barren and desolate; but not one buried germ of life and beauty is
lost to the All-Seeing Eye. Having the weakness of human vision, I must
believe where I cannot see. Henceforth, when I am tempted to despair on
account of evil, I will say to myself, Look deeper; look under the dead
leaves, and you will find flowers.’”
Lucy Larcom almost imperceptibly slipped into womanhood during these
Lowell years. From being an eager and precocious child, she became an
intelligent and thoughtful woman. The one characteristic which seemed
most fully defined was her tendency to express her thoughts in verse
and prose. As is the case with young authors, her early verses were
artificial, the sentiments were often borrowed, and the emotions were
not always genuine. It is not natural to find a healthy young girl
writing on such themes as “Earthly joys are fleeting,” “Trust not the
world, ’twill cheat thee.” “The murderer’s request” was--
“Bury me not where the breezes are sighing
O’er those whom I loved in my innocent days.”
But when she wrote out of her own experience, and recorded impressions
she had felt, there was a touch of reality in her work that gave some
prophecy of her future excellence. She could write understandingly
about the boisterous March winds, or “school days,”--
“When I read old Peter Parley,
Like a bookworm, through and through,
Vainly shunned I Lindley Murray,
And dull Colburn’s ‘Two and Two.’”
One cannot find any evidence that she made a study of verse-making,
not even possessing “Walker’s Rhyming Dictionary.” Her powers were
cultivated mainly by reading the poetry of others and unconsciously
catching their spirit and metre. Her ear for music helped her more than
her knowledge of tetrameters or hexameters.
The most important results of these years were the development of her
self-reliance and sweetness, the stirring up of her ambitions to win an
education, and the dawnings of her spiritual life. She was laying up
stores of impressions and memories, also, that were to be permanently
preserved in her more finished poems of later years. The imagery
of her maturer verse recalls her early days, when in the freedom of
childhood she roamed the fields and the woods, and lived on the banks
of the Merrimac. We see her youth again through her reminiscences of
the barberry cluster sweetened by the frost; the evening primrose;
roses wet with briny spray; the woodbine clambering up the cliff; heaps
of clover hay; breezes laden with some rare wood scent; the varied
intonations of the wind; hieroglyphic lichens on the rocks; the mower
whistling from the land; the white feet of the children pattering on
the sand; the one aged tree on the mountain-top, wrestling with the
storm wind; the candles lighted at sunset in the gambrel-roofed houses;
the lightning glaring in the face of the drowning sailor; the tragedy
of unconscious widowhood; the mill-wheel, the hidden power of the mill,
with its great dripping spokes; and the mystery of meeting and blending
horizons.
In the spring of 1846 the scene of Lucy Larcom’s life was changed,
when her sister Emeline married, and went to seek a home in the West,
for she shared with the new family their pioneer life in Illinois. A
few days before they started on their journey, she wrote some lines of
farewell in her scribbling-book, which show that she was beginning to
use real experiences for the subject of her verses.
“Farewell to thee, New England!
Thou mother, whose kind arm
Hath e’er been circled round me,
The stern and yet the warm.
Farewell! thou little village,
My birthplace and my home,
Along whose rocky border
The morning surges come.
Thy name shall memory echo,
As exiled shell its wave.
Art thou my home no longer?
Still keep for me a grave.”