LAST YEARS.
Miss Larcom was loved in Beverly. The townspeople were justly proud of
her, and they always welcomed her sweet face into their homes. She was
interested in the Town Improvement Society, and once, at one of its
entertainments, she read two or three of her poems. When there was an
effort made to secure Prospect Hill for a public park, she sent some
appropriate lines to the local paper, hoping to influence opinion. Her
public spirit, as shown in her letters and diaries, was also active
in her life, and she joined, according to her opportunities, in such
affairs as could receive aid from her pen, and the townspeople were
gratified by her contributions to the village life.
The success in literature of a Beverly boy made her happy. When
Mr. George E. Woodberry entered the company of American poets by
the publishing of the “North Shore Watch,” a volume containing
the triumphant ode, “My Country,” not unworthy of comparison with
Lowell’s “Commemoration Ode,” and the strong sonnets, “At Gibraltar,”
and the classic “Agathon,” she was one of the first to send him her
appreciation.
TO GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY.
214 COLUMBUS AVENUE,
BOSTON, February 18, 1889.
DEAR MR. WOODBERRY,--I have just been reading your poems, and have
been so much moved by them that I wanted at once to tell you how
deeply they appeal to me. Most of our modern verse,--and I include
my own,--is too superficially lyrical, the measure often muffles the
meaning,--the thought flies off through the sound. In yours, the music
and the meaning unfold together, always hinting the deeper chords half
awakened beneath. The feeling of the unexpressed and the inexpressible
infinite--that which is at the source of everything real--that which
is life itself, is in your poetry, as in almost no other modern poetry
that I have read.
The “Transcript” compares it with Clough’s. I delight in Clough, but I
do not like comparisons of this kind. You strike different chords, and
I believe that you have greater possibilities than he. What touches me
especially is the high purity of emotion which is yet as human as it
is holy. This is rare, even in great poetry. As I read some lines, it
seemed as if my soul were weeping for joy at their beauty.
“Agathon” I wanted to read over again as soon as I had finished it.
Indeed, I shall want to turn to it often, for a breath of the pure
poetic ether. I do not know a greater poem of its kind since “Comus.”
Page 42, and from 59 onward, Milton might have been proud to write.
They appeal to all that nobler part of us that lives beneath the
shows of things; and I am glad that so young a poet as you begins his
song so nobly. I am proud, too, that you are a Beverly boy, as I am
a Beverly woman. But for that, I might not have ventured to write so
freely. I have not room to write all I want to say, but I must mention
the “Christ Scourged,” which seems to me wonderful in its strength of
sympathetic expression. It would give me great pleasure to meet you. If
you are staying in town, I wish you would call here some evening.
Truly yours,
LUCY LARCOM.
In preparing a new edition of “Songs of Three Centuries,” she included
among the additions, a poem by Dr. Solis-Cohen, “I Know that My
Redeemer Liveth,” and also, “The Crowing of the Red Cock,” by Emma
Lazarus. In the course of the correspondence, Dr. Solis-Cohen wrote so
frankly, giving his feelings about Christ from an intelligent Jewish
standpoint, that she answered in a similar vein, stating clearly her
idea of the relations that should exist between the Jew and Christian.
Dr. Solis-Cohen had written: “No professed Christian can exceed many
Jews in love for the pure and lofty character of Jesus, and we can
readily accept that character, as a manifestation of God in man, while
we decline to accept the superstructure of the Church.”
TO DR. SOLOMON SOLIS-COHEN.
BEVERLY, MASS., October 18, 1890.
DR. S. SOLIS-COHEN:--
_Dear Sir_,--The proof of your poem is just received,--and I have put
your corrections away so carefully that I cannot at this moment lay my
hand upon them; so I will ask you to correct the copy and send it to
the printers as soon as convenient. I will tell them to wait for it.
The magazine with the poem in it is received--beautiful and graceful
I find the latter. I wish the additions to the “Songs” were not
limited--but the publishers do not wish to enlarge the volume too much.
We shall have two poems by Emma Lazarus; one of them Mr. Whittier tells
me he considers her best--“The Crowing of the Red Cock.”
Your letter interests me exceedingly. I grew up under the influence
of old-fashioned Puritanism, and from it drew the idea that Jew and
Christian were really one, only they did not understand each other.
Children do construct their own theology oftener than is thought, I
believe. The Puritan was like the Hebrew in many ways, most of all in
his firm hold of moral distinctions, in his belief in the One God as
the God of righteousness and truth.
Certainly no one ever insisted upon obedience to the law more
positively than Christ himself. We Christians do believe in Him as the
human manifestation of God: that is the one distinctive element of our
faith.
All sorts of strange doctrines have been built up about this idea.
I care for none of them, but rest upon what is to me a spiritual
certainty--“Truly this _is_ the Son of God.”
I emphasize the “_is_” because to me that visible life was only one
phase of His eternal presence in and with humanity. To me He is “the
living Lord”--the Spirit bearing witness to our spirits of their own
immortal meaning; and so “the Resurrection and the Life.”
But His life has no spiritual power over ours, unless it teaches us
divine love--unless we live in that love which He came to unveil.
Christians have miserably failed of this--in their treatment of each
other as well as of the Jews, but it is because they have not received
the spirit of their Master.
I thank you sincerely for writing to me so freely, and I thank you for
having written the poem enclosed, which bears the same message to me
as a Christian, that it does to you as a Jew. I should like to know
more of Emma Lazarus. Her early death was a loss to all lovers of true
poetry.
Very truly yours,
LUCY LARCOM.
The ecstacy of a sudden realization of religious truth sometimes
overcame her in the summer mornings, and her heart uttered itself
fervently in prayer, as will be seen in the following extracts from her
diary.
July 5, 1890. I awoke with a strange joy as of some new revelation,
that seemed sounding through my soul, with the words, “Lift up your
heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the
King of Glory shall come in!”
Is it a new entering in of life and love at all the doors of my nature?
doors that I have left closed and overgrown, perhaps? Come in, O Life,
O Truth, O Love, by whatever gate thou wilt,--in whatever form thou
wilt! Only make me ready to receive thee, and to go with thee through
the gates into the freedom of thy universe!
August 3. Now I see life more clearly in all its bearings, its dangers,
and its hopes,--its earthly and heavenly unity. It is almost like
beginning a new childhood in the Kingdom of Heaven. All things centre
themselves in Christ, the living, spiritual Christ, who is the Life,
the Reality, the Person, who makes us real to each other through the
eternal union with the Father. Nature is alive. Nothing is dead that
the heart of God has touched. And human beings seem so near and dear!
I think of those who have gone, of my sisters Louisa and Charlotte, of
my mother, of all the friends whom I see no more, but who have made
part of my true life. They seem more alive than when here; my communion
is with them and with all the living to-day.
August 6. This morning, with the opening of my windows on the white
floating clouds of summer, and the warm hillside, softened with the
mist of coming showers, a song and a hymn arose in my thoughts:--
O Thou Eternal Loveliness,--I am part of Thee, or I am not at all!
Nature is the expression of Thee, but yet more is this human life of
mine. Because I am, and can feel and see this beauty,--feel it as a
part of my own life and soul, I know that Thou art--the Divine One
in whom all that is immortal of me is enfolded, and from whom it is
unfolded. How can Thy being be questioned by one who has had a single
glimpse of the beauty of this Thy world? It is such happiness to feel
that I am part of it all, because I belong to Thee! Yet I should never
have known the spirit of it all, never should have understood the
secret, except through the Son, who has brought Thy children back to
their spiritual home in Thee. In Him the evil of earth is conquered,
and the good of earth is shown also to be the good of heaven. To be of
one spirit with Him, the Perfect Love and the Infinite Loveliness, is
to belong to the Whole, and so to Thee. And so there can be no losing
of anything for us eternally. Who shall separate us from any true Love?
August 24. On the summit of Moosilauke.
Have been here four or five days, in cloud and mist and rain. One
bright sunset, two pleasant afternoons, on the last of which there was
the most beautiful phenomenon that we call “the sun drawing water.” I
never looked down upon the earth through that many tinted transparency
of sun and mist before. It was wide as the whole West, and the tints of
green upon the nearer hills were brought out with softest intensity.
It was like an open fan of thinnest gossamer, wavering in all possible
hues between us and the landscape. But the sign was true. It has rained
steadily for three days and nights.
August 27. Monday and Tuesday there was a fine sunset and sunrise, and
four travelers were up here to enjoy it. But yesterday the mist and
cloud rolled up from the valley again, and in the night a southeast
storm set in, preceded by the same sign in the east that was in the
west last Thursday. It is one of the signs of approaching rain,--the
clearness with which the summits and ranges are outlined through the
mist. They are most dreamily lovely, so. I thought yesterday how much
the earth and sky were alike, on these high places. It was hard to tell
which was mountain and which was cloud.
September 6. A week of great beauty in cloud-scenery, though with
little sunshine. Most suggestive phases of cloud and mountain
interblending; I have been out in it everywhere I could; twice at
sunrise, when I was well rewarded by the glory in the east. The days
seem so short! I was foolish to bring books up here,--and yet I have
found them companionable now and then. “God in his World” I have
re-read--it is a book for the heights.
February 4, 1891. Boston. In my room at the Hoffman House these last
two weeks. I could not get settled earlier; others were occupying it.
But I love this room, because I have lived so intensely and deeply in
it; because I have had revelations in it of God and his truth, of human
friendship, of the inmost meanings of life. The very walls seem alive
to me sometimes. Every place where we have met God, and come to feel
Him as the reality in all things, is holy ground.
One of the pleasant things of the last month was my visit to Wheaton
Seminary, and the meeting with Mr. Brooks there, and hearing him speak
to the girls, making them more happy, and helping them much, as I
have to-day heard. His presentation of Christ as the Way, the Truth,
and the Life, has led one, at least, to a decision for herself, that
Christ is the Son of God. I like to meet new friends in my old haunts.
I have lived through some painful and some delightful experiences at
Norton, struggling and groping in solitude through formal dogma and
doctrine into spiritual truth, for there was none with me, and my way
of thinking was accounted heresy. But I felt beckoned into clearer
light than there was around me, and I followed in silence. I first read
Maurice there, and F. W. Robertson, who opened doors for me which have
never since been closed. And I taught my pupils, giving them what I had
received, truths which I felt were unquestionable, and I knew, while
there, that it was not wholly in vain, though I had access to but a
few. Now I go back, and I find the whole school apparently ready for
this clearer spiritual light, and I am glad. We must love places where
we have truly lived,--even in heaven we shall remember them.
I finished my little book last week,--“As It Is in Heaven.” I wonder
if it was presumptuous in me to write it? But it seemed to grow by
itself, and I wanted to give the blossoms and fruit that had shaped
themselves in my mind, to those who might enjoy them, and perhaps get
some refreshment and strength from them. I trust it will be of service
to somebody.
April 3. Lent has passed, and Passion Week, and Easter. All these
festivals now mean so much to me, and yet not wholly for themselves,
but because they make the whole year sacred. I have attended all the
morning services, and have found it good to begin the days with that
half-hour of prayer and thought, and communion with others. Once I
should have thought this frequent assembling together day after day,
and week after week, for religious services, at least unnecessary. But
for the deepening life that has come to me through them I can never be
sufficiently thankful, and I feel that the Church holds through them a
special power over the spiritual life of the community. For the last
weeks of winter and first weeks of spring, everybody is reminded that
this life of ours belongs to us through the life and death of Christ
our Lord. We are always forgetting that,--always falling back into
ourselves and our own petty interests and plans and thoughts of and for
ourselves.
I cannot see why Churches of every name should not keep Lent and Good
Friday and Easter, as they do Christmas, and I believe they are moving
in that direction.
I was present at the Good Friday evening service at the Old South,
presided over by its pastor, Rev. Mr. Gordon, where a Baptist, a
Unitarian, a Congregationalist, and three Episcopal clergymen took
part. It was most impressive, and seemed like a promise of the time
when all Christ’s people shall be one. The Good Friday sermon at
Trinity Church in the morning was to me a new unfolding of a thought
that has always perplexed me, from the text, “The blood of Christ
cleanseth from all sin.” I could never make the “Atonement,” as set
forth by the religious teachers of my youth, a reality to myself;
Christ Himself was always real, as a divine man, and as a living
presence with us still, but how His death was to us more than His Life,
I could never see. The grandeur of it all,--the love that inspired the
sacrifice, always moved my being to its depths, but the prominence
given to His “Blood-shedding” seemed unnatural. It was tragic;
pictorial; yet somehow outside of me--a scene upon which I gazed, and
wondered, and longed to understand.
I cannot recall the words of Mr. Brooks’s sermon, but the feeling and
the thought left with me from it was that now I could see it all; and
that through that completed sacrifice, the divine life entered into
every human soul that could open to receive it. And it is the very
thought of the blood, which represents, and _is_, the life, that made
it clear.
He gives all of himself that He has to give, in first living for us,
and then dying for us. And the giving means our receiving His pure life
into our stained souls, so that their defilement is cleansed, and we
live His life of love and sacrifice, instead of our old selfish and
sinful one. It is now His blood that flows through us, and inspires us
with eternal strength. And this is what it means to be His, and one
with Him; the character, the person, must be renewed, when filled with
his purity, with his righteousness, and his consecration. Any other
view of the atonement than this seems to me still to be something of a
fiction. But this view is so inspiring to me, that the cross has a new
meaning,--it is the true and only emblem of Christ’s work to hold up
before the world.
May 17. Mr. Brooks’s election as bishop has followed almost as the
natural sequence to Bishop Paddock’s death, and it has seemed to be
demanded quite as much by the community at large as by the church. The
feeling has been, that if there is a place of higher influence for
such a man, he must be put in it. I have not been accustomed to think
that there can be any higher place than that of a Christian minister,
but he will not cease to be this. But for me it is like the closing of
a beautiful book of inspiration, from which I have been reading for
the past ten years, almost constantly of late; and before the bishop’s
death, I have felt that it was more than any one congregation ought
to have to itself, and God will broaden the stream of the water of
Life now into more far-reaching channels. The change has brought great
sadness, but our best is given us to share, and we shall find joy even
in this sacrifice.
May 1. At Beverly,--and tired with my spring languor, and some inward
depression. Yesterday I talked with Mr. Brooks about the change that
is coming, and though I believe it best and needful for him, still
I feel in it an unutterable sadness. It is strange that I do, for I
never expect to see him often, or to hear him preach except for a few
weeks in the winter. But I suppose we have all had the satisfaction of
knowing that the fountain was flowing and that we might drink if we
would. And what have I not received at this source? What a different
world it is to me, from what it was ten years ago. How I have become
strengthened through and through, to see and know what spiritual life
is, and in my measure to live it, as I believe! Soul and eyes and heart
and hands and feet have been given to me anew, through the illumination
received.
That strange “light in light” that seemed to glow around me, as I knelt
in reconsecration of myself, a little more than a year ago, has not
left me, though it is dimmed by this present regret, and I shall walk
on in it through paths yet untried.
Yesterday I sat in the same room and the same chair where, eight years
ago, Mr. Brooks first suggested that my place might be in the Episcopal
Church. I had not thought it possible, and did not see it so then. To
be sitting there in his study, where I had not been again since that
first talk with him, as one of his people, and to hear him speak of
the strangeness to him of his own new outlook upon life and work,--of
the suddenness with which the change has come to him: “First it seemed
impossible, and then it became inevitable,” he said,--brought back that
other day and all the time between, and my own experience in being
lifted out of my old associations into the Church,--for it seems to me
that unseen hands at last lifted me into my place.
Well might he speak of that room as a sacred room, where so many souls
had been strengthened and led on into light. I wish he need not leave
his house when he becomes bishop; it is so truly identified with his
life. Our place is partly ourself. I am sure he needs a change, after
so many years of incessant service, doing the work of twenty men,
apparently. He will still have hard work to do, but it will not be of
the same kind.
I do believe that the hand of God is in his election as bishop.
It is not so much the Episcopal Church (much as he loves it, and
believes in it) that is to be benefited: the whole church--the whole
community--will feel the difference in the freedom and depth of
spiritual life that can but radiate from such a man, wherever he goes.
I do want to live at least ten years longer, to have a part in the good
time.
Mr. Whittier writes to me: “The very air of Massachusetts is freer and
sweeter, since his election,” and these are the words of a seer.
And still it is a haunting regret that I shall no longer hear his words
in the old familiar way, at Trinity Church.
TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.
BEVERLY, MASS., June 3, 1891.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I do not think the weather would have kept me here
quite, last week, but I also have had to call myself half-sick. I think
it must be the “grippe” or the effect of some subtle seizure of that
fiend, for I am unaccountably good-for-nothing, in many ways. I had to
lie still all last Sunday. I _must_ go to Boston next Sunday, for it is
the Communion Service, which has become very dear to me, and more so
_now_.
Perhaps I will try again this week coming to you on Friday and going to
Amesbury on Saturday for a call; thence to Boston. If you should hear
that Mr. Whittier had gone to Portland (he is expected there next week)
perhaps you will let me know by Friday morning.
I should _prefer_ coming to see you when I could stay over Sunday. But
while Mr. Brooks preaches I want to improve every chance of hearing
him. I thought he would not be permitted to leave Trinity Church--I
believe that he was himself surprised at his own nomination. But he
would have fallen in the harness there: no man could do _forever_ the
superhuman work he was doing, and the collapse might have been sudden.
I have seen him within a week or two, and he looks at the new work with
all the enthusiasm of a boy. The change may prolong his strength and
usefulness; for nothing but change of work would be rest to him.
The _little_ side of Episcopacy is making itself manifest, as it must,
when so great a man is brought into contrast with _mere_ systematizers,
petty planners of the Kingdom which is infinite, _so_ infinite that it
absorbs them, as the atmosphere does motes and insects.
Yours with love,
LUCY LARCOM.
September 13, 1891. Summit of Moosilauke. I have been here three weeks
yesterday, with rainy or cloudy weather most of the time, and a few
days of perfect beauty. It has been warm weather, never cold enough for
winter clothing, but heavy and damp sometimes. In every bright interval
I have been out, half a dozen times out in the sunrise alone (one of
the best things up here). The sunrises in which the sun was not visible
were loveliest; when the rays reached across from under a cloud, and
over the lower mists, to the distant mountains in the south, penciling
them with soft rose and pearl tints. The finest sunrise was when the
sunbeams shone down from under a dark purple cloud on a foamy sea of
white mist that covered the landscape, touching its upper surface with
the splendor we usually see from below. There was a sunset the night
before, with a similar effect, just as a storm was rolling away. There
has been less variety in the phases of cloud-beauty than usual.
Yesterday was my best day of all. I walked over to the East Peak, and
looked down into the great ravine, where the shadow of our mountain was
slowly ascending the opposite slopes. The higher peaks behind shone in
soft purple through the rosy mist, and as I stopped at a crest half-way
to the Peak, they grew so beautiful in their loneliness, uplifted from
sombre depths to luminous height, and brought to my thoughts such
heavenly-human associations, of the great ones known and unknown, who
have glorified my life and uplifted it into spiritual splendor, that my
eyes were again and again filled with warm, happy tears. God has been
very good to me in these latter years, in bringing me to the mountains
and giving me friends. It is the utter loneliness that I sometimes
have with nature, up here, that makes the place so delightful to me.
The people are only incidental; only now and then one who loves the
mountains in my way, or in a better way, gives them a new attraction.
The mountains are more human to me than any other exhibition of
inorganic nature; they are indeed presences. There must be something
like them in heaven.
I go down to-morrow, to hotel-life for a week or so, but the peace and
strength of the hills will remain in my heart.
Beverly, October 17, 1891. These last three weeks,--these last three
days, especially,--have been so full! I have lived more in them, in the
very deepest part of my life, than in as many years, often.
The consecration of a bishop whose ministry has been more to my
spiritual life than that of any other minister; the joy of knowing him
as a friend; the sorrow of losing him as a minister; the thankfulness
that I may be counted in as one of his people still, to work in his
larger field with him; the certainty that God has called him to do more
than ever for the coming of His Kingdom: it is a great flood of regret
and triumph that has been flowing through me, and that fills me still.
I am full of tears and song; I never felt life so real and so deep.
It is like setting sail on the grandest voyage of hope, with a chosen
spirit of God at the helm, and all of us full of the inspiration of his
life and faith.
I was glad to sit a little aside at the Consecration Service, and feel
more than I could see, though I saw all the best of it,--that grand
manhood in the midst of white-robed clergy and bishops, one with it
all, and yet so superior to it all, the great humble man, bowed among
his brethren, to receive his new office! And I shall never forget my
first glimpse of him in his new character, with the Communion cup in
his hand, a token of service yet to be rendered; Christ’s life still to
be poured out for his brethren through his own.
So may our lives all be enlarged and strengthened with his, to serve
our Master better, in a wider and deeper service of humankind!
TO J. G. WHITTIER.
BEVERLY, February 24, 1892.
... The thought of a present God, who is a personal Friend to every
Soul, has always haunted me, and of late years has become more real and
close. It seems to me that all truth and peace and hope centre there.
It gives new meaning to immortality, and to this life as the beginning
of an immortal one. Every year it seems a happier thing to be alive,
and to know that I cannot die.
Through _thee_, my friend, I have come to see this very slowly. I have
always thought of thee as a spiritual teacher. And then of late years
to have had in addition the teachings and friendship of Phillips Brooks
has been a great and true help. I thank God that you two men live, and
“will always live,” as he says to you, and that I have known you both.
When he called at Mrs. Spalding’s after seeing you, he told us about
the Ary Scheffer poem, and repeated it to us from the words “O heart
of mine,” through to the end, as he went away, standing before the
picture,--“Christus Consolator,” which hangs at her parlor door....
TO THE SAME.
BEVERLY, MASS., July 10, 1892.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I heard of you last in Danvers, but I am not sure
whether you are there or not, though I have been trying to get around
and see! I have been occupied with various matters which have taken
me to Boston frequently, and I have usually stayed with Mrs. Guild,
Roxbury.
... I do not find myself so strong as usual this year, and my plans for
work may all fall through. I think I never had so much that I wanted
to do, before. My last two little books have been so widely and warmly
welcomed, that it seems to me as if I had only just learned what I
_can_ do. If I had begun to write from what I feel most deeply twenty
years ago, I might have been of some real help to the world. But then I
had not had the experience, and perhaps could not.
It makes me very thankful to know that you approve my work. We have
so often talked over these matters together. I think the inspiration
must be partly, at least, from you. I know that my one desire is for
_reality_ in the spiritual life, for self and for others....
Beverly, October 16, 1892. This summer has brought me little time for
writing, but much for suffering and thinking. Three months ago to-day
my dear sister Emeline left this world; suddenly,--quietly,--just
“slipped away,” her daughter Lucy says. She made herself ready for
church, and sat waiting,--but it was heaven for her, instead. Her going
makes more difference to me than the departure of any one else could;
for she has been part of my life ever since I was born. She did more to
shape my mind--my soul--than any one else did. And yet I differed from
her in my way of thinking, upon many things; the deep agreement was
underneath, at the spiritual foundations. I think her great power over
me was in her great capacity for love. Her great heart, while it was
faithful to home ties, failed of love to none of God’s children; and to
me she was even more mother than sister. Her going makes it an easier
thing for me to go, when the time comes.
Then, while on Moosilauke summit, the news of Mr. Whittier’s death
came to me--more translation than death. I seemed to see him pass on
by me, up the heights, and seemed to hear him say, as he passed, “So
easy a thing it is to die! Like the mountain blending with the clouds,
like the melting of earth into sky, is the transition from life into
loftier life.” He too passed away in peace; the lovelier to think
of, because he had always dreaded the hour of death. He, too, was my
noble and tried friend; in my life for more than fifty years. He is
associated in my life with the beauty of the hills and the sea that
we have enjoyed together, with the deep things of poetry and religion,
which were indeed one reality to him. The memory of fireside talks in
his own home, with his sister, so dear to us both; the readings of “In
Memoriam” with him after she was gone,--are most blessedly vivid to me.
And Tennyson has died, within a week! One could know him only through
his poetry, but what a halo that has hung over our mortal life in all
its phases! To know the man and the poet, as I knew Whittier, and to be
able to feel the greatness of both, is an immortal possession.
Emerson, Browning, Bryant, Whittier, Tennyson,--and where are the
singers who take us into the heart of things as they did? There is a
delicate murmur of trained voices making music in this modern air, but
it does not arrest us and hold us, as the voices of the now silent
masters did. It is hardly an age of song.
TO MRS. S. T. PICKARD.
BEVERLY, October 16, 1892.
... I have dreamed of him [Mr. Whittier] lately, sitting by the
fireside chatting in the old way, as when I used to visit him and Aunt
Lizzie. She was more to me than almost any friend, more even than he.
I always thought of them as one; and now they are together again. They
cannot be far away. I want to keep near them in spirit, so as to find
them at once, by and by. I am glad I did not ever know that he was
rich. He used to want to pay my bills when we were at West Ossipee,
etc., but I declined, for I supposed he was almost as poor as myself,
though I know of late years his books have paid well. I am very glad
he left me the copyright of the books I compiled with him; and indeed
it was only right, as I worked so hard on them. The “Songs of Three
Centuries” nearly cost me my health; the publishers “rushed” it so. I
was good for nothing for three or four years after, as far as writing
went. But he never knew.
TO S. T. PICKARD.
BEVERLY, MASS., November 11, 1892.
DEAR MR. PICKARD,--The trouble with me now is that I am on the invalid
list, and am warned not to promise or undertake any new work at
present, nor to work continuously in the future, as I have done. The
heart seems to be the weak member, and really stops me, even upon
slight exertion. I have meant to look over my letters from our friend,
and see if there was anything you could use; but they are packed away
with others in a cold room, where I do not venture to go. I have
not left the house for nearly four weeks, now, and I see that some
revolution in my way of living must be made. But I hope to be stronger
some time than I am now,--at least to the extent of getting out into
the air. I am sorry not to be able to say that I can be depended upon,
though I will gladly do what I can to help you.
It is unfortunate for me to be hindered by the state of my health, as
I had plans I wanted to set about at once, of my own. It is imperative
for me to be earning money regularly, for an income, as I have never
quite accumulated it into the thousands. My recent little books, for
the past four years, have been more profitable than before, and I can
see one or two more as possibilities, if I could put myself down to the
work. I mention all this to show you how I am situated, as to doing
what you suggest.
Then there is one other thing,--Mr. Whittier many times said to me,
apparently in earnest and jest, both,--“Don’t thee ever go writing
about me!” It used to hurt me a little, as if I would parade his
friendship for me in any way! I could not do, after he died, what I
would not when he was alive,--unless I knew he was willing,--and he
never hinted any wish of the kind, certainly. I have already been asked
to furnish “Recollections” for two periodicals, and have declined. I
may be over-particular in this matter, but I do feel a delicacy about
it,--almost as if I had not the right.
I write just as the matter looks to me now, and with the sincerest wish
to honor our dear friend’s memory. Tell me your view of it!
Yours sincerely,
LUCY LARCOM.
TO FRANKLIN CARTER.
214 COLUMBUS AVENUE, BOSTON,
January 10, 1893.
DEAR FRANK,--I have just finished reading the life of Dr. Mark Hopkins,
and think it a most interesting record of a grand life. I thank you for
sending it to me. I could not help thinking, as I read, how full our
country is of noble men of whom we know nothing, or very little. I knew
Dr. Hopkins was an able man, but he was only a name to me until I read
your book. But of course he was a very unusual man. How grateful and
glad you must be that he was your teacher, and that you could tell his
story so well! I have known little of you, and you of me, for several
years. I have felt that the years of work could not be many for me, and
so I have been hard at work writing, that I might give something to
those who could receive from me, before I died.
I do not know whether you have seen my little books or not. I have
published three in the last two years. The two prose books I thought I
had a call to write, and the response they have received has shown that
I was not wholly wrong.
Perhaps I have given myself too closely to writing, for I am far
from well. Careful medical examination shows that I have organic
heart-disease, which will need to be watched carefully in the future; I
shall have to go slowly hereafter. Yet I have many plans that I want to
carry out; and it is as necessary now as ever for me to earn my daily
bread. But I am not in the least bit anxious. The kind of writing I do,
does not bring much money, and I am not desirous of writing the kind
that does.
These later years have been happy ones to me, because I have been doing
things I like to do, and have had noble and sympathetic friends. One
of my best friends--Whittier--is out of sight now, but I do not feel
that he is far away. Life is one, in all the worlds, and it is life in
God that unites us all. God in Christ is the great uniting reality to
me. And yet I live so far from my ideal of what it is! How much more we
should all be to each other, if we believed it, through and through!--
I cannot write, or do anything continuously, without pain in my chest,
so I desist, with love to you and yours.
Faithfully ever,
LUCY LARCOM.
TO MISS FOBES.
ROXBURY, MASS., March 14, 1893.
MY DEAR MISS FOBES,--I did not think it would be so long before your
kind letters would be acknowledged, but the truth is that even a little
book, if one’s heart is in the writing of it, is very absorbing,--and
mine has taken all my time. I am reading the proof sheets of it now,
and it will be out early in April. (I am visiting a friend here, for a
week, trying to rest a rather tired head.)
These little books I have somehow been impelled to write, from the
feeling that others might be helped, by seeing the way I had been led,
and the point at which I had arrived. For I can but think of these
later years as having been most plainly to myself under spiritual
guidance. I prayed for it always. I remember walking alone in the woods
behind Monticello Seminary, my heart asking with tears that I might
suffer much, if so I could find the true secret of life. I have not
suffered as many have,--I have only had ordinary trials and losses and
matter-of-fact struggles with circumstances, but I have often been in
danger of succumbing to lower standards than I believed in. But it has
been the one effort of my life to keep in sight the highest and best,
and to be satisfied with nothing less.
Now the best seems to me the simplest:--to receive, and to give by
living it, the life of Christ. That is the thought I have kept before
me in my little book, which I call “The Unseen Friend.” I shall send
you a copy, as soon as possible.
I am much interested in what you write of the word “eternal.” It was on
the meaning of that word that my first divergence from the Calvinistic
theories occurred, many years ago. I read F. D. Maurice much, and still
do so. His rendering of the word “eternal” was, you know, considered
heresy in his own church. Now, the exception is, in this region, to
hear it preached in any other sense. I think it first implies the
_character_ of the life, but also its _duration_. It is only the real
that can last, and grow better and better forever, as being a progress
into the infinite life of God. It is death to refuse to receive this
life; I cannot think that any soul will forever refuse, though the
freedom of the human will makes it a possibility.
I look upon this life on earth as but a beginning, rather an education
than a probation--and yet that also, as every hour of our life is a
trial of our fitness for the next hour. One thing I have liked in the
Episcopal Church since I knew it and have been in it, is that they
preach this practical, spiritual life so much more than systems and
doctrines. The Christian year is a repeated following of the story and
the spirit of Christ’s life, and everybody can understand it. Nobody
can hold the Apostles Creed, and not believe in the oneness of the Son
and Father, and that is the pivotal truth of Christianity. More and
more I see the failures in my past life, through not entering into this
central truth in a more living way.
I thank you for the kind things you say of my poems and books. There is
no one whose approval I value more deeply. Sometimes I wish I had more
years before me, for I feel as if I were just beginning to see clearly,
and I am more and more interested in this human life of ours. Yet how
little any of us can do to relieve its burdens. How hopeless its evils
and sins sometime look!
I have just read “David Grieve.” It is far from being a cheerful book,
though powerfully written. It is, however, an improvement upon “Robert
Elsmere,” which seemed to me wordily weak.
I have seen Emily Dickinson’s poems, and enjoy their queer gleaming and
shadowy incoherences. It does not seem as if her mind could have been
fairly balanced. But her love of nature redeems many faults.
That poem in the “Christian Union,” “The Immortal Now,” must have
been printed early in the year 1890, I think. Possibly in 1889, but I
believe I wrote it in the winter of 1889-90. If I can find a duplicate,
I will send it to you. I have a half-project of collecting my religious
poems by themselves, for next Christmas. What would you think of it?
Always affectionately yours,
LUCY LARCOM.
The following letter was written to Bishop Brooks a few days before his
death, and was found on his desk, while his body still lay in his home,
the soul having gone to be “near the Master and Friend.”
TO PHILLIPS BROOKS.
214 COLUMBUS AVENUE,
January 17, 1893.
It is a real trial to me, my dear friend, that I am unable to hear you
to-night, when you are probably speaking so near me; and yet a greater
to think that I may be denied it all winter. For I find myself more
ill than I supposed I was, and am not at present permitted to go out
at all. It is a heart derangement, which has shown some dangerous
symptoms. I have been to Trinity Church, but am told that I must not
attempt walking there again. It seems childish to tell you about it,
but you know you are my rector still,--and I had been looking forward
to seeing and hearing you occasionally.
Sometimes it seems to me that God’s way of dealing with me is not
to let me see much of my friends, those who are most to me in the
spiritual life, lest I should forget that the invisible bond is the
only reality. That is the only way I can reconcile myself to the
inevitable separations of life and death. I know that I feel more
completely in sympathy with those who went away from me into heaven
long ago than I did when they were here. Still I love and long for my
friends, and would gladly see them while they are here, in the dear
familiar way.
I have accustomed myself to the thought that my call hence may come
suddenly, and if I should not meet you again here, you will know that
in any world I shall look for you near the Master and Friend in whose
presence you live here, and whose love you have helped me to see as the
one thing worth living for anywhere. I can truly say that the last ten
years of my life have been better and happier than all that went before.
Faithfully yours, L. L.
February 20, 1893. A strange mingled experience the last three or
four months. Weeks of illness in the late autumn in Beverly, when I
suddenly was brought to the knowledge that I have an incurable disease
of the heart, which had been aggravated by overwork and neglect. In
the enforced quiet, I could only think, and that was not permitted
about disturbing things. Then, a little recovered, I came to Boston
just before Christmas, and used my strength too rapidly, so that now
I have been in my room under the doctor’s care, for over a month. And
since I have lain here, a great calamity has befallen. The noblest of
men and friends has left the world,--Phillips Brooks. One month ago
this morning he breathed his last. He, with whom it was impossible to
associate the idea of death;--was?--_is_ so, still!--the most living
man I ever knew--physically, mentally, spiritually. It is almost like
taking the sun out of the sky. He was such an illumination, such a
warmth, such an inspiration! And he let us all come so near him,--just
as Christ does!
I felt that I knew Christ personally through him. He always spoke of
Him as his dearest friend, and he always lived in perfect, loving
allegiance to God in Him. Now I know him as I know Christ,--as a spirit
only, and his sudden withdrawal is only an ascension to Him, in the
immortal life. Shut into my sick-room, I have seen none of the gloom of
the burial; I know him alive, with Christ, from the dead, forevermore.
Where he is, life must be. He lived only in realities here, and he is
entering into the heart of them now. “What a new splendor in heaven!”
was my first thought of him, after one natural burst of sorrow. What
great services he has found! How gloriously life, with its immortal
opportunities, must be opening to him! He,--one week here,--the next
there,--and seen no more here again. The very suddenness of his going
makes the other life seem the real one, rather than this. And a man
like this is the best proof God ever gives human beings of their own
immortality.
I treasure my last memories of him, the last sermon I heard him preach
at Trinity, at the October Communion; the last time I saw him there,
just before Christmas, and the last warm pressure of his hand, and
the sunlike smile as he spoke to me at the church door; the last note
he wrote me when he spoke of Mr. Whittier in the other life, with
such reverent love: “Think what--_where_--he is now!”--even as we are
thinking of him. It seems as if God gave me these last three years
of intimate friendship with him, in connection with the Church, as
the crowning spiritual blessing of my life. The rest of it must be
consecrated to the noblest ends, like his.
In March and early April, 1893, Miss Larcom’s heart-trouble was rapidly
developing into an alarming condition, and she realized that the end
must soon come. Her life had reached its climax in the little book,
“The Unseen Friend,” in which she had written her last and greatest
religious message to the world. More of her friends were on the “other
side” than here, and her eyes eagerly sought the visions beyond.
Her old pupils and friends remembered her during those weary days of
suffering in the Hoffman House, Boston. Her beloved niece, Miss Lucy
Larcom Spaulding (now Mrs. Clark) was with her constantly, ministering
to her needs. Some sent her flowers, which she loved so dearly; others,
fruit; one desired to send from the West a luxurious bed; and one sent
a reclining-chair. The old cook, Norah, at Norton, asked the privilege
of making graham bread for her. Her old scholars remembered her more
substantially, by a loving gift, in those days when her pen was forced
into idleness. She painfully felt the restraints of her illness. Her
nights were full of distress. In a half-amused way, she said, “I never
knew what it was to be really sick. I knew people had to stay in bed,
and have the doctor, but I thought they slept at night.”
The end drew near. On Saturday evening, April the fifteenth, she said
it would be a great joy to exchange the physical for the spiritual
body; and she was comforted by reading Bishop Brooks’s addresses,
“Perfect Freedom.”
On Monday, April the seventeenth, she grew rapidly worse; and in
her unconsciousness, she frequently murmured in prayer, the word
“Freedom.” On this day her soul was released, and she entered into the
fullness of the Glory of God.
On a little slip of paper she had written these last words:--
“O Mariner-soul,
Thy quest is but begun,
There are new worlds
Forever to be won.”
She was borne lovingly to Trinity Church, where she had worshiped; and
there, in the presence of her sorrowing friends, the service was held.
There was also a service in St. Peter’s Church, Beverly, where her
fellow-townsmen gathered to do her this last honor. She was laid to
rest in the soil of her native town, within sight and sound of the sea.
INDEX.
Abraham, Mount, 72.
Adirondacks, 237.
Advertiser, Boston Daily, 182.
Alden, John, 97.
Aldrich, T. B., 84.
Alps, 84, 122, 168.
“American Women of Note,” 239.
Amesbury, 98, 134, 146, 170.
Anderson, Hans, 176.
Andover, 145, 219.
Andrew, Governor, 111.
Androscoggin, 227.
Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 49.
Annapolis, 224.
Appledore, 166.
Appleton, Nathan, 7.
Arnold, Matthew, 191.
Arthur, Prince, 131.
Asquam, Lake, 229.
Atlantic Monthly, 153, 189, 239.
“At Her Bedside,” 199.
Attleboro’, 122.
“At the Beautiful Gate,” 173, 187.
Bacon, Francis, 91.
Baker, Mrs. I. W., 32;
letter to, 38;
living with, 44.
Barrett, Lois, 1.
Bass River, 2.
Beaufort, S. C., 112.
Berkshire Hills, 237.
Berlin Falls, 188, 227.
Bermuda, 182.
Bethel, 224, 227.
Bethlehem, 227, 230.
Betsy’s, Aunt, cucumbers, 32.
Beverly, 1, 2;
life in, 43-46, 74, 113, 115, 133, 144, 153, 156, 170;
division of, 246;
love for, 252.
Beverly Farms, 1.
Blanchard, Dr. Amos, 13.
Blue, Mount, 42.
Bonnechose, de, 118.
Boston, 123, 125, 156, 172, 246;
troops in, 89;
Harbor, 115.
Boston Journal, 36.
Bradford Academy, 172.
Bradford, England, 190.
“Breathings of the Better Life,” 159.
Brooks, Rev. Phillips, 185, 207, 209, 225, 248, 252, 275;
letter on preaching, 185;
friendship for Lucy Larcom, 186;
letter on Lord’s Supper, 186;
preaching of, 207;
preaches on “Old Year,” 211;
preaches about Heaven, 214;
letter about church-membership, 220;
letter about “The Little Town of Bethlehem,” 232;
letter, 241;
invites all to Communion, 244;
letter, 250;
at Wheaton, 265;
elected Bishop, 268;
Consecration of, 274;
death of, 285.
Brown, J. Appleton, 183.
Brown of Ossawatomie, 81.
Browning, 180, 278.
Browning, Mrs., 159.
Bushnell, Horace, 159.
Campton, 99, 152.
Cape Ann, 166, 180.
Carlyle, 70.
Carter, Franklin, 153, 237;
letters to, 205, 281.
Cary Sisters, The, 196.
Centre Harbor, 227, 230.
Chadwick, Rev. J. W., 174.
Chasles, Philarète, 11.
Chaucer’s Daisies, 167.
Childs, G. W., 234, 236.
Childs, Mrs., 118.
Childhood Songs, 3, 176, 177.
Child-Life, 3, 176, 177.
Christian Union, 233, 285.
Clough, Arthur, 258.
Coleridge, 5, 54.
Congregational Church, 55, 190, 201, 207, 242;
administration of Communion in, 245.
Congregationalist, The, 233.
Contrabands, 154.
Conybeare, and Howson, Life of St. Paul, 116.
Cook, Mrs., 196.
Corinth, 144.
Cottage Hearth, The, 233.
Cousin, 70.
Crayon, The, 63.
Croswell, Dr., poems, 81.
Curtiss, Hariot, 10.
Cushman, Miss, 149.
Davis, Jeff, 102;
capture of, 157.
Dickens, Charles, 8.
Dickinson, Emily, 285.
Digby, 224.
District of Columbia, slavery in, 139.
Dodge, Mrs. Mary Mapes, 177-178.
Donelson, Fort, 124.
Durand, John, 65;
letter to, 66.
Easter Gleams, 187.
Elizabeth, Queen, 93.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 125, 178, 278;
“Parnassus,” 186.
England, 117, 190;
against slavery, 116.
Episcopal Church, 11, 81, 187, 207, 209, 220, 243, 249, 284;
criticism of, 254-256;
little side of, 272.
Essex County, 1, 193.
Evangeline, 223.
Farley, Hariett, 10.
Farrar, Canon, 226.
Fichte, 128.
Fields, James T., letter to, 148, 153, 159.
Fields, Mrs. James T., 149;
letters to, 155, 160, 163, 178;
books loaned by, 156.
Fitch, Mrs., 224.
Florida, 130.
Fobes, Miss P., 38;
letters to, 46, 47, 282.
Forrester, Fanny, 175.
Fox, George, journal of, 97, 106.
Franconia Notch, 100, 151.
Freeman, Miss, 247.
Frémont, 111.
French Acadians, 224.
Gannett’s, Dr., school, 172.
Gardiner, Maine, 71.
Garfield, Mrs., 210.
Garfield, President, 191;
assassination of, 210.
Garrison, W. L., 14.
Gaspereau, 223.
Gethsemane, 137.
Gibbon, 118.
Godfrey, Captain B., 37.
“Golden-Rod,” 191.
Gordon, Rev. Mr., 267.
Grand Pré, 223.
Great Britain, 166.
Greenough, Mrs., 186.
Greenwood, Grace, 175.
Guild, Mrs., 236, 276.
Gulliver’s Travels, 5.
Guyon, Madame, 159.
“Hail Columbia,” 139.
Halifax, 224.
Hamilton, Gail, 157.
Hammond, Wisconsin, 155.
“Hand in Hand with Angels,” 173.
Hannah, Aunt, 4.
“Hannah Binding Shoes,” 63, 173, 179;
set to music, 65.
Hare’s “Mission of the Comforter,” 54.
Harper’s Magazine, 183, 233.
Haskell, Mrs. Abby O., 29;
letter to, 42.
Hatteras, Fort, 102.
Hawthorne’s “Little Annie’s Ramble,” 176.
“Heart of God,” The, 189.
Hegel, 128.
Herbert, George, 79, 159.
Higginson, Mr., 197.
“Hilary,” 153, 173.
Hindoo, 112.
Hopkins, Dr. Mark, 281.
Horder, Rev. W. Garrett, 190, 196.
Horticultural Association, 152.
Howells, W. D., 189, 230.
Humiston, Esther S., 54, 103, 135;
letters to, 54, 75;
dying, 91;
death, 92;
grave of, 136;
letters of, 138;
mother of, 142, 152.
Hunter, Dr. John, 197.
“Idyl of Work,” 179, 190.
“Immortal Now,” The, 285.
Independent, The, 233.
Ingelow, Jean, 174;
letter to, 165.
Ipswich, 1;
Academy of, 172.
Isles of Shoals, 166.
Italy, 83, 108.
Jackson, H. H., 196.
Jameson’s, Mrs., “Legends of the Madonna,” 79.
Kant, 128.
Keble, 209, 215.
Kennebec River, 74.
Knickerbocker, The, 63;
letter to, 64.
Koeppen, 83.
Lamb’s “Dream Children,” 176.
Larcom, Mrs., 6, 262;
boarding-house of, 8;
death of, 171.
Larcom, Benjamin, 1.
Larcom, Cornelius, 1.
Larcom, David, 1.
Larcom, Jonathan, 1.
Larcom, Lucy, birth, 1;
at school, 4;
love for hymns, 5;
books she read, 9;
writes for manuscript papers, 9;
working in Lowell mills, 11;
early religious ideas, 12;
signs petition to Congress, 14;
meets Mr. Whittier, 15;
book-keeper in Lawrence Mills, 15;
writing in prose sketch-book, 16;
writing poetry, 17;
goes to Illinois, 18;
diary of journey, 21-27;
in Maryland, 23;
At Pittsburgh, 25;
at St. Louis, 26;
lives on Looking-glass Prairie, 27;
hardships in school-teaching, 28;
letters to sisters, Abby and Lydia, 29;
examined for position as teacher, 31;
sick with “agey,” 33;
enters Monticello, 38;
life at Monticello, 39-43;
debating society, 40;
compositions, 41;
engagement, 43;
teaching in Beverly, 44-46;
enters Wheaton Seminary, 46-47;
room at Norton, 48;
love for flowers, 49;
knitting stockings for soldiers, 49;
power as a teacher, 49-53;
lecture on Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 49;
lecture on compositions, 50;
in the class-room, 50;
founding the “Rushlight,” and Psyche Literary Society, 50-51;
called “Mother Larcom,” 51;
letter on death, 52;
girl’s love affairs, 52;
scholar’s love for her, 52;
friendship for Miss Humiston, 54-57;
ideas about church-membership, and doctrines, 55-57;
leaves Norton, 57;
reasons for not marrying, 57-59;
publishes “Similitudes,” 61;
wins Kansas prize song, 62;
publishes Lottie’s Thought-book, 62;
prints “Hannah Binding Shoes,” 63;
writes to New York Tribune, 64;
letter to John Durand, 65;
unsuccessful attempt to print a volume of verse, 66;
submits verses to Mr. Whittier for criticism, 68;
diary, 69-147;
thoughts on mystics, 70;
thoughts on “The Sabbath,” 74;
reasons for keeping a diary, 75;
remarks on ministers, 76-77;
reads “Wilhelm Meister,” 78;
depression of spirits, 84;
thoughts on eternal life and death, 85;
gifts on her birthday, 86;
unpleasant sermon on Satan, 88;
remarks on friendship, 93;
visits the Webster place, 96;
visits Plymouth, 96;
visits the Whittiers, 98;
love for mountains, 100;
on the Rebellion, 101;
concerning her diary, 103;
concerning gossip, 110;
on child’s knowledge of the Bible, 120;
sleigh-ride to Attleboro’, 122;
on Sarah Paine’s death, 128;
hears Emerson, 125;
education of nieces, 127;
religious talks with scholars, 129;
introspection, 132;
thoughts on the resurrection, 133;
love for the Whittiers, 135;
singing around Liberty Pole, 139;
prays for C----, 140;
skeptical, 141;
school trials, 141;
death of C----, 144;
visits Andover, 145;
letter to Mr. Fields, enclosing poem, 149;
letter to Whittier about the mountains, 150;
gives up teaching at Wheaton, 152;
home in Waterbury, 152;
writes for the Atlantic, 153;
letter about death of her sister Louisa, 155;
edits “Our Young Folks,” 157;
publishes “Breathings of the Better Life,” 159;
letters to Mrs. James T. Fields, 159-163;
letter to Mrs. Thaxter, 163;
letter to Miss Ingelow, 165;
letter to Mr. Whittier about her mother’s illness, 170;
publishes “Poems,” 173;
name of, 175;
work with Mr. Whittier, 175;
letters to Mrs. Dodge, 177;
publishes “An Idyl of Work,” 179;
prints “Roadside Poems,” 180;
letter on Romans, 181;
visits Bermuda, 182;
prints “Landscape in American Poetry,” 183;
letter to Mrs. Wheaton, 183;
present at breakfast to Dr. Holmes, 184;
first meeting with Phillips Brooks, 185;
prints “Wild Roses of Cape Ann,” 187;
letter to Mr. Pickard, 188;
criticism of her poetry, 189-198;
letter to Dr. Hunter, 197;
religious changes, 200;
letter to Franklin Carter, 205;
learns to know the Episcopal Church, 107-120;
opinion of faith-cure, 212;
reads Renan, 216;
letter from Nova Scotia, 223;
letter to Phillips Brooks, 225;
summer homes of, 227;
on Theosophy, 231;
conversation with Mr. Whittier about finances, 233;
visits President Carter, 237;
prints “A New England Girlhood,” 238;
communes at Trinity Church, 244;
confirmed, 252;
converses with Mr. Brooks, 269-270;
illness of, 280-281;
letter to Miss Fobes, 282;
last letter to Phillips Brooks, 285;
on the death of Mr. Brooks, 287;
death of, 289;
burial of, 290.
Larcom, Mordecai, 1.
Lavater, 119.
Lawrence Mills, 15.
Lazarus, Emma, 259.
Lebanon, 31.
Lee, surrender of, 156.
Leigh, Miss, 247.
Liberty Pole, 139.
Lincoln, Abraham, 191;
assassination of, 156.
Longfellow, H. W., 80, 166, 179, 180, 196;
letter to Miss Larcom, 198;
death of, 220.
Longfellow, Rev. Samuel, 65.
Lowell, mills in, 6;
lyceum of, 8;
poem on, 179;
article in Atlantic Monthly on, 239.
Lowell, Francis Cabot, 7.
Lowell, J. R., 180.
Lowell, Maria, 196.
Lowell Offering, 10.
“Loyal Woman’s No,” 58, 153.
Maine, 226.
Maintenon, Madame de, 93.
Manassas, 130.
Mansel, Dean, 75.
Martineau, Dr., 196.
Mason and Slidell, 115.
Maurice, 70, 75, 76, 209, 294, 298, 265.
Maury’s Physical Geography, 91.
Melrose, 219.
Memphis, 144.
Merrimac, 99, 101, 130, 139;
sinking of, 154.
Middlesex Standard, 15.
Milton, 194, 259.
Milton Hills, 109.
Mississippi, 167.
Missouri, 124.
“Monitor,” 130.
Monticello, 238, 283;
prospectus of, 37.
Moosilauke, 227, 263, 272, 277.
Morris’ Poems, 75.
Moultrie, Fort, 81.
Müller, Max, 210.
“My Mountain,” 192.
Myrtle, Minnie, 175.
Neander’s “History of the Church,” 116, 118, 218.
Neck-woods, 123.
Newburyport, 179.
New England Emigrant Aid Co., 62.
“New England Girlhood,” 2, 238, 250.
New Hampshire, 105, 168, 226.
New York Tribune, The, 63, 64.
Norfolk, 130, 139.
North Carolina, 124.
Norton, Mass., 53, 57, 105, 115, 153, 172, 183.
Notch Mountains, 151, 168, 227.
Nova Scotia, 224.
Olivet, 137.
“On the Beach,” 191.
Operatives’ Magazine, 10.
Osgood & Co., 179.
Ossipee Park, 227, 230, 279.
“Our Christ,” 190.
Our Young Folks, 3, 157, 172, 176.
Paine, Sarah, 123.
Park, Professor, 145.
Parker, Theodore, 71.
Passion Week, 243, 266.
Paula, 93.
Pembroke, 98.
Pemigewasset, 99, 168.
Pilgrims, 80, 165, 167.
Pilgrim’s Progress, 5.
Pitman, Harriet, 171, 178.
“Phebe,” 189.
Phelps, Prof., 145.
Phillips, Adelaide, 65.
Plato, 119, 297, 236;
reading, 54;
teaching, 118.
Plymouth, 96.
“Poems,” 173, 174.
Portland Transcript, 227.
Potomac, 111.
Prairie sleigh-ride, A, 36.
Psyche Literary Society, 50.
Puritans, 107, 113, 201, 150.
Quaker, 97, 135;
worship of, 98;
contrast with Puritan, 107.
Quaker Home, 234.
Readville, 109.
Renan, 216.
Richter, Jean Paul, 16.
“Roadside Poems,” 180.
Robertson, F. W., 138, 159, 160, 203, 209, 266.
“Rose Enthroned,” The, 154, 192.
Rossetti, W. M., 197.
Rushlight, The, 50.
Ruskin, 75.
Russell, John, 227.
“Sabbath Bells,” 15.
Saddle-back, 72.
Schelling, 128.
Scott, Sir Walter, 5.
Sears’ “Foregleams and Foreshadows,” 54.
Shakespeare, 118, 149, 194.
“Shared,” 189.
Shelley, 180.
“Similitudes,” 61.
“Skipper Ben,” 65, 173.
Smith, John Cotton, 215.
Spalding, Mrs. S. I., 179, 230;
letters to, 181, 187, 193, 240, 250, 271.
Spaulding, George, 33, 36.
Spaulding, Lucy Larcom, 289.
Spenser, 5, 191.
Socrates, 217.
Solis-Cohen, Dr. S., 260.
“Songs of Three Centuries,” 259, 279.
South Carolina, 81.
Southey, 5.
St. Ann’s Church, Lowell, 14, 207.
St. Nicholas, 3, 157, 177, 178, 233.
St. Peter’s Church, Beverly, 290.
Standish, Miles, 97.
Stanley, Aunt, 4.
Stedman, Mr., 93.
Stephen, Sir James, 118.
Stone, Dr., 215.
Stone, Lucy, 46.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 146.
Stowe, Prof., 145.
Sumatra, 133.
Sumner, Charles, 108.
Swedenborg, 54, 119.
Switzerland, 168.
Tauler’s Sermons, 54.
Taunton, 90.
Tennyson, 278.
Thanksgiving, A, 174, 194.
Thaxter, Mrs. Celia, 163.
Thayer, Prof., 178.
“The Chamber Called Peace,” 173.
Tholuck, 159.
Thomas, Rev. Abel C., 10.
Thorndike, Colonel, 2.
Trinity Church, 207, 226, 252;
free seats in, 208;
services at, 209;
passing of old year at, 211.
Trowbridge, 157.
Unitarianism, 112, 215.
Universalists, 56.
Unseen Friend, The, 283.
“Unwedded,” 59.
Vincent, Henry, 179.
Walker’s Rhyming Dictionary, 18.
Wallace Lane, 2.
Wallis, Becky, 32.
Ward, Susan Hayes, 238;
letters to, 53, 222.
Waterbury, Conn., 54, 152.
Waterville, 100.
Webster, Daniel, 96.
Wellesley College, 247.
Wheaton, Judge, 46.
Wheaton, Mrs. E. B., 183.
Wheaton Seminary, 46, 152, 172, 238, 265.
White Face, 192.
White Mountains, 168.
White, Richard Grant, 197.
White, Sunday, A, 174.
Whitney, Mrs. A. D. T., 184, 239.
Whittier, Elizabeth, 15, 67, 80, 98, 137, 151, 154, 191.
Whittier, John G., 66, 98, 134, 163, 179, 185, 232;
first meeting with Miss Larcom, 15;
friendship for Miss Larcom, 66;
letter to Lucy Larcom, 67;
“Home Ballads,” 80;
“Panorama,” 80;
letters to, 150, 170, 180, 223, 230, 275, 276;
rhymed note of, 161;
at Isles of Shoals, 166;
collaboration with Miss Larcom, 175;
letter to Lucy Larcom, 176;
criticism of her poetry, 193;
letter to O. W. Holmes, 198;
visit of, 218;
poem, “Wood-Giant,” 230;
on Bishop Brooks, 271;
death of, 277.
Wide Awake, 233.
Wilberforce, Canon, 247.
“Wild Roses of Cape Ann,” 187, 188.
Williams College, 153, 205.
Williamstown, 237.
Winnipiseogee, 98, 168.
Winter, William, 185.
Wolfboro’, 229.
Woodberry, George E., 257, 258.
Wordsworth, 5, 180.
Year in Heaven, A, 173.
Youth’s Companion, 3.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _An Idyl of Work_, p. 34.
[2] _An Idyl of Work_, p. 69.
[3] _An Idyl of Work_, p. 74.
[4] _Ibid_, p. 136.
[5] _Similitudes._
[6] Elizabeth Whittier.
[7] _Wild Roses of Cape Ann._
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Archaic spelling that may have been used at the time of publication has
been preserved.