1860-1876
But poets should
Exert a double vision; should have eyes
To see near things as comprehensively
As if afar they took their point of sight;
And distant things as intimately deep
As if they touched them....
I do distrust the poet who discerns
No character or glory in his time.
MRS. BROWNING.--_Aurora Leigh._
... there are divine things, well envelop'd;
I swear to you, there are divine things more beautiful than
words can tell.--WALT WHITMAN, _Song of the Open Road_.
The morning skies were all aflame.--L.C.M.
Poetry with Mrs. Moulton was a serious art and an object of earnest
pursuit. It was not for mere pastime that she had steeped herself, so
to speak, in
... The old melodious lays
Which softly melt the ages through;
The songs of Spenser's golden days,
Arcadian Sidney's silver phrase;
for in her poetic work she recorded her deepest convictions and her
most intimate perceptions of the facts of life. To her life was love;
its essence was made up of the charm of noble and sincere friendships,
of happy social intercourse, of sympathetic devotion. To this joy of
love and friendship, there was in her mind opposed one sorrow--death,
and not all the assurances of faith or philosophy could eliminate this
dread, this all-pervading fear, that haunted her thoughts. In some way
the sadness of death, as a parting, had been stamped on her
impressionable nature, and it inevitably colored her outlook and made
itself a controlling factor in her character. It took the form,
however, of deepening her tenderness for every human relation and
widening her charity for all human imperfection. The vision of
Cold hands folded over a still heart,
touched her as it did Whittier, with the pity of humanity's common
sorrow, and with him she could have said that such vision
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave.
Writing in later years of Stephen Phillips she said:
"Is it not, after all, the comprehension of love that above
all else makes a poet immortal? Who thinks of Petrarch
without remembering Laura, of Dante without the vision of
Beatrice?"
"I have said that Phillips is the poet of love and of pity.
Many poets have uttered the passionate cries of love; but
few, indeed, are those who have seen and expressed the
piteous tragedy of life as he has done. He says in
'Marpessa,'
"The half of music, I have heard men say,
Is to have grieved.
And not only has Phillips grieved, but he has felt the grief
of other men--listened to the wild, far wail which, one
sometimes feels, must turn the very joy of heaven to
sorrow."
These words reveal much of her own nature. One critic said aptly:
"She is penetrated with that terrible consciousness of the
futility of the life which ends in the grave--that
consciousness of personal transitoriness which has haunted
and oppressed so many passionate and despairing hearts. She
knows that 'there is no name, with whatever emphasis of
passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at
last.' And against this inevitable doom of humanity she
rebels with all the energy of her nature."
In her verse-loving girlhood she had delighted in the facile music and
the obvious sentiment of Owen Meredith; his "Aux Italiens," "Madame
la Marquise," and "Astarte" had delighted her fancy. As she developed,
Browning's "Men and Women" held her captive; and she responded with
eagerness to the new melodies of Swinburne. She was indeed wonderfully
sensitive to the charm of any master who might arise; yet her own work
seemed little influenced by others. She remained always strikingly
individual.
In the decades between 1860 and 1880 Boston was singularly rich in
rare individualities, and among them Mrs. Moulton easily and naturally
made her own place. She found the city not so greatly altered from the
Boston of the forties of which Dr. Hale remarked that "the town was so
small that practically everybody knew everybody. Lowell could discuss
with a partner in a dance the significance of the Fifth Symphony of
Beethoven in comparison with the lessons of the Second or the Seventh,
and another partner in the next quadrille would reconcile for him the
conflict of freewill and foreknowledge." At this period James Freeman
Clarke had founded his Church of the Disciples, of which he remained
pastor until 1888; and in 1869 Phillips Brooks became rector of
Trinity. Lowell, in these years, was living at Elmwood, and it was in
1869 that he recited at Harvard Commencement his great Commemoration
Ode. The prayer on that occasion was made by Mr. Brooks, and of it
President Eliot said that "the spontaneous and intimate expression of
Brooks' noble spirit convinced all Harvard men that a young prophet
had risen up in Israel."
Lydia Maria Child, the intimate friend of Whittier, Sumner, Theodore
Parker, and Governor Andrew, was then living, and in her book,
"Looking Toward Sunset," quoting a poem of Mrs. Moulton's from some
newspaper copy which had omitted the name of the author, Mrs. Child
had altered one line better to suit her own cheerful fancy. On Mrs.
Moulton's remonstrance Mrs. Child wrote her a characteristically
lovely note, but ended by saying: "I hope you will let me keep the
sunshine in it; the plates are now stereotyped, and an alteration
would be very expensive." Mrs. Moulton cordially assented to the added
"sunshine," and an affectionate intercourse continued between them
until Mrs. Child's death in 1880.
These years of the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century were the
great period of Webster, Choate, Everett, Channing, Sumner, and
Winthrop. With the close of the Civil War national issues shaped
themselves anew. It was a period of wonderful literary activity.
Thomas Starr King, who came to Boston in 1845, was a lecturer as well
as a preacher of power and genius. Henry James, the elder, was
publishing from time to time his philosophic essays, and to Mrs.
Moulton, who was much attracted by his gentle leadings, he gave in
generous measure his interest and encouragement. The _Atlantic
Monthly_ was founded in 1857 by Phillips and Sampson, the enterprising
young publishers who, according to Dr. Hale, inaugurated the
publishing business in Boston, and who were the publishers of Mrs.
Moulton's first book. With Lowell, the first editor of the _Atlantic_,
Mrs. Moulton came in contact in the easy intimacy of the literary
atmosphere. She heard with eager attention the well known lecture of
George William Curtis on "Modern Infidelity" in 1860; and in the same
year read with enthusiastic appreciation Hawthorne's "Marble Faun,"
from which she made copious extracts in her note-books with
sympathetic comments. The artistic and intellectual life of Boston in
those days held much to call out her keenest interest. Mrs. Kemble
gave her brilliant Shakespearian readings; Patti, a youthful prima
donna, delighted lovers of opera; Charles Eliot Norton invited
friends to see his new art treasure, a picture by Rossetti; Agassiz
was marking an epoch in scientific progress by his lectures.
Interested by Professor Agassiz's efforts to found a museum, Mrs.
Moulton wrote for the _New York Tribune_ a special article on the
subject; and this was acknowledged by Mrs. Agassiz.
_Mrs. Agassiz to Mrs. Moulton_
Thanks for the pleasant and appreciative article about the
Agassiz Museum in the _Tribune_. It is a good word spoken in
season. It is very charming, and so valuable just now, when
the institution is in peril of its life. No doubt it will be
of real service in our present difficulties by awakening
sympathy and affection in many people. Mr. Agassiz desires
his best regards to you.
Yours sincerely,
ELIZABETH CAREY AGASSIZ.
The intellectual and the social were closely blended in the Boston of
the sixties and the seventies, and Mrs. Moulton was in the very midst
of the most characteristically Bostonian circles. Her journals record
how she went to a "great party" given by Mrs. William Claflin, whose
husband was afterward governor; to Cambridge to a function given by
the Agassizs; to a reception at Dr. Alger's "to meet Rose Terry,"
later known as Rose Terry Cooke; to a dinner given in honor of Miss
Emily Faithful; to one intellectual gayety after another. She was one
of the attractive figures at the delightful Sunday evening reunions
given by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple. She notes in the journal that
at a brilliant reception given by Mrs. John T. Sargent, so well known
as the hostess of the famous Chestnut Street Radical Club, she had "a
few golden moments" with Emerson, and a talk with the elder Henry
James, with whom she was a favorite.
In 1870 Mrs. Moulton became the Boston literary correspondent of the
_New York Tribune_. This work developed under her care into one of
much importance. Boston publishers sent to her all books of especial
interest, and her comments upon them were of solid value. She recorded
the brilliant meetings of the Chestnut Street Radical Club, and the
intellectual news in general. These letters made a distinct success.
Extracts from them were copied all over the United States, and they
came to be looked upon as a sort of authorized report of what was
doing in the intellectual capital of the country. They were given up
only when the desire for foreign travel drew Mrs. Moulton so much
abroad that she could no longer keep as closely in touch with current
events as is necessary for a press correspondent.
The Radical Club at that time was famed throughout the entire country,
and it was regarded as the very inner temple wherein the gods forged
their thunderbolts. Only those who bore the sacramental sign were
supposed to pass its portals. Mrs. Moulton's accounts of these
meetings were vivid and significant. As, for instance, the following:
"The brightest sun of the season shone, and the balmiest
airs prevailed, on the 21st of December, in honor of the
meeting of the Radical Club under the hospitable roof of Mr.
and Mrs. John T. Sargent in Chestnut street. Mrs. Howe was
the essayist, and there was a brilliant gathering to hear
her. David Wasson was there, and John Weiss, and Colonel
Higginson, and Alcott, hoary embodiment of cool, clear
thought. Mr. Linton, the celebrated engraver, John Dwight of
the _Musical Journal_, Mrs. Severance, the beloved president
of the New England Woman's Club, bonny Kate Field of the
honest eyes and the piquant pen, Mrs. Cheney, Miss Peabody,
and many others, distinguished in letters or art.
"To this goodly company Mrs. Howe read a brilliant essay on
the subject of Polarity. She commenced by speaking of
polarity as applied to matter, in a manner not too abstruse
for the _savants_ who surrounded her, though it was too
philosophical and scholarly to receive the injustice of
being reported. The progress of polarity she found to give
us the division of sex; and Sex was the subject on which she
intended to write when she commenced the essay; but she
found it, like all fundamental facts in nature, to be an
idea with a history. In the pursuit of this history she
encountered the master agency of Polarity, and found herself
obliged to make that the primary idea, and consider sex as
derived from it."
Another letter, describing a meeting a few weeks later, gives a
glimpse at some of the women who frequented the club:
"There was Mrs. Severance, reminding one so much of an
Indian summer day, so calm and peaceful is the sweet face
that looks out at you from its framing of fair waving hair.
Not far away was Julia Ward Howe, who some way or other
makes you think of the old fairy story of the girl who never
opened her mouth but there fell down before her pearls and
diamonds. That story isn't a fairy story, not a bit of it.
It is real, genuine truth, and Mrs. Howe is the girl grown
up, and pearls of poetic fancy and diamonds of sparkling wit
are the precious stones which fall from her lips. Lucy Stone
was there, an attentive listener, looking the very picture
of retiring womanliness in her Quaker-like simplicity of
dress, and her pleasant face lighted with interest and
animation. Sitting by a table, busy with note-book and
pencil, was Miss Peabody, the Secretary of the Club. She has
a sparkling, animated face, brimming over with kindness and
good-will; she wins one strangely--you can't help being
drawn to her. There's a world of fun in the black eyes, and
you feel sure she would appreciate the ridiculous sides of
living as keenly as any one ever could."
In still another letter are these thumb-nail sketches of persons
well-known:
"As we drew near Chestnut street we saw a goodly number of
pilgrims.... Nora Perry, with the golden hair, had journeyed
up from Providence with a gull's feather in her hat and a
glint of mischief in her glance; Celia Thaxter, whom the
Atlantic naturally delights to honor, since from Atlantic
surges she caught the rhythm of her life, sat intent; Mr.
Alcott beamed approval; Professor Goodwin had come from
Harvard; David A. Wasson had left his bonded ware-house a
prey to smugglers; Rev. Dr. Bartol, who seems always to
dwell on the Mount of Vision; and Mr. Sanborn, who had
sheathed his glittering lance, sat near; Mrs. Howe, taking a
little vacation from her labors for women, listened
serenely; Miss Peabody had a good word to say for Aspasia;
and Mrs. Cheney quoted Walter Savage Landor's opinion of
her."
A racy letter tells of the meeting when the Club discovered Darwin;
another deals with the day when Mrs. Howe discoursed of "Moral
Trigonometry"; and yet another of an occasion when the Rev. Samuel
Longfellow was essayist, and all the pretty women had new bonnets.
This allusion reminds one of a bit of witty verse when "Sherwood
Bonner" (Mrs. McDowell) served up the Radical Club in a parody of
Poe's "Raven," and described Mrs. Moulton as,
"A matron made for kisses, in the loveliest of dresses."
The "Twelve Apostles of Heresy," as the transcendental thinkers were
irreverently termed by the wits of the press, were about this time
contributing to the enlightenment of the public by a series of Sunday
afternoon lectures. These lectures were held to represent the most
advanced thought of the day, and were delivered by such speakers as
the Rev. O.B. Frothingham, Mary Grew (Whittier's friend and a woman of
equally cultivated mind and lovely character), the Rev. John Weiss,
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, T.W. Higginson, and Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney. In one
letter Mrs. Moulton writes thus:
"As the coffin of Mahomet was suspended between heaven and
earth, so is Mr. Wasson, who spoke last Sunday at
Horticultural Hall, popularly supposed to be suspended
between the heaven of Mr. Channing's serene faith and the
depths of Mr. Abbot's audacious heresy. But if any one
should infer from this statement that Mr. Wasson is a gentle
medium, a man without boldness of speculation, or
originality of thought, he would find he had never in his
life made so signal a mistake. Few men in America think so
deeply as David A. Wasson, and fewer still have so many of
the materials for thought at their command. He has a
presence of power, and is a handsome man, though prematurely
gray, with an expansive forehead, where strong thoughts and
calm judgment sit enthroned, and with eyes beneath it which
see very far indeed. His features are clearly cut, and he
looks as if he felt, and felt passionately, every word he
utters, as he stands before an audience, his subject well in
hand, and with always twice as much to say as his hour will
give space for, forced, therefore, against his will, to
choose and condense from his thronging thoughts. He spoke,
in the Sunday afternoon course, on 'Jesus, Christianity, and
Modern Radicalism.'"
John Weiss, the biographer of Theodore Parker, discoursed on one
occasion on "The Heaven of Homer," and Mrs. Moulton commented:
"Not the author of 'Gates Ajar,' listening in her pleasant
dreams to heavenly pianos, ever drew half so near to the
celestial regions, or looked into them with half so
disillusionized gaze as the Grecian thought of the time of
Homer."
Of Mary Grew Mrs. Moulton gave this pen-picture:
"We saw a woman not young, save with the youth of the
immortals; not beautiful, save with the beauty of the
spirit; but sweet and gentle, with a placid, earnest face.
Her own faith is so assured that she appeals fearlessly to
the faith of others; her nature so religious that her
religion seems a fact and not a question."
Another Boston institution of which Mrs. Moulton wrote in her
_Tribune_ letters was the New England Woman's Club. "Here," she
declared, "Mrs. Howe reads essays and poems in advance of their
publication; Abby May's wit flashes keen; Mrs. Cheney gives lovely
talks on art; and Kate Field, with the voice which is music, reads her
first lecture." She records how Emerson sends to the club-tea a poem;
how Whittier is sometimes a guest; how Miss Alcott tells an inimitable
story; and how on May 23, 1870, was celebrated the birthday of
Margaret Fuller, who for a quarter of a century had been beyond the
count of space and time. On this occasion the Rev. James Freeman
Clarke presided, and among the papers was a poem by Mrs. Howe of which
Mrs. Moulton quotes the closing stanza:
Fate dropt our Margaret
Within the bitter sea,
A pearl in golden splendor set
For spirit majesty.
It was in connection with a meeting of the Woman's Club that a guest
invited from New York wrote for a journal of that city an account of
the gathering in which is this description:
"There too was Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, looking for all
the world like one of her own stories, tender and yet
strong, the child-like curving of the mouth and chin in such
contrast with the tender, almost sad eyes and well-developed
brow covered with its masses of waving light hair."
Bret Harte, then in the height of his fame, wrote to Mrs. Moulton in
regard to her _Tribune_ letters, and told her that "it is woman's
privilege to assert her capacity as a critic without sacrificing her
charm as a woman." Many of her criticisms were richly worth
preservation, did space allow. Of Walt Whitman she said:
"With his theories I do not always agree; they seem to me
fitter for a larger, more sincere, less complex time than
ours; but there is no sham and no affectation, either in the
man or in his verse. I could not tell how strong was the
impression of sincerity and large-heartedness which he made
on me."
A new volume of poems by Lowell appeared, and in her comment she
wrote:
"Wordsworth was notably great in only a few poems, and
Coleridge, and Keats, and Shelley come under the same
limitations. Mr. Lowell is thus not alone in being at times
forsaken by his good genius.... If he does not furnish us
with a great amount of poetry of the highest order, it is
the simple truth to say that in his best he has no rival,
excepting Emerson, among American poets. When he is
inspired, the key to nature and to man is in his hand, and
he becomes the interpreter of both, commanding the secrets
of one as truly as he interprets the interior life of the
other."
All this newspaper work did not interfere with the steady production
of work less ephemeral. Poems and stories succeeded one another in
almost unbroken succession. The fecundity of Mrs. Moulton's mind was
by no means the least surprising of the good gifts with which nature
had endowed her. In all the leading American magazines her name held a
place recognized and familiar. What was apparently her first
contribution to the _Atlantic Monthly_, a poem called "May-Flowers,"
caught the popular fancy and became a general favorite. The exquisite
closing stanza was especially praised by those whose approbation was
best worth winning:
Tinted by mystical moonlight,
Freshened by frosty dew,
Till the fair, transparent blossoms
To their pure perfection grew.
Longfellow commended her perfection of form and the lyric spontaneity
of her verse and Whittier urged her to collect and publish her poems
in a volume.
Various letters of interest during these years from and to Mrs.
Moulton are as follows:
_Mr. Whittier to Mrs. Moulton_
AMESBURY, 3d, 8th month, 1870.
DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I am greatly disappointed in not meeting
the benediction of thy face when I called last month; but I
shall seek it again sometime. It just occurs to me that I
may yet have the pleasure of seeing thee under my roof at
Amesbury. We have so many friends in common that I feel as
if I knew thee through them.
How much I thank thee for thy kind note. It reaches me at a
time when its generous appreciation is very welcome and
grateful.
Believe me very truly thy friend,
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
_William Winter to Mrs. Moulton_
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.
November 8, 1875.
DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I accept with pleasure and gratitude your
very kind and sympathetic letter,--seeing beneath its
delicate and cordial words the sincere heart of a comrade
in literature, and the regard of a nature kindred with my
own. I wish I could think that your praise is deserved. It
has often seemed to me of late that there is no cheer in my
newspaper work.... I am aware, however, that the sympathy of
a bright mind and a tender heart and the approval of a
delicate taste are not won without some sort of merit, and
so I venture to find in your most genial and spontaneous
letter a ray of encouragement. You will scarcely know how
grateful this is to me at this time. I thank you and I shall
not forget that you were thoughtful and delicately kind.
To-day I have received a copy of Stedman's poems, which I
want to read again with great care. A man who has missed
poetic fame himself may find great satisfaction in the
success of his friend, and I do feel exceedingly glad in the
recognition that has come to Stedman. Your article on the
book in the _Tribune_ was excellent.
Faithfully yours,
WILLIAM WINTER.
_Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Stedman_
"When you say it depends on me whether I will be looked upon
as a real judicial authority by people of culture throughout
the land, you fire me with ambition, but my springing flame
is quenched by the realization that I am not cultured enough
to rely on my judgment as a certainty, a finality, and that
while I may feel that my intuitions are keen, they are apt
to be warped by my strong emotions. I'll try. A very few
persons are really my public, and I think how my letters
will strike them, rather than how the world will receive
them. I wonder how you will like my review of...? Much of
the book is 'splendidly null,'--perfect enough in execution,
but without that subtle something that sets the heart-chords
quivering, and fills the eyes with tender dew; that subtle
minor chord of being, to which we are all kin, by virtue of
our own pain...."
_Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Stedman_
"... I am impatient to see your article on Browning. I am so
struck by your calling him the greatest of love poets. I,
too, have often thought something like that of him. If 'The
Statue and the Bust' means anything, it means that Browning
thought the Duke and the Lady were fools to let 'I dare not'
wait upon 'I would.' But, _au contraire_, I think 'Pippa
Passes' gives one the impression that he considers illegal
love a great sin and the natural temptation to still greater
sins. Don't you think so? I wish I could have a talk on
social questions with you, for I think your ideas are more
fixed, more developed in thought and less chaotic than
mine...."
_Mr. Whittier to Mrs. Moulton_
AMESBURY, 11th month, 9th, 1874.
MY DEAR FRIEND LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON: I thank thee from my
heart for thy letter. I think some good angel must have
prompted it, for it reached me when I needed it; needed to
know that my words had not been quite in vain. And to know
that they have been comfort or strength to thee is a cause
for deep thankfulness. I do not put a very high estimate
upon my writings, in a merely literary point of view, but it
has been my earnest wish that they might at least help the
world a little. I read thy notice of my book in the
_Tribune_, in connection with Dr. Holmes' last volume, and
while very grateful for thy praise, I was saddened by a
feeling that I did not fully deserve it. In fact, I fear the
world has treated me far better than I had any reason to
expect; and I have been blessed with dear friends, whose
love is about me like an atmosphere.
I have read the little poem enclosed in thy letter with a
feeling of tenderest sympathy. God help us! The loneliness
of life, under even the best circumstances, becomes at times
appalling to contemplate. We are all fearfully alone; no one
human soul can fully know another, and an infinite sigh for
sympathy is perpetually going up from the heart of humanity.
But doubtless this very longing is the pledge and prophecy
and guarantee of an immortal destination. Perfect content is
stagnation and ultimate death.
Why does thee not publish thy poems? Everywhere I meet
people who have been deeply moved by them.
Thy letter dates from Pomfret, and I direct there to thee. I
was in that place once so long ago that thee must have been
a mere child. I rode over its rocky hills, bare in the chill
December, with the late William H. Burleigh. I think it must
be charming in summer and autumn. But something in thy poems
and in thy letter leads me to infer that thy sojourn there
has not been a happy one. Of course I do not speak of
unalloyed happiness, for that can only come of entire
exemption from sin and weakness. A passage which I have been
reading this morning from Thomas à Kempis has so spoken to
my heart that I venture to transcribe it:
"What thou canst not amend in thyself or others, bear with
patience until God ordaineth otherwise. When comfort is
taken away do not presently despair. Stand with an even
mind, resigned to the will of God, whatever may befall; for
after winter cometh the summer, after the dark night the day
shineth; and after the storm cometh a great calm."
Believe me always gratefully thy friend,
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
Religious questions, with which Mrs. Moulton was always deeply
concerned, come often into her letters. To Mr. Stedman she writes:
"I have been curiously interested of late about a band of
'Sanctificationists,' who believe Christ meant it when He
said, He can save from all sin. So they reason that,
trusting in His own words, they can be saved from sin now
and here. There is about them a peace and serenity, a
sweetness and light, a joy in believing, that is
unmistakable. They do live happier lives than others. I
cannot believe, somehow, in this 'cleansing blood,' yet,
seeing these people, I feel that I lose a great deal by not
believing in it. Oh, if one only knew the truth! Reason
rejects, it seems to me, the orthodox dogmas, but what is
one to do with the argument of holier lives?"
Unconsciously Mrs. Moulton was echoing Emerson's lines,
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.
To the late sixties belongs a little incident which illustrates well
Mrs. Moulton's attitude toward society. She was fond of social life,
but it was in her interest always secondary to the intellectual.
During a visit to New York, she was one evening just dressed for a
festivity which she was to attend with her hostess, when the card of
Horace Greeley was brought to her. She went down at once, and Mr.
Greeley, who probably would not have noted any difference between a
ball-gown and a negligé did not in the least appreciate that she was
evidently dressed for a social function. When her hostess came to call
her, Mrs. Moulton signalled that she was to be left, and passed the
evening in conversation so interesting and so animated that Mr.
Greeley remained until an unusually late hour. Just as he was leaving
he seemed to become dimly conscious that her costume was especially
elaborate, and he inquired innocently:
"But were you not going somewhere to-night?"
"One does not go 'somewhere,'" she returned, "at the expense of
missing a conversation with Mr. Greeley."
In 1873 Mrs. Moulton published a volume for young folk entitled
"Bed-Time Stories." It was issued by Roberts Brothers, who from this
time until the dissolution of the firm in 1898, after the death of Mr.
Niles, remained her publishers. The success of the book was immediate,
and so great that the title was repeated in "More Bed-Time Stories,"
brought out in the year following. The first volume was dedicated to
her daughter in these graceful lines:
It is you that I see, my darling,
On every page of this book,
With your flowing golden tresses,
And your wistful, wondering look,
As you used to linger and listen
To the "Bed-time Stories" I told,
Till the sunset glory faded,
And your hair was the only gold.
Will another as kindly critic
So patiently hear them through?
Will the many children care for
The tales that I told to you?
You smile, sweetheart, at my question;
For answer your blue eyes shine:
"We will please the rest if it may be,
But the tales are--yours and mine."
Of the second series of "Bed-Time Stories" George H. Ripley wrote in
the _Tribune_:
"The entire absence of all the visible signs of art in the
composition of these delightful stories betrays a rare
degree of artistic culture which knows how to conceal
itself, or a singular natural bent to graceful and
picturesque expression. Perhaps both of these conditions
best explain the secret of their felicitous construction,
and their fidelity to nature. The best fruits of sweet
womanly wisdom she deems not too good for the entertainment
of the young souls with whom she cherishes such a cordial
sympathy, and whom she so graciously attracts by the silvery
music of her song, which lacks no quality of poetry but the
external form.... They inculcate no high-flown moral, but
inspire the noblest sentiments. There is no preaching in
their appeals, but they offer a perpetual incentive to all
that is lovely and good in character."
An equal success attended the collection of stories for older readers
which Mrs. Moulton brought out a year later under the title, "Some
Women's Hearts." This contained all the stories written since the
appearance of "My Third Book" which she thought worthy of
preservation, and may be said to represent her best in this order of
fiction. Professor Moses Coit Tyler said of them: "Mrs. Moulton has
the incommunicable tact of the story-teller"; commented on their
freedom from all padding, and commended their complete unity. The
instinct for literary form which was so strikingly conspicuous in her
verse showed itself in these stories by the excellence of arrangement
and proportion, the sincerity and earnestness which made the tales
vital. She had by this time outgrown the rather sentimental fashions
of the gift-book period of American letters, and her conscientious and
careful criticism of the work of others had resulted in a power of
self-criticism which was admirable in its results. "My best reward,"
she said in after years, "has been the friendships that my slight work
has won for me"; but by the time she was forty she had won a place in
American letters such as had been held by only two or three other
women, and before her was the reputation which she was to win abroad,
such as no woman of her country had ever attained before.