1890-1895
And this is the reward. That the ideal shall be real to
thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall
like summer rain, copious, but not troublesome.... Doubt
not, O Poet, but persist.--EMERSON.
Onward the chariot of the Untarrying moves;
Nor day divulges him nor night conceals.
WILLIAM WATSON.
They are winged, like the viewless wind,
These days that come and go.--L.C.M.
Mrs. Moulton's morning-room was on the second floor, its windows
looking into the green trees of Rutland Square. In one corner was her
desk, in the centre a table always piled with new books, many of which
were autographed copies from their authors, and around the walls were
low bookcases filled with her favorite volumes. Above these hung
pictures, and on their tops were photographs and mementos. The mantel
was attractive with pretty bric-a-brac, largely gifts. Between the two
front windows was her special table filled with the immediate letters
of the day, and by it her own chair in which, on mornings, she was
quite sure to be found by the little group of friends privileged to
familiar intimacy.
No allusion to these delightful talks with Mrs. Moulton in her
morning-room could be complete without mention of her faithful and
confidential maid, Katy, whom all the frequenters of the house
regarded with cordial friendliness as an important figure in the
household life. It was Katy who knew to a shade the exact degree of
greeting for the unending procession of callers, from the friends
dearest and nearest, to the wandering minstrels who should have been
denied, though they seldom were. It was Katy who surrounded the
gracious mistress of the establishment with as much protection as was
possible; but as Mrs. Moulton's sympathies were unbounded, while her
time and strength had their definite limits, it will be seen that
Katy's task was often difficult.
The informal lingerings in Mrs. Moulton's morning-room were so a part
of the "dear days" that "have gone back to Paradise" that without some
picture of them no record of her Boston life could be complete. The
first mail was an event, and to it Mrs. Moulton gave her immediate
attention after glancing through the morning paper with her coffee
and roll. Her correspondence increased with every season, and while it
was a valued part of her social life, it yet became a very serious tax
on her time and energy. There were letters from friends and from
strangers; letters from the great and distinguished, and from the
obscure; and each and all received from her the same impartial
consideration. Every conceivable human problem, it would seem, would
be laid before her. Her name was sought for all those things for which
the patroness is invented; there were not wanting those who desired
her advice, her encouragement, her practical aid in finding, perhaps,
a publisher for their hitherto rejected MSS. with an income insured;
and they wanted her photograph, her autograph, her biography in
general; a written "sentiment" which they might, indeed, incorporate
into their own concoctions by way of adornment; or they frankly wanted
her autograph with the provision that it should be appended to a
check, presumably of imposing dimensions,--all these, and a thousand
other requests were represented in her letters, quite aside from the
legitimate correspondence of business and friendship. With all these
she dealt with a generous consideration whose only defect was perhaps
a too ready sympathy. Her familiar friends might sometimes try to
restrain her response. "It is an imposition!" one might unfeelingly
exclaim. "God made them," she would reply. And to the insinuation that
the Divine Power had perhaps little to do in the creation of
professional bores and beggars, she would smile indulgently, but she
usually insisted that it "wasn't right" to turn away from any appeal,
although, of course, all appeals were not to be granted literally. In
vain did one beseech her to remember Sir Hugo's advice to Daniel
Deronda: "Be courteous, be obliging, Dan, but don't give yourself to
be melted down for the tallow trade." She always insisted that even to
be unwisely imposed upon was better than to refuse one in real need;
and her charities--done with such delicacy of tender helpfulness that
for them charity is too cold a name--were most generous. Her countless
liberal benefactions, moreover, were of the order less easy than the
mere signing of checks, for into them went her personal sympathy. She
helped people to help themselves in the most thoughtful and lovely
ways.
Now it was a typewriter given with such graceful sweetness to a
literary worker whose sight was failing; now checks that saved the
day for one or another; again the numerous subscriptions to worthy
objects; or the countless gifts and helps to friends. A woman lecturer
had been ill and unfortunate, but had several modest engagements
waiting in a neighboring city if only she had ten dollars to get
there. Mrs. Moulton sent her fifty that she might have a margin for
comforts that she needed. To a friend in want of aid to bridge over a
short time was sent a check, totally unsolicited and undreamed of, and
accepted as a loan; but when the recipient had, soon afterward, a
birthday, a delicate note from Mrs. Moulton made the supposed loan a
birthday gift. Never did any one make such a fine art of giving as did
she. Pages could be filled with these instances--the complete list,
indeed, is known to the Recording Angel only.
All the world of letters was talked over in those morning hours in her
room. Sometimes her friends "gently wrangled," and bantered her with
laughter and love. At one time she had made in a lyric a familiar
allusion to larks and nightingales, and Louise Guiney, who, because
she bore Mrs. Moulton's name, usually addressed her as "Godmam," took
her to task for some ornithological inadvertence in the terrestrial
location of her nightingale. Colonel Higginson, in a review of her
poems, had quoted the stanza:
Shall I lie down to sleep, and see no more
The splendid affluence of earth and sky?
The morning lark to the far heavens soar,
The nightingale with the soft dusk draw nigh?
and had ungallantly commented:
"But Mrs. Moulton has lain down to sleep all her life in
America, and never looked forward to seeing the morning lark
on awakening. She never saw or sought the nightingale at
dusk in the green lanes of her native Connecticut. Why
should she revert to the habits of her colonial ancestors,
and meditate on these pleasing foreign fowl as necessary
stage-properties for a vision of death and immortality?"
Another writer had come to the defence of the poet in this fashion:
"Considering that Mrs. Moulton goes to Europe the last of
every April, not returning till late in October, it would
seem natural for her to sing of 'larks and nightingales,'
since she must hear them both sing in the English May. Do,
dear Colonel Higginson, permit her to sing of them, though
they are not native birds, since in the magic of her art she
almost makes us hear them too."
Miss Guiney, laughing over these comments, turned to Mrs. Moulton.
"Godmam," she asked, "did you ever see a nightingale?"
"Why, yes, Louise; plenty of them."
"Where?"
"Why, anywhere. Out here, I suppose," replied the elder poet, dreamily
glancing from the windows of her morning-room into the tree-tops of
Rutland Square. "In London, too, I believe," she added, rather
vaguely.
"Singing in Trafalgar Square, godmam," rejoined the younger poet
mischievously.
The informal loiterers in the morning-room were never weary of asking
Mrs. Moulton's impressions of London writers.
"You knew Thomas Hardy well?" someone would ask.
"I knew him. I even venture to think of him as a friend--at least as a
very friendly acquaintance. I cared deeply for many of his books
before I had the pleasure of meeting him; and I quite adored 'The
Return of the Native.'"
"And you liked the author as well as the books?"
"I think no one could know Thomas Hardy and not like him. He is
sympathetic, genial, unaffected, altogether delightful; somewhat
pessimistic, to be sure, and with a vein of sadness--a minor chord in
his psalm of life: but all the same with a keen sense of fun. I
remember I was telling him once about an American admirer of his. It
was at a party at Hardy's own house, and a few people were listening
to our talk. The American of whose praise I spoke was Charles T.
Copeland, of Harvard, who had just reviewed 'Tess,' in the _Atlantic
Monthly_. Mr. Hardy listened kindly, and then he said, 'What you say
is a consolation, just now.' I knew some good fun lurked behind the
quaint humor of his smile. 'Why just now?' I asked. 'Oh, I dined, two
nights ago, at the house of a Member of Parliament. It was by way of
being a political dinner; but, as "Tess" was just out, one and another
spoke of it--kindly enough. Finally one lady, two or three seats away
from me, leaned forward. Her clear voice commanded every one's
attention. "Well, Mr. Hardy," she said, "these people are complaining
that you had Tess hanged in the last chapter of your book. _That_ is
not what I complain of. I complain because you did not have all your
characters hanged, for they all deserved it!" Don't you think, Mrs.
Moulton, that after that I need consolation from somewhere?'"
Many of her reminiscences which entered into the talk have been told
in her newspaper letters, and need not be repeated here, but they took
on a fresh vitality from the living voice and the gracious, unaffected
manner.
By some untraced or unanalyzed impulse Mrs. Moulton was apt to be
moved on each New Year's day to write a poem. Usually this was a
sonnet, but now and then a lyric instead; and for many years the first
entry in the fresh volume of her diary records the fact. On the first
of January, 1890, she writes:
"Began the New Year by writing a sonnet, to be called 'How
Shall We Know,' unless I can find a better title."
"The Last Good-bye" was the title upon which she afterward fixed.
On the fifth day of January of this year died Dr. Westland Marston.
Mrs. Moulton wrote in her _Herald_ letters a review of his life and
work, in the course of which she said with touching earnestness:
"I scarcely know a life which has been so tragic as his in
the way of successive bereavements; and when I think of him
as I saw him last, on the first day of last November--in his
solitary library, with the pictures of those he had loved
and lost on its walls, and with only their ghosts for his
daily company--I almost feel that, for his own sake, I ought
to be glad that he has gone to join the beloved ones whom
one can easily fancy making festival of welcome for him."
Her intimacy had been close with all the family, and while Edmund
Gosse was right when he wrote to her that she seemed to him always to
have been "Philip's true guardian-ray, or better genius," her
friendship for Cecily Marston, for Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, and with Dr.
Marston himself was hardly less close. The tragic ending of the family
could not but cast a bleak shade over the opening year.
Her relations with English writers and the good offices by which she
helped to make their work better known on this side of the Atlantic
might be illustrated by numerous letters.
_Richard Garnett to Mrs. Moulton_
BRITISH MUSEUM, LONDON,
August 4, 1890.
DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I hope I need not say how your letter has
gratified me. The progress of "The Twilight of the Gods" has
been slow, and I was especially disappointed that the
endeavor to introduce it to the American public through an
American publisher fell through. But there seems token of
its gradually making way, and I value your approbation among
the most signal. I shall be delighted to receive the copy of
your poems, which I know I can safely promise to admire.
Believe me,
Most sincerely yours,
R. GARNETT.
Both Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Meredith had, each unknown to
the other, suggested to Mrs. Moulton that she write a novel in verse.
"Lucile" and "Aurora Leigh" had each in its time and way made a wide
popular success, and they felt that Mrs. Moulton might succeed
equally. To this suggestion Mr. Meredith alludes in a letter in which
he thanks Mrs. Moulton for a copy of "In the Garden of Dreams."
_George Meredith to Mrs. Moulton_
MARCH 9, 1890.
"DEAR MRS MOULTON: Your beautiful little volume charms us
all. It is worth a bower of song, and I am rightly sensible
of the gift. You are getting to a mastery of the sonnet that
is rare, and the lyrics are exquisite. I hope you will now
be taking some substantial theme, a narrative, for ampler
exercise of your powers. I am hard at work and nearing the
end of a work that has held me for some time. I have not
been in London since the day of Browning's funeral,--a sad
one, but having its glory. I had a tinge of apprehension the
other day in hearing of Russell Lowell's illness. We have
been reassured about him. Boston, I suppose, will soon be
losing you...."
In the years directly following its publication, "In the Garden of
Dreams" went rapidly through several editions. One sonnet which
elicited much praise was that called
HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF.
Because I seek Thee not, oh seek Thou me!
Because my lips are dumb, oh hear the cry
I do not utter as Thou passest by
And from my life-long bondage set me free!
Because, content, I perish far from Thee,
Oh, seize me, snatch me from my fate, and try
My soul in Thy consuming fire! Draw nigh
And let me, blinded, Thy salvation see.
If I were pouring at Thy feet my tears,
If I were clamoring to see Thy face,
I should not need Thee, Lord, as now I need,
Whose dumb, dead soul knows neither hopes nor fears,
Nor dreads the outer darkness of this place--
_Because_ I seek not, pray not, give Thou heed!
The deeply religious feeling, the profound sincerity, and what might
perhaps not inaptly be called the completely modern mood of this, a
mood which in its essence is permanent but which in its outward form
varies with each generation, gave it a power of wide appeal. A church
paper in England said of it:
"Profound faith in the infinite goodness of God is the
spirit which animates most of Mrs. Moulton's work. The
sonnet ... deserves a place among the best devotional verse
in the language. It is a question if, outside of the volume
of Miss Rossetti, any devotional verse to equal this can be
found in the work of a living woman-writer."
The critic need hardly have limited himself to the poetry of women.
Mrs. Moulton was all her life vitally interested in the religious side
of life, and many more of her letters might have been quoted to show
how constantly her mind returned to the question of immortality and
human responsibility. The sonnet had become for her a natural mode of
utterance, as it was for Mrs. Browning when she wrote the magnificent
sequence which recorded her love; and in this especial poem is the
essence of Mrs. Moulton's spiritual life.
Mrs. Moulton's mastery of the sonnet has been alluded to before, but
as each new volume brought fresh proof of it, and as she went on
producing work equally important, it is impossible not to refer to
this form of her art again and again. Whittier wrote to her after the
appearance of "In the Garden of Dreams": "It seems to me the sonnet
was never set to such music before, nor ever weighted with more deep
and tender thought;" and Miss Guiney, in a review, declared that "we
rest with a steadfast pleasure on the sonnets, and in their masterly
handling of high thoughts." Phrases of equal significance might be
multiplied, and to them no dissenting voice could be raised.
In 1890 Mrs. Moulton brought out a volume of juvenile stories under
the title "Stories Told at Twilight," and in 1896 this was followed by
another with the name "In Childhood's Country." Always wholesome,
kindly, attractive, these volumes had a marked success with the
audience for which they were designed; and of few books written for
children can or need more be said.
Among the letters of this period are a number from a correspondent
signing "Pascal Germain." The writer had published a novel called
"Rhea: a Suggestion," but his identity has not yet been made public.
Mrs. Moulton never knew who he was, but apparently opened the
correspondence in regard to something which struck her in the book.
Some clews exist which might be followed up were one inclined to
endeavor to solve the riddle. After the death of Carl Gutherz, the
artist who painted the admirable decoration "Light" for the ceiling of
the Reading-room in the Congressional Library in Washington, his
daughter found among the papers of her father a post-card signed
Pascal Germain, and written from Paris in the manner of a familiar
friend. Evidently Mr. Gutherz had known the mysterious writer well,
but the daughter had no clew by which to identify him.
A letter from Edward Stanton Huntington, author of "Dreams of the
Dead," rather deepens than clears the mystery. The writer was a nephew
of Bishop Huntington, and is not now living.
_Mr. Huntington to Mrs. Moulton_
"WOLLASTON, MASS.
December 8, 1892.
"MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I find myself unable to send the
complete letters of my friend, Duynsters, but take pleasure
in sending you the extracts referring to Pascal Germain.
After the receipt of his letter (enclosed) dated June 1st, I
wrote him of the conversation you and I had in regard to
'Rhea' and the merits of the book. I also mentioned the
photograph. He replies:
"'What you tell me of the photograph and Mrs. Moulton amuses
me very much. Let me assure you that the photograph is no
more the picture of Pascal Germain than it is of Pericles,
or Gaboriau, or Zoroaster. I am the only human being who
knows the identity of Germain, beside himself, and no one
can possess his photograph.'
"Duynsters then goes on to discuss the symbolism and sound
psychology of the work. My own conclusion, after reading the
words of my friend Duynsters, and hastily perusing 'Rhea,'
(I confess I was not much interested in the book)--my
conclusions are that Germain is the pen name of some man or
woman of peculiar genius and eccentric taste.
"Mr. Duynsters is a very cultivated man, one who has
travelled extensively, and who has a keen judgment of men
and affairs; so it puzzles me exceedingly to decide who this
author of 'Rhea' really is. Time will tell...."
A copy of "Rhea" was among Mrs. Moulton's books, but the novel seems
never to have made a marked impression on either side of the Atlantic.
What is apparently the earliest letter remaining of the series seems
to throw light on a passage in the note of Mr. Huntington, and to give
the impression that Pascal Germain had played a mischievous trick on
Mrs. Moulton by sending her a photograph which was not genuine.
_M. Germain to Mrs. Moulton_
MONASTERY OF STE. BARBE,
SEINE INFÉRIEURE, FRANCE.
MADAME: It is in sincere gratitude that I tender you my
thanks for your kind words about the photograph which I had
many misgivings in venturing to lay before you, fearing it
might be _de trop_. Whether you really forgive me for
sending it, or were so gentle as to conceal your
displeasure, it leaves me your debtor always. Although I
write from Paris now, the above is my address, and I beg you
will remember it if at any time I can serve you on this side
of the ocean. I beg you to command me freely.
Believe me to remain,
Yours very faithfully,
PASCAL GERMAIN.
_From the same_
PARIS. Tuesday Morn.
DEAR FRIEND: I am inexpressibly touched by your letter, and
I reply at once. I drop all other work to write to you,
solely that I may lose no time. Yours of the 1st has been
here only a few minutes. Believe me, your idea of death is
purely a fancy, born of an atmosphere of doubt, out of which
you must get as soon as possible. I am glad you wrote, for
in this I may serve you as I have served others.
When I tell you I feel sure your phantom of approaching
death is unreal, I am telling you a truth deduced from hard
study, and than which no other conclusion could arrive. Of
this I give you my most sacred assurance. Put this thought
out of your mind as you would recoil from any adverse
suggestion. The fact is, very few deaths are natural: they
are the result of fear. The natural death is at the age of
from a hundred to a hundred and twenty or thirty years. The
deaths about us are from fright, ignorance, and concession
to the opinions of uneducated friends, and half-educated
doctors. This I know. I could cite you case after case of
those who have really died because the physician asserted
they could not live.
If your delusion is mental, swing to the other side of the
circle, and read or study the most agreeable things that are
widely apart from what you have been dwelling upon. Exercise
strengthens the mind. It is the folly of fools to speak of
the brain being over-worked. It may be stupidly exercised,
but if used in a catholic development, the use makes it more
vigorous. Look at the blue sky; not the ground. God is the
Creator, but man is also a creator. His health depends
largely on his will,--that is to say, in the sense of that
will being plastic to the Divine will.
If your illness is physical stop thinking about
yourself,--do as Saint Teresa did, take up some other
subject, and suddenly you will find yourself well. Nature
requires only a few months, not years, to make the body all
over again.
Death is natural. Few physicians know anything about it.
They have shut down every window in their souls to the
light. For your comfort let me tell you that what I am
saying is the subject of a long talk with one of the first
physicians on the Continent.
Many things, accepted by the common people to be the result
of miracle, are really the result of thought. That is, of
mental force, used or misused. Don't misuse your forces.
Read Plato if you have been reading too much modern fiction,
or have been dipping too deep into Wittemberg's philosophy.
It seems to me there can be no doubt of the survival of the
individual soul. Why not plant your feet on the facts we
possess, and on faith, and philosophy? Read your "Imitatione
Christi." It fits every mind by transposing the symbolism. I
tell you frankly that even if no such man as Jesus ever
lived, I can be serene with Plato's guidance and light.
Stop critical reading. Really a critic is an interpreter,
but what modern critic knows this? The only modern critic I
honor is Herbert Spencer.
Believe me,
Yours with great respect,
PASCAL GERMAIN.
_From the same_
17, AVENUE GOURGARD (MONCEAU), PARIS,
September 13, 1890.
MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I hope you have believed that all this
while I have been away my letters were not forwarded and
only now can I thank you for the beautiful volume you have
sent me.
I have wandered through it reading over and over special
poems that fascinate me. I have not really read them all
yet, though I ought to know this volume very well, for I
bought it some years ago. I am particularly pleased with the
poems, "A Painted Fan," and "The House of Death." The poem
called "Annie's Daughter" is picturesque to a great degree.
By the way I have a letter from an American magazine asking
me to write for them "anything." The letter is in French.
Now why should I not write for them an article on your
poems? They tell me they will faithfully translate all I
send. Your informant was right. I am French only on one side
of the house. Lest I may forget, I want to say here and now
how much I like your "At Étretat." I should have known it
meant that place, even without the title. The picture is so
vivid. Do you know the Riviera? There is material for you in
grays and browns, and the sound of the sea. But I think the
poetry of the "fan" expresses you best, and there you have
the advantage of being alone in your beautiful thought. What
lonely things beauty, truth, and the soul are! The atoms
never touch.
Forgive the length of this if you can, and believe me,
Your faithful servant,
PASCAL GERMAIN.
_From the same_
17, AVENUE GOURGARD (MONCEAU), PARIS,
December 24, 1891.
MADAME: I trust it will not displease you to hear from me
again, though my fate is perilously uncertain, since not
from you, nor from any mutual friend, can I be sure that my
"Rhea" has not fallen under your displeasure. But I offer
something more welcome to your poet's hands than any work of
mine. The laurel which I enclose is from the casket of dear
Owen Meredith. You may have seen in the newspapers an
account of the brilliantly solemn funeral, when honors were
paid him which only before have been paid to the Chief
Marshals of France; and how through all that pomp and
pageantry, but one laurel wreath rested on his casket,--the
crown laid upon his beloved clay by his wife.
There was a good deal of talk about this wreath, though no
one but Lady Lytton and the sender knew from whence it came.
It was I--yet not altogether myself,--for it was a late (too
late) atonement for an undelivered message of love and
thanks to the author of "Lucile" sent to him by a dear
friend of mine, a Sister of Charity.
Lord Lytton's death was, as you know, sudden, and my message
was unwritten because I had only returned to Paris after
years of travelling, and I was simply waiting for better
news of him in order to go to the Embassy with the story of
her life, and what the ideal woman in the poem had done for
the heroine in the flesh, when the startling news of his
death came. I did what I thought the dear Sister would like
done, since words were useless. One might quote his own
words,
Soul to soul,
since from my hands to the poet's wife the laurel was laid
upon him; and I send it because it has a touch of the
supernatural; of the mystical love and sweetness of your own
domain,--and is no common occurrence, that, out of all the
wreaths and tokens, sent by kings and queens and nobles,
from all over the world, the one alone from a Sister of
Charity, was laid upon his casket from the first, in the
death-chamber, in the church, and in the sad procession, and
finally buried with him at Knebworth. For I must explain
that not till a fortnight afterward did Lady Lytton know
that the laurel crown was not my gift alone. It was purely
as my gift that she generously favored it above all others.
She was profoundly touched when I told her the story, and
only last Sunday she wrote and asked me if she might some
day give it to the public, to which, of course, I assented.
I am therefore breaking no confidence in sending these few
leaves which I plucked from the wreath after it was woven.
As they had faded I regilded them, as you see. (Laurels and
gold for poets.) Nor is this boldness all mine. It is my
artist friend, Monsieur Carl Gutherz, who bids me send them
to you, "because," he says, "they will weave into her
fancies in some sweet and satisfying dream."
Madame, believe me,
Your faithful servant,
PASCAL GERMAIN.
Among the Moulton books now in the collection in the Boston Public
Library is a 16mo copy of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's "Paul et
Virginie," bound in an old brocade of a lovely hue of old-rose. On its
cover obliquely is to be seen the faintest shadow of a cross, and in
it is preserved the following letter:
_M. Germain to Mrs. Moulton_
PARIS, Wednesday.
MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: The little book is not _quite_ what I
was looking for. The binding I was searching for I did not
find, but if I delay too long, I shall be away to Madrid;
_not_ the place most likely to reward my search.
I wonder if you will like the odd cover? It was ordered by
me in an impulse without stopping to reflect that its
associations to me mean nothing to you. The bit of tapestry
is the relic of one of the oldest and most picturesque
chambers in Normandy, and was given me by a nun who nursed
me through an illness there--in fact I begged her for it
because it is interwoven with a story which I think my best
(not yet finished). If you hold the book so that the light
plays horizontally, you will see the trace of time-wear in
the shape of a [cross symbol]. The fabric was the vestment
more than a hundred years in the service of the church
there, and was worn by the hero of my story--a priest whose
life was a long agony--for a fault nobly atoned. But I must
not assume your interest in the tragedy. Perhaps the
color--which an artist friend borrowed to robe one of his
angels in--may please you. If not, kindly burn the packet,
as it has been consecrated--the fabric, not the book;--for I
owe the giver the courtesy of conforming to the old Catholic
(nay, Egyptian, for the matter of that) rule to burn all
sacred things when their day is done.
No doubt the cover does not look professional. I got it done
at short notice by one not used to my sometimes eccentric
requests and wishes. Will you kindly give it value by
accepting it with the best wishes of
Your very faithful,
PASCAL GERMAIN.
So these letters remain, with their curious suggestiveness.
Mrs. Moulton's memorial volume on Arthur O'Shaughnessy was published
in 1894,--a volume containing selections from his poems preceded by a
biographical and critical introduction. Mrs. Spofford pronounced the
book "an exquisite piece of work, full of interest and done with such
delight in touch." Mrs. Moulton had written with her accustomed skill,
and through every line spoke her intimate sympathy with the poet and
with his work.
Her summers, after the visit to her daughter in Charleston, were still
passed in Europe. Rome, Florence, and other southern cities were often
visited before she went to England for her annual London season.
Often, too, she made a stay in Paris either before or after her
sojourn on the other side of the Channel. Among her friends in Paris
were Marie Bashkirtseff and her mother, and not infrequently she took
tea at the studio. After the death of the artist, a number of letters
passed between Mrs. Moulton and the heart-broken mother.
Her friends in London were so many, and the diary records so many
pleasant social diversions that it is no wonder that Thomas Hardy
should write to her: "Why don't you live in London altogether? You
might thus please us, your friends, and send to America letters of a
higher character than are usually penned. You would raise the standard
of that branch of journalism." Season after season she notes dinners,
luncheons, drives, functions of all sorts, and one does not wonder
that with this and her really arduous literary work her health began
to suffer. A German "cure" came to be a regular part of the summer
programme, and yet with her eager temperament and keen interest in the
human, she could not bring herself to forego the excitement and
enjoyment which probably did much to make this necessary.
Not a little did her voluminous correspondence add to the strain
under which she lived. Continually in her diary are entries which show
how heavy was the task of keeping up with the flood of correspondence
which constantly flowed in at her doors. "Letters, letters, letters to
answer. Oh, dear, it seems to me that the whole of my life goes in
writing letters. I wrote what seemed necessary letters till one P.M.
Oh, what shall I do? These letters are ruining my life!" "Letters
_all_ the morning." "Letters till luncheon." Her acquaintance was
wide, and her relations with the literary world of her day made it
inevitable that she should be called upon for large epistolary labors;
but added to this was the burden, already alluded to, of the letters
which came to her from strangers. She was too kindly to ignore or
neglect these, and she expended much of her strength in answer to
calls upon her which were unwarrantably made. Against the greater
amount of literary work which she might have accomplished with the
force thus generously expended, or the possible days which might have
been added to her life, must in the great account be set the pleasure
she gave to many, and the balance is not for man to reckon.
It is now well known that the poems published over the name "Michael
Field" were written by Miss Bradley and Miss Edith Cooper in
conjunction. To Miss Cooper, Mrs. Moulton, in the intimacy of a warm
friendship which established itself between them, gave in loving
familiarity the name "Amber Eyes." Many letters were exchanged, and
from the correspondence of Miss Cooper may be quoted these fragments.
_Miss Cooper to Mrs. Moulton_
"We have just returned from Fiesole and Orvieto, and such
names are poems. I had hoped to send you verses in _The
Academy_, welded by Michael, on some Greek goddess in the
British Museum. We very much care for the sympathy and
interest of Americans."
"I don't know any poet who is so spontaneously true to
himself as you are. I actually stand by you as I read, and
see the harmonious movement of your lips, and the
half-deprecating, half-shadowed look in your eyes.... Your
verses are like music. What is this? You are not able to
sing? Is this the effect of Boston on its winter guest? I
can sympathize, for I have not written a line since our play
was brought out last October."
"The placid hills [in the Lake Country] make one love them
as only Tuscan hills besides can do. Some of the greatest
ballads belong here. Wordsworth, Scott, and Burns, and many
song-writers have given their passion to this country-side,
where one has such joy as the best dreams are made of."
"In a cover somewhat like this paper in tone 'Stéphanie'
presents herself to you.... We have the audacity to think it
is nearly as well woven as one of the William Morris
carpets. We have taken ten years over the ten pages."
On one of her visits to the cure at Wiesbaden Mrs. Moulton made the
acquaintance of Friedrich von Bodenstedt and visited at his house. She
characterized the lyrics of the author of the "Lieder des
Mirza-Schaffy" as "warm with the love of life and the life of love,
and perfumed with the roses of the East." Her description of his
personal appearance is not without interest.
"A tall, handsome, active man of seventy-two, with gray
hair, with eyes full, still, of the keen fire of youth; with
the grand manner which belongs to the high-bred gentlemen of
his generation, and the gift to please and to charm which is
not always the dower even of a poet."
Her return voyage from Europe in 1891 was a sorrowful one. Just before
sailing she notes in her diary: "A sad day,--a telegram in the
morning to say that mother was failing." On the day before the steamer
made land she writes: "A lovely day, but I am so anxious as to what
news of my poor mother awaits me to-morrow"; and the first entry on
shore is: "Landed to learn that my dear mother died last Monday,
October 26, and was buried Tuesday. Oh, what it is to know that I
shall never see her again!"
[Illustration: LOUISA REBECCA CHANDLER, MRS. MOULTON'S MOTHER
_Page 199_]
The letters of Mrs. Moulton show through these years a growing feeling
in regard to the mystery of death. So many of her friends had gone
that the brevity of life was more and more deeply impressed upon her.
In the correspondence of many of her friends are traces that her
letters to them, not now available, had touched upon the questions to
her so vital. Mrs. Maxwell (Miss M.E. Braddon) for instance, wrote:
_Mrs. Maxwell to Mrs. Moulton_
"I have never believed in the gloomy and pitiless creed of
the Calvinists. I believe every one is master of his destiny
so far as perfect freedom of choice for good or evil. When
we take the wrong road we do it perhaps in the blindness of
passion, with eyes blind to consequences, minds darkened by
selfish desires, by vanity, false ambitions, and by weakly
yielding to bad influences."
_Canon Bell to Mrs. Moulton_
"I hope you are seeing your way clearly to faith in God and
His dear Son. A sure trust in our Heavenly Father is the
only true consolation in this world of change and sorrow.
That brings peace."
_Lady Henry Somerset to Mrs. Moulton_
"I well understand what you say about looking onward. I
think our eyes are turned that way when the steps of life
lead us nearer to the journey's end with each setting sun.
It is absorbingly interesting. Yes, I believe the love of
God will be closest; and, in the last, victorious."
What the words were to which these were replies may in part be
gathered from the following:
_Mrs. Moulton to William Winter_
DURNHAM HOUSE, CHELSEA, LONDON,
October 3, 1894.
DEAR WILLIE: I hope your lecture last night was a success,
but it seems to me that all you do is. Yes,--how well I
remember that seventieth-birthday breakfast to Dr. Holmes.
We sat very near each other, you and I, and I know how your
words moved me, as well as how they moved Dr. Holmes. I felt
his death very keenly, but I knew him far less than you did.
To know him at all was to love him. How strange that you
should have written of so many great pilgrims into the
unknown. Thank God for your immortal hope. To me the outlook
darkens as I draw nearer and nearer to the end. I am
appalled by the immensity of the universe, and the
nothingness of our little human atom among the infinite
worlds. But God knows what is to come. You are happier than
most in the love that surrounds you.
Thank you a thousand times for your dear letter. If I go to
New York or you come to Boston, do not let us fail to meet,
for the time in which earthly meetings are possible is
short. Oh, how I hope there may be a life to come in which
we shall find lost loves and hopes, and above all, lost
possibilities. I think it is hardest of all to me to think
what I might have been, might have done, and to be so
utterly discontented with myself as I am. If you pray, say a
prayer sometimes for one of the truest and fondest of your
many friends,--this wanderer,
L.C.M.
Without doubt the state of Mrs. Moulton's health had much to do with
her apprehensions in regard to a future life, and no one who was
intimately associated with her could fail to know that these
expressions of gloom and foreboding, while entirely genuine at the
moment of their utterance, convey an impression of her usual state of
mind far more dark than was warranted by the truth. She was too
sincerely interested in life and friendship, too much of her time and
thought went to earnest work, however, for her to be in general either
brooding or fearsome. The extracts given rather indicate her attitude
of mind toward certain grave questions than toward life in general.
The frankness of the following letter from a woman who possessed
remarkable powers which the public never fully appreciated is striking
and refreshing:
_Mrs. Richard Henry Stoddard to Mrs. Moulton_
MATTAPOISETT, January 20.
DEAR MRS. MOULTON: Will you accept Mr. Stoddard's thanks for
your pleasant notice through me? I write nearly all his
personal letters, I may say, nearly all except business
letters. He was always averse to letter writing, and since
his blindness this aversion is increased; he hurts and
angers many without meaning to do so.
I think your first quotation a very poor one. The value of
reviews or notices seems to me to be in quotations rather
than in the ordinary criticism. In reading them I have often
taken the poems in a new and striking light; the
medium--that is, the writer--has instructed and cleared my
understanding. The happiest in regard to "The Lion's Cub" is
the extract in _The Critic_. There has been no review of the
book; the nearest, so far, is the _Springfield Republican's_
and that is suggestive of a review. Mr. Stoddard considers
the book a failure; I doubt if he ever collects again. Boyle
O'Reilly once said that he saw Stoddard in Broadway and that
no one noticed him; "had he been in Boston," he continued,
"on Washington Street, every man's hat would have been off
to his white head."
We are most delightfully set aside from the afternoon teas
of the city, though the invitations chase us up here; the
gray tranquil waters of our little bay, the solitary street,
a dog occasionally going by, sometimes a man, is a pleasing
contrast to 15th Street and Broadway. We shall remain a few
days longer and then go into our incongruous life again. If
Lorimer were acting in Boston as he did for the past three
winters, we should go home that way, but as he has not been
there this season we shall not appear.
Have you come across my friend, young Edward McDowell, the
composer, who has made such a success? He and his wife are
charming.
And Miss ----, will you give her my regards when you see
her? She has been not only attentive to me, but to my young
sister, who followeth not in her aged sister's steps.
Mr. Stoddard also wished to be remembered kindly to you.
Yours truly,
ELIZABETH STODDARD.
P.S. I meant to say while on "The Lion's Cub" that I never
was so impressed with the gravity and dignity of S.'s verse,
nor so clearly saw the profound melancholy of his mind. He
really cares little for life. Ah, me!
E.S.