1900-1906
... One in whom
The spring-tide of her childish years
Hath never lost its sweet perfume,
Though knowing well that life hath room
For many blights and many tears.--LOWELL.
In my dreams you are beside me,--
Still I hear your tender tone;
And your dear eyes light my darkness
Till I am no more alone:
For with memories I am haunted,
And the silence seems to beat
With the music of your talking,
And the coming of your feet.--L.C.M.
The diary during the early months of the year which opened the new
century records as often before many kindnesses in the form of reading
for various objects:
"Went in evening to read for the Rev. Mr. Shields, of South
Boston."
"In the evening read for the College Club. Mrs. Howe
presided. The other readers were Dr. Hale, Dr. Ames, Colonel
Higginson, J.T. Trowbridge, Judge Grant, and Nathan Haskell
Dole."
"Read for the Young Men's Christian Association. I read 'In
Arcady,' 'The Name on a Door,' and 'A June Song,' of my own
verses; then my paper on the Marstons, entitled 'Five
Friends.' People seemed pleased."
Among her numerous generous acts were to be reckoned the many times
when, without regard to herself, she assisted at readings or gave a
reading entirely by herself.
On February 19, the entry is:
"Two years ago this day Mr. Moulton passed out of life. It
was my first thought this morning, and the sadness of it has
been with me all day."
Mr. Moulton had always been to her a tower of strength. Few men were
more highly esteemed by those who knew him, or were more deserving of
esteem. He was a man of flawless integrity and the highest sense of
honor; a man of vigorous intellect, of clear and definite intellectual
grasp, and of a generous and kindly nature. He was not himself fond of
society, but he was proud of his wife's success, and ministered to her
tastes for travel and social life. His sympathy with the literary
life was genuine and strong, and his service to clean and wholesome
journalism in his editorial work gave him a lasting claim upon public
gratitude, had he chosen to assert it. Upon his sterling worth and
fine character Mrs. Moulton had always been able to depend, and life
without the consciousness of his presence in the home was a thing
different and sadder.
In a letter written about this time Mrs. Moulton again touches upon
the old question of social struggle:
"I agree with you as to the inanity of struggle for social
prominence. How fine is the passage you quote from Emerson:
'My friends come to me unsought. The great God Himself gave
them to me.' That is the way I feel. Any social struggle
seems to me so little worth while. It is worth while to know
the people who really interest one,--but the others! It is
always climbing ladders, and there are always other ladders
to climb, and one never gets to the top. And then, what will
it be if there is an 'after death'? I wonder? Will there be
social ambitions,--the desire to get ahead there? It almost
seems as if there must be, if there is the continuity of
individual existences, for what could change people's
desires and tendencies all at once?"
From various letters to the friend to whom this is written, to whom
she wrote often, may be put together here a few extracts. The letters
were seldom dated, and it is hardly possible to tell exactly when each
was written, but the exact sequence is not of importance.
"And what do you think (_entre nous_) I have been asked to
do? To go to Cambridge, England, with a party of friends who
have included Mme. Blavatsky, and they are to have some
brilliant receptions given them there by the occult folk, or
those interested. But I declined."
"Mr. ---- goes about asking every one if he has read 'The
Story of My Heart,' by Jeffries, which is his latest
enthusiasm. After being asked till I was ashamed of saying
no, I got the book and read it, finding it the most haunting
outcry of pessimism imaginable. When one has read it one
feels in the midst of a Godless, hopeless world, where
nature is hostile, and the animal kingdom alien, and man
alone with his destiny,--a destiny that menaces and appalls
him. It is a too powerful book. Jeffries makes one feel,
for the moment, that all the happy people are happy only
because insensate, and are madly dancing on volcanoes."
"Austin Dobson says: 'I have always admired your sonnets,--a
thing I can never manage; but how you do take all Gallometry
to be your province!! What are we, poor slaves to canzonets
and serenades, to do next?' Very pleasant of him."
"Last Saturday the Boyle O'Reilly monument was unveiled, and
I was chosen to crown it with a laurel wreath. It was a
wonderful occasion; and President Capen, of Tufts College,
gave the most eloquent eulogy to which I ever listened."
"My life is not the beautiful life you think, but it is my
soul's steadfast purpose to make it all that you believe it
already is. Nothing is of any real consequence save to live
up to your very highest ideal. In criticism I made up my
mind, long ago, that one should be like Swedenborg's angels,
who sought to find the good in everything. Of course, really
poor things must be condemned--or what _I_ think is
better--boycotted; but I do not like what is harsh,
prejudiced, one-sided. I would see my possible soul's
brother in every man--which all means that I am an
optimist."
"Can you tell me what Henry James means by his story, 'The
Private Life'? Is it an allegory or what? I never saw
anything so impossible to understand."
"You speak of the 'close and near friendships' you have made
in your few weeks in Florence,--'friendships for a
lifetime.' That is delightful, only I can't make friendships
with new people easily; so if I went I should not have that
pleasure."
"... Before I rose this morning, a special messenger came
from the Secretary of the Women Writers' Club (which is
giving a magnificent dinner to-night at which Mrs. Humphry
Ward presides). Miss Blackburne, the 'Hon. Secretary,' had
only heard of my being in London this morning, so she at
once sent a messenger to invite me. She entreated me to
come; said she wanted me to sit at the head of one of the
tables, and preside over that table, etc., etc. She sent a
most distinguished list of guests, and oh, I _did_ want to
go--but I felt so ill I dared not try to go, and I sent an
immediate refusal. Many of the authors whom I would like to
meet will be among the guests...."
"Here is the little screed ... about Mrs. Browning. The
description was given me by an English lady who saw Mrs.
Browning very often during Mrs. B.'s last visit to Rome. To
her such rumors as (falsely, I am persuaded) have connected
Mr. Browning's name with that of another marriage would have
seemed an impossible impertinence. Indeed, when one
knows--as I happen to know--that Mr. Browning was asked to
furnish some letters and some data about Mrs. Browning's
life for Miss Zimmern (who had been requested to write about
her for the Famous Women Series of Biographies) and refused
because he could not bring himself to speak in detail of the
past which had been so dear, or to share the sacred letters
of his wife with the public, it hardly seems that he can be
contemplating the offer of the place she, his 'moon of
poets,' held in his life, to another."
In the "little screed" alluded to was this description of Mrs.
Browning, given in the words of the friend:
"No, she was _not_ what people call beautiful; but she was
more and better. I can see her now, as she lay there on her
sofa. I never saw her sitting up. She was always in white.
She wore white dresses, trimmed with white lace, with white,
fleecy shawls wrapped round her, and her dark brown hair
used to be let down and fall all about her like a veil. Her
face used to seem to me something already not of the
earth--it was so pale, so pure, and with great dark eyes
that gleamed like stars. Then her voice was so sweet you
never wanted her to stop speaking, but it was also so low
you could only hear it by listening carefully."
"'Was Mr. Browning there?'
"Oh, yes, and he used to watch her as one watches who has
the most precious object in the whole world to keep guard
over. He looked out for her comfort as tenderly as a woman.
"I think there never was another marriage like that; a
marriage that made two poet souls one forever. Don't you
notice how Browning always speaks of finding again the 'soul
of his soul'? It was easy enough to see that that was just
what she was. And the boy was there, too, a little fellow,
with long golden hair, and I remember how quietly he used to
play, how careful he was not to disturb his mother.
Sometimes he used to stand for a long time beside her, with
her 'spirit-small hand,' as her husband called it, just
playing with his curls. I wonder if he can have known that
she was going away from him so soon."
From various letters of this time of and to Mrs. Moulton may be taken
such bits as these:
_Mrs. Moulton to Elihu Vedder_
"It was such a pleasure to me in my present loneliness to
have a good talk with you last night, and I have been
thinking of what you said. You would like a big fortune that
you might have leisure to fulfil your dreams, but what if
you had the fortune and not the dreams? I would a million
times rather be you than any capitalist alive. It seems to
me that to do work as the few great men in the world have,
that must live, is the supreme joy. When you are dust the
world will adore the wonder and majesty and beauty of your
pictures. It seems to me that I would starve willingly in an
attic, like Chatterton, to leave to the wide future one such
legacy."
_Walter Pater to Mrs. Moulton_
"I read very little contemporary poetry, finding a good deal
of it a little falsetto. I found, however, in your elegant
and musical volume a sincerity, a simplicity, which stand
you as constituting a _cachet_, a distinct note."
_Mrs. Moulton to Lady Lindsay_
"I am reading, with very unusual interest, 'Blake of Oriel,'
by Adeline Sargent. It is a story of fate and of heredity,
which sets one thinking and questioning.... Is fate also to
be complicated by the curse of evil inheritance? Oh, is it
fair to give life to one with such an inheritance of evil,
and then condemn the sinner for what he does? Is it?... Is
it a loving God who creates men foreknowing that they will
commit spiritual suicide?... Are people sinners who are
doomed by heredity to sin?"
_Arthur Christopher Benson to Mrs. Moulton_
"Thank you for what you say of my 'Arthur Hamilton.' It is
deeply gratifying to me that the book has ever so slightly
interested you. As for the difficulties of the hero, I
suppose they are the eternal difficulties. It was like my
impudent youth to think that to no one else had the same
problem been so unjustly presented before, and to rush
wildly into a tourney."
The summer of 1900 Mrs. Moulton passed abroad, going before her London
visit for the spring in Italy. She revisited familiar haunts in Rome
and Florence, and again was steeped in the enchantment of Italy. In
Rome she loved especially the gardens of the Villa Ludovisi; and
indeed, something in the solemn spell she felt in the Eternal City
appealed especially to her nature. The roses and the ruins, the
antique and the modern; churches and altars and temples, and modern
studios and society,--each, in turn, attracted her. She passed hours
in the Vatican galleries; she was fond of driving on the Pincian in
the late afternoon; she took a child's joy in the _festas_; she found
delight in the works growing under the hand of artists. Of a visit to
the studio of Mr. Story she related: "I was looking at a noble statue
of Saul, and this, recalling to me the 'Saul' of Browning, led me to
speak of the dead poet. Mr. Story then told me of his own last meeting
with Browning, which was at Asolo. It was but a short time before
Browning's death, and the two old friends were talking over all sorts
of intimate things, and finally Mr. Story entered his carriage to
drive away. Browning, who had bade him good-bye and turned away,
suddenly came back, and reached his hand into the carriage, grasping
that of Story, and looking into the sculptor's eyes exclaimed,
'Friends for forty years! Forty years without a break.' Then with a
last good-bye he turned away, and the two friends never met again."
* * * * *
After the London visit, Mrs. Moulton went for the cure at
Aix-les-Bains, perhaps as much for the delightful excursions of the
neighborhood as in any hope of help for her almost constant
ill-health. Thence she went in September to Paris, still in the full
glory of its Exposition year. While in Paris she received from
Professor Meiklejohn the comments upon her latest volume, "At the
Wind's Will." He had fallen into the custom of going over her poems
carefully, and of sending her his notes of admiration. "I still
maintain," he wrote her on this occasion, "that your brothers are the
Elizabethan lyrists, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Vaughan." Some of the
comments were these:
"In 'When Love is Young,' the line
"Time has his will of every man,
is in the strong style of the sixteenth century.
"I think the 'Dead Men's Holiday' martial and glorious.
"And the keen air stung all their lips like wine,
is the kind of line when Nature has taken the pen into her
own hand.
"What an exquisite stanza is this in 'The Summer's Queen':
"You sow the fields with lilies--wake the choir
Of summer birds to chorus of delight;
Yours is the year's deep rapture--yours the fire
That burns the West, and ushers in the night.
"The line
"Yet done with striving, and foreclosed of care,
in the sonnet entitled 'At Rest' is as good as anything of
Drayton's. You know his sonnet,
"Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part!
"Mocked by a day that shines no more on thee,
in the sonnet called 'The New Year Dawns,' is the very truth
in the strong simplicity of the Elizabethan age.
"What a wonderful line is the last one of the sonnet, 'The
Song of the Stars':
"The waking rapture, and the fair, far place."
The serenity and sweetness of Longfellow's verse are the natural
expression of a life sweet and serene; and in the work of Mrs. Moulton
the beauty of her work was in no less a measure the inevitable outcome
of her character. She wrote so spontaneously that her poems seemed, as
she used to say, "to come to her," and although she never spared the
most careful polishing, yet her song seemed to spring without effort
and almost without conscious prevision.
The literary life was to her in its outward aspect chiefly a matter of
fit and harmonious companionship. She declared that she thought "the
great charm of a literary life was that it made one acquainted with so
many delightful people." Her warm sense of the personality and
characteristics of the writers whom she met in London has been alluded
to already, and some of her words about them have been quoted in a
former chapter. Those who enjoyed the privilege of chatting with her
in her morning-room were never tired of hearing her give her
impressions of distinguished authors.
"George Meredith's talk," she said on one occasion, "is like his
books, it is so scintillating, so epigrammatic. In talking with him
you have to be swiftly attentive or you will miss some allusion or
witticism, and seem disreputably inattentive."
"Thomas Hardy," she said again, "has the face, I think, which one
would expect from his books. His forehead is so large and so fine that
it seems to be half his face. His blue eyes are kindly, but they are
extremely shrewd. You feel that he sees everything, and that because
he would always understand he would always forgive. I have heard him
called the shyest man in London, but he never impressed me so."
"I did not find George Eliot so plain a person as she is ordinarily
represented," she replied to a question about that author. "To me she
seemed to have a singularly interesting face and a lovely smile; and
one distinctive trait, one peculiarly her own, was a very gentle and
sweet deference of manner. In any difference of opinion, she always
began by agreeing with the person with whom she was conversing, as 'I
quite see that, but don't you think--' and then there would follow a
statement so supremely convincing, so comprehensive, so true, so
sweetly suggestive, that one could not help being convinced. It was
like a fair mist over a background of the greatest strength."
* * * * *
Christmas was always a season of much activity at No. 28 Rutland
Square. The tokens which Mrs. Moulton sent to friends kept her and
Katy busy long in arranging and sending; and in turn came gifts from
far and near. With her generous and friendly spirit she was fully in
sympathy with the spirit of the time. Among her Christmas gifts on
this year, was one from Louise Imogen Guiney, with these charming and
delicately humorous verses:
TO LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON
WITH A THERMOMETER AT CHRISTMAS.
Behold, good Hermes! (once a god
With errand-winglets crowned and shod),
Your silvern, sensitive, slim rod,
Still potent, still surviving;
Chill mimic of the chilly sky,
Crouched, chin on knee, morose and sly,
Where, in my luthern window's eye,
The Christmas snows are driving.
But if beside her heart you were,
And over you the smile of her,
Oh, never might the north-wind stir,
Or gleaming frost benumb her!
For you, of old, love warmth and light,
And in the calendar's despite,
This moment leaping to your height,
I know you'd swear 'tis summer!
On January 1, 1901, Mrs. Moulton records in her diary:
"Wrote a sonnet, the first in nearly or quite two years,
beginning, 'Once more the New Year mocks me with its
scorn.'"
When the poem was published, "New Year" had been changed to "morning."
The summer of this year found her again in London. Her health was
seriously affected, and at times she was a great sufferer; but when
she was able to go about among her friends she was as full of spirit
as ever. Indeed, the diary gives a surprising list of festivities
which she attended.
"Went to Lady Wynford's charming luncheon."
"Went to Edward Clifford's to see pictures, and had the
loveliest evening."
"Went to Archdeacon Wilberforce's, Mrs. Meynell's, and Mrs.
Clifford's, and dined at Annie Lane's."
"Lunch at Sir Richard Burton's at Hampstead Heath. Lady
Burton, who can never sit up, because of spinal trouble, was
charming."
"Some one--a lady who left no name--brought me charming
roses. A good many guests--Lady Wynford, Mrs. Sutherland
Orr, Canon Bell, and George Moore among them."
"Went to Lord Iddesleigh's. He gave me his first book,
'Belinda Fitzwarren.'"
To this summer belongs the following letter, which is interesting not
only in itself, but also as illustrating how the old questions of
religion followed Mrs. Moulton through life:
_Dr. E. Winchester Donald to Mrs. Moulton_
"JULY 9, 1901.
"... This place is a paradise. The Thames, from Windsor to
Henley, is a beautiful dream, sailing up and down--no
churches, no responsibilities. Consequently we New
Englanders need not urge that it is dangerous to linger long
upon its bosom. If there be no physical miasma rising from
these waters, I fear there is an ethical one.... You are
very kind and very generous. Your gift is very acceptable to
us, and in my own name and that of those whom the Church is
trying to help, I thank you with all my heart. What you have
told me of the perplexities that beset you is more than
simply interesting,--it is also revelatory of what, I fancy,
is not uncommon among the thoughtful folk. But why not fall
back deliberately on worship as distinguished from
satisfactory precision of opinion or belief? I should not be
surprised to learn that prayer has tided many people over
the bar of intellectual perplexity into the harbor of a
reasonable faith. Indeed, I know it has. The instinct of
humanity is to worship and fall down before the Lord, our
Maker. Why should we insist on having a precisely formulated
proposition as respects the nature of that Lord before we
worship? Prayer and praise form the sole common
meeting-ground of humanity. Why not come back to the Church,
not as a thoroughly satisfied holder of accurately stated
formulas, but as a soul eager to gain whatever of help,
hope, or comfort the Church has to give? You would never
repent this, I am confident. My strong wish, never stronger
than to-day, is that all of us may be receiving from God
what God is only ready to give. For our reasoned opinions we
must be intellectually intrepid and industrious. For our
possession of the peace that passeth understanding we must
be spiritually receptive and responsive."
After Mrs. Moulton's return to Boston in the autumn, the diary shows
the old round of engagements, of visits from friends, of interest in
the new books, and the writing and receiving of innumerable letters.
Mrs. Alice Meynell came to Boston in the winter as the guest of Mrs.
James T. Fields, and to her Mrs. Moulton gave a luncheon. The
Emerson-Browning club gave a pleasant reception in Mrs. Moulton's
honor, at which by request she read "The Secret of Arcady"; at one of
Mrs. Mosher's "Travel-talks" she read by invitation "The Roses of La
Garraye"; and with occasions of this sort the winter was dotted.
In a note written that spring to Mrs. John Lane is this pleasant
passage:
"Frances Willard's mother was in her eighties,--she was on
her death-bed--it was, I think, the day before she died, and
her daughter said to her, 'Well, mother, if you had your
life to live over again, I don't think you would want to do
anything differently from what you have done.' The dear old
lady turned her gray head on the pillow, and smiled, and
said, 'Oh, yes; if I had my life to live over again, I would
praise a great deal more and blame a great deal less.' I
always thought it lovely to have felt and said."
In London in this summer of 1902 she notes in her diary that she went
to the dinner of the Women Writers. Later, she was given a luncheon by
the Society of American Women in London. She sat, of course, on the
right of the president, Mrs. Griffin, and next to her was placed Lady
Annesley, "who seemed to me," she said afterward, "the most beautiful
woman I had ever seen." She gave a little dinner to which she invited
Whistler, who accepted in the following terms:
_J. McNeill Whistler to Mrs. Moulton_
96 CHEYNE ROAD.
DEAR LOUISE: I accept your invitation with great pleasure,
and how kind and considerate of you to make it eight-thirty.
I really believe I shall reach you, not only in good time,
but in the unruffled state of mind and body that is utterly
done away with in the usual scramble across country, racing
hopelessly for the "quarter to."...
Yours sincerely,
J. McN. W.
When in her Boston home Mrs. Moulton was seldom, in later years,
allured far afield. She thought little of a journey to Europe, but
avoided even an hour's journey "out of town." She had in London,
however, come to be fond of the lady who became Mrs. Truman J. Martin,
of Buffalo, N.Y., and to her had written the lyric, "A Song for
Rosalys"; and she made an exception to her usual custom to visit her
friend in her American home. A Buffalo journal remarks on the
occurrence with the true floridness of society journalism:
"The event of the week _par excellence_ has been the arrival
in Buffalo of that gifted writer and eminent woman--Mrs.
Louise Chandler Moulton of Boston. Mrs. Moulton arrived on
Monday evening, and is the guest of her friend, Mrs. Truman
J. Martin of North Street, where she is resting after a
season of excessive literary work and many social
obligations.... Mrs. Moulton has a striking personality. The
years have touched lightly her heart and features, her
strongest characteristic being a heartiness and sincerity
and warmth that come to a great soul who has enjoyed and
suffered much and who has dipped into the deepest of life's
grand experiences. She dresses handsomely and somewhat
picturesquely, elegant laces and rich velvet and silks
forming themselves into her expressive attire."
The reporter goes on to describe a reception given to Mrs. Moulton by
her hostess at which a local club known as the Scribblers was
represented:
"Flowers were everywhere in the house, bowls and vases of
white carnations. 'The Scribblers' flowers, and roses and
lilies for 'Rosalys,' Mrs. Martin's middle name, and which
she still retains--'Charlotte Rosalys Jones,' as her pen
name.... Mrs. Moulton was dressed in black satin, with
elegant rose-point lace and diamonds.... The real delight
of the afternoon came when Mrs. Moulton took up a little
bundle of her poems, special selections of Mrs. Martin's,
and read with great expression some of the sublime,
pathetic, and passionate thoughts that have endeared this
writer to the English reading world and placed her among the
foremost of American writers. Mrs. Moulton's voice is of
peculiar timbre, and reveals to the intelligent listener a
character of the finest mould, suffering intensely through
the inevitable decrees of a fate not too kind to the most
favored, and a wealth of love and devotion that is
immeasurable."
The hostess might be English, but the description of the entertainment
could hardly be more American.
Mrs. Moulton mentioned that during this visit she met Mrs. Charles
Rohlfs (Anna Katherine Green), and had an opportunity of saying that
she had enjoyed that writer's novels. Like Mrs. Browning, who declared
that she "slept with her pillows stuffed with novels," Mrs. Moulton
was a confirmed reader of fiction. She read them at seventy with the
zest of seventeen, and took "cruel endings" quite to heart.
Among the letters of the winter is an amusing note from Secretary
John Hay, accompanying a copy of the "Battle of the Books," and
saying: "Don't ask how I obtained it! I am proud to say in a strictly
dishonest manner!" An invitation from Miss Anne Whitney, too, asking
her to dine, and assuring her that she "will meet some friends without
strikingly bad traits"; and many epistles from which pleasant bits
might be taken. An interesting letter from Alice Brown refers to the
subject of death, and in allusion to her friend, Louise Imogen Guiney,
Miss Brown says: "So if you go before Louise and me, it will only be
to begin another spring somewhere else,--gay as the daffodils. I hope
you'll keep your habit of singing there, and we shall all love to love
and love to serve." A letter of Bliss Carman's thus refers to Miss
Guiney:
_Bliss Carman to Mrs. Moulton_
"... Have you seen that perfect thing of Louise Imogen
Guiney's with the lines,--
"And children without laughter lead
The war-horse to the watering.
"Isn't that the gold of poetry? She ought to have a triumph
on the Common, and a window in Memorial Hall.... Do you see
that faun of Auburndale?"
On New Year's Day, 1903, the diary records: "First of all I wrote a
sonnet--'Why Do I never See You in My Dreams?'"
* * * * *
The summer was passed in London as usual, but with, if possible, more
festivities than ever. The diary records:
"Went to Lady Seton's luncheon party--of I think twenty--a
very pleasant affair in honor of Mr. Howells and his
daughter. I sat next to Mr. Howells and had a good talk with
him."
"Went to the luncheon at the Cecil, given by the Society of
American Women in London in honor of Ambassador and Mrs.
Reid and Mr. and Mrs. Longworth."
"Went in the evening to the Women Writers' dinner. I sat at
Mrs. Craigie's table."
"Went to the Lyceum Club Saturday dinner. Lady Frances
Balfour presided."
"Went to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts' garden-party. Oh,
Holly Lodge is such a beautiful place!"
"Went to Irving's dinner at the New Gallery. Sir Edward
Russell, editor of the _Daily Post_, Liverpool, took me out;
and a delightful companion he was."
"Many guests: Mrs. Wilberforce, Lady Henry Somerset, Mrs.
Henniker, the Pearsall Smiths, William Watson, Oswald
Crawfurd, 'Michael Field' (that is to say Miss Bradley and
Miss Cooper), Violet Hunt, Mr. and Mrs. Clement Shorter,
Archdeacon and Mrs. Wilberforce, and many more."
As the years went on, bringing her to the verge of seventy, Mrs.
Moulton's literary activity naturally grew greatly less. The record of
her life for the following years was largely a record of friendships,
with the enjoyments and honors which belonged to her place among
American writers. She was asked often to write her reminiscences of
the many distinguished people she had known, but always declined. "I
have, alas! kept no records," she wrote to one editor. She was
naturally asked to be present at any literary function of importance.
She was a guest at the dinner given by the New England Women's Club in
1905, in honor of Mrs. Howe's eighty-fifth birthday, and notes that it
was "a brilliant meeting," and adding: "Mrs. Howe had written a gay
little poem in response, wonderful woman that she is." The dinner
given in honor of Mark Twain's seventieth birthday was the last great
occasion of the kind which she attended. In the following year she
returned from Europe just too late to join in the dinner given by the
Harpers on the seventieth birthday of Dr. Alden. Not only for her
literary standing and as an old friend of Dr. Alden would it have been
appropriate for her to be present on this occasion; but she might also
have appeared as his first contributor, as some thirty years earlier,
Dr. Alden's first official act upon assuming the chair as editor of
_Harper's Magazine_ had been to accept a contribution from Mrs.
Moulton.
In the letters of this period are to be found the truest records of
what most interested Mrs. Moulton and best expressed her personality.
Unfortunately she often asked that her letters should be destroyed, so
that no selection which may now be brought together does her complete
justice. The letters she received, however, reflect in many ways those
to which they replied; and extracts from them may be left to speak for
themselves.
_Louise Imogen Guiney to Mrs. Moulton_
"... On an awfully wild and windy day of last week I struck
off for Highgate over Hampstead Heath, and got so drenched
additionally in the memories of the men who reign over me,
Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Hunt, that I declare
now I must live there a while. Coleridge's tomb I knew to be
under the crypt of the Grammar School, and I found the
Gilmans' house where he died, thanks to the only knowledge
that I seem to have had from everlasting. The tomb is a
queer piece of masonry, so placed that you may put your hand
within an inch of his coffin. After some exploring and
inquiring, George Eliot's grave turned up in the new grounds
of Highgate Cemetery, where I suppose poor Philip Marston's
must be. Her grave is an entirely unconventional affair, to
the memory of Mary Ann Cross. I caught myself wondering
whether there were any special reason for laying that great
soul (here is some theological inaccuracy!) in so narrow and
crowded a space, when suddenly I shifted my position, and
saw that she was lying directly at the feet of George Henry
Lewes, born August 4, 1817, died December 30, 1878. It gave
me a queer sensation, I tell you, for Lewes' marble is half
hidden and not visible from the path. If it were George
Eliot's wish, honor to Mr. Cross for carrying it out!"
"Some agreeable witchery, sure to be transient, is about me
to-day, for I've made a 'pome,' the first since winter, and
patched up a trivial old one,--both of which I send you as
a slight token that I may get out of Bedlam yet. The sonnet
I want you to cherish, it is so abominably pessimistic...."
"I have been luxuriating in 'Atalanta.'... That is my
springtime. There is no such music and motion and solemn
gladness anywhere in modern verse. In a year or two more I
shall know it by heart from cover to cover.... And here is
England knee-deep in green and daisies; England piled with
ruined Abbey walls."
"I have two refreshments to chronicle,--one is Irving's
'Becket,' and not the stock-still, curiously inefficient
play, but just Irving's 'Becket,' otherwise 'St. Thomas of
Canterbury,' a flash and a breath from Heaven. Where does
that actor get his gift of everything spiritual and
supernatural? His charm to me is that he has great moral
power,--either inherent from the noble mind ... or else
acquired by art so subtle that I never got hold of the
like.... Surely, not everybody can see so into a character
... and measure its astonishing depth in humanity and
divinity."
_Archdeacon Wilberforce to Mrs. Moulton_
"DEAR MRS. CHANDLER-MOULTON: Thank you for your letter. On
page 237, of the book I send you, I have answered your
question 'Why cannot God make people good in the first
instance.' Because even God can only make things by means of
the process by which they become what they are. God could
not make a hundred-year-old tree in your garden in one
minute. He cannot make a moral being except through the
processes by means of which a moral being becomes what he
is. What does Walt Whitman say?
"Our life is closed, our life begins.
And again:
"In the divine ship, the World hasting Time and Space,
All People of the globe together sail, sail the same voyage,
are bound for the same destination...."
_Miss Robbins to Mrs. Moulton_
96 MT. VERNON ST.,
January 23, 1906.
MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: This little note from Dean Hodges
belongs to you rather than to me. If you had never written
anything else all your life but this beautiful "Help Thou
Mine Unbelief," you have done something worth living for,
something truly great.
And now to explain a little. I was glad to meet Dean Hodges
at your house, and I asked him if among your poems he knew
this one that I so prized. I told him that I had shown it to
Dr. Momerie, who murmured, after reading it: "It is finer,
it is, than 'Lead, Kindly Light.'" Dr. Momerie then went on
to say there were only half a dozen good hymns, and that
this was one of them. As Dean Hodges did not know the poem,
I offered to copy it for him, as I have done for several
people before, and now this is his reply. Such praise from
such a man is praise indeed!
I had such an interesting time at your house, meeting such
interesting people, but what I wanted most was a
_tête-à-tête_ with my interesting hostess. I always want to
know you better.
Believe me, dear Mrs. Moulton,
Always yours,
JULIA ROBBINS.
_Dean Hodges to Miss Robbins_
[_Enclosed_]
THE DEANERY, CAMBRIDGE,
January 22, 1906.
DEAR MISS ROBBINS: I cannot thank you enough for these
devout and helpful verses of Mrs. Moulton's. I have read and
re-read them,--every time with new appreciation. They belong
to the great hymns.
It was a pleasure to meet you, and one I hope to have again.
Faithfully yours,
GEORGE HODGES.
_Dr. Hale to Mrs. Moulton_
APRIL 5, 1906.
DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I thank you indeed for the kind
expression of memories and hopes which calls up so much from
the past and looks forward so cheerfully into the future....
No, as life goes on with us, we do not rest as often as I
should like. But that is the special good of a milestone
like this,--it gives us a chance to look backward and
forward.
This note has carried me back to an old friend, Phillips,
the publisher, who died too early for the rest of us. You
will not remember it, but he introduced me to you. I wonder
if you can know how highly he prized your literary work?
With thanks for your kind note, dear Mrs. Moulton,
I am always yours,
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
Mrs. Moulton's visit to London in the summer of 1906 was her last.
While her health forced her to decline most invitations, she still saw
her numerous friends in quiet, intimate ways, and was made to feel
their abiding affection.
On her birthday of this year she received, with a single red rose,
this poem from the late Arthur Upson:
Does a rose at the bud-time falter
To think of the Junes gone by?
Shall our love of the red rose alter
Because it so soon must die?
Nay, for the beauty lingers
Though the symbols pass away--
The rose that fades in my fingers,
The June that will not stay.
I used to mourn their fleetness,
But years have taught me this:
A memory wakes their sweetness,
The hope of them, their bliss.
They are not themselves the treasure,
But they signal and they suggest
Imperishable pleasure,
Inviolable rest!
Among the Christmas gifts which she made this year was a copy of "At
the Wind's Will," which she sent to Miss Sarah Holland Adams, the
accomplished essayist and translator from the German. It was thus
acknowledged:
_Miss Adams to Mrs. Moulton_
"DEAR MRS. MOULTON: Your beautiful little book is a dear
thing. I thank you for sympathy in the loss of my only
brother. I am writing to the publisher for your 'Garden of
Dreams.' I've never read it and now I need to live in
dreams. Do you know Swinburne's lines on the death of Barry
Cornwall? No poem ever haunted me like this. The tone of it,
even in my brightest moods, seemed to color my words. Of
course this must be imagination, but the last lines are so
dear,--
"For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell,
Tho' the dead to our dead bid welcome--and we, farewell."
"Later.
"How kind, how generous you are, to send me this precious
volume! I find many fine poems in it and only wish I could
hear you read them."
And so, as always before, on all the New Years of all her lovely life,
the old year went out and the New Year came in to the music of
gracious words. Her life, marking the calendar with kindly deeds and
beautiful thought, leaves as its legacy
... the assurance strong
That love, which fails of perfect utterance here,
Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere
With its immortal song.