wearing pinafores. It came about in this way: she and a playmate lost
their temper, and, forgetting that they were little gentlewomen, began
to fight like two waifs with no family dignity to uphold. Kate got
her frock torn, and later when her mother asked her the cause of the
quarrel, she handed her a paper, with a tragic air, saying, "read this,
it will tell you all."
She was not universally popular as a child, for she manifested a
precociousness that separated her, in large measure, from her kind;
but she attracted strongly those whom she really liked and was, at
an early age, the queen of a little coterie of her own. In childhood
she was distinguished for loyalty, a ready wit and a keen sense of
humor; qualities that made the warp and woof of her nature, and but
strengthened when the maid was merged in the woman.
Her education was conducted under her father's eye, and as he pressed
the chalice to eager lips, little did he guess that he was entertaining
genius unawares. At school she could not have been accounted a hard
student. Her mind slaked its thirst at the pure fountain of the muses;
history was a joy, literature a delight, and the composition, a task
hated by most of her schoolmates, a pleasant pastime; but she looked
askance at the sciences, and pronounced life too short for geometry.
During her last year at school she wrote an allegory. It is the work
of a tyro in art, but was regarded by her schoolmates a remarkable
production.
The morning of her life was bright, and with father, mother, sister,
brother, around the family hearth, each passing day brought added
happiness. Even the dark clouds that began to lower in the North, ere
she passed the limits of girlhood, did not bring sadness, for she
with many older heads in the South failed to comprehend what these
foreshadowed. But she was now to receive the baptism of sorrow, and to
gain through suffering needed training and added strength.
"Who tears to other eyes would bring
Must first have tasted sorrow."
She was just sixteen, she had written something and it had been
accepted, her heart was aglow with visions of the future, when the
desolating blow fell upon her home. The much loved mother was taken
from her, the rude shock and turmoil of war being too much for that
gentle spirit.
We find this entry in Sherwood Bonner's scrapbook in her own hand:
"First story ever published, aged fifteen, _Boston Ploughman_, twenty
dollars." Underneath, the story is pasted in. It was called "Laura
Capello, A Leaf from a Traveler's Notebook." It is a mystery story,
highly melodramatic and crude, but containing the promise of a rich
fulfillment as the bud contains the rose. It deals with the lot of a
young girl whose life is the fruit of unhallowed love. The scene is
laid in Italy, the land of mystery, and the story is given to the world
by a young American artist, whom a capricious fate enmeshes, and make
an unwilling actor in the drama. The sketch shows dramatic power, and
abounds in vivid description.
Mr. Nahum Capen, the author of "The Republic of the United States,"
"History of Democracy," and other works, was at this time connected
with _The Ploughman_. He was the friend of Longfellow, Lowell and
Emerson, and was selected by Hawthorne as the first one to read his
first book, which appeared anonymously. He was the intimate friend
and adviser also of Irving. Under his tutelage Sherwood Bonner first
essayed Grub street, and he never ceased to take a keen interest in
her, and was to the day of her death her trusted adviser and friend.
He urged her to write, and encouraged her work with kindly, but
discriminating words of praise. "Laura Capello" was followed by "A
Flower of the South," published in a musical journal. Somewhat later
a piece called "An Exposition on one of the Commandments" was sent to
_Frank Leslie's Journal_.
In 1871, Sherwood Bonner became the wife of Mr. Edward McDowell, a
gentleman of refinement and liberal culture; like his wife he was a
native of Holly Springs. The young wife assumed with earnestness the
responsibilities of the new life and when her husband determined to
try his fortune in the frontier state of Texas, she went with him
into a country that was little better than a wilderness. But the
venture failed and the young people returned to Holly Springs poorer
in purse than when they left. A daughter was born to them, and for
her child henceforth the mother in large measure seemed to live. Like
George Sand, she found in motherhood love's deepest expression. At
this crisis of affairs, the young wife and mother recalled her talent,
and remembering the kind words that had come to her from Boston, she
determined to go thither, and try her fortune with her pen. In Boston
she became a member of Mr. Capen's family, and under his eye, and with
his encouragement, continued her work.
She had the gift of clear vision, and at once perceived that the
defects of her early training must be overcome if she was to write
that which the world would read; so she studied closely, books, men
and manners. The North received her lucubrations with a criticism that
was in the main kindly, and ere long she had made for herself a place
in "The Moral Lighthouse" as she playfully denominates Boston. After
several years she was able to have with her her child and the aunt
who since her mother's death had striven to supply her place. But she
counted that she was only sojourning in the North. The place of her
birth she ever spoke of as "home," and a portion of each year she spent
amidst the dear familiar scenes.
Soon after going North she met the poet Longfellow. He recognized
her talent, became her warm personal friend, and lent her aid and
encouragement in her work. She in turn seemed to impart new vigor
to the white-haired poet. She became his private secretary and
collaborator. At her suggestion he compiled "Poems of Places, Southern
States," and she assisted in this work. It is a quaint conceit of the
poet which causes him to treat the South as a separate country. In that
interesting book, "Poets' Homes," appears a description of Longfellow's
home written by her. It is given the place of honor in the book, but
by a strange oversight no credit is given to the author. In one of her
early letters from Boston, published in the _Memphis Avalanche_ she
writes: "A great man and a poet, who enjoys the additional distinction
of being my very good friend, read my first letter written for your
columns, with an evident amusement, which he made a commendable effort
to suppress. 'This is too bad,' frowned he, between smiles, 'don't do
it again. Write about the good side of Boston next time.'"
She wrote a number of letters for Southern newspapers in a style that
the ordinary newspaper man would strive in vain to emulate, though
she regarded the letters as mere potboilers. They give interesting
accounts of the happenings in Boston, and her impressions of Boston's
great men: Emerson, William Lloyd Garrison, Oliver Wendell Holmes and
Wendell Philips. She says of Boston: "For the native Bostonian there
are three paths to glory. If his name be Quincy or Adams, nothing more
is expected of him. His blue blood carries him through life with glory
and straight to heaven when he dies. Failing in the happy accident of
birth, the candidate for Beacon Hill honors must write a book. This is
easy. The man who can breathe Boston air and not write a book is either
a fool or a phenomenon. One course remains to him should he miss fame
in both these lines. He must be a reformer."
She thus speaks of her meeting with Mr. Emerson: "The unaffected charm
of Mr. Emerson's manner soon restored me to my normal serenity, and the
interview progressed delightfully for both of us. He has the purest and
most refined face I have ever seen, and his smile is something to be
remembered forever. Of course we spoke of the South, and he expressed
the opinion that the Southern man had a more elegant manner and a finer
physical frame than the Northerner, but must generally yield the palm
in intellect. And to this I assented sorrowfully enough, recalling as I
did, the small returns from the stock I took in a certain Philo club,
where I spent the ambrosial evenings of my life and pinned my faith to
several masculine coat sleeves of intellectual giants pro tempore,
who would have brought my tawny hair down in sorrow to the grave--if I
hadn't taken the pin out.
"Mr. Emerson has a way of looking off into the distance as he speaks
or listens which is very poetic and beautiful. I liked it, but yet I
was not happy, for I had a knot of purple violets in my hair, and I
distrusted this way of appreciating them. I don't wear violets every
day; nor for the Colonel who talks politics to me; nor for the young
preacher who propounds chemical conundrums. And so they meant something
in this case! perhaps to subtly express the homage of a Southern heart,
that I had no skill to put into words. I dare say, however, the great
man received a general impression of sweetness and perhaps it is well
he did not trace it to outside influences.
"On the whole, Mr. Emerson personally strikes me as one who might
falsify that comprehensive saying that no man is a hero to his valet,
as I cannot imagine him under any circumstances other than the
consistent high-toned man, who beyond all scholarship and learning
'Still may hear without abuse
That Grand old name of gentleman.'"
She thus describes her impressions of Carl Schurz, the occasion on
which she saw him being a Sumner memorial meeting: "He is German
in accent but not in appearance. His full whiskers are red, not
blonde. And his features have none of the Teutonic heaviness, but
are rather characterized by the sagacious sharpness of the American.
The eulogy was very fine, and repeated bursts of applause testified
to the enthusiasm of the audience. Most especially I must note the
warm and hearty reception accorded that part of the address in which
Mr. Schurz spoke of the noble and manly stand taken by Mr. Lamar, of
Mississippi, and paid a just tribute to his brilliant eloquence, which
was especially grateful to my Southern pride."
In the following paragraph she gives her Southern readers a pen picture
of her poet friend:
"Longfellow was there from his beautiful historic home. Bret Harte
calls him his 'ideal poet,' and as one looks upon his gracious,
benignant face, framed in silvery hair, and reverently notes the broad
thoughtful brow, and the eyes from which love toward all mankind seemed
to beam, it is easy to comprehend how the perfect harmony between the
man and his works should win from one, a poet himself, the highest
praise he could possibly bestow."
In her stories Longfellow suggested that she write of the life around
her, but she chose, and wisely, the life of the South that she knew
best, and the poet admitted in the end that her instinct had led her
aright. Before '76 she wrote some of the "Gran-mammy Stories" and other
short sketches that found a ready sale. Longfellow said that she would
be "the American writer of the future."
Eleven years after "Laura Capello" was written its author visited the
scenes where the plot was laid. She enjoyed deeply this foreign travel,
and has left a partial record of it in her letters published in Boston
and Southern papers, and in her private correspondence. She writes thus
to a friend from Rome: "I am living every hour, never have I known days
of such enchantment; Roman violets that make the air sweet, Roman fleas
that bite with a Swinburne ardor, Roman donkeys that bray in the early
morning, Roman shops that bewilder with their gems, shopmen who will
make you buy whether you will or no; even in these delights I revel,
so what can I say of the pictures, the statues, the ruins of Rome? Do
you remember how my Lilian exhausted her raptures after the first layer
of her box, and sat afterwards in a mute adoring ecstasy? Think of
Lilian's mother in the same position."
Several days were spent by her party at a little coast town in France.
At times the hours lagged, so the little group, like the young people
in the _Decameron_, devised game and story to amuse themselves.
Sherwood Bonner showed herself the most fruitful of device, and
became the leader in the sport. She devised a game that was played
with avidity. The loser each time was supposed to pay the forfeit by
taking his life with his own hands. A wan young Scotsman who had been
"Ordered South" chanced to be one of the party and participated in the
game. For the rest it was a pleasing pastime, but for him it had a
tragic suggestion, for at that time Robert Louis Stevenson--it was no
less than he--had begun that hand to hand conflict with disease that
terminated fatally twenty years later. It is thought that he received
from this game the suggestion of that very unusual story of his, "The
Suicide Club."
Home at last came this busy working bee after her flitting in distant
lands. "The Crest of the White Hat," "Rosine's Story," and other
sketches show the effect of this foreign travel. The years following
were filled with hard work; ever attaining, but never quite satisfied,
she strove to make each piece better than the last. During this period
she wrote a clever characterization in verse of "The Radical Club,"
which set all Boston to laughing.
Sometimes she had her hours of despondency as when she wrote a friend,
"Put up a tablet for me in case I join the mermaids and write on it,
Death came to set me free,
I met him cheerily
As my true friend."
During the summer of '78 yellow fever raged in many parts of the South.
The citizens of Holly Springs with a noble disregard for consequences
offered an asylum to the refugees from the stricken town of Grenada; in
this way the plague was introduced, and of the first hundred who took
the fever only ten survived.
Sherwood Bonner was in the North at the time, but she at once hurried
to Holly Springs to urge her loved ones to seek a place of safety. But
the old physician would not go and his son remained with him; they were
soon stricken with fever; she nursed by their bedside during the weary
hours of their sickness and they died in her arms on the same day. She
escaped the disease, but left Holly Springs broken in health from her
constant vigils, and wounded in spirit. She wrote an account of the
plague for _The Youth's Companion_, from which the following extract
is taken: "It is not alone to see loved ones die; it is to dread their
dying kiss. It is not to watch the dear dead face until the coffin
lid is closed above it, but to turn, shuddering, from the face where
you can see waves of change follow each other, until it has become a
yellow transfigured mask. It is not to see the folded hand clasping
flowers, the dear forms enshrouded in fresh grave-clothes, nor to see
them laid away with prayers uttered above them and friends standing
by with uncovered heads, but it is to know--with what intensity of
horror!--that these forms are changed to a poison so deadly, that death
can be tasted in the air around them, and love itself shrinks from
rendering its last sad offices. It is to know that they are buried,
wrapped hastily in sheets, sometimes uncoffined, hurried to deep
graves, without friends, or mourners, or care, by hirelings, who slight
and dread their task."
After the publication of "Like unto Like" she found ready publishers.
Mr. Conant, the editor of _Harper's Weekly_, said to her, "I accept
your articles now without reading them in advance, your signature is
enough." Enduring fame was hers if she could only live to grasp it,
but ere the noon hour was reached, the worker was laid low. She began
to feel the approach of an insidious disease, which she strove in vain
to throw off. Not wishing to distress her loved ones she spoke of it
to only a few friends, who finally persuaded her to consult the best
medical authority. The physician when he saw her perfect physique
expressed his surprise at her coming. He made the examination, but
hesitated to state the result. She would have the whole truth and he
pronounced her death sentence, telling her that she had but a single
year of life. She met her fate with fortitude, and determined to make
the most of the few remaining months, in order to provide a competency
for the loved ones that she must soon leave.
She worked on to the very gates of death, her courage never forsaking
her; and even when her good right hand was useless she continued to
dictate to an amanuensis, and was satisfied with nothing short of the
best work.
February 14, 1883, she wrote:
A LONGED-FOR VALENTINE
Come to my aching heart, my weary soul,
And give my thoughts once more their vanquished will;
That I may strive and feel again the thrill
Of bounding hope, to reach its fartherest goal.
Not Love, though sweet as that which Launcelot stole,
Nor Beauty, happy as a dancing rill,
Nor Gold poured out from some fond miser's till,
Nor yet a name on Fame's immortal scroll--
But what I ask, O gracious Lord, from Thee,
If to Thy throne my piteous cry can reach,
When stricken down like tempest-riven tree,
Too low for prayer to wreak itself in speech,
Is but the fair gift--ah, will it e'er be mine?
My long lost Health for my dear Valentine.
A dear friend writes of the closing days of her life: "During her
hours of suffering, her bravery, her patience, and her heroism were
extraordinary. One who watched by her dying bed said: 'I have seen her
smile when it would have been a relief to see her cry.' She uttered
no complaint and no one heard her repine. One day she gaily asked her
friends what would be a suitable inscription for her tomb-stone; and
from several that had been suggested she selected this, 'She was much
loved.' Surely no words could furnish a more fitting epitaph for the
young life that had done so much, enjoyed so much, suffered so much, in
a little more than thirty years." The end came July 22, 1883.
Sherwood Bonner cast the witchery of her personal charm over all who
surrounded her. Nature formed her to command, to love and to be loved.
In childhood she was slight, but in womanhood she possessed a perfect
physique. Hers was no usual beauty; her features were refined, but not
regular: her complexion a delicate pink and white; expressive blue
eyes, her hair an indescribable shade of auburn and very heavy; an
exquisite mouth and chin; and a hand that would have been a sculptor's
joy.
The poet Longfellow in a poem dedicated to her thus describes her:
"A cloud-like form that floateth on with the soft undulating gait
Of one who moveth, as if motion were a pleasure."
Her heart was always true to the friends of her youth, and when they
visited the North she was ever ready to introduce them to the circle
of which she was so prominent a member. Adulation did not spoil her
for she had the artist's perception with her woman's heart. Hers was
a trenchant tongue and a stinging wit, but like the Venusian bard she
was quite as ready to hold up her own foibles to ridicule as those of
others.
She lived for her child, and nothing from her pen is more charming than
the references to her in letters to friends, hitherto unpublished. In
one of them she writes: "Now for my baby, she certainly is the most
perfect child in the world. No human being knows how I love the little
thing. Every plan of my life bears upon her future, and so long as she
is left me, nothing can ever make me unhappy again."
We may not judge of her literary work as of a finished product. It is
rather like a sculptor's dream that is but half realized. Lips are
parted as if for speech, eyes look wistfully towards the East; but the
figure is still restrained in its marble prison, and we wonder why the
sculptor was stricken, the task unfinished.
But this unfinished work was fraught with rich promise. She probably
wrote the first story of any writer that belongs to the distinctively
Southern school. She wrote before '77 some of "The Gran'mammy Stories,"
and these seem to be the first negro dialect stories published in a
Northern journal, and thus speaking to the whole country. She wrote in
'78 "Like unto Like," a story that has to do with the reconstruction
period. Into this field Cable came later, and Page selected it as a
fitting period in which to locate his most ambitious work, "Red Rock."
Only one writer before her had attempted to work this virgin soil,
Baker in "Colonel Dunwoddie, Millionaire." In this book she refers
to the "Tar Baby Story," which she published several years later in
_Harper's Monthly_. She wrote some excellent dialect stories of the
Tennessee mountains, thus doing pioneer work in a field which Miss
Murfree has made so peculiarly her own. She spent some time beginning
in 1880, in that portion of Illinois known as Egypt; and "On the
Nine-Mile," and "Sister Weeden's Prayer" illuminate this dark world.
These stories and a number of others were written in the dialect
peculiar to this region. Of "Sister Weeden's Prayer" in the "new"
dialect _The Nation_ spoke in most complimentary terms. She seems to
have been the first to give to the vernacular of this region literary
treatment, thus doing for Illinois what Eggleston and Riley have done
for Indiana.
Her principal writings may be grouped as follows: Early pieces,
'64-'73;--Letters from Boston and Europe, '74-'76;--Short Stories
published in periodicals between '73 and '83; a number of these were
collected after the death of the author and reprinted in a volume
entitled "Suwanee River Tales"[1] (There are many excellent sketches in
this little book, but the best are those in which Gran'mammy figures);
to this period of her life belong "Miss Willard's Two Rings,"[2] and
"From '60 to '65"[3];--"Like unto Like,"[4] a novel, "The Valcours,"[5]
a novelette, "The Revolution in the Life of Mr. Balingall,"[6] "Two
Storms,"[7] "A Volcanic Interlude,"[8] appeared between '78 and '83.
She wrote during these years besides, a number of dialect stories
dealing with negro character, the mountaineers of East Tennessee, and
the denizens of the Western prairie. "Hieronymus Pop and the Baby,"
"The Case of Eliza Blelock" and "Lame Jerry" are all strong sketches.
Some of these stories have appeared in book form.[9]
The "Gran'mammy Stories"[10] reveal with force and beauty the
characteristics of the old Southern "mammy," who deserves a modest
place with "The chaste and sage Dame Eurycleia" and fair Juliet's
nurse; and Sherwood Bonner has made posterity her debtor by preserving
the lineaments of this picturesque personage whose place formerly was
of so much consequence in the Southern home. But let the author unfold
her character:
"In our Southern home we were very fond of our old colored mammy, who
had petted and scolded and nursed and coddled, ---- yes, and spanked
us,--from the time we were born."
She was not a 'black mammy,' for her complexion was the color of clear
coffee; and we did not call her 'mammy' but 'gran'mammy' because she
had nursed our mother when a delicate baby,--loving her foster child, I
believe, more than her own, and loving us for our dear mother's sake.
She was all tenderness when we were wee toddlers, not more than able
to clutch at the great gold hoops in her ears, or cling to her ample
skirts like little burrs; but she showed a sharper side as we grew old
enough to 'bother round the kitchen' with inquisitive eyes and fingers
and tongues. I regret to say that she sometimes called us 'limbs' and
would wonder with many a groan and shake of her head, how we contrived
to hold so much of the Evil One in our small frames.
"'I never seed sich chillern in all my born days,' she cried one day,
when Ruth interrupted her in the midst of custard making, to beg leave
to get into the kettle of boiling soap that she might be clean once
for all, and never need another bath; while Sam, on the other side,
entreated that she would make three 'points' of gravy with the fried
chicken for dinner. (Sam always came out strong on pronunciation; his
very errors leaned to virtue's side.)
"'I 'clar to gracious,' said poor gran'mammy, 'you'll drive all de
sense clean outen my head. How Miss Mary 'xpec's me ter git a dinner
fitten fur white folks ter eat, wid you little onruly sinners _furever_
under foot, is mo' dan I kin say. An' here's Leah an' Rachel, my own
gran-chillern, a no mo' use ter me dan two tar babies.'
* * * * *