SOME PAINTERS AND POETS
I would as soon listen to a lecture on Art as to smell music, or to
eat the receipt of a plum pudding.
W. M. HUNT.
William Hunt is the first artist I remember to have known. I have
visions of him mounted on a tall hunter, galloping over the Newport
beach, and on the Brighton Road, driving a fast trotter in a racing
buggy. My clearest early impression, however, is of the day I went with
my mother to visit the Hunts at Readville. We were shown into the coach
house, a large airy room fragrant of new pine. An easel stood in one
corner; opposite was the grand piano; the third corner held a table with
a Persian bowl filled with roses; in the fourth, hung saddles and a rack
full of riding crops. Mr. Hunt had built his stable before his house,
and here the family lived for at least one summer.
Mrs. Hunt, tall and graceful in white muslin, with scarlet flowers in
her dark hair, came forward to meet my mother, exclaiming, “My dear
friend, how glad I am to see you!” Her voice, deep as an organ note, had
a peculiar musical timbre.
Each of the Hunt children occupied a box stall fitted up as a bedroom.
They made me welcome and took me to see the farm. It was a hot July day;
Mr. Hunt had left his work to lend a hand to the haymakers. He stood on
the top of a fragrant load, vigorously pitching hay into the loft. He
had thrown off his coat and worked in his shirt sleeves. He wore a soft
felt hat and a scarlet sash like an Italian _vignajuolo’s_. I saw his
keen face, with the hawklike aristocratic nose and piercing eyes,
through a storm of long gray beard and yellow hay as he worked
feverishly, while hardly brighter than his eyes, the big diamond on his
finger flashed in the sun.
This must have been soon after the Civil War, for his work at this time
breathed the spirit of that struggle. The best of his war pictures is
“The Bugler”, a virile figure of a trumpeter on horseback in the dress
of the Union army. The handling of the horse recalls Henri Regnault’s
“Steeds of Achilles” at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Another of
Hunt’s popular war pictures was “The Drummer Boy”, a lad with torn shirt
and bare legs, rolling out with his drumsticks the call,
“To arms, Freemen!”
A pretty sketch of the artist’s little girls playing “hospital nurses”
was a prime favorite of mine. In the dining room at Oak Glen hang signed
lithographs of “The Bugler”, “The Violet Seller”, and “The Woman at the
Fountain.” Hunt himself made these faithful reproductions.
Years later I saw Hunt’s masterpieces, “The Discoverer” and “The Flight
of Night”, in the Albany State Capitol before they were destroyed by the
settling of the foundations. The designs fortunately are preserved, but
not a vestige remains of the two magnificent frescoes that once glowed
in the spaces above the windows of the Senate Chamber.
Hunt’s “Talks on Art” were taken down by his scholar, Miss Knowlton, as
he flung them out, walking about the studio and criticizing his pupil’s
work. The first volume opens thus:
“Drawing?”
“Yes, or trying.”
“All anybody can do is to _try_! Nobody ever _does_ anything! They only
try!”
Boston was proud of Hunt, declared him one of the greatest, if not the
first, living artist. Did not William James, when he decided to become a
painter, turn his back upon Paris and return to America to study with
William Hunt? Yet it sticks in my memory that Hunt did not realize how
much he was beloved and admired. He felt a certain impatience at Boston,
expressed in such phrases as:
“When anybody in Boston sees a picture he likes, instead of buying it,
he goes home and tries to paint one like it.”
The “Talks on Art” close with this paragraph:
“I was thinking of this subject of Eternity the other night, when I
looked at the moon, and saw before it a church spire, a finger pointed
upward into space. Next the spire, the moon. Beyond the moon a fixed
star. Next,--what? Eternity. A ripple closes over us.”
The words were prophetic.
Unlike William Hunt, George Fuller had to die before Boston accepted him
at his real worth. Everybody knows to-day that Fuller was a true artist,
that his pictures have the unique quality called originality. This was
not so when Lucy Derby took me to his Tremont Street studio, where I saw
for the only time our Deerfield genius. He had a great head with a shock
of iron-gray hair, ruddy complexion, and eyes at once shy and kind. He
had just finished his masterpiece, “Winifred Dysart”, a lovely picture
of a young girl standing in the sort of glorified mist with which he
envelops his figures. Soon after, Mr. Montgomery Sears went with Miss
Derby to the studio and bought the picture; it hung for many years in
his Arlington Street house.
There is a naïve charm about Fuller’s “Arethusa” and his portrait of
Mrs. Kimball’s daughter that increases with the years. To come
unexpectedly upon a picture of his in some western art gallery or
private collection brings a warm glow of pleasure, like meeting an old
friend.
Lucy Derby, who had been of the Santo Domingo party, was a favorite with
us all. The Derby house, Number 166 Charles Street, was a pleasant one,
where I remember delightful entertainments. Lucy’s father, Mr. Elias
Derby, was one of Boston’s foremost lawyers. Two of her brothers,
Haskett and Richard Derby, became well known, Haskett as a leading
oculist of Boston, and Richard of New York. Both were uncommonly
handsome men. Richard, who shared Lucy’s social gift, was very popular
on account of his professional skill and his great charm. He looked like
his maternal uncle, Mr. George Strong, whom I remember as one of the
interesting figures of the New York of that time, a collector of Greek
coins and a man who labored for the cause of music.
I met the elder Sothern at Lucy’s house, where he was a frequent guest.
His chief rôle was Lord Dundreary in Tom Taylor’s “Our American Cousin”,
a part Sothern practically created, developing it from the forty-seven
lines in the play as originally written. His impersonation of the
foolish, indolent British “swell” was one of the cleverest bits of
character acting I have ever seen. He told us that one night just as he
began the “birds of a feather” story, the actress who supported him
gave him an agonized glance and whispered: “You have told that once
already!”
He always welcomed an opportunity to play David Garrick as a rest from
Dundreary. Sothern was a man of great personal charm, beloved by his
friends and that dearest of the actors’ friends, the public. An extract
from my journal will show in what high favor he was held by young women
devoted to the drama.
March 1st, 1874.
I have to write about one of the most charming people I ever met,
Mr. Sothern. I first saw him at a lunch at Lucy Derby’s on February
17th. We arrived at the same time, he opening the door for me.
After lunch Miss Ellen Derby asked him if she should introduce him
to me.
“To the young lady in the little blue hat? With pleasure.”
I was only able to have a few words with him when L. hurried him
away to meet some one else. He is scarcely over forty, about five
feet, ten inches tall, a full intelligent head, heavy masses of
clinging wavy hair silvered by sorrows. A very fine delicate skin
through which the blood mantles at the least excuse, handsome,
well-marked features, and eyes with clear blue whites such as one
rarely sees except in children, the iris the most sparkling blue I
ever saw, great wells of color like nothing in the world but the
blue of the Gulf Stream, as we seasick wretches saw it from the old
_Tybee_. Heavy, not too heavy eyebrows and moustache. Friday night
we dined with Mr. Tom Appleton and went afterwards to see Sothern
as Dundreary; he was funnier than ever. The following Thursday I
dined with Millie Townsend to meet him. He remembered me. A
charming little dinner; Mr. Sothern was wonderful, but Mr.
Appleton, with his utter egotism, usurped too much of the
conversation. Sothern did some tricks with a silver water pitcher,
which he made
[Illustration: EDWARD ASKEW SOTHERN
From a photograph by Sarony]
heavy or light at his will. He asked Lucy to lift it, which she did
with ease. He then placed his hand over it and Lucy only just
managed to lift it from the table. Saturday afternoon to see
Dundreary again, better than ever. That night Mr. Sothern kindly
sent me his box for “David Garrick.” Our party was Doctor and Mrs.
Townsend, Lucy, Porter, Munzig, Arthur Clark, and Frank Abbott.
David Garrick was the most wonderful piece of acting I ever saw.
Mr. Sothern and his son came into the box; he gave me the rose he
wore and I gave him my boutonnière, which he wore in the next act.
He came again after the play and took us behind the scenes. There
was an enthusiastic house; he was called out four times and made a
speech, bowing low to our box as he left the stage. Sunday Lucy had
a farewell dinner for him. In evening dress he looked handsomer
than ever. We were all sorry enough to say good-by to him for
eighteen months, when he returns to Boston.
In these years we were again living at Green Peace. South Boston was now
more accessible than when my mother first went to live there. My sister,
Laura Richards, lived in the next house, where three of her seven
children were born. There was much coming and going of Halls, Howes,
Parkses, Wards, McAllisters, and Francises, with the newly added clans
of my brother-in-law’s people, Richardses, and Gardiners. The journal
gives glimpses of a gay household with the “young marrieds” next door
and flocks of young people coming out for high tea on Sunday. One day’s
record shows the varied character of the guests at Green Peace.
“Gorham Bacon came to dinner, Mr. Burgwyn, Richard Mansfield,
Porter, Munzig, and Mr. Dwight for supper. Mr. D. took me to the
opera last night. The Italian tenor, Tamberlik, is wonderful. He
has been singing since 1841, yet his voice is perfectly strong and
clear. Dressed the flowers in both houses, made cake. Mama came
home from church bringing Marion Gray. As we were crooning over the
fire at twilight, the dining-room door opened and Uncle Sam walked
in with a young Lord Rosebery. Later came Charlie How with Gus
Gurnee.”
It must have been in the early seventies that I first met Benjamin
Curtis Porter, destined to have a successful career as a portrait
painter. At this time he had quarters in the Studio Building on Tremont
Street, opposite the Old Granary Burying Ground. It was the pleasant
custom of that simpler era for artists to receive on Saturday mornings.
Friends, patrons, strangers even, were free to knock at any studio door
and were pretty sure to be admitted. Mr. Rowse, whose crayon portraits
were “all the rage”, lived in the same building, as did also our friend
George Snell, the architect, who gave pleasant luncheon parties at his
rooms. I do not know that Porter actually studied with Rowse, but his
early work shows the influence of this artist.
Porter made a crayon drawing of my mother for the New England Woman’s
Club, and I fancy that it was while he was having the sittings for this
that he became a familiar visitor at our house. There is an early sketch
of me at about this time in my sister Laura’s possession, for which I
have no recollection of sitting. He made a charming little oil painting
called the “Blessed Damosel” for Laura’s wedding present, and though
taking some liberties with her coloring--he made her nutbrown hair the
color of corn silk--it is the best existing likeness of my pretty sister
at this time. I think it must have been in the winter of 1875-1876 that
Porter painted the portrait of me that made his reputation. It was shown
at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition under the title, “Portrait of
a Lady.” It is a charming composition: the lady stands by a chair on
which is seated a pug dog. The contrast between the girl’s fresh face
and the little dog’s pugnacious mug is very piquant. The “Portrait of a
Lady” soon became one of the most popular pictures in the exhibition.
While almost everybody else liked it, Porter was not satisfied and
wished to paint another. This time he used a larger canvas and made a
full-length seated portrait. He was better pleased with this and sent it
to the Paris Exposition of 1879, where it was much noticed. The portrait
with the dog is now in the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, while the
larger portrait is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I am very familiar
with the latter, for during my mother’s life it hung in her Boston
house. It has lost nothing and gained much in richness of tone since it
was painted. Porter made in all four portraits of me. The one my mother
liked best is a crayon profile, of which she used to say:
“It is as if my Maud had passed and left her shadow on the wall!”
Porter was a witty man, with a keen sense of humor. He talked well and
was much in demand in society, which now took him up vigorously. He was
overwhelmed with orders and drew or painted many of the belles of the
day. A painting of Mrs. Moses Williams with her young son at her side
was, I think, his favorite portrait of this early period. He had now
moved to a larger studio in Boylston Street, which he fitted up in
picturesque style. Here he gave receptions and musicales to the
ever-increasing circle of his friends.
I have forgotten, if I ever knew, why he gave up Boston and moved to New
York, where he lived all the rest of his life, painting a great number
of portraits of well-known society men and women. He was at his best
with children or young girls. He often introduced dogs in his larger
compositions with excellent effect. Loup, his white Russian deerhound,
appears in several of his pictures. When he walked abroad Loup always
followed closely at his heel. They made a good-looking pair, and when
they left Boston, we missed the picturesque figures of the artist and
his white deerhound from our streets.
Young writers, especially poets, often came to talk with my mother about
their work and the great things they meant to accomplish. I took these
visits as a matter of course and did not half appreciate the privilege
of being present when some ardent young neophyte came, breathless, to
kindle his torch at the flame that she, like some priestess of the
Delphic oracle, kept alight from her earliest childhood until the very
end of her life. I do distinctly remember, however, two of these
visitors, who came within a few days of each other, John Hay and Francis
Bret Harte. The younger poets acclaimed her as their muse and looked up
to her with loving understanding.
I recall perfectly John Hay’s first visit to our house. She had met him
in Washington, and not long after, when he was in Boston, he called upon
her. He had already made a name for himself as a writer, and when he was
announced, I was surprised to see so young a man. He was small, slender,
smartly--even foppishly--dressed, with a splendidly shaped head and
expressive, nearsighted eyes. They talked much of Lincoln; this was
before the great emancipator had become the popular idol of a later day.
What remains clearest with me is the almost reverent attitude and
expression of John Hay, as he took my mother’s hand in parting and
stood for a moment, looking silently into her eyes. A small,
orange-brown volume of verse, “Pike County Ballads” by John Hay, always
stood in the bookcase near her desk. I still treasure this book along
with his “Castilian Days.” Colonel Hay is best remembered as a diplomat
and a statesman; but for me he is, first of all, the author of “Little
Breeches” and “The Prairie Belle.”
I never pass Number 32 Mt. Vernon Street without emotion. In this mellow
old brick dwelling we lived for some years during the seventies. My
father bought the house from the heirs of Miss Nabby Joy, a well-known
character in the Boston of that time, and the owner of some interesting
furniture and porcelain, also acquired by my father, and still in use in
his grandchildren’s homes. Strange how permanent things are, compared to
people! From this friendly Mt. Vernon Street house my three dear sisters
were married,--what lovely brides, and all so different! Here many
wonderful parties were given, among them the reception for General Grant
and the breakfast for Bret Harte. The breakfast was set for nine, the
company were all on time, the guest of honor arriving as the clock began
to strike the hour. I remember my mother gave us broiled spring chickens
and English bacon (that was before the day of our great packers), and to
top off with, buckwheat cakes with maple syrup. That must be nearly
fifty years ago, and breakfast parties are again in fashion, “morning
after” breakfasts, served at the fag end of an all-night ball.
For some reason or other I had not been told of the party, and I
remember my astonishment at coming into the dining room a little late,
to find the long table surrounded by strangers.
“This is my youngest daughter, Mr. Harte,” was my mother’s introduction.
“I did not know there was to be company,” I stammered, to excuse my
tardiness.
“You mean you did not know there were to be buckwheat cakes,” said Bret
Harte, with mock severity.
He was then in the first flush of fame. “The Luck of Roaring Camp”, a
volume of short stories, had won him instant recognition; and “The
Heathen Chinee” was already a classic. He was a man of fine presence,
medium-sized, with thick silver hair that would curl, a face deeply
pitted with smallpox, and keen blue eyes.
The talk was so brilliant that I believed I should never forget the
witty things that were said. Alas, only a few fragments remain of the
conversation at that delectable breakfast table.
“Mr. Harte, you have taught the English-speaking world a lesson in
brevity it will never forget,” somebody said, but whether it was my
mother or Mr. Emerson I have clean forgotten. I do remember how pleased
Harte was and how his face kindled at the compliment.
I found the opportunity to tell him that Jack Oakhurst was my favorite
hero, and to ask why scampish heroes were so much more interesting to
read about than the virtuous.
“I cannot tell you why,” was Bret Harte’s answer, “but there is no doubt
about the fact. I have been asked to give a lecture; I refused because I
couldn’t think of a subject. Now you have given me an idea. I will write
a lecture about Bad People I have known, if you will deliver it for me!”
During the following summer Bret Harte was at Newport, where he wrote
some of his finest poems. He was
[Illustration: FRANCIS BRET HARTE
From a photograph by Beardsley]
much at our house and went with my mother to the meetings of the Town
and Country Club, a literary association of her founding, which under
her guidance flourished for some score of years.
During the season of 1875 my mother and I passed some gay weeks in
Washington. We stayed at Wormley’s, hard by the lodgings of Uncle Sam
Ward, who now brought me, instead of sugar plums and playthings,
visitors and invitations; he was _persona grata_ wherever good company
was at a premium, and very popular in the capital. These were the palmy
days of Washington society, before it grew rich and formal. Cosmopolitan
as it always had been, it then had the cordial, informal flavor of a
Southern city. The ladies of the Cabinet were at home on Wednesday
afternoons, when everybody was free to call. Mrs. Hamilton Fish, wife of
the Secretary of State, was most punctilious about returning all visits
in person. One afternoon her carriage stopped before a humble house
whose door was opened by a woman straight from the washtub, her sleeves
rolled up, her arms wet with soapsuds. Mrs. Fish recognized in the
washerwoman a person who had called on one of her reception days. At
sight of the great lady in her carriage, the working woman burst into
tears.
“If you did not wish me to call upon you, why did you come to see me?”
Mrs. Fish asked kindly, and after a brief visit took her departure.
Miss Jenny Lowry was among the belles of this season. I had known her
brother when he was at Harvard and took a great liking to the beautiful
sister, who, with her soft Andalusian eyes, looked like a Murillo
Madonna.
The house of Senator Frelinghuysen of New Jersey was made attractive by
his three daughters, all much liked and admired. There were pleasant
Saturday afternoons at Brentwood, the home of Mrs. Carlyle Patterson,
and Thursday “At Homes” at Mrs. William Richardson’s; best of all were
the historic Sunday evenings at the Loring’s on K Street. The elder Miss
Loring was a close student of political history. At the Loring salon one
met the leading statesmen and diplomats, many of whom, it was said,
consulted Miss Loring with reference to the political events she
followed so intelligently. I have grateful memories of a son of the
house, Doctor Frank Loring, the oculist, who took my friend Helen
Gardner and myself under his wing and introduced us to the young dancing
set, in whose company we played happily through several blissful weeks.
In reward for all his kindness, we gave him the title of “Mother in
Israel” and never spoke of him by any other name.
An old visiting list helps me to recall this Washington visit. Until I
unearthed the little morocco book with my name written on the flyleaf in
Uncle Sam’s hand, I had quite forgotten I had ever known some of the
people who called upon and entertained us, though some stand out strong
and clear. “Major General Fremont” rouses no flash of memory, whereas
“Mr. Thomas F. Bayard” evokes the shade of one of the most exquisite of
gentlemen, of such winning personality that he was beloved even by those
politically opposed to him.
“Mr. and Mrs. Carl Schurz.” I can remember nothing of the lady, but the
strongly marked features of Schurz, harsh but intelligent, his keen hard
eyes behind the gleaming glasses, his foreign accent, are as fresh as if
I had met him yesterday. He was then Senator from Missouri, a marked
man. His most important work for civil service reform came later, when
he was Secretary of the Interior under President Hayes.
James G. Blaine, the “Plumed Knight”, then speaker of the House, was
much in evidence. I never missed a chance to hear him speak. He was a
natural orator, swaying his audience exactly as a good actor does. Mr.
Blaine was then trying for the Republican nomination for President in
the coming campaign of 1876, another bitter contest like the election of
1872. This was before Blaine, as Secretary of State under Garfield, had
begun the great constructive policy of Pan-Americanism with which his
name will always be linked. Though I remember the Blaines in Washington
I saw them later more familiarly at their pleasant old house at Augusta,
Maine, overlooking the Kennebec. Here I came under the magnetic
influence for which Blaine was famous, and can testify to its control
over his political friends and followers, whose devotion to their leader
I have only once known surpassed. Walker Blaine, the oldest son, was a
brilliant man, with his father’s fluency and grasp. The second son,
Emmons, I knew better, and he once made a visit at Oak Glen; he was a
genial, delightful young fellow, with certain quaint turns of speech I
have never forgotten.
At the time I was far more interested in the young diplomats and
officers with whom I danced than with the men who were making history in
Washington. To-day, I can hardly recall the name or face of one of my
dancing partners, while President Grant, Vice President Wilson, Mr.
Fish, Senator Boutwell (Charles Sumner’s successor) and the other
prominent figures of the time are perfectly clear to me. It may be
because I have frequently seen portraits of them, but I am inclined to
believe it is a case of subconscious self taking notice and registering
impressions, while conscious self danced the german!
I remember interesting gatherings at George Bancroft’s house on H
Street. Uncle Sam had been a scholar at Round Hill School, kept by
Doctor Coggeshall and Mr. Bancroft when they and the century were young.
Mr. Bancroft seemed to me very old, though he still had a good many
years of life before him. He was a small man with the nearsighted eyes
of a scholar, a white beard, and rather an argumentative manner. I
remember hearing him say that the first ten volumes of his History of
the United States were published exactly forty years before the last
volume. He was fond of young company, and I was more than once flattered
by his talking with me when there were older and wiser people present;
he knew what I am now learning, that the elixir of youth can only be
administered by the young!
There was more ceremony in Mrs. Bancroft’s ménage than was then common;
once an ambassadress always an ambassadress. One did not forget that
with her husband she had represented our country at the Courts of St.
James and Potsdam. Mrs. Bancroft’s son, Alexander or “Sandy” Bliss, a
friendly soul who went by the sobriquet of “Arabia Felix”, was very kind
in keeping me supplied with partners at the Washington balls.
Helen Gardner, who was with us on our Washington visit, was then in her
first bloom, a slender brunette with a sparkling personality, a wit, a
charm, an originality that made her a prominent figure wherever she was.
I like to remember Helen’s hazel eyes at this time, before they had shed
the many tears that must have been her portion, though I never saw a
trace of one! Helen, the reserved, the high-spirited, was full of
distances that sometimes made her seem beyond the reach of human
sympathy. Her hazel eyes were covered by the smoothest eyelids I ever
saw; when she looked down, they were like the petals of a white magnolia
blossom. Her sense of humor was so subtle that it carried her lightly
over disasters that would have overwhelmed another. She was a born
princess, and though most of her life she lacked a court, she never
lacked courtiers. She had the “fatal fascination” of the other Helen,
though it was she who suffered from it, not her suitors. It never hurt
any man to have loved Helen, but it interfered with much that she might
have accomplished. It takes a deal of time and power to be fascinating,
and yet who of her generation who remembers her bright willful presence,
her whimsical talk, would have changed her an iota?
Washington without Charles Sumner was to my mother “Hamlet” with Hamlet
left out. Sumner had died during my parents’ absence in Santo Domingo
the year before. At the time of his death, Sumner’s sister, Mrs.
Hastings, telegraphed from San Francisco, asking me to place a wreath
upon her brother’s grave. A public funeral was given him by the State of
Massachusetts, from which women were excluded. When the authorities
heard of Mrs. Hastings’ request they decided that it must be honored. I
well remember that March day when I drove to Mt. Auburn in the first
carriage behind the hearse, the only woman in the funeral procession.
The black horses walked the entire way from the State House to Mt.
Auburn, six or seven miles; the tramp, tramp of the military escort, the
feet of that great host of mourners, seemed to beat out the refrain:
He was the noblest Roman of them all!
Glancing back over my life, certain years stand out clearly like
signposts, while others loom nebulous and vague. The centennial year of
1876 is one of the vivid ones, for it brought my first meeting with the
veiled figure, Grief, with whom all of us must walk part of the journey.
Early in the year my father died. The date of his death, January 9th, is
one of the few anniversaries I never forget; each year brings me a
better understanding of his great heart, his chivalric nature. At first
it seemed impossible that he was really gone, that I should never again
see his face or hear his voice. After the first forlorn sense of loss
came the strange process of readjustment. Life did go on without that
dominant figure to shape its course, and certain new responsibilities
came upon me. My mother had always left to my father the practical
matters of our family life, and these to a large degree devolved upon
me. Had I been of an introspective turn I might have shrunk from the
part I was now to play. Instead, I seized the reins as he dropped them,
eager as Phaeton to drive the steeds of Apollo.
If there were a horse to buy, I did not hesitate, but promptly bought
the best horse I could find, only to learn that the dear animal--we
called him Ha’pence--was afflicted with quarter-cracks cleverly patched
up by the jockey who sold him to us. When there was a new house to buy,
I went to a house agent I had met in society and was ignorant enough to
ask him what his commission was. The agent took advantage of my
simplicity and charged us two hundred dollars. Years after I learned
that in Boston he who sells a house pays the agent’s commission; to
collect from both buyer and seller was sharp practice, as the agent, Mr.
M., knew perfectly well. It was at this time that my mother gave me the
nickname “Boss.” I did not like it as well as my other nickname
“Duchess”, but I had not the courage to rebel.
In the early summer of 1876 I made a long visit to my friends, Ida and
Alice Cushman, who lived with their aunt, Miss Rebecca Wetherell, in the
fine old Wetherell house on the corner of Broad and Chestnut streets, in
Philadelphia. Mr. Cushman, their father, a miniature painter of
distinction, took us often to the Art Gallery of the Centennial
Exhibition, and with him I studied the fine collections that the
European nations sent to this, our first World’s Fair. The Centennial
did much to stimulate every phase of the growing art life of our
country. With me, as with thousands of others, art became from this time
forward one of the absorbing interests of life; for several years I
hoped to be an artist.
The winter after my father’s death my mother decided to go to Europe. I
know now that the trip was made entirely for my sake, and that she was
loth to leave the many interests of her Boston life. President of the
New England Woman’s Club and the Association for the Advancement of
Women, she held important positions in half a dozen other organizations
for public service. She made the great sacrifice for my sake, and I,
like other young people, accepted the maternal devotion as a matter of
course! Before sailing for Europe she determined that I must know
something more of my own country. Massachusetts I knew pretty
thoroughly, Rhode Island a little. I had a bowing acquaintance with New
York, knew Washington by sight. That was all, and in her judgment not
enough. She arranged a lecture trip to the Middle West to meet the
expenses of our journey. This gave me my first realizing sense that lack
of money is one of those minor obstacles in life that require only a
little courage to overcome. Of this trip I remember only the wonder of
Niagara, the bustle of Chicago, the pleasant yellow brick city of
Milwaukee, where we stayed at the luxurious house of my mother’s friend,
Mrs. Doggett; last and best, how I ran the express from Milwaukee to
Chicago! We were to make the journey with one of the directors of the
road, who, finding how much I longed for this experience, escorted me to
the locomotive cab and gave me into the hands of the engineer, with the
words:
“This young lady thinks she would like to be an engine driver. Let her
have a chance to try it out!”
It was a thrilling experience. I was allowed to handle the levers, ring
the bell, and blow the whistle. The engineer and firemen were two new
types of men; that in itself would have made the journey more
interesting than the stereotyped company of the Pullman. Oh! the joy of
flying across the level prairie on a glorious autumn afternoon, with
straight shining rails stretching before me, my hand on the bounding
pulse of the iron horse,--this was a ride to remember all my life! We
made schedule time. When we arrived at Chicago the director told me my
only mistake had been to hold open the throttle of the whistle-valve so
long that an old lady in the Pullman thought there was an accident. The
engineer gallantly explained that the whistle had been to frighten a cow
off the track.
These are all the details I remember of this journey with my mother;
nevertheless I believe it did for me all she hoped. I date from this
time the beginning of my better understanding of my own country and my
evolution from a New Englander into an American.
One other experience my mother was careful to plan; that I should hear
Mr. Emerson lecture before we sailed. If I have forgotten the subject of
the address, it does not matter, for later on I was to become a devoted
Emersonian. What I retain is a strong impression of his personality. I
felt that I was in the presence of a very wonderful being. I remember
the wisdom and sweetness of his face, the tones of his voice, by turns
like a silver trumpet and the soughing of the breeze. His diction, like
that of some polished actor of the _Comédie Française_, was such an art
that it seemed like nature. After the lecture my mother spoke with Mr.
Emerson and his daughter, Miss Ellen. His smile as he turned to speak to
me, the touch of his hand on mine, were as a benediction whose influence
remained with me through life.