Julia Ward Howe - Richards Laura E. - Страница 105

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"Made acquaintance with the odd-looking young man. He is a timber-land broker. He had noticed me because I reminded him of his mother. We became friends. He told me his story. He brought another gentleman, a man more of society than himself, and we and Mrs. Campbell played whist. We were quite gay all day. In the evening a sad, elderly man whom I had observed, came over and showed me his wife's photograph as she had looked in health, and then a photograph of her in her last illness; he holding her up in his arms. He said he was travelling to help his sorrow.

"At Reading my two whist gentlemen cried out, 'Tamales!' and rushed out. They presently returned, bringing some curious Mexican eatables, corn meal with chicken and red peppers rolled in corn leaves. These folk all left at Sacramento at three in the morning."

California was once more her goal. This second visit was brief and hurried.

"Hurry, scurry to dress for the Forefathers' Day celebration. Oakley was my squire. I was taken down to dinner by Professor Moore, President of the occasion.... I was suddenly and unexpectedly called for, and all were requested to rise, which was a great honor done me. I spoke of two Congregationalists whom I had known, Antoinette Blackwell, of whose ordination I told; then of Theodore Parker, of whom I said, 'Nothing that I have heard here is more Christian than what I heard from him.' I told of his first having brought into notice the hymn, 'Nearer, My God, to Thee,' and said that I had sung it with him; said that in advising with all women's clubs, I always urged them to include in their programmes pressing questions of the day. Was much applauded.... They then sang the 'Battle Hymn' and we adjourned."

She spent Christmas with Sister Annie, in great contentment; her last word before starting for home is, "Thank God for much good!"

To Maud

Boston.

I reached Boston very comfortably on Monday night about eleven o'clock. I was slower than usual [on the journey] in making friends with those around me, but finally thought I would speak to the pleasant-looking woman on my left. She had made acquaintance with the people who had the two sections behind mine. I had observed a gaunt young man going back and forth, with a look on his face which made me say to my friend in Number Nine: "That man must have committed a murder." Who do you think he turned out to be? Lieutenant Ripley, of the Vandalia, U.S.N., the great ship which went to pieces on the Samoan reef. I, of course, determined to hear about it from his own lips, and we had a most interesting talk. He is very slight, but must be all nerve and muscle. All the sailors in the top in which he was clinging for his life fell off and were drowned. He held on till the Trenton came down upon them, when, with the others who were saved in other parts of the rigging, he crept along a hawser and somehow reached the Trenton. Fearing that she would go to pieces, he started with fifteen sailors to swim ashore—he alone was saved—he says he is much practised in swimming. I spoke of this all as a dreadful experience. "Yes," said he, with a twinkle in his eye, "but the storm cleared out the Germans for us." He was thrown ashore insensible, but soon recovered consciousness—had been naked and without food for thirty-six hours. Took a cup of coffee in one hand, and a cup of brandy in the other, and swallowed a little from each alternately, his refection lasting from nine in the evening till one o'clock at night....

To the same

We have not seen the sun in some days. I hope that he has shined upon you. Item, I have almost finished my anxious piece of work for the N.Y. "Evening Post," after which I shall say, "Now, frolic, soul, with thy coat off!"

In January, 1890, she "heard young Cram[111] explain Tristram and Iseult,' and young Prescott execute some of the music. It seemed to me like broken china, no complete chord; no perfect result; no architectonic."

She never learned to like what was in those days "the new music." Wagner and Brahms were anathema to her, as to many another music-lover of her time, notably John Sullivan Dwight, long-time Boston's chief musical critic. Many a sympathetic talk they had together; one can see him now, his eyes burning gentle fire, head nodding, hands waving, as he denounced what seemed to him wanton cacophony. She avoided the Symphony Concerts at which "the new music" was exploited; but it was positive pain to her to miss a symphony of Beethoven or Schubert.

In March of this year the Saturday Morning Club of Boston gave a performance of the "Antigone" of Sophocles.

"In afternoon to the second representation of the 'Antigone.'... On the whole very pathetic and powerful. Mrs. Tilden full of dramatic fire; Sally Fairchild ideally beautiful in dress, attitude, and expression. The whole a high feast of beauty and of poetry. The male parts wonderfully illusive, especially that of Tiresias, the seer...."

To Laura

241 Beacon Street, Boston,

April 26, 1890.

I'se very sorry for unhandsome neglect complained of in your last. What are we going to do about it? I have now and then made efforts to reclaim the old Party, but have long considered her incorrigible. What shall we say, then? "Where sin doth abound, Grace shall much more abound," or words to that effect, are recorded of one Paul, of whom I have no mean opinion. So, there's Scripture for you, do you see? As I wrote you yes'day or day before, things have been hoppy here since my return. The elder Agassiz used to mention in his lectures the Lepidoptera, and I think that's the creature (insect, I b'lieve) which infests Boston. What I have hopped for, and whither to, I cannot in the least remember. Flossy was here, as you know, and I hop't for her. I also 'tended two of the festival Oratorios, which were fine, but to me very fatiguing. I find that I must take public amusements, when I do take them, in the afternoon, as in the evening bodily fatigue overmasters even the ?sthetic sense, and it is not worth while to pay a large price for the pleasure of wishing one's self at home.... The benefit at Boston Museum for the Vincent Hospital netted over $1600. It was a brilliant success, but I caught there the first cold I have had since my return from the Far West. Maud is very busy with the flower table, which she has undertaken, having nothing to do. This is for the Vincent Fair, which will take place on Tuesday, 29th.... Have got a few lovely books from Libbie's sale of the Hart collection—among other things, a fine French edition of "Les Miserables," which I am at last glad never to have read, as I shall enjoy it, D.V., in some of the long reading days of summer....

Your ownty donty

Ma.

P.S. Before the Libbie sale I wickedly bid $25 upon a small but very precious missal. It brought $825!!

When she reached Oak Glen in mid-June, she felt a "constant discouragement"; was lonely, and missed the cheerful converse of her club and suffrage friends. "My work seems to me to amount to nothing at all." She soon revived, and "determined to fulfil in due order all the tasks undertaken for this summer; so attacked the Kappa poem and wrote at a stretch twenty-two verses, of four lines each, which was pretty much my day's work. Read in Martineau, in J. F. C., a little Greek, and the miserable 'Les Miserables.'"

She decided to hold some conversations in the Unitarian parsonage, and wrote out the following topics for them:—

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