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diff --git a/old/62867-0.txt b/old/62867-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d73ecdc..0000000 --- a/old/62867-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9627 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Memories of a Hostess, by -Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe and Mrs. James T. (Annie) Fields - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Memories of a Hostess - A Chronicle of Eminent Friendships, Drawn Chiefly from the - Diaries of Mrs. James T. Fields - -Author: Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe - Mrs. James T. (Annie) Fields - -Release Date: August 6, 2020 [EBook #62867] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS *** - - - - -Produced by ellinora and the Online Distributed Proofreading -Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from -images generously made available by The Internet -Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - -MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS - - - - -_By the Same Author_ - - -BIOGRAPHICAL - - American Bookmen (1898) - Phillips Brooks (in “Beacon Biographies,” 1899) - Life and Letters of George Bancroft (1908) - Life and Labors of Bishop Hare (1911) - Letters of Charles Eliot Norton (with Sara Norton, 1913) - George von Lengerke Meyer: His Life and Public Services (1919) - Memoirs of the Harvard Dead (1920, 1921, ——) - -HISTORICAL - - Boston, the Place and the People (1903) - Boston Common: Scenes from Four Centuries (1910) - The Boston Symphony Orchestra (1914) - The Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1918) - The Atlantic Monthly and Its Makers (1919) - -VERSE - - Shadows (1897) - Harmonies (1909) - -EDITED - - The Beacon Biographies (31 volumes, 1899-1910) - The Memory of Lincoln (1899) - Home Letters of General Sherman (1909) - Lines of Battle, by Henry Howard Brownell (1912) - The Harvard Volunteers in Europe (1916) - A Scholar’s Letters to a Young Lady (1920) - - - - -[Illustration: MRS. FIELDS] - - - - - MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS - - A CHRONICLE OF - EMINENT FRIENDSHIPS - - DRAWN CHIEFLY FROM THE DIARIES OF - MRS. JAMES T. FIELDS - - BY - M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE - - “_I stay a little longer, as one stays_ - _To cover up the embers that still burn_” - - [Illustration] - - _WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_ - - THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS - BOSTON - - COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY - M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE - - First Impression, October, 1922 - Second Impression, December, 1922 - - PRINTED IN THE - UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - -CONTENTS - - - I. PRELIMINARY 3 - - II. THE HOUSE AND THE HOSTESS 6 - - III. DR. HOLMES, THE FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 17 - - IV. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE VISITORS 53 - - V. WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA 135 - - VI. STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 196 - - VII. SARAH ORNE JEWETT 281 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - MRS. FIELDS _Frontispiece_ - From an early photograph - - A NOTE OF ACCEPTANCE 9 - Autograph of Julia Ward Howe - - THE OFFENDING DEDICATION 15 - From First Edition of Hawthorne’s “Our Old Home” - - AN EARLY PHOTOGRAPH OF DR. HOLMES 18 - - REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DR. HOLMES’S 1863 ADDRESS TO THE ALUMNI OF - HARVARD 23 - - FROM THE PLAY-BILL OF THE NIGHT OF DR. HOLMES’S “GREAT ROUND FAT - TEAR” 24 - (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) - - FACSIMILE OF THE CONCLUSION OF ULTIMUS SMITH’S DECLARATION 26 - - MRS. FIELDS 32 - From a crayon portrait made by Rowse in 1863 - - FIELDS, THE MAN OF BOOKS AND FRIENDSHIPS 34 - - LOUIS AGASSIZ 48 - - HAWTHORNE IN 1857 54 - - FROM A LETTER OF HAWTHORNE’S AFTER A VISIT TO CHARLES STREET 61 - - EMERSON 86 - From the Marble Statue by Daniel Chester French in the - Concord Public Library - - A CORNER OF THE CHARLES STREET LIBRARY 98 - - FROM A NOTE OF EMERSON’S TO MRS. FIELDS 100 - - FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPH INSCRIPTION ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF ROWSE’S - CRAYON PORTRAIT OF LOWELL GIVEN TO FIELDS 106 - - JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 106 - From the Crayon Portrait by Rowse in the Harvard College - Library - - FACSIMILE OF LOWELL’S “BULLDOG AND TERRIER” SONNET 121 - - HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 124 - From a Photograph taken in middle life - - FROM A NOTE OF “DEAR WHITTIER” TO MRS. FIELDS 130 - - PROPOSED DEDICATION OF WHITTIER’S “AMONG THE HILLS” TO MRS. - FIELDS 132 - - CHARLES DICKENS 136 - From a portrait by Francis Alexander, for many years in the - Fields house, and now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts - - “THE TWO CHARLES’S,” DICKENS AND FECHTER 140 - (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) - - REDUCED FACSIMILE OF DICKENS’S DIRECTIONS, PRESERVED AMONG THE - FIELDS PAPERS, FOR THE BREWING OF PLEASANT BEVERAGES 147 - - FACSIMILE PLAY-BILL OF “THE FROZEN DEEP,” WITH DICKENS AS - ACTOR-MANAGER 188 - (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) - - FACSIMILE NOTE FROM DICKENS TO FIELDS 192 - - JAMES T. FIELDS AT FIFTEEN 196 - From a drawing by a French Painter - - FACSIMILE NOTE FROM BOOTH TO MRS. FIELDS 201 - - BOOTH AS HAMLET 202 - - JEFFERSON IN THE BETROTHAL SCENE OF “RIP VAN WINKLE” 208 - - A NAST CARTOON OF DICKENS AND FECHTER 210 - (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) - - JAMES E. MURDOCK AND WILLIAM WARREN 218 - - CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN: FROM A CRAYON PORTRAIT 220 - (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) - - RISTORI AND FANNY KEMBLE 222 - The photograph of Fanny Kemble was taken in Philadelphia - in 1863 - - CHRISTINE NILSSON AS OPHELIA 226 - - FACSIMILE LETTER FROM WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT TO FIELDS 231 - - FACSIMILE PAGE FROM AN EARLY LETTER OF BRET HARTE’S 235 - - BRET HARTE AND MARK TWAIN 242 - From early photographs - - FACSIMILE VERSES AND LETTER FROM MARK TWAIN TO FIELDS 248-9 - - CHARLES SUMNER 258 - - FROM A LETTER OF EDWARD LEAR’S TO FIELDS 279 - - SARAH ORNE JEWETT 282 - - THE LIBRARY IN CHARLES STREET 284 - Mrs. Fields at the Window, Miss Jewett at the right - - AN AUTOGRAPH COPY OF MRS. FIELDS’S “FLAMMANTIS MŒNIA MUNDI” - BEFORE ITS FINAL REVISION 287 - - MRS. FIELDS ON HER MANCHESTER PIAZZA 288 - - MISTRAL, MASTER OF “BOUFFLO BEEL” 294 - - REDUCED FACSIMILE FROM LETTER OF HENRY JAMES 299 - -(_Most of the photographs reproduced are in the collections of the -Boston Athenæum and the Harvard College Library, to which grateful -acknowledgments are made._) - - - - -MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS - - - - -I - -PRELIMINARY - - -In the years immediately before the death of Mrs. James T. Fields, on -January 5, 1915, she spoke to me more than once of her intention to -place in my possession a cabinet of old papers—journals of her own, -letters from a host of correspondents, odds and ends of manuscript and -print—which stood in a dark corner of a small reception-room near the -front door of her house in Charles Street, Boston. On her death this -intention was found to have been confirmed in writing. It was also made -clear that Mrs. Fields had no desire that her own life should be made a -subject of record—“unless,” she wrote, “for some reason not altogether -connected with myself.” Such a reason is abundantly suggested in her -records of the friends she was constantly seeing through the years -covered by the journals. These friends were men and women whose books -have made them the friends of the English-speaking world, and a better -knowledge of them would justify any amplification of the records of -their lives. In this process the figure of their friend and hostess in -Charles Street must inevitably reveal itself—not as the subject of a -biography, but as a central animating presence, a focus of sympathy and -understanding, which seemed to make a single phenomenon out of a long -series and wide variety of friendships and hospitalities. - -The “blue books”—more than fifty in number—which Mrs. Fields used for -the journals have already yielded many pages of valuable record to her -own books, especially “James T. Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal -Sketches” (1881), and “Authors and Friends” (1896); also even, here and -there, to Mr. Fields’s “Yesterdays with Authors” (1871). Yet she left -unprinted much that is both picturesque and illuminating: so many of the -persons mentioned in the journal were still living or had but recently -died when her books were written. There are, besides, many passages used -in a fragmentary way, which may now with propriety be given complete. - -Into these manuscript journals, then, I propose to dip afresh—not -with the purpose of passing in a miscellaneous review all the friends -who crossed the threshold of the Charles Street house in a fixed -period of time, but rather in pursuit of what seems a more promising -quest—namely, to consider separate friends and groups of friends in -turn; to assemble from the journals passages that have to do with -them; to supplement these by drawing now and then upon the old cabinet -for a letter from this or that friend to Mr. or Mrs. Fields, and thus -to step back across the years into a time and scene of refreshing -remembrance. Many a friend, many a friendship, must be left untouched. -In the processes of selection, figures of more than local significance -will receive the chief consideration. In passages relating to one -person, allusions to many others, sometimes treated separately in other -passages, will often be found, for the friendships with one and another -were constantly overlapping and interlocking. Bits of record of no -obviously great importance will be included, not because they or the -subjects of them are taken with undue seriousness, but merely that a -vanished society, interesting in itself to those who care for the past -and doubly interesting as material for a study in contrasts with the -present, may have again its “day in court.” When Fields was publishing -his reminiscences of Hawthorne, Lowell wrote to him: “Be sure and don’t -leave anything out because it seems trifling, for it is out of these -trifles only that it is possible to reconstruct character sometimes, if -not always”; and he commended especially the hitting of “the true channel -between the Charybdis of reticence, and the Scylla of gossip.” Under -sailing orders of this nature, self-imposed, I hope to proceed. - -“Another added to my cloud of witnesses,” wrote Mrs. Fields in her -journal, on hearing, in 1867, that Forceythe Willson had died. Nearly -fifty years of life then remained to the diarist, though she continued to -keep her diary with regularity for hardly ten. Before her own death the -cloud of witnesses was infinitely extended. Yet new friends constantly -stood ready to fill, as best they might, the gaps that were left by the -old. It is not the new who will appear in the following pages, but those -with whom Mrs. Fields herself must now be numbered. - - - - -II - -THE HOUSE AND THE HOSTESS - - -The fact that Henry James, in “The American Scene,” published in 1907, -and again in an article which appeared in the “Atlantic Monthly” and the -“Cornhill Magazine” in July, 1915, has set down in his own ultimate words -his memories of Mrs. Fields and her Boston abode would be the despair -of anyone attempting a similar task—were it not that quotation remains -an unprohibited practice. In “The American Scene” he evokes from the -past “the Charles Street ghosts,” and gives them their local habitation: -“Here, behind the effaced anonymous door”—a more literal-minded realist -might have noted that a vestibule-door contributed the only effacement -and anonymity—“was the little ark of the modern deluge, here still the -long drawing-room that looks over the water and towards the sunset, with -a seat for every visiting shade, from far-away Thackeray down, and relics -and tokens so thick on its walls as to make it positively, in all the -town, the votive temple to memory.” In his “Atlantic” and “Cornhill” -article he refers to the house, in a phrase at which Mrs. Fields would -have smiled, as “the waterside museum of the Fieldses,” and to them as -“addicted to every hospitality and every benevolence, addicted to the -cultivation of talk and wit and to the ingenious multiplication of such -ties as could link the upper half of the title-page with the lower”; -he pays tribute to “their vivacity, their curiosity, their mobility, -the felicity of their instinct for any manner of gathered relic, -remnant, or tribute”; and in Mrs. Fields herself, surviving her husband -for many years, he notes “the personal beauty of her younger years, -long retained and not even at the end of such a stretch of life quite -lost; the exquisite native tone and mode of appeal, which anciently we -perhaps thought a little ‘precious,’ but from which the distinctive and -the preservative were in time to be snatched, a greater extravagance -supervening; the signal sweetness of temper and lightness of tact.” - -There is one more of Henry James’s remarks about Mrs. Fields that must -be quoted, “All her implications,” he says, “were gay, since no one so -finely sentimental could be noted as so humorous; just as no feminine -humor was perhaps ever so unmistakingly directed, and no state of -amusement, amid quantities of reminiscence, perhaps ever so merciful.” -Mirth and mercy do not always, like righteousness and peace, kiss each -other. In Mrs. Fields the capacity for incapacitating laughter was such -that I cannot help recalling one occasion, near the end of her life, -when an attempt to tell a certain story—of which I remember nothing but -that it had to do with a horse—involved her in such merriment that after -repeated efforts to reach its “point,” she was forced to abandon the -endeavor. What I cannot recall in a single instance, in the excellent -telling of innumerable anecdotes, is unkindness, in word or suggestion, -toward the persons involved in them. Mr. James did well to include this -item in his enumeration of Mrs. Fields’s qualities. - -Through all his lenses of memory and phrase he brought so vividly to -one’s own vision the Mrs. Fields a younger generation had known that, -on reading what he had written, I wrote to him in England, then nearly -ending its first year in the war, and must have said that his pages would -help me, at some future day, to deal with these of my own, now at last -taking form. Thus, in part, he replied:— - - _July 20th, 1915_ - - Your appreciation reached me, alas, but through the most - muffling and deadening thickness of our unspeakable actuality - here. It was to try and get out of that a little that I wrote - my paper—in the most difficult and defeating conditions, which - seemed to me to make it, with my heart so utterly elsewhere, - a deplorably make-believe attempt. Therefore if it _had_ any - virtue, there must still be some in my poor old stump of a pen. - Yes, the pipe of peace is a thing one has, amid our storm and - stress, to listen very hard for when it twitters, from afar, - outside; and when you shall pipe it over your exhibition of - dear Mrs. Fields’s relics and documents I shall respond to your - doing so with whatever attention may then be possible to me. We - are not detached here, in your enviable way—but just exactly so - must we therefore make some small effort to escape, even into - whatever fatuity of illusion, to keep our heads above water at - all. That in short is the history of my “Cornhill” scrap. - -[Illustration: _A Note of Acceptance_] - -The time into which Henry James escaped by “piping” of Mrs. Fields has -now grown far more remote than the added span of the last seven years, -merely as years, could have made it. Remote enough it seemed to him -when, at the end of his reminiscences of the Fieldses, he recalled a -small “feast” in the Charles Street dining-room at which Mrs. Julia -Ward Howe—it must have been about 1906—rose and declaimed, “a little -quaveringly, but ever so gallantly, that ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ -which she caused to be chanted half a century before and still could -accompany with a real breadth of gesture, her great clap of hands and -indication of the complementary step, on the triumphant line, ‘Be swift -my hands to welcome him, be jubilant my feet!’” - -Now it fell to my lot that night, as perhaps the youngest of the party, -to convoy Mrs. Howe across two wintry bits of sidewalk into the carriage -which bore her to and from the memorable dinner-party, and to accompany -her on each of the little journeys. Quite as clear in my memory as her -recitation of the “Battle Hymn” was the note of finality in her voice, -quite free from unkindness, as she settled down for the return drive to -her house in Beacon Street, far from a towering figure, and announced -in the darkness: “Annie Fields has shrunk.” The hostess we were leaving -and the guest some fifteen years her senior, and nearing ninety with -what seemed an immortally youthful spirit, appear, when those words -are recalled, as they must have been before either was touched by the -diminishing hand of age; and the house whose door had just closed upon -us—a house more recently obliterated to make room for a monstrous -garage—came back as the scene of many a gathering of which the little -feast described by Henry James was but a type. - -Early in January of 1915 this door, which through a period of sixty -years had opened upon extraordinary hospitality, was finally closed. -Since 1866 it had borne the number 148. Ten years earlier, in 1856, when -the house was first occupied by James T. Fields, afterwards identified -with the publishing firms of Ticknor and Fields, and Fields, Osgood and -Company, it was numbered 37, Charles Street. This Boston man of books -and friendships, who before his death in 1881 was to become widely known -as publisher, editor, lecturer, and writer, had married, in 1850, Eliza -Josephine Willard, a daughter of Simon Willard, Jr., of the name still -honorably associated with the even passage of time. She died within a -few months, and in November of 1854 he married her cousin, Annie Adams, -not yet twenty years old, the beautiful daughter of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston -Adams. For those who knew Mrs. Fields toward the end of her four score -and more years, it was far easier to see in her charming face and -presence the exquisite, eager young woman of the mid-nineteenth century -than to detect in the Charles Street of 1915, of which she was the last -inhabitant of her own kind, any resemblance to the delightful street of -family dwellings, many of them looking out over the then unfilled “Back -Bay,” to which she had come about sixty years before. The Fieldses had -lived here but a few years when, in 1859, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes—with -the “Autocrat” a year behind him and the “Professor” a year ahead—became -their neighbor at 21, subsequently 164, Charles Street. On the other side -of them, nearer Beacon Street, John A. Andrew, the great war governor of -Massachusetts, was a friend and neighbor. Across the way, for a time, -lived Thomas Bailey Aldrich. In hillside streets near by dwelt many -persons of congenial tastes, whose work and character contributed greatly -to making Boston what it was through the second half of the last century. - -The distinctive flavor of the neighborhood derived nothing more from -any of its households than from that of Mr. and Mrs. Fields. Their -dining—room and drawing-room[1]—that green assembling-place of books, -pictures, music, persons, associations, all to be treasured—were the -natural resort, not only of the whole notable local company of writers -whose publisher was also their true and valued friend, but, besides, of -many of the eminent visitors to Boston, of the type represented most -conspicuously by Charles Dickens. After the death of Mr. Fields there was -far more than a tradition carried on in the Charles Street house. Not -merely for what it had meant, but for all that the gracious personality -of Mrs. Fields caused it to go on meaning, it continued through her -lifetime—extending beyond that of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, for so many -years of Mrs. Fields’s widowhood her delightful sister-hostess—the -resort of older and younger friends, whose present thus drew a constant -enrichment from the past. - -It was not till 1863, nearly ten years after her marriage, that Mrs. -Fields, who had kept a diary during a visit to Europe in 1859-60 with -her husband, and for other brief periods, applied herself regularly -to this practice, maintained through 1876, and thereafter renewed but -intermittently. She wrote on the cover of the first slender volume: “No. -1. Journal of Literary Events and Glimpses of Interesting People.” A -few of its earliest pages, revealing its general purpose and character, -may well precede the passages relating, in accordance with the plan -already indicated, to individual friends and groups of friends. In the -first pages of all, on which Mrs. Fields built a few sentences for her -“Biographical Notes,” I find:— - - _July 26, 1863._—What a strange history this literary life in - America at the present day would make. An editor and publisher - at once, and at this date, stands at a confluence of tides - where all humanity seems to surge up in little waves; some - larger than the rest (every seventh it may be) dashes up in - music to which the others love to listen; or some springing - to a great height retire to tell the story of their flight to - those who stay below. - - Mr. Longfellow is quietly at Nahant. His translation of Dante - is finished, but will not be completely published until the - Year 1865, that being the 600th anniversary since the death of - the great Italian. Dr. Holmes was never in healthier mood than - at present. His oration delivered before a large audience upon - the Fourth of July this year places him high in the rank of - native orators. It is a little doubtful how soon he will feel - like writing again. He has contributed much during the last two - years to the “Atlantic” magazine. He may well take a temporary - rest. - - Mr. Lowell is not well. He is now travelling. Mr. Hawthorne - is in Concord. He has just completed a volume of English - Sketches of which a few have been printed in the “Atlantic - Monthly.” He will dedicate the volume to Franklin Pierce, the - Democrat—a most unpopular thing just now, but friendship of the - purest stimulates him, and the ruin in prospect for his book - because of this resolve does not move him from his purpose. - Such adherence is indeed noble. Hawthorne requires all that - popularity can give him in a pecuniary way for the support of - his family. - - The “Atlantic Monthly” is at present an interesting feature of - America. Purely literary, it has nevertheless a subscription - list, daily increasing, of 32,000. Of course the editor’s - labors are not slight. We have been waiting for Mr. Emerson - to publish his new volume containing his address upon Henry - Thoreau; but he is careful of words and finds many to be - considered again and again, until it is almost impossible to - extort a manuscript from his hands. He has written but little, - of late. - - _July 28._—George William Curtis has done at least one great - good work. He has by a gentle but continuously brave pressure - transformed the “Harper’s Weekly,” which was semi-Secession, - into an anti-slavery and Republican journal. The last issue is - covered with pictures as well as words which tend to ameliorate - the condition of the colored race. Mr. Curtis’s own house - at Staten Island has been threatened by the mob; therefore - his wife and children came last week to New England. I fear - the death of Colonel Shaw, her brother, commanding the 54th - Massachusetts (colored infantry), will induce them to return - home. His death is one of our severest strokes. - - _July 31, 1863._—We have been in Concord this week, making - a short visit at the Hawthornes’. He has just finished his - volume of English Sketches, about to be dedicated to Franklin - Pierce. It is a beautiful incident in Hawthorne’s life, the - determination at all hazards to dedicate this book to his - friend. Mr. P.’s politics at present shut him away from the - faith of patriots, but Hawthorne has loved him since college - days and he will not relent.[2] Mrs. Hawthorne is the stay of - the house. - - The wood-work, the tables and chairs and pedestals, are all - ornamented by her artistic hand or what she has prompted her - children to do. Una is full of exquisite maidenhood. Julian was - away, but his beautiful illuminations lay upon the table. The - one illustrating a portion of King Arthur’s address to Queen - Guinevere (Tennyson) was remarkably fine. - -[Illustration: _The Offending Dedication_] - -All this takes one back into a past sufficiently remote. The 1859-60 -diary of travel achieves the more remarkable spectacle of Mrs. Fields -in conversation with Leigh Hunt less than two months before he died, -and reporting the very words of Shelley to this friend of his. They may -be found in the “Biographical Notes” published by Mrs. Fields after -her husband’s death. Shelley says, “Hunt, we write _love_-songs; why -shouldn’t we write hate-songs?” And Hunt, recalling the remark, adds, -“He said he meant to some day, poor fellow.” Perhaps one of his subjects -would have been the second Mrs. Godwin, for, according to Hunt, he -disliked her particularly, believing her untrue, and used to say that -when he was obliged to dine with her “he would lean back in his chair -and languish into hate.” Then, wrote Mrs. Fields, “he said no one could -describe Shelley. He always was to him as if he came from the planet -Mercury, bearing a winged wand tipped with flame.” It is now an even -century since the death of Shelley, and here we find one of the older -generation of our own time talking, as it were, with him at but a single -remove. Almost the reader is persuaded to ask of Mrs. Fields herself, -“Ah, did you once see Shelley plain?” - -Thus from the records of bygone years many remembered figures might be -summoned; but the evocations already made will suffice to indicate the -point of vantage at which Mrs. Fields stood as a diarist, and to set the -scene for the display of separate friendships. - - - - -III - -DR. HOLMES, THE FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR[3] - - -If any familiar face should appear at the front of the procession that -constantly crossed the threshold of 148, Charles Street, it should be -that of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, for many years a near neighbor, and -to the end of his life a devoted visitor and friend. Here, then, is an -unpublished letter written from his summer retreat while Fields was still -actively associated with the “Old Corner Bookstore” of Ticknor, Reed, and -Fields, and in the year before his marriage with Annie Adams:— - - PITTSFIELD, _Sept. 6th, 1853_ - - MY DEAR MR. FIELDS:— - - Thank you for the four volumes, and the authors of three of - them through you. You did not remember that I patronized you to - the extent of Aleck before I came up; never mind, I can shove - it round among the young farmeresses and perhaps help to work - off the eleventh thousand of the most illustrious of all the - Smiths. - - I shall write to Hillard soon. I have been reading his book - half the time today and with very great pleasure. I am - delighted with the plan of it—practical information such as - the traveller that is to be or that has been wishes for, with - poetical description enough to keep the imagination alive, - and sound American thought to give it manly substance. It is - anything but a _flash_ book, but I have not the slightest doubt - that it will have a permanent and very high place in travelling - literature. Many things have pleased me exceedingly,—when I - have read a little more I shall try to tell him what pleases me - _most_,—as I suppose like most authors he likes as many points - for his critical self-triangulation as will come unasked for. - - Hawthorne’s book has been not devoured, but _bolted_ by my - children. I have not yet had a chance at it, but I don’t doubt - I shall read it with as much gusto as they, when my turn comes. - When you write to him, thank him if you please for me, for I - suppose he will hardly expect any formal acknowledgment. - - I bloomed out into a large smile of calm delight on opening - the delicate little “Epistle Dedicatory” wherein your name is - embalmed. I cannot remember that our friend has tried that pace - before; he wrote some pleasing lines I remember to Longfellow - on the ship in which he was to sail when he went to Europe some - years—a good many—ago. - - Don’t be too proud! Wait until you get a prose dedication from - a poet,—if you have not got one already,—and then consider - yourself immortal. - - Yours most truly, - - O. W. HOLMES - -[Illustration: AN EARLY PHOTOGRAPH OF DR. HOLMES] - -This letter contains several provocations to curiosity. “Aleck, ... the -most illustrious of all the Smiths,” was obviously Alexander Smith, -the Scottish poet of enormous but strictly contemporaneous vogue, in -whom the English reviewers of the time detected a kinship to Tennyson, -Keats, Shelley, and Shakespeare. George S. Hillard’s new book was “Six -Months in Italy,” and Hawthorne’s, “not devoured, but bolted” by the -Holmes children, was “Tanglewood Tales.” The “delicate little ‘Epistle -Dedicatory’” has been found elusive. - -From this early letter of Dr. Holmes a seven-league step may be taken -to a passage in a diary Mrs. Fields was writing in 1860,—the year -following the removal of the Holmes household from Montgomery Place to -Charles Street,—before her long unbroken series of journals began. The -occasion described was one of those frequent breakfasts in the Fields -dining-room, which bespoke, in the term of a later poet, the “wide -unhaste” of the period. Of the guests, N. P. Willis was then at the top -of his distinction as a New York editor; George T. Davis, a lawyer of -Greenfield, Massachusetts, afterwards of Portland, Maine, a classmate -of Dr. Holmes, was reputed one of the most charming table-companions -and wits of his day: the tributes to his memory at a meeting of the -Massachusetts Historical Society after his death in 1877 stir one’s envy -of his contemporaries; George Washington Greene of Rhode Island was -perhaps equally known as the friend of Longfellow and as the grandson and -biographer of General Nathanael Greene; Whipple was, of course, Edwin P. -Whipple, essayist and lecturer; the household of three was completed by -Mrs. Fields’s sister, Miss Lizzie Adams. - - _Thursday, September 21, 1860._—Equinoctial clearing after a - stormy night and morning. Willis came to breakfast, and Holmes - and George T. Davis, G. W. Greene, Whipple, and our little - household of three. Holmes talked better than all, as usual. - Willis played the part of appreciative listener. G. T. Davis - told wonderful stories, and Mr. Whipple talked more than usual. - Holmes described the line of beauty which is made by any two - persons who talk together congenially thus 〰, whereas, when an - adverse element comes in, it proceeds thus Ʌ; and by and by - one which has a frightful retrograde movement, thus ∕. Then - blank despair settles down upon the original talker. He said - people should dovetail together like properly built mahogany - furniture. Much of all this congeniality had to do with the - physical, he said. “Now there is big Dr. ——; he and I do very - well together; I have just two intellectual heart-beats to his - one.” Willis said he thought there should be an essay written - upon the necessity that literary men should live on a more - concentrated diet than is their custom. “Impossible,” said the - Professor, “there is something behind the man which drives him - on to his fate; he goes as the steam-engine goes and one might - as well say to the engine going at the rate of sixty miles, - ‘you had better stop now,’ and so make it stop, as to say it - to a man driven on by a vital preordained energy for work.” - Each man has a philosophical coat fitted to his shoulders, and - he did not expect to find it fitting anybody else. - -At another breakfast, in 1861, we find, besides the favorite humorist of -the day, Dr. Holmes’s son and namesake, then a young officer in the Union -army, now Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. - - _Sunday, December 8, 1861._—Yesterday morning “Artemus Ward,” - Mr. Browne, breakfasted with us, also Dr. Holmes and the - lieutenant, his son. We had a merry time because Jamie was in - grand humor and represented people and incidents in the most - incomparable manner. “Why,” said Dr. Holmes to him afterward, - “you must excuse me that I did not talk, but the truth is there - is nothing I enjoy so much as your anecdotes, and whenever I - get a chance I can’t help listening to them.” The Professor - complimented Artemus upon his great success and told him the - pleasure he had received. Artemus twinkled all over, but said - little after the Professor arrived. He was evidently immensely - possessed by him. The young lieutenant has mostly recovered - from his wound and speaks as if duty would recall him soon to - camp. He will go when the time comes, but home evidently never - looked half so pleasant before. Poor fellows! Heaven send us - peace before long! - -The finely bound copy of Dr. Holmes’s Fourth of July Oration at the -Boston City Celebration of 1863, to which the following passage refers, -is one of the rarities sought by American book-collectors. It was a -practice of Dr. Holmes at this time to have his public speeches set up -in large, legible type for his own reading at their delivery. One of -these, an address to the alumni of Harvard on July 16, 1863, with the -inscription, “Oliver Wendell Holmes to his friend James T. Fields. One -of six copies printed,” is found among the Charles Street papers, and -contributes, like the passage that follows, to the sense of pleasant -intimacy between the neighboring houses. - - _August 3, 1863._—Dr. Holmes dropped in last night about his - oration which the City Council have had printed and superbly - bound. He has addressed it to the “Common Council” instead of - the “City Council,” and he is much disturbed. J. T. F. told - him it made but small consequence, and he went off comforted. - One of the members of the Council told Mr. F. it was amusing - to see “the Professor” while this address was passing through - the press. He was so afraid something would be wrong that he - would come in to see about it half a dozen times a day, until - it seemed as if he considered this small oration of more - consequence than the affairs of the state. Yet laugh as they - may about these little peculiarities of “our Professor,” he is - a most wonderful man. - -[Illustration: _Reduced facsimile of first page of Dr. Holmes’ 1863 -Address to the Alumni of Harvard_] - -In explanation of the ensuing bit, it need only be said that in October -of 1863 Señorita Isabella Cubas was appearing at the Boston Theatre -in “The Wizard Skiff, or the Massacre of Scio,” and other pantomimes. -“The Wizard Skiff,” according to the “Advertiser,” was given on the -fourteenth. On the sixteenth, a characteristic announcement read: “At ¼ -past 8 Señorita Cubas will dance La Madrilena.” The tear of Dr. Holmes at -the spectacle may be remembered with the “poetry and religion” anecdote -of Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Fanny Ellsler. - - _October 16, 1863._—Mr. F. went in two evenings since to find - Professor Holmes. His wife said he was out. “I don’t know where - he is gone, I am sure, Mr. Fields,” she said in her eager way, - “but he said he had finished his work and asked if he might go, - and I told him he might, though he would not tell where he was - going.” - - Yesterday the “where” transpired. “By the way,” said the - Professor, “have you seen that little poem by Mrs. Waterston - upon the death of Colonel Shaw, ‘Together’? It made me cry. - However, I don’t know how much that means, for I went to see - the ‘beautiful Cubas’ in a pantomime the other night, and the - first thing I knew down came a great round fat tear and went - splosh on the ground. Wasn’t I provoked!” - -[Illustration: FROM THE PLAY-BILL OF THE NIGHT OF DR. HOLMES’S “GREAT -ROUND FAT TEAR”] - -The next fragment is neither a letter nor a passage from the diary, but a -bit of excellent fooling, in Dr. Holmes’s handwriting, on a sheet of note -paper. The meteorological records of 1864 would probably show that there -were heavy rains in the course of the year. From Dr. Holmes’s interest -in the tracing of Dr. Johnson’s footsteps an even century before his -own, it is easy to imagine his fancy playing about the rainfall of the -century ahead. I cannot find that this _jeu d’esprit_, with its entirely -characteristic flavor of the “Breakfast Table,” was ever printed by its -author. - - _Letter from the last man left by the Deluge of the year 1964 - to the last woman left by the same_ - - MY DEAR SOLE SURVIVORESS:— - - Love is natural to the human breast. The passion has seized me, - and you, fortunately, cannot doubt as to its object. - - Adored one, fairest, and indeed only individual of your sex, - can you, could you doubt that if the world still possessed its - full complement of inhabitants, 823,060,413 according to the - most recent estimate, I should hesitate in selecting you from - the 411,530,206½ females in existence previous to the late - accident? Believe it not! Trust not the deceivers who—but I - forget the late melancholy occurrence for the moment! - - It is still damp in our—I beg your pardon—in my neighborhood. - I hope you are careful of your precious health—so much depends - upon it! The dodo is extinct—what if Man—but pardon me. Let me - recommend long india-rubber boots—they will excite no remark, - for reasons too obvious to mention. - - May I hope for a favorable answer to my suit by the bearer of - this message, the carrier-goose, who was with me during the - rainy season in the top of the gigantic pine? - - If any more favored suitor—What am I saying? If any - recollection of the past is to come between me and happiness, - break it gently to me, for my nerves have been a good deal - tried by the loss of the human species (with the exception of - ourselves) and there is something painful in the thought of - shedding tears in a world so thoroughly saturated with liquid. - - I am (by the force of circumstances) - - Your Only lover and admirer - - ULTIMUS SMITH - - _O. W. H. Fixit._ - -[Illustration: _Facsimile of the Conclusion of Ultimus Smith’s -Declaration_] - -A few brief items of May of 1864 bring back a time of sadness for all the -friends of Nathaniel Hawthorne. - - _May 11, 1864._—J. T. F. went to see Dr. Holmes about - Hawthorne’s health. The latter came to town looking very very - ill. O. W. H. thinks the shark’s tooth is upon him, but would - not have this known. Walked and talked with him; then carried - him to “Metcalf’s and treated him to simple medicine as we - treat each other to ice cream.” - - O. W. H. picked up a New York pamphlet full of sneers against - Boston “Mutual Admiration Society.” “These whipper-snappers of - New York will do well to take care,” he says; “the noble race - of men now so famous here is passing down the valley—then who - will take their places! I am ashamed to know the names of these - blackguards. There is ——, a stick of sugar-candy —— and, ——, - who is not even a gum-drop, and plenty like them.” - - _Sunday. May 14._—Terrible days of war and change.... - - _May 19._—Hawthorne is dead. - -Less than a year later came the record of another death—unique in that -every survivor of the war-time seems to have remembered the very moment -and circumstances of learning the overwhelming fact. - - _April 15, 1865._—Last night when I shut this book I wondered a - little what event or person would come next, powerful enough to - compel me to write a few words; and before I was dressed this - morning the news of the assassination of the President became - our only thought. The President, Seward, and his son! - - Mrs. Andrew came in before nine o’clock to ask if we thought it - would be expected of her to receive “the Club” on Monday. We - decided “No,” immediately, which chimed with her desire. - - The city is weighed down by sadness. But Dr. Holmes expresses - his philosophy for the consolation of all. “It will unite the - North,” he says. “It is more than likely that Lincoln was not - the best man for the work of re-construction,” etc. His faith - keeps him from the shadows which surround many. - - But it is a black day for us all. J. Wilkes Booth is in - custody. Poor Edwin is in Boston. - - _April 22._—False report. Up to this date J. Wilkes Booth has - not been taken. A reward of nearly $200,000 is set upon his - head, but we believe him to have fled into Maryland or farther - south, with some marauding party. - -Henry Howard Brownell, the author of “War Lyrics,” appears in the -following extract, with Dr. Holmes, whose high opinion of this singer of -naval battle was set forth in print of no uncertain tone. Of Forceythe -Willson, a poet, not yet thirty years old, of whom great things were -expected, Mrs. Fields wrote later in the same volume of the journal: “He -affects me like a wild Tennyson.... He is an indigenous growth of our -middle states. He was a pupil of Horace Mann, and appreciated him.” - - _April 29, 1865._—Club dinner for J. T. F. Mr. Brownell was - present, author of “The Bay Fight,” as Dr. Holmes’s guest. Dr. - H. said privately to us, “Well, ’tain’t much for some folks - to do what I’m doing for this man, but it’s a good deal for - me. I don’t like that kind of thing, you know. I find myself - unawares in something the position of a lion-hunter, which - is unpleasant!!!” He has lately discovered that Forceythe - Willson, the author of a noble poem called the “Color Sergeant” - [“The Old Sergeant”], has been living two years in Cambridge. - He wrote to him and told him how much he liked his poem and - said he would like to make his acquaintance. “I will be at - home,” the young poet replied to the elder, “at any time you - may appoint to call upon me.” This was a little strange to O. - W. H., who rather expected, as the elder who was extending - the right hand, to be called upon, I suppose, although he did - not say so. He found a fortress of a man, “shy as Hawthorne,” - and “one who had not learned that the eagle’s wings should - sometimes be kept down, as we people who live in the world - must,” said the Professor to me afterward. “In State” by F. W. - is a great poem. - -More than a year later is found this characteristic glimpse of Dr. Holmes -in the elation of finishing one of his books. - - _Wednesday, September 12, 1866._—After an hour J. went in to - see Dr. Holmes. This was important. He had promised a week ago - to hear him read his new romance, and he did not wish to show - anything but the lively interest he really feels.... - - Jamie returned in two hours perfectly enchanted. The novel - exceeded his hopes. No diminishing of power is to be seen; on - the contrary it seems the perfect fruit of a life. It is to be - called “The Guardian Angel.” Four parts are already completed - and large books of notes stand ready for use and reference. - Mrs. Holmes came in to tell Mr. Fields she wished Wendell would - not publish anything more. He would only call down newspaper - criticism, and where was the use. “Well, Amelia, I have written - something now which the critics won’t complain of. You see - it’s better than anything I have ever done.” “Oh, that’s what - you always say, Wendell, but I wish you’d let it alone!” “But - don’t you see, Amelia, I shall make money by it, and that won’t - come amiss.” “No indeed, Mr. Fields, not in these times with - our family, you know.” “But there’s one thing,” said the little - Professor, suddenly looking up to Mr. Fields; “if anything - should happen to me before I get the story done, you wouldn’t - come down upon the widder for the money, would you now?” Then - they had a grand laugh all round. He is very nervous indeed - about his work and read it with great reluctance, yet desired - to do so. He had read it to no one as yet until Mr. Fields - should hear it. - - Wendell, his son, had just returned from England, bringing - a young English Captain of Artillery home with him for the - night, the hotels being crowded. The captain’s luggage was - in the entry. The Professor drew J. aside to show him how - the straps of the luggage were arranged in order to slip in - the address-card. “D’ye see that—good, ain’t it? I’ve made a - drawing of that and am going to have some made like it.” - -Near the end of 1866, Mrs. Fields, after a few words of realization that -something lies beyond the age of thirty, pictures “the Autocrat” at her -own breakfast-table, with General John Meredith Read, afterwards minister -to Greece, and already, before that age of thirty which the diarist was -just completing, an important figure in the military and political life -of New York. A few sentences from the following passage are found in Mrs. -Fields’s article on Dr. Holmes, which appeared first in the “Century -Magazine,” and then in “Authors and Friends.” - - It comes over me to put down here and now the fact that this - year for the first time others perceived, as well as myself, - that I have passed the freshness and lustre of youth—but I - do not feel the change as I once thought I must—life is even - sweeter than ever and richer though I can still remember the - time when thirty years seemed the desirable limit of life—now - it opens before me full of uncompleted labor, full of riches - and plans—the wealth of love, the plans of eternity. - - _Friday morning._—Professor Holmes and Adjutant General Read - of New York (a young man despite his title) breakfasted here - at eight o’clock. They were both here punctually at quarter - past eight, which was early for the season, especially as the - General was late out, at a ball, last night. He was only too - glad of the chance, however, to meet Dr. Holmes, and would - have made a far greater effort to accomplish it. The talk at - one time turned upon Dickens. Dr. Holmes said he thought him - a greater genius than Thackeray and was never satisfied with - admiring his wondrous powers of observation and fertility - of reproduction; his queer knack at making scenes, too, was - noticeable, but especially the power of beginning from the - smallest externals and describing a man to the life though - he might get no farther than the shirt-button, for he always - failed in profound analysis. Hawthorne, beginning from within, - was his contrast and counterpart. But the two qualities which - Dickens possesses and which the world seems to take small - account of, but which mark his peculiar greatness, are the - minuteness of his observations and his endless variety. - Thackeray had sharp corners in him, something which led you - to see he could turn round short upon you some day, although - sadness was an impressive element in his character—perhaps a - sadness belonging to genius. Hawthorne’s sadness was a part of - his genius—tenderness and sadness. - -[Illustration: MRS. FIELDS - -_From a crayon portrait made by Rowse in 1863_] - -On Monday, February 25, 1867, Mrs. Fields made note of the Saturday -Club dinner of two days before, at which the guests were George William -Curtis, “Petroleum V. Nasby,” and Dr. Hayes of Arctic fame, of whom -Mrs. Fields had written a few days before: “He wears a corrugated face, -and his slender spirited figure shows him the man for such resolves and -expeditions. We were carried away like the hearers of an Arabian tale -with his vivid pictures of Arctic life.” But apparently he was not the -chief talker at the Saturday Club meeting, for Mrs. Fields wrote of it: -“Dr. Holmes was in great mood for talk, but Lowell was critical and -interrupted him frequently. ‘Now, James, let me talk and don’t interrupt -me,’ he once said, a little ruffled by the continual strictures on his -conversation.” But by the time that Longfellow’s sixtieth birthday came -round on the following Wednesday, Dr. Holmes was ready for it with the -verses, “In gentle bosoms tried and true,” recorded in Longfellow’s -diary, and for another encounter with Lowell, who also celebrated the day -with a poem, beginning “I need not praise the sweetness of his song.” -Mrs. Fields’s diary records her husband’s account of the evening:— - - _February 28, 1867._—Thursday morning. Jamie had a most - brilliant evening at Longfellow’s. A note came in from O. W. - H. towards night, saying he was full of business and full of - his story, but he _must_ go to L.’s. Lowell’s poem in the - morning had helped to stir him. J. reached his door punctually - at eight. There stood the little wonder with hat and coat on - and door ajar, his wife beside him. “I wouldn’t let him go - with anybody else,” she said. “Mr. Fields, he ought not to - go out tonight; hear him, how he wheezes with the asthma. - Now, Wendell, _when_ will you get home?” “Oh,” said he, “I - don’t know. I put myself into Mr. Fields’s hands.” “Well, Mr. - Fields, how early can you get him home?” “About twelve,” was - the answer. “Now that’s pretty well,” said the Doctor. “Amelia, - go in and shut the door. Mr. Fields will take care of me.” - So between fun and anxiety they chatted away until they were - fairly into the street and in the car. “I’ve been doing too - much lately between my lectures and my story, and the fine - dinners I have been to, and I ought not to go out tonight. Why, - it’s one of the greatest compliments one man ever paid another, - my going out to Longfellow’s tonight. By the way, Mr. Fields, - do you appreciate the position you hold in our time? There - never was anything like it. Why, I was nothing but a roaring - kangaroo when you took me in hand, and I thought it was the - right thing to stand up on my hind legs, but you combed me down - and put me in proper shape. Now I want you to promise me one - thing. We’re all growing old, I’m near sixty myself; by and by - the brain will begin to soften. Now you must tell me when the - egg begins to look addled. People don’t know of themselves.” - - He had been to two large dinners lately, one at G. W. Wales’s, - which he said was the finest dinner he had ever seen, the most - perfect in all its appointments, decorated with the largest - profusion of flowers, in as perfect taste as he had ever seen. - “Why, even the chair you sat in was so delicately padded as - to give pleasure to that weak spot in the back which we all - inherit from the fall of Adam.” The other was at Mrs. Charles - Dorr’s, where there were sixteen at table and the room “for - heat was like the black hole at Calcutta,” but the company - was very brilliant. Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop, Mrs. Parkman, Dr. - Hayes, etc. He sat next Mrs. ——; says she is a thorough-bred - woman of society, the daughter of a politician, the wife, first - of a millionaire and now of a man of society. “I like such a - woman now and then; she never makes a mistake.” Mrs. —— was - thoroughly canvassed at the table, “picked clean as any duck - for the spit and then roasted over a slow fire,” as O. W. H. - afterward remarked to Mrs. Parkman, who is a very just woman - and who weighed her well in the balances. - - When they arrived at L.’s, my basket of flowers stood, - surrounded by other gifts, and Longfellow himself sat crowned - with all the natural loveliness of his rare nature. The day - must have been a happy one for him.... O. W. H. had three - perfect verses of a little poem in his hand which he read, and - then Lowell talked, and they had great merriment and delight - together. - -[Illustration: FIELDS, THE MAN OF BOOKS AND FRIENDSHIPS] - -The two following passages from the diary for 1868 seem to indicate that -Dr. Holmes made a double use of his poem, “Bill and Joe,” written in this -year, included in his “Poems of the Class of ’29,” and according to the -entry of July 17, read at the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa dinner of 1868:— - - _January 16, 1868._—We had just finished dinner when Professor - Holmes came in with his poem, one of the annual he contributes - to the class-supper of the “Boys of ’29.” He read it through - to us with feeling, his voice growing tremulous and husky at - times. It was pleasant to see how he enjoyed our pleasure in - it. The talk turned naturally after a little upon the question - of Chief Justice, when he took occasion to run over in his - mind the character and qualifications of some of our chief - barristers. “As for Bigelow[4] (who has just gone out of office - and it is his successor over whom they are struggling), as for - Bigelow, it is astonishing to see how every bit of that man’s - talent has been brought into use; all he has is made the most - of. Why, he’s like some cooks, give ’em a horse and they will - use every part of him except the shoes.” - - _Friday, July 17, 1868._—Last evening Dr. Holmes came in - fresh from the Phi Beta dinner at Cambridge.[5] He said, “I - can’t stop and I only came to read you my verses I read at - the dinner, they made such a queer impression. I didn’t mean - to go, but James Lowell was to preside and sent me word that - I really must be there, so I just wrote these off, and here - they are—I don’t know that I should have brought them in to - read to you, but Hoar declares they are the best I have ever - done.” At length, in the exquisite orange of sunset, he read - those delightful verses, full, full of feeling, “Bill and Joe.” - We did not wonder the Phi Beta boys liked them. I shall be - surprised if every boy, especially those who find the almond - blossoms in the hair, as W. says, does not like them, and if - they do _not_ win for him a more universal reputation than he - has yet won.... - - I was impressed last night with the nervous energy of O. W. - H. His leg by a slight quiver kept time to the reading of his - verses, and his talk fell before and after like swift rain. - He does not go away from town but sways between Boston and - Cambridge all these perfect summer days; receiving yesterday, - the hottest day of this or many years, Motley at dinner, and - going perpetually, and writing verses and letters not a few. - His activity is wonderful; think of writing letters these warm - delicious evenings by gaslight in a small front study on the - street! It hurts him less than his wife, partly because the - intellectual vivacity and excitement keeps him up, partly - because he is physically fitted to bear almost everything but - cold. How fortunate for the world that while he lives he should - continue his work so faithfully. He will have no successor, at - least for many a long year, after we have all gone to sleep - under our green counterpanes and Nature has tucked us up well - in yearly violets. - -Earlier in the year Dr. Holmes and Mrs. Stowe met in Charles Street. - - _Wednesday morning, January 29, 1868._—Last night Professor - Holmes, Mrs. Stowe, her daughter Georgie, and the Howellses, - took tea here. The Professor came early and was in good talking - trim—presently in came Mrs. Stowe, and they fell shortly into - talk upon Homeopathy and Allopathy. He grew very warm, declared - that cases cited of cures proved nothing, and we were all - “incompetent” to judge! We could not but be amused at his heat, - for we were more or less believers in Homeopathy against his - one argument for Allopathy. In vain Mrs. Stowe and I tried to - turn and stem the fiery tide: Georgie or Mrs. Howells would - be sure to sweep us back into it again. However, there were - many brilliant things said, and sweet and good and interesting - things too. The Professor told us one curious fact, that - chemists had in vain analyzed the poison of rattlesnakes and - could not discover the elements of destruction it undoubtedly - possesses. Also that, when Indians poison their arrows with - it, they hang up the liver of a white wolf and make one snake - after another bite it until the liver is entirely impregnated; - they then leave it to dry until disintegrated, when they - moisten and apply round the necks of the arrows—_not on the - point_. He had a long quiet chat with Mrs. Stowe before the - evening ended. They compared their early Calvinistic education - and the effect produced upon their characters by such training. - - _Tuesday, April 13, 1869._—Dr. Holmes and his wife and Mr. - Whittier dined here. The talk was free, totally free from all - feeling of constraint, as it could not have been had another - person been present. Whittier says he is afraid of strangers, - and Dr. Holmes is never more delightful than under just such - auspices. Dr. Holmes asked Whittier’s undisguised opinion - of Longfellow’s “New England Tragedies”—“honest opinion - now,” said he. “Well, I liked them,” said Whittier, half - reluctantly—evidently he had found much that was beautiful and - in keeping with the spirit of the times of which Longfellow - wrote, and their passionless character did not trouble him as - it had O. W. H. Presently, he added that he was surprised to - find how he had preserved almost literally the old text of the - old books he had lent Longfellow twelve years ago, and had - measured it off into verse. “Ah,” said O. W. H., “you have - said the severest thing after all—‘measured off’; that’s just - what he has done. It is one of the easiest, the very commonest - tricks of the rhymster to be able to do this. I am surprised to - see the ease with which I can do it myself.” They spoke then - of “Evangeline,” which both agreed in awarding unqualified - praise. “Only,” said Whittier, “I always wondered there was - no terrible outburst of indignation over the outrage done to - that poor colony. The tide of the story runs as smoothly as if - nothing had occurred. I long thought of working up that story - myself, but I am glad I did not, only I can’t understand its - being so calm.” They talked on religious questions of course, - the Professor holding that sin being finite, and of such a - nature that we could both outgrow it and root it up, Whittier - still returning to the ground that sin was a “very real thing.” - - It is impossible to represent the clearness and swiftness - of Dr. Holmes’s talk. The purity of heart and strength of - endeavor evident in the two poets makes their atmosphere a very - elevating one and they evidently naturally rejoiced in each - other’s society. - - Mrs. Holmes had not been out to dine before this winter. - Jamie sent us a pot of strawberries growing, which delighted - everybody. - -Before the following passage was written, in 1871, Dr. Holmes had moved -from Charles Street to Beacon Street; Mr. Fields, in impaired health, -had retired from active business as a publisher and was devoting himself -chiefly to writing and lecturing; and Mrs. Fields, already interested -in the establishment of Coffee Houses for the poor in the North End and -elsewhere, had begun the notable work in public charities to which her -energies were so largely given for the remaining forty-four years of her -life. In the Coöperative Workrooms, still rendering their beneficent -services, and in the larger organization of the Associated Charities, -embodying a principle now widely adopted throughout the land, the labors -of this generous spirit, never content to give all it had to the gracious -life within its own four walls, have borne enduring fruits. - - 1871.—Thursday afternoon last (June 22) went to Cambridge for - a few visits, and coming home stopped at Dr. Holmes’s, at - his new house on Beacon St. Found them both at home, sitting - lonely in the oriel window looking out upon a glorious sunset. - They were thinking of the children who have flown out of their - nest. Dr. Holmes was very friendly and sweet. He talked most - affectionately with J., told him he no longer felt a spur to - write since he had gone out of business; he needed just the - little touch of praise and encouragement he used to administer - to make him do it; now he did not think he should ever write - any more worth mentioning. He had been in to see the Coffee - House and entertained us much by saying he met President - Eliot near the door one day just as he was going in, but he - was ashamed of doing so until they had parted company. There - was something so childlike in this confession that we all - laughed heartily over it. However he got in at last, and “tears - as big as onions stood in my eyes when I saw what had been - accomplished.” “You must be a very happy woman,” he went on - to say. I told him of the new one in Eliot Street about to be - opened this coming week. - -At the end of the summer of 1871, when Mr. and Mrs. Fields were beginning -to learn the charms of the North Shore town of Manchester, where they -established the “Gambrel Cottage” on “Thunderbolt Hill” which gave a -summer synonym to the hospitality of Charles Street, they journeyed one -day to Nahant for a midday dinner with Longfellow. Here Mrs. Fields’s -sister, Louisa, Mrs. James H. Beal, was a neighbor of the poet. Another -neighbor was the late George Abbot James, and in Longfellow’s diary for -September 4, 1871, is the entry: “Call on Dr. Holmes at Mr. James’s. -Sumner still there. We discuss the new poets.” Mrs. Fields reports a -continuation of the talk with the same friends. - - _Wednesday, September 6, 1871._—Dined with Mr. Longfellow at - Nahant. The day was warm with a soft south wind blowing, and as - we crossed the beach white waves were curling up the sands.... - The dear poet saw us coming from afar and walked to his little - gate to meet us with such a sweet cordial welcome that it was - worth going many a mile to have that alone. The three little - ladies, his daughters, and Ernest’s wife, were within, but - they came warmly forward to give us greeting; also Mr. Sam. - Longfellow was of the party. A few moments’ chat in the little - parlor, when Longfellow saw Holmes coming in the distance (he - had an opera-glass, being short-sighted, and was sitting on - the piazza with J.). “Hullo!” said he, “here comes Holmes, - and all dressed up too, with flowers in his button-hole.” - Sure enough, here was _the_ Professor to have dinner with - us also. He was full of talk as ever and looking remarkably - well. Longfellow asked with much interest about Balaustion and - Joaquin Miller, neither of which he had read. Holmes criticized - as if unbearable and beyond the pale of decency Browning’s - cutting of words, “Flower o’ the pine,” and such characteristic - passages. Longfellow spoke of a volume of poems he had received - of late from England in which “saw” was made to rhyme with - “more.” Holmes said Keats often did that. “Not exactly, I - think,” said L., “‘dawn’ and ‘forlorn,’ perhaps.” “Well,” - said H., “when I was in college” (I think he said college, - certainly while at Cambridge) “and my first volume was about - to appear, Mrs. Folsom saw the sheets and fortunately at the - very last moment for correction discovered I had made ‘forlorn’ - rhyme with ‘gone,’ and out of her own head and without having - time to consult with me she substituted ‘sad and wan.’”[6] - The Professor went on to say that he must confess to a tender - feeling of regret for his “so forlorn” to this very day, but he - supposed every writer of poems must have his keen regrets for - the numerous verses he could recall where he had wrestled with - the English language and had lost something of his thought in - his struggle with the necessities of art. We shortly after went - to dinner, where the talk still continued to turn on art and - artists, chiefly musical, the divorcement of music and thought; - a thinker or man of intellect in listening to music comes to a - comprehension of it, Holmes said, mediately, but a musician - feels it directly through some gift of which the thinker knows - nothing. Longfellow always recalls with intense delight hearing - Gounod sing his own music in Rome—his voice was hardly to be - mentioned among the fine voices of the world, indeed it was - small, but his rendering was exquisite. Canvassing T. B. Read’s - poems and speaking of “Sheridan’s Ride,” which has been so - highly praised, “Yes,” said Holmes, “but there are very poor - lines in it, but how often, to use Scripture phrase, there - is a fly in the ointment.” The talk went bowling off to Père - Hyacinthe. “He was very pleasant,” said Holmes, “it was most - agreeable to meet him, but you could only go a short distance. - His desire was to be a good Catholic, and ours is of course - quite different. It was like speaking through a knot-hole after - all.” - - The dumb waiter bounced up. “We cannot call that a _dumb_ - waiter,” said L., “but I had an odd dream the other night. - I thought Greene (G. W.) came bouncing up on the waiter in - that manner and stepped off in a most dignified fashion with - a crushed white hat on his head. He said he had just been to - drive with a Spanish lady.” - - Sumner (Charles) came up to the piazza. He had dined elsewhere - and came over as soon as possible for a little talk. Holmes - talked on, although we all said, “Mr. Sumner—here is Mr. - Sumner,” without perceiving that the noble Senator was sitting - just outside the cottage window waiting for us to rise, and - began to converse about him. Longfellow grew nervous and rose - to speak with Sumner—still Holmes did not perceive, and went - on until Jamie relieved us from a tendency to convulsions by - voting that we should join the Senator. Then Sumner related the - substance of an amusing letter of Cicero’s he had just been - reading in which Cicero gives an account to his friend of a - visit he had just received from the Emperor Julius Cæsar. He - had invited Julius to pass a few days with him, but he came - quite unexpectedly with a thousand men! Cicero, seeing them - from afar, debated with another friend what he should do with - them, but at length managed to encamp them. To feed them was - a less easy matter. The emperor took everything quite easily, - however, and was very pleasant, “but,” adds Cicero, “he is not - the man to whom I should say a second time, ‘if you are passing - this way, give me a call.’” - -Again, in 1873, Longfellow, Holmes, and Sumner are found together at -the dinner-table with Mrs. Fields, this time in Charles Street. When -she made use of her diary at this point, for her article on Dr. Holmes -which appeared first in the “Century Magazine” (1895), it was with many -omissions. The passage is now given almost entire. It should be said that -the Misses Towne, mentioned at the beginning of it, were friends and -summer neighbors at Manchester. - - _Saturday, October 11, 1873._—Helen and Alice Towne have come - to pass Sunday with us. Charles Sumner, Longfellow, Greene, Dr. - Holmes came to dine. Mr. Sumner seemed less strong than of late - and I fancied he suffered somewhat while at table during the - evening, but he told me he was working at his desk or reading - during fourteen consecutive hours not infrequently at present, - as he was in the habit of doing when uninterrupted by friendly - visits. He said he was very fond of the passive exercise of - reading; the active exercise of composition was of course - agreeable in certain moods, but reading was a never-ending - delight. He spoke of Lord Brougham, and Mrs. Norton and her two - beautiful sisters. Both he and Mr. Longfellow recalled them in - their youthful loveliness, but Mr. Sumner said when he was in - England the last time he saw the Duchess of Somerset, who was a - most poetic looking creature in her youth and (I believe) the - youngest of the three sisters, so changed he should never have - guessed who it might be. She was grown a huge red-faced woman. - (Longfellow laughed, referring to her second marriage and - said, “Yes, she had turned a Somerset!”) Dr. Holmes sparkled - and coruscated as I have seldom heard him before. We are more - than ever convinced that no one since Sydney Smith was ever so - brilliant, so witty, spontaneous, naïf, and unfailing as Dr. - Holmes. He talked much about his class in College: “There never - was such vigor in any class before, it seems to me—almost every - member turns out sooner or later distinguished for something. - We have had every grade of moral status from a criminal to a - Chief Justice, and we never let any one of them drop. We keep - hold of their hands year after year and lift up the weak and - failing ones till they are at last redeemed. Ah, there was - one exception—years ago we voted to cast a man out who had - been a defaulter or who had committed some offense of that - nature. The poor fellow sank down, and before the next year, - when we repented of this decision, he had gone too far down and - presently died. But we have kept all the rest. Every fourth man - in our class is a poet. Sam. Smith belongs to our class, who - wrote ‘My Country, ’tis of Thee.’ Sam. Smith will live when - Longfellow, Whittier, and all the rest of us have gone into - oblivion—and yet what is there in those verses to make them - live? Do you remember the line ‘Like _that_ above’? I asked - Sam. what ‘that’ referred to—he said ‘that rapture’!!—(The - expression of the rapid talker’s face of contempt as he said - this was one of the most amusing possible.)—Even the odds and - ends of our class have turned out something.... Longfellow, I - wish I could make you talk about yourself.”—“But I never do,” - said L. quietly. “I know you never do, but you confessed to me - once.”—“No, I don’t think I ever did,” said L. laughing - - Greene was for the most part utterly speechless. He attended - with great assiduity to his dinner, which was a good one, and - Longfellow was watchful and kind enough to send him little - choice things to eat which he thought he would enjoy. - - Holmes was abstemious and never ceased talking—“Most men write - too much. I would rather risk my future fame upon one lyric - than upon ten volumes. But I have said Boston is the hub of the - universe. I will rest upon that.” - - All this report is singularly dry compared with the wit and - humor which radiated about the table. We laughed till the tears - ran down our cheeks. Longfellow was intensely amused. I have - not seen him laugh so much for many a long day. We ladies sat - at the table long after coffee and cigars in order to hear the - talk.... - - Sumner said he had been much displeased by a remark Professor - Henry Hunt made to him a few days ago. He said Mr. Agassiz was - an _impediment_ in the path of science. What did such men as - Hunt and John Fiske mean by underrating a man who has given - such books to the world as Agassiz has done, not to speak of - his untiring efforts in the other avenues of influence! “It - means just this,” said Holmes: “Agassiz will not listen to the - Darwinian theory; his whole effort is on the other side. Now - Agassiz is no longer young, and I was reading the other day - in a book on the Sandwich Islands of an old Fejee man who had - been carried away among strangers, but who prayed he might be - carried home, that his brains might be beaten out in peace by - his son according to the custom of those lands. It flashed over - me then that our sons beat out our brains in the same way. They - do not walk in our ruts of thoughts or begin exactly where we - leave off, but they have a new standpoint of their own. At - present the Darwinian theory can be nothing but an hypothesis; - the important links of proof are missing and cannot be - supplied; but in the myriad ages there may be new developments.” - - I thought the young ladies looked a little tired sitting, so - about nine o’clock we left the table—still the talk went on - for about four hours when they broke up. - -[Illustration: LOUIS AGASSIZ] - -With two letters from Dr. Holmes this rambling chronicle of his -friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Fields must end. The first of the -communications is a mere fragment of his everyday humor: - - BEVERLY-FARMS-BY-THE-DEPOT - - _July 18th, 1878_ - - DEAR MR. FIELDS:— - - The Corner sends me a book directed to me here, but on opening - the outside wrapper I read “James T. Fields, Esq., Jamaica - Plain, Boston, Mass.” The book, which is sealed up (or stuck - up, like many authors), measures 7 × 5, nearly, and is - presumably idiotic, like most books which are sent us without - being ordered. - - Perhaps you have received a similar package which on opening - you found directed to O. W. Holmes, Esq., Peak of Teneriffe, - Boston. If so, when the weather grows cool again and we can - make up our minds to face the title page of the dreaded volume, - we will make an exchange. - - Always truly yours, - - O. W. HOLMES - -The second letter, written ten years after Dr. Holmes, in moving -from Charles to Beacon Street, had made the last of his “justifiable -domicides,” strikes a more serious note, revealing that quality of true -sympathy so closely joined in abundant natures with true humor. Mr. -Fields had died in April of 1881, and Mrs. Fields had applied herself -at once to the preparation of her volume, “James T. Fields: Biographical -Notes and Personal Sketches,” drawing freely upon the diaries from -which many of the foregoing pages, then passed over, are now taken. The -performance of this loving labor must have done much towards the first -filling of a life so grievously emptied. Already the intimate and beloved -companionship of Miss Jewett had come into it. - - 294 BEACON ST., _November 16, 1881_ - - MY DEAR MRS. FIELDS:— - - I feel sure there will be but one voice with regard to your - beautiful memorial volume. If I had any misgivings that you - might find the delicate task too difficult—that you might be - discouraged between the wish to draw a life-like picture and - the fear of saying more than the public had a right to, these - misgivings have all vanished, and I am sure your finished task - leaves nothing to be regretted. As he was in life, he is in - your loving but not overwrought story. I do not see how a life - so full of wholesome activity and genuine human feeling could - have been better pictured than it is in your pages. Long before - I had finished reading your memoir in the proofs I had learned - to trust you entirely as to the whole management of the work - on which you had entered. All I feared was that your feelings - might be overtasked, and that the dread of coming before the - public when your whole heart was in the pages opened to its - calm judgment might be more than you could bear. - - And now, my dear Mrs. Fields, there must come a period of - depression, almost of collapse, after the labor and the solace - of this tender, tearful, yet blessed occupation. I think you - need the kind thoughts and soothing words—if words have any - virtue in them—of those who love you more than while each day - had its busy hours in which the memory of so much that was - delightful to recall kept the ever-returning pangs of grief - a little while in abeyance. It must be so. But before long, - quietly, almost imperceptibly, there will, I hope and trust, - return to you the quieting sense of all that you have done and - all that you have been for that life which for so many happy - years you were privileged to share. How few women have so - perfectly fulfilled, not only every duty, but every ideal that - a husband could think of as going to make a happy home! This - must be and will be an ever-growing source of consolation. - - Forgive me for saying what many others must have said to you, - but none more sincerely than myself. - - I do not know how to express to you the feeling with which - Mrs. Holmes looks upon you in your bereavement. I should do - it injustice if I attempted to give it expression, for she - lives so largely in her sympathies and her endeavors to help - others that she could not but sorrow deeply with you in your - affliction and wish there were any word of consolation she - could add to the love she sends you. - - Believe me, dear Mrs. Fields, - - Affectionately yours, - - O. W. HOLMES - -For thirteen years longer, till his death in 1894 at the age of -eighty-five, Dr. Holmes was a prolific writer of notes, more often than -letters, to Mrs. Fields. The sympathy of tried and ripened friendship -runs through them all. In the Charles Street house the younger friends -might see from time to time this oldest friend of their hostess. When he -came no more, it was well for those of a later day that his memory was so -securely held in the retrospect and the record of Mrs. Fields. - - - - -IV - -CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE VISITORS - - -The volumes in which Mrs. Fields brought to light many passages from her -journals stand as red and black buoys marking the channel through which -the navigator of these pages must steer his course if he is to avoid the -rocks and shoals of the previously published. In her books it was but -natural that she should deal most freely with those august figures in -American letters who so towered above their contemporaries as to attach -the longer and more portentous adjective “Augustan” to the circle formed -by the joining of their hands. If it has become the fashion to look back -upon the American Augustans and the English Victorians with similarly -mingled feelings, in which tolerance stands in a growing proportion -to the admiration and respect which formerly ruled supreme, it is the -unaltered fact that the figures of the American group dominated both the -local and the national scene of letters in their day, and that their -historic significance is undiminished. But it is rather as human beings -than as literary figures that they reveal themselves in the sympathetic -records of Mrs. Fields—human beings who typified and embodied a state of -thought and society so remote in its characteristic qualities from the -prevailing conditions of this later day as to be approaching steadily -that “equal date with Andes and with Ararat” of which one of them wrote -in words quite unmistakably his own. - -Perhaps no single member of the group is represented in Mrs. Fields’s -journals so often as Dr. Holmes by illuminating pages which she herself -left unprinted. For this reason, and because Concord and Cambridge -visitors to Charles Street were in fact so much a “group,” it has -seemed wise to assemble in this place passages that relate to one after -another of the “Augustan” friends in turn. Sometimes they appear as -separate subjects of record, sometimes in company with their fellows. -That majestic figure, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose death in 1864 made the -earliest gap in the circle of figures most memorable, shall be first to -step forth, like one of his own personages of the Province House, from -the shadows in which indeed he lived. - -[Illustration: HAWTHORNE IN 1857] - -The long chapter on Hawthorne in “Yesterdays with Authors,” and that -small volume about him which Mrs. Fields contributed in 1899 to the -“Beacon Biographies,” constitute the more finished portraits of the man -as his host and hostess in Charles Street saw him. His letters to Fields -are quoted at length in “Yesterdays with Authors,” and contribute an -autobiographic element of much importance to any study of Hawthorne. -But there are illuminating passages that were left unpublished. In one -of them, for example, Hawthorne, in a letter of September 21, 1860, -after lamenting the state of his daughter’s health, exclaimed: “I am -continually reminded, nowadays, of a response which I once heard a -drunken sailor make to a pious gentleman who asked him how he felt: -‘Pretty d——d miserable, thank God!’ It very well expresses my thorough -discomfort and forced acquiescence.” In another, of July 14, 1861, after -the calamity that befell Longfellow in the tragic death of his wife -through burning, Hawthorne wrote to Fields:— - -“How does Longfellow bear this terrible misfortune? How are his own -injuries? Do write and tell me all about him. I cannot at all reconcile -this calamity to my sense of fitness. One would think that there ought -to have been no deep sorrow in the life of a man like him; and now comes -this blackest of shadows, which no sunshine hereafter can ever penetrate! -I shall be afraid ever to meet him again; he cannot again be the man that -I have known.” - -In the words, “I shall be afraid ever to meet him again,” the very -accent of Hawthorne is clearly heard. Still another manuscript letter, -preserved in the Charles Street cabinet, should now be printed to round -out the story of Hawthorne’s reluctant omission from his “Atlantic” -article—“Chiefly about War Matters”—that personal description of Abraham -Lincoln which Fields was unwilling to publish in his magazine in 1862, -but afterwards included in his “Yesterdays with Authors.”[7] In that -place, however, he used but a few words from the following letter. - - CONCORD, _May 23, ’62_ - - DEAR FIELDS:— - - I have looked over the article under the influence of a cigar - and through the medium (but don’t whisper it) of a glass of - arrack and water; and though I think you are wrong, I am going - to comply with your request. I am the most good-natured man, - and the most amenable to good advice (or bad advice either, - for that matter) that you ever knew—so have it your own way. - The whole description of the interview with Uncle Abe and his - personal appearance must be omitted, since I do not find it - possible to alter them, and in so doing, I really think you - omit the only part of the article really worth publishing. Upon - my honor, it seemed to me to have a historical value—but let it - go. I have altered and transferred one of the notes so as to - indicate to the unfortunate public that it here loses something - very nice. You must mark the omission with dashes, so—x x x x x - x x. - - I have likewise modified the other passage you allude to; and I - cannot now conceive of any objection to it. - - What a terrible thing it is to try to get off a little bit of - truth into this miserable humbug of a world! If I had sent you - the article as I first conceived it, I should not so much have - wondered. - - I want you to send me a proof sheet of the article in its - present state before making any alterations; for if ever I - collect these sketches into a volume, I shall insert it in all - its original beauty. - - With the best regards to Mrs. Fields, - - Truly yours, - - NATH’L HAWTHORNE - - P. S. I shall probably come to Boston next week, to the - Saturday Club. - -If these unpublished letters add something to the more formal portraits -of Hawthorne drawn by Fields and his wife, still other lines may be added -by means of the unconscious, fragmentary sketches on which the portraits -were based. In Mrs. Fields’s diaries the following glimpses of Hawthorne -in the final months of his life are found. - - _December 4, 1863._—Hawthorne and Mr. and Mrs. Alden passed the - night with us; he came to town to attend the funeral of Mrs. - Franklin Pierce. He seemed ill and more nervous than usual. He - brought the first part of a story which he says he shall never - finish.[8] J. T. F. says it is very fine, yet sad. Hawthorne - says in it, “pleasure is only pain greatly exaggerated,” which - is queer to say the least, if not untrue. I think it must be - differently stated from this. He was as courteous and as grand - as ever, and as true. He does not lose that all-saddening - smile, either. - - _Sunday, December 6, 1863._—Mr. Hawthorne returned to us. He - had found General Pierce overwhelmed with sadness at the death - of his wife and greatly needing his companionship, therefore - he accompanied him the whole distance to Concord, N. H. He - said he could not generally look at such things, but he was - obliged to look at the body of Mrs. Pierce. It was like a - carven image laid in its richly embossed enclosure and there - was a remote expression about it as if it had nothing to do - with things present. Harriet Prescott was there. He had some - talk with her and liked her. He was more deeply impressed than - ever with the exquisite courtesy of his friend. Even at the - grave, while overwhelmed with grief, Pierce drew up the collar - of Hawthorne’s coat to keep him from the cold.[9] - - We went to walk in the morning and left Mr. Hawthorne to read - in the library. He found a book called “Dealings with the - Dead,” which he liked—indeed he said he liked no house to stay - in better than this. He thought the old edition of Boccaccio - which belonged to Leigh Hunt a poor translation. He has already - written the first chapter of a new romance, but he thought so - little of the work himself as to make it impossible for him to - continue until Mr. Fields had read it and expressed his sincere - admiration for the work. This has given him better heart to go - on with it. He talked of the magazine with Mr. F.; told him he - thought it was the most ably edited magazine in the world, and - was bound to be a success, with this exception: he said, “I - fear its politics—beware! What will you do when in a year or - two the politics of the country change?” “I will quietly wait - for that time to come,” said J. T. F.; “then I can tell you.” - - As the sunset deepened Mr. Hawthorne talked of his early life. - His grandfather bought a township in Maine and at the early age - of eleven years he accompanied his mother and sister down there - to live upon the land. From that moment the happiest period of - his life began and lasted until he was thirteen, when he was - sent to school in Salem. While in Maine he lived like a bird - of the air, so perfect was the freedom he enjoyed. During the - moonlight nights of winter he would skate until midnight alone - upon the icy face of Sebago Lake, with all its ineffable beauty - stretched before him and the deep shadows of the hills on - either hand. When he was weary he could take refuge sometimes - in a log cabin (there were several in this region), where - half a tree would be burning on the broad hearth and he could - sit by that and see the stars up through the chimney. All the - long summer days he roamed at will, gun in hand, through the - woods, and there he learned a nearness to Nature and a love - for free life which has never left him and made all other - existence in a measure insupportable. His suffering began with - that Salem school and his knowledge of his relatives who were - all distasteful to him. He said, “How sad middle life looks - to people of erratic temperaments. Everything is beautiful in - youth—all things are allowed to it.” We gave him “Pet Marjorie” - to read in the evening—a little story by John Brown. He thought - it so beautiful that he read it carefully twice until every - word was grasped by his powerful memory.... - - Talking of England, Hawthorne said she was not a powerful - empire. The extent over which her dominions extended led her to - fancy herself powerful. She is much like a squash vine which - runs over a whole garden, but once cut at the root and it is - gone at once. - - We talked and laughed about Boswell, whom he thinks one of - the most remarkable men who ever lived, and J. T. F. recalled - that story of Johnson who, upon being told of a man who had - committed some misdemeanor and was upon the verge of committing - suicide in consequence, said, “Why does not the man go - somewhere where he is not known, instead of to the devil where - he is known?” - - Hawthorne was in the same class at college with Longfellow, - whom he says he could not appreciate at that time. He was - always finely dressed and was a tremendous student. Hawthorne - was careless in dress and no student, but always reading - desultorily right and left. Now they are deeply appreciative of - each other.[10] - - Hawthorne says he wants the North to beat now; ’tis the only - way to save the country from destruction. He has been strangely - inert and remote upon the subject of the war; partly from his - deep hatred of everything sad. He seemed to feel as if he could - not live and face it. - - He was intensely witty, but his wit is of so ethereal a texture - that the fine essence has vanished and I can remember nothing - now of his witty things! - -It would be a pity to truncate the following passage by confining the -record of Fields’s day in Concord to his glimpse of Hawthorne, already -recorded, with emendations, in the “Biographical Notes.” - -[Illustration: _From a letter of Hawthorne’s after a visit to Charles -Street_] - - _Saturday, January 9, 1864._—J. T. F. passed yesterday in - Concord. He went first to see Hawthorne, who was sitting alone - gazing into the fire, his grey dressing-gown, which became him - like a Roman toga, wrapped around his figure. He said he had - done nothing for three weeks. Yet we feel his romance must be - maturing in his mind. General Barlow and Mrs. Howe had sent - word they were coming to call, so Mrs. Hawthorne had gone out - to walk (been thrown out on picket-duty, Mrs. Stowe said) and - had left word at home that Mr. Hawthorne was ill and could see - no one. After his visit there, full of affectionate kindness, - J. T. F. proceeded to dinner with the Emersons. Here too - the reception was most hearty, but he fancied there were no - servants to speak of at either house. Mrs. E. looked deadly - pale, but her wit coruscated marvellously; even Mr. Emerson - grew silent to listen. She said a committee of three, of - which she was one, had been formed to pronounce upon certain - essays (unpublished) of Mr. Emerson, which they thought should - be printed now. She thought some of them finer than any of - his published essays. He laughed a great deal at the fun she - _poked_ at the earlier efforts. - - From there J. T. F. proceeded to see the Thoreaus. The mother - and sister live well, but lonely it should seem, there without - Henry. They produced 32 volumes of journal and a few letters. - The idea was to print the letters. We hope it may be done. - Their house was like a conservatory, it was so filled with - plants in beautiful condition. Henry liked to have the doors - thrown open that he might look at these during his illness. He - was an excellent son, and even when living in his retirement at - Walden Pond, would come home every day. He supported himself - too from a very early age. - -Here follows a passage also used by Fields in “Yesterdays with Authors,” -but in a rendering so moderated that the original entry in the journal is -quite another thing. - - _Monday, March 28._—Mr. Hawthorne came down to take this as his - first station on his journey for health. He shocked us by his - invalid appearance. He has become quite deaf, too. His limbs - are shrunken but his great eyes still burn with their lambent - fire. He said, “Why does Nature treat us so like children! I - think we could bear it if we knew our fate. At least I think it - would not make much difference to me now what became of me.” - He talked with something of his old wit at times; said, “Why - has the good old custom of coming together to get drunk gone - out? Think of the delight of drinking in pleasant company and - then lying down to sleep a deep strong sleep.” Poor man! He - sleeps very little. We heard him walking in his room during - a long portion of the night, heavily moving, moving as if - indeed waiting, watching for his fate. At breakfast he gave - us a most singular account of an interview with Mr. Alcott. - He said: “Alcott was one of the most excellent of men. He - could never quarrel with anyone.” But the other day he came to - make Mr. H. a call, to ask him if there was any difficulty or - misunderstanding between the two families. Mr. Hawthorne said - no, that would be impossible; “but I proceeded,” he continued, - “to tell him it was not possible to live upon amicable terms - with Mrs. Alcott.... The old man acknowledged the truth of all - that I said (indeed who should know it better), but I comforted - him by saying in time of illness or necessity I did not doubt - we should be the best of helpers to each other. I clothed all - this in velvet phrases, that it might not seem too hard for him - to bear, but he took it all like a saint.” - - _April, 1864._—When Mr. Hawthorne returned after watching at - the death-bed of Mr. Ticknor, his mind was in a healthier - condition, we thought, than when he left, but the experience - had been a terrible one. I can never forget the look of pallid - exhaustion he wore the night he returned to us. He said he had - scarcely eaten or slept since he left. “Mr. Childs watched - me so closely after poor Ticknor died, as if I had lost my - protector and friend, and so I had! But he stuck by as if he - were afraid to leave me alone. He stayed past the dinner hour, - and when I began to wonder if he never ate himself, he departed - and sent another man to watch me till he should return!” - Nevertheless he liked Mr. Childs and spoke repeatedly of his - unwearying kindness. “I never saw anything like it,” he said; - yet when he was abstractedly wondering where his slippers were, - I overheard him say to himself, “Oh! I remember, that cursed - Childs watched me so I forgot everything.” - - He spoke of the coldness of somebody and said, “Well, I think - he would have felt something if he had been there!” He said he - did not think death would be so terrible if it were not for the - undertakers. It was dreadful to think of being handled by those - men. - - He was often wholly overcome by the ludicrous view of something - presented to him in the midst of his grief. There was a black - servant sleeping in the room that last night, whose name was - Peter. Once he snored loudly, when the dying man raised himself - with an appreciation of fun still living in him and said, “Well - done, Peter!” - -In every account of the last week of Hawthorne’s life, the shock he -received through the illness and death of his friend and traveling -companion, Ticknor, in Philadelphia, is an item of sombre moment. The two -men had left Boston together late in March—Hawthorne, sick and broken, -writing but once, in a tremulous hand, to his wife during the ill-starred -journey; Ticknor, giving himself unstintingly to the restoration of -Hawthorne’s health, and stricken unto death before a fortnight was gone. -The circumstances are suggested in the entry that has just been quoted -from Mrs. Fields’s journal. They stand still more clearly revealed in -the last letter written by Hawthorne to Fields, who refers to it in -“Yesterdays with Authors,” and adds that the news of Ticknor’s death -reached Boston on the very day after this letter was written, all too -evidently with a feeble hold upon the pen. - - PHILADELPHIA, CONTINENTAL HOTEL - - _Saturday morning_ - - DEAR FIELDS:— - - I am sorry to say that our friend Ticknor is suffering under - a severe billious attack since yesterday morning. He had - previously seemed uncomfortable, but not to an alarming degree. - He sent for a physician during the night, and fell into the - hands of an allopathist, who, of course, belabored with pills - and powders of various kinds, and then proceeded to cup, and - poultice, and blister, according to the ancient rule of that - tribe of savages. The consequence is that poor Ticknor is - already very much reduced, while the disorder flourishes as - luxuriantly as if that were the doctor’s sole object. He calls - it a billious colic (or bilious, I know not which) and says it - is one of the severest cases he ever knew. I think him a man of - skill and intelligence, in his way, and doubt not that he will - do everything that his views of scientific medicine will permit. - - Since I began writing the above, Mr. Bennett of Boston tells - me the Doctor, after this morning’s visit, requested the - proprietor of the Continental to telegraph to Boston the - state of the case. I am glad of it, because it relieves me - of the responsibility of either disclosing bad intelligence - or withholding it. I will only add that Ticknor, under the - influence of a blister and some powders, seems more comfortable - than at any time since his attack, and that Mr. Bennett (who - is an apothecary, and therefore conversant with these accursed - matters) says that he is in a good state. But I can see that - it will be not a very few days that will set him upon his legs - again. As regards nursing, he shall have the best that can be - obtained; and my own room is next to his, so that I can step in - at any moment; but that will be of almost as much service as if - a hippopotamus were to do him the same kindness. Nevertheless, - I have blistered, and powdered, and pilled him and made my - observation on medical science and the sad and comic aspects of - human misery. - - Excuse this illegible scrawl, for I am writing almost in the - dark. Remember me to Mrs. Fields. As regards myself, I almost - forgot to say that I am perfectly well. If you could find time - to write Mrs. Hawthorne and tell her so, it would be doing me - a great favor, for I doubt whether I can find an opportunity - just now to do it myself. You would be surprised to see how - stalwart I have become in this little time. - - Your friend, - - N. H. - -Barely more than a month later, Hawthorne, traveling with another friend, -Franklin Pierce, died in New Hampshire. Through the years that followed, -the friendship of the Fieldses with his widow and children afforded many -occasions for brief affectionate record in the chronicles of Charles -Street.[11] - -The two entries that follow touch, respectively, upon glimpses of -Hawthorne’s immediate family at Concord, in the summer of 1865, and of -his surviving sister in the summer of 1866. - - _Sunday, July 9, 1865._—Passed Friday in Concord. Called at the - Emersons, but were disappointed to find them all in town, Jamie - particularly, who wished to tell him that his new essay on - Character is not suited to the magazine. Ordinary readers would - not understand him and would consider it blasphemous. He thinks - it would do more good if delivered simply to his own disciples - first, in a volume of new essays uniform with the others. - - Dined with Sophia Hawthorne and the children, the first real - visit since that glorious presence has departed. What an - altered household! She feels very lonely and is like a reed. - I fear the children find small restraint from her. Poor - child! How tired she is! Will God spare her further trial, I - wonder, and take her to his rest?... Went to call on Sophia - Thoreau.[12] ... We saw a letter from Froude, the historian, to - H. T., as warmly appreciative as it was possible for a letter - to be; also “long good histories,” as his sister said, from his - admirer Cholmondely. His journal is in thirty-two volumes and - when J. T. F. spoke of wishing for an editor to condense these, - she said there was no hurry and she thought the man would come. - We spoke of Sanborn. She said, “He knows a great deal, but I - never associate him with my brother.” - - She is a woman borne down with ill health. She seemed to - possess, as we saw her, something of the self-sustaining power - of her brother, the same repose and confidence in her fate, as - being always good. Dear S. H. says she has this when she thinks - of her brother, but often loses it when the surface of her - life becomes irritated and she is disabled for work. Her aged - mother, learning we were there, got up and dressed herself and - came down, to her daughter’s great surprise. She has an immense - care in that old lady evidently. - - _July 24, 1866._—We left just before eleven for Amesbury, to - see Mr. Whittier, driving over to Beverly in an open wagon. It - was one of the perfect days. As Keats said once, the sky sat - “upon our senses like a sapphire crown.” We turned away after - a time from the high road into a wood path, picking our way - somewhat slowly to avoid the overhanging bushes and the rainy - pools left in the ruts. We soon found ourselves near a place - called Mt. Serat where we knew Miss Hawthorne lived, the only - surviving sister of Nathaniel, and Mr. Fields determined at - once to call upon her. To my surprise, in spite of the fine - weather and her woodland life habitually, she was at home, and - came down immediately as if she were sincerely glad to see us. - She is a small woman, with small fine features, round full - face, fresh-looking in spite of years, brilliant eyes, nervous - brow, which twists as she speaks, and very nervous fingers. In - one respect she differed from her brother—she was exquisitely - neat (nor do I mean to convey the idea by this that he was - unneat, but he always gave you a sense of disregarded trifles - about his person and we frequently recall his reply to me when - I offered to brush his coat one morning, “No, no, I never brush - my coat, it wears it out!”), and gave you a sense of being - particular in little things. I seemed to see in her another - difference—a deterioration because of too great solitude—powers - rusted—a decaying beauty—while with Hawthorne solitude fed his - genius, solitude and the pressure of necessity. Utter solitude - lames the native power of a woman even more than that of a - man, for her natural growth is through her sympathies. She is - a woman of no common mould, however. Lucy Larcom calls her a - hamadryad, and says she belongs in the woods and should be seen - there. I wish to see her again upon her own ground. She asked - us almost immediately if we would not come with her to the - woods, but our time was too short. From thence we held our way, - and soon came by train to Newburyport and Amesbury. Whittier - was at home, ready with an enthusiastic welcome. - -To these memorials of Hawthorne must be added yet another, copied from a -pencilled sheet preserved by Mrs. Fields in an envelope endorsed in her -handwriting, “The original of a precious and extraordinary letter written -by Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne while her husband lay dead.” Printed now, I -believe for the first time, nearly sixty years after it was written, it -rings with a devotion and exaltation which time is powerless to touch: - - I wish to speak to you, Annie. - - A person of a more uniform majesty never wore mortal form. - - In the most retired privacy it was the same as in the presence - of men. - - The sacred veil of his eyelids he scarcely lifted to - himself—such an unviolated sanctuary as was his nature, I, his - inmost wife, never conceived nor knew. - - So absolute a modesty was not before joined to so lofty a - self-respect. - - But what must have been that self-respect that he never in the - smallest particular dishonored! - - A conscience more void of offense never bore witness to GOD - within. - - It was the innocence of a baby and the grand comprehension of a - sage. - - To me—himself—even to me who was himself in unity—he was to the - last the holy of holies behind the cherubim. - - So unerring a judgment that a word from him would settle with - me a chaos of doubts and questions that seemed perplexing to - ordinary apprehension. - - So equal a justice that I often wondered if he were human in - this—for this seemed to partake of omniscience both of love and - insight. - - An impartiality of regard that solved all men and subjects in - one alembick. - - Truth and right alone he deigned to regard. Far below him was - every other consideration. - - A tenderness so infinite—so embracing—that GOD’S alone could - surpass it. It folded the loathsome leper in as soft a caress - as the child of his home affections—was not that divine! - - Was it not Christianity in one action! What a bequest to his - children—what a new revelation of Christ to the world was - that! And for him—whom the sight and touch of unseemliness and - uncleanness caused to shudder as an Eolian string shudders in - the tempest. - - Annie! to the last action in this house he was as lofty, as - majestic, as imperial and as gentle—as in the strength of his - prime, as on the day he rose upon my eye and soul a King among - men by divine right! - - When he awoke that early dawn and found himself unawares - standing among the “Shining Ones” do you think they did not - suppose he had been always with them—one of themselves? Oh, - blessed be GOD for so soft a translation—as an infant wakes - on its mother’s breast so he woke on the bosom of GOD and can - never be weary any more, nor see nor touch an unclean thing. - A demand for beauty and perfection that was inexorable. Yet - though a flaw or a crack gave him so fine agony, no one, no one - was ever so tolerant as he! - -Hawthorne’s allusion to Alcott brings the figure of that Concord -personage on the scene. The picture of him in Charles Street is so -sharpened in outline by certain remarks upon him by the elder Henry -James, a somewhat more frequent visitor, that the passages relating to -the two men are here joined together. The first recorded glimpses of -James occurred in the course of a visit to Newport. - - _September 23, 1863._—Received a visit at Newport from Henry - James. His son was badly wounded in two places at Gettysburg. - He spoke of the reviews of his work among other topics. “Who - wrote the review in the Examiner?” asked Mr. F. “Oh! that was - _merely_ Freeman Clarke,” he replied; “he is a smuggler in - theology and feels towards me much as a contraband towards an - exciseman.” Speaking of fashion, he said, “there was good in - it,” although it appears to be a drawback to the residents here - while it lasts. He anticipates a change in European affairs; - the age of ignorance is to pass away and strong democratic - tendencies will soon pervade Europe. The march of civilization - will work its revenge against aristocratic England, he believes. - - Mr. James considers that people make a mistake to expect - reason from Carlyle. “He is an artist, a wilful artist, and no - reasoner. He has only genius.” - - _October 16, 1863._—Mr. Alcott breakfasted with us. He said - all vivid new life was well described by his daughter Louisa. - She was happier now that she had made a success. “She was - formerly not content to wait, but so soon as she became - content, then good fortune came, as she always does.” I told - him we enjoyed deeply reading his MSS. of “The Rhapsodist” - (Emerson) last night. He said he thought it was finally brought - into presentable shape! “When in a more imperfect condition,” - he continued, “I read it to Mr. Emerson. The modest man could - only keep silent at such a time, but he conveyed to me the - idea that he should prefer the paper should not be printed in - the ‘Commonwealth.’ Later I again read it, when he said, ‘If I - were dead.’ I have reason to believe that in its present shape - he would not object to its presentation.”[13] He talked of his - own valuable library and asked what he should do with it by and - by. J. T. F. suggested it should go to the Union Club, which - pleased him much. “That is the place,” said he. “If it were - known this was my intention, might I not also be entitled to - consideration at the Club?” - - Among his books is a copy of Milton’s “World of Words,” owned - by Sir Ferdinand Gorges, who early colonized the state of Maine. - - He talked of Thoreau. “There will be seven or eight volumes of - his works. Next should come the letters, with the commendatory - poems prefixed. Come up to Concord and we will talk it over. - If you go to see Miss Thoreau, arrange to talk with her in the - absence of the mother, who would interrupt and speak again of - the whole matter. Make Helen[14] feel that Henry will receive - as much for his books as if he had made his own bargain, for he - was good at a bargain and they are a little hard—that is, they - do not understand all the bearings of many subjects.” - - The good old man has come to Boston, being asked to perform - funeral ceremonies over the bodies of two children. He asked - for my Vaughan. “A beautiful poem which is not known is much - at such a time,” he observed inquiringly. To which I heartily - responded. - - Mr. Emerson came in to see Mr. Fields today. “I shall - reconsider my reluctance to have Mr. Alcott’s article published - provided he will obtain consideration by it,” was his generous - speech. He said he had begun to prepare a new volume of poems, - “but I must go down the harbor before I can finish a little - poem about the islands. I took steamboat yesterday and went - down, but a mist came up and my visit was to no purpose.” - - _February 19, 1864._—This morning early called upon Mrs. Mott - of Pennsylvania. Found Mr. James with her. He observed that - circumstances had placed him above want, and inheritance - had given him a position in the world which precluded his - having any knowledge of the temptations which beset many men. - His virtues were the result of his position rather than of - character—an affair of temperament. He said society was to - blame for much of the crime in it, and as for that poor young - man who committed the murder at Malden, it was a mere fact of - temperament or inheritance. He soon broke off his talk, saying - it was “pretty well to be caught in the middle of such weighty - topics in the presence of two ladies at 10 o’clock in the - morning.” Then we talked of houses. He wishes a furnished house - for a year in Boston until his departure. - - _July 28._—Still hot, with a russet sun. Mr. and Mrs. Henry - James called in the evening. He talked of “Sterling.” “He - was not stereotyped, but living, his eye burned; he was very - vivacious, although he saw Death approaching. He was one of the - choicest of friends.” Afterward he talked of Alcott’s visit to - Carlyle. Carlyle told Mr. James he found him a terrible old - bore. It was almost impossible to be rid of him, and impossible - also to keep him, for he would not eat what was set before him. - Carlyle had potatoes for breakfast and sent for strawberries - for Mr. Alcott, who, when they arrived, took them with the - potatoes upon the same plate, where the two juices ran together - and fraternized. This shocked Carlyle, who would eat nothing - himself, but stormed up and down the room instead. “Mrs. - Carlyle is a naughty woman,” said Mr. J., “she wishes to make - a sensation and does not mind sometimes following and imitating - her husband’s way.” Mr. J. said Alcott once made him a visit - in New York and when he found he could not go to Brooklyn to - attend Mr. A.’s “conversation,” the latter said, “Very well; he - would talk over the heads with him then before it was time to - go.” They got into a great battle about the premises, during - which Mr. Alcott talked of the Divine paternity as relating to - himself, when Mr. James broke in with, “My dear sir, you have - not found your _maternity_ yet. You are an egg half hatched. - The shells are yet sticking about your head.” To this Mr. A. - replied, “Mr. James, you are _damaged goods_ and will come up - _damaged goods in eternity_.” - - We laughed much before they left at a story about a man who - called to ask money of John Jacob Astor. The gentleman was - ushered into a twilight library, where he fancied himself - alone until he heard a grunt from a deep chair, the high back - of which was turned towards him; then the gentleman advanced, - found Mr. Astor there and saluted him. He opened the business - of the subscription to him, and was about to unfold the paper - when Mr. Astor suddenly cried out, “Oo—oo—oo—ooooooo!” “What - is the matter, my dear sir,” said he, “are you ill? [growing - alarmed] Where is the bell? Let me ring the bell.” Then running - to the door, he shouted, “Madame, madame.” Then to Mr. Astor, - “Pray, sir, what is the matter?” “Oo—oo—oo.” “Have you a pain - in your side!!” In a moment the household came running thither, - and as the housekeeper bent over him, he cried, “Oo—oo—these - horrid wretches sending to me for money!!” As may be believed, - our friend of the subscription paper beat a hasty retreat and - here ended also our evening. - -A few days later there was an evening with Sumner and others, who talked -of affairs in Washington. Mr. and Mrs. James were of the company. “These -men,” wrote Mrs. Fields, “despond with regard to the civil government. -They have more faith that our military affairs are doing well. Chiefly -they look to Sherman as the great man. Mr. James was silent; he believes -in Lincoln.” And there is the final note: “We must not forget Mr. James’s -youth, who was ‘aninted with isle of Patmos.’” - - _July 10, 1866._—Forceythe Willson came and talked purely, - lovingly, and like the pure character he aspires to be. He said - Mr. Alcott talked with him of temperaments lately, with much - wisdom. He said the blonde was nearest to perfection, that - was the heavenly type. “You are not a blonde,” said the seer - calmly, and, said Willson to me, “I was much amused and pleased - too; for when I regarded the old man more closely I discovered - _he_ himself was a blonde.” - - _October 6, 1867._—Mr. Henry James and his daughter came to - call. We chanced to ask him about Dr. G—— of New York, a - physician of wide reputation in the diagnosis of disease. He - is an old man now, but with so large a practice that he will - see no new patients. Mr. James says, however, that he is a - humbug, that is, as I understood. He is a man of discernment - which he turns to the best account, but not a man of deep - insight or unwonted development. Suddenly J. remembered that - there was once a Dr. —— of New York who was also famous. The - moment his name was mentioned Mr. James became quite a new man. - His enthusiasm flamed. Dr. —— died at the early age of 38, - and, according to the saying of the world, insane. “Yet he was - no more insane than I am at this moment as far as the action - of his mind was concerned, which was always perfectly clear. - Several years before his death he was pursued by spirits which - often kept him awake all night. His wife was a heavenly woman - and a Swedenborgian. The spirits did not come to her, but she - was persuaded that they did come to him. They so disturbed - his life that he used to say he was ready to die, in order - to pursue his tormentors and ferret out the occasion of his - trouble. At one time they told him that in every age a man had - been selected to do the bidding of the Lord God, to be the Lord - Christ of the time, and he must fit himself to be that man. - They prescribed for him therefore certain fasts and austerities - which he religiously fulfilled, only asking in return an - interview in which some sign should be given him. They promised - faithfully, but when the time arrived it was postponed; and - this occurred repeatedly, until he felt sure of the deceit of - the parties concerned.” - - Through the medium of these spirits Dr. —— became at length - estranged from his wife. He went West to obtain a divorce, - and while on this strange errand occurred a breach between - himself and Mr. James. The latter wrote him a letter urging - him away from the dead, which the doctor took as interference. - The poor man returned to New York and at length shot himself. - His wife never harbored the least animosity against him for - his undeserved treatment. (Mr. J. looked like an invalid, but - was full of spirit and kindness. He not infrequently speaks - severely of men and things. Analysis is his second nature.) - - _March 5, 1869._—Jamie had an unusually turbulent and exciting - day, and was thoroughly weary when night came. Henry James came - first, and had gone so far as to abuse Emerson pretty well - when the latter came in. “How do you do, Emer-son,” he said, - with his peculiar intonation and voice, as if he had expected - him on the heels of what had gone before. Mr. James calls his - new book, “The Secret of Swedenborg.” Jamie thinks his article - on Carlyle too abusive, especially as he stayed in his house, - or was there long and familiarly. But his love of country was - bitterly stung by Carlyle in “Shooting Niagara and After.” - - _Saturday, March 13, 1869._—Mr. Emerson read in the afternoon. - The subject was Wordsworth in chief, but the time was far too - short to do justice to the notes he had made. In the evening we - went to Cambridge to hear Mr. James read his paper on “Woman.” - We took tea first with the family and afterward listened to - the lecture. He took the highest, the most natural, and the - most religious point of view from which I have heard the - subject discussed. He dealt metaphysically with it, after his - own fashion, showing the subtle inherent counterparts of man - to woman, showing to what extremes either would be led without - the other. He spoke with unmingled disgust of the idea of - woman, except for union in behalf of some charity for the time, - forsaking the sanctity and privacy of her home to battle and - unsex herself in the hot and dusty arena of the world. - - (The members of the Woman’s Club asked him to write this - lecture for them. He did not wish to spare the time, but - promised to do so if they would invite him afterward to deliver - it in public. They disliked the lecture so much that, although - they _did_ send him a public invitation, there were but twenty - people present.) - - Nothing could be holier or more inspiring than his ideal of - womanhood. She is the embodied social idea, the genius of home, - the light of life—“ever desiring novelty her life without man - would be a long chase from one field to another, accompanied by - _soft gospel truth_.” - - He didn’t fail to whip the “pusillanimous” clergy, and as the - room was overstocked with them, it was odd to watch the effect. - Mr. James is perfectly brave, almost inapprehensive, of the - storm of opinion he raises, and he is quite right. Nothing - could be more clearly his own and inherent, than his views in - this lecture, nothing which the times need more. He helps to - lay that dreadful phantom of yourself which appears now and - then conjured up by the right people, haranguing the crowd and - endeavoring to be something for which you were clearly never - intended by Heaven. I think I shall never forget a pretty - little niece of Mrs. Dale Owen, who was with her at the first - Club meeting in New York. Her face was full of softness and - Madonna-like beauty, but she was learning to contract her brow - over ideas and become “strong” in her manner of expressing - them. It was a kind of nightmare. - - _Summer, 1871._—Mr. Alcott, Mr. Howison, Mr. Harris, the latter - two lovers of philosophy, have been here this week. Channing is - still writing poems in Concord, says Alcott. The latter smiles - blandly at his own former absurdities, but he does not eat - meat, and continues his ancient manner of living among books. - The old gentleman gave me this wild rose as he went away. He - quoted Vaughan, talked of a book of selections he would wish to - see made, “a honey-pot into which one might dip at leisure,” - also an almanac suitable for a lady, of the choicest things - among the ancient writers. He was full of good sayings and most - witty and attractive. He is somewhat deaf, but he bears this - infirmity as he has borne all the ills of life with a mild - sweet heroism most marked and worthy of love and to be copied. - - _Sunday, April 20, 1873._—Last night Mr. and Mrs. Henry James, - Alice, and Mr. DeNormandie dined here. Mr. James looked very - venerable, but was at heart very young and amused us much. He - gave a description of Mr. George Bradford being run over by the - horse-car, because of his own inadvertence in part, and of the - good-natured crowd who insisted upon his having restitution for - what he considered, in part, at least, his own fault. “Ain’t - you dead?” said one. “267 Highland Ave. is the number, don’t - forget,” said another; “you can prosecute.” “Where’s my hat?” - he asked meekly. “Better ask if ye’re not dead, and not be - looking for your hat,” said another. - - He also told us of a visit of Elizabeth Peabody to the Alcotts. - He said: “In Mr. A. the moral sense was wholly dead, and the - æsthetic sense had never yet been born!” - -It may well have been after a visit to the Fieldses at the seashore town -of Manchester that Henry James wrote this undated characteristic note -which embodies the feeling of many another guest:— - - MY DEAR FIELDS:— - - Pride ever goes before a fall. I scorned my wife’s solicitude - about her umbrella as unworthy of an immortal mind, and now I - am reduced to pleading with you to preserve my lost implement - in that line, and when you next come to town to bring it with - you and leave it for me at Williams’ book store, corner of - School Street, where I will reclaim it. - - Alas! The difference between now and then! Such an atmosphere - as we are having this morning! And yet we did not need the - contrast to impress us with a lively sense of the lovely house, - the lovely scenes, and the lovely people we had left. We came - home fragrant with the sweetest memories, and the way we have - been making the house resound with the fame of our enjoyment - would amuse you. Alice and her aunt came home just after us, - and we have done nothing but talk since we arrived. Good bye; - give my love to that angelic woman, whom I shall remember in my - last visions, and believe me, faithfully, - - Yours also, - - H. J. - -Henry James’s letters to Mr. and Mrs. Fields, of which a number are -preserved by the present generation of the James family, abound in -characteristic felicities. In one of them—they are nearly all undated—he -regrets his inability to read a lecture of his own at Mrs. Fields’s -invitation, on the ground that his unpublished writings are “all too -grave and serious, not for you individually indeed, but for those -‘slumberers in Zion’ who are apt, you know, to constitute the bulk of a -parlour audience.” In another he is evidently declining an invitation to -hear a reading of Emerson’s in Charles Street:— - - SWAMPSCOTT, _May 11_ - - MY DEAR MRS. FIELDS:— - - My wife—who has just received your kind note in rapid route to - the Dedham Profane Asylum, or something of that sort—begs leave - to say, through me as a willing and sensitive medium, that you - are one of those _arva beata_, renowned in poetry, which, visit - them never so often, one is always glad to revisit, which are - attractive in all seasons by their own absolute light, and - without any Emersonian pansies and buttercups to make them - so. This enthusiastic Dedhamite says further, in effect, that - while one is deeply grateful for your courteous offer of a - seat upon your sofa to hear the Concord sage, she yet prefers - the material banquet you summon us to in your dining-room, - since there we should be out of the mist and able to discern - between nature and cookery, between what eats and what is - eaten at all events, and feel a thankful mind that we were - in solid comfortable Charles Street, instead of the vague, - wide, weltering galaxy, and should be sure to deem Annie and - Jamie (_I_ am sure of Annie, I think my wife feels equally - sure of Jamie) lovelier fireflies than ever sparkled in the - cold empyrean. But alas, who shall control his destiny? Not - my wife, whom multitudinous cares enthrall; nor yet myself, - whom a couple of months’ enforced illness now constrains to a - preternatural activity, lest the world fail of salvation.... - - P. S. Who _did_ contrive the comical title for his - lecture—“Philosophy of the People”? I suspect it was a joke - of J. T. F. It would be no less absurd for Emerson himself to - think of philosophizing than it would be for the rose to think - of botanizing. Emerson is the Divinely pompous rose of the - philosophic garden, gorgeous with colour and fragrance. What - a sad lookout there would be for tulip and violet and lily - and the humble grape, if the rose should turn out philosophic - gardener as well! Philosophy _of the people_, too! But that was - Fields, or else it was only R. W. E. after dining with F. at - the Union Club and becoming demoralized. - -The final paragraph of a single other note suggests in sum the relation -between James and his Charles Street friends:— - - Speaking of Mr. Fields always reminds me of various things - so richly endowed in the creature in all good gifts; but the - dominant consideration in my mind associated with him is his - beautiful home and there chiefly that atmosphere and faultless - womanly worth and dignity which fills it with light and warmth - and makes it a real blessing to one’s heart every time he falls - within its precincts. Please felicitate the wretch for me, and - believe me, my dear Mrs. Fields, - - Your true friend and servant, - - H. J. - - _July 8._ - -Though not related either to Alcott or to Henry James, the following -entry, on October 16, 1863, should be preserved—and as well in this place -as in another. It refers to the second of the three Josiah Quincys who -were mayors of Boston in the course of the nineteenth century. - - Mr. Josiah Quincy dropped in to see J. T. F. He had lately - been traveling in the West, he said. People complimented - him upon his youthful appearance and his last letter to the - President. “I am glad you liked the letter,” he said, “but my - father wrote it.” At the next town people pressed his hand, - and thanked him for his staunch adherence to the Anti-slavery - cause as expressed in the “Liberator.” “Oh,” his reply was, - “that was my brother Edmund Quincy”; a little farther on a - friend complimented his brilliant story in the last “Atlantic” - magazine. “That was by my son J. P. Quincy,” he was obliged to - answer. Finally, when his exploits in the late wars at the head - of the 20th Regiment were recounted, he grew impatient, said it - was his son Colonel Quincy, but he thought it high time he came - home, instead of travelling about to receive the compliments of - others. - -In giving the title, “Glimpses of Emerson,” to one of the chapters in -her “Authors and Friends,” Mrs. Fields described accurately the use she -made of her records and remembrances of that serene Olympian who glided -in and out of Boston to the awe and delight of those with whom he came -into personal contact. “Olympian” must be the word, since “Augustan” -connotes something quite too mundane to suggest the effect produced by -Emerson upon his sympathetic contemporaries. Did they realize, I wonder, -how fitting it was that this prophet of the harmonies of life should -live in a place the name of which is spoken by all but New Englanders -as if it signified not a despairing _Væ victis_, but the very bond of -peace? All the adjectives of benignity have been bestowed upon Emerson. -Mrs. Fields’s “Glimpses” of him suggest that atmosphere, as of mountain -solitudes, in which he moved; that air of the heights which those who -moved beside him were fain to breathe. His “Conversations” in public -and private places, a form of intellectual refreshment suggested by -Mrs. Fields and conducted, to Emerson’s large material advantage, by -her husband, appear to-day as highly characteristic of their time,—the -sixties and seventies,—and the light thrown upon them by her journal -illuminates not only him and her, but the whole society of “superior -persons” in which Emerson was so dominating a figure. By no means all of -that light escaped from her manuscript journals to the printed page of -“Authors and Friends.” In the hitherto unprinted passages now given there -are further shafts of it, sometimes slender in themselves, but joining to -show the very Emerson that came and went in Charles Street. - -[Illustration: EMERSON - -_From the marble statue by Daniel Chester French in the Concord Public -Library_] - -There was a furtive humor in Emerson, which expressed itself more -accurately in his own words than in anything written about him. A -pleasant trace of it is found in a note to Fields addressed, “My dear -Editor,” dated “Concord, October 5, 1866,” and containing these words: “I -have the more delight in your marked overestimate of my poem, that I had -been vexed with a belief that what skill I had in whistling was nearly -or quite gone, and that I must henceforth content myself with guttural -consonants or dissonants, and not attempt warbling.” - -There is a clear application of the Emersonian philosophy to domestic -matters in a letter written by Mrs. Emerson to Mrs. Fields, a week after -the fire which drove the poet’s family from his house at Concord, in -the summer of 1872. Mrs. Fields—as if in fulfillment of Emerson’s words -on the proffer of some previous hospitality: “Indeed we think that your -house should have that name inscribed upon it—‘Hospitality’”—had invited -the dislodged Emersons to take refuge under her roof. Mrs. Emerson, -replying, wrote:— - - We are most happily settled in the “Old Manse,” where our - cousin, Miss Ripley, assures us we can be accommodated—to her - satisfaction as well as our own—until our house is rebuilt. - Only the upper half is destroyed and we shall, I trust, so - well restore it that you will not know—when we shall have - the pleasure of welcoming you there—except for its fresh - appearance, that anything has happened. I should not use - such a word as “calamity,” for truly the whole event is a - blessing rather than a misfortune. We have received such warm - expressions of kindness from our friends, and have witnessed - such disinterested action and brave daring in our town’s - people, that we feel—in addition to our happiness in the - sympathy of friends in other places—as if Concord was a large - family of personal friends and well-wishers. They command not - only our gratitude but our deep respect, for their loving and - personal self-forgetfulness. - - Mr. Emerson and Ellen join me in affectionate and grateful - acknowledgments to yourself and to Mr. Fields. - - Ever your friend, - - LILIAN EMERSON - - CONCORD, _July 31, 1872_. - -It is in the atmosphere of the mutual relation revealed in many letters -from Emerson and his household to Mr. and Mrs. Fields that the following -reports of encounters with him—a few out of many similar passages in her -journals—should be read. - - _December 3, 1863._—Last Tuesday Mr. Emerson lectured in town. - Mrs. E. and Edith came to tea. She was troubled because she - was a little late. She is a woman of proud integrity and real - sweetness. She has an awe of words. They mean so much to her - that her lips do not unlock save for truth or kindliness or - beauty or wisdom. The lecture was for today—there was much of - Carlyle, chastisement, and soul. After the lecture they came - home with us and about 20 friends. Wendell Phillips was in - his sweetest mood. He spoke of Beecher and Luther and of the - vigorous, healthy hearts of these men who swayed this world. - He said Hallam speaks disparagingly of Luther. I could not but - think of Sydney Smith’s friend who spoke “disparagingly of the - Equator.” Alden too came in wearied after his lecture. Senator - Boutwell spoke in praise of life in Washington, the first man. - Sunshiny Edith passed the night with us. - - _January 5, 1864._—Mr. Emerson came today to see J. T. F. He - says Mr. Blake, who holds the letters of Thoreau in his hands, - is a terribly conscientious man, “a man who would even return - a borrowed umbrella.” He became acquainted with Blake when - he was connected with theological matters, “and he believed - wholly in me at that time, but one day he met Thoreau and he - never came to my house afterwards. His conscientiousness is - equalled perhaps by that of George Bradford, who accompanied - us once to hear Mr. Webster speak. There was an immense crowd, - Mr. Bradford became separated from the party, and was swept - into a capital place within the lines. When he found himself - well ensconced in front of the speaker, he turned about and saw - us, and with a look of great concern said: ‘I have no ticket - for this place and I can’t stay.’ We besought him not to be so - foolish as to give up the place, but nothing would tempt him to - keep it.” - - He was in fine mood. - - _Wednesday, September 6._—Mr. Emerson went to see Mr. Fields. - “There are fine lines in Lowell’s Ode,” he said. “Yes,” - answered J. T. F., “it is a fine poem.” “I have found fine - lines in it,” replied the seer. “I told Lowell once,” he - continued, “that his humorous poems gave me great pleasure; - they were worth all his serious poetry. He did not take it very - well, but muttered, ‘The Washers of the Shroud,’ and walked - away.” - - J. T. F. found Emerson sitting by the window in his new office, - highly delighted with it. - - _September 30, 1865._—Jamie went to dine with the Saturday - Club. Professor Nichol was his guest. Sam. Ward (Julia’s - brother) was Longfellow’s. Lowell, Holmes, Hoar, Emerson and - a few others only were present. Judge Hoar related an amusing - anecdote of having sent a beautiful basket of pears to the - Concord exhibition this year. He said Mr. Emerson was one of - the judges, and he thought he would be pleased with the pears - because a few years ago he was in the garden one day and, - observing that very tree, which was not then very flourishing, - had told Judge Hoar that more iron and more animal matter were - needed in the soil. “Forthwith,” said the Judge, “I planted - all my old iron kettles and a cat and a dog at the foot of the - tree and these pears were the result. I have kept two favorite - terriers ready to plant if necessary beside, but the fruit for - the present seems well enough without them.” - - Judge Hoar said also that he knew a man once with a prodigious - memory; before dinner he could recall General Washington, after - dinner he remembered Christopher Columbus! - - _Saturday, October 7, 1865._—Tuesday, 3, Edith Emerson was - married to William Forbes. The old house threw wide its - hospitable doors and the stairway and rooms were covered with - leaves and flowers and the whole place was as beautiful as - earthly radiance and joy can make a home. Poor Mrs. Hawthorne, - laden with her many sorrows, threw off her black robe for that - day that she might rejoice with others. Edith made her own - marriage wreath, and even Mr. Emerson wore white gloves. Old - Mrs. Ripley and many aged and many beautiful persons were there. - -In 1866 Emerson, long exiled from the good graces of his Alma Mater, -was restored to them by the bestowal of an honorary degree. In 1867 the -restoration was completed by his election as an Overseer of Harvard -College and his appearance, after an interval of thirty years, as the Phi -Beta Kappa orator. In this capacity he read his address on the “Progress -of Culture” on July 18, 1867. Of the manner in which he did it, and -of the effect he produced on his hearers, Lowell wrote immediately to -Norton, in a letter often quoted, “He boggled, he lost his place, he had -to put on his glasses; but it was as if a creature from some fairer world -had lost his way in our fogs, and it was _our_ fault, not his.” “Phi -Beta Day” was still a local festival of much brilliance, which was thus -reflected in 1867 on the pages of Mrs. Fields’s journal. - - _Thursday, July 18, 1867._—Arose at five and worked in my - garden until breakfast. Then it was time to dress for Phi Beta - at Cambridge. We drove out, leaving home at nine o’clock. - We expected Professor Andrew D. White to go with us, but he - called still earlier to say he had been summoned to a business - meeting by President Hill. The day was soft and pleasant with - a clouded sky. We were among the first on the ground, but we - had the pleasure of waiting a few moments to see our friends - arrive before we were admitted to the church. Only ladies went - in. I went with Mrs. Quincy, the poet’s[15] wife (poet for - the day, for he is apt to disclaim this title usually), and - we found good places in the gallery; by and by, however, Mrs. - Dana beckoned to me to come and sit with them, so I changed - my seat to a place on the lower floor. It was an impressive - sight to see those men come in (though they kept us waiting - until twelve o’clock)—Lowell, Emerson, Dana, Hale, and all - the good brave men we have with few exceptions. First came - Quincy’s poem, then Mr. Emerson’s address—both excellent after - the manner of the men. Poor Mr. E.’s MSS. was in inextricable - confusion, and in spite of the chivalry of E. E. Hale, who - hunted up a cushion that he might see better, the whole matter - seemed at first out of joint in the reader’s eyes. However - that may have been, it was far from out of joint in our eyes, - being noble in aim and influence, magnetic, imaginative. I - felt grateful that I had lived till that moment and as if I - might come home to live and work better. Thank Heaven for such - a master! He was evidently put out and angry with himself for - his disorder and, taking Mr. Fields’s arm as he came from the - assembly, had to be somewhat reassured that it was not an utter - failure. - - Mrs. Dana tried to carry me to lunch, most kindly. I could not - make up my mind to go anywhere after what I had heard, but - for a moment to see if the good Jameses were well, and thence - homeward. It seemed, if I could ever work, it must be then. - - At half-past six Jamie returned from the dinner, where J. R. - Lowell presided in the most elegant and brilliant manner. In - calling out Agassiz he told the story of the sailor who was - swallowed by a whale and finding time rather heavy on his - hands thought he would inscribe his name on the bridge of bone - above his head; but looking for a place, jack-knife in hand, - he found that Jonah was before him—so he said Agassiz, etc. - And of Holmes he said that the Professor and himself were like - two buckets in a well: when one of them presided at a dinner, - the other made it a point to bring a poem; when one bucket came - up full, the other went down empty. And so on through all. - Phillips Brooks, the distinguished preacher of Philadelphia, - was there, and many other men of note. - -Out of the many notes relating to Emerson’s lectures, a few passages may -be taken as typical. Perhaps the best unpublished pages are those on -which the philosopher is seen, with his wife and daughter, against the -social background of the time and place. - - _October 19, 1868._—The weeks spin away so fast I have no - time for records, and yet last Sunday and Monday we had two - pleasant parties, especially Monday, after Mr. Emerson’s first - lecture. We were 14 at supper. Mrs. Putnam and Miss Oakey - among the guests, but the Emersons, who are always pleased - and always full of kindliness, enjoyment, and Christianity, I - believe give more pleasure than they receive wherever they are - entertained. Edward is full of his grape-culture in Milton, - Ellen full of good works, Mrs. Emerson very hot against her - brother’s opponents, Morton and those who take sides with him - now that Morton himself is in the earth-mould first.[16] Mr. - Emerson, alive and alert on all topics, talked openly of the - untruthfulness of the Peabodys, of the beauty of “Charles - Auchester,” of Mr. Alcott’s school, of Dana’s politics as - superior perhaps to Butler and yet not altogether sound and - worthy, conservatism being so deep in his blood. - - Thursday we drove our friends to Milton Blue Hill after the - Emersons had gone, returned to dine and Selwyn’s theatre in the - evening. Herman Merivale was of the party—son of Thackeray’s - friend. The Stephens went on Wednesday. Thursday we dined in - Milton with Mrs. Silsbee; it was a wet nasty day. Friday, - Saturday and Sunday we were quietly enough here, Jamie with a - fearful cold. Surely all this is unimportant enough as regards - ourselves; but I like to remember when Mr. Emerson came and - what he said and how he looked, for it is a pure benediction to - see him and I honor and love him. - - _February 20, 1869._—Heard Emerson again, and Laura was with - me; we drank up every word eagerly. He read Donne, Daniel, and - especially Herbert; also _vers de société_; the facility of - these old divines giving them a power akin to what has produced - these familiar rhymes. - - He said Herbert was full of holy quips; fond of using a kind of - irony towards God, and quoted appropriately. Beautiful things - of Herrick, too, he read, but treated Vaughan rather unjustly, - we thought. - - Lowell sat just behind; I could imagine his running commentary - on many of Mr. Emerson’s remarks, which were often more - Emersonian than universal, or true. The facility of the old - poets seemed to impress him with almost undue reverence. He is - extremely natural and easy in manner and speech during these - readings. He bent his brows and shut his eyes, endeavoring - to recall a passage from Ben Jonson as if we were at his own - dinner-table, and at last when he gave it up said, “It is all - the more provoking as I do not doubt many a friend here might - help me out with it.” - - His respect for literature, often in these degenerate - days smiled upon from some imaginary hills by surrounding - multitudes, is absolute and regnant. It is religion and life, - and he reiterating them in every form. - -The first and second of the “Conversations” arranged for Emerson by -Fields are duly described in the journal. In the evening that followed -the second, Emerson and his daughter dined at Charles Street, in company -with Longfellow and his daughter Alice, William Morris Hunt and his wife, -Dr. Holmes, and the Fieldses. The scene and talk were recorded by the -hostess. - - ... Coming home, Ellen’s trunk had not arrived, so she came, - like a good child, most difficult in a woman grown, to dinner - in her travelling dress. Alice Longfellow looked very pretty in - a polonaise of lovely olive brown over black; a little feather - of the same color in her hair. Rooshue [Mrs. Hunt] and her - husband came in their everydays too. I wore a lilac polonaise - with a yellow rose—I speak of the latter because it seemed to - please W. M. Hunt to see the dash of color.... - - Hunt convulsed us with a story of seeing a man run through by - an iron bolt, when a distinguished physician is called in; the - physician asks if he can sleep well, and a thousand and one - questions of like relevancy, to all of which the patient only - replies by gasps of agony. Hunt acted the whole scene famously. - The sunset too delighted him as it gilded the old sheds back of - the house and made them “like Solomon’s temple.” Longfellow has - written to Miss Rossetti, the author of the “Shadow of Dante,” - to thank her for her pleasant book. He asks her the difficult - question why Dante puts Venus nearest the sun. Also he points - out her fault of saying the spirits of the blest inhabited the - planets, whereas Dante clearly states that they all lived in - one heaven but visited the planets. - - The truth of Hawthorne’s tale of the minister with the black - veil was hunted up. His name was Moody and he was one of the - Emerson family. It seems the poor man in his youth shot a boy - by accident, and as he grew older a morbid temper settled upon - him and he did not think himself fit to preach; so he withdrew - from the ministry but taught a small school, always wore a - black veil, literally a handkerchief. Ellen said her aunt was - taught by him and she appeared anxious to set the matter right. - Rose Hawthorne and her husband have been to see Mr. Emerson, - and he likes them both well; thinks Rose looks happy and the - young man promising, which is much. There is hope of Una’s - recovery and return. - - After dinner, we ladies looked over manuscripts for a time - until Longfellow went—when Mrs. Hunt went to the piano and - played and sang. Finally he came, and they sang their little - duets together and afterward she sang a song with words by - Channing about a pine tree, set to a scrap of a sonata by - Helen Bell, and after that a touching German song with English - words—then she read Celia’s [Mrs. Thaxter’s] new poem to Mr. - Emerson, called “The Tryst.” She read it only pretty well, - which disgusted her; and she said it reminded her of William’s - reading, which was the worst she ever knew; he could literally - stop in the middle of a sentence because it happened to be - the bottom of a page, and ask her what it meant. At that he - took Celia’s poem and read it through word for word like a - school-boy, looking up at her to see if he was right and should - go on. She laughed immoderately, and as for Mr. Emerson, J. - said his eyes left their wonted sockets and went to laugh far - back in his brain. - - Putting down his book, Hunt launched off into his own life as - a painter. His lonely position here without anyone to look up - to in his art—his idea of art being entirely misunderstood, - his determination _not_ to _paint_ cloth and cheeks, but to - paint the glory of age and the light of truth. He became almost - too excited to find words, but when he did grasp a phrase, it - was such a fine one that it went a great way. His wife sat by - making running comments, but when he said, “If any man who was - talking could not be heard, he would naturally try to talk so - that he could be heard,” we tried to urge him to stand firm - and to assure him that his efforts were neither lost nor in - vain. “If the books you wrote were left all dusty and untouched - upon the shelves, don’t you think you would try to write so - that people should want them? I am sure you would.” His wife - tried to say he must stand in the way he knew was right—as did - we all—but he seemed to think it too hard, too Sisyphus-like - a labor. The portrait of little Paul is still unsold. After - keeping the carriage waiting one hour and a half, they went—a - most interesting pair. - -[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE CHARLES STREET LIBRARY] - - _Tuesday, April 23._—Shakespeare’s birthday. Emerson and his - daughter passed the night with us and Edith Davidson, Ellen’s - “daughter,” came to breakfast. We talked over again the - pleasure of the night before. Emerson had never heard Hunt talk - before and had seldom found Longfellow so expansive. Holmes - met J. in the course of the day, and told him he had a real - good time, though he did have a thumping headache—he was much - pleased with Alice Longfellow. - -[Illustration: _From a note of Emerson’s to Mrs. Fields_] - - _Tuesday, May 21._—Call from Mr. Emerson, Mrs. E. and Ellen. - They came in a body to thank me, which Mrs. Emerson did in - a little set speech after her own fashion, at which we all - laughed heartily—especially at the “profit” clause. Indeed we - had a very merry time altogether. Mr. Emerson gave “Queenie” - permission to look all about the room, “for indeed there was - not such another in all Boston—no indeed [half soliloquizing], - not such another.” Then he looked about and told them the wrong - names of the painters, and would have been entirely satisfied - if he had not referred to me, when I was obliged to tell the - truth and so from that time he made me speaker. He said he - should do his very best for the university class for women - for next December to make up for having served them so badly - this winter. He said I had _very gently_ reminded him of his - entire forgetfulness to fulfil an engagement or half-engagement - to come to speak to them this winter. “Queenie” told me she - was one of the few persons who had read Miss Mitford’s poems, - “Blanche” and all the rest, and liked them very much. So the - various portraits of the old lady interested her much. - - They came down to Boston, Mrs. E. said, on purpose to make this - call. I had just returned home from a long drive about town on - business, so it was the best possible moment for me. - - Our first thought this morning (J’s. and mine) was, how could - Mr. Emerson finish his course of “Conversations,” which had - been so brilliant until the last, in so unsatisfactory a - manner. His matter was for the most part old, and he finished - with reading well-known hymns of Dr. Watts and Mrs. Barbauld. I - fear we were all disappointed. Some of the lectures (especially - the one on “Love”) have been so fine that we were bitterly - disappointed. - -A later reference to Emerson shows him in Philadelphia, and through -the eyes of a qualified observer there. The passage was written at -Manchester-by-the-Sea, to which Mr. and Mrs. Fields had begun to pay -summer visits even before 1872, and where they soon acquired that cottage -of their own on “Thunderbolt Hill,” which belied its name in serving as -the most peaceful of retreats for Mrs. Fields and the friends she was -constantly summoning to her side through all the remainder of her life. - - _Tuesday, August 25, 1872._—Miss A. Whitney came Saturday and - remained until Monday morning. Sunday evening we passed at - Mrs. Towne’s. Mrs. Annis Wister[17] of Pennsylvania had just - arrived, a dramatic creature, who tells and tells again at - request, with as much amiability as talent, her wonderful story - of Father Donne, the Irish priest, who performed the marriage - ceremony for one of her servants. Mrs. Wister, in spite of a - lisp, has a thoroughly clear enunciation. She never leaves a - sentence unfinished nor suffers the imagination to complete any - corner of her picture. She is exceedingly lively and witty, - and Miss Whitney, whose mind is quite different and altogether - introverted, busied over her artistic conceptions, could not - help a feeling of envy. The gift of narration, so rare in - this country, has been carefully cultivated by Mrs. Wister, - and poor Miss Whitney could only wonder and admire. I could - see her fine large eyes glow with pleasure and desire as she - listened to her. Mrs. Wister told me an odd thing, which shows - her as an individual. She asked me how the testimonial to Mr. - Emerson was progressing, as her father was much interested and - thought nothing he possessed too good to be given at once to - Mr. Emerson, nor indeed worthy of his acceptance, and she would - like to write him. I told her I believed the sum had reached - $10,000, and had already been presented. This led her to say - the friendship of her father for Mr. Emerson, and indeed their - mutual friendship, as she then believed it to be, dated back - to their youth, when Mr. Emerson was first writing his poems - and delighting over the illustrations her father would make for - them. As she grew up, she became dissatisfied at the relation - between them. She thought Mr. Furness, her father, gave much - more to Mr. Emerson in the way of friendship than Mr. Emerson - ever appreciated. This went on until she became about eighteen - years of age, when Mr. Emerson chanced to be visiting them in - Pennsylvania. One day she was standing upon the stairs near the - front door, and Mr. Emerson was ready to go out and waiting - there for her father, who had withdrawn for a moment. Her heart - was full, and suddenly she turned upon Mr. Emerson, and said, - “Mr. Emerson, I think you cannot know what a treasure you have - in this friendship of my father. He loves you dearly and I fear - you cannot appreciate what it is to have the love of such a man - as my father.” She says to this day she grows “pank,” as the - Scotchman said, all over at such presumption, but she could not - help it. - - I asked what Mr. Emerson replied. He looked surprised, she - said, and cast his eyes down, and then said earnestly that he - knew and felt deeply how unworthy he was to enjoy the riches of - such a friendship. - - This incident presented Mrs. Wister as well as Mr. Emerson - under a keen light. They could never understand each other. - -From October, 1872, until the following May, Emerson and his daughter -Ellen were traveling abroad. On their return Mrs. Fields wrote in her -journal:— - - _Thursday, May 27, 1873._—The Nortons came home with the - Emersons day before yesterday. Emerson came to pass an hour - with J. T. F. before going to Concord. His son Edward had come - down to meet him and was full of excitement over the reception - his father was to receive and of which he was altogether - ignorant. He was overjoyed to be on the old ground again and - comes back to value the old friends even more than ever. He - must have been much pleased by the joy testified in Concord, - but we have only the newspaper account of that. He has been - fêted more than ever in England, and Ellen was rather worn out - by the ovations; but her general health is much improved. The - Nortons, who returned in the same steamer, tell me Miss Emerson - was fêted for her own sake and was his rival! Her “American - manners” became all the rage in that world of novelty. One - night a gentleman sitting next her at dinner introduced the - word “æsthetic.” She said she did not understand what he meant - by that word! - - On the voyage Emerson was devoted to his daughter and full - of fun in all his talk with her. He would tuck her up in - blanket shawls and go up and down, hither and yon, to make - her comfortable—then he would laugh at her for being such an - exacting young lady and would be very ironical about the manner - in which she would allow him to wait on her. “And yet,” he - said, turning to the Nortons, “Ellen is the torch of religion - at home.” - -Throughout the journals Mrs. Fields’s references to meetings of the -Saturday Club, and the records of conversation reported by her husband -after these lively gatherings, are frequent. In one brief entry Parkman, -Lowell, and Emerson appear in a conjunction that could hardly have been -happy at the moment, but the concluding words of the passage may well -stand, for their appreciation of Emerson, at the end of these pages -concerned chiefly with him. - - _August 26, 1874._— ... Parkman said to Lowell, and a more - strange evidence of lapse of tact could hardly be discovered, - “Lowell, what did you mean by ‘the land of broken promise’?” - Emerson, catching at this last, said, “What is this about the - land of broken promise?” clearly showing he had never read - Lowell’s Ode upon the death of Agassiz—whereat Lowell answered - not at all, but dropped his eyes and silence succeeded, - although Parkman made some kind of futile attempt to struggle - out of it. Emerson said, “We have met two great losses in our - Club since you were last here—Agassiz and Sumner.” “Yes,” said - Lowell, “but a greater than either was that of a man I could - never make you believe in as I did—Hawthorne.” This ungracious - speech silenced even Emerson, whose warm hospitality to the - thought and speech of others is usually unending. - -[Illustration: _Facsimile of autograph inscription on a photograph of -Rowse’s crayon portrait of Lowell given to Fields_] - -In “Authors and Friends” Mrs. Fields concerned herself with Longfellow -and Whittier at even greater length than with Holmes and Emerson. The -Whittier paper, besides, was printed as a small separate volume; and -in Samuel T. Pickard’s “Life of Whittier,” as in Samuel Longfellow’s -biography of his brother, the letters from Whittier, as from Longfellow, -to Mrs. Fields, and to her husband, bear witness to valued intimacies. -Neither to Whittier nor to Longfellow, therefore, does it seem desirable -to devote a special section of these papers; nor yet to Lowell, who never -became the subject of published reminiscences by Mrs. Fields, perhaps -for the very reason that he figures somewhat less frequently than the -others in her journal. Yet there are many allusions to him, and in -addition to the letters to Fields which Norton selected for his “Letters -of James Russell Lowell,” and Scudder for his biography of Lowell, a -surprising number of unprinted, characteristic communications, both to -Fields and to his wife, testify to their friendship. The remainder of -this chapter cannot be more profitably employed than by drawing from -Mrs. Fields’s journal passages relating to these and other local guests -of the Charles Street house, and supplementing the diary especially with -a few of Lowell’s sprightly letters to his successor in the editorship -of the “Atlantic Monthly.” It may be remarked, as fairly indicative of -the relations between Lowell and the Fieldses through many years, that -when they visited England in 1869 their traveling companion was Lowell’s -daughter Mabel. - -[Illustration: JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL - -_From the crayon portrait by Rowse in the Harvard College Library_] - -Here, to begin with, is a note written to accompany one of Lowell’s -most familiar poems, “After the Burial,” when he sent the manuscript to -the editor of the “Atlantic.” Lowell’s practice of shunning capitals at -the beginning of his letters, except for the first personal pronoun, is -observed in the quotations that follow:— - - ELMWOOD, _8th March, 1868_ - - MY DEAR FIELDS:— - - when I am in a financial crisis, which is on an average once - in six weeks, I look first to my portfolio and then to you. - The verses I send you are most of them more than of age, but - Professors don’t write poems, and I even begin to doubt if - poets do—always. But I suppose you will pay me for my name as - you do others, and so I send the verses hoping you may also - find something in _them_ that is worth praise if not coin. - Consolation and commonplace are twin sisters and I doubt not - one sat at each ear of Eve after Cain’s misunderstanding with - his brother. In some folks they cause resentment, and this - little burst relieved mine under some desperate solacings after - the death of our first child, twenty-one years ago. I trust - there is nothing too immediately personal to myself in the poem - to make the publishing of it a breach of that confidence which - a man should keep sacred with himself. - - With kind regards to Mrs. Fields, I remain always yours, - - J. R. LOWELL - -Another typical letter, dated “Elmwood, 12th July, 1868, ¼ to 9 AM wind -W. by N. Therm 88°,” begins:— - - MY DEAR FIELDS:— - - as I swelter here, it is some consolation for me that you are - roasting in that Yankee-baker which we call the Wᵗᵉ Mᵗˢ. That - repercussion of the sun’s heat from so many angles at once - (the focus being the tourist) always struck me as one of the - sublimest examples of the unvarying operation of natural laws. - I wish you and Mrs. Fields might be made exceptions, but it can - hardly be hoped. - -Before the end of the month Fields had escaped the perils of New -Hampshire heat, and paid a visit to Elmwood, thus chronicled by Mrs. -Fields:— - - _July 25, 1868._—J. went out to see Lowell last night. As he - passed Longfellow’s door, “Trap,” the dog, was half-asleep - apparently on the lawn, but hearing a foot-step he leaped up - and, seeing who it was, became overjoyed, leaped upon him and - covered his hands with caresses. He stayed some time playing - with him. Lowell was alone in his library, looking into an - empty fire-place and smoking a pipe. He has been in Newport - for a week, but was delighted to return to find his “own - sponge hanging on its nail” and to his books. He had become - quite morbid because, while J. was away, a smaller sum than - usual was sent him for his last poem. He thought it a delicate - way of saying they wished to drop him. He was annoyed at the - thought of having left out of his article on Dryden one of the - finest points, he thought, that was making Dryden to appear the - “Rubens” of literature, which he appears to him to be. - - Lowell is a man deeply pervaded with fine discontents. I do - not believe the most favorable circumstances would improve - him. Success, of which he has a very small share considering - his deserts (for his books have a narrow circulation), would - make him gayer and happier; whether so wise a man, I cannot but - doubt. - - He wears a chivalric, tender manner to his wife. - -In the following autumn, Bayard Taylor and his wife were paying a visit -in Charles Street, and Lowell appears in Mrs. Fields’s journal as one of -the friends summoned in their honor. - - _Thursday morning, November 19, 1868._—Mr. Parton came to - breakfast and Dr. Holmes came in before we had quite done. O. - W. H. was delighted to see Mr. P., because of his papers on - “Smoking and Drinking.” He believes smoking paralyzes the will. - Taylor, on the contrary, feels himself better for smoking; it - subdues his physical energy so he can write; otherwise he is - nervous to be up and away and his mind will not work. - - At dinner we had Lowell, Parton, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, Mr. - and Mrs. Scott-Siddons and, later, Aldrich. Lowell talked - most interestingly, head and shoulders beyond everybody else. - The Siddonses left early, the gentlemen all smitten by her - beauty and loveliness. A kind of childish grace pervaded her - and she was beautiful as a picture. I could not wonder at - their delight. Lowell’s talk after their departure was of - literature, of course. He has been reading Calderon for the - last six months, in the original. He finds him inexhaustible - almost. Speaking of novels, he said Fielding was the master, - although he considers there are but two perfect creations of - individual character in all literature; these are Falstaff and - Don Quixote; all the rest fell infinitely below—are imperfect - and unworthy to stand by their side. Tom Jones he thought might - come in, in the second rank, with many others, but far below. - He said he could not tell his boys at Cambridge to read Tom - Jones, for it might do them harm; but Fielding painted his own - experience and the result was unrivalled. Thackeray and the - rest were pleasant reading, very pleasant, and yet how could - he tell his class that he read Tom Jones once a year![18] He - scouted the idea of Pickwick or anybody else approaching his - two great characters. They stood alone for all time. Rip Van - Winkle was suggested, but he said in the first place that was - not original. Few persons knew the story perhaps in the old - Latin (he gave the name, but unhappily I have forgotten it) but - it was only a remade dish after all. - - _Friday._—Bayard Taylor and his wife left for New York. Mr. - Parton dined out and we had a quiet evening at home and went - to bed early. (Parton thinks it would be possible to make the - “Atlantic Monthly” far more popular. He suggests a writer named - Mark Twain be engaged, and more articles connected with life - than with literature.) - -It is easy to believe that Lowell’s talk must have sounded much like his -letters, which so often sound like talk. Witness the following sentences -from a letter of December 21, 1868, in reply, apparently, to an appeal -for a new essay for the “Atlantic”:— - - Well, well, I am always astonished at the good nature of folks, - and how much boring they will stand from authors. As I told - Howells once, the day will come when a wiser generation will - drive all its literary men into a corner and make a _battue_ of - the whole lot. However, “after me, the deluge,” as Nero said, - and I suppose they’ll stand another essay or two yet, if I can - divine, or rather if I have absorbed enough of the general - feeling about something to put a point on it. - - It’s a mercy I’m not conceited! I should like to be, and try - to be, and have fizzes of it now and then, but they soon go - out and leave a _fogo_ behind them I don’t like. But if I only - were for a continuance I should be as grand a bore as ever - lived—as grand as Wordsworth, by Jove! I would come into town - once a week to read you over one of my old poems (selecting - the longest, of course), and point out its beauties to you. - You would flee to _Tierra del Fuego_ (ominous name!) to escape - me. You would give up publishing. You would write an epic and - read a book just to _me_ every time I came. But no, it is too - bright a dream. Let me [be] satisfied with my class, who have - to hear me once a week, and with just enough conceit to read - my lectures as if I had not stolen ’em, as I am apt to do now. - Look out for an essay that shall [make] Montaigne and Bacon - cross as the devil—when they come to read it! It will come ere - you think. - - Yours ever, - - FABIUS C. LOWELL - -A few weeks later Lowell was writing again to Fields, on January 12, -1869, about a fiftieth birthday party at Elmwood:— - - I am going to celebrate my golden wedding with Life, on the - 22nd of next month, by a dinner or a supper or something of the - kind, and I want you to _jine_. I shall get together a dozen or - so of old friends, and it will be a great satisfaction for you - and me to see how _much grayer_ the rest of ’em are than we. I - shall fit my invitations to this end, and the bald and hoary - will have the chance of the lame, the halt, and the blind in - the parable. If it should be a dinner, it won’t matter, but if - a supper, be sure and forget your night-key and then you won’t - have any anxiety, nor Mrs. Fields either. Of course, I shall - have an account of the affair in the papers with a list of the - gifts (especially in money) and the names of all who _donate_. - You will understand by what I have said that it is to be one - of those delightful things they call a “surprise party,” and I - expect to live on it for a year—one friend for every month. - -A week later, in the course of a letter accepting the invitation of Mr. -and Mrs. Fields for Lowell’s daughter to accompany them to Europe, he -wrote: “Do you see that —— is to commence his autobiography in ‘Putnam’s -Magazine’? At least, I take it for granted from the title—The Ass in Life -and Literature? If sincerely done, it will be interesting.” - -For all the transcendentalism of the circle to which Mrs. Fields bore so -intimate a relation, there emanated from Lowell and others an atmosphere -of sincerity which helped to preserve the equilibrium of the more easily -swayed. Mrs. Fields herself was not immune to the appeal of some of the -“isms” of the time and place, but an entry in her journal for January 18, -1870, shows her in no great peril of being swept away by them:— - - Attended yesterday a meeting of what is called the Radical - Club. Mr. Channing spoke, Mr. Higginson, Wendell Phillips, - Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mr. Bartol, Wasson, J. F. Clarke, - Edna Cheney. Mr. Whittier was present and a room full of - “come-outers.” Mr. Channing and Mr. Phillips were reverent, - though I think Mr. Phillips more definite, and perhaps - consequently more conservative, in what he said. Certainly Mr. - Phillips’s speech was highly satisfactory. On the whole there - was much vague talk and restless expression of self without any - high end being furthered. I thought much of Mr. Higginson’s - talk and Mr. Wasson’s irreverent answer were untrue. Perhaps I - am wrong in saying no good end is attained by such a meeting. - Perhaps a closer understanding of what we do believe is the - result. But there is much unpleasant in the unnatural and - excited view of the inside ring.[19] - -There was, moreover, a constant corrective at hand in the persons of the -local wits, among whom Longfellow’s brother-in-law, Thomas Gold (“Tom”) -Appleton, was of the most clear-sighted. His definition of Nahant as -“cold roast Boston,” and his prescription for tempering the gales on a -particularly windy Boston corner by tethering a shorn lamb there, have -secured him something more than a local survival. He frequently left his -mark on the pages of Mrs. Fields’s diary—once venturing seriously into -prophecy on the spiritual future of Boston, in terms which will seem, at -least, _in partibus infidelium_, to have received a certain confirmation -at the hands of time. In the diary the following entry is found:— - - _Sunday, November 6, 1870._—Appleton (Tom, as the world calls - him) came in soon after breakfast Sunday morning. He talked - very wisely and brilliantly upon Art, its value and purpose to - the state, the necessity for the Museum. He said our people - were far more literary than artistic. The sensuous side of - their nature was undeveloped. The richness of color, the glory - of form, was less to them than something which could set the - sharp edge of their intellect in motion. “Besides, what is - Boston going to do,” he said, “when these fellows die who give - it its honor now, Longfellow, Holmes, and the rest? They can’t - live forever, and with them its glory will depart without it - is sustained by a foundation for art in other directions. - Harvard University will do something to keep it up, but not - much, and unless a distinct effort be made now, Boston will - lose its place and go behind.” He became much excited by the - lack of appreciation for William Story in Boston, and the - abuse of the Everett statue, which he considers good in its - way and as marking the highest point in Everett’s oratorical - fame, that is, when he lifted his hand to indicate the stars in - his address at Albany, and set his fame some points nearer the - luminaries which inspired him, by his fine eloquence. - - He said a merchant told him one day that he didn’t like Story’s - portrait statues, but his ideal work he was delighted with. - “You lie!” I said to him. “The beautiful Shepherd-Boy which I - helped to buy and bring to Boston you know nothing of—you can’t - tell me now in which corner of the Public Library it is hidden - away. I tell you, you lie!” - - He spoke of the Saturday Club, and said that, although he - sometimes smiled at Holmes’s enthusiasm over it, he believed - in the main he was quite right, and it would be remembered in - future as Johnson’s Club has been, and recorded and talked of - in the same way. - - Unfortunately I don’t see their Boswell. I wish I could believe - there was a single chiel amang them takin’ notes.[20] - -On December 14, 1870, the diary recorded a dinner at which Longfellow, -Osgood, Aldrich, Holmes, Dana, Howells, Lowell, and Bayard Taylor were -the guests. It celebrated the completion of Taylor’s translation of -“Faust.” Of the talk of Lowell and Longfellow, Mrs. Fields wrote:— - - Before dinner I found opportunity for a short talk with Lowell - upon literature. He thinks the chief value of Bret Harte is - his local color and it would be a fatal mistake for him to - come East, in spite of Taylor’s representation of the aridity - of intellectual life now in California. Taylor finds the same - reason for leaving his native place. He regrets his large - house, and frankly says he is tired of living there, tired of - living alone, there being really no one in the vicinity with - whom he can associate as on equal grounds. There is no culture, - not even a love for it, in the neighborhood. - - But I have not said half enough of Longfellow. He scintillated - all the evening, was filled with the spirit of the time and the - scene, sweetly reprimanded Taylor for not having time to give - him a visit also, darted his _jeux d’esprit_ rapidly right and - left, often setting the table in a roar, a most unusual thing - with him. Holmes at the other end was talking about the natural - philosophers who “invented facts.” Lowell took exception, said - it was an impossible juxtaposition of ideas and words. Holmes - defended himself by quoting (I think the name was Carius; - whoever it was, Lowell said at once and rather warningly, he is - a very distinguished name) a series of created facts by which - he said a woman was not articulated or not as a man is (perhaps - I have not his exact ideas); whereat Longfellow at once held up - the _inarticulate_ woman to the amusement of the table. Then - they began to talk of the singular persons this world contains, - “quite as strange as Dickens,” as they always say; and Taylor, - who introduced the subject, proceeded to relate an incident - which happened to him in a cheap coffee house in New York. - It was near a railway station, so he dropped in, finding it - convenient so to do, at an hour not usually popular with the - frequenters of such establishments. It was empty save for an - extraordinary figure with long arms, short legs and misshapen - body, who, hearing a glass of ale ordered, came forward and - said if he pleased he would like to have _his_ ale at the same - table for the sake of company. There was nothing to do but - to comply, which Taylor of course did, whereupon the strange - creature, never asking who Taylor was, went on to relate that - _he_ was the great man-monkey of the world who could hang from - a tree and eat nuts and make the true noise in the throat - better than any other; he had no competitor except one of the - Ravel brothers, but he (Ravel) was not the real thing; he - himself alone could make the noise perfectly.... - - They all drank the exquisite Ehrbacher Rhine wine from tall - green German glasses of antique form, which delighted them - greatly. Jamie was much entertained by Holmes’s finding them - “good conversational aperient, but ugly. I should always have - them on the table, but they are not handsome.” Longfellow was - delighted with my Venetian lace bodice; it seemed to have a - flavor of Venice about it in his eyes. It was a real pleasure - to me to see his appreciation of a thing Jamie and I really - enjoy so much. - - I have not reported all, by any means, but time fails me now. - A thought of Dickens was continually present, as it must be - forever at a company dinner-table. How many beautiful feasts - have I enjoyed by his side! There is none like him, none. - - Taylor wrote a friendly German inscription in his book and - presented me after dinner. - - There were amusing traits of Elizabeth Peabody given. - Longfellow remembered that the first time he met her was in - a carriage. She was taken up in the dark. Hearing his name - mentioned, she leaned forward and said, “Mr. Longfellow, can - you tell me which is the best Chinese Grammar?” - -A midsummer entry of the same year suggests the part that an editor’s -wife may play in the successful conduct of a magazine, if only through -sharing the enthusiasm that attends the first reading of a manuscript of -distinguished merit. - - _Saturday, July 16, 1870._—A perfect summer day. Jamie did not - go to town, but with a bag full of letters and MSS. concluded - to remain here. He fell first upon a MS. by Henry James, - Jr., a short story called “Compagnons de Voyage,” and after - tasting of it in our room and finding the quality good (though - the handwriting was execrable), I invited my dear boy to a - favorite nook in the pasture where we could hear the sea and - catch a distant gleam of its blue face while we were still in - shadow and fanned by oak leaves. It was one of those delicious - seasons which summer can bring to the dullest heart, I believe - and hope. We lay down with our feet plunged into the cool - delicious grass, while I read the pleasant tale of Italy to the - close. I do not know why success in work should affect us so - powerfully, but I could have wept as I finished reading, not - from the sweet low pathos of the tale, which was not tearful, - but from the knowledge of the writer’s success. It is so - difficult to do anything well in this mysterious world. - -On the very next day Lowell wrote Fields a letter which must have been -read with delight by such friends of Dickens as the Fieldses. The -decorated sonnet which filled its third sheet is reproduced herewith in -facsimile: the plainness of Lowell’s script renders type superfluous. -The mere fact that the death of Dickens could have called forth clerical -expressions provoking Lowell to such scorn is in itself a measure of the -distance we have travelled since 1870. The verses are not included in -Lowell’s “Poetical Works,” nor are they listed in the “Bibliography of -James Russell Lowell,” compiled by George Willis Cooke. With two slight -changes they may be found, however, over Lowell’s signature, in “Every -Saturday,” for August 6, 1870. - -[Illustration: _Facsimile of Lowell’s “Bulldog and Terrier” sonnet_] - - ELMWOOD, _17th July, 1870_ - - MY DEAR FIELDS:— - - I can stand it no longer! If Dickens is to be banned, the rest - of us might as well fling up our hands. This hot weather, too, - gives a foretaste that raises well-founded apprehension. It - is a good primary school for the Institution of which the - Rev’ds Fulton and Dunn seem to be ushers. Instead of going to - Church today, where I might have heard something not wholly to - my advantage, as the advertisements for _lost_ people say, I - have written a sermon. It is not a proper sonnet, but a cross - between that and epigram—a kind of bull-terrier, in short, with - the size of the one and the prick-ears and docked tail of the - other, nor without his special talent for rats. Is there any - grip in his jaw or no? He is good-natured and scarce shows his - teeth. - - The thing is an improvisation and the weather awfully hot! - - Sweltered your servant sits and sweats and swears: (for - alliteration only) but if you would like it for the “Atlantic,” - why here it is on the next leaf. Or, if too late, why not - “Every Saturday”? I could not even think of it sooner, for I - have been wrestling with a bad head and an article on Chaucer, - and I fear they have thrown me. I want rest, and a bath of - poetry, but where may the wicked hope for either? My sonnet - (if Leigh Hunt would let me call it so) hit me like a stray - shot from nowhere that I could divine, and five minutes saw it - finished. So why may it not be good? It came, anyhow, as a poem - comes—though it isn’t just that. But my dog isn’t bad? He is - from the life at any rate. - - I shall make use of my first leisure to get into Boston. - But I have got bedevilled with the text of Chaucer and am - working on it with my usual phrenzy—thirteen hours, for - example, yesterday, collating texts and writing into margins. - I comfort myself that my Chaucer will bring a handsome price - at my _vandoo_! I shall be easier in my coffin if it run up - handsomely for Fanny and Mabel. - - Do you want an essay for your “Almanac” if one should come, - which is doubtful? I need one or two more to make a little - volume, and I need a little volume for nameless reasons. O, if - I could sell my land! I would transmute that gold into poetry. - Or if only poems would come when you whistle for ’em! - - Give my kindest regards to Mrs Fields. - - Yours always, - - J. R. L. - - From my study, this first day for three weeks without a drowsy - pain in my knowledge box, I really feel a little lively, and - wonder at myself. But don’t be alarmed—it won’t last, any more - than money does, or principle in a politician, or hair, or - popular favor—or paper. - -Lowell and Longfellow continue to make their appearances in Mrs. Fields’s -diary. - - _December 7, 1871._—Last Sunday Charlotte Cushman dined here. - Our guests asked to meet her were Mr. and Mrs. Lowell and - Mr. Longfellow; Miss Stebbins and Miss Chapman, her guests, - also came. We had a lovely social time, Lowell making himself - especially interesting, as he always does when he can once work - himself up to the pitch of going out at all. He talked a while - with me about poetry and his own topics after dinner. He said - he was one of the few people who believed in absolute truth; - that he always looked for certain qualities in writers, which - if he could not discover, they no longer interested him and - he did not care to read them. He discovered, for instance, in - the writers who had survived the centuries the same kindred - points, those points he studied until he discovered what the - adamant was and where it was founded; then he would look into - the writers of our own age to see if he could find the same - stuff; there was little enough of it unfortunately. He does - not like Reynolds’s portrait of Johnson, thought it untrue, - far too handsome, yet highly characteristic in the management - of the hands, which portray the man as he was when talking - better probably than anything ever did. Mrs. Lowell appeared to - enjoy herself. J. says L. is always more himself if Mrs. L. is - happy and talkative. They are thinking of Europe. Mabel is to - be married in April, and afterward they probably go at once to - Europe. - - A small party of friends assembled in the evening. Longfellow - was the beloved and observed and worshipped among all. - -[Illustration: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW - -_From a photograph taken in middle life_] - - _April 11, 1872._—Last night Jamie dined with Longfellow. John - Field of Pennsylvania and Lowell were the two other guests. - J. was there twenty minutes before the rest arrived, and - Longfellow gave him an account of the wedding of a school-mate - of mine, —— ——, an excellent generous-hearted, generously built - woman, with a little limping old clergyman who has already had - three wives and whose first name is ——. Longfellow said, in - memory of what had gone before, the organist, as if driven - by some evil spirit, played “Auld Lang Syne,” as the wedding - procession came in, consisting of the bride and her brother, - two very well-made large persons and the elderly bridegroom - limping on behind all alone. The organist suddenly stopped at - this point, breaking off with a queer little quirk and shiver - as if he only then discovered what he was doing. Indeed the - whole wedding appeared to have points to affect the risibles - of the poet. He could hardly speak of it without laughter. - He said, moreover, that it was, he thought, disgusting and - outrageous for old men to get married. - - _Tuesday, September 23, 1872._—Longfellow came to town to see - Jamie, in one of his loveliest moods. The day was so warm and - fine, such a day of dreams, that he proposed to him every kind - of excursion. “Come,” he said, “let us go to the tea stores - and smell the tea; the warm atmosphere will bring out all the - odors and we can get samples!” And again, “Come, let us go to - the wharves and see the vessels just in from Italy or Spain. - It will be a lovely sight in this soft sky, and we can hear - the men speak in their native tongues.” Unhappily all these - seductions were in vain, for Jamie was busy and was to lecture - in Grantville in the evening. L. said: “At half-past eight I - shall think of you doing thus and thus” (sawing the air with - his arms). L. continued: “You know I have very strange people - come to me—a man came a day or two ago by the name of Hyers, - who has just published a book describing his own career. He - believes that he is fed by the Lord! ‘How do you mean?’ asked - I, with the knowledge that we were all fed in the same way. - ‘Why,’ said H., ‘He leaves _pies and peanuts on the sidewalks - for me_.’” Longfellow could hardly contain himself—but “after - all,” he said, “that is very like Greene: when Greene comes to - me, he always takes his money to come and go, just like my own - sons and without so much as a thank you. But I like to have - Greene come because he enjoys it so much and it is so strange. - He amuses me. Then Appleton too, with his odd fancies, it would - be hard to find a stranger man than he. He amused me immensely - the other day by fancying an Indian, ‘Great Fire,’ or ‘Hole in - the Wall,’ or some such fellow, coming to Boston for the first - time. Passing a perruquier’s, he sees the window filled with - masses of false hair; taking them to be scalps and the window - to be an exhibition of these tokens of prowess, he rushes in, - embraces the little perruquier behind the counter, treats him - like a brother, and almost frightens the small hairdresser out - of his senses!!” - - L. likes Joaquin [Miller] much. Of course, he said, there - are some things about him not altogether agreeable, such as - flinging a quid of tobacco out of his mouth under the table; - “but I don’t mind those things; perhaps,” he added, “perhaps I - might have done the same as a youth of 20!!!” - - _Thursday, June 12, 1873._—Dined last night with the Aldriches - and Mr. Bugbee at Mr. Lowell’s beautiful old Elmwood.[21] It - was a perfect night, cool, fresh, moon-lighted, after a muggy - day of heat. After dinner I went into the fine old study with - Aldrich, where he showed me two or three little poems he has - lately written. He was all ready to talk on literary topics - and much in earnest about his own satisfaction over “Miss - Mehitable’s Son” (which is indeed a very good story), and was - full of disgust over the “Nation’s” cool dismissal of it. - It was too bad; but that Dennet of the “Nation” is beneath - contempt because of the slights he throws upon good literary - work. Aldrich says he found “Asphodel” all worn to pieces, read - and reread in the upstairs study. He finds Mr. Lowell’s library - in curious disorder with respect to modern books. He is an easy - lender and an easy borrower. The result is, everything is at - loose ends. Only two volumes of Hawthorne can be found, for - instance.... - - Such wonderful colors overspread our bay this evening, the - wide heavens, and all that lay between, it seemed an unreal - and magic glory, and I recall dimly Hawthorne’s disgust when - he endeavored to describe a landscape. The Lord, he says, - expressed himself in this glory; how shall we therefore - interpret into language when he himself has taken this form of - speech as the only adequate expression to convey his meaning to - us? Who does not feel this in looking at the glories of Nature - in this perfect season? - -And here is a final glimpse of Longfellow, at Manchester-by-the-Sea, -shortly after Don Pedro of Brazil had visited him in Cambridge:— - - _Thursday, July 6, 1876._—A fine rushing wind—no rain, but a - wind that seemed to tear everything up by the roots. I dared - not venture out in the morning. To our surprise and delight Mr. - Longfellow came to dine. He was pleased to find Anna here, and - fell to talking of Heidelberg in German with her and quoting - the poets most delightfully. We sat in the front hall and - rejoiced over his presence as he talked, for he was in a fine - talking mood. He told us of the Emperor’s visit and of his - soldierly though most simple bearing; how he came to call upon - him after his dinner, and when, as he rose to go, Longfellow - said, “Your Majesty, I thank you for the honor you have done - me.” He said, “Ah! no, Longfellow, none of your nonsense, let - us be friends together. I hope you will write to me. I will - write you first and you must promise to answer.” As they walked - down the garden path together, Longfellow raised his hat and - stepped one side as he was about to get into his carriage. “No, - no,” he said laughingly, “there you are at it again.” In short, - he has left a pleasant memory behind. - - Longfellow told us his maids broke everything he possessed; at - last they had broken a very beautiful Japanese vase or bowl - which Charley brought home—so he had made a Latin epitaph for - the maid. Unhappily I recall only the last line:— - - _Nihil tetigit quod non fregit._ - - He described Blumenbach very amusingly, whose lectures on - Natural History he attended as a youth in Heidelberg. He - descended from his desk one day and came and rested his hand on - the rail just before which L. was seated. He had been speaking - of Platonic love. “Und die Platonische Liebe ist nach Amerika - gegangen,” he said, looking at Longfellow. The whole student - audience roared and applauded. - - He was in the loveliest spirits and manners. His friendly - ways to my three friendless girls were not only such as to - excite them profoundly, but there was sincere feeling in his - invitation to them to call upon him and in his questions in - their behalf. - - The wind subsided as we sat together; the two young Bigelows - sang “Maid of Athens” and one or two other songs, and then - he departed. How sorry we were as we watched his retreating - figure, as he and dear J. wound down the hill in the little - phaeton. - -Mrs. Fields’s gallery of friends would be incomplete without a single -sketch of Whittier’s familiar outline. Out of many which the diaries -contain, one may best be taken, for it shows him in company with that -other friend, Celia Thaxter, whom also Mrs. Fields counted among the -few to whose memory she devoted special chapters in her “Authors and -Friends”; and it brings the three together at Mrs. Thaxter’s native Isles -of Shoals, so long a mecca of the “like-minded.” - -[Illustration: _From a note of “Dear Whittier” to Mrs. Fields_] - - _July 12, 1873._—I shall not soon forget our talk one afternoon - in the parlor at “The Shoals.” Whittier, as if inspired by - that spirit residing in us which is the very ground-work of - the Quaker belief, began to speak of Emerson’s faith and of - the pain it gave him to see the name of Jesus placed in his - writings as but one among many. When he discoursed with Emerson - of these things, he could have no satisfaction. Celia, on the - other hand, said she did not understand these things; she never - prayed. “I am sure thee does without knowing it,” said W.; - “else what do thy poems mean? Thee has not set prayer perhaps, - but some kind of a prayer thee must have. No human being can - exist without it. But what troubles me also in Emerson is that - I can find no real faith in immortality.” Here I took up the - question. I had heard Mr. Emerson at Thoreau’s grave, afterward - speaking expressly on immortality, and in both discourses I - felt deeply his faith in our future progress and enduring - life. Whittier was inclined to think me mistaken. I think - too that his use of Jesus’ name is to prevent the worship - of him instead of the One God. Whittier asked Celia to read - a discourse of Emerson’s, which she did aloud; and again he - spoke of the beauty of childlike worship, the necessity for it - in our natures, and quoted some lovely hymns. His whole heart - was alive and poured out toward us as if he longed tenderly - like the prophet of old to breathe a new life into us. I could - seem to see that he reproached himself that so many days had - passed without his trying to speak more seriously. He was not - perfectly well after this—a headache overtook him before our - talk was over and did not leave him until he found himself in - Amesbury again. I trust it did so there.... - - Whittier said one day, when we were talking of the “Life of - Charlotte Brontë” by Mrs. Gaskell, and I was saying how sad it - was she should have made the old man, her father, suffer unto - death, as she did, by telling the tale of his bad son’s life, - and “still worse,” I said, “she came out in the Athenæum and - declared that her story was false, when she knew it was true, - hoping to comfort the old man,”—“I don’t know,” said Whittier; - “I am inclined to think that was the best part of it, if her - lie would have done the old man any good!” - - After we had our long afternoon session of talk over Emerson - and future existence and the unknowable, Celia stood up and - stretched herself and said, “How good it has been with the - little song-sparrow putting in his oar above it all!” - - And what of Mrs. Fields herself, a woman of nearly forty - when this last passage was written? For the most part the - diary reveals her but indirectly. Yet in the midst of all her - pictures of her friends, a fragment of self-portraiture is - occasionally found; and to one of them the reader of these - pages is entitled. - -[Illustration: _Proposed Dedication of Whittier’s “Among the Hills” to -Mrs. Fields. In a letter to Mrs. Fields, Whittier wrote: “I would like -thy judgment about it. Would this do?” In altered form it appears in the -book._] - - _December 18, 1873._—Have been looking over “Wilhelm Meister”! - I struck upon that marvellous passage, “I reverence the - individual who understands distinctly what he wishes; who - unweariedly advances; who knows the means conducive to his - object, and can seize and use them. How far his object may be - great or little is the next consideration with me”; and much - more quite as good to the same end. It prompts me to say what I - wish to do in life. - - Aristotle writes: “Virtue is concerned with action, art with - production.” The problem of life is how to harmonize the - two—either career must become _prominent_ according to the - nature of the individual. I discern in myself: 1st, the desire - to serve others unselfishly according to the example of our - dear Lord; 2nd, the desire to cultivate my powers in order - to achieve the highest life possible to me as an individual - existence by stimulating thought to its finest issues through - reflection, observation, and by profound and ceaseless study of - the written thoughts of the wisest in every age and every clime. - - To fulfil these aims we must be able to answer the simple - question promptly to ourselves: “What then shall I do tomorrow - and today?” Then, the decision being made, the thing alone must - have all the earnestness put into it of a creature who knows - that the next moment he may be called to his account. - - As a woman and a wife my first duty lies at home; to make that - beautiful,—to stimulate the lives of others by exchange of - ideas, and the repose of domestic life; to educate children and - servants. - - 2nd, To be conversant with the very poor; to visit their homes; - to be keenly alive to their sufferings; never allowing the - thought of their necessities to sleep in our hearts. - - 3rd, By day and night, morning and evening, in all times and - seasons when strength is left to us, to study, study, study. - - Because I have put this last, it does not stand last in - importance; but to put it first and write out the plan for - study which my mind naturally selects would be to ignore that - example of perfect life in which I humbly believe, and to - return to the lives of the ancients, so fine in their results - to the few, so costly to the many. But in the removed periods - of existence, when solitude may be our blessed portion, what a - joy to fly to communion with the sages and live and love with - them! - - I have written this out for the pleasure of seeing if “I - distinctly understand what I wish.” It is a wide plan, too - wide, I fear, for much performance, but therefore perhaps more - conducive to a constant faith. - - - - -V - -WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA[22] - - -When Mrs. Fields wrote the “Personal Recollections” of Oliver Wendell -Holmes which appear in her “Authors and Friends,” she quoted, with a few -changes prompted by modesty, this passage from a letter received from him -at Christmas, 1881: “Except a few of my immediate family connections, no -friends have seen me so often as a guest as did you and your husband. -Under your roof I have met more visitors to be remembered than under any -other. But for your hospitality I should never have had the privilege -of personal acquaintance with famous writers and artists whom I can now -recall as I saw them, talked with them, heard them in that pleasant -library, that most lively and agreeable dining-room. How could it be -otherwise with such guests as he entertained with his own unflagging -vivacity and his admirable social gifts?” - -One of the visitors thus encountered by Dr. Holmes was Charles Dickens. -Here was a guest after the host’s own heart—and the hostess’s. The host -stood alone among publishers as a friend of the authors with whom it was -his business to deal. Out of them all there was none with whom he came to -stand on terms of closer sympathy and friendship than with Dickens. They -had first met when Dickens came to America in 1842, and Fields was by no -means the conspicuous figure he was to become. When he visited Europe in -1859-60, with his young wife, whose personality was to contribute its own -beauty and charm to the hospitality of 148 Charles Street for many years -to come, they dined with Dickens in London, visited him at Gad’s Hill, -and had much discussion of a plan, which Fields had been urging upon -him in correspondence, for Dickens to come to America for a course of -readings. As early as in one of the letters of this time, Dickens wrote -to Fields: “Here I forever renounce ‘Mr.’ as having anything whatever to -do with our communication, and as being a mere preposterous interloper.” -From such beginnings grew the intimacy which caused Dickens, when he drew -up the humorous terms of a walking-match between Dolby, his manager, -and Osgood, Fields’s partner, while the Boston readings of 1868 were in -progress, to define Fields as “Massachusetts Jemmy” and himself as the -“Gad’s Hill Gasper” by virtue of his “surprising performances (without -the least variation) on that true national instrument, the American -catarrh.” - -The visits of Dickens to America, first in 1842, then in the winter of -1867-68, have been the subject of abundant chronicle. For the first -of them there is the direct record of his “American Notes,” besides -those indirect reflections in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” which wrought an -effect described by Carlyle in the characteristic saying that “all -Yankee-doodledom blazed up like one universal soda bottle.” Many -memorials of the second visit are preserved in Fields’s “Yesterdays -with Authors,” and in John Forster’s “Life” both visits are of course -recorded. - -[Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS - -_From a portrait by Francis Alexander, for many years in the Fields -house, and now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts_] - -There is, besides, one source of intimate record of Dickens in America -which hitherto has remained almost untouched.[23] This is found in the -diaries of Mrs. Fields, filled, as the preceding pages have shown, not -merely with her own sympathetic observations, but with many things -reported to her by her husband. To him it was largely due that Dickens -crossed the Atlantic near the end of 1867. Landing in Boston, and soon -beginning his extraordinarily popular readings, he found in the Charles -Street house of the Fieldses a second home. “Steadily refusing all -invitations to go out during the weeks he was reading,” wrote Fields -in his “Yesterdays with Authors,” “he went only into one other house -besides the Parker, habitually, during his stay in Boston.” In that -house Mrs. Fields wrote the diaries from which the following passages -are taken. There Dickens was not merely a warmly welcomed friend and -guest at dinner, but for a time an inmate. Henry James, summoning after -Mrs. Fields’s death his remembrances of her and of her abode, found in -it “certain fine vibrations and dying echoes” of all the episode of -Dickens’s second visit. “I liked to think of the house,” he wrote, “I -couldn’t do without thinking of it, as the great man’s safest harborage -through the tremendous gale of those even more leave-taking appearances, -as fate was to appoint, than we then understood.” - -In Dickens’s state of physical health while the Fieldses were thus seeing -him, lay the only token of an end not far off. All else was gayety and -delight. The uncontrollable laughter—where does one hear quite parallel -notes to-day?—the simplicities of game and anecdote, the enthusiastic -yielding of complete admiration, the glimpses of august figures of an -earlier time—all these serve equally to take one back over more than -half a century, into a state of society about which an element of myth -begins to form, and to bring out of that past the living, human figure of -Dickens himself. - -For the most part these extracts from the diaries call for no -explanations. - -Several months before the great visitor’s arrival his coming was heralded -by his business agent, of whom Mrs. Fields wrote:— - - _August 14, 1867._—Mr. Dolby arrived today from England (Mr. - Dickens’s agent), a good, healthy, kindly natured man of - whom Dickens seems really fond, having followed him to the - steamer in Liverpool from London to see that all things were - comfortably arranged for him. He says Dickens has lamed one of - his feet with too much walking of late. He is here to arrange - for 100 nights, for which he hears he may receive $200,000; the - readings to begin the first of December and to be chiefly given - in New York City. - - _August 15, 1867._—Our day was quiet enough, but when J. - came down, he held us quite spellbound and magnetized all the - evening with his account of Dickens, which Mr. Dolby had given - him. He says Dolby himself is a queer creature when he talks. - He has a stutter which leads him to become suddenly stately in - the middle of a homely phrase and to give a queer intonation to - his voice, so that he did not dare look at Osgood (who was a - listener also) lest they should both explode with laughter. - - Dickens now has five dogs; for these the cook prepares daily - five plates of dinner. One day the plates were all ready when a - small pup stole in and polished off the five plates. He fainted - away immediately, and in this condition was discovered by the - cook, who put him under the pump and revived him; but he had - been going about looking like the figure 8 ever since. - - Dickens is a warm friend of Fechter. One day, returning from - a reading tour, his man met him at the station saying, “The - fifty-eight boxes have come, sir.” “What?” said Mr. Dickens. - “The fifty-eight boxes have come, sir.” “I know nothing of - fifty-eight boxes,” said the other. “Well, sir,” said the man, - “they are all piled up outside the gate and we shall soon see, - sir.” They proved to be a Swiss chalet complete, handles, - blinds, not a bit wanting, which Fechter had sent him. It is - put up in a grove near the house, where it presents a very - picturesque effect. - - Dickens allows nothing to escape his attention and gives - “one small corner of the white of one eye” to his household - concerns, though he seems not to observe. His daughter Mary - has the governance of the servants, Miss Hogarth of the cellar - and provisions. There is a system in everything with which he - has to do. When he gives a reading, he is present in the hall - at half-past six, although the reading does not begin until - eight; for Dickens cannot go about as other people do, he must - go when the people do not press upon him. On reaching the - private room, his servant brings his evening dress, reading - desk, screen, lamps, when he arranges the hall, examines the - copper gas-tubes to see if in order, dresses himself and is - ready to begin. In Liverpool the other night he had advertised - to read “Sergeant Buzfuz,” instead of which by accident he - read “Bleak House.” Mr. Dolby spoke to him as soon as he had - finished, telling him the mistake he had made. He at once - returned to the desk, and said, “My friends, it is half-past - ten o’clock and you see how tired I am, but I will still read - Sergeant Buzfuz’s speech if you expect it.” “No, no,” the crowd - shouted; “you’re tired. No, no, this ought to do for tonight.” - One tall man raised himself up in the gallery and said, “Look - here, we came to hear Pickwick and we ought to hef it.” “Very - well, my friend,” replied Dickens, immediately, “I will read - Sergeant Buzfuz for your accommodation solely”; and thereat he - did read it to a breathless and delighted audience. - -[Illustration: “THE TWO CHARLES’S” (CHARLES DICKENS AND CHARLES FECHTER). - -_From a Humorous Drawing by_ ALFRED BRYAN, 1879. - -DICKENS AND FECHTER] - -At length came Dickens himself, and the diary takes up the tale:— - - _November 18, 1867._—Today the steamer is telegraphed with - Dickens on board, and the tickets for his readings have been - sold. Such a rush! A long queue of people have been standing - all day in the street—a good-humored crowd, but a weary - one.[24] The weather is clear but really cold, with winter’s - pinch in it. - - _November 19._— ... Yesterday I adorned Mr. Dickens’s room with - flowers, which seemed to please him. He was in the best of good - spirits with everything. - - _Thursday, November 21._—Mr. Dickens dined here. Agassiz, - Emerson, Judge Hoar, Professor Holmes, Norton, Greene, dear - Longfellow, last not least, came to welcome. Dickens sat on - my right, Agassiz at my left. I never saw Agassiz so full of - fun.... - - Dickens bubbled over with fun, and I could not help fancying - that Holmes bored him a little by talking at him. I was sorry - for this, because Holmes is so simple and lovely, but Dickens - is sensitive, very. He is fond of Carlyle, seems to love nobody - better, and gave the most irresistible imitation of him. His - queer turns of expression often convulsed us with laughter, and - yet it is difficult to catch them, as when, in speaking of the - writer of books, always putting himself, his real self, in, - “which is always the case,” he said; “but you must be careful - of not taking him for his next-door neighbor.” - - He spoke of the fineness of his Parisian audience:—“the most - delicately appreciative of all audiences.” He also gave a - most ludicrous account of a seasick curate trying to read the - service on board ship last Sunday. He tells us Browning is - really about to marry Miss Ingelow, and of Carlyle, that he is - deeply saddened, irretrievably, by the death of his wife. Just - as we were in a tempest of laughter over some witticism of his, - he jumped up, seized me by the hand, and said good-night. He - neither smoked nor drank. “I never do either from the time my - readings ‘set in,’” he said, as if it were a rainy season.... - - Among other interesting personal facts Dickens told us that - he had last year burned all his private letters. An appeal - from the daughter of Sydney Smith for some of his letters set - him thinking on the subject, and one day when there was a big - fire—[sentence unfinished]. - - Mr. Dickens left the table just as we were in a tempest of - laughter. Dr. Holmes ... was telling how inappreciative he had - found some country audiences—one he remembered in especial - when his landlady accompanied him to the lecture and her face, - he observed, was the only one which relaxed its grimness! - “Probably because she saw money enough in the house to cover - your expenses,” rejoined Dickens. That was enough; the laughter - was prodigious.... - - _Wednesday, November 27._—What a pity that these days have - flown while I have been unable to make any record of them. - J. has been to walk each day with Dickens, and has come home - full of wonderful things he has said.[25] His variety is so - inexhaustible that one can only listen in wonder. - - _Thursday, 28._—Thanksgiving Day. J. took Dickens to see the - Aldriches’ house. He was very much amused by what he saw there - and has written out a full account to his daughter, Mrs. - Collins.... - - I have made no record of our supper party of Wednesday evening. - We had Alfred to wait, and a pretty supper and more important - by far (tho’ the first a consequent of the last) a pretty - company. There were Mr. Dickens and Mr. Dolby, Helen Bell and - Mrs. Silsbee, Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow, Mr. Hillard and Louisa and - Mr. Beal. Mrs. Bell sang a little before supper (“Douglas” - for one) very gracefully with real feeling. At nine o’clock - oysters and fun began; finally Mr. Dickens told several ghost - stories, but none of them more interesting than a little bit - of clairvoyance or what-you-will, which he let drop concerning - himself. He said a story was sent to him for “All the Year - Round,” which he liked and accepted; just after the matter had - been put in type, he received a letter from another person - altogether from the one who had forwarded it in the first - place, saying that _he_ and not the first man was the author, - and in proof of his position he supplied a date which was - wanting in the first paper. Curiously enough, Mr. Dickens, - seeing the story hinged upon a date and the date being but a - blank in the MS., had supplied one, as it were by chance, and, - behold! _it was the same date which the new man had sent_. - - _Sunday._—Dined with Mr. Dickens at six o’clock. Mr. and Mrs. - Bigelow, Mr. Dolby and ourselves were the only guests. - - After dinner we played two or three games which I will set down - lest they should be forgotten. - -Descriptions of “Buzz,” “Russian Scandal,” and another wholly innocent -amusement may be omitted. - - _Monday night, December 2, 1867._—The first great reading! How - we listened till we seemed turned into one eyeball! How we all - loved him! How we longed to tell him all kinds of confidences! - How Jamie and he did hug in the anteroom afterward! What a - teacher he seemed to us of humanity as he read out his own - words which have enchanted us from childhood! And what a house - it was! Longfellow, Dana, Norton (Mrs. Dana, Jr., and the three - little Andrews went with us), and a world of lovely faces and - ardent admirers. - - Tuesday came Miss Dodge and Mrs. Hawthorne, Julian, and Rose. - The reading was quite as remarkable, tho’ more quiet than that - of the night before. As usual, we went to speak to him at his - request after it was over. Found him in the best of spirits, - but very tired. “You can’t think,” he said, “what resolution it - requires to dress again after it is over!” - - _Monday, December 9._—Left home at 8 A.M. for New York. The - day was clear and cold, the journey somewhat long, but on the - whole extremely agreeable. We only had each other to plague - or amuse, as the case might be, and we had the new Christmas - story of Dickens and Wilkie Collins (called “No Thoroughfare”) - to read, and so by sufficient attention to the peculiarities - or follies or troubles of our neighbors and some forgetfulness - of our own, we came to the Westminster Hotel at night, in - capital spirits but _rather_ frozen physically. We had scant - time to dress and dine and to go to the Dickens reading. We - accomplished it, nevertheless. Saw the rapturous enthusiasm, - heard the “Carol” far better read than in Boston, because the - applause was more ready and he felt stimulated by it. Afterward - Mr. D. sent for us to come to his room. He was fatigued, of - course, but we sat at table with him and after a while he began - to feel warmer as vigor returned. He brought out his jewels for - us to see—a pearl Count D’Orsay once wore, set with diamonds, - etc.—laughed and talked about the way we dress and other bits - of nonsense suggested by the time, all turned towards the fine - light of Charles Dickens’s lovely soul and returning with a - fresh gleam of beauty. We left early lest we should overfatigue - him. - - _Wednesday, December 11._—At four Dickens came to dinner in - our room with Eythinge and Anthony, his American designer and - engraver. Afterward we went to the “Black Crook” together, and - then home to the hotel, where we sat talking until one o’clock. - There is nothing I should like so much to do as to set down - every word he said in that time, but much must go down to - oblivion.... - - He talked of actors and acting—said if a man’s Hamlet was a - sustained conception, it was not to be quarrelled with; the - only question was, what a man of melancholy temperament would - do under such circumstances. Talked of Charles Reade and the - greatness of “Griffith Gaunt,” and the pity of it that he did - not stand on his own bottom instead of getting in with Dion - Boucicault, etc., etc. But after dinner he unbent, and while we - were in the box at the theatre showed how true his sympathies - were with the actors, was especially careful to make no sound - which could hurt their feelings by apparent want of attention. - The play was very dull, so we sat and talked. He told me that - no ballet dancer could have pretty feet, and one dreadful thing - was they could never wash them, as water renders the feet - tender and they must become horny. He asked about Longfellow’s - sorrow again and expressed the deepest sympathy, but said he - was like a man purified by suffering. - - We had punch in our room after the play, when he laughed till - the tears ran down his cheeks over Bob Sawyer’s party and - the remembrance of the laughter he had seen depicted on the - faces of people the night before. Jack Hopkins was such a - favorite with J. that D. made up the face again and went over - the necklace story until we roared aloud. At length he began - to talk of Fechter and to describe the sensitive character of - the man. He saw him first quite by accident in Paris, having - strolled into a little theatre there one night. He was making - love to a woman, and so elevated her as well as himself by the - sentiment in which he enveloped her that they trod into purer - ether and in another sphere quite lifted out of the present. - “‘By heavens!’ I said, ‘a man who can do this can do anything!’ - I never saw two people more purely and instantly elevated by - the power of love. The manner in which he presses the hem of - the dress of Lucy in the ‘Bride of Lammermoor’ is something - surpassing speech and simply wonderful. The man has a thread - of genius in him which is unmistakable, yet I should not call - him a man of genius exactly, either.” Mr. Dickens described him - as a man full of plans for plays, one who had lost much money - as a manager, too. He was apt to come down to Gad’s Hill with - his head full of plans about a play which he wished Mr. Dickens - to write out and which Fechter would act in the writing-room, - using Mr. Dickens’s small pillow for a baby in a manner to make - the latter feel, if Fechter were but a writer, how marvellous - his powers of representation would be. “I, who for so many - years have been studying the best way of putting things, felt - utterly amazed and distanced by this man.” - - Before the end of our talk Mr. Dickens became penetrated by - the memory of his friend and brought him before us in all the - warmth of ardent sympathy. Fechter is sure to come to this - country: we are sure to have the happiness of knowing him (if - we all live), and in that event I shall consider last night as - the beginning of a new friendship. - -[Illustration: _Reduced facsimile of Dickens’s directions, preserved -among the Fields papers, for the brewing of pleasant beverages_] - - _Sunday, December 22._—Another week has gone. We are again at - home in our dear little nook by the Charles, and tonight the - lover of Christmas comes to have dinner with us. We had a merry - time last Sunday, and after we had separated the hotel must - needs take fire—to be sure, I had been packing and was in my - first sleep and knew nothing distinctly of it; but it was an - escape all the same and Mr. Dickens rushed out to help, as he - always seems to do.... - - At night came Mr. Dickens and Mr. Dolby, Mr. Lowell and Mabel, - Mr. and Mrs. Dorr, to dinner. It was really a beautiful - Christmas festival, as we intended it should be for the love of - this new apostle of Christmas. Mr. Dickens talked all the time, - as he always will do, generously, when the moment comes that he - sees it is expected, of Sir Sam. Baker, of Froude, of Fechter - again, this time as if he did not know the man, but spoke - critically as if he were a stranger, seeing Lowell’s face when - his name was mentioned, which inclined itself sneeringly. - - We played games at table afterward, which turned out so queerly - that we had storms of laughter. - - What a shame it is to write down anything respecting one’s - contact with Charles Dickens and have it so slight as my - accounts are; but the subtle turns of conversation are so - difficult to render—the way in which he represents the woman - who will not on any account be induced to look at him while - he is reading, and at whom he looks steadily, endeavoring - to compel the eyes to move—all these queer turns are too - delicate to be set down. I thought I should have had a - convulsion of laughter when Mrs. Dorr said Miss Laura Howe - sat down in her (Mrs. D.’s) room and wrote out a charade in - such an unparalleled and brilliant manner that nobody could - have outshone her—not even the present company. “In the same - given time, I trust?” said Dickens. “No, no,” said the lady, - persistently. - - _December 31._—The year goes out clear and cold. The moon was - marvellously bright last night, and every time I woke there she - was with her attendant star looking freshly in upon us sleeping - mortals in her eternal, unwearied way. We received a letter - from Charles Dickens yesterday, saying he was coming to stay - with us when he returns. What a pleasure this will be to us! We - anticipate his coming with continual delight! To have him as - much as we can, at morning, noon, and night. - -This letter, long preserved in an American copy of “A Christmas Carol” on -the shelves of the Charles Street library, throws a light of its own on -the physical handicaps with which Dickens was struggling through all this -time. - - WESTMINSTER HOTEL, NEW YORK - - _Sunday, Twenty-Ninth December, 1867_ - - MY DEAR FIELDS:— - - When I come to Boston for the two readings of the 6th and 7th I - shall be alone, as Dolby must be selling elsewhere. If you and - Mrs. Fields should have no other visitor, I shall be very glad - indeed on this occasion to come to you. It is very likely that - you may have some one with you. Of course you will tell me so - if you have, and I will then reëmbellish the Parker House. - - Since I left Boston last, I have been so miserable that I - have been obliged to call in a Dr.—Dr. Fordyce Barker, a very - agreeable fellow. He was strongly inclined to stop the Readings - altogether for some few days, but I pointed out to him how we - stood committed, and how I must go on if it could be done. - My great terror was yesterday’s Matinée, but it went off - splendidly. (A very heavy cold indeed, an irritated condition - of the uvula, and a restlessly low state of the nervous system, - were your friend’s maladies. If I had not avoided visiting, I - think I should have been disabled for a week or so.) - - I hear from London that the general question in society is, - what will be blown up next by the Fenians. - - With love to Mrs. Fields, Believe me, - - Ever affectionately yours, - - And hers, - - CHARLES DICKENS - - _Saturday night, January 4._—All in readiness. Mr. Dickens - arrived punctually with Mr. Osgood at half-past nine. Hot - supper was soon in order and we put ourselves at it. The dear - “chief” was in the best of good humor in spite of a cold which - hangs about him and stuffs up head and throat, only leaving him - for two hours at night when he reads. ’Tis something to be in - first-rate mood with such a cold.... - - The Readings have been so successful in New York he cannot fail - to be pleased, and he does not fail to show it. Kate Field, New - Year’s Eve, placed a basket of flowers on his table; he had - seen her bright eyes and sensitive face, he said. I was glad - for Kate, because he wrote her a little note, which pleased - her, of course. - - _Wednesday, January 8_, 12 A.M.—I take up the pen again, having - bade our guest a most unwilling farewell. Last night he read - “Copperfield” and the Trial from “Pickwick.” It was an enormous - house, packed in every extremity, receipts in gold about - five hundred and ten pounds!! He was pleased, naturally, and - read marvellously well even for him. He was somewhat excited - and a good deal tired when he returned, and in spite of a - light supper and stiff glass of punch, which usually contains - soporific qualities, he could not sleep until near morning. He - has been in the best of spirits during this visit—when he came - downstairs last night to take a cup of coffee before leaving, - he turned to J., saying, “The hour has almost come when I to - sulphurous and tormenting gas must render up myself!” He has - been afflicted with catarrh, which comes and goes and distracts - him with a buzzing in his head. It usually leaves him for the - two reading hours. This is convenient, but it probably returns - with worse force. - - Sunday night dinner went off brilliantly. Longfellow, Appleton, - Mr. and Mrs. Thaxter came to meet “the chief” and ourselves. - Unfortunately there was one empty seat which Rowse, the artist, - had promised to fill, but was ill at the last and could - not—curiously enough we had asked Osgood, Miss Putnam, and Mr. - Gay besides, all kept away by accident when they would have - given their eyes to come. In the course of the day he had been - to see (with O. W. H.) the ground of the Parkman murder which - has lately been so clearly described by Sir Emerson Tennent in - “All the Year Round”; in the evening the talk turned naturally - enough that way, when, after much surmise with regard to the - previous life of the man, Mr. Longfellow looked up and with an - assured, clear tone, said: “Now I have a story to tell! A year - or two before this event took place Dr. Webster invited a party - of gentlemen to a dinner at this house, I believe to meet some - foreigner who was interested in science. The doctor himself was - a chemist, and after dinner he had a large bowl placed in the - centre of the table with some chemical mixture in it which he - set on fire after turning the lamp low. A lurid light came from - the bowl which caused a livid look upon the faces of those who - sat round the table, and while all were observing the ghastly - effect, Dr. Webster rose and, pulling a bit of rope from - somewhere about his person, put it around his neck, reached his - head over the bowl to heighten the effect, hung it on one side, - and lolled his tongue out to give the appearance of a man who - had been hanged!!! The whole scene was terrible and ghastly in - the extreme, and, remembered in the light of what followed, had - a prescience frightful to contemplate.”[26] - - Appleton did not talk as much as usual, and we were rather - glad; but Mrs. Thaxter’s story took strong hold on Dickens’s - fancy, and he told me afterward that when he awaked in the - night he thought of her. I have seldom sat at dinner with a - gentleman more careful and fine in his choice and taste of - food and drink than C. D. The idea of his ever passing the - bounds of temperance is an absurdity not to be thought of for a - moment. In this respect he is quite unlike Mr. Thackeray, who - at times both ate and drank inordinately, and without doubt - shortened his life by his carelessness in these particulars. - John Forster, C. D.’s old friend, is quite ill with gout and - some other ails, so C. D. writes him long letters full of - his experiences. We breakfast at half-past nine punctually, - he on a rasher of bacon and an egg and a cup of tea, always - preferring this same thing. Afterward we talk or play with the - sewing-machine or anything else new and odd to him. Then he - sits down to write until one o’clock, when he likes a glass - of wine and biscuit, and afterward goes to walk until nearly - four, when we dine. After dinner, reading days, he will take - a cup of strong coffee, a tiny glass of brandy, and a cigar, - and likes to lie down for a short time to get his voice in - order. His man then takes a portmanteau of clothes to the - reading hall, where he dresses for the evening. Upon our return - we always have supper and he brews a marvellous punch, which - usually makes us all sleep like tops after the excitement. The - perfect kindliness and sympathy which radiates from the man - is, after all, the secret never to be told, but always to be - studied and to thank God for. His rapid eyes, which nothing - can escape, eyes which, when he first appears upon the stage, - seem to interrogate the lamps and all things above and below - (like exclamation points, Aldrich says), are unlike anything - before in our experience. There are no living eyes like them, - swift and kind, possessing none of the bliss of ignorance, but - the different bliss of one who sees what the Lord has done and - what, or something of what, he intends. Such charity! Poor man! - He must have learned great need for that.... He is a man who - has suffered, evidently. Georgina Hogarth he always speaks of - in the most affectionate terms, such as “she has been a mother - to my children,” “she keeps the list of the wine cellar, and - every few days examines to see what we are now in want of.” - - I hardly know anything more amusing than when he begs not - to be “set a-going” on one of his readings by a quotation - or otherwise, and [it is] odd enough to hear him go on, - having been so touched off. He has been a great student of - Shakespeare, which appears often in his talk. His love of - the theatre is something which never pales, he says, and the - people who go upon the stage, however poor their pay or hard - their lot, love it, he thinks, too well ever to adopt another - vocation of their free will. One of the oddest sights a green - room presents, he says, is when they are collecting children - for a pantomime. For this purpose the prompter calls together - all the women in the ballet and begins giving out their names - in order, while they press about him, eager for the chance - of increasing their poor pay by the extra pittance their - children will receive. “Mrs. Johnson, how many?” “Two, sir.” - “What years?” “Seven and ten.” “Mrs. B.”—and so on until the - requisite number is made up. He says, where one member of - a family obtains regular employment at the theatre, others - are sure to come in after a time; the mother will be in the - wardrobe, children in pantomime, elder sisters in the ballet, - etc. - - When we asked him to return to us, he said he must be loyal to - “the show,” and, having three or four men with him, ought to be - at an hotel where he could attend properly to the business. He - never forgets the needs of those who are dependent upon him, is - liberal to his servants (and to ours also), and liberal in his - heart to all sorts and conditions of men. - - I have one deeply seated hope, that he will read for the Freed - people before he leaves the country; and I cannot help thinking - he will.... - -For more than a month from the time of this entry Dickens was carrying -the triumph of his readings into other cities than Boston. There he had -left a faithful champion in the person of Mrs. Fields, who wrote in her -diary on January 26, 1868: “It is odd how prejudiced people have allowed -themselves to become about Dickens. I seldom make a call where his name -is introduced that I do not feel the injustice done to him personally, -as if mankind resented the fact that he had excited more love than most -men.” As his return to Boston drew near, she wrote, February 18th: “We -are anticipating and doorkeeping for the arrival of our friend. Whatever -unpleasant is said of Charles Dickens I take almost as if said against -myself. It is so hard to help this when you love a friend.” On February -21st there is the entry: “We go to Providence tonight to hear ‘Dr. -Marigold.’ I have been full of plans for next week, which is to be a busy -season with us of company.” - - _Saturday, February 22._—We have heard “Marigold”! To be - sure, the audience was sadly stupid and unresponsive, but we - were penetrated by it.... What a night we had in Providence! - Our beds were comfortable enough, for which we were deeply - thankful; but none of the party slept, I believe, except Mr. - Dolby, and his rest was inevitably cut short in the morning - by business. I believe I lay awake from pure pleasure after - such a treat. Hearing “Marigold” and having supper afterward - with the dear great man. We played a game at cards which was - most curious—indeed, something more—so much more that I have - forgotten to be afraid of him. - -In writing the chapter, “Glimpses of Emerson,” in “Authors and Friends,” -Mrs. Fields drew freely upon the entry that here follows in its fullness. - - _Tuesday morning, February 25._—Somewhat fatigued. The - “Marigold” went off brilliantly. He never read better nor was - more universally applauded. Mr. Emerson came down to go, and - passed the night here; of course we sat talking until late, - he being much surprised at the artistic perfection of the - performance. It was queer enough to sit by his side, for when - his stoicism did at length break down, he laughed as if he must - crumble to pieces at such unusual bodily agitation, and with - a face on as if it hurt him dreadfully—to look at him was too - much for me, already full of laughter myself. Afterward we all - went in to shake hands for a moment. - - When we came back home Mr. Emerson asked me a great many - questions about C. D. and pondered much. Finally he said, “I am - afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful - locomotive to which he is bound and can never be free from it - nor set at rest. You see him quite wrong, evidently; and would - persuade me that he is a genial creature, full of sweetness - and amenities and superior to his talents, but I fear he is - harnessed to them. He is too consummate an artist to have a - thread of nature left. He daunts me! I have not the key.” - - When Mr. Fields came in he repeated, “Mrs. Fields would - persuade me he is a man easy to communicate with, sympathetic - and accessible to his friends; but her eyes do not see - clearly in this matter, I am sure.” “Look for yourself, dear - Mr. Emerson,” I answered, laughing, “and then report to me - afterward.” - - While we were enjoying ourselves in this way, a great change - has come to the country. The telegram arrived during the - Reading bringing the news of the President’s impeachment, - 126 against 47. Since Johnson is to be thrust out, and since - another revolution is upon us (Heaven help us that it be a - peaceful one), we can only be thankful that the majority is - so large. Mr. Dickens’s account of the ability of Johnson, - of his apparent integrity and of his present temperance, as - contrasted with the present (reported) failures of Grant in - this respect, have made me shudder, for I presume Grant is - inevitably the next man. Mrs. Agassiz was evidently pleased - with the appearance of General Grant and his wife. She liked - their repose of manner and ease; but I think this rather a - shallow judgment because poise and ease of manner belong to - the coarsest natures and to the finest; in the latter it is - conquest; and this is why these qualities have so high a place - in the esteem of man; but it is likewise the gift of society - people who neither feel nor understand the varied natures with - whom they come in contact. - - Longfellow is at work on a tragedy, of which no words are - spoken at present. Today Mr. Dickens does not go out; he is - writing letters home. Yesterday he and J. walked seven miles, - which is about their average generally.... - - _February 27._—Longfellow’s birthday. Last night Dickens - went to a supper at Lowell’s and J. passed the evening with - Longfellow. L.’s tragedy comes on apace. He looks to Fechter - to help him. Dickens has doubtless done much to quicken him to - write. He has two nearly finished in blank verse, both begun - since this month came in. J. returned at half-past eleven, - bringing an unread newspaper in his pocket which L. had lent - him, telling him to read something to me about Dickens and - return. Ah me! We could have cried as we read! It was the - saddest of sad letters, written at the time the separation from - his wife took place. The gentleman to whom he wrote it has died - and the letter has stolen into print. I only hope the poor man - may never see it. - - Tonight he reads “Carol” and “Boots” and sups here with - Longfellow afterward. - -An entry in Mrs. Fields’s diary about two years later indicates with some -clearness that she overestimated the sympathy between Longfellow and -Dickens. After a visit from Longfellow, she wrote, May 24, 1870:— - - When Mr. L. talks so much and so pleasantly, I am curiously - reminded of Dickens’s saying to Forster, who lamented that he - did not see Longfellow upon his return to London, “It was not - a great loss this time, Forster; he had not a word to say for - himself—he was the most embarrassing man in all England!” It - is a difference of temperament which will never let those two - men come together. They have no handle by which to take hold of - each other. Longfellow told a gentleman at his table when J. - was present that Dickens saved himself for his books, there was - nothing to be learned in private—he never talked!! - -To return to Dickens in Boston:— - - _Sunday, March 1._—What a week we have had! I feel utterly - weary this morning, although I _did_ start up with exceeding - bravery and walked four miles just after breakfast, in order - to see that the flowers were right at church and to ask some - people to dinner today who could not, however, come. The air - was very keen and exciting and I did not know I was tired until - I came back and collapsed. Our supper came off Thursday, but - _without_ Dickens. His cold had increased upon him seriously - and he was really ill after his long, difficult reading. - But Longfellow was perfectly lovely, so easily pleased and - so deeply pleased with my little efforts to make this day a - festival time. Dickens and Whittier both sent affectionate and - graceful notes when they found they really could not come. Our - company stayed until two A.M., Emerson never more talkative and - good. He is a noble purifier of the social atmosphere, always - keeping the talk simple as possible but up to the highest pitch - of thought and feeling. - - Friday, the Dana girls, Sallie and Charlotte, passed the night - with us and went to the reading and shook hands with Mr. - Dickens afterward. They were perfectly happy when they went - away yesterday.... - - [The walking match between Dolby and Osgood to which the - following paragraph refers has already been mentioned. The - elaborately humorous conditions of the contest, drawn up by - Dickens, are printed in “Yesterdays with Authors.” “We have had - such a funny paper from Dickens today,” Mrs. Fields had written - in her diary, on February 5th, “that it can only describe - itself—Articles drawn up arranging for a walk and dinner upon - his return here, as if it were some fierce legal document.”] - - I had barely time yesterday, after the girls left, to dress - and prepare some flowers and some lunch and make my way in - a carriage, first to the Parker House at Mr. Dickens’s kind - request, to see if all the table arrangements were perfect for - the dinner. I found he had done everything he could think of - to make the feast go off well and had really left nothing for - me to suggest, so I turned about and drove over the mill-dam, - following Messrs. Dickens, Dolby, Osgood, and Fields, who - had left just an hour before on a walking match of six miles - out and six in. This agreement was made and articles drawn - up several weeks ago, signed and sealed in form by all the - parties, to come off without regard to the weather. The wind - was blowing strong from the north-west, very cold, and the snow - blowing, too. They had turned and were coming back when I came - up with them. Osgood was far ahead and, after saluting them all - and giving a cheer for America, discovering too that they had - refreshed on the way, I drove back to Mr. Osgood, keeping near - him and administering brandy all the way in town. The walk was - accomplished in precisely two hours forty-eight minutes. Of - course Mr. Dickens stayed by his man, who was beaten out and - out. They were all exhausted, for the snow made the walking - extremely difficult, and they all jumped into carriages and - drove home with great speed to bathe and sleep before dinner. - - At six o’clock we were assembled, eighteen of us, for dinner, - looking our very best (I hope)—at least we all tried for that, - I am sure—and sat punctually down to our elegant dinner. I - have never seen a dinner more beautiful. Two English crowns - of violets were at the opposite ends of the table and flowers - everywhere arranged in perfect taste. I sat at Mr. Dickens’s - right hand and next Mr. Lowell. Mrs. Norton sat the other side - of our host, and he divided his attention loyally between us. - He talked with me about Spiritualism as it is called, the - humbug of which excites his deepest ire, although no one could - believe more entirely than he in magnetism and the unfathomed - ties between man and man. He told me many curious things about - the traps which had been laid by well-meaning friends to bring - him into “spiritual” circles. But he said, “If I go to a - friend’s house for the purpose of exposing a fraud in which she - believes, I am doing a very disagreeable thing and not what she - invited me for. Forster and I were invited to Lord Dufferin’s - to a little dinner with Home. I refused, but Forster went, - saying beforehand to Lord Dufferin that Home would have no - spirits about if he came. Lord Dufferin said, ‘Nonsense,’ and - the dinner came off; but they were hardly seated at table when - Home announced that there was an adverse influence present and - the spirits would not appear. ‘Ah,’ said Forster, ‘my spirits - in this case were clearer than yours, for they told me before I - came that there would be no manifestations tonight.’” - - Speaking of dreams, he said he was convinced that no man - (judging from his own experience, which could not be altogether - singular, but must be a type of the experience of others), - he believed no writer, neither Shakespeare nor Scott nor any - other who had ever invented a character, had ever been known - to dream about the creature of his imagination. It would be - like a man’s dreaming of meeting himself, which was clearly an - impossibility. Things exterior to oneself must always be the - basis of our dreams. This talk about characters led him to say - how mysterious and beautiful the action of the mind was around - any given subject. “Suppose,” he said, “this wine-glass were a - character, fancy it a man, endue it with certain qualities, and - soon fine filmy webs of thoughts almost impalpable coming from - every direction, and yet we know not from where, spin and weave - around it until it assumes form and beauty and becomes instinct - with life....” - - Mr. Lowell asked him some question in a low voice about the - country, when I heard him say presently that it was very much - grown up, indeed he should not know oftentimes that he was not - in England, things went on so much the same and with very few - exceptions (hardly worth mentioning) he was let alone precisely - as he would have been there. - - He loves to talk of Gad’s Hill and stopped joyfully from other - talk to tell me how his daughter Mary arranged his table with - flowers. He speaks continually of her great taste in combining - flowers. “Sometimes she will have nothing but water-lilies,” he - said, as if the memory were a fragrance. - - Some one has said, “We cannot love and be wise.” I will gladly - give away the inconsistent wisdom, for Jamie and I are truly - penetrated with grateful love to C. D. - - _Wednesday, March 3._—Mr. Dickens came over last night with - Messrs. Osgood and Dolby, to pass the evening and have a little - punch and supper and a merry game with us.... - - They left punctually before eleven, having promised the driver - they would not keep him waiting in the cold. Jamie has every - day long walks with him. He has told him much regarding the - forms and habits of his life. He is fond of “Gad’s Hill,” and - his “dear daughters” and their aunt, Miss Hogarth, make his - home circle. What a dear one it is to him can be seen whenever - his thought turns that way; and if his letters do not come - punctually, he is in low spirits. He is a great actor and - artist, but above all a great and loving and well-beloved man. - (This I cling to in memory of Mr. Emerson’s dictum.) - - I am deep in Carlyle’s history and every little thing I hear - chimes in with that. After _the_ dinner (at the Parker) the - other night, Mr. Dickens thought he would take a warm bath; - but, the water being drawn, he began playing the clown in - pantomime on the edge of the bath (with his clothes on) for the - amusement of Dolby and Osgood; in a moment and before he knew - where he was, he had tumbled in head over heels, clothes and - all. A second and improved edition of “Les Noyades,” I thought. - Surely this book is a marvel of thought and labor. Why, why - have I left it unknown to myself until now? I fear, unlike - Lowell, it is because I could not read eighteen uninterrupted - hours without apoplexy or some other ’exy, which would destroy - what power I have forever. - - _March 6._—Mr. Dickens dined here last night without company - except Messrs. Dolby and Osgood and Howells. We had a very - merry time. They had been to visit the Cambridge Printing - Office in the afternoon and had been shown so many things that - “the chief” said he began to think he should have a bitter - hatred against any mortal who undertook to show him anything - else in the world, and laughed immoderately at J.T.F.’s - proposition to show him the new fruit house afterward. We all - had a game of Nincomtwitch and separated rather early because - we were going to a party; and as C. D. shook me by the hand to - say good-bye, he said he hoped we would have a better time at - this party than _he_ ever had at any party in all _his_ life. - A part of the dinner-time was taken up by half guess and half - calculation of how far Mr. Dickens’s manuscript would extend - in a single line. Mr. Osgood said 40 miles. J. said 100,000 - (!!). I believe they are really going to find out. C. D. said - _he_ felt as if it would go farther than 40 miles, and was - inclined to be “down” on Osgood until he saw him doing figures - in his head after a fearful fashion. All this amusing talk - served to give one a strange, weird sensation of the value of - words over time and space; these little marks of immeasurable - value covering so slight a portion of the rough earth! Howells - talked a little of Venice, thought the Ligurians lived better - than the Venetians. C. D. said they ate but little meat when - _he_ lived in Genoa; chiefly “pasta” with a good soup poured - over it.... - - He leaves Boston today, to return the first of April, so I will - end this poor little surface record here, hoping always that - the new sheet shall have something written down of a deeper, - simpler, and more inseeing nature. - -On the return of Dickens to Boston, Mrs. Fields dined with him at the -Parker House, March 31, 1868, and, commenting on his lack of “talent” for -sleeping, wrote in her diary:— - - I remember Carlyle says, “When Dulness puts his head upon - his mattresses, Dulness sleeps,” referring to the apathetic - people who went on their daily habits and avocations in Paris - while men were guillotined by thousands in the next street. - Mr. Dickens talked as usual, much and naturally—first of the - various hotels of which he had late experience. The one in - Portland was particularly bad, the dinner, poor as it was, - being brought in small dishes, “as if Osgood and I should - quarrel over it,” everything being very bad and disgusting - which the little dishes contained. - - At last they came to the book, “Ecce Homo,” in which Dickens - can see nothing of value, any more than we. He thinks - Jesus foresaw and guarded as well as he could against the - misinterpreting of his teaching, that the four Gospels are - all derived from some anterior written Scriptures—made up, - perhaps, with additions and interpolations from the “Talmud,” - in which he expressed great interest and admiration. Among - other things which prove how little the Gospels should be taken - literally is the fact that _broad phylacteries_ were not in - use until some years after Jesus lived, so that the passage in - which this reference occurs, at least, must only be taken as - conveying the spirit and temper, not the actual form of speech, - of our Lord. Mr. Dickens spoke reverently and earnestly, and - said much more if I could recall it perfectly. - - Then he came to “spiritualism” again, and asked if he had ever - told us his interview with Colchester, the famous medium. He - continued that, being at Knebworth one day, Lytton, having - finished his dinner and retired to the comfort of his pipe, - said: “Why don’t you see some of these famous men? What a - pity Home has just gone.” (Here Dickens imitated to the - life Lytton’s manner of speaking, so I could see the man.) - “Well,” said D., “he went on to say so much about it that - I inquired of him who was the next best man. He said there - was one Colchester, if possible better than Home. So I took - Colchester’s address, got Charley Collins, my son-in-law, to - write to him asking an interview for five gentlemen and for - any day he should designate, the hour being two o’clock. A day - being fixed, I wrote to a young French conjuror, with whom - I had no acquaintance but had observed his great cleverness - at his business before the public, to ask him to accompany - us. He acceded with alacrity. Therefore, with poor Chauncey - Townshend, just dead, and one other person whom I do not at - this moment recall, we waited upon Mr. Colchester. As we - entered the room, I leading the way, the man, recognizing me - immediately, turned deadly pale, especially when he saw me - followed by the conjuror and Townshend, who, with his colored - imperial and beard and tight-fitting wig, looked like a member - of the detective police. He trembled visibly, became livid - to the eyes, all of which was visible in spite of paint with - which his face was covered to the eyes. He withdrew for a few - minutes, during which we heard him in hot discussion with his - accomplice, telling him how he was cornered and trying to - imagine some way in which to get out of the trap, the other - evidently urging him to go through with it now the best way he - could. He returned, therefore, and placed himself with his back - to the light, while it shone upon our faces. We sat awhile in - silence until he began, insolently turning to me: ‘Take up the - alphabet and think of somebody who is dead, pass your hands - over the letters, and the spirit will indicate the name.’ I - thought of Mary and took the alphabet, and when I came to M, he - rapped; but I was sure that I had unconsciously signified by - some movement and determined to be more skilful the next time. - - For the next letter, therefore, he went on to H, and then asked - me if that was right. I told him I thought the spirits ought - to know. He then began with some one else, but doing nothing - he became hotter and hotter, the perspiration pouring from his - face, until he got up, said the spirits were against him, and - was about to withdraw. I then rose and told him that it was the - most shameless imposition, that he had got us there with the - intent to deceive and under false pretences, that he had done - nothing and could do nothing. He offered to return our money—I - said the fact of his taking the money at all was the point. At - last the wretch said, turning to the Frenchman, ‘I did tell - you one name, Valentine.’ ‘Yes,’ answered the young conjuror, - with a sudden burst of English, ‘Yes, but I showed it to you!’ - indicating with a swift movement of the hand how he had given - him a chance.” Then it was all up with Colchester, and more - scathing words than those spoken by Dickens to him have been - seldom spoken by mortal. - - It was the righteous anger of one trying to avenge and help the - world. Mr. Dickens always seems to me like one who, working - earnestly with his eyes fixed on the immutable, nevertheless - finds to his own surprise that his words place him among the - prophets. He does not arrogate a place to himself there; indeed - he is singularly humble (as it seems to us) in the moral - position he takes; but for all that is led by the Divine Hand - to see what a power he is and in an unsought-for manner finds - himself among the teachers of the earth. He says nowhere is - a man placed in such an unfair position as at church. If one - could only be allowed to get up and state his objections, it - would be very well, but under the circumstances he declines - being preached to. - -A few days later Mrs. Fields heard Dickens read the “Christmas Carol” for -the last time in Boston. - - _Such_ a wonderful evening as it was!! We were on fire with - enthusiasm and in spite of some people who went with us ... - looking, as C. D. said, as if they were sorry they had come, - they were really filled with enthusiasm, and enjoying as fully - as their critical and crossed natures would allow. He himself - was full of fun and put in all manner of queer things for our - amusement; but what he put in, involuntarily, when he turned - on a man who was standing staring fixedly at him with an opera - glass, was almost more than we could bear. The stolidity of - the man, the fixed glass, the despairing, annihilating look of - Dickens were too much for our equanimity. - - _Thursday._—Anniversary of C. D.’s marriage day and of John - Forster’s birthday. C. D. not at all well, coughing all the - time and in low spirits. Mr. Dolby came in when J. was there in - the morning to say there were two gentlemen from New Bedford - (friends of Mr. Osgood’s) who wished to see him. Would he allow - them to come in? “No, I’ll be damned if I will,” he said, like - a spoiled child, starting up from his chair! J. was equally - amused and astonished at the outburst, but sleeplessness, - narcotics, and the rest of the crew of disturbers have done - their worst. My only fear is he may be ill. However, they had a - walk together towards noon and he revived, but coughed badly in - the evening. I think, too, only $1300 in the house was bad for - his spirits! - - _April 7._—Dickens ... told Jamie the other day in walking - that he wrote “Nicholas Nickleby” and “Oliver Twist” at the - same time for rival magazines from month to month. Once he was - taken ill, with both magazines waiting for unwritten sheets. He - immediately took steamer for Boulogne, took a room in an inn - there, secure from interruption, and was able to return just in - season for the monthly issues with his work completed. He sees - now how the work of both would have been better done had he - worked only upon one at a time. - - After the exertion of last evening he looked pale and - exhausted. Longfellow and Norton joined with us in trying - to dissuade him from future Readings after these two. He - does not recover his vitality after the effort of reading, - and his spirits are naturally somewhat depressed by the - use of soporifics, which at length became a necessity.... - “Copperfield” was a tragedy last night—less vigor but great - tragic power came out of it. - - _April 8._—In spite of a deluge of rain last night there was a - large audience to hear Dickens, and Longfellow came as usual. - He read with more vigor than the night before and seemed - better.... The time approaches swiftly for our flight to New - York. We dread to leave home and would only do it for _him_, - besides, the pleasure must be much in the fact of trying to - do something rather than in really doing anything, for I fear - he will be too ill and utterly fatigued to care much about - anything but rest. - - _Friday, April 10._—Left home at eight o’clock in the morning, - found our dearly beloved friend C. D. already awaiting us, with - two roses in his coat and looking as fresh as possible. It was - my first ride in America in a compartment car. Mr. Dolby made - the fourth in our little party and we had a table and a game of - “Nincom” and “Casino” and talked and laughed and whiled away - the time pleasantly until we arrived here at the Westminster - Hotel in time for dinner at six. I was impressed all day long - with the occasional languor which came over C. D. and always - with the exquisite delicacy and quickness of his perception, - something as fine as the finest woman possesses, which combined - itself wondrously with the action of the massive brain and the - rapid movement of those strong, strong hands. I felt how deeply - we had learned to love him and how hard it would be for us to - part. - - At dinner he gave us a marvellous description of his life as - a reporter. It seems he invented (in a measure) a system of - stenography for himself; this is to say he altered Gurney’s - system to suit his own needs. He was a very young man, not yet - 20, when at seven guineas a week he was engaged as reporter - on the “Morning Chronicle,” then a very large and powerful - paper. At this period the present Lord Derby, then Mr. Stanley, - was beginning his brilliant career, and O’Connell, Shiel, and - others were at the height of their powers. Wherever these men - spoke a corps of reporters was detailed to follow them and - with the utmost expedition forward verbatim reports to the - “Chronicle.” Often and often he has gone by post-chaise to - Edinburgh, heard a speech or a part of it (having instructions, - whatever happened, to leave the place again at a certain hour, - the next reporter taking up his work where he must leave it), - and has driven all the way back to London, a bag of sovereigns - on one side of his body and a bag of slips of paper on the - other, writing, writing desperately all the way by the light of - a small lamp. At each station a man on horseback would stand - ready to seize the sheets already prepared and ride with them - to London. Often and often this work would make him deadly - sick and he would have to plunge his head out of the window - to relieve himself; still the writing went steadily forward - on very little slips of paper which he held before him, just - resting his body on the edge of the seat and his paper on the - front of the window underneath the lamp. As the station was - reached, a sudden plunge into the pocket of sovereigns would - pay the postboys, another behind him would render up the - completed pages, and a third into the pocket on the other side - would give him the fresh paper to carry forward the inexorable, - unremitting work. - - At this period there was a large sheet started in which all - the speeches of Parliament were reported verbatim in order - to preserve them for future reference—a monstrous plan which - fell through after a time. For this paper it was especially - desired to have a speech of Mr. Stanley accurately reported - upon the condition of Ireland, containing suggestions for - the amelioration of the people’s suffering. It was a very - long and eloquent speech and took many hours in the delivery. - There were eight reporters upon the work, each to work - three-quarters of an hour and then to retire to write out his - portion and be succeeded by the next. It happened that the - roll of reporters was exhausted before the speech came to an - end and C. D. was called in to report the last portions, which - were very eloquent. This was on Friday, and on Saturday the - whole was given to the press and the young reporter ran down to - the country for a Sunday’s rest. Sunday morning had scarcely - dawned “when my poor father, who was a man of immense energy, - surprised me by making his appearance. The speech had come into - Mr. Stanley’s hands, who was most anxious to have it correctly - given in order to have it largely circulated in Ireland, and he - found it all bosh, hardly a word right, except at the beginning - and the end. Sending immediately to the office, he had obtained - my sheets, at the top of which, according to custom, the name - of the reporter was written, and, finding the name of Dickens, - had immediately sent in search of me. My father, thinking this - would be the making of me, came immediately, and I followed him - back to London. I remember perfectly the look of the room and - of the two gentlemen in it as I entered—Mr. Stanley and his - father. They were extremely courteous, but I could see their - evident surprise at the appearance of so young a man. For a - moment as we talked I had taken a seat extended to me in the - middle of the room. Mr. Stanley told me he wished to go over - the whole speech, and if I was ready he would begin. Where - would I like to sit? I told him I was very well where I was - and we would begin immediately. He tried to induce me to sit - elsewhere or more comfortably, but at that time in the House - of Commons there was nothing but one’s knees to write upon and - I had formed the habit of it. Without further pause then he - began, and went on hour after hour to the end, often becoming - very much excited, bringing down his hand with violence upon - the desk near which he stood and rising at the end into great - eloquence. - - “In these later years we never meet without that scene - returning vividly to my mind, as I have no doubt it does to his - also, but I, of course, have never referred to it, leaving him - to do so if he shall ever think fit. - - “Shiel was a small man with a queer high voice and spoke very - fast. O’Connell had a fine brogue which he cultivated, and - a magnificent eye. He had written a speech about this time - upon the wrongs of Ireland, and, though he repeated it many, - many times during three months when I followed him about the - country, I never heard him give it twice the same, nor ever - without being himself deeply moved.”[27] - - Mr. Dickens’s imitation of Bulwer Lytton is so vivid that - I feel as if it were taking a glimpse at the man himself. - His deaf manner of speaking he represents exactly. He says - he is very brilliant and quick in conversation, and knows - everything!! He is a conscientious and unremitting student - and worker. “I have been surprised to see how well his books - wear. Lately I have reread ‘Pelham’ and I assure you I found - it admirable. His speech at the dinner given to me just before - leaving was well written, full of good things, but delivered - execrably. He lacks a kind of confidence in his own powers - which is necessary in a good speaker.” - - Speaking of O’Connell, Mr. Dickens said there had been nobody - since who could compare with him but John Bright, who is at - present the finest speaker in England. Cobden was fond of - reasoning, and hardly what would be called a brilliant speaker; - but his noble truthfulness and devotion to the cause to - which he had pledged himself made him one of the grandest of - England’s great men. I asked about Mrs. Cobden. He told me she - had been made very comfortable and in a beautiful manner. After - her husband’s death, his affairs having become involved by some - bad investment he had made, a committee of six gentlemen came - together to consider what should be done to commemorate his - great and unparalleled devotion to his country. The result was, - instead of having a public subscription for Mrs. Cobden with - the many unavoidable and disagreeable features of such a step, - each of these gentlemen subscribed about £12,000, thus making - £70,000, a sufficient sum to make her most comfortable for - life.... - - I have forgotten to say how in those long rides from Edinburgh - the mud dashed up and into the opened windows of the - post-chaise, nor how they would be obliged to fling it off from - their faces and even from the papers on which they wrote. As - Dickens told us, he flung the imaginary evil from him as he did - the real in the days long gone, and we could see him with the - old disgust returned. He said, by the way, that never since - those old days when he left the House of Commons as a Reporter - had he entered it again. His hatred of the falseness of talk, - of bombastic eloquence, he had heard there made it impossible - for him ever to go in again to hear anyone. - - _Sunday, April 12._—Last night we went to the circus together, - C. D., J., and I. It is a pretty building. I was astonished - at the knowledge C. D. showed of everything before him. He - knew how the horses were stenciled, how tight the wire bridles - were, etc. The monkey was, however, the chief attraction. He - was rather drunk or tired last night and did not show to good - advantage, but he knew how to do all the things quite as well - as the men. When the young rope-dancer slipped (he was but an - apprentice at the business, without wages, C. D. thought), he - tried over and over again to accomplish a certain somersault - until he achieved it. “That’s the law of the circus,” said C. - D.; “they are never allowed to give up, and it’s a capital rule - for everything in life. Doubtless this idea has been handed - down from the Greeks or Romans and these people know nothing - about where it came from. But it’s well for all of us.” ... - - At six o’clock Mr. Dickens and Mr. Dolby came in to dinner. He - seemed much revived both in health and spirits, in spite of the - weather.... - - Dickens talked of Frédérick Lemaître; he is upwards of sixty - years old now; but he has always lived a wretched life, a low, - poor fellow; yet he will surprise the actors continually by the - new points he will make. He will come in at rehearsal, go about - the stage in an abject wretched manner, with clothes torn and - soiled as he has just emerged from his vulgar, vicious haunts, - and without giving sign or glimmer of his power. Presently he - says to the prompter, who always has a tallow candle burning - on his box, “Give me your candle”; then he will blow it out - and with the snuff make a cross upon his book. “What are you - going to do, Frédérick?” the actors say. “I don’t know yet; - you’ll see by and by,” he says, and day after day perhaps will - pass, until one night when he will suddenly flash upon them - some wonderful point. They, the actors, watching him, try to - hold themselves prepared, and if he gives them the least hint - will mould their parts to fit his. Sometimes he will ask for - a chair. “What will you do with it, Frédérick?” He does not - reply, but night after night the chair is placed there until he - makes his point. He often comes hungry to the theatre, and the - manager must give him a dinner and pay for it before he will go - on. Fechter, from whom these particulars come, tells Dickens - that there can be nothing more wonderful than his acting in the - old scene of the miserable father who kills his own son at the - inn. The son, coming in rich and handsome, and seeing this old - sot about to be driven from the porch by the servant, tells - the man to give him meat and wine. While he eats and drinks, - the wretch sees how freely the rich man handles his gold and - resolves to kill him. Fechter’s description, with his own - knowledge of Lemaître, had so inspired Dickens that he was able - to reproduce him again for us. - - _Wednesday, April 15._—[On returning from a reading in - “Steinway Hall, than which nothing could be worse for reading - or speaking”]: He soon came up after a little soup, when he - called for brandy and lemons and made _such_ a burnt brandy - punch as has been seldom tasted this side of the “pond.” As - the punch blazed his spirits rose and he began to sing an - old-fashioned comic song such as in the old days was given - between the plays at the theatre. One song led to another until - we fell into inextinguishable laughter, for anything more comic - than his renderings of the chorus cannot be imagined. Surely - there is no living actor who could excel him in these things - if he chose to exert his ability. His rendering of “Chrush ke - lan ne chouskin!!” or a lingo which sounded like that (the - refrain of an old Irish song) was something tremendous. We - laughed till I was really afraid he would make himself too - hoarse to read the next night. He gave a queer old song full of - rhymes, obtained with immense difficulty and circumlocution, - to the word “annuity,” which it appeared has been sought - by an old woman with great _assiduity_ and granted with - immense _incongruity_. The negro minstrels have in great part - supplanted these queer old English, Irish, and Scotch ballads, - but they are sure to come up again from time to time. We did - not separate until 12, and felt the next morning (as he said) - as if we had had a regular orgy. They did not forget, Dolby and - he, to pay a proper tribute to “Maryland, My Maryland,” and - “Dixie” as very stirring ballads. - - [After another reading, from which Dickens came home extremely - tired]: We ran in at once to talk with him and he soon cheered - up. When I first pushed open the door he was a perfect picture - of prostration, his head thrown back without support on the - couch, the blood suffusing his throat and temples again where - he had been very white a few minutes before. This is a physical - peculiarity with Dickens which I have never seen before in a - man, though women are very subject to that thing. Excitement - and exercise of reading will make the blood rush into his hands - until they become at times almost black, and his face and head - (especially since he has become so fatigued) will turn from red - to white and back to red again without his being conscious of - it. - - _Friday, April 17._—Weather excessively warm, sky often - overcast. Last evening Mr. Dickens read again and for the last - time “Copperfield” and “Bob Sawyer.” He was much exhausted - and said he watched a man who was carried out in a fainting - condition to see how they managed it, with the lively interest - of one who was about to go through the same scene himself. - The heat from the gas around him was intolerable. After the - reading we went into his room to have a little soup, “broiled - bones,” and a sherry cobbler. His spirits were good in spite of - fatigue, the thought of home and the memories of England coming - back vividly. We, finally, from talk of English scenery, found - ourselves in Stratford. He says there is an inn at Rochester, - very old, which he has no doubt Shakespeare haunted. This - conviction came forcibly upon him one night as he was walking - that way and discovered Charles’s Wain setting over the chimney - just as Shakespeare has described. “When you come to Gad’s - Hill, please God, I will show you Charles’s Wain setting over - the old roof.” - - We left him early, hoping he would sleep, but he hardly closed - his eyes all night. Whether he was haunted by visions of home, - or what the cause was, we cannot discover, but whatever it - may be, his strength fails under such unnatural and continual - excitement. - - _Saturday, April 18._—Mr. Dickens has a badly sprained foot. - We like our rooms at his hotel—47 is the number. Last night - was “Marigold” and “Gamp” for the last time. He threw in a few - touches for our amusement and a great deal of vigor into the - whole. Afterward we took supper together, when he told us some - remarkable things. Among others he rehearsed a scene described - to him years ago by Dr. Eliotson of London of a man about to - be hanged. His last hour had approached as the doctor entered - the cell of the criminal, who was as justly sentenced as ever a - wretch was for having cut off the end of his own illegitimate - child. The man was rocking miserably in his chair back and - forth in a weak, maudlin condition, while the clergyman in - attendance, who had spoken of him as repentant and religious in - his frame of mind, was administering the sacrament. The wine - stood in a cup at one side until the sacred words were said, - when at the proper moment the clergyman gave it to the man, - who was still rocking backward and forward, muttering, “What - will my poor mother think of this?” Finding the cup in his - hands, he looked into it for a moment as if trying to collect - himself, and then, putting on his regular old pothouse manner, - he said, “Gen’lemen, I drink your health,” and drained the - cup in a drunken way. “I think,” said C. D., “it is thirty - years since I heard Dr. Eliotson tell me this, but I shall - never forget the horror that scene inspired in my mind.” The - talk had taken this turn from the fact of a much-dreaded Press - dinner which is to come off tonight and which jocosely assumed - the idea of a hanging to their minds. C. D. said he had often - thought how restricted one’s conversation must become with a - man who was to be hanged in half an hour. “You could not say, - if it rains, ‘We shall have fine weather tomorrow!’ for what - would that be to him? For my part, I think I should confine - my remarks to the times of Julius Cæsar and King Alfred!!” He - then related a story of a condemned man out of whom no evidence - could be elicited. He would not speak. At last he was seated - before a fire for a few moments, just before his execution, - when a servant entered and smothered what fire there was with - a huge hodful of coal. “_In half an hour that will be a good - fire_,” he was heard to murmur. - - Mr. Dickens has now read 76 times. It seems like a dream. - - _Sunday, April 19._—Last night the great New York Press dinner - came off. It was a close squeeze with Mr. Dickens to get there - at all. He had been taken lame the night before, his foot - becoming badly swollen and painful. In spite of a skilful - physician he grew worse and worse every hour, and when the - time for the dinner arrived he was unable to bear anything - upon his foot. So long as he was above ground, however, it - was a necessity he should go, and an hour and a half after - the time appointed, with his foot sewed up in black silk, he - made his way to Delmonico’s. Poor man! Nothing could be more - unfortunate, but he bore this difficult part off in a stately - and composed manner as if it were a sign of the garter he - were doffing for the first time instead of a badge of ill - health. The worst of it is that the papers will telegraph news - of his illness to England. This seems to disturb him more - than anything else. Ah! What a mystery these ties of love - are—such pain, such ineffable happiness—the only happiness. - After his return he repeated to me from memory every word of - his speech without dropping one. He never thinks of such a - thing as writing his speeches, but simply turns it over in - his mind and “balances the sentences,” when he is all right. - He produced an immense effect on the Press of New York, - tremendous applause responding to every sentence. Curtis’s - speech was very beautiful. “I think him the very best speaker - I ever heard,” said C. D. “I am sure he would produce a great - effect in England from the sympathetic quality he possesses.” - I have seldom seen a finer exercise of energy of will than Mr. - Dickens’s attendance on this dinner. It brought its own reward, - too, for he returned with his foot feeling better. He made a - rum punch in his room, where we sat until one o’clock. After - repeating his speech, he gave us an imitation of old Rogers as - he would repeat a quatrain:— - - “The French have sense in what they do - Which we are quite without, - For what in Paris they call _goût_ - In England we call _gout_.” - - Mr. Dolby sat at dinner near a poor bohemian of great keenness - of mind, Henry Clapp, by name, who said some things worthy - of Rivarol or any other wittiest Frenchman we might choose - to select. Speaking of Horace Greeley (the chairman at the - dinner), he said: “He was a self-made man and worshipped his - creator.” Of Dr. O——, a vain and popular clergyman, that “he - was continually looking for a vacancy in the Trinity.” Of - Mr. Dickens, that “nothing gave him so high an idea of Mr. - Dickens’s genius as the fact that he created Uriah Heep without - seeing a certain Mr. Young (who sat near them), and Wilkins - Micawber without being acquainted with himself (Henry Clapp).” - Of Henry T—— that “he aimed at nothing and always hit the mark - precisely.” - - This speech of Mr. Dickens will make a fine effect, a - reactionary effect, in the country. The enthusiasm for him knew - no bounds. Charles Norton spoke for New England. I had a visit - from him this morning as well as from Mr. Osgood, Dolby, etc. - C. D. lunched at the Jockey Club with Dr. Barker and Donald - Mitchell and returned to dine with us. He talked of actors, - artists, and the clergy—church and religion—but was evidently - suffering more or less all the time with his foot, yet kept up - a good heart until nine o’clock, when he retired to the privacy - of his own room. He feels bitterly the wrong under which - English dissenters have labored for years in being obliged not - only to support their own church interests in which they _do_ - believe, but also the abuses of the English Church against - which their whole lives are a continual protest. He spoke of - the beauty of the landscape through which we had both been - walking and driving under a grey sky, with the eager spring - looking out among leafless branches and dancing in the red and - yellow sap. He said it had always been a fancy of his to write - a story, keeping the whole thing in the same landscape, but - picturing its constantly varying effects upon men and things - and chiefly, of course, upon the minds of men. He asked me if I - had ever read Crabbe’s “Lover’s Ride.” We became indignant over - a tax of five per cent which had just been laid upon the entire - proceeds of his Readings, telegraphed to Washington, and found - that it was unjust and had been taken off. - - _Monday, April 20._—Attended a meeting of a new “institution” - just on foot, first called “Sorosis” and afterwards “Woman’s - League” for the benefit and mutual support of women. It was the - first official meeting, but it proved so unofficial that I was - entertained, and amused as well, and was able on my return to - make Mr. Dickens laugh until he declared if anything could make - him feel better for the evening that account of the Woman’s - League would. - - _Tuesday._—I find it very difficult today to write at all. Mr. - Dickens is on his bed and has been unable to rise, in spite of - efforts all day long.... Mr. Norton has been here and we have - been obliged to go out, but our hearts have been in that other - room all the time where our dear friend lies suffering.... Oh! - these last times—what heartbreak there is in the words. I lay - awake since early this morning (though we did not leave him - until half-past twelve) feeling as if when I arose we must - say good-bye. How relieved I felt to brush the tears away and - know there was one more day, but even that gain was lessened - when I found he could not rise and even this must be a day of - separation too. When Jamie told him last night he felt like - erecting a statue to him because of his heroism in doing his - duty so well, he laughed and said, “No, don’t; take down one of - the old ones instead!” - -The diary goes on to express the genuine sorrow of Mrs. Fields and her -husband at parting from a friend who had so completely absorbed their -affection, but in terms which the diarist herself would have been the -first to regard as more suitable for manuscript than for print. The pages -that contain them throw more light upon Mrs. Fields—a warm and tender -light it is—than upon Dickens. There is, however, one paragraph, written -after the Fieldses had returned to Boston from New York, which tells -something both of Dickens and of Queen Victoria, in whose personality -the public interest appears to be perpetual; and with this passage the -quotations from the diary shall end. - -[Illustration: FACSIMILE PLAY-BILL OF “THE FROZEN DEEP,” WITH DICKENS AS -ACTOR-MANAGER] - - _Friday, April 24._—After the Press dinner in New York Mr. - Dickens repeated all his speech to me, as I believe I have - said above, never dropping a word. “I feel,” he said, “as if I - were listening to the sound of my own voice as I recall it. A - very curious sensation.” Jamie asked him if Curtis was quite - right in the facts of his speech. He said, “Not altogether, - as, for instance, in that matter about the Queen and our - little play, ‘Frozen Deep.’ We had played it many times with - considerable success, when the Queen heard of it and Colonel - Phipps (?) called upon me and said he wished the Queen could - see the play. Was there no hall which would be appropriate for - the occasion? What did I think of Buckingham Palace? I replied - that could not be, for my daughters played in the piece and I - had never asked myself to be presented at court nor had I ever - taken the proper steps to introduce them there, and of course - they could not go as amateur performers where they had never - been as visitors. This seemed to trouble him a good deal, so I - said I would find some hall which would be appropriate for the - purpose and would appoint an evening, which I did immediately, - taking the Gallery of Illustration and having it fitted up for - the purpose. I then drew up a list of the company, chiefly of - artists, literary and scientific men, and interesting ladies, - which I caused to be submitted to the Queen, begging her to - reject or add as she thought proper, setting aside forty seats - for the royal party. The whole thing went off finely until - after the first play was over, when the Queen sent round a - request that I would come and see her. This was considered an - act of immense condescension and kindness on her part, and the - little party behind the scenes were delighted. Unfortunately, - I had just prepared myself for the farce which was to follow - and was already standing in motley dress with a red nose. I - knew I could not appear in that plight, so I begged leave to - be excused on that ground. However, that was forgiven and - all passed off well, although the large expense of the whole - thing of course fell on me, which amounted to one hundred and - fifty or two hundred pounds. Several years after, when Prince - Albert died, the Queen sent to me for a copy of the play. I - told Colonel Phipps the play had never been printed and was the - property of a gentleman, Mr. Wilkie Collins. Then would I have - it copied? So I had a very beautiful copy made and bound in the - most perfect manner, and presented to her Majesty. Whereupon - the Princess of Prussia, seeing this, asked for another for - herself. I said I would again ask the permission of Mr. Collins - and again I had a beautiful copy made with great labor. Then - the Queen sent to ask the price of the books. I sent word that - my friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, was a gentleman who would, I was - sure, hear to nothing of the kind and begged her acceptance of - the volumes.” “How has the Queen shown her gratitude for such - favors?” I said. “We have never heard anything more from her - since that time.” Good Mr. Dolby said quietly, “You know in - England we call her ‘Her Ungracious Majesty.’” Certainly one - would not have believed it possible for even a queen’s nature - to have become so hardened as this to the kindly acts of any - human being, not to speak of the efforts of one of her most - noble subjects and perhaps the greatest genius of our time. - -If any reader wishes to follow the further course of the friendship -between Dickens and the Fieldses, he has only to turn to “Yesterdays -With Authors,” in which many letters written by Dickens after April, -1868, are quoted, and many remembrances of their intercourse when the -Fieldses visited England in 1869, the year before Dickens’s death, are -presented. Here it will suffice to quote one out of several passages in -Mrs. Fields’s diary relating to Dickens, and to bring to light a single -characteristic little note from Dickens, not hitherto printed. - -On Wednesday, May 12, 1869, Mrs. Fields wrote of Dickens:— - - He drove us through the Parks in the fashionable afternoon - hour and afterward to dine with him at the St. James, where - Fechter and Dolby were the only outsiders. Mrs. Collins was - like one of Stothard’s pictures. I felt this more even after - refreshing my memory of Stothard’s coloring at the Kensington - Museum yesterday. C. D. told me that the book of all others - which he read perpetually and of which he never tired, the book - which always appeared more imaginative in proportion to the - fresh imagination he brings to it, a book for inexhaustiveness - to be placed before every other book, is Carlyle’s “French - Revolution.” When he was writing “A Tale of Two Cities,” he - asked Carlyle if he might see some book to which he referred in - his history. Whereat Carlyle sent down to him all his books, - and Dickens read them faithfully; but the more he read the - more he was astounded to find how the facts but passed through - the alembic of Carlyle’s brain and had come out and fitted - themselves each as a part of the one great whole, making a - compact result, indestructible and unrivalled, and he always - found himself turning away from the books of reference and - rereading this marvellous new growth from those dry bones with - renewed wonder. - -The note from Dickens read:— - - GAD’S HILL PLACE - HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT - - _Wednesday Sixth October, 1869_ - - MY DEAR FIELDS:— - - Delighted to enjoy the prospect of seeing you and yours on - Saturday. Wish you had been at Birmingham. Wish you were not - going home. Wish you had had nothing to do with the Byron - matter.[28] Wish Mrs. Stowe was in the pillory. Wish Fechter - had gone over when he ought. Wish he may not go under when he - oughtn’t. - - With love, - - Ever affectionately yours, - - CHARLES DICKENS - -[Illustration: _Facsimile note from Dickens to Fields_] - -Among the papers preserved by Mrs. Fields there are, besides the -manuscript letters of Dickens himself, many letters written after his -death by his sister-in-law, Miss Georgina Hogarth. From bits of these, -and especially from a letter written by Dickens’s daughter, while his -death was still a poignant grief, the affection in which he was held in -his own household is touchingly imaged forth. - -“All the Old World,” wrote Miss Dickens, “all the New World loved him. -He never had anything to do with a living soul without attaching them to -him. If strangers could so love him, you can tell a little what he must -have been to his own flesh and blood. It is a glorious inheritance to -have such blood flowing in one’s veins. I’m so glad I have never changed -my name.” - -From one of Miss Hogarth’s letters a single passage may be taken, since -it adds something of first-hand knowledge to the accessible facts about -one piece of Dickens’s writing which—in so far as the editor of these -pages is aware—has never seen the light of print. This letter was written -in the September after Dickens’s death: - -“I must now tell you about the beautiful little New Testament which he -wrote for his children. I am sorry to say it is _never to be published_. -It happens that he expressed that decided determination only last autumn -to me, so we have no alternative. He wrote it years ago when his elder -children were quite little. It is about sixteen short chapters, chiefly -adapted from St. Luke’s Gospel, most beautiful, most touching, most -simple, as such a narrative should be. He never would have it printed -and I used to read it to the little boys in MS. before they were old -enough to read _writing_ themselves. When Charley’s children became old -enough to have this kind of teaching, I promised Bessy (his wife) that -I would make her a copy of this History, and I determined to do it as -a Christmas Gift for her last year, but before I began my copy I asked -Charles if he did not think it would be well for him to have it printed, -at all events for _private_ circulation, if he would not publish it -(though I think it is a pity he would never do that!). He said he would -look over the MS. and take a week or two to consider. At the end of the -time he gave it back to me and said he had decided _never to publish -it—or even have it privately printed_. He said I might make a copy for -Bessy, or for any one of his children, _but for no one else_, and that -he also begged that we would never even lend the MS., or a copy of it, -to any one to take out of the house; so there is no doubt about his -_strong feeling_ on the subject, and we must obey it. I made my copy for -Bessy and gave it to her last Christmas. After his death the original -MS. became _mine_. As it was never published, of course it did not count -as one of Mr. Forster’s MSS., and therefore it was one of his private -papers, which were left to me. So I gave it at once to Mamie, who was, I -thought, the most natural and proper possessor of it, as being his eldest -daughter. You must come to England and read it, dear Friend! as we must -not send it to you! We should be glad to see you and to show it to you -and Mr. Fields in our own house.” - -Miss Hogarth must have known full well that, if this manuscript Gospel -according to Charles Dickens was to be shown to anybody outside his -immediate circle, he himself would have chosen the Charles Street friends -from what he called—to them—his “native Boston.” - - - - -VI - -STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS - - -Had anyone crossed the Charles Street threshold of the Fieldses with the -expectation of encountering within none but the New England Augustans, he -would soon have found himself happily disillusioned, even at a time when -there was no Dickens in Boston. As it was in reality, so must it be in -these pages, if they are to fulfill their purpose of restoring a vanished -scene, the variety of which must indeed be counted among its most -distinctive characteristics. The pages that follow will accordingly serve -to illustrate the familiar fact that the pudding of a “family party” is -often rendered the more acceptable by the introduction of a few plums not -plucked from the domestic tree. - -Mrs. Fields once noted in her diary the circumstance that, when her -husband came to Boston from Portsmouth at the age of fourteen, and began -to work as a “boy” in the bookshop of Carter & Hendee, the second of -these employers had a box at the theatre and, to keep his young employees -happy, used constantly to ask one or more of them to see a play in his -company. Thus enabled in his youth to see such actors as the elder Booth, -Fanny Kemble and her father, and many others of the best players to -be seen in America at the time, Fields acquired a love of the theatre -and of stage folk which stood him in good stead throughout his life. -A certain exuberance in his own nature must have sought a response -in social contacts other than those of the straiter sect of his local -contemporaries. In men and women of the stage, in authors from beyond -the compass of the local horizon, writers with whom he formed relations -in his double capacity of editor and publisher, in artists and public -men outside the immediate “literary” circle of Boston, Fields took an -unceasing delight, shared by his wife, and still communicable through her -journals. - -[Illustration: JAMES T. FIELDS AT FIFTEEN - -_From a drawing by a French painter_] - -From their pages, then, I propose to assemble here a group of passages -relating first to stage folk, and then to others, and, since these -records so largely explain themselves, to burden them as lightly as -possible with explanations. Slender as certain of the entries are, each -contributes something to a recovery of the time and of the persons that -graced it. - -Thomas Bailey Aldrich, says his biographer, used to declare in his later -years, “Though I am not genuine Boston, I am Boston-plated.” His intimate -relation with Boston began in 1865, through the publication of a “Blue -and Gold” edition of his poems by the firm of which Fields was a member, -and the beginning of his editorship of “Every Saturday,” an illustrated -journal issued under the same auspices. His range of acquaintance -before that time was such that when the “plating” process began,—it was -really more like a transmutation of metals,—he sometimes served as a -sympathetic link between his new Boston and his old New York. It was -in New York, only a few weeks after the assassination of Lincoln, that -Aldrich appears in the diary, fresh from seeing his friend, Edwin Booth. - - _May 3, 1865._—An hour before we went to tea, Aldrich came to - see us. He said he and Launt Thompson were staying with Edwin - Booth alternate nights during this season of sorrow; that it - was “all right between himself and the lady he was about to - marry.” Then he described to us the first night while Booth - was plunged in agony. He said the gas was left burning low - and the bed stood in the corner, just where he lay sleepless, - looking at a fearfully good crayon portrait of Wilkes Booth - which glared at him over the gas. Launt Thompson started with - the mother from New York for Philadelphia, where she was going - to join her daughter the day that John Wilkes was shot, and an - extra containing the news was brought them by a newsboy as they - stepped on the ferry-boat. The old woman would have the paper. - “He was her ‘Johnny’ after all,” said T. B. A. - - _Friday._—Have seen a lady who knows the person to whom Booth - is engaged—said that her letter telling him she was true passed - his letter of relinquishment on its way to Philadelphia. She - thinks these two women have saved Booth. “I have been loved too - well,” he said once.... - - Aldrich said we should not have been more astonished to hear he - himself had done the terrible deed than he was to know Wilkes - Booth had done it. “He was so gentle, gentler than I, and very - handsome—a slight, beautiful figure,” and (as he described the - face, it was the Greek Antinous kind of beauty there) I could - not but reflect how the deed may deform the man. Nobody said he - was beautiful after he was dead, but they laid a cloth upon the - face and said how dreadful. It has been a strange experience to - come among the people who know the family. I hoped I should be - spared this, but the soul of good in things evil God means we - should all see. - - _Sunday, May 7._—A radiant day. Went to hear Dr. Bellows—a - grand discourse. After service sat in his drawing-room and - talked and then walked together.... He too has been to see - Edwin Booth. The poor fellow said to him, “Ah! if it had been a - fellow like myself who had done this dreadful deed, the world - would not have wondered—but Johnny!!” - - _Wednesday, January 3, 1866._—Dined with the Grahams and went - to see Booth upon the occasion of his reappearance. The unmoved - sadness of the young man and the unceasing plaudits of the - house, half filled with his friends, were impressive and made - it an occasion not to be forgotten. - -[Illustration: _Facsimile note from Booth to Mrs. Fields_] - - _September 23, 1866._—Edwin Booth and the Aldriches came to - tea; also Tom Beal and Professor Sterry Hunt of Montreal, the - latter late. Booth came in the twilight while a magnificent red - and purple and gold sunset was staining the bay. The schooners - anchored just off shore had already lighted their lanterns - and swung them in the rigging, and the full moon cast a silver - sheen over the scene. I hear he passes every Sunday morning - while here at the grave of his wife in Mt. Auburn. He seems - deeply saddened. He was very pleasant, however, and ready to - talk, and gave amusing imitations—in particular of his black - boy, Jan, who possesses, he says, the one accomplishment of - forgetting everything he ought to remember. One day a man - with a deep tragic voice, “Forrestian,” he said, came to him - with letters of introduction asking Mr. Booth to assist him - as he was about to go to England. Mr. B. told him he knew no - one in England and could do nothing for him, he was sorry. If - he ever found it possible to do him a service he would with - pleasure. With that Mr. B. turned,—they were in the vestibule - of the theatre—and entered the box-office to speak to someone - there; immediately he heard the deep voice addressing Jan - with “You are with Mr. Booth.” “Yes,” responded Jan with real - negro accent, “I’m wid Mr. Booth.” “In what capacity—are - you studying?” “Yaas,” returned Jan, unblushingly, “I’se - studyin’.” “What are you upon now?” “Oh, Richelieu, Hamlet, - an’ a few of dese yer.” “Ah, I should be pleased to enter into - correspondence with you while I am abroad. Would you have any - objections?” “Oh, no, no objection, no objection at all.” - “Thank you, sir; good-day, sir.” With that they parted and - Jan came with his mouth stretched wide with laughter. “Massa, - what is ‘correspond’? I told him I’d correspond, what’d he - mean, correspond?” Then Jan, convulsed with his joke, roared - and roared again. They are surely a merry race, but provoking - enough sometimes. They are capable of real attachments, - however; this man has been several times dismissed but will - not go. Booth told everything very dramatically, but I was - especially struck with his description of a man travelling with - two shaggy terrier pups in the cars. He had them in a basket - and hung them up over his head and then composed himself to - sleep. Waking up half an hour later, he observed a man on the - opposite side of the car, his eyes starting from his head and - the very picture of dismay, as if a demon were looking at him. - The owner of the pups, following the direction of the man’s - eyes, looked up and saw the two pups had their heads out of - the basket. He quietly made a sign for them to go back and - they disappeared. The man’s gaze did not apparently slacken, - however, but in a moment became still more horrified when the - pups again looked out. “What’s the matter?” said the owner. - “What are those?” said the man, pointing with trembling finger; - “pray excuse me, but I have been on a spree and I thought they - were demons.” He introduced the subject of the stage and talked - of points in “Hamlet,” which he had made for the first time, - but occasionally through accident had omitted. The next day he - will be sure to be asked by letter or newspaper why he omits - certain points which would be so excellent to make, _the writer - thinks_. He has had a life of strange vicissitudes, as almost - all actors. He referred last night to his frequent travels - during childhood over the Alleghanies with his father, of long - nights spent in this kind of travel; and once in Nevada he - walked fifty miles chiefly through snow. “Why?” said Lilian. - “Because I was hard up, Lily,” he continued; “I walked it too - in stage boots which were too tight—it was misery.” ... - - They had all gone by half-past ten, but we lay long awake - thinking over poor Booth and his strange sad fortune. Hamlet, - indeed!—although Forceythe Willson says, “I have been to see - Mr. Hamlet play Booth.” Yes, perhaps when he is playing it for - the 400th time with a bad cold, it may seem so; indeed I found - it dullish myself, or his part, I mean, the other night; but he - _did_ play it once—the night of his reappearance in New York. - -[Illustration: BOOTH AS HAMLET] - - _May 18, 1869._—Last Sunday evening Booth, Aldrich and his wife - and sister, Dr. Holmes and Amelia and Launt Thompson, Leslie - and ourselves took tea here together. In the evening came Mr. - and Mrs. Emerson. We did have a rare and delightful symposium. - Booth talked little as usual, and the next night went round - to Aldrich’s and took himself off as he behaves in company!! - Nevertheless he was glad to see Holmes, though every time Dr. - H. addressed him across the table he seemed to receive an - electric shock. - -A chance meeting between William Warren and Fields in a lane at the -seaside Manchester is recorded, with their talk, in the diary as early -as 1865. Two entries in 1872 have to do with Jefferson, first alone and -then with Warren. The friendship with Jefferson, begun so long ago, was -continued until his death. - - _Tuesday, March 18, 1872._—Left Boston for a short trip to New - York. Jefferson the actor, famous throughout the world for - his impersonation of “Rip Van Winkle,” was on the train and - finding us out (or J. him), came to our compartment car to - pass the day. He talked without cessation and without effort. - He described his sudden disease of the eyes quite bravely - and simply, from the use of too much whiskey. He said the - newspapers had said it was the gas, and many other reasons had - been assigned first and last; but he firmly believed there - was no other reason than too much whiskey. He had taken the - habit—when he was somewhat below his ordinary physical and - mental condition in the evening and wished to rise to the - proper point and “carry the audience”—of taking a small glass - of whiskey. This glass was after a time made two, and even - three or four. Finally he was stricken down by a trouble of - the eyes which threatened the entire extinction of sight. His - physician at once suggested that unnatural use of stimulants - was the cause, of which he himself is now entirely convinced - and no longer touches anything stronger than claret. He has - played to a larger variety of audiences probably than almost - any other great actor. The immense applause he received in - England, where he played 170 consecutive nights at the Adelphi - in London, always as “Rip,” has only served to make him - more modest, it would seem, more desirous to uphold himself - artistically. He gave us a hint of his taste for fishing and - described his trout-raising establishment in Jersey; very - curious and wonderful it was. Nature preserves only one in a - hundred of the eggs of trout to come to maturity. Mr. Jefferson - in his pond is able to raise 85 out of 100. There seems no - delight to him so great as that of sitting beside a stream on a - sunny day, line in hand. - - Talking of the everlasting repetition of “Rip,” he says he - should be thankful to rest himself with another play, but this - has been a growth and it would be a daring thing for him to - attempt anything new with a public who would always compare - him with himself in this play which is the result of years - of his best thought and strength. I think myself, if he were - quite well he would be almost sure to attempt something else. - He told us several stories very dramatically. He is an odd, - carelessly dressed little mortal, a cross between Charles Lamb - and Grimaldi, but we have seldom passed a more delightful day - of talk than with him. The hours absolutely fled away. - - _Wednesday, May 22, 1872._—Mr. Longfellow, Dr. Holmes, and - Jefferson and Warren, the two first comedians of our time, - dined here. The hour was three o’clock, to accommodate the - two professional gentlemen. The hours until three, with the - exception of two visits (Miss Sara Clarke and Miss Wainwright - in spite of saying “engaged”), were occupied in making - preparations for the little feast. I mean the hours after - breakfast until time to dress. (Of hours before breakfast I - have now-a-days nothing to say. I am not strong enough to do - anything early, but country life this summer is to change all - that.) Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Warren arrived first. Finding - much to interest them in the pictures of our lower room, they - lingered there a few moments before coming to the library, - when we talked of Marney’s pictures (Mr. J. owns some of his - water-colors) and looked about at others. Soon Longfellow came - with Jamie. He said he felt like one on a journey. He left home - early in the morning, had been sight-seeing in Boston all day, - was to dine and go to the theatre with us afterward. - - He asked Mr. Warren why a Mr. Inglis was selling his fine - library and pictures—a question nobody had been able to solve. - Mr. Inglis is, however, in some way connected with the stage, - and Warren told us it was because he had been arrested with - Mr. Harvey Parker and others and condemned to be thrown in the - House of Correction, for selling liquor. His money protected - him from the rigor of the law, but the disgrace remained. His - children felt it much and he was going to Europe at least for - a season. We could not help feeling the injustice of this when - we remembered the myriad liquor shops for the poor all over the - town, with which no one interferes. - - Mr. Jefferson was deeply interested in our pictures of the - players by Zanaçois. Dr. Holmes came in, talked a little at my - suggestion about Anne Whitney’s bust of Keats, which he appears - to know nothing about artistically (I observed the same lack - of knowledge in Emerson), but he criticised the hair. He said - he supposed nothing was known about Keats’s hair, so it might - as well be one way as another. I told him on the contrary I - owned some of it; whereat I got it out, and he went off in a - little episode about an essay which he had sometimes thought - of writing about hair. He has a machine by which the size of a - hair can be measured and recorded. This he would like to use, - and make a note of comparison between the hairs of “G. W.” (as - he laughingly called Washington), Jefferson, Milton, and other - celebrities of the earth. He thought it might be very curious - to discover the difference in quality. - - We were soon seated at the table (only six all told) where the - conversation never flagged. Longfellow properly began it by - saying he thought Mr. Charles Mathews was entirely unjust to - Mr. Forrest as King Lear. He considered Mr. Forrest’s rendering - of the part, and he sat through the whole, as fine and close to - nature. He could not understand Mr. Mathews’s underrating it - as he did. Of course the other two gentlemen could say nothing - more than the difficulty Mr. Mathews from his nature would - have in estimating at its proper worth anything Mr. Forrest - might do, their idea of Art being so dissimilar. Here arose the - question if one actor was a good judge of another. Jefferson - said he sometimes thought actors very bad judges—indeed he - preferred to be judged by an audience inspired by feeling - rather than by one intellectually critical. - - Jefferson has a clear blue eye, very fine and bright and sweet. - Longfellow thinks his mouth a very weak one, and certainly his - face is not impressive. Warren appears a man of finer intellect - and more wit. He had many witty things to say and his little - tales were always dramatically given. Dr. Holmes could not seem - to recover from the idea that Jefferson had made a fortune out - of one play and that he _never_ played but one. “I hear, Mr. - Jefferson,” he said, when he first came in, “that you have been - playing the same play ever since you came here.” (He has been - playing the same for a dozen years, I believe, nearly—and has - been here _three weeks_!) Jefferson could hardly help laughing - as he assured him that for the space of three weeks he had - given the same every night. Dr. Holmes had a way at the table - of talking of “you actors,” “you gentlemen of the stage,” until - I saw Longfellow was quite disturbed at the unsympathetic - unmannerliness of it, in appearance, and tried to talk more - than ever in a different strain. - - After I left the table, which I did because I thought they - might like to smoke, Jamie sent for Parsons’s poems and read - them some of the finest. Of course the talk was wittier and - quicker as the time came to separate, but I cannot report - upon it. The impression the two actors left upon me, however, - was rather that of men who enjoyed coming up to the surface - to breathe a natural air seldom vouchsafed to them than of - men sparring with their wits—they are affectionate, gentle, - subdued gentlemen and a noble contrast to the self-opinionated - ignorance which we often meet in society. Dr. Holmes was, - however, the wit of the occasion, as he always is, and - everybody richly enjoyed his sallies. They stayed until the - last moment—indeed I do not see how they got to their two - theatres in time to dress. It must have been, as they say of - eggs, a “hard scrabble.” _We_ went afterward—we four—to see a - new actor, Raymond, play “Colleen Bawn” at the Globe—pretty - play, though very touching and melodramatic, by Boucicault. - I must confess to dislike such plays where your feelings are - wrought to the highest pitch for nothing. - -[Illustration: JEFFERSON IN THE BETROTHAL SCENE OF “RIP VAN WINKLE”] - -The name of Fechter is familiar to the middle-aged through the memory -of fathers, to the young through that of grandfathers. Readers of these -pages will recall that Dickens, soon after reaching America in 1867, -spoke of him in terms which caused Mrs. Fields to look forward with -confidence to a new friendship. His coming to America was specifically -heralded by an article, “On Mr. Fechter’s Acting,” contributed by Dickens -to the “Atlantic” for August, 1869. When Fechter was in Boston, warmly -received as Dickens’s friend, he often appears in the journals of Mrs. -Fields, in conjunction with others. - - _Friday, February 25, 1870._—Mr. Fechter came to lunch with Mr. - Longfellow, Mr. Appleton, Mr. and Mrs. Dorr. He talked freely - about his Hamlet, so different from all other impersonations. - His audience here he finds wonderfully good, better than any - other; fine points which have never been applauded before - bring out a round of applause. On the whole he appears to - enjoy new hearers—does not understand the constant comparison - between himself and Booth. They are already great friends. - Booth was in the house the last night of his performance there; - afterward he did not come to speak to him, and Fechter felt it; - but a letter came yesterday saying he was so observed that he - slipped away as soon as possible, and could not come on Sunday - because visitors prevented him. Better late than never; it was - pleasant to Fechter to hear from Booth—with one exception: - he enclosed a notice from some newspaper, cutting up himself - horribly and praising Fechter. “Ah! that won’t do; I shall send - it back to him and tell him why. We are totally unlike in our - Hamlets, and neither should be praised at the other’s expense.” - - Mr. Fechter described minutely Mr. Dickens’s attack of - paralysis last year, and, the year before, his prompt - appearance in the box of the theatre at the last performance of - “No Thoroughfare,” which he said he should do; but as Fechter - had not heard of his return from America, it was a great shock. - “If it had been ‘Hamlet,’ or any difficult play, I could not - have gone on! He should not have done such a thing.” He told us - a strange touching story of M’lle Mars, during her last years. - She came upon the stage one night to give one of the youthful - parts in which she had once been so famous. When she appeared, - some heartless wretch threw her a wreath of immortelles, as if - for her grave. She was so shocked that the drops stood on her - brow, the rouge fell from her cheeks, and she stood motionless - before the audience, a picture of age and misery. She could not - continue her part. - -[Illustration: A NAST CARTOON OF DICKENS AND FECHTER] - - He spoke with intense enthusiasm of Frédérick Lemaître, much - as I have heard Mr. Dickens do. “The second-class actors were - always arguing with him (only second-class people argue) and - saying, ‘Why do you wish me to stand here, Frédérick?’ ‘I don’t - know,’ he would say, ‘only do it.’” - - Mr. Appleton was deeply interested in the fact that Shakespeare - proved himself such a believer in ghosts, as “Hamlet” shows, - and would like to push the subject farther, Mr. Fechter - evidently finding much to say on this topic also. Mr. - Longfellow was interested to ask about the Dumas, _père et - fils_. Mr. Fechter has known them well and has many queer - stories to tell of their relation to each other. _Le fils_ - calls _mon père_, “my youngest child born many years ago,” and - the father usually introduces the son as M. Dumas, _mon père_. - The motto on Fechter’s note paper is very curious and a type - of the man—“_Faiblesse vaut vice_.” Mr. Longfellow spoke again - of Mr. Dickens’s restlessness, of his terrible sadness. “Yes, - yes,” said Fechter, “all his fame goes for nothing.” ... - - Jamie is so weak that he went to sleep almost as soon as they - were gone. God knows what it all means; I do not. - - It is odd that Fechter’s eyes should be brown after all. They - look so light in the play. He is a round little man, naturally - friendly, spontaneous. We do not know what his life has been, - and we will not ask; that does not rest with us; but he is a - very fine artist. His imitation of Mr. Dickens, as he sat on - the lawn watching him at work, or as he joined him coming from - his desk at lunchtime with tears on his cheek and a smile on - his mouth, was very close to the life and delightful. - - Mr. Longfellow did not talk much, not as much as the last time - he was here, but he was lovely and kind.[29] He brought a - coin of the French Republic which had been touched by French - wit, _Liberté_ x (point), _Egalité_ x (point), _Fraternité_ x - (point). And more to the same effect, without altering the coin. - - Appleton has just bought a new Troyon, which he says he shall - lend me for a week. - -At the end of the following August there is a record of a talk with -Fechter on the boat from Boston to Nahant, where he and the Fieldses -dined with Longfellow. Dickens had died in the June just past, and -Fechter had much to say of him and his family life. “Day by day,” wrote -Mrs. Fields, “I am grateful to think of him at rest.” The little party at -Nahant is described. - - We found dear Longfellow looking through a glass to espy our - approach, and all his dear little girls and Ernest and his wife - and Appleton, who whisked me away from the dinner-table to his - studio where he had some really good sketches. The conversation - at table was half French, Longfellow and Appleton both finding - it agreeable to recall the foreign scenes by the foreign - tongue. But except a queer imitation of John Forster, by - Fechter, I do not remember any quotable talk. F. said Forster - always looked at everybody as if regarding their qualifications - for a lunatic asylum (he is commissioner of lunacy), saying to - himself, “Well, I’ll let you off _today_, but tomorrow you must - certainly go and be shut up.” He describes Forster’s present - state of health as something very precarious and wretched. - - _November 14, 1870._—Monday night went to see Fechter in - “Claude Melnotte.” Longfellow and his daughter Edith sat in - the box adjoining ours. It was the stage box where they were - sheltered from observation; ours was the box next it, to be - sure, but accessible to all eyes. During the curtain Longfellow - came into our box; Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Andrew were with me, - both plain ladies dressed in mourning. His advent caused a - little rustle of curiosity to ripple over the house. Longfellow - was never looking finer than he is today. His white hair and - deep blue eyes and kind face make his presence a benediction - wherever he goes—of such men one cannot help feeling what - Dr. Putnam so well expressed last Sunday in speaking of the - presence of our Lord at a feast. “He rewarded the hospitality - of his friends by his presence.” - - Longfellow brought an illegible scrawl in his hand which - Parsons had written from London to Lunt. He told me also of - having lately received a photograph from Virginia of a young - woman, and written under it were the words, “What fault can be - found with this?” He said he thought of replying, “The fault of - too great youth.” It certainly could not be agreeable to him - to sit in the eye of the audience as he did; but he was very - talkative and pleasant, expressed his disappointment at not - having us at his Nilsson dinner, but his family were too many - for him; said how he liked her for her frankness; told me of - the old impressario Garrett, the Jew, coming without invitation - and certainly without being wanted (as it sent “his children - upstairs to dine”); and then, as the play was about to begin, - he withdrew. He was much amused and disgusted by the platitudes - of the play. Returned to his own box, Jamie said he laughed - immoderately over the absurdities of it as it continued. He - tooted as the instruments tooted and spouted as the second-rate - actors spouted, all of which was highly amusing to Edith, who - was weeping over the unhappy lovers, utterly absorbed in the - play. Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Andrew, too, were full of tears, and - I found it no use attempting to say anything more during the - evening. - - Fechter was indeed marvellous. He raised the play into - something human, something exquisite whenever he was upon the - stage. His terrible earnestness sweeps the audience utterly - away. But he is not the player for the million. - - _Sunday evening, December 11, 1870._—Went to Mr. Bartol’s and - met Mr. Collyer. He was pleased to hear what Fechter said of - him Saturday night (by the by we met Fechter at Mrs. Dorr’s - dinner on Saturday), that he singled him out, found him a - capital audience, and played to him. It was a fine house on - Saturday and Fechter played “Don Cæsar.” It was never played - better. Curtis was there, and fine company. Fechter was - graceful and saucy too in talk at dinner—just right for the - occasion. - - _Monday, December 19._—I have just returned from seeing Fechter - in “Ruy Blas.” The public has just received the news that he - is to leave the Globe Theatre and Boston in four weeks. The - result was an enormous house, and the most fashionable house I - have seen this season. He played with great fire and ease, but - he has a wretched cold and his pronunciation was so thick and - French (as it is apt to be when he is excited) that I could - often hardly catch a word. But his audience was determined to - be pleased and they caught and applauded all his good points. - I saw but one dissenting spirit, that was a spoiled queen of - fashion just returned from Europe, who saw nobody and nothing - but herself.... - - _Saturday, January 7, 1871_.—Dined at Mr. Longfellow’s with - Mr. Fechter. The poet welcomed us with a cordiality peculiar - to himself and his children, with a simple glad-to-see written - over their faces which is worth a world of talk. We had a - merry table-talk although Fechter was laboring under the - unnatural excitement of his position in having lost his season - at the Globe, broken with the proprietor Cheney who was his - friend, and finding himself without an engagement for the time. - Also, so mischance held the day, Miss Leclercq, his only fit - support, injured herself in the afternoon and their superb - audience went away disappointed. However, the dinner went off - beautifully, as it always must with Longfellow at the helm. - There was some talk of poetry and the drama and J. amused - them too with anecdotes. Then we adjourned to the room of - Charles the East-India man, where we saw many curiosities and - had a very pleasant hour before leaving. Passing through the - dressing-room of our dear Longfellow, I was struck with seeing - how like the house of a German student it was—a Goethean aspect - of simplicity and largeness everywhere—books too are put on all - the walls. It is surely a most attractive house. - - _January 13, 1871._—Today Jamie lunched with Appleton. We - passed the evening at Mrs. Quincy’s. It is the great benefit to - Fechter, but in consequence of the tickets being sold unjustly - at auction, we shall not go. Unhappily there are rumors about - town that Fechter is to be insulted in the theatre. I wish I - could get word to him. I shall wait until J. gets home and then - ask him to drive up to put F. on his guard. - - _January 23._—It proved an unnecessary alarm! The evening went - off well enough but unenthusiastically, and at last Fechter - gave all the money to the poor! - -When Mrs. Fields first met that representative of the once alluring art -of “elocution,” James E. Murdoch, he was already a veteran who had twice, -at an interval of nearly twenty years, retired from the stage. Two notes -about him recall his robust personality. - - _January 13, 1867._—I never met James E. Murdoch, the actor, - to hear any talk until Sunday night. The knowledge of his - patriotism, of his son who died in the war, and of the weary - miles the father had travelled to comfort the soldiers by - reading to them, and afterwards the large sums of money he - had given to the country’s cause gathered up laboriously - night by night by public “readings”—all this I had known. Of - course no introduction could have been better, yet I liked - the man even more than I had fancied was possible. He was so - modest and talked in such a free generous way, purely for the - entertainment of others, I fancied, because we saw he had a - severe cold on his chest. The way too in which he recited - “Sheridan’s Ride” and anything else for the children which he - thought they would like was quite beautiful to see in a man - of his years, who must have had quite enough of that kind of - thing to do. His hobby is elocution. He is about to establish - a school or college or something of that description, whatever - its honorable title will be, at the West[30] (the money having - been granted in part by legislature, the other half to be - made by his own public efforts) for the purpose of educating - speakers and teaching men and women how to read. He has known - Grant and Sheridan well, lived in camp with them at the same - mess-table, and has the highest opinion of the patriotism and - probity of both of them. There is no mistake about one thing. - Mr. Murdoch made himself a power during the war, and now that - is over does not cease to work, nor does he allow himself to - presume upon the laurels he has won nor to brag of his own work. - - _Saturday morning, November 13, 1875._—After a western - journey, left for home. Sunday met James E. Murdoch in the - cars at Springfield. It was about six o’clock A.M., but he was - bound for Newton. He came in therefore with us, and talked - delightfully until we parted. He is an old man but as full of - nerve, vigor, and ripened intellect as anyone whom I have seen. - His talk of the stage, of his disgust for Macready’s book, his - disgust at the manner in which Forrest treated his wife, his - account of his own experiences, when he was glad to play for - $35 a week, were deeply interesting. The better side of Forrest - he understood and appreciated thoroughly. - -[Illustration: JAMES E. MURDOCH AND WILLIAM WARREN] - -The hospitalities of Charles Street were by no means confined to the men -of the theatrical and kindred professions. In later years Miss Ellen -Terry, Lady Gregory, and those other ladies associated with the stage who -so surely found their way to Mrs. Fields’s door when they visited Boston, -were but carrying on the traditions of the earlier decades. As the -visitors came and went, the diary in the sixties and seventies recorded -their exits and their entrances. A few passages are typical of many. - -A portion of the notes relating to Charlotte Cushman will be the better -understood for a preliminary remark upon a Boston event of huge local -moment in the autumn of 1863. This was the dedication of the Great Organ, -that wonder of the age, in Music Hall. The first public performance -on the organ, at the ceremonies on the evening of November 2, were -preceded by Charlotte Cushman’s reading of a dedicatory ode, contributed, -according to the “Advertiser” of the next day, by an “anonymous lady of -this city.” The secret of Mrs. Fields’s authorship of this poem, which -the “Advertiser” found somewhat too long in spite of its merits, must -have been shared by some of her friends, though it was temporarily kept -from the public. - - _Sunday, September 20, 1863._—In the evening Charlotte Cushman - and her niece, Dr. Dewey and Miss McGregor, Miss Mears and Mr. - W. R. Emerson, passed a few hours with us. Charlotte, always - of athletic but prejudiced mind, talked busily of people and - events. She is a Seward-ite in politics and called Dr. Howe - and Judge Conway “ass-sy” because they said Charles Sumner - had prevented thus far a war with England. She has made money - during the war, but believes apparently not at all in the - patriotism of the people. She is to give one performance for - “the Sanitary” in each of the four northern seacoast cities, - also for fun and fame. She can’t endure to give up the stage. - She is a woman of effects. She lives for effect, and yet doing - always good things and possessed of most admirable qualities. - She has warm friends. Mrs. Carlyle is extremely fond of her, - gives her presents and says flattering things to her. “Cleverer - than her husband,” says Miss Cushman. I put this quietly into - my German pipe and puff peacefully. - - _Saturday Evening, September 26, 1863._—Charlotte Cushman - played Lady Macbeth for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission - to a large audience. Her reading of the letter when she first - appears is one of her finest points. She moves her feet - execrably and succeeds in developing all the devilish nature - in the part, but discovers no beauty. Yet it is delightful - to hear the wondrous poetry of the play intelligently and - clearly rendered. It would be impossible to say this of the - man who played Macbeth, who talked of “encarnardine,” and - “heat-oppre_st_ brain,” for “oppressèd,” besides innumerable - other faults and failures, which he mouthed too much for me - to discover. Charlotte in the sleeping scene was fine—that - deep-drawn breath of sleep is thrilling.... - - There has been an ode written to be spoken at the organ - opening. No one is to know who wrote it. Miss Cushman will - speak it if they are speedy enough in their finishing. This - is of interest to many. I trust they will be ready for Miss - Cushman. - -[Illustration: FROM A CRAYON PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN] - - _Monday, November 2, 1863._—Miss Dodge and Una Hawthorne - came to dine. At 7 o’clock we all started for the Music Hall. - Miss Cushman read my ode in a most perfect manner. She was - very nervous about it and skipped something, but what she did - read was perfect. Her dress and manner too were dignified and - beautiful. It was a night never to be forgotten. Afterward we - had a little supper. Dr. and Mrs. Holmes, Mr. Ogden of New - York, Dr. Upham[31] and Judge Putnam and Mrs. Howe were added - to our other guests. Charlotte Cushman left early the next day - and Gail Hamilton and I sat down and took a long delicious - draught of talk. - - _April 27, 1871._—Charlotte Cushman came to see us yesterday. - Her full brain was brimming over, and her rich sympathetic - voice is ringing now in my ears. She does not overestimate - herself, that woman, which is part of her greatness, for the - word _does_ apply to her in a certain way because she grows - nearer to it every day. J. de Maistre refused the epithet - “grand” to Napoleon because he lacked more stature—but this - hand-to-hand fight with death over herself (loving life clearly - as she does) has strengthened her hold upon her affection for - life, insensibly. She grows daily wiser and nobler. - - _November 13, 1871._—We all went together to Charlotte - Cushman’s début in Queen Katherine at the Globe Theatre. A - house filled with her friends and a noble piece of acting. She - spoke to every woman’s heart there; by this I felt the high art - and the noble sympathetic nature far above art which was in - the woman and radiates from her. Much of the play beside was - poor, but Mrs. Hunt was very amusing and we laughed and laughed - at her sallies until I was quite ashamed. J. went behind the - scenes and talked with C. C. She was in first-rate condition. - -For other contacts with the stage, three brief passages may speak:— - - _November 8, 1866._—Went to see Ristori’s “Pia dei Tolomei” in - the evening. It was pure and beautiful. Being R.’s benefit, - she made a short speech, and exquisitely simple as it was, her - fine voice and the slight difficulty of enunciating the English - words made her speech one of the most touching features of the - time. - - _Saturday._—Morning at home. Went to see Ristori for the last - time, as Elizabeth, perhaps her finest characterization. - Longfellow and Whittier had both promised to go with us, but - the courage of both failed at the last moment. The house was - crowded. Mr. Grau asked Mr. Fields to go and speak with the - great actress, but he excused himself. - - Whittier had never been inside of a theatre and could not quite - feel like breaking the bonds now—besides he said it would cost - him many nights of sleep. Longfellow does not face high tragedy - before a crowd. - -[Illustration: RISTORI AND FANNY KEMBLE - -_The photograph of Mrs. Kemble was taken in Philadelphia in 1863_] - - _January 16, 1868._—Fanny Kemble read “The Merchant of Venice” - in Boston last night—the old way of losing her breath when she - appeared, as if totally overcome by the audience. We could - not doubt that she felt her return deeply and sincerely, - but—however, the feeling was undoubtedly real if short-lived, - and we will give her credit for it. Her voice is sadly faded - since the brilliant readings of ten years ago; she has had much - sorrow since then and shows the marks of it. It is interesting - to compare her work with Mr. Dickens’s; he is so much the - greater artist! You can never mistake one of his characters for - another, nor lose a syllable of his perfectly enunciated words. - She speaks much more slowly usually, and there is a grand - intonation as the verses sway from her lips, but one cannot - be sure always if Jessica or Nerissa be speaking, Antonio or - Bassanio. Her face is marvellous in tender passages, a serenity - falls upon it born of immortal youth. It is beautiful enough - for tears. She enjoys the wit too herself thoroughly, and - brought out Launcelot Gobbo with great unction. An enormous and - enthusiastic audience gave her hearty welcome. Longfellow could - not come. His wife in the old days enjoyed this play too well - when they used to go together for him to trust himself to hear - it again. - - _Monday, May 18, 1868._—Raining like all possessed again - today. I was to have done my gardening today but there is - no chance yet. Walked over to Roxbury with J. yesterday and - found everything gay with the coming loveliness. It has - scarcely come, however. Jamie was much entertained by tales - Mrs. Kemble’s agent told him of that lady: how she watched an - Irish scrubbing woman dawdle over her work, who was paid by - the hour, and finally called her to her (she was sitting at - her own reading-desk in the hall), and said in her stately - fashion, “I fear, madam, if you exert yourself so much over - your work you will make yourself ill. Your health is seriously - endangered by your severe efforts.” The woman, not seeing - the sarcasm, replied in the strongest possible brogue to the - effect that nothing short of the direst necessity would compel - such dreadful labor. Whereat Mrs. Kemble, with a look not to - be reproduced, and a wink to Mr. Pugh, withdrew. She read - “Midsummer Night’s Dream” on Saturday P.M. We went, but found - the place entirely without air and left after the first part. - She did not begin with much spirit, but her voice was exquisite - and her fun also, and her dress was an æsthetic pleasure, as a - lady’s dress should always be, but alas! so seldom is, in this - country. - - _Wednesday, November 9, 1870._—We have had a reception today - for Miss Nilsson. Longfellow and Henry Ward Beecher were - here, beside Perabo and many excellent or talented people, - nearly sixty in all. It was a curious fact to give out seventy - invitations and have sixty (or nearly that) present. - - Miss Nilsson, Mrs. Richardson (her attendant), Alice - Longfellow, and ourselves sat down to lunch afterward, when she - sang snatches of her loveliest songs and talked and laughed and - was as graceful and merry and sweet as ever a beautiful woman - knows how to be. She is now twenty-seven years old. Her light - hair, deep blue eyes, full glorious eyes, are of the Northern - type, but her broad intellectual brow, her beautiful teeth, - and strong character, belong only to the type of genius and - beauty. She is not only brave but almost imperious, I fancy, - at times; a manner quite necessary, I say, to protect her from - vulgar animosity and audacity. We heard her last night sing - “Auld Robin Gray” not only with exquisite feeling, but with - a pronunciation of the Scottish dialect that appeared to us - very remarkable. When we spoke to her of it she said, “Yes, - but there is much like that too in the Swedish dialect. When I - first came up a peasant to Stockholm to learn to sing, I had - the dialect very bad indeed, and it was a long time before I - lost it. Then I went to school in France, and now my accent - and dialect are French. When I went back home and talked with - the French dialect, they said to me, ‘Now Christine, don’t be - absurd,’ but I could not help it. I catch everything. I have - never studied English in my life. I am learning American fast. - I have learned ‘I guess,’ and I shall soon say ‘I reckon’ by - the time I come back from the West.” - - Vieuxtemps, the violinist, she appreciates and enjoys highly - as an artist. Of Ole Bull she says, “He is a charlatan. Ah, - you will excuse me, but it is true.” Of Viardot-Garcia she has - the highest admiration. Nothing ever gave her higher delight - than Viardot’s compliment after hearing her “Mignon.” It was - uncalled for, unexpected, and from the heart. She rehearsed - what we recall so well, Viardot’s plain face, poor figure—and - great genius triumphant over all. Well, we hear poor Viardot - has lost her fortune by this sad French war. - - I have set down nothing which can recall the strong sweet - beauty of Nilsson. She is a power to command success—fine and - strong and sweet. Her face glowed and responded and originated - in a swift yet gentle way, as one person after another was - presented, that was a study and a lesson. She neither looked - nor seemed tired until the presentation was over, when she said - she was hungry. “We have had no breakfast yet, nothing to eat - all day; ah, I shall know again what it means when Mrs. Fields - asks me to lunch at one o’clock!” with an arch look at me. I - was extremely penitent and hurried the lunch, but the people - could not go out of the dining-room. However, all was cleaned - at last and we had a quiet cosy talk and sit-down, which was - delightful. - - On Saturday she sang from “Hamlet,” the mad scene of Ophelia. - As usual, her dress and whole appearance were of the most - refined and perfect beauty, and her singing we appreciated even - more deeply than ever. She has not the remote _exalté_ nature - of highest genius, but she is the great singer of this new - time, and her realism is in marked sympathy with her period. - -[Illustration: CHRISTINE NILSSON AS OPHELIA] - -It has already been suggested that, when Thomas Bailey Aldrich made his -migration to Boston as editor of “Every Saturday,” he brought into the -circle of the Fieldses many fresh breezes from the outer world. In the -diary of Mrs. Fields there are frequent notes revealing a friendship -which lasted, indeed, long after the diary ceased, and up to the end of -Aldrich’s life, in 1907. Two entries—the first relating to the meteoric -author of “The Diamond Lens,” regarded in its day as a bright portent -in the literary heavens, the second to the Aldriches themselves at the -country place with the name which Aldrich embalmed in his excellent -title, “From Ponkapog to Pesth”—warrant conversion from manuscript into -print. - - _November 9, 1865._—Aldrich told us the story of Fitz-James - O’Brien, the able author of “The Diamond Lens.” He was a - handsome fellow, and began his career by running away with - the wife of an English officer. The officer was in India, and - Fitz-James and the guilty woman had fled to one of the seaports - on the south of England in order to take passage for America, - when the arrival of the woman’s husband was announced to them - and O’Brien fled. He concealed himself on board a ship bound - for New York. There he ran a career of dissipation, landing - with only sixty dollars. He went to a first-rate hotel, ordered - wines, and left a large bill behind when the time came to run - away. Then he wrote for Harpers, and one publisher and another, - writing little and over-drawing funds on a large scale. He - came and lived six weeks upon Aldrich in his uncle’s house one - summer when the family were away. One day he tried to borrow - money of Harpers, and being refused he went into the bindery - department, borrowed a board, printed on it, “I am starving,” - bored holes through the ends, put in a string, hung it round - his neck, allowed his fawn-colored gloves to depend over each - end, and stood in the doorway where the firm should see him - when they went to dinner. A great laugh and more money was - the result of this escapade. Finally, when the war broke out, - he enlisted, and this was the last A. heard of him for some - time; but, being himself called to take a position on General - Lander’s staff, he was on his way to Richmond and had reached - Petersburg, when someone told him Fitz-James O’Brien had been - shot dead. Then he went to the hospital and saw him lying there - dead. - - Shortly after this, when Bayard Taylor and his wife were dining - in a hotel restaurant at Dover, I believe,—it was one of the - south of England towns,—they saw themselves closely observed by - a lady and gentleman sitting near them. Finally the gentleman - arose and came to speak to Taylor, said he observed they were - Americans, and asked if he had ever heard of F. J. O’Brien. - “Oh, yes,” said Taylor, “I knew him very well. He was killed - in our war.” Then the lady burst into tears and the gentleman - said, “She is his mother!” - - I forgot to say in the course of the story that he borrowed - once sixty-five dollars for which A. became responsible, - and when it was not paid he sent a letter to O’B. saying he - must pay it. In return O’Brien sent him a challenge for a - duel, which A. accepted, in the meantime discovering that an - honorable fight could not be between a debtor and a creditor. - However, when the time appointed arrived, O’Brien had - absconded. We could not repress a smile at the idea of A.’s - _fighting_, for he is a painfully small gentleman. - - _May 31, 1876._—Passed the day with the Aldriches at Ponkapog. - Aldrich maintained at dinner that the horse railroad injured - Charles Street. His wife and J. T. F. took the opposite ground. - Finally J. said, “Well, the Philadelphians don’t agree with - you; they have learned the value of horse railroads in their - streets.” “Oh, that’s because they are such Christians,” said - A. “They know whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” - - He is a queer, witty creature. When the railroad dropped us - at Green Lodge station, a tiny place surrounded by wild green - woods and bog, we found him sitting on a corner of the platform - where he said he had been “listening to the bullfrog tune - his violin. He had been twanging at one string a long time!” - Aldrich was in an ecstasy of delight, and in truth it was a day - to put the most untuned spirit into tune. In the afternoon we - floated on the beautiful pond. The whole day gave us a series - of pictures—only thirteen miles from town, yet the beechwoods - can be no more retired. Mr. Pierce owns 500 acres, and it - must be a pleasure to him, while he is away in Washington, to - feel that someone is using and enjoying his beautiful domain; - and how could it be half so well used and enjoyed as by the - family of a struggling literary man! The house they live in, - which was going to decay, may really be considered a creation - of Lilian’s. Altogether she is very clever and Aldrich most - fortunate and our Washington senator is doubtless most content - to think of the enjoyment of others in his domain. - -Still more exotic a figure in Boston than Aldrich was William Morris -Hunt—in spite of his temporary association with Harvard College and -his Boston marriage. Both he and his wife are constantly to be met in -the pages of Mrs. Fields’s journals, from which they emerged with some -frequency into her published “Biographical Notes,” even as they have -reappeared, with others, on earlier pages of this book. - -In other places than Charles Street, Fields and Hunt were often meeting. -One brief record of an encounter, at the end of a Saturday Club meeting, -should surely be preserved, for all that it suggests of Hunt in amused -rebellion against his surroundings. - - _Sunday, August 26, 1874._—Hunt came to Jamie when the - afternoon was nearly ended and asked him to go up to his - studio. As they went along, he said, “I’ve made a poem! First - time I ever wrote anything in my life. ’Tisn’t long, only four - lines, but I’ve got it written down.” Whereat then and there he - pulled out his pocketbook and read: - - “Boston is a hilly place; - People all are brothers-in-law. - If you or I want something done - They treat us then like mothers-in-law. - - “This goes to the tune of Yankee Doodle,” Whereat he sang - it out on the public highway. He looked very handsome, was - beautifully dressed in brown velvet with a gold chain about - his neck, but swore like a trooper and was in one of his most - lawless moods. - - He gave J. for me a photograph of a marvellous picture which - he calls his Persian Sybil, Anahita. I see his wife in it as - in so many of his best works. “I don’t mean to do any more - portraits,” he said. “When I remember how I have wasted time on - an eyebrow because somebody’s 14th cousin thought it ought to - turn up a little more—it makes me mad!” - -[Illustration: _Facsimile letter from Hunt to Fields_] - -When the English painter, Lowes Dickinson, the father of G. Lowes -Dickinson, was visiting the Fieldses in Boston, a photograph of Hunt’s -portrait of Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw so impressed him that he asked to -be taken to the painter’s studio. In Miss Helen M. Knowlton’s “Art Life -of William Morris Hunt” this circumstance is related, together with its -sequel, which was the publication of Hunt’s “Talks on Art” from notes -made by Miss Knowlton herself. It is a surmise but slightly hazardous -that a characteristic note found among the Fields papers was written -apropos of Dickinson’s visit to Hunt: “Send ’em along—I mean Painters,” -he wrote to Fields. “I have had a delightful day with your friend—and I -know he is a painter—why? because he likes what I do well and _hates_ -what I do that ain’t worth....” - -It has been seen that, as early as November, 1868, James Parton suggested -that “a writer named Mark Twain” be engaged to contribute to the -“Atlantic.”[32] In October, 1868, “F. Bret Harte” wrote to the editor -of the “Atlantic” from San Francisco: “As the author of ‘The Luck of -Roaring Camp,’ I have to thank you for an invitation to contribute to -the ‘Atlantic Monthly,’ but as editor of ‘The Overland,’ my duties -claim most of my spare time outside of the Government office in which -I am employed.... But I am glad of this opportunity to thank someone -connected with the ‘Atlantic’ for its very gracious good-will toward -me and my writings, particularly the book which G. W. Carleton of New -York malformed in its birth. There was an extra kindness in your taking -the deformed brat by the hand, and trying to recognize some traces of a -parent so far away.” - -It was in the discharge of his work as editor of the “Atlantic” that -Fields, hospitable to practitioners of all the arts, entered especially -into relations with writers whose paths might not otherwise have crossed -his, and his wife’s. Of all the young Lochinvars of the pen who came -out of the West while Mrs. Fields was keeping her diary, Bret Harte and -Mark Twain were the daring and dauntless gallants who most captured the -imagination and have longest held it. To each of them Mrs. Fields devoted -a number of pages in her diary. We shall see first what she had to say -about Bret Harte. - - _Friday, March 10, 1871._—Too many days full of interest have - passed unrecorded. Chiefly I should record what I can recall - of Francis Bret Harte, who has made his first visit to the - East just now, since he went to San Francisco in his early - youth. He is now apparently about 35 years old. His mind is - full of the grand landscape of the West, and filled also with - sympathetic interest in the half-developed natives who are - to be seen there, nearer to the surface than in our Eastern - cities. He told me of a gambler who had a friend lying dead in - the upper room of a gambling house. The man went out to see - about having services performed. “Better have it at the grave,” - said the parson to whom he applied. Jim shook his head as if - he feared the proper honors would not be paid his friend. The - other then suggested they should find the minister and leave - it to him. “Well,” said Jim, “yes, I wish you’d do just that, - for I ain’t much of a funeral ‘sharp’ myself.” He told me also, - as a sign of the wonderful recklessness which had pervaded San - Francisco, that at one time there was a glut of tobacco in the - market and, a block of houses going up at the same period, _the - foundations of those houses were laid of boxes of tobacco_. - Bret Harte, as the world calls him, is natural, warm-hearted, - with a keen relish for fun, disposed to give just value to the - strong language of the West, which he is by no means inclined - to dispense with; at ease in every society, quick of sense - and sight. Jamie, who saw him more than I, finds him lovable - above all. We liked his wife too,—not handsome but with good - honest sense, appreciative of him,—and two children. She is - said to sing well, but poor woman! the fatigues of that most - distressing journey across the continent, the fêtes, the heat - (for the weather is unusually warm), have been almost too much - for her and she is not certainly at her best. They dined and - took tea here last Friday. - -[Illustration: _Facsimile page from an early letter of Bret Harte’s_] - - _Tuesday, September 5, 1871._—J. went to Boston. I wrote in the - pastures and walked all the morning. Coming home, after dinner, - came a telegram for me to meet J. and Bret Harte at Beverly - station with the pony carriage. I drove hard to catch the - train, but arrived in season, glad to take up the two good boys - and show them Beverly shore. Stopped at Mrs. Cabot’s returning - to see Mrs. ——, etc. They were all glad to have a glimpse of - Bret Harte. The talk turned a little upon Hawthorne, and I was - much amused to hear Mrs. —— say, drawing herself up, “Yes, he - was born in Salem, but we never knew anything about him.” (The - truth was, Mrs. —— was the last person to appreciate him.) ... - Fortunately Miss Howes was present, whose father was one of - Hawthorne’s best friends; so matters were made clear there. We - left soon and came on to Manchester, where, after showing him - the shore, we sat and talked during the evening. - - Mr. Harte had much to say of the beautiful flowers of - California, roses being in bloom about his own house there - every month in the year. He found the cloudless skies and - continued drought of California very hard to bear. For the - first time in my life I considered how terrible perpetual - cloudlessness would be! He thinks there is no beauty in the - mountains of California, hard, bare, snowless peaks. Neither - are there trees, nor any green grass. - - He is delighted with the fragrant lawns of Newport and has, I - believe, put into verse a delightful ghost story which he told - us.[33] He has taken a house of some antiquity in Newport, - connected with which is the story of a lady who formerly lived - there and who was very fond of the odor of mignonette. The - flower was always growing in her house, and after her death, - at two o’clock every night, a strong odor has always been - perceived passing through the house as if wafted along by the - garments of a woman. One night at the appointed hour, but - entirely unconnected in his thought with the story Mr. Harte - had long ago heard, he was arrested in his work by a strong - perfume of mignonette which appeared to sweep by him. He looked - about, thinking his wife might have placed a vase of flowers - in the room, but finding nothing he began to follow the odor, - which seemed to flit before him. Then he recalled, for the - first time, the story he had heard. He opened the door; the - odor was in the hall; he opened the room where the lady died, - but there was no odor there; until returning, after making a - circuit of the house, he found a faint perfume as if she had - passed but not stayed there also. At last, somewhat oppressed - perhaps by the ghostliness of the place and hour, he went out - and stood upon the porch. There his dream vanished. The sweet - lawn and tree flowers were emitting an odor, as is common at - the hour when dews congeal, more sweet than at any other time - of day or night, and the air was redolent of sweets which might - easily be construed into mignonette. The story was well told - and I shall be glad to see his poem. - - Many good stories came off during the evening, some very - characteristic of California; ones such as that of an uproar in - a theatre and a man about to be killed, when someone shouts, - “Don’t waste him, but kill a fiddler with him.” Also one of the - opening nights at the California theatre, the place packed, - when a man who has taken too much whiskey wishes a noise; - immediately the manager, a strong executive man, catches him - up with the help of a policeman, and before anybody knows the - thing is done or the disturber what is the matter, he finds - himself set down on the sidewalk outside in the street. “Well,” - said he with an oath, “is this the way you do business here; - raise a fellow before he has a chance to draw?” (referring to - the game of poker). - - Mr. Harte is a very sensitive and nervous man. He struggles - against himself all the time. He sat on the piazza with J. and - talked till a late hour. This morning at breakfast I found him - most interesting. He talked of his early and best-loved books. - It appears that at the age of nine he was a lover and reader of - Montaigne. Certain writers, he says, seem to him to stand out - as friends and brothers side by side in literature. Now Horace - and Montaigne are so associated in his mind. Mr. Emerson, he - thinks, never in the least approaches a comprehension of the - character of the man. With an admiration for his great sayings, - he has never guessed at the subtle springs from which they - come. The pleasant acceding to both sides in politics, and - other traits of like nature, gives him affinity with Hawthorne. - By the way, he is a true appreciator of Hawthorne. He was moved - to much merriment yesterday by remembering a passage in the - notes, where he slyly remarks, “Margaret Fuller’s cows hooked - the other cows.” Speaking of Dr. Bartol, he said, “What a dear - old man he is! A venerable baby, nothing more!” But Harte is - most kindly and tender. His wife has been very ill and has - given him cause for terrible anxiety. This accounts for much - left undone, but he is an oblivious man oftentimes to his - surroundings—leaves things behind!! - - _January 12, 1872._—Bret Harte was here at breakfast. It is - curious to see his feeling with regard to society. For purely - literary society, with its affectations and contempts, he has - no sympathy. He has at length chosen New York as his residence, - and among the Schuylers, Sherwoods, and their friends he - appears to find what he enjoys. There is evidently a _gêne_ - about people and life here, and provincialisms which he found - would hurt him. He is very sensitive and keen, with a love and - reverence for Dickens almost peculiar in this coldly critical - age. Bryant he finds very cold and totally unwilling to lead - the conversation, as he should do when they are together, as - he justly remarks, he being so much younger—but never a word - without cart and horses to fetch it. - - Bret Harte has a queer absent-minded way of spending his time, - letting the hours slip by as if he had not altogether learned - their value yet. It is a miracle to us how he lives, for he - writes very little. Thus far I suppose he has had money from J. - R. O. & Co., but I fancy they have done with giving out money - save for a _quid pro quo_. - - _February, 1872_ [during a visit to New York].—We had promised - to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Harte early and go to the theatre - afterward, therefore four o’clock found us at their door. He - welcomed us by opening it himself and only this reassured - Jamie. We had driven up in a “Crystal,” much to my amusement, - in which J. had insisted I should sit until he discovered if - that was the house. The scene was altogether comic. I shortened - the ludicrousness as much as possible by jumping out and - running quickly up the steps. Mrs. Harte was not ready to see - me, but I found Mr. Barrett the actor with Mr. Harte in the - parlor, and soon being invited upstairs, found Mrs. Barrett and - Mrs. Harte together. We had a merry dinner together, the young - actor evidently quite nervous with respect to the evening’s - performance. He went an hour before us to the play. We sat in - the stage box; the play was “Julius Cæsar.” It is useless to - deny Edwin Booth great talent, exquisite grace and feeling. - Both the young men, the first, Barrett, a man of intellect, and - Booth, a man of inherited grace and feeling as well as good - mind, have the advantage moreover of being born to the stage. - Their stage habits fit them more perfectly than those of the - drawing-room and they walk the stage with the ease that most - men do their own parlors. During the performance Booth invited - us into his drawing-room; a short carpeted way led from the box - into the small room where he was sitting in Roman costume, pipe - in mouth; he rose and called “Mary,” as we approached, when the - tiniest woman ever called wife made her appearance. She is an - ardent little spark of human flame and he really looks large - beside her. - - But his grace, his grace! His dress too, was as usual - perfect—more, far more than all, both the actors had such - feeling for Shakespeare and for their parts with which they - are filling the stage nightly, that they were deeply and truly - enthusiastic. It was a sight to warm Shakespeare. - -[Illustration: BRET HARTE AND MARK TWAIN - -_From early photographs_] - - _Saturday, September 18, 1875._—Bret Harte came on the ½ past - 12 train. He came in good health, save a headache which ripened - as the day went on; but he was bubbling over with fun, full of - the most natural and unexpected sallies. He wished to know if - I was acquainted with the Cochin China hen. They had one at - Cohasset. They had named him Benventuro (after a certain gay - Italian singer of strong self-appreciation who came formerly - to America). He said this hen’s state of mind on finding a - half-exploded firecracker and her depressed condition since - its explosion was something extraordinary. His description was - so vivid that I still see this hen perambulating about the - house, first with pride, second with precipitation, fallen into - disgrace among her fellows. - - He said Cohasset was not the place to live in the summer if - one wanted sea-breezes. They all came straight from Chicago!! - He fancied the place, thinking it an old fishing village, not - unlike Yarmouth. Instead of which they prided themselves upon - never having “any of your sea-smells,” and, being five miles - from the doctor, could not be considered a cheerful place to - live in with sick children. He said he was surprised to find J. - T. F. without a sailor’s jacket and collar. The actors among - whom he had been living rather overdid the business; their - collars were wider, their shirts fuller, and their trousers - more bulgy than those of any real sailor he had ever observed, - and the manner of hitching up the trousers was entirely - peculiar to themselves and to the stage. - - We went to call upon the Burlingames. In describing Harrisburg, - Virginia, where he had lectured, he said a committee-man came - to invite him to take a walk, and he was so afflicted with a - headache that he was ready to take or give away his life at - any moment; so he accepted the invitation and walked out with - him. The man observed that Harrisburg was a very healthy place; - only one man a day died in that vicinity. “Oh!” said Harte, - remembering the dangerous state of his own mind, “has that - man died yet today?” The man shook his head gravely, never - suspecting a joke, and said he didn’t know, but he would try to - find out. Whereat Harte, to keep up the joke, said he wished - he would. He went to the lecture forgetting all about it and - saw this man hanging around without getting a chance to speak. - The next morning very early, he managed to get an opportunity - to speak to him. “I couldn’t find out exactly about that man - yesterday,” he said. “What man?” said H. “Why, the one we were - speaking of; the Coroner said he couldn’t say precisely who it - was, but the one man would average all right.” - - Harte said in speaking of Longfellow that no one had yet - overpraised him. The delicate quality of humor, the exquisite - fineness in the choice of words, the breadth and sweetness of - his nature were something he could hardly help worshipping. One - day after a dinner at Mr. Lowell’s he said, “I think I will - not have a carriage to return to town. I will walk down to the - Square.” “I will walk with you,” said Longfellow. When they - arrived at his gate, he said, he was so beautiful that he could - only think of the light and whiteness of the moon, and if he - had stayed a moment longer he should have put his arms around - him and made a fool of himself then and there. Whereat he said - good night abruptly and turned away. - - He brought his novel and play[34] with him which are just now - finished, for us to read. He has evidently enjoyed the play, - and he enjoys the fame and the money they both bring him. - - He is a dramatic, lovable creature with his blue silk - pocket-handkerchief and red dressing slippers and his quick - feelings. I could hate the man who could help loving him—or the - woman either. - -In the passages touching upon Mark Twain now to be copied from the -journals, he is seen, not in Boston, but in Hartford. If Mrs. Fields -had continued her diary until 1879, there would doubtless have been a -faithful contemporaneous account of the humorist’s unhappy attempt to -be funny both in the presence and at the expense of the “Augustans” -assembled in honor of Whittier’s seventieth birthday.[35] But Mrs. -Fields’s reports of talk and observations under his own roof, in the days -when his fame rested entirely upon a handful of his earlier books, should -take their place in the authentic annals of an extraordinary personality. -On the first of the two occasions recorded, Fields went alone to deliver -a lecture in Hartford, and in answer to a post-card invitation signed -“Mark,” stayed in the new house of the Clemenses. On the second occasion, -three weeks later, Mrs. Fields accompanied him. After her husband’s -return from the first visit she wrote:— - - _April 6, 1876._—He found Mrs. Clemens quite ill. They had been - in New York where he had given four lectures hoping to get - money for Dr. Brown. He had never lectured there before without - making a great deal of money. This time he barely covered - his expenses. He was very interesting and told J. the whole - story of his life. They sat until midnight after the lecture, - Mark drinking ale to make him sleepy. He says he can’t sleep - as other people do; his kind of sleep is the only sort for - him—three or four hours of good solid comfort—more than that - makes him ill; he can’t afford to sleep all his thoughts away. - He described the hunger of his childhood for books, how the - “Fortunes of Nigel” was one of the first stories which came to - him while he was learning to be a pilot on a Mississippi boat. - He hid himself with it behind a barrel where he was found by - the master, who read him a lecture upon the ruinous effects - of reading. “I’ve seen it over and over agin,” he said. “You - needn’t tell me anythin’ about it; if ye’re going to be a pilot - on this river yer needn’t ever think of reading, for it just - spiles all. Yer can’t remember how high the tides was in Can’s - Gut three trips before the last now, I’ll wager.” “Why no,” - said Mark, “that was six months ago.” “I don’t care if’t was,” - said the man. “If you hadn’t been spiling yer mind by readin’ - ye’d have remembered.” So he was never allowed to read any - more after that. “And now,” says Mark, “not being able to have - it when I was hungry for it, I can only read the Encyclopedia - nowadays.” Which is not true—he reads everything. - - The story of his courtship and marriage, too, was very strange - and interesting. A portion of this has, however, leaked into - the daily papers, so I will not repeat it here. One point - interested me greatly, however, as showing the strength of - character and rightness of vision in the man. He said he had - not been married many months when his wife’s father came to - him one evening and said, “My son, wouldn’t you like to go to - Europe with your wife?” “Why yes, sir,” he said, “if I could - afford it.” “Well then,” said he, “if you will leave off - smoking and drinking ale you shall have ten thousand dollars - this next year and go to Europe beside.” “Thank you, sir,” - said Mark, “this is very good of you, and I appreciate it, - but I can’t sell myself. I will do anything I can for you or - any of your family, but I can’t sell myself.” The result was, - said Mark, “I never smoked a cigar all that year nor drank a - glass of ale; but when the next year came I found I must write - a book, and when I sat down to write I found it wasn’t worth - anything. I must have a cigar to steady my nerves. I began - to smoke, and I wrote my book; but then I couldn’t sleep and - I had to drink ale to go to sleep. Now if I had sold myself, - I couldn’t have written my book, or I couldn’t have gone to - sleep, but now everything works perfectly well.” - - He and his wife have wretched health, poor things! And in spite - of their beautiful home must often have rather a hard time. He - is very eccentric, disturbed by every noise, and it cannot be - altogether easy to have care of such a man. It is a very loving - household though Mrs. Clemens’s mother, Mrs. Langdon, hardly - knows what to make of him sometimes, it is quite evident. - - _Thursday, April 27, 1876_.—We lunched and at 3 P.M. were - en route for Hartford. I slept, and read Mr. Tom Appleton’s - journal on the Nile, and looked out at the sunset and the - torches of spring in the hollows, each in turn, doing more - sleeping than either of the others, I fear, because I seem for - some unexplained reason to be tired, as Mrs. Hawthorne used - to say, far into the future. By giving up to it, however, I - felt quite fresh when we arrived, at half-past seven o’clock, - Mr. Clemens’ (Mark Twain’s) carriage waiting for us to take - us to the hall where he was to perform for the second night - in succession Peter Spyle in the “Loan of a Lover.” It is a - pretty play, and the girl’s part, Gertrude, was well done by - Miss Helen Smith; but Mr. Clemens’ part was a creation. I see - no reason why, if he chose to adopt the profession of actor, - he should not be as successful as Jefferson in whatever he - might conclude to undertake. It is really amazing to see what - a man of genius can do beside what is usually considered his - legitimate sphere. - -[Illustration: _Facsimile verses and letter from Mark Twain to Fields_] - - Afterward we went with Mr. Hammersley to the Club for a bit - of supper—this I did not wish to do, but I was overruled of - course by the decision of our host. We met at supper one of - the clever actors who played in a little operetta called “The - Artful Mendicants.” It was after twelve o’clock when we finally - reached Mr. Clemens’ house. He believed his wife would have - retired, as she is very delicate in health; but there she was - expecting us, with a pretty supper table laid. When her husband - discovered this, he fell down on his knees in mock desire for - forgiveness. His mind was so full of the play, and with the - poor figure he felt he had made in it, that he had entirely - forgotten all her directions and injunctions. She is a very - small, sweet-looking, simple, finished creature, charming in - her ways and evidently deeply beloved by him. The house is a - brick villa, designed by one of the first New York architects, - standing in a lovely lawn which slopes down to a small stream - or river at the side. In this spring season the blackbirds are - busy in the trees and the air is sweet and vocal. Inside there - is great luxury. Especially I delight in a lovely conservatory - opening out of the drawing-room. - - Although we had already eaten supper, the gentlemen took a - glass of lager beer to keep Mrs. Clemens company while she ate - a bit of bread after her long anxiety and waiting. Meantime Mr. - Clemens talked. The quiet earnest manner of his speech would - be impossible to reproduce, but there is a drawl in his tone - peculiar to himself. Also he is much interested in actors and - the art of acting just now, and seriously talks of going to - Boston next week to the début of Anna Dickinson. - - We were a tired company and went soon to bed and to sleep. I - slept late, but I found Mr. Clemens had been re-reading Dana’s - “Two Years before the Mast” in bed early and revolving subjects - for his “Autobiography.” Their two beautiful baby girls came - to pass an hour with us after breakfast—exquisite affectionate - children, the very fountain of joy to their interesting - parents.... - - Returning to lunch, I found our host and hostess and eldest - little girl in the drawing-room. We fell into talk of the - mishaps of the stage and the disadvantage of an amateur under - such circumstances. “For instance, on the first night of our - little play,” said Mr. Clemens, “the trousers of one of the - actors suddenly gave way entirely behind, which was very - distressing to him, though we did not observe it at all.” - - I want to stop here to give a little idea of the appearance of - our host. He is forty years old, with some color in his cheeks - and a heavy light-colored moustache, and overhanging light - eyebrows. His eyes are grey and piercing, yet soft, and his - whole face expresses great sensitiveness. He is exquisitely - neat also, though careless, and his hands are small, not - without delicacy. He is a small man, but his mass of hair seems - the one rugged-looking thing about him. I thought in the play - last night that it was a wig. - - To return to our lunch table—he proceeded to speak of his - “Autobiography,” which he intends to write as fully and simply - as possible to leave behind him. His wife laughingly said she - should look it over and leave out objectionable passages. “No,” - he said, very earnestly, almost sternly, “_you_ are not to edit - it—it is to appear as it is written, with the whole tale told - as truly as I can tell it. I shall take out passages from it, - and publish as I go along in the ‘Atlantic’ and elsewhere, but - I shall not limit myself as to space, and at whatever age I am - writing about, even if I am an infant, and an idea comes to me - about myself when I am forty, I shall put that in. Every man - feels that his experience is unlike that of anybody else, and - therefore he should write it down. He finds also that everybody - else has thought and felt on some points precisely as he has - done, and therefore he should write it down.” - - The talk naturally branched to education, and thence to the - country. He has lost all faith in our government. This wicked - ungodly suffrage, he said, where the vote of a man who knew - nothing was as good as the vote of a man of education and - industry; this endeavor to equalize what God had made unequal - was a wrong and a shame. He only hoped to live long enough to - see such a wrong and such a government overthrown. Last summer - he wrote an article for the “Atlantic,” printed without any - signature, proposing the only solution of such evil of which - he could conceive. “It is too late now,” he continued, “to - restrict the suffrage; we must increase it—for this let us give - every university man, let us say, ten votes, and every man with - common-school education two votes, and a man of superior power - and position a hundred votes, if we choose. This is the only - way I see to get out of the false position into which we have - fallen.” - - At five, the hour appointed for dinner, I returned to the - drawing-room where our host lay at full length on the floor - with his head on cushions in the bay-window, reading, and - taking what he called “delicious comfort.” Mrs. Perkins came in - to dinner, and we had a cosy good time. Mr. Clemens described - the preaching of a Western clergyman, a great favorite, with - the smallest possible allowance of idea to the largest possible - amount of words. It was so truthfully and vividly portrayed - that we all concluded, perhaps, since the man was in such - earnest, he moved his audience more than if he had troubled - them with too many ideas. This truthfulness of Mr. Clemens, - which will hardly allow him to portray anything in a way to - make out a case by exaggerating or distorting a truth, is a - wondrous and noble quality. This makes art and makes life, and - will continue to make him a daily increasing power among us. - - He is so unhappy and discontented with our government that he - says he is not conscious of the least emotion of patriotism - in himself. He is overwhelmed with shame and confusion and - wishes he were not an American. He thinks seriously of going - to England to live for a while, at least, and I think it not - unlikely he may discover away from home a love of his country - which is still waiting to be unfolded. I believe hope must - dawn for us, that so much earnest endeavor of our statesmen - and patriots cannot come to naught; and perhaps the very idea - he has dropped, never believing that it can bring forth fruit, - will be adopted in the end for our salvation. Certainly women’s - suffrage and such a change as he proposes should be tried, - since we cannot keep the untenable ground of the present.... - - It is most curious and interesting to watch this growing man - of forty—to see how he studies and how high his aims are. His - conversation is always earnest and careful, though full of - fun. He is just now pondering much upon actors and their ways. - Raymond, who is doing the “Gilded Age,” is so hopelessly given - “to saving at the spigot and losing at the bung-hole” that he - is evidently not over-satisfied nor does he count the acting - everything it might be. - - We sat talking, chiefly we women, after dinner and looking at - the sunset. Mr. Clemens lay down with a book and J. went to - look over his lecture. I did not go to lecture, but after all - were gone I scribbled away at these pages and nearly finished - Mr. Appleton’s “Nile Journal.” They returned rather late, - it was after ten, bearing a box of delicious strawberries, - Mrs. Colt’s gift from her endless greenhouses. They were - a sensation; the whole of summer was foreshadowed by their - scarlet globes. Some beer was brought for Mr. Clemens (who - drinks nothing else, and as he eats but little this seems to - answer the double end of nourishment and soothing for the - nerves) and he began again to talk. He said it was astonishing - what subjects were missed by the Poet Laureate. He thought - the finest incident of the Crimean War had been certainly - overlooked. That was the going down at sea of the man of - war, Berkeley Castle. The ship with a whole regiment, one of - the finest of the English army, on board, struck a rock near - the Bosphorus. There was no help—the bottom was out and the - boats would only hold the crew and the other helpless ones; - there was no chance for the soldiers. The Colonel summoned - them on deck; he told them the duty of soldiers was to die; - they would do their duty as bravely there as if they were on - the battle-field. He bade them shoulder arms and prepare for - action. The drums beat, flags were flying, the service playing, - as they all went down to silent death in the great deep. - - Afterward Mr. Clemens described to us the reappearance before - his congregation of an old clergyman who had been incapacitated - for work during twelve years—coming suddenly into the pulpit - just as the first hymn was ended. The younger pastor proposed - they should sing the old man’s favorite, “Coronation,” - _omitting_ the first verse. He heard nothing of the omission, - but beginning at the first verse he sang in a cracked treble - the remaining stanza after all the people were still. There - was a mingling of the comic and pathetic in this incident which - made it consonant with the genius of our host. Our dear little - hostess complained of want of air, and I saw she was very - tired, so we all went to bed about eleven. - - _Saturday morning._—Dear J. was up early and out in the - beautiful sunshine. I read and scribbled until breakfast at - half-past nine. It was a lovely morning, and I had already - ventured out of my window and round the house to hear the - birds sing and see the face of spring before the hour came for - breakfast. When I did go to the drawing-room, however, I found - Mr. Clemens alone. He greeted me apparently as cheerfully as - ever, and it was not until some moments had passed that he told - me they had a very sick child upstairs. From that instant I - saw, especially after his wife came in, that they could think - of nothing else. They were half-distracted with anxiety. Their - messenger could not find the doctor, which made matters worse. - However, the little girl did not really seem very sick, so I - could not help thinking they were unnecessarily excited. The - effect on them, however, was just as bad as if the child were - really very ill. The messenger was hardly despatched the second - time before Jamie and Mr. Clemens began to talk of our getting - away in the next train, whereat he (Mr. C.) said to his wife, - “Why didn’t you tell me of that,” etc., etc. It was all over - in a moment, but in his excitement he spoke more quickly than - he knew, and his wife felt it. Nothing was said at the time, - indeed we hardly observed it, but we were intensely amused and - could not help finding it pathetic too afterward, when he came - to us and said he spent the larger part of his life on his - knees making apologies and now he had got to make an apology - to us about the carriage. He was always bringing the blood to - his wife’s face by his bad behavior, and here this very morning - he had said such things about that carriage! His whole life - was one long apology. His wife had told him to see how well we - behaved (poor we!) and he knew he had everything to learn. - - He was so amusing about it that he left us in a storm of - laughter, yet at bottom I could see it was no laughing matter - to him. He is in dead earnest, with a desire for growth - and truth in life, and with such a sincere admiration for - his wife’s sweetness and beauty of character that the most - prejudiced and hardest heart could not fail to fall in love - with him. She looked like an exquisite lily as we left her. - So white and delicate and tender. Such sensitiveness and - self-control as she possesses are very, very rare. - - _May Day._—Longfellow, Greene, Alexander Agassiz and Dr. Holmes - dined with us. This made summer, Longfellow said at table—that - this was May Day enough, it was no matter how cold it was - outside. (The wind outside had been raging all day and winter - seemed to be giving us a last fling.) Jamie recalled one or - two things “Mark Twain” had said which I have omitted. When - he lectured a few weeks ago in New York, he said he had just - reached the middle of his lecture and was going on with flying - colors when he saw in the audience just in front of him a noble - gray head and beard. “Nobody told me that William Cullen - Bryant was there, but I had seen his picture and I knew that - was the old man. I was sure he saw the failure I was making, - and all the weak points in what I was saying, and I couldn’t do - anything more—that old man just spoiled my work. Then they told - me afterward that my lecture was good and all that; I could - only say, ‘no, no, that fine old head spoiled all I had to say - _that_ night.’” - - Longfellow was quite like himself again, but the talk was - mainly sustained by Dr. Holmes and Mr. Agassiz. When Dr. Holmes - first came in he looked earnestly at the portrait of Sydney - Smith. “It reminds me of our famous story-teller, Sullivan,” - he said; “it is full of epicureanism. _The mouth is made for - kisses and canvas-backs._” Later on in the dinner, when Mr. - Agassiz was describing the fatigue he suffered after talking - Spanish all day while he still understood the language very - imperfectly, “Why,” said Holmes, “it’s like playing the piano - with mittens on.” - - There was something pathetic in the fact of this young man - sitting here among his father’s friends, almost in the very - place his father had filled so many times—but his speech - was manly and wise, from a full brain. They talked of the - spectroscope as on the whole the most important discovery - the world had known. “Well, what is it?” said Longfellow. - “Explain it to us.” (I was glad enough to have him ask.) - Agassiz explained quite clearly that it was an instrument to - discover the elements which compose the sun, and proceeded - to unfold its working in some detail. Two men made the - discovery simultaneously, one in India and one in England. - This spectroscope has been infinitely improved, however, by - every living mind brought to bear upon it, almost, since its - first so-called discovery. It is so difficult, Dr. H. said, - to tell where an invention began; you could go back until it - seemed that no man that ever lived really did it—like some - verses, whereupon one of Gray’s was given as an example. The - talk turned somewhat upon the manner of putting things, the - English manner being so poor and inexpressive compared with the - southern natures—the French being the masters of expression. - - Longfellow gave a delightful account of the old artist and - spiritualist, Kirkup, the discoverer of the Dante portrait, - though Greene undertook to say that a certain Wilde was the - man. I never heard anybody else have the credit but Kirkup, and - certainly England believes it was he. - - I think they all had “a good time”; I am sure I did. - -[Illustration: CHARLES SUMNER] - -As Mark Twain, in the preceding pages may be said to have led the reader -back into the Boston and Cambridge circle, so there were constant -excursions of interest from that circle out into the world in which such -a man as Sumner stood as the friend of such another as Longfellow. For -twenty-three years, from 1851 till his death in 1874, Sumner was a member -of the United States Senate, and consequently was much more to be seen -in Washington than in the State he represented. He appears from time to -time in the pages of Mrs. Fields’s diary, and in the two ensuing passages -figures first at her Boston dinner-table and then in Washington: - - _Saturday, November 18, 1865._—Last night Miss Kate Field - and Charles Sumner dined with us. Before we went to dinner - Charlotte Foster, the young colored girl whom Elizabeth - Whittier was so fond of and who is now secretary of the - Freedmen’s Bureau, came in to call. She is very pretty - and good. It is difficult nevertheless for her to find a - boarding-place. People do not readily admit a colored woman - into their families. I shall help her to find a good home.... - - Mr. Sumner opened the conversation at dinner by asking Miss - Field to tell him something of Mr. Landor. She, smiling, said - that was difficult now because she had talked and written so - much of him that she hardly knew what was left unsaid. Mr. - Sumner described his own first introduction then at the house - of his old friend, Mr. Kenyon, in London. He had dropped in - there by accident, but was positively engaged elsewhere at - dinner; before he left, however, he was able to parry skilfully - a remark aimed at the Yankees, which tickled Mr. Landor and - made him try to hold on and induce him to stay. He was obliged - to go then, however, but he returned a few days after to - breakfast, when Landor asked him why the body of Washington - did not rest in the Capitol at Washington. “Because,” said Mr. - Sumner, “his family wished his ashes to remain at Mt. Vernon.” - “Ashes,” said L., “his body was not burned; why do you say - ‘ashes,’ sir?” “I quoted, ‘E’en in our ashes live their wonted - fires,’ and he said nothing more at the time, but,” added Mr. - Sumner, “I have never used ‘ashes’ since.” - - Kate Field said “his wife was a perfect fiend”; but Mr. Sumner - was inclined to doubt the statement. “These marriages with men - of genius are hard,” he said, “because genius wins the race in - the end.” - - Then Kate brought the authority of Mr. Browning and others to - back her statement, but, referring to Mr. Landor’s temper, she - said that while the Storys were at Siena passing the summer one - year, the Brownings took a villa near by and Mr. Landor lived - opposite, while she and Miss Isa Blagden went down to make the - Brownings a visit. During their stay Mr. Landor fancied that - the stock of tea lately purchased for his use was poisoned, - and threw it all out of the window. The Contadine reaped the - benefit of this; they came and gathered it up like a flock of - doves. - - Mr. Sumner spoke of the high, very high place he accorded to - Mr. Landor as a writer of prose. He had been a source of great - admiration to him for years, he said. As long ago as when G. - W. Greene was living in Rome and first becoming a writer, - he asked Mr. Sumner what masters of prose he should study. - “Then,” said Mr. S., “you remember his own style was bad; the - sentences apt to be jumbled up together. I told him to read - Bacon, and Hooker, and all the prose of Dryden he could find - in the prefaces and elsewhere, and Walter Savage Landor; and - my reverence for Mr. Landor as a writer of prose has never - diminished.” - - Later during the dinner, talking of his life abroad, Mr. Sumner - was reminded of a letter he had received from John P. Hale, - our minister plenipotentiary to Spain. He said for a number - of years, while Mr. Hale was in the Senate, whenever appeals - came from our foreign ministers or consuls abroad asking for - increase of salary, Mr. Hale would jump up and say, “Gentlemen - of the Senate, allow me to say I would engage to live at any - point in Europe upon the salary now granted by the Government. - It is no economy, indeed it is a great lack of economy, to - think of raising these salaries.” - - “Hereupon comes a letter from Spain urging an increase of - salary in terms which would convulse the Senate with laughter - after the protestations they have heard so often. I should like - nothing better than to read it to them.” For the lack of their - presence, however, he read it to us, and it was amusing truly, - as if the old days and speeches were a blank. - - Mr. Sumner easily slipped from this subject into others - connected with the Government. - - Kate Field said that Judge Russell told her that President - Johnson was no better than a sot, and that the head of the - Washingtonian Home (a refuge for inebriates here) had been - sent for, as a man having skill in such cases, to try to save - him. “Is this true, Mr. Sumner?” she asked. Mr. Sumner said - not one word at first; then asked, “What authority had Judge - Russell for making such an assertion?” Kate did not know, and - I thought on the whole Mr. Sumner, who knew the man had really - been sent for by the President himself, it is supposed for some - other reason, doubted the whole tale. I doubted it sincerely - from the first moment, and I wonder a man can be left to say - such things. - - Sumner then continued to describe very vividly what he had - known of Andy Johnson’s behavior. When he left Tennessee to - come to Washington to be Vice-President, he travelled with a - negro servant and two demijohns of whiskey which he dispensed - freely, drinking enough himself at the same time to arrive at - Washington in a maudlin condition, in which state he remained - until after the fourth of March. He was then living at the - hotel, and a young Massachusetts officer, who lived on the - same floor and was obliged to pass Mr. Johnson’s door many - times a day, told Mr. S. that during the two days subsequent - to Mr. Johnson’s arrival he saw, while passing his room, and - counted twenty-six glasses of whiskey go in. At length good men - interfered; they saw delirium tremens or some other dreadful - thing would be the result if this continued, and old Mr. Blair - went with Mr. Preston King and persuaded Mr. Johnson to go - down and stay at Mr. Blair’s house, and he surrendered at - discretion. It was a small house and a very quiet family, but - they stowed Mr. Johnson away and Mr. King also, who was kind - enough to offer to take care of him. Shortly after this Mr. - Lincoln and Mr. Sumner had gone down the river in a yacht, and - had landed at General Grant’s headquarters. They were sitting - together at two desks reading the papers for the day when - Mr. Sumner observed a figure darken the door, and looking up - found Mr. Johnson. “Ah, Mr. Vice-President, how do you do,” he - said, putting his papers aside. “Mr. President, here is the - Vice-President.” Mr. Lincoln arose and extended his hand, but - as Mr. Sumner thought very coldly, and after a short time they - started again for their yacht. Mr. Johnson walked as far as the - wharf, talking with Mr. Lincoln, but when they arrived there, - Mr. Lincoln did not say, “Come with us and have lunch,” or - “Come at night and have dinner,” but bade him simply “Good-bye” - there, where they observed him afterward watching their - departure with Mr. King by his side, who had come to rejoin him. - - “This,” said Mr. Sumner, “is all Mr. Lincoln saw of Mr. - Johnson. One week after this time the President was - assassinated, and they never met from that hour until his - death.” - - Mr. Sumner thinks Mr. Beecher is making a dangerous and deadly - mistake, and told him so. He said further to Mr. B. that his - anxieties prevented him from sleeping, that he had not slept - for three nights. “I should think so,” Mr. Beecher replied, - “you talk like a man who had been deprived of his natural - rest.” The two men have a respect for each other and talk - kindly of each other, but they do not see things from the same - point of view now at all. - - _Friday morning, March 21, 1872._—L. W. J. and her daughter met - us at the cars [in New York] bound to go with us to Washington. - A pleasant day’s journey we had of it with their friendly faces - to accompany us and with Colonel Winthrop to meet us at the - train. The evening of our arrival Jamie went at once to see - Charles Sumner who lives in a fine house adjoining our hotel. - Nothing could be finer than the situation he has chosen. He - kept J. until midnight and tried to detain him still longer, - but the knowledge that I was waiting for him made him insist at - length upon coming away. He found him better in health than he - had supposed from the newspapers, and “the same old Sumner,” as - Jamie said. - - Saturday morning I went in early with J. and passed the entire - morning with the Senator. Several colored persons came in - as we sat there, and those who were people of eminence were - introduced. He talked of literature and showed us his own - curiosities which appear to be numberless. Jamie was called - away, but he urged me to stay. He said he had sent a message to - the Senate which required a reply and he expected every moment - to hear the sound of hoofs on the pavement, as he had requested - a special messenger to be sent on horseback. The messenger did - not arrive, but I stayed on all the same until his carriage - came to take him to the Capitol, when he insisted that I should - accompany him. He showed me all the wonders of the place, - not forgetting the doors which Crawford never lived even to - design in clay altogether, but which his wife, desiring to - have the money, caused to be finished by her husband’s workmen - and foisted upon our Government. They are poor enough. Sumner - opposed her in what he considered a dishonest attempt to get - money, but of course he could not make an open opposition of - this nature against a lady, the widow of his friend. - - Sumner’s character is one of the most extraordinary pictures - of opposing elements ever combined in one person. He is so - possessed by Sumner that there is really no room for the fair - existence of another in his world. Position, popularity, - domestic happiness, health, have one by one been cut away - from him, but he still stands erect, with as large a faith in - Sumner and with as determined a look toward the future as if it - beckoned him to glory and happiness. I suppose he must believe - that the next turn of Fortune’s wheel must give him the favor - he has now lost; but were he another man, all the honors of - the state could hardly recompense him in the least for what - he has lost. He has a firm proud spirit which his terrible - bodily suffering does not appear to make falter. His health - is so precarious that doubtless a few more adverse strokes - would finish him; but he has had all there are to have, one - would say. His friends, however, uphold him most tenderly; - letters from dear Mrs. Child and others lay upon his table - urging him to put away all excitement and try to live for the - service of the state. Public honor, probity, the high service - of his country seem to be the passions which animate him and - by which he endures. He has a mania for collecting rare books - and pictures nowadays and it is almost pitiful to see how - this fancy runs away with him and how he must frequently be - deceived. The tragedy of his marriage would be far more tragic - if it had left any scar (as far as mortal can discover) save - upon his pride. I would not do a man whom I hold in such honor - any injustice, but he never _seemed_ in love. - - _Sunday._—Not well—kept to my room in the Arlington Hotel all - day, obliged to refuse to see guests also, and dear J. has gone - alone to dine with Sumner. I had hoped to see his home once - more and to see him among his peers. There is always a doubt of - course, but especially in his state of health, whether we may - ever meet again. If not, I shall not soon forget his stately - carriage at the Capitol yesterday nor the store he sets at - present upon his counted friends. - - He pointed out the great avenue named Massachusetts, and the - school house named after himself, with a just and noble pride - yesterday. The trees are all ready to burst into leaf. Read - Bayard Taylor’s Norwegian story, “Lars”—very sweet and fine it - is—just missing “an excuse for being.” L. J. fills us with new - respect and regard. Her devotion to her daughter is so perfect - and so wise. - - Jamie returned about 12 o’clock. There had been a gorgeous - dinner. The guests were Caleb Cushing, Carl Schurz, Perley - Poore, Mr. Hill, J. T. F. The service was worthy of the house - of an English nobleman, the feast worthy of Lucullus. It fairly - astonished J. to see Sumner eat. He of course sat at S.’s - right. Not a wine, nor a dish, was left untasted and even the - richest puddings were taken in large quantities. I thought - of poor Mrs. Child and other devout admirers of this their - Republican (!) leader, then of Charlotte Brontë’s story of - Thackeray at dinner. Some day, said J., we shall take up the - paper and find Sumner is no more, and it will be after one of - these dinners. - - The talk astonished J., utterly unused as he is to look behind - the scenes of government. Caleb Cushing, a man over 70, who - appears to have the vigor of 50, called Stanton “a master - of duplicity.” Caleb Cushing said Seward was the first man - who introduced ungentlemanly bearing into the Cabinet. Until - he came there, there was no smoking, no putting up of the - feet, but always a fine courtesy and dignity of behavior was - preserved. - -Before leaving the diaries from which so many pages have already been -drawn, before letting the last of the familiar faces which look out from -them fade again from sight, it would be a pity not to assemble a few -entries recalling notable persons of whom Mrs. Fields made fragmentary -but significant record. Here, for instance, are glimpses of Henry Ward -Beecher, fresh from the great service he rendered to the Union cause in -the Civil War by his speeches in England. - - _Tuesday, November 17, 1863._—J. T. F. saw Mr. Kennard today - and we heard from him the particulars of Mr. Beecher’s landing. - He came on shore in the warm fog which was the precursor of - the heavy rain we have today, at 3 o’clock A.M. of Sunday. He - went to the Parker House until day should break and Mr. Kennard - could come and take him to the retirement of Brookline, to - pass the day until the train should leave for New York. News - of his arrival getting abroad, a company of orthodox deacons - waited upon him very early to invite him to preach. “Gentlemen, - do you take me for a fool,” he said, “to jump so readily into - the harness of the pulpit even before the fatigue of the voyage - has worn away?” He heard of the illness of one of his younger - children and therefore hastened as quickly as possible toward - home. - - The day before the one upon which he was to speak at Exeter - Hall he awoke in the morning with a heavy headache; his voice, - too, was seriously impaired by over-use. He wanted to speak, - his whole heart was in it, yet how in this condition? He shut - himself up in the house all that day and hoped for better - things and went early to bed that night. The next morning at - dawn he awoke, he opened his eyes quickly. “Is God to suffer me - to do this work?” He leaped from the bed with a bound. His head - was clear and fresh, but his voice—he hardly dared to try that. - “I will speak to my sister three thousand miles away,” he said, - and cried, “Harriet.” The tones were clear and strong. “Thank - God!” he said—then speedily dressed—trying his voice again and - again—then he sat down and wrote off the heads of his address. - All he needed to say came freshly and purely to his mind just - in the form he wished. The day ebbed away and the carriage came - to take him to the hall. When he descended to the street, to - his surprise there was a long file of policemen, through whom - he was conducted because of the crowds waiting about his door. - He was obliged to descend also at some distance from Exeter - Hall, and he was again conducted through another line of police - before he reached the door. The people pushed and cried out - so that he ran from the carriage towards the hall; and one of - the staid policemen, observing a man running, cried out and - caught him by the coat-tail saying he mustn’t run there, that - line was preserved for the great speaker. “Well, my friend,” - said Mr. Beecher, “I can tell you one thing. There won’t be - much speaking till I get there.” While he hurried on, he felt - a woman lay hold of the skirts of his coat. The police, seeing - her, tried to push her away, but she said to one of them, “I - belong to his party.” Mr. B. said, “I overheard the poor thing, - but I thought if she chose to tell a lie I would not push her - away; but as I neared the door she crept up and whispered to - me, ‘I am one of your people. Don’t you remember ——, a Scotch - woman who used to live in Brooklyn and go to the Plymouth - Church? I have thought of this for weeks and longed and dreamt - of being with you again. Now my desire is heard.’” - - The rest of this wonderful night the public journals and his - own letters can tell us of—have told us. He has been as it were - a man raised up for this dark hour of our dear Country. May he - live to see the promised land, and not only from the top of - Pisgah. - - _December 10, 1863._—Visit from H. W. Beecher.... Mr. Beecher - did not like Mr. Browning. He found him flippant and worldly. - To be sure he had but one interview and could scarcely judge, - but had he met the man by chance in a company he should never - have sought him a second time. He said of Charles Lamb that he - always reminded him of a honeysuckle growing between and over - a rough trellis; it would cover the stakes, it would throw - out blossoms and tendrils, it would attract hummingbirds and - make corners for their nests and fill the wide air with its - fragrance. Such was C. Lamb to him. - - He was sure he could have liked Mrs. Browning—so credulous, - generous, outspoken. He liked strong outspoken people, yet he - liked serene people too; but then, he loved the world in its - wide variety. - - He said his boy wished to be either a stage-driver or a - missionary. His fancy was for stage-driving; he thought perhaps - his duty might make him a missionary.... - - It was such a privilege to see him back and such a privilege to - grasp his hand, I could say nothing but be happy and thankful. - -A few years later a passing shape from still an earlier generation casts -its shadow of tragic outline across the pages of the diary. - - _Sunday, January 6, 1867._—A driving snow-storm. Last night - Jamie went to the Club; met W. Everett, who said that while his - father was member of Congress and was at one time returning - from Washington to Boston he was stopped in the street as he - passed through Philadelphia by a haggard man wrapped in a - cloak. “I am Aaron Burr,” said the figure, “and I pray you to - ask Congress for an appropriation to aid me in my misery.” - Mr. E. replied that the member from his own district was the - person to whom to apply. “I know that,” was the sad rejoinder, - “but the others are all strangers to me and I pray you to help - me.” After some reflection Mr. Everett promised to try to do - something in his behalf; fortunately, however, he was released - by death before Congress was again in session. - -Then soon appears a more cheerful figure, in the person of the Rev. -Elijah Kellogg whose lines of “Spartacus to the Gladiators” have -resounded in many a schoolhouse. His tales of the Stowes and the family -Bible may still divert a generation that knows not Spartacus. - - _Thursday, January 10, 1867._—Yesterday J. fell in with a Mr. - Kellogg, a clergyman from Harpswell, Maine, the author of many - noble things, among the rest, of the “Speech of Spartacus” - which is in Sargent’s “School Speaker,” a piece of which the - boys are very fond, but the masters are obliged to forbid - their speaking it because it always takes the prize. He wrote - it while in college, to speak himself. He went to school with - Longfellow, though he is younger than the poet, and the latter - calls him a man of genius. He is a preacher of the gospel and - for the past ten months has been speaking every Sunday at - the Sailor’s Bethel with great effect. He called to see J. - and told him some queer anecdotes regarding his sea-life. He - dresses like a fisherman, red shirt, etc., while at home. He - remembers Professor Stowe and his wife well. He says their - arrival at Brunswick was looked for with eagerness by many, - with some natural curiosity by himself. One day about the time - they were expected he was in his boat floating near the pier - and preparing to return to his island where he lives, as the - tide was going down and if he delayed much longer he would be - ashore; but he observed a woman sitting on a cask upon the - wharf swinging her heels, with two large holes the size of a - dollar each in the back of her stockings, a man standing by her - side, and several children playing about. At once he believed - it must be the new professor, so he dallied about in his boat - observing them. Presently the man cried out, “Hallo there, will - you give my wife a sail?” “I can’t,” he replied, “there’s no - wind.” “Will you give her a row then?” “The tide’s too low and - I shan’t get home.” “Oh,” said the woman, “we will pay you; - you’d better take me out a little way.” “No, I can’t,” he said. - Presently he heard somebody say something about that’s being - the minister and not a fisherman at all. “Do you think so?” - said Mrs. Stowe. With that he dropped down into the bottom of - his boat and was off before another word. - - He told Mr. Fields also of the professor who preceded Professor - Stowe. He was an unmarried man with three sisters, all of - whom were insane at times and frequently one of them was away - from home in an asylum. One day the brother was away, the - eldest sister being at home in apparently good health, when - another professor came to visit them to whom she wished to - be particularly polite. “What will you have for dinner,” said - she, “today?” “Oh! the best thing you’ve got,” he replied. So - when dinner came she had stewed the family Bible with cabbage - for his repast. He speaks with the greatest enthusiasm of the - beauty of that Maine coast. We must go there. - -Out of what seems a past almost pre-Augustan come these memories of N. P. -Willis, a poet who suffered the misfortune of outliving much of his own -fame. - - _Thursday, January 31, 1867._—The papers of last night brought - the news of N. P. Willis’s death and that he was to be buried - in Boston from St. Paul’s Church today. Early this morning - a note came from Mrs. Willis asking Mr. Fields to see Dr. - Howe and Edmund Quincy, to ask them to be pall-bearers with - himself and Colonel Trimble. Fortunately last night J. had - seen the announcement, and before going to Longfellow’s made - up his mind to ask Longfellow and Lowell to come in to assist - at the ceremony of their brother-author; he had also sent to - Professor Holmes before the note came from Mrs. Willis. He then - sent immediately for the others whom she mentioned and for a - quantity of exquisite flowers. All his plans turned out as he - had arranged and hoped and the poet’s grave was attended by the - noblest America had to offer. The dead face was not exposed, - but the people pressed forward to take a sprig from the coffin - in memory of one who had strewn many a flower of thought on - the hard way of their lives. There are some to speak hardly of - Willis, but usually the awe of death ennobles his memory to the - grateful world of his appreciators. “Refrain! refrain!” we long - to say to the others who would carp. “If you have tears, shed - them on the poet’s grave.” - - There had been previously an exquisite and touching service at - Idlewild where Octavius Frothingham did all a man could do, - inspired by the occasion and the loveliness of the day and - scene. The service here would have seemed cold as stone except - for the gracious poets who surrounded the body and prevented - one thought of chill lack of sympathy from penetrating the - flowers with which it was covered. I could not restrain my - tears when I remembered a few years, only two, and the same - company had borne Hawthorne’s body to its burial. Which, which, - of that beloved and worshipped few was next to be borne by the - weeping remnant!! - - _Wednesday, July 1, 1868._—In our walk yesterday J. delighted - himself and me by rehearsing his memories of Willis. J. was at - the Astor House when Willis returned first from Europe with his - young bride. He was then the observed of all observers. As in - those days travellers crossed in sailing vessels, his coming - was not heralded; the first that was known of their arrival was - when he walked into the Astor with his beautiful young wife - upon his arm. He wore a brown cloak thrown gracefully about his - shoulders and was a man to remind one of Lady Blessington’s - saying, “If Willis had been born to £10,000 a year he would - have been a perfect man.” He was then at the head of the world - of literature in America; his influence could do anything and - his heart and purse were both at the service of the needy - asker. Unfortunately from the first he never paid his debts. - J. said he never believed the tales of Willis’s dissipation. - He spent money freely even when he had it not. All the English - folk, lords and ladies, who then came to see America were the - guests of Willis. - - I asked what his wife was like! “Like a seraph. She was lovely - with all womanly attractions.” - -Of the various “causes” to which Mrs. Fields and her husband paid -allegiance, the cause of equal opportunity for men and women cannot -justly be left unmentioned. They espoused it before its friends were -taken with the seriousness they have long commanded, and, as the -following passage will suggest, were full of sympathy with those who -fought its early battles. The impact of one of these combatants, Mrs. -Mary A. Livermore, a reformer in sundry fields, against the rock of -conservatism represented by the President of Harvard College, is the -subject of a lively bit of record. - - _September 22, 1876._—At four came Miss Phelps, at six came - Mrs. Livermore. Ah! She is indeed a great woman—a strong arm to - those who are weak, a new faith in time of trouble. She came to - tea as fresh as if she had been calmly sunning herself all the - week instead of speaking at a great meeting at Faneuil Hall the - previous evening and taking cold in the process. She talked - most wittily and brilliantly, beside laughing most heartily and - merrily over all dear J.’s absurd stories and illustrations. - He told her of a woman who came to speak to him after one of - his lectures, to thank him for what he was trying to do for the - education of women. She said, “I was educated at home with my - brothers and taught all they were taught, learning my lessons - by their side and reciting with them until the time came for - them to go to college. Nobody ever told me I was not to go to - college! And when the moment arrived and it dawned upon me that - I was to be left behind to do nothing, to learn nothing more, I - was terribly unhappy.” - - “I know just how she felt,” said Mrs. Livermore; “there was a - party of six of us girls, sisters and cousins, who had studied - with our brothers up to the time for going to college. We were - all ready, but what was to be done? We were told that no girls - had entered Harvard thus far. We said to each other, we six - girls will go to Cambridge and call upon President Quincy, show - him where we stand in our lessons, and ask him to admit us. I - was the youngest of the party. I was noted for being rather hot - and intemperate in speech in those days, and the girls made me - promise before we left the house [not to speak]—‘For as sure as - you do,’ they said, ‘you will spoil all.’ So I promised, and we - went to Cambridge and found Mr. Quincy. The girls laid their - proposition before him as clearly as they dared, by showing - him what they had done in their lessons. ‘Very smart girls, - unusually capable girls,’ he said encouragingly; ‘but can you - cook?’ ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said one, ‘we have kept house for some - time.’ ‘Highly important,’ he said; and so on during the space - of an hour.” - - Mrs. Livermore said she found he was toying with them and - they were as far away from the subject in their minds as the - moment they arrived, and, forgetting her promise of silence, - she said: “‘But, Mr. Quincy, what we came to ask is, will you - allow us to come to college when our brothers do? You say we - are sufficiently prepared; is there anything to prevent our - admission?’ ‘Oh, yes, my dear, we never allow girls at Harvard; - you know, the place for girls is at home.’ ‘Yes, but, Mr. - Quincy, if we are prepared, we would not ask to recite, but may - we not attend the recitations and sit silent in the classes?’ - ‘No, my dear, you may not.’ ‘Then I wish—’ ‘What do you wish?’ - he said. ‘I wish I were God for one instant, that I might kill - every woman from Eve down and let you have a masculine world - all to yourselves and see how you would like that.’ Up to this - point the girls had been kept up by excitement, but there we - broke down. I tried the best I could not to cry, but I found - my eyes were getting full, and the only thing for us to do - was to leave as soon as we could for home. We lived in the - vicinity of Copp’s Hill and I can see, as distinctly as if it - were yesterday, the room looking out on the burial-ground in - which we all sat down together and cried ourselves half-blind. - ‘I wish I was dead,’ said one. ‘I wish I had never been born,’ - said another. ‘Martha, get up from that stone seat,’ said - a third; ‘you’ll get cold.’ ‘I don’t care if I do,’ said - Martha; ‘I shall perhaps die the sooner.’ We were all terribly - indignant.” - - I was deeply interested in this history. I was standing over - the cradle of woman’s emancipation and seeing it rocked by the - hand of sorrow and indignation. - -Other passages might be cited merely to illustrate the skill and industry -of Mrs. Fields in reducing to narrative form the mass of reported talk -of one sort or another which her husband brought home to her. A striking -instance of this is found in the full rendering of a story told by R. H. -Dana, Jr., to Fields, at a time when they were discussing a new edition -of “Two Years before the Mast.” It is a long dramatic account of Dana’s -experience on a burning ship in the Pacific, which he told Fields he -had “never yet found time to write down.” In Charles Francis Adams’s -biography of Dana, the bare bones of the story are preserved in a diary -Dana was keeping during the voyage in which this calamity occurred. If -Adams could but have turned to the diary of Mrs. Fields for 1868, he -would have found a detailed description of an episode in Dana’s life -which might well have been included in his biography. - -[Illustration: _From a letter of Edward Lear’s to Fields_] - -But the _if’s_ of bookmaking are hardly less abundant than those of -history. If, for a single instance, this were in any real sense a -biography of Mrs. Fields, it would be necessary for the reader to explore -with the compiler the journals and letters written during two visits the -Fieldses made to Europe in 1859 and 1869. But this would be foreign to -the present purpose, which has not been either to produce a biography, -or to evoke all the interesting persons known to Mrs. Fields, at home -and abroad, but rather to present them and her against her own intimate -and distinctive background. She herself has written, in her “Authors and -Friends,” of Tennyson and Lady Tennyson, and to the pictures she has -drawn of them it would be easily possible to add fresh lines from the -unprinted records—as it would be, also, to bring forth passages touching -upon many another familiar figure of Victorian England. The roving lover -who justified himself by singing that - - They were my visits, but thou art my home, - -stated, in essence, the principle to which these pages have adhered. -The frequenters of the house in Charles Street well knew that something -of its color and flavor was derived from the excursions its hostess -made into other scenes. Yet her own color and flavor were not those of -the visitor, but of the visited. It is a pity that many who would have -been welcome visitors—none more than Edward Lear—never came. Even as it -is, there is ample ground for laying the emphasis of this book upon the -panorama of a picturesque social life chiefly as seen from within the -hospitable walls of Mr. and Mrs. Fields. When he died in 1881, a long and -happy chapter in her long and happy life came to its close. - - - - -VII - -SARAH ORNE JEWETT - - -Such a statement about Mrs. Fields as that she “was to survive her -husband many years and was to flourish as a copious second volume—the -connection licenses the figure—of the work anciently issued,” almost -identifies itself, without remark, as proceeding from the same friend, -Henry James, whose words have colored a previous chapter of this book. -The many years to which he referred were, indeed, nearly thirty-four -in number, about a third of a century, or what is commonly counted a -generation. For a longer period than that through which she was the -wife of James T. Fields, she was thus his widow. Through nearly all -of this period the need of her nature for an absorbing affectionate -intimacy was met through her friendship with Sarah Orne Jewett. It was -with reference to her that Mrs. Fields, in the preface to a collection -of Miss Jewett’s letters, published in 1911, two years after her death, -wrote of “the power that lies in friendship to sustain the giver as well -as the receiver.” In the friendship of these two women it would have -been impossible to define either one, to the exclusion of the other, as -the giver or the receiver. They were certainly both sustained by their -relation. - -Miss Jewett, born in South Berwick, Maine, in 1849, and continuously -identified with that place until her death in 1909, first entered the -“Atlantic circle” in 1869, when she was but twenty years old, and Fields -was still editor of the magazine. In that year a story by her, called -“Mr. Bruce” and credited in the index of the magazine—for contributions -then appeared unsigned—to “A. C. Eliot,” was printed in the “Atlantic.” -Four years later, _Consule Howells_, “The Shore House,” a second story, -appeared over her own name, the practice of printing signatures having -meanwhile been instituted. In May, 1875, the “Atlantic” contained a poem -by Miss Jewett, which may be quoted, not so much to remind the readers -of those stories of New England on which her later fame was based, that -in her earlier years she was much given to the writing of verse, as to -explain in a way the union—there is no truer word for it—that came later -to exist between herself and Mrs. Fields. - -Thus it read:— - - TOGETHER - - I wonder if you really send - Those dreams of you that come and go! - I like to say, “She thought of me, - And I have known it.” Is it so? - - Though other friends walk by your side, - Yet sometimes it must surely be, - They wonder where your thoughts have gone, - Because I have you here with me. - - And when the busy day is done - And work is ended, voices cease, - When every one has said good night, - In fading firelight, then in peace - - I idly rest: you come to me,— - Your dear love holds me close to you. - If I could see you face to face - It would not be more sweet and true; - - I do not hear the words you speak, - Nor touch your hands, nor see your eyes: - Yet, far away the flowers may grow - From whence to me the fragrance flies; - - And so, across the empty miles - Light from my star shines. Is it, dear, - Your love has never gone away? - I said farewell and—kept you here. - -[Illustration: SARAH ORNE JEWETT] - -It was not strange that the writer of just such a poem should have -seemed to Fields, before his death in 1881, the ideal friend to fill the -impending gap in the life of his wife. He must have known that, when the -time should come for readjusting herself to life without him, she would -need something more than random contacts with friends, no matter how -rewarding each such relationship might be. He must have realized that -the intensely personal element in her nature would require an outlet -through an intensely personal devotion. If he could have foreseen the -relation that grew up between Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett—her junior by -about fifteen years—almost immediately upon his death, and continued -throughout the life of the younger friend, he would surely have felt a -great security of satisfaction in what was yet to be. In all her personal -manifestations, and in all her work, Miss Jewett embodied a quality of -distinction, a quality of the true _aristophile_,—to employ a term -which has seemed to me before to fit that small company of lovers of -the best to which these ladies preëminently belonged,—that made them -foreordained companions. To Mrs. Fields it meant much to stand in a -close relation—apart from all considerations of a completely uniting -friendship—with such an artist as Miss Jewett, to feel that through -sympathy and encouragement she was furthering a true and permanent -contribution to American letters. To Miss Jewett, whose life, before -this intimacy began, had been led almost entirely in the Maine village -of her birth,—a village of dignity and high traditions that were her -own inheritance,—there came an extension of interests and stimulating -contacts through finding herself a frequent member of another household -than her own, and that a very nucleus of quickening human intercourse. To -pursue her work of writing chiefly at South Berwick, to come to Boston, -or Manchester, for that freshening of the spirit which the creative -writer so greatly needs, and there to find the most sympathetic and -devoted of friends, also much occupied herself with the writing of books -and with all commerce of vital thoughts—what could have afforded a more -delightful arrangement of life? - -[Illustration: THE LIBRARY IN CHARLES STREET; MRS. FIELDS AT THE WINDOW, -MISS JEWETT AT THE RIGHT] - -Even as early as 1881, the year of Fields’s death, Miss Jewett published -the fourth of her many books, “Country By-Ways,” preceded by “Deephaven” -(1877), “Play Days” (1878), and “Old Friends and New” (1879). From 1881 -onward her production was constant and abundant. In 1881 also began a -period of remarkable productiveness on the part of Mrs. Fields. In -that very year of her husband’s death she published both her “James T. -Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches,” and a second edition -of “Under the Olive,” a small volume in which she had brought together in -1880 a number of poems in which the influence of the Greek and English -poets is sometimes manifested—notably in “Theocritus”—to excellent -purpose. If Mrs. Fields had been a poet of distinctive power, the fact -would long ago have established itself. To make any such claim for her -at this late day would be to depart from the purpose of this book. It -was for the most part rather as a friend than as a daughter of the Muses -that she turned to verse, the medium of utterance for so many of that -nest of singing-birds in which her life was passed. In 1883 came her -little volume “How to Help the Poor,” representing an interest in the -less fortunate which prepared her to become one of the founders of the -Associated Charities of Boston, kept her long active and influential in -the service of that organization, and made her at the last one of its -generous benefactors. In 1895 and 1900, respectively, appeared two more -volumes of verse, “The Singing Shepherd and Other Poems,” assembling the -work of earlier and later years, and “Orpheus, a Masque,” each strongly -touched, like “Under the Olive,” with the Grecian spirit. From “The -Singing Shepherd” I cannot resist quoting one of the best things it -contains—a sonnet, “Flammantis Mœnia Mundi,” under which, in my own copy -of the book, I find the penciled note, written probably more than twenty -years ago: “Mrs. Fields tells me that this sonnet came to her complete, -one may almost say; standing on her feet she made it, but for one or two -small changes, just as it is, in about fifteen minutes.” - - I stood alone in purple space and saw - The burning walls of the world, like wings of flame, - Circling the sphere; there was no break nor flaw - In those vast airy battlements whence came - The spirits who had done with time and fame - And all the playthings of earth’s little hour; - I saw them each, I knew them for the same, - Mothers and brothers and the sons of power. - - Yet were they changed; the flaming walls had burned - Their perishable selves, and there remained - Only the pure white vision of the soul, - The mortal part consumed, and swift returned - Ashes to ashes; while unscathed, unstained, - The immortal passed beyond the earth’s control. - -For the rest, her writings may be said to have grown out of the life -which the pages of her diary have pictured. The successive volumes -were these: “Whittier: Notes of his Life and of his Friendship” (New -York, 1893); “A Shelf of Old Books” (New York, 1894); “Letters of Celia -Thaxter” (edited with Miss Rose Lamb, Boston, 1895); “Authors and -Friends” (Boston, 1896); “Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe” -(Boston, 1897); “Nathaniel Hawthorne” (in the “Beacon Biographies,” -Boston, 1899); “Charles Dudley Warner” (New York, 1909); and, after the -death of the friend whose name appears above this chapter, “Letters of -Sarah Orne Jewett” (Boston, 1911). - -[Illustration: _An autograph copy of Mrs. Fields’s “Flammantis Mœnia -Mundi” before its final revision_] - -This catalogue of publications is in itself a dry bit of reading, and -to add the titles of all the books produced by Miss Jewett after 1881 -would not enliven the record. But the lists, explicit and implicit, will -serve at least to suggest the range and nature of the activities of mind -and spirit in which the two friends shared for many years. It is no -wonder that Mrs. Fields, who abandoned the regular maintenance of her -diary in the face of her husband’s failing health, resumed it in later -years only under the special provocations of travel. In its place she -took up the practice of writing daily missives—sometimes letters, more -often the merest notes—to Miss Jewett whenever they were separated. -These innumerable little messages of affection contained frequent -references to persons and passing events, but rather as memoranda for -talk when the two friends should meet than as records at all resembling -the earlier journals. Such local friends as Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Bell, -in whom the spirit and wit of their father, Rufus Choate, shone on for -later generations; Mrs. Whitman, mistress of the arts of color and -of friendship; Miss Guiney, figuring always as “the Linnet,” even as -Mrs. Thaxter was “the Sandpiper”; Dr. Holmes, Phillips Brooks, “dear -Whittier”—these and scores of others, young and old, known and unknown -to fame, people the scene which the little notes recall. There are, -besides, such visitors from abroad as Matthew Arnold and his wife, Mrs. -Humphry Ward and her daughter, M. and Mme. Brunetière, and Mme. Blanc -(“Th. Bentzon”), whose article, “Condition de la Femme aux États-Unis,” -in the “Revue des Deux Mondes” for September, 1894, could not have been -written but for the knowledge of Boston acquired through a long visit to -the house in Charles Street. Of the salon of her hostess she wrote: “Je -voudrais essayer de peindre celui qui se rapproche le plus, par beaucoup -de côtés, les salons de France de la meilleure époque, le salon de Mrs. -J. T. Fields.” She goes on to paint it, and from the picture at least one -fragment—apropos of the portraits in the house—should be rescued, if only -for the piquancy conferred by Mme. Blanc’s native tongue upon a bit of -anecdote: “Emerson réalise bien, en physique, l’idée d’immatérialité que -je me faisais de lui. Mrs. Fields me conte une jolie anecdote: vers la -fin de sa vie, il fut prit d’un singulier accès de curiosité; il voulut -savoir une fois ce que c’était le whisky et entra dans un bar pour s’en -servir:—Vous voulez un verre d’eau, Mr. Emerson? dit le garçon, sans lui -donner le temps d’exprimer sa criminelle envie. Et le philosophe but son -verre d’eau, ... et il mourut sans connaître le goût du whisky.” - -[Illustration: MRS. FIELDS ON HER MANCHESTER PIAZZA] - -But if the notes of Mrs. Fields to Miss Jewett, and Miss Jewett’s own -letters to her friend in Boston, do not provide any counterpart to the -diaries which make up the greater portion of this book, there are, in the -journals kept by Mrs. Fields on special occasions of travel, records of -experiences shared by the two friends which should be given here. - -When they went to Europe together, as early as 1882, the two travellers -were happily characterized by Whittier in a sonnet, “Godspeed,” as - - her in whom - All graces and sweet charities unite - The old Greek beauty set in holier light; - And her for whom New England’s byways bloom, - Who walks among us welcome as the Spring, - Calling up blossoms where her light feet stray. - -No effort or adventure seemed to daunt the companions in their -journeyings. There was an indomitable quality in Mrs. Fields which -Miss Jewett used to ascribe to her “May blood,” with its strain of -abolitionism, and it showed itself when she accepted with enthusiasm, -and successfully urged Miss Jewett to accept, an invitation to make a -two months’ winter cruise in West Indian waters, in company with Mr. and -Mrs. Aldrich, on the yacht Hermione of their friend, Henry L. Pierce. -The diary of Mrs. Fields records discomforts and pleasures with an equal -hand, and gives lively glimpses of island and ocean scenes. At Santo -Domingo, for example, the President of the Republic of Haiti dined on the -Hermione on St. Valentine’s Day, 1896, and talked in a manner to which -the impending liberation of Cuba from the Spanish yoke may now be seen to -have added some significance. - - Anything more interesting than his conversation [wrote Mrs. - Fields] would be impossible to find. He ended just before - we left the table by speaking of Cuba. He is inclined to - believe that the day of Spain is over. The people are already - conquerors in the interior and are approaching Havana. Spain - will soon be compelled to retire to her coast defenses and she - is sure to be driven thence in two years or sooner. Of course, - if the Cubans are recognized by the great powers they will - triumph all the sooner. - - “Do these island republics take the part of Cuba?” someone - asked. - - “I will tell you a little tale of a camel,” he said, “if you - will allow me—a camel greatly overladen who lamented his sad - fate. ‘I am bent to the earth,’ he said; ‘everything is heaped - upon me and I feel as if I could never rise again under such a - load.’ Upon his pack was seated a flea, who heard the lament - of the camel. Immediately the flea jumped to the ground. ‘See!’ - he said; ‘now rise, I have relieved you of my own weight.’ - ‘Thank you, Mr. Elephant,’ said the camel, as he glanced at the - flea hopping away. The recognition of these islands would help - Cuba about as much,” he added laughingly. - -But the President of Haiti, concerning whom much more might be quoted, is -less a part of the present picture than Thomas Bailey Aldrich, of whom -Mrs. Fields wrote, February 21:— - - T. B. A.’s wit and pleasant company never fail—he is so - natural, finding fault at times, without being a fault-finder, - and being crusty like another human creature when out of - sorts—but on the whole a most refreshing companion, coming - up from below every morning with a shining countenance, his - hair curling like a boy’s, and ready for a new day. He said - yesterday that he should like to live 450 years—“shouldn’t - you?” “No,” I said; “I am on tip-toe for the flight.” “Ah,” - he said with a visible shudder, “we know nothing about it! - Oddly enough, I have strange impressions of having lived - before—once in London especially—not at St. Paul’s, or Pall - Mall, or in any of the great places where I might have been - deceived by previous imaginations,—not at all,—but among some - old streets where I had never been before and where I had no - associations.” He would have gone on in this vein and would - have drawn me into giving some reasons for my faith which would - have been none to him, but fortunately we were interrupted. - He is full of quips and cranks in talk—is a worshipper of the - English language and a good student of Murray’s Grammar, in - which he faithfully believes. His own training in it he values - as much as anything which ever came to him. He picks up the - unfortunates, of which I am chief, who say “people” meaning - “persons,” who say “at length” for “at last,” and who use - foolish redundancies, but I cannot seem to record his fun. He - began to joke Bridget early in the voyage about the necessity - of being tattooed when she arrived at the Windward Islands, - like the rest of the crew! Fancying that he saw a sort of half - idea that he was in earnest, he kept it up and told her that - the butter-mark of Ponkapog should be the device! The matter - had nearly blown over when yesterday he wanted her suddenly and - called, “Bridget,” at the gangway rather sharply. “Here, sir,” - said the dear creature running quickly to mount the stairs. - “The tattoo-man is here,” said T. B. With all seriousness - Bridget paused a moment, wavered, looked again, and then came - on laughing to do what he really wanted. “That man will be - the death of me—so he will,” said B. as she went away on her - errand. She is his slave; gets his clothes and waits upon him - every moment; but his fun and sweetness with her “_désennuie de - service_,” and more, charges it with pleasantness. - - T. B. A. is a most careful reader and a true reporter upon the - few good books of which he is cognizant. He has read Froude’s - history twice through, and Queen Mary’s reign three times. He - has read a vast number of novels, hundreds and hundreds,—French - and English,—but his knowledge of French seems to stop there. - He also once knew Spanish, but that seems to have dropped—he - never, I think, could speak much of any language save his - own. Being a master there is so much more than the rest of us - achieve that we feel he has won his laurels. - -On a later journey, in 1898, Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett, visiting -England and France in company with Miss Jewett’s sister and nephew, were -on more familiar and more suitable ground—if indeed that word can be used -even figuratively for the unstable deck of a yacht. In London there were -many old and new friends to be seen. In Paris Mme. Blanc opened for the -travellers the doors of many a salon not commonly accessible to visiting -Americans. But from all the abundant chronicle of these experiences, it -will be enough to make two selections. The first describes a visit to the -Provençal poet, Mistral, with his “Boufflo Beel” dog and hat; the second, -a glimpse of Henry James at Rye. - -[Illustration: MISTRAL, MASTER OF “BOUFFLO BEEL”] - -It was in May of 1898, that Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett, finding Paris -cold and rainy, determined to strike for sunshine, and the South. A -little journey into Provence, and a visit to Mistral, followed this -decision. The following notes record the visit. - - A perfect time and perfect weather in which to see the country - of Provence. Fields of great white poppies and other flowers - planted for seed in this district made the way beautiful on - either hand. Olive trees with rows of black cypress and old - tiled-roofed farmhouses, and the mountains always on the - horizon, filled the landscape. The first considerable house - we reached was the home of the poet. A pretty garden which - attracted our attention with a rare eglantine called La Reine - Joanne, and other charming things hanging over the wall made - us suspicious of the poet’s vicinity. Turning the corner of - this garden and driving up a short road, we found the courtyard - and door on the inner side as it were. We heard a barking - dog. “Take care,” said the driver, “there is a dangerous dog - inside.” We waited until Mistral himself came to meet us from - the garden; he was much amused. There was an old dog tied, - half asleep, on a bench and a young one by his side. He said - laughing, “These are all, and they could not be less dangerous. - The elder” (he let them loose while he spoke and they played - about us), “the elder I call Bouffe, from Boufflo Beel” - (Mistral does not speak any English, nor does his wife) “and - the reason is because I happened to be in the neighborhood of - Paris once just after Buffalo Bill had passed on toward Calais - with his troupe. I saw a little dog, unlike the dogs of our - country, who seemed to be lost, but the moment he saw me, he - thought I was ‘Boufflo Beel’ and adopted me for his master. - You see I look like him,” he said, putting his wide felt hat - a little more on one side! Yes, we did think so. “Well, the - little dog has been with us ever since. He possesses the most - wonderful intelligence and understands every word we say. One - day I said to him, ‘What a pity such a nice dog as you should - have no children!’ A few days later the servant said to me, - ‘Bouffe has been away nearly two days, but he has now come - back bringing his wife.’ ‘Ah!’ I said, ‘take good care of them - both.’ In due time this other little dog, his son, arrived - in the world, and shortly after Bouffe carried his wife away - again, but kept the little dog. He is a wonderful fellow, to be - sure.” - - We went into the house and sat down to talk awhile about poetry - and books. There was a large book-case full of French and - Provençal literature here, but it was rather the parlor and - everyday sitting-room than his work-room. Unhappily, they have - no children. Evidently they are exceedingly happy together and - naturally do not miss what they have never had. She opened the - drawing-room for us, which is the room of state. It is full - of interesting things connected with Provence and their own - life, but perfectly simple, in accord with the country-like - fashion of their existence. There is a noble bas-relief of - the head of Mistral, the drum or “tambour” of the Félibre, or - for the Farandole, and, without overloading, plenty of good - things—photographs, one or two pictures, not many, for the - house is not that of a rich man, plaster casts, and one or - two busts,—perhaps the presents of artists,—illustrations of - “Mirèio,” and things associated with their individual lives - or the life of Provence. Presently Mistral gave me his arm - and we went across the hall. Standing in the place of honor - opposite the front door and in the large corner made by the - staircase, is a fine copy of the bust of Lamartine, crowned - with an olive wreath. We paused a moment here while Mistral - spoke of Lamartine, and always with the sincere reverence which - he has expressed in the poem entitled “_Élégie sur la mort de - Lamartine_.” ... - - The dining-room was still more Provençal, if possible, than the - rooms we had visited. The walls were white, which, with the - closed green blinds, must give a pleasant light when the days - are hot, yet bright even on grey days. Specimens of the pottery - of the country hang around, decorated with soft colors. The - old carved bread-mixing-and-holding affair, which belonged in - every well-to-do house of the old time, was there, and one or - two other old pieces of furniture, while the chairs, sofa, and - table were of quaint shape, painted green with some decorations. - - The details are all petty enough, but they proved how sincerely - Mistral and his wife love their country and their surroundings - and endeavor to ennoble them and make the most of them. After - sitting at table and enjoying their hospitality, we went out - again into the garden where Madame Mistral gathered “Nerto” - (myrtle) for us, beside roses and other more beautiful but - more formidable things. “Nerto” is the title of one of his - last books (I hear) and the wife doubtless believed that we - should cherish a branch of her myrtle especially in memory of - the visit. She was quite right, but these things which are - “to last”—how frail they are; the things that remain are those - which are written on the heart. - - We cannot forget these two picturesque beings standing in their - garden, filling our hands with flowers and bidding us farewell. - As we drove away into the sunny plain once more, we found it - speaking to us with a voice of human kindness echoing from - that poetic and friendly home. In a more personal vein, the - address to Lamartine by Mistral expresses better his mood of - the afternoon when we stood together looking at the bust and - recalling each our personal remembrance of the man. - -An excursion from London, on September 12, devoted to a day with Henry -James, gave Mrs. Fields a memorable glimpse of the son of an old friend, -and an honest pleasure in learning at first hand of his appreciation of -Miss Jewett’s writings. - - _Monday, September 13, 1898._—We left London about 11 o’clock - for Rye, to pass the day with Mr. Henry James. He was waiting - for us at the station with a carriage, and in five minutes we - found ourselves at the top of a silent little winding street, - at a green door with a brass knocker, wearing the air of - impenetrable respectability which is so well known in England. - Another instant and an old servant, Smith (who with his wife - has been in Mr. James’s service for 20 years), opened the door - and helped us from the carriage. It was a pretty interior—large - enough for elegance, and simple enough to suit the severe - taste of a scholar and private gentleman. - - Mr. James was intent on the largest hospitality. We were asked - upstairs over a staircase with a pretty balustrade and plain - green drugget on the steps; everything was of the severest - plainness, but in the best taste, “not at all austere,” as he - himself wrote us. - - We soon went down again after leaving our hats, to find a - young gentleman, Mr. McAlpine, who is Mr. James’s secretary, - with him, awaiting us. This young man is just the person to - help Mr. James. He has a bump of reverence and appreciates - his position and opportunity. We sat in the parlor opening on - a pretty garden for some time, until Mr. James said he could - not conceive why luncheon was not ready and he must go and - inquire, which he did in a very responsible manner, and soon - after Smith appeared to announce the feast. Again a pretty room - and table. We enjoyed our talk together sincerely at luncheon - and afterward strolled into the garden. The dominating note was - dear Mr. James’s pleasure in having a home of his own to which - he might ask us. From the garden, of course, we could see the - pretty old house still more satisfactorily. An old brick wall - concealed by vines and laurels surrounds the whole irregular - domain; a door from the garden leads into a paved courtyard - which seemed to give Mr. James peculiar satisfaction; returning - to the garden, and on the other side, at an angle with the - house, is a building which he laughingly called the temple - of the Muse. This is his own place _par excellence_. A good - writing-table and one for his secretary, a typewriter, books, - and a sketch by Du Maurier, with a few other pictures (rather - mementoes than works of art), excellent windows with clear - light, such is the temple! Evidently an admirable spot for his - work. - -[Illustration: _Reduced facsimile of postscript of a letter from Henry -James, expressing the intention, which he could not fulfill, to provide -an Introduction to the “Letters of Sarah Orne Jewett”_] - - After we returned to the parlor Mr. James took occasion to - tell Sarah how deeply and sincerely he appreciated her work; - how he re-reads it with increasing admiration. “It is foolish - to ask, I know,” he said, “but were you in just such a place - as you describe in the ‘Pointed Firs’?” “No,” she said, “not - precisely; the book was chiefly written before I visited - the locality itself.” “And such an island?” he continued. - “Not exactly,” she said again. “Ah! I thought so,” he said - musingly; and the language—“It is so absolutely true—not a word - overdone—such elegance and exactness.” “And Mrs. Dennet—how - admirable she is,” he said again, not waiting for a reply. I - need not say they were very much at home together after this. - - Meanwhile the carriage came again to the door, for he had made - a plan to take us on a drive to Winchelsea, a second of the - Cinq Portes, Rye itself also being one. The sea has retreated - from both these places, leaving about two miles of the Romney - Marsh between them and the shore. Nothing could be more - like something born of the imagination than the old city of - Winchelsea.... Just outside the old gate looking towards Rye - and the sea from a lonely height is the cottage where Ellen - Terry has found a summer resting-place and retirement. It is a - true home for an artist—nothing could be lovelier. Unhappily - she was not there, but we were happy to see the place which she - described to us with so great satisfaction. - - From Winchelsea Mr. James drove us to the station, where we - took the train for Hastings. He had brought his small dog, an - aged black and tan terrier, with him for a holiday. He put on - the muzzle, which all dogs just now must wear, and took it off - a great many times until, having left it once when he went to - buy the tickets and recovered it, he again lost it and it could - not be found; so as soon as he reached Hastings, he took a - carriage again to drive us along the esplanade, but the first - thing was to buy a new muzzle. This esplanade is three miles - long, but we began to feel like tea, so having looked upon - the sea sufficiently from this decidedly unromantic point of - view, we went into a small shop and enjoyed more talk under new - conditions. “How many cakes have you eaten?” “Ten,” gravely - replied Mr. James—at which we all laughed. “Oh, I know,” said - the girl with a wise look at the desk. “How do you suppose they - know?” said Mr. James musingly as he turned away. “They always - do!” And so on again presently to the train at Hastings, where - Mr. McAlpine appeared at the right instant. Mr. James’s train - for Rye left a few moments before ours for London. He took a - most friendly farewell and having left us to Mr. McA. ran for - his own carriage. In another five minutes we too were away, - bearing our delightful memories of this meeting. - -Not because they record momentous events and encounters, but merely -as little pictures of the life which Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett led -together, these passages are brought to light. They are the last to be -presented here. For more than another decade beyond the summer of 1898, -Miss Jewett, sorely invalided through the final years as the result of a -carriage accident, remained the central personal fact in Mrs. Fields’s -interest and affections. Soon after her death, in June, 1909, Mrs. Fields -wrote about her to a common friend: “Of my dear Sarah—I believe one of -her noblest qualities was her great generosity. Others could only guess -at this, but I was allowed to know it. Not that she made gifts, but a -wide sympathy was hers for every disappointed or incompetent fellow -creature. It was a most distinguishing characteristic! Governor Andrew -spoke of Judge B—— once as ‘A friend to every man who did not need a -friend’! Sarah’s quick sympathy knew a friend was in need before she knew -it herself; she was the spirit of beneficence, and her quick delicate wit -was such a joy in daily companionship!” - -Of this daily companionship an anonymous contributor to the “Atlantic -Monthly” for August, 1909, had been a fortunate witness. I need not ask -his permission to repeat a portion of what he then wrote:— - -“There is but one familiar portrait of Miss Jewett. It has been so -often reprinted that many who have seen it, even without seeing her, -must think of her as immune from change, blessed with perpetual youth, -with a gracious, sympathetic femininity, with an air of breeding and -distinction quite independent of shifting fashions. - -“This portrait is intimately symbolic of her work. It typifies with a -rare faithfulness the quality of all the products of her pen. In them -one found, and finds, the same abiding elements of beauty, sympathy, and -distinction. The element of sympathy—perhaps the greatest of these—found -its expression in a humor that provoked less of outward laughter than -of smiles within, and in a pathos the very counterpart of this delicate -quality. The beauty and the distinction may be less capable of brief -characterization, but they pervaded her art.... - -“This work of hers, in dealing with the New England life she knew and -loved, was essentially American, as purely indigenous as the pointed firs -of her own countryside. The art with which she wrought her native themes -was limited, on the contrary, by no local boundaries. At its best it had -the absolute quality of the highest art in every quarter of the globe. -And the spirit in which she approached her task was as broad in its -scope and sympathy as her art in its form. It was precisely this union -of what was at once so clearly American and so clearly universal that -distinguished her stories, in the eyes of both editor and reader, as the -best—so often—in any magazine that contained them. - -“Her constant demand upon herself was for the best. There were no -compromises with mediocrity, either in her tastes or in her achievements. -It was the best aspect of New England character and tradition on which -her vision steadily dwelt. She was satisfied with nothing short of the -best in her interpretation of New England life. The form of creative -writing in which she won her highest successes—the short story—is the -form in which Americans have made their most distinctive contributions -to English literature: and her place with the few best of these writers -appears to be secure. - -“If the familiar portrait typifies her work, it is equally true to the -person herself. The quick, responsive spirit of youth, with all its -sincerity, all its enjoyment in friendship or whatever else the day -might hold, was an immutable possession. So were all the other qualities -for which the features spoke. Through the recent years of physical -disability, due in the first instance to an accident so gratuitous that -it seemed to her friends unendurable, there was a noble patience, a -sweet endurance, that could have sprung only from an heroic strain of -character.” - -For nearly six years Mrs. Fields survived Miss Jewett, bereaved as by the -loss of half her personal world, yet indomitable of spirit and energy, -so long as her physical forces would permit any of the old accustomed -exercises of hospitality and friendship. The selection and publication -of Miss Jewett’s letters was a labor of love which continued the sense -of companionship for the first two of the remaining years. Through the -four others there was a failing of bodily strength, though not at all of -mental and spiritual eagerness; and in her outward mien through all the -later years, there was that which must have recalled to many the ancient -couplet:— - - No Spring, nor summer’s beauty hath such grace - As I have seen in one autumnal face. - -Towards the end there was a brief return to the keeping of a sporadic -diary. Its final words, written January 25, 1913, were these: “The days -go on cheerfully. I have just read Mark Twain’s life, the life of a man -who had greatness in him. I am now reading his ‘Joan of Arc.’ I hope to -wait as cheerfully as he did for the trumpet call and as usefully, but I -am ready.” - -When Mrs. Fields died and the Charles Street door was finally closed, at -the beginning of 1915, the world had entered upon its first entire year -of a new era. It is an era as sharply separated from that of her intimate -contemporaries, the American Victorians, as any new from any old order. -The figures of every old order take their places by degrees as “museum -pieces,” objects of curious and sometimes condescending study. But let -us not be too sure that in parting with the past we have let it keep -only that which can best be spared. We would not wish them back, those -Victorians of ours. They were the product of their own day, and would be -hardly at ease—poor things—in our twentieth-century Zion. Even some of us -who inhabit it gain a sense of rest in reëntering their quiet, decorous -dwelling-places. As we emerge again from one of them, may it be with a -renewed allegiance to those lasting “things that are more excellent,” -which belong to every generation of civilized men and women. - - - - -FOOTNOTES - - -[1] _A Shelf of Old Books_, by Mrs. Fields (1894), pictures many aspects -of the house and its contents. - -[2] About two months later, Mrs. Fields wrote in her diary: “Emerson -says Hawthorne’s book is ‘pellucid but not deep.’ He has cut out the -dedication and letter, as others have done.” - -[3] The greater part of this chapter appeared in the _Yale Review_ for -April, 1918. - -[4] George Tyler Bigelow, of the Harvard Class of 1829. - -[5] Harvard festivals were frequently noted. After the great day on which -Lowell gave his _Commemoration Ode_, Mrs. Fields wrote (July 22, 1865): -“What an ever-memorable day, the one at Harvard! The prayer of Phillips -Brooks, the ode of Lowell, the address of Dr. Putnam and the Governor, -and the heartfelt verses of Holmes, and the lovely music and the hymns. -But Lowell’s Ode!! How it overtops the whole of what is preserved on -paper beside! Charles G. Loring presided. ‘Awkwardly enough done,’ said -O. W. H.; ‘It is a delicate thing to introduce a poet, he should be -delivered to the table as a falconer delivers the falcon into the air, -but Mr. Loring puts you down hard on the table—ca-chunk.’” - -[6] This anecdote of the revision of _The Last Leaf_, written in 1831, is -told a little differently in the annotations of Holmes’s Complete Works. - -[7] See _Yesterdays with Authors_, p. 98, and _The Atlantic Monthly and -Its Makers_, p. 46. - -[8] _The Dolliver Romance._ - -[9] Fields drew upon this paragraph for one in _Yesterdays with Authors_, -p. 112. - -[10] Only a month after making this entry, Mrs. Fields wrote in her -journal: “A note came from Longfellow saying he had received a sad note -from Hawthorne. ‘I wish we could have a little dinner for him,’ he says, -‘of two sad authors and two jolly publishers—nobody else.’” - -[11] In Rose Hawthorne Lathrop’s _Memories of Hawthorne_ the relation -between the two households is indicated in a sentence containing -the nicknames of Mr. and Mrs. Fields: “My father also tasted the -piquant flavors of merriment and luxury in this exquisite domicile of -Heart’s-Ease and Mrs. Meadows.” - -[12] Thoreau’s younger sister. - -[13] In 1865 Alcott printed privately and anonymously the essay, -_Emerson_, which appeared later in his acknowledged volume, _Ralph Waldo -Emerson, an Estimate of his Character and Genius_ (Boston, 1882). This -was evidently _The Rhapsodist_. - -[14] Thoreau’s older sister. - -[15] Josiah Phillips Quincy. - -[16] An allusion to the controversy over the claims of Dr. Jackson and -Dr. Morton to the discovery of ether. - -[17] Daughter of the Rev. William Henry Furness, of Philadelphia, and -translator of German novels. - -[18] One of Lowell’s reminiscences at the Saturday Club, recorded two -years earlier by Mrs. Fields, suggests his essential youthfulness of -spirit. Apropos of a story told by Dr. Holmes, “Lowell said that reminded -him of experiments the boys at his school used to make on flies, to see -how much weight they could carry. One day he attached a thread, which he -pulled out of his silk handkerchief, to a fly’s leg, and to the other -end a bit of paper with ‘the master is a fool’ written on it in small -distinct letters. The fly flew away and lighted on the master’s nose; but -he, regardless of all but the lessons, brushed him off, and the fly rose -with his burden to the ceiling.” - -[19] After an evening of high discussion at Mrs. Howe’s in an earlier -year, Mrs. Fields wrote in her journal (October 4, 1863): “The talk grew -deep, and after it was over, she [Mrs. Howe] recalled the saying of Mrs. -Bell, after a like evening, when she called for ‘a fat idiot.’” - -[20] If Mrs. Fields had lived to see _The Early Years of the Saturday -Club_ (Boston, 1918), she would have found that I drew from the notes in -her own diary a large portion of the memoir of James T. Fields which it -contains. - -[21] This was in the midst of Aldrich’s occupancy of Elmwood, during -Lowell’s two years’ absence in Europe. - -[22] The greater part of this chapter appeared in _Harper’s Magazine_ for -May and June, 1922. - -[23] A few passages from it, relating to Dickens, are included in _James -T. Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches_. When they are -occasionally repeated here, it is in their original form, and not as Mrs. -Fields edited them for publication. - -[24] On this very day Lowell wrote in the course of a letter to Fields: -“James tells me you had a tremendous _queue_ this morning. Don’t fail -to get me tickets, and for the first night. I should like to see his -reception. It will leave a picture on the brain. And why should I not be -there to welcome him, as well as Tom, Dick, or Harry?” - -[25] Even after Dickens’s return to England, his sayings found their way -into Mrs. Fields’s journal; as, for example:— - -“_July 4, 1868._—J. made me laugh this morning (it was far too hot to -laugh) by telling me that Dickens said of Gray, the poet, ‘No man ever -walked down to posterity with so small a book under his arm!’” - -[26] See Forster’s _Life_, III, 368, for the same story told by Dickens -in a letter to Lord Lytton, without naming Longfellow as the narrator. - -[27] In _Yesterdays with Authors_ (see pp. 230-31), Fields made use, with -revisions and omissions, of this portion of his wife’s diary. - -[28] Mrs. Stowe’s unhappily historic article on “The True Story of Lady -Byron’s Life” appeared in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for September, 1869. - -[29] On April 20, 1870, Longfellow wrote to Fields (See _Life of Henry -Wadsworth Longfellow_, etc., edited by Samuel Longfellow, III, 148):— - -“Some English poet has said or sung: - - ‘At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still, - And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove.’ - -“I wish Hamlet would be still! I wish I could prove the sweets of -forgetfulness! I wish Fechter would depart into infinite space, and -‘leave, oh, leave me to repose!’ When will this disturbing star -disappear, and suffer the domestic planetary system to move on in the -ordinary course and keep time with the old clock in the corner?” - -[30] A contemporary definition of Cincinnati. - -[31] Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the moving spirit in the building of the Music -Hall and the installation of the organ. He presided at its dedication. - -[32] See _ante_, page 111. - -[33] “A Newport Romance,” published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for -October, 1871. - -[34] Probably _Gabriel Conroy_ and _Two Men of Sandy Bar_. - -[35] See _The Atlantic Monthly and Its Makers_, pp. 73-75. - - - - -INDEX - - -Page numbers set in =bold-faced type= indicate, generally speaking, the -more important references to the persons concerned. As a complete list -of the pages on which Mr. or Mrs. Fields, or both, are mentioned would -include substantially the whole book, only a few of the more significant -references to them have been selected for inclusion under their names. - - Adams, Annie, marries =J. T. F.=, 11. And _see_ Fields, Annie. - - Adams, Charles F., Jr., 278. - - Adams, Lizzie, 20. - - Adams, Zabdiel B., 11. - - Agassiz, Alexander, 256, 257, 258. - - Agassiz, Elizabeth C., 159. - - Agassiz, Louis, 48, 93, 105, 141. - - Alcott, A. Bronson, 63, =72-77=, 81, 82, 95. - - Alcott, Mrs. A. Bronson, 63. - - Alcott, Louisa M., 73. - - Alden, Henry M., 57, 89. - - Aldrich, Lilian (Woodman), 126, 203, 229, 290. - - Aldrich, Thomas B., 11, 116, 126 and _n._, 127, =197= _ff._, - =226-229=, 290, =291-293=. - - Andrew, John A., 11, 36 _n._, 302. - - Andrew, Mrs. John A., 28, 213, 214. - - Appleton, Thomas Gold, 115, 116, 126, 152, 154, 209, 211, 212, - 213, 216, 246, 253. - - Aristotle, 133. - - Arnold, Matthew, 288. - - Astor, John Jacob, 76, 77. - - _Atlantic Monthly_, 6, 13, 14, 107, 111, 191 _n._, 209, 233, - 252, 281, 282, 302. - - - Bacon, Francis, Lord, 112. - - Baker, Sir Samuel, 149. - - Barbauld, Anna L. A., 101. - - Barker, Fordyce, 151, 185. - - Barlow, Francis C., 61. - - Barrett, Lawrence, 240. - - Bartol, Cyrus A., 114, 215, 239. - - Beal, James H., 143. - - Beal, Louisa (Adams), 42, 143. - - Beal, Thomas, 199. - - Beecher, Henry Ward, 89, 224, 263, =267-269=, 270. - - Bell, Helen (Choate), 98, 143, 288. - - Bellows, Henry W., 199. - - Bentzon, Th. _See_ Blanc, Marie T. - - Bigelow, George T., 36. - - Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs., 143, 144. - - Blagden, Isa, 260. - - Blake, Harrison G. O., 89, 90. - - Blanc, Marie Thérèse, 288, 289, 293. - - Blessington, Countess of, 274. - - Blumenbach, Johann F., 128, 129. - - Boccaccio, Giovanni, 58. - - Booth, Edwin, 28, =198-203=, 210, =240-241=. - - Booth, J. Wilkes, 28, 198, 199. - - Booth, Junius Brutus, 196. - - Booth, Mary (Mrs. Edwin), 241. - - Booth, Mary A. (Mrs. J. B.), 198. - - Boswell, James, 60. - - Boutwell, George S., 89. - - Bradford, George, 81, 82, 90. - - Bright, John, 177. - - Brontë, Charlotte, 131, 266. - - Brooks, Phillips, 36 _n._, 94, 288. - - Brown, John, _Pet Marjorie_, 59. - - Browne, Charles F., 21. - - Brownell, Henry Howard, 29. - - Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 270. - - Browning, Robert, 43, 142, 260, 269. - - Brunetière, Ferdinand, 288. - - Bryant, William Cullen, 239, 257. - - “Buffalo Bill.” _See_ Cody, W. F. - - Bugbee, James M., 126. - - Bull, Ole, 225. - - Burr, Aaron, 270, 271. - - Butler, Benjamin F., 95. - - - Cabot, Mrs., 236. - - Calderon de la Barca, Pedro, 110. - - Carleton, G. W., 233. - - Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 75, 142, 220. - - Carlyle, Thomas, 73, 75, 79, 89, 141, 142, 165, 167, 190, 191, - 220. - - Channing, W. Ellery, 81, 98, 114. - - Cheney, Arthur, 216. - - Cheney, Ednah D., 114. - - Child, Lydia M., 265, 266. - - Childs, George W., 64. - - Choate, Rufus, 288. - - Cicero, 45. - - Clapp, Henry, 185. - - Clarke, James Freeman, 72, 114. - - Clarke, Sara, 205. - - Clemens, Samuel L., 232, 233, =244-257=, 305. - - Clemens, Mrs. S. L., 245 _ff._ - - Cobden, Richard, 177. - - Cody, William F., 294. - - Colchester (medium), 168, 169, 170. - - Collins, Charles, 168. - - Collins, Mrs. Charles (daughter of Dickens), 190. - - Collins, W. Wilkie, 145, 189. - - Collyer, Robert, 215. - - Conway, Judge, 219. - - Cooke, George W., 120. - - Crabbe, George, 186. - - Crawford, Thomas, 264. - - Crawford, Mrs. Thomas, 264, 265. - - Cubas, Isabella, 22, 23. - - Curtis, George William, 14, 33, =184=, 188. - - Curtis, Mrs. G. W., 14. - - Cushing, Caleb, 266, 267. - - Cushman, Charlotte, 123, =219-222=. - - - Dana, Charlotte, 161. - - Dana, Richard H., Jr., 93, 95, 116, 144, 250, 278. - - Dana, Mrs. R. H., Jr. 92, 93. - - Dana, Sallie, 161. - - Daniel, George, 95. - - Dante Alighieri, 258. - - Davidson, Edith, 99. - - Davis, George T., 19, 20. - - Dennet, of the _Nation_, 127. - - De Normandie, James, 81. - - Dewey, Dr., 219. - - Dickens, Bessy, 194. - - Dickens, Catherine (Hogarth), 160. - - Dickens, Charles, in America, 138-188; his readings, 140, 144, - 145, 152, 157, 171, 172, 181, 182; letters of, to =J. T. F.=, - 150, 191; 12, 32, 33, 118, 119, 120, =135-195=, 209, 210, 211, - 212, 223, 240. - - Dickens, Charles, Jr., 194. - - Dickens, John, 175. - - Dickens, Mary: quoted, 193; 140, 164, 169, 194. - - Dickinson, Lowes, 232. - - Dodge, Mary Abigail, 144, 220, 221. - - Dolby, George, 136, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144, 149, 150, 161, - 162, 165, 166, 171, 173, 178, 180, 185, 189, 190. - - Donne, Father, 102. - - Donne, John, 95. - - Dorr, Charles, 149, 209. - - Dorr, Mrs. Charles, 35, 149, 150, 209, 215. - - Dryden, John, 109. - - Dufferin, Earl of, 163. - - Dumas, Alex., 211. - - Dumas, Alex., _fils._, 211. - - Du Maurier, George, 300. - - Dunn, Rev. Mr., 122. - - - Ecce Homo, 167. - - Eliot, Charles W., 41. - - Eliotson, Dr., 182, 183. - - Ellsler, Fanny, 24. - - Emerson, Edith, 89, 91. And _see_ Forbes, Edith (Emerson). - - Emerson, Edward W., 94, 103, 104. - - Emerson, Ellen, 88, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104. - - Emerson, Lilian (Jackson), letter of, to =Mrs. F.=, 88; 61, 62, - 89, 94, 95, 99, 101, 203. - - Emerson, Ralph Waldo, letter of, to =J. T. F.=, 87; 14, 15 - _n._, 24, 61, 62, 67, 73, 74, 79, 83, 84, =86-105=, 130, 131, - 141, =158=, 161, 165, 203, 206, 238, 239, =289=. - - Emerson, W. R., 219. - - England, Hawthorne on, 59, 60. - - Everett, Edward, 116, 270, 271. - - Everett, William, 270. - - _Every Saturday_, 197. - - - Falstaff, Sir John, 110. - - Fechter, Charles, 139, 146, 148, 149, 159, 179, 190, 191, =209= - _ff._ - - Field, John W., 124. - - Field, Kate, 152, 259, 260, 261. - - Fielding, Henry, _Tom Jones_, 110, 111. - - Fields, Annie, disposition of her papers, 3; her Journals, 4, - 12; H. James quoted on, 5; marriage, 11; her neighbors, 11; - and Leigh Hunt, 15, 16; letter of Holmes to, on her memorial - volume, 50, 51; her books, 53; H. James, Sr., quoted on, - 85; “Thunderbolt Hill,” 101; her character as revealed in - her diary, 132-134; her championship of Dickens, 156, 157; - the variety of her friendships, 196 _ff._; her ode for the - installation of the Music Hall organ, 219, 220, 221; with =J. - T. F.=, visits Mark Twain at Hartford, 246 _ff._; and the cause - of equal rights for women, 275, 278; her skill in digesting - reports of conversations, 279, 280; her intimate friendship - with Miss Jewett, 281 _ff._; her poetry, 285, 286; list of her - published prose works, 286; friends of her later years, 288; - travelling with Miss Jewett, 289 _ff._; and the President of - Haiti, 290, 291; visits Mistral, 293-297; visits H. James, Jr., - at Rye, 297-301; quoted, on Miss Jewett, 302; her last years, - 301, 305; the last words in her diary, 305; her death, 305. - _James T. Field: Biographical Notes_, 4, 13, 16, 50; _Authors - and Friends_, 4, 31, 86, 87, 105, 129, 134, 279; _A Shelf of - Old Books_, 12 _n._; _Hawthorne_, 54. - - Fields, Eliza J. (Willard), 11. - - FIELDS, JAMES T., early days in Boston, 10, 11, 196; marries - Annie Adams, 11; their home on Charles St., 11, 12, 137, 138, - 218, 219; editor of the _Atlantic_, 14, 58, 67, 87, 107, 111, - 119, 191 _n._, 233, 282; as _raconteur_, 21; Holmes quoted on - his position in the literary world, 34; retires from business, - 40; H. James, Sr., quoted on, 85; his love of the theatre and - stage folk, 196, 197; his death, 280; fosters =Mrs. F.’s= - friendship with Miss Jewett, 283. _Yesterdays with Authors_, 4, - 54, 55, 62, 137, 176 _n._, 190. - - Fields, Osgood & Co., 10. - - Fiske, John, 48. - - Forbes, Edith (Emerson), 91. - - Forbes, William H., 91. - - Forrest, Edwin, 207, 218. - - Forrest, Mrs. Edwin, 218. - - Forster, John, 154, 160, 163, 171, 213. - - Foster, Charlotte, 259. - - Frothingham, Octavius B., 274. - - Froude, James A., 68, 293. - - Fuller, Margaret, 24, 239. - - Fulton, J. D., 122. - - Furness, William H., 101 _n._, 102, 103. - - - Garrett (impressario), 214. - - Gaskell, Elizabeth C. S., 131. - - Godwin, Mrs. William, 16. - - Goethe, Johann W. von, _Wilhelm Meister_, 132, 133. - - Gorges, Sir F., 74. - - Gounod, Charles, 44. - - Grant, Julia Dent, 159. - - Grant, Ulysses S., 159, 262. - - Grau, Maurice, 222. - - Greene, George W., 19, 20, 44, 45, 47, 126, 141, 256, 258, 260. - - Gregory, Lady, 218. - - Guiney, Louise Imogen, 288. - - - Haiti, President of, 290, 291. - - Hale, Edward E., 93. - - Hale, John P., 261. - - Hallam, Henry, 89. - - Hamilton, Gail. _See_ Dodge, Mary Abigail. - - Hammersley, Mr., 247. - - _Harper’s Weekly_, 14. - - Harris, William T., 81. - - Harte, F. Bret, 117, =233-243=. - - Harte, Mrs. F. B., 239, 240. - - Harvard College, Commemoration Day at, 36 _n._ - - Hawthorne, Julian, 15, 144. - - Hawthorne, Nathaniel, death of, 27, 28, 67; letters of, to =J. - T. F.=, 54, 55, 56; his last letter, 65-67; =13=, =14=, =15= - and _n._, =18=, 19, 30, 32, 33, =54-72=, 97, =105=, 127, =236=. - - Hawthorne, Sophia (Peabody), letter to =Mrs. F.= on Hawthorne, - 70-72; 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 91, 144, 246. - - Hawthorne, Una, 15, 97, 221. - - Hawthorne, E. M., sister of Nathaniel, 69. - - Hayes, Isaac I., 33, 34. - - Herbert, George, 95. - - Herrick, Robert, 95. - - Higginson, Thomas W., 114. - - Hill, Thomas, 92. - - Hillard, George S. 17, 18, 19, 143. - - Hoar, Ebenezer R., 37, 90, 91, 141. - - Hogarth, Georgina, quoted, 193, 194; 140, 155, 165, 195. - - Holmes, Amelia (Jackson), 30, 34, 39, 40, 41, 51, 153, 203, - 213, 214, 221. - - Holmes, Oliver Wendell, his relations with the Fieldses, - generally, =17-52=; letters of, to =J. T. F.=, 17, 49, and to - =Mrs. F.=, 50; 11, 13, 54, 90, 94, 96, 110, 111 _n_., 115, 116, - 117, 118, 135, 141, 142, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 221, 256, - 257, 273, 288. - - Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 21, 31. - - Home (medium), 163, 168. - - Horace, 238. - - Howe, Julia Ward, =9=, =10=, 61, 90, 114 and _n._, 221. - - Howe, Laura (Mrs. Richards), 150. - - Howe, Samuel G., 219, 273. - - Howells, William D., 38, 116, 166. - - Howes, Miss, 236. - - Howison, George H., 81. - - Hunt, Henry, 48. - - Hunt, Leigh, 15, 16, 58, 122. - - Hunt, T. Sterry, 199. - - Hunt, William M., 96, =97-99=, =230=, =232=. - - Hunt, Mrs. W. M., 96, 98, 222, 230. - - Hyacinthe, Père, 44. - - - Ingelow, Jean, 142. - - - Jackson, Charles T., 94 and _n._ - - James, Alice, 77, 81, 83. - - James, George Abbot, 42. - - James, Henry, Sr., letter of, to =J. T. F.=, 82, and to =Mrs. - F.=, 83, 85; =72-85=. - - James, Mrs. Henry, 75, 77, 81. - - James, Henry, Jr., quoted, 6, 7, 137, 281; letter of, to - author, 8, 9; 119, 120, =297-301=. - - Jan (Booth’s servant), 200, 202. - - Jefferson, Joseph, =203-208=, 247. - - Jewett, Sarah Orne, her intimate relations with =Mrs. F.=, 281 - _ff._, 302-304; her early days, 281, 282; her literary work, - 282-284; correspondence with =Mrs. F.=, 288, 289; H. James on - her work, 300; her death, 302; 12, 50. - - Johnson, Andrew, impeachment of, 159; 261, 262, 263. - - Johnson, Samuel, 60. - - Jonson, Ben, 96. - - Julius Cæsar, 45. - - - Keats, John, 43, 68, 206, 207. - - Kellogg, Elijah, 271, 272. - - Kemble, Charles, 196. - - Kemble, Frances Anne, 196, 222, 223, 224 - - Kennard, Mr., 267, 268. - - King, Preston, 262, 263. - - Kirkup, Seymour S., 258. - - Knowlton, Helen M., 232. - - - Lamartine, Alphonse de, 296, 297. - - Lamb, Charles, 270. - - Landor, Walter Savage, 259-261. - - Langdon, Mr., Mark Twain’s father-in-law, 245. - - Langdon, Mrs., 246. - - Larcom, Lucy, 70. - - Lathrop, George P., 97. - - Lathrop, Rose (Hawthorne), quoted, 67 _n._; 97, 144. - - Lear, Edward, 280. - - Leclercq, Carlotta, 216. - - Lemaître, Frédérick, 178, 179, 180, 211. - - Lincoln, Abraham, assassination of, 28, 198; 55, 56, 77, 262, - 263. - - Livermore, Mary A., 275-278. - - Locke, David R., 33. - - Longfellow, Alice, 42, 96, 224. - - Longfellow, Charles, 128, 216. - - Longfellow, Edith, 42, 213, 214. - - Longfellow, Mrs. Ernest W., 42. - - Longfellow, Henry W., 13, 19, 33, 34, =35=, 39, 42, 43, =44=, - 45, 46, 47, 48, =60= and _n._, 90, 96, =97=, 98, 99, 109, 115, - 116, =117=, =119=, 123, 124, =125=, =126=, 127, =128=, =129=, - 141, 144, 152, =153=, =159=, =160=, =161=, 172, 205, 206, 207, - =208=, 209, 211, =212= and _n._, =213=, =214=, =215=, 216, - =222=, =223=, 224, =243=, 256, 257, 258, 273. - - Longfellow, Mrs. H. W., 55, 223. - - Longfellow, Samuel, 42, 212 _n._ - - Loring, Charles G., 36 _n._ - - Lowell, Frances (Dunbar), 123, 124. - - Lowell, James Russell, letters of, to =J. T. F.=, 107, 108, - 112, 113, 120, 141 _n._; =5=, 13, =33=, 34, 35, =36= _n._, - =90=, =92=, =93=, =94=, =95=, 104, =105=, =106=, =107= _ff._, - 116, =117=, =123=, =124=, 126, 127, =149=, 159, 163, 164, 166, - 243, 273. - - Lowell, Mabel, 107, 113, 123, 124, 149. - - Lunt, George, 214. - - Luther, Martin, 89. - - Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord, 168, 176, 177. - - - Macready, William, 218. - - Maistre, Joseph de, 221. - - Mars, Anne F. H., 210, 211. - - Mathews, Charles, 207. - - Merivale, Herman, 95. - - Miller, Joaquin, 43, 126. - - Milton, John, 74. - - Mistral, Frédéric, 293-297. - - Mistral, Mme. Frédéric, 295, 296, 297. - - Mitchell, Donald G., 185. - - Mitford, Mary R., 98. - - Montaigne, Michel de, 112, 238, 239. - - Morton, W. T. G., 94 and _n._ - - Motley, J. Lothrop, 37. - - Mott, Lucretia C., 74. - - Murdoch, James E., 217, 218. - - Music Hall, Boston, great organ in, 219, 220, 221. - - - “Nasby, Petroleum V.” _See_ Locke, D. R. - - Nichol, Professor, 90. - - Nilsson, Christine, 214, =224-226=. - - Norton, Caroline (Sheridan), 46. - - Norton, Charles Eliot, 92, 103, 104, 141, 144, 172, 185, 187. - - Norton, Mrs. C. E., 163. - - - O’Brien, Fitz-James, 227-229. - - O’Connell, Daniel, 173, 176, 177. - - Orsay, Count d’, 145. - - Osgood, James R., 116, 136, 151, 153, 161, 162, 165, 166, 167, - 185. - - - Parker, Harvey D., 206. - - Parkman, Francis, 104, 105. - - Parkman, Mrs. Francis, 35. - - Parkman, George, murder of, 153. - - Parsons, Thomas W., 208, 214. - - Parton, James, 110, 111, 232. - - Peabody, Elizabeth, 82, 119. - - Pedro, Dom, Emperor of Brazil, 127, 128. - - Perabo, Ernst, 224. - - Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 275. - - Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard (1868), 36, 37; 92. - - Phillips, Wendell, 89, 114. - - Phipps, Colonel, 188, 189. - - Pickwick, Mr., 111. - - Pierce, Franklin, Hawthorne’s loyalty to, 13, 14, 15; 57, 58, - 67. - - Pierce, Mrs. Franklin, death of, 57, 58. - - Pierce, Henry L., 229, 290. - - Poore, Ben Perle, 266. - - Pratt, Mrs. Ellerton, 288. - - Prescott, Harriet (Mrs. Spofford), 58. - - Putnam, George, 36 _n._, 213. - - Putnam, John P., 221. - - - Quincy, Edmund, 86, 273. - - Quincy, Josiah, 85, 275, 276, 277. - - Quincy, Josiah P., 86, 92, 93. - - Quincy, Mrs. Josiah P., 92. - - Quixote, Don, 110. - - - Radical Club, 114. - - Raymond, John T., 253. - - Read, John M., 31, 32. - - Read, T. Buchanan, 44. - - Reade, Charles, 146. - - Rip Van Winkle, 111. - - Ripley, Miss, 88. - - Ripley, Mrs., 91. - - Ristori, Adelaide, 222. - - Rogers, Samuel, 185. - - Rossetti, Christina, 97. - - Rowse, Samuel W., 152. - - Russell, Thomas, 261. - - - Sanborn, F. B., 68. - - Saturday Club, 104, 105, 116 and _n._ - - Schurz, Carl, 266. - - Scott-Siddons, Mrs., 110. - - Seward, William H., 28, 219, 267. - - Shaw, Lemuel, 232. - - Shaw, Robert G., 14, 24. - - Shelley, Percy B., 16. - - Sherman, William T., 77. - - Shiel, Mr., 173, 176. - - Silsbee, Mrs., 95, 143. - - Smith, Alexander, 17, 19. - - Smith, Samuel F., 47. - - Smith, Sydney, 89, 257. - - Somerset, Duchess of, 46. - - Stanley, Edward G. S. S. (afterward 14th Earl of Derby), 173, - 174, 175. - - Stanton, Edwin M., 267. - - Stephen, Leslie, 95. - - Sterling, John, 75. - - Stone, Lucy, 114. - - Story, William W., 116. - - Stothard, Thomas, 190. - - Stowe, Calvin E., 272. - - Stowe, “Georgie,” 38, 39. - - Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 38, 39, 61, 191 and _n._, 268, 272. - - Sumner, Charles, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 77, 105, 219, =258-267=. - - - Taylor, Bayard, 109, 110, 111, 116, 117, 118, 119, 228, 266. - - Taylor, Mrs. Bayard, 109, 110, 111. - - Tennent, Sir Emerson, 153. - - Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 254, 279. - - Tennyson, Lady, 279. - - Terry, Ellen, 218, 300, 301. - - Thackeray, William M., 32, 33, 111, 154, 266. - - Thaxter, Celia, 98, =129-131=, 152, 154, 288. - - Thompson, Launt, 198. - - Thoreau, Helen, 62, 74. - - Thoreau, Henry D., 14, 62, 68, 74, 89, 90. - - Thoreau, Sophia, 68. - - Thoreau, Mrs. (mother of H. D. T.), 62, 68, 74. - - Ticknor, William D., =63= _ff._ - - Ticknor and Fields, 10. - - Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 17. - - Towne, Alice, 45. - - Towne, Helen, 45. - - Townshend, Chauncey, 169. - - Trimble, Colonel, 273. - - Twain, Mark. _See_ Clemens, Samuel L. - - - Upham, J. Baxter, 221 and _n._ - - - Vaughan, Henry, 74, 81, 95. - - Viardot-Garcia, Michelle F. P., 225. - - Victoria, Queen, 187, 188. - - Vieuxtemps, Henri, 225. - - - Ward, Artemus. _See_ Browne, Charles F. - - Ward, Mary A. (Mrs. Humphry), 288. - - Ward, Samuel, 90. - - Warren, William, 203, 205, 206. - - Washington, George, 259. - - Wasson, David A., 114. - - Waterston, Mrs., 24. - - Watts, Isaac, 101. - - Webster, John W., =153=. - - Whipple, Edwin P., 20. - - White, Andrew D., 92. - - Whitman, Sarah, 288. - - Whitney, Anne, 101, 102, 206. - - Whittier, Elizabeth, 259. - - Whittier, John G., =39=, =40=, 68, 70, 114, =129=, =130=, - =131=, 161, =222=, 244, 288. - - Willard, Eliza J. _See_ Fields, Eliza J. 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