Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend

CHAPTER III

1860-1876

POETRY with Mrs. Moulton was a serious art and an object of earnest pursuit. It was not for mere pastime that she had steeped herself, so to speak, in

for in her poetic work she recorded her deepest convictions and her most intimate perceptions of the facts of life. To her life was love; its essence was made up of the charm of noble and sincere friendships, of happy social intercourse, of sympathetic devotion. To this joy of love and friendship, there was in her mind opposed one sorrow—death, and not all the assurances of faith or philosophy could eliminate this dread, this all-pervading fear, that haunted her thoughts. In some way the sadness of death, as a parting, had been stamped on her impressionable nature, and it inevitably colored her outlook and made itself a controlling factor in her character. It took the form, however, of deepening her tenderness for every human relation and widening her charity for all human imperfection. The vision of

touched her as it did Whittier, with the pity of humanity's common sorrow, and with him she could have said that such vision

Writing in later years of Stephen Phillips she said:

"Is it not, after all, the comprehension of love that above all else makes a poet immortal? Who thinks of Petrarch without remembering Laura, of Dante without the vision of Beatrice?"

"I have said that Phillips is the poet of love and of pity. Many poets have uttered the passionate cries of love; but few, indeed, are those who have seen and expressed the piteous tragedy of life as he has done. He says in 'Marpessa,'

And not only has Phillips grieved, but he has felt the grief of other men—listened to the wild, far wail which, one sometimes feels, must turn the very joy of heaven to sorrow."

These words reveal much of her own nature. One critic said aptly:

"She is penetrated with that terrible consciousness of the futility of the life which ends in the grave—that consciousness of personal transitoriness which has haunted and oppressed so many passionate and despairing hearts. She knows that 'there is no name, with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated, of which the echo is not faint at last.' And against this inevitable doom of humanity she rebels with all the energy of her nature."

In her verse-loving girlhood she had delighted in the facile music and the obvious sentiment of Owen Meredith; his "Aux Italiens," "Madame la Marquise," and "Astarte" had delighted her fancy. As she developed, Browning's "Men and Women" held her captive; and she responded with eagerness to the new melodies of Swinburne. She was indeed wonderfully sensitive to the charm of any master who might arise; yet her own work seemed little influenced by others. She remained always strikingly individual.

In the decades between 1860 and 1880 Boston was singularly rich in rare individualities, and among them Mrs. Moulton easily and naturally made her own place. She found the city not so greatly altered from the Boston of the forties of which Dr. Hale remarked that "the town was so small that practically everybody knew everybody. Lowell could discuss with a partner in a dance the significance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven in comparison with the lessons of the Second or the Seventh, and another partner in the next quadrille would reconcile for him the conflict of freewill and foreknowledge." At this period James Freeman Clarke had founded his Church of the Disciples, of which he remained pastor until 1888; and in 1869 Phillips Brooks became rector of Trinity. Lowell, in these years, was living at Elmwood, and it was in 1869 that he recited at Harvard Commencement his great Commemoration Ode. The prayer on that occasion was made by Mr. Brooks, and of it President Eliot said that "the spontaneous and intimate expression of Brooks' noble spirit convinced all Harvard men that a young prophet had risen up in Israel."

Lydia Maria Child, the intimate friend of Whittier, Sumner, Theodore Parker, and Governor Andrew, was then living, and in her book, "Looking Toward Sunset," quoting a poem of Mrs. Moulton's from some newspaper copy which had omitted the name of the author, Mrs. Child had altered one line better to suit her own cheerful fancy. On Mrs. Moulton's remonstrance Mrs. Child wrote her a characteristically lovely note, but ended by saying: "I hope you will let me keep the sunshine in it; the plates are now stereotyped, and an alteration would be very expensive." Mrs. Moulton cordially assented to the added "sunshine," and an affectionate intercourse continued between them until Mrs. Child's death in 1880.

These years of the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century were the great period of Webster, Choate, Everett, Channing, Sumner, and Winthrop. With the close of the Civil War national issues shaped themselves anew. It was a period of wonderful literary activity. Thomas Starr King, who came to Boston in 1845, was a lecturer as well as a preacher of power and genius. Henry James, the elder, was publishing from time to time his philosophic essays, and to Mrs. Moulton, who was much attracted by his gentle leadings, he gave in generous measure his interest and encouragement. The Atlantic Monthly was founded in 1857 by Phillips and Sampson, the enterprising young publishers who, according to Dr. Hale, inaugurated the publishing business in Boston, and who were the publishers of Mrs. Moulton's first book. With Lowell, the first editor of the Atlantic, Mrs. Moulton came in contact in the easy intimacy of the literary atmosphere. She heard with eager attention the well known lecture of George William Curtis on "Modern Infidelity" in 1860; and in the same year read with enthusiastic appreciation Hawthorne's "Marble Faun," from which she made copious extracts in her note-books with sympathetic comments. The artistic and intellectual life of Boston in those days held much to call out her keenest interest. Mrs. Kemble gave her brilliant Shakespearian readings; Patti, a youthful prima donna, delighted lovers of opera; Charles Eliot Norton invited friends to see his new art treasure, a picture by Rossetti; Agassiz was marking an epoch in scientific progress by his lectures. Interested by Professor Agassiz's efforts to found a museum, Mrs. Moulton wrote for the New York Tribune a special article on the subject; and this was acknowledged by Mrs. Agassiz.

Thanks for the pleasant and appreciative article about the Agassiz Museum in the Tribune. It is a good word spoken in season. It is very charming, and so valuable just now, when the institution is in peril of its life. No doubt it will be of real service in our present difficulties by awakening sympathy and affection in many people. Mr. Agassiz desires his best regards to you.

The intellectual and the social were closely blended in the Boston of the sixties and the seventies, and Mrs. Moulton was in the very midst of the most characteristically Bostonian circles. Her journals record how she went to a "great party" given by Mrs. William Claflin, whose husband was afterward governor; to Cambridge to a function given by the Agassizs; to a reception at Dr. Alger's "to meet Rose Terry," later known as Rose Terry Cooke; to a dinner given in honor of Miss Emily Faithful; to one intellectual gayety after another. She was one of the attractive figures at the delightful Sunday evening reunions given by Mr. and Mrs. Edwin P. Whipple. She notes in the journal that at a brilliant reception given by Mrs. John T. Sargent, so well known as the hostess of the famous Chestnut Street Radical Club, she had "a few golden moments" with Emerson, and a talk with the elder Henry James, with whom she was a favorite.

In 1870 Mrs. Moulton became the Boston literary correspondent of the New York Tribune. This work developed under her care into one of much importance. Boston publishers sent to her all books of especial interest, and her comments upon them were of solid value. She recorded the brilliant meetings of the Chestnut Street Radical Club, and the intellectual news in general. These letters made a distinct success. Extracts from them were copied all over the United States, and they came to be looked upon as a sort of authorized report of what was doing in the intellectual capital of the country. They were given up only when the desire for foreign travel drew Mrs. Moulton so much abroad that she could no longer keep as closely in touch with current events as is necessary for a press correspondent.

The Radical Club at that time was famed throughout the entire country, and it was regarded as the very inner temple wherein the gods forged their thunderbolts. Only those who bore the sacramental sign were supposed to pass its portals. Mrs. Moulton's accounts of these meetings were vivid and significant. As, for instance, the following:

"The brightest sun of the season shone, and the balmiest airs prevailed, on the 21st of December, in honor of the meeting of the Radical Club under the hospitable roof of Mr. and Mrs. John T. Sargent in Chestnut street. Mrs. Howe was the essayist, and there was a brilliant gathering to hear her. David Wasson was there, and John Weiss, and Colonel Higginson, and Alcott, hoary embodiment of cool, clear thought. Mr. Linton, the celebrated engraver, John Dwight of the Musical Journal, Mrs. Severance, the beloved president of the New England Woman's Club, bonny Kate Field of the honest eyes and the piquant pen, Mrs. Cheney, Miss Peabody, and many others, distinguished in letters or art.

"To this goodly company Mrs. Howe read a brilliant essay on the subject of Polarity. She commenced by speaking of polarity as applied to matter, in a manner not too abstruse for the savants who surrounded her, though it was too philosophical and scholarly to receive the injustice of being reported. The progress of polarity she found to give us the division of sex; and Sex was the subject on which she intended to write when she commenced the essay; but she found it, like all fundamental facts in nature, to be an idea with a history. In the pursuit of this history she encountered the master agency of Polarity, and found herself obliged to make that the primary idea, and consider sex as derived from it."

Another letter, describing a meeting a few weeks later, gives a glimpse at some of the women who frequented the club:

"There was Mrs. Severance, reminding one so much of an Indian summer day, so calm and peaceful is the sweet face that looks out at you from its framing of fair waving hair. Not far away was Julia Ward Howe, who some way or other makes you think of the old fairy story of the girl who never opened her mouth but there fell down before her pearls and diamonds. That story isn't a fairy story, not a bit of it. It is real, genuine truth, and Mrs. Howe is the girl grown up, and pearls of poetic fancy and diamonds of sparkling wit are the precious stones which fall from her lips. Lucy Stone was there, an attentive listener, looking the very picture of retiring womanliness in her Quaker-like simplicity of dress, and her pleasant face lighted with interest and animation. Sitting by a table, busy with note-book and pencil, was Miss Peabody, the Secretary of the Club. She has a sparkling, animated face, brimming over with kindness and good-will; she wins one strangely—you can't help being drawn to her. There's a world of fun in the black eyes, and you feel sure she would appreciate the ridiculous sides of living as keenly as any one ever could."

In still another letter are these thumb-nail sketches of persons well-known:

"As we drew near Chestnut street we saw a goodly number of pilgrims.... Nora Perry, with the golden hair, had journeyed up from Providence with a gull's feather in her hat and a glint of mischief in her glance; Celia Thaxter, whom the Atlantic naturally delights to honor, since from Atlantic surges she caught the rhythm of her life, sat intent; Mr. Alcott beamed approval; Professor Goodwin had come from Harvard; David A. Wasson had left his bonded ware-house a prey to smugglers; Rev. Dr. Bartol, who seems always to dwell on the Mount of Vision; and Mr. Sanborn, who had sheathed his glittering lance, sat near; Mrs. Howe, taking a little vacation from her labors for women, listened serenely; Miss Peabody had a good word to say for Aspasia; and Mrs. Cheney quoted Walter Savage Landor's opinion of her."

A racy letter tells of the meeting when the Club discovered Darwin; another deals with the day when Mrs. Howe discoursed of "Moral Trigonometry"; and yet another of an occasion when the Rev. Samuel Longfellow was essayist, and all the pretty women had new bonnets. This allusion reminds one of a bit of witty verse when "Sherwood Bonner" (Mrs. McDowell) served up the Radical Club in a parody of Poe's "Raven," and described Mrs. Moulton as,

The "Twelve Apostles of Heresy," as the transcendental thinkers were irreverently termed by the wits of the press, were about this time contributing to the enlightenment of the public by a series of Sunday afternoon lectures. These lectures were held to represent the most advanced thought of the day, and were delivered by such speakers as the Rev. O.B. Frothingham, Mary Grew (Whittier's friend and a woman of equally cultivated mind and lovely character), the Rev. John Weiss, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, T.W. Higginson, and Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney. In one letter Mrs. Moulton writes thus:

"As the coffin of Mahomet was suspended between heaven and earth, so is Mr. Wasson, who spoke last Sunday at Horticultural Hall, popularly supposed to be suspended between the heaven of Mr. Channing's serene faith and the depths of Mr. Abbot's audacious heresy. But if any one should infer from this statement that Mr. Wasson is a gentle medium, a man without boldness of speculation, or originality of thought, he would find he had never in his life made so signal a mistake. Few men in America think so deeply as David A. Wasson, and fewer still have so many of the materials for thought at their command. He has a presence of power, and is a handsome man, though prematurely gray, with an expansive forehead, where strong thoughts and calm judgment sit enthroned, and with eyes beneath it which see very far indeed. His features are clearly cut, and he looks as if he felt, and felt passionately, every word he utters, as he stands before an audience, his subject well in hand, and with always twice as much to say as his hour will give space for, forced, therefore, against his will, to choose and condense from his thronging thoughts. He spoke, in the Sunday afternoon course, on 'Jesus, Christianity, and Modern Radicalism.'"

John Weiss, the biographer of Theodore Parker, discoursed on one occasion on "The Heaven of Homer," and Mrs. Moulton commented:

"Not the author of 'Gates Ajar,' listening in her pleasant dreams to heavenly pianos, ever drew half so near to the celestial regions, or looked into them with half so disillusionized gaze as the Grecian thought of the time of Homer."

Of Mary Grew Mrs. Moulton gave this pen-picture:

"We saw a woman not young, save with the youth of the immortals; not beautiful, save with the beauty of the spirit; but sweet and gentle, with a placid, earnest face. Her own faith is so assured that she appeals fearlessly to the faith of others; her nature so religious that her religion seems a fact and not a question."

Another Boston institution of which Mrs. Moulton wrote in her Tribune letters was the New England Woman's Club. "Here," she declared, "Mrs. Howe reads essays and poems in advance of their publication; Abby May's wit flashes keen; Mrs. Cheney gives lovely talks on art; and Kate Field, with the voice which is music, reads her first lecture." She records how Emerson sends to the club-tea a poem; how Whittier is sometimes a guest; how Miss Alcott tells an inimitable story; and how on May 23, 1870, was celebrated the birthday of Margaret Fuller, who for a quarter of a century had been beyond the count of space and time. On this occasion the Rev. James Freeman Clarke presided, and among the papers was a poem by Mrs. Howe of which Mrs. Moulton quotes the closing stanza:

It was in connection with a meeting of the Woman's Club that a guest invited from New York wrote for a journal of that city an account of the gathering in which is this description:

"There too was Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, looking for all the world like one of her own stories, tender and yet strong, the child-like curving of the mouth and chin in such contrast with the tender, almost sad eyes and well-developed brow covered with its masses of waving light hair."

Bret Harte, then in the height of his fame, wrote to Mrs. Moulton in regard to her Tribune letters, and told her that "it is woman's privilege to assert her capacity as a critic without sacrificing her charm as a woman." Many of her criticisms were richly worth preservation, did space allow. Of Walt Whitman she said:

"With his theories I do not always agree; they seem to me fitter for a larger, more sincere, less complex time than ours; but there is no sham and no affectation, either in the man or in his verse. I could not tell how strong was the impression of sincerity and large-heartedness which he made on me."

A new volume of poems by Lowell appeared, and in her comment she wrote:

"Wordsworth was notably great in only a few poems, and Coleridge, and Keats, and Shelley come under the same limitations. Mr. Lowell is thus not alone in being at times forsaken by his good genius.... If he does not furnish us with a great amount of poetry of the highest order, it is the simple truth to say that in his best he has no rival, excepting Emerson, among American poets. When he is inspired, the key to nature and to man is in his hand, and he becomes the interpreter of both, commanding the secrets of one as truly as he interprets the interior life of the other."

All this newspaper work did not interfere with the steady production of work less ephemeral. Poems and stories succeeded one another in almost unbroken succession. The fecundity of Mrs. Moulton's mind was by no means the least surprising of the good gifts with which nature had endowed her. In all the leading American magazines her name held a place recognized and familiar. What was apparently her first contribution to the Atlantic Monthly, a poem called "May-Flowers," caught the popular fancy and became a general favorite. The exquisite closing stanza was especially praised by those whose approbation was best worth winning: