Part 4
True, father had never worn that or any other helmet; unless I am much mistaken, neither had Byron. Yet the noble example and stirring verses of the poet had much to do with young Howe’s sailing for Greece, where for seven long years he helped carry out the work which Byron had begun. When, broken in health, he at length left ancient Hellas, she was once more free! Thus the helmet reminded those who knew, not only of the poet’s devotion to the cause for which he died, but also of the work of his admirer and successor, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, the “Chevalier,” as he was called by his intimates.
In the prison of the Kaiser, By the barricades of Seine,[4]
in Greece, and later, in slavery-ridden America, had he striven for human freedom.
The helmet not only reminded of past deeds; it was also an incentive to generous efforts in the present. My father was deeply interested in all attempts to throw off the yoke of kings and welcomed to “Green Peace” political exiles and refugees from many countries.
Wherever rise the peoples, Wherever sinks a throne, The throbbing heart of Freedom finds An answer in his own.[4]
Footnote 4:
From Whittier’s poem, “The Hero,” written about Doctor Howe.
Thus it came about that we, the Howe children, were brought up under the shadow of Byron’s helmet, the helmet of the Philhellene. And now, in this time of the Great War, all America is thrilling to the magic words that we were taught to lisp from the cradle—“the cause of humanity,” “the brotherhood of man!” These phrases that we now hear everywhere seem to me wonderful echoes of that far-away time when Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, was welcomed at “Green Peace,” as Joffre has been welcomed in New York and Boston! Was not I as a child taught the stirring story of William Tell and his resistance to the tyrant Gessler, by one who had himself resisted the tyranny of the Austrian emperor?
The helmet, like some magic helm of romance, was a magnet to which all who came to “Green Peace” were irresistibly drawn. As for the house itself, it had the charm of an old dwelling which has “just naturally grown” to suit the needs of the inmates. The original cottage dated back to pre-Revolutionary days. The old and new parts of the house were connected by a dining-room looking out on a small conservatory. The carpet of the former was from the famous Gobelin looms in France and had belonged to Joseph Bonaparte, ex-King of Spain. It was woven all in one piece, with a medallion in the center showing the profiles of Joseph and his brother, the great Napoleon. There were various delightful figures in the border—butterflies, owls and dolphins. For dancing, that carpet had a special and unique charm.
A third historic object of interest stood in one of the drawing-rooms. This was a large and beautiful carved cabinet which my father had bought in Avignon while on his wedding-tour. It is said to have come from the Pope’s palace there, as well as its mate, which was kept in our rooms at the Institution.
The estate, as an Englishman would call it, was ideally situated on the southern side of a hill which sloped gradually down to the waters of Dorchester Bay. From the windows we saw not only the sea, but, in the distance, beautiful Savin Hill. The Institution for the Blind, where my father’s work lay, was not a quarter of a mile away, yet concealed from our view by a portion of Dorchester Heights.
These were already blasted away, to some extent, a steep cut in the hills separating us from the Institution. Word once came to my father, sitting at the dinner-table of “Green Peace,” that the Institution was on fire. Without a moment’s delay he started for the scene of trouble, scrambling in some extraordinary way down the face of the vertical cliff. The feat was made possible by his early experiences when he had learned to clamber with the Greek soldiers over steep mountains.
To the west of us was another portion of old Dorchester Heights, then crowned with a reservoir and some cannon which were fired on the Fourth of July. Thus “Green Peace” lay snugly sheltered among hills, connected with the outside world only by a short, tree-lined roadway called “Bird’s Lane.” Yet paved streets and the omnibus, though invisible to us, were less than a quarter of a mile away.
“Green Peace” was all a garden, the most delightful in the world. The house stood in the center of an oval lawn dotted with lilac-bushes and pink-and-white hawthorn trees. Near the driveway was the wonderful Chinese junk, or rocking-boat, capable of holding nearly a score of happy children. An arbor-vitæ hedge separated the house and lawns from the main garden, which lay still farther down the hill. Passing under an arch of white lilacs, you descended to this by a flight of wooden steps. Three tiny trim gardens with oval beds and paths all surrounded by borders of box belonged, respectively, to Julia, Henry, and myself. We were supposed to care for them ourselves, but I fear we never did so. We took an honorable pride in our possessions, walked in the paths and admired the flowers—but that was all! Ours was the aristocratic pose of benevolent ownership with only vague responsibilities attached.
Just beyond lay the truly enchanted part of the garden, where a captive princess might have passed her time happily enough. We were accustomed to read in our fairy-stories of the Garden of the Hesperides and other remarkable places where grew apples of pure gold and glittering precious stones in the form of peaches and plums. But what were these cold, stony and thoroughly indigestible objects compared with the warm, glowing, and luscious fruit of “Green Peace”? Moreover, the magic supply of this was inexhaustible. For, after frosts had settled the business of the last grapes on the trellis and the last lingering apples on the trees, the fruit of the garden was by no means exhausted. You had but to peep into the shallow drawers in the pear-room to see supplies of delicious winter pears—Easter Beurré’s and winter Nellis, to say nothing of barrels of glorious golden-russet apples. In the center of the garden was a sort of shrine to Pomona, consisting of a hothouse and bowling-alley, with school-house (later used as a pear-room) adjoining.
There were at least four strawberry-beds filled with different varieties of the fruit, also raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries of many colors, plums, nectarines, peaches, apples, quinces, and, last but not least, pears.
Of the last-named fruit my father was especially fond. He cultivated with the greatest care many varieties of these. In recent years I have learned that the delicious French pears for which the neighborhood of Boston is famous were brought there by the French Huguenots.
Our parents often had bowling parties in our childhood, and it amused us to observe the different ways in which the players handled the balls. Inexperienced persons would choose a small ball and toss it up in the air in a delightfully ridiculous way, instead of rolling it swiftly along the floor of the alley. I seem to remember Mr. Seguin, the famous authority on idiots, thus maneuvering with a small ball. My father had brought him to South Boston to assist in the work of starting the Massachusetts School for Idiots, the first to be established in America.
“The dogs,” as they were called generically, guarded this paradise from urchins over-appreciative of the flavor of the celestial fruit. The backbone of this canine police force was a very large and not thoroughly amiable Newfoundland dog, named Arthur. An enemy dog called Lion lived in Boston, and would occasionally cross the bridge and take a two-mile trot over to “Green Peace” to try conclusions with Arthur. A battle royal would thereupon ensue, the gardener and my father or another employee each holding one of the combatants by the tail and belaboring him until he consented to let go of his enemy. We watched the encounter from a respectful distance.
It has been said that visitors were always interested in Byron’s helmet. They sometimes tried to put it on, but seldom succeeded. The poet, it will be remembered, had a very small though beautiful head. Sister Laura was the only one of the Howe family who could wear it. She and sister Julia were the most poetical of the children. A tintype is still in existence showing the former, at the age of fourteen, crowned with the Byron helmet, her long hair flowing over her shoulders.
The Greek War of Independence (1822–29) was a comparatively recent event in the ’Fifties, and people often spoke of it and of the Philhellenes. My father looked much younger than he really was, and occasionally, when asked about his share in the struggle, he would jestingly say, “Oh, it was my _father_ who fought in Greece.” His children knew something of this early career, but he never told us of his deeds of heroism. That would have seemed too much like boasting for a reserved New-Englander.
If we complained of the food, he would sometimes remind us that we should be grateful for it and tell us of the strange articles which had constituted the diet of his companions and himself.
Roasted wasps did not sound very attractive, even after the removal of the stings. As for sorrel, we used to sample the plants which grew wild—always pitying poor Papa for having been obliged to eat such sour stuff. We could well imagine how tough donkey’s flesh might be, from our encounter with our own José, whose back and sides appeared to be made of iron.
Of the primitive ways and ideas of the Greeks at that time he would occasionally tell us. Great was their astonishment because he could remove one of his teeth and replace it. Wheeled vehicles were unknown, and one constructed by his faithful follower (a man whose life my father had saved) caused much surprise. As for tea, if you invited a Greek to partake of a cup he would reply, “No, thank you, I am not _sick_.”
A great many people of all sorts and kinds came to “Green Peace.” All European travelers of note wished to see Laura Bridgman, the Helen Keller of the nineteenth century, and the man who had brought her into the human fold. While my father did not cross the seas to take part in European revolutions after 1832 until the Cretan uprising of 1867, he was, of course, deeply interested in them and in their promoters. Thus when the Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, came to America to try to enlist the sympathies of our countrymen in his projects, my father saw a great deal of him and helped in his plans as much as possible.
By Kossuth’s desire, the committee in charge appointed my father as the person to whom “he could reveal in confidence so much of his plans and prospects as would show there was reason for hope and for immediate action.” He greatly impressed Doctor Howe who wrote to Charles Sumner, “Surely he is an inspired man.”
I can remember the Hungarian patriot standing with many other men, doubtless his suite, in the hall where hung Byron’s helmet. My childish imagination was much exercised about the Kossuth hat, which I heard talked about. This was of black felt, high and of Alpine shape. I was greatly disappointed because the sober citizens of Boston did not adopt the little black feather as well as the Kossuth hat!
Lowell, Longfellow, Theodore Parker, George Sumner, George S. Hillard, and Miss Catharine Sedgwick were among the guests on this occasion. Laura Bridgman was brought in after dinner. All were so much interested in her, and in the Hungarian patriot’s story of his cause, that teatime presently arrived and my mother entertained them with the remnants of the earlier feast!
Many of the foreigners who came to “Green Peace” were political refugees—Poles, Austrians, Hungarians. There were, of course, many Greeks also. One of my father’s self-imposed duties was finding employment for these people, who naturally were quite helpless in a strange land. Thus many of our early teachers and governesses were foreigners. We grew up in an international atmosphere less common in those early days than now. Professor Fiester, doubtless a very learned Austrian, gave us some rudimentary lessons in Latin and German. He was a very stout, large man, with fair, curly hair and gold spectacles. Some one nicknamed him “the mastodon calf.” He understood perfectly how to amuse children, and made us the most fascinating fly-houses and other paper objects. It is evident that I was a naughty child and quite determined to have my own way. One morning the patience of our gentle master came to an end.
“No, Mees!” he exclaimed. “I haf refused to opey the Emperor of Austria, and do you think I will opey you, you little thing?”
I was about eight years old when I was thus classed with the Hapsburg tyrant of the day!
One of our early teachers, Jules M——, had deserted from the French army. The family of his Greek wife had aided him in some way, and he married her, out of gratitude. Of course they found their way, like other foreigners, to my father’s office in Boston, No. 20 Bromfield Street. As neither of them could speak the other’s language, he interpreted between husband and wife when they got into difficulties. She wore an embroidered cap on the back of her head, with her hair braided outside of it.
M—— was of the blond French type, with a military air. It was his soldierly training, doubtless, which caused him to ring the door-bell in a very decided way, and then, without waiting for the maid to answer it, open the door himself and march straight into the parlor. This gave me an injured feeling, for I was apt to be late, and counted on those few minutes in which he should have waited, to get ready.
He wrote a beautiful copper-plate hand and was a good teacher. With a military desire to see everything in good order, he one day informed me that my stockings needed pulling up. This was more than the dignity of my nine years could brook, and I made no reply. He repeated his observation several times, but in vain! The peer of the Emperor of Austria was not going to yield to a deserter from the French army!
VI
NOTED VISITORS AT “GREEN PEACE”
_Charles Simmer and His Brother George.—Edwin P. Whipple. James T. Fields.—Doctor Kane.—Rev. Thomas Starr King.—Prof. Cornelius C. Felton.—Arthur Hugh Clough.—Frederika Bremer.—Laura Bridgman._
AMONG those who came to “Green Peace” was Charles Sumner, my father’s most intimate friend. The great Massachusetts Senator towered above his fellow-men physically as well as intellectually. He was a man of noble proportions, and his great height and size seemed to correspond with entire fitness to his massive brain and solid mental acquirements. The great dignity of his character and manner made him seem even larger than he really was. I cannot give his exact height, but it was at least six feet two inches. Brother Harry once said to our younger sister:
“There are two kinds of giants, Laura. There are the ogres who eat people up, and there are the harmless giants. Now Mr. Sumner is a harmless giant!”
He was a handsome man, always well dressed and scrupulously exact about his personal appearance. When I first remember him he usually wore drab-cloth gaiters with white-pearl buttons, which gave him a look of immaculate neatness. Yet we know he was not a dandy, because Mr. Longfellow tells us so. A large man—who is necessarily the target for many eyes—should certainly be careful about his appearance. Six feet three with breadth in proportion would make a large area of untidiness sad to contemplate! We children, as I have said, considered him as a good-natured giant, but he was not familiar with little people and their ways. We did not have much intercourse with him, save from an admiring distance. But he well understood that children like presents. He brought two dolls for Julia and Flossy from the anti-slavery fair. I am ashamed to say that, although the younger, I insisted on having the beautiful wax doll dressed in white with “Effie” marked on her handkerchief! Julia received the companion doll, dressed in black as a nun. She did not compare with Effie in beauty.
On a certain evening, as he was going out of the front door of “Green Peace,” I valiantly called out to him, “Good night, Mr. Sumner.” And a great voice answered me out of the darkness, “_Good night, child!_” He was very careful and exact in his use of English, as became a man of scholarly attainments, and did not like to have other people take liberties with our mother-tongue. Thus he rebuked our governess for saying that the clock was out of kilter. There was no such word as _kilter_, he averred, in the English language. Miss Seegar was rather indignant at being forbidden the use of this quaint Yankee expression; after Mr. Sumner had gone she took down the dictionary and found that _kilter_ was duly recorded there!
It is evidently one of the many so-called Americanisms which are, in reality, words formerly used in England.
He once went away from a party at our house without taking leave of any one. My mother was rather troubled at this, and my father, who had known Mr. Sumner long and intimately, said, “Why, that is Sumner’s idea of taking French leave.” Whereupon sister Julia observed, “I should as soon think of an elephant walking incognito down Broadway as of Mr. Sumner’s taking French leave without being observed.”
Of the attack upon him in the Senate I shall speak later. Suffice it to say here that the intense and prolonged physical suffering caused by this murderous assault was not the only form of political martyrdom which he was destined to endure.
The aristocratic element of Boston was, in ante-bellum days, strongly opposed to anti-slavery doctrines and those who held them. Charles Sumner’s heroic defense of the principles of liberty gained for him social ostracism in his native city. This never fell upon my father, whose work for the public schools, for the blind, the idiots, the insane, and other unfortunates, insured him the cordial good-will of the community, in spite of his anti-slavery activities. It should also be remembered that he did not, like his friend, hold political office. It is sad to recall the unkind treatment of Sumner; it is pleasanter to remember that in his later years the great Senator was fully appreciated and honored in the city of his birth.
Charles Sumner had not what is called social talent, and I do not think that he cared much for society. His busy life of constant political activity did not leave him much leisure, and his tastes were those of a scholar and lover of books.
As he grew older and busier he had less time to devote to social functions. But he would show his interest and sympathy on all great festive occasions in the families of his intimate friends by making his appearance among the guests, even though he seldom stayed long.
The gods were ever wont, however, to make brief visits among the children of men—and if Charles Sumner stayed only fifteen minutes and said only a dozen words, at a wedding or a class-day, we rejoiced that he had been there, and his smile brightened the feast as much as the sun. His smile was one of rare sweetness and beauty; beneath the reserved exterior which distinguished him there beat a warm and true heart. He had, be it said, beautiful white teeth, and my mother remembered with amusement a certain dinner in his younger days when he resolutely refused, for obvious reasons, to eat huckleberry pie.
The reserve and apparent coldness which we New Englanders have inherited from our English forefathers—and, owing to the severity of the climate, have been unable to modify—are often a misfortune to their possessor and cause him to be considered as unsympathetic, when he is not so in reality. The great Massachusetts Senator was a man without guile and of an almost childlike simplicity of nature. His pocket was constantly picked, literally as well as figuratively. He would go to the station to start for Washington, and, presto! his pocketbook would be gone. At fairs, he was an easy victim—and at the great fair held in Boston, for the benefit of the sailors of the navy, I should be afraid to say in how many raffles he was induced to invest. My contemporaries will remember that we had not then discovered the wickedness of raffles. To have them prohibited by law is a great protection to the modern purse.
While no one could attack a political enemy with greater vigor than Charles Sumner, he seldom bore personal malice or ill-will. He met in the street, one day, a gentleman, Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, whose political opinions he had, in the discharge of his public duty, vigorously denounced. He held out his hand, and was surprised and pained to have it refused. It may be said in Mr. Winthrop’s excuse that Mr. Sumner’s action contributed to his being politely shelved!
Charles Sumner’s conversation was very interesting and instructive, and he would sometimes pour out very freely the treasures of his well-stored mind. But while one felt that he was a man of learning, he was almost wholly destitute of the sense of humor. This is very evident in the correspondence of the “Five of Clubs,” the other members occasionally making merry at his expense. Who can blame them when dear Mr. Sumner, in the innocence of his heart, advised his office-boy, a young fellow from the country, to visit Mount Auburn, Boston’s principal cemetery, on the Fourth of July?
I had the pleasure of hearing him speak in public, two hours at a time, after the political fashion of that day. That as a young girl I was able to listen so long proves that the speech must have been interesting. The following sketch of him as a public speaker was given me by my mother:
“Mr. Sumner was a forcible speaker. His custom was to recapitulate the chief points of his discourse, with ever-increasing amplification and emphasis. In this way he established his points in the minds of his hearers, whom he led step by step to his own conclusions. He was majestic in person, habitually reserved and rather distant in manner, but sometimes unbent to a smile in which the real geniality of his soul seemed to shed itself abroad. His voice was ringing and melodious, his gestures somewhat constrained, his whole manner, like his matter, weighty and full of dignity.”
Among the many interesting men and women who were guests in the household of my father and mother, none was more amusing than Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, author of _Character and Characteristic Men_ and well known as a lecturer and essayist. He was a homely man, but his homeliness was of an agreeable character. He had large and prominent blue eyes, which gave him somewhat the appearance of a good-natured frog. These eyes seemed to be dancing with fun behind his spectacles. As he was also pitted with smallpox, he could not be called handsome. Nevertheless, Mr. Whipple’s face was an attractive one, and he had an absurd manner of saying funny things which made them doubly amusing.
I remember a picnic at the “Glen,” near Newport, where he kept us all laughing by his sallies of wit. If any one else said anything funny on this occasion, Mr. Whipple would gravely feel in his waistcoat pocket and, drawing thence a dime, would offer it to the perpetrator of the joke, saying, “If you’ll let me have that joke I’ll give you ten cents for it.” His connection with the press gave a realistic flavor to this performance.
On a certain rainy evening, when he and his wife were attending one of my mother’s parties, Mrs. Whipple lingered after the announcement of her carriage. Mr. Whipple came up to her and said, with a low bow and in a tone of mock gravity: