Part 2

_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.

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

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.

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!”

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._

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.