Part 7

_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.

_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.

_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.

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.

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:—