Part 1

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THE ELEVENTH HOUR

JULIA WARD HOWE

From a Drawing by John Elliott

The Eleventh Hour

in the Life of

Julia Ward Howe

BY

MAUD HOWE

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1911

Copyright, 1911,

BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.

All rights reserved

Published, October, 1911

Printers

S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U. S.

AD MATREM

The acorns are again ripe on your oaks, the leaves of your nut tree begin to turn gold, the fruit trees you planted a lustre since, droop with their weight of crimson fruit, the little grey squirrels leap nimbly from bough to bough busily preparing for winter’s siege. The air is fragrant with the perfume of wild grape, joyous with the voices of children passing to the white school house on the hill. The earth laughs with the joy of the harvest. What thank offering can I bring for this year that has not yet taught me how to live without you? Only this sheaf of gleanings from your fields!

OAK GLEN, September, 1911.

FOREWORD

This slight and hasty account of some of my mother’s later activities was written to read to a small group of friends with whom I wished to share the lesson of the Eleventh Hour of a life filled to the end with the joy of toil. More than one of my hearers asked me to print what I had read them, in the belief that it would be of value to that larger circle of her friends, the public. Such a request could not be refused.

THE ELEVENTH HOUR

IN THE LIFE OF

JULIA WARD HOWE

My mother’s diary for 1906, her eighty-seventh year, opens with this entry:

“I pray for many things this year. For myself, I ask continued health of mind and body, work, useful, honorable and as remunerative as it shall please God to send. For my dear family, work of the same description with comfortable wages, faith in God, and love to each other. For my country, that she may keep her high promise to mankind, for Christendom, that it may become more Christlike, for the struggling nationalities, that they may attain to justice and peace.”

Not vain the prayer! Health of mind and body was granted, work, useful, honorable, if not very remunerative, was hers that year and nearly five years more, for she lived to be ninety-one and a half years old. When Death came and took her, he found her still at work. Hers the fate of the happy warrior who falls in thick of battle, his harness on his back.

How did she do it?

Hardly a day passes that I am not asked the question!

Shortly before her death, she spoke of the time when she would no longer be with us--an almost unheard-of thing for her to do. We turned the subject, begged her not to dwell on it.

“Yes!” she laughed with the old flash that has kindled a thousand audiences, “it’s not my business to think about dying, it’s my business to think about living!”

This thinking about living, this tremendous vitality had much to do with her long service, for the important thing of course was not that she lived ninety-one years, but that she worked for more than ninety-one years, never became a cumberer of the earth, paid her scot till the last. She never knew the pathos of doing old-age work, such as is provided in every class for those inveterate workers to whom labor is as necessary as bread or breath. The old ploughman sits by the wayside breaking stones to mend the road others shall travel over; the old prima donna listens to her pupils’ triumphs; the old statesman gives after-dinner speeches, or makes himself a nuisance by speaking or writing, _ex cathedra_, on any question that needs airing, whether it is his subject or not; she did good, vigorous work till the end, in her own chosen callings of poet and orator. What she produced in her last year was as good in quality as any other year’s output. The artist in her never stopped growing; indeed, her latest work has a lucidity, a robust simplicity, that some of the earlier writings lack.

In the summer of 1909 she was asked to write a poem on Fulton for the Fulton-Hudson celebration. Ever better than her word, she not only wrote the poem, but recited it in the New York Metropolitan Opera House on the evening of September 9th. Those who saw her, the only woman amid that great gathering of representative men from all over the world, will not forget the breathless silence of that vast audience as she came forward, leaning on her son’s arm, and read the opening lines:

A river flashing like a gem, Crowned with a mountain diadem,--

or the thunders of applause that followed the last lines:

While pledge of Love’s assured control, The Flag of Freedom crowns the pole.

The poem had given her a good deal of trouble, the last couplet in especial. The morning of the celebration, when I went into Mrs. Seth Low’s spare bedroom to wake her, she cried out:

“I have got my last verse!”

She was much distressed that the poem appeared in Collier’s without the amended closing lines. The fault was mine; I had arranged with the editor Mr. Hapgood for its publication. She had done so much “free gratis” work all her life that it seemed fitting this poem should at least earn her, her travelling expenses.

“Let this be a lesson,” she said, “never print a poem or a speech till it has been delivered; always give the eleventh hour its chance!”

It may be interesting here to recall that the Atlantic Monthly paid her five dollars for the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the only money she ever received for it.

Her power of keeping abreast of the times is felt in the Fulton poem, where she rounds out her eulogy of Fulton’s invention of the steamboat with a tribute to Peary. Only a few days before the news of our latest arctic triumph had flashed round the world, her world, whose business was her business as long as she lived in it; so into the fabric of the poem in honor of Fulton, she weaves an allusion to this new victory.

On her ninety-first birthday a reporter from a Boston paper asked her for a motto for the women of America. She was sitting on the little balcony outside her town house, reading her Greek Testament, when the young man was announced. She closed her book, thought for a moment, then gave the motto that so well expressed herself:

“Up to date!”

Was there ever anything more characteristic?

In December, 1909, the last December she was to see, she wrote a poem called “The Capitol,” for the first meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Letters at Washington. The poem, published in the Century Magazine for March, 1910, is as good as any she ever wrote, with one exception--the Battle Hymn; and that, as she has told us, “wrote itself.” She had arranged to go to Washington to read her poem before the Association. Though we feared the winter journey for her, she was so bent on going that I very reluctantly agreed to accompany her. A telegram, signed by William Dean Howells, Robert Underwood Johnson, and Thomas Nelson Page, all officers of the Association, urging her not to take the risk of so long a journey in winter, induced her to give up the trip. She was rather nettled by the kindly hint and flashed out:

“Hah! they think that I am too old, but there’s a little ginger left in the old blue jar!”

She never thought of herself as old, therefore she never was really old in the essentials. Her iron will, her indomitable spirit, held her frail body to its duty till the very end.

“Life is like a cup of tea, the sugar is all at the bottom!” she cried one day. This was the very truth; she knew no “winter of discontent.” Her autumn was all Indian summer, glorious with crimson leaves, purple and gold sunsets.

In April, 1910, she wrote the third and last of her poems to her beloved friend and “Minister” James Freeman Clarke. She read this poem twice, at the centenary celebration of Mr. Clarke’s birth held at the Church of the Disciples, April 3rd, and the day after at the Arlington St. Church. Compared with the verses written for Mr. Clarke’s fiftieth birthday and with those celebrating his seventieth birthday, this latest poem is to me the best. The opening lines bite right into the heart of the matter; as she read them standing in the pulpit a thrill passed through the congregation of her fellow disciples gathered together in memory of their founder.

Richer gift can no man give Than he doth from God receive. We in greatness would have pleasure, But we must accept our measure. Let us question, then, the grave, Querying what the Master gave, Whom, in his immortal state, Grateful love would celebrate.

Only human life was his, With its thin-worn mysteries.

* * * * *

Lifting from the Past its veil, What of his does now avail? Just a mirror in his breast That revealed a heavenly guest, And the love that made us free Of the same high company.

The poem on Abraham Lincoln written for the Lincoln Centenary and read by her at the meeting in Symphony Hall, Boston, February 12th, 1909, is perhaps the best of the innumerable memorial poems she composed. As one by one the centenaries of this and that member of the band of great men and women who made our country illustrious in the 19th Century were celebrated, it came to be considered as a matter of course that she, almost the last survivor of that noble company, should write a poem for the occasion. So difficult a critic as Professor Barrett Wendell said to me that he considered some of the stanzas of the Lincoln poem as good as the Battle Hymn. I remember he particularly liked the last two verses,

A treacherous shot, a sob of rest, A martyr’s palm upon his breast, A welcome from the glorious seat Where blameless souls of heroes meet; And, thrilling through unmeasured days, A song of gratitude and praise; A cry that all the earth shall heed, To God, who gave him for our need.

During her last summer she was in correspondence with her friend Mr. Garrison about the publication of a volume that should gather up into one sheaf these scattered occasional poems. She had this much on her mind and made every endeavor to collect the poems together: some of them had never been printed, and of others she possessed no copy. She stopped in Boston on her way to Smith College in the last days of last September, and spent an afternoon in her Beacon St. house looking for some of those lost poems. Her wish was fulfilled, and the posthumous volume, to which we gave the title “At Sunset,” lies beside me. Look down the page of contents and note how various are the names that figure in the list of personal poems, and what a wide range of character they show; beginning with Lincoln, Doctor Holmes, Washington Allston, Robert E. Lee, Whittier, Lucy Stone, Phillips Brooks, Robert Browning, Archbishop Williams, and ending with Michael Anagnos--this is a wide swath to cut, wide as her own sympathy.

One poem of hers that has soothed many a wounded heart should be better known than I believe it to be. Though it has no dedication, it might well be dedicated to the men and women who have tried, and who to the world seem to have tried in vain.

ENDEAVOR

“What hast thou for thy scattered seed, O Sower of the plain? Where are the many gathered sheaves Thy hope should bring again?” “The only record of my work Lies in the buried grain.”

“0 Conqueror of a thousand fields! In dinted armor dight, What growths of purple amaranth Shall crown thy brow of might?” “Only the blossom of my life Flung widely in the fight.”

“What is the harvest of thy saints, O God! who dost abide? Where grow the garlands of thy chiefs In blood and sorrow dyed? What have thy servants for their pains?” “This only,--to have tried.”

On the 26th of July, 1908, she wrote: “The thought came to me that if God only looked upon me, I should become radiant like a star.” This thought is embodied in the following quatrain.

Wouldst thou on me but turn thy wondrous sight, My breast would be so flooded by thy light, The light whose language is immortal song, That I to all the ages should belong.

Two lines of hers have always seemed to me to express above all others her life’s philosophy:

In the house of labor best Can I build the house of rest!

Of all her labors, heavy and varied as those of Hercules, her poetry was what she loved best. But she lived in an age when there are few who can take their spiritual meat in verse. The age of steel is an age of prose, and so she labored in season and out to give her message in prose as well as in poetry, with the spoken word as well as the written. She was the most willing of troubadours; she hastened gladly wherever she was called, whether it was to some stately banquet of the muses like the Bryant Centenary, or to a humble company of illiterate negroes, in the poor little chapel at Santo Domingo, where she preached all one season. Whether some rich and powerful association like the Woman’s Club at Chicago summoned her or some modest group of working women on Cape Cod, she was always ready. She asked no fee, but accepted what was given her. She spoke and wrote oftenest for love, and next often for an honorarium of five dollars. The first need of her being was to give. So much had been given to her that she was forever trying to pay the debt by giving of her store to others. I find in her own handwriting the best expression of this need of giving, that was perhaps the prime necessity of her life.

“I, for one, feel that my indebtedness grows with my years. And it occurred to me the other day that when I should depart from this earthly scene, “God’s poor Debtor” might be the fittest inscription for my gravestone, if I should have one. So much have I received from the great Giver, so little have I been able to return.”

One day a rash scatter-brained fellow who was always getting himself and others into hot water asked her this question:

“Is it not always our duty to sacrifice ourselves for others?”

She knew very well that he was contemplating a perfectly reckless step and was trying to hoodwink her--and himself--into thinking the action noble, because it would be so disadvantageous to himself. The boy I fear forgot her answer; here it is for you to remember and lay to heart.

“We must always remember that we come into the world alone, that we go out of the world alone, that there is nothing to us but ourselves.”

Certain things, she held, we must sacrifice, selfish personal ends, comfort, pleasure, ease, but if we are to fight the good fight we must not make the fancied sacrifice of letting our arms rust while we lay them down to fight another’s battle--nine times out of ten an easier thing to do than to fight our own. She had met with so much opposition all her life through serving the unpopular causes of Abolition, Woman’s Suffrage, Religious Freedom, she had fought so grimly for what, when she entered the ranks, always seemed a Forlorn Hope, that she knew the real joy lies in the battle, not in the victory.

Her last public appearance in Boston was at a hearing in the State House, where she came to plead for the cause of pure milk. This was on the 23rd of May, 1910, four days before her ninety-first birthday. There had been a great deal about the Pure Milk Crusade in the newspapers, the Boston Journal had made a special question of it and one of the reporters had already interviewed her on the subject. The Chairman of the Massachusetts Milk Consumer’s Association had asked her to give her name as honorary president of the league. This she was glad to do, but this was not enough, she wanted to do more. I was called up once or twice on the ’phone and asked if I thought Mrs. Howe was able to speak before the legislative committee at one of the hearings. I thought that with the birthday festivities so near and the fatigue of moving down to Newport before her, this would be a little too much, and consequently “begged off.” In these days there was a meeting in Cambridge in memory of Margaret Fuller. She was invited to be present, and was determined to go.

“They have not asked me to speak,” she said more than once.

“Of course they will ask you when they see you,” I assured her.

“I have my poem on Margaret written for her Centenary,” she said.

“Take it with you,” I advised. “Of course you will be asked to say something, and then you will have your poem in your pocket and be all prepared.”

I was unable to go with her to the meeting, a young lady who came to read aloud to her going in my place. They came back late in the afternoon; the meeting had been long and I saw immediately that she was very tired. The cause of this soon appeared.

“They did not ask me to speak,” she said, “and I was the only person present who had known Margaret and remembered her.”

I was deeply troubled about this. I saw that she had been hurt, and I knew that if I had gone to the meeting I could have managed to let it be known that she had brought her poem to read. For a very little time she was a good deal depressed by the incident--felt she was out of the race, no longer entered on the card for the running.

Very soon after this they telephoned me that there would be another hearing on the milk question at half past ten, and that it would probably go on all the morning. She had been very bright when she came down to breakfast and made a capital meal. When I went into her room, I found her at her desk all ready for the day’s campaign, though I knew that the Margaret Fuller incident still rankled.

“There’s to be a hearing at the State House on the milk question; they want you dreadfully to speak.”

She was all alert and full of interest in a moment.

“What do you say, shall we go?”

“Give me half an hour!”

I left her for that half hour. When I returned she had sketched out her speech and dressed herself in her best flowered silk cloak and her new lilac satin and lace hood--a birthday gift from a poor seamstress. We drove to the State House together, and after some difficulty in finding the right lift finally reached the room where the hearing was going on. She had made these notes for her speech, but had not brought them with her; we found them afterward in her desk.

“It seems to me that the theme of this hearing is one which should commend itself to all good citizens. I think that even our patient American public is tired of the delay, for although we are in many ways a happy people, I do think that our public is a long suffering one. I should think that we might hope for a speedy settlement. For we are not discussing points of taste and pleasure, but matters of life and death. There are various parties concerned in the desired settlement, but to my mind the party most nearly concerned is the infant who comes into this world relying upon a promise which we are bound to fulfil, the promise that he shall at least enjoy the conditions of life. I learn from men of science that no possible substitute exists for good milk in the rearing of infants. How can we then delay the action which shall secure it?”

She listened to the long speeches with interest, little realizing that this was to be her last public appearance in Boston. When the time came for her to speak, it was noticed that while all the others took the oath upon the Bible to speak the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the ceremony was omitted with her. As her name was called she rose and stepped forward leaning on my arm.

“You may remain seated, Mrs. Howe,” said the Chairman.

“I prefer to stand,” was the answer. So, standing in the place where, year after year, she had stood to ask for the full rights of citizenship, for the right to vote, she made her last thrilling appeal for justice. Her keen wit, her power of hitting the nail on the head, were never used to better purpose. The hearing had been long and tedious. There had been many speeches, the farmers who produce the milk, the dealers who sell it, worthy citizens who were trying to improve the quality of the milk supply, experts whose testimony showed the far from ideal conditions under which the milk of the great city is brought to its consumers. Everything had been proper, commonplace, prosaic, deadly dull. Her speech was short and to the point, giving in a few words the whole crux of the matter. Her presence, the presence of the old Sybil, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother was extraordinarily romantic, it lifted the whole occasion out of the realm of the commonplace into that of the poetic. Her speech followed in substance the notes she had prepared, but it was enhanced with touches of eloquence such as this:

“We have heard a great deal about the farmers’ and the dealers’ side of this case. We want the matter settled on the ground of justice and mercy; it ought not to take long to settle what is just to all parties: justice to all! Let us stand on that. There is one deeply interested party however, of whom we have heard nothing. He cannot speak for himself, I am here to speak for him, the infant!”

The impression made was overwhelming. This ancient Norn, grave and beautiful as the elder Fate, claiming Justice for the infant in the cradle! The effect upon the audience was electrical. The roughest “hayseed” in the chamber “sat up;” the meanest dealer was moved, the sleepiest legislator awoke. The silence in that place of creaking chairs, and coughing citizens, was amazing. All listened as to a prophetess as, step by step, she unfolded the case of the infant as against farmer and dealer. When Mr. Arthur Dehon Hill, the Counsel for the Association, led her from the room he said:

“Mrs. Howe, you have scored our first point.”

The friend, who had called in her help, was one of the strongest “Anti-Suffragists.” This was a very characteristic happening. Whenever any great question of public interest, not connected with Woman Suffrage, came up, the “antis” were continually coming to ask her help. If the cause was a good one she always gave it. She was no respecter of persons; the cause was the thing. Over and over again she was appealed to by those who were moving heaven and earth to oppose her in Suffrage, to help some of their lesser ends. She was always ready; always hitched her rope to their mired wagon and helped pull with a will. Her wagon was hitched to a star, the force celestial in her tow rope was at the service of all who asked for it in a good cause.

A few days after the State-house hearing, she fell in her own room and broke a rib. She recovered from the effects of this and in the last days of June moved down to her place at Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where she passed nearly four happy months with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren about her. Three weeks before her death she wrote to the Reverend Ada Bowles:

“I have it in mind to write some open letters about Religion and to publish them in the Woman’s Journal.”

She was at work upon the first of these, a definition of true Religion, when the end came. Her last Tuesday on earth, she presided at the Papeterie, a social club of Newport ladies, in whose meetings she delighted. She was in splendid vein; that gay company of clever women gathered around her as pretty butterflies hover about a queen rose, still fascinated, still entranced by this belle of ninety years. She wore over her pretty white dress the hood she had received from Brown University, the year before, when she was given the degree of Doctor of Literature. She was as usual the central figure at the meeting, and gave the Club a vivid account of her visit to Smith College, whither she had gone the week before to receive another degree. The next morning she worked at her “Definition of True Religion;” five days later, the summons came. Leaving the task unfinished, as she would have said, “the iron to cool upon the anvil,” she passed on to the larger task that now absorbs her ardent spirit.