Julia Ward Howe - Richards Laura E. (бесплатная регистрация книга TXT) 📗

"May 25. [Boston.] Went in the afternoon to Unitarian meeting at Tremont Temple. S. A. Eliot made me come up on the platform. He asked if I would give a word of benediction. I did so, thanking God earnestly in my heart for granting me this sweet office, which seemed to lift my soul above much which has disturbed it of late. Why is He so good to me? Surely not to destroy me at last."

"June 3.... Before church had a thought of some sweet spirit asking to go to hell to preach to the people there. Thought that if he truly fulfilled his office, he would not leave even that forlorn pastorate...."

"June 10.... Could not find the key to my money bag, which distressed me much. Promised St. Anthony of Padua that if he would help me, I would take pains to find out who he was. Found the key immediately...."

"June 18.... The little lump in my right breast hurts me a little to-day. Have written Wesselhoeft about it. 4.50 P.M. He has seen it and says that it is probably cancerous; forbids me to think of an operation; thinks he can stop it with medicine. When he told me that it was in all probability a cancer, I felt at first much unsettled in mind. I feared that the thought of it would occupy my mind and injure my health by inducing sleeplessness and nervous excitement. Indeed, I had some sad and rather vacant hours, but dinner and Julia's[131] company put my dark thought to flight and I lay down to sleep as tranquilly as usual."

[Whatever this trouble was, it evidently brought much suffering, but finally disappeared. We learn of it for the first time in this record; she never spoke of it to any of her family.]

"Oak Glen. June 21. Here I am seated once more at my old table, beginning another villeggiatura, which may easily be my last. Have read a little Greek and a long article in the 'New World.' I pray the dear Heavenly Father to help me pass a profitable season here, improving it as if it were my last, whether it turns out to be so or not."

[She was not in her usual spirits this summer. She felt the heat and the burden of years. The Journal is mostly in a minor key.]

"July 16. Took up a poem at which I have been working for some days, on the victims in Pekin; a strange theme, but one on which I feel I have a word to say. Wrote it all over...."

"July 19. Was much worn out with the heat. In afternoon my head gave out and would not serve me for anything but to sit still and observe the flight of birds and the freaks of yellow butterflies...."

"July 26. Have prayed to-day that I may not find life dull. This prolongation of my days on earth is so precious that I ought not to cease for one moment to thank God for it. I enjoy my reading as much as ever, but I do feel very much the narrowing of my personal relations by death. How rich was I in sisters, brothers, elders! It seems to me now as if I had not at all appreciated these treasures of affection...."

"July 31. Have writ notes of condolence to Mrs. Barthold Schlesinger and to M. E. Powel. I remember the coming of Mrs. Powel's family to Newport sixty-five years ago. The elders used to entertain in the simple ways of those days, and my brother Henry and I used to sing one duet from the 'Matrimonio Segreto,' at some of their evening parties. In the afternoon came the ladies of the Papeterie; had our tea in the green parlor, which was pretty and pleasant...."

To Laura

Oak Glen, August 3, 1900.

... I grieve for the death of King Umberto, as any one must who has followed the fortunes of Italy and knows the indebtedness of the country to the House of Savoy. Thus, the horror of this anarchy, thriving among Italians in our own country. I am so thankful that the better class among them have come out so strongly against it! I was present when King Umberto took the oaths of office, after the death of his father. He was a faithful man, not quite up to the times, perhaps, but his reign was beset with problems and difficulties. I am sure that the Queen greatly respected and honored him, although I believe that she was first betrothed to his brother Amadeo, whom, it is said, she loved. Alas, for the tyranny of dynastic necessity. Their only child was very delicate, and has no child, or had not, when I was in Rome. As to the Chinese horror, it is unspeakably dreadful. Even if the ministers are safe, hundreds of foreigners and thousands of native Christians have been cruelly massacred. I cannot help hoping that punishment will be swift and severe....

A letter from H. M. H. yesterday, in great spirits. At a great public dinner recently, the president of the association cried: "Honneur a Howe!"

Affect.,

Mother.

"August 17.... In the evening I was seized with an attack of verse and at bedtime wrote a rough draft of a Te Deum for the rescue of the ministers in Pekin."

"August 20.... Got my poem smooth at some expense of force, perhaps. I like the poem. I think that it has been given me."

This Te Deum was printed in the "Christian Herald" in September, 1900.

"Sunday, September 2.... I had, before service began, a clear thought that self is death, and deliverance from its narrow limitations the truest emancipation. In my heart I gave thanks to God for all measure in which I have attained, or tried to attain, this liberation. It seems to me that the one moment of this which we could perfectly attain, would be an immortal joy."

A week later, she went to New York to attend a reception given to the Medal of Honor Legion at Brooklyn Academy. She writes:—

"Last evening's occasion was to me eminently worth the trouble I had taken in coming on. To meet these veterans, face to face, and to receive their hearty greeting, was a precious boon vouchsafed to me so late in life. Their reception to me was cordial in the extreme. The audience and chorus gave me the Chautauqua salute, and as I left the platform, the girl chorus sang the last verse of my 'Hymn' over again, in a subdued tone, as if for me alone. The point which I made, and wished to make, was that, 'our flag should only go forth on errands of justice, mercy, etc., and that once sent forth, it should not be recalled until the work whereunto it had been pledged was accomplished.' This with a view to Pekin...."

"September 13.... The Galveston horror[132] was much in my mind yesterday. I could not help asking why the dear Lord allowed such dreadful loss of life...."

"October 25. My last writing at this time in this dear place. The season, a very busy one, has also been a very blessed one. I cannot be thankful enough for so much calm delight—my children and grandchildren, my books and my work, although this last has caused me many anxieties. I cannot but feel as old John Forbes did when he left Naushon for the last time and went about in his blindness, touching his writing materials, etc., and saying to himself, 'Never again, perhaps.' If it should turn out so in my case, God's will be done. He knows best when we should depart and how long we should stay...."

"On the way home and afterwards, these lines of an old hymn ran in my mind:—

'Fear not, I am with thee, oh, be not afraid.

I, I am thy God, and will still give thee aid.'

This comforted me much in the forlorn exchange of my lovely surroundings at Oak Glen for the imprisonment of a town house."

"November 4. 241 Beacon Street. The dear minister preached on 'All Saints and All Souls,' the double festival of last week. At Communion he said: 'Dear Sister Howe, remember that if you are moved to speak, you have freedom to do so.' I had not thought of speaking, but presently rose and spoke of the two consecrated days. I said: 'As I entered this church to-day, I thought of a beautiful cathedral in which one after another the saints whom I have known and loved, appeared on either side; first, the saints of my own happy childhood, then the excellent people whom I have known all my life long. The picture of one of them hangs on these walls.[133] His memory is fresh in all our hearts. Surely it is a divine glory which we have seen in the faces of these friends, and they seem to lead us up to that dearest and divinest one, whom we call Master'; and so on. I record this to preserve this vision of the cathedral of heart saints...."