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

"Our Papeterie has had pleasant meetings.... I am full of hope for the winter. Have had a long season of fresh air, delightful and very invigorating.... Utinam! Gott in Himmel sei Dank!"

"November 28. Boston. Have been much troubled of late by uncertainties about life beyond the present. Quite suddenly, very recently, it occurred to me to consider that Christ understood that spiritual life would not end with death, and that His expressed certainty as to the future life was founded upon His discernment of spiritual things. So, in so far as I am a Christian, I must believe in the immortality of the soul, as our Master surely did. I cannot understand why I have not thought of that before. I think now that I shall nevermore lose sight of it.... Had a very fine call from Mr. Locke, author of the 'Beloved Vagabond,' a book which I have enjoyed."

"December 5.... I learned to-day that my dear friend of many years [the Reverend Mary H. Graves] passed away last night very peacefully.... This is a heart sorrow for me. She has been a most faithful, affectionate and helpful friend. I scarcely know whether any one, outside of my family, would have pained me more by their departure...."

This was indeed a loss. "Saint Mouse," as we called her, was a familiar friend of the household: a little gray figure, with the face of a plain angel. For many years she had been the only person who was allowed to touch our mother's papers. She often came for a day or two and straightened out the tangle. She was the only approach to a secretary ever tolerated.

We used to grieve because our mother had no first-rate "Crutch"; it seemed a waste of power. Now, we see that it was partly the instinct of self-preservation,—keeping the "doing" muscles tense and strong, because action was vital and necessary to her—partly the still deeper instinct of giving her self, body and mind. She seldom failed in any important thing she undertook; the "chores" of life she often left for others to attend to or neglect.

The Christmas services, the Christmas oratorio, brought her the usual serene joy and comfort. She insists that Handel wrote parts of the "Messiah" in heaven itself. "Where else could he have got 'Comfort ye,' 'Thy rebuke,' 'Thou shalt break them,' and much besides?"

Late in December, 1908, came the horror of the Sicilian earthquake. She felt at first that it was impossible to reconcile omnipotence and perfect benevolence with this catastrophe.

"We must hold judgment in suspense and say, 'We don't and we can't understand.'"

She had several tasks on hand this winter, among them a poem for the Centenary of Lincoln's birth. On February 7 she writes:—

"After a time of despair about the poem for the Lincoln Centenary some lines came to me in the early morning. I arose, wrapped myself warmly, and wrote what I could, making quite a beginning."

She finished the poem next day, and on the 12th she went "with three handsome grandchildren" to deliver it at Symphony Hall before the Grand Army of the Republic and their friends.

"The police had to make an entrance for us. I was presently conducted to my seat on the platform. The hall was crammed to its utmost capacity. I had felt doubts of the power of my voice to reach so large a company, but strength seemed to be given to me at once, and I believe that I was heard very well. T. W. H. [Colonel Higginson] came to me soon after my reading and said, 'You have been a good girl and behaved yourself well.'"

The next task was an essay on "Immortality," which cost her much labor and anxious thought.

"March 3.... Got at last some solid ground for my screed on 'Immortality.' Our experience of the goodness of God in our daily life assures us of His mercy hereafter, and seeing God everywhere, we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

"March 27. I am succeeding better with my 'Immortality' paper. Had to-day a little bit of visioning with which I think that I would willingly depart, when my time comes. The dreadful fear of being buried alive disappeared for a time, and I saw only the goodness of God, to which it seemed that I could trust all question of the future life. I said to myself—'The best will be for thee and me.'"

It was in this mood that she wrote:—

"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."

"April 5.... Heard May Alden Ward, N.E.W.C., on 'Current Events.' Praecipue tariff reform. Proposed a small group to study the question from the point of view of the consumer. What to protect and how? American goods cheaper in Europe than here. Blank tells me of pencils made here for a foreign market and sold in Germany and England at a price impossible here. I said that the real bottomless pit is the depth of infamous slander with which people will assail our public servants, especially when they are faithful and incorruptible, apropos of aspersions cast on Roosevelt and Taft. Mrs. Ward read a very violent attack upon some public man of a hundred or more years ago. He was quoted as a monster of tyranny and injustice. His name was George Washington."

"April 8.... My prayer for this Easter is that I may not waste the inspiration of spring...."

In these days came another real sorrow to her.

"April 10. To-day brings the sad news of Marion Crawford's death at Sorrento. His departure seems to have been a peaceful one. He comforted his family and had his daughter Eleanor read Plato's 'Dialogues' to him. Was unconscious at the last. Poor dear Marion! The end, in his case, comes early. His father was, I think, in the early forties when he died of a cancer behind the eye which caused blindness. He, Thomas Crawford, had a long and very distressing illness."

Crawford had been very dear to her, ever since the days when, a radiant schoolboy, he came and went in his vacations. There was a complete sympathy and understanding between them, and there were few people whom she enjoyed more.

"I wrote a letter to be read, if approved, to-morrow evening at the Faneuil Hall meeting held to advocate the revision of our extradition treaty with the Russian Government, which at present seems to allow that government too much latitude of incrimination, whereby political and civil offences can too easily be confused and a revolutionist surrendered as a criminal, which he may or may not be."

Later in the month she writes:—

"In the early morning I began to feel that I must attempt some sort of tribute to my dear friend of many years, Dr. Holmes, the centenary of whose birth is to be celebrated on Tuesday next. I stayed at home from church to follow some random rhymes which came to me in connection with my remembrance of my ever affectionate friend. I love to think of his beautiful service to his age and to future ages. I fear that my rhymes will fail to crystallize, but sometimes a bad beginning leads to something better...."

The poem was finished, more or less to her satisfaction, but she was weary with working over it, and with "reading heavy books, Max Muller on metaphysics, Blanqui on political economy."

"May 10. I began this day the screed of 'Values' which I mentioned the other day. I have great hopes of accomplishing something useful, remembering, as I do, with sore indignation, my own mistakes, and desiring to help young people to avoid similar ones."