Main Contents
Letters -- Contents
LETTERS TO SARAH ORNE JEWETT
This page contains the complete collection edited by Annie
Fields and Rose Lamb.
Here are links to letters written to Jewett and to places
where Jewett is mentioned in this page. .
Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835-1894), was popular painter
and poet, author of An Island Garden (1894).
See Sandpiper: The Life of Celia Thaxter by
Rosamund Thaxter.
A helpful web site on Celia Thaxter -- http://www.seacoastnh.com/celia/
Contains many links.
Members of Thaxter's family.
Thomas Laighton, her father. (d. 1866)
Eliza Laighton, her mother (d. 1877)
Cedric Laighton, her brother, born 1840; married
Julia Stowell in 1881.
Oscar Laighton, her brother, born 1841.
Levi Thaxter, her husband (1824-1884). They
married when she was 16, in 1851.
Karl, her son, born 1852, injured at birth, limped
and had emotional problems, requiring constant care throughout his life.
John, her son, born 1854, married Mary Stoddard
in 1887.
Roland, her son, born 1858, married Mabel Freeman
in 1887.
LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER
Edited by her friends
A. F. [Annie Fields] and R. L. [Rose Lamb]
NOTE
Copyright, 1895, By ROLAND THAXTER.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
This volume, made up of extracts from the letters of Celia Thaxter, will serve, we trust, to give an idea, even to those who never knew her, of her nature and development.
Except for a light from within, which irradiated the world
she lived in, her life could easily have worn the sad-colored hues of ordinary
mortality. But the radiance of her nature was like an ever-rising sun of
affection, constantly warming the hearts whereon it shone; and where was
the pilgrim who did not gladly open his window to that East?
CELIA THAXTER
BORN JUNE, 1835; DIED AUGUST, 1894
IF it were ever intended that a desolate island in the deep sea should be inhabited by one solitary family, then indeed Celia Thaxter was the fitting daughter of such a house.
In her history of the group of islands, which she calls "Among the Isles of Shoals," she portrays, in a prose which for beauty and wealth of diction has few rivals, the unfolding of her own nature under influences of sky and sea, and solitude and untrammeled freedom, such as have been almost unknown to civilized humanity in any age of the world. She speaks also of the effect produced, as she fancied, upon the minds of men by the eternal sound of the sea; a tendency to wear away the edge of human thought and perception. But this was far from being the case with regard to herself. Her eyesight was keener, her speech more distinct, the lines of her thoughts more clearly defined, her verse more strongly marked in its form, and the accuracy of her memory more to be relied upon, than was the case with almost any one of her contemporaries. Her painting, too, upon porcelain possessed the same character. Her knowledge of the flowers, and especially of the seaweeds, with which she decorated it, was so exact that she did not require the originals before her vision. They were painted upon her mind's eye, where every filament and every shade seemed to be recorded. These "green growing things" had been the beloved companions of her childhood, as they continued to be of her womanhood, and even to reproduce their forms in painting was a delight to her. The written descriptions of natural objects gave her history a place among the pages which possess a perennial existence. While White's "Selborne," and the pictures of Bewick, and Thoreau's "Walden," and the "Autobiography of Richard Jefferies" endure, so long will "Among the Isles of Shoals" hold its place with all lovers of nature. She says in one place: "All the pictures over which I dream are set in this framework of the sea, that sparkled and sang, or frowned and threatened, in the ages that are gone as it does to-day."
The solitude of Celia Thaxter's childhood, which was not solitude, surrounded as she was with the love of a father and a mother all tenderness, and brothers dear to her as her own life, developed in the child strange faculties. She was five years old when the family left Portsmouth, -- old enough, given her inborn power of enjoyment of nature, to delight in the free air and the wonderful sights around her.
Her father seems to have been a man of awful energy of will. Some disappointment in his hope of a public career, it has been said, decided him to take the step of withdrawing himself forever from the world of the mainland, and this attitude he appears to have sustained unflinchingly to the end. Her mother, with a heart stayed as unflinchingly upon love and obedience, seems to have followed him without a murmur, leaving every dear association of the past as though it had not been. From this moment she became, not the slave, but the queen of her affections, and when she died, in 1877, the sun appeared to set upon her daughter's life. On the morning after Mrs. Thaxter's sudden death, seventeen years later, a friend asked her eldest son where his mother was, with the intent to discover if she had been well enough to leave her room. "Oh," he replied, "her mother came in the night and took her away." This reply showed how deeply all who were near to Celia Thaxter were impressed with the fact that to see her mother again was one of the deepest desires of her heart.
The development wrought in her eager character by those early days of exceptional experience gives a new sense of what our poor humanity may achieve, left face to face with the vast powers of nature.
In speaking of the energy of Samuel Haley, one of the early settlers of the islands, she says he learned to live as independently as possible of his fellow-men; for that is one of the first things a settler on the Isles of Shoals finds it necessary to learn." Her own lesson was learned perfectly. The sunrise was as familiar to her eyes as the sunset, and early and late the activity of her mind was rivaled by the ceaseless industry of her hands.
Appledore was too far away in winter from the village at Star Island for any regular or frequent communication between them. Even so late as in the month of May she records watching a little fleet beating up for shelter under the lee of Appledore to ride out a storm. "They were in continual peril.... It was not pleasant to watch them as the early twilight shut down over the vast weltering desolation of the sea, to see the slender masts waving helplessly from one side to another.... Some of the men had wives and children watching them from lighted windows at Star. What a fearful night for them! They could not tell from hour to hour, through the thick darkness, if yet the cables held; they could not see till daybreak whether the sea had swallowed up their treasures. I wonder the wives were not white-haired when the sun rose and showed them those little specks yet rolling in the breakers!" How clearly these scenes were photographed on the sensitive plate of her mind! She never forgot nor really lost sight of her island people. Her sympathy drew them to her as if they were her own, and the little colony of Norwegians was always especially dear to her. "How pathetic," she says, "the gathering of women on the headlands, when out of the sky swept the squall that sent the small boat staggering before it, and blinded the eyes, already drowned in tears, with sudden rain that hid sky and sea and boats from their eager gaze!"
What she was, what her sympathy was, to those people, no one can ever quite express. The deep devotion of their service to her brothers and to herself, through the long solitude of winter and the storm of summer visitors, alone could testify. Such service cannot be bought: it is the devotion born of affection and gratitude and admiration. Speaking of one of the young women who grew up under her eye, she often said: "What could I do in this world without Mina Berntsen? I hope she will be with me when I die." And there indeed, at the last, was Mina, to receive the latest word and to perform the few sad offices.
To tell of the services Mrs. Thaxter tendered to some of the more helpless people about her, in the dark season, when no assistance from the mainland could be hoped for, would make a long and noble story in itself. Her good sense made her an excellent doctor; the remedies she understood she was always on hand to apply at the right moment. Sometimes she was unexpectedly called to assist in the birth of a child, when knowledge and strength she was hardly aware of seemed to be suddenly developed. But the truth was she could do almost anything; and only those who knew her in these humbler human relations could understand how joyous she was in the exercise of her duties, or how well able to perform them. Writing to Mina from the Shoals once in March, she says: "This is the time to be here; this is what I enjoy! To wear my old clothes every day, grub in the ground, dig dandelions and eat them too, plant my seeds and watch them, fly on the tricycle, row in a boat, get into my dressing-gown right after tea and make lovely rag rugs all the evening, and nobody to disturb us, -- this is fun!" In the house and out of it she was capable of everything. How beautiful her skill was as a dressmaker, the exquisite lines in her own black or gray or white dresses testified to every one who ever saw her. She never wore any other colors, nor was anything like "trimming" ever seen about her; there were only the fine, free outlines, and a white handkerchief folded carefully about her neck and shoulders.
In her young days it was the same, with a difference! She was slighter in figure then, and overflowing with laughter, the really beautiful but noisy laughter which died away as the repose of manner of later years fell upon her. I can remember her as I first saw her, with the sea-shells which she always wore then around her neck and wrists, and a gray poplin dress defining her lovely form. She talked simply and fearlessly, while her keen eyes took in everything around her; she paid the tribute of her instantaneous laughter to the wit of others, -- never too eager to speak, and never unwilling. Her sense of beauty, not vanity, caused her to make the most of the good physical points she possessed; therefore, although she grew old early, the same general features of her appearance were preserved. She was almost too well known even to strangers, in these later years at the Shoals, to make it worth while to describe the white hair carefully put up to preserve the shape of the head, and the small silver crescent which she wore above her forehead; but her manner had become very quiet and tender, more and more affectionate to her friends, and appreciative of all men. One of those who knew her latterly wrote me: "Many of her letters show her boundless sympathy, her keen appreciation of the best in those whom she loved, and her wonderful growth in beauty and roundness of character. And how delightful her enthusiasms were! As pure and clear as those of a child! She was utterly unlike any one in the world, so that few people really understood her. But it seems to me that her trials softened and mellowed her, until she became like one of her own beautiful flowers, perfect in her full development; then in a night the petals fell, and she was gone."
The capabilities which were developed in her by the necessities of the situation, during her life at the Shoals in winter, were more various and remarkable than can be fitly told. The glimpses which we get in her letters of the many occupations show what energy she brought to bear upon the difficulties of the place.
In "Among the Isles of Shoals" she says: "After winter has fairly set in, the lonely dwellers at the Isles of Shoals find life quite as much as they can manage, being so entirely thrown upon their own resources that it requires all the philosophy at their disposal to answer the demand. One goes to sleep in the muffled roar of the storm, and wakes to find it still raging with senseless fury."
It was not extraordinary that the joy of human intercourse, after such estrangement, became a rapture to so loving a nature as Celia Laighton's; nor that, very early, before the period of fully ripened womanhood, she should have been borne away from her island by a husband, a man of birth and education, who went as missionary to the wild fisher folk on the adjacent island called Star.
The exuberant joy of her unformed maidenhood, with its power of self-direction, attracted the shy, intellectual student nature of Mr. Thaxter. He could not dream that this careless, happy creature possessed the strength and sweep of wing which belonged to her own seagull. In good hope of teaching and developing her, of adding much in which she was uninstructed to the wisdom which the influences of nature and the natural affections had bred in her, he carried his wife to a quiet inland home, where three children were very soon born to them. Under the circumstances, it was not extraordinary that his ideas of education were not altogether successfully applied; she required more strength than she could summon, more adaptability than many a grown woman could have found, to face the situation, and life became difficult and full of problems to them both. Their natures were strongly contrasted, but perhaps not too strongly to complement each other, if he had fallen in love with her as a woman, and not as a child. His retiring, scholarly nature and habits drew him away from the world; her overflowing, sun-loving being, like a solar system in itself, reached out on every side, rejoicing in all created things.
Her introduction to the world of letters was by means of her first poem, "Land-Locked," which, by the hand of a friend, was brought to the notice of James Russell Lowell, at that time editor of "The Atlantic." He printed it at once, without exchanging a word with the author. She knew nothing about it until the magazine was laid before her. This recognition of her talent was a delight indeed, and it was one of the happiest incidents in a life which was already overclouded with difficulties and sorrow. It will not be out of place to reprint this poem here, because it must assure every reader of the pure poetic gift which was in her. In form, in movement, and in thought it is as beautiful as her latest work.
LAND-LOCKED.Black lie the hills; swiftly doth daylight flee;
And, catching gleams of sunset's dying smile,
Through the dusk land for many a changing mile
The river runneth softly to the sea.
O happy river, could I follow thee!
O yearning heart, that never can be still!
O wistful eyes, that watch the steadfast hill,
Longing for level line of solemn sea!
Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds,
Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight,
All summer's glory thine from morn till night,
And life too full of joy for uttered words.
Neither am I ungrateful; but I dream
Deliciously how twilight falls to-night
Over the glimmering water, how the light
Dies blissfully away, until I seem
To feel the wind, sea-scented, on my cheek,
To catch the sound of dusky, flapping sail,
And dip of oars, and voices on the gale
Afar off, calling low, -- my name they speak!
O Earth! thy summer song of joy may soar
Ringing to heaven in triumph. I but crave
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
That breaks in tender music on the shore.
With the growth of Mrs. Thaxter's
children and the death of her father, the love and duty she owed her mother
caused her to return in the winter to the Shoals, although a portion of
the summer was passed there as well. But she had
already tasted of the tree of knowledge, and the world outside beckoned
to her with as fascinating a face as it ever presented to any human creature.
It was during one of these returning visits to the Shoals that much of
the delightful book from which I have quoted was written; a period when
she had already learned something of the charms of society, -- sufficient
to accentuate her appreciation of her own past, and to rejoice in what
a larger life now held in store for her.
Lectures, operas, concerts, theatres, pictures, music above all, -- what were they not to her! Did artists ever before find such an eye and such an ear? She brought to them a spirit prepared for harmony, but utterly ignorant of the science of painting or music until the light of art suddenly broke upon her womanhood. Of what this new world was to her we find some hint, of course, in her letters; but no human lips, not even her own exuberant power of expression, could ever say how her existence was enriched and made beautiful through music. Artists who sang to her, or those who rehearsed the finest music on the piano or violin or flute, or those who brought their pictures and put them before her while she listened, -- they alone, in a measure, understood what these things signified, and how she was lifted quite away by them from the ordinary level of life. They were inspired to do for her what they could seldom do for any other creature, and her generous response, overflowing, almost extravagant in expression, was never half enough to begin to tell the new life they brought to her.
Mrs. Thaxter found herself, as the years went on, the centre of a company who rather selected themselves than were selected from the vast number of persons who frequented her brothers' "house of entertainment" at the islands. Her "parlor," as it was called, was a milieu quite as interesting as any of the "salons" of the past. Her pronounced individuality forbade the intrusion even of a fancy of comparison with anything else, and equally forbade the possibility of rivalry. There was only one thought in the mind of the frequenters of her parlor, -- that of gratitude for the pleasure and opportunity she gave them, and a genuine wish to please her and to become her friends. She possessed the keen instincts of a child with regard to people. If they were unlovable to her, if they were for any reason unsympathetic, nothing could bring her to overcome her dislike. She was in this particular more like some wild thing than a creature of the nineteenth century; indeed, one of her marked traits was a curious intractability of nature. I believe that no worldly motive ever influenced her relation with any human creature. Of course these native qualities made her more ardently devoted in her friendships; but it went hardly with her to ingratiate those persons for whom she felt a natural repulsion, or even sometimes to be gentle with them. Later in life she learned to call no man "common or unclean;" but coming into the world, as she did, full grown, like Minerva in the legend, with keen eyes, and every sense alive to discern pretension, untruth, ungodliness in guise of the church, and all the uncleanness of the earth, these things were as much a surprise to her as it was, on the other hand, to find the wondrous world of art and the lives of the saints. Perhaps no large social success was ever achieved upon such unworldly conditions; she swung as free as possible of the world of society and its opinions, forming a centre of her own, built up on the sure foundations of love and loyalty. She saw as much as any woman of the time of large numbers of people, and she was able to give them the best kind of social enjoyment, -- music, pictures, poetry, and conversation; the latter sometimes poor and sometimes good, according to the drift which swept through her beautiful room. Mrs. Thaxter was generous in giving invitations to her parlor, but to its frequenters she said, "If people do not enjoy what they find, they must go their way; my work and the music will not cease." The study of nature and art was always going forward either on or around her work-table. The keynote of conversation was struck there for those who were able to hear it. We were reminded of William Blake's verse: -
"I give you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball,
It will lead you in at Heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem wall."
Here it was that Whittier could be heard at his best, sympathetic, stimulating, uplifting, as he alone could be, and yet as he, with his Quaker training to silence, was so seldom moved to prove himself. Here he would sit near her hour after hour; sometimes mending her æolian harp while they talked together, sometimes reading aloud to the assembled company.
Her gratitude to the men and women who brought music to her door knew no limit; it was strong, deep, and unforgetting. "What can I ever do for them," she would say, "when I remember the joy they bring me!"
"The dignity of labor" is a phrase we have often heard repeated in modern life, but it was one unnecessary to be spoken by Celia Thaxter. It may easily be said of her that one of the finest lessons she unconsciously taught was not only the value of labor, but the joy of doing things well. The necessities of her position, as I have already indicated, demanded a great deal, but she responded to the need with a readiness and generosity great enough to extort admiration from those who knew her. How much she contributed to the comfort of the lives of those she loved at the Shoals we have endeavored to show; how beautiful her garden was there, in the summer, all the world could see; but at one period there was also a farm at Kittery Point, to be made beautiful and comfortable by her industry, where one of her sons still lives; and a pied à terre in Boston or in Portsmouth, whither she came in the winter with her eldest son, who was especially dependent upon her love and care: and all these changes demanded much of her time and strength.
She was certainly one of the busiest women in the world. Writing from Kittery Point, September 6, 1880, she says: "It is divinely lovely here, and the house is charming. I have brought a servant over from the hotel, and it is a blessing to be able to make them all comfortable; to set them down in the charming dining-room overlooking the smooth, curved crescent of sandy beach, with the long rollers breaking white, and the Shoals looming on the far sealine.... But oh, how tired we all get! I shall be quite ready for my rest! Your weariest, loving C. T."
This note gives a picture of her life. She was always helping to make a bright spot around her; to give of herself in some way. There is a bit in her book which illustrates this instinct. The incident occurred during a long, dreary storm at the Shoals. Two men had come in a boat, asking for help. "A little child had died at Star Island, and they could not sail to the mainland, and had no means to construct a coffin among themselves. All day I watched the making of that little chrysalis; and at night the last nail was driven in, and it lay across a bench, in the midst of the litter of the workshop, and a curious stillness seemed to emanate from the senseless boards. I went back to the house and gathered a handful of scarlet geranium, and returned with it through the rain. The brilliant blossoms were sprinkled with glittering drops. I laid them in the little coffin, while the wind wailed so sorrowfully outside, and the rain poured against the windows. Two men came through the mist and storm, and one swung the light little shell to his shoulder, and they carried it away, and the gathering darkness shut down and hid them as they tossed among the waves. I never saw the little girl, but where they buried her I know; the lighthouse shines close by, and every night the quiet, constant ray steals to her grave and softly touches it, as if to say, with a caress, 'Sleep well! Be thankful you are spared so much that I see humanity endure, fixed here forever where I stand.'"
We have seen the profound love she felt for, and the companionship she found in, nature and natural objects; but combined with these sentiments, or developed simply by her love to speak more directly, was a very uncommon power of observation. This power grew day by day, and the delightful correspondence which existed between Bradford Torrey and herself, although they had never met face to face, bears witness to her constant mental record and memory respecting the habits of birds and woodland manners. Every year we find her longing for larger knowledge; books and men of science attracted her; and if her life had been less intensely laborious, in order to make those who belonged to her comfortable and happy, what might she not have achieved! Her nature was replete with boundless possibilities, and we find ourselves asking the old, old question, Must the artist forever crush the wings by which he flies against such terrible limitations? -- a question never to be answered in this world.
Her observations began with her earliest breath at the islands. "I remember," she says, "in the spring, kneeling on the ground to seek the first blades of grass that pricked through the soil, and bringing them into the house to study and wonder over. Better than a shopful of toys they were to me! Whence came their color? How did they draw their sweet, refreshing tint from the brown earth, or the limpid air, or the white light? Chemistry was not at hand to answer me, and all her wisdom would not have dispelled the wonder. Later, the little scarlet pimpernel charmed me. It seemed more than a flower; it was like a human thing. I knew it by its homely name of 'poor man's weather-glass.' It was so much wiser than I; for when the sky was yet without a cloud, softly it clasped its small red petals together, folding its golden heart in safety from the shower that was sure to come. How could it know so much?"
Whatever sorrows life brought to her, and they were many and of the heaviest, this exquisite enjoyment of nature, the tender love and care for every created thing within her reach, always stayed her heart. To see her lift a flower in her fingers, -- fingers which gave one a sense of supporting everything which she touched, expressive, too, of fineness in every fibre, although strong and worn with labor, -- to see her handle these wonderful creatures which she worshiped, was something not to be forgotten. The lines of Keats,
"Open afresh your rounds of starry
folds,
Ye ardent marigolds!"
were probably oftener flitting through her mind or from her lips than through the mind or from the lips of any since Keats wrote them. She remembered that he said he thought his intensest pleasure in life had been to watch the growth of flowers," but she was sure he never felt their beauty more devoutly "than the little half-savage being who knelt, like a fire-worshiper, to watch the unfolding of those golden disks."
The time came at last, as it comes to every human being, for asking the reason of the faith that was in her. It was difficult for her to reply. Her heart had often questioned whether she believed, and what; and yet, as she has said, she could not keep her faith out of her poems if she would. We find the following passage in "Among the Isles of Shoals," which throws a light beyond that of her own lantern.
"When the boat was out late," she says, "in soft, moonless summer nights, I used to light a lantern, and, going down to the water's edge, take my station between the timbers of the slip, and, with the lantern at my feet, sit waiting in the darkness, quite content, knowing my little star was watched for, and that the safety of the boat depended in a great measure upon it. I felt so much a part of the Lord's universe, I was no more afraid of the dark than the waves or winds; but I was glad to hear at last the creaking of the mast and the rattling of the rowlocks as the boat approached."
"A part of the Lord's universe," -- that Celia Thaxter always felt herself to be, and for many years she was impatient of other teaching than what nature brought to her. As life went on, and the mingled mysteries of human pain and grief were unfolded, she longed for a closer knowledge. At first she sought it everywhere, and patiently, save in or through the churches; with them she was long impatient. At last, after ardent search through the religious books and by means of the teachers of the Orient, the Bible was born anew for her, and the New Testament became a fresh source of life.
Nothing was ever "born anew" in Celia Thaxter which she did not strive to share with others. She could keep nothing but secrets to herself. Joys, experiences of every kind, sorrows and misfortunes, except when they could darken the lives of others, were all brought, open-handed and open-hearted, to those she loved. Her generosity knew no limits.
There is a description by her of the flood which swept over her being, and seemed to carry her away from the earth, when she once saw the great glory of the Lord in a rainbow at the island. She hid her face from the wonder; it was more than she could bear. "I felt then," she said, "how I longed to speak these things which made life so sweet, -- to speak the wind, the cloud, the bird's flight, the sea's murmur, -- and ever the wish grew;" and so it was she became, growing from and with this wish, a poet the world will remember. Dr. Holmes said once in conversation that he thought the value of a poet to the world was not so much the pleasure that this or that poem might give to certain readers, or even perchance to posterity, as the fact that a poet was known to be one who was sometimes rapt out of himself into the region of the Divine; that the spirit had descended upon him and taught him what he should speak.
This is especially true of Celia Thaxter, whose life was divorced from worldliness, while it was instinct with the keenest enjoyment of life and of God's world. She liked to read her poems aloud when people asked for them; and if there was ever a genuine reputation from doing a thing well, such a reputation was hers. From the first person who heard her the wish began to spread, until, summer after summer, in her parlor, listeners would gather, if she would promise to read to them. Night after night she has held her sway, with tears and smiles from her responsive little audiences, which seemed to gain new courage and light from what she gave them. Her unspeakably interesting nature was always betraying itself and shining out between the lines. Occasionally she yielded to the urgent claims brought to bear upon her by her friend Mrs. Johnson, of the Woman's Prison, and would go to read to the sad-eyed audience at Sherborn. Even those hearts dulled by wrong and misery awakened at the sound of her voice. It was not altogether this or that verse or ballad that made the tears flow, or brought a laugh from her hearers: it was the deep sympathy which she carried in her heart and which poured out in her voice; a hope, too, for them, and for what they might yet become. She could not go frequently, -- she was too deeply laden with responsibilities nearer home; but it was always a holiday when she was known to be coming, and a season of light-heartedness to Mrs. Johnson as well as to the prisoners.
It is a strange fallacy that a poet
may not read his own verses well. Who beside the writer should comprehend
every shade of meaning which made the cloud or sunshine of his poem? Mrs.
Thaxter certainly read her own verse with a fullness of suggestion which
no other reader could have given it, and her voice was sufficient, too,
although not loud or striking, to fill and satisfy the ear of the listener.
But at the risk of repetition we recall that it was her own generous, beautiful
nature, unlike that of any other, which made her reading helpful to all
who heard her. She speaks somewhere of the birds on her island as "so tame,
knowing how well they are beloved, that they gather on the window-sills,
twittering and fluttering, gay and graceful, turning their heads this way
and that, eying you askance without a trace of fear." And so it was with
the human beings who came to know her. They were attracted, they came near,
they flew under her protection, and were not disappointed of their rest.
LETTERS OF CELIA THAXTER
The seclusion of Celia Laighton from the world during the early years of her life will sufficiently account for the absence of any letters during that period. The only record of her childhood is what she has given in her book "Among the Isles of Shoals."
No letters have been found earlier than 1856, when Mrs. Thaxter was little more than twenty years old. The very first are addressed to Mrs. Hoxie, and are more autobiographical than any others written at this period. They begin abruptly.
To Elizabeth Curzon Hoxie. Appledore, May 25, 1856.
I'm desperately afraid I didn't sufficiently express my gratitude to Mary for her thoughtful kindness in writing to me so soon after we had got to this place "where people want letters" (there never was a truer remark). You must thank her again, if you please, for me, and tell her I hope she got the sweet peas I sent, and that I shall write her by and by more of a letter than the scrap of a note accompanying them.
I wonder Bob is n't at the head of every class in everything. How I should like to see him, and dear Nanny and Neddy! We were really dreadfully sorry to hear how near we were to seeing them that morning we left Newburyport, and yet missed it. I declare I would have given almost anything for a sight of their dear little bright faces. Karly is for sending the Golden Eagle right up the river for them to bring them over here, -- that was his suggestion, -- directly. Tell Nanny -- dear, precious little girl -that Karly does lots of things to help me; and tell them both that Karly and "little Non" (as he calls himself and we call him now) never forget them, but talk about them every day. Baby still calls wistfully, "Nanny! Neddy!" and seems to wonder they don't come when he wants them so much. I wonder how many squares of patchwork Nan has made since I left the Mill. John goes up and down the piazza steps and runs off to where a calf is tied close by, and falls into a wild-rose bush and gets his fat legs full of briers, struggles up again, only to fall on a stone and make a black and blue spot on his knee, gets off that and falls into a raspberry bush, and so on indefinitely, while his mother and father and grandmother, when they do notice him, burst into shouts of inextinguishable laughter, for he is the most ridiculous object ever beheld, just as round as an apple and broad as he is long, toddling and waddling and tumbling in every direction. He can say anything now, and it is too funny to hear him talk.
My eyes are almost shut from weariness
and sleepiness, and I shall have to stop writing and send you this poor
little stupid scrawl after all, dear Lizzy. But, dear, take the will for
the deed; I have the heart to write you twenty pages and hundreds of loving
words. Kiss the darling children for me. I inclose a piece of baby's dress
for sweetest Nan to make a little square of. Give kindest love to John
and mamma and Mary, and believe me ever most
affectionately yours, CELIA.
How do George Curtis and Anna progress?
I long to hear about them.
To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, January 18, 1857.
Oh, these exemplary housekeepers, how much they have to do! I feel as if I were sinning against my conscience when I write a letter on any day but Sunday, because it is inevitable that I should neglect some important duty to do it, and I never do do it except in a case of vital importance. It is a good thing, after steady trying, to have your husband pronounce you "virtuous" when you are doing your best, but sometimes it's a great bore being exemplary. But there is another reason I haven't written to you, and that is because I have been waiting to finish something I have been making for dearest little Nankins, and I wanted to send the bundle when I wrote; but I can't wait any longer, and I can only say about the bundle that I hope by some means to propel it in your direction sometime before next Saturday.
Tell Mary her letter was received a day or two ago, and was read with infinite applause and unbounded merriment. I don't know when we have enjoyed anything so much. Levi goes off into the tenderest reminiscences of the Mills, and thinks of you all collectively and then separately, and broods over the idea of seeing some of you. He keeps breaking out by fits and starts, "Don't you think Mrs. Curzon will come to Boston this winter?" and "Can't Lizzie be got up in the spring, don't you suppose?" and "When will Margie and Mary get along?"
You don't know what a steady old drudge I have grown to be, and I'm happy as the day is long, and the children are perfect "gardens of paradise," and Levi is beautiful and gentle and good and unselfish as mortal man can be. And we have splendid times. Such good evenings as we have! And they are so fascinating sometimes we don't break up the meeting till past eleven, never till after ten. We draw the table up to the roaring fire, and I take my work, and Levi reads to me; first he read "Aurora" (and you're an abominable woman for not thinking it the beautifullest book that was ever written), then "Dred," which in spite of the little bird women, horrid little things, we enjoyed. Levi gave the negro talk with such gusto we had shouts of laughter over it. Next to "Dred" we read Dr. Kane's books, the two volumes of the Arctic expedition. Oh, how we did enjoy that! Full of beautiful pictures taken on the spot by Dr. Kane himself, which we looked at together and admired and commented upon and enjoyed as much as they could be enjoyed by anybody. Brave, splendid Dr. Kane! We watch the papers for every bit of news of him which floats to us from that far-off tropical Cuba where he has gone to recover, if he can, from the everlasting chill he got among the icebergs with the thermometer seventy-five degrees below zero! Now we are reading Ruskin's last volume of "Modern Painters," and I declare I can't tell what we have the best times over, for we sometimes lose ourselves in wonder and admiration at him, and then shout with unbounded mirth over his impatient sarcasm, his downrightness, if that's an allowable word; and fall into a great feeling of reverence occasionally over him and say to each other how true are Margie's ideas of the highest art because she follows nature so nobly and faithfully, -- that is high art according to him; very few people do it faithfully. You don't know how entirely happy we are to be together again, with both children; it seems as if we had found each other anew and never were so substantially happy before. The children keep so well it is almost alarming, not even having occasional colds, which I thought was the common lot of humanity. The scarlet fever is all around us in every direction too. Are n't we very happy to be able to hear Theodore Parker? Such preaching is of inestimable worth. The sermon I heard this afternoon was wonderful; such power and pathos in a human voice was wonderful. I don't think there was a person in the house who kept tearless eyes through that sermon. He described the rapture of a father when his first-born son is put into his arms, so exquisitely, so truly, grew so enraptured himself in the description, so carried away by his own feeling, that he was transfigured. He looked a god standing with outspread arms before us all, instead of the stern, grave, middle-aged man that had walked up to the reading-desk an hour before. And yet he never had a child! How could he do that so inimitably! Was it so perfect from the very reason that the rapture is denied him? Oh, Lizzie, he does talk beautifully and wonderfully. He moves people to tears and to laughter; he carries all his audience along with him resistlessly; he makes them quail under the weight of their own sins, and shows them then where is strength and hope and comfort, and sends one away cheerful and feeling infinitely better than when one came. If you could only hear him describe "Miss Matilda Caroline who has ruined her constitution pulling a bell-rope!" It is too rich. I don't see what I have done that the Lord has given me so great a delight among other delights as hearing and seeing and knowing this man.
I'm afraid you'll think my letter very stupid, dear Lizzie. I was so glad to hear how comfortable you are in the dear little Mill. Levi thinks that a walk on the Artichoke would put a climax on his state of bliss. Beautiful little river! How I should like to see it. Is Myra still with you? If she is, remember me to her, and do not tell her how I swear at her every day I wear the dress she made for me, for it is continually giving out in all directions, and the wrists have taken up their position just below my elbows, whence they stubbornly refuse to stir. Do give my very best budget of regards and remembrances and love to John, and kisses, ad libitum, to the children.
Ever your affectionate
CELIA.
To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, March 28, 1857.
To think of you asking such a question as "Do I care about Charlotte Bronté"! As if I did not care everything I am capable of caring for anything! As if Levi and I had n't read her books with rapture, and had n't looked forward to the publishing of Mrs. Gaskell's book about her as one of the most interesting things that could happen; as if we did n't lament her loss to the world every year of our lives! Oh, Lizzie! I'm ashamed that you know so little of your friends. We are not so happy as to see the "Tribune." We have seen no extracts, therefore. How nice they are making "Putnam's," aren't they? We have had one extract from a letter of Bayard Taylor's, a spirited reindeer performance.
The T ----s brought us home Guido's "Aurora," engraved by Raphael Morghen. You have seen the picture? Oh, so splendid as it is! Levi and I look at it by the half-hour together and find new beauties in it daily.
Bless the children, how did it happen they were sick? John and Karl have grand times out doors, and get dirtier than a whole dictionary can express. I do my own washing now, and think of you all the time, and get tired to death and half dead, but unlike you I fret and worry when things go wrong, and scold and fuss. Oh, for your patience! How mine takes wing and leaves me forlorn and ugly and horrid! How it seems as if the weary load of things one makes out to do, with such expenditure of strength and nerves and patience, goes for naught, no manner of notice ever taken of all that is accomplished; but if anything is left undone, ah me, the hue and cry that is raised! I don't think you can have any conception what an infinite source of pleasure and consolation under all trials Browning's "Men and Women" are to me. There is something satisfactory to every mood of the human mind in that book. Many of the shorter pieces I know by heart, and you would laugh to hear the children, who catch everything from me, talking about
"The patching house-leek's head of
blossom winks
Through the chinks,"
and so forth. Also you'd be killed to hear John roar out "The splendor falls on castle walls," etc., from beginning to end, and also "Half a league," etc.
My heart is full of you all, this delicious spring weather. Tell Mamy I think the Whittier poem is one of the sweetest and freshest I ever saw of his. Give my best love to dearest mamma and all. How kind you are to write, dear Lizzie. Do beg them to write. Ever most affectionately your poor little helpless, foolish
CELIA.
To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, Sunday, November 22d.
If you and I, Lizzie, only had a small portion of the time elegant young ladies fritter away, would n't we do wonders and wouldn't we be happy and make much of it? Heigho! I never shall have any, I'm afraid. Is n't Sally with you, or anybody? Are you any worse for the hard times? We're not; not having anything to lose, we've lost nothing, and having no risks run, and nothing to do with anybody or anything in the way of getting a living, we 're no better nor worse than before the panic. Now the cold weather is come, I have a washerwoman, which is a relief, but the ironing is hideous, ungrateful that I am! You have ever so much harder time than I, dear Lizzie. I do wish I could help you, and that we lived together. We've had no sickness to speak of, yet, and I humbly trust in Providence we may get through the winter without any very horrid time. John is splendidly well and comfortable and comforting and delightful. Karly, I think, is getting less nervous than he was. I try very hard to let him alone, but he is so mischievous that I can't help visiting him with small thunder occasionally, also spanks. Poor little spud! he is very loving and sometimes very sweet and gentle. Yesterday John came in from outdoors, red as a poppy and bellowing lustily. "Mamma, that naughty biddy won't let me take hold of her tail!" and he howled with rage and I screamed with laughter. The biddies are fine. The other day we killed the old rooster, the magnificent sultan of the flock, and boiled him in a floured bag, and he was delicious. We had company to dinner, a strange young lady from Boston, and John kept saying "Please, Mamma, give me another piece of cockerel!" to my immense private amusement. Since his majesty was decapitated all the other princes have nearly fought each other dead, and great will be the slaughter among them presently, by their human (or rather inhuman) keepers. Levi and I nearly expire over the performances of hens, and think of you often in connection. Oh, Lizzie, do you have races with things to get them eaten up? What with trying to eat up the quinces, apples, squashes, pumpkins, etc., as fast as they get a leaning towards decay, we are obliged to eat very little else; everybody in the neighborhood is so rich there's nobody to give them away to. I think Lamartine would be perfectly satisfied with our present diet. I've just got rid of the last tomatoes, to my great satisfaction. I've been lugging them about the county to my various friends for the last month, in the vain endeavor to get rid of them, and now there 's only one mess left.
Thanks for the Murray. Next winter we shall regularly set about --'s "education," and a precious time we shall have of it.
These early letters show Mrs. Thaxter to be the child she really was, despite her married estate. Much is omitted, but a frequent impatience with the conditions of life in such contrast to her unfettered youth is expressed in her own downright and amusing fashion.
To E. C. Hoxie. Newton, January 30, 1859, Sunday Morning.
But the Lord knows, it's no use borrowing trouble. Little Celia is -- non est. I sigh for her; the children sigh in chorus. If we could unite our sighs with yours for the same cause, what a breeze we should raise! The boys are in a kind of tremor of expectation of St. Nicholas and his treasures. I want to hang up my stocking too, dreadfully; except that I feel it in my bones St. Nicholas would overlook it, I certainly should. Perhaps a certain friend will remember me, and make me a present of some cloth to make Levi six shirts, as she did once before, you know!
I devour books whenever I get a chance, read Dante and peel squash, à la Elizabeth Bronte, have got through Hell and Purgatory and am coming to Heaven now, thank fortune! We have just been reading "Quits;" 't would do well enough if one had the time for it. White Lies!! Don't mention 'em!!! If the agony isn't piled sky-high I 'd like to know where you'll find it. Imagine yourself Josephine, and Raynal's face coming over that screen! Good Lord be with us! what a situation, and the baby in her lap, "rustle-thump, rustle-thump"! How capital that is! Levi will send you "The Box Tunnel" and "Propria Quæ Maribus," I suppose; if he does n't I will. He sends love and says he shall write speedily, and he wishes you were here. Dear Lizzie, do come and make us a good long visit, can't you? and rest a little, poor little woman. I mean come and stay with me, and not go tearing round Boston and Brookline and Lord knows where. Bring Nan, or all; they would have fine times together. Does n't Bob have a vacation? Do come, I beg and entreat, any time; we should only be too enchanted to see you, and the children would be in ecstasies to see yours. Karly sings,
"The cars are ready and the horses are waiting,and so on, ad libitum. His own idea; and it 's killing to hear the emphasis of the young man.
And I'm bound to see my own Nanny Hoxie,
I'm bound to see my own Nanny Hoxie,"
To E. C. Hoxie. Newton, January 30, 1859, Sunday Morning.
I have been enduring the severest stabs of conscience for the longest while, thinking of you almost every day and wishing with all my heart to write to you. First I had a siege of sickness, then a Gulf Stream of company.
Sunday night. I thought I should have so much time to-day to write and do all sorts of things, yet this is all I have been able to accomplish! Now baby and his brothers are in bed and asleep and I feel like being in bed and asleep too, too sleepy to have any ideas left. How charmingly Nanny's letter was written! Tell her I shall answer it the very first chance I get. She may look forward to a very big letter all to herself very soon. I wish I could see her. I know how beautiful it always is at the mill, how beautiful in every way. Somehow "crude" is the word that expresses this place. It seems to me at the world's end -- lonely, un-get-at-able, uninteresting, not one beloved, friendly face within reach, no children for ours to play with; but it might be a great deal worse too. I don't wish to be ungrateful, the Lord preserve us! With such a baby too! Lizzie, I'm fairly in raptures with this baby; never was in raptures before, always thought small of my own goslings, but this baby smiles the very heart out of my breast. He is too angelical for words to give any idea of him. Isn't it funny that he should be such a jolly, sweet little pleasant creature when his mamma was always so glum before he came? And he has n't a name! Levi wants to call him David, but I despise it, and Roland, which is the only other name he will listen to, is n't exactly satisfactory either. Dear me! if he had only been a girl there would have been no difficulty in naming him.
I suppose you have seen by the papers that Mr. Weiss has resigned his ministry at New Bedford; he will probably take his family and come and live on his brains somewhere in this vicinity. He will not preach again, at least he doesn't mean to at present.
Tell Margie, mother has half promised to come this February and see us, and that we are going to the island in March, for in the summer Levi proposes wandering off to Mount Desert or some such preposterous place. There can never be such a charming sea place as the islands; how can anybody want to go further? I do not, most certainly.
Dearest Lizzie, I beg your pardon for trying to write to you when I'm so infinitely stupid. I wish I could shake my own family off for a week and come and help you wash dishes and mend stockings and admire Neddy. Tell Margie we've got a new set of silver, New Year's present from grandmother, very solid, very heavy, very handsome, very horrid to take care of, have to keep drumming up the girls about it and going round with a nasty bit of wash-leather rubbing here and rubbing there. Give me my iron jug and iron spoon, say I with Mr. Thoreau. Susy Dabney gave Karly "Wee Willie Winkie's" nursery songs, and it is so charming.
We take the semi-weekly "Tribune" and think of you. Isn't "Minister's Wooing" killing good?
To Nanny Hoxie.
MY DARLING LITTLE NAN: -- Would you like, some day when you have a little time, to go along the river bank with a piece of paper or something, and gather me some harebell seeds? If you could and would, I should be so very glad, for I want to get the dear lovely bells to grow here by our river as well as by yours, and I am afraid the roots I brought all the way from Newburyport and set out here, will not live. If I had some seeds I would plant them this fall and I think they'd come up in the spring.
How is mamma and dear little Anson, and papa and all? How I should like to see you all. We have got a dear little baby named Richard, and a little girl named May Dana, here, and their mother, and the baby was born in Utah, and rode all the way from the Rocky Mountains to Massachusetts in an ambulance across the plains when he was five months old, in August. One night there was a dreadful storm (they had to make a tent-house for themselves every night), and the rain and wind were so frightful they tore down the tent-house, and drenched all their clothes, and all their beds, and everything they had, and then they were exposed to the merciless storm till morning, not a dry rag to put on, or a dry place to put baby, and the big hailstones beating them till he cried with the pain of them. Wasn't that cruel? Think of little Anson exposed to such a dreadful storm! But it was beautiful, pleasant days traveling, for all the ground was covered with such lovely flowers, verbenas, petunias, gladiolus, mats of crimson and scarlet portulaca, and all sorts of lovely garden flowers growing wild, and wonderful kinds of cactus, etc. But poor little Richard and May like wooden houses better than tents, and living here with their little cousins better than being rattled along by the trains of mules and troops of men day after day, through the sunshine and rain. Kiss dear baby for me, and darling precious mamma, and give my love to Mamey and Gamma and papa and the boys, and do write to me, Nan darling, and send me the seeds if you can.
Ever affectionately your little Auntie
CELIA.
To E. C. Hoxie. Newton, July 10, 1861.
I have been overrun with things and people, no end of people, who seem to think this nook of Newtonville particularly delightful; but you Curzon people know what it is to have a river and a boat and live in the country, and though we don't pretend to the attractions and allurements which the Mills possess, still we have enough to attract quite a swarm of summer flies! I beg their pardon, I'm very fond of them all, but I realize more and more, the longer I live, what a good thing it is to have a little time to one's self, if only for the purpose of writing to one's friends. And how are you, dear Lizzy? I wish I could know; you were sick, Margie told me, and I was so sorry to hear it, -- but that was months ago. I hope you are well now and feel strong, but alas for the strength of feminine humanity such days as these! Such heat! Good heavens, you can boil eggs and roast chickens anywhere in this house, any time in the day. I told Marie yesterday that it was absurdly superfluous putting her flatirons on the range; she need only set them on the window-sill and she'd be able to iron her starched clothes with them in the space of five minutes. To think of coming from the island in such weather! where I wore the thickest Valencia, a perfect horse-blanket of a gown, all the time! Can't wear anything here; have to exist without clothes, and it's hard enough keeping body and soul together at that. I had such a good time at the island, and when I came home Levi met me in Boston and triumphantly informed me I could go home by land or water, as he had rowed in from Newtonville with George Folsom, and Karl and John, and Henry Weiss. Well, I had started from the island between four and five o'clock and floated on the unruffled bosom of the broad Atlantic until between nine and ten, with Lony asleep on my knees, and felt as if I had had quite enough water for one day; but I perceived my spouse would particularly like to have me be rowed home, so I embarked at Cambridge bridge, a cushion behind me, an umbrella (Sairey Gamp's own) over me, a box of strawberries in my lap, and four admiring masculine bipeds opposite me. I don't include Lony; he had been to the island with me and only "set store by me" in a general way. Had I not been such a travel-stained Cleopatra, and so tired and hot, I should have had a sparkling and vivacious time; but I had a very lovely if not a high time, and enjoyed it thoroughly. We got home a little after sunset, George and Levi rowing by turns, and stopped on the way to leave a basket of fish at the Robbins's, who live conveniently on the bank of the river. We had on board two baskets which accompanied me from the island as baggage, -- champagne baskets, -- containing heaps of beautiful loaves of bread, and six big lumps of fresh butter, a great huge plank of sponge cake and a huge loaf of plum, a great many corned mackerel, splendid salt fish, and two lovely, indeed I may say, heavenly, jars of fresh potted lobster. So we feasted. To be sure the corned mackerel weren't of much use in their raw state, but the gentlemen "let in" to the other edibles in a way that did credit to their appetites; at least Levi did. George isn't in the habit of eating, I believe, anything.
At present we subsist principally on ice cream, Levi having invested in a freezer which really and truly freezes in five minutes, and will freeze in four, a small quantity. And to tell you the truth, the reason I am writing to you to-night is because I am afraid to go to bed after a big plateful (flavored with strawberries freshly mashed up in it and sherry wine, a jolly mixture I assure you!). We have been out on the river till nearly ten, rowing Mr. and Mrs. Edward Bangs, and there was moonlight and starlight and firefly light and lightning, and it was lovely on the water, and Mrs. Bangs is such a raving beauty that one can't look at her enough.
Thursday evening. Of all the nasty-looking letters I ever did write I think this is the worst! But it's all on account of a new india-rubber pen, which is in such a hurry to write that it lets the ink all down in a lump, all of a sudden; but I need n't tell you that, for you know what exquisitely neat letters I'm in the habit of writing to my friends, from experience. Seriously, I think Aspasia would consider me beneath her notice, because she says a woman is n't worth sixpence who does n't make her letters exquisite, does n't take pains to have her handwriting neat.
Do Bob and Ned drill? Karl and John do nothing but fight; they live on it all the time; it's their bread and meat and drink. I suppose it's a natural instinct -- to prepare them for the war. They roared in chorus, all three, under the windows at supper-time to-night, and on going out I found Karl and Roland (K. aged nine, R. aged three) beating each other with barrel staves. Highly agreeable and salutary performance, but disagreeably noisy with "company" on hand.
We find an early note written to her publisher, Mr. Fields, at about this period, -- the first hint of her literary life: --
To James T. Fields. Newtonville, September 23, 1861.
I thank you very much for the kind things you have said about my little poem, and am grateful for the trouble you took in looking it over and making suggestions. I am sorry I could not act upon them all. I am not good at making alterations. The only merit of my small productions lies in their straightforward simplicity, and when that bloom is rubbed off by the effort to better them, they lose what little good they originally possessed.
I'm afraid you will not think the unconscious quotation from the "Ancient Mariner" remedied by the mere transposition of words, but I cannot alter it satisfactorily and say what I wish. If the first and fifth verses do not seem to you too objectionable, pray let them pass.
I'm sorry its name is not so felicitous as "Land-Locked," which Mr. Lowell christened.
Pray pardon me for trespassing on your valuable time, and believe me
Gratefully yours, C. THAXTER.
To James T. Fields. Appledore, September 4, 1862.
Thanks for your note. I am just as sorry as I can be, that you can't come. "April, 1863"? Why, by that time, every man, woman, and child will be drained out of the veins of the nation and lost in the war! Do you expect to be alive in April, 1863? I don't. Very faintly the spent wave of terrible news reached us here in this remote nook, till yesterday. A note from Mr. Weiss brought it all horribly in sight. What carnage, what endless suffering! It is so hard to realize, when the delicious days go by, one after one, so still and full of peace. I never saw more perfect days, full of all loveliness; the islands never seemed so charming before!
I think you are entirely right about
my rhymes. I should hardly have sent them, but you had surprised me by
liking other things, and it seemed possible you might these. I believe,
I am afraid, I never can put my heart into anything that does n't
belong to the sea.
To Annie Fields. Newtonville.
We were sorry you could not come on Saturday. It was just the sort of day for an expedition, -- cool and clear. Mr. Thaxter and Mr. Folsom took a boat above the Upper Falls and were gone till sunset, and I took Miss Mary Folsom and rowed to Waltham. We contrived to spend two long hours deliciously among the lily pads and spikes of purple pickerel-weed, explored a brook and loaded our boat with flowers; had altogether a charming time.
So let us have next Saturday if it is possible, will you not? Let us know if there is any hope of your coming, -- perhaps Mr. Weiss may be able to come too. We have had such a sparkling and enchanting Sunday! He preached like one possessed, with a spirit of good, and uttered aloud the awful word Slavery, and the people were still as death. The church was full to overflowing.
The carryall would hardly hold the heaps of flowers; the scarlet poppies waved out of the windows; the sweet peas fell to the floor for want of hands and laps to hold them! Ah, these are splendid days!
To Annie Fields. October 23, 1862.
The leaves are falling, falling, dry and sere after the sudden frost, and it looks pinched and cold out of doors, and the wind whistles, and we cluster about the fire at nightfall and tell stories to the children as if it were midwinter. I cannot tell you how I dread the cold! Were I but a stork or a swallow! To have the fields locked up hard and fast, and the snow, blank, stark, stiff, glaring, spread over all, months and months! It takes all my philosophy to stand it and keep my equilibrium. I long for the light and life, and ever shifting color, and ever delicious sound of the faithful old sea more in the winter than in the summer. No frost or snow can extinguish it.
To James T. Fields. Newtonville, October 25.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I 'm sorry I 've as yet no prosaic manuscripts for you, but I pray you patience for a little longer. Meanwhile here are some verses which have been evolved among the pots and kettles, to which you 're welcome, if they 're good enough for you. Verses can grow when prose can't,
"While greasy Joan doth keel the pot"!
The rhymes in my head are all that keep me alive, I do
believe, lifting me in a half unconscious condition over the ashes heap,
so that I don't half realize how dry and dusty it is! I have had no servant
at all for a whole week, by a combination of hideous circumstances. I wish
you'd tell A. that I have had infinite satisfaction and refreshment out
of her tickets already, and forget all weariness and perplexity on the
crest of a breaker of earthly bliss while Emerson discourses.
To James T. Fields. Newtonville, February 20.
So you were one of the "Tenters," as the Star Islanders call the dwellers in canvas houses. And Bayard Taylor? And who was the fair neighboring lady? and was there really one? And was it Annie? What a pleasant time it must have been! How I wish I could have peeped at you from without, and heard the voice that read! But I share with the world the next best thing, "the Tent in type," and am duly grateful.
Thanks, also, for your note of acceptance. Here is the snow again, just as we were fairly rid of the ice-packs! It was so blissful to see the color of the brown fields and pastures, like a tawny lion's skin spread down, and now they are all stark, white, motionless, mute, dead, in their shroud again. I hate the snow with a delightful fervor; it just means death to me, and nothing more or less. I sympathize with the cats and hens, who step across it, lifting up their feet with intense discomfort and disapprobation, and never walk on it if I can help it. But it won't last long.
To Annie Fields. Newtonville.
When the snow blows here we are as much cut off from humanity as if we lived in an iceberg, afloat in the Polar seas. Never mind, stout hearts and firm wills conquer anything in this world, and as you say, we don't need soft skies to make friendship a joy to us. What a heavenly thing it is; "world without end," truly. I grow warm thinking of it, and should glow at the thought if all the glaciers of the Alps were heaped over me! Such friends God has given me in this little life of mine!
To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, April 24.
Aren't you glad to begin to perceive a prospect of spring? it must be so splendid with you. The chicks have brought in the most splendid blossoming maple boughs, smelling like honey, and cowslips and willow blossoms and alder catkins and so on, but we've found no bloodroot or hepaticas yet. You have the Mayflower growing near you, have n't you? How I should like to gather it! Roland reverently gathered a skunk cabbage flower and carried up to school in West Newton, to the teacher of botany in whose class he was a pupil, and she hove it out of the window with speed, said she never saw it before and never wished to see it again, never even heard of it and didn't want to! There 's wisdom for you! As if it didn't have its place in creation and was n't curious and interesting in spite of its smell! Imagine Levi's extreme disgust! A scholar who brought two dabby azalea blossoms from a greenhouse was welcomed with smiles. Such is life. I tied bones to the trees this winter in humble imitation of you, and the birds came round in flocks, to my intense satisfaction. The boys and Levi have guns and go murdering round the country in the name of science till my heart is broken into shreds. They are horribly learned, but that doesn't compensate for one little life destroyed, in my woman's way of viewing it.
To James T. Fields. Boston, Monday Morning, January 6, 1867.
DEAR FRIEND: -- I have copied my ballad for your dissecting knife, very hastily, but I hope it is legible.
Please say to A., with much love, that we had a most charming time last night. It was a real delight to see Mr. Dickens and to have one's ideal of an individual so completely realized.
To John G. Whittier. The Shoals, Sunday, February 16, 1868.
This morning the fishing boats, flying out wing-and-wing before the north wind, brought a mail, and again I am grateful to hear that all are well at home. This afternoon Cedric took a schooner and bounded away over the long waves to Portsmouth, the wind being northeast, so we hope for another mail to-morrow. This day the weather has relented, and over our bleak loneliness a softer sky has stooped, with loosely blown light clouds almost summerlike. To-night at sunset it was dead calm and we climbed the hill and sat by the smaller cairn with all the loveliness spread out before us; a soft crimson sunset intensely vivid over the dark coast and the whole sea reflecting it, in rosy streaks near, and afar off a long red trail in the water. The tide brimmed every cove; a little ice-bird swam in, shook himself; and landed on a point close by for his supper of blue mussels, diving down and coming up again with so much life and vigor that it was entertaining to watch him. When we came down by Babb's Cove the water came in in such a beautiful curve that I was enchanted. First the line was marked in snow, then a few feet below it was drawn accurately in black seaweed, then below that came the living water itself, the "wan water," the melodious water!
Oscar and I have just been leaning out of the window watching the planet Venus, bright as a young moon, throwing "into the ocean faint and far" "the trail of its golden splendor," and listening to the rote which bodes a storm, though the water is like glass. This sound we knew came from the bight of Little Island, as we tried to disentangle the separate sounds wound into one hollow roar; that from Cannon Point, where now and then a sleepy breaker rolled; but the body of sound came from the east and just like a great shell held to your ear it seemed. It does have the most wonderful effect on the human imagination; long before I read "The Lotos Eaters," listening to it I felt as if all things were dreams and shadows. It makes one careless of life; it lulls alike all joy and pain; it dulls our senses till we are ready to cry indeed, "there is no joy but calm"! The northeast wind has swept out of the upper cove the thick crust of ice, and left it clear. Dear friend, you would hardly know the place! This long piazza, up and down which Youth and Romance were wont to meander through the summer evenings, is filled with snow from one end to the other and traversed occasionally by the cows and sheep; the little garden which kept me in roses so long last summer, and whose golden and flame-colored flowers seemed trying to outblaze the sun, is but a heap of snow and desolation. How the poppies nodded their scarlet heads between the rails, and how sweet was the perfume from the mignonette, and how good you were to let me put flowers in your buttonhole! Dear me, what a crowd of reminiscences! Now, in front of the house, the poor Pilgrim (the largest yacht, which went ashore last fall and nearly stove to pieces) is hauled up for repairs, and to shelter her against the weather is draped with a melancholy gray old sail, a ragged piece of canvas that flaps in every breeze; not a boat on the moorings where the tiny fleet tossed like eggshells; and the landing where so many tender greetings passed is torn plank from plank and flung to the right and the left with a vengeance! Every year it is torn away and has to be rebuilt.
Tuesday, 18th. The storm has come and gone and left us powdered with fresh snow, but otherwise none the worse for it. I have sewed so steadily on gowns and caps and feminine paraphernalia that I richly deserved the fit of neuralgia in my head and eyes that made me lose a whole day. I wish I were n't in the habit of going at everything with such a fury! I had a dear, long, lovely letter from Lucy Larcom. I do think she is a heavenly body! a true woman.
It is quite moderate to-day, lovely vanishing greens and blues and violets in among the tossing waves; a kinder sky, clear blue and soft. We hung the parrot out at the door and she imitated the whole flock of sheep and the cows and ducks and hens gathered within her ken, and ordered the horse about imperatively. She likes to be out in the sun, but when she grew tired she called me, "Celia! Celia!" till we took her in. Then she said "God love that girl!" as she hears Oscar say. She is too weird for this world! How you must miss Charlie! This bird is worth half a dozen people for entertainment. She flew away, while mother was gone last autumn, over to Star, and the islanders, taking her for a hawk, were about to shoot her, when she called loud and clear, "Cedric!" and just saved herself. I really think she was glad to see me. I'm sure I was glad to see her!
February is vanishing fast. How soon the alders and willows will blossom! Do you know the thermometer has n't been below zero here once this winter? But oh, the blustering and incorrigible winds! the storms, the snow, the blackness and bleakness of things!
This morning we woke to a dreary sifting of snow, but it cleared off early and the ragged scud went flying east, leaving a stainless blue clean swept by the southwest wind. Whiter than snow the coasters have crossed and recrossed our little space of heaven-colored sea to the east the whole day long. At noon there came a knock at the door, which I opened, and behold a fossil! a mummy! in other words an ancient Star Islander carrying a pail to get some milk for some sick woman. Anything so grizzled and overgrown with the moss of ages I never beheld! I placed a chair for him and mother said, "Do you know who it is?" "Ya'as," he said, "I know Mr. Thaxter's wife," but I didn't know him. They call him "Shothead," but his real name is Randall, as everybody's is who is n't Caswell. (Well, that is a wonderful sentence!) What the original color of the creature was we could not guess. I fancy he never fell overboard or was caught in a shower, and any other application of water I doubt if he ever tried. But he had a sweet expression in his old blue eyes, a kind of childish look, as he retailed the news from Star. I asked him how they got on with Mr. Blank, the minister. He laughed a laugh of scorn. "Blank!" said he, "he ain't no good to nobody, no Doctor, no minister, no schoolmaster neither. He took the five hundred dollars he got from the gentlemen over here last summer to repair the meeting-house, and has been up to Concord a spending on 't all winter!" It seems that he put in two windows for the "meetinghouse" and that's all. I 'm rather glad he did n't pull the old house to pieces, for the beams in it were rescued from the wreck of a Spanish ship as long ago as the oldest inhabitant can remember. The husband of the sick woman, who borrowed the Lone Star to go for the doctor, came over, -- a stalwart fellow in the prime of life, thickset, well-made, with most beautiful large clear hazel eyes, a Nova Scotian, settled many a year at Star. He was so grateful for the boat! He brought over a whole dory load of fresh fish.
I had a splendid mail to-day, five letters, some very unexpected epistles, but I did not hear from you, therefore I was a little bit disappointed, being a woman and necessarily unreasonable. My spouse writes, "Katy [that is our Hibernian] does bravely" and "I shall not expect you yet." Isn't he good? Mother says, "A few days longer; you know you'll never have another mother and I shall not be here long," so I linger and linger, but must soon go, some time next week. I wish I weren't going to set foot off the island till next December! L. says he went to a ball unto which we were invited after I came away, the most prodigious affair of the kind ever given in Boston; the flowers alone cost fifteen hundred dollars, with Crete crying out to us, and the freedmen suffering, and the poor children in the streets of Boston barefoot and squalid!
Thursday morning. A really beautiful day; the coast has really got its feet in the water at last! Po Hill is no longer hanging between heaven and earth, like Mahomet's coffin, but has settled down like a decorous hill, behind Boar's Head, which stands out like a fort of snow in the morning light. Everything smiles and dances and sings for joy, and oh, to be a great gull floating aloft in the pure air!
To Anson Hoxie. Newtonville, June 17, 1868.
You know, my dear Anson, how much hasty-pudding must be made in a family of growing boys, and how many vile old trousers and shirts and duds have to be darned in more senses than one, by the mother of a family. So I hope you'll be charitable, for I've been loving you just as much all the time as if I had written a volume. Well, how do you do, this beautiful weather, you dear thing? Is n't it beautiful to have real hot summer days at last? How are all the gold robins and sparrows and catbirds and chickadees and woodpeckers and bluebirds and blackbirds and kingbirds and hummingbirds and things? Has the gold robin hatched her brood? Did she take the black horsehair, after all? Don't you think, we had a wind that was like the hurricane of the desert, the other day, hot and strong and long. A little chipping-sparrow had built her dainty nest in the cherry-tree outside my western chamber window, within reach of my hand, and as I sat there sewing I could watch her going and coming, and it was more lovely than tongue can tell. Well, this preposterous gale blew and blew and blew till the cows came home, and blew all night besides, as if its only earthly aim and object was to destroy every living thing in its way. It blew the dear little nest with its pretty blue eggs clean away out of sight; we found the remains in the hedge next day. And a dear purple finch's nest and eggs shared the same fate; the finches had built in a little cedar by the fence. I was so sorry! Lots of nests were blown away all about. I hope gold robin held fast to the elm-tree down at Gammer's, if that senseless wind went roaring and raving down to Newburyport, as I suppose it did. Did the yellow bird build in the currant bushes? I'm so anxious to know! When I went over to Amesbury that day I left you, a ruby-throated humming-bird was fluttering among Mr. Whittier's pear-trees all day. I wondered if he were the same one you and mamma and I watched that heavenly afternoon before, when we sat by the pleasant open window with the daffys underneath and the birds going and coming. Oh, I must tell you, that the chip-sparrow whose nest blew away built again in an elm-tree the other side of the house. Mr. Thaxter and Lony have been gone three days, and I milk the cow and she is tied to an apple-tree, and what do you think she does? She's as frisky as a kitten, so all the time I'm milking she goes round and round the tree and I after her, and it's a spectacle enough to kill the cats, it's so ridiculous. I suppose Margie is at the Mills by this time, and what good times you must have with the children! I gave lovely "little black Gammer" to Margie to carry back to your dearest of dear mammas. I hope she got it safely. Please tell her how much obliged to her I am. Tell her I've just got through wrestling with the dragon of house-cleaning and have succeeded in felling him to the earth, whereat my soul rejoices with an exceeding great joy. You can also inform her privately that I love her to distraction.
Did you get two magazines I sent you?
Lony was much pleased with his marble and his bluebirds, which you sent,
and thanks you much.
To E. C. Hoxie. Appledore, March 7, 1869.
Did you know Karl and I are moored
here for seven months? Such is the remarkable fact, and Levi, Lony, and
John are gone down to Jacksonville, or rather to the state of Florida generally
and promiscuously, with powder and shot by the ton, and arsenic and plaster
ditto, and camp-kettle and frying-pan and coffee-pot and provisions and
rubber blankets and a tent, and a boat, and three guns, and a darkey to
be obtained upon arriving at Jacksonville, and heaven only knows what besides.
They are to steam down to Enterprise and then take their boat on to the
lakes at the end of the St. John's River, and then row back in their boat,
shooting all the crocodiles, parrakeets, mocking-birds, herons, flamingoes,
white ibises and every other creature, feathered or otherwise, that chances
to fall in their way, until they stop in St. Augustine, and then return
(going to see Bob on their way, if possible) sometime in May and stop here
for a while to examine the windfall of birds killed by the lighthouse in
the spring, and then they are to pursue their way up north, to Nova Scotia
or the coast of Labrador, still to pursue the unwary sea fowl and cure
the skin thereof and bring it as a tribute to the feet of Science! Meanwhile
Karl and I remain here, moored for seven months. Our house is let and we
're houseless and homeless. When the Mayflower is in blossom I purpose
skimming across the water and seeking you on one side and friend Whittier
on the other side of the broad and meandering Merrimac, and making a flying
call on you both. You might think I should have plenty of time, but you
don't know how busy I am obliged to be, and as for pen and ink I'm free
to confess I hate the sight of it. Living on a desolate island is the busiest
life! And as for the piles of sewing I've got to do for myself, and the
caps and gowns I've got to make up for my mammy and the linen for house,
it's enough to make the spirit of mortal quail before it.
To Annie Fields. Appledore, Isles of Shoals, May 4, 1869.
I saw the tiger when William Hunt first sketched it, pinned up against the parlor wall, which was like a wondrous scrapbook, full of graceful and powerful bits of drawing and all sorts of odds and ends that nobody else would think of perpetuating. You saw the cactus flowers? He showed me the thick charcoal stump with which he drew these marvelous white blooms, so fresh, crisp, delicate, so living! Ah, he has the immortal spark if ever mortal had it! I never saw anything like the pathos he puts into human faces, -- anything on canvas, I mean.
I've thought of you tossing on the "wind-obeying deep" this last fortnight, and of ---- as profoundly miserable. I remember how he shuddered at the thought of the sea. You must have arrived by this. Well! Does
"The chaffinch sing on the orchard
bough
In England now"?
and do you hear the wise thrush that sings each song twice
over "Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture"?
If you don't hear the thrush perhaps you'll see the man who wrote about him, which will perhaps be better. That is another man with all his wits about him, "duly alive and aware." What vitality in all his words, what splendid power! After all, there is no one quite so satisfying to the human mind, and no one ever wearies of his worthiest speech any more than of Shakespeare's... Miss Shepard, who has lived in Salem all her days and knows the Hawthorne people well, says it was Mall Street and not Oliver in which he wrote the "Scarlet Letter." It seems the poem Hawthorne liked best among all the shorter pieces of modern writers was "The Grave," written, by the authoress of "Paul Ferroll." Do you know the poem? Miss Shepard has sent to Miss Hawthorne to obtain it for me, and if you have n't it, if Miss H. (who is an uncertain and eccentric body) sends it to me, I will gladly give it to you. He thought it the most powerful thing in modern poetry. I never heard of it.
To John G. Whittier.
I wonder if you care to know how the great Beethoven looked! Even if you don't, I think the picture is interesting as a fine type of humanity, and I crave permission to add it to your collection of photographs. How strange it is that the greatest musician the world has ever seen should have been deaf to his own marvelous work and shut out from all sounds! Does n't he look like a splendid old German lion, with a northeast hurricane in his hair! I have n't words to tell you how I admire him and his uplifting music.
I had such a happy time at Amesbury!
And I thank you with all my heart.
To E. C. Hoxie. Newtonville, January 24, 1870.
Your letter came this morning and I can't tell you how sad it made me. I wish I knew what could be done, wish we had some plan of our own, wish we could join forces and do something, and Levi does so most heartily; but we have no plans even for the next weeks just ahead, only that he must get away as quickly as he can. I don't see but we have got to become a kind of human shuttlecocks and battledores, for Levi must go south in the winter and fly north in the summer, from rheumatism in winter and from fever and ague in summer. He has been slowly gaining strength, but is far from well, and this morning began with another threatening of rheumatism which troubles me and makes me feel very anxious to have him off. He and Lony are to go together, they don't know where, perhaps St. Augustine. Did I tell you John is to live with the Folsoms in Dedham, and Karl and I go to the island at present at least? Levi means to come home in May, or just as soon as it is warm enough. Then heaven knows where he will go or what we shall do, but something will have to be arranged for next winter. "Come home" I say, -- there won't be any more home, which makes me feel forlorn.
To E. C. Hoxie. Appledore, May 19, 1870.
What a charming letter is this of yours about Mrs. Gold Robin and the blazing Pyrus full of humming-birds! How glad I am Anson likes his magazine, dear, charming little fellow that he is! If I live to be ten thousand years old I never shall forget his sudden appearance before me as I sat in the cars, bound for Amesbury; the fascination of his half shy, half uncertain attitude, his little slender figure, his bright head and enchanting smile. He is among the sweetest of the children that I know, and I am glad to remind him pleasantly of me.
While you were writing last Sunday what a lovely day it was, to be sure! I was scribbling by this heavenly western window, for the sound of the ebbing tide was too delicious. I think George Curtis's lines are most lovely. Down they go into my extract book! Thank you for sending them.
To Elizabeth D. Pierce. Shoals, March 11, 1873.
We have been here a week, Karl and I, but such things have happened I feel as if it were years. You know, I suppose, from the newspapers, of the horrid murder at Smutty-nose. Those dear, lovely Norwegian people had a settlement over there; there was John Hontvet and his wife Marie, and Karen Christiansen, Marie's sister, and Ivan Christiansen her brother, and Anethe his wife; the two had been married but a year and only came from Norway last fall. Anethe, everybody says, was a regular fair beauty, young and strong, with splendid thick yellow hair, so long she could sit on it. Both husbands, John and Ivan, were devotedly fond of their wives, and their little home was so bright and happy and neat and delightful they never ceased congratulating themselves upon having found such a place to live in. Louis Wagner, the Prussian devil who murdered them, had lived with them all summer, but was in Portsmouth working at nothing in particular for the last month (those three women had been heavenly good to him, nursed him in sickness, and supposed him to be a friend). The two husbands went to Portsmouth Tuesday to sell their fish, leaving the three women, as they often had done before, alone, as we on this island have often been. In Portsmouth they found Louis and asked him to come baiting trawls with them. He pretended assent, but knowing the three women had been left alone and thinking Karen, who had just left mother's service, had money with her, he took a dory and rowed twelve miles out here in the calm night lit by a young moon, landed on Smutty a little after midnight, broke into the house in the dark and hacked and hewed those poor women till he killed two of them by sheer force of blows, chopping off Anethe's ear and smashing her skull. She had twenty wounds where he had blundered at her haphazard, in the dark! Marie told me all about it. She heard him first at Karen, rushed to see what was the matter, got three blows herself and a bruise on the jaw from a chair he flung at her when she fled, fastening the door behind her, into Anethe's room. She shook and roused the poor girl out of the deep heavy sleep of youth, and throwing some clothes over her, made her get out of the window, Louis thundering at the door all the time to get in. In vain Marie cried "Run, run, Anethe, for your life!" Utterly bewildered and dazed, poor little Anethe cried, "I cannot move one step," and with that Louis came rushing out of the house round the corner, and Marie saw him kill Anethe with many blows, felling her to the earth. She rushed back to Karen and tried to pull her out of the house, begging her to come and save herself, but poor Karen, half dead with blows, cried only "I too tired," and Louis coming back Marie leaped from the other window and ran for her life. He struck at her with the axe as she leaped and drove it deep into the window ledge. Having to finish Karen, he delayed long enough for poor Marie to get off among the rocks. The little dog, Ringa, was barking wildly all the time. He followed Marie and was really the means of saving her life, for but for him she would have crept under one of the old fishhouses to hide, but she knew his barking would betray her. Next day the devil's bloody footsteps were found all round the old buildings where he had searched for her everywhere. Barefooted, in her nightgown, over the snow and ice and rough rocks she fled with the little Ringa, down on the uttermost end of the island, crept into a hole and hid. The moon was just setting as she went; and there she stayed till morning, and dared not move till the sun was high, hugging Ringa to keep herself alive. Louis meanwhile finished Karen by strangling her, sought Marie in vain, took his boat and rowed to Portsmouth again, arrived there in the first sweet tranquil blush of dawn, a creature accursed, a blot on the face of the day. A heavenly day it was, calm, blue, and fair; poor Marie with her torn tender feet crawled round to Malaga opposite Ingebertsen's house, and signaled and screamed till at last they saw her, and what was good old Ingebertsen's astonishment when he went for her, to see her in her nightdress, all bruised and bloodstained, with her feet all bleeding and frozen. "Who has done it?" he kept asking and she only could answer at last, "Louis, Louis, Louis." I went over to see her at his house (on our island, you know). She clasped my hands, crying: "Oh, I so glad to see you! Oh, I so glad I saved my life!" Poor thing, she tried hard to save the others. The two husbands arrived just after Marie had been taken to Ingebertsen's. When they went into their house and saw that unspeakable sight they came reeling out and fell flat down in the snow. A watch had to be set over Ivan lest he should destroy himself. Anethe, his precious little wife, was so lovely. Oscar was so impressed with her beauty. We begged her to come over as often as she could, it was such a pleasure to look at her!
You can't imagine how shocked and solemnized we have all been. Oscar walks up and down, now ejaculating, "Oh poor, poor things, and Anethe so beautiful, so beautiful!" Karen was quite one of the family here; it was she of whom I wrote the little spinning ballad, you know. Now I'm afraid these dear people will all be frightened away from here and no more will come.
Wednesday, March 12. To-day, dear, I got your sweet little note. Ever so many thanks for it. Lots of newspapers came with such distracted accounts of the murder that it is enough to make anybody sick. As if a Star Islander did it! If they do not hang that wretch, law is a mockery.
To Feroline W. Fox. Shoals, November 13, 1873.
Perhaps you don't know that I am a fixture here for the winter. My mother has been so poorly I could not leave her, and she would not leave my brothers, so I must leave my family to take care of themselves, and stay with her, for our family is so destitute of women it is really forlorn! No sisters, daughters, aunts, cousins, nothing but a howling wilderness of men! So it all comes on my shoulders. I would fain unite the duties of existence and have my mother at home with me, but alas, fate has arranged it otherwise, and here we are imprisoned as completely as if we were in the Bastille, a mail perhaps once in a fortnight, and the demoniacal northwest wind mounting guard over us day and night, and howling like ten thousand raving fiends. My feeling of personal spite against the northwest is something vindictive and venomous in the extreme. I'd like to blot it off the compass. The only thing I can do is to turn my back on it and try to forget it; try to forget there is such a place as out of doors at all, for the weather is something incredible, and will be from this time to next May. You never would know the place! Such a senseless, blustering cave of the winds! I suppose if the far-off continent did not hold so much that is precious for me, I should not get so vexed with the winds and waves that prevent me from hearing from my dear ones. I miss my boys so much I can't bear to think of it. As I said, you would not know the place now. All the boats are housed, not one on the moorings of all the pretty fleet, all the familiar tops down, the dike removed that kept the water in the basin of the upper cove, the floating wharf towed into that basin and fastened with chains, not a settee on the wind-swept chilly piazzas; the music-room piled sky high with sails and traps, the eagle descended from his perch on the housetop, even the vane taken down, everything double-reefed for the hurricane in store. It is truly "remote, unfriended,"solitary, "slow," but nothing to what it will be when the snow makes a bitter shroud for us. There isn't a gracious color to be seen, except the flush of sunrise, and the faint sad rose tints and sadder violets of sunset, and if you have emerged into the outer air the gale cuffs your ears to that extent that you feel personally aggrieved and disgusted. Twenty weeks of bluster between us and spring! But I wouldn't mind if we could only have a mail once a week. I keep very busy all the time. I wish you could see the room into which I took you to see my mother. I have taken the plants in hand, and really the desert blossoms like the rose; ten windows full; they are really splendid. A passion flower is running round the top at the rate of seven knots an hour, and I have roses, geraniums, clouds of pink oxalis, abutilon, and callas in bloom; every day I spend an hour over those ten windows. Polly, my parrot, hangs at one. I don't know what we should do without her. She is so funny! She has learned my unfortunate laugh, and she keeps it up from morning till night, peal upon peal, and, no matter what may be the state of the family temper, we must join in it perforce; it is irresistible!
My dear friend, I cannot tell you how affectionately I remember you and your beautiful sister. I wish you would remember me most kindly to her and to "Carrie" and to your husband. If I only were at home I should surely try to find my way to you all, and look in your dear faces again speedily... . I fairly tremble when a bushel of letters are turned out of the mail-bag for me, and I am afraid to touch or look at what I am longing for so eagerly. Can't you understand how one must feel?
To Feroline W. Fox. Appledore, March 19, 1874
Nobody knows how precious a word of kindness is, coming across the bitter sea to this howling wilderness of desolation, one lives so much on "the weather" here; and when all out of doors turns your deadly enemy, it is hard to bear. Oh, what do you think! on the 25th of February I saw our song sparrows! Yes, really! I could hardly believe my eyes. I heard the cry of a bird and I listened, thinking it was the snow buntings, whose sad, sad cry often makes lonelier our loneliness, but it was repeated, and I said to myself, that cheerful chirp can belong to nothing but the dear brown bird I love; and I peered eagerly about till at last I saw him hopping contentedly among the snowbanks! I don't think I shall rejoice more if I ever chance to see the angel Gabriel's plumes of burning gold. I could scarcely believe my eyes. I went round and round him, and watched him till the cold had nearly turned me into a frozen effigy. I found his dear little tracks all about my little garden, where he had sought for any stray seeds that the weather might have spared. Thenceforth I went about strewing the ground with crumbs. The first of March a company of them were singing, and three robins beside, and yesterday, lo! a bluebird. What bliss! To-day we have been swathed in a warm fog, the snow falls off, the spring seems possible. I have been wandering on the beaches, -- unless I spend just so much time out of doors, I get blue and ill, -- and gathering Iceland moss for blanc-mange for the million, because I hate to be without a purpose. It takes Thoreau and Emerson and their kind to enjoy a walk for a walk's sake, and the wealth they glean with eyes and ears. I cannot enjoy the glimpses Nature gives me half as well, when I go deliberately seeking them, as when they flash on me in some pause of work. It is like the pursuit of happiness: you don't get it when you go after it, but let it alone and it comes to you. At least this is my case. In the case of the geniuses (now is that the proper plural?) aforesaid, it is different. So I industriously filled my basket with the pretty, wet, transparent clusters lying all strewn about the beach; but I did n't fail to see how the dampness brought out the colors of stone and shell, and to be glad therefor; and I heard the living ripple of the swiftly rising tide among the ledges and boulders, and saw how it bubbled and eddied up close to the shore, for the fog pressed in so close one could not see a rod across the calm surface. And I even paused long enough to address the flood as it rushed and sang almost round my feet. "O everlasting, beautiful old eternal slop!" I said, and the force of language could no farther go. And, my basket being full, I selected a formidable club from the heaps of driftwood strewing the beach, and went to the end of the outermost ledge and began beating off the thick, white shining girdle of salt-water ice that partially clasps each island yet. I loosened large ponderous masses, that fell with a great splash into the sea and sailed off slowly to annihilation. "Go, go," I cried, "and never come back again! I hate you!" and I assailed it with wrath till I had beaten the rock quite free, and I was tired enough to be glad to sit down and watch the floating fetters I had cast loose as they swam heavily away.
I send you two or three thoughts of God, out of the great, rough, fierce Atlantic. Who would think its bitter wrath and tumult could hide such delicate and tender fancies!
To Annie Fields. Shoals, May 20, 1874.
I am full of sadness and of sympathy over this terrible disaster. Hardly can I think of anything else, and those two dear people haunt my little room, the sunny piazza, the little garden; I see and hear them everywhere. How gentle they were, how sweet and good and noble. Howcan we spare them, and fools and knaves are cumbering the earth! I have such a letter of sorrow from S. C., who grew so attached to them here: "That dear, splendid little doctor! To think of the cruelty of her tender body being beaten on the rocks!" Ah, I wish the sea would stop its roar, so soft and far from rim to rim of this great horizon! It makes me shudder when I think of them and how it sounded in their ears! How brave Mrs. Greene is, sure that all that is must be best! glad for them that they could go in the midst of the joy of life, with all their enthusiasm, spared all life's disappointments, safe from any suffering like hers! She is a marvel. Yes, dear, she sent me the little paper, writing my name on it and hers with her own hand. And I must write to her, but hardly dare to speak.*
I think I shall not see the mainland again till autumn, unless sickness summons me. It is heavenly beautiful here now, "so sweet with voices of the birds," so green and still and flower-strewn. Only I am too much alone, and get sadder than death with brooding over this riddle of life; and Nature is so placid; and the sea and the rocks have ground the life out of those two to whom life was so sweet. Oh, how hard it must have been to yield it up! I can see how they looked, what they did, what they said; my imagination will not cease picturing it all.
Note
Shawn P. Wilbur
believes this is a reference Dr. Susan J. Dimock, of the New England Hospital
for Women and Children, and Elizabeth (Bessie) Greene, daughter of William
B. Greene and Anna Blake Shaw Greene. Miss Greene was Dr. Dimock's
friend and co-worker in the Society for Helping Destitute Mothers and Infants.
The pair drowned on May 7, 1875 in the wreck of the Schiller, off
the Scilly Isles near the southwestern coast of England. If this
is a reference to the Schiller, then this letter must be misdated;
it would have to have been written at least a year later.
William Batchelder Greene
(1819-1878) was a well-known Unitarian minister, Union Army colonel, anarchist
and banking theorist.
To Feroline W. Fox. Shoals, June 16, 1874.
Now that the daily communication with
the continent is at last established, I feel so close to all my friends!
Quite within reach of everybody, and I am so thankful! I only wish it could
last forever! I cannot tell you how I have enjoyed the spring, how doubly
beautiful every softening aspect of nature has been to me, after the winter's
discontent and poverty. Really I think the world never began to be so beautiful
before! The birds do sing so; and as for the sandpipers, when I hear them
calling in the rich twilights, it seems to me that there is nothing more
to be desired on earth. I have not seen one lilac spike, not one apple
blossom, this year, but I'd rather have the sandpipers if I can't have
both! I hear the country has been radiant with blossoms. Well, I am more
than content with what I have. I don't envy you a bit. My little garden
sprang into such life of a sudden; all the seeds I planted, and a million
more beside, came rushing up out of the ground so fast that I hardly knew
how to manage them, and have been obliged to throw away enough flowers
to stock half a dozen gardens, in order to let the remaining plants have
room to grow. Such mats of pansies! And that flaming California poppy has
spread everywhere. It breaks my heart to have to pull up a single one!
Ranks of sweet-peas I have, and mignonette by the bushel. If I can only
keep the weeds away! I wish I could show you my pretty awning on the west
piazza, it is so gay and effective, with broad stripes of blue and white
and edges of scarlet. They are cutting the grass on the lawn to-day, and
the air is so sweet with land and sea scents!
To Feroline W. Fox. Shoals, September 22, 1874.
I have just made a discovery which fills me with -- "vexation" I think would be the proper word; namely, that your son has been here for a week, and I did not know him and nobody told me he was here! ...
Dear friend, I have to thank you for
the postal card about planting the lilies. How good you are to me! Did
Carry tell you I have taken to painting, -- "wrastling with art," I call
it, in the wildest manner? This woodbine leaf at the top of the first page
of this note I copied from nature. Of course it isn't very good, but it
shows hope of better things, don't you think so? Do say you do! I can scarcely
think of anything else. I want to paint everything I see; every leaf, stem,
seed vessel, grass blade, rush, and reed and flower has new charms, and
I thought I knew them all before. Such a new world opens, for I feel it
in me; I know I can do it, and I am going to do it! What a resource for
the dreary winter days to come! I know you will be glad for me.
To John Weiss. Shoals, September 26, 1874.
See, I made this red leaf for you above. I gathered it from a wild vine that crimsoned over a rough gray stone, and copied it as near as I could. Not very well, but I have n't had a lesson yet, and of course one can't be perfect in a first effort. But do be glad for me that I can do it, it is such a delight, such a resource in the drear days to come to look forward to!
Tell me, is your sermon in answer to Tyndall's address (which, by the way, I have just got hold of in the "Popular Science Monthly," and haven't yet read) to be published anywhere? And, if so, won't you send it to me, please? Would I could have heard it!
It is lovely yet here; the little room
is so cozy, still bright with flowers and firelight, and prettier yet for
my paraphernalia of painting, and groups of burning red and golden leaves,
and tiny brown rushes and grasses and poppy-heads and larkspur spikes,
all sorts of studies to gloat over. I have made a little vignette of White
Island.
To Elizabeth D. Pierce. Shoals, September 29, 1874.
Well, The beautiful summer has gone at last, and all the dear people except Miss Parkman, who, faithfullest of the faithful, would gladly stay here all winter with me if she could. This is the wildest wild night, -- floods of rain and a hurricane from the stormy east; but here in the cottage parlor the fire burns bright, the gas fills the room with light, the rich flowers glow and send out fragrance. My davenport I have wheeled to the fireside. Karl and Miss Parkman are playing bézique close by. The room is so charming! there are thirty-two pictures in it now. I had such a birthday! No end of pictures and things. It was on the 29th of June, and I was smothered with roses. How happy I was! Oh, what a lovely, lovely summer! I must tell you something nice. I have begun to draw and paint, and find I can do it, even without lessons, with more or less success, so that I am sure that by and by, after I have had some lessons, I can do it well. It is so delightful! I want to paint everything I see. It will be such a resource in winter loneliness to come, for I expect to spend the greater part of the winter here. Though my mother is better now than she has been for two years, I don't dare to leave her all alone with only the servants and my brothers in this great loneliness. Alas that it should be so! I do so dread the exile, the bitter, long loneliness. It is only the sense of duty done that keeps one's head above water in such a case.
I am so glad you liked the little song. If only you could hear the music! It is delicious; and I have just written one called "Forebodings," which Mr. Eichberg has also set to music, and which he says is the best thing he has ever composed, which, considering the beautiful things he has done, is saying a great deal.
Your letter was so pleasant! Do write to me as often as you can, and give me a blink of your light and joy in my white, stark desolation here in the howling Atlantic.
To John Weiss. Shoals, October 17, 1874.
I think I did not thank you half enough for the address you sent, and for your delightful note about it. I read Tyndall's address twice over, and yours also, with supreme satisfaction. Will he read what you have said? He ought to see it. What a joy to find himself so understood and appreciated! I have been extremely interested in Professor Huxley's address before the British Association, which I have in the "Living Age." There is nothing so interesting to me as this quarrying of bright minds, this digging at the roots of things. "Your little hatchet," -- oh, what a weapon! swift, sharp, invisible, resistless. It is like a scythe, as Mr. Eichberg says; it cuts a broad swath every time you speak.
The little cottage is deserted now,
and I have turned the key on that dear loneliness. The pictures look down
in stillness; the vases are empty, the books unopened; no fire blazes on
the hearth; not even a fly buzzes in the window; it is desolate! But outside
the little garden blooms, still full of color and fragrance, for no sign
of frost has fallen upon us yet. I have moved to mother's room. Through
the ten windows the sun streams delightfully in clear days, and everything
grows and blooms. Every day the doves flock in at the door, over the threshold,
to be fed, and little brown song sparrows come too, and hop over the floor,
as tame as chickens. Your E--- is pretty well, but every time the thermometer
goes down, her strength and spirits go with it. The cold destroys her.
I dread the winter with an inexpressible dread.
To John Weiss. Shoals, November 22, 1874.
You have "no news, nothing to communicate," and you tell me this delightful story of Tyndall's gladness, which makes me glow with joy. Well may he be glad and proud! Oh, why cannot I always hear you, I wonder! I wish for it most ardently. For God leads you up to the heights, and you call us up to you.
No wonder Tyndall took your "discourse to bed, but not to sleep"! Your note has made this dull day of November -- warm and bright. Be sure no human creature rejoices in your joy more sincerely, with more loving enthusiasm, than your grateful
CELIA
To Árpàd Sàndor Grossman. Shoals, November 23, 1874.
My dear boy, I miss "people and things" very much in my solitude, but there might be a worse lot and I won't complain, though it is sometimes a hard fight between myself and the blues when I do not get a mail for twelve days, as happened lately.
Oh, how long it seems to summer! I can hardly believe there will ever be another, and that all my friends, or so many of them, will come back to bless me with their presence. I wish I had a little painting for you, Árpàd dear, but next time I write I shall hope to have something. It is such a pleasure to find I can do it, you can't imagine! And I have not had a lesson as yet, not one, and I find I can make little land and sea scapes, besides flowers and leaves and ferns and berries, and all sorts of pretty things.
To Anna Eichberg. Shoals, March 26, 1875.
My heart is sick with the terrors of these wintry shoals. Night before last a large schooner went ashore on Duck Island, -- do you remember it? -- lying eastward of us, a mere reef. Your father used to go there with Waldemar to fish for perch. It was snowing and blowing like forty thousand devils! They went ashore at about eleven o'clock. The captain, William Henry Keen, and another, were drowned. "Boys, we must die here," he said; "may God forgive me if I have wronged any man!" and then the wave washed the poor captain away. Five men scrambled on to the rock and clung there all night, in constant danger of being washed off. Oh those hours, interminable, bitter, dreary, till the drear day dawned! At daylight a fishing schooner passing saw their signals and rescued them. We knew nothing of it till yesterday afternoon, when the discovery of the wreck on the reef filled us with dismay. It was blowing -- ah, how useless to try to tell you how it was blowing -- northwest! I can't describe it to you. Karl was set to watch if any sign of life appeared, and my brothers would have pushed off at the risk of their lives; but while no sign of life appeared, we waiting prayed the hurricane might go down with the sun: but no, we were forced to go to bed distressed with the thought that the poor sailors might be dying of cold and exhaustion so near, and we unable to help them. Not till three o'clock this morning did the wind lull, and then Oscar and Cedric started, rowing together over the black, still howling water in the brassy moonlight. They reached the reef in the gray dawn and sought everywhere; could find nobody. At daybreak the fishing schooner came down, and told them the survivors were saved. It was all equipped for wrecking, with men and tools and long knives and hatchets. All day the island has been surrounded by flocks of sails, like birds, the few poor people here, the Ingebertsens and others, being allowed to secure as much of the driftwood as they could; and Hans, our man Bernhardt's eldest boy, with his brother Karl, a morsel of a child, went, too; made several trips, and the last one, as he came in his tiny cockle-shell heavily laden, a fiend's squall broke out of the south, with terrible thick snow, and Hans has disappeared! All the other boats got in, but poor Hans in his own land was a telegraph operator, and knows no more how to handle a boat than any landlubber, and where he will go, or how escape death, we know not, and are devoured with anxiety. Poor Bernhardt is almost beside himself; a little while ago I met him on the piazza, blinking the snow and the tears out of his poor, honest eyes. I am the only woman who has been told. Hans's two sisters, Mina and Ovidia, would go wild; they know nothing at all, they do not guess, and my mother would be too horribly distressed. Bernhardt has gone over in all the storm to Smutty Nose to try to console his wife; they are all so fond of each other, these good Norwegian people. Ah me, my heart aches for them. Where are those two boys! The sea is black and white as death, with horrible long billows that break and roar aloud. Their only hope is to steer for the continent, if only Hans has sense enough! The great danger, too, of that poor, little, tender boy freezing to death, -- how horrible it all is! Captain Keen's body was found this afternoon and taken to the land. The schooner was the Birkmyre, from Goniss, Hayti, loaded with logwood for Boston. We had hardly got over the other trouble and fear about Julius Ingebertsen. Now comes all this. What next? Oh, how long to wait before, if they are alive or dead, those poor boys! My brothers walk the floor, up and down, up and down, they are so anxious and sorry; and the storm rages, cruel, inexorable, unmerciful, bitter.
Saturday night. They are saved! But only the chance of their having on board a firkin picked up from the wreck saved them; with this they bailed the water out that filled the boat every few minutes, and flying before the gale reached the shore, and happily the mouth of the Piscataqua River. Poor little Karl was so spent Hans had to carry him in his arms to the shelter they found. Hans had seen the body of the drowned captain drawn up from the bottom of the sea about Duck Island in the afternoon, and it was such a frightful, intolerable sight, he saw it all the time the storm was beating on them, and the great waves tossing them, as it seemed, to certain destruction. We did not know till noon that they were safe. Poor Bernt was working doggedly all the morning calking the Lone Star, lying in the upper cove, and all the time weeping bitterly: to lose both boys at once! Oh, when the girls were told of it! Could you have seen them! Mina sobbed and wept, and they trembled, poor things, like aspen leaves. Not a thing did they know till the good news came. I was so glad we had kept it from them. Such a night as their father and mother spent last night! I was up early, but not so early but that faithful Bernt was at his work, and I called to him, "Bernt, have they come back?" He shook his head; he could not speak.
To John Weiss. Autumn, 1875.
After I have heard you speak, I feel as if I had been looking through one of the great telescopes that bring the awful stars so near; there is the same sense of wonder and of awe.
I am going to Montpelier, to visit there a lady who has been begging me to go to her for nearly twenty years. Little she knows how glad I am to go! I never traveled so far before. I shall see effulgence in the way of color at M., for the trees will be in their glory, and the mountains are beautiful....
We went to ride this morning, in an open carriage with two gay steeds, up and down among the superb mountains. From the heights, the hills were like the sea with a combination of "long swell" and "chop" crossing it, and against the sky the mountains on the horizon seemed to be heaved like petrified waves ready to break. And the trees! fires and flames; incandescence was the only word I could think of to fit the situation. Burning coals the maples were, and where the frost had touched some of the tops it was like white ashes; I expected to see smoke rising. Then the gold and topaz and amber flaring up into the blue of the clear sky, and the garnets and rubies! it was magnificent. Maples bigger than I ever dreamed they could grow, in such ranks, looking as if they had had such a good time all their lives, with nothing on earth to disturb them, and plenty of room to grow and attain to the fullest perfection. Enough to do you good it was to see them! These people are so nice; know you, read all they can get hold of, of yours and every other man who speaks sense. I tried to give them some of your remarks about Providence to refresh these good friends.
To Annie Fields. Newtonville, November 13, 1875.
I must tell you! 1 I came home like a raving lion and tore my new bonnet limb from limb, cut off half a yard of that heaven-aspiring coronet, and in the twinkling of an eye turned the whole structure into one of grace and elegance. (Ahem!) But really, you would imagine me to be at least ten years younger, and that peace which somebody said the consolations of religion failed to bring, is mine, -- that of being fitly bonneted!
To Annie Fields. Shoals, March 22, 1876.
I know you thought of us in the terrific storm yesterday. It was terrific truly! Had it continued another twenty-four hours it would not have left stick or stone on the Shoals, I do believe. It is utterly indescribable. Everything that could move in the house shook and jingled and rattled, and the roar in the sky was perfectly deafening, and the sea was really "mountains high." The "Old Harry," invisible generally, "broke solid," as the Shoalers say, every minute, and all the islands were lost in the clouds of flying foam. I went to the top of the house for a moment with my brothers; such a sight hasn't been seen since the Minot's Ledge storm. Our only yacht, the Lone Star, sank at her moorings and is lost. She was our only winter dependence, poor old craft. She served us long and well, and we are sorry she is gone. We feared to see the solid pier depart piecemeal, but the gale lulled in time to save it. The wind and water were blown through and through the house; windows and doors seemed no barriers at all. My screens served good purpose. I barricaded my mother with them from the wind, and made her quite snug and comfortable. But I sat in my winter sack (outside sack) all day! To-day two big steamers have been cruising about for wrecks. I dread to hear of the disasters that must have happened. This morning the sun rose clear and crimson, and dived forthwith into a cloud, and then it snowed thickly till noon, when it cleared with a wild west wind. We dare hope for news from the continent to-morrow.
Mr. Howells has returned my MS., and wants me to make it more