mm Class Book c5 CORfRIGKT DEPOSin MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS By the Same Author BIOGRAPHICAL American Bookmen (1898) Phillips Brooks (in "Beacon Biographies," 1899) Life and Letters of George Bancroft (1908) Life and Labors of Bishop Hare (191 Letters of Charles Eliot Norton (with Sara Norton, 1913) George von Lengerke Meyer: His Life and Public Services (1919) Memoirs of the Harvard Dead (1920, 1921, — ) HISTORICAL Boston, the Place and the People (1903) Boston Common: Scenes from Four Centuries (1910) The Boston Symphony Orchestra (1914) The Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (191 8) The Atlantic Monthly and Its Makers (1919) VERSE Shadows (1897) Harmonies (1909) EDITED The Beacon Biographies (31 volumes, 1899 - 1910) The Memory of Lincoln (1899) Home Letters of General Sherman (1909) Lines of Battle, by Henry Howard Brownell (1912) The Harvard Volunteers in Europe (1916) A Scholar's Letters to a Young Lady (1920) Sol^aiKIilDSS I MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS A CHRONICLE OF EMINENT FRIENDSHIPS DRAWN CHIEFLY FROM THE DIARIES OF Mrs. JAMES T. FIELDS BY M. A. DeWOLFE HOWE / ' / stay a little longer, as one stays To co'ver up the embers that still burn " WITH ILLUSTRATIONS THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS BOSTON COPYRIGHT, ig22, BY M. A. DEWOLFE HOWE Printed in the United States of America OCT -9 72 . ©CI.A683591 ^U «: CONTENTS I. Preliminary 3 II. The House and the Hostess .... 6 III. Dr. Holmes, the Friend and Neighbor. . 17 IV. Concord and Cambridge Visitors ... 53 V. With Dickens in America 135 VI. Stage Folk and Others 196 VII. Sarah Orne Jewett 281 ILLUSTRATIONS Mrs. Fields Frontispiece From an early photograph A Note of Acceptance 9 Autograph of Julia Ward Howe The Offending Dedication 15 From First Edition of Hawthorne's "Our Old Home" An Early Photograph of Dr. Holmes . . .18 Reduced Facsimile of Dr. Holmes's 1863 Address to the Alumuni of Harvard 23 From the Play-bill of the Night of Dr. Holmes's "great round fat tear" 24 (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) Facsimile of the Conclusion of Ultimus Smith's Declaration 26 Mrs. Fields 32 From a crayon portrait made by Rowse in 1863 Fields, the Man of Books and Friendships . . 34 Louis Agassiz 48 Hawthorne in 1857 54 From a Letter of Hawthorne's after a Visit to Charles Street 61 Emerson 86 From the Marble Statue by Daniel Chester French in the Concord Public Library A Corner of the Charles Street Library . . 98 From a Note of Emerson's to Mrs. Fields . .100 Facsimile of Autograph Inscription on a Photo- graph OF Rowse's Crayon Portrait of Lowell given to Fields 106 James Russell Lowell 106 From the crayon portrait by Rowse in the Harvard Col- lege Library Facsimile of Lowell's "Bulldog and Terrier" Sonnet 121 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 124 From a photograph taken in middle life From a Note of "Dear Whittier" to Mrs. Fields 130 Proposed Dedication of Whittier's "Among the Hills" to Mrs. Fields 132 Charles Dickens 136 From a portrait by Francis Alexander, for many years in the Fields house, and now in the Boston Museum of ^Fine Arts "The Two Charles's," Dickens and Fechter . 140 (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) Reduced Facsimile of Dickens's Directions, Pre- served among the Fields Papers, for the Brewing OF Pleasant Beverages 147 Facsimile Play-bill of "The Frozen Deep," with Dickens as Actor-Manager 188 (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) Facsimile Note from Dickens to Fields . . . 192 James T. Fields at Fifteen 196 From a drawing by a French Painter Facsimile Note from Booth to Mrs. Fields . . 201 Booth as Hamlet 202 Jefferson in the Betrothal Scene of "Rip Van Winkle" 208 A Nast Cartoon of Dickens and Fechter . .210 (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) James E. Murdock and William Warren . .218 Charlotte Cusiiman : from a Crayon Portrait . 220 (Shaw Theatre Collection, Harvard College Library) RiSTORi AND Fanny Kemble 222 The photograph of Fanny Kemble was taken in Philadel- phia in 18G3 Christine Nilsson as Ophelia 226 Facsimile Letter from William Morris Hunt TO Fields 231 Facsimile Page from an Early Letter of Bret Harte's 235 Bret Harte and Mark Twain 242 From early photographs Facsimile Verses and Letter from Mark Twain TO Fields 248-9 Charles Sumner 258 From a Letter of Edward Lear's to Fields . . 279 Sarah Orne Jewett 282 The Library in Charles Street 284 Mrs. Fields at the window. Miss Jewett at the right An Autograph Copy of Mrs. Fields's "Flammantis Mcenia Mundi " before its Final Revision . . 287 Mrs. Fields on her Manchester Piazza . . . 288 Mistral, Master of "Boufflo Beel" . . . 294 Reduced Facsimile from Letter of Henry James 299 {Most of the photographs reproduced are in the collections of the Boston Athenceum and the Harvard College Library, to which grateful acknowledgments are made.) MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS I PRELIMINARY In the years immediately before the death of Mrs. James T. Fields, on January 5, 191 5, she spoke to me more than once of her intention to place in my posses- sion a cabinet of old papers — journals of her own, let- ters from a host of correspondents, odds and ends of manuscript and print — which stood in a dark corner of a small reception-room near the front door of her house in Charles Street, Boston. On her death this intention was found to have been confirmed in writing. It was also made clear that Mrs. Fields had no desire that her own life should be made a subject of record — "unless," she wrote, "for some reason not altogether connected with myself." Such a reason is abundantly suggested in her records of the friends she was con- stantly seeing through the years covered by the journals. These friends were men and women whose books have made them the friends of the English-speaking world, and a better knowledge of them would justify any ampli- fication of the records of their lives. In this process the figure of their friend and hostess in Charles Street must inevitably reveal itself — not as the subject of a biog- raphy, but as a central animating presence, a focus of sympathy and understanding, which seemed to make a single phenomenon out of a long series and wide vari- ety of friendships and hospitalities. 4 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS The "blue books" — more than fifty in number — which Mrs. Fields used for the journals have already yielded many pages of valuable record to her own books, especially "James T. Fields : Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches" (1881), and "Authors and Friends" (1896); also even, here and there, to Mr. Fields's "Yesterdays with Authors" (1871). Yet she left unprinted much that is both picturesque and illumi- nating : so many of the persons mentioned in the jour- nal were still living or had but recently died when her books were written. There are, besides, many passages used in a fragmentary way, which may now with pro- priety be given complete. Into these manuscript journals, then, I propose to dip afresh — not with the purpose of passing in a mis- cellaneous review all the friends who crossed the thresh- old of the Charles Street house in a fixed period of time, but rather in pursuit of what seems a more prom- ising quest — namely, to consider separate friends and groups of friends in turn ; to assemble from the journals passages that have to do with them; to supplement these by drawing now and then upon the old cabinet for a letter from this or that friend to Mr. or Mrs. Fields, and thus to step back across the years into a time and scene of refreshing remembrance. Many a friend, many a friendship, must be left untouched. In the processes of selection, figures of more than local significance will receive the chief consideration. In pas- sages relating to one person, allusions to many others, sometimes treated separately in other passages, will PRELIMINARY 5 often be found, for the friendships with one and an- other were constantly overlapping and interlocking. Bits of record of no obviously great importance will be included, not because they or the subjects of them are taken with undue seriousness, but merely that a van- ished society, interesting in itself to those who care for the past and doubly interesting as material for a study in contrasts with the present, may have again its "day in court." When Fields was publishing his reminis- cences of Hawthorne, Lowell wrote to him : " Be sure and don't leave anything out because it seems trifling, for it is out of these trifles only that it is possible to reconstruct character sometimes, if not always"; and he commended especially the hitting of "the true chan- nel between the Charybdis of reticence, and the Scylla of gossip." Under sailing orders of this nature, self- imposed, I hope to proceed. "Another added to my cloud of witnesses,"- wrote Mrs. Fields in her journal, on hearing, in 1867, that Forceythe Willson had died. Nearly fifty years of life then remained to the diarist, though she continued to keep her diary with regularity for hardly ten. Before her own death the cloud of witnesses was infinitely ex- tended. Yet new friends constantly stood ready to fill, as best they might, the gaps that were left by the old. It is not the new who will appear in the following pages, but those with whom Mrs. Fields herself must now be numbered. II THE HOUSE AND THE HOSTESS The fact that Henry James, in "The American Scene," published in 1907, and again in an article which appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly" and the "Cornhill Magazine" in July, 1915, has set down in his own ulti- mate words his memories of Mrs. Fields and her Boston abode would be the despair of anyone attempting a similar task — were it not that quotation remains an unprohibited practice. In "The American Scene" he evokes from the past "the Charles Street ghosts," and gives them their local habitation: "Here, behind the efFaced anonymous door" — a more literal-minded realist might have noted that a vestibule-door contrib- uted the only effacement and anonymity — "was the little ark of the modern deluge, here still the long drawing-room that looks over the water and towards the sunset, with a seat for every visiting shade, from far-away Thackeray down, and relics and tokens so thick on its walls as to make it positively, in all the town, the votive temple to memory." In his "Atlantic" and "Cornhill" article he refers to the house, in a phrase at which Mrs. Fields would have smiled, as "the waterside museum of the Fieldses," and to them as "addicted to every hospitality and every benevolence, addicted to the cultivation of talk and wit and to the ingenious multiplication of such ties as could link the upper half HOUSE AND HOSTESS 7 of the title-page with the lower"; he pays tribute to "their vivacity, their curiosity, their mobility, the felic- ity of their instinct for any manner of gathered relic, remnant, or tribute"; and in Mrs. Fields herself, sur- viving her husband for many years, he notes "the per- sonal beauty of her younger years, long retained and not even at the end of such a stretch of life quite lost ; the exquisite native tone and mode of appeal, which an- ciently we perhaps thought a little 'precious,' but from which the distinctive and the preservative were in time to be snatched, a greater extravagance supervening ; the signal sweetness of temper and lightness of tact." There is one more of Henry James's remarks about Mrs. Fields that must be quoted, "AJl her implica- tions," he says, "were gay, since no one so finely senti- mental could be noted as so humorous ; just as no femi- nine humor was perhaps ever so unmistakingly directed, and no state of amusement, amid quantities of reminis- cence, perhaps ever so merciful." Mirth and mercy do not always, like righteousness and peace, kiss each other. In Mrs. Fields the capacity for incapacitating laughter was such that I cannot help recalling one occa- sion, near the end of her life, when an attempt to tell a certain story — of which I remember nothing but that it had to do with a horse • — involved her in such merri- ment that after repeated efforts to reach its "point," she was forced to abandon the endeavor. What I cannot recall in a single instance, in the excellent telling of in- numerable anecdotes, is unkindness, in word or sugges- tion, toward the persons involved in them. Mr. James 8 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS did well to include this item in his enumeration of Mrs. Fields's qualities. Through all his lenses of memory and phrase he brought so vividly to one's own vision the Mrs. Fields a younger generation had known that, on reading what he had written, I wrote to him in England, then nearly ending its first year in the war, and must have said that his pages would help me, at some future day, to deal with these of my own, now at last taking form. Thus, in part, he replied : — July lothy 1 91 5 Your appreciation reached me, alas, but through the most muffling and deadening thickness of our unspeaka- ble actuality here. It was to try and get out of that a little that I wrote my paper — in the most difficult and defeating conditions, which seemed to me to make it, with my heart so utterly elsewhere, a deplorably make- believe attempt. Therefore if- it had any virtue, there must still be some in my poor old stump of a pen. Yes, the pipe of peace is a thing one has, amid our storm and stress, to listen very hard for when it twitters, from afar, outside; and when you shall pipe it over your exhibi- tion of dear Mrs. Fields's relics and documents I shall respond to your doing so with whatever attention may then be possible to me. We are not detached here, in your enviable way — but just exactly so must we there- fore make some small effort to escape, even into what- ever fatuity of illusion, to keep our heads above water at all. That in short is the history of my " Cornhill " scrap. HOUSE AND HOSTESS 9 The time into which Henry James escaped by "pip- ing" of Mrs. Fields has now grown far more remote than the added span of the last seven years, merely as years, could have made it. Remote enough it seemed to him A Note of Acceptance when, at the end of his reminiscences of the Fieldses, he recalled a small "feast" in the Charles Street dining- room at which Mrs. Julia Ward Howe — it must have been about 1906 — rose and declaimed, "a little quaver- ingly, but ever so gallantly, that 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' which she caused to be chanted half a cen- tury before and still could accompany with a real breadth of gesture, her great clap of hands and indica- tion of the complementary step, on the triumphant lo MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS line, 'Be swift my hands to welcome him, be jubilant my feet !*" Now it fell to my lot that night, as perhaps the young- est of the party, to convoy Mrs. Howe across two wintry bits of sidewalk into the carriage which bore her to and from the memorable dinner-party, and to accompany her on each of the little journeys. Quite as clear in my memory as her recitation of the "Battle Hymn" was the note of finality in her voice, quite free from unkind- ness, as she settled down for the return drive to her house in Beacon Street, far from a towering figure, and announced in the darkness : "Annie Fields has shrunk." The hostess we were leaving and the guest some fifteen years her senior, and nearing ninety with what seemed an immortally youthful spirit, appear, when those words are recalled, as they must have been before either was touched by the diminishing hand of age ; and the house whose door had just closed upon us — a house more recently obliterated to make room for a monstrous garage — came back as the scene of many a gathering of which the little feast described by Henry James was but a type. Early in January of 191 5 this door, which through a period of sixty years had opened upon extraordinary hospitality, was finally closed. Since 1866 it had borne the number 148. Ten years earlier, in 1856, when the house was first occupied by James T. Fields, afterwards identified with the publishing firms of Ticknor and Fields, and Fields, Osgood and Company, it was num- bered 37, Charles Street. This Boston man of books HOUSE AND HOSTESS ii and friendships, who before his death in 1881 was to become widely known as publisher, editor, lecturer, and writer, had married, in 1850, Eliza Josephine Willard, a daughter of Simon Willard, Jr., of the name still honor- ably associated with the even passage of time. She died within a few months, and in November of 1854 ^^ mar- ried her cousin, Annie Adams, not yet twenty years old, the beautiful daughter of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Adams. For those who knew Mrs. Fields toward the end of her four score and more years, it was far easier to see in her charming face and presence the exquisite, eager young woman of the mid-nineteenth century than to detect in the Charles Street of 191 5, of which she was the last in- habitant of her own kind, any resemblance to the delightful street of family dwellings, many of them look- ing out over the then unfilled " Back Bay," to which she had come about sixty years before. The Fieldses had lived here but a few years when, in 1859, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes — with the "Autocrat" a year behind him and the "Professor" a year ahead — became their neighbor at 21, subsequently 164, Charles Street. On the other side of them, nearer Beacon Street, John A. Andrew, the great war governor of Massachusetts, was a friend and neighbor. Across the way, for a time, lived Thomas Bailey Aldrich. In hillside streets near by dwelt many persons of congenial tastes, whose work and char- acter contributed greatly to making Boston what it was through the second half of the last century. The distinctive flavor of the neighborhood derived nothing more from any of its households than from that 12 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS of Mr. and Mrs. Fields. Their dining-room and drawing- room^ — that green assembling-place of books, pictures, music, persons, associations, all to be treasured — were the natural resort, not only of the whole notable local company of writers whose publisher was also their true and valued friend, but, besides, of many of the eminent visitors to Boston, of the type represented most con- spicuously by Charles Dickens. After the death of Mr. Fields there was far more than a tradition carried on in the Charles Street house. Not merely for what it had meant, but for all that the gracious personality of Mrs. Fields caused it to go on meaning, it continued through her lifetime — extending beyond that of Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, for so many years of Mrs. Fields's widowhood her delightful sister-hostess — the resort of older and younger friends, whose present thus drew a constant enrichment from the past. It was not till 1863, nearly ten years after her mar- riage, that Mrs. Fields, who had kept a diary during a visit to Europe in 1859-60 with her husband, and for other brief periods, applied herself regularly to this practice, maintained through 1876, and thereafter renewed but intermittently. She wrote on the cover of the first slender volume: "No. i. Journal of Literary Events and Glimpses of Interesting People." A few of its earliest pages, revealing its general purpose and character, may well precede the passages relating, in accordance with the plan already indicated, to individ- ' A Shelf of Old Books, by Mrs. Fields (i 894), pictures many aspects of the house and its contents. HOUSE AND HOSTESS 13 ual friends and groups of friends. In the first pages of all, on which Mrs. Fields built a few sentences for her " Biographical Notes," I find : — 'July 26, 1863. — What a strange history this literary- life in America at the present day would make. An editor and publisher at once, and at this date, stands at a confluence of tides where all humanity seems to surge up in little waves; some larger than the rest (every seventh it may be) dashes up in music to which the others love to listen ; or some springing to a great height retire to tell the story of their flight to those who stay below. Mr. Longfellow is quietly at Nahant. His translation of Dante is finished, but will not be completely pub- lished until the year 1865, that being the 600th anniver- sary since the death of the great Italian. Dr. Holmes was never in healthier mood than at present. His ora- tion delivered before a large audience upon the Fourth of July this year places him high in the rank of native orators. It is a little doubtful how soon he will feel like writing again. He has contributed much during the last two years to the "Atlantic" magazine. He may well take a temporary rest. Mr. Lowell is not well. He is now travelling. Mr. Hawthorne is in Concord. He has just completed a volume of English Sketches of which a few have been printed in the "Atlantic Monthly." He will dedicate the volume to Franklin Pierce, the Democrat — a most unpopular thing just now, but friendship of the purest 14 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS stimulates him, and the ruin in prospect for his book because of this resolve does not move him from his purpose. Such adherence is indeed noble. Hawthorne requires all that popularity can give him in a pecuniary way for the support of his family. The "Atlantic Monthly" is at present an interesting feature of America. Purely literary, it has nevertheless a subscription list, daily increasing, of 32,000. Of course the editor's labors are not slight. We have been waiting for Mr. Emerson to publish his new volume containing his address upon Henry Thoreau ; but he is careful of words and finds many to be considered again and again, until it is almost impossible to extort a manuscript from his hands. He has written but little, of late. July 28. — George William Curtis has done at least one great good work. He has by a gentle but con- tinuously brave pressure transformed the "Harper's Weekly," which was semi-Secession, into an anti-slavery and Republican journal. The last issue is covered with pictures as well as words which tend to ameliorate the condition of the colored race. Mr. Curtis's own house at Staten Island has been threatened by the mob; therefore his wife and children came last week to New England. I fear the death of Colonel Shaw, her brother, commanding the 54th Massachusetts (colored infantry), will induce them to return home. His death is one of our severest strokes. July 31, 1863. — We have been in Concord this week, making a short visit at the Hawthornes'. He has just finished his volume of English Sketches, about to be HOUSE AND HOSTESS 15 dedicated to Franklin Pierce. It is a beautiful incident in Hawthorne's life, the determination at all hazards to dedicate this book to his friend. Mr. P.'s politics at present shut him away from the faith of patriots, but Hawthorne has loved him since college days and he will not relent.^ Mrs. Hawthorne is the stay of the house. To FRANKLIN PIERCE, A3 A SUCnr MEMORIAt, OF A COtl^OE FRIZfTDSnTP, rROLONGED THROUGH MANHOOD, AN© RETAIKTNO AIX ITS TITALITT IN OUR AUTCMNAb TEARS, C5I3 U'elar;c (s 5nscr(tctJ Bt NATHANIEL HAWTnORNE. The Offending Dedication The wood-work, the tables and chairs and pedestals, are all ornamented by her artistic hand or what she has prompted her children to do. Una is full of exquisite maidenhood. Julian was away, but his beautiful illu- minations lay upon the table. The one illustrating a por- tion of King Arthur's address to Queen Guinevere (Tennyson) was remarkably fine. All this takes one back into a past sufficiently re- mote. The 1859-60 diary of travel achieves the more remarkable spectacle of Mrs. Fields in conversation with Leigh Hunt less than two months before he died, * About two months later, Mrs. Fields wrote in her diary: "Emerson says Hawthorne's book is 'pellucid but not deep.' He has cut out the dedication and letter, as others have done." i6 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS and reporting the very words of Shelley to this friend of his. They may be found in the "Biographical Notes" published by Mrs. Fields after her husband's death. Shelley says, "Hunt, we write /oy«l<«««*« W, H. WHEltrj ,'inciU\.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'"-"....V,-. H T)mDTer. Cniai Ber^oif W. H. BmmhUu AornXuiui J O S»t«« Von Wa4dl«lp«ai^ •no* of the WU»rtl'i Bklff, under ruU »«U-H<»^ females in existence previous to the late accident ? Be- lieve it not ! Trust not the deceivers who — but I for- get the late melancholy occurrence for the moment. It is still damp in our — I beg your pardon — in my neighborhood. I hope you are careful of your precious health — so much depends upon it ! The dodo is ex- tinct — what if Man — but pardon me. Let me recom- mend long india-rubber boots — they will excite no remark, for reasons too obvious to mention. May I hope for a favorable answer to my suit by the bearer of this message, the carrier-goose, who was with 26 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS pine ? me during the rainy season in the top of the gigantic lie ? If any more -favored suitor — What am I saying ? If Gy Facsimile of the Conclusion of Ultimus Smith's Declaration DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 27 any recollection of the past is to come between me and happiness, break it gently to me, for my nerves have been a good deal tried by the loss of the human species (with the exception of ourselves) and there is something painful in the thought of shedding tears in a world so thoroughly saturated with liquid. I am (by the force of circumstances) Your Only lover and admirer Ultimus Smith O. W. H. Fixit. A few brief items of May of 1864 bring back a time of sadness for all the friends of Nathaniel Hawthorne. May II, 1864. — J. T. F. went to see Dr. Holmes about Hawthorne's health. The latter came to town looking very very ill. O. W. H. thinks the shark's tooth is upon him, but would not have this known. Walked and talked with him; then carried him to "Metcalf's and treated him to simple medicine as we treat each other to ice cream." O. W. H. picked up a New York pamphlet full of sneers against Boston "Mutual Admiration Society." "These whipper-snappers of New York will do well to take care," he says; "the noble race of men now so famous here is passing down the valley — then who will take their places ! I am ashamed to know the names of these blackguards. There is , a stick of sugar- candy and , who is not even a gum-drop, and plenty like them." 28 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Sunday^ May 14. — Terrible days of war and change. . . . May 19. — Hawthorne is dead. Less than a year later came the record of another death — unique in that every survivor of the war-time seems to have remembered the very moment and cir- cumstances of learning the overwhelming fact. April 15, 1865. — Last night when I shut this book I wondered a little what event or person would come next, powerful enough to compel me to write a few words ; and before I was dressed this morning the news of the assassination of the President became our only thought. The President, Seward, and his son ! Mrs. Andrew came in before nine o'clock to ask if we thought it would be expected of her to receive "the Club" on Monday. We decided "No," immediately, which chimed with her desire. The city is weighed down by sadness. But Dr. Holmes expresses his philosophy for the consolation of all. " It will unite the North," he says. " It is more than likely that Lincoln was not the best man for the work of re-construction," etc. His faith keeps him from the shadows which surround many. But it is a black day for us all. J. Wilkes Booth is in custody. Poor Edwin is in Boston. April 11. — False report. Up to this date J. Wilkes Booth has not been taken. A reward of nearly $200,000 is set upon his head, but we believe him to have fled DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 29 into Maryland or farther south, with some marauding party. Henry Howard Brownell, the authorof "War Lyrics," appears in the following extract, with Dr. Holmes, whose high opinion of this singer of naval battle was set forth in print of no uncertain tone. Of Forceythe Willson, a poet, not yet thirty years old, of whom great things were expected, Mrs. Fields wrote later in the same volume of the journal : "He affects me like a wild Tennyson. . . . He is an indigenous growth of our middle states. He was a pupil of Horace Mann, and appreciated him." April 29, 1865. — Club dinner for J. T. F. Mr. Brownell was present, author of "The Bay Fight," as Dr. Holmes's guest. Dr. H. said privately to us, "Well, 't ain't much for some folks to do what I 'm doing for this man, but it 's a good deal for me. I don't like that kind of thing, you know. I find myself unawares in something the position of a lion-hunter, which is un- pleasant ! ! ! " He has lately discovered that Forceythe Willson, the author of a noble poem called the "Color Sergeant" ["The Old Sergeant"], has been living two years in Cambridge. He wrote to him and told him how much he liked his poem and said he would like to make his acquaintance. "I will be at home," the young poet replied to the elder, "at any time you may appoint to call upon me." This was a little strange to O. W. H., who rather expected, as the elder who was extending ^o MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS the right hand, to be called upon, I suppose, although he did not say so. He found a fortress of a man, "shy as Hawthorne," and "one who had not learned that the eagle's wings should sometimes be kept down, as we people who live in the world must," said the Professor to me afterward. "In State" by F. W. is a great poem. More than a year later is found this characteristic glimpse of Dr. Holmes in the elation of finishing one of his books. Wednesday J Septeynher 12, 1866. — After an hour J. went in to see Dr. Holmes. This was important. He had promised a week ago to hear him read his new romance, and he did not wish to show anything but the lively interest he really feels. . . . Jamie returned in two hours perfectly enchanted. The novel exceeded his hopes. No diminishing of power is to be seen; on the contrary it seems the perfect fruit of a life. It is to be called "The Guardian Angel." Four parts are already completed and large books of notes stand ready for use and reference. Mrs. Flolmes came in to tell Mr. Fields she wished Wendell would not publish anything more. He would only call down news- paper criticism, and where was the use. "Well, Amelia, I have written something now which the critics won't complain of. You see it 's better than anything I have ever done." "Oh, that 's what you always say, Wendell, but I wish you'd let it alone!" "But don't you see, Amelia, I shall make money by it, and that won't come DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 31 amiss." "No indeed, Mr. Fields, not in these times with our family, you know." " But there 's one thing," said the little Professor, suddenly looking up to Mr. Fields ; "if anything should happen to me before I get the story done, you would n't come down upon the widder for the money, would you now?" Then they had a grand laugh all round. He is very nervous indeed about his work and read it with great reluctance, yet desired to do so. He had read it to no one as yet until Mr. Fields should hear it. Wendell, his son, had just returned from England, bringing a young English Captain of Artillery home with him for the night, the hotels being crowded. The captain's luggage was in the entry. The Professor drew J. aside to show him how the straps of the luggage were arranged in order to slip in the address-card. "D' ye see that — good, ain't it ? I 've made a drawing of that and am going to have some made like it." Near the end of 1866, Mrs. Fields, after a few words of realization that something lies beyond the age of thirty, pictures "the Autocrat" at her own breakfast- table, with General John Meredith Read, afterwards minister to Greece, and already, before that age of thirty which the diarist was just completing, an impor- tant figure in the military and political life of New York. A few sentences from the following passage are found in Mrs. Fields's article on Dr. Holmes, v^^hich appeared first in the "Century Magazine," and then in "Authors and Friends." 32 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS It comes over me to put down here and now the fact that this year for the first time others perceived, as well as myself, that I have passed the freshness and lustre of youth — but I do not feel the change as I once thought I must — life is even sweeter than ever and richer though I can still remember the time when thirty years seemed the desirable limit of life — now it opens before me full of uncompleted labor, full of riches and plans — the wealth of love, the plans of eternity. Friday morning. — Professor Holmes and Adjutant General Read of New York (a young man despite his title) breakfasted here at eight o'clock. They were both here punctually at quarter past eight, which was early for the season, especially as the General was late out, at a ball, last night. He was only too glad of the chance, however, to meet Dr. Holmes, and would have made a far greater effort to accomplish it. The talk at one time turned upon Dickens. Dr. Holmes said he thought him a greater genius than Thackeray and was never satisfied with admiring his wondrous powers of observa- tion and fertility of reproduction ; his queer knack at making scenes, too, was noticeable, but especially the power of beginning from the smallest externals and describing a man to the life though he might get no farther than the shirt-button, for he always failed in profound analysis. Hawthorne, beginning from within, was his contrast and counterpart. But the two qualities which Dickens possesses and which the world seems to take small account of, but which mark his peculiar greatness, are the minuteness of his observations and -MRS. FIELDS From, a crayon portrait modi by Rowse in 18(33 DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 33 his endless variety. Thackeray had sharp corners in him, something which led you to see he could turn round short, upon you some day, although sadness was an impressive element in his character — perhaps a sadness belonging to genius. Hawthorne's sadness was a part of his genius — tenderness and sadness. On Monday, February 25, 1867, Mrs. Fields made note of the Saturday Club dinner of two days before, at which the guests were George William Curtis, "Petro- leum V. Nasby," and Dr. Hayes of Arctic fame, of whom Mrs. Fields had written a few days before: "He wears a corrugated face, and his slender spirited figure shows him the man for such resolves and expeditions. We were carried away like the hearers of an Arabian tale with his vivid pictures of Arctic life." But appar- ently he was not the chief talker at the Saturday Club meeting, for Mrs. Fields wrote of it : " Dr. Holmes was in great mood for talk, but Lowell was critical and in- terrupted him frequently. 'Now, James, let me talk and don't interrupt me,' he once said, a little ruffled by the continual strictures on his conversation." But by the time that Longfellow's sixtieth birthday came round on the following Wednesday, Dr. Holmes was ready for it with the verses, "In gentle bosoms tried and true," recorded in Longfellow's diary, and for another encounter with Lowell, who also celebrated the day with a poem, beginning "I need not praise the sweet- ness of his song." Mrs. Fields's diary records her hus- band's account of the evening : — 34 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS February 28, 1867. — -Thursday morning. Jamie had a most brilliant evening at Longfellow's. A note came in from O. W. H. towards night, saying he was full of business and full of his story, but he must go to L.'s. Lowell's poem in the morning had helped to stir him. J. reached his door punctually at eight. There stood the little wonder with hat and coat on and door ajar, his wife beside him. "I would n't let him go with anybody else," she said. "Mr. Fields, he ought not to go out tonight ; hear him, how he wheezes with the asthma. Now, Wendell, when will you get home?" "Oh," said he, "I don't know. I put myself into Mr. Fields's hands." "Well, Mr. Fields, how early can you get him home?" "About twelve," was the answer. "Now that 's pretty well," said the Doctor. "Amelia, go in and shut the door. Mr. FieLds will take care of me." So between fun and anxiety they chatted away until they were fairly into the street and in the car. "I 've been doing too much lately between my lectures and my story, and the fine dinners I have been to, and I ought not to go out tonight. Why, it 's one of the greatest compliments one man ever paid another, my going out to Longfellow's tonight. By the way, Mr. Fields, do you appreciate the position you hold in our time ? There never was anything like it. Why, I was nothing but a roaring kangaroo when you took me in hand, and I thought it was the right thing to stand up on my hind legs, but you combed me down and put me in proper shape. Now I want you to promise me one thing. We 're all growing old, I 'm near sixty myself; by and by the FIELDS, THE MAN OF BOOKS AND FRIENDSHIPS DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 35 brain will begin to soften. Now you must tell me when the egg begins to look addled. People don't know of themselves." He had been to two large dinners lately, one at G. W. Wales's, which he said was the finest dinner he had ever seen, the most perfect in all its appointments, decorated with the largest profusion of flowers, in as perfect taste as he had ever seen. "Why, even the chair you sat in was so delicately padded as to give pleasure to that weak spot in the back which we all inherit from the fall of Adam." The other was at Mrs. Charles Dorr's, where there were sixteen at table and the room "for heat was like the black hole at Calcutta," but the company was very brilliant. Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop, Mrs. Parkman, Dr. Hayes, etc. He sat next Mrs. ; says she is a thorough-bred woman of society, the daughter of a politician, the wife, first of a millionaire and now of a man of society. "I like such a woman now and then; she never makes a mistake." Mrs. was thoroughly canvassed at the table, "picked clean as any duck for the spit and then roasted over a slow fire," as O. W. H. afterward remarked to Mrs. Parkman, who is a very just woman and who weighed her well in the balances. When they arrived at L.'s, my basket of flowers stood surrounded by other gifts, and Longfellow himself sat crowned with all the natural loveliness of his rare nature. The day must have been a happy one for him. . . . O. W. H. had three perfect verses of a little poem in his hand which he read, and then Lowell talked, and they had great merriment and delight together. 36 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS The two following passages from the diary for il seem to indicate that Dr. Holmes made a double use of his poem, "Bill and Joe," written in this year, included in his "Poems of the Class of '29," and according to the entry of July 17, read at the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa dinner of li January 16, 1868. — We had just finished dinner when Professor Holmes came in with his poem, one of the annual he contributes to the class-supper of the "Boys of '29." He read it through to us with feeling, his voice growing tremulous and husky at times. It was pleasant to see how he enjoyed our pleasure in it. The talk turned naturally after a little upon the question of Chief Justice, when he took occasion to run over in his mind the character and qualifications of some of our chief barristers. "xA.s for Bigelow ^ (who has just gone out of office and it is his successor over whom they are struggling), as for Bigelow, it is astonishing to see how every bit of that man's talent has been brought into use ; all he has is made the most of. Why, he 's like some cooks, give 'em a horse and they will use every part of him except the shoes." Friday^ July 17, 1868. — Last evening Dr. Holmes came in fresh from the Phi Beta dinner at Cambridge.^ ^ George Tyler Bigelow, of the Harvard Class of 1829. ^ Harvard festivals were frequently noted. After the great day on which Lowell gave his Commemoration Ode, Mrs. Fields wrote (July 22, 1 865) : "What an ever-memorable day, the one at Harvard ! The prayer of Phillips Brooks, the ode of Lowell, the address of Dr. Putnam and the Governor, and the heartfelt verses of Holmes, and the lovely music and the hymns. But DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 37 He said, "I can't stop and I only came to read you my verses I read at the dinner, they made such a queer im- pression. I did n't mean to go, but James Lowell was to preside and sent me word that I really must be there, so I just wrote these off, and here they are — I don't know that I should have brought them in to read to you, but Hoar declares they are the best I have ever done." At length, in the exquisite orange of sunset, he read those delightful verses, full, full of feeling, "Bill and Joe." We did not wonder the Phi Beta boys liked them. I shall be surprised If every boy, especially those who find the almond blossoms in the hair, as W. says, does not like them, and If they do yiot win for him a more uni- versal reputation than he has yet won. . . . I was impressed last night with the nervous energy of O. W. H. His leg by a slight quiver kept time to the reading of his verses, and his talk fell before and after like swift rain. He does not go away from town but sways between Boston and Cambridge all these perfect summer days; receiving yesterday, the hottest day of this or many years. Motley at dinner, and going per- petually, and writing verses and letters not a few. His activity is wonderful; think of writing letters these warm delicious evenings by gaslight in a small front study on the street ! It hurts him less than his wife, partly because the intellectual vivacity and excitement Lowell's Ode ! ! How it overtops the whole of what is preserved on paper beside! Charles G. Loring presided. 'Awkwardly enough done,' said O. W. H. ; 'It IS a delicate thing to introduce a poet, he should be delivered to the table as a falconer delivers the falcon into the air, but Mr. Loring puts you down hard on the table — ca-chunk.'" 38 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS keeps him up, partly because he is physically fitted to bear almost everything but cold. How fortunate for the world that while he lives he should continue his work so faithfully. He will have no successor, at least for many a long year, after we have all gone to sleep under our green counterpanes and Nature has tucked us up well in yearly violets. Earlier in the year Dr. Holmes and Mrs. Stowe met in Charles Street. Wednesday mornings "January 29, 1868. — Last night Professor Holmes, Mrs. Stowe, her daughter Georgie, and the Howellses, took tea here. The Professor came early and was in good talking trim — presently in came Mrs. Stowe, and they fell shortly into talk upon Home- opathy and Allopathy. He grew very warm, declared that cases cited of cures proved nothing, and we were all "incompetent" to judge ! We could not but be amused at his heat, for we were more or less believers in Home- opathy against his one argument for Allopathy. In vain Mrs. Stowe and I tried to turn and stem the fiery tide : Georgie or Mrs. Howells would be sure to sweep us back into it again. However, there were many brilliant things said, and sweet and good and interesting things too. The Professor told us one curious fact, that chemists had in vain analyzed the poison of rattlesnakes and could not discover the elements of destruction it undoubtedly possesses. Also that, when Indians poison their arrows with it, they hang up the liver of a white wolf and make DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 39 one snake after another bite it until the Hver is entirely impregnated; they then leave it to dry until disinte- grated, when they moisten and apply round the necks of the arrows — not on the point. He had a long quiet chat with Mrs. Stowe before the evening ended. They compared their early Calvinistic education and the effect produced upon their characters by such training. Tuesday, April 13, 1869. — Dr. Holmes and his wife and Mr. Whittier dined here. The talk was free, totally free from all feeling of constraint, as it could not have been had another person been present. Whittier says he is afraid of strangers, and Dr. Holmes is never more de- lightful than under just such auspices. Dr. Holmes asked Whittier's undisguised opinion of Longfellow's "New England Tragedies" — "honest opinion now," said he. "Well, I liked them," said Whittier, half reluctantly — evidently he had found much that was beautiful and in keeping with the spirit of the times of which Longfellow wrote, and their passionless character did not trouble him as it had O. W. H. Presently, he added that he was surprised to find how he had pre- served almost literally the old text of the old books he had lent Longfellow twelve years ago, and had meas- ured it off into verse. "Ah," said O. W. H., "you have said the severest thing after all — 'measured off ' ; that 's just what he has done. It is one of the easiest, the very commonest tricks of the rhymster to be able to do this. I am surprised to see the ease with which I can do it myself." They spoke then of "Evangeline," which both agreed in awarding unqualified praise. 40 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS "Only," said Whittier, "I always wondered there was no terrible outburst of indignation over the outrage done to that poor colony. The tide of the story runs as smoothly as if nothing had occurred. I long thought of working up that story myself, but I am glad I did not, only I can't understand its being so calm." They talked on religious questions of course, the Professor holding that sin being finite, and of such a nature that we could both outgrow it and root it up, Whittier still returning to the ground that sin was a "very real thing." It is impossible to represent the clearness and swift- ness of Dr. Holmes's talk. The purity of heart and strength of endeavor evident in the two poets makes their atmosphere a very elevating one and they evi- dently naturally rejoiced in each other's society. Mrs, Holmes had not been out to dine before this winter. Jamie sent us a pot of strawberries growing, which delighted everybody. Before the following passage was written, in 1871, Dr. Holmes had moved from Charles Street to Beacon Street ; Mr. Fields, in impaired health, had retired from active business as a publisher and was devoting himself chiefly to writing and lecturing; and Mrs. Fields, al- ready interested in the establishment of Coffee Houses for the poor in the North End and elsewhere, had begun the notable work in public charities to which her ener- gies were so largely given for the remaining forty-four years of her life. In the Cooperative Workrooms, still DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 41 rendering their beneficent services, and in the larger organization of the Associated Charities, embodying a principle now widely adopted throughout the land, the labors of this generous spirit, never content to give all it had to the gracious life within its own four walls, have borne enduring fruits. 1 87 1. — Thursday afternoon last (June 22) went to Cambridge for a few visits, and coming home stopped at Dr. Holmes's, at his new house on Beacon St. Found them both at home, sitting lonely in the oriel window looking out upon a glorious sunset. They were think- ing of the children who have flown out of their nest. Dr. Holmes was very friendly and sweet. He talked most affectionately with J., told him he no longer felt a spur to write since he had gone out of business ; he needed just the little touch of praise and encouragement he used to administer to make him do it ; now he did not think he should ever write any more worth mentioning. He had been in to see the Coffee House and entertained us much by saying he met President Eliot near the door one day just as he was going in, but he was ashamed of doing so until they had parted company. There was something so childlike in this confession that we all laughed heartily over it. However he got in at last, and "tears as big as onions stood in my eyes when I saw what had been accomplished." "You must be a very happy woman," he went on to say. I told him of the new one in Eliot Street about to be opened this coming week. 42 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS At the end of the summer of 187 1, when Mr. and Mrs. Fields were beghining to learn the charms of the North Shore town of Manchester, where they established the "Gambrel Cottage" on "Thunderbolt Hill" which gave a summer synonym to the hospitality of Charles Street, they journeyed one day to Nahant for a mid- day dinner with Longfellow. Here Mrs. Fields's sister, Louisa, Mrs. James H. Beal, was a neighbor of the poet. Another neighbor was the late George Abbot James, and in Longfellow's diary for September 4, 187 1, is the entry : "Call on Dr. Holmes at Mr. James's. Sumner still there. We discuss the new poets." Mrs. Fields reports a continuation of the talk with the same friends. Wednesday, September 6, 1871. — Dined with Mr. Longfellow at Nahant. The day was warm with a soft south wind blowing, and as we crossed the beach white waves were curling up the sands. . . . The dear poet saw us coming from afar and walked to his little gate to meet us with such a sweet cordial welcome that it was worth going many a mile to have that alone. The three little ladies, his daughters, and Ernest's^ wife, were within, but they came warmly forward to give us greet- ing ; also Mr. Sam. Longfellow was of the party. A few moments' chat in the little parlor, when Longfellow saw Holmes coming in the distance (he had an opera-glass, being short-sighted, and was sitting on the piazza with J.). "Hullo 1" said he, "here comes Holmes, and all dressed up too, with flowers in his button-hole." Sure enough, here was the Professor to have dinner with us DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 43 also. He was full of talk as ever and looking remark- ably well. Longfellow asked with much interest about Balaustion and Joaquin Miller, neither of which he had read. Holmes criticized as if unbearable and beyond the pale of decency Browning's cutting of words, " Flower o' the pine," and such characteristic passages. Longfellow spoke of a volume of poems he had received of late from England in which "saw" was made to rhyme with "more." Holmes said Keats often did that. "Not ex- actly, I think," said L., "'dawn' and 'forlorn,' per- haps." "Well," said H., "when I was in college" (I think he said college, certainly while at Cambridge) "and my first volume was about to appear, Mrs. Fol- som saw the sheets and fortunately at the very last moment for correction discovered I had made 'for- lorn' rhyme with 'gone,' and out of her own head and without having time to consult with me she substituted 'sad and wan.'" ^ The Professor went on to say that he must confess to a tender feeling of regret for his "so forlorn" to this very day, but he supposed every writer of poems must have his keen regrets for the numerous verses he could recall where he had wrestled with the English language and had lost something of his thought in his struggle with the necessities of art. We shortly after went to dinner, where the talk still continued to turn on art and artists, chiefly musical, the divorcement of music and thought ; a thinker or man of intellect in listening to music comes to a comprehension of it, * This anecdote of the revision of The Last Leaf, written in 1831, is told a little differently in the annotations of Holmes's Complete Works. 44 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Holmes said, mediately, but a musician feels it directly through some gift of which the thinker knows nothing. Longfellow always recalls with intense delight hearing Gounod sing his own music in Rome — his voice was hardly to be mentioned among the fine voices of the world, indeed it was small, but his rendering was exquis- ite. Canvassing T. B. Read's poems and speaking of "Sheridan's Ride," which has been so highly praised, "Yes," said Holmes, "but there are very poor lines in it, but how often, to use Scripture phrase, there is a fly in the ointment." The talk went bowling off to Pere Hyacinthe. "He was very pleasant," said Holmes, "it was most agreeable to meet him, but you could only go a short distance. His desire was to be a good Catho- lic, and ours is of course quite different. It was like speaking through a knot-hole after all." The dumb waiter bounced up. "We cannot call that a diunb waiter," said L., "but I had an odd dream the other night. I thought Greene (G.W.) came bouncing up on the waiter in that manner and stepped off in a most dignified fashion with a crushed white hat on his head. He said he had just been to drive with a Spanish lady ! " Sumner (Charles) came up to the piazza. He had dined elsewhere and came over as soon as possible for a little talk. Holmes talked on, although we all said, "Mr. Sumner — here is Mr. Sumner," without per- ceiving that the noble Senator was sitting just outside the cottage window waiting for us to rise, and began to converse about him. Longfellow grew nervous and rose to speak with Sumner — still Holmes did not perceive. DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 45 and went on until Jamie relieved us from a tendency to convulsions by voting that we should join the Sen- ator. Then Sumner related the substance of an amusing letter of Cicero's he had just been reading in which Cicero gives an account to his friend of a visit he had just received from the Emperor Julius Caesar. He had invited Julius to pass a few days with him, but he came quite unexpectedly with a thousand men ! Cicero, see- ing them from afar, debated with another friend what he should do with them, but at length managed to en- camp them. To feed them was a less easy matter. The emperor took everything quite easily, however, and was very pleasant, "but," adds Cicero, "he is not the man to whom I should say a second time, *if you are passing this way, give me a call.'" Again, in 1873, Longfellow, Holmes, and Sumner are found together at the dinner-table with Mrs. Fields, this time in Charles Street. When she made use of her diary at this point, for her article on Dr. Holmes which appeared first in the "Century Magazine" (1895), it was with many omissions. The passage is now given almost entire. It should be said that the Misses Towne, mentioned at the beginning of it, were friends and sum- mer neighbors at Manchester. *to' Saturday y October 11, 1873. — Helen and Alice Towne have come to pass Sunday with us. Charles Sumner, Longfellow, Greene, Dr. Holmes came to dine. Mr. Sumner seemed less strong than of late and I fancied he 46 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS suffered somewhat while at table during the evening, but he told me he was working at his desk or reading during fourteen consecutive hours not infrequently at present, as he was in the habit of doing when uninter- rupted by friendly visits. He said he was very fond of the passive exercise of reading; the active exercise of composition was of course agreeable in certain moods, but reading was a never-ending delight. He spoke of Lord Brougham, and Mrs. Norton and her two beauti- ful sisters. Both he and Mr. Longfellow recalled them in their youthful loveliness, but Mr. Sumner said when he was in England the last time he saw the Duchess of Somerset, who was a most poetic looking creature in her youth and (I believe) the youngest of the three sisters, so changed he should never have guessed who it might be. She was grown a huge red-faced woman. (Long- fellow laughed, referring to her second marriage and said, "Yes, she had turned a Somerset!") Dr. Holmes sparkled and coruscated as I have seldom heard him before. We are more than ever convinced that no one since Sydney Smith was ever so brilliant, so witty, spontaneous, naif, and unfailing as Dr. Holmes. He talked much about his class in College: "There never was such vigor in any class before, it seems to me — almost every member turns out sooner or later distin- guished for something. We have had every grade of moral status from a criminal to a Chief Justice, and we never let any one of them drop. We keep hold of their hands year after year and lift up the weak and failing ones till they are at last redeemed. Ah, there was one ■■^- — '-' '--' '■■ DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 47 exception — years ago we voted to cast a man out who had been a defaulter or who had committed some of- fense of that nature. The poor fellow sank down, and before the next year, when we repented of this decision, he had gone too far down and presently died. But we have kept all the rest. Every fourth man In our class is a poet. Sam. Smith belongs to our class, who wrote ' My Country, 't is of Thee.' Sam. Smith will live when Long- fellow, Whittier, and all the rest of us have gone into oblivion — and yet what is there in those verses to make them live ? Do you remember the line 'Like that above'? I asked Sam. what 'that' referred to — he said 'that rapture'!! — (The expression of the rapid talker's face of contempt as he said this was one of the most amusing possible.) — Even the odds and ends of our class have turned out something. . . . Longfellow, I wish I could make you talk about yourself." — "But I never do," said L. quietly. "I know you never do, but you confessed to me once." — "No, I don't think I ever did," said L. laughing. Greene was for the most part utterly speechless. He attended with great assiduity to his dinner, which was a good one, and Longfellow was watchful and kind enough to send him little choice things to eat which he thought he would enjoy. Holmes was abstemious and never ceased talking — "Most men write too much. I would rather risk my future fame upon one lyric than upon ten volumes. But I have said Boston is the hub of the universe. I will rest upon that." 48 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS All this report Is singularly dry compared with the wit and humor which radiated about the table. We laughed till the tears ran down our cheeks. Longfellow was in- tensely amused. I have not seen him laugh so much for many a long day. We ladies sat at the table long after coffee and cigars in order to hear the talk. . . . Sumner said he had been much displeased by a re- mark Professor Henry Hunt made to him a few days ago. He said Mr. Agassiz was an impediment in the path of science. What did such men as Hunt and John Fiske mean by underrating a man who has given such books to the world as Agassiz has done, not to speak of his untiring efforts in the other avenues of influence! "It means just this," said Holmes : "Agassiz will not listen to the Darwinian theory ; his whole effort is on the other side. Now Agassiz is no longer young, and I was reading the other day in a book on the Sandwich Islands of an old Fejee man who had been carried away among strangers, but who prayed he might be carried home, that his brains might be beaten out in peace by his son according to the custom of those lands. It flashed over me then that our sons beat out our brains in the same way. They do not walk in our ruts of thoughts or begin exactly where we leave off, but they have a new stand- point of their own. At present the Darwinian theory can be nothing but an hypothesis ; the important links of proof are missing and cannot be supplied ; but in the m.yriad ages there may be new developments." I thought the young ladies looked a little tired sit- ting, so about nine o'clock we left the table — still the LOUIiS AGASSIZ DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 49 talk went on for about four hours when they broke up. With two letters from Dr. Hobnes this rambling chron- icle of his friendship with Mr. and Mrs. Fields must end. The first of the communications is a mere fragment of his everyday humor : Beverly- Farms-by-the-Depot 'July \Mi, 1878 Dear Mr. Fields : — The Corner sends me a book directed to me here, but on opening the outside wrapper I read "James T. Fields, Esq., Jamaica Plain, Boston, Mass." The book, which is sealed up (or stuck up, like many authors), measures 7x5, nearly, and is presumably idiotic, like most books which are sent us without being ordered. Perhaps you have received a similar package which on opening you found directed to O. W. Holmes, Esq., Peak of Teneriffe, Boston. If so, when the weather grows cool again and we can make up our minds to face the title page of the dreaded volume, we will make an exchange. Always truly yours, O. W. Holmes The second letter, written ten years after Dr. Holmes, in moving from Charles to Beacon Street, had made the last of his "justifiable domicides," strikes a more serious note, revealing that quality of true sympathy so closely joined in abundant natures with true humor. Mr. Fields had died in April of 1881, and Mrs. Fields had 50 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS applied herself at once to the preparation of her volume, "James T. Fields: Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches," drawing freely upon the diaries from which many of the foregoing pages, then passed over, are now taken. The performance of this loving labor must have done much towards the first filling of a life so grievously emptied. Already the intimate and beloved com- panionship of Miss Jewett had come into it. 294 Beacon St., November 16, 1881 My dear Mrs. Fields : — I feel sure there will be but one voice with regard to your beautiful memorial volume. If I had any mis- givings that you might find the delicate task too diffi- cult — that you might be discouraged between the wish to draw a life-like picture and the fear of saying more than the public had a right to, these misgivings have all vanished, and I am sure your finished task leaves nothing to be regretted. As he was in life, he is in your loving but not overwrought story. I do not see how a life so full of wholesome activity and genuine human feeling could have been better pictured than it is in your pages. Long before I had finished reading your memoir in the proofs I had learned to trust you entirely as to the whole management of the work on which you had entered. All I feared was that your feelings might be overtasked, and that the dread of coming before the public when your whole heart was in the pages opened to its calm judgment might be more than you could bear. DR. HOLMES, FRIEND AND NEIGHBOR 51 And now, my dear Mrs. Fields, there must come a period of depression, almost of collapse, after the labor and the solace of this tender, tearful, yet blessed occu- pation. I think you need the kind thoughts and sooth- ing words — if words have any virtue in them — of those who love you more than while each day had its busy hours in which the memory of so much that was delightful to recall kept the ever-returning pangs of grief a little while in abeyance. It must be so. But before long, quietly, almost imperceptibly, there will, I hope and trust, return to you the quieting sense of all that you have done and all that you have been for that life which for so many happy years you were privileged to share. How few women have so perfectly fulfilled, not only every duty, but every ideal that a husband could think of as going to make a happy home ! This must be and will be an ever-growing source of consolation. Forgive me for saying what many others must have said to you, but none more sincerely than myself. I do not know how to express to you the feeling with which Mrs. Holmes looks upon you in your be- reavement. I should do it injustice if I attempted to give it expression, for she lives so largely in her sym- pathies and her endeavors to help others that she could not but sorrow deeply with you in your affliction and wish there were any word of cortsolation she could add to the love she sends you. Believe me, dear Mrs. Fields, Affectionately yours, O. W. Holmes 52 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS For thirteen years longer, till his death in 1894 ^^ the age of eighty-five, Dr. Holmes was a prolific writer of notes, more often than letters, to Mrs. Fields. The sym- pathy of tried and ripened friendship runs through them all. In the Charles Street house the younger friends might see from time to time this oldest friend of their hostess. When he came no more, it was well for those of a later day that his memory was so securely held in the retrospect and the record of Mrs. Fields. IV CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE VISITORS The volumes In which Mrs. Fields brought to light many passages from her journals stand as red and black buoys marking the channel through which the navigator of these pages must steer his course if he is to avoid the rocks and shoals of the previously published. In her books it was but natural that she should deal most freely with those august figures in x^merican letters who so towered above their contemporaries as to attach the longer and more portentous adjective "Augustan" to the circle formed by the joining of their hands. If it has become the fashion to look back upon the American Augustans and the English Victorians with similarly mingled feelings, in which tolerance stands in a growing proportion to the admiration and respect which form- erly ruled supreme, it is the unaltered fact that the fig- ures of the American group dominated both the local and the national scene of letters in their day, and that their historic significance is undiminished. But it is rather as human beings than as literary figures that they reveal themselves in the sympathetic records of Mrs. Fields — human beings who typified and embod- ied a state of thought and society so remote in its char- acteristic qualities from the prevailing conditions of this later day as to be approaching steadily that "equal date 54 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS with Andes and with Ararat" of which one of them wrote in words quite unmistakably his own. Perhaps no single member of the group is represented In Mrs. Fields's journals so often as Dr. Holmes by illuminating pages which she herself left unprinted. For this reason, and because Concord and Cambridge visi- tors to Charles Street were in fact so much a "group," it has seemed wise to assemble in this place passages that relate to one after another of the "Augustan" friends in turn. Sometimes they appear as separate subjects of record, sometimes in company with their fellows. That majestic figure, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose death in 1864 made the earliest gap in the circle of figures most memorable, shall be first to step forth, like one of his own personages of the Province House, from the shadows in which indeed he lived. The long chapter on Hawthorne in "Yesterdays with Authors," and that small volume about him which Mrs. Fields contributed in 1 899 to the " Beacon Biographies," constitute the more finished portraits of the man as his host and hostess in Charles Street saw him. His letters to Fields are quoted at length in "Yesterdays with Authors," and contribute an autobiographic element of much importance to any study of Hawthorne. But there are illuminating passages that were left unpub- lished. In one of them, for example, Hawthorne, in a letter of September 21,1 860, after lamenting the state of his daughter's health, exclaimed : " I am continually re- HAWTHOHXE IX 18.57 CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE ^s minded, nowadays, of a response which I once heard a drunken sailor make to a pious gentleman who asked him how he felt: 'Pretty d d miserable, thank God 1' It very well expresses my thorough discomfort and forced acquiescence." In another, of July 14, 1 861, after the calamity that befell Longfellow in the tragic death of his wife through burning, Hawthorne wrote to Fields : — "How does Longfellow bear this terrible misfor- tune ? How are his own injuries ? Do write and tell me all about him. I cannot at all reconcile this calamity to my sense of fitness. One would think that there ought to have been no deep sorrow in the life of a man like him ; and now comes this blackest of shadows, which no sunshine hereafter can ever penetrate ! I shall be afraid ever to meet him again ; he cannot again be the man that I have known." In the words, "I shall be afraid ever to meet him again," the very accent of Hawthorne is clearly heard. Still another manuscript letter, preserved in the Charles Street cabinet, should now be printed to round out the story of Hawthorne's reluctant omission from his "Atlantic" article — "Chiefly about War Matters" — that personal description of Abraham Lincoln which Fields was unwilling to publish in his magazine in 1862, but afterwards included in his "Yesterdays with Authors." ^ In that place, however, he used but a few words from the following letter. * See Yesterdays with Authors, p. 98, and The Atlantic Monthly and Its Makers, p-. 46. SG MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Concord, May 23, '62 Dear Fields : — I have looked over the article under the influence of a cigar and through the medium (but don't whisper it) of a glass of arrack and water ; and though I think you are wrong, I am going to comply with your request. I am the most good-natured man, and the most amenable to good advice (or bad advice either, for that matter) that you ever knew — so have it your own way. The whole description of the interview with Uncle Abe and his personal appearance must be omitted, since I do not find it possible to alter them, and in so doing, I really think you omit the only part of the article really worth publishing. Upon my honor, it seemed to me to have a historical value — but let it go. I have altered and transferred one of the notes so as to indicate to the unfortunate public that it here loses something very nice. You must mark the omission with dashes, so — X X X X X X X. I have likewise modified the other passage you al- lude to ; and I cannot now conceive of any objection to it. What a terrible thing it is to try to get off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world ! If I had sent you the article as I first conceived it, I should not so much have wondered. I want you to send me a proof sheet of the article in its present state before making aiiy alterations ; for if ever I collect these sketches into a volume, I shall insert it in all its original beauty. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 57 With the best regards to Mrs. Fields, Truly yours, Nath^ Hawthorne P. S. I shall probably come to Boston next week, to the Saturday Club. If these unpublished letters add something to the more formal portraits of Hawthorne drawn by Fields and his wife, still other lines may be added by means of the unconscious, fragmentary sketches on which the portraits were based. In Mrs. Fields's diaries the fol- lowing glimpses of Hawthorne in the final months of his life are found. December 4, 1863. — Hawthorne and Mr. and Mrs. Alden passed the night with us ; he came to town to attend the funeral of Mrs. Franklin Pierce. He seemed ill and more nervous than usual. He brought the first part of a story which he says he shall never finish.^ J. T. F. says it is very fine, yet sad. Hawthorne says in it, "pleasure is only pain greatly exaggerated," which is queer to say the least, if not untrue. I think it must be differently stated from this. He was as courteous and as grand as ever, and as true. He does not lose that all-saddening smile, either. Sunday J December 6, 1863. — Mr. Hawthorne re- turned to us. He had found General Pierce overwhelmed with sadness at the death of his wife and greatly needing his companionship, therefore he accompanied him the ' The Dolliver Romance. 58 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS whole distance to Concord, N. H. He said he could not generally look at such things, but he was obliged to look at the body of Mrs. Pierce. It was like a carven image laid in its richly embossed enclosure and there was a remote expression about it as if it had nothing to do with things present. Harriet Prescott was there. He had some talk with her and liked her. He was more deeply impressed than ever with the exquisite courtesy of his friend. Even at the grave, while overwhelmed with grief, Pierce drew up the collar of Hawthorne's coat to keep him from the cold.^ We went to walk in the morning and left Mr. Haw- thorne to read in the library. He found a book called "Dealings with the Dead," which he liked — indeed he said he liked no house to stay in better than this. He thought the old edition of Boccaccio which belonged to Leigh Hunt a poor translation. He has already written the first chapter of a new romance, but he thought so little of the work himself as to make it impossible for him to continue until Mr. Fields had read it and ex- pressed his sincere admiration for the work. This has given him better heart to go on with it. He talked of the magazine with Mr. F. ; told him he thought it was the most ably edited magazine in the world, and was bound to be a success, with this exception : he said, "I fear its politics — beware ! What will you do when in a year or two the politics of the country change ? " "I will quietly wait for that time to come," said J. T. F. ; "then I can tell you." ^Fields drew upon this paragraph for one in Yesterdays with Authors, p, 112. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 59 As the sunset deepened Mr. Hawthorne talked of his early life. His grandfather bought a township in Maine and at the early age of eleven years he accompanied his mother and sister down there to live upon the land. From that moment the happiest period of his life began and lasted until he was thirteen, when he was sent to school in Salem. While in Maine he lived like a bird of the air, so perfect was the freedom he enjoyed. During the moonlight nights of winter he would skate until mid- night alone upon the icy face of Sebago Lake, with all its ineffable beauty stretched before him and the deep shadows of the hills on either hand. When he was weary he could take refuge sometimes in a log cabin (there were several in this region), where half a tree would be burning on the broad hearth and he could sit by that and see the stars up through the chimney. All the long summer days he roamed at will, gun in hand, through the woods, and there he learned a nearness to Nature and a love for free life which has never left him and made all other existence in a measure insupportable. His suffering began with that Salem school and his knowl- edge of his relatives who were all distasteful to him. He said, "How sad middle life looks to people of erratic temperaments. Everything is beautiful in youth — all things are allowed to it." We gave him "Pet Marjorie" to read in the evening — a little story by John Brown. He thought it so beautiful that he read it care- fully twice until every word was grasped by his powerful memory. . . . Talking of England, Hawthorne said she was not a 6o MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS powerful empire. The extent over which her dominions extended led her to fancy herself powerful. She is much like a squash vine which nms over a whole garden, but once cut at the root and it is gone at once. We talked and laughed about Boswell, whom he thinks one of the most remarkable men who ever lived, and J. T. F. recalled that story of Johnson who, upon being told of a man who had committed some mis- demeanor and was upon the verge of committing sui- cide in consequence, said, "Why does not the man go somewhere where he is not known, instead of to the devil where he is known?" Hawthorne was in the same class at college with Long- fellow, whom he says he could not appreciate at that time. He was always finely dressed and was a tremen- dous student. Hawthorne was careless in dress and no student, but always reading desultorily right and left. Now they are deeply appreciative of each other.^ Hawthorne says he wants the North to beat now; *t is the only way to save the country from destruction. He has been strangely inert and remote upon the sub- ject of the war; partly from his deep hatred of every- thing sad. He seemed to feel as if he could not live and face it. He was intensely witty, but his wit is of so ethereal a texture that the fine essence has vanished and I can re- member nothing now of his witty things ! 1 Only a month after making this entry, Mrs. Fields wrote in her journal : "A note came from Longfellow saying he had received a sad note from Haw- thorne. 'I wish we could have a little dinner for him,' he says, 'of two sad authors and two jolly publishers — nobody else.'" CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 6i It would be a pity to truncate the following passage by confining the record of Fields's day In Concord to his glimpse of Hawthorne, already recorded, with emenda- tions, in the " Biographical Notes.'* Saturday y January 9, 1 864. — J. T. F. passed yester- day in Concord. He went first to see Hawthorne, who was sitting alone gazing into the fire, his grey dressing- From a letter of Hawthorne* s after a visit to Charles Street gown, which became him like a Roman toga, wrapped around his figure. He said he had done nothing for three weeks. Yet we feel his romance must be maturing in his mind. General Barlow and Mrs. Howe had sent word they were coming to call, so Mrs. Hawthorne had gone out to walk (been thrown out on picket-duty, Mrs. Stowe said) and had left word at home that Mr. Haw- thorne was ill and could see no one. After his visit there, full of affectionate kindness, J. T. F. proceeded to dinner with the Emersons. Here too the reception was most hearty, but he fancied there were no servants 62 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS to speak of at either house. Mrs. E. looked deadly pale, but her wit coruscated marvellously; even Mr. Emer- son grew silent to listen. She said a committee of three, of which she was one, had been formed to pronounce upon certain essays (unpublished) of Mr. Emerson, which they thought should be printed now. She thought some of them finer than any of his published essays. He laughed a great deal at the fun she poked at the earlier efforts. From there J. T. F. proceeded to see the Thoreaus. The mother and sister live well, but lonely it should seem, there without Henry. They produced 32 volumes of journal and a few letters. The idea was to print the letters. We hope it may be done. Their house was like a conservatory, it was so filled with plants in beautiful condition. Henry liked to have the doors thrown open that he might look at these during his illness. He was an excellent son, and even when living in his retire- ment at Walden Pond, would come home every day. He supported himself too from a very early age. Here follows a passage also used by Fields in "Yester- days with Authors," but in a rendering so moderated that the original entry in the journal is quite another thing. Monday^ March 28. — Mr. Hawthorne came down to take this as his first station on his journey for health. He shocked us by his invalid appearance. He has become quite deaf, too. His limbs are shrunken but CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 63 his great eyes still burn with their lambent fire. He said, "Why does Nature treat us so like children ! I think we could bear it if we knew our fate. At least I think it would not make much difference to me now what became of me." He talked with something of his old wit at times; said, "Why has the good old custom of coming together to get drunk gone out ? Think of the delight of drinking in pleasant company and then lying down to sleep a deep strong sleep." Poor man ! He sleeps very little. We heard him walking in his room during a long portion of the night, heavily moving, moving as if indeed waiting, watching for his fate. At breakfast he gave us a most singular account of an interview with Mr. Alcott. He said: "Alcott was one of the most excellent of men. He could never quarrel with anyone." But the other day he came to make Mr. H. a call, to ask him if there was any difficulty or misunderstanding between the two families. Mr. Haw- thorne said no, that would be impossible; "but I pro- ceeded," he continued, "to tell him it was not possible to live upon amicable terms with Mrs. Alcott. . . . The old man acknowledged the truth of all that I said (indeed who should know it better), but I comforted him by saying in time of illness or necessity I did not doubt we should be the best of helpers to each other. I clothed all this in velvet phrases, that it might not seem too hard for him to bear, but he took it all like a saint." April, 1864. — When Mr. Hawthorne returned after watching at the death-bed of Mr. Ticknor, his mind was in a healthier condition, we thought, than when he 64 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS left, but the experience had been a terrible one. I can never forget the look of pallid exhaustion he wore the night he returned to us. He said he had scarcely eaten or slept since he left. " Mr. Childs watched me so closely after poor Ticknor died, as if I had lost my protector and friend, and so I had ! But he stuck by as if he were afraid to leave me alone. He stayed past the dinner hour, and when I began to wonder if he never ate him- self, he departed and sent another man to watch me till he should return!" Nevertheless he liked Mr. Childs and spoke repeatedly of his unwearying kindness. "I never saw anything like it," he said ; yet when he was abstractedly wondering where his slippers were, I over- heard him say to himself, "Oh ! I remember, that cursed Childs watched me so I forgot everything." He spoke of the coldness of somebody and said, "Well, I think he would have felt something if he had been there !" He said he did not think death would be so terrible if it were not for the undertakers. It was dreadful to think of being handled by those men. He was often wholly overcome by the ludicrous view of something presented to him in the midst of his grief. There was a black servant sleeping in the room that last night, whose name was Peter. Once he snored loudly, when the dying man raised himself with an ap- preciation of fun still living in him and said, "Well done, Peter 1" In every account of the last week of Hawthorne's life, the shock he received through the illness and death CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 65 of his friend and traveling companion, Ticknor, in Philadelphia, is an item of sombre moment. The two men had left Boston together late in March — Haw- thorne, sick and broken, writing but once, in a tremulous hand, to his wife during the ill-starred journey ; Ticknor, giving himself unstintingly to the restoration of Haw- thorne's health, and stricken unto death before a fort- night was gone. The circumstances are suggested in the entry that has just been quoted from Mrs. Fields's journal. They stand still more clearly revealed in the last letter written by Hawthorne to Fields, who refers to it in "Yesterdays with Authors," and adds that the news of Ticknor's death reached Boston on the very day after this letter was written, all too evidently with a feeble hold upon the pen. Philadelphia, Continental Hotel Saturday morning Dear Fields : — I am sorry to say that our friend Ticknor is suffering under a severe billious attack since yesterday morning. He had previously seemed uncomfortable, but not to an alarming degree. He sent for a physician during the night, and fell into the hands of an allopathist, who, of course, belabored with pills and powders of various kinds, and then proceeded to cup, and poultice, and blis- ter, according to the ancient rule of that tribe of sav- ages. The consequence is that poor Ticknor is already very much reduced, while the disorder flourishes as lux- uriantly as if that were the doctor's sole object. He calls 66 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS it a billious colic (or bilious, I know not which) and says it is one of the severest cases he ever knew. I think him a man of skill and intelligence, in his way, and doubt not that he will do everything that his views of scientific medicine will permit. Since I began writing the above, Mr. Bennett of Bos- ton tells me the Doctor, after this morning's visit, re- quested the proprietor of the Continental to telegraph to Boston the state of the case. I am glad of it, because it relieves me of the responsibility of either disclosing bad intelligence or withholding it. I will only add that Ticknor, under the influence of a blister and some pow- ders, seems more comfortable than at any time since his attack, and that Mr. Bennett (who is an apothecary, and therefore conversant with these accursed matters) says that he is in a good state. But I can see that it will be not a very few days that will set him upon his legs again. As regards nursing, he shall have the best that can be obtained ; and my own room is next to his, so that I can step in at any moment ; but that will be of almost as much service as if a hippopotamus were to do him the same kindness. Nevertheless, I have blistered, and pow- dered, and pilled him and made my observation on medical science and the sad and comic aspects of human misery. Excuse this illegible scrawl, for I am writing almost in the dark. Remember me to Mrs. Fields. As regards myself, I almost forgot to say that I am perfectly well. If you could find time to write Mrs. Hawthorne and tell her so, it would be doing me a great favor, for I CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 67 doubt whether I can find an opportunity just now to do it myself. You would be surprised to see how stalwart I have become in this little time. Your friend, N. H. Barely more than a month later, Hawthorne, travel- ing with another friend, Franklin Pierce, died in New Hampshire. Through the years that followed, the friendship of the Fieldses with his widow and children afforded many occasions for brief affectionate record in the chronicles of Charles Street. '^ The two entries that follow touch, respectively, upon glimpses of Hawthorne's immediate family at Concord, in the summer of 1865, and of his surviving sister in the summer of 1866. Sunday y July 9, 1865. — Passed Friday in Concord. Called at the Emersons, but were disappointed to find them all in town, Jamie particularly, who wished to tell him that his new essay on Character is not suited to the magazine. Ordinary readers would not understand him and would consider it blasphemous. He thinks it would do more good if delivered simply to his own disciples first, in a volume of new essays uniform with the others. Dined with Sophia Hawthorne and the children, the first real visit since that glorious presence has departed. ^ In Rose Hawthorne Lathrop's Memories of Hawthorne the relation between the two households is indicated in a sentence containing the nick- names of Mr. and Mrs. Fields: "My father also tasted the piquant flavors of merriment and luxury in this exquisite domicile of Heart's-Ease and Mrs, Meadows." 68 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS What an altered household ! She feels very lonely and is like a reed. I fear the children find small restraint from her. Poor child ! How tired she is ! Will God spare her further trial, I wonder, and take her to his rest ? . . . Went to call on Sophia Thoreau.^ . . . We saw a letter from Froude, the historian, to H. T., as warmly appre- ciative as it was possible for a letter to be; also "long good histories," as his sister said, from his admirer Cholmondely. His journal is in thirty-two volumes and when J. T. F. spoke of wishing for an editor to condense these, she said there was no hurry and she thought the man would come. We spoke of Sanborn. She said, "He knows a great deal, but I never associate him with my brother." She is a woman borne down with ill health. She seemed to possess, as we saw her, something of the self- sustaining power of her brother, the same repose and confidence in her fate, as being always good. Dear S. H. says she has this when she thinks of her brother, but often loses it when the surface of her life becomes irri- tated and she is disabled for work. Her aged mother, learning we were there, got up and dressed herself and came down, to her daughter's great surprise. She has an immense care in that old lady evidently. July 24, 1866. — We left just before eleven for Ames- bury, to see Mr. Whittier, driving over to Beverly in an open wagon. It was one of the perfect days. As Keats said once, the sky sat "upon our senses like a sapphire crown." We turned away after a time from the ' Thoreau's younger sister. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 69 high road into a wood path, picking our way somewhat slowly to avoid the overhanging bushes and the rainy pools left in the ruts. We soon found ourselves near a place called Mt. Serat where we knew Miss Hawthorne lived, the only surviving sister of Nathaniel, and Mr. Fields determined at once to call upon her. To my sur- prise, in spite of the fine weather and her woodland life habitually, she was at home, and came down immedi- ately as if she were sincerely glad to see us. She is a small woman, with small fine features, round full face, fresh-looking in spite of years, brilliant eyes, nervous brow, which twists as she speaks, and very nervous fingers. In one respect she differed from her brother — she was exquisitely neat (nor do I mean to convey the idea by this that he was unneat, but he always gave you a sense of disregarded trifles about his person and we fre- quently recall his reply to me when I offered to brush his coat one morning, "No, no, I never brush my coat, it wears it out 1"), and gave you a sense of being particu- lar in little things. I seemed to see in her another dif- ference — a deterioration because of too great solitude — powers rusted — a decaying beauty — while with Haw- thorne sohtude fed his genius, solitude and the pressure of necessity. Utter solitude lames the native power of a woman even more than that of a man, for her natural growth is through her sympathies. She is a woman of no common mould, however. Lucy Larcom calls her a hamadryad, and says she belongs in the woods and should be seen there. I wish to see her again upon her own ground. She asked us almost immediately if we 70 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS would not come with her to the woods, but our time was too short. From thence we held our way, and soon came by train to Newburyport and Amesbury. Whittier was at home, ready with an enthusiastic welcome. To these memorials of Hawthorne must be added yet another, copied from a pencilled sheet preserved by Mrs. Fields in an envelope endorsed in her handwriting, " The original of a precious and extraordinary letter written by Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne while her husband lay dead." Printed now, I believe for the first time, nearly sixty years after it was written, it rings with a de- votion and exaltation which time is powerless to touch : I wish to speak to you, Annie. A person of a more uniform majesty never wore mortal form.* In the most retired privacy it was the same as in the presence of men. The sacred veil of his eyelids he scarcely lifted to himself — such an unviolated sanctuary as was his nature, I, his inmost wife, never conceived nor knew. So absolute a modesty was not before joined to so lofty a self-respect. But what must have been that self-respect that he never in the smallest particular dishonored ! A conscience more void of offense never bore witness to GOD within. It was the innocence of a baby and the grand com- prehension of a sage. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 71 To me — himself — even to me who was himself in unity — he was to the last the holy of holies behind the cherubim. So unerring a judgment that a word from him would settle with me a chaos of doubts and questions that seemed perplexing to ordinary apprehension. So equal a justice that I often wondered if he were human in this — for this seemed to partake of omnis- cience both of love and insight. An impartiality of regard that solved all men and subjects In one alemblck. Truth and right alone he deigned to regard. Far below him was every other consideration. A tenderness so infinite — so embracing — that GOD'S alone could surpass It. It folded the loathsome leper in as soft a caress as the child of his home affec- tions — was not that divine 1 Was it not Christianity In one action ! What a be- quest to his children — what a new revelation of Christ to the world was that ! And for him — whom the sight and touch of unseemliness and uncleanness caused to shudder as an Eollan string shudders in the tempest. Annie ! to the last action in this house he was as lofty, as majestic, as imperial and as gentle — as in the strength of his prime, as on the day he rose upon my eye and soul a King among men by divine right 1 When he awoke that early dawn and found himself unawares standing among the "Shining Ones" do you think they did not suppose he had been always with them — one of themselves ? Oh, blessed be GOD for 71 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS so soft a translation — as an Infant wakes on its mother's breast so he woke on the bosom of GOD and can never be weary any more, nor see nor touch an unclean thing. A demand for beauty and perfection that was inexorable. Yet though a flaw or a crack gave him so fine agony, no one, no one was ever so tolerant as he ! Hawthorne's allusion to Alcott brings the figure of that Concord personage on the scene. The picture of him in Charles Street is so sharpened in outline by certain remarks upon him by the elder Henry James, a some- what more frequent visitor, that the passages relating to the two men are here joined together. The first recorded glimpses of James occurred in the course of a visit to Newport. September 23, 1863. — Received a visit at Newport from Henry James. His son was badly wounded in two places at Gettysburg. He spoke of the reviews of his work among other topics. "Who wrote the review in the Examiner?" asked Mr. F. "Oh! that was merely Freeman Clarke," he replied ; "he is a smuggler in theol- ogy and feels towards me much as a contraband towards an exciseman ?" Speaking of fashion, he said, " there was good in it," although it appears to be a drawback to the residents here while It lasts. He anticipates a change in European affairs ; the age of ignorance is to pass away and strong democratic tendencies will soon pervade CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 73 Europe. The march of civilization will work its revenge against aristocratic England, he believes. Mr. James considers that people make a mistake to expect reason from Carlyle. "He is an artist, a wilful artist, and no reasoner. He has only genius." October 16, 1863. — Mr. Alcott breakfasted with us. He said all vivid new life was well described by his daughter Louisa. She was happier now that she had made a success. "She was formerly not content to wait, but so soon as she became content, then good fortune came, as she always does." I told him we enjoyed deeply reading his MSS. of "The Rhapsodist" (Emer- son) last night. He said he thought it was finally brought into presentable shape ! "When in a more im- perfect condition," he continued, "I read it to Mr. Emerson. The modest man could only keep silent at such a time, but he conveyed to me the idea that he should prefer the paper should not be printed in the Xommonwealth.' Later I again read it, when he said, 'If I were dead.' I have reason to believe that In its present shape he would not object to its presentation."^ He talked of his own valuable library and asked what he should do with it by and by. J. T. F. suggested it should go to the Union Club, which pleased him much. "That is the place," said he. "If it were known this was my intention, might I not also be entitled to con- sideration at the Club.?" J In 1865 Alcott printed privately and anonymously the essay, Emerson, which appeared later in his acknowledged volume, Ralph JValdo Emerson, an Esttmate of his Character and Genius (Boston, 1882). This was evi- dently The Rhapsodist. 74 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Among his books is a copy of Milton's "World of Words," owned by Sir Ferdinand Gorges, who early colonized the state of Maine. He talked of Thoreau. "There will be seven or eight volumes of his works. Next should come the letters, with the commendatory poems prefixed. Come up to Concord and we will talk it over. If you go to see Miss Thoreau, arrange to talk with her in the absence of the mother, who would interrupt and speak again of the whole matter. Make Helen ^ feel that Henry will receive as much for his books as if he had made his own bar- gain, for he was good at a bargain and they are a little hard — that Is, they do not understand all the bearings of many subjects." The good old man has come to Boston, being asked to perform funeral ceremonies over the bodies of two children. He asked for my Vaughan. "A beautiful poem which is not known is much at such a time," he observed inquiringly. To which I heartily responded. Mr. Emerson came in to see Mr. Fields today. "I shall reconsider my reluctance to have Mr. Alcott's article published provided he will obtain consideration by it," was his generous speech. He said he had begun to prepare a new volume of poems, "but I must go down the harbor before I can finish a little poem about the islands. I took steamboat yesterday and went down, but a mist came up and my visit was to no purpose." February 19, 1864. — This morning early called upon Mrs. Mott of Pennsylvania. Found Mr. James with ' Thoreau's older sister. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 75 her. He observed that circumstances had placed him above want, and inheritance had given him a position in the world which precluded his having any knowledge of the temptations which beset many men. His virtues were the result of his position rather than. of character — an affair of temperament. He said society was to blame for much of the crime in it, and as for that poor young man who committed the murder at Maiden, it was a mere fact of temperament or inheritance. He soon broke off his talk, saying it was "pretty well to be caught in the middle of such weighty topics in the pres- ence of two ladies at 10 o'clock in the morning." Then we talked of houses. He wishes a furnished house for a year in Boston until his departure. July 28. — Still hot, with a russet sun. Mr. and Mrs. Henry James called in the evening. He talked of "Ster- ling." "He was not stereotyped, but living, his eye burned ; he was very vivacious, although he saw Death approaching. He was one of the choicest of friends." Afterward he talked of Alcott's visit to Carlyle. Car- lyle told Mr. James he found him a terrible old bore. It was almost impossible to be rid of him, and impossible also to keep him, for he would not eat what was set before him. Carlyle had potatoes for breakfast and sent for strawberries for Mr. x4.1cott, who, when they arrived, took them with the potatoes upon the same plate, where the two juices ran together and fraternized. This shocked Carlyle, who would eat nothing himself, but stormed up and down the room instead. "Mrs. Carlyle is a naughty woman," said Mr. J., "she wishes 76 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS to make a sensation and does not mind sometimes fol- lowing and imitating her husband's way." Mr. J. said Alcott once made him a visit in New York and when he found he could not go to Brooklyn to attend Mr. A.'s "conversation," the latter said, "Very well; he would talk over the heads with him then before it was time to go." They got into a great battle about the premises, during which Mr. Alcott talked of the Divine paternity as relating to himself, when Mr. James broke in with, "My dear sir, you have not found your mater- nity yet. You are an egg half hatched. The shells are yet sticking about your head." To this Mr. A. replied, "Mr. James, you are damaged goods and will come up damaged goods in eternity." We laughed much before they left at a story about a man who called to ask money of John Jacob Astor. The gentleman was ushered into a twilight library, where he fancied himself alone until he heard a grunt from a deep chair, the high back of which was turned towards him ; then the gentleman advanced, found Mr. Astor there and saluted him. He opened the business of the subscription to him, and was about to unfold the paper when Mr. Astor suddenly cried out, "Oo — oo — oo — ooooooo!" "What is the matter, my dear sir," said he, " are you ill ? [growing alarmed] Where is the bell ? Let me ring the bell." Then running to the door, he shouted, "Madame, madame." Then to Mr. Astor, " Pray, sir, what is the matter ?" "Oo — oo — oo." "Have you a pain in your side!!" In a moment the household came running thither, and as the housekeeper CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 77 bent over him, he cried, "Oo — 00 — these horrid wretches sending to me for money!!" As may be be- Heved, our friend of the subscription paper beat a hasty retreat and here ended also our evening. A few days later there was an evening with Sumner and others, who talked of affairs In Washington. Mr. and Mrs. James were of the company. "These men," wrote Mrs. Fields, "despond with regard to the civil government. They have more faith that our military affairs are doing well. Chiefly they look to Sherman as the great man. Mr. James was silent ; he believes in Lincoln." And there is the final note: "We must not forget Mr. James's youth, who was 'aninted with isle of Patmos.*" 'July 10, 1866. — Forceythe Willson came and talked purely, lovingly, and like the pure character he aspires to be. He said Mr. Alcott talked with him of tempera- ments lately, with much wisdom. He said the blonde was nearest to perfection, that was the heavenly type. "You are not a blonde," said the seer calmly, and, said Willson to me, "I was much amused and pleased too; for when I regarded the old man more closely I dis- covered he himself was a blonde." October 6, 1867. — Mr. Henry James and his daughter came to call. We chanced to ask him about Dr. G of New York, a physician of wide reputation in the diag- nosis of disease. He is an old man now, but with so large a practice that he will see no new patients. Mr. 78 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS James says, however, that he is a humbug, that is, as I understood. He is a man of discernment which he turns to the best account, but not a man of deep insight or unwonted development. Suddenly J. remembered that there was once a Dr. of New York who was also famous. The moment his name was mentioned Mr. James became quite a new man. His enthusiasm flamed. Dr. died at the early age of 38, and, according to the saying of the world, insane. "Yet he was no more insane than I am at this moment as far as the action of his mind was concerned, which was always perfectly clear. Several years before his death he was pursued by spirits which often kept him awake all night. His wife was a heavenly woman and a Swedenborgian. The spirits did not come to her, but she was persuaded that they did come to him. They so disturbed his life that he used to say he was ready to die, in order to pursue his tormentors and ferret out the occasion of his trouble. At one time they told him that in every age a man had been selected to do the bidding of the Lord God, to be the Lord Christ of the time, and he must fit himself to be that man. They prescribed for him therefore cer- tain fasts and austerities which he religiously fulfilled, only asking in return an interview in which some sign should be given him. They promised faithfully, but when the time arrived it was postponed; and this oc- curred repeatedly, until he felt sure of the deceit of the parties concerned." Through the medium of these spirits Dr. be- came at length estranged from his wife. He went West CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 79 to obtain a divorce, and while on this strange errand occurred a breach between himself and Mr. James. The latter wrote him a letter urging him away from the dead, which the doctor took as interference. The poor man returned to New York and at length shot himself. His wife never harbored the least animosity against him for his undeserved treatment. (Mr. J. looked like an invalid, but was full of spirit and kindness. He not infrequently speaks severely of men and things. Analysis is his second nature.) March 5, 1869. — Jamie had an unusually turbulent and exciting day, and was thoroughly weary when night came. Henry James came first, and had gone so far as to abuse Emerson pretty well when the latter came in. "How do you do, Emer-son," he said, with his peculiar intonation and voice, as if he had expected him on the heels of what had gone before. Mr. James calls his new book, "The Secret of Swedenborg." Jamie thinks his article on Carlyle too abusive, especially as he stayed in his house, or was there long and familiarly. But his love of country was bitterly stung by Carlyle in "Shoot- ing Niagara and After." Saturday y March 13, 1869. — Mr. Emerson read in the afternoon. The subject was Wordsworth in chief, but the time was far too short to do justice to the notes he had made. In the evening we went to Cambridge to hear Mr. James read his paper on "Woman." We took tea first with the family and afterward listened to the lecture. He took the highest, the most natural, and the most religious point of view from which I have heard 8o MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS the subject discussed. He dealt metaphysically with it, after his own fashion, showing the subtle inherent counterparts of man to woman, showing to what ex- tremes either would be led without the other. He spoke with unmingled disgust of the idea of woman, except for union in behalf of some charity for the time, forsaking the sanctity and privacy of her home to battle and unsex herself in the hot and dusty arena of the world. (The members of the Woman's Club asked him to write this lecture for them. He did not wish to spare the time, but promised to do so if they would invite him afterward to deliver it in public. They disliked the lecture so much that, although they did send him a public invitation, there were but twenty people present.) Nothing could be holier or more inspiring than his ideal of womanhood. She is the embodied social idea, the genius of home, the light of life — "ever desiring novelty her life without man would be a long chase from one field to another, accompanied by soft gospel truths He didn't fail to whip the "pusillanimous" clergy, and as the room was overstocked with them, it was odd to watch the effect. Mr. James is perfectly brave, almost inapprehensive, of the storm of opinion he raises, and he is quite right. Nothing could be mqre clearly his own and inherent, than his views in this lecture, nothing which the times need more. He helps to lay that dreadful phantom of yourself which appears now and then conjured up by the right people, har- anguing the crowd and endeavoring to be something for CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 8i which you were clearly never intended by Heaven. I think I shall never forget a pretty little niece of Mrs. Dale Owen, who was with her at the first Club meet- ing in New York. Her face was full of softness and Madonna-like beauty, but she was learning to con- tract her brow over ideas and become "strong" in her manner of expressing them. It was a kind of night- mare. Summer, 1871. — Mr. Alcott, Mr. Howison, Mr. Harris, the latter two lovers of philosophy, have been here this week. Channing is still writing poems in Concord, says Alcott. The latter smiles blandly at his own former absurdities, but he does not eat meat, and continues his ancient manner of living among books. The old gentleman gave me this wild rose as he went away. He quoted Vaughan, talked of a book of selec- tions he would wish to see made, "a honey-pot into which one might dip at leisure," also an almanac suit- able for a lady, of the choicest things among the an- cient writers. He was full of good sayings and most witty and attractive. He is somewhat deaf, but he bears this infirmity as he has borne all the ills of life with a mild sweet heroism most marked and worthy of love and to be copied. Sunday y April 20, 1873. — Last night Mr. and Mrs. Henry James, Alice, and Mr. DeNormandie dined here. Mr. James looked very venerable, but was at heart very young and amused us much. He gave a description of Mr. George Bradford being run over by the horse- car, because of his own inadvertence in part, and of the 82 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS good-natured crowd who insisted upon his having resti- tution for what he considered, in part, at least, his own fault. "Ain't you dead?" said one. "267 Highland Ave. is the number, don't forget," said another; "you can prosecute." "Where 's my hat ?" he asked meekly. "Better ask if ye 're not dead, and not be looking for your hat," said another. He also told us of a visit of Elizabeth Peabody to the Alcotts. He said : " In Mr. A. the moral sense was wholly dead, and the aesthetic sense had never yet been born !" It may well have been after a visit to the Fieldses at the seashore town of Manchester that Henry James wrote this undated characteristic note which embodies the feeling of many another guest : — My dear Fields : — Pride ever goes before a fall. I scorned my wife's solic- itude about her umbrella as unworthy of an immortal mind, and now I am reduced to pleading with you to preserve my lost implement in that line, and when you next come to town to bring it with you and leave it for me at Williams' book store, corner of School Street, where I will reclaim it. Alas ! The difference between now and then ! Such an atmosphere as we are having this morning ! And yet we did not need the contrast to impress us with a lively serLse of the lovely house, the lovely scenes, and the lovely people we had left. We came home fragrant with the sweetest memories, and the way we have been CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 83 making the house resound with the fame of our enjoy- ment would amuse you. Alice and her aunt came home just after us, and we have done nothing but talk since we arrived. Good bye ; give my love to that angelic woman, whom I shall remember in my last visions, and believe me, faithfully. Yours also, H.J. Henry James's letters to Mr. and Mrs. Fields, of which a number are preserved by the present generation of the James family, abound in characteristic felicities. In one of them — they are nearly all undated — he regrets his inability to read a lecture of his own at Mrs. Fields's invitation, on the ground that his unpublished writings are "all too grave and serious, not for you individually indeed, but for those 'slumberers in Zion' who are apt, you know, to constitute the bulk of a parlour audience." In another he is evidently declining an invitation to hear a reading of Emerson's in Charles Street : — SwAMPScoTT, May 1 1 My dear Mrs. Fields : — My wife — who has just received your kind note in rapid route to the Dedham Profane Asylum, or some- thing of that sort — begs leave to say, through me as a willing and sensitive medium, that you are one of those arva beata^ renowned in poetry, which, visit them never so often, one is always glad to revisit, which are attrac- tive in all seasons by their own absolute light, and with- 84 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS out any Emersonian pansies and buttercups to make them so. This enthusiastic Dedhamite says further, in effect, that while one is deeply grateful for your courte- ous offer of a seat upon your sofa to hear the Concord sage, she yet prefers the material banquet you summon us to in your dining-room, since there we should be out ot the mist and able to discern between nature and cookery, between what eats and what is eaten at all events, and feel a thankful mind that we were in solid comfortable Charles Street, instead of the vague, wide, weltering galaxy, and should be sure to deem Annie and Jamie (/ am sure of Annie, I think my wife feels equally sure of Jamie) lovelier fireflies than ever sparkled in the cold empyrean. But alas, who shall control his destiny ? Not my wife, whom multitudinous cares enthrall ; nor yet myself, whom a couple of months' enforced illness now constrains to a preternatural activity, lest the world fail of salvation. ... P. S. Who did contrive the comical title for his lec- ture — "Philosophy of the People" ? I suspect it was a joke of J. T. F. It would be no less absurd for Emer- son himself to think of philosophizing than it would be tor the rose to think of botanizing. Emerson is the Di- vinely pompous rose of the philosophic garden, gorgeous with colour and fragrance. What a sad lookout there would be for tulip and violet and lily and the humble grape, if the rose should turn out philosophic gardener as well 1 Philosophy of the people, too ! But that was Fields, or else it was only R. W. E. after dining with F. at the Union Club and becoming demoralized. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 85 The final paragraph of a single other note suggests in sum the relation between James and his Charles Street friends : — Speaking of Mr. Fields always reminds me of various things so richly endowed in the creature in all good gifts ; but the dominant consideration in my mind asso- ciated with him is his beautiful home and there chiefly that atmosphere and faultless womanly worth and dig- nity which fills it with light and warmth and makes it a real blessing to one's heart every time he falls within its precincts. Please felicitate the wretch for me, and believe me, my dear Mrs. Fields, Your true friend and servant, -July 8. H. J. Though not related either to Alcott or to Henry James, the following entry, on October 16, 1863, should be preserved — and as well in this place as in another. It refers to the second of the three Josiah Quincys who were mayors of Boston in the course of the nineteenth century. Mr. Josiah Quincy dropped in to see J. T. F. He had lately been traveling in the West, he said. People com- plimented him upon his youthful appearance and his last letter to the President. "I am glad you liked the letter," he said, "but my father wrote it." At the next town people pressed his hand and thanked him for his staunch adherence to the Anti-slavery cause as 86 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS expressed in the "Liberator." "Oh," his reply was, "that was my brother Edmund Quincy" ; a little farther on a friend complimented his brilliant story in the last "At- lantic" magazine. "That was by my son J. P. Quincy," he was obliged to answer. Finally, when his exploits in the late wars at the head of the 20th Regiment were recounted, he grew impatient, said it was his son Colonel Quincy, but he thought it high time he came home, instead of travelling about to receive the com- pliments of others. In giving the title, "Glimpses of Emerson," to one of the chapters in her "Authors and Friends," Mrs. Fields described accurately the use she made of her records and remembrances of that serene Olympian who glided in and out of Boston to the awe and delight of those with whom he came into personal con- tact. "Olympian" must be the word, since "Augus- tan" connotes something quite too mundane to suggest the effect produced by Emerson upon his sympathetic contemporaries. Did they realize, I wonder, how fit- ting it was that this prophet of the harmonies of life should live in a place the name of which is spoken by all but New Englanders as if it signified not a despairing Vce victis^ but the very bond of peace ? All the adjec- tives of benignity have been bestowed upon Emerson. Mrs. Fields's "Glimpses" of him suggest that atmos- phere, as of mountain solitudes, in which he moved ; that air of the heights which those who moved beside EMERSON From the marble statue by Daniel Chester French in the Concord Public Library CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 87 him were fain to breathe. His " Conversations " in pub- lic and private places, a form of intellectual refresh- ment suggested by Mrs. Fields and conducted, to Emerson's large material advantage, by her husband, appear to-day as highly characteristic of their time, — the sixties and seventies, — and the light thrown upon them by her journal illuminates not only him and her, but the whole society of "superior persons" in which Emerson was so dominating a figure. By no means all of that light escaped from her manuscript journals to the printed page of "Authors and Friends." In the hitherto unprinted passages now given there are fur- ther shafts of it, sometimes slender in themselves, but joining to show the very Emerson that came and went in Charles Street. There was a furtive humor in Emerson, which ex- pressed itself more accurately in his own words than in anything written about him. A pleasant trace of it is found in a note to Fields addressed, "My dear Editor," dated "Concord, October 5, 1866," and containing these words : "I have the more delight in your marked over- estimate of my poem, that I had been vexed with a belief that what skill I had in whistling was nearly or quite gone, and that I must henceforth content myself with guttural consonants or dissonants, and not attempt warbling." There is a clear application of the Emersonian phil- osophy to domestic matters in a letter written by Mrs. Emerson to Mrs. Fields, a week after the fire which drove the poet's family from his house at Concord, in 88 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS the summer of 1872. Mrs. Fields — as if in fulfillment of Emerson's words on the proffer of some previous hospitality; "Indeed we think that your house should have that name inscribed upon it — 'Hospitality'" — had invited the dislodged Emersons to take refuge under her roof. Mrs. Emerson, replying, wrote: — We are most happily settled in the "Old Manse," where our cousin, Miss Ripley, assures us we can be accommodated — to her satisfaction as well as our own — until our house is rebuilt. Only the upper half is destroyed and we shall, I trust, so well restore it that you will not know — when we shall have the pleasure of welcoming you there — except for its fresh appear- ance, that anything has happened. I should not use such a word as "calamity," for truly the whole event is a blessing rather than a misfortune. We have received such warm expressions of kindness from our friends, and have witnessed such disinterested action and brave daring in our town's people, that we feel — in addition to our happiness in the sympathy of friends in other places — as if Concord was a large family of personal friends and well-wishers. They command not only our gratitude but our deep respect, for their loving and personal self-forgetfulness. Mr. Emerson and Ellen join me in affectionate and grateful acknowledgments to yourself and to Mr. Fields. Ever your friend, Lilian Emerson Concord, July 31, 1872. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 89 It is in the atmosphere of the mutual relation revealed in many letters from Emerson and his household to Mr. and Mrs. Fields that the following reports of en- counters with him — a few out of many similar pas- sages in her journals — should be read. December 3, 1863. — Last Tuesday Mr. Emerson lec- tured in town. Mrs. E. and Edith came to tea. She was troubled because she was a little late. She is a woman of proud integrity and real sweetness. She has an awe of words. They mean so much to her that her lips do not unlock save for truth or kindliness or beauty or wisdom. The lecture was for today — there was much of Carlyle, chastisement, and soul. After the lecture they came home with us and about 20 friends. Wendell Phillips was in his sweetest mood. He spoke of Beecher and Luther and of the vigorous, healthy hearts of these men who swayed this world. He said Hallam speaks dis- paragingly of Luther. I could not but think of Sydney Smith's friend who spoke "disparagingly of the Equa- tor." Alden too came in wearied after his lecture. Sena- tor Boutwell spoke in praise of life in Washington, the first man. Sunshiny Edith passed the night with us. January 5, 1 864. — Mr. Emerson came today to see J. T. F. He says Mr. Blake, who holds the letters of Thoreau in his hands, is a terribly conscientious man, "a man who would even return a borrowed umbrella." He became acquainted with Blake when he was con- nected with theological matters, "and he believed 90 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS wholly in me at that time, but one day he met Thoreau and he never came to my house afterwards. His con- scientiousness is equalled perhaps by that of George Bradford, who accompanied us once to hear Mr. Web- ster speak. There was an immense crowd, Mr. Brad- ford became separated from the party, and was swept into a capital place within the lines. When he found himself well ensconced in front of the speaker, he turned about and saw us, and with a look of great concern said : 'I have no ticket for this place and I can't stay.' We besought him not to be so foolish as to give up the place, but nothing would tempt him to keep it." He was in fine mood. Wednesday y September 6. — Mr. Emerson went to see Mr. Fields. "There are fine lines in Lowell's Ode," he said. "Yes," answered J. T. F., "it is a fine poem." "I have found fine lines in it," replied the seer. "I told Lowell once," he continued, "that his humorous poems gave me great pleasure ; they were worth all his serious poetry. He did not take it very well, but muttered, 'The Washers of the Shroud,' and walked away." J. T. F. found Emerson sitting by the window in his new office, highly delighted v/ith it. September 30, 1865. — Jamie went to dine with the Saturday Club. Professor Nichol was his guest. Sam. Ward (Julia's brother) was Longfellow's. Lowell, Holmes, Hoar, Emerson and a few others only were present. Judge Hoar related an amusing anecdote of having sent a beautiful basket of pears to the Concord CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 91 exhibition this year. He said Mr. Emerson was one of the judges, and he thought he would be pleased with the pears because a few years ago he was in the garden one day and, observing that very tree, which was not then very flourishing, had told Judge Floar that more iron and more animal matter were needed in the soil. " Forth- with," said the Judge, "I planted all my old iron kettles and a cat and a dog at the foot of the tree and these pears were the result. I have kept two favorite terriers ready to plant if necessary beside, but the fruit for the present seems well enough without them." Judge Hoar said also that he knew a man once with a prodigious memory ; before dinner he could recall Gen- eral Washington, after dinner he remembered Chris- topher Columbus ! Saturday^ October ']j 1865. — Tuesday, 3, Edith Emer- son was married to William Forbes. The old house threw wide its hospitable doors and the stairway and rooms were covered with leaves and flowers and the whole place was as beautiful as earthly radiance and joy can make a home. Poor Mrs. Hawthorne, laden with her many sorrows, threw off her black robe for that day that she might rejoice with others. Edith made her own marriage wreath, and even Mr. Emerson wore white gloves. Old Mrs. Ripley and many aged and many beautiful persons were there. In 1 866 Emerson, long exiled from the good graces of his Alma Mater, was restored to them by the bestowal of an honorary degree. In 1867 the restoration was com- 92 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS pleted.by his election as an Overseer of Harvard College and his appearance, after an interval of thirty years, as the Phi Beta Kappa orator. In this capacity he read his address "on the "Progress of Culture" on July i8, 1867. Of the manner in which he did it, and ot the effect he produced on his hearers, Lowell wrote immediately to Norton, in a letter often quoted, "He boggled, he lost his place, he had to put on his glasses ; but it was as if a creature from some fairer world had lost his way in our fogs, and it was our fault, not his." " Phi Beta Day " was still a local festival of much brilliance, which was thus reflected in 1867 on the pages of Mrs. Fields's journal. Thursday, July 18, 1867. — Arose at five and worked in my garden until breakfast. Then it was time to dress for Phi Beta at Cambridge. We drove out, leaving home at nine o'clock. We expected Professor Andrew D. White to go with us, but he called still earlier to say he had been summoned to a business meeting by President Hill. The day was soft and pleasant with a clouded sky. We were among the first on the ground, but we had the pleasure of waiting a few moments to see our friends arrive before we were admitted to the church. Only ladies went in. I went with Mrs. Quincy, the poet's ^ wife (poet for the day, for he is apt to disclaim this title usually), and we found good places in the gallery ; by and by, however, Mrs. Dana beckoned to me to come and sit with them, so I changed my seat to a place on the lower floor. It was an impressive sight to see those 1 Josiah Phillips Quincy. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 93 men come in (though they kept us waiting until twelve o'clock) — Lowell, Emerson, Dana, Hale, and all the good brave men we have with few exceptions. First came Quincy's poem, then Mr. Emerson's address — both excellent after the manner of the men. Poor Mr, E.'s MSS. was in inextricable confusion, and in spite of the chivalry of E. E. Hale, who hunted up a cushion that he might see better, the whole matter seemed at first out of joint in the reader's eyes. However that may have been, it was far from out of joint in our eyes, being noble in aim and influence, magnetic, imaginative. I felt grateful that I had lived till that moment and as if I might come home to live and work better. Thank Heaven for such a master ! He was evidently put out and angry with himself for his disorder and, taking Mr. Fields's arm as he came from the assembly, had to be somewhat reassured that it was not an utter failure. Mrs. Dana tried to carry me to lunch, most kindly. I could not make up my mind to go anywhere after what I had heard, but for a moment to see if the good Jameses were well, and thence homeward. It seemed, if I could ever work, it must be then. At half-past six Jamie returned from the dinner, where J. R. Lowell presided in the most elegant and bril- liant manner. In calling out Agassiz he told the story of the sailor who was swallowed by a whale and finding time rather heavy on his hands thought he would in- scribe his name on the bridge of bone above his head ; but looking for a place, jack-knife in hand, he found that Jonah was before him — so he said Agassiz, etc. 94 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS And of Holmes he said that the Professor and himself were like two buckets in a well : when one of them pre- sided at a dinner, the other made it a point to bring a poem ; when one bucket came up full, the other went down empty. And so on through all. Phillips Brooks, the distinguished preacher of Philadelphia, was there, and many other men of note. Out of the many notes relating to Emerson's lectures, a few passages may be taken as typical. Perhaps the best unpublished pages are those on which the philos- opher is seen, with his wife and daughter, against the social background of the time and place. October 19, 1868. — The weeks spin away so fast I have no time for records, and yet last Sunday and Mon- day we had two pleasant parties, especially Monday, after Mr. Emerson's first lecture. We were 14 at supper. Mrs. Putnam and Miss Oakey among the guests, but the Emersons, who are always pleased and always full of kindliness, enjoyment, and Christianity, I believe give more pleasure than they receive wherever they are entertained. Edward is full of his grape-culture in Milton, Ellen full of good works, Mrs. Emerson very hot against her brother's opponents, Morton and those who take sides with him now that Morton himself is in the earth-mould first.^ Mr. Emerson, alive and alert on all topics, talked openly of the untruthfulness of the 1 An allusion to the controversy over the claims of Dr. Jackson and Dr. Morton to the discovery of ether. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 95 Peabodys, of the beauty of " Charles Auchester," of Mr. Alcott's school, of Dana's politics as superior perhaps to Butler and yet not altogether sound and worthy, con- servatism being so deep in his blood. Thursday we drove our friends to Milton Blue Hill after the Emersons had gone, returned to dine and Selwyn's theatre in the evening. Herman Merivale was of the party — son of Thackeray's friend. The Stephens went on Wednesday. Thursday we dined in Milton with Mrs. Silsbee ; it was a wet nasty day. Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were quietly enough here, Jamie with a fearful cold. Surely all this is unim- portant enough as regards ourselves ; but I like to re- member when Mr. Emerson came and what he said and how he looked, for it is a pure benediction to see him and I honor and love him. February 20, 1869. — Heard Emerson again, and Laura was with me; we drank up every word eagerly. He read Donne, Daniel, and especially Herbert ; also vers de societe; the facility of these old divines giving them a power akin to what has produced these familiar rhymes. He said Herbert was full of holy quips ; fond of using a kind of irony towards God, and quoted appropriately. Beautiful things of Herrick, too, he read, but treated Vaughan rather unjustly, we thought. Lowell sat just behind ; I could imagine his running commentary on many of Mr. Emerson's remarks, which were often more Emersonian than universal, or true. The facility of the old poets seemed to impress him with 96 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS almost undue reverence. He is extremely natural and easy in manner and speech during these readings. He bent his brows and shut his eyes, endeavoring to recall a passage from Ben Jonson as if we were at his own dinner-table, and at last when he gave it up said, "It is all the more provoking as I do not doubt many a friend here might help me out with it." His respect for literature, often in these degenerate days smiled upon from some imaginary hills by sur- rounding multitudes, is absolute and regnant. It is religion and life, and he reiterating them in every form. The first and second of the "Conversations" arranged for Emerson by Fields are duly described in the journal. In the evening that followed the second, Emerson and his daughter dined at Charles Street, in company with Longfellow and his daughter Alice, William Morris Hunt and his wife. Dr. Holmes, and the Fieldses. The scene and talk were recorded by the hostess. . . . Coming home, Ellen's trunk had not arrived, so she came, like a good child, most difficult in a woman grown, to dinner in her travelling dress. Alice Long- fellow looked very pretty in a polonaise of lovely olive brown over black ; a little feather of the same color in her hair. Rooshue [Mrs. Hunt] and her husband came in their everydays too. I wore a lilac polonaise with a yellow rose — I speak of the latter because it seemed to please W. M. Hunt to see the dash of color. . . . CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 97 Hunt convulsed us with a story of seeing a man run through by an iron bolt, when a distinguished physi- cian is called In ; the physician asks if he can sleep well, and a thousand and one questions of like rele- vancy, to all of which the patient only replies by gasps of agony. Hunt acted the whole scene famously. The sunset too delighted him as it gilded the old sheds back of the house and made them "like Solomon's temple." Longfellow has written to Miss Rossetti, the author of the "Shadow of Dante," to thank her for her pleasant book. He asks her the difficult question why Dante puts Venus nearest the sun. Also he points out her fault of saying the spirits of the blest inhabited the planets, whereas Dante clearly states that they all lived in one heaven but visited the planets. The truth of Hawthorne's tale of the minister with the black veil was hunted up. His name was Moody and he was one of the Emerson family. It seems the poor man in his youth shot a boy by accident, and as he grew older a morbid temper settled upon him and he di(i not think himself fit to preach; so he withdrew from the ministry but taught a smajl school, always wore a black veil, literally a handkerchief. Ellen said her aunt was taught by him and she appeared anxious to set the matter right. Rose Hawthorne and her hus- band have been to see Mr. Emerson, and he likes them both well ; thinks Rose looks happy and the young man promising, which is much. There is hope of Una's recovery and return. After dinner, we ladies looked over manuscripts for 98 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS a time until Longfellow went — when Mrs. Hunt went to the piano and played and sang. Finally he came, and they sang their little duets together and afterward she sang a song with words by Channing about a pine tree, set to a scrap of a sonata by Helen Bell, and after that a touching German song with English words — then she read Celia's [Mrs. Thaxter's] new poem to Mr. Emerson, called "The Tryst." She read it only pretty well, which disgusted her ; and she said it reminded her of William's reading, which was the worst she ever knew ; he could literally stop in the middle of a sentence because it happened to be the bottom of a page, and ask her what it meant. At that he took Celia's poem and read it through word for word like a school-boy, looking up at her to see if he was right and should go on. She laughed immoderately, and as for Mr. Emerson, J. said his eyes left their wonted sockets and went to laugh far back in his brain. Putting down his book. Hunt launched off into his own life as a painter. His lonely position here without anyone to look up to in his art — his idea of art being entirely misunderstood, his determination not to paint cloth and cheeks, but to paint the glory of age and the light of truth. He became almost too excited to find words, but when he did grasp a phrase, it was such a fine one that it went a great way. His wife sat by mak- ing running comments, but when he said, "If any man who was talking could not be heard, he would naturally try to talk so that he could be heard," we tried to urge him to stand firm and to assure him that his efforts were A CORNER OF THE CHARLES .STREET LIBRARY CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 99 neither lost nor in vain. "If the books you wrote were left all dusty and untouched upon the shelves, don't you think you would try to write so that people should want them ? I am sure you would." His wife tried to say he must stand in the way he knew was right — as did we all — but he seemed to think it too hard, too Sisyphus-like a labor. The portrait of little Paul is still unsold. After keeping the carriage waiting one hour and a half, they went — a most interesting pair. Tuesday y April 23. — Shakespeare's birthday. Emer- son and his daughter passed the night with us and Edith Davidson, Ellen's "daughter," came to break- fast. We talked over again the pleasure of the night before. Emerson had never heard Hunt talk before and had seldom found Longfellow so expansive. Holmes met J. in the course of the day, and told him he had a real good time, though he did have a thumping head- ache — he was much pleased with Alice Longfellow. Tuesday y May 21. — Call from Mr. Emerson, Mrs. E. and Ellen. They came in a body to thank me, which Mrs. Emerson did in a little set speech after her own fashion, at which we all laughed heartily — especially at the "profit" clause. Indeed we had a very merry time altogether. Mr. Emerson gave "Queenie" per- mission to look all about the room, "for indeed there was not such another in all Boston — no indeed [half soliloquizing], not such another." Then he looked about and told them the wrong names of the painters, and would have been entirely satisfied if he had not referred to me, when I was obliged to tell the truth and so from lOO MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS that time he made me speaker. He said he should do his very best for the university class for women for next December to make up for having served them so badly this winter. He said I had very gently reminded him of ^^//r.-c^^^^^f^-'^-^:^^ 'y.^ %' From a note of Emerson s to Mrs. Fields his entire forgetfulness to fulfil an engagement or half- engagement to come to speak to them this winter. "Queenie" told me she was one of the few persons who had read Miss Mitford's poems, "Blanche" and all the rest, and liked them very much. So the various por- traits of the old lady interested her much. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE loi They came down to Boston, Mrs. E. said, on purpose to make this call. I had just returned home from along drive about town on business, so it was the best possible moment for me. Our first thought this morning (J*s. and mine) was, how could Mr. Emerson finish his course of " Conversa- tions," which had been so brilliant until the last, in so unsatisfactory a manner. His matter was for the most part old, and he finished with reading well-known hymns of Dr. Watts and Mrs. Barbauld. I fear we were all disappointed. Some of the lectures (especially the one on "Love") have been so fine that we were bitterly disappointed. A later reference to Emerson shows him in Philadel- phia, and through the eyes of a qualified observer there. The passage was written at Manchester-by-the-Sea, to which Mr. and Mrs. Fields had begun to pay summer visits even before 1872, and where they soon acquired that cottage of their own on "Thunderbolt Hill," which belied its name in serving as the most peaceful of retreats for Mrs. Fields and the friends she was constq,ntly sum- moning to her side through all the remainder of her life. Tuesday y August 25, 1872. — Miss A. Whitney came Saturday and remained until Monday morning. Sun- day evening we passed at Mrs. Towne's. Mrs. Annis Wister^ of Pennsylvania had just arrived, a dramatic 1 Daughter of the Rev. William Henry Furness, of Philadelphia, and trans- lator of German novels. I02 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS creature, who tells and tells again at request, with as much amiability as talent, her wonderful story of Father Donne, the Irish priest, who performed the marriage ceremony for one of her servants. Mrs. Wis- ter, in spite of a lisp, has a thoroughly clear enuncia- tion. She never leaves a sentence unfinished nor suffers the imagination to complete any corner of her picture. She is exceedingly lively and witty, and Miss Whitney, whose mind is quite different and altogether introverted, busied over her artistic, conceptions, could not help a feeling of envy. The gift of narration, so rare in this country, has been carefully cultivated by Mrs. Wister, and poor Miss Whitney could only wonder and admire. I could see her fine large eyes glow with pleasure and desire as she listened to her. Mrs. Wister told me an odd thing, which shows her as an individual. She asked me how the testimonial to Mr. Emerson was progressing, as her father was much interested and thought nothing he possessed too good to be given at once to Mr. Emerson, nor indeed worthy of his acceptance, and she would like to write him. I told her I believed the sum had reached $10,000, and had already been presented. This led her to say the friendship of her father for Mr. Emerson, and indeed their mutual friendship, as she then believed it to be, dated back to their youth, when Mr. Emerson was first writing his poems and delighting over the illustrations her father would make for them. As she grew up, she became dissatisfied at the relation be- tween them. She thought Mr. Furness, her father, gave much more to Mr. Emerson in the way of friend- CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE loj ship than Mr. Emerson ever appreciated. This went on until she became about eighteen years of age, when Mr. Emerson chanced to be visiting them in Pennsyl- vania. One day she was standing upon the stairs near the front door, and Mr. Emerson was ready to go out and waiting there for her father, who had withdrawn for a moment. Her heart was full, and suddenly she turned upon Mr. Emerson, and said, "Mr. Emerson, I think you cannot know what a treasure you have in this friendship of my father. He loves you dearly and I fear you cannot appreciate what it is to have the love of such a man as my father." She says to this day she grows "pank," as the Scotchman said, all over at such presumption, but she could not help it. I asked what Mr. Emerson replied. He looked sur- prised, she said, and cast his eyes down, and then said earnestly that he knew and felt deeply how unworthy he was to enjoy the riches of such a friendship. This incident presented Mrs. Wister as well as Mr. Emerson under a keen light. They could never under- stand each other. From October, 1872, until the following May, Emer- son and his daughter Ellen were traveling abroad. On their return Mrs. Fields wrote in her journal : — Thursday^ May 27, 1873. — The Nortons came home with the Emersons day before yesterday. Emerson came to pass an hour with J. T. F. before going to Con- cord. His son Edward had come down to meet him and 104 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS was full of excitement over the reception his father was to receive and of which he was altogether ignorant. He was overjoyed to be on the old ground again and comes back to value the old friends even more than ever. He must have been much pleased by the joy testified in Concord, but we have only the newspaper account of that. He has been feted more than ever in England, and Ellen was rather worn out by the ovations ; but her general health is much improved. The Nortons, who returned in the same steamer, tell me Miss Emerson was feted for her own sake and was his rival ! Her "American manners" became all the rage in that world of novelty. One night a gentleman sitting next her at dinner introduced the word "aesthetic." She said she did not understand what he meant by that word ! On the voyage Emerson was devoted to his daughter and full of fun in all his talk with her. He would tuck her up in blanket shawls and go up and down, hither and yon, to make her comfortable — then he would laugh at her for being such an exacting young lady and would be very ironical about the manner in which she would allow him to wait on her. "And yet," he said, turning to the Nortons, "Ellen is the torch of religion at home." Throughout the journals Mrs. Fields's references to meetings of the Saturday Club, and the records of con- versations reported by her husband after these lively gatherings, are frequent. In one brief entry Parkman, Lowell, and Emerson appear in a conjunction that could CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 105 hardly have been happy at the moment, but the con- cluding words of the passage may well stand, for their appreciation of Emerson, at the end of these pages con- cerned chiefly with him. August 26, 1874. — • * • Parkman said to Lowell, and a more strange evidence of lapse of tact could hardly be discovered, "Lowell, what did you mean by 'the land of broken promise'?" Emerson, catching at this last, said, "What is this about the land of broken promise ?" clearly showing he had never read Lowell's Ode upon the death of Agassiz — whereat Lowell answered not at all, but dropped his eyes and silence succeeded, although Parkman made some kind of futile attempt to struggle out of it. Emerson said, "We have met two great losses in our Club since you were last here — Agassiz and Sumner." "Yes," said Lowell, "but a greater than either was that of a man I could never make you believe in as I did — Hawthorne." This ungracious speech silenced even Emerson, whose warm hospitality to the thought and speech of others is usually unending. In "Authors and Friends" Mrs. Fields concerned herself with Longfellow and Whittier at even greater length than with Holmes and Emerson. The Whit- tier paper, besides, was printed as a small separate vol- ume ; and in Samuel T. Pickard's "Life of Whittier," as in Samuel Longfellow's biography of his brother, the letters from Whittier, as from Longfellow, to Mrs. Fields, and to her husband, bear witness to valued io6 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS intimacies. Neither to Whittier nor to Longfellow, therefore, does it seem desirable to devote a special section of these papers ; nor yet to Lowell, who never became the subject of published reminiscences by Mrs. Fields, perhaps for the very reason that he figures ^ ^Wf. ^»«-c f>Ky »xcff^ Facsimile of autograph inscriptioti on a photograph of Rowse's crayon portrait of Lowe/I given to Fields somewhat less frequently than the others in her jour- nal. Yet there are many allusions to him, and in addi- tion to the letters to Fields which Norton selected for his "Letters of James Russell Lowell," and Scudder JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL From the crayon portrait by Rowse in the Harvard Culleye Library CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 107 for his biography of Lowell, a surprising number of unprinted, characteristic communications, both to Fields and to his wife, testify to their friendship. The remainder of this chapter cannot be more profitably employed than by drawing from Mrs. Fields's journal passages relating to these and other local guests of the Charles Street house, and supplementing the diary especially with a few of Lowell's sprightly letters to his successor in the editorship of the "Atlantic Monthly." It may be remarked, as fairly indicative of the relations between Lowell and the Fieldses through many years, that when they visited England in 1869 their traveling companion was Lowell's daugh- ter Mabel. Here, to begin with, is a note written to accom- pany one of Lowell's most familiar poems, "After the Burial," when he sent the manuscript to the editor of the "Atlantic." Lowell's practice of shunning capitals at the beginning of his letters, except for the first personal pronoun, is observed m the quotations that follow : — Elmwood, %thMarch^ 1868 My dear Fields : — when I am in a financial crisis, which is on an average once in six weeks, I look first to my portfolio and then to you. The verses I send you are most of them more than of age, but Professors don't write poems, and I even begin to doubt if poets do — always. But I sup- pose you will pay me for my name as you do others, and io8 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS so I send the verses hoping you may also find something in them that is worth praise if not coin. Consolation and commonplace are twin sisters and I doubt not one sat at each ear of Eve after Cain's misunderstanding with his brother. In some folks they cause resentment, and this little burst relieved mine under some desper- ate solacings after the death of our first child, twenty- one years ago. I trust there is nothing too immediately personal to myself in the poem to make the publishing of it a breach of that confidence which a man should keep sacred with himself. With kind regards to Mrs. Fields, I remain always yours, J. R. Lowell Another typical letter, dated "Elmwood, 12th July, 1868, M to 9 AM wind W. by N. Therm 88°," be- gins : — My dear Fields : — as I swelter here, it is some consolation for me that you are roasting in that Yankee-baker which we call the W^" M". That repercussion of the sun's heat from so many angles at once (the focus being the tourist) al- ways struck me as one of the sublimest examples of the unvarying operation of natural laws. I wish you and Mrs. Fields might be made exceptions, but it can hardly be hoped. Before the end of the month Fields had escaped the CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 109 perils of New Hampshire heat, and paid a visit to FAm- wood, thus chronicled by Mrs. Fields : — July 25, 1868. — J. went out to see Lowell last night. As he passed Longfellow's door, "Trap," the dog, was half-asleep apparently on the lawn, but hearing a foot- step he leaped up and, seeing who it was, became over- joyed, leaped upon him and covered his hands with caresses. He stayed some time playing with him. Low- ell was alone in his library, looking into an empty fire- place and smoking a pipe. He has been in Newport for a week, but was delighted to return to find his "own sponge hanging on its nail" and to his books. He had become quite morbid because, while J. was away, a smaller sum than usual was sent him for his last poem. He thought it a delicate way of saying they wished to drop him. He was annoyed at the thought of having left out of his article on Dryden one of the finest points, he thought, that was making Dryden to appear the "Rubens" of literature, which he appears to him to be. Lowell is a man deeply pervaded with fine discontents. I do not believe the most favorable circumstances would improve him. Success, of which he has a very small share considering his deserts (for his books have a nar- row circulation), would make him gayer and happier; whether so wise a man, I cannot but doubt. He wears a chivalric, tender manner to his wife. In the following autumn. Bayard Taylor and his wife were paying a visit in Charles Street, and Lowell no MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS appears in Mrs. Fields's journal as one of the friends summoned in their honor. Thursday mornings November 19, 1868. — Mr. Parton came to breakfast and Dr. Holmes came in before we had quite done. O. W. H. was delighted to see Mr. P., because of his papers on "Smoking and Drinking." He believes smoking paralyzes the will. Taylor, on the con- trary, feels himself better for smoking; it subdues his physical energy so he can write ; otherwise he is nervous to be up and away and his mind will not work. At dinner we had Lowell, Parton, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. Scott-Siddons and, later, Aldrich. Lowell talked most interestingly, head and shoulders beyond everybody else. The Siddonses left early, the gentlemen all smitten by her beauty and loveliness. A kind of childish grace pervaded her and she was beau- tiful as a picture. I could not wonder at their delight. Lowell's talk after their departure was of literature, of course. He has been reading Calderon for the last six months, in the original. He finds him inexhaustible almost. Speaking of novels, he said Fielding was the master, although he considers there are but two perfect creations of individual character in all literature ; these are Falstaff and Don Quixote; all the rest fell infinitely below — are imperfect and unworthy to stand by their side. Tom Jones he thought might come in, in the second rank, with many others, but far below. He said he could not tell his boys at Cambridge to read Tom Jones, for it might do them harm ; but Fielding painted CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE iii his own experience and the result was unrivalled. Thackeray and the rest were pleasant reading, very pleasant, and yet how could he tell his class that he read Tom Jones once a year ! ^ He scouted the idea of Pick- wick or anybody else approaching his two great char- acters. They stood alone for all time. Rip Van Winkle was suggested, but he said in the first place that was not original. Few persons knew the story perhaps in the old Latin (he gave the name, but unhappily I have for- gotten it) but it was only a remade dish after all. Friday. — Bayard Taylor and his wife left for New York. Mr. Parton dined out and we had a quiet eve- ning at home and went to bed early. (Parton thinks it would be possible to make the "Atlantic Monthly" far more popular. He suggests a writer named Mark Twain be engaged, and more articles connected with life than with literature.) It is easy to believe that Lowell's talk must have sounded much like his letters, which so often sound like talk. Witness the following sentences from a letter of December 21, 1868, in reply, apparently, to an appeal for a new essay for the "Atlantic" : — 1 One of Lowell's reminiscences at the Saturday Club, recorded two years earlier by Mrs. Fields, suggests his essential youthfulness of spirit. Apropos of a story told by Dr. Holmes, "Lowell said that reminded him of experi- ments the boys at his school used to make on flies, to see how much weight they could carry. One day he attached a thread, which he pulled out of his silk handkerchief, to a fly's leg, and to the other end a bit of paper with 'the master is a fool' written on it in small distinct letters. The fly flew away and lighted on the master's nose ; but he, regardless of all but the lessons, brushed him off, and the fly rose with his burden to the ceiling." 112 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Well, well, I am always astonished at the good nature of folks, and how much boring they will stand from au- thors. As I told Howells once, the day will come when a wiser generation will drive all its literary men into a corner and make a battue of the whole lot. However, "after me, the deluge," as Nero said, and I suppose they '11 stand another essay or two yet, if I can divine, or rather if I have absorbed enough of the general feel- ing about something to put a point on It. It 's a mercy I 'm not conceited ! I should like to be, and try to be, and have fizzes of It now and then, but they soon go out and leave ^fogo behind them I don't like. But if I only were for a continuance I should be as grand a bore as ever lived — as grand as Wordsworth, by Jove 1 I would come into town once a week to read you over one of my old poems (selecting the longest, of course), and point out its beauties to you. You would flee to Tierra del Fuego (ominous name !) to escape me. You would give up publishing. You would write an epic and read a book just to me every time I came. But no, it Is too bright a dream. Let me [be] satisfied with my class, who have to hear me once a week, and with just enough conceit to read my lectures as if I had not stolen 'em, as I am apt to do now. Look out for an essay that shall [make] Montaigne and Bacon cross as the devil — when they come to read It ! It will come ere you think. Yours ever, Fabius C. Lowell A few weeks later Lowell was writing again to Fields, CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 113 on January 12, 1869, about a fiftieth birthday party at Elmwood : — I am going to celebrate my golden wedding with Life, on the 22nd of next month, by a dinner or a supper or something of the kind, and I want you to jine. I shall get together a dozen or so of old friends, and it will be a great satisfaction for you and me to see how much grayer the rest of 'em are than we. I shall fit my invitations to this end, and the bald and hoary will have the chance of the lame, the halt, and the blind in the parable. If it should be a dinner, it won't matter, but if a supper, be sure and forget your night-key and then you won't have any anxiety, nor Mrs. Fields either. Of course, I shall have an account of the affair in the papers with a list of the gifts (especially in money) and the names of all who donate. You will understand by what I have said that it is to be one of those delightful things they call a "sur- prise party," and I expect to live on it for a year — one friend for every month. A week later, in the course of a letter accepting the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Fields for Lowell's daughter to accompany them to Europe, he wrote: "Do you see that is to commence his autobiography in 'Put- nam's Magazine' ? At least, I take it for granted from the title — The Ass in Life and Literature ? If sincerely done, it will be interesting." For all the transcendentalism of the circle to which Mrs. Fields bore so intimate a relation, there emanated 114 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS from Lowell and others an atmosphere of sincerity which helped to preserve the equilibrium of the more easily swayed. Mrs. Fields herself was not immune to the appeal of some of the "isms" of the time and place, but an entry in her journal for January i8, 1870, shows her in no great peril of being swept away by them : — Attended yesterday a meeting of what is called the Radical Club. Mr. Channing spoke, Mr. Higginson, Wendell Phillips, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mr. Bartol, Wasson, J. F. Clarke, Edna Cheney. Mr. Whit- tier was present and a room full of "come-outers." Mr. Channing and Mr. Phillips were reverent, though I think Mr. Phillips more definite, and perhaps conse- quently more conservative, in what he said. Certainly Mr. Phillips's speech was highly satisfactory. On the whole there was much vague talk and restless expression of self without any high end being furthered. I thought much of Mr. Higginson's talk and Mr. Wasson's irrev- erent answer were untrue. Perhaps I am wrong in say- ing no good end is attained by such a meeting. Perhaps a closer understanding of what we do believe is the re- sult. But there is much unpleasant in the unnatural and excited view of the inside ring.^ There was, moreover, a constant corrective at hand in the persons of the local wits, among whom Long- 1 After an evening of high discussion at Mrs. Howe's in an earlier year, Mrs. Fields wrote in her journal (October 4, 1863) : "The talk grew deep, and after it was over, she [Mrs. Howe] recalled the saying of Mrs. Bell, after a like evening, when she called for ' a fat idiot.' " CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 115 fellow's brother-in-law, Thomas Gold ("Tom") Apple- ton, was of the most clear-sighted. His definition of Nahant as "cold roast Boston," and his prescription for tempering the gales on a particularly windy Boston corner by tethering a shorn lamb there, have secured him something more than a local survival. He fre- quently left his mark on the pages of Mrs. Fields's diary — once venturing seriously into prophecy on the spiritual future of Boston, in terms which will seem, at least, in partibus tnfidelium, to have received a cer- tain confirmation at the hands of time. In the diary the following entry is found : — Sunday y November 6, 1870. — Appleton (Tom, as the world calls him) came in soon after breakfast Sunday morning. He talked very wisely and brilliantly upon Art, its value and purpose to the state, the necessity for the Museum. He said our people were far more lit- erary than artistic. The sensuous side of their nature was undeveloped. The richness of color, the glory of form, was less to them than something which could set the sharp edge of their intellect in motion. "Besides, what is Boston going to do," he said, "when these fel- lows die who give it its honor now, Longfellow, Holmes, and the rest ? They can't live forever, and with them its glory will depart without it is sustained by a founda- tion for art in other directions. Harvard University will do something to keep it up, but not much, and unless a distinct effort be made now, Boston will lose its place and go behind." He became much excited by the lack ii6 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS of appreciation for William Story in Boston, and the abuse of the Everett statue, which he considers good in its way and as marking the highest point In Everett's oratorical fame, that is, when he lifted his hand to indicate the stars in his address at Albany, and set his fame some points nearer the luminaries which inspired him, by his fine eloquence. He said a merchant told him one day that he did n't like Story's portrait statues, but his ideal work he was delighted with. "You lie !" I said to him. "The beauti- ful Shepherd-Boy which I helped to buy and bring to Boston you know nothing of — you can't tell me now in which corner of the Public Library it is hidden away. I tell you, you He!" He spoke of the Saturday Club, and said that, al- though he sometimes smiled at Holmes's enthusiasm over it, he believed in the main he was quite right, and it would be remembered in future as Johnson's Club has been, and recorded and talked of in the same way. Unfortunately I don't see their Boswell. I wish I could believe there was a single chiel amang them takin' notes.' On December 14, 1870, the diary recorded a dinner at which Longfellow, Osgood, Aldrich, Holmes, Dana, Howells, Lowell, and Bayard Taylor were the guests. It celebrated the completion of Taylor's translation of "Faust." Of the talk of Lowell and Longfellow, Mrs. Fields wrote : — 1 If Mrs. Fields had lived to see The Early Years of the Saturday Club (Boston, 191 8), she would have found that I drew from the notes in her own diary a large portion of the memoir of James T. Fields which it contains. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 117 Before dinner I found opportunity for a short talk with Lowell upon literature. He thinks the chief value of Bret Harte is his local color and it would be a fatal mistake for him to come East, in spite of Taylor's rep- resentation of the aridity of intellectual life now in California. Taylor finds the same reason for leaving his native place. He regrets his large house, and frankly says he is tired of living there, tired of living alone, there being really no one in the vicinity with whom he can associate as on equal grounds. There is no culture, not even a love for it, in the neighborhood. But I have not said half enough of Longfellow. He scintillated all the evening, was filled with the spirit of the time and the scene, sweetly reprimanded Taylor for not having time to give him a visit also, darted his jeux d ^esprit rapidly right and left, often setting the table in a roar, a most unusual thing with him. Holmes at the other end was talking about the natural philos- ophers who "invented facts." Lowell took exception, said it was an impossible juxtaposition of ideas and words. Holmes defended himself by quoting (I think the name was Carius ; whoever it was, Lowell said at once and rather warningly, he is a very distinguished name) a series of created facts by which he said a woman was not articulated or not as a man is (perhaps I have not his exact ideas) ; whereat Longfellow at once held up the inarticulate woman to the amusement of the table. Then they began to talk of the singular per- sons this world contains, "quite as strange as Dickens," as they always say; and Taylor, who introduced the ii8 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS subject, proceeded to relate an incident which happened to him in a cheap coffee house in New York. It was near a railway station, so he dropped in, finding it con- venient so to do, at an hour not usually popular with the frequenters of such establishments. It was empty save for an extraordinary figure with long arms, short legs and misshapen body, who, hearing a glass of ale ordered, came forward and said if he pleased he would like to have his ale at the same table for the sake of company. There was nothing to do but to comply, which Taylor of course did, whereupon the strange creature, never asking who Taylor was, went on to relate that he was the great man-monkey of the world who could hang from a tree and eat nuts and make the true noise in the throat better than any other; he had no competitor except one of the Ravel brothers, but he (Ravel) was not the real thing; he himself alone could make the noise perfectly. . . . They all drank the exquisite Ehrbacher Rhine wine from tall green German glasses of antique form, which delighted them greatly. Jamie was much entertained by Holmes's finding them "good conversational aperient, but ugly. I should always have them on the table, but they are not handsome." Longfellow was delighted with my Venetian lace bodice; it seemed to have a flavor of Venice about it in his eyes. It was a real pleasure to me to see his appreciation of a thing Jamie and I really enjoy so much. I have not reported all, by any means, but time fails me now. A thought of Dickens was continually present. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 119 as it must be forever at a company dinner-table. How many beautiful feasts have I enjoyed by his side ! There is none like him, none. Taylor wrote a friendly German inscription in his book and presented me after dinner. There were amusing traits of Elizabeth Peabody given. Longfellow remembered that the first time he met her was in a carriage. She was taken up in the dark. Hearing his name mentioned, she leaned forward and said, "Mr. Longfellow, can you tell me which is the best Chinese Grammar ?" A midsummer entry of the same year suggests the part that an editor's wife may play in the successful conduct of a magazine, if only through sharing the en- thusiasm that attends the first reading of a manuscript of distinguished merit. Saturday^ July 16, 1870. — A perfect summer day. Jamie did not go to town, but with a bag full of letters and MSS. concluded to remain here. He fell first upon a MS. by Henry James, Jr., a short story called "Com- pagnons de Voyage," and after tasting of it in our room and finding the quality good (though the handwriting was execrable), I invited my dear boy to a favorite nook in the pasture where we could hear the sea and catch a distant gleam of its blue face while we were still in shadow and fanned by oak leaves. It was one of those delicious seasons which summer can bring to the dullest heart, I believe and hope. We lay down with I20 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS our feet plunged Into the cool delicious grass, while I read the pleasant tale of Italy to the close. I do not know why success In work should affect us so power- fully, but I could have wept as I finished reading, not from the sweet low pathos of the tale, which was not tearful, but from the knowledge of the writer's success. It Is so difficult to do anything well In this mysterious world. On the very next day Lowell wrote Fields a letter which must have been read with delight by such friends of Dickens as the Fieldses. The decorated sonnet which filled Its third sheet Is reproduced herewith in facsimile : the plainness of Lowell's script renders type superflu- ous. The mere fact that the death of Dickens could have called forth clerical expressions provoking Lowell to such scorn Is In Itself a measure of the distance we have travelled since 1870. The verses are not Included In Lowell's "Poetical Works," nor are they listed in the "Bibliography of James Russell Lowell," compiled by George Willis Cooke. With two slight changes they may be found, hov/ever, over" Lowell's signature. In "Every Saturday," for August 6, 1870. Elmwood, 17M Jidy^ 1870 My dear Fields : — I can stand it no longer ! If Dickens is to be banned, the rest of us might as well fling up our hands. This hot weather, too, gives a foretaste that raises well- founded apprehension. It Is a good primary school for ' Ajux^ , LUl ^'^ ^^ ^'-^^ '^ ^^^ ^ flci £^ M^ ? '^><^. ,^ fluJc ^f^^r^ JS^ ^ iujCJ ^ ha^r^^/s£^ Facsimile of LoweU's " Bulldog and Terrier" sonnet 1 22. MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS the Institution of which the Rev'ds Fulton and Dunn seem to be ushers. Instead of going to Church today, where I might have heard something not wholly to my advantage, as the advertisements for lost people say, I have written a sermon. It is not a proper sonnet, but a cross between that and epigram — a kind of bull-ter- rier, in short, with the size of the one and the prick-ears and docked tail of the other, nor without his special tal- ent for rats. Is there any grip in his jaw or no ? He is good-natured and scarce shows his teeth. The thing is an improvisation and the weather aw- fully hot ! Sweltered your servant sits and sweats and swears : (for alliteration only) but if you would like it for the "Atlantic," why here it is on the next leaf. Or, if too late, why not "Every Saturday"? I could not even think of it sooner, for I have been wrestling with a bad head and an article on Chaucer, and I fear they have thrown me. I want rest, and a bath of poetry, but where may the wicked hope for either ? My sonnet (if Leigh Hunt would let me call it so) hit me like a stray, shot from nowhere that I could divine, and five minutes saw it finished. So why may it not be good ? It came, any- how, as a poem comes — though it is n't just that. But my dog is n't bad ? He is from the life at any rate. I shall make use of my first leisure to get into Boston. But I have got bedevilled with the text of Chaucer and am working on it with my usual phrenzy — thirteen hours, for example, yesterday, collating texts and writ- ing into margins. I comfort myself that my Chaucer CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 123 will bring a handsome price at my vandoo ! I shall be easier in my coffin if it run up handsomely for Fanny and Mabel. Do you want an essay for your "Almanac" if one should come, which is doubtful ? I need one or two more to make a little volume, and I need a little volume for nameless reasons. O, if I could sell my land! I would transmute that gold into poetry. Or if only poems would come when you whistle for 'em ! Give my kindest regards to Mrs Fields. Yours always, J. R. L. From my study, this first day for three weeks without a drowsy pain in my knowledge box, I really feel a litde lively, and wonder at myself. But don't be alarmed — it won't last, any more than money does, or principle in a politician, or hair, or popular favor — or paper. Lowell and Longfellow continue to make their appear- ances in Mrs. Fields's diary. December 7, 1871. — Last Sunday Charlotte Cush- man dined here. Our guests asked to meet her were Mr. and Mrs. Lowell and Mr. Longfellow ; Miss Steb- bins and Miss Chapman, her guests, also came. We had a lovely social time, Lowell making himself espe- cially interesting, as he always does when he can once work himself up to the pitch of going out at all. He talked a while with me about poetry and his own topics after dinner. He said he was one of the few people who 124 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS believed in absolute truth; that he always looked for certain qualities in writers, which if he could not dis- cover, they no longer interested him and he did not care to read them. He discovered, for instance, in the writers who had survived the centuries the same kin- dred points, those points he studied until he discovered what the adamant was and where it was founded; then he would look into the writers of our own age to see if he could find the same stuff; there was little enough of it unfortunately. He does not like Reynolds's por- trait of Johnson, thought it untrue, far too handsome, yet highly characteristic in the management of the hands, which portray the man as he was when talking better probably than anything ever did. Mrs. Lowell appeared to enjoy herself. J. says L. is always more himself if Mrs. L. is happy and talkative. They are thinking of Europe. Mabel is to be married in April, and afterward they probably go at once to Europe. A small party of friends assembled in the evening. Longfellow was the beloved and observed and wor- shipped among all. April II, 1872. — Last night Jamie dined with Long- fellow. John Field of Pennsylvania and Lowell were the two other guests. J. was there twenty minutes before the rest arrived, and Longfellow gave him an account of the wedding of a school-mate of mine, , an excellent generous-hearted, generously built woman, with a little limping old clergyman who has already had three wives and whose first name is . Longfellow said, in memory of what had gone before, the organist, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW From a photograph taken in middle life CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 125 as if driven by some evil spirit, played "Auld Lang Syne," as the wedding procession came in, consisting of the bride and her brother, two very well-made large persons and the elderly bridegroom limping on behind all alone. The organist suddenly stopped at this point, breaking off with a queer little quirk and shiver as if he only then discovered what he was doing. Indeed the whole wedding appeared to have points to affect the risibles of the poet. He could hardly speak of it without laughter. He said, moreover, that it was, he thought, disgusting and outrageous for old men to get married. Tuesday, September 23, 1872. — Longfellow came to town to see Jamie, in one of his loveliest moods. The day was so warm and fine, such a day of dreams, that he proposed to him every kind of excursion. "Come," he said, "let us go to the tea stores and smell the tea; the warm atmosphere will bring out all the odors and we can get samples!" And again, "Come, let us go to the wharves and see the vessels just in from Italy or Spain. It will be a lovely sight in this soft sky, and we can hear the men speak in their native tongues." Unhappily all these seductions were in vain, for Jamie was busy and was to lecture in Grantville in the evening. L. said : "At half-past eight I shall think of you doing thus and thus" (sawing the air with his arms). L. continued: "You know I have very strange people come to me — a man came a day or two ago by the name of Hyers, who has just published a book describing his own career. He believes that he is fed by the Lord! 'How do you 126 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS mean?' asked I, with the knowledge that we "were all fed in the same way. 'Why,' said H., *He leaves pies and peanuts on the sidewalks for me.^'' Longfellow could hardly contain himself — but " after all,'* he said, " that is very like Greene : when Greene comes to me, he always takes his money to come and go, just like my own sons and without so much as a thank you. But I like to have Greene come because he enjoys it so much and it is so strange. He amuses me. Then Appleton too, with his odd fancies, it would be hard to find a stranger man than he. He amused me immensely the other day by fancy- ing an Indian, 'Great Fire,' or 'Hole in the Wall,* or some such fellow, coming to Boston for the first time. Passing a perruquier's, he sees the window filled with masses of false hair ; taking them to be scalps and the window to be an exhibition of these tokens of prowess, he rushes in, embraces the little perruquier behind the counter, treats him like a brother, and almost frightens the small hairdresser out of his senses ! !" L. likes Joaquin [Miller] much. Of course, he said, there are some things about him not altogether agree- able, such as flinging a quid of tobacco out of his mouth under the table; "but I don't mind those things; per- haps," he added, "perhaps I might have done the same as a youth of 20! ! 1" Thursday J June iiy 1873. — Dined last night with the Aldriches and Mr. Bugbee at Mr. Lowell's beautiful old Elmwood.^ It was a perfect night, cool, fresh, moon- * This was in the midst of Aldrich's occupancy of Elmwood, during Lowell's two years' absence in Europe. CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 127 lighted, after a muggy day of heat. After dinner I went into the fine old study with Aldrich, where he showed me two or three Httle poems he has lately written. He was all ready to talk on literary topics and much in earnest about his own satisfaction over "Miss Mehitable's Son" (which is indeed a very good story), and was full of dis- gust over the "Nation's" cool dismissal of it. It was too bad; but that Dennet of the "Nation" is beneath con- tempt because of the slights he throws upon good liter- ary work. Aldrich says he found "Asphodel" all worn to pieces, read and reread in the upstairs study. He finds Mr. Lowell's library in curious disorder with re- spect to modern books. He is an easy lender and an easy borrower. The result is, everything is at loose ends. Only two volumes of Hawthorne can be found, for in- stance. . . . Such wonderful colors overspread our bay this eve- ning, the wide heavens, and all that lay between, it seemed an unreal and magic glory, and I recall dimly Hawthorne's disgust when he endeavored to describe a landscape. The Lord, he says, expressed himself in this glory; how shall we therefore interpret into lan- guage when he himself has taken this form of speech as the only adequate expression to convey his meaning to us ? Who does not feel this in looking at the glories of Nature in this perfect season ? And here is a final glimpse of Longfellow, at Man- chester-by-the-Sea, shortly after Don Pedro of Brazil had visited him in Cambridge: — 128 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Thursday^ 'July 6, 1876. — A fine rushing wind — no rain, but a wind that seemed to tear everything up by the roots. I dared not venture out in the morning. To our surprise and deHght Mr. Longfellow came to dine. He was pleased to find Anna here, and fell to talking of Heidelberg in German with her and quoting the poets most delightfully. We sat in the front hall and rejoiced over his presence as he talked, for he was in a fine talk- ing mood. Ele told us of the Emperor's visit and of his soldierly though most simple bearing; how he came to call upon him after his dinner, and when, as he rose to go, Longfellow said, "Your Majesty, I thank you for the honor you have done me." He said, "Ah ! no, Long- fellow, none of your nonsense, let us be friends together. I hope you will write to me. I will write you first and you must promise to answer." As they walked down the garden path together, Longfellow raised his hat and stepped one side as he v/as about to get into his car- riage. "No, no," he said laughingly, "there you are at it again." In short, he has left a pleasant memory behind. Longfellow told us his maids broke everything he possessed; at last they had broken a very beautiful Japanese vase or bowl which Charley brought home — so he had made a Latin epitaph for the maid. Unhap- pily I recall only the last line : — Nihil tetigit quod non /regit. He described Blumenbach very amusingly, whose lectures on Natural History he attended as a youth in CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 129 Heidelberg. He descended from his desk one day and came and rested his hand on the rail just before which L. was seated. He had been speaking of Platonic love. "Und die Platonische Liebe ist nach Amerika gegan- gen," he said, looking at Longfellow. The whole stu- dent audience roared and applauded. He was in the loveliest spirits and manners. His friendly ways to my three friendless girls were not only such as to excite them profoundly, but there was sin- cere feeling in his invitation to them to call upon him and in his questions in their behalf. The wind subsided as we sat together ; the two young Bigelows sang "Maid of Athens" and one or two other songs, and then he departed. How sorry we were as we watched his retreating figure, as he and dear J. wound down the hill in the little phaeton. Mrs. Fields's gallery of friends would be incomplete without a single sketch of Whit tier's familiar outline. Out of many which the diaries contain, one may best be taken, for it shows him in company with that other friend, Celia Thaxter, whom also Mrs. Fields counted among the few to whose memory she devoted special chapters in her "Authors and Friends"; and it brings the three together at Mrs. Thaxter's native Isles of Shoals, so long a mecca of the "like-minded." "July 12, 1873. — I shall not soon forget our talk one afternoon in the parlor at "The Shoals." Whittier, as if inspired by that spirit residing in us which is the very I30 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS ground-work of the Quaker belief, began to speak of Emerson's faith and of the pain it gave him to see the name of Jesus placed in his writings as but one among many. When he discoursed with Emerson of these things, he could have no satisfaction. Celia, on the other -tz^Jk^ uUtz ^^/— M4j/ From a note of "Dear Whittier " to Mrs. Fields hand, said she did not understand these things; she never prayed. "I am sure thee does without knowing it," said W. ; "else what do thy poems mean ? Thee has not set prayer perhaps, but some kind of a prayer thee must have. No human being can exist without it. But what troubles me also in Emerson is that I can find no real faith in immortality." Here I took up the question. I had heard Mr. Emerson at Thoreau's grave, after- ward speaking expressly on immortality, and in both discourses I felt deeply his faith in our future progress CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 131 and enduring life. Whittier was inclined to think me mistaken. I think too that his use of Jesus' name is to prevent the worship of him instead of the One God. Whittier asked Celia to read a discourse of Emerson's, which she did aloud ; and again he spoke of the beauty of childlike worship, the necessity for it in our natures, and quoted some lovely hymns. His whole heart was alive and poured out toward us as if he longed tenderly like the prophet of old to breathe a new life into us. I could seem to see that he reproached himself that so many days had passed without his trying to speak more seriously. He was not perfectly well after this — a headache overtook him before our talk was over and did not leave him until he found himself in Amesbury again. I trust it did so there. . . . Whittier said one day, when we were talking of the "Life of Charlotte Bronte" by Mrs. Gaskell, and I was saying how sad it was she should have made the old man, her father, suffer unto death, as she did, by telling the tale of his bad son's life, and "still worse," I said, "she came out in the Athenaeum and declared that her story was false, when she knew it was true, hoping to comfort the old man," — "I don't know," said Whittier; "I am inclined to think that was the best part of it, if her lie would have done the old man any good !" After we had our long afternoon session of talk over Emerson and future existence and the unknowable, Celia stood up and stretched herself and said, "How good it has been with the little song-sparrow putting in his oar above it all !" 132 MEMORIES OE A HOSTESS And what of Mrs. Fields herself, a woman of nearly forty when this last passage was written ? For the most part the diary reveals her but indirectly. Yet in the midst of all her pictures of her friends, a fragment of self-portraiture is occasionally found; and to one of them the reader of these pages is entitled. 7:^!>:>t.M^ ^^a-^ --0 'Proposed Dedication of Whittier s " Amotigthe Hills" to Mrs. Fields. In a letter to Mrs. Fields, Whittier wrote: " I would like thy judgment about it. Would this do?" In altered form it appears in the book. December i8, 1873. — Have been looking over "Wil- helm Meister"! I struck upon that marvellous pas- sage, "I reverence the individual who understands dis- tinctly what he wishes ; who unweariedly advances ; who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them. How far his object may be great or little is the next consideration with me'*; and much CONCORD AND CAMBRIDGE 133 more quite as good to the same end. It prompts me to say what I wish to do in life. Aristotle writes : "Virtue is concerned with action, art with production." The problem of life is how to harmon- ize the two — either career must htcomo. promi7ient accord- ing to the nature of the individual. I discern in myself: 1st, the desire to serve others unselfishly according to the example of our dear Lord ; 2nd, the desire to cultivate my powers in order to achieve the highest life possible to me as an individual existence by stimulating thought to its finest issues through reflection, observation, and by profound and ceaseless study of the written thoughts of the wisest in every age and every clime. To fulfil these aims we must be able to answer the simple question promptly to ourselves: "What then shall I do tomorrow and today?" Then, the decision being made, the thing alone must have all the earnest- ness put into it of a creature who knows that the next moment he may be called to his account. As a woman and a wife my first duty lies at home ; to make that beautiful ; to stimulate the lives of others by exchange of ideas, and the repose of domestic life ; to educate children and servants. 2nd, To be conversant with the very poor; to visit their homes ; to be keenly alive to their sufferings ; never allowing the thought of their necessities to sleep in our hearts. 3rd, By day and night, morning and evening, in all times and seasons when strength is left to us, to study, study, study. 134 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Because I have put this last, it does not stand last In importance ; but to put it first and write out the plan for study which my mind naturally selects would be to ignore that example of perfect life in which I humbly believe, and to return to the lives of the ancients, so fine in their results to the few, so costly to the many. But in the removed periods of existence, when solitude may be our blessed portion, what a joy to fly to communion with the sages and live and love with them ! I have written this out for the pleasure of seeing if "I distinctly understand what I wish." It is a wide plan, too wide, I fear, for much performance, but there- fore perhaps more conducive to a constant faith. WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA' When Mrs. Fields wrote the "Personal Recollec- tions" of Oliver Wendell Holmes which appear in her "Authors and Friends," she quoted, with a few changes prompted by modesty, this passage from a letter re- ceived from him at Christmas, 1881 : "Except a few of my immediate family connections, no friends have seen me so often as a guest as did you and your husband. Under your roof I have met more visitors to be remem- bered than under any other. But for your hospitality I should never have had the privilege of personal ac- quaintance with famous writers and artists whom I can now recall as I saw them, talked with them, heard them in that pleasant library, that most lively and agreeable dining-room. How could it be otherwise with such guests as he entertained with his own unflagging vivacity and his admirable social gifts?" One of the visitors thus encountered by Dr. Holmes was Charles Dickens. Here was a guest after the host's own heart — and the hostess's. The host stood alone among publishers as a friend of the authors with whom it was his business to deal. Out of them all there was none with whom he came to stand on terms of closer sympathy and friendship than with Dickens. They had ' The greater part of this chapter appeared in Harper's Magazine for May and June, 1922. 136 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS first met when Dickens came to America in 1842, and Fields was by no means the conspicuous figure he was to become. When he visited Europe in 1859-60, with his young wife, whose personality was to contribute its own beauty and charm to the hospitality of 148 Charles Street for many years to come, they dined with Dickens in London, visited him at Gad's Hill, and had much dis- cussion of a plan, which Fields had been urging upon him in correspondence, for Dickens to come to America for a course of readings. As early as in one of the letters of this time, Dickens wrote to Fields: "Here I forever renounce 'Mr.* as having anything whatever to do with our communication, and as being a mere preposterous interloper." From such beginnings grew the intimacy which caused Dickens, when he drew up the humorous terms of a walking-match between Dolby, his manager, and Osgood, Fields's partner, while the Boston readings of 1868 were in progress, to define Fields as "Massa- chusetts Jemmy" and himself as the "Gad's Hill Gasper" by virtue of his "surprising performances (without the least variation) on that true national in- strument, the American catarrh." The visits of Dickens to America, first in 1842, then in the winter of 1867-68, have been the subject of abun- dant chronicle. For the first of them there is the direct record of his "American Notes," besides those indirect reflections in "Martin Chuzzlewit," which wrought an effect described by Carlyle in the characteristic saying that "all Yankee-doodledom blazed up like one uni- versal soda bottle." Many memorials of the second CHARLES DICKEX.s From a portrait by Francis Alexander, for many years in the Fields house, and now in the Boston Mu.'^-eum of Fine Arts WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA 137 visit are preserved in Fields's "Yesterdays with Authors," and in John Forster's "Life" both visits are of course recorded. There is, besides, one source of intimate record of Dickens in America which hitherto has remained almost untouched.^ This is found in the diaries of Mrs. Fields, filled, as the preceding pages have shown, not merely with her own sympathetic observations, but with many things reported to her by her husband. To him it was largely due that Dickens crossed the Atlantic near the end of 1867. Landing in Boston, and soon beginning his extraordinarily popular readings, he found in the Charles Street house of the Fieldses a second home. "Steadily refusing all invitations to go out during the weeks he was reading," wrote Fields in his "Yesterdays with Authors," "he went only into one other house be- sides the Parker, habitually, during his stay in Boston." In that house Mrs. Fields wrote the diaries from which the following passages are taken. There Dickens was not merely a warmly welcomed friend and guest at dinner, but for a time an inmate. Henry James, sum- moning after Mrs. Fields's death his remembrances of her and of her abode, found in it "certain fine vibra- tions and dying echoes" of all the episode of Dickens's second visit. "I liked to think of the house," he wrote, "I couldn't do without thinking of it, as the great man's safest harborage through the tremendous gale ^ A few passages from it, relating to Dickens, are included in James T. Fields : Biographical Notes and Personal Sketches. When they are occa- sionally repeated here, it is in their original form, and not as Mrs. Fields edited them for publication. 138 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS of those even more leave-taking appearances, as fate was to appoint, than we then understood." In Dickens's state of physical health while the Fieldses were thus seeing him, lay the only token of an end not far off. All else was gayety and delight. The uncontrollable laughter — where does one hear quite parallel notes to-day? — the simplicities of game and anecdote, the enthusiastic yielding of complete admira- tion, the glimpses of august figures of an earlier time — all these serve equally to take one back over more than half a century, into a state of society about which an element of myth begins to form, and to bring out of that past the living, human figure of Dickens himself. For the most part these extracts from the diaries call for no explanations. Several months before the great visitor's arrival his coming was heralded by his business agent, of whom Mrs. Fields wrote : — August 14, 1867. — Mr. Dolby arrived today from England (Mr. Dickens's agent), a good, healthy, kindly natured man of whom Dickens seems really fond, hav- ing followed him to the steamer in Liverpool from Lon- don to see that all things were comfortably arranged for him. He says Dickens has lamed one of his feet with too much walking of late. He is here to arrange for 100 nights, for which he hears he may receive $200,000 ; the readings to begin the first of December and to be chiefly given in New York City. August 15, 1867. — Our day was quiet enough, but WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA 139 when J. came down, he held us quite spellbound and magnetized all the evening with his account of Dickens, which Mr. Dolby had given him. He says Dolby him- self is a queer creature when he talks. He has a stutter which leads him to become suddenly stately in the middle of a homely phrase and to give a queer intona- tion to his voice, so that he did not dare look at Osgood (who was a listener also) lest they should both explode with laughter. Dickens now has five dogs ; for these the cook pre- pares daily five plates of dinner. One day the plates were all ready when a small pup stole in and polished off the five plates. He fainted away immediately, and in this condition was discovered by the cook, who put him under the pump and revived him ; but he had been going about looking like the figure 8 ever since. Dickens is a warm friend of Fechter. One day, return- ing from a reading tour, his man met him at the sta- tion saying, "The fifty-eight boxes have come, sir." "What.''" said Mr. Dickens. "The fifty-eight boxes have come, sir." "I know nothing of fifty-eight boxes," said the other. "Well, sir," said the man, "they are all piled up outside the gate and we shall soon see, sir." They proved to be a Swiss chalet complete, handles, blinds, not a bit wanting, which Fechter had sent him. It is put up in a grove near the house, where it presents a very picturesque effect. Dickens allows nothing to escape his attention and gives "one small corner of the white of one eye" to his household concerns, though he seems not to observe. I40 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS His daughter Mary has the governance of the servants. Miss Hogarth of the cellar and provisions. There is a system in everything with which he has to do. When he gives a reading, he is present in the hall at half-past six, although the reading does not begin until eight ; for Dickens cannot go about as other people do, he must go when the people do not press upon him. On reaching the private room, his servant brings his evening dress, reading desk, screen, lamps, when he arranges the hall, examines the copper gas-tubes to see if in order, dresses himself and is ready to begin. In Liverpool the other night he had advertised to read "Sergeant Buzfuz," instead of which by accident he read "Bleak House." Mr. Dolby spoke to him as soon as he had finished, telling him the mistake he had made. He at once re- turned to the desk, and said, "My friends, it is half- past ten o'clock and you see how tired I am, but I will still read Sergeant Buzfuz's speech if you expect it.'* "No, no," the crowd shouted; "you're tired. No, no, this ought to do for tonight." One tall man raised himself up in the gallery and said, "Look here, we came to hear Pickwick and we ought to hef it." "Very well, my friend," replied Dickens, immediately, "I will read Sergeant Buzfuz for your accommodation solely" ; and thereat he did read it to a breathless and delighted audience. At length came Dickens himself, and the diary takes up the tale : — November i8, 1867. — Today the steamer is tele- ■THE T*0 CHARLES'S •• (CHARLES DICKENS AND CHARLES FECHTERl. f'Hm < //Mmtmi Dr^miMf tf Al.F»I> B«»»». llr» DICKENS AND FECHTER WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA 141 graphed with Dickens on board, and the tickets for his readings have been sold. Such a rush ! A long queue of people have been standing all day in the street — a good-humored crowd, but a weary one.^ The weather is clear but really cold, with winter's pinch in it. November 19. — ... Yesterday I adorned Mr. Dickens's room with flowers, which seemed to please him. He was in the best of good spirits with every- thing. Thursday, November 21. — Mr. Dickens dined here. Agassiz, Emerson, Judge Hoar, Professor Holmes, Nor- ton, Greene, dear Longfellow, last not least, came to welcome. Dickens sat on my right, Agassiz at my left. I never saw Agassiz so full of fun. . . . Dickens bubbled over with fun, and I could not help fancying that Holmes bored him a little by talking at him. I was sorry for this, because Holmes is so simple and lovely, but Dickens is sensitive, very. He is fond of Carlyle, seems to love nobody better, and gave the most irresistible imitation of him. His queer turns of expression often convulsed us with laughter, and yet it is difficult to catch them, as when, in speaking ot the writer of books, always putting himself, his real self, in, "which is always the case," he said; "but you must be careful of not taking him for his next-door neighbor." ' On this very day Lowell wrote in the course of a letter to Fields : "James tells me you had a tremendous queue this morning. Don't fail to get me tickets, and for the first night. I should like to see his reception. It will leave a picture on the brain. And why should I not be there to welcome him, as well as Tom, Dick, or Harry ? " 142 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS He spoke of the fineness of his Parisian audience — • "the most delicately appreciative of all audiences." He also gave a most ludicrous account of a seasick curate trying to read the service on board ship last Sunday. He tells us Browning is really about to marry Miss Ingelow, and of Carlyle, that he is deeply sad- dened, irretrievably, by the death of his wife. Just as we were in a tempest of laughter over some witticism of his, he jumped up, seized me by the hand, and said good-night. He neither smoked nor drank. "I never do either from the time my readings 'set in,*" he said, as if it were a rainy season. . . . Among other interesting personal facts Dickens told us that he had last year burned all his private letters. An appeal from the daughter of Sydney Smith for some of his letters set him thinking on the subject, and one day when there was a big fire — [sentence unfinished]. Mr. Dickens left the table just as we were in a tem- pest of laughter. Dr. Holmes . . . was telling how inap- preciative he had found some country audiences — one he remembered in especial when his landlady accom- panied him to the lecture and her face, he observed, was the only one which relaxed its grimness ! "Probably because she saw money enough in the house to cover your expenses," rejoined Dickens. That was enough; the laughter was prodigious. . . . Wednesday J November 27. — What a pity that these days have flown while I have been unable to make any record of them. J. has been to walk each day with Dickens, and has come home full of wonderful things he WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA 143 has said.* His variety is so inexhaustible that one can only listen in wonder. Thursday, ^%. — Thanksgiving Day. J. took Dick- ens to see the Aldriches' house. He was very much amused by what he saw there and has written out a full account to his daughter, Mrs. Collins. . . . I have made no record of our supper party of Wed- nesday evening. We had Alfred to wait, and a pretty supper and more important by far (tho' the first a con- sequent of the last) a pretty company. There were Mr. Dickens and Mr. Dolby, Helen Bell and Mrs. Silsbee, Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow, Mr. Hillard and Louisa and Mr. Beal. Mrs. Bell sang a little before supper ("Douglas" for one) very gracefully with real feeling. At nine o'clock oysters and fun began ; finally Mr. Dickens told several ghost stories, but none of them more interesting than a little bit of clairvoyance or what-you-will, which he let drop concerning himself. He said a story was sent to him for "All the Year Round," which he liked and ac- cepted ; just after the matter had been put in type, he received a letter from another person altogether from the one who had forwarded it in the first place, saying that he and not the first man was the author, and in proof of his position he supplied a date which was want- ing in the first paper. Curiously enough, Mr. Dickens, seeing the story hinged upon a date and the date being * Even after Dickens's return to England, his sayings found their way into Mrs. Fields's journal ; as, for example : — "July 4, 1868. — J. made me laugh this morning (it was far too hot to laugh) by telling me that Dickens said of Gray, the poet, 'No man ever walked down to posterity with so small a book under his arm ! '" 144 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS but a blank in the MS., had supphed one, as it were by chance, and, behold ! // was the same date which the new man had sent. Sunday. — Dined with Mr. Dickens at six o'clock. Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow, Mr. Dolby and ourselves were the only guests. After dinner we played two or three games which I will set down lest they should be forgotten. Descriptions of "Buzz," "Russian Scandal," and another wholly innocent amusement may be omitted. Monday nighty December 2, 1867. — The first great reading ! How we listened till we seemed turned into one eyeball ! How we all loved him ! How we longed to tell him all kinds of confidences ! How Jamie and he did hug in the anteroom afterward ! What a teacher he seemed to us of humanity as he read out his own words which have enchanted us from childhood ! And what a house it was ! Longfellow, Dana, Norton (Mrs. Dana, Jr., and the three little Andrews went with us), and a world of lovely faces and ardent admirers. Tuesday came Miss Dodge and Mrs. Hawthorne, Julian, and Rose. The reading was quite as remarkable, tho' more quiet than that of the night before. As usual, we went to speak to him at his request after it was over. Found him in the best of spirits, but very tired. "You can't think," he said, "what resolution it requires to dress again after it is over !" Monday y December 9. — Left home at 8 a.m. for WITH DICKENS IN AMERICA 145 New York. The day was clear and cold, the journey somewhat long, but on the whole extremely agreeable. We only had each other to plague or amuse, as the case might be, and we had the new Christmas story of Dick- ens and Wilkie Collins (called "No Thoroughfare") to read, and so by sufficient attention to the peculiarities or follies or troubles of our neighbors and some forget- fulness of our own, we came to the Westminster Hotel at night, in capital spirits but rather frozen physically. We had scant time to dress and dine and to go to the Dickens reading. We accomplished it, nevertheless. Saw the rapturous enthusiasm, heard the "Carol" far better read than in Boston, because the applause was more ready and he felt stimulated by it. Afterward Mr. D. sent for us to come to his room. He was fatigued, of course, but we sat at table with him and after a while he began to feel warmer as vigor returned. He brought out his jewels for us to see — a pearl Count D'Orsay once wore, set with diamonds, etc. — laughed and talked about the way we dress and other bits of nonsense sug- gested by the time, all turned towards the fine light of Charles Dickens's lovely soul and returning with a fresh gleam of beauty. We left early lest we should overfatigue him. Wednesday^ 'December 11. — At four Dickens came to dinner in our room with Eythinge and Anthony, his American designer and engraver. Afterward we went to the "Black Crook" together, and then home to the hotel, where we sat talking until one o'clock. There is nothing I should like so much to do as to set down every 146 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS word he said in that time, but much must go down to oblivion. . . . He talked of actors and acting — said if a man's Hamlet was a sustained conception, it was not to be quarrelled with ; the only question was, what a man of melancholy temperament would do under such circum- stances. Talked of Charles Reade and the greatness of "Griffith Gaunt," and the pity of it that he did not stand on his own bottom instead of getting in with Dion Boucicault, etc., etc. But after dinner he unbent, and while we were in the box at the theatre showed how true his sympathies were with the actors, was especially care- ful to make no sound which could hurt their feelings by apparent want of attention. The play was very dull, so we sat and talked. He told me that no ballet dancer could have pretty feet, and one dreadful thing was they could never wash them, as water renders the feet ten- der and they must become horny. He asked about Longfellow's sorrow again and expressed the deepest sympathy, but said he was like a man purified by suffer- ing. We had punch in our room after the play, when he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks over Bob Sawyer's party and the remembrance of the laughter he had seen depicted on the faces of people the night be- fore. Jack Hopkins was such a favorite with J. that D. made up the face again and went over the necklace story until we roared aloud. At length he began to talk of Fechter and to describe the sensitive character of the man. He saw him first quite by accident in Paris, hav- 4" «i / ^— ^/.o ^ ^v*^ *^ '^;::^^ '■ 5'**'- '^ A/i*«'-^ ^* ^- ^^ '^"^ 0vif^{iA/u^^U{--«---c ^ y^ r' % oar j;U-! ^u^n. Facsimile note from Booth to Mts. Fields 202 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS roared again. They are surely a merry race, but pro- voking enough sometimes. They are capable of real attachments, however; this man has been several times dismissed but will not go. Booth told everything very dramatically, but I was especially struck with his description of a man travelling with two shaggy terrier pups in the cars. He had them in a basket and hung them up over his head and then composed himself to sleep. Waking up half an hour later, he observed a man on the opposite side of the car, his eyes starting from his head and the very picture of dismay, as if a demon were looking at him. The owner of the pups, following the direction of the man's eyes, looked up and saw the two pups had their heads out of the basket. He quietly made a sign for them to go back and they disappeared. The man's gaze did not apparently slacken, however, but in a moment became still more horrified when the pups again looked out. "What 's the matter ?" said the owner. "What are those ?" said the man, pointing with trembling finger; "pray excuse me, but I have been on a spree and I thought they were demons." He intro- duced the subject ot the stage and talked of points in "Hamlet," which he had made for the first time, but occasionally through accident had omitted. The next day he will be sure to be asked by letter or newspaper why he omits certain points which would be so excel- lent to make, the writer thinks. He has had a life of strange vicissitudes, as almost all actors. He referred last night to his frequent travels during childhood over the Alleghanies with his father, of long nights spent in BOOTH A.S HAMLET STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 203 this kind of travel ; and once in Nevada he walked fifty miles chiefly through snow. "Why?" said Lilian. "Be- cause I was hard up, Lily," he continued ; "I walked it too in stage boots which were too tight — it was mis- ery." . . . They had all gone by half-past ten, but we lay long awake thinking over poor Booth and his strange sad fortune. Hamlet, indeed! — although Forceythe Will- son says, "I have been to see Mr. Hamlet play Booth." Yes, perhaps when he is playing it for the 400th time with a bad cold, it may seem so ; indeed I found it dull- ish myself, or his part, I mean, the other night ; but he did play it once — the night ot his reappearance in New York. May 18, 1869. — Last Sunday evening Booth, Al- drich and his wife and sister. Dr. Holmes and Amelia and Launt Thompson, Leslie and ourselves took tea here together. In the evening came Mr. and Mrs. Emer- son. We did have a rare and delightful symposium. Booth talked little as usual, and the next night went round to Aldrich's and took himself off as he behaves in company ! ! Nevertheless he was glad to see Holmes, though every time Dr. H. addressed him across the table he seemed to receive an electric shock. A chance meeting between William Warren and Fields in a lane at the seaside Manchester is re- corded, with their talk, in the diary as early as 1865. Two entries in 1872 have to do with Jefferson, first 204 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS alone and then with Warren. The friendship with Jefferson, begun so long ago, was continued until his death. Tuesday y March i8, 1872. — Left Boston for a short trip to New York. Jefferson the actor, famous through- out the world for his impersonation of "Rip Van Winkle," was on the train and finding us out (or J. him), came to our compartment car to pass the day. He talked without cessation and without effort. He described his sudden disease of the eyes quite bravely and simply, from the use of too much whiskey. He said the newspapers had said it was the gas, and many other reasons had been assigned first and last ; but he firmly believed there was no other reason than too much whiskey. He had taken the habit — when he was some- what below his ordinary physical and mental condition in the evening and wished to rise to the proper point and "carry the audience" — of taking a small glass of whiskey. This glass was after a time made two, and even three or four. Finally he was stricken down by a trouble of the eyes which threatened the entire extinc- tion of sight. His physician at once suggested that un- natural use of stimulants was the cause, of which he himself is now entirely convinced and no longer touches anything stronger than claret. He has played to a larger variety of audiences probably than almost any other great actor. The immense applause he received in England, where he played 170 consecutive nights at the Adelphi in London, always as "Rip," has only STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 205 served to make him more modest, it would seem, more desirous to uphold himself artistically. He gave us a hint of his taste for fishing and described his trout-rais- ing establishment in Jersey ; very curious and wonder- ful it was. Nature preserves only one in a hundred of the eggs of trout to come to maturity. Mr. Jefferson in his pond is able to raise 85 out of 100. There seems no delight to him so great as that of sitting beside a stream on a sunny day, line in hand. Talking of the everlasting repetition of "Rip," he says he should be thankful to rest himself with another play, but this has been a growth and it would be a dar- ing thing for him to attempt anything new with a public who would always compare him with himself in this play which is the result of years of his best thought and strength. I think myself, if he were quite well he would be almost sure to attempt something else. He told us several stories very dramatically. He is an odd, care- lessly dressed little mortal, a cross between Charles Lamb and Grimaldi, but we have seldom passed a more delightful day of talk than with him. The hours abso- lutely fled away. Wednesday^ May 22, 1872. — Mr. Longfellov/, Dr. Holmes, and Jefferson and Warren, the two first come- dians of our time, dined here. The hour was three o'clock, to accommodate the two professional gentlemen. The hours until three, with the exception of two visits (Miss Sara Clarke and Miss Wainwright in spite of say- ing "engaged"), were occupied in making preparations for the little feast. I mean the hours after breakfast until 2o6 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS time to dress. (Of hours before breakfast I have now-a- days nothing to say. I am not strong enough to do any- thing early, but country life this summer is to change all that.) Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Warren arrived first. Finding much to interest them in the pictures of our lower room, they lingered there a few moments before coming to the library, when we talked of Marney's pic- tures (Mr. J. owns some of his water-colors) and looked about at others. Soon Longfellow came with Jamie. He said he felt like one on a journey. He left home early in the morning, had been sight-seeing in Boston all day, was to dine and go to the theatre with us afterward. He asked Mr. Warren why a Mr. Inglis was selling his fine library and pictures — a question nobody had been able to solve. Mr. Inglis is, however, in some way con- nected with the stage, and Warren told us it was because he had been arrested with Mr. Harvey Parker and others and condemned to be thrown in the House of Correction, for selling liquor. His money protected him from the rigor of the law, but the disgrace remained. His children felt it much and he was going to Europe at least for a season. We could not help feeling the injus- tice of this when we remembered the myriad liquor shops for the poor all over the town, with which no one interferes. Mr. Jefferson was deeply interested in our pictures of the players by Zanagois. Dr. Holmes came in, talked a little at my suggestion about Anne Whitney's bust of Keats, which he appears to know nothing about artis- tically (I observed the same lack of knowledge in Emer- STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 207 son), but he criticised the hair. He said he supposed nothing was known about Keats's hair, so it might as well be one way as another. I told him on the contrary I owned some of it ; whereat I got it out, and he went off in a little episode about an essay which he had some- times thought of writing about hair. He has a machine by which the size of a hair can be measured and re- corded. This he would like to use, and make a note of comparison between the hairs of "G. W. " (as he laugh- ingly called Washington), Jefferson, Milton, and other celebrities of the earth. He thought it might be very curious to discover the difference in quality. We were soon seated at the table (only six all told) where the conversation never flagged. Longfellow prop- erly began it by saying he thought Mr. Charles Mathews was entirely unjust to Mr. Forrest as King Lear. He considered Mr. Forrest's rendering of the part, and he sat through the whole, as fine and close to nature. He could not understand Mr. Mathews's underrating it as he did. Of course the other two gentlemen could say nothing more than the difficulty Mr. Mathews from his nature would have in estimating at its proper worth anything Mr. For.rest might do, their idea of Art being so dissimilar. Here arose the question if one actor was a good judge of another. Jefferson said he sometimes thought actors very bad judges — indeed he preferred to be judged by an audience inspired by feeling rather than by one intellectually critical. Jefferson has a clear blue eye, very fine and bright and sweet. Longfellow thinks his mouth a very weak 2o8 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS one, and certainly his face is not impressive. Warren appears a man of finer intellect and more wit. He had many witty things to say and his little tales were always dramatically given. Dr. Holmes could not seem to re- cover from the idea that Jefferson had made a fortune out of one play and that he 77ever played but one. "I hear, Mr. Jefferson," he said, when he first came in, "that you have been playing the same play ever since you came here." (He has been playing the same for a dozen years, I believe, nearly — and has been here three weeks!) Jefferson could hardly help laughing as he as- sured him that for the space of three weeks he had given the same every night. Dr. Holmes had a way at the table of talking of "you actors," "you gentlemen of the stage," until I saw Longfellow was quite disturbed at the unsympathetic unmannerliness of it, in appearance, and tried to talk more than ever in a different strain. After I left the table, which I did because I thought they might like to smoke, Jamie sent for Parsons's poems and read them some of the finest. Of course the talk was wittier and quicker as the time came to sep- arate, but I cannot report upon it. The impression the two actors left upon me, however, was rather that of men who enjoyed coming up to the surface to breathe a natural air seldom vouchsafed to them than of men sparring with their wits — they are affectionate, gentle, subdued gentlemen and a noble contrast to the self- opinionated ignorance which we often meet in society. Dr. Holmes was, however, the wit of the occasion, as he always is, and everybody richly enjoyed his sallies. JEFFERSON IX THE BETROTHAL SCENE OF 'RIP VAN WINKLE' STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 209 They stayed until the last moment — indeed I do not see how they got to their two theatres in time to dress. It must have been, as they say of eggs, a "hard scrab- ble." IVe went afterward — we four — to see a new actor, Raymond, play "Colleen Bawn" at the Globe — pretty play, though very touching and melodramatic, by Boucicault. I must confess to dislike such plays where your feelings are wrought to the highest pitch for nothing. The name of Fechter is familiar to the middle-aged through the memory of fathers, to the young through that of grandfathers. Readers of these pages will recall that Dickens, soon after reaching America in 1867, spoke of him in terms which caused Mrs. Fields to look forward with confidence to a new friendship. His coming to America was specifically heralded by an ar- ticle, "On Mr. Fechter's Acting," contributed by Dick- ens to the "Atlantic " for August, 1 869. When Fechter was in Boston, warmly received as Dickens's friend, he often appears in the journals of Mrs. Fields, in con- junction with others. Friday, February 25, 1870. — Mr. Fechter came to lunch with Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Appleton, Mr. and Mrs. Dorr. He talked freely about his Hamlet, so different from all other impersonations. His audience here he finds wonderfully good, better than any other; fine points which have never been applauded before bring 2IO MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS out a round of applause. On the whole he appears to enjoy new hearers — does not understand the constant comparison between himself and Booth. They are al- ready great friends. Booth was in the house the last night of his performance there ; afterward he did not come to speak to him, and Fechter felt it ; but a letter came yesterday saying he was so observed that he slipped away as soon as possible, and could not come on Sunday because visitors prevented him. Better late than never; it was pleasant to Fechter to hear from Booth — with one exception : he enclosed a notice from some newspaper, cutting up himself horribly and prais- ing Fechter. "Ah ! that won't do; I shall send it back to him and tell him why. We are totally unlike in our Hamlets, and neither should be praised at the other's expense." Mr. Fechter described minutely Mr. Dickens's at- tack of paralysis last year, and, the year before, his prompt appearance in the box of the theatre at the last performance of "No Thoroughfare," which he said he should do ; but as Fechter had not heard of his return from America, it was a great shock. "If it had been 'Hamlet,' or any difficult play, I could not have gone on ! He should not have done such a thing." He told us a strange touching story of M'lle Mars, during her last years. She came upon the stage one night to give one of the youthful parts in which she had once been so famous. When she appeared, some heartless wretch threw her a wreath of immortelles, as if for her grave. She was so shocked that the drops stood on her brow. A NAST CARTOON OF^DICKENS AND FECHTER STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 211 the rouge fell from her cheeks, and she stood motionless before the audience, a picture of age and misery. She could not continue her part. He spoke with intense enthusiasm of Frederick Lemaitre, much as I have heard Mr. Dickens do. "The second-class actors were always arguing with him (only second-class people argue) and saying, 'Why do you wish me to stand here, Frederick?' 'I don't know,' he would say, 'only do it.'" Mr. Appleton was deeply interested in the fact that Shakespeare proved himself such a believer in ghosts, as "Hamlet" shows, and would like to push the sub- ject farther, Mr. Fechter evidently finding much to say on this topic also. Mr. Longfellow was interested to ask about the Dumas, pere et fils. Mr. Fechter has known them well and has many queer stories to tell of their relation to each other. Lefils calls mon pere^ "my young- est child born many years ago," and the father usually introduces the son as M. Dumas, mon pere. The motto on Fechter's note paper is very curious and a type of the man — '' Faiblesse vaut vice." Mr. Longfellow spoke again of Mr. Dickens's restlessness, of his terrible sad- ness. "Yes, yes," said Fechter, "all his fame goes for nothing." . . . Jamie is so weak that he went to sleep almost as soon as they were gone. God knows what it all means ; I do not. It is odd that Fechter's eyes should be brown after all. They look so light in the play. He is a round little man, naturally friendly, spontaneous. We do not know what 212 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS his life has been, and we will not ask ; that does not rest with us ; but he is a very fine artist. His imitation of Mr. Dickens, as he sat on the lawn watching him at work, or as he joined him coming from his desk at lunch- time with tears on his cheek and a smile on his mouth, was very close to the life and delightful. Mr. Longfellow did not talk much, not as much as the last time he was here, but he was lovely and kind.^ He brought a coin of the French Republic which had been touched by French wit, Liberie x (point), Egalite x (point), Fraternite x (point). And more to the same effect, without altering the coin. Appleton has just bought a new Troyon, which he says he shall lend me for a week. At the end of the following August there is a record of a talk with Fechter on the boat from Boston to Nahant, where he and the Fieldses dined with Longfellow. Dickens had died in the June just past, and Fechter had much to say of him and his family life. "Day by day," wrote Mrs. Fields, "I am grateful to think of him at rest." The little party at Nahant is described. ' On April 20, 1 870, Longfellow wrote to Fields (See Life of Henry Wads- worth Longfellow, etc., edited by Samuel Longfellow, III, 148) : — "Some English poet has said or sung: 'At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still. And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove.' "I wish Hamlet would be still ! I wish I could prove the sweets of forget- fulness ! I wish Fechter would depart into infinite space, and 'leave, oh, leave me to repose!' When will this disturbing star disappear, and suffer the domestic planetary system to move on in the ordinary course and keep time with the old clock in the corner ?" STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 213 We found dear Longfellow looking through a glass to espy our approach, and all his dear little girls and Ernest and his wife and Appleton, who whisked me away from the dinner-table to his studio where he had some really good sketches. The conversation at table was half French, Longfellow and Appleton both finding it agreeable to recall the foreign scenes by the foreign tongue. But except a queer imitation of John Forster, by Fechter, I do not remember any quotable talk. F. said Forster always looked at every- body as if regarding their qualifications for a lunatic asylum (he is commissioner of lunacy), saying to him- self, "Well, I '11 let you ofi^ today, but tomorrow you must certainly go and be shut up." He describes For- ster's present state of health as something very pre- carious and wretched. November 14, 1870. — Monday night went to see Fechter in "Claude Melnotte." Longfellow and his daughter Edith sat in the box adjoining ours. It was the stage box where they were sheltered from observa- tion ; ours was the box next it, to be sure, but accessible to all eyes. During the curtain Longfellow came into our box ; Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Andrew were with me, both plain ladies dressed in mourning. His advent caused a little rustle of curiosity to ripple over the house. Longfellow was never looking finer than he is today. His white hair and deep blue eyes and kind face make his presence a benediction wherever he goes — of such men one cannot help feeling what Dr. Putnam so well expressed last Sunday in speaking 214 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS of the presence of our Lord at a feast. "He rewarded the hospitahty of his friends by his presence." Longfellow brought an illegible scrawl in his hand which Parsons had written from London to Lunt. He told me also of having lately received a photograph from Virginia of a young woman, and written under it were the words, "What fault can be found with this?" He said he thought of replying, "The fault of too great youth." It certainly could not be agreeable to him to sit in the eye of the audience as he did ; but he was very talkative and pleasant, expressed his disappointment at not having us at his Nilsson dinner, but his family were too many for him ; said how he liked her for her frankness ; told me of the old impressario Garrett, the Jew, coming without invitation and certainly without being wanted (as it sent "his children upstairs to dine") ; and then, as the play was about to begin, he withdrew. He was much amused and disgusted by the platitudes of the play. Returned to his own box, Jamie said he laughed immoderately over the absurdities of it as it continued. He tooted as the instruments tooted and spouted as the second-rate actors spouted, all of which was highly amusing to Edith, who was weeping over the unhappy lovers, utterly absorbed in the play. Mrs. Holmes and Mrs. Andrew, too, were full of tears, and I found it no use attempting to say anything more during the evening. Fechter was indeed marvellous. He raised the play into something human, something exquisite whenever he was upon the stage. His terrible earnestness sweeps STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 215 the audience utterly away. But he is not the player for the million. Sunday evening^ December 11, 1870. — Went to Mr. Bartol's and met Mr. Collyer. He was pleased to hear what Fechter said of him Saturday night (by the by we met Fechter at Mrs. Dorr's dinner on Saturday), that he singled him out, found him a capital audience, and played to him. It was a fine house on Saturday and Fechter played *' Don Caesar." It was never played bet- ter. Curtis was there, and fine company. Fechter was graceful and saucy too in talk at dinner — just right for the occasion. Monday, December 19. — I have just returned from seeing Fechter in "Ruy Bias." The public has just received the news that he is to leave the Globe Theatre and Boston in four weeks. The result was an enormous house, and the most fashionable house I have seen this season. He played with great fire and ease, but he has a wretched cold and his pronunciation was so thick and French (as it is apt to be when he is excited) that I could often hardly catch a word. But his audience was determined to be pleased and they caught and ap- plauded all his good points. I saw but one dissenting spirit, that was a spoiled queen of fashion just returned from Europe, who saw nobody and nothing but her- self. . . . Saturday, January 7, 1871. — Dined at Mr. Long- fellow's with Mr. Fechter. The poet welcomed us with a cordiality peculiar to himself and his children, with a simple glad-to-see written over their faces which is 2i6 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS worth a world of talk. We had a merry table-talk al- though Fechter was laboring under the unnatural ex- citement of his position in having lost his season at the Globe, broken with the proprietor Cheney who was his friend, and finding himself without an engagement for the time. Also, so mischance held the day, Miss Le- clercq, his only fit support, injured herself in the afternoon and their superb audience went away disap- pointed. However, the dinner went off beautifully, as it always must with Longfellow at the helm. There was some talk of poetry and the drama and J. amused them too with anecdotes. Then we adjourned to the room of Charles the East-India man, where we saw many curios- ities and had a very pleasant hour before leaving. Pass- ing through the dressing-room of our dear Longfellow, I was struck with seeing how like the house of a German student it was — a Goethean aspect of simplicity and largeness everywhere — books too are put on all the walls. It is surely a most attractive house. January 13, 1871. — Today Jamie lunched with Appleton. We passed the evening at Mrs. Quincy's. It is the great benefit to Fechter, but in consequence of the tickets being sold unjustly at auction, we shall not go. Unhappily there are rumors about town that Fechter is to be insulted in the theatre. I wish I could get word to him. I shall wait until J. gets home and then ask him to drive up to put F. on his guard. "January 23. — It proved an unnecessary alarm ! The evening went off well enough but unenthusiastically, and at last Fechter gave all the money to the poor ! STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 217 When Mrs. Fields first met that representative of the once alluring art of "elocution," James E. Mur- doch, he was already a veteran who had twice, at an interval of nearly twenty years, retired from the stage. Two notes about him recall his robust person- ality. 'January 13, 1867. — I never met James E. Murdoch, the actor, to hear any talk until Sunday night. The knowledge of his patriotism, of his son who died in the war, and of the weary miles the father had travelled to comfort the soldiers by reading to them, and afterwards the large sums of money he had given to the country's cause gathered up laboriously night by night by public "readings " — all this I had known. Of course no intro- duction could have been better, yet I liked the man even more than I had fancied was possible. He was so modest and talked in such a free generous way, purely for the entertainment of others, I fancied, because we saw he had a severe cold on his chest. The way too in which he recited "Sheridan's Ride" and anything else for the children which he thought they would like was quite beautiful to see in a man of his years, who must have had quite enough of that kind of thing to do. His hobby is elocution. He is about to establish a school or col- lege or something of that description, whatever its honorable title will be, at the West ^ (the money having been granted in part by legislature, the other half to be made by his own public efforts) for the pur- ^ A contemporary definition of Cincinnati. 21 8 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS pose of educating speakers and teaching men and women how to read. He has known Grant and Sheridan well, lived in camp with them at the same mess-table, and has the highest opinion of the patriotism and probity of both of them. There is no mistake about one thing. Mr. Murdoch made himself a power during the war, and now that is over does not cease to work, nor does he allow himself to presume upon the laurels he has won nor to brag of his own work. Saturday morning^ November 13, 1875. — After a western journey, left for home. Sunday met James E. Murdoch in the cars at Springfield. It was about six o'clock A.M., but he was bound for Newton. He came in therefore with us, and talked delightfully until we parted. He is an old man but as full of nerve, vigor, and ripened intellect as anyone whom I have seen. His talk of the stage, of his disgust for Macready's book, his dis- gust at the manner in which Forrest treated his wife, his account of his own experiences, when he was glad to play for $35 a week, were deeply interesting. The better side of Forrest he understood and appreciated thor- oughly. The hospitalities of Charles Street were by no means confined to the men of the theatrical and kindred professions. In later years Miss Ellen Terry, Lady Gregory, and those other ladies associated with the stage who so surely found their way to Mrs. Fields's door when they visited Boston, were but carrying on the STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 219 traditions of the earlier decades. As the visitors came and went, the diary in the sixties and seventies re- corded their exits and their entrances. A few passages are typical of many. A portion of the notes relating to Charlotte Cushman will be the better understood for a preliminary remark upon a Boston event of huge local moment in the au- tumn of 1863. This was the dedication of the Great Organ, that wonder of the age, in Music Hall. The first public performance on the organ, at the ceremonies on the evening of November 2, were preceded by Char- lotte Cushman's reading of a dedicatory ode, contrib- uted, according to the "Advertiser" of the next day, by an "anonymous lady of this city." The secret of Mrs. Fields's authorship of this poem, which the "Adver- tiser" found somewhat too long in spite of its merits, must have been shared by some of her friends, though it was temporarily kept from the public. Sunday y September 20, 1863. — In the evening Char- lotte Cushman and her niece. Dr. Dewey and Miss McGregor, Miss Mears and Mr. W. R. Emerson, passed a few hours with us. Charlotte, always of athletic but prejudiced mind, talked busily of people and events. She is a Seward-ite in politics and called Dr. Howe and Judge Conway "ass-sy" because they said Charles Sumner had prevented thus far a war with England. She has made money during the war, but believes appar- ently not at all in the patriotism of the people. She is to give one performance for "the Sanitary" in each of the 220 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS four northern seacoast cities, also for fun and fame. She can't endure to give up the stage. She is a woman of effects. She Hves for effect, and yet doing always good things and possessed of most admirable qualities. She has warm friends. Mrs. Carlyle is extremely fond of her, gives her presents and says flattering things to her. "Cleverer than her husband," says Miss Cushman. I put this quietly into my German pipe and pufF peace- fully. Saturday Evening^ September 26, 1863. — Charlotte Cushman played Lady Macbeth for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission to a large audience. Her reading of the letter when she first appears is one of her finest points. She moves her feet execrably and succeeds in developing all the devilish nature in the part, but dis- covers no beauty. Yet it is delightful to hear the won- drous poetry of the play intelligently and clearly ren- dered. It would be impossible to say this of the man who played Macbeth, who talked of "encarnardine," and " heat-opprej/ brain," for "oppressed," besides in- numerable other faults and failures, which he mouthed too much for me to discover. Charlotte in the sleeping scene was fine — that deep-drawn breath of sleep is thrilling. . . . There has been an ode written to be spoken at the organ opening. No one is to know who wrote it. Miss Cushman will speak it if they are speedy enough in their finishing. This is of interest to many. I trust they will be ready for Miss Cushman. Monday, November 2, 1863. — Miss Dodge and Una FROM A CRAYOX PORTR\IT OF CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 221 Hawthorne came to dine. At 7 o'clock we all started for the Music Hall. Miss Cushman read my ode in a most perfect manner. She was very nervous about it and skipped something, but what she did read was per- fect. Her dress and manner too were dignified and beau- tiful. It was a night never to be forgotten. Afterward we had a little supper. Dr. and Mrs. Holmes, Mr. Og- den of New York, Dr. Upham ^ and Judge Putnam and Mrs. Howe were added to our other guests. Charlotte Cushman left early the next day and Gail Hamilton and I sat down and took a long delicious draught of talk. April 27, 1 871. — Charlotte Cushman came to see us yesterday. Her full brain was brimming over, and her rich sympathetic voice is ringing now in my ears. She does not overestimate herself, that woman, which is part of her greatness, for the word does apply to her in a certain way because she grows nearer to it every day. J. de Maistre refused the epithet "grand" to Napoleon because he lacked more stature — but this hand-to- hand fight with death over herself (loving life dearly as she does) has strengthened her hold upon her affection for life, insensibly. She grows daily wiser and nobler. November 13, 1871. — We all went together to Char- lotte Cushman's debut in Queen Katherine at the Globe Theatre. A house filled with her friends and a noble piece of acting. She spoke to every woman's heart there ; by this I felt the high art and the noble sympa- thetic nature far above art which was in the woman and ' Dr. J. Baxter Upham, the moving spirit in the building of the Music Hall and the installation of the organ. He presided at its dedication. 222 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS radiates from her. Much of the play beside was poor, but Mrs. Hunt was very amusing and we laughed and laughed at her sallies until I was quite ashamed. J. went behind the scenes and talked with C. C. She was in first-rate condition. For other contacts with the stage, three brief passages may speak : -^ November 8, 1866. — Went to see Ristori's "Pia dei Tolomei" in the evening. It was pure and beautiful. Being R.'s benefit, she made a short speech, and ex- quisitely simple as it was, her fine voice and the slight difficulty of enunciating the English words made her speech one of the most touching features of the time. Saturday. — Morning at home. Went to see Ristori for the last time, as Elizabeth, perhaps her finest char- acterization. Longfellow and Whittier had both prom- ised to go with us, but the courage of both failed at the last moment. The house was crowded. Mr. Grau asked Mr. Fields to go and speak with the great actress, but he excused himself. Whittier had never been inside of a theatre and could not quite feel like breaking the bonds now — besides he said it would cost him many nights of sleep. Longfellow does not face high tragedy before a crowd. January 16, 1868. — Fanny Kemble read "The Mer- chant of Venice" in Boston last night — the old way of losing her breath when she appeared, as if totally over- come by the audience. We could not doubt that she a -J I? STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 223 felt her return deeply and sincerely, but — however, the feeling was undoubtedly real if short-lived, and we will give her credit for it. Her voice is sadly faded since the brilliant readings of ten years ago ; she has had much sorrow since then and shows the marks of it. It is inter- esting to compare her work with Mr. Dickens's ; he is so much the greater artist ! You can never mistake one of his characters for another, nor lose a syllable of his perfectly enunciated words. She speaks much more slowly usually, and there is a grand intonation as the verses sway from her lips, but one cannot be sure al- ways if Jessica or Nerissa be speaking, Antonio or Bassanio. Her face is marvellous in tender passages, a serenity falls upon it born of immortal youth. It is beautiful enough for tears. She enjoys the wit too her- self thoroughly, and brought out Launcelot Gobbo with great unction. An enormous and enthusiastic audience gave her hearty welcome. Longfellow could not come His wife in the old days enjoyed this play too well when they used to go together for him to trust himself to hear it again. Monday J May 18, 1868. — Raining like all possessed again today. I was to have done my gardening today but there is no chance yet. Walked over to Roxbury with J. yesterday and found everything gay with the coming loveliness. It has scarcely come, however. Jamie was much entertained by tales Mrs. Kemble's agent told him of that lady : how she watched an Irish scrubbing woman dawdle over her work, who was paid by the hour, and finally called her to her (she was sit- 224 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS ting at her own reading-desk in the hall), and said in her stately fashion, "I fear, madam, if you exert your- self so much over your work you will make yourself ill. Your health is seriously endangered by your severe efforts/* The woman, not seeing the sarcasm, replied in the strongest possible brogue to the effect that nothing short of the direst necessity would compel such dreadful labor. Whereat Mrs. Kemble, with a look not to be reproduced, and a wink to Mr. Pugh, withdrew. She read "Midsummer Night's Dream" on Saturday p.m. We went, but found the place entirely without air and left after the first part. She did not begin with much spirit, but her voice was exquisite and her fun also, and her dress was an aesthetic pleasure, as a lady's dress should always be, but alas ! so seldom is, in this country. Wednesday y November 9, 1870. — We have had a reception today for Miss Nilsson. Longfellow and Henry Ward Beecher were here, beside Perabo and many excellent or talented people, nearly sixty in all. It was a curious fact to give out seventy invitations and have sixty (or nearly that) present. Miss Nilsson, Mrs. Richardson (her attendant), Alice Longfellow, and ourselves sat down to lunch afterward, when she sang snatches of her loveliest songs and talked and laughed and was as graceful and merry and sweet as ever a beautiful woman knows how to be. She is now twenty-seven years old. Her light hair, deep blue eyes, full glorious eyes, are of the Northern type, but her broad intellectual brow, her beautiful teeth, and strong STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 225 character, belong only to the type of genius and beauty. She Is not only brave but almost imperious, I fancy, at times; a manner quite necessary, I say, to protect her from vulgar animosity and audacity. We heard her last night sing " Auld Robin Gray" not only with exqui- site feeling, but with a pronunciation of the Scottish dialect that appeared to us very remarkable. When we spoke to her of It she said, "Yes, but there Is much like that too In the Swedish dialect. When I first came up a peasant to Stockholm to learn to sing, I had the dialect very bad Indeed, and It was a long time before I lost It. Then I went to school In France, and now my accent and dialect are French. When I went back home and talked with the French dialect, they said to me, 'Now Christine, don't be absurd,' but I could not help it. I catch everything. I have never studied English In my life. I am learning American fast. I have learned 'I guess,' and I shall soon say *I reckon' by the time I come back from the West." Vieuxtemps, the violinist, she appreciates and en- joys highly as an artist. Of Ole Bull she says, "He is a charlatan. Ah, you will excuse me, but It Is true." Of Viardot-Garcia she has the highest admiration. Noth- ing ever gave her higher delight than Viardot's com- pliment after hearing her "Mignon." It was uncalled for, unexpected, and from the heart. She rehearsed what we recall so well, Viardot's plain face, poor figure — and great genius triumphant over all. Well, we hear poor Viardot has lost her fortune by this sad French war. 226 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS I have set down nothing which can recall the strong sweet beauty of Nilsson. She is a power to command success — fine and strong and sweet. Her face glowed and responded and originated in a swift yet gentle way, as one person after another was presented, that was a study and a lesson. She neither looked nor seemed tired until the presentation was over, when she said she was hungry. "We have had no breakfast yet, nothing to eat all day ; ah, I shall know again what it means when Mrs. Fields asks me to lunch at one o'clock!" with an arch look at me. I was extremely penitent and hurried the lunch, but the people could not go out of the dining- room. However, all was cleaned at last and we had a quiet cosy talk and sit-down, which was delightful. On Saturday she sang from "Hamlet," the mad scene of Ophelia. As usual, her dress and whole appear- ance were of the most refined and perfect beauty, and her singing we appreciated even more deeply than ever. She has not the remote exalte nature of highest genius, but she is the great singer of this new time, and her realism is in marked sympathy with her period. It has already been suggested that, when Thomas Bailey Aldrich made his migration to Boston as editor of "Every Saturday," he brought into the circle of the Fieldses many fresh breezes from the outer world. In the diary of Mrs. Fields there are frequent notes re- vealing a friendship which lasted, indeed, long after the diary ceased, and up to the end of Aldrich's life. CHRISTINE NILSSON AS OPHELIA STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 227 in 1907. Two entries — the first relating to the mete- oric author of "The Diamond Lens," regarded in its day as a bright portent in the literary heavens, the sec- ond to the Aldriches themselves at the country place with the name which Aldrich embalmed in his excellent title, "From Ponkapog to Pesth" — warrant conver- sion from manuscript into print. November 9, 1865. — Aldrich told us the story of Fitz- James O'Brien, the able author of "The Diamond Lens." He was a handsome fellow, and began his career by running away with the wife of an English officer. The officer was in Lidia, and Fitz-James and the guilty woman had fled to one of the seaports on the south of England in order to take passage for America, when the arrival of the woman's husband was announced to them and O'Brien fled. He concealed himself on board a ship bound for New York. There he ran a career of dissipa- tion, landing with only sixty dollars. He went to a first- rate hotel, ordered wines, and left a large bill behind when the time came to run away. Then he wrote for Harpers, and one publisher and another, writing little and over-drawing funds on a large scale. He came and lived six weeks upon Aldrich in his uncle's house one summer when the family were away. One day he tried to borrow money of Harpers, and being refused he went into the bindery department, borrowed a board, printed on it, "I am starving," bored holes through the ends, put in a string, hung it round his neck, allowed his fawn-colored gloves to depend over each 228 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS end, and stood in the doorway where the firm should see him when they went to dinner. A great laugh and more money was the result of this escapade. Finally, when the war broke out, he enlisted, and this was the last A. heard of him for some time ; but, being himself called to take a position on General Lander's staff, he was on his way to Richmond and had reached Peters- burg, when someone told him Fitz-James O'Brien had been shot dead. Then he went to the hospital and saw him lying there dead. Shortly after this, when Bayard Taylor and his wife were dining in a hotel restaurant at Dover, I believe, — it was one of the south of England towns, — they saw themselves closely observed by a lady and gentle- man sitting near them. Finally the gentleman arose and came to speak to Taylor, said he observed they were Americans, and asked if he had ever heard of F. J. O'Brien. "Oh, yes," said Taylor, "I knew him very well. He was killed in our war." Then the lady burst into tears and the gentleman said, "She is his mother !" I forgot to say In the course of the story that he borrowed once sixty-five dollars for which A. became responsible, and when it was not paid he sent a let- ter to O'B. saying he must pay it. In return O'Brien sent him a challenge for a duel, which A. accepted, in the meantime discovering that an honorable fight could not be between a debtor and a creditor. How- ever, when the time appointed arrived, O'Brien had absconded. We could not repress a smile at the idea STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 219 of A.'sJig/ittJigy for he is a painfully small gentleman. May 31, 1876. — Passed the day with the Aldriches at Ponkapog. Aldrich maintained at dinner that the horse railroad injured Charles Street. His wife and J. T. F. took the opposite ground. Finally J. said, "Well, the Philadelphians don't agree with you ; they have learned the value of horse railroads in their streets." "Oh, that 's because they are such Christians," said A. "They know whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth." He is a queer, witty creature. When the railroad dropped us at Green Lodge station, a tiny place sur- rounded by wild green woods and bog, we found him sitting on a corner of the platform where he said he had been "listening to the bullfrog tune his violin. He had been twanging at one string a long time !" Aldrich was in an ecstasy of delight, and in truth it was a day to put the most untuned spirit into tune. In the afternoon we floated on the beautiful pond. The whole day gave us a series of pictures — only thirteen miles from town, yet the beechwoods can be no more retired. Mr. Pierce owns 500 acres, and it must be a pleasure to him, while he is away in Washington, to feel that someone is using and enjoying hisi beautiful domain; and how could it be half so well used and enjoyed as by the family of a struggling literary man ! The house they live in, which was going to decay, may really be considered a creation of Lilian's. Altogether she is very clever and Aldrich most fortunate and our Washington senator is doubt- less most content to think of the enjoyment of others in his domain. 230 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Still more exotic a figure in Boston than Aldrich was William Morris Hunt — in spite of his temporary association with Harvard College and his Boston mar- riage. Both he and his wife are constantly to be met in the pages of Mrs. Fields's journals, from which they emerged with some frequency into her published ** Bio- graphical Notes," even as they have reappeared, with others, on earlier pages of this book. In other places than Charles Street, Fields and Hunt were often meeting. One brief record of an encounter, at the end of a Saturday Club meeting, should surely be preserved, for all that it suggests of Hunt in amused rebellion against his surroundings. Sunday^ August 26, 1874. — Hunt came to Jamie when the afternoon was nearly ended and asked him to go up to his studio. As they went along, he said, "I 've made a poem ! First time I ever wrote anything in my life. 'T is n't long, only four lines, but I 've got it writ- ten down." Whereat then and there he pulled out his pocketbook and read : "Boston is a hilly place; People all are brothers-in-law. If you or I want something done They treat us then like mothers-in-law. "This goes to the tune of Yankee Doodle," whereat he sang it out on the public highway. He looked very hand- some, was beautifully dressed in brown velvet with a UljL. fi^^ n^ ^(y a. Facsimile letter J rom Hunt to Fields 232 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS gold chain about his neck, but swore like a trooper and was in one of his most lawless moods. He gave J. for me a photograph of a marvellous picture which he calls his Persian Sybil, Anahita. I see his wife in it as in so many of his best works. "I don't mean to do any more portraits," he said. "When I remember how I have wasted time on an eyebrow because somebody's 14th cousin thought it ought to turn up a little more — it makes me mad !" When the English painter, Lowes Dickinson, the father of G. Lowes Dickinson, was visiting the Fieldses in Boston, a photograph of Hunt's portrait of Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw so impressed him that he asked to be taken to the painter's studio. In Miss Helen M. Knowlton's "Art Life of William Morris Hunt" this circumstance is related, together with its sequel, which was the publication of Hunt's "Talks on Art" from notes made by Miss Knowlton herself. It is a surmise but slightly hazardous that a characteristic note found among the Fields papers was written apropos of Dickin- son's visit to Hunt : "Send 'em along — I mean Paint- ers," he wrote to Fields. "I have had a delightful day with your friend — and I know he is a painter — why ? because he likes what I do well and hates what I do that ain't worth. . . ." It has been seen that, as early as November, 1868, James Parton suggested that "a writer named Mark STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 233 Twain" be engaged to contribute to the "Atlantic."^ In October, 1868, "F. Bret Harte" wrote to the editor of the "Atlantic" from San Francisco : "As the author of 'The Luck of Roaring Camp/ I have to thank you for an invitation to contribute to the 'Atlantic Monthly/ but as editor of 'The Overland/ my duties claim most of my spare time outside of the Government office in which I am employed. . . . But I am glad of this op- portunity to thank someone connected with the 'Atlan- tic' for its very gracious good-will toward me and my writings, particularly the book which G. W. Carleton of New York malformed in its birth. There was an extra kindness in your taking the deformed brat by the hand, and trying to recognize some traces of a parent so far away." It was in the discharge of his work as editor of the "Atlantic" that Fields, hospitable to practitioners of all the arts, entered especially into relations with writers whose paths might not otherwise have crossed his, and his wife's. Of all the young Lochinvars of the pen who came out of the West while Mrs. Fields was keeping her diary, Bret Harte and Mark Twain were the daring and dauntless gallants who most captured the imagination and have longest held it. To each of them Mrs. Fields devoted a numbei of pages in her diary. We shall see first what she had to say about Bret Harte. Friday, March lO, 1 87 1. — Too many days full of 1 See ante, page iii. 234 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS interest have passed unrecorded. Chiefly I should record what I can recall of Francis Bret Harte, who has made his first visit to the East just now, since he went to San Francisco in his early youth. He is now appar- ently about 2S years old. His mind is full of the grand landscape of the West, and filled also with sympathetic interest in the half-developed natives who are to be seen there, nearer to the surface than in our Eastern cities. He told me of a gambler who had a friend lying dead in the upper room of a gambling house. The man went out to see about having services performed. " Better have it at the grave," said the parson to whom he applied. Jim shook his head as if he feared the proper honors would not be paid his friend. The other then suggested they should find the minister and leave it to him. "Well," said Jim, "yes, I wish you 'd do just that, for I ain't much of a funeral 'sharp' myself." He told me also, as a sign of the wonderful recklessness which had pervaded San Francisco, that at one time there was a glut of tobacco in the market and, a block of houses going up at the same period, the foundations of those houses were laid of boxes of tobacco. Bret Harte, as the world calls him, is natural, warm-hearted, with a keen relish for fun, disposed to give just value to the strong language of the West, which he is by no means inclined to dispense with ; at ease in every society, quick of sense and sight. Jamie, who saw him more than I, finds him lovable above all. We liked his wife too, — not handsome but with good honest sense, apprecia- tive of him, — and two children. She is said to sing Facsimile pagejrom an early letter of Bret Harte' s iz(y MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS well, but poor woman ! the fatigues of that most dis- tressing journey across the continent, the fetes, the heat (for the weather is unusually warm), have been almost too much for her and she is not certainly at her best. They dined and took tea here last Friday. Tuesday^ September 5, 1 871. — J. went to Boston. I wrote in the pastures and walked all the morning. Coming home, after dinner, came a telegram for me to meet J. and Bret Harte at Beverly station with the pony carriage. I drove hard to catch the train, but arrived in season, glad to take up the two good boys and show them Beverly shore. Stopped at Mrs. Cabot's returning to see Mrs. , etc. They were all glad to have a glimpse of Bret Harte. The talk turned a little upon Hawthorne, and I was much amused to hear Mrs. say, drawing herself up, "Yes, he was born in Salem, but we never knew anything about him." (The truth was, Mrs. was the last person to appre- ciate him.) . . . Fortunately Miss Howes was present, whose father was one of Hawthorne's best friends ; so matters were made clear there. We left soon and came on to Manchester, where, after showing him the shore, we sat and talked during the evening. Mr. Harte had much to say of the beautiful flowers of California, roses being in bloom about his own house there every month in the year. He found the cloudless skies and continued drought of California very hard to bear. For the first time in my life I considered how terrible perpetual cloudlessness would be! He thinks there is no beauty in the mountains of California, hard, STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 237 bare, snowless peaks. Neither are there trees, nor any green grass. He is delighted with the fragrant lawns of Newport and has, I believe, put into verse a delightful ghost story which he told us.i He has taken a house of some an- tiquity in Newport, connected with which is the story of a lady who formerly lived there and who was very fond of the odor of mignonette. The flower was always growing in her house, and after her death, at two o'clock every night, a strong odor has always been perceived passing through the house as if wafted along by the garments of a woman. One night at the appointed hour, but entirely unconnected in his thought with the story Mr. Harte had long ago heard, he was arrested in his work by a strong perfume of mignonette which appeared to sweep by him. He looked about, thinking his wife might have placed a vase of flowers in the room, but finding nothing he began to follow the odor, which seemed to flit before him. Then he recalled, for the first time, the story he had heard. He opened the door ; the odor was in the hall; he opened the room where the lady died, but there was no odor there ; until returning, after making a circuit of the house, he found a faint perfume as if she had passed but not stayed there also. At last, somewhat oppressed perhaps by the ghostliness of the place and hour, he went out and stood upon the porch. There his dream vanished. The sweet lawn and tree flowers were emitting an odor, as is common at 1 "A Newport Romance," published in t\\& Atlantic Monthly for October, 1871. 238 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS the hour when dews congeal, more sweet than at any other time of day or night, and the air was redolent of sweets which might easily be construed into mignon- ette. The story was well told and I shall be glad to see his poem. Many good stories came off during the evening, some very characteristic of California ; ones such as that of an uproar in a theatre and a man about to be killed, when someone shouts, "Don't waste him, but kill a fiddler with him." Also one of the opening nights at the California theatre, the place packed, when a man who has taken too much whiskey wishes a noise ; imme- diately the manager, a strong executive man, catches him up with the help of a policeman, and before any- body knows the thing is done or the disturber what is the matter, he finds himself set down on the sidewalk outside in the street. "Well," said he with an oath, "is this the way you do business here ; raise a fellow before he has a chance to draw?" (referring to the game of poker). Mr. Harte is a very sensitive and nervous man. He struggles against himself all the time. He sat on the piazza with J. and talked till a late hour. This morning at breakfast I found him most interesting. He talked of his early and best-loved books. It appears that at the age of nine he was a lover and reader of Montaigne. Certain writers, he says, seem to him to stand out as friends and brothers side by side in literature. Now Horace and Montaigne are so associated in his mind. Mr. Emerson, he thinks, never in the least approaches a comprehen- STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 239 sion of the character of the man. With an admiration for his great sayings, he has never guessed at the subtle springs from which they come. The pleasant acceding to both sides in politics, and other traits of like nature, gives him affinity with Hawthorne. By the way, he is a true appreciator of Hawthorne. He was moved to much merriment yesterday by remembering a passage in the notes, where he slyly remarks, " Margaret Fuller's cows hooked the other cows." Speaking of Dr. Bartol, he said, "What a dear old man he is 1 A venerable baby, nothing more!" But Harte is most kindly and tender. His wife has been very ill and has given him cause for terrible anxiety. This accounts for much left undone, but he is an oblivious man oftentimes to his surround- ings — leaves things behind ! ! January I2, 1872* — Bret Harte was here at break- fast. It is curious to see his feeling with regard to soci- ety. For purely literary society, with its affectations and contempts, he has no sympathy. He has at length chosen New York as his residence, and among the Schuylers, Sherwoods, and their friends he appears to find what he enjoys. There is evidently a gene about people and life here, and provincialisms which he found would hurt him. He is very sensitive and keen, with a love and reverence for Dickens almost peculiar in this coldly critical age. Bryant he finds very cold and totally unwilling to lead the conversation, as he should do when they are together, as he justly remarks, he being so much younger — but never a word without cart and horses to fetch it. 240 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Bret Harte has a queer absent-minded way of spend- ing his time, letting the hours slip by as if he had not altogether learned their value yet. It is a miracle to us how he lives, for he writes very little. Thus far 1 suppose he has had money from J. R. O. & Co., but I fancy they have done with giving out money save for a quid pro quo. February^ iS^2 [during a visit to New York]. — We had promised to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Harte early and go to the theatre afterward, therefore four o'clock found us at their door. He welcomed us by opening it himself and only this reassured Jamie. We had driven up in a "Crystal," much to my amusement, in which J. had insisted I should sit until he discovered if that was the house. The scene was altogether comic. I shortened the ludicrousness as much as possible by jumping out and running quickly up the steps. Mrs. Harte was not ready to see me, but I found Mr. Barrett the actor with Mr. Harte in the parlor, and soon being invited upstairs, found Mrs. Barrett and Mrs. Harte together. We had a merry dinner together, the young actor evidently quite nervous with respect to the evening's performance. He went an hour before us to the play. We sat in the stage box; the play was "Julius Caesar." It is useless to deny Edwin Booth great talent, exquisite grace and feeling. Both the young men, the first, Barrett, a man of intellect, and Booth, a man of inherited grace and feel- ing as well as good mind, have the advantage moreover of being born to the stage. Their stage habits fit them more perfectly than those of the drawing-room and they STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 241 walk the stage with the ease that most men do their own parlors. During the performance Booth invited us into his drawing-room ; a short carpeted way led from the box into the small room where he was sitting in Roman costume, pipe in mouth ; he rose and called "Mary," as we approached, when the tiniest woman ever called wife made her appearance. She is an ardent little spark of human flame and he really looks large beside her. But his grace, his grace ! His dress too, was as usual perfect — more, far more than all, both the actors had such feeling for Shakespeare and for their parts with which they are filling the stage nightly, that they were deeply and truly enthusiastic. It was a sight to warm Shakespeare. Saturday y September 18, 1875. — Bret Harte came on the I past 12 train. He came in good health, save a headache which ripened as the day went on ; but he was bubbling over with fun, full of the most natural and unexpected sallies. He wished to know if I was ac- quainted with the Cochin China hen. They had one at Cohasset. They had named him Benventuro (after a certain gay Italian singer of strong self-appreciation who came formerly to x-^merica). He said this hen's state of mind on finding a half-exploded fire-cracker and her depressed condition since its explosion was something extraordinary. His description was so vivid that I still see this hen perambulating about the house, first with pride, second with precipitation, fallen into disgrace among her fellows. 242 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS He said Cohasset was not the place to live in the sum- mer if one wanted sea-breezes. They all came straight from Chicago ! ! He fancied the place, thinking it an old fishing village, not unlike Yarmouth. Instead of which they prided themselves upon never having "any of your sea-smells," and, being five miles from the doctor, could not be considered a cheerful place to live in with sick children. He said he was surprised to find J. T. F. with- out a sailor's jacket and collar. The actors among whom he had been living rather overdid the business ; their collars were wider, their shirts fuller, and their trousers more bulgy than those of any real sailor he had ever observed, and the manner of hitching up the trousers was entirely peculiar to themselves and to the stage. We went to call upon the Burlingames. In describing Harrisburg, Virginia, where he had lectured, he said a committee-man came to invite him to take a walk, and he was so afflicted with a headache that he was ready to take or give away his life at any moment ; so he ac- cepted the invitation and walked out with him. The man observed that Harrisburg was a very healthy place ; only one man a day died in that vicinity. "Oh!" said Harte, remembering the dangerous state of his own mind, "has that man died yet today ?" The man shook his head gravely, never suspecting a joke, and said he didn't know, but he would try to find out. Whereat Harte, to keep up the joke, said he wished he would. He went to the lecture forgetting all about it and saw this man hanging around without getting a chance to speak. The next morning very early, he managed to get an ^ ^ STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 243 opportunity to speak to him. "I couldn't find out exactly about that man yesterday," he said. "What man?" said H. "Why, the one we were speaking of; the Coroner said he could n't say precisely who it was, but the one man would average all right." Harte said in speaking of Longfellow that no one had yet overpraised him. The delicate quality of humor, the exquisite fineness in the choice of words, the breadth and sweetness of his nature were something he could hardly help worshipping. One day after a dinner at Mr. Lowell's he said, "I think I will not have a carnage to return to town. I will walk down to the Square." "I will walk with you," said Longfellow. When they arrived at his gate, he said, he was so beautiful that he could only think of the light and whiteness of the moon, and if he had stayed a moment longer he should have put his arms around him and made a fool of himself then and there. Whereat he said good night abruptly and turned away. He brought his novel and play ^ with him which are just now finished, for us to read. He has evidently enjoyed the play, and he enjoys the fame and the money they both bring him. He is a dramatic, lovable creature with his blue silk pocket-handkerchief and red dressing slippers and his quick feelings. I could hate the man who could help loving him — or the woman either. In the passages touching upon Mark Twain now to be copied from the journals, he is seen, not in Boston, but • Probably Gabriel Conroy and Twn Men of Sandy Bar. 244 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS in Hartford. If Mrs. Fields had continued her diary until 1879, there would doubtless have been a faithful contemporaneous account of the humorist's unhappy attempt to be funny both in the presence and at the ex- pense of the "Augustans" assembled in honor of Whit- tier's seventieth birthday.^ But Mrs. Fields's reports of talk and observations under his own roof, in the days when his fame rested entirely upon a handful of his earlier books, should take their place in the authentic annals of an extraordiiiary personality. On the first of the two occasions recorded. Fields went alone to deliver a lecture in Hartford, and in answer to a post-card in- vitation signed "Mark," stayed in the new house of the Clemenses. On the second occasion, three weeks later, Mrs. Fields accompanied him. After her husband's re- turn from the first visit she wrote : — April 6, 1 876. — He found Mrs. Clemens quite ill. They had been in New York where he had given four lectures hoping to get money for Dr. Brown. He had never lectured there before without making a great deal of money. This time he barely covered his expenses. He was very interesting and told J. the whole story of his life. They sat until midnight after the lecture, Mark drinking ale to make him sleepy. He says he can't sleep as other people do ; his kind of sleep is the only sort for him — three or four hours of good solid comfort — more than that makes him ill ; he can't afford to sleep all his thoughts away. He described the hunger of his child- ^ See The Atlantic Monthly and Its Makers, pp. 73-75. STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 245 hood for books, how the "Fortunes of Nigel" was one of the first stories which came to him while he was learn- ing to be a pilot on a Mississippi boat. He hid himself with it behind a barrel where he was found by the master, who read him a lecture upon the ruinous effects of reading. "I Ve seen it over and over agin," he said. *' You need n't tell me anythin' about it ; if ye 're going to be a pilot on this river yer need n't ever think of reading, for it just spiles all. Yer can't remember how high the tides was in Can's Gut three trips before the last now, I '11 wager." "Why no," said Mark, "that was six months ago." "I don't care if 't was," said the man. "If you had n't been spiling yer mind by readin' ye 'd have remembered." So he was never allowed to read any more after that. "And now," says Mark, "not being able to have it when I was hungry for it, I can only read the Encyclopedia nowadays." Which is not true — he reads everything. The story of his courtship and marriage, too, was very strange and interesting. A portion of this has, however, leaked into the daily papers, so I will not repeat it here. One point interested me greatly, how- ever, as showing the strength of character and right- ness of vision in the man. He said he had not been married many months when his wife's father came to him one evening and said, "My son, would n't you like to go to Europe with your wife?" "Why yes, sir," he said, "if I could afford it." "Well then," said he, "if you will leave off smoking and drinking ale you shall have ten thousand dollars this next year and go to 246 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Europe beside." "Thank you, sir," said Mark, "this is very good of you, and I appreciate it, but I can't sell myself. I will do anything I can for you or any of your family, but I can't sell myself." The result was, said Mark, " I never smoked a cigar all that year nor drank a glass of ale ; but when the next year came I found I must write a book, and when I sat down to write I found it was n't worth anything. I must have a cigar to steady my nerves. I began to smoke, and I wrote my book ; but then I could n't sleep and I had to drink ale to go to sleep. Now if I had sold myself, I could n't have written my book, or I could n't have gone to sleep, but now everything works perfectly well." He and his wife have wretched health, poor things ! And in spite of their beautiful home must often have rather a hard time. He is very eccentric, disturbed by every noise, and it cannot be altogether easy to have care of such a man. It is a very loving household though Mrs. Clemens's mother, Mrs. Langdon, hardly knows what to make of him sometimes, it is quite evident. Thursday^ April 27, 1 876. — We lunched and at 3 P.M. were en route for Hartford. I slept, and read Mr. Tom Appleton's journal on the Nile, and looked out at the sunset and the torches of spring in the hollows, each in turn, doing more sleeping than either of the others, I fear, because I seem for some unexplained reason to be tired, as Mrs. Hawthorne used to say, far into the future. By giving up to it, however, I felt quite fresh when we arrived, at half-past seven o'clock, Mr. Clemens' (Mark Twain's) carriage waiting for us to take us to the hall STAGE FOLK AND OTHERS 247 where he was to perform for the second night in suc- cession Peter Spyle in the "Loan of a Lover." It is a pretty play, and the girl's part, Gertrude, was well done by Miss Helen Smith; but Mr. Clemens' part was a creation. I see no reason why, if he chose to adopt the profession of actor, he should not be as successful as Jefferson in whatever he might conclude to under- take. It is really amazing to see what a man of genius can do beside what is usually considered his legitimate sphere. Afterward we went with Mr. Hammersley to the Club for a bit of supper — this I did not wish to do, but I was overruled of course by the decision of our host. We met at supper one of the clever actors who played in a little operetta called "The Artful Mendicants." It was after twelve o'clock when we finally reached Mr. Clemens* house. He believed his wife would have retired, as she is very delicate in health ; but there she was expecting us, with a pretty supper table laid. When her husband discovered this, he fell down on his knees in mock desire for forgiveness. His mind was so full of the play, and with the poor figure he felt he had made in it, that he had entirely forgotten all her directions and injunctions. She is a very small, sweet-looking, simple, finished creature, charming in her ways and evidently deeply beloved by him. The house is a brick villa, designed by one of the first New York architects, standing in a lovely lawn which slopes down to a small stream or river at the side. In this spring season the blackbirds are busy in the trees and the air is sweet and vocal. Inside there is /^ 6}^^^ 'Kc^-t^ >t^-<,.^ 1T.^£^-i2L4C^ >s .^1 V /row A/«r^ 7'i£;rt/« /C Z***'^ ^»^34*,ft<^ An autograph copy of Mrs. Fields' s ''''Flarnmantis Moenia Mundi " before its firral revision mind and spirit in which the two friends shared for many years. It is no wonder that Mrs. Fields, who abandoned the regular maintenance of her diary in the face of her husband's failing health, resumed it in later years only under the special provocations of travel. In its place she took up the practice of writing daily missives — sometimes letters, more often the merest 288 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS notes — to Miss Jewett whenever they were separated. These innumerable little messages of affection con- tained frequent references to persons and passing events, but rather as memoranda for talk when the two friends should meet than as records at all resembling the ear- lier journals. Such local friends as Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Bell, in whom the spirit and wit of their father, Ru- fus Choate, shone on for later generations ; Mrs. Whit- man, mistress of the arts of color and of friendship; Miss Guiney, figuring always as "the Linnet," even as Mrs. Thaxter was "the Sandpiper" ; Dr. Holmes, Phil- lips Brooks, "dear Whittier" — these and scores of others, young and old, known and unknown to fame, people the scene which the little notes recall. There are, besides, such visitors from abroad as Matthew Ar- nold and his wife, Mrs. Humphry Ward and her daugh- ter, M. and Mme. Brunetiere, and Mme. Blanc ("Th. Bentzon"), whose article, "Condition de la Femme aux Etats-Unis," in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for September, 1894, could not have been written but for the knowledge of Boston acquired through a long visit to the house in Charles Street. Of the salon of her hostess she wrote: "Je voudrais essayer de pein- dre celui qui se rapproche le plus, par beaucoup de cotes, les salons de France de la meilleure epoque, le salon de Mrs. J. T. Fields." She goes on to paint it, and from the picture at least one fragment — apropos of the portraits in the house — should be rescued, if only for the piquancy conferred by Mme. Blanc's na- tive tongue upon a bit of anecdote: "Emerson realise ^^^^A j ^^^^^Ri^' ^^^H^v '^^^jB ' ^B - li \ SARAH ORNE JEWETT 289 bien, en physique, I'idee d'immaterialite que je me fal- sais de lui. Mrs. Fields me conte une jolie anecdote : vers la fin de sa vie, il fut prit d'un singulier acces de curiosite ; il voulut savoir une fois ce que c'etait le whis- ky et entra dans un bar pour s'en servir : — Vous vou- lez un verre d'eau, Mr. Emerson ? dit le gargon, sans lui donner le temps d'exprimer sa criminelle envie. Et le philosophe but son verre d'eau, . . . et il mourut sans connaitre le gout du whisky." But if the notes of Mrs. Fields to Miss Jewett, and Miss Jewett's own letters to her friend in Boston, do not provide any counterpart to the diaries which make up the greater portion of this book, there are, in the journals kept by Mrs. Fields on special occasions of travel, records of experiences shared by the two friends which should be given here. When they went to Europe together, as early as 1882, the two travellers were happily characterized by Whit- tier in a sonnet, "Godspeed," as her in whom All graces and sweet charities unite The old Greek beauty set in holier light; And her for whom New England's byways bloom, Who walks among us welcome as the Spring, Calling up blossoms where her light feet stray. No effort or adventure seemed to daunt the compan- ions in their journeyings. There was an indomitable quality in Mrs. Fields which Miss Jewett used to as- cribe to her "May blood," with its strain of aboli- tionism, and it showed itself when she accepted with 290 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS enthusiasm, and successfully urged Miss Jewett to ac- cept, an invitation to make a two months* winter cruise in West Indian waters, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich, on the yacht Hermione of their friend, Henry L. Pierce. The diary of Mrs. Fields records discomforts and pleasures with an equal hand, and gives lively glimpses of island and ocean scenes. At Santo Do- mingo, for example, the President of the Republic of Haiti dined on the Hermione on St. Valentine's Day, 1896, and talked in a manner to which the impending liberation of Cuba from the Spanish yoke may now be seen to have added some significance. Anything more interesting than his conversation [wrote Mrs. Fields] would be impossible to find. He ended just before we left the table by speaking of Cuba. He is inclined to believe that the day of Spain is over. The people are already conquerors in the interior and are approaching Havana. Spain will soon be compelled to retire to her coast defenses and she is sure to be driven thence in two years or sooner. Of course, if the Cubans are recognized by the great powers they will triumph all the sooner. "Do these island republics take the part of Cuba?" someone asked. "I will tell you a little tale of a camel," he said, "if you will allov/ me — a camel greatly overladen who lamented his sad fate. 'I am bent to the earth,' he said; 'everything is heaped upon me and I feel as if I could never rise again under such a load.' Upon his i SARAH ORNE JEWETT 291 pack was seated a flea, who heard the lament of the camel. Immediately the flea jumped to the ground. ' See ! ' he said ; * now rise, I have relieved you of my own weight.' 'Thank you, Mr. Elephant,' said the camel, as he glanced at the flea hopping away. The recognition of these Islands would help Cuba about as much," he added laughingly. But the President of Haiti, concerning whom much more might be quoted, is less a part of the present picture than Thomas Bailey Aldrich, of whom Mrs. Fields wrote, February 21 : — T. B. A.'s wit and pleasant company never fail — he is so natural, finding fault at times, without being a fault-finder, and being crusty like another human crea- ture when out of sorts — but on the whole a most re- freshing companion, coming up from below every morn- ing with a shining countenance, his hair curling like a boy's, and ready for a new day. He said yesterday that he should like to live 450 years — "shouldn't you?" "No," I said; "I am on tip-toe for the flight." "Ah," he said with a visible shudder, "we know nothing about it ! Oddly enough, I have strange impressions of hav- ing lived before — once in London especially — not at St. Paul's, or Pall Mall, or in any of the great places where I might have been deceived by previous imagina- tions, — not at all, — but among some old streets where I had never been before and where I had no associa- tions." He would have gone on in this vein and would 292 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS have drawn me into giving some reasons for my faith which would have been none to him, but fortunately we were interrupted. He is full of quips and cranks in talk — is a worshipper of the English language and a good student of Murray's Grammar, in which he faith- fully believes. His own training in it he values as much as anything which ever came to him. He picks up the unfortunates, of which I am chief, who say "people" meaning "persons," who say "at length" for "at last," and who use foolish redundancies, but I cannot seem to record his fun. He began to joke Bridget early in the voyage about the necessity of being tattooed when she arrived at the Windward Islands, like the rest of the crew ! Fancying that he saw a sort of half idea that he was in earnest, he kept it up and told her that the butter- mark of Ponkapog should be the device ! The matter had nearly blown over when yesterday he wanted her suddenly and called, "Bridget," at the gangway rather sharply. "Here, sir," said the dear creature running quickly to mount the stairs. "The tattoo-man is here," said T. B. With all seriousness Bridget paused a mo- ment, wavered, looked again, and then came on laugh- ing to do what he really wanted. "That man will be the death of me — so he will," said B. as she went away on her errand. She is his slave; gets his clothes and waits upon him every moment ; but his fun and sweet- ness with her ^' d'esennuie de service ^^ and more, charges it with pleasantness. T. B. A. is a most careful reader and a true reporter upon the few good books of which he is cognizant. He SARAH ORNE JEWETT 293 has read Froude's history twice through, and Queen Mary's reign three times. He has read a vast number of novels, hundreds and hundreds, — French and Eng- lish, — but his knowledge of French seems to stop there. He also once knew Spanish, but that seems to have dropped — he never, I think, could speak much of any language save his own. Being a master there is so much more than the rest of us achieve that we feel he has won his laurels. On a later journey, in 1898, Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett, visiting England and France in company with Miss Jewett's sister and nephew, were on more famil- iar and more suitable ground — if indeed that word can be used even figuratively for the unstable deck of a yacht. In London there were many old and new friends to be seen. In Paris Mme. Blanc opened for the travellers the doors of many a salon not commonly accessible to visiting Americans. But from all the abundant chronicle of these experiences, it will be enough to make two selections. The first describes a visit to the Provencal poet. Mistral, with his "Boufflo Beel" dog and hat; the second, a glimpse of Henry James at Rye. It was in May of 1898, that Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett, finding Paris cold and rainy, determined to strike for sunshine, and the South. A little journey into Provence, and a visit to Mistral, followed this de- cision. The following notes record the visit. SARAH ORNE JEWETT 295 we did think so. "Weil, tlie little dog has been with us ever since. He possesses the most wonderful intelli- gence and understands every word we say. One day I said to him, 'What a pity such a nice dog as you should have no children !* A few days later the servant said to me, 'Bouffe has been away nearly two days, but he has now come back bringing his wife.' 'x'\h!' I said, *take good care of them both.* In due time this other little dog, his son, arrived in the world,'and shortly after BoufFe carried his wife away again, but kept the little dog. He is a wonderful fellow, to be sure." We went into the house and sat down to talk awhile about poetry and books. There was a large book-case full of French and Provencal literature here, but it was rather the parlor and everyday sitting-room than his work-room. Unhappily, they have no children. Evi- dently they are exceedingly happy together and natur- ally do not miss what they have never had. She opened the drawing-room for us, which is the room of state. It is full of interesting things connected with Provence and their own life, but perfectly simple, in accord with the country-like fashion of their existence. There is a noble bas-relief of the head of Mistral, the drum or "tambour" of the Felibre, or for the Farandole, and, without overloading, plenty of good things — photo- graphs, one or two pictures, not many, for the house is not that of a rich man, plaster casts, and one or two busts, — perhaps the presents of artists, — illustrations of "Mireio," and things associated with their individual lives or the life of Provence. Presently Mistral gave me 296 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS his arm and we went across the hall. Standing in the place of honor opposite the front door and in the large corner made by the staircase, is a fine copy of the bust of Lamartine, crowned with an olive wreath. We paused a moment here while Mistral spoke of Lamartine, and always with the sincere reverence which he has ex- pressed in the poem entitled '' Elegie sur la mort de Lamartine^ . . . The dining-room was still more Provencal, if possible, than the rooms we had visited. The walls were white, which, with the closed green blinds, must give a pleas- ant light when the days are hot, yet bright even on grey days. Specimens of the pottery of the country hang around, decorated with soft colors. The old carved bread-mixing-and-holding affair, which belonged in every well-to-do house of the old time, was there, and one or two other old pieces of furniture, while the chairs, sofa, and table were of quaint shape, painted green with some decorations. The details are all petty enough, but they proved how sincerely Mistral and his wife love their country and their surroundings and endeavor to ennoble them and make the most of them. After sitting at table and en- joying their hospitality, we went out again into the gar- den where Madame Mistral gathered "Nerto" (myrtle) for us, beside roses and other more beautiful but more formidable things. "Nerto"is the title of one of his last books (I hear) and the wife doubtless believed that we should cherish a branch of her myrtle especially in mem- ory of the visit. She was quite right, but these things SARAH ORNE JEWETT 297 which are " to last " — how frail they are ; the things that remain are those which are written on the heart. We cannot forget these two picturesque beings stand- ing in their garden, filling our hands with flowers and bidding us farewell. As we drove away into the sunny plain once more, we found it speaking to us with a voice of human kindness echoing from that poetic and friendly home. In a more personal vein, the address to Lamartine by Mistral expresses better his mood of the afternoon when we stood together looking at the bust and recalling each our personal remembrance of the man. An excursion from London, on September I2, de- voted to a day with Henry James, gave Mrs. Fields a memorable glimpse of the son of an old friend, and an honest pleasure in learning at first hand of his apprecia- tion of Miss Jewett's writings. Monday^ September 13, 1898. — We left London about II o'clock for Rye, to pass the day with Mr. Hejiry James. He was waiting for us at the station with a carriage, and in five minutes we found ourselves at the top of a silent little winding street, at a green door with a brass knocker, wearing the air of impene- trable respectability whicli is so well known in England. Another instant and an old servant, Smith (who with his wife has been in Mr. James's service for 20 years), opened the door and helped us from the car- riage. It was a prettv interior — large enough for ele- 298 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS gance, and simple enough to suit the severe taste of a scholar and private gentleman. Mr. James was intent on the largest hospitality. We were asked upstairs over a staircase with a pretty balustrade and plain green drugget on the steps ; every- thing was of the severest plainness, but in the best taste, "not at all austere," as he himself wrote us. We soon went down again after leaving our hats, to find a young gentleman, Mr. McAlpine, who is Mr. James's secretary, with him, awaiting us. This young man is just the person to help Mr. James. He has a bump of reverence and appreciates his position and opportunity. We sat in the parlor opening on a pretty garden for some time, until Mr. James said he could not conceive why luncheon was not ready and he must go and inquire, which he did in a very responsible man- ner, and soon after Smith appeared to announce the feast. Again a pretty room and table. We enjoyed our talk together sincerely at luncheon and afterward strolled into the garden. The dominating note was dear Mr. James's pleasure in having a home of his own to which he might ask us. From the garden, of course, we could see the pretty old house still more satisfac- torily. An old brick wall concealed by vines and laurels surrounds the whole irregular domain ; a door from the garden leads into a paved courtyard which seemed to give Mr. James peculiar satisfaction ; re- turning to the garden, and on the other side, at an angle with the house, is a building which he laughingly called the temple of the Muse. This is his own place par excel- Lamb House. Rye. Sussex. Reduced facsimile of postscript of a letter from Henry James, expressing the intention, which he could not fulfill, to provide an Introduction to the ''Letters of Sarah Orne Jexvett" 300 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS lence. A good writing-table and one for his secretary, a typewriter, books, and a sketch by Du Maurier, with a few other pictures (rather mementoes than works of art), excellent windows with clear light, such is the temple ! Evidently an admirable spot for his work. After we returned to the oarlor Mr. James took oc- casion to tell Sarah how deeolv and sincerely he appre- ciated her work; how he re-reads it with increasing ad- miration. "It is foolish to ask, I know," he said, "but were you in just such a place as vou describe in the 'Pointed Firs'?" "No," she said, "not precisely; the book was chiefly written before I visited the locality itself." "And such an island?" he continued. "Not exactly," she said again. "Ah! I thought so," he said musingly; and the language — "It is so absolutely true — not a word overdone — such elegance and exactness. " "And Mrs. Dennet — how admirable she is," he said again, not waiting for a reply. I need not say they were very much at home together after this. Meanwhile the carriage came again to the door, for he had made a plan to take us on a drive to Winchel- sea, a second of the Cinq Fortes, Rye itself also being one. The sea has retreated from both these places, leaving about two miles of the Romney Marsh between them and the shore. Nothing could be more like some- thing born of the imagination than the old city of Win- chelsea. . . . Just outside the old gate looking towards Rye and the sea from a lonely height is the cottage where Ellen Terry has found a summer resting-place and retirement. It is a true home for an artist — nothing I SARAH ORNE JEWETT 301 could be lovelier. Unhappily she was not there, but we were happy to see the place which she described to us with so great satisfaction. From Winchelsea Mr. James drove us to the station, where we took the train for Hastings. He had brought his small dog, an aged black and tan terrier, with him for a holiday. He put on the muzzle, which all dogs just now must wear, and took it off a great many times until, having left it once when he went to buy the tick- ets and recovered it, he again lost it and it could not be found ; so as soon as he reached Hastings, he took a car- riage again to drive us along the esplanade, but the first thing was to buy a new muzzle. This esplanade is three miles long, but we began to feel like tea, so having looked upon the sea sufficiently from this decidedly un- romantic point of view, we went into a small shop and enjoyed more talk under new conditions. "How many cakes have you eaten?" "Ten," gravely replied Mr. James — at which we all laughed. "Oh, I know," said the girl with a wise look at the desk. "How do you sup- pose they know?" said Mi. James musingly as he turned away. "They always do!" And so on again presently to the train at Hastings, where Mr. McAl- pine appeared at the right instant. Mr. James'.s train for Rye left a few moments before ours for London. He took a most friendly farewell and having left us to Mr. McA. ran for his own carriage. In another five minutes we too were away, bearing our delightful memories of this meeting. 302 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS Not because they record momentous events and en- counters, but merely as little pictures of the life which Mrs. Fields and Miss Jewett led together, these passages are brought to light. They are the last to be presented here. For more than another decade beyond the summer of 1898, Miss Jewett, sorely invalided through the final years as the result of a carriage accident, remained the central personal fact in Mrs. Fields's interest and affec- tions. Soon after her death, in June, 1909, Mrs. Fields wrote about her to a common friend: "Of my dear Sarah — I believe one of her noblest qualities was her great generosity. Others could only guess at this, but I was allowed to know it. Not that she made gifts, but a wide sympathy was hers for every disappointed or incompetent fellow creature. It was a most distinguish- ing characteristic ! Governor Andrew spoke of Judge B once as 'A friend to every man who did not need a friend' ! Sarah's quick sympathy knew a friend was in need before she knew it herself; she was the spirit of beneficence, and her quick delicate wit was such a joy in daily companionship!" Of this daily companionship an anonymous contrib- utor to the "Atlantic Monthly" for August, 1909, had been a fortunate witness. I need not ask his permission to repeat a portion of what he then wrote : — "There is but one familiar portrait of Miss Jewett. It has been so often reprinted that many who have seen it, even without seeing her, must think of her as im- mune from change, blessed with perpetual youth, with a gracious, sympathetic femininity, with an air of SARAH ORNE JEWETT 303 breeding and distinction quite independent of shifting fashions. "This portrait is intimately symbolic of her work. It typifies with a rare faithfulness the quality of all the products of her pen. In them one found, and finds, the same abiding elements of beauty, sympathy, and dis- tinction. The element of sympathy — perhaps the greatest of these — found its expression in a humor that provoked less of outward laughter than of smiles within, and in a pathos the very counterpart of this delicate quality. The beauty and the distinction may be less capable of brief characterization, but they pervaded her art. . . . "This work of hers, in dealing with the New England life she knew and loved, was essentially American, as purely indigenous as the pointed firs of her own coun- tryside. The art with which she wrought her native themes was limited, on the contrary, by no local bound- aries. At its best it had the absolute quality of the highest art in every quarter of the globe. And the spirit in which she approached her task was as broad in its scope and sympathy as her art in its form. It was pre- cisely this union of what was at once so clearly Ameri- can and so clearly universal that distinguished her stories, in the eyes of both editor and reader, as the best — so often — in any magazine that contained them. "Her constant demand upon herself was for the best. There were no compromises with mediocrity, either in her tastes or in her achievement s. It was the best as- pect of New England character and tradition on which 304 MEMORIES OF A HOSTESS her vision steadily dwelt. She was satisfied with noth- ing short of the best in her interpretation of New Eng- land life. The form of creative writing in which she won her highest successes — the short story — is the form in which Americans have made their most dis- tinctive contributions to English literature; and her place with the few best of these writers appears to be secure. "If the familiar portrait typifies her work, it is equally true to the person herself. The quick, responsive spirit of youth, with all its sincerity, all its enjoyment in friendship or whatever else the day might hold, was an immutable possession. So were all the other qualities for which the features spoke. Through the recent years of physical disability, due in the first instance to an acci- dent so gratuitous that it seemed to her friends unendur- able, there was a noble patience, a sweet endurance, that could have sprung only from an heroic strain of character." For nearly six years Mrs. Fields survived Miss Jew- ett, bereaved as by the loss of half her personal world, yet indomitable of spirit and energy, so long as her phys- ical forces would permit any of the old accustomed exer- cises of hospitality and friendship. The selection and publication of Miss Jewett's letters was a labor of love which continued the sense of companionship for the first two of the remaining years. Through the four others there was a failing of bodily strength, though not at all of mental and spiritual eagerness ; and in her out- ward mien throuQfh all the later years, there was that SARAH ORNE JEWETT 305 which must have recalled to many the ancient couplet : — No Spring, nor summer's beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face. Towards the end there was a brief return to the keep- ing of a sporadic diary. Its final words, written Janu- ary 25, 1913, were these: "The days go on cheerfully. I have just read Mark Twain's life, the life of a man who had greatness in him. I am now reading his *Joan of Arc' I hope to wait as cheerfully as he did for the trumpet call and as usefully, but I am ready." When Mrs. Fields died and the Charles Street door was finally closed, at the beginning of 191 5, the world had entered upon its first entire year of a new era. It is an era as sharply separated from that of her intimate contemporaries, the American Victorians, as any new from any old order. The figures of every old order take their places by degrees as "museum pieces," objects of curious and sometimes condescending study. But let us not be too sure that in parting with the past we have let it keep only that which can best be spared. We would not wish them back, those Victorians of ours. They were the product of their own day, and would be hardly at ease — poor things — in our twentieth-century Zion. Even some of us who inhabit it gain a sense of rest in reentering their quiet, decorous dwelling-places. As we emerge again from one of them, may it be with a re- newed allegiance to those lasting " things that are more excellent," which belong to every generation of civilized men and women. INDEX Page numbers set in bold-faced typs indicate, generally speaking, the more important references to the persons concerned. As a com- plete list of the pages on which Mr. or Mrs. Fields, or both, are mentioned would include substantially the whole book, only a few of the more significant references to them have been selected for inclusion under their names. Adams, Annie, marries J. T. F., ii. And see Fields, Annie. Adams, Charles F., Jr., 278. Adams, Lizzie, 20. Adams, Zabdiel B., 11. Agassiz, Alexander, 256, 257, 258. Agassiz, Elizabeth C, 159. Agassiz, Louis, 48, 93, 105, 141. Alcott, A. Bronson, 63, 72-77, 81, 82, 95. Alcott, Mrs. A. Bronson, 63. Alcott, Louisa M., 73. Alden, Henry M., 57, 89. Aldrich, Lilian (Woodman), 126, 203, 229, 290. Aldrich, Thomas B., 11, 116, 1 26 and «., 127, 197/., 226-229, 290, 291- 293. Andrew, John A., 11, 36 w., 302. Andrew, Mrs. John A., 28, 213, 214. Appleton, Thomas Gold, 115, 116, 126, 152, 154, 209, 211, 212, 213, 216, 246, 253. Aristotle, 133. Arnold, Matthew, 288. Astor, John Jacob, 76, 77. Atlantic Monthly, 6, 13, 14, 107, iii, 191 n., 209, 233, 252, 281, 282, 302. Bacon, Francis, Lord, 112. Baker, Sir Samuel, 149. Barbauld, Anna L. A., loi. Barker, Fordyce, 151, 185. Barlow, Francis C, 61. Barrett, Lawrence, 240. Bartol, Cyrus A., 114, 215, 239. Deal, James H., 143. Beal, Louisa (Adams), 42, 143. Beal, Thomas, 199. Beecher, Henry Ward, 89, 224, 263, 267-269, 270. Bell, Helen (Choate), 98, 143, 288. Bellows, Henry W., 199. Bentzon, Th. See Blanc, Marie T. Bigelow, George T., 36. Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs., 143, 144. Blagden, Isa, 260. Blake, Harrison G. O., 89, 90. Blanc, Marie Therese, 288, 289, 293. Blessington, Countess of, 274. Blumenbach, Johann F., 128, 129. Boccaccio, Giovanni, 58. Booth, Edwin, 28, 198-203, 210, 240-241. Booth, J. Wilkes, 28, 198, 199. Booth, Junius Brutus, 196. Booth, Mary (Mrs. Edwin), 24I. Booth, Mary A. (Mrs. J. B.), 198. Boswell, James, 60. Boutwell, George S., 89. Bradford, George, 81, 82, 90. Bright, John, 177. Bronte, Charlotte, 131, 266. Brooks, Phillips, 36 «., 94, 288. Brown, John, Pet Marjorie, 59. Browne, Charles F., 21. Brownell, Henry Howard, 29. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 270. Browning, Robert, 43, 142, 260, 269. Bruneticre, Ferdinand, 288. Bryant, William CuUen, 239, 2i;7. "Buffalo Bill." See Cody, W.F. Bugbee, James M., 126, Bull, Ole, 225. 3o8 INDEX Burr, Aaron, 270, 271. Butler, Benjamin F., 95. Cabot, Mrs., 236. Calderon de la Barca, Pedro, no. Carleton, G. W., 233. Carlyle, Jane Welsh, 75, 142, 220. Carlyle, Thomas, 73, 75, 79, 89, 141, 142,165, 167, 190, 191, 220. Channing, W. Ellery, 81, 98, 114. Cheney, Arthur, 216. Cheney, Ednah D., 114. Child, Lydia M., 265, 266. Chiids, George W., 64. Choate, Rufus, 288. Cicero, 45. Clapp, Henry, 185. Clarke, James Freeman, 72, 114. Clarke, Sara, 205. Clemens, Samuel L., 232, 233, 244- 257, 305. Clemens, Mrs. S. L., 245 jf. Cobden, Richard, 177. Cody, William F., 294. Colchester (medium), 168, 169, 170. Collins, Charles, 168. Collins, Mrs. Charles (daughter of Dickens), 190. Collins, W. Wilkie, 145, 189. Collyer, Robert, 215. Conway, Judge, 219. Cooke, George W., 120. Crabbe, George, 186. Crawford, Thomas, 264. Crawford, Mrs. Thomas, 264, 265. Cubas, Isabella, 22, 23. Curtis, George William, 14, ;}2, 184, 188. Curtis, Mrs. G. W., 14. Cushing, Caleb, 266, 267. Cushman, Charlotte, 123,219-222. Dana, Charlotte, 161. Dana, Richard H., Jr., 93, 95, 116, 144, 250, 278. Dana, Mrs. R. H., Jr., 92, 93. Dana, Sallie, 161, Daniel, George, 95. Dante, Alighieri, 258. Davidson, Edith, 99. Davis, George T., 19, 20. Dennet, of the Nation, 127. De Normandie, James, 81. Dewey, Dr., 219. Dickens, Bessy, 194. Dickens, Catherine (Hogarth), 160. Dickens, Charles, in America, 138- 188; his readings, 140, 144, 145, 152, 157, 171, 172, 181, 182; letters of, to J. T. F., 150, 191; I -, 32, 33, " 8, 1 19, 1 20, 135-195, 209, 210, 211, 212, 223, 240. Dickens, Charles, Jr., 194. Dickens, John, 175. Dickens, Mary: quoted, 193; 140, 164, 169, 194. Dickinson, Lowes, 232. Dodge, Mary Abigail, I44, 220, 22 1. Dolby, George, 136, 138, 139, 140, 143, 144, 149, 150, 161, 162, 165, 166, 171, 173, 178, 180, 185, 189, 190. Donne, Father, 102. Donne, John, 95. Dorr, Charles, I49, 209. Dorr, Mrs. Charles, 35, 1 49, 150, 209, 215. Dryden, John, 109. Dufferin, Earl of, 163. Dumas, Alex., 21 1. Dumas, A\ex.,Ji/s., 211. Du Maurier, George, 300. Dunn, Rev, Mr., 122. EccE Homo, 167. Eliot, Charles W., 4I. Eliotson, Dr., 182, 183. Ellsler, Fanny, 24. Emerson, Edith, 89, 91. And see Forbes, Edith (Emerson). Emerson, Edward W., 94, 103, 104. Emerson, Ellen, 88, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 103, 104. Emerson, Lilian (Jackson), letter of, to Mrs. F., 88; 61, 62, 89, 94,^95, 99, loi, 203. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, letter of, to J. T. F., 87; 14, 15 «., 24, 61, 62, 67, 73, 74, 79, 83, 84, 86-105, 130, 131, 141, 158, 161, 165, 203, 206, 238, 239, 289. Emerson, W. R., 219. England, Hawthorne on, 59, 60. Everett, Edward, 116, 270, 271. INDEX 309 Everett, William, 270. Every Saturday, 197. Falstaff, Sir John, i 10. Fechter, Charles, 139, 146, I48, I49, i<;9, 179, 190, 191, 209/. Field, John W., 124. Field, Kate, 152, 259, 260, 261, Fielding, Henry, Tom Jones, no, III. Fields, Annie, disposition of her papers, 3; her journals, 4, 12; H. James quoted on, 5 ; marriage, II ; her neighbors, 1 1 ; and Leigh Hunt, 15, 16; letter of Holmes to, on her memorial volume, 50, 51 ; her books, $2> '■> H. James, Sr., quoted on, 85; "Thunderbolt Hill," loi ; her character as re- vealed in her diary, 132-134; her championship of Dickens, 156, 157; the variety of her friend- ships, 196/.; her ode for the in- stallation of the Music Hall organ, 219, 220, 221 ; with J. T. F., visits Mark Twain at Hartford, 246/.; and the cause of equal rights for women, 275, 278 ; her skill in digesting reports of conver- sations, 279, 280; her intimate friendship with Miss Jewett, 281 ff.; her poetry, 285, 286; list of her published prose works, 286 friends of her later years, 288 travelling with Miss Jewett, 289/. and the President of Haiti, 290, 291 ; visits Mistral, 293-297 visits H. James, Jr., at Rye, 297- 301; quoted, on Miss Jewett, 302; her last years, 304, 305 ; the last words in her diary, 301;; her death, 305. James T. Fields : Biographical Notes, 4, 13, 16, 50; Authors and Friends, 4, 31, 86, 87, 105, 129, 134, 279; A Shelf of Old Books, 12 n.; Hawthorne, ^4. Fields, Eliza J. (Willard), u. Fields, James T., early days in Boston, 10, II, 196 ; marries Annie Adams, 1 1 ; their home on Charles St., II, 12, 137, 138, 218, 219; editor of the Atlantic, 14, 58, 67, 87, 107, III, 119, 191 «.,233, 282; as raconteur, 21 ; Holmes quoted on his position in the literary world, 34 ; retires from business, 40 ; H. James, Sr., quoted on, 85 ; his love of the theatre and stage folk, 196, 197; his death, 280; fosters Mrs. F.'s friendship with Miss Jewett, 283. Yesterdays with Authors, 4, 54, .55. 62, 137, 176 «., 190. Fields, Osgood & Co., 10. Fiske, John, 48. Forbes, Edith (Emerson), 91. Forbes, William H., 91. Forrest, Edwin, 207, 218. Forrest, Mrs. Edwin, 218. Forster, John, 154, 160, 163. 171, 213. Foster, Charlotte, 259. Frothingham, Octavius B., 274. Froude, James A., 68, 293. Fuller, Margaret, 24, 239. Fulton, J. D., 122. Furness, William H., loi w.,102 , 103. Garrett (impressario), 214. Gaskell, Elizabeth C. S., 131. Godwin, Mrs. William, 16. Goethe, Johann W. von, WUhelm Meister, 132, 133. Gorges, Sir F., 74. Gounod, Charles, 44. Grant, Julia Dent, 159. Grant, Ulysses S., 59, 262. Grau, Maurice, 222. Greene, George W., 19, 20, 44, 45> 47, 126, 141, 256, 258, 260. Gregory, Lady, 218. Guiney, Louise Imogen, 288. Haiti, President of, 290, 291. Hale, Edward E., 93. Hale, John P., 261. Hallam, Henry, 89. Hamilton, Gail. See Dodge, Mary Abigail. Hammersley, Mr., 247. Harper s JVeekly, 14. Harris, William T., 81. Harte, F. Bret, 117, 233-243. Harte, Mrs, F. B., 239, 240. 3IO INDEX Harvard College, Commemoration Day at, 36 «. Hawthorne, Julian, 15, 144. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, death of, 27, 28,67; letters of, to J. T. F., 54, 55, 56; his last letter, 65-67; 13, 14, 15 and n., 18, 19, 30, 32, 33,54-72,97,105, 127,236. Hawthorne, Sophia (Peabody), let- ter to Mrs. F. on Hawthorne, 70- 72; 61,65,66,67,68,91,144,246. Hawthorne, Una, 15, 97, 221. Hawthorne, E. M., sister of Nathan- iel, 69. Hayes, Isaac I., ^Z-, 34- Herbert, George, 95. Herrick, Robert, 95. Higginson, Thomas W., 114. Hill, Thomas, 92. Hillard, George S., 17, 18, 19, I43. Hoar, Ebenezer R., 37, 90, 91, 141. Hogarth, Georgina, quoted, 193, 194; 140, 155, 165, 195. Holmes, Amelia (Jackson), 30, 34, 39, 40, 41, 51, 153, 203, 213, 214, 221. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, his rela- tions with the Fieldses, generally, 17-52; letters of, to J. T. F., 17, 49, and to Mrs. F., 50 ; 11, 13,54, 90, 94, 96, no, iiiw., 115, 116, 117, 118, 135, 141, 142, 203, 205, 206, 207, 208, 221, 256, 257, 273, 288. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 21, 31. Home (medium), 163, 168. Horace, 238. Howe, Julia Ward, 9,10, 61, 90, 114 and «., 221. Howe, Laura (Mrs. Richards), 150. Howe, Samuel G., 219, 273. Howells, William D., 38, 116, 166. Howes, Miss, 236. Howison, George H., 81. Hunt, Henry, 48. Hunt, Leigh, 15, 16, 58, 122. Hunt, T. Sterry, 199. Hunt, William M., 96, 97-99, 230, 232. Hunt, Mrs. W. M., 96, 98, 222, 230. Hyacinthe, Pere, 44. Ingelow, Jean, 142. Jackson, Charles T., 94 and n. James, Alice, 77, 81, 83. James, George Abbot, 42. James, Henry, Sr., letter of, to J. T. F., 82, and to Mrs. F., 83, 85; 72-85. James, Mrs. Henry, 75, 77, 81. James, Henry, Jr., quoted, 6, 7, 137, 281; letter of, to author, 8, 9; 119, 120,297-301. Jan (Booth's servant), 200, 202. Jefferson, Joseph, 203-208, 247, Jewett, Sarah Orne, her intimate relations with Mrs. F., 28 iff., 302- 304; her early days, 281, 282; her literary work, 282-284; cor- respondence with Mrs. F., 288, 289; H. James on her work, 300; her death, 302; 12, 50. Johnson, Andrew, impeachment of, 159; 261, 262, 263. Johnson, Samuel, 60. Jonson, Ben, 96. Julius Caesar, 45. Keats, John, 43, 68, 206, 207. Kellogg, Elijah, 271, 272. Kemble, Charles, 196. Kemble, Frances Anne, 196, 222, 223, 224. Kennard, Mr., 267, 268. King, Preston, 262, 263. Kirkup, Seymour S., 258. Knowlton, Helen M., 232. Lamartine, Alphonse de, 296,297. Lamb, Charles, 270. Landor, Walter Savage, 259-261. Langdon, Mr., Mark Twain's father- in-law, 245. Langdon, Mrs., 246. Larcom, Lucy, 70. Lathrop, George P., 97. Lathrop, Rose (Hawthorne), quoted, 67«-; 97, 144- Lear, Edward, 280. Leclercq, Carlotta, 216. Lemaitre, Frederick, 178, 179, 180, 211. INDEX 3" Lincoln, Abraham, assassination of, 28, 198; S5, 56,77,262,263. Livermore, Mary A., 275-278. Locke, David R., 23- Longfellow, Alice, 42, 96, 224. Longfellow, Charles, 128, 216. Longtellow, Edith, 42, 213, 214. Longfellow, Mrs. Ernest W., 42. Longfellow, Henry W., 13, 19, 23y 34, 35, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 60 and «., 90, 96, 97, 98, 99, 109, 115, 116, 117, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 141, 144, 152, 153, 159, 160, 161, 172, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212 and «., 213, 214, 215, 216, 222, 223, 224, 243, 256, 257, 258, 273. Longfellow, Mrs. H. W., 55, 223. Longfellow, Samuel, 42, 212 «. Loring, Charles G., 36 «. Lowell, Frances (Dunbar), 123, 124. Lowell, James Russell, letters of, to J. T. F., 107, 108, 112, 113, 120, 141 «. ; 5, n, 33,34, l*^, 36 «., 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 104, 105, 106, 107 ff., 116, 117, 123, 124, 126, 127, 149, 159, 163, 164, 166, 243, 273. Lowell, Mabel, 107, 113, 123, 124, 149. Lunt, George, 214. Luther, Martin, 89. Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord, 168, 1 76,' 1 77. Macready, William, 2I8. Maistre, Joseph de, 221. Mars, Anne F. H., 210, 211. Mathews, Charles, 207. Merivale, Herman, 95. Miller, Joaquin, 43, 126. Milton, John, 74. Mistral, Frederic, 293-297. Mistral, Mme. Frederic, 295, 296, 297. Mitchell, Donald G., 185. Mitford, Mary R., 98. Montaigne, Michel de, 112, 238, 239. Morton, W. T. G., 94 and n. Motley, J. Lothrop, 37. Mott, Lucretia C, 74. Murdoch, James E., 217, 218. Music Hall, Boston, great organ in, 219, 220, 221. "Nasby, Petroleum V." See Locke, D. R. Nichol, Professor, 90. Nilsson, Christine, 214, 224-226. Norton, Caroline (Sheridan), 46. Norton, Charles Eliot, 92, 103, 104, 141, 144, 172, 185, 187. Norton, Mrs. C. E., 163. O'Brien, Fitz- James, 227-229. O'Connell, Daniel, 173, 176, 177. Orsay, Count d', I45. Osgood, James R., 116, 136, 151, 153, 161, 162, 165, 166, 167, 185. Parker, Harvey D., 206. Parkman, Francis, 104, 105. Parkman, Mrs. Francis, 35. Parkman, George, murder of, 153. Parsons, Thomas W., 208, 214. Parton, James, no, in, 232. Peabody, Elizabeth, 82, 119. Pedro, bom. Emperor of Brazil, 127, 128. Perabo, Ernst, 224. Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, 271;. Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard (1868), 36, 37; 92. Phillips, Wendell, 89, 11 4. Phipps, Colonel, 188, 189. Pickwick, Mr., in. Pierce, Franklin, Hawthorne's loy- alty to, 13, 14, 15; 57, 58,67. Pierce, Mrs. Franklin, death of, 57, 58. Pierce, Henry L., 229, 290. Poore, Ben Perley, 266. Pratt, Mrs. Ellerton, 288. Prescott, Harriet (Mrs.Spofford), 58. Putnam, George, 36 n., 213. Putnam, John P., 221. QuiNCY, Edmund, 86, 273. Quincy, Josiah, 85, 275, 276, 277. Quincy, Josiah P., 86, 92, 93. Quincy, Mrs. Josiah P., 92. Quixote, Don, 1 10. 312 INDEX Radical Club, T14. Raymond, John T., 253. Read, John M., 31, 32. Read, T. Buchanan, 44. Reade, Charles, 146. Rip Van Winkle, iii. Ripley, Miss, 88. Ripley, Mrs., 91. Ristori, Adelaide, 222. Rogers, Samuel, 185. Rossetti, Christina, 97 Rowse, Samuel W., 152. Russell, Thomas, 261. Sanborn, F. B., 68. Saturday Club, 104, 105, 116 and n. Schurz, Carl, 266. Scott-Siddons, Mrs., no. Seward, William H., 28, 219, 267. Shaw, Lemuel, 232. Shaw, Robert G., 14, 24. Shelley, Percy B., 16. Sherman, William T., 77. Shiel, Mr., 173, 176. Silsbee, Mrs., 95, 143. Smith, Alexander, 17, 19. Smith, Samuel F., 47. Smith, Sydney, 89, 257. Somerset, Duchess of, 46. Stanley, Edward G. S.S. (afterward 14th Earl of Derby), 173, 174, 175. Stanton, Edwin M., 267. Stephen, Leslie, 95. Sterling, John, 75. Stone, Lucy, 114. Story, William W., 116. Stothard, Thomas, 190. Stowe, Calvin E., 272. Stowe, "Georgie," 38, 39. Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 38, 39, 61, 191 and «., 268, 272. Sumner, Charles, 42, 44, 45, 46, 48, 77, 105, 2i9,25S-267. Taylor, Bayard, 109, 1 10, 1 1 1, 1 16, 117, 118, 119, 228, 266. Taylor, Mrs. Bayard, 109, no, in. Tennent, Sir Emerson, 153. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 254, 279. Tennyson, Lady, 279. Terry, Ellen, 218, 300, 301. Thackeray, William M., -52, -?-) m 154, 266. Thaxter, Celia, 98, 129-131, ic2 154, 288. ^ ' Thompson, Launt, 198. Thoreau, Helen, 62, 74. Thoreau, Henry D., 14, 62, 68, 74, 89, 90. Thoreau, Sophia, 68. Thoreau, Mrs. (mother of H. D.T.). 62,68,74. Ticknor, William D., 63/, Ticknor and Fields, 10. Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 17. Towne, Alice, 45. Towne, Helen, 45. Townshend, Chauncey, 169. Trimble, Colonel, 273. Twain, Mark. See Clemens, Sam- uel L. Upham, J. Baxter, 221 and n. Vaughan, Henry, 74, 81, 95. Viardot-Garcia, Michelle F. P., 225. Victoria, Queen, 187, 188. Vieuxtemps, Henri, 225. Ward, Artemus. .S'^^ Browne, Charles F. Ward, Mary A. (Mrs. Humphry), 288. Ward, Samuel, 90. Warren, William, 203, 205, 206. Washington, George, 259. Wasson, David A., 1 14. Waterston, Mrs., 24. Watts, Isaac, loi. Webster, John W., 153. Whipple, Edwin P., 20. White, Andrew D., 92. Whitman, Sarah, 288. Whitney, Anne, loi, 102, 206. Whittier, Elizabeth, 21:9. Whittier, John G., 39, 40, 68, 70, 114, 129, 130, 131, 161, 222, 244, 288. Willard, Eliza J. See Fields, Eliza J. (Willard). McGrath-Shhrrill Press graphic arts bldg. BOSTON '' -.vi, -'• <0 * » 1 A " \/ % .^^' S^ '% '-ct^'^- •<• ^^ 0^;. ■^^.- 0^ ^^-' ^r. \ ^^^' 1^. V s *^ ?■ ^ ■/■ s "ftf^. 'f c- cov:-;*^^ ^o. V -- ' v; ' // c:- '-r- „c,- x^^-^ V/. 'o ■%^^'^' * v * 'A \^ -/, ,■0- ^^ •^^.- o5 ^-<. * ., ^,.^^ 4 ^0 -7* ■'/■. ,<^-' * •0' s "%4^' ~^1 ,-^^ .^-■ "'^^- %^ 0- >.« X. ,0 ->. '^^' '^^ <^'\ / . . s "^ ,C ' -^ t.,^^ oS ^-<, ■0' . sT ^^•%. x^-.-, -p "5 '/^^ \^*^ ■/>,. ^<^ o 0' s ^^^ %^v>^.y. 1-- i->' i av _.": ■• ^.^-^^ ' oH ^■■ k\- 0>' v^^ -r. '. .-v .0' . ■■ ,v- '-^ o>' •4. ^^ * 1 .-TV ^. 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