charles simmer and his brother george.—edwin p. whipple. james t. fields.—doctor kane.—rev. thomas starr king.—prof. cornelius c. felton.—arthur hugh clough.—frederika bremer.—laura bridgman.
among those who came to “green peace” was charles sumner, my father’s most intimate friend. the great massachusetts senator towered above his fellow-men physically as well as intellectually. he was a man of noble proportions, and his great height and size seemed to correspond with entire fitness to his massive brain and solid mental acquirements. the great dignity of his character and manner made him seem even larger than he really was. i cannot give his exact height, but it was at least six feet two inches. brother harry once said to our younger sister:
“there are two kinds of giants, laura. there are the ogres who eat people up, and there are the harmless giants. now mr. sumner is a harmless giant!”
he was a handsome man, always well dressed and scrupulously exact about his personal appearance. when i first remember him he usually wore drab-cloth gaiters with white-pearl buttons, which gave him a look of immaculate neatness. yet we know he was not a dandy, because mr. longfellow tells us so. a large man—who is necessarily the target for many eyes—should certainly be careful about his appearance. six feet three with breadth in proportion would make a large area of untidiness sad to contemplate! we children, as i have said, considered him as a good-natured giant, but he was not familiar with little people and their ways. we did not have much intercourse with him, save from an admiring distance. but he well understood that children like presents. he brought two dolls for julia and flossy from the anti-slavery fair. i am ashamed to say that, although the younger, i insisted on having the beautiful wax doll dressed in white with “effie” marked on her handkerchief! julia received the companion doll, dressed in black as a nun. she did not compare with effie in beauty.
on a certain evening, as he was going out of the front door of “green peace,” i valiantly called out to him, “good night, mr. sumner.” and a great voice answered me out of the darkness, “good night, child!” he was very careful and exact in his use of english, as became a man of scholarly attainments, and did not like to have other people take liberties with our mother-tongue. thus he rebuked our governess for saying that the clock was out of kilter. there was no such word as kilter, he averred, in the english language. miss seegar was rather indignant at being forbidden the use of this quaint yankee expression; after mr. sumner had gone she took down the dictionary and found that kilter was duly recorded there!
it is evidently one of the many so-called americanisms which are, in reality, words formerly used in england.
he once went away from a party at our house without taking leave of any one. my mother was rather troubled at this, and my father, who had known mr. sumner long and intimately, said, “why, that is sumner’s idea of taking french leave.” whereupon sister julia observed, “i should as soon think of an elephant walking incognito down broadway as of mr. sumner’s taking french leave without being observed.”
of the attack upon him in the senate i shall speak later. suffice it to say here that the intense and prolonged physical suffering caused by this murderous assault was not the only form of political martyrdom which he was destined to endure.
the aristocratic element of boston was, in ante-bellum days, strongly opposed to anti-slavery doctrines and those who held them. charles sumner’s heroic defense of the principles of liberty gained for him social ostracism in his native city. this never fell upon my father, whose work for the public schools, for the blind, the idiots, the insane, and other unfortunates, insured him the cordial good-will of the community, in spite of his anti-slavery activities. it should also be remembered that he did not, like his friend, hold political office. it is sad to recall the unkind treatment of sumner; it is pleasanter to remember that in his later years the great senator was fully appreciated and honored in the city of his birth.
charles sumner had not what is called social talent, and i do not think that he cared much for society. his busy life of constant political activity did not leave him much leisure, and his tastes were those of a scholar and lover of books.
as he grew older and busier he had less time to devote to social functions. but he would show his interest and sympathy on all great festive occasions in the families of his intimate friends by making his appearance among the guests, even though he seldom stayed long.
the gods were ever wont, however, to make brief visits among the children of men—and if charles sumner stayed only fifteen minutes and said only a dozen words, at a wedding or a class-day, we rejoiced that he had been there, and his smile brightened the feast as much as the sun. his smile was one of rare sweetness and beauty; beneath the reserved exterior which distinguished him there beat a warm and true heart. he had, be it said, beautiful white teeth, and my mother remembered with amusement a certain dinner in his younger days when he resolutely refused, for obvious reasons, to eat huckleberry pie.
the reserve and apparent coldness which we new englanders have inherited from our english forefathers—and, owing to the severity of the climate, have been unable to modify—are often a misfortune to their possessor and cause him to be considered as unsympathetic, when he is not so in reality. the great massachusetts senator was a man without guile and of an almost childlike simplicity of nature. his pocket was constantly picked, literally as well as figuratively. he would go to the station to start for washington, and, presto! his pocketbook would be gone. at fairs, he was an easy victim—and at the great fair held in boston, for the benefit of the sailors of the navy, i should be afraid to say in how many raffles he was induced to invest. my contemporaries will remember that we had not then discovered the wickedness of raffles. to have them prohibited by law is a great protection to the modern purse.
while no one could attack a political enemy with greater vigor than charles sumner, he seldom bore personal malice or ill-will. he met in the street, one day, a gentleman, mr. robert c. winthrop, whose political opinions he had, in the discharge of his public duty, vigorously denounced. he held out his hand, and was surprised and pained to have it refused. it may be said in mr. winthrop’s excuse that mr. sumner’s action contributed to his being politely shelved!
charles sumner’s conversation was very interesting and instructive, and he would sometimes pour out very freely the treasures of his well-stored mind. but while one felt that he was a man of learning, he was almost wholly destitute of the sense of humor. this is very evident in the correspondence of the “five of clubs,” the other members occasionally making merry at his expense. who can blame them when dear mr. sumner, in the innocence of his heart, advised his office-boy, a young fellow from the country, to visit mount auburn, boston’s principal cemetery, on the fourth of july?
i had the pleasure of hearing him speak in public, two hours at a time, after the political fashion of that day. that as a young girl i was able to listen so long proves that the speech must have been interesting. the following sketch of him as a public speaker was given me by my mother:
“mr. sumner was a forcible speaker. his custom was to recapitulate the chief points of his discourse, with ever-increasing amplification and emphasis. in this way he established his points in the minds of his hearers, whom he led step by step to his own conclusions. he was majestic in person, habitually reserved and rather distant in manner, but sometimes unbent to a smile in which the real geniality of his soul seemed to shed itself abroad. his voice was ringing and melodious, his gestures somewhat constrained, his whole manner, like his matter, weighty and full of dignity.”
among the many interesting men and women who were guests in the household of my father and mother, none was more amusing than mr. edwin p. whipple, author of character and characteristic men and well known as a lecturer and essayist. he was a homely man, but his homeliness was of an agreeable character. he had large and prominent blue eyes, which gave him somewhat the appearance of a good-natured frog. these eyes seemed to be dancing with fun behind his spectacles. as he was also pitted with smallpox, he could not be called handsome. nevertheless, mr. whipple’s face was an attractive one, and he had an absurd manner of saying funny things which made them doubly amusing.
i remember a picnic at the “glen,” near newport, where he kept us all laughing by his sallies of wit. if any one else said anything funny on this occasion, mr. whipple would gravely feel in his waistcoat pocket and, drawing thence a dime, would offer it to the perpetrator of the joke, saying, “if you’ll let me have that joke i’ll give you ten cents for it.” his connection with the press gave a realistic flavor to this performance.
on a certain rainy evening, when he and his wife were attending one of my mother’s parties, mrs. whipple lingered after the announcement of her carriage. mr. whipple came up to her and said, with a low bow and in a tone of mock gravity:
“madam, stay or go, just as you like, but before you make up your mind you should come to the front door and listen to your coachman, who is blaspheming so that he can be heard all the way up and down blank street.”
mrs. whipple was as handsome as her husband was plain. she was a decided brunette, with black hair and eyes, sweet-tempered and sympathetic, yet not wanting in firmness. she must have been of very vigorous, physical habit, for, meeting a friend in the street, she would grasp her warmly by the hand and detain her in conversation longer than the sharp boston east wind rendered agreeable to one of a chilly disposition. it was mrs. whipple, if i remember aright, who once lay in a stupor during an attack of smallpox. the doctor, supposing her to be unconscious, purred gently that she would not recover. aroused by his words, she proceeded to do so. the same thing happened to one of the idiots under my father’s charge during an attack of the same dread disease. three of them lay in the same room, one being seriously ill, the others not in so dangerous a condition. the first, hearing his companions discuss his probable fate, connected with a tarred sheet and lowering out of the window, roused himself from his lethargy and recovered!
another couple who came often to “green peace” were mr. and mrs. james t. fields. when i can first remember them the latter was still a young woman and very comely. she wore her dark wavy hair in puffs at the side, which later expanded to a size that was no doubt artistic, but not pleasing to the conservative eye of childhood. i did admire, however, her beautiful golden net. mr. fields was a fine-looking man, his long black beard giving him something the look of a jewish prophet. the expression of his face was humorous rather than serious, as i remember it. i saw him, however, in his lighter moods, when he was witty and amusing. the whipples and the fields once made a visit at lawton’s valley, our summer home, where the two humorists led each other on to say one funny thing after another.
mr. fields told a story of a lady who desired to be thought a person of culture, despite the defects in her early education. espying the approaching carriage of certain literary persons, she called out to her son:
“oh, james! there are the so-and-sos driving up. do get out the works of mr. ensign-clompedos and give the place a litt’ry and conversashioshonary appearance!”
in those days of “high thinking and plain living” it was the pleasant custom, at informal dinners, for the host or hostess to peel and cut fruit in slices. these were then handed around the table, each person taking a piece. i remember a dinner at the fields’ house in charles street, where red bananas were served in this fashion. in my childhood they were comparatively rare, costing sometimes fifteen cents apiece!
as ticknor & fields published our mother’s writings, my sister and i were accustomed to go to their well-known corner book-store for our new school-books. my delight in these was connected more with their appearance than with the stores of knowledge they contained. those fresh, new, clean books with their crisp paper well finished at the edges appealed to my childish imagination. did they not preach, too, a lesson of neatness? i am so sorry for the children who, at some public schools, are obliged to use old, worn books! why should we not make learning attractive by clothing it in a nice fresh dress?
doctor kane, the arctic explorer, came at least once to “green peace.” i was so young at the time that i thought, on account of his name, he must be in some way connected with a cane. a small and slender man, he did, as i think, appear with one, and so justify my youthful imaginings. i remember a dinner in the room with the gobelin carpet where rev. thomas starr king, the noted divine, and his handsome wife, were among the guests. mr. king had large white teeth, and wore his brown hair parted far on one side. not long after this time he went to the pacific coast, where his splendid advocacy of the cause of the union had a large share in keeping california loyal. alas! he paid the penalty of over-exertion with his life soon afterward. but his memory is cherished and revered on both shores of our great continent. at the east, the everlasting hills are his monument, for “thomas starr king” is one of the peaks of the white mountain range.
the following letter to my mother explains itself.
san francisco, january 20, 1862.
my dear mrs. howe,—how i long to get back into civilization,—where they speak the english language, raise regiments for the war, and write about lyons looms.[5]
do you know why i have the impudence to write to you? simply for your card photograph and the doctor’s and your autograph under a copy of the “weave no more silks.”[5]
you see how modest my requests are. that quality is a grace that thrives in california air.
you ought not to refuse. i am a missionary and should be encouraged by all good christians.... you are patriotic. i read your glorious verses to a crowded house in san francisco at a festival for volunteers, and the spirit so upheld the reading that the audience were thrilled....
do be gracious!...
love to everybody and to you, if you send the cards, etc.; if not, not.
conditionally your friend,
unconditionally your admirer,
t. s. king.
5. a quotation from mrs. howe’s poem, “our orders.”
prof. cornelius c. felton has already appeared in this eventful history as a member of the “five of clubs.” in addition to being professor of greek, he was for a time president of harvard college.
among his friends he was genial and jolly, with a gift of hearty laughter. “heartiest of greek professors,” charles dickens called him. he was sturdy and thick-set, with close-curling black hair covering his round head. at memorial hall, cambridge, there is a portrait of him in his robes of office. this picture is characterized by due dignity of mien and bearing, but i like best to think of him with those merry eyes gleaming behind his spectacles as his cheery laugh broke upon our ears.
professor felton related to us the story of his visit to the maid of athens, who was no longer young and beautiful as in byron’s day. he was much impressed by the superior quality of her pickled olives, and told us that he longed to repeat the poet’s verses, with a slight change. instead of saying,
maid of athens, ere we part
give, oh, give me back my heart,
he wanted to exclaim,
maid of athens, ere we part,
give, oh, give me a jar of pickled olives!
in her correspondence with my father florence nightingale appeals to him for advice and assistance for the martyrs of the cause of progress, political and religious. one of the latter was arthur hugh clough, the english poet, whom she thus introduced:
embley romsay, oct. 28 (1852).
my dear dr. howe,—i have never thanked you for your most kind and valuable letter about my friend. but herewith comes my friend in person, to profit by that most kind sentence of yours, “do not fail to give him a letter to me.”
his name is arthur hugh clough, m.a. (late fellow and tutor of oriel college, oxford). he was a favorite pupil of dr. arnold of rugby, and was elected tutor of oriel at twenty-two. he has given up very high prospects, because he was unwilling to pledge himself to inculcate the doctrines of the english church. this has stopped his progress in his own country. he comes to seek a more impartial mother in yours.
he is about to marry a very charming cousin of mine—but his untimely integrity has lessened his means, and he is now going to try to make her a position in the new world.
he was professor of english literature at university college, london. he is a first-rate classical scholar; he would undertake to prepare young men for college who are anxious for advanced classical knowledge, and also to teach (or lecture upon) english literature and language.
he is known in england as an author and poet, and has been a contributor to our more liberal reviews.
i have tried to enlist your and mrs. howe’s sympathies in his favour. but, indeed, my dear dr. howe, i know your kindness so well that it seems as if i thought it impossible to trespass upon it....
believe me, with best love to dear mrs. howe and my godchild, yours most truly and gratefully,
florence nightingale.
mr. clough made a visit at “green peace” which i shall never forget, since it produced one of the small tragedies of my childhood.
our house was one of those rambling structures, built at different periods of time, wherein the space is not disposed of to the best advantage. hence, as we were a large family and each of us had a separate room, some one had to be, turned out in order to accommodate mr. clough. he was accordingly established in the housekeeper’s room, and we children were duly warned not to go there, as was our custom. but i forgot this caution, and next morning turned with some difficulty the old-fashioned brass handle of the housekeeper’s door and peeped into the room.
little red riding-hood was not more surprised at the transformation of her grandmother into the wolf than i was at the sudden change which had come over our young and handsome housekeeper. as some one sat up in bed (after the fashion of the wolf in the story) to ask what i wanted, i said to myself, “why, mrs. s—— has grown bald and gray in one night!” then the true state of the case flashed upon my infant consciousness and i went away suddenly and much abashed. it is to be feared that i left the door open.
when i came down to breakfast mr. clough looked up and said, as it seemed to me rather cruelly, “i think that i have seen this young lady before, this morning.”
mr. clough’s poem, “the bothie of toper-na-fuosich,” was republished in this country, and was widely read both here and in england. he was present at one time where some thoughtless young men were amusing themselves with laughing at the new aspirant for poetical honors.
“who is this old clough?” says one.
“i should like to see him,” says another.
after listening to their remarks for some time, the grave, quiet man rose to leave the room, and as he passed the group who were making so merry at his expense he simply said, “the name is clough” [cluff].
frederika bremer, the swedish authoress, visited us when i was a very little child. she traveled extensively in america and related her experiences in homes of the new world. in this she described “the dark, energetic father and two charming little girls, all lilies and roses.” after it had been translated into english, people told us that we had been put into a printed book. our young friends wished that they, too, could have the great happiness of being put into a book, like julia and flossy howe.
miss bremer gave an account of mr. george sumner and his visit to the czar of russia, representing him as an awkward, ungainly youth and making fun of him. he did carry to the czar of russia, be it said in passing, an acorn from the grave of washington. the czar was much pleased and paid the young man a good deal of attention. when charles sumner learned what our young friends had said, he mischievously remarked to his brother, “some people would prefer not to have been put in a book.”
a number of frederika bremer’s books have been translated into english; we read her stories with much pleasure in our school-girl days. the h—— family, the neighbors, the home, are the titles of some of them. her description of swedish family life is delightful.
george sumner, like the senator, was a man of intellectual tastes and possessed a wide knowledge of books. in mid-victorian days there was no complete catalogue of the library in the vatican. some one in rome who was anxious to find a certain volume was referred to “a young american who knows more about the books there than any one else.” this was george sumner. he was one of the habitués of our house. i remember a visit he paid us at lawton’s valley when a lame knee gave him anxiety. we heard him walk heavily and perseveringly up and down his room, in the vain hope of curing it by exercise. one day there was a crash! in the effort to save himself from falling he had pulled over the light iron washstand. when he again visited us my father had him placed, chair and all, in an open wagon that he might enjoy a drive. i last saw him at the massachusetts general hospital when he could move little save his head. thus was a brilliant man in the prime of life turned gradually into a marble statue!
george l. stearns was a striking figure, with his beautiful brown beard, long, soft, and silky as a woman’s hair. he was greatly interested in the anti-slavery cause, and when the civil war came entered the army as a major. he wished to serve without pay, which my father thought a mistake, because an unpaid volunteer might feel unwilling to submit to the regular discipline of the army. it is true that my father had served in the army of greece without pay, but the conditions there were very different from those prevailing in the united states during the civil war.
mrs. stearns was also full of public spirit, although sometimes rather sentimental. she once brought to “green peace” a bunch of nasturtiums of various colors, which were then something of a rarity. apropos of these, she said to my father, who knew nothing of music:
“doctor howe, do not the palest of these nasturtiums remind you of the high notes of the soprano in the opera of ‘semiramide’?”
the persons of note who came to “green peace” could all speak some language—greek, french, polish, german, or italian—if not english.
there was one silent figure, however, who spoke only with her swift-flying fingers. yet her fame had spread over the civilized world. the name of laura bridgman was a household word in the nineteenth century. that a girl, deaf, dumb, and blind from infancy, should be able to communicate her thoughts to others, write, cipher, and study like other children, was thought a miracle. people found it so hard to believe that they came in crowds to see the marvel with their own eyes. so many visitors—eleven hundred, on one occasion—appeared at the weekly exhibitions of the school that it was thought necessary to seat laura in a little enclosure, lest her young head be turned by too much attention.
charles dickens thus saw her. his account of his visit to the school, with a beautiful tribute to my father, is to be found in his american notes. if byron’s helmet was the symbol of the latter’s earlier labors, laura bridgman was the living witness of the success of his later work.
she was often summoned to “green peace” to see foreigners of distinction, as well as to make familiar visits to the household. when i can first remember her she was a young woman in the early twenties. her education had then been completed, but she was allowed to remain at the school, the true home of her spirit. here every one could talk her finger language.
in appearance laura was exquisitely neat. her brown hair was brushed perfectly smooth and braided in a coil at the nape of the neck, thus showing to advantage her shapely head. she had good features and was comely, save for the heavy white scars at her throat made by the disease—scarlet fever—which had deprived her of her senses. green shades covered the sightless eyes.
when sister julia and i were very young we were naughty enough to tease laura. one of us would lead her to a chair in which the other was already seated. when she attempted to sit in it she found the place occupied. another silly joke was to pound with our feet and make such a racket that laura, feeling the vibrations through the floor, would ask us to stop. knowing that she was totally deaf, this seemed to us very amusing. my father’s step she knew at once. i have seen him tiptoe softly into the room where she was seated. she, not to be deceived, sprang up and followed him about the room, he walking always with the same light step and laughingly eluding her. musical vibrations gave her real pleasure. in later years she was delighted with the present of a music-box to which she “listened” by placing her feet upon it!
we early learned to talk with laura. she used the single-handed alphabet, making each letter very carefully for those who had not learned to understand her rapidly. as soon as you recognized the letter you tapped her hand gently as a sign for her to give the next one. when answering, you formed the letters in the hollow of her hand, which partly closed over your fingers while she quickly grasped your meaning. conversation was carried on rapidly with those accustomed to talk with her. she was in the habit of speaking certain words and making some abbreviations, thus saving time. by feeling of the lips and throat of her interlocutor she had learned to articulate certain sounds. if you asked her to rehearse her little vocabulary, she would first spell the word on her fingers and then pronounce it. “doc—doc” was the abbreviation for her beloved “doctor,” as my father was universally called at the institutions under his charge. she had nearly sixty sounds for persons.[6] my father regretted later that he had not taught laura to speak. he was one of the earliest advocates in america of teaching articulation to deaf-mutes. one of his battles royal was with the authorities at hartford, who were much opposed to this system, now the universally accepted one. i remember the visit of a german deaf-mute to my father when i was a child. he arranged that our cook, who was of the same nationality, should have a little talk with the man. when informed afterward that he was deaf she refused to believe it!
6. see dr. francis lieber’s account of laura bridgman’s vocal sounds printed by the smithsonian institution in vol. ii of the smithsonian contributions to knowledge.
