Thursday, March 29, 2018

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Louisa Storrow Higginson, September 1849

Newburyport, September, 1849

This letter opens very much like any other letter, but it has some novel things to say — things which affect Mary's and my own coming days, which are cloud and sunshine as one chooses to see them. We think them sunshine, and so we hope and trust will you, when you hear the whole.

. . . The discontents in the parish, created last winter, slumbering through the summer, but not, as I hoped, dead, have been blown into flames again by the necessity I was under of speaking my mind on Fast Day, and the consequences are a crisis which we were — most happily — ignorant of and have only gradually learned, and leave but one course open for us.

Several of the leading and richest men, who talked of leaving last winter, are resolved upon it now; minor ones propose to follow; and even my friends feel grave when they look forward and fancy a gradual procession of staunch members retiring one by one, leaving at last a dozen come-outers in the gallery and one more in the pulpit. My (masculine) supporters are in a numerical minority and a woeful pecuniary minority, and there is a general opinion that “Mr. Higginson ought to know the state of affairs.” No one was, however, willing to take that office . . . but kind old Mr. Wood with a heart divided between General Taylor and me) came at last voluntarily and told the whole story; which, indeed, had been previously bursting upon us for a day or two.

It was evident to me at once, on cross-examining him, that the case was hopeless; that the other storm had blown over, but this would not. . . .

Well — the end of it is that instead of waiting longer to give my six-months notice, we have resolved to give it .on the anniversary, a week from next Sunday . . . bid adieu to Essex Street, pack our bulky goods in a loft till wanted again, and — now comes the sugar!

Take lodgings at the Mills!

This martyrdom in the nineteenth century, dearest Mother, is a singular thing; and if you had lived in a narrow street for two years, and just come back withal from as many weeks at the Mills,1 you would know how singular. I have no doubt, if you could look into our hearts at this moment, that you would be indignant at us (even you) for not sympathizing sufficiently in our own misfortunes. But sincerely, if you knew how I especially have longed for this release from a life which did not content me; and how unworthy it has seemed of rational beings to continue living in Essex Street when they could live at the Mills; and other such things which are very familiar to us, you would willingly consent to our being, not noble martyrs, but (the much more commonplace character) contented and merry human beings!

For the year to come, at all events, we feel secure. . . . We two can float lightly on the stream; and we are sure of as much money as many laboring families live on, even without doing anything.

Of course I regret the change for the people, for I know how many will feel it. . . . But whatever influence I have had over the young people will be a permanent thing, and I shall be able to renew it hereafter.

. . . After all, what is all I have been telling you but one of the sudden changes of weather to which our climate is liable, and which it requires but a small development of spiritual health to disregard? Mary and I never notice the east wind; why should we notice this? We are safe on the moral side, safe on the material, and why not be contented and happy? We are.
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1 The Higginsons repaired to the refuge at Artichoke Mills, where they lived for two years before going to the next parish at Worcester.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 19-21

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