Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, July 4, 1852

Boston, July 4th, 1852.

Dearest Sumner: — I got your note yesterday, and read most of it to Carter;¹ afterwards I sent it to Parker, to be used with care. I have done what I could in a quiet way to inspire others with the confidence I feel in the final success of your plan. I received this morning a note from Parker (written of course before I sent yours) which I think it best to send you. A wise man likes to know how the wind blows, though he may have determined not to vary his course, even for a tempest. I wrote to Parker saying that he was lacking faith, and I feared beginning to lack charity — things in which he had abounded towards you.

I think the crying sin, and the great disturbing force in the path of our politicians is approbativeness; they let public opinion be to them in lieu of a conscience. So will not you do.

I want you to raise your voice and enter your protest, not because it is for your interest to do so, but for the sake of the cause, and of the good it will surely do. The present is yours, the future may not be; you may never go back to Washington even should you be spared in life and health. Again, it may be imprudent to wait till the last opportunity, for when that comes you may be prostrated by illness. Mann made a remark in one of his late letters about you, which I think I have more than once made to you, viz: that you yield obedience to all God's laws of morality, but think you are exempt from any obligation to obey his laws of physiology. You will have a breakdown some time that will make you realize that to ruin the mental powers by destroying that on which they depend is about as bad as neglecting to cultivate them.

However, what I mean to say is this: that though you would not heed all the world's urging you to speak if you thought it your duty to be silent, yet believing with all your friends that you ought to speak, you must not vista everything, in the hope of doing so at a particular moment, when you may be disabled by sickness.

Downer said to-day: “I don't see how it is to be, yet I have great faith that Sumner will come off with flying colours.” He would say so, even if you were prevented from speaking at all this session, and so should I, but so would few others.

Julia has returned and is well; so are all my beautiful and dear children. We go to Newport next Monday to stay awhile in the house with Longfellow, Appleton, etc.² No news here. Daniel [Webster] is determined to show fight; he has much blood, and it is very black. . . .

S. G. H.

_______________

¹ Robert Carter

² At Cliff House. The party consisted of my father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow and their children, George William Curtis, Thomas G. Appleton, and two or three others.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 382-3

Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, May 19, 1852

Boston, May 19, 1852.

Dearest Sumner: — I wrote you a very hasty note from my office to-day.

Kossuth left us yesterday. At his request I accompanied him to Worcester, and Julia went also, to talk to Madame Kossuth. I know not why, but K—— has given me more of his confidence than any other person here. To the Committee that was formed at his request, he said he should like to have one person appointed to whom he could reveal in confidence so much of his plans and prospects as would show there was reason for hope and for immediate action; and he so plainly indicated me that they insisted upon my being their agent of conversation with him. I have had several interviews with him; he has been here twice, and was to have privately spent the two last days here, but the pressure of business prevented. I am quite overwhelmed by the degree of confidence he has placed in me, and feel keenly the mortification of being unable to do more than guard what he confides to me, and work in a public way for his cause.

Surely he is an inspired man! and he is as gifted in moral qualities as in intellectual powers. I can well understand the enthusiasm that would lead his followers fearlessly to the death at his command. He is the only man to whom my intellect bows quite down. He has done a great work here. The amount of material aid is about $16,000, but that which may be forthcoming in case of need is incalculable. Say what Hunkerdom may, he really made a deep impression on our people, and though there was not much noisy applause, there was deep enthusiasm among our best people. As for the soi disant aristocracy of Boston, though it is of little consequence what they do or say, the truth is that while pretending to ignore him, they felt, and others do too, that he ignored them. They would have opened their salons to him — but they knew he would not enter them. Winthrop is the only man among them who openly upheld him. The Pulskys were everywhere — the Governor [Kossuth] went nowhere! Upon the people of the Commonwealth he left the impression — the conviction — of his being an honest, earnest, eloquent and highly gifted man.

Julia was much with the ladies. I saw them not much. Madame Kossuth, as you know, is an invalid, and nervous; she is not a gifted woman. She brought with her to America some money, and has received some from home since; this she carried about with her, being anxious to invest it, but not daring to trust any one with it; meantime the good Governor kept borrowing from her for Hungary, so she mustered courage and almost with tears put a bag of five hundred eagles ($5,000) in my hands, the day before yesterday, and told me to invest it for her. To-day I got fifty shares of Worcester Railroad for her. She saw and liked good Mrs. Hillard much, but upon Hillard's being proposed to receive the money, she declined, and told Julia she could not trust a Hunker!

We have formed a Committee for Hungarian affairs; S. C. Phillips, Banks, Carter, Wilson, Kellogg, Alley, etc., and shall see what we can do.

I was at Ellen Dwight's¹ wedding this forenoon, a very brilliant party, as the world goes. The bride was really most beautiful, with all that wild fire of her eyes subdued into an earnest seriousness. Twisleton looked anxious and not well. He is nineteen years her senior. I have not seen Felton, nor noticed his letter; it is very long, and has an array of complaints (if I may so call them) against you. I put off the answer as an undesirable thing. I must be true to you and to the right, and by so doing I shall give him offence, mortal I fear; yet I hope not, for with all his faults he is a man to be esteemed.

Julia dined with the Agassiz the other day, and said Felton was even more jovial than in the olden time. Mann is here, not looking well.

Ever faithfully yours,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ She married Edward Twisleton of London, younger brother of Lord Say-and-Sele.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 374-6

Samuel Gridley Howe to Senator Charles Sumner, May 11, 1852

Boston, May 11, 1852.

My Dear Sumner: — I have been somewhat taken up with Kossuth's matters, though I work indirectly and not publicly. The other day he sent a message that he would come out to see me at nine o'clock in the evening. I was unfortunately engaged to a formal dinner party at T. B. Curtis's and could only promise to be at home as near nine as possible; when I got home he had just driven from the door, having stayed a quarter of an hour or so. I followed him to his quarters, and he took me into his chamber, and for two hours discoursed to me as only he can: filling me with increased admiration and love. He extended to me a degree of confidence about his plans which quite amazed me; and humiliated me too, for I felt I could do nothing to make me worthy of it.

Julia has seen much of them en famille, and bears glowing testimony to his gentleness and tenderness in the domestic relations.

As I said to you once before I think, I was glad of an opportunity of making Hillard ashamed (or deserving to be so) of having so easily entertained the belief of Kossuth's want of kindness to his wife.

By the by, H—— wrote some articles in the Courier which you may have seen. The other evening he walked into town from my house with Pulsky and others; and Pulsky, knowing H—— had written the articles, took occasion to riddle and utterly cut them to pieces, as he well could. H—— was silent and opened not his mouth.

Kossuth is really making a very strong impression here, that is in the neighbourhood. Hunkerdom is silent — dumb — angry. I was (mirabile dictul) at Ticknor's the other evening, and was surprised to find how subduedly and quietly they took allusions to the subject. They are wise, and, since fas est ab hoste doceri, I hope to imitate the wise caution when I feel excited and angry.

I had a long talk there with Mrs. Agassiz, and it was mostly about you. I thought it best (or rather I did not think much at all) to try to put her right as to your break with Felton, and to show her that she was blaming you without cause. I told her my mind fully, and spoke of F—— kindly but rather sternly, giving him credit for intentions, but not for actions. The next day, (or yesterday) Monday, came a long letter from F—— in which he paraded in formidable array his charges against you. I shall not trouble you with them now; but perhaps you may be interested in one paragraph, in which he says, as he supposes on good authority, that Fillmore, in answer to a query about how you could seek his hospitalities after denouncing him so bitterly, said, “Mr. S—— seems to like me pretty well; at any rate, by coming to my house he shows he did not believe what he said.” I give you this valeat quantum, — but in confidence. I shall perhaps answer F——’s letter, but more probably see him.

Faithfully yours,

S. G. Howe.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 372-4

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to James T. Fields, January 1862

Dear Friend:

I send the “Letter to a Young Contributor,” which will cover nine or ten pages.

I am sorry to say that this household unites in the opinion that February is a decidedly poor number. Mrs. Howe is tedious. “To-day” grim and disagreeable, though not without power; “Love and Skates” [Theodore Winthrop] trashy and second-rate; and Bayard Taylor below plummet-sounding of decent criticism. His mediocre piece had a certain simplicity and earnestness, but this seems to me only fit for the “Ledger” in its decline. I could only raise one smile over the “Biglow” (“rod, perch, or pole”), but I suppose that will be liked. Whittier's poem is daring, but successful; Agassiz has covered the same ground often. Whipple uses “considerable” atrociously at beginning of last critical notice, and “Snow” has a direful misprint on page 195 (end of, paragraph) — South for Earth. I liked “Ease in Work,” “Fremont and Artists” in Italy.

The thing that troubled me most, though, was the absence of a strong article on the war, especially as January had none. I see men buying the “Continental” for its strong emancipatory pieces, and they are amazed that the “Atlantic” should not have got beyond Lowell's timid “Self-Possession.” For the “Atlantic” to speak only once in three months, and then against an emancipatory policy, is humiliating. Perhaps I ought to have written and offered one, but I could not write when busy about regiments and companies, and after that I supposed you had a press of war matter on hand, as no doubt you did some months ago; but public sentiment is moving fast if events are not, and it is a shame that life should come from the “Knickerbocker” and not from the “Atlantic.” You always get frank criticisms from me, at least, you know.

P.S. I see the papers treat the number well — but so they always do. At the lowest point ever reached by the magazine, just before your return from England, the newspaper praises kept regularly on.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 112-4

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to Louisa Storrow Higginson, July 10, 1859

July 10, 1859

Dearest Mother:

Emerson says, “To-day is a king in disguise”; and it is sometimes odd to think that these men and women of the "Atlantic Monthly," mere mortals to me, will one day be regarded as demi-gods, perhaps, and that it would seem as strange to another generation for me to have sat at the same table with Longfellow or Emerson, as it now seems that men should have sat at table with Wordsworth or with Milton. So I may as well tell you all about my inducting little Harriet Prescott into that high company.

She met me at twelve in Boston at Ticknor's and we spent a few hours seeing pictures and the aquarial gardens; the most prominent of the pictures being a sort of luncheon before our dinner; viz., Holmes and Longfellow in half length and very admirable, by Buchanan Read (I don't think any previous king in disguise ever had his portrait so well painted as this one, at any rate); also, by the same, a delicious painting of three Longfellow children — girls with their mother's eyes and Mary Greenleaf's coloring, at least three different modifications of it. . . .

In the course of these divertisements we stopped at Phillips's and Sampson's, where we encountered dear, dark, slender, simple, sensitive Whittier, trying to decide whether to "drink delight of battle with his peers" at the dinner-table, or slide shyly back to Amesbury in the next train. To introduce him to Harriet was like bringing a girl and a gazelle acquainted; each visibly wished to run away from the other; to Whittier a woman is a woman, and he was as bashful before the small authoress as if she were the greatest. Cheery John Wyman was persuading him to stay to dinner, and on my introducing him to my companion turned the battery of his good-nature upon her, pronouncing her story the most popular which had appeared in the magazine — “Oh, sir,” she whispered to me afterwards, “he spoke to me about my story — do you suppose anybody else will? I hope not.”

Duly at three we appeared at the Revere House. You are to understand that this was a special festival — prior to Mrs. Stowe's trip to Europe — and the admission of ladies was a new thing. Harriet was whirled away into some unknown dressing-room, and I found in another parlor Holmes, Lowell, Longfellow, Whipple, Edmund Quincy, Professor Stowe, Stillman the artist, Whittier (after all), Woodman, John Wyman, and Underwood. When dinner was confidentially announced, I saw a desire among the founders of the feast to do the thing handsomely toward the fair guests, and found, to my great amusement, that Mrs. Stowe and Harriet Prescott were the only ones! Nothing would have tempted my little damsel into such a position, I knew; but now she was in for it; to be handed in to dinner by the Autocrat himself, while Lowell took Mrs. Stowe I Miss Terry was at Saratoga and Mrs. Julia Howe suddenly detained; so these were alone. But how to get them downstairs — send up a servant or go ourselves? — that is, were they in a bedroom or a parlor; an obsequious attendant suddenly suggested the latter, so Lowell and I went up. In a small but superb room the authoress of “Uncle Tom” stood smoothing her ample plumage, while the junior lady hovered timidly behind. . . . Mrs. Stowe was quietly dressed in a Quakerish silk, but with a peculiar sort of artificial grape-leaf garland round her head which I could not examine more minutely; she looked very well, but I thought Harriet looked better; she had smoothed down her brown .curls, the only pretty thing about her, except a ladylike little figure, robed in the plainest imaginable black silk. . . .

Down we went: Dr. Holmes met us in the entry; each bowed lower than the other, and we all marched in together. Underwood had wished to place Edmund Quincy by Harriet, at his request, she being on Dr. Holmes's right — the Autocrat's right, think of the ordeal for a humble maiden at her first dinner party! but I told him the only chance for her to breathe was to place me there, which he did. On Dr. Holmes's left was Whittier, next, Professor Stowe, opposite me, while Mrs. S. was on Lowell's right at the other end.

By this lady's special stipulation the dinner was teetotal, which compulsory virtue caused some wry faces among the gentlemen, not used to such abstinence at “Atlantic” dinners; it was amusing to see how they nipped at the water and among the ban mots privately circulated thereupon, the best was Longfellow's proposition that Miss Prescott should send down into her Cellar for some wine, since Mrs. Stowe would not allow any abovestairs! This joke was broached early and carefully prevented from reaching the ears of either of its subjects, but I thought it capital, for you remember her racy description of wine, of which she knows about as much as she does of French novels, which I find most people suppose her to have lived upon — she having once perused “Consuelo”!

Little Dr. Holmes came down upon her instantly with her laurels. “I suppose you meet your story wherever you go,” said he, “like Madam d'Arblay" (and indeed the whole thing reminded me of her first introductions into literary society). . . . I seized the first opportunity to ask whether she and Mrs. Stowe had any conversation upstairs. “Yes,” said she meekly; “Mrs. Stowe asked me what time it was and I told her I didn't know.” There's intellectual intercourse for a young beginner! . . .

When the wife of Andrew Jackson Davis, the seer, was once asked if her husband, who was then staying at Fitzhenry Homer's, was not embarrassed by being in society superior to that in which he was trained, she replied indignantly that her husband, who was constantly in the society of the highest angels, was not likely to be overcome by Mrs. Fitzhenry Homer. And when I reflected on the entertainments which were described in “In a Cellar,” I felt no fear of Harriet's committing any solecism in manners at an “Atlantic” dinner, which she certainly did not, though a little frightened, occasionally, I could see, at the obsequiousness of the waiters and the absurd multiplicity of courses. . . .

I don't care so very much for " Atlantic " dinners — Professor Felton says they are more brilliant than London ones, but I think that Mary and I get up quite as good ones in Worcester — but Dr. Holmes is always effervescent and funny, and John Wyman is the best story-teller the world ever saw, and indeed everybody contributed something. The best thing Holmes said was in discoursing on his favorite theory of races and families. “Some families,” he said, “are constitutionally incapable of doing anything wrong; they try it as boys, but they relapse into virtue; as individuals, they attempt to do wrong, but the race is too strong for them and they end in pulpits. Look at the Wares, for instance; I don't believe that the Wares fell in Adam!”

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 106-10

Samuel Gridley Howe to Horace Mann, January 21, 1852

Boston, January 21st, 1852.

My Dear Mann: — It seems an age since I have seen you and long since I have had a word about you. There was a saying about “icicles in breeches” reported of some member of the House, and of course we knew it was aut Mann aut Diabolus who originated it. Was there never any report of your remarks upon that occasion? if there was pray send it to me.

I have little to say to you that will be new or interesting. Of matters personal — first and foremost, my babies are well and beautiful and good; I hope yours are ditto. These little banyan branches of ours that are taking root in the earth keep us tied to it, and keep us young also. My wife is well; we are passing the winter at South Boston; and between Blind and Idiots and my chicks, the time flies rapidly away.

I have luckily secured Dr. Seguin, formerly the life and soul of the French school for idiots. . . .

As to politics, I know little of them. Alley¹ was in here just now and asked me what I thought of the present position of the Free-soil party; I replied that in my opinion it was so much diluted that it would not keep; that the most active Dalgetties had got comfortably placed in office, and did not trouble themselves much about Free-soil; that at the State House, among the Coalitionists, the first article of the creed was preservation and continuation of the Coalition as a means of retaining power — and that the 39th or 339th was Free-soil — just enough to satisfy outside impracticables like myself: in a word we were sold. He laughed and said — “You are more than half right.”

Alley is shrewd and honest, I think. Boutwell goes in for Davis's place [in the Senate] and will have to fight with Rantoul for it.

I told I. T. Stevenson the other day that there was one man whom the Lord intended to lift up to the State House and into the Gubernatorial Chair, in his own good time, and that was you. He replied he did not doubt the intention, but that you had been doing everything in your power to defeat it.

With kind regards to Mrs. M—.

Ever yours,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ John B. Alley of Lynn, afterwards Congressman.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 361-3

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, September 7, 1850

Marienberg, Boppart, Sept. 7, '50.

My Dear Sumner: — Here I am at last where I ought to have been two months ago. This is a most lovely place, and Julia and I have been enjoying walks upon the banks of the Rhine, and rambles upon the hillsides, and musings among the ruins, and jaunts upon the waters as we have enjoyed nothing since we left home. We could well spend a whole summer between Coblentz and Mayence and not exhaust all the resources of the country. It is well said that no one sees the Rhine who only sails up and down the stream in a steam-boat. Yesterday we drove from this to the St. Goar; explored the vast mines of the Rheinfels; crossed over and clambered up to the picturesque castle nicknamed the Cat, and wandered about in ravines and valleys which are now filled with the clustering vines.

Though I have visited the Rhine twice before and explored some of the ruins, I never had before a sense of the exquisite charm of the scenery, simply because I was always in a hurry. This is my besetting sin, you know. Now I have time enough; I take my early bath, and then with Julia wander off to some picturesque spot and enjoy the changing beauties of the scene to my heart's content. I return in time for my evening bath, and so the days go by. I have been here about a week.

As for the Water Cure, I do not think much of it; the water is not the best; not so good I think as that of Brattleboro, and as for the physician he is nothing. However, as I am doing pretty well here I shall bide the arrival of Crawford¹ and his party and go on with them to Basle, perhaps to Geneva. Thence they will go to Lyons, Marseilles and Rome. Julia will accompany them, and I shall turn my face westward. I hope to sail from Liverpool on the 5th October at the latest, possibly a week earlier, so as to be back at my post at the end of my four months' furlough.

We have been long without American news; I am anxiously expecting our budget. The 30th ult. was a sad day to me. I could not by any effort keep my thoughts from Boston — the jail — the wretched criminal, and the dreadful and disgraceful scene there enacting.² I say disgraceful, without pretending to decide whether the time has arrived when we may safely do away with capital punishment — if we cannot it is to our disgrace. You and all Boston must have suffered dreadfully: whither could you fly to avoid thoughts of the scene, if one so far away as I was could not keep it out of mind? There was a terrible fascination about it: I calculated the difference of time, and — supposing the execution would take place between twelve and one o'clock at Boston, which would be between five and six here — I hurried up and down the streets until long past the hour and then went to dinner with what appetite I could.

I have nothing special to say touching our personnel. Julia and the children have been in the enjoyment of perfect and uninterrupted health: mine has been very precarious; sometimes I have been pretty well — then down at zero again. I trust that my brain at least has got rested, and that when I return to regular hours, regular habits, pure water and plain roast beef I shall be able to put on my harness, and at least die with it on my back.

Remember me kindly to all friends; tell Longfellow we think often of him and speak of him in our walks: when we come to a spot of choice beauty we say, no doubt Longfellow has often clambered up and rested here. Would he were with us to point out the beauties which a poet's eye so quickly sees!

Adieu, dear Sumner. I long much to see you and be with you; I hope (selfishly) you will not be engaged this coming winter.

Ever thine,

s. G. H.

_______________

¹ Thomas Crawford, the American sculptor, who married Louisa Ward, my mother's sister.

² The execution of Dr. Webster, a professor in Harvard, for the murder of Dr. Parkman

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 323-5

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, August 11, 1850

London, Aug.11, '50.

My Dear Sumner: — At last we have done with England, and go to Paris to-morrow morning, where we shall join the girls.¹ I have attended the meeting of the British-Association (saving the two first days) and Julia has been spending some time with the Nightingales at Lea Hurst in Derbyshire.

As touching the Association, it was a failure as measured by my anticipations. There were over one thousand members, and yet only a score or so of really eminent men. Brewster, Sedgwick, Owen, Carpenter, Chambers, Murchison, Mantell, &c., &c.

The section I attended was that of Physiology as a subsection of Statistics. A very great interest was excited by Dr. Carpenter's² showing the entire and perfect connection and dependence of mental manipulation upon corporeal conditions. He approached it cautiously, but not so cautiously as not to alarm the divines and metaphysicians, who flared up at once and brought on a most animated and interesting debate. You never saw such a flurry among white neck-cloths. The new professor of metaphysics in the university and his brethren from Glasgow flew to the assault, and assailed Carpenter, who defended his ground, and even gained new ground from his adversaries. He is a man of extraordinary power and learning, and one of the best disputants I ever heard; ever good-natured, cool and collected, and yet correct and impressive. He has a most extraordinary head; very like Scott's; less veneration, ideality and wonder, with a more active temperament and better moral development. At the age of thirty-eight he has put himself at the head, the very head, of British physiologists, and among the foremost in the world. In his debate he appealed to me, quoted my idiots and Laura (he has my reports more at his fingers' ends than I have). He invited me to get up a paper; I tried, but, under the excitement, and in my exhausted state, the pumps sucked; I only made myself ill and effected nothing. Oh! for Parker's brain and his chest under it.

I have been shocked and grieved at the news of the dreadful storm on our coast which carried such desolation to hundreds of households, and to yours, my dear Sumner,³ among the number. The report here was that George Sumner was lost: it is not so I presume.

Ever and ever yours,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ My mother's sisters.

² Dr. William B. Carpenter.

³ Sumner's brother Horace was lost at sea in this storm.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 320-2

Samuel Gridley Howe to Theodore Parker, July 5, 1850

London, July 5th, 1850.

My Dear Parker: — We have been here in this great maelstrom for nearly a week. On entering it and driving on, for miles and miles, through its streets and squares and parks, all hedged in by stores and houses and palaces, and thronged by thousands and hundreds of thousands of men and women, riding or walking, rushing or lounging, labouring or idling, we had the usual feeling of the utter insignificance of the individual in the presence of the mighty mass of the living race. What were we to London? But turning to our little boy, who was sitting and playing with the tassels of the carriage, we had another feeling: the insignificancy of the mass compared to the individual. What is London to Samuel South Boston?¹

We have already seen something of life in London; our former acquaintance with some of the big (hum) bugs saving us the usual loss of time in getting into the charmed circle. I was before painfully impressed with the hollowness, the coldness, the selfishness and the sin which pervades high life here; and the pain is more acute now that I have a more vivid perception of the cruel injustice to the masses of the people, upon whose suffering bodies the superstructure of fashion and rank is raised. The inequalities of wealth, of social advantages and of domestic servitude are bad enough with us, but here they are dreadful, and as the French say, “Ils sautent aux yeux” at every step you take. Talk about negro slavery! talk about putting iron collars around serfs' necks and stamping them with their owners' names! what are these to taking grown-up men, decent, intelligent, moral men, dressing them like monkeys, with green coats, plush breeches and cocked hats, powdering their heads, and then sticking them up behind your carriage, two or three in a row, — not to do you any service, — not the slightest, not even to open your coach door, for one could do that, — but just to show them off as your serfs, and make your neighbours die with envy because you have the power to commit more sin against humanity than they have! I have no stomach to eat a dinner after having been ushered into the house through a double row of powdered, wigged, liveried lackeys, and sitting down in a chair with half a dozen guests and finding half a dozen men to wait upon them; give me rather brown bread on a wooden platter than turbot &c. off golden plates.

But here I am interrupted by Twisleton,² who has come to carry us off to the Exhibition, so I must close and trust to luck for finishing what I have to say in a postscript; if that does not get written, good-bye.

Ever yours,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ At my brother Henry's birth, Theodore Parker said to my father, “as yon called Julia ‘Romana,’ because she was born in Rome, so you ought to call this boy ‘Sammy South Boston.’”

The boy was named Henry Marion for my mother's two brothers, but my father never forgot Mr. Parker's suggestion, and used often to speak of himself as Samuel South Boston.

² The Hon. Edward Twisleton, brother of Lord Say-and-Sele.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 313-4

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: October 6, 1865

Much excited about plans and prospects. Chev has bought the house in Boylston Place.¹ God grant it may be for the best. Determine to have classes in philosophy, and to ask a reasonable price for my tickets. . . .

The Sunday's devotion without the week's thought and use is a spire without a meeting-house. It leaps upward, but crowns and covers nothing.

I have too often set down the moral weight I have to carry, and frisked around it. But the voice now tells me that I must bear it to the end, or lose it forever.

_______________

¹ No. 19.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 231

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: September 10, 1865

. . . Read Kant on state rights. According to him, wars of conquest are allowable only in a state of nature, not in a state of peace (which is not to be attained without a compact whose necessity is supreme and whose obligations are sacred). So Napoleon's crusade against the constituted authority of the European republic was without logical justification, — which accounts for the speedy downfall of his empire. What he accomplished had only the subjective justification of his genius and his ambition. His work was of great indirect use in sweeping away certain barriers of usage and of superstition. He drew a picture of government on a large scale and thus set a pattern which inevitably enlarged the procedures of his successors, who lost through him the prestige of divine right and of absolute power. But the inadequacy of his object showed itself through the affluence of his genius. The universal dominion of the Napoleon family was not to be desired or endured by the civilized world at large. The tortoise in the end overtook the hare, and slow, plodding Justice, with her loyal hack, distanced splendid Ambition mounted on first-rate ability, once and forever. . . .

To Zion church, to hear —— preach. Text, “Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things.” Sermon as far removed from it as possible, weak, sentimental, and illiterate. He left out the “d” in “receivedst,” and committed other errors in pronunciation. But to sit with the two aunts¹ in the old church, so familiar to my childhood, was touching and impressive. Hither my father was careful to bring us. Imperfect as his doctrine now appears to me, he looks down upon me from the height of a better life than mine, and still appears to me as my superior.

A little nervous about my reading. Reached Mrs. [Richard] Hunt's at twelve. Saw the sweet little boy. Mrs. Hunt very kind and cordial. At one Mr. Hunt led me to the studio which I found well filled, my two aunts in the front row, to my great surprise; Bancroft, too, quite near me. I shortened the essay somewhat. It was well heard and received. Afterwards I read my poem called “Philosophy,” and was urged to recite my “Battle Hymn,” which I did. I was much gratified by the kind reception I met with and the sight of many friends of my youth. A most pleasant lunch afterwards at Mrs. Hunt's, with Tweedys, Tuckermans, and Laura.

I see no outlook before me. So many fields for activity, but for passivity, which seems incumbent upon me, only uselessness, obscurity, deterioration. Some effort I must make.

_______________

¹ Mrs. Francis and Mrs. McAllister.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 229-31

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: August 23, 1865

Rights and duties are inseparable in human beings. God has rights without duties. Men have rights and duties. If a slave have not rights, he also has not duties. . . .

With the girls to a matinee at Bellevue Hall. They danced and I was happy.

My croquet party kept me busy all day. It was pleasant enough. . . .

. . . “My peace I give unto you” is a wonderful saying. What peace have most of us to give each other? But Christ has given peace to the world, peace at least as an ideal object, to be ever sought, though never fully attained.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 229

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: Wednesday, June 21, 1865

Attended the meeting at Faneuil Hall, for the consideration of reconstruction of the Southern States. Dana made a statement to the effect that voting was a civic, not a natural, right, and built up the propriety of negro suffrage on the basis first of military right, then of duty to the negro, this being the only mode of enabling him to protect himself against his late master. His treatment was intended to be exhaustive, and was able, though cold and conceited. Beecher tumbled up on the platform immediately after, not having heard him, knocked the whole question to pieces with his great democratic power, his humor, his passion, and his magnetism. It was Nature after Art, and his nature is much greater than Dana's art.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 226

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: May 13, 1865

Worked much on Essay. . . . In the evening said to Laura: “Jeff Davis will be taken tomorrow.” Was so strongly impressed with the thought that I wanted to say it to Chev, but thought it was too silly.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 222

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: May 14, 1865

The first thing I heard in the morning was the news of the capture of Jeff Davis. This made me think of my preluding the night before. . . .

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 222

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: April 27, 1865

. . . heard of Wilkes Booth's death — shot on refusing to give himself up — the best thing that could have happened to himself and his family.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 221

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: Wednesday April 19, 1865

The day of President Lincoln's funeral. A sad, disconnected day. I could not work, but strolled around to see the houses, variously draped in black and white. Went to Bartol's church, not knowing of a service at our own. Bartol's remarks were tender and pathetic. I was pleased to have heard them.

Wrote some verses about the President — pretty good, perhaps, — scratching the last nearly in the dark, just before bedtime.

This is the poem called “Parricide.” It begins: —

O'er the warrior gauntlet grim

Late the silken glove we drew.

Bade the watch-fires slacken dim

In the dawn's auspicious hue.

Staid the armed heel;

Still the clanging steel;

Joys unwonted thrilled the silence through.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 221

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: Saturday April 15, 1865

A black day in history, though outwardly most fair. President Lincoln was assassinated in his box at the theatre, last evening, by J. Wilkes Booth. This atrocious act, which was consummated in a very theatrical manner, is enough to ruin not the Booth family alone, but the theatrical profession. Since my Sammy's death, nothing has happened that has given me so much personal pain as this event. The city is paralyzed. But we can only work on, and trust in God.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 220

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: Monday, April 3, 1865

. . . . Richmond was taken this morning. Laus Deo!

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 219

Diary of Julia Ward Howe: April 10, 1865

Maud's boots, $3.00, Vegetables, .12, Bread, .04 . . . Ribbons for victory, .40. To-day we have the news of Lee's surrender with the whole remnant of his army. The city is alive with people. All flags hung out — shop windows decorated — processions in the street. All friends meet and shake hands. On the newspaper bulletins such placards as “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” “Thanks be to God!” We all call it the greatest day of our lives.

Apples, half-peck, .50.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards & Maud Howe Elliott, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, Large-Paper Edition, Volume 1, p. 219-20