Diary of Lucy Larcom, September 5, 1861

Why do I not love to be near the sea better than among the mountains? Here is my home, if birthplace makes home. But no, it is not my natural preference; I believe I was born longing after the mountains. And rivers and lakes are better to me than the ocean. I remember how beautiful the Merrimac looked to me in childhood, the first true river I ever knew; it opened upon my sight and wound its way through my heart like a dream realized; its harebells, its rocks, and its rapids, are far more fixed in my memory than anything about the sea. Yet the vastness and depth and the changes of mist and sunshine are gloriously beautiful; I know and feel their beauty. Still, I admire it most in glimpses; a bit of blue between the hills, only a little more substantial than the sky, and a white sail flitting across it; or when it is hightide calm, — one broad, boundless stillness, then there is rest in the sea, but it never rests me like the strong silent hills; they bear me up on their summits into heaven's own blue eternity of peace. But is it right to wrap one's own being in this mantle of peace, while the country is ravaged by war? — its garments rolled in blood, brother fighting against brother to the death? The tide of rebellion surges higher and higher, and there is no sadder proof that we are not the liberty-loving people that we used to call ourselves, than to learn that there are traitors in the secret councils of the nation, in forts defended by our own bravest men ; among women, too: "Sisters! oh, Sisters! Shame o'ladies!" A disloyal woman at the North, with everything woman ought to hold dear at stake in the possible fall of this government, — it is too shameful! I hope every one such will be held in "durance vile" until the war is over.

But will it end until the question is brought to its true issue, — liberty or slavery? I doubt it: and I would rather the war should last fifty years, than ever again make the least compromise with slavery, that arch-enemy of all true prosperity, that eating sin of our nation. Rather divide at once, rather split into a thousand pieces, than sink back into this sin!

The latest news is of the capture of the Hatteras Forts, a great gain for us, and a blight to privateering at the South; — with a rumor of "Jeff Davis's" death, which nobody believes because it is so much wished. Yet to his friends he is a man, and no rebel. War is a bitter curse, — it forbids sympathy, and makes us look upon our enemies as scarcely human; and we cannot help it, when our foes are the foes of right.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 100-2

Diary of Lucy Larcom, September 8, 1861

Norton. Am I glad for trials, for disappointments, for opportunities for self-sacrifice, for everything God sends? Ah! indeed I do not know! How many times, when we say, "Try me, and know my heart," the answer is, “Ye know not what ye ask!" And I know not why, in some states of mind and body, what seems a very little trouble (or would, if told another), should be so oppressive.

But "little," and "great," in the world's vocabulary, are very different terms from what they are in individual experience; and submission, and grateful acquiescing obedience to divine will, are to be learned by each in his own capacity. Two weeks ago, I was saying over to myself, every day, as if it were a new thought, Keble's lines,

"New treasures still, of countless price,

God will provide for sacrifice."

And as those words kept recurring, as if whispered by a spirit, I thought I should be glad to have my best treasures to give for sacrifice, to make others happy with what was most precious to me. And as my way seemed uncertain, and for a day or two I knew not whether to move or to sit still, I said, "Lead me! Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be unto me according to Thy will, — only let me do nothing selfishly." And the answer came in the withdrawal of a blessing from me; no doubt with purposes of greater blessing to some one, somewhere and somehow; and I am only half reconciled as yet. Shall I ever believe that God knows best, and does what is best for me, and for us all? It is easy enough in theory, but these great and little trials tell us the truth about ourselves, show us our insincerity. And now I close this record, which has been my nearest companion for so many months. Esther is gone. Is there any friend who cares enough for me just as I am, to keep it in memory of me? Or had I better bury it from my own eyes and all others'? It may be good for me to read the record of myself as I have been, — cheerful or morbid, — and of what I have read, thought, and done, wisely or unwisely. The "Country Parson" thinks a diary a good thing; and I do too, in many ways, but I would rather write for a friend's kindly eyes than for my own: even about myself. Therefore letters are to me a more genial utterance than a journal, and I would write any journal as if for some one who could understand me fully, love me, and have patience with me through all. I do not know if now there is any such friend for me; yet dear friends I have, and more and more precious to me, every year. If these were my last words, I would set them down as a testimony to the preciousness of human friendships; dearer and richer than anything else on earth. By them is the revelation of the divine in the human; by them heaven is opened, truth is made clear, and life is worth the living. So have I been blessed, drawn heavenward by saintly messengers in the garb of mortality. So shall it be forever, for true love is — eternal, it is life itself.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 102-4

Diary of Lucy Larcom, September 12, 1861

Is it always selfish to yield to depression? Can one help it, if the perspective of a coming year of lonely labor seems very long? No. I shall not be alone; I shall feel the sympathy of all the good and true, though apart from them; and though I cannot come very near to any under this roof, yet to all I can come nearer than I think I can. And by and by these strange restless yearnings will be stilled; I shall quiet my soul in the peace of God. He has said, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee!" Oh! what is any woman's life worth without the friendship of the One ever near, the only divine?

Yes, I will make my work my friend. My trials, my vexations, my cares, shall speak good words to me, and I will not blind my eyes to the beauty close at hand, because of the lost glory of my dreams. I wish I could be more to all these young glad beings, — it is not in me to touch the chords of many souls at once, but I will enlarge my sympathies.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 104-5

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 5, 1861

This first week of October, this month of months, shall not pass without some record of its beauty. Norton woods and Norton sunsets are the two redeeming features of the place; as its levelness is its bane. What is it in us that refuses to love levels? Is it that there is no searching and toiling for anything, up cool heights and down in sheltered hollows?

These splendidly tinted maples before my window would be a hundred-fold more splendid if lifted up among the hemlocks and pines of the mountainsides. Oh! how magnificent those New Hampshire hills must be now, in the sunset of the year!

The place is a level, and boarding-school life is a most wearisome level to me, yet flowers spring up, and fruits grow in both. We are to welcome "all that makes and keeps us low;" yet it seems to me as if it would be good for me to ascend oftener to the heights of being; I fear losing the power and the wish to climb.

Let us say we are struggling to put down slavery, and we shall be strong.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 105

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 8, 1861

Yesterday two letters came to me, each from a friend I have never seen, yet each with a flower-like glow and perfume that made my heart glad. And at evening a graceful little basket of fruit was left in my room, and this morning a bunch of fringed gentians, blue with the thoughtfulness of the sky that hangs over the far solitary meadows, the last answer from earth to heaven from the frosty fields.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 105-6

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 11, 1861

Rain: and just one of those dreary drizzling rains which turn one in from the outer world upon one's own consciousness, a most unhealthy pasture land for thought, in certain states of mind and body. Just how far we should live in self-consciousness, and how far live an outside life, or rather, live in the life of others, is a puzzle. Without something of an inner experience, it is not easy to enter into other lives, to their advantage; some self-knowledge is necessary, to keep us from intruding upon others; but it is never good to make self the centre of thought.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 106

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 13, 1861

George Fox's journal is a leaf from a strange chapter of the world's history: from the history of religion. If a plain man should come among us now, asking leave of none to speak, but "testifying" in religious assemblies to the reality of the inward life of light and peace in Christ, his blunt and simple ways might be unpleasing to many, but every scoffer would look on, more with wonder than with anger. Many, I am sure, would welcome such a voice of sincerity and "livingness," sounding through the outward services of religion. The days of religious persecution can scarcely return again; nor, it is to be hoped, the days of those strange phenomena which so irritated our ancestors; men walking as signs to the people, declaring their dreams to be visions from God, and uttering wild, unmeaning prophecies for inspiration. How hard it is to learn what "true religion and undefiled" is! Life is a better word for this universal bond than religion. And we shall see, sometime, that it is only by the redemption of all our powers, all that is in us and in the outward world, that we are truly "saved." We must receive the true light through and through, we must keep our common sense, our talents, our genius, just the same; — only that light must glow through all, to make all alive. And when home, and friendships, and amusements, and all useful and beautiful thoughts and things are really made transparent with that divine light, when nothing that God has given us is rejected as "common or unclean," the "new heaven and the new earth" will have been created, and we shall live in our Creator and Redeemer.

The great difference between the early Quakers and the Puritans seems to me to be that the former had larger ideas of truth, deeper and broader revelations, yet mixed with greater eccentricities, as might be expected. The Puritans were most anxious for a place where they could worship undisturbed, as their consciences dictated; the Quakers were most desirous that the Word of Life should be spoken everywhere, — the Light be revealed to all. Each made serious mistakes, — what else could we expect, from the best that is human? And the errors of both were, in great part, the errors of the age, — intolerance and fanaticism.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 106-8

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 12, 1861

How refreshing the clear cold air is, after the summer-like fogs and rains we have had! I love the cold; the northern air is strengthening; it has the breath of the hills in it, the glow of Auroral lights, and the purity of the eternal snows. There is little of the south in my nature; the north is my home; Italy and the tropics will do for dream excursions; I should long for the sweeping winds of the hillsides, if I were there.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 108

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 15, 1861

The beauty of this morning was wonderful; something in the air made me feel like singing. I thought my weariness was all gone; but leaning over books brought it back. After school four of us rode off in the wagon through the woods; and delighted ourselves with the sunset, the katydids, and the moonlight.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 108

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 22, 1861

I heard Charles Sumner on the Rebellion: my first sight and hearing of the great anti-slavery statesman. He was greeted with tremendous applause, and every expression of opposition to slavery was met with new cheers. He does not seem to me like a man made to awaken enthusiasm; a great part of his address was statistical, and something we all knew before, — the long preparation of this uprising of the rebels; and his manner was not that of a man surcharged with his subject, but of one who had thoroughly and elegantly prepared himself to address the people. At this time we are all expecting orators to speak as we feel, intensely; perhaps it is as well that all do not meet our expectations. One idea which he presented seemed to me to be worth all the rest, and worth all the frothy spoutings for "Union" that we hear every day; it was that our battalions must be strengthened by ideas, by the idea of freedom. That is it. Our men do not know what they are fighting for; freedom is greater than the Union, and a Union, old or new, with slavery, no true patriot will now ask for. May we be saved from that, whatever calamities we may endure!

The ride to and from Boston has a new picture since summer: the camp at Readville, just under the shadow of the Milton hills. It is a striking picture, the long array of white tents, the soldiers marching and countermarching, and the hills, tinted with sunset and autumn at once, looking down upon the camping ground. Little enough can one realize what war is, who sees it only in its picturesque aspect, who knows of it only by the newspapers, by knitting socks for soldiers, and sewing bed-quilts for the hospitals. I should give myself in some more adequate way, if we were definitely struggling for freedom; for there is more for women to do than to be lookers-on.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 108-9

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 27, 1861

Looking out on the clouds at sunset, the thought of God as constantly evolving beauty from His own being into all created forms, struck me forcibly, as the right idea of our lives; that, like Him, we should be full of all truth and love, and so grow into beauty ourselves, and impart loveliness to all we breathe upon, or touch. Inspiration from Him is all we have to impart in blessing to others.

What is the meaning of these moods and states that fetter some of us so? I have seen life just as I see it now, and been glad in it, while for many months all things have brought me a nightmare feeling that I could not shake off. I know it is the same world, the same life, the same God; I do not doubt Him, nor the great and good ends that He is working out for all; yet nothing wears its old delight.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 109-10

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 30, 1861

"And with a child's delight in simple things." That I have not lost all this, I felt to-day, in receiving a note from an unknown person, from one who had read some poems of mine in childhood, and now, a woman, bears something not unworthy the name of poet; to hear some new voice speaking to me in this way, as a friend, is pleasant to me. I have written as I have felt, in my verses; they have been true words from my deepest life, often; and I am glad whenever they call forth a sincere answer, as now; — one word of real appreciation repays me for pages of mere fault-finding. Yet a kind fault-finder is the best of friends.

What is the meaning of "gossip?" Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 110-1

Diary of Lucy Larcom, October 31, 1861

I must hurry my mind, when I have to press ancient history into a three-months' course, and keep in advance of my class in study, with rhetoric and mental philosophy requiring a due share of attention besides, and the whole school to be criticised in composition and furnished with themes.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 111

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 1, 1861

Yesterday I visited the residence of the late Hon. Daniel Webster, at Marshfield. There was much that was interesting to see in the great man's home; I think the two things that pleased me most were the portraits of his mother, and his black cook, or housekeeper. The latter was a fine painting, the face so full of intelligence, gratitude, and all good feelings; and there was an evidence of the true sympathy and home comfort between master and servant, if it is well to use those words, in the picture itself, the care with which it was painted, as well as the speaking face. The other was simply an old-fashioned cut profile, in black outline, and underneath it the words, "My excellent mother—D. Webster."

Out of doors, the wonderful old elm was the greatest attraction, with its branches sweeping the ground, and making an arbor and a cathedral at once, before the threshold. Webster himself but it is not well to call up anything but pleasant memories of the dead; and these do linger about the home he loved. What the nation thinks of him may be recorded elsewhere.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 96-7

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 2, 1861

I visited Plymouth, placed my foot on the memorable "Plymouth Rock," of the Pilgrims (now so enclosed and covered as to leave scarcely space sufficient for my large foot to rest upon), looked at Mayflower curiosities in the hall, books, shoes, and fans of the olden time, and more especially pewter platters, which, judging from some ancient will I looked over in the Court House, were the most important personal property of the Puritans. John Alden's well-worn Bible was open at the date of publication, 1620, so he had it new for his westward voyage; I wondered whether it was the gift of some friend left behind, or his own purchase. Miles Standish's long rapier was scarcely more interesting to me than the big kettle labeled with his name, which might have supplied the colony with dinner, judging from its size. Some old documents relating to the Quakers caught my attention; one especially, wherein Winthrop demurred from signing his name to a report of Commissioners, wherein this troublesome sect were adjudged worthy to be put to death for their "cursed opinions and devilish tennets," Winthrop signed, leaving testimony beside his name, that it was "as a querry, not as an act." Coming back to George Fox's journal, which I had borrowed for vacation reading, I could not but smile at the difference a hundred or two years will make; I can admire both Puritan and Quaker for their sincerity, and only wish they could have understood each other better. There is no defense for the persecution of the "Fathers," except the imperfection of human nature, and there is only this for the misguided ways into which the Quakers were led, by mistaking their own fancies for the "inner light." Better death on both sides (for what each held to be truth) than indifference to truth. And, stepping among the bones of the Pilgrims, on Burying Hill, and looking away over the waves which brought them and freedom to New England, and so to the Union, I could not but contrast the struggle of that day with the present war for liberty against oppression. It is, in reality, the "Old Colony" against the "Old Dominion," or rather, the latter against the former, aristocracy against the republic. God will prosper us now as then; but perhaps we are to be brought as low before Him as they were, before our cause can be victorious.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 96-7

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 3, 1861

Fishing on the "Indian Pond" in Pembroke half the day, catching sunfish and shiners, red perch and white; my first exploits of the kind. It is a pleasant day to remember, for the green trees and the blue waters, for lilies wide awake on the bosom of the waters in the morning sunshine, for fresh breezes, and for pleasant company.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 96-8

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 11, 1861

At Amesbury,—with two of the dearest friends my life is blessed with,—dear quiet-loving Lizzie, and her poet brother. I love to sit with them in the still Quaker worship, and they love the free air and all the beautiful things as much as they do all the good and spiritual. The harebells nodding in shade and shine on the steep banks of the Merrimac, the sparkle of the waters, the blue of the sky, the balm of the air, and the atmosphere of grave sweet friendliness which I breathed for one calm "First-day" are never to be forgotten.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 98-9

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 20, 1861

One of the stillest moonlight evenings, not a sound heard but the bleat of a lamb, and the murmur of the river; all the rest a cool, broad, friendly mountainous silence. Peace comes down with the soft clouds and mists that veil the hills; the Pemigewasset sings all night in the moonshine, and I lie and dream of the beauty of those hill-outlines around Winnipiseogee, that I looked upon with so satisfied a greeting from the car window on my way hither. The mountains do not know their own beauty anywhere but by a lakeside. So it is: beauty sets us longing for other beauty; the clouds moving above their summits suggest possibilities that earthly summits, at their grandest, can never attain. And no dream can suggest the possibilities of the beautiful that “shall be revealed."

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 99

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 24, 1861

"The eye is not satisfied with seeing, and the ear with hearing," and one can never tire of the vision of mountain landscapes, and the quiet song of summer rivers. Every day since I have been here in this beautiful village of Campton, I have driven through some new region; sometimes into the very heart of the hills, where nothing is to be seen but swelling slopes on every side, hills which have not quite attained mountainhood, but which would be mountains anywhere but in the "Granite State;" and sometimes out into the interval openings of the river; with new views of "Alps on Alps" on the northern horizon, the gate of the Franconia Notch opening dimly afar with its mountain haystacks piled beside it. It is rest to soul and body to be among these mountains; one thing only is lacking; the friends I had hoped to see here are not with me. But too much joy is not to be looked for; let me hope that they are among scenes more beautiful, and with dearer friends than I. Yet how delightful it would have been, to be with the best friends, among the most beautiful scenes.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, pp. 99-100

Diary of Lucy Larcom, August 25, 1861

I am enjoying the society of my old friend and former associate teacher. She is more gifted than I, in most ways, and it is pleasant to talk to some one who, you take it for granted, has a clearer understanding, and deeper insight, and more adequate expression than yourself.

SOURCE: Daniel Dulany Addison, Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, p. 100