Samuel Gridley Howe to Horace Mann, December 29, 1850

South Boston, Dec. 29th, 1850.

My Dear Mann: — It is not as you say, out of sight out of mind, as far as regards my feelings towards you. I was too grateful for your letter to answer it in the hurry and turmoil in which I have been. I have been looking and longing for a leisure hour to confer with you, and I seize the first one I have had.

Shall I tell you all about myself? A part of each day I have to fight for life; if I do not take at least one cold bath I get sick; and if after each bath I do not take smart exercise for at least half an hour I should turn into an icicle and die. I am up at half-past five, and chilled down and warmed up again by half-past six, for the first exercise at the Institution. I have to work there and to walk some six miles daily and see to my idiots, and worry the rest of the time.

I have been hard at work in all odd hours writing a paper upon, or rather against, the proposed State Reform School for Girls. I suppose it will be published and I shall send you a copy. My ground is that we should not build a great central House of Reformation and gather the girls there, because the principle ought to be that of separation and diffusion, not of congregation of vicious persons, because the girls will be exposed to public gaze, and get the character of bad girls, and learn to think themselves such; because we have thousands and thousands of natural reform schools, viz. virtuous families, in which they ought to be received and reformed, & c., &c. The Boys' Reform School costs, with the interest on the capital, $27,000 per annum. I maintain that with half this sum we may place the girls in good families, paying a bonus and giving their services as domestics, and support a corps of women whose business it shall be to visit them and see to them. But you will see my plan.

I have been put upon the Board of Trustees (of four) to get up the new Free-soil paper, and a precious mess I have made of it, — for it takes so much of my time as not to leave enough for sleep. I send you the prospectus which I published last evening.

I have nearly closed a bargain with Elizur Wright to merge his Chronotype¹ in ours and to work as sub-editor on a salary of $1300. He is to do the office work, news, etc.; to have a bit in his mouth and say nothing editorially that the Chief does not approve. The Chief was to be Palfrey, but yesterday he threw a bombshell into the Free-soil camp in shape of a Confidential Circular to the Members of the Legislature, calling upon them not to unite with the Democrats and to have nothing to do with the plan of selling a Governor and buying a senator. This alarms our trustees, and though I think it is the true doctrine I cannot make them think so. I never could see how this coalition was anything but a compounding with the devil: a bad thing done that a good thing might come out of it; (to use an absurd figure, for good never can come out of evil). However, perhaps it is my stupidity, for wiser and better men than I approve it. Sumner and others took a good deal of pains once to convince me (and succeeded in doing so) that it was necessary to carry Free-soil principles into State elections: now they want to unconvince me, and to prove to me that it is not necessary to have a Free-soil Governor or to vote for one.

We have a fund raised for our paper, and can carry it on for some time at least. We have a good deal of talent that can be worked in; Wright (a host in himself), Hildreth, Adams, Palfrey and Bird, Bradburn and others. We shall be, for the first few weeks, dependent on labours of love, and hope you can help us. Can you not send something that will be useful?

I have seen G. B. Emerson several times, and he sought occasion to talk with me about you. He is a very singular man. He has much war in his elements. He wants to be generous and true and high, but has not enough back-bone. He said he was about to write a notice of your labours (which as he said were really prodigious and unparalleled) when your Notes appeared; and then, said he, “I found it would be of no use, that people would not hear,” &c., &c. He did not know how much he yielded to the blast; how much nobler it would have been for him then to have spoken and turned the public clamour. Finding how much he made of the Notes, I put it to him whether he and others were not treating you as though you had been guilty of some moral delinquency, of some unprincipled act, whereas, according to the worst showing of your worst enemies, you had shown nothing but bad temper and bad taste. He could say nothing. He admits and deplores, as he says to me, the demoralizing influence of D—— W——² upon the public of New England.

I compared him to a great black mountain which possessed the power of disturbing the moral compass, and producing moral shipwreck, and he admitted the truth of the comparison.

I tell you, Mann, you gave the old fellow a terrible shaking; his hold upon the public of the North is loosened very much; there is a feeling of disgust gradually spreading through the community, and it only needs something to crystallize round to assume vast proportions. If any one should set forth, strongly and vividly, the falsehood and treason to virtue and right which is implied by this worship of an immoral, drunken debauchee, people would see it and be ashamed of it. They would see that they are but little better, in the homage they render to mere strength of intellect, than the savages in their homage to mere bodily prowess.

I have had some occasion to know something of your successor³ and his mode of doing business, — but what a falling off! It took me nearly a week to get an answer to a question about the rules of the Normal School, and the answer was finally from a sub saying that it was the opinion of the Secretary, &c. &c. that the rule was so and so, but he would ascertain, &c.

There will be very busy and exciting times here this week and the next, and no man can say what the end will be. The Democrats will try to outwit the Free-soilers, but these are upon their guard. Sumner cannot strongly will one way or another: my advice is worth little because I know little about the machinery, — but my love for Sumner makes me wish that he could be exalted by something better than a coalition which I regard as rather iniquitous.

Sumner feels very anxious and disturbed about it: he means to be perfectly upright and conscientious, and will not compromise any of his high principles. It will be hard for him to escape unpleasant dilemmas. He dislikes to give up his dreams of a quiet literary life. He is a rare and noble spirit, too good for the political ring.

Remember me kindly to Madame, and believe me, dear Mann,

Ever thine,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ A paper edited by Wright.

² Daniel Webster.

³ The new Secretary of the Board of Education.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 330-3

Thomas Wentworth Higginson to a Louisa Storrow Higginson, October 27,1859

Worcester, October 27,1859

Dearest Mother:

While you are dreaming of me in this alarming manner, I am placidly laying out a new bed of crocuses and tulips for the spring, and buying at auction a second-hand tapestry Brussels, quite handsome, for seventy cents a yard, to put in the study. This afternoon an African brother visits us, not for insurrectionary purposes, but to aid in putting down the same on the study floor.

Of course I think enough about Brown, though I don't feel sure that his acquittal or rescue would do half as much good as his being executed; so strong is the personal sympathy with him. We have done what we could for him by sending counsel and in other ways that must be nameless. By we I mean Dr. Howe, W. Phillips, J. A. Andrew, and myself. If the trial lasts into next week, it is possible to make some further arrangements for his legal protection. But beyond this no way seems open for anything; there is (as far as one can say such a thing) no chance for forcible assistance, and next to none for stratagem. Never was there a case which seemed more perfectly impracticable: and so far as any service on the spot is concerned, there are others who could perform it better than I. Had I been a lawyer, however, I should probably have gone on at once, to act at least temporarily as his Counsel. A young man from Boston named Hoyt has gone on for this, and probably Montgomery Blair, of Washington, will be there to-day, to conduct the case.

SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 85-6

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, probably 1850

Green Peace, Thursday Evening [probably 1850].

My Dear Sumner: — I have called twice without finding you.

Why do you not put upon me part of the duty of lionizing strangers? I can show them our own and other Institutions without going very much out of my beat. If I can serve them and you it will be a pleasure indeed. I now look upon your time and thought as far more valuable than my own, and if I can spare you for higher labours I shall be content.

As for myself, alas, the silver cord is loosed. I have lately, encouraged by apparently returning vigour and urged by letters from Lieber and Henry, applied my mind to the preparation of a paper for the Smithsonian on Laura; but a few hours' brain work prostrates me. Slight as have seemed my ailments, they have been deep-seated and severe; more so than you can conceive, unless you are physiologist enough to know how much is required to exhaust the fountain of a nervous energy so abundant as mine was and which has never been abused. But n'importe; let the wreck of me not rot uselessly, but let the bits be of some use to my friends, and to you the most beloved of them.

I send you Felton's letter.¹ I have read it not only with brimming but with overflowing eyes; it has made me sad and heart-sick. What a lesson! How completely are most minds moulded by external pressure, and how untoward is that pressure in our old friend's case. He is not one of those who are a law unto themselves; he is not even richly gifted in capacity for the highest and best moral attainments; but think of what he was with old surroundings and what he is now! When he wrote that letter you did not deserve his praise and admiration so much as you do now; I say this deliberately. You then merited and had the homage of the heart and the affections, for your own overflowed to your friends; but now you have a claim for the approval and admiration of the intellect. I sometimes fear that the fountains of affection are growing less abundant; but never mind; you will soon open a new spring, and the living waters of love will gush forth at the call of wife and children, as they never have at the call of friends.

But I do not know what I am writing about, except to say I want much to see you: — yet when I see you I have nothing to say worth your hearing. But then I have nothing to say to my children worth hearing, though I love to be with them even when they sleep. . . .

Ever yours,

s. G. h.

_______________

¹ See ante, page 265. This was evidently a letter written before the quarrel between Felton and Sumner,

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 328-9

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, [October or November] 20, 1850

South Boston, [Oct. or Nov.] 20th, 1850.

My Dear Sumner: — It sometimes happens that the familiarity of affection between men lessens the respect for the intellect, so that we may add to the adage, “a prophet is not without honour save in his own country,” the words, “among his friends.” Such, however, has not been my case with regard to you. I find myself always inclined to defer to your judgment. I have, in my misgivings about the morality of the Coalition, comforted myself with the hope that you, having examined the whole ground narrowly, would be able to show me that these misgivings were groundless. You failed to do so the other evening, and I had a painful conviction that our party had failed to act up to the highest dictates of morality.

I have carefully read the article you sent me. No matter who wrote it, it is very unsatisfactory; it only shows that the end was most desirable; it fails to justify the means. The writer says plainly “If they (the Democratic candidates) were not men of anti-slavery sentiments I think the argument is so strong in favour of the Union that I would vote for them, not from choice but from necessity.”

Excuse me, my dear Sumner, but I think that such a sentiment is unworthy of you, or of any who are honoured by your confidence and friendship. Argue as we may, blind our eyes and our consciences as we may, this is doing wrong that right may come out of it.

You will understand how strong is my feeling about it, when I tell you that the only thing which has restrained me from urging you, with all my heart and soul and strength, to accept the opportunity which offers of stepping up to the highest platform in our land and pleading the cause of humanity there, is a misgiving about the political morality of the means by which this opportunity has been presented to you.

If I were ever so selfish I should urge you to secure such an opportunity, because every new laurel that is placed upon your brow brings joy and gladness to my heart. I wish, however, that every leaf should be of perennial greenness, and not that which is bright to-day and next year fadeth away. We must talk about this, for there is yet another view of the matter, and one in which you would seem justified and called upon to accept even the consequences of an unjust coalition.

Ever thine,

S. G. Howe.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 326-8

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, September 26, 1850

Boppart, Sept. 26, '50.

My Dear Sumner: — . . . I leave Boppart this week for England via Paris. ... As for political matters, . . . my impressions, from all I see, are strongly in favour of the notion that, malgré the reaction, there has been an immense gain to the cause of liberty in Germany.

I have been surprised to find how easily some of the ardent republicans have become discouraged, and how they have lost faith in the people. Varrentrapp, a most excellent Republican, is despondent. It is because their faith did not go deep enough; it was founded not upon the core of humanity, which is always sound, but upon the supposition of the people having attained a degree of intelligence and virtue which they proved in the hour of trial not to have attained. I tell them that to doubt is to be damned; that to doubt the capacities of humanity is to blaspheme God, and be without religion in the world. They shake their heads and call me red, very red; perhaps they think me green. . . .

Most affectionately yours,

s. G. H.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 325-6

George L. Stearns to Mary Hall Stearns, May 1, 1860

[May 1, 1860.]

I had no time to write last evening, and so you will not get this until Thursday. My first move yesterday was for Peter and Susie Leslie. He has gone to Broad Mountain and will not be home until Friday, but Susie was delighted with my offer to take him with me; thought he would go, if his engagements will permit. If Howe and Bird both fail me, I will try to get him or some one else here to go on. Have no doubt of success.

Later. Frank Bird has just arrived. Dr. Howe too sick to travel, and we leave here to-night or to-morrow noon, probably to-night. To-day I have spent the morning with J. Miller McKim. He approves of my plans, and thinks after the elections are over that national aid can be obtained here for them. Approves of aid to M—— and operations in that quarter at once.

Now I have only time to say that I hope you got safe and comfortably home. My enterprise looks well to-day, and that keeps up my spirit.

Your loving husband,

George L. Stearns.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 223

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 20, 1850

Paris, Aug. 20, '50.

My Dear Sumner: — I am always cheered by the sight of your “hand-o'-write” and that of your last letter was more than usually welcome. Notwithstanding your sad errand you seemed to be in an elastic and healthy tone of mind, and I know too well by experience of the opposite condition what a blessing that is: may my friend never fall from the one into the other! You will be surprised at the date of this, and exclaim, “Why are you not en route for Frankfort?” I'll tell you. I had concluded or been persuaded by your letter and other considerations to go and attend the Peace Congress. I left Paris for that purpose on Friday evening last so as to be in Frankfort on the 20th, but I had hardly got an hundred miles when I began to feel the sure premonitions of an attack of cholera morbus. I remained all night in a miserable inn, hoping to be able to go on by the early train; but it was too certain that the grip of disease was upon me; I therefore turned back with all speed to get properly attended here. I was quite ill Saturday and Sunday; yesterday better but unable to travel, and to-day not fit for a fatiguing journey. I must therefore give up the Congress. All I should have done would have been to move for an adjournment en masse to the seat of war in Holstein, and discuss war between the two hostile armies. I am sick of this preaching to Israel in Israel; the Gentile ought to hear. Peace men should go to Russia, and Abolitionists to the Slave States. Besides, this calling upon France and Germany to disarm while Russia has the open blade in hand is what I cannot do. Our combativeness and destructiveness are the weapons God gives us to use as long as they are necessary, in order to keep others less advanced than we are in quiet by the only motives they will heed, selfishness and fear; you may as well appeal to conscience and benevolence in babes and idiots as in Russians and Tartars, I mean en masse. Conscience and benevolence they have, ay! and so have babes and idiots, but they are (not) yet called into life and action.

You tell me to go about sightseeing and to enjoy the rare opportunity before me. I go to see nothing — I care little for shows. I want to be back in the only place in the world which is fit for me or has charm for me; in my own office with the harness on my back. I wish you had my opportunity and I had yours. So goes the world. . . .

Kind words to Longfellow, Hillard, Felton, &c. Tell Briggs my conscience has been continually smiting me about my neglect of that Frenchman in prison. I hope he is out.

Ever, dear Sumner, most affectionately thine,

S. G. H.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 322-3

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 Charles Sumner, August 2, 1850

Edinburgh, Aug. 2, ’50.

My Dear Sumner: — I have flitted from London to this beautiful city to attend the meeting of the British Association.

I missed, however, the two first days, I am sorry to say, having only arrived last night. I have seen several notabilities, of whom I'll say something when I know more.

I had a letter from you by Mann before the last, and was very glad indeed to get hold of your hand. You tell me to read In Memoriam; I read little at home, less in travelling, but I have read, devoured, that beautiful book long ago — I came across it one evening in London.

I knew Hallam père and was glad to receive a very kind message from him through a friend, hoping to see me, &c., he having gone to the Continent.

Who shall, who can write the father's In Memoriam? Oh, Sumner, you have capacities for love, but you have no more conception of some of the ways of love than has a blind man of colour; —the love of children, for instance; a father's love for his son! You would be touched doubtless by hearing of Hallam's pillow being still found wet with the tears that flow from his eyes when they open in the morning to the blank which his son's death has left, but you cannot understand how much of joy there may be in his sorrow. I have been over to Paris for a few days in order to do up some work and save time. Saw not much there, but some things interested me. For instance, the increased circulation among men. We are only at the beginning of the immense improvement to be effected in the world's moral condition by means of steam. Last week some shrewd people got up a plan by which they could make money thus — they advertised that they would pay all road expenses from Paris to London for those who would go on Sunday and come back on Wednesday for thirty francs! six dollars! and one thousand Frenchmen availed themselves of it! Think of that! A Frenchman can go by railroad and then boat from Paris to London in twelve hours, back again in the same time, for six dollars. He may stay in London two days and see much for four dollars more, so that his whole excursion will not cost over ten dollars.

This was only the first essay. There were over four thousand who left Paris on the excursion; some went to Dover and back, some only to Boulogne and back, of course at less prices. This movement will be continued. By new arrangements in crossing and saving time at customhouses they will this month go in eight hours, and by and by in six. You will have tens of thousands of Frenchmen going to England, tens of thousands of English to France, and then how are you going to make them fight?

That company will do more than the Peace Congress; I think I shall take stock in it instead of joining the Peace Society.

The custom-houses are to get a severe shaking by this tramp of the people, and they will be at last shaken down, and the world will rejoice over their fall as it did over the fall of the Inquisition and other bygone abominations. Fifty years hence and there will be free intercourse between England and France — you'll see it — I shall not.

The passport system is getting a shaking already; and but for the temporary reaction in favour of conservatism it would have been put down in France ere now. The conservatives are taking every advantage of this reaction, and the poor thing whose [fate] has put him where he is,¹ is trying to make his place a permanent one. You may judge how ardent is the desire for peace and the quiet pursuit of business, and how sick and tired people are of all agitation, when you see that they make no protest at all against the late attempt to gag the press. The fact is that save the agitators, those whose métier it is to trouble the political waters, the people of France don't want to be bothered any more for the present with any political questions; they won't be excited again for awhile, and when the agitators plead, they reply “A plague on both your houses!” By and by, in a few years, they will have rested, the stream will begin to swell again; the million of boys now between five and fifteen years old will be in ten years [restless] turbulent spirits between fifteen and twenty-five, and they will insist upon having their “goings on,” as we used to say in college, and they will have them; and the world will make a hitch forward. As a whole I should say France had gained much by the revolution. But how far they are behind the English in their ideas of personal right and personal dignity. They are fierce republicans, they say, the English still royalists, but a Frenchman submits to infringement of personal right and to personal indignity that would set John Bull in a fury and make him knock down the government official. For instance, he submits meekly to have his pocket searched and his bag overhauled at the city barriers every time he returns from an excursion into the country, and in matters of passport and other things shows the white feather before the man of authority. But I have no time now to do more than to beg you to write me often and fully. I long for your news; why don't you send me some papers? I hope to be home early in October.

_______________

¹ Louis Napoleon, afterward Napoleon III. By the Revolution of 1848 he was made President of the French Republic (Dec. 20,1848).

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 317-20

George L. Stearns to Samuel Gridley Howe, February 27, 1860

[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, February 27, 1860]

[Dr. S. G. Howe.]

I am so far on my return from Washington, where I had a good time. The Com. were civil and did not press me at all. I answered freely and they took all I said in good faith.

On reading my testimony, which took an hour and a half, I did not want to change a word, but made some additions; such as, “I have since changed my opinion,” etc. I was before them three hours, from eleven until two.

I saw a good deal of Sumner; he made me free of his room at all hours and was of great use to me. He is preparing a speech and will do justice to this affair, including the Senate Com. He said: I feel now perfectly easy with regard to slavery: it has received its death blow. This is not a quotation, but the spirit of his remarks.

Saw Adams, Burlingame, Wilson; nothing said worth reporting.

Washington, as it is to-day, is the meanest hole in creation, and Congress the meanest part of Washington. The members of both parties are split up into petty cliques, each intent on grinding its own little axe and trying to prevent all the others from using the grindstone. If they are our representatives, we are indeed of a low type.

Ever yours,

George L. Stearns.

SOURCE: Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 213

Samuel Gridley Howe to Theodore Parker, August 2, 1850

Edinburgh, August 2nd, 1850.

My Dear Parker: — I have not heard a word from you since I left home, and this causes me regret, because I have no means of answering the questions which I am always asking myself about you and your health and your doings, &c. &c. Do give me the means of satisfying myself.

I was amused and pleased the other day in London, being in the private reading-room of the great Athenaeum Club: — among the books upon the centre table was one much thumb-worn and evidently greatly in use, and I took it up to see what it was; — what think you,— the Bible, — or Hoyle, — or the Court Guide? No; — Parker's Discourses!

I find you useful sometimes even here, as a means of interesting people in my poor talk. The other day, visiting a very quiet family in the country, I found an ancient maiden lady in the library whom I did not know, — that is, we had not been introduced. We tried to talk, but it was dry work, and the weather and politics, &c. were soon used up. At last she, finding I was an American, asked if I knew Theodore Parker, the new light; upon which I said, in Yankee phrase, that “I guessed I did not know anybody else,” — upon which the antiquated maiden grew suddenly bright and animated, waxed warm in looks, and was at once only a bright middle-aged lady. She knew all about you too, and believed in you, and said you were the man for her money, &c., &c. Luckily for you she had never read the description of you by the correspondent of the New York Mirror. I told the maiden that you were not so well stricken in years as you looked. “In short,” said I, “Mr. Parker is not an old man by any means, and though you could hardly believe it if you should see him in the pulpit, he is not much older than I am!”

There! did I not pay you a compliment? If you think not, ask Felton, who was not ashamed to pass for my father!

I have come up here to attend the meeting of the British Scientific Association, which you should do next year. I have seen a few big bugs, and some who only feel big; and some little bugs who may be big ones by and by. It is a beautiful city, as you know, and if it were not so confounded cold I should enjoy the remarkable scenery about it more than I do.

I have not done anything since I left home worth writing about. My principal business has been dawdling about the streets, studying nothing, paying close attention to nothing. I let my poor, weak brain lie fallow, and am almost ashamed of so doing; but que voulez vous? one cannot use up his brains and have them too.

I have found out that in the matter of idiocy they do not know so much in England as they do in France, and in France not half so much as they and the world think they do. The French are a little given to charlatanism, it must be said, and the Idiot School of Paris does allow the world to think that the wonderful things done in it are wonderful, upon the supposition that the forward pupils are idiots, which they are not. . . .

Believe me, dear Parker, most truly yours,

S. G. Howe.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 316-7

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, July 9, 1850

11 Gower St., London, July 9th, 1850.

My Dear Sumner: — . . . I did not intend to go into the grand monde here at all, and called on very few persons; but somehow or other we have got in for it, and have engagements for several evenings ahead.

The pleasantest dinner we have had was at Stephenson's, M. P. (the tubular bridge man) who has one of the most beautiful houses in London, fitted with exquisite taste and adorned by choice articles of virtu. Among other things he has the original of Powers' Fisher Boy, which strikes me as the most beautiful and original thing he ever did. The dinner was on ne peut pas mieux: I should say the most remarkable thing about it was the paucity of edibles. Everything was exquisite in appearance and flavour, and yet one had to partake of every dish in order to make as hearty a dinner as one is disposed to after fasting until seven p. M. The portion of soup was very tiny, and eaten with a tiny spoon; the fish just enough to taste; the pièce de resistance only so in name; and so through to the dessert, which was very rich and ample. It is true it was a Sunday dinner, and was called an unceremonious one; I think I observe, however, that there is a great improvement in London dinners, in respect to profusion; there is enough, but only enough. So far as I have seen and known, wine-bibbing has materially diminished. My impression is that the luncheon has risen in public opinion, and that the English are adopting the French déjeuner a là fourchette; they used, I know, long ago, to lunch pretty heartily, but perhaps lunch is now becoming par excellence the meal.

These culinary speculations are very crude and founded on very narrow observation; they are therefore worth little, but then they cost me nothing, and you shall have them, valeant quantum.

I have not called on all my old friends and acquaintances or your friends, being rather shy of seeming to challenge attentions, which in English mean dinners. I shall, before I go, call on Morpeth¹ (that was), Ingham and others of your friends. Some have been very, very kind, as Sir H. and Lady Inglis; the first trotted in to see us and welcome us as soon as he heard of us, and the latter brings in her knitting and chats away of an evening with Julia. They are most kind and worthy people.

_______________

¹ Earl of Carlisle

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 314-6

Samuel Gridley Howe to Henry Wilson, May 15, 1858

May 15, 1858.

When I last wrote to you, I was not aware fully of the true state of the case with regard to certain arms belonging to the late Kansas Committee. Prompt measures have been taken, and will be resolutely followed up, to prevent any such monstrous perversion of a trust as would be the application of means raised for the defence of Kansas to a purpose which the subscribers of the fund would disapprove and vehemently condemn.

Faithfully yours,

S. G. Howe.

SOURCES: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and Letters of John Brown, p. 462; Preston Stearns, The Life and Public Services of George Luther Stearns, p. 170.

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

Samuel Gridley Howe to Charles Sumner, Thursday, June 20, 1850

At Sea, Thursday, June 20th, 1850.

My Dear Sumner: — It is not safe to count upon continuance of such fickle things as wind and steam, or prosperity of any kind, but barring accidents, we may reasonably hope to be off Cape Clear by midnight to-night, and to be in Liverpool before noon on Saturday; if you should receive this by the steamer that leaves on Saturday it will be the first instance on record of a mail being sent back by passengers who left America in a steamer of the week before.

The maximum of speed by ocean steamers has not however been attained, by any means; and if the American Line should succeed in crossing in ten days, the managers of this line will at once lay down the keels of boats that will cross in eight days. It can be demonstrated that in ordinary weather, boats with more power and a longer stroke can move with one sixth, or even one fifth greater speed than this one, and with safety too; but it must be by sacrifice of freight room, by greater expenditure of fuel, and by curtailing the cabin accommodations. The only question is, will it pay? The old ones say no; I say yes! Such are and ever must be the discomforts of a sea voyage, that passengers will be found to fill a steamer at $200 a passage, provided they can cross in a week, rather than go in one that will take ten or twelve days, though the price be but $100. . . .

Among many omissions made before leaving, one troubles me. It was to answer a letter of Beckwith's (I believe that is the name), Secretary of the Peace Society, informing me of my appointment as delegate to some National Congress. The letter was received nearly six weeks after its date, and only just before my departure. I meant positively to decline, and must beg you to apologize to him and tell him I cannot consent to be considered as a delegate. I have my reasons for this, dear Sumner; I do not wish even to be considered as a member of any peace society. God speed the cause of peace and human brotherhood, and give me strength so to live as to advance it as far as my humble example goes, but I cannot and will not pledge myself to live by their principles.

Ever yours,

S. G. Howe.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 312-3

Samuel Gridley Howe to Horace Mann, June 8, 1850

Boston, June 8th, 1850.

My Dear Mann:— . . . We depart on Wednesday next. I would I could say with a light heart, but I cannot; my heart is heavy and foreboding: its strings will break with my children tugging from this side the Atlantic.

To you, dear Mann, I know not how to say farewell. I never see you, seldom hear from you, and yet feel as though I was losing a very near and dear companion when I put the ocean between us. But I'll not think about it.

So at last you are down upon the Brazen Faced Thunderer;¹ woe be to him! Much is expected from you, by friends and foes. I overheard accidentally a pretty remark yesterday; one of the Thirty-one [schoolmasters], the leading spirit, was yesterday dining at Parker's near me; he did not see me, but I heard his remark in answer to some one who said, “Webster is down upon Mann, and there'll be a fight:” — “Well! I'll bet Daniel ’ll get worsted — that Horace Mann is a terrible fellow in a controversy.”

We are all so very anxious, we hold our breath; to-morrow morning I shall hear your MS. read, but no one else will, I presume, except William Schouler. I proposed to Sumner to have Downer, upon whose attachment to you I count as upon a natural law, and upon whose quickness of intellect I count as upon an axiom. But Sumner over-ruled.

I can hardly hope you will find time to write to me, but if you do I shall be glad.

Good-bye, God bless you,

Ever yours,

S. G. H.

_______________

¹ Daniel Webster.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 311

Samuel Gridley Howe to Stephen Fairbanks, November 17, 1848

Nov. 17, ’48.

Hon. S. Fairbanks.

Dear Sir: — In reply to your question the other day whether there was any truth in the story that I led blind persons to the polls, on the last election day, and guided their hands to the ballot box while they dropped in their votes, I said that there was not, and that probably there was no foundation for it.

I now learn that there was some foundation for the story. One of our teachers, who is blind, wished to vote, and our principal teacher, Mr. Littlefield, led him to the polls, and guided his hand to the ballot box.

From the satisfaction which you manifested when I told you the story was untrue, I am led to believe that you regard the act of helping a blind man to vote as an improper one: and I know that you have so much rectitude of purpose and so much kindness of heart that you will be glad to be disabused of such an error.

I consider the act of Mr. Littlefield as perfectly proper; and I should feel ashamed of myself if I could hesitate a moment about leading any blind man to the polls, and guiding his hand to the ballot box, if he was duly qualified and wished to vote.

Look at it, my dear Sir, for one moment, and if there ever was the shadow of doubt in your mind about the propriety of the thing it will vanish away.

We endeavour by all means in our power to inspire the blind with a proper degree of self-respect; we educate them for the world, for citizens of a free country; and when their education is finished, we bid them go out into the world and take their place among men. The blind person whom Mr. Littlefield led to the polls is a most intelligent, high-minded, and worthy young man.

He was trained here in our school: he afterwards went through college, and graduated with honour. He feels the same interest in the general politics and welfare of the country that you and I do; he is as desirous as we are of discharging all the duties of a freeman, and exercising all the privileges of a voter; and why should he not vote?

I say nothing about the practice so common here of paying for carriages to carry the old, the feeble, or the lazy to the polls, out of a fund to which our wealthy men contribute; but I ask you, if on the morning of the election you had met one of your friends who had by accident lamed himself, and injured his arm so as not to be able to hold his hand steadily, and he asked you for your aid, would you not have given him your arm to lean upon as he walked to the polls, and even steadied his hand, if he so wished, while he dropped his vote? And shall I refuse my aid to my fellow man because he is afflicted with the dreadful calamity of blindness? God forbid!

But it would be an insult to your understanding and to your heart to suppose that any argument is necessary to convince you of the propriety of Mr. Littlefield's action.

If you should think the matter worth mentioning to your informant, please say, that Dr. Howe did not lead a blind man to the polls, and guide his hand to the ballot box at the late election, but that he regrets that he had not the opportunity of doing such a kind and righteous act.

Now that I am upon the subject, let me say that if I had chosen to exercise my influence here, and especially if I had, as is often done in Boston, paid the poll tax for others, I might have sent more than half a dozen persons to the polls from this house, every one of whom, probably, would have voted the Free-soil ticket.

But I did no such thing. I leave the inmates to make up their own mind on political matters, taking care that they shall have the means of getting that side of the question that they would not be likely to get from me. The only newspapers that have been regularly supplied to them and paid for by the Institution are the Daily Advertiser, the Courier, and the Evening Journal, all staunch Whig papers; and if they have not been able to convince the blind of the correctness of the doctrines they teach, it is their own fault.

Excuse this long intrusion upon your patience and believe me

Very truly yours,

S. G. Howe.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 296-8

Samuel Gridley Howe to Horace Mann, Friday, June 18, 1854

South Boston, June 18th, 1854.

My Dear Mann: — I have sometimes been happy enough to get a glimpse of you through your letters to Downer — for you had in them, once in a while, a kind word for me. Yesterday, however, there was a hard one, — though I know not unkindly meant;—you said “out of sight out of mind;” et tu!! You have never been out of my mind — never out of my heart. I have not written simply because I had little or nothing to say, except that I love you, and that you know well enough.

We have gone through a terrible ordeal lately: a week of intense, painful, dreadful excitement. I saw the whole, from the broken door, the pointed pistols and the flashing cutlasses,¹ to the last sad funeral procession. During the latter I wept for sorrow, shame and indignation. Then, let me tell you (and I know enough of mobs to know it truly) — had it not been for the citizen soldiery and the armed citizen police, the people would have rushed upon the United States troops, disarmed and routed them and have rescued poor Burns. With a constable's pole in advance, — with a scrap of law as big as this sheet, — the people would, at any time, and against all obstacles, have done so. The fear of the law, — the fetish of law, disarmed and emasculated us.

The most interesting thing I saw in the crowd was a comely coloured girl of eighteen, who stood with clenched teeth and fists, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, — the very picture of indignant despair. I could not help saying, “do not cry, poor girl — he won't be hurt.” “Hurt!” said she, “I cry for shame that he will not kill himself! — oh! why is he not man enough to kill himself!” There was the intuition, the blind intuition of genius! — had he, then and there, struck a knife into his own heart, he would have killed outright the fugitive slave law in New England and the North.

As it is, poor Burns has been the cause of a great revolution: you have no idea of the change of feeling here. Think of Sam'l A. Eliot, the hard, plucky and “sort of honest”² Eliot, coming out for repeal of Nebraska or disunion!

Things are working well. God will get the upper hand of the Devil, even in Boston, soon. As for Loring — old Ned Loring,³ whom you loved, and whom for a while you boosted up on your shoulders into a moral atmosphere, he has sunk down, and will die in the darkness of despotic surroundings. I wrote to him, and talked with him before the decision; I have had a letter from him since, but it is a hard and heartless one. I have liked him much; and am loth to lose the last of my associates in that circle; but I must. If he is white, I am blacker than hell; if he is right, I am terribly wrong.

I think you should write to him. I have set going the enclosed address to him. Would it were better! but it is honest, and has cost me a pang and a tear. Goodbye, my pleasant old friend; if you are going up, I go down; and vice versa.

As for myself, dear Mann, I am very much as I was. In health no better, nor worse. In spirits at zero. In hopes for myself, nothing beyond happiness reflected through that of my dear children. They are, thank God, always well and jolly. They never know an ache or a pain; are industrious, affectionate, obedient, truthful, and very bright.

Let me hear from you, do! Shall I never see you? ah — I do not like to think of turning my face to the wall, and going away from earth without again grasping your hand. I'll try not to do so.

With kind regards to Madame, ever, dear Mann, yours,

S. G. Howe.

_______________

¹ The attack on the Court House to rescue Anthony Burns.

² In reading these letters, allowance must be made for the intense feeling of the time. I cannot verify this quotation, but Mr. Eliot's honesty admitted of no qualification.

³ Judge E. G. Loring, who decreed the return of Burns to slavery. The feeling against him became so strong that he was obliged to leave Boston and take up his residence in Washington.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 269-71

Samuel Gridley Howe to Theodore Parker,1854

(1854.)

My Dear P.: — I have come to see you: — no public meeting I think, but a band of fifty, to say the man shall not go out into slavery, but over our bodies: — of the fifty one is

S. G. H.

SOURCE: Laura E. Richards, Editor, Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe, Volume 2, p. 269