An Epistle to Posterity/Chapter II
CHAPTER II
It would astonish the good citizens of Dubuque, Iowa, of to-day if I should tell them what a small, pretty village theirs was when I first saw it; how immense prairies filled with wild flowers stretched back from the great bluff (I suppose that is there still) which defends their State of Iowa from the rolling Mississippi, and what a little row of houses clustered under the hill. Beyond on the prairies lived some of our friends, who were early settlers. We used to go out for a day and a night, and had some log-cabin experiences not always pleasant.
One of our friends, a Philadelphia gentleman, had married a fair-haired wife, and they were "roughing it on the plains." Among their live-stock was a fawn, the most beautiful creature possible. I loved and petted this gentle animal, and was shocked when one day I was asked to come out and eat him.
He had grown troublesome, I suppose. This was bad enough, but, what was worse, he was shot before my eyes after I got there, and I saw the dying look in his splendid eyes. This effectually spoiled the effect of the venison for me; as sad a story, I thought, as that of the "Falcon." Tennyson should have immortalized that fawn. And my friends were not, like the master of the falcon, driven to killing the fawn by poverty, for their fields were full of sheep, and their coops overladen with turkeys and geese, while the prairie swarmed with the famous grouse, brown as a berry.
I had some very tragic experiences at this log-cabin of my friends. Once, in my bed, I looked up at the logs at the head, and through the crevices I saw a black snake wriggling his dreadful head. It was a good reminder to rise early and often. After this I determined never to undertake frontier life. There were many dreary hours in spite of the romance in this visit to the then extreme West; but my father was Surveyor-General of Iowa under the Whig administration, and he had to be there.
Perpetually driving over the great prairies on his business, he often took me, and I really have seen more of the unbroken and beautiful ocean of grass, ornamented and gemmed with wild flowers, than many a frontiersman. We made a journey once of three days to Madison, Wisconsin, that pretty town of four fine lakes. We were the guests of Governor and Mrs. Doty, and I remember the house was so full that the rooms were partitioned with sheets. We slept on the way at log-cabins of settlers as we drove along; and once our little carriage, with my absurdly big trunk in front, nearly tipped into a stream we were fording. My father's great form was in the stream instantly, and he held us all up out of the water — carriage, trunk, and daughter. Fortunately, we had to drive in a burning sun for two hours, so he got thoroughly dried. The sorrowful prairie wives and mothers, mostly emigrants from New England, used to move my soul to pity in this journey. They all had the ague, were taking care of a crying baby, and yet found time to cook the prairie-chickens which my father had shot on the way. Some of them, seeing my sympathy, would talk to me far into the night, telling me a mournful story. I used to drive away with my eyes full of tears. Three days going and three days coming back over this endless campagna, and a subsequent drive to Milwaukee to take the steamer thence for home, satisfied me with a knowledge of the State of Wisconsin as it then was. But it had a charm (in common with the Campagna at Rome) like the sea, and it gave me many romantic dreams when I returned to the well-regulated and comfortable life of New England.
The life on horseback which I led at Dubuque and these drives re-established my health, and I had no more pains in my chest. Our journey home through the great lakes was even more delightful than that up the Ohio and Mississippi. The steamboats were models of comfort, and the same cotillon party, lasting a fortnight, went on every evening. As I was the youngest person on board, I had no end of partners, and there were two most eligible elderly beaux to talk to of mornings.
These were the Hon. Martin Van Buren, ex-President, and his friend, James K. Paulding, who had been one of his cabinet. This latter gentleman, well known to the literary world, was very indignant at the attentions which were then being showered on Dickens, "a mere London newspaper reporter," as he used to say. One age must, however, gracefully retire before another.
Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Paulding were charming gentlemen and the best and kindest of friends. Mr. Van Buren was especially courtly — a little, natty man, with his head on one side and the air of being fresh from the barber. I used to tell his witty son, John Van Buren, of this steamboat flirtation afterwards, after I had grown older and was married.
"Oh, he always had good taste," said the ready "Prince John," who should have written his own memoirs.
We stopped at a little, mean, muddy town known as Chicago. The mayor, "William B. Ogden, came down to the boat and drove us up to a beautiful villa in the heart of the town. It was surrounded by trees and quite redeemed the otherwise barren outlook. That site is now so covered with bricks and mortar that I have never even attempted to identify it during my subsequent visits to that magnificent town. There he was laying the foundations of the great fortune which is now enjoyed by his descendants; there he built an undying memorial of himself — the man of energy, accomplishments, and a kind heart.
I saw Niagara on my way home, and nearly tumbled off Table Rock. We went up there in a mist, and I got very wet. I remember my father was so angry with me that he would not speak to me all the way to Albany. I sat shivering in my wet garments, and quivering with a sense of injustice, for it had not been my fault at all that Niagara was wet.
But when I was taken in the night with a chill, followed by a fever, he forgave. In a few days we were at home, and my mother was taking care of me and looking over my stained and spoiled dresses. I was thought to be ready for a very stern governess, who proceeded to wring out of me all ideas of superiority, airs of having seen the world, and visions of past joy. I went through all that New England could do to impress me with the idea that I was a miserable sinner.
Had it not been for books I should wish to forget some of these subsequent years; but I would keep one most pleasant memory, that of seeing Mr. Lowell and his lovely Maria White. O the blessed damozel! I went to Watertown to visit her sisters, the Misses White, and there I found this pretty idyl of a love affair going on.
The Whites lived in a grand house, of limitless capacity, at Watertown. This house seemed ever to be full, for each sister had a friend staying with her; and although there were five sisters at home, yet there was always room for one more. I remember that the beautiful, dark-eyed Misses Oilman, the daughters of the poetess Caroline Gilman, and the reverend doctor, their father, were there, and visitors for lunch and tea were always arriving. And here for the first time I saw that extraordinary genius, William Henry Hurlbert.
But I had eyes only for Maria, the blue-eyed beauty, the genius, with eyes lighted from behind and the smile which seemed to illumine the earth! She was a pré-destinée. Consumption had even then marked her for its own, and although she lived fourteen years after that she always walked with death at her side. Perhaps a certain unearthly quality of her beauty was owing to the influence of this malady, which is known to cast a radiance over its victims. But Maria White had no appearance then of an invalid. Her skin was beautifully fair, with no hectic in the cheeks, no color save the red of her lips; her hair, which was very profuse and worn in bandeaux over the ears, was a rich auburn brown, and her eyes very light blue, with long lashes; her teeth were a feature by themselves, so white, so perfect, and so regular, a set of graduated pearls. She was not a large woman nor a small one, rather slender than otherwise, perfectly graceful and wellmade. The expression of the face was rapt, spiritual, poetic. I never saw such eyes.
Perhaps she saw with pleasure the admiration which she inspired in my youthful heart, for she was very kind to me, and showed me her work, smiling. She did fancy-work beautifully (japanning, I believe, it is called), painting flowers in gold-leaf on a black ground. She used to ornament tables, clocks, desks, chairs, and other pieces in this manner with exquisite taste. I saw on her table a box, which looked like a great Bible, and it had painted on it, by her, these words:
"THE GOLDEN LEGEND
"Here lies within this golden legend fair
Of love and life the noble mystery.
Life sullies not its lily pages fair,
Death writes no Finis to its history."
"These are James's letters," she said, giving me one of her rare smiles. She always smiled when she spoke of him.
I saw much of this courtship, destined one day to be the property of the world, from the distinction which both lovers won by their talents.
All courtships are beautiful, or should be. This one had every element of beauty. Mr. Lowell was singularly handsome in his young manhood. Paige painted him when he was a Titian young man with reddish beard and affluent curling hair, deep-blue eyes, and a ruddy cheek. Afterwards, when he was Minister to England, I spoke to him of that portrait and those days. "You see," said he, "I didn't grow old handsomely." Nor did he. The trials of his life, and they were many, had marked his face and marred his coloring; but it made no difference how he looked, he was always the same delightful, witty, and distinguished man.
Together the lovers might have played Romeo and Juliet, Francesca da Rimini and Paolo, or indeed anything Italian and romantic. I visited them at their home at Elmwood afterwards, and they drove me to Mount Auburn, hearing that I had never seen it. Only the other day, after many years, I went to lay a rose on their graves.
Mr. Lowell was very fond of telling stories, of writing funny verses; and once after his sister and myself returned from a journey to Lake Superior, bringing with us some moss-agates and the account of a gentleman named Moss, he burst out with an impromptu supposed to have been written by that gentleman:
"Together once we chanced to cross
Ontario's inland sea.
What wonder that a lonely Moss
A lichen took to thee!
"And as our boat went pitch and toss,
Thou on my arm wouldst lean;
Forgive my hopes! how could a moss
Be otherwise than green?
"And if again our paths should cross,
Thou there wilt surely see
All withered hang a lonely Moss
Dependent from a tree!"
I do not think the lovely Maria had so much love of humor as her lover husband; their sympathy was rather on the poetic and humanitarian side. She was an earnest abolitionist, and drew him over to work and feel with her. They spent the first year of their married life in Philadelphia, in deference to her delicate lungs. They lived with a Quaker family named Lamborn, and from Dr. Lamborn, their son, I heard many details later on of that year of happiness. James delighted to see Maria dress in the Quaker garb, which was becoming to her, and used to surprise the Quaker circle invited to tea by entering suddenly and kissing the demure Quaker sister — a joke which never failed to delight Mrs. Lamborn.
I did not see Mrs. Lowell after the death of her children, or when disease had made its ravages; so I retain, as few people can, a memory of that transcendent loveliness of her youth. Of Mr. Lowell I continued to see a great deal, and after her death he sent me a volume of her poems, and her portrait (from one by Paige). He also asked to see several letters she had written to me after the death of her children, when he was calling at my house in New York. I left him alone with them in my parlor, and he took his leave without bidding me adieu. He afterwards wrote me one of his choice letters, thanking me, and adding, "Which was most beautiful, her body or her soul?" He often dined with me in New York, bringing with him the rarefied air of Cambridge, and of all the recent good things said by Charles Norton, Agassiz, Holmes, James T. Fields, John Holmes, and the Illuminati generally.
What a society of wits and scholars that was! I remember, in my visits to Boston, meeting them all, at dinners, teas, at the opera and theatre. Imagine the sensation of having Mr. Prescott come and talk to one at the opera!
My father took my mother, myself, and Miss Lois White (the heroine of the moss-agate poem) up to Lake Superior in the summer of one of the late forties. We saw the great copper-mines, the wonders of that inland sea; we saw Mackinac, most romantic of islands; we went to Dubuque, and already it had begun to grow. I have never seen the Mississippi since, nor Mackinac, nor the great lakes, excepting to glance across the one at St. Louis and New Orleans and to feel the breezes of Lake Michigan at Chicago; but I pay my parting tribute to the old steamboat way of crossing them. It was transcendent. I should like to make those journeys again.
In one of my visits to Boston, it may have been in the spring of 1847, I was taken out to see Brook Farm, that experiment of Fourierism which led perhaps to the writing of the Blithedale Romance.
I knew very little of the writings of Fourier, or his romantic economic scheme that men and women Avere so perfect that they could all live together under one common roof, or in phalanxes, dividing the labor, and enjoying in groups of fifty or one hundred one common fire which should cook the common dinner. "Why must a man and a woman be shut up in cages which they call homes, each wasting extravagantly fire and food?" was one of the favorite remarks of the Fourierites.
A few Transcendentalists, with Reverend George Ripley at their head, were making the first experiment out at West Roxbury, in a wooden house, which, as I saw it, was painfully crowded. Mr. William White, a brother-in-law of Mr. Lowell, and his sisters, were so good as to take me there to tea; and although I have forgotten much else, I shall always remember that intellectual group in the long, low, crowded room, one hot evening in July. The lady who received us did so while hastily pulling down her sleeves, explaining that she had been in the "washing group."Mr. Frank Shaw was furnishing them the money to build their new Phalanstery, which, when completed, burned down, and Mr. Shaw never got his money back. We met his beautiful wife as we neared the "experiment," and she asked us to her house to tea. We were sorry afterwards that we had not accepted, for the whole menage, I regret to remember, seemed very wanting in cleanliness and care.
George William and Burrill Curtis were conspicuous there, in blue blouses, like French workmen. Mr. Ripley, who sat at the head of the table, talked supremely well. He was a most striking figure, and every one was so intellectual and superior that one wished, had it been less warm and more fragrant, to stay there. Mr. Ripley, who afterwards became a very dear friend of mine in New York society, often spoke of that glimpse of mine at what had been to him a painful disappointment. He told me how badly some characters "panned out," how many illusions he lost. "It all went up in smoke," he said; and yet the theory seemed most plausible.
Margaret Fuller, who had always struck me as a very plain woman, was the oracle. She had a very long neck, which Dr. Holmes described "as either being swan-like or suggesting the great ophidian who betrayed our Mother Eve." She had a habit of craning her head forward as if her hearing were defective; but she had a set of woman-worshippers who said that the flowers faded when she did not appear.
She was the Aspasia of this great council. She seemed to have a special relationship to each of the intellectual men about her, discerning and reading them better than they did themselves. Some one said of her that she was a kind of spiritual fortune-teller, and that her eyes were at times visible in the dark. Their devotion to her was akin to fanaticism, and they would talk of the magic play of her voice as the singing of a fountain. She had a very kind way to the colored stage-driver, who was the Mr. Weller of Concord, and he distinguished her by his respect. The "chambermaid would confide to her her homely romance." The better class of young Cambridge students believed in her as though she had been a learned professor. Her all-seeing eye could shoot through the problems which engaged them. Many distinguished men kept this opinion of her to their deaths. With such wonderful imagination and a genius like that of George Eliot, there was much that was morbid and unhealthy and strange in Margaret Fuller. She was a victim of dreadful headaches all her life, but she said that "pain acted like a girdle to her powers," and between laughing and crying she would utter her most witty words.
There was a singular mixture of faculties in this gifted woman. She was fully conscious of the male intellect in which was incarnate her truly sensitive feminine heart. She had a tendency to dally with stories of spells and charms, and really thought she had (if she turned her head one side) the power of second-sight.
This is not my own description. I have compiled it from the words of others, for I did not see much of her or know her well enough to have written so powerful an elucidation. She wrote these lines on herself, but addressed to the moon:
"But if I steadfast gaze upon thy face
A human secret, like my own, I trace;
For through the woman's smile looks the male eye."
Her wonderful eloquence and electric spirit gave to her conversations an impressiveness and influence which cannot be inferred from the records kept of them.
They were not always free from the ludicrous, and the daily papers made fun of her. Everybody had a mot as to what Emerson said and what Margaret said, and it is fair to observe that, although Emerson was the brain and Margaret the blood, the two spoke a great deal of nonsense. Certainly after the epoch of social reconstruction failed, and when Margaret left them. Transcendentalism broke to pieces, like a cosmical ring, each piece flying off to revolve in its own orbit.
I can only remember how much she was talked about all my youth, and sometimes laughed at. Zenobia, Hawthorne's beautiful dream, supposed to somewhat embody Margaret Fuller, has embalmed her and put her in the world's picture-gallery forever.
I ought to have seen Hawthorne at Brook Farm, but I did not. I have to accept George William Curtis's splendid description of him:
"A statue of Night and Silence, gazing imperturbably upon the group; and as he sat in the shadow, his dark hair and eyes and suit of sable made him in that society like the black thread of mystery which he weaves into his stories."
This, contrasted with the cheerful and human picture of Hawthorne written lately (1896) by his daughter, Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, makes Hawthorne two such different men that we can only solve the problem by quoting Goethe's mother: "When my son has a grief he makes a poem of it, and so gets rid of it."
When Hawthorne had a sombre mystery he made a story out of it, and so got rid of it, possibly. We are very grateful to him for confiding his mysteries to us — that man of immense genius, that prince of all the romance writers who use our English speech, for his mastery of language was unique, and also his exquisite grace of comedy, which appears in his English Notes.
"The hunger of an age is alike a presentiment and a pledge of its own supply." The demand for woman's emancipation of thought, her breadth of freedom of action, met with its first great interpreter in Margaret Fuller: she fed that first hunger.
From the glimmer of twilight's solitude through which Hawthorne's shrewd and curious eye dissected the movements of the human heart, Margaret Fuller might have seemed to be like Zenobia, but I did not think it a portrait.
The terribly tragic end of that life, which was so noble, generous, and helpful, has placed Margaret Fuller above criticism, and one only wishes that to his sombre studies Hawthorne might have added that shipwrecked, faithful woman holding her child to her breast. His exquisitely delicate genius, refined away almost to gossamer, would then have encased them both in a web of alabaster like that which was found in the rooms of the Borgias.