Julia Ward Howe - Richards Laura E. - Страница 14

New vistas were opening everywhere before her. She made acquaintance with Margaret Fuller, who read her poems, and urged her to publish them. Of one of these poems, Miss Fuller writes:—

"It is the record of days of genuine inspiration,—of days when the soul lay in the light, when the spiritual harmonies were clearly apprehended and great religious symbols reanimated with their original meaning. Its numbers have the fulness and sweetness of young love, young life. Its gifts were great and demand the service of a long day's work to requite and to interpret them. I can hardly realize that the Julia Ward I have seen has lived this life. It has not yet pervaded her whole being, though I can recall something of it in the steady light of her eye. May she become all attempered and ennobled by this music. I saw in her taste, the capacity for genius, and the utmost delicacy of passionate feeling, but caught no glimpse at the time of this higher mood.... If she publishes, I would not have her omit the lines about the 'lonely room.' The personal interest with which they stamp that part is slight and delicate....

"S. Margaret Fuller.

"I know of many persons in my own circle to whom I think the poem would be especially grateful."[15]

On every hand she met people, who like herself were pressing forward, seeking new light. She heard Channing preach, heard him say that God loves bad men as well as good; another window opened in her soul. Again, on a journey to Boston, she met Ralph Waldo Emerson. The train being delayed at a wayside station, she saw the Transcendentalist, whom she had pictured as hardly human, carrying on his shoulder the child of a poor and weary woman; her heart warmed to him, and they soon made acquaintance. She, with the ardor of youth, gave him at some length the religious views which she still held in the main, and with which she felt he would not agree. She enlarged upon the personal presence of Satan on this earth, on his power over man. Mr. Emerson replied with gentle courtesy, "Surely the Angel must be stronger than the Demon!" She never forgot these words; another window opened, and a wide one.

Julia Ward had come a long way from old Ascension Church, where Peter Stuyvesant, in a full brown wig, carried round the plate, and the Reverend Manton (afterwards Bishop) Eastburn preached sermons "remarked for their good English"; and where communicants were not expected to go to balls or theatres.

The years of mourning over, the Ward sisters took up the pursuits natural to their age and position. Louisa was now eighteen, very beautiful, already showing the rare social gift which distinguished her through life. The two sisters began a season of visiting, dancing, and all manner of gayeties.

The following letter illustrates this period of her girlhood:—

To her sisters

Boston (1842).

Friday, that's all I know about to-day.

My dearest Chicks,—

Though I have a right to be tired, having talked and danced for the two last nights, yet my enjoyment is most imperfect until I have shared it with you, so I must needs write to you, and tell you what a very nice time I am having. Last night I went to a party at Miss Shaw's, given to Boz and me, at least, I was invited before he came here, so think that I will only give him an equal share of the honor. I danced a good deal, with some very agreeable partners, and talked as usual with Sumner, Hillard,[16] Longo,[17] etc. I was quite pleased that Boz recognized Fanny Appleton and myself, and gave us a smile and bow en passant. He could do no more, being almost torn to pieces by the crowd which throngs his footsteps, wherever he goes. I like to look at him, he has a bright and most speaking countenance, and his face is all wrinkled with the lines, not of care, but of laughter. His manners are very free and cordial, and he seems to be as capital a fellow as one would suppose from his writings. He circulates as universally as small change, and understands the art of gratifying others without troubling himself, of letting himself be seen without displaying himself—now this speaks for his real good taste, and shows that if not a gentleman born and bred, he is at least a man, every inch of him.

... I have had hardly the least dash of Transcendentalism, and that of the very best description, a lecture and a visit from Emerson, in both of which he said beautiful things, and to-morrow (don't be shocked!) a conversation at Miss Fuller's, which I shall treasure up for your amusement and instruction. I have also heard (don't go into hysterics!) Dr. Channing once. It was a rare chance, as he does not now preach once in a year. His discourse was very beautiful—and oh, such a sermon as I heard from Father Taylor! I was almost disposed to say, "surely never man spake like this man." And now good-bye. I must shut up the budget, and keep some for a rainy day. God bless my darling sisters. Love to dear Sam and Uncle. Your

Dudie.

In these days also she first met her future husband.

Samuel Gridley Howe was at this time (1842) forty-one years of age; his life had been a stirring and adventurous one. After passing through Brown University, and the Harvard Medical School, in 1824 he threw in his lot with the people of Greece, then engaged in their War of Independence, and for six years shared their labor and hardships in the field, and on shipboard, being surgeon-in-chief first to the Greek army, then to the fleet. It was noted by a companion in arms, that "the only fault found with him was that he always would be in the fight, and was only a surgeon when the battle was over." He eventually found, however, that his work was to be constructive, not destructive.

The people were perishing for lack of food; he returned to America, preached a crusade, and took back to Greece a shipload of food and clothing for the starving women and children. Having fed them, he set them to work; built a hospital and a mole (which stands to this day in ?gina), founded a colony, and turned the half-naked peasants into farmers. These matters have been fully related elsewhere.[18]

Returning to this country in 1831, he took up the education of the blind, which was to be chief among the multifarious labors of his life.

When Julia Ward first met him, he had been for nine years Director of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, and was known throughout the civilized world as the man who had first taught language to a blind deaf mute (Laura Bridgman).

Up to this time a person thus afflicted was classed with idiots, "because," as Blackstone says, "his mind cannot be reached." This dictum had been recently reaffirmed by a body of learned men. Dr. Howe thought otherwise. Briefly, he invented a new science. "He carefully reasoned out every step of the way, and made a full and clear record of the methods which he invented, not for his pupils alone, but for the whole afflicted class for which he opened the way to human fellowship.... His methods have been employed in all subsequent cases, and after seventy years of trial remain the standard."[19]

Hand in hand with Dorothea Dix, he was beginning the great fight for helping and uplifting the insane; was already, with Horace Mann, considering the condition of the common schools, and forging the weapons for other fights which laid the foundations of the school system of Massachusetts. Later, he was to take up the cause of the feeble-minded, the deaf mute, the prisoner, the slave; throughout his life, no one in "trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity" was ever to call on him in vain.