January 19, 1862. How hard it is to know anything of history, to learn enough to feel at all competent to teach! I said I would look through Gibbon, but I had hardly reached the times of Julian, before my class must be hurrying beyond Charlemagne, and I must turn to French histories to help them along. Then, between de Bonnechose and Sir James Stephen, with the various writers on the Middle Ages, which must be consulted for the history of the feudal system, free cities, and the Papacy, comes in the remembrance of my Bible class in the early history of the church, and I must give some hours to Neander! Meanwhile, another class is reading Shakespeare, and I want them to be somewhat critical, and must therefore read, myself; while yet another class in Metaphysics are beginning the history of philosophy, and I want them to know something about Plato, and the Alexandrian schools, and knowing very little myself I must find out something first. So I bring to my room the volumes containing the “TimÆus” and the “Republic;” but in the midst of it, I remember that there are some compositions to be corrected, that I may be ready for the new ones Monday morning. This is pretty much where Saturday night finds me, and so the weeks go on, this winter. I am glad to be busy, but I dislike to be superficial. Now, if I could teach only history, I should feel as though I might hope to do something. Girls will be ill-educated, until their teachers are allowed the time and thought which teachers of men are expected to take.
January 22. I am trying to get an idea which is rolling in grand chaos through my mind into shape for a composition theme for my first class this afternoon. It is the power of the soul in moulding form,—from the great Soul of the universe, down to lower natures,—down to animal and vegetable life. Plato’s doctrine of ideas is the only starting-point I can think of; some thoughts of Swedenborg’s will help; then Lavater and the Physiologists and Psychologists. But I want them to use it practically; to take particular persons, features, shape, gait, manner, voice, life; and then observe closely how beauty develops itself in flowers, leaves, pebbles, into infinite variety, yet according to invariable laws. It is a hard thing to bring such subjects into shape which young girls can grasp; yet they are the best things for opening the mind upon a broad horizon.
For a review of the week I must think of Plato; the “Republic,” and “TimÆus,” and “Critias,” I have succeeded in looking through; I have heard my “Mental” class read some of the rest. In the “Republic,” I remember it is decided that youths should be taught in music,—no enfeebling melodies, but those which strengthen and build up the soul in all that is vast and true. Plato’s idea of music comprehends more than we read in the word; and I see how it is that an education should be musical,—the spiritual fabric rising like the walls of Troy to the Orphean strains of noble thoughts and impulses.
I remember, too, that he would forbid some of the stories of the Gods to be told to children; those which should needlessly alarm them, or weaken their reverence. In that corrupt and yet beautiful system, it was necessary indeed; the same idea might be not injuriously carried out in a system of Christian education. In the Hebrew Scriptures there is much that puzzles the maturest minds, sincere and earnest in their search for truth; yet these narratives are the first knowledge that children often have of the Bible. I would have them learn only the New Testament, until they have learned something of the real nature of the world they are ushered into. When they study other history, they will be better able to understand this; and the history of the Jews is, it seems to me, a wonderful part of the world’s record, so connected with that of other nations as to make them plainer, revealing the handwriting of an Almighty Providence everywhere.
I would not have the child begin life with the terror which hung over my childhood: told that I was a sinner before I knew what sin meant, and fearful pictures of eternal punishment which awaited all sinners at death haunting my dreams, so that I was afraid to sleep, and more afraid to die. I know they say (a good man has just said it to me) that there is less vigor of mind and character because these things are less taught as a part of religion than formerly; yet I am sure that blind fear cannot invigorate,—it must degrade. I believe that I went far down from my earliest ideals of life after hearing these things; and it was a long straying amid shadowy half-truths, and glooms of doubt, and stagnations of indifference, before I came back to the first thought of my childhood. No: let a child’s life be beautiful as God meant it to be, by keeping it near Him, by showing to its simplicity the things which are lovely, and true, and pure, and of good report. The knowledge of evil comes rapidly enough, in the petty experiences of life; but a child will soon love evil and grow old in it, if driven away from the divine light of love; if not allowed to think of God chiefly as a friend. And just here is where Christ speaks to the hearts of little children; they know Him as soon as He is permitted to speak, and are known of Him.
January 29. I believe that letter-writing is more of a reality to me now than conversation; short though my notes are, I can speak thus to those who need me, and whom I need.
Repose of character, and the power of forgetting, are great compensations for a tried, hurried, and worried life. And there is, in all but the most unusual lives, something like this, which enables people to laugh at care, and triumph over grief; though it is never perfectly done, except by a thorough trust in the goodness of God,—a faith in the watching love.
February 5. I did have the sleigh-ride with my young friends, as I expected, and a merry one it was. We just whirled through Attleboro, and back again. All I remember of the ride is the icicles that hung on the orchard trees and, just at sunset, the tints that fell on a slope of unstained snow. They were the softest, coolest shades of blue and violet, with here and there a suggestion of rose or crimson, a perfectly magical combination of shadow colors, only half escaped from their white light-prison of the snow. It was a hint of the beauty of an Alpine or a Polar landscape, such as travelers tell about. The young moon followed one queenly star down the west, as we returned, with a song of “Glory Hallelujah,” and “Homeward Bound.”
February 6. The clear blue of this morning’s sky has melted into a mass of snowy clouds, and now earth and sky are of the same hue,—white—white,—the purest crystalline snow is on the ground, and more is coming. The violet hues in the north at sunrise and sunset are very beautiful.
I am glad I took my walk in the woods this morning while the sky was bright; there are fine tints there always on the trees, various browns of withered oaks and beech-leaves, still persistent, and leaning against the stout pine trunks, that hold up their constant green to the sky. Two trees I noticed for the first time, a pine and a maple, which have grown up with their trunks in close union, almost one from infancy. One keeps his dark green mantle on, the other has lost her light summer robe, but is covered all over with the softest clinging lichens, that contrast their pale green tints with the white-gray bark in a charming way. When snow falls on these lichen-draped boughs, the softness of the white above and the white below is wonderful. I think Neck-woods is a grand studio; when weary of my own white walls I can always find refreshment there.
February 7. The news of Sarah Paine’s death overwhelms me,—so young, so sensitive, so genial and accomplished; she seemed made to enter deeply into the reality and beauty of an earthly life. No pupil of mine has ever yet come near me in so many ways to sympathize and gladden as she. Only a few weeks since, we walked together in the woods, so full of life and hope she was; and now, in a moment,—but why this sorrow, since she is but suddenly called home to deeper love and purer life?
How every failure of tenderness and perfect appreciation on my part comes back to pain me now! Why have I not written to her? Why have I waited for her to write to me? Oh, what is worse than to fail of loving truly?
February 13. I had decided to go to her funeral, and went to Boston for the purpose, but a sleepless night left me too wretched to undertake the journey, and I spent the days in Boston feeling too miserable to come back here, or to stay there. How much of my life is gone with this friend!—gone? no; translated, lifted up with her to her new estate! Yet much is gone from the world: the beauty of the walks about here, of the studies we have loved and pursued together,—I hardly knew how much this young life had woven itself into mine. And it was the deeper, spiritual sympathies fusing all love into one deep harmony of life,—it was the love of the all-loving One that brought us closest together; and that makes “was” the wrong word to use, in speaking of her; she is my friend still, and the light of her new life will enter into mine.
One after another, those who have come nearest to me to love, to sympathize, to guide, pass on into purer air, and make me feel that my life is not here; my home is with the beloved.
February 17. There is news to-day of great victories in progress for us. Fort Donelson is surrounded; there has been a deadly fight, and our flag waves upon the outer fortifications. It is said that the rebels must yield, as all approaches are cut off, but it is the struggle of desperation with them, as this is the key to the whole Southwest. There are victories in Missouri and in North Carolina also; more prisoners taken than our generals know what to do with; but all this is purchased at such a price of blood!In the days I stayed in Boston last week I visited two galleries of paintings, ancient and modern. The old paintings are chiefly curious, not beautiful, often very coarse in conception. I should like to see something really great by the “old masters;” but I suppose such things are only to be seen in Europe.
I believe I love landscape more than figures, unless these latter are touched by a master’s hand. To be commonplace in dealing with nature does not seem quite so bad as in dealing with human beings.
I heard Ralph Waldo Emerson speak too. “Civilization” was his subject; nobly treated, except that the part of Hamlet was left out of Hamlet. What is civilization without Christianity? There was a kind of religion in what he said; an acknowledging of all those elements which are the result of Christianity; indeed, Emerson’s life and character are such as Christianity would shape. He only refuses to call his inspiration by its right name. The source of all great and good thought is in Christ; so I could listen to the Sage of Concord and recognize the voice of the Master he will not own in words.
“Hitch your wagon to a star!” was his way of telling his hearers to live nobly, according to the high principles which are at the heart of all life. The easiest way to live, he said, was to follow the order of the Universe. So it is. “The stars in their courses fought against Sisera;” but it was because Sisera would go the opposite way to the stars. This is the secret of our struggle, and of our victory that will be. We have entangled ourselves with wrong, have gone contrary to the Divine Order; now, if we come out plainly and strongly on the right side, we triumph; for Right cannot fail. This war will make a nation of great and true souls; if we fight for freedom. And what else is worth the conflict, the loss of life? The Union, a Country—a home? Yes, if these may be preserved in honor and humanity, not otherwise. Better be parceled out among the nations than keep the stigma of inhumanity upon our great domain. Freedom for slavery is no freedom to a noble soul.
February 21. I have often wondered what is the meaning of these dim forebodings, that, without any apparent cause, will sometimes make us so uneasy. The air is bright, cold, and clear; everything without says, “Rejoice and be strong!” everything within is darkened by vague, unaccountable flutterings of anticipated ill. No sorrow can come to me which will not involve some greater grief of other hearts, so I dread the more what I have to dread. I think I cannot say of anything that is dear to me, that it is all my own; can any one? Mothers, lovers, husbands, wives—these have exclusive joys, and exclusive losses to risk. I can lose much, for I love much; yet there is nothing on earth that I can feel myself holding firmly as mine. So I seek to live in others’ joy and sorrow. A life large and deep in its love, is the privilege of those placed as I am; it must be either that, or quite unloving, shut up in its own small case of selfishness. “When Thou shalt enlarge my heart,” this large feeling of rest will be found.
I have plans floating in my mind for the education of my nieces. I could not afford to have them here without a salary much increased.
I think I could conduct their education myself, in some small school, better than here, more according to my own ideas; whether that is really better or not, only the results would show. But some of their studies I know I could make more valuable to them than those to whom they might be trusted. Then I have an idea of moral, religious, and mental development going on at the same time, which I do not often see carried out; perhaps I should not do it, but I should like to try. Having no children of my own I feel a responsibility for those who are nearest me. How much of an effort one should make for such a purpose as this, I do not know. So far, I have been evidently led into the way I ought to take; may it be so still!
It was a new sight to me, to see a long line of cavalry, extending far out of sight down the street, a forest of bayonets at first, and then an army of horses. It was our National Guard; and it looked like a strong defense, that bristling line of bayonets; but it made me very sad to think that men must leave home, and peaceful occupations, and moral influences, to punish rebellious brethren, and keep them in awe. War, as a business, is one that I cannot learn to believe in, although I must realize it as a necessity.
February 26. For any of us to comprehend thoroughly Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel—to say nothing of the plainer sensualistic systems—in the little time we can give to the study, is quite out of the question. And yet it does these young girls good to know that there is a region of thought above and beyond their daily track, and if they should ever have time, they may enjoy exploring it. Besides, the habit of looking upon life in a large way comes through philosophy Christianized. The right use of our faculties in a reverent search for truth is certainly worth much thought and painstaking from man or woman.
To live a child-like, religious life in all things is what I would do; simply receiving light and life from the love revealed within, and so, as a child, claiming the inheritance of the world without, which was created by the same Love for loving souls; but the earthly cleaves to me; I lose simplicity of soul in the world’s windings.
Yet I own but one Life, one Lord and Redeemer; in Him only shall I find for myself the simplicity of the child and the wisdom of the Seraph. In Him all things are mine. Beautiful ideals may deceive one. Because we see and can talk about noble things, does it follow that we can live them? I fear not always.
March 5. My birthday,—and I am as much gratified as any child to find fragrant and beautiful flowers in my room, placed there by loving hands. And, what was very beautiful to me, the trim-berry vine which I have kept in a dish of moss all winter, this morning put forth one hesitating, snow white blossom, another followed before noon, and to-night there are four, as delicate in perfume as in color; it is so sweet, that the woods give me this pretty memento of their love to-day; it is a promise of spring, too; of the multitudes of just such white blossoms that are waiting patiently under the snow-banks to give themselves away in beauty and fragrance by and by.—To-night, for the first time, I met some of our scholars to talk with them of deep and sacred truths. I hardly know how I did it; it seemed hard at first, and yet it was easy, for the words seemed to be spoken through me. I will try not to shrink from it again. And I will endeavor to keep it before myself and others, that Christianity is simply a receiving and living out the life of Christ; not a thing of theories and emotions, but a life.
I will say it to these pages, because I feel it so bitterly sometimes, and cannot speak it out here without offense, that there is too much of the “tearing open of the rosebud” in talking with those who are seeking the truth. Some are thought to be indifferent or untrue, because they will not speak of their deepest feelings to anybody who asks them. It is a shameful mistake; it must accompany a low standard of delicacy, to say the least. Let me not call that pride or obstinacy, which is the heart’s natural reserve! The deeper depths of the soul are sacred to one Eye alone, and so much as a shrinking soul may reveal to a friend, it will. I would discourage too free a conversation about one’s own feelings; it is dissipating, except where a burdened soul must pour out itself to another for sympathy. Why cannot we leave our friends to find God in the silence of the soul, since there is His abode?
March 11. We have had victories by sea and land. To-night the news comes that Manassas is occupied by our troops. The “Merrimac” has made a dash from Norfolk, and destroyed two of our war vessels; but the little iron-clad “Monitor” appeared and drove her back. The coast of Florida is forsaken by the rebels, and our troops are taking possession. Everything is working for us now; and it seems as if the rebellion must soon be strangled. Sometimes it seems to me as if these events were happening in a foreign country, they touch me and mine so little in a way that we immediately feel.
This has been a day of “clearing up,” and domestic reforms are never poetical. Taking down pictures and books, and finding one’s self reminded of neglected favorites by heaps of dust, lost mementos coming up from forgotten corners,—after all, there is some sentiment in it; and, in the midst of it, three letters, two of them touching my heart-strings right powerfully.
I have learned to live with a trusting heart and a willing hand from day to day, and I have not a wish for more, except that I might be able to help others as I am not now able. If it is rest that is before me, I dare not take it until I am more weary than now;—a home would withdraw me from the opportunity of educating my nieces, perhaps. No! there can be nothing but single-handed work for others before me; anything else would be but a temptation, and perhaps one that I should not be able to bear. I would be kept safe from everything but a plain opening to the life of self-sacrifice in the footsteps of our one true Guide! I will trust Him for all, and be at rest from the dread of too much sunshine, as well as from fear of storms. He knows what I need.
There is heart-heaviness for souls astray, such as I have seldom felt, weighing me down even now. There is one poor girl, half ruined, and not knowing how to escape destruction, for whom there seems no outlet but into the very jaws of death. None but a Divine Power can help her; yet He may do it by making human helpers appear for her. How fearful a thing it is to be placed where there are brands to be plucked from burning.
And this is not the only one I know, for whom all human efforts seem unavailing. Near and far away are those to whom my heart reaches out with nameless fears, and hope unquenched and unquenchable, till the lamp of life shall go out. God save us all from shipwreck of soul! for these drifting lives but show us the possibilities of our own.
With poor little Prince Arthur, I can sometimes say heartily, “Would I were out of prison, and kept sheep.”
One long summer all out of doors, what new life it would give me! Yet I would not have this winter’s memory left out of my life for much. Some new openings into true life, here and beyond, come with every season.
March 16. I have been trying to hold some plain converse with myself, and I am more and more convinced that sincerity is not the thorough spirit of my life, as I would have it. It is so easy to take one’s fine theories, and the frequent expression of them, in the place of the realities they stand for. I really fear that I have been trying to impose these fine theories upon Him who knows my heart, in the place of true love. I believe in self-forgetfulness, in constant thought for others, in humility, in following the light of the unseen Presence within the soul, but I do not live out these ideas, except in languid and faltering efforts.
Now in this way, is not my life going to be a false one, false to man and God? Discouraging indeed it is, to think much of self; and it is well that we need not do it. There is life, there is truth to be had for the asking. Only the Christ-life within can make me true before heaven and earth and my own heart. Yet even here I feel myself so apt to dwell upon the beautiful theory of a present Redeemer as to forget that in the trifles of a daily intercourse with human beings, this life is to be manifested, if at all. Thoroughly unselfish—shall I ever be that?I was glad to talk with my Bible scholars about the resurrection to-day. It has come to be the most real of all revealed truths to me.
Our Lord is risen, and we have a Redeemer to stand by our souls in the struggles of this human life. He is risen, and we shall arise from the dead, and go home to Him, “and so be forever with the Lord.” He is risen, and all His and our beloved are risen with Him; they are “alive from the dead forevermore.” He is risen, and we rise with Him from the death of sin, into the new life of holiness which he has brought into the world. He said, “Because I live, ye shall live also.”
Beverly, April 5. Two, almost three, weeks of the vacation are gone. It is Saturday night, and after a week of fine spring weather, there is another driving snowstorm, which makes us all anxious, as our good brother Isaac has just sailed from Boston; but perhaps he is at anchor in the Roads; they would not start with the signs of a north-east storm at hand. Bound for Sumatra, to be gone a year, perhaps two. How we shall all miss him! He is one of the really kind-hearted, genial men, who know how to make home and friends happy, just by being what they are; no effort, no show about it, genuine goodness of heart making itself always felt.
I have had a week of visiting, also. Curious contrasts one finds, in passing from family to family; each has its own peculiar essence or flavor, its home element, or lack of the same; sometimes its painful peculiarity, which it seems almost dishonorable for a guest to notice, or ever even to think of, afterwards. One thing is plain,—the worldly-prosperous learn with most difficulty the secret of home-rest; whoever loves show has not the true home-love in him.
Those are the happiest family circles which are bound together by intangible, spiritual ties, in the midst of care, poverty, and hard work, it may be. Whether rich or poor, a home is not a home unless the roots of love are ever striking deeper through the crust of the earthly and the conventional, into the very realities of being,—not consciously always; seldom, perhaps; the simplicity of loving grows by living simply near nature and God.
And I have looked into some pleasant homes during this brief visit. Homes where little children are, are always beautiful to me, for the children’s sake, if for nothing more. Cherub-like or impish, the little folks fascinate me always. If I were a mother, I am afraid I should never want my baby to grow up; and who knows whether the babies that die do not keep the charm of infancy upon them forever? So many little children I have loved have gone home with tiny life-torches just filling some small domestic world with light, a light that could not go out, and which perhaps heaven needs to make it perfect heaven.
But the best visit of all is always to Amesbury, to the friendly poet, and my loving Lizzie, his sister; dearer and dearer she seems to me, now so alone, without her mother. Since Esther went away, my longing love goes after this friend, my own Elizabeth, as if, when Heaven opened to receive one friend, a golden cord were flung down to us two, to bring us nearer each other and nearer the beloved ones up there. But theirs is a home in each other’s love which makes earth a place to cling to for its beauty yet. If I could not think of them together there, of the quiet light which bathes everything within and around their cottage under the shadow of the hill, of the care repaid by gentle trust, of the dependence so blessed in its shelter of tenderness and strength, the world would seem to me a much drearier place; for I have never seen anything like this brother’s and sister’s love, and the home-atmosphere it creates, the trust in human goodness and the Divine Love it diffuses into all who enter the charmed circle.
I love to sit with my friends in the still Quaker worship; there is something very soothing in the silence of the place to me, and in glancing upon the faces around me, where “the dove of peace sits brooding.” Then and there, I have often felt the union of all hearts in the truth, where there is no thought of opinion, or sect, or creed, but the one wide communion of trust in one Father and Redeemer which is His church; the gathering of all souls in Him.
April 17. I feel better prepared to write than I ever have, and I feel a greater desire to say what I am able to say, if I may. I do not know what my greatest use in life is yet, whether I can do more by teaching or by writing; I wait to be shown and to be guided, and I believe I shall be.
April 22.... The best preparation for death is to be alive as fully as one is capable of being; for the transition is not from life to death, but from life to life; more life always. And the time when we are to be called hence need not trouble us, or the way: it is in the heart of the Father to do the best thing for us forever.
May 4. I have been to Esther’s grave, and found Spring there, a glimpse of the immortal sunshine and blossoming in which she lives. I have found love growing for me in her home, in one young, glad heart; and in one life-worn and sorrow-worn. I have felt her spirit living and breathing yet in her earthly home; from her flowers, her books, her domestic life, in all the atmosphere of the places haunted by her footsteps,—the home where she lived and loved and suffered, the lovely resting-place of her dust by the river side. Of such lives as hers new life is born, and I have brought back with me a deeper reality to live in, heaven bends nearer over me, earth is lifted up to heaven. I only needed to breathe in another, freer atmosphere than this; and the dear Lord sent me just where it was best for me to go. Scarcely could I have found anything so good for my soul’s health, this side of the “fields beyond the swelling flood,” where Esther, my heart’s sister, walks with the Angels in the bloom of immortal health and loveliness.It is strange, but I seem to know her more humanly now than when she was here. I saw her but once or twice; she was to me as a spirit, a voice in the wilderness, to guide and to cheer. Now I feel how she wore the same robes of flesh, wearily and painfully, yet cheering and blessing household and friends by her patient, tender love. I never thought before how beautiful it would be to visit the Holy Land—to tread in the Lord’s footsteps. I had thought that the spirit-love might be dimmed by traces of the earthly; but it is not so; I have tracked the footsteps of this loving pilgrim through the Gethsemane and Olivet of her Holy Land of home, and I know her and hers more truly; I am hers, and she is mine more surely now forever.
May 10. Heaven is a place, a home, a rest: but it is a Spiritual habitation, Truth and Love and Peace are the pillars that support it; and it is the truthful, the loving, and the holy only who may enter in. How then, O beloved Guide, may such as I? Because Thou hast drawn me by love to Love,—hast given an “earnest” of that life even here, imparting new sympathies, hopes, and aspirations, infusing Thine own life into mine, and Thou wilt never forsake Thine own work, Thine own home! Yet so imperfectly I hear and follow Thee, so slow, so cold, so hard my nature yet,—when the summons comes, will it not find me lagging on the heavenly road, hardly at home within the beautiful gates? So many die with noble purposes half-grown into achievement, so many live but half in the light, and yet the Light is in them,—how will it be with them, and with me; how shall the stains of the mortal be put off? Death has no cleansing power, and defilement may not enter heaven. There is a mystery here which is too painful; yet we know not what that other life is, nor how hereafter, more than here, the Shepherd leads His own.
Always it is by paths they have not known; and what new and wonderful ministries may be prepared for us there, who have sought Him through all our faltering and waywardness here, He knows; and it is good to trust Him always, and for all things.
Sabbath, May 11. Esther’s letters are a constant comfort to me; they say more to me now, about some things, than they did while she was alive. I love to keep them near me—in sight. Does she know how happy she makes me every day I live, how rich I am in the inheritance of love she has left me? Ah! how little can I tell what she is doing for me now! But the “idea of her life” seems growing into all my thoughts. I could not have known her as I do if she had not gone away, to return in spirit; and I can see her, too, moulding the lives of others she loved most dearly. There is more of heaven in this Spring’s sunshine than I have seen for years.
I owe my acquaintance with Robertson to her; a gift she sent me out of deepest pain, when she was passing through the fires, and none but Jesus knew. I use his thoughts on the epistle to the Corinthians with my class these Sunday mornings; that is, I read the Apostle’s words, then Robertson’s, then the Apostle’s again, and afterward talk with the scholars from the things which I have, in both ways, received. And by the kindling eyes and earnest looks of all, especially of some whose natures have seemed indolent and unspiritual, I feel assured that the living thought is sometimes found and received mutually. A soul must drink the truth, bathe in it, glow with its life, in order to impart it to another soul; and it is to me a source of gratitude which I can never exhaust, that such as Robertson and my Esther “have lived and died.”
May 13. Yesterday morning the news came of the surrender of Norfolk, and, in a sudden burst of patriotism, the school went out and marched round the Liberty pole, under the Stars and Stripes, singing “Hail Columbia,” and cheering most heartily.
The defeat of the rebels—happily bloodless—was attended with the usual amount of vandalism, burning of buildings, ships, etc. The stolen ship “Merrimac,” transformed into an iron-fanged rebel war steamer, was blown up; we are all glad her race is run. And the vandalism of the rebels is but another proof to the world of the worth of their cause, the desperate situation in which they find themselves, and on which side of the contest barbarism lingers. All hearts are lighter now. The doom of this demoniac rebellion is sealed. There is no longer any slavery in the District of Columbia, and doubtless the whole infamous “system” shall be drowned out in the blood of this war. If not, it will seem to have been shed in vain.
May 21. C—— has gone into the army; but first he has “joined the army of the Lord,” as he expresses it in his letter to his mother. If ever mortals could hear the angels rejoicing “over one that repenteth,” I should think I had heard them to-day, while I read this news. So much anxiety lest here should be a shipwrecked soul, so many have been pained about him, and burdened for him,—so little faith or hope some of us had, as to the possibility of his rising out of his old self into a better life,—all these memories come back, and make it seem like a miracle; and indeed it is the greatest of all miracles.
And when he writes, “Aunt Lucy may feel as if her prayers were being answered,” it seems to me as if I had nothing but unbelief to remember. It is the mighty hand of God, if he is saved! He goes into temptation, but he goes hopeful, and longing to prove himself a “good soldier of the Cross.” And now he needs to be followed with faith and prayer more than ever. It seems to me as if this were realizing for the first time, what “conversion” means; that it is a reality, and not a term which custom has made mere cant. He speaks of himself in a free, simple way, as I never could have spoken; and yet it is genuine. Oh, if it might unloose more hearts and tongues!
May 23.... I am so glad to be needed, as I seem to be now, by several of my friends: my thoughts, my care, my suggestions seem of some value. It is a woman’s want, and I feel a woman’s gratification in being allowed to think a little for others. For a great school like this, I never feel that I can do much; I want to know just the especial need of somebody that I can help.
So human nature goes: absorbed by petty miseries quite as much as by grand and beautiful ideas; who would think, sometimes, that such as we could be immortal beings?
I have felt myself growing very skeptical for a little while, of late. A cold thrill creeps insidiously through me when I go among people; there is so little apparent reality in human lives, loves, friendships. “All seek their own;” and when there is a gleam of unselfishness, it is but a passing gleam. And, worst of all, when I am with those whose lives are pitched in a low key, I find myself taking it for granted that it is life.
June 7. Two trials came to me this week, trials to patience which I seldom have, yet both very trifling. One came from a selfish woman, who would misunderstand me, and imagine that I was troubling her, when I was trying to do just the opposite; this I must bear in silence, for it is a case when doing and letting alone are accounted alike grievous. Another was from the whims of school-girls, which they would persevere in, though to their own serious discomfort. How to meet such things with simple meekness, and not with a desire to let people suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, is something, which, old as I am, I have not yet learned. The constant frets of this kind that some have to bear, I have been saved from; people are generally too generous and thoughtful of me. How miserable some families must be! and what a wretched life it must be, just to be left to the indulgence of one’s own foolish and selfish whims!
June 11. This week I wrote letters which decide my going to Connecticut, to Esther’s mother, next year. It is strange that it seemed so hard for me to decide upon so pleasant a thing; but somehow it is as if this were altogether a different thing from my usual plans; as if there were hidden links in spiritual chains influencing my decision, and to result from it. I do not know whether I have decided right, but I believe some good will come out of it, in some way. If I can make a desolate home a little happier, it will be worth going for; but that is just the thing I fear I shall not do.
June 22. ... I was most wretchedly tried, to-day, by a bungler in dentistry, and then worried and vexed by two hours’ hurried and dissatisfied shopping.
... I know that I am loved and valued here, and yet I want to go away. I do not think of any place where I long to go, but only somewhere into a different life: into more trials I am sure it will be, when I do go, but that does not frighten me. I am growing callous with the constant repetition of the same blessings. I need to suffer, to be shaken sorely through all my life, then perhaps I shall learn not to be so ungrateful or indifferent to anything God sends.
July 9. If Atlas had undertaken to keep a journal of his state of mind, while holding the world on his shoulders, he might have been successful and he might not; and it might or might not have been worth while. I don’t want to “keep a journal” exactly, but I want to try the effect of writing every day, as much to keep up the habit as anything else. But how to catch the moments from between the busy hours? I am to be here another anniversary,—no help for it, though greatly against my wishes: the work that comes with it does not seem to me very profitable to anybody in particular, and the hardest of it comes upon me. I dislike shows and preparation for shows; but there is no escaping. There is an interest in helping the girls do their parts well, only they and I both fear I help them too much sometimes.
... At night a most kind letter from my editor friend with a most liberal enclosure for services rendered. The nobleness and genial spirit of the man is more to me even than his liberality. It is a comfort to write for those who receive in the spirit of one’s giving.
And to-day a letter from a young nephew, confiding to me his longings for a better life, and asking for suggestions and advice. This is a joy that brought tears to my eyes; not that I can do much for him, except by helping him to keep those aspirations alive; by sympathy and by living such a life as he seeks. It is like a miracle, in these days, when a young man like him really is interested in such things! An upright, moral one too, with few bad habits, and the promise of a successful worldly career.
Beverly, last of July. The war moves on, but slowly. The “rallying” meetings to raise the President three hundred thousand men seem like an attempt at galvanizing patriotism into life. Blindness is come upon the people in some way, for some reason: it is not as in the old Revolutionary days; and yet this cause is greater. But we will not dare to say that we are fighting for anything but the Government. We leave God out, and all becomes confused.
July 29. Another death; C——, the stray lamb so long, has been called into the upper fold. His was a wonderful change, as marked as St. Paul’s, almost, and his last letter from the camp was one that will be a lifelong comfort to his friends, so full of faith in God, submission to His will, an entire readiness to die, and yet a wish to live that the past might be redeemed. He died on the 25th of June, while his division of the army was passing from Corinth to Memphis, after having suffered much from fever, and other complaints incident to a weakened constitution in a new climate, and among the hardships of war. He had his wish; his long desire to be a soldier was gratified; once he was under fire; the air full of bullets around him, and one striking within two feet of his head. But he was not to die in battle; disease, that he dreaded more, laid him low; he longed for civilization, was weary of the great Southern forests; but there he was to lay his weary head for his last sleep. And now his mother is all alone in the world, and almost broken-hearted. One after another, husband and four children have gone, and she is a widow and childless.
But to think of the thousands of homes that this war has desolated, the thousands of hearts well-nigh broken! Is it not enough?
No, for the purification of the nation has not yet been wrought out; the scourge is needed yet; the gulf yet yawns for that which is dearest in all the land, and the war will not cease until it is closed. Not to a proud, self-confident people will the victory be given, but to the humble, the trustful, the nation that stays itself upon God, and lives only for the highest principles, and the highest love.
August 10. This week has been a more remarkable one than any in my life, I believe, in the way of seeing people I have heard of, and had some little curiosity about. Last Thursday was spent at Andover, and one of the golden days it was. The day itself was one of shine and shadow just rightly blended; and the place, the well-known Hill of the students, was in its glory. After sitting awhile in church, where the learned Professors, Park, Phelps, and Stowe, sat in state (I wonder if Professors dread anniversaries and conspicuous positions as we boarding-school teachers do!) we went up the hill to accept an invitation to lunch with Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was beautiful as a page from one of her own story books.
Mrs. Stowe herself I liked, and her house and garden were just such as an authoress like her ought to have. It all had what I imagine to be an English look, the old stone house, with its wild vines and trees brought into shape in picturesque walks, and its cool refreshment-room looking off over the river, the city, and the far hills, to the mountains; the arrangement of the table, too, showing so much of the poetess. I could not have called upon Mrs. Stowe formally; as it was, nothing could have been much pleasanter, of that kind.
Then before I left I called upon some old friends; a call which finished the day very delightfully; for there, besides the cordiality of really well-bred people, I saw one of the sweetest specimens of girlhood that can be shown in New England, I fancy. Beauty does not often fascinate me, in its common acceptation; but where there is soul in a young, sweet face—modesty and intelligence that greet you like the fragrance of a rosebud before it is well opened—it is so rare a thing in these “Young America” days that it makes me a little extravagant in admiration, perhaps.
Saturday I spent at Amesbury; it was not quite like other visits, for two other visitors were there; yet I enjoyed one of them especially; an educated mulatto girl, refined, lady-like in every respect, and a standing reply to those who talk of the “inferiority of the colored race.” It is seldom that I see any one who attracts me so much, whose acquaintance I so much desire, just from first sight. She would like to teach at Port Royal, but the government will not permit. Ah, well! my book ends with no prospect of the war’s end. Three hundred thousand recruits have just been raised, and as many more are to be drafted.
Many talk as if there never was a darker time than now. We have no unity of purpose; the watchword is “Fight for the Government!” but that is an abstraction the many cannot comprehend. If they would say, “Fight for Liberty—your own liberty, and that of every American,” there would be an impetus given to the contest that, on our side, “drags its slow length along.” This is an extreme opinion, our law-abiding people say, but I believe we shall come to worse extremes before the war ends.
