 
IN any thought of Mrs. Moulton's life, through which gleamed always the double thread of friendship and song, certain words of the Rev. Dr. Ames associate themselves,—that all our time here is God's time, "which we measure off by days and years, From life to Life that we pass. In retrospective glance, how beautiful are these closing months of her sojourn on earth! They were filled to the last with love and friendship, and sweet thought, Mrs. Moulton's health was constantly failing from this winter of 1907 until she passed through the "Gleaming Gates" in August of 1908, but so gently imperceptible was the decline that even through this winter she half planned to go to London again in the spring. In a little meditation on the nature of life which T.P. O'Connor induced her to write for his journal about this time, under the caption of "My Faith and My Works," she said: "There must be always 'the still, sad music of humanity'—the expression of the mind that foresees, of the heart that aches with foreknowledge. One would not ignore the gladness of the dawn, the strong splendor of the mid-day sun; but, all the same, the shadows lengthen, and the day wears late. "And yet the dawn comes again after the "My best reward has been the friendships that my slight work has won for me," she had said; and the assurance of these did not fail her to the end. In the article just quoted she said of her work: "I have written many times more prose than verse, but it is my verse which is most absolutely me, and for which I would rather that you should care. Some critics assert that the sonnet is an artificial form of expression. Is it? I only know that no other seems to me so intimate—in no other can I so sincerely utter the heart's cry of despair or of longing—the soul's aspiration toward that which is eternal. "Am I a realist? I think I am; but who was it who said that the sky is not less real than the mud?" The death of her old friend, Mr. Aldrich, greatly moved her, and in her diary for March 20, 1907, she records: "Indoors all day; an awful wind storm, and the day was made sad by the news in the morning's paper of T.B. Aldrich's death yesterday, in the late afternoon. Oh, how sad death seems. Aldrich was seventy last November. How soon we, his contemporaries, shall all be gone. His death seems to darken everything." Two days later she writes: "Went to the funeral services of T.B. Aldrich, at Arlington Street Church. The services, the music, and Mr. Frothingham's reading, were most impressive and beautiful.... In the evening came Mr. Stedman to see me. His visit was a real pleasure, I had not seen him for so long." This must have been the last meeting between Mrs. Moulton and Mr. Stedman after their almost life-long friendship. To Mrs. Aldrich she wrote: Mrs. Moulton to Mrs. Aldrich 28 Rutland Square, Dear Mrs. Aldrich: I cannot tell you how my talk with you a few days ago brought the long past back to me. How I wish I could put into words a picture of your poet as I saw him first. I was in New York for a visit, and was invited for an afternoon to an out-of-town place, where a poet-friend and his wife were staying. Other interesting people were there, but the one I remember was T.B.A. His poems had charmed me, and to me he was not only their author, but their embodiment. Had it been otherwise, I should have felt bereft of an ideal; but he was all I had imagined and more. I saw him alive with the splendor of youth, rich, even then, in achievement, and richer still in hope and dreams,—a combination of knight and poet. He escorted me back to New York, I remember, and the charm of his presence and his conversation still lingers in my memory. Ever since then I have kept in touch with his work and loved it. His personality attracted every one who met him, and his generous kindness and appreciation were a joy to those who sought his sympathy. I remember the pleasure with which my poet-friend, Frederic Lawrence Knowles, told me of a kind invitation to call on Mr. Aldrich, and the yet more enthusiastic delight with which he afterward described the interview. He found his gracious and graceful host to be so wise, sympathetic, hopeful, and suggestive, all that he had hoped for and more. I think every young poet who had the happiness of meeting him could bear similar testimony. I saw him last on the twelfth of January, 1907, so short a time before his death, and yet he seemed so alert and alive, so interesting, so entirely what he was when I knew him first that one could not have dreamed that the end was near. The only consolation for a loss that will be so widely felt is in the legacy he has left to the world of immortal charm and beauty,—the work that will not die. Yours most sincerely, Louise Chandler Moulton. The last sonnet which Mrs. Moulton wrote was for the birthday of Mrs. Howe. TO JULIA WARD HOWE On her Eighty-seventh Birthday, May 27, 1907
During the summer Mrs. Moulton was for the most part in her morning-room, surrounded by her favorite books, her papers, her letters, attended by the faithful Katy, and remembered constantly with flowers and tokens from friends. She cherished until quite midsummer the hope of joining the Schaefers, who were in Europe; but in reply to their urgent wish to return and be with her, she begged that they would not cut short their trip, as it would distress her to feel that they were in Boston during the hot weather. To a friend who remained in town and who saw her every day, she said: "It would make me really ill to have Florence and Will come into this hot town. I should only feel how uncomfortable they must be, dear as they are to wish to come for my sake. With letters and the cable, we are in touch all the time." It was, on the whole, a pleasant season, although she was often uncomfortable if not actually in pain. Friends urged her to come into the country, but to this she did not feel equal. Mrs. Spofford had met with an accident, but before the summer was over was able to resume her visits; and more than anything else her companionship brightened the days. The autumn brought back the accustomed circle, and in October came the following letter from Dr. Ames: Dr. Ames to Mrs. Moulton 12 Chestnut St., Boston, My Dear Friend: I am somewhat foot-fast; but very far from indifferent, and you will never know how often your name is called as I tell my rosary beads. I wonder if you find comfort, as I often do, in the thought that all true and honorable human friendship is representative of its inspiring source, and that we should not thus care for each other, and wish each other's highest welfare, if our hearts were not in receptive touch with a Heart still greater, purer, and more loving? Can you rest in the imperfect good will of your friends and yet distrust its Origin and Fountain? I appreciate and share your perplexity over the world's "Vast glooms of woe and sin." But, when most weary and heavy-laden with all our common burden of sorrow and shame, I find some measure of strength and peace in the example and spirit of One who knew and felt it all, One who could gather into a heart of boundless compassion all the blind and struggling multitudes, and could yet trust all the more fully to the Father's love for all, because He felt that love in His own. The problem of evil—my evil, yours, everybody's—was not solved by Him with any reasoning; it was simply met and overmatched by faith which saw all finite things held in the Infinite, as all the stars are held in space. Did sin abound? Grace did much more abound. To that superabounding grace I commit all our needy souls. I know no other resource. I need no other.
As for unanswered questions,—let them rest. They rest while you sleep; let them rest while you wake. In opening a window to look out, we shall let in the blessed light of While you and I are waiting for the sunset gun, what use can we make of our afternoon except to welcome the sacred horizontal light, which shows us how our resources and energies can best be applied to the welfare of others? If in considering our remaining opportunities and duties, we may partly forget our own private troubles, that will be salvation, will it not? We may be sure that all the happiness we try to secure for others will return to ourselves redoubled. You would say this to another, why not say it insistently to yourself. Faithfully yours, Charles Gordon Ames. In November her daughter and son-in-law arrived, and from that time did not leave her. There were happy days in which Mrs. Moulton was able to drive, although these were rare, and as the winter wore on she was less and less able to see friends. The last letter she ever wrote, save for some brief words to Mrs. Spofford, written when she could with difficulty hold a pen, was one to Archdeacon The entries in her diary became few and irregular. There is a pathetic beauty in the fact that the latest complete record, in the early summer of 1908, is a mention of a visit from "dear Hal," Mrs. Spofford. The very last was simply the words "Florence and Will," which fitly closed the record which had extended over more than a quarter of a century. Hardly a month before her death Colonel Higginson wrote to her that he felt that in her execution she excelled all other American women-poets. She had questioned him of death, and he replied: "Your question touches depths. I never in my life felt any fear of death, as such. I never think of my friends as buried." The transition came on Monday, August 10, 1908. On the Friday before she had seemed better, and Mrs. Spofford, who was with her on that day, remarked afterward that "It was delightful to hear her repeat her lyric, 'Roses.'"
"Velvet-soft in this," Mrs. Spofford continued, "her voice had a ringing gayety whose strange undertone was sorrow when reciting, 'Bend Low, O Dusky Night.'" On Saturday she seemed still her old self, but on Sunday afternoon she became unconscious, and on the morning following came release. So peaceful was the transition that to the watchers it was as if she only passed from sleep into a deeper peace. The lines of the late Father Tabb might almost seem to have been written to describe that fitting end:
The funeral service was held three days later. Friends had sent masses of flowers, and among them she rested, never more beautiful, with only peace on the still face. An incident slight, but at such a moment touching, marked the removal of the casket from Grave Louise Chandler Moulton’s Grave in Mount Auburn, Page 275 The letters of sympathy sent to Mrs. Schaefer were many and spontaneous, full of individual feeling and of a sense of personal loss on the part of the writers. "I shall always feel grateful for the privilege of Mrs. Moulton's friendship," wrote the Rev. Albert B. Shields, then rector of the Church of the Redeemer. "One of the kindest friends I ever had," wrote Professor Evans, of Tufts College; "no one that I have known had a greater capacity than she for making close friends." "No one loved your mother as I did," was the word from Coulson Kernahan, "and her passing leaves me lonelier and sadder than I can say." Mrs. Margaret Deland spoke of her "nature so generous, so full of the appreciation of beauty, and of such unfailing human kindness." Mrs. Spofford, so long and so closely her friend, said simply: "I miss her more and more as the days go by. I miss Such extracts might be multiplied, but they are not needed. The affection she felt and inspired must live in the hearts of her friends, and such letters are almost too tender and intimate to be put into cold print. Mrs. John Lane, now of London, but in former years known in Boston as Miss Eichberg, one of the intimates of 28 Rutland Square, has written the following reminiscences of Mrs. Moulton, between whom and herself long existed a warm friendship: "An anecdote told by Mrs. Moulton about Thomas Carlyle and his wife has been going the rounds of the press since her death, coming thus to my notice. I only partially recognize it as one she had often told me. The true version of it is as follows: Mrs. Moulton had it from her friend, Lady Ashburton, who was also a friend of Carlyle and his wife. It seems that Lady Ashburton had invited the Carlyles to visit her. There was a large house-party of people congenial to the great man, and one day after dinner Lady Ashburton prevailed on Carlyle to read aloud some passages from the 'French Revolution.' "I first met Mrs. Moulton in London in the early eighties. I had a letter of introduction to her from a common Boston friend. She was then in the beginning of her London success, knowing everybody in the literary world worth knowing, and extending her simple and charming hospitality to very great people indeed. To go to her Fridays was always to meet men and women whose names are famous on two continents. To a young girl as I was, brought up with a deep veneration for all things literary in England, it was a wonderful opportunity to come face to face, "These movements were the outcome of the pre-Raphaelite, the outward aspects of that erratic and distinguished society, and its artificial simplicity. It was enough to impress any one coming from so conventional a city as Boston. Perhaps the deepest impression made on me was by Philip Bourke Marston, for I remember how Mrs. Moulton brought him to see us, and my father, Julius Eichberg, played for him on the violin. Never shall I forget the picture as he sat there listening, his head supported by his hand, and the various expressions evoked by the music passing over his face. "It was undoubtedly through Mrs. Moulton that the younger English poets of those earlier days won American recognition. Many of these who have now an assured place in literature were first known in America through her introduction. As I remember now, it was she who first unfolded to me the splendid, stately perfection and the profound thought of William Watson, and I can still hear her lovely voice as she recited to me that wonderful poem of his, 'World-Strangeness.' It was she who first read to me 'The Ballad of a Nun,' by John Davidson, and that moving "I remember going with Mrs. Moulton to Miss Ingelow's. Once I remember, when James Russell Lowell was first accredited Minister to the Court of St. James, and had just arrived in London, we met him at Miss Ingelow's. He was evidently a stranger to the hostess and to all her guests, and I recall his talking to her, holding in his hand a cup of tea which he evidently did not want. Miss Ingelow, in a bonnet and shawl, with a lace veil over her face (it was a garden party), seemed to be stricken with a kind of English shyness which made her rather unresponsive, so that he went away without having been introduced to any one, while every one looked on and wanted to know him. "I remember an enthusiastic American girl who was introduced to Thomas Hardy by Mrs. Moulton, at one of her Fridays, who exclaimed, 'O Mr. Hardy, to meet you makes this a red letter day for me'; whereupon the quiet, reserved, great man looked at her in speechless alarm and fled. It was at Mrs. Moulton's that I first became acquainted with the editor of the famous 'Yellow Book.' He was Henry Harland, and its publisher was John Lane. I recall Mrs. Moulton saying "It was in the 'Yellow Book' that the most distinguished of the younger English writers first won their spurs, and that erratic genius, Aubrey Beardsley, made his undying mark on the black and white art, not only of England, but of the world. It was all these younger men whose talent Mrs. Moulton made known to the American public. "In the first years of my friendship with Mrs. Moulton, when she still wrote fiction, she once told me of the plot of a story which had been told to her by Philip Marston. It was a wonderful plot and Mr. Marston wished her to use it. As she told me the details in her vivid way, I was profoundly impressed as if it had been a story of De Maupassant. She seemed to have no great desire to use it, although she was, for the moment, fired by my young enthusiasm for it. If ever I envied, as only a young literary aspirant can, it was Mrs. Moulton then as the ownership of that plot, and I told her so. 'If I do not use it,' she said, 'I will give it to you.' So years passed, and in my mind still lingered the remembrance of that wonderful plot which, so far, Mrs. Moulton had not used. One evening we were at the theatre together, and The numbers of autograph copies of books presented to Mrs. Moulton by their authors she left, by memorandum, to the Boston Public Library, with the request that Professor Arlo Bates make the selection. These now form a memorial collection, each volume marked by a book-plate bearing an engraved portrait of Mrs. Moulton. Professor Bates has written an account of this collection, which, as it has not before been published, may be included here as not only interesting from the inscriptions which it contains, but as indicating the range and variety of Mrs. Moulton's literary friendships. Bookplate Facsimile of Book Plate from the Memorial Collection of the Books of Louise Chandler Moulton Page 282 THE MOULTON COLLECTION"From the library of Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton it has been my task—sombre yet grateful—to select a collection of autographed books and first editions to be given to the Public Library of Boston as a Memorial. Between eight and nine hundred volumes were found worthy, and of these no small number are of rarity and much interest. Mrs. Moulton had not only the books presented to her personally by the writers, but from the library of Philip Bourke Marston she inherited many others enriched by the autographs of famous men and women. The list is too long to be given in anything like entirety, but it included Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Mathilde Blind, Frederick von Bodenstedt, Charles Bradlaugh, Alice Brown, Madison Cawein, F.B. Money-Coutts, John Davidson, Austin Dobson, W.H. Drummond, Eugene Field, Richard Garnett, Richard Watson Gilder, Robert Grant, Edmund Gosse, Louise Imogen Guiney, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, H. Rider Haggard, John Hay, William Ernest Henley, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lord Houghton, Henry James, Amy Levy, Lady Lindsay, Frederick Locker, James Russell Lowell, "The exact number of authors represented has not been counted, but probably the autographed volumes, of which there are about six hundred, do not contain more than a fifth of that number of well-known names. Some signatures are by unknown authors who sent their books to Mrs. Moulton because of her prominence; and in a limited number of cases such have been thrown out as obviously not worthy of a place in the collection. The variety of the personal acquaintances among distinguished writers, however, illustrates very strikingly the breadth of Mrs. Moulton's sympathies and the remarkable extent to which she kept in touch with current literature. In not a few cases, moreover, the inscriptions show how often her "From the many and varied inscriptions in these books I have selected a handful which seem to me interesting, and which Mrs. Moulton's friends will, I hope, find so. In going over the library I was struck with the range in time which these autographs cover. It gave a feeling of being in touch with a past "Older still than these, although the fact that Mr. Trowbridge has happily been with us to the present time makes him seem less a figure of the past, are the inscriptions in the first and second series of Emerson's 'Essays': 'Ella Louise from Paul Creyton, April 10th, 1854'; 'To Ellen Louise from J.T.T., April 10th, 1854.' To the same year belongs a copy of 'Mrs. Partington,' in which is written: 'To my granddaughter, Ellen Louise, Ruth Partington by B.P. Shillaber.' I confess to something of a wist "The autographed books, for the most part, however, belong to the years since Mrs. Moulton had won her place as the leading woman-poet of America. Her intimate connection with the literary world in England has brought it about that almost as many English as American names are found written on the fly-leaves of presentation copies. Largely, of course, the sentiments are simple expressions of regard or admiration, and it has not seemed worth while to include these here. Of those which are more full or less conventional the following are examples: Oswald Crawfurd has written in his 'Portugal': 'My friends consider this my best work, and if they are right it is the fittest present I can give to Mrs. Chandler Moulton, the best friend this year, 1887, has brought me.' In the 1896 edition of 'Dawn' the author says: 'To Mrs. Chandler Moulton with the kind regards of H. Rider Haggard. P.S. Her
Nothing could be more graceful than the inscription of Arthur Sherburne Hardy: 'If the salut Passe Rose sang to Queen Hildegarde (p. 354) had not already been verified for you, I should repeat it here. Faithfully yours, etc.' The salut, as those will remember who are as fond of 'Passe Rose' as I am, was:
In her 'Brownies and Boggles' Miss Guiney has written:
For the "Fairy" Godmother, from her chronicler of elves. L.I.G.' And in 'Goose-Quill Papers': 'To your most gracious hands these weeds and tares.' Clyde Fitch, in a copy of 'The Knighting of the Twins,' mounted from newspaper slips and bound by the author: 'Sweet singer—friendship is a blue, blue sky,—fair, ethereal, interminable, with an horizon made goldy with the sun of love. And your friendship—is a sky still more precious, a heavenly one.' Harriet Prescott Spofford inscribes 'An Inheritance,' 'My dear Louise, with the love of her Hal,' and in turn Mrs. Moulton herself writes in a volume of Mrs. Spofford's 'Poems': 'To Philip Bourke Marston I give these poems of a woman whom I love.' Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement in 'Angels in Art': 'Alas! My pen was not "dropped from an angel's wing," but such things as it writ I send thee with my love.' In a copy of 'Berries of the Briar' I found with amused surprise, as I had not seen it for twenty years or so: 'Louise Chandler Moulton with Christmas greeting from The Briar, 1886.
Anybody could easily place this sort of verse without a date, for at that time, in the eighties, experiments in French forms were notoriously in fashion. In 'Love Lyrics,' in clear, incisive text one reads: 'For Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton these humble lines—herein gathered by another than the author's hand—so doubly poor an exchange for her volume of real poetry entitled "At the Wind's Will." With all hale greetings of your ever grateful friend, James Whitcomb Riley. Christmas of 1899.
"In 'The World Beautiful' was inscribed: 'To Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton, whose graciousness and charm create a World Beautiful wherever she goes, this little book is offered, with grateful love.' Dr. Holmes' inscription is a copy of his well-known stanza: 'And if I should live to be.' Edmund Clarence Stedman inscribes his 'Poems': 'To my loyal, lifelong friend, Louise Chandler Moul
"The 'American Anthology' three years later has: 'To my life-long, loyalest woman friend—my sister in life and song—Louise Chandler Moulton. Meet whom we may, no others comprehend save those who breathed the same air and drank the same waters when we trod the sunrise fields of Youth.' In 'The Poet's Chronicle,' privately printed in an edition of forty-four copies on Van Gelder paper, is written: 'My old friend, Louise Chandler Moulton, this piece not aimed at the public. Frederick Wedmore, 3rd July, 1902.' 'Heartsease and Rue' Mr. Lowell presents 'to Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton with the kind regards of the author, who wishes her all heartsease and no rue.' In this volume, as in a number of others, a signed letter is inserted, either one which accompanied the gift in the first place or which replied to the acknowledgment of the recipient. 'Astrophel and Other Poems' is sent 'To Mrs. Moulton from A.C. Swinburne in memoriam Philip Bourke Marston.' "Among the Marston books are many of interest, but of them I have space to mention only two. One is a copy of 'Ecce Homo,' to 'Philip Bourke Marston from his godmother, D.M.C., Aug. 13, 1866.' Dinah Mulock Craik's poem to her godson, 'Philip, my King,' is well known, and is alluded to in one of the inscriptions which I have already quoted. Mr. Marston's godfather, Philip James Bailey, bestowed upon him a copy of 'Festus,' with the inscription: 'Ce livre donnÉ affectueusement par l'auteur À son cher filleul Philippe Bourke Marston, qui a dÉjÀ par son propre genie Étendue la renommÉe patronymique, est accompagnÉ des voeux les plus sincÈres pour la santÉ et pour son bonheur.' Just why French should be used in this connection is not evident, and perhaps I am not justified in feeling that 'Festus' Bailey was perhaps not without a secret pride in being able to achieve an inscription in that language. Be that as it may, however, the sentiment expressed is a graceful one, not ungracefully put. The third volume is a copy of Swinburne's 'A Song of Italy.' In it is this note: 'This copy was read by Mr. Swinburne, on March 30th, 1867, to Mr. Mazzini, and has been in the hand of the great Italian to whom it is dedicated. Presented to Philip "I have already much exceeded the limits within which in beginning this paper I meant to end. I have therefore no space in which to speak of the first and limited editions or of the privately printed books which add to the value of the collection. It is to me a source of much satisfaction that this fine and dignified memorial to Mrs. Moulton should be in the Public Library of Boston. The book-plate by Sidney L. Smith contains her portrait, and a catalogue of the books has been printed. Mrs. Moulton's work is her monument, but this will be an appropriate and fitting recognition of her place in American letters and in the gracious company of New England's poets." The autograph letters left by Mrs. Moulton, the greater number written to her personally but some which were well-nigh priceless (like the original of the famous letter in which Mrs. Browning stated her view of spiritualism) from the bequest of Mr. Marston, were carefully assorted, and by her daughter given to the Congressional Library at Washington. To them was added the large number of The place of Louise Chandler Moulton as a writer is assured. The words of the London AthenÆum in its memorial notice may be said to sum up the matter with entire justice when it said that her work "entitles her to her recognized position as the first poet, among women," in America, from the fact that her verse possesses "delicate and rare beauty, marked originality, and, what was better still, ... a sense of vivid and subtle imagination, and that spontaneous feeling which is the essence of lyrical poetry." Her mastery of the sonnet-form has been commented upon in the words of critics of authority a number of times already in this volume, and neither this nor her wonderful instinct for metrical effect need be dwelt upon here. That she has left her place in American letters unfilled, and that no successor is in evidence will hardly be disputed. Few writers of equal eminence have so completely escaped from all trace of mannerism, for unless a tendency to melancholy might be so classed her poetry is unusually free from this fault. The imaginative spontaneity of To her friends the remembrance of her genius for friendship,—for it amounted to that,—her wonderful and unworldly kindness which overflowed in all her acts, the sympathy which no demands could exhaust, must seem hardly less a title to continued remembrance than her poetic powers. Her life was singularly complete, singularly fortunate, in its conditions. It was a life enriched with genius, friendship, and love, and above all it was the life of one whose nature was golden throughout with the appreciation of beauty and the instinctive generosity which gave as freely as it had received. She had entered into the larger life where No work begun shall ever pause for death, and where all the nobler energies of the spirit shall enter into eternal beauty. Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected without note, and illustrations have been moved to the nearest paragraph break. |
|
