 
THE last decade of the century, to half of which the preceding chapter was given, stands out pre-eminently in Mrs. Moulton's life. Her fame, which had come to her so untainted by any self-seeking, and the abounding richness of friendship which so filled her life, friendship as sympathetic and cordial as it was widespread, made these years wonderful. Death and sorrow did bring into them a profound sadness, but even these brought her into closer touch with humanity and ripened her experiences. The recognition which her art won gave her something much more satisfying than merely ... to hear the nations praising her far off. And if to deal with literature is only to know about the Eternal Beauty, while living and loving are in it and of it, she was indeed fortunate. In the life of no poet could be less of the abstraction of literary fame and more of the vitality of real existence. Her social life, both at home and abroad, was full of companionship sweet and genuine. For the mere ceremonial of life she cared little. Life was to her a thing too real, too precious, to make of it a spectacle. If her association was so largely with persons of distinction, it was because they interested her personally, and not because of the social position. That was incidental. Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, speaking after the death of Mrs. Moulton, remarked: "I honored her for her literary power; I loved her for herself. But especially I felt her refinement." Such refinement is incompatible with ostentation, and it was significant of her feeling on social matters that she copied in her note-book, with the remark, "I agree with this entirely," this paragraph from Henry James' "Siege of London": "I hate that phrase 'getting into society.' I don't think one ought to attribute to one's self that sort of ambition. One ought to assume that one is in society—that one is While she was a woman of the world, she was not a worldly woman. She might easily have been presented at court during her many seasons in London, but she never cared to be. She not infrequently met the Princess Louise and other members of the Royal Family, and her own comings and goings were chronicled in the London press. She was the guest and the intimate friend of titled persons in England and of those first in American society; but all this never altered her simple and utterly unaffected cordiality toward those who were of no social prominence whatever. "The reason for her popularity," wrote Miss Josephine Jenkins very justly, "is summed up in the sympathy of her nature, which expands with loving and often helpful solicitude to those seeking encouragement, precisely as it expands toward those having attained some noble distinction. Not every human being is endowed with this genius for appreciation." Mrs. Moulton wrote to Coulson Kernahan on one occasion: "I do wonder who spoke of me as 'a woman, above all things, of society.' On New Year's day, 1895, she wrote, with that curious periodicity which characterized the opening of so many years for her, a sonnet entitled "Oh, Traveller by Unaccustomed Ways," fine and strong, and with haunting lines such as:
The sestet is as follows:
The letters of this time are as usual full of allusions to Mrs. Moulton's work, and are William Watson to Mrs. Moulton Dear Mrs. Moulton: One of the most generous recognitions of my early poems came from your pen. I wished then to express my Sincerely yours, William Watson. To a friend Mr. Watson wrote of Mrs. Moulton: "Her letters show her absolute goodness of heart, which is worth all other human qualities put together." Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett writes characteristically of that inner inspirer which she calls her "Fairy." Mrs. Burnett to Mrs. Moulton "... I am so glad you like my story.... It was not I who said 'Human beings can do anything if they set their minds to it'; it was that beloved thing which has said things for me all my life. Sometimes I call it 'The Fairy,' but I think it must be a kind of splendid spirit. It is so strong, it is so good to me, and I do so love it. When I said that thing it seemed to make something waken within me. I began to say it to myself, and to believe it. Only thus could I have finished the story, and this makes me know it is true.... I have sometimes thought the thing I had to give is nearly always part of a story, some note of love, or message that rings clear. I don't ask it should be a loud note, only that some one shall hear it and remember. The fact that you have heard, makes the story a success, so far as I am concerned. As for giving, you give always. I have seen that. You give of gentleness and kindness and all things that help. Your hands are full of things to give." Just before Mrs. Moulton's sailing in the spring of 1895 a breakfast was given to her by Mrs. John G. Blake to Mrs. Moulton Dear Mrs. Moulton: Among all the laurels which are being laid before your conquering feet, will you take my little flower of good-will and congratulations? The sonnets are exquisite, so are you always to Your affectionate M.E.B. In 1896 was published "Lazy Tours," Mrs. Moulton's most important book in prose. This volume records her impressions in her wanderings in Spain, in Southern Italy, in France, and in Switzerland. It is a delightful mosaic of bits about people and places, of glimpses of Rome, of Florence, of Paris, of the German "cures," and of pleasant experiences of all sorts. The book is dedicated to Sir Arlo Bates, in acknowledging a gift copy of "Lazy Tours" wrote: "I thank you for 'Lazy Tours.' It is done with a touch not only light and delicate, but strangely gentle. It is written with the experience of a woman and the enthusiasm of a girl." In another note of Mr. Bates', belonging to this time, are the remarks: "Friendship is about the only real thing in humanity." "The few of us who, in this muse-forgotten age, still care for real poetry, are to be congratulated no less." The sculptor Greenough wrote: "Verily, your 'Lazy Tours' are a rebuke to industry, for it has woven a magic carpet, as that of the 'Arabian Nights,' only you transport the reader, in every sense of the word.... What excellent prose you poets write when you try." The critics were all agreed, and the verdict of the public endorsed that of Mrs. Moulton's friends and of the reviewers. The book had precisely that lightness of touch which is perennially charming, and which perhaps is due equally to literary expertness and to innate good taste. The usual summer abroad, full of social experiences, followed; and then the winter in Boston with the crowded Friday receptions. A letter which belongs to this winter is full of a lightness and kindliness characteristic of the writer. James Whitcomb Riley to Mrs. Moulton "... You, after months and months of barbarous silence, are asking me why I have not written! Well, I'll answer in my artlessness and most truthfully tell you that my last letter (and a really appealing one) meeting with no response whatever, I just had concluded that I'd win highest favor in your estimate by not writing. So I quit writing, and One of the entries in the diary of the winter reads: "Could hardly get to the Browning Society, where I read 'A Toccata of Galuppi's.' Mr. Moulton seemed interested about the reading, and I read him the 'Toccata' after dinner, and other poems. A beautiful evening." William U. Moulton William U. Moulton Page 215 Strangely enough this was Mr. Moulton's last evening of being in health. The next day he was taken ill, and on February 19, 1898, he passed into "the life more abundant." The funeral service was read by the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, rector of Trinity, and Mrs. In the summer following Mr. Moulton's death Mrs. Moulton remained in America. Her life was saddened and cumbered with the cares needful in business matters, and on the last day of the year she wrote in her diary: "This sad year which is now ending—how strange a year it has been for me. Mr. Moulton died in February and changed all. I have done nothing, enjoyed nothing. With 1899 I must turn over a new leaf, or give up life and all its uses, altogether." In this mood it was natural that her predisposition to brood upon the problem of death should reassert itself. She writes to William Winter: "No,—my dread of death does not seem to me to be physical, for it is not the pain of death that I ever think of. I hate the idea of extinction, but I could reconcile myself to that; ... but what I dread most is the to-morrow of death, Her literary work, however, continues. She said from time to time that she could not write, and that she should never write a line again; but the poetic instinct was strong, and asserted itself in its own time and way. In a letter to a friend she remarks in passing: "The Century has just come with my poem, 'A Rose Pressed in a Book,' and it seems to me to read pretty well." The lyric to which she modestly alludes as reading "pretty well" is beautifully characteristic of some of her choicest poetic qualities: easy and seemingly unconscious mastery of form, delicacy of touch, charming melody, and sincerity of emotion. Always her correspondence goes on. T.B. Aldrich to Mrs. Moulton "Some day I must get you to tell me about Andrew Lang. One night last winter as I sat reading one of his books a kind of ghost, In allusion to his much discussed "Modern Love," George Meredith writes: George Meredith to Mrs. Moulton "You are like the northern tribes of the Arabs, in that what you love you love wholly and without ceasing. This poem has been more roundly abused than any other of my much-castigated troop. You help me to think that they are not born offenders, antipathetic to the human mind. Americans who first gave me a reputation for the writing of novels will perhaps ultimately take part in the admission that I can write verse. They may thus carry a reluctant consent in England, when I no longer send out my rhyming note for revision. I have been taught, at least, to set no store upon English opinion in such matters. I would thank you, but gratitude is out of place. There is a feeling hard to verbalize." Mrs. Moulton to Lloyd Mifflin "It is five days since I received your 'Slopes of Helicon,' enriched by your kind inscription. I have been too ill to write; but I will no longer postpone the pleasure of telling you "... This morning, looking over a shelf of books that have accumulated during my absence,—as books are never forwarded to me,—I find your 'Fields of Dawn,' and also 'Lyrics,' by J.H. Mifflin, for both of which I want to thank you at once. I have a real pleasure to look forward to, for I love your sonnets. Am I right in supposing 'J.H.M.' to be your father, and that you are a poet by inheritance?..." "I am sending a hurried note to tell you how entirely I agree with you about the demand for 'cheerful poetry.'" "It is worth writing a book to have written the line, "Made eminent by death, in that noble poem, 'Peace to the Brave.' The poem entitled 'Herbert Spencer' makes me wonder whether you feel that assurance of the future which he certainly did not feel...." Lloyd Mifflin to Mrs. Moulton "... It is very uplifting, as you say in New England, to have such a genuine letter as yours. You read a book as I do, through at once. No one has said that my mind inclines to visions like Blake's, but I see visions. I used to sit and hold the pen and feel it hovering about, becoming nearer and nearer, till suddenly it came, the complete sonnet. I merely recorded it then. This was always wonderful to me. Where do they come from? Not death itself, to say nothing of our earth, can keep a born poet from writing. I can write a better poem about sunset by not seeing it...." James Whitcomb Riley to Mrs. Moulton "... Very slightly changing R.L.S.'s line,
and very thankful I am to be at home again. True, the mother is away, the old father, too, and a sister, and a brother; but they all seem to be here still, with the happy rest of us,—for we all believe, thank God. And you must take this for answer to your very last question, for I do feel that I know. I know likewise why From the same "Has it been, and is it being, a beautiful Christmas season to you? for I have been so praying, though vexing you with no line of it in ink. And I've seen two new poems of yours, and they testify to your loyal love of this world of ours; so I know at least you can't be happier till you get to Heaven with no good word or gift forgotten, and such profusion! Since my return home I've been From the same "How beautiful your new poems are! Oh, yes! Even to vaguely question your Divine Inspirer's ultimate intent!... Sometimes I even smilingly think that He has given you that haunting doubt here that your delight may be all the more ineffable a glory when you find His throne more real a fact than this first world of ours." Among the pleasant friendships which came into a life whose entire texture seemed woven of friendship and song, was that with Coulson Kernahan, who, though one of the younger men of letters in England, had already made a recognized place. His warmly responsive nature made the two especially sympathetic, and they were alike in their devotion to literature. After the vanishing of the "Marston group," Mrs. Moulton's most intimate London circle came to comprise Sir Bruce and "No one who looks upon life with earnest eyes can fail to be touched by the passionate human cry which rings from Mrs. Moulton's poems. No one whose ear is attuned to catch the wail that is to be heard in the maddest, merriest music of the violin, to whom the sound of wind and sea at midnight is like that of innumerable lamentations; no one who, in the movement of a multitude of human beings—be they marching to the bounding music of fife and drum, or hurrying to witness a meeting of the starving unemployed—no one who in all these hears something of 'the still, sad music of humanity,' can read her verses unstirred." Mr. Kernahan had also emphasized—Mrs. Moulton herself thought somewhat unduly—the strain of sadness in her poems; and had he known her personally at the time he wrote, he would surely not have called her "world-weary and melancholy." The point
Is it not true?" Yet she assured him that she was "often gay." The numerous letters of Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Kernahan were intimate and full of details of business in regard to publication, with personal matters relating to friends and the like, but through them all runs a thread of comment on literature and life. "I am simply enchanted with the new book William Morris has printed for Wilfrid Blunt, 'The Love Lyrics and Songs of Proteus.'" "Yes, I did like that one line in Christina Rossetti's poem: "... half carol and half cry; but the rest of it is not good enough for her." "I have had many violets sent me this year, but far the most fragrant were a bunch left for me to-day with a card on which was written:
"I am reading, or rather rereading Rossetti's sonnet sequence, 'The House of Life.' How "I had a letter this morning from a far-off stranger who tells me that her heart keeps time to my poems.... I am expecting my beloved Mrs. Spofford to-day.... No sweeter soul than she lives on this earth." "Recently I sent a rhyme called 'A Whisper to the Moon,' to The Independent, and in accepting it Bliss Carman writes: 'I like it, and that line "'She is thy kindred, and fickle art thou, is immense. Lines with the lyric quality of that are imperishable. Quite apart from its meaning—its cold meaning—it is poetry. It floods the heart. It carries all before it. There is no stopping it. It is like the opening of the gates of the sea. You often write such lines.' The line does not seem to me at all worth such praise, but all the same the praise pleased me. How lovely it is to have "Louise Guiney and I are looking over my poems together. Oh, I wish there were more variety in them. They are good (I hope and think) in form, but they are, almost all, the cry of my heart for the love that I long for, or its protest against the death that I fear. Ah, well, I can only be myself." Louise Chandler Moulton Louise Chandler Moulton Page 227 In this year appeared Mrs. Moulton's third volume of poems, "At the Wind's Will," the title being taken from Rossetti's "Wood-spurge":
Of it Mrs. Spofford said: "Mrs. Moulton's last volume of poems, 'At the Wind's Will,' fitly crowns the literary achievement of the century. It is poetry at high-water mark. Her work exhibited in previous volumes has given her a rank among the foremost poets of the world, and much of the work in 'At the Wind's Will' exceeds in grasp and in surrender, in strength and in beauty, anything she has hitherto published." So the year wore to a close. Her last record for December in her diary reads: "Now |
|
