 
THE diary during the early months of the year which opened the new century records as often before many kindnesses in the form of reading for various objects: "Went in evening to read for the Rev. Mr. Shields, of South Boston." "In the evening read for the College Club. Mrs. Howe presided. The other readers were Dr. Hale, Dr. Ames, Colonel Higginson, "Read for the Young Men's Christian Association. I read 'In Arcady,' 'The Name on a Door,' and 'A June Song,' of my own verses; then my paper on the Marstons, entitled 'Five Friends.' People seemed pleased." Among her numerous generous acts were to be reckoned the many times when, without regard to herself, she assisted at readings or gave a reading entirely by herself. On February 19, the entry is: "Two years ago this day Mr. Moulton passed out of life. It was my first thought this morning, and the sadness of it has been with me all day." Mr. Moulton had always been to her a tower of strength. Few men were more highly esteemed by those who knew him, or were more deserving of esteem. He was a man of flawless integrity and the highest sense of honor; a man of vigorous intellect, of clear and definite intellectual grasp, and of a generous and kindly nature. He was not himself fond of society, but he was proud of his wife's success, and ministered to her tastes for travel and social life. His sympathy In a letter written about this time Mrs. Moulton again touches upon the old question of social struggle: "I agree with you as to the inanity of struggle for social prominence. How fine is the passage you quote from Emerson: 'My friends come to me unsought. The great God Himself gave them to me.' That is the way I feel. Any social struggle seems to me so little worth while. It is worth while to know the people who really interest one,—but the others! It is always climbing ladders, and there are always other ladders to climb, and one never gets to the top. And then, what will it be if there is an 'after death'? I wonder? Will there be social ambitions,—the desire to get ahead there? It almost seems as if there must be, if there is the continuity of individual existences, for what From various letters to the friend to whom this is written, to whom she wrote often, may be put together here a few extracts. The letters were seldom dated, and it is hardly possible to tell exactly when each was written, but the exact sequence is not of importance. "And what do you think (entre nous) I have been asked to do? To go to Cambridge, England, with a party of friends who have included Mme. Blavatsky, and they are to have some brilliant receptions given them there by the occult folk, or those interested. But I declined." "Mr. —— goes about asking every one if he has read 'The Story of My Heart,' by Jeffries, which is his latest enthusiasm. After being asked till I was ashamed of saying no, I got the book and read it, finding it the most haunting outcry of pessimism imaginable. When one has read it one feels in the midst of a Godless, hopeless world, where nature is hostile, and the animal kingdom alien, and man alone with his destiny,—a destiny that menaces and appalls him. It is a too powerful book. Jeffries makes one "Austin Dobson says: 'I have always admired your sonnets,—a thing I can never manage; but how you do take all Gallometry to be your province!! What are we, poor slaves to canzonets and serenades, to do next?' Very pleasant of him." "Last Saturday the Boyle O'Reilly monument was unveiled, and I was chosen to crown it with a laurel wreath. It was a wonderful occasion; and President Capen, of Tufts College, gave the most eloquent eulogy to which I ever listened." "My life is not the beautiful life you think, but it is my soul's steadfast purpose to make it all that you believe it already is. Nothing is of any real consequence save to live up to your very highest ideal. In criticism I made up my mind, long ago, that one should be like Swedenborg's angels, who sought to find the good in everything. Of course, really poor things must be condemned—or what I think is better—boycotted; but I do not like what is harsh, prejudiced, one-sided. I would see my possible soul's brother in every man—which all means that I am an optimist." "Can you tell me what Henry James means by his story, 'The Private Life'? Is it an allegory or what? I never saw anything so impossible to understand." "You speak of the 'close and near friendships' you have made in your few weeks in Florence,—'friendships for a lifetime.' That is delightful, only I can't make friendships with new people easily; so if I went I should not have that pleasure." "... Before I rose this morning, a special messenger came from the Secretary of the Women Writers' Club (which is giving a magnificent dinner to-night at which Mrs. Humphry Ward presides). Miss Blackburne, the 'Hon. Secretary,' had only heard of my being in London this morning, so she at once sent a messenger to invite me. She entreated me to come; said she wanted me to sit at the head of one of the tables, and preside over that table, etc., etc. She sent a most distinguished list of guests, and oh, I did want to go—but I felt so ill I dared not try to go, and I sent an immediate refusal. Many of the authors whom I would like to meet will be among the guests...." "Here is the little screed ... about Mrs. Browning. The description was given me In the "little screed" alluded to was this description of Mrs. Browning, given in the words of the friend: "No, she was not what people call beautiful; but she was more and better. I can see her now, as she lay there on her sofa. I never saw her sitting up. She was always in white. She wore white dresses, trimmed with white lace, with white, fleecy shawls wrapped round her, and her dark brown hair "'Was Mr. Browning there?' "Oh, yes, and he used to watch her as one watches who has the most precious object in the whole world to keep guard over. He looked out for her comfort as tenderly as a woman. "I think there never was another marriage like that; a marriage that made two poet souls one forever. Don't you notice how Browning always speaks of finding again the 'soul of his soul'? It was easy enough to see that that was just what she was. And the boy was there, too, a little fellow, with long golden hair, and I remember how quietly he used to play, how careful he was not to disturb his mother. Sometimes he used to stand for a long time beside her, with her 'spirit-small hand,' as her husband called it, just playing with his curls. I wonder if he can have known that she was going away from him so soon." From various letters of this time of and to Mrs. Moulton may be taken such bits as these: Mrs. Moulton to Elihu Vedder "It was such a pleasure to me in my present loneliness to have a good talk with you last night, and I have been thinking of what you said. You would like a big fortune that you might have leisure to fulfil your dreams, but what if you had the fortune and not the dreams? I would a million times rather be you than any capitalist alive. It seems to me that to do work as the few great men in the world have, that must live, is the supreme joy. When you are dust the world will adore the wonder and majesty and beauty of your pictures. It seems to me that I would starve willingly in an attic, like Chatterton, to leave to the wide future one such legacy." Walter Pater to Mrs. Moulton "I read very little contemporary poetry, finding a good deal of it a little falsetto. I found, however, in your elegant and musical volume a sincerity, a simplicity, which stand you as constituting a cachet, a distinct note." Mrs. Moulton to Lady Lindsay "I am reading, with very unusual interest, 'Blake of Oriel,' by Adeline Sargent. It is a story of fate and of heredity, which sets one thinking and questioning.... Is fate also to be complicated by the curse of evil inheritance? Oh, is it fair to give life to one with such an inheritance of evil, and then condemn the sinner for what he does? Is it?... Is it a loving God who creates men foreknowing that they will commit spiritual suicide?... Are people sinners who are doomed by heredity to sin?" Arthur Christopher Benson to Mrs. Moulton "Thank you for what you say of my 'Arthur Hamilton.' It is deeply gratifying to me that the book has ever so slightly interested you. As for the difficulties of the hero, I suppose they are the eternal difficulties. It was like my impudent youth to think that to no one else had the same problem been so unjustly presented before, and to rush wildly into a tourney." The summer of 1900 Mrs. Moulton passed abroad, going before her London visit for the spring in Italy. She revisited familiar haunts in Rome and Florence, and again After the London visit, Mrs. Moulton went for the cure at Aix-les-Bains, perhaps as much for the delightful excursions of the neighborhood as in any hope of help for her almost constant ill-health. Thence she went in September to Paris, still in the full glory of its Exposition year. While in Paris she received from Professor Meiklejohn the comments upon her latest volume, "At the Wind's Will." He had fallen into the custom of going over her poems carefully, and of sending her his notes of admiration. "I still maintain," he wrote her on this occasion, "that your brothers are the Elizabethan lyrists, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Vaughan." Some of the comments were these: "In 'When Love is Young,' the line "Time has his will of every man, is in the strong style of the sixteenth century. "I think the 'Dead Men's Holiday' martial and glorious. "And the keen air stung all their lips like wine, is the kind of line when Nature has taken the pen into her own hand. "What an exquisite stanza is this in 'The Summer's Queen':
"The line "Yet done with striving, and foreclosed of care, in the sonnet entitled 'At Rest' is as good as anything of Drayton's. You know his sonnet, "Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part! "Mocked by a day that shines no more on thee, in the sonnet called 'The New Year Dawns,' is the very truth in the strong simplicity of the Elizabethan age. "What a wonderful line is the last one of the sonnet, 'The Song of the Stars': "The waking rapture, and the fair, far place." The serenity and sweetness of Longfellow's verse are the natural expression of a life sweet and serene; and in the work of Mrs. Moulton the beauty of her work was in no less a measure the inevitable outcome of her character. She wrote so spontaneously that her poems seemed, as she used to say, "to come to her," and although she never spared the most care The literary life was to her in its outward aspect chiefly a matter of fit and harmonious companionship. She declared that she thought "the great charm of a literary life was that it made one acquainted with so many delightful people." Her warm sense of the personality and characteristics of the writers whom she met in London has been alluded to already, and some of her words about them have been quoted in a former chapter. Those who enjoyed the privilege of chatting with her in her morning-room were never tired of hearing her give her impressions of distinguished authors. "George Meredith's talk," she said on one occasion, "is like his books, it is so scintillating, so epigrammatic. In talking with him you have to be swiftly attentive or you will miss some allusion or witticism, and seem disreputably inattentive." "Thomas Hardy," she said again, "has the face, I think, which one would expect from his books. His forehead is so large and so fine that it seems to be half his face. His blue eyes are kindly, but they are extremely shrewd. You feel that he sees everything, "I did not find George Eliot so plain a person as she is ordinarily represented," she replied to a question about that author. "To me she seemed to have a singularly interesting face and a lovely smile; and one distinctive trait, one peculiarly her own, was a very gentle and sweet deference of manner. In any difference of opinion, she always began by agreeing with the person with whom she was conversing, as 'I quite see that, but don't you think—' and then there would follow a statement so supremely convincing, so comprehensive, so true, so sweetly suggestive, that one could not help being convinced. It was like a fair mist over a background of the greatest strength." Christmas was always a season of much activity at No. 28 Rutland Square. The tokens which Mrs. Moulton sent to friends kept her and Katy busy long in arranging and sending; and in turn came gifts from far and near. With her generous and friendly spirit she was fully in sympathy with the spirit of the time. Among her Christmas gifts on this TO LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON With a Thermometer at Christmas.
On January 1, 1901, Mrs. Moulton records in her diary: "Wrote a sonnet, the first in nearly or quite two years, beginning, 'Once more the New Year mocks me with its scorn.'" When the poem was published, "New Year" had been changed to "morning." The summer of this year found her again in London. Her health was seriously affected, "Went to Lady Wynford's charming luncheon." "Went to Edward Clifford's to see pictures, and had the loveliest evening." "Went to Archdeacon Wilberforce's, Mrs. Meynell's, and Mrs. Clifford's, and dined at Annie Lane's." "Lunch at Sir Richard Burton's at Hampstead Heath. Lady Burton, who can never sit up, because of spinal trouble, was charming." "Some one—a lady who left no name—brought me charming roses. A good many guests—Lady Wynford, Mrs. Sutherland Orr, Canon Bell, and George Moore among them." "Went to Lord Iddesleigh's. He gave me his first book, 'Belinda Fitzwarren.'" To this summer belongs the following letter, which is interesting not only in itself, but also as illustrating how the old questions of religion followed Mrs. Moulton through life: Dr. E. Winchester Donald to Mrs. Moulton "July 9, 1901. "... This place is a paradise. The Thames, from Windsor to Henley, is a beautiful dream, sailing up and down—no churches, no responsibilities. Consequently we New Englanders need not urge that it is dangerous to linger long upon its bosom. If there be no physical miasma rising from these waters, I fear there is an ethical one.... You are very kind and very generous. Your gift is very acceptable to us, and in my own name and that of those whom the Church is trying to help, I thank you with all my heart. What you have told me of the perplexities that beset you is more than simply interesting,—it is also revelatory of what, I fancy, is not uncommon among the thoughtful folk. But why not fall back deliberately on worship as distinguished from satisfactory precision of opinion or belief? I should not be surprised to learn that prayer has tided many people over the bar of intellectual perplexity into the harbor of a reasonable faith. Indeed, I know it has. The instinct of humanity is to worship and fall down before the Lord, our Maker. Why should we insist on having a precisely formulated proposition After Mrs. Moulton's return to Boston in the autumn, the diary shows the old round of engagements, of visits from friends, of interest in the new books, and the writing and receiving of innumerable letters. Mrs. Alice Meynell came to Boston in the winter as the guest of Mrs. James T. Fields, and to her Mrs. Moulton gave a luncheon. The Emerson-Browning club gave a pleasant reception in Mrs. Moulton's honor, at which by request she read "The Secret of Arcady"; at one of Mrs. Mosher's "Travel-talks" she read by invi In a note written that spring to Mrs. John Lane is this pleasant passage: "Frances Willard's mother was in her eighties,—she was on her death-bed—it was, I think, the day before she died, and her daughter said to her, 'Well, mother, if you had your life to live over again, I don't think you would want to do anything differently from what you have done.' The dear old lady turned her gray head on the pillow, and smiled, and said, 'Oh, yes; if I had my life to live over again, I would praise a great deal more and blame a great deal less.' I always thought it lovely to have felt and said." In London in this summer of 1902 she notes in her diary that she went to the dinner of the Women Writers. Later, she was given a luncheon by the Society of American Women in London. She sat, of course, on the right of the president, Mrs. Griffin, and next to her was placed Lady Annesley, "who seemed to me," she said afterward, "the most beautiful woman I had ever seen." She gave a little dinner to which she invited Whistler, who accepted in the following terms: J. McNeill Whistler to Mrs. Moulton 96 Cheyne Road. Dear Louise: I accept your invitation with great pleasure, and how kind and considerate of you to make it eight-thirty. I really believe I shall reach you, not only in good time, but in the unruffled state of mind and body that is utterly done away with in the usual scramble across country, racing hopelessly for the "quarter to."... Yours sincerely, J. McN. W. When in her Boston home Mrs. Moulton was seldom, in later years, allured far afield. She thought little of a journey to Europe, but avoided even an hour's journey "out of town." She had in London, however, come to be fond of the lady who became Mrs. Truman J. Martin, of Buffalo, N.Y., and to her had written the lyric, "A Song for Rosalys"; and she made an exception to her usual custom to visit her friend in her American home. A Buffalo journal remarks on the occurrence with the true floridness of society journalism: "The event of the week par excellence has been the arrival in Buffalo of that gifted writer and eminent woman—Mrs. Louise Chandler The reporter goes on to describe a reception given to Mrs. Moulton by her hostess at which a local club known as the Scribblers was represented: "Flowers were everywhere in the house, bowls and vases of white carnations. 'The Scribblers' flowers, and roses and lilies for 'Rosalys,' Mrs. Martin's middle name, and which she still retains—'Charlotte Rosalys Jones,' as her pen name.... Mrs. Moulton was dressed in black satin, with elegant rose-point lace and diamonds.... The real de The hostess might be English, but the description of the entertainment could hardly be more American. Mrs. Moulton mentioned that during this visit she met Mrs. Charles Rohlfs (Anna Katherine Green), and had an opportunity of saying that she had enjoyed that writer's novels. Like Mrs. Browning, who declared that she "slept with her pillows stuffed with novels," Mrs. Moulton was a confirmed reader of fiction. She read them at seventy with the zest of seventeen, and took "cruel endings" quite to heart. Among the letters of the winter is an amus Bliss Carman to Mrs. Moulton "... Have you seen that perfect thing of Louise Imogen Guiney's with the lines,—
"Isn't that the gold of poetry? She ought to have a triumph on the Common, and a window in Memorial Hall.... Do you see that faun of Auburndale?" On New Year's Day, 1903, the diary records: "First of all I wrote a sonnet—'Why Do I never See You in My Dreams?'" The summer was passed in London as usual, but with, if possible, more festivities than ever. The diary records: "Went to Lady Seton's luncheon party—of I think twenty—a very pleasant affair in honor of Mr. Howells and his daughter. I sat next to Mr. Howells and had a good talk with him." "Went to the luncheon at the Cecil, given by the Society of American Women in London in honor of Ambassador and Mrs. Reid and Mr. and Mrs. Longworth." "Went in the evening to the Women Writers' dinner. I sat at Mrs. Craigie's table." "Went to the Lyceum Club Saturday dinner. Lady Frances Balfour presided." "Went to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts' garden-party. Oh, Holly Lodge is such a beautiful place!" "Went to Irving's dinner at the New Gallery. Sir Edward Russell, editor of the Daily Post, Liverpool, took me out; and a delightful companion he was." "Many guests: Mrs. Wilberforce, Lady Henry Somerset, Mrs. Henniker, the Pearsall Smiths, William Watson, Oswald Crawfurd, 'Michael Field' (that is to say Miss Bradley and Miss Cooper), Violet Hunt, Mr. and Mrs. Clement Shorter, Archdeacon and Mrs. Wilberforce, and many more." As the years went on, bringing her to the verge of seventy, Mrs. Moulton's literary activity naturally grew greatly less. The record of her life for the following years was largely a record of friendships, with the enjoyments and honors which belonged to her place among American writers. She was asked often to write her reminiscences of the many distinguished people she had known, but always declined. "I have, alas! kept no records," she wrote to one editor. She was naturally asked to be present at any literary function of importance. She was a guest at the dinner given by the New England Women's Club in 1905, in honor of Mrs. Howe's eighty-fifth birthday, and notes that it was "a brilliant meeting," and adding: "Mrs. Howe had written a gay little poem in response, wonderful woman that she is." The dinner given in honor of Mark Twain's seventieth birthday was the last great occasion of the kind which In the letters of this period are to be found the truest records of what most interested Mrs. Moulton and best expressed her personality. Unfortunately she often asked that her letters should be destroyed, so that no selection which may now be brought together does her complete justice. The letters she received, however, reflect in many ways those to which they replied; and extracts from them may be left to speak for themselves. Louise Imogen Guiney to Mrs. Moulton "... On an awfully wild and windy day of last week I struck off for Highgate over Hampstead Heath, and got so drenched additionally in the memories of the men who reign over me, Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, "Some agreeable witchery, sure to be transient, is about me to-day, for I've made a 'pome,' the first since winter, and patched "I have been luxuriating in 'Atalanta.'... That is my springtime. There is no such music and motion and solemn gladness anywhere in modern verse. In a year or two more I shall know it by heart from cover to cover.... And here is England knee-deep in green and daisies; England piled with ruined Abbey walls." "I have two refreshments to chronicle,—one is Irving's 'Becket,' and not the stock-still, curiously inefficient play, but just Irving's 'Becket,' otherwise 'St. Thomas of Canterbury,' a flash and a breath from Heaven. Where does that actor get his gift of everything spiritual and supernatural? His charm to me is that he has great moral power,—either inherent from the noble mind ... or else acquired by art so subtle that I never got hold of the like.... Surely, not everybody can see so into a character ... and measure its astonishing depth in humanity and divinity." Archdeacon Wilberforce to Mrs. Moulton "Dear Mrs. Chandler-Moulton: Thank you for your letter. On page 237, of the book "Our life is closed, our life begins. And again:
Miss Robbins to Mrs. Moulton 96 Mt. Vernon St., My dear Mrs. Moulton: This little note from Dean Hodges belongs to you rather than to me. If you had never written anything else all your life but this beautiful "Help Thou Mine Unbelief," you have done something worth living for, something truly great. And now to explain a little. I was glad to meet Dean Hodges at your house, and I asked him if among your poems he knew this one that I so prized. I told him that I had shown it to Dr. Momerie, who murmured, after read I had such an interesting time at your house, meeting such interesting people, but what I wanted most was a tÊte-À-tÊte with my interesting hostess. I always want to know you better. Believe me, dear Mrs. Moulton, Always yours, Julia Robbins. Dean Hodges to Miss Robbins [Enclosed] The Deanery, Cambridge, Dear Miss Robbins: I cannot thank you enough for these devout and helpful verses of Mrs. Moulton's. I have read and re-read them,—every time with new appreciation. They belong to the great hymns. It was a pleasure to meet you, and one I hope to have again. Faithfully yours, George Hodges. Dr. Hale to Mrs. Moulton April 5, 1906. Dear Mrs. Moulton: I thank you indeed for the kind expression of memories and hopes which calls up so much from the past and looks forward so cheerfully into the future.... No, as life goes on with us, we do not rest as often as I should like. But that is the special good of a milestone like this,—it gives us a chance to look backward and forward. This note has carried me back to an old friend, Phillips, the publisher, who died too early for the rest of us. You will not remember it, but he introduced me to you. I wonder if you can know how highly he prized your literary work? With thanks for your kind note, dear Mrs. Moulton, I am always yours, Edward Everett Hale. Mrs. Moulton's visit to London in the summer of 1906 was her last. While her health forced her to decline most invitations, she still saw her numerous friends in quiet, intimate ways, and was made to feel their abiding affection. On her birthday of this year she received, with a single red rose, this poem from the late Arthur Upson:
Among the Christmas gifts which she made this year was a copy of "At the Wind's Will," which she sent to Miss Sarah Holland Adams, the accomplished essayist and translator from the German. It was thus acknowledged: Miss Adams to Mrs. Moulton "Dear Mrs. Moulton: Your beautiful little book is a dear thing. I thank you for sympathy in the loss of my only brother. I
"Later. "How kind, how generous you are, to send me this precious volume! I find many fine poems in it and only wish I could hear you read them." And so, as always before, on all the New Years of all her lovely life, the old year went out and the New Year came in to the music of gracious words. Her life, marking the calendar with kindly deeds and beautiful thought, leaves as its legacy
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