Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend

Mr. Collins to Mrs. Moulton"90 Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W.March 30, 1880.

"I have read your kind letter with much pleasure. I know the 'general reader' by experience as my best friend and ally.... When I return to the charge I shall write with redoubled resolution if I feel that I have the great public with me, as I had then (for example) in the case of 'The New Magdalen.' 'Her Married Life,' in the second part, will be essentially happy. But the husband and wife—the world whose unchristian prejudices and law they set at defiance will slowly undermine their happiness, and will, I fear, make the close of the story a sad one."

The letter referred to was one of a long series which Mrs. Moulton contributed to the New York Independent. Many of these papers were of marked literary value. A typical one was upon Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, founded upon Sainte Beuve's memoir of that interesting and unhappy French poet. Mrs. Moulton characterizes Mme. Desbordes-Valmore as "the sad, sweet nightingale among the singers of France, and as a tender, elegiac poet" without equal. She closes with these words:

"Mme. Valmore passed away in July of 1859. 'We shall not die,' she had said. In that hour a gate was opened to some strange land of light, some new dawning of glory, and the holy saints, to whose fellowship she belonged, received her into the very peace of God."

Mrs. Moulton's witty essay on "The Gospel of Good Gowns" was one of this series in The Independent, and a fine paper of hers on Thoreau was widely quoted.

In a department which for some months she conducted under the title, "Our Society," in a periodical called Our Continent, Mrs. Moulton discoursed on manners, morals, and other problems connected with the conduct of life. The incalculable influence of the gentle, refined ideals that she persuasively imaged was a signal factor in the progress of life among the younger readers. Mrs. Moulton's ideal of the importance of manner was that of Tennyson's as expressed in his lines,—

For manners are not idle, but the fruitOf loyal nature and of noble mind.

Many of these papers are included in Mrs. Moulton's book called "Ourselves and Our Neighbors," published in 1887. In one of these on "The Gospel of Charm" she says:

"So many new gospels are being preached, and that so strenuously, to the girls and women of the twentieth century, that I have wondered if there might not be a danger lest the Gospel of Charm should be neglected. And yet to my mind there are few teachings more important. I would advocate no charm that was insincere, none that would lessen the happiness of any other woman; but the fact remains that the slightest act may be done with a graciousness that warms the day, or with a hard indifference that almost repels us from goodness itself. It is possible to buy a newspaper or pay a car-fare in such wise as to make newsboy or car-conductor feel for the moment that he is in a friendly world."

Certainly the "gospel of charm" never had a more signal illustration than in her own attitude toward those with whom she came in contact.

In one of the chapters, "The Wish to Rise," she writes:

"The moment a strong desire for social advancement seizes on a man or woman it commences to undermine the very foundations of character, and great shall be the fall thereof. 'To keep up appearances,' 'to make a show'—one of these sentences is only more vulgar than the other. The important thing is not to appear, but to be. It is true, and pity 'tis, 'tis true, that many people are shut out by limited and narrow fortunes from the society to which by right of taste and culture they should belong. But nothing proves more surely that they do not belong there than any attempt to force their way there by means of shams.... If our steady purpose is, each one, to raise himself, his own mind and spirit, to the highest standard possible for him, he will not only be too busy to pursue shams and shadows, but he will be secure of perpetual good society, since he will be always with himself.... Nothing more surely indicates the parvenu than boastfulness. The man who brings in the name of some fine acquaintance at every turn of the conversation is almost certain to be one whose acquaintance with any one who is fine is of yesterday. Really well-placed people do not need to advertise their connections in this manner.... It is essentially vulgar to push—to run after great people, or to affect a style of living beyond one's means—it is not only vulgar but contemptible to change one's friends with one's bettering fortunes."

The book had a merited success, and even yet is in demand.

In the early eighties an enterprising publisher conceived the idea of a book on "Famous Women," in which those exceptional beings should write of each other. To Mrs. Moulton's pen fell Louisa M. Alcott, and a request on her part for information brought to her the following characteristic note, dated January, 1883:

Miss Alcott to Mrs. Moulton

"I have not the least objection to your writing a sketch of L.M.A. I shall feel quite comfortable in your hands. I have little material to give you; but in 'Little Women' you will find the various stages of my career and experience. Don't forget to mention that I don't like lion hunters, that I don't serve autophotos and biographies to the hundreds of boys and girls who ask, and that I heartily endorse Dr. Holmes' views on this subject."

To this volume the sketch of Mrs. Moulton herself was written by the graceful pen of Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, who wrote with the sympathetic appreciation of the poet and close friend.

While on a visit to Spain in 1883,—and "Spain," she wrote, "is a word to conjure with,"—Mrs. Moulton made the acquaintance of Oswald Crawfurd the novelist, when he was in the diplomatic service. From his letters then and afterward might be taken many interesting passages, of which the following may serve as examples:

"There is another writer whose acquaintance I have made, through his books, I mean, for such interesting creatures as authors seldom come to Portugal. We have to put up with royalties, rich tourists, and wine merchants. For me, the writers, the manipulators of ideas, the shapers of them into human utterance, are the important people of the age, as well as the most agreeable to meet, in their books or in life. This particularly pleasant one I have just met is Frank Stockton. You will laugh at the idea of my discovering what other people knew long ago, but it happens that I have only just read his books. The three notes that strike me in him are his perfect originality, his literary dexterity, and his new and delicate humor. I cannot say how he delighted me."

"We are going to give you Andrew Lang to take you in [at the dinner] on Friday, and on the other side you will have either James Bryce or Mr. Chapman, the 'enterprising young publisher' mentioned by Dickens. Regarding Lang, I know no man who does so many things so very well,—journalist, philologist, mythological researcher,—and to the front in all these characters. To almost any one but yourself I should call him a poet also. His face is very refined and beautiful."

"I have been reading your poems again. You are as true a lyric artist as Landor or Herrick. I admire your sonnets,—they have a particular charm for me, and I am glad that you do not despise the old English form with the two last lines in rhyme. Shakespeare's, indeed, are so. I am almost inclined to think that for our rhymeless language, for an ear not attuned to the Italian perception for delicate rhyme of sounds, the strong emphasis on the ending couplet is right and good."

"I honestly like and admire the genius of Howells. I like his novels immensely, but his theories not at all."

The brief records in Mrs. Moulton's journal in these days suggest her crowded life of social enjoyment and literary work. On New Year's day of 1885 she notes having been the night before at a party at Mrs. Ole Bull's; and on that day she goes to a reception at the Howard Ticknors'; friends come to her in the evening. January second falls on a Friday, and as she is about to visit her daughter and son-in-law in Charleston, this is her last reception for the season. Naturally, it is a very full one, and while she does not chronicle the list of her guests, it is constructively easy to fancy that among them may have been Dr. Holmes, Professor Horsford, the poet Aldrich and his lovely wife; Dean Hodges, always one of her most dearly esteemed friends; Mrs. Ole Bull, the Whipples, Oscar Fay Adams, Professor Lane of Harvard, Arlo Bates, in whose work, even then, she was taking great delight; Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, or her daughter, Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott; Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford; Mrs. Julius Eichberg and her brilliant daughter, Mrs. Anna Eichberg King (now Mrs. John Lane of London),—these and many others of her Boston circle who were habitués of her "Fridays," and seldom, indeed, was one of these receptions without some guests of special distinction who were visiting Boston. On one occasion it was Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Gosse of London; or again, Matthew Arnold; W.D. Howells was to be met there when in Boston; and not infrequently Colonel T.W. Higginson; Helen Hunt, whom Mrs. Moulton had long known; Mary Wilkins (now Mrs. Freeman), always cordially welcomed; Mrs. Clement Waters, the art writer; President Alice Freeman of Wellesley College (later Mrs. George Herbert Palmer); and Governor and Mrs. Claflin, at whose home Whittier was usually a guest during his sojourns in Boston, were among the familiar guests. Mr. Whittier could seldom be induced to appear at any large reception; but from Mrs. Moulton's early youth he had been one of her nearer friends, and his calls were usually for her alone.

Bliss Carman and Edgar Fawcett from New York were sometimes to be met in Mrs. Moulton's drawing-room; and there were also a group of Boston artists,—Arthur Foote who had set to music several of Mrs. Moultons' lyrics; B.J. Lang and his daughter, who had also set some of Mrs. Moulton's songs; the painters, I.M. Gaugengigl, Winthrop Pierce, John Enneking; Miss Porter and Miss Clarke, the editors of Poet-Lore; Caroline Ticknor, the young author whose work continued the literary traditions of her famous name; and often some of the clergy of Boston,—the Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon Ames, with Mrs. Ames, both of whom were among Mrs. Moulton's most dearly-prized friends; occasionally Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, and Bishop Phillips Brooks; in a later decade, Rev. Dr. E. Winchester Donald, who succeeded Phillips Brooks as rector of Trinity; Rev. Bernard Carpenter, a brother of the Lord Bishop of Ripon; and beside the throngs of representative people who, at one time or another through some thirty years, were to be met at Mrs. Moulton's, the socially unknown guest received from the hostess the same cordial welcome. Her sympathies had little relation to social standing. No praise of the critics ever gave her more happiness than did a letter from a stranger in the West, written by a young girl who had for years been unable to move from her bed, telling of the blessed ministry of a poem by Mrs. Moulton, of which the first stanza runs:

We lay us down to sleep,And leave to God the rest,Whether to wake and weepOr wake no more be best.

A book of Mr. Stedman's of which he sent to Mrs. Moulton a copy bore on its fly-leaf the inscription:

My life-long, loyalist friend,My sister in life and song.

In the winter of 1885 the journal notes a visit to Mrs. Schaefer in Charleston, where amid all the festivities she finds time to send "four short stories and a poem" to various editors. On her way North she visited Washington, where dinners and receptions were given to her in private and in diplomatic circles. Then she went on to New York, and before sailing for Europe met Monsignor Capel at dinner, lunched with the Lawrence Barretts, attended Mr. Barrett's performance of "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon," which she found a "wonderful piece of acting," and at last sailed, as usual lavishly remembered with flowers and graceful tokens.

In Venice this year Mrs. Moulton wrote the charming pseudo-triolet,

IN VENICE ONCEIn Venice once they lived and loved—Fair women with their red gold hair—Their twinkling feet to music moved,In Venice where they lived and loved,And all Philosophy disproved,While hope was young and life was fair,In Venice where they lived and loved.

It is interesting to feel in this a far suggestion of Browning's "A Toccata of Galuppi's," because so seldom does any echo of her contemporaries strike through Mrs. Moulton's verse.

With friends Mrs. Moulton visited Capri, Sorrento, Amalfi, Castellamare, Pompeii, and then went on to Rome. Here she passed the morning of her fiftieth birthday in the galleries of the Vatican. Friends made a festa of her birthday, with a birthday-cake and gifts; and she dined with the Storys, to go on later to one of Sir Moses Ezekiel's notable musicales at his study in the Baths of Diocletian. "The most picturesque of studios," she wrote, "and a most cosmopolitan company,—at least fifty ladies and gentlemen, representing every civilized race.... All languages were spoken. Pascarella, the Italian poet, recited.... Professor Lunardi, of the Vatican library, who has his Dante and Ariosto by heart, was talking Latin to an American Catholic clergyman." Of this studio she gives a picturesque description:

"Suspended from the lofty ceiling was a hanging basket of flowers encircled by a score of lights; while around the walls hundreds of candles in antique sconces were burning, throwing fitful gleams over marble busts and groups of statuary. The frescoes on the walls are fragments of the walls of Diocletian, and the floor is covered with rich antique tiles fifteen hundred years old. Eight elephants' heads hold the candles that light the studio on ordinary occasions. Two colossal forms claim the attention of the visitor; one, the picture of a herald, drawn by Sir Moses, holds in his right hand the shield of art; the other is the figure of Welcome, holding in one hand a glass of wine, while the other rests upon a shield. The most striking and interesting work in the studio is the group of Homer. The figure of the poet is of heroic size, and he is represented sitting on the seashore, reciting the Iliad, and beating time with his hands; even in his blindness, his face wears an expression that seems to be looking into the future and down through the ages of time. At his feet is seated his guide, a youth with Egyptian features, who accompanies Homer with strokes on the lyre."

In the studio was also a bronze bust of Liszt, the only one for which he ever sat, and which Sir Moses modelled at the Villa d'Este.

After Rome came Florence, where Mrs. Moulton was the guest of Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement Waters, who had taken a villa in that city. Among other people whom Mrs. Moulton met at this time was "Ouida," who unbent from her accustomed stiffness to Americans, and, yielding to the charm of her guest, displayed her house and pets in a manner which for her was almost without precedent. Mrs. Waters gave a brilliant reception in her honor; she was the guest of the Princess Koltzoff Massalsky (Dora d'Istria), and she visited Professor Fiske at the Villa Landor, where she was "charmed by his wonderful library" with its collections of the most notable editions of Dante and Petrarca; and she was entertained by Professor and Madame Villari.

From Florence she went to Aix-les-Bains. Then she passed to England.

In London she saw constantly almost everybody of note in literary circles. Her diary records visits to or from or meetings with the Lord Bishop of Winchester, Mrs. Bloomfield Moore, Lord Morley, Thomas Hardy, the Bishop of Ripon, Mr. Verschoyle of the Fortnightly Review, William Sharp, Frederick Wedmore, Sir Frederic and Lady Pollock, Dr. Furnival, and others, for a list too long to give entire. Her journal shows how full were her days.

"Mrs. Campbell-Praed came to lunch; a lot of callers in the afternoon, among them the Verschoyles, the Francillons, Mrs. Cashel-Hoey, Mrs. Fred Chapman, and Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt.

"Went to the Chapmans' to luncheon; met George Meredith.... Meredith is a very brilliant and agreeable man.

"Francillon to luncheon. A lovely letter from Oswald Crawfurd, praising Andrew Lang.... Went with Mrs. Marable to see Mrs. Sutherland Orr; a very charming person."

Herbert E. Clarke, whom in a letter to Professor Bates she described as "a wonderfully charming and fine fellow," accompanied a volume of his poems which he sent to her with these graceful dedicatory verses:

TO LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON(With “Verses on the Hillside.”)Go forth, O little flower of song,To her who found you fair;After a winter black as night,I plucked you when spring's smile brought light,And April's winds were blithe and strong,And Hope was in the air.Poor stray of Autumn left to Spring,I send you forth to be'Twixt us a pledge of happier hours;Yea, though she hath far fairer flowersAlways at hand for gathering,Go forth undoubtingly.For thou hast gained a happy meed,And wert thou weed or worse,With her praise for a light above,Many should find thee fair, and loveThough not for thine own sake indeed,—But her sake, O my verse.Be weed or flower, and live or die,To me thou art more dearThan all thy sister flowerets are,O herald of the single starThat rose above the lowering skyOf my most hopeless year.

One particularly delightful day was that on which Mrs. Moulton attended a garden-party at Lambeth Palace as the guest of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Benson. Another of the red-letter days was an afternoon with the Holman Hunts, in their rambling, fascinating house, filled with artistic treasures, when on the lawn a Hungarian orchestra played their national airs. Among the guests were Lewis Morris, Edwin Arnold, Hall Caine, Theodore Watts-Dunton, and many others who bore names well known. The diary records, too, a studio-reception given by Felix Moscheles, a coaching trip to Virginia Water; and so on for a round of gay doings which make it amazing that all this time Mrs. Moulton continued her literary work.

In the autumn Mrs. Moulton journeyed to Carlsbad, and there "made Lady Ashburton's acquaintance in the morning and sat up in the wood with her for a couple of hours." The acquaintance ripened into a warm friendship between the two, and Mrs. Moulton was often a guest at Lady Ashburton's place, Kent House, Knightsbridge. The sonnet "One Afternoon" is the memory of this first meeting written at Carlsbad a year after.

On her return to America in the autumn, Mrs. Moulton went to Pomfret to visit her mother. While there she heard from Miss Guiney of the death of a young poet, James Berry Bensel, of whom she wrote to Oscar Fay Adams as follows:

Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Adams28 Rutland Square, Sunday.

My dear Friend: Your letter just received draws my very heart out in sympathy. I wish you were here, that I could tell you all the feelings that it brought, for I know what it is to lose my dearest friend. Louise Guiney said to me when she came Friday afternoon: "I have something to tell you. Bensel is dead. His brother has written me." And I was not myself all the afternoon. I could not put aside the thought that pleaded for my tears. And I grieved that I had not yet written to him about his book. I find such fine things in it. Come back and let us grieve for him together,—not that I grieve as you do who loved him so, but I do understand all you feel, and I felt his death very unusually, myself. I wish, oh, how I wish, we could call him back to life, and give him health, and the strength to work, and more favorable conditions. But we do not know but that he may now be rejoicing somewhere in a great gain, beyond our vision. He has gone where our vision cannot find or our fancy follow him; but he must either be better off in a new birth or else so deeply at rest that no pain can pierce him where he is. Good-bye and God bless you.

Yours most truly,Louise Chandler Moulton.

The Boston winters were full always with social and literary interests. The relations of Mrs. Moulton to the writers of her circle were indicated when on her sailing in the spring of one of the late eighties a post-bag was arranged which was delivered to her in mid-ocean. The idea originated with Miss Marian Boyd Allen, and among the contents were a manuscript book of poems for every day by Bliss Carman; poems by Clinton Scollard, Arlo Bates, Willis Boyd Allen, Minot J. Savage, Celia Thaxter, the Rev. Bernard Carpenter, Gertrude Hall, Mary Elizabeth Blake, and Hezekiah Butterworth; a silver vinaigrette from Professor James Mills Pierce; a book from Mrs. Clara Erskine Clement Waters; two charming drawings from Winthrop Pierce; with notes from Nora Perry, Colonel T.W. Higginson, and others. Miss Guiney addressed as her "Chief Emigrant and Trans-Atlantic Gadder, Most Ingenious Poet, and Queen of Hearts." Colonel Higginson wrote:

T.W. Higginson to Mrs. MoultonCambridge, May 3, 1887.

Dear Friend: I gladly join with others in this mid-ocean post-bag. I hope you will take your instalments of friendship in as many successive days. Few American women,—perhaps none,—have succeeded in establishing such a pleasant intermedian position before English and American literature as have you, and as the ocean does not limit your circle of friends, it seems very proper that we on this side should stretch our hands to you across it. As one of your oldest and best friends, I wish you not only "many happy returns," but one, at least, in the autumn.

Ever cordially,T.W. Higginson.

On the other side of the Atlantic Philip Bourke Marston and his friend William Sharp greeted her return to London in three sonnets.

Philip Bourke Marston to Mrs. MoultonUNDESCRIED.—TO L.C.MWhen from her world, new world, she sailed away,Right out into the sea-winds and the sea,Did no foreshadowing of good to beSurprise my heart? That memorable dayDid I as usual rise, think, do, and sayAs on a day of no import to me?Did hope awake no least low melody?Send forth no spell my wandering steps to stay?Oh, could our souls catch music of the thingsFrom some lone height of being undescried,Then had I heard the song the sea-wind singsThe waves; and through the strain of storm and tide,—As soft as sleep and pure as lovely springs,—Her voice wherein all sweetnesses abide.William Sharp to Mrs. MoultonANTICIPATED FRIENDSHIPFriend of my friend! as yet to me unknown,Shall we twain meeting meet and care no more?Already thou hast left thy native shore,And to thine ears the laughter and the moanOf the strange sea by night and day unknown,Its thunder and its music and its roar;A few days hence the journey will be o'er,And I shall know if hopes have likewise flown.As one hears by the fire a father tellHis eager child some tales of fairy land,Where no grief is and no funereal bell,But thronging joys and many a happy band;So do I hope fulfillment will be well,And not scant grace, with cold, indifferent hand.AFTER MEETINGFriend of my friend, the looked-for day has come,And we have met: to me, at least, a dayMemorable: no hopes have flown away.Bad fears lie broken, stricken henceforth dumb:In the thronged room, and in the ceaseless humOf many voices, I heard one voice sayA few brief words,—but words that did conveyA subtle breath of friendship, as in someFew scattered leaves the rose still gives her scent.Thy hand has been in mine, and I this nightHave seen thine eyes reach answer eloquentTo unseen questions winged for eager flight.And when, at last, our Philip and I went,I knew that I had won a fresh delight.

The following letter from Mr. Sharp explains itself in this cluster of greetings:

William Sharp to Philip Bourke Marston19 Albert Street, Regent's Park.

Dear Philip: I couldn't be bothered going out anywhere, as you suggested, and an hour or two ago I was able to complete a second sonnet for the two on "Anticipated Friendship" addressed to Mrs. Moulton. I told you how much I liked her, and what a relief it was to find my hopes not disappointed. In reading these sonnets (at least, the second one) remember the dolorous condition I am in, and have mercy on all short-comings that therein abound; and, please, if you think the spirit of thankfulness in them not sufficient to overbalance all deficiencies, throw them in the fire without showing them to their unconscious inspirer, and thus earn the future gratitude of

Your loving friend,William Sharp.

In February of 1887 Philip Bourke Marston died. He bequeathed to Mrs. Moulton his books and manuscripts, and many autographs of great interest and value. Among them was the first page of the original manuscript of the first great chorus in "Atalanta in Calydon" corrected in Swinburne's own hand. Marston requested that she should be his literary executor. Speaking of this work some years later, Mrs. Moulton said: