“I am sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh! You don’t disappoint me! I like the looks of you; only, people will have their ideas about poets.”
A gentleman who had just been introduced to her was discussing the subject of names. He asked the derivation of her name; she told him that it was originally “Lark-Holme,” the home of the larks; then he said, “Is there not some one who takes your name, and writes poetry, calling herself ‘Lucy Larcom’? I never read any of the stuff.”
In 1872, she did her first work of collaboration with Mr. Whittier. Conceiving the plan of printing a volume of poems dealing with the life of children, he secured her aid, and “Child-Life” was the first book which they produced in this way. He deferred to her judgment in the selection of the material, and, when doubtful, he always accepted her opinion. In sending her some poems for the collection, he wrote, “I leave thee to thy judgment; I think they will do, but I defer to thy wisdom.” Her name is thus associated with the happy hours of many children, who were, and are, brought up on the wholesome verses of this nursery book. “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Spider and the Fly,” and “Philip, my King,” with appropriate pictures, first became known to thousands of children, from this green-covered daily companion.
“Child-Life in Prose” came as a natural sequel to child-life in poetry; and Hawthorne’s “Little Annie’s Ramble,” Lamb’s “Dream Children,” “The Ugly Duckling” of Hans Andersen, and “The Story without End,” were made familiar through the medium of its pages.
Doubtless influenced by these publications, Miss Larcom decided to print, in a volume of her own, the children’s poems she had written, especially those for “Our Young Folks;” so in 1873 her “Childhood Songs” appeared.
Amesbury, November 25, 1874.
Dear Friend,—I have just been looking over the beautiful book of “Childhood Songs,” and my judgment is, that it is the best book of the kind I have ever seen. It has many poems, which, beside their adaptation to children, have a merit as lyrics, which I do not know where to look for in other collections of this sort. The heart is generally right in such books, but here head and heart are both satisfactory.
We did not get up so good a book as this in our “Child-Life.”
Thy friend,
J. G. Whittier.
TO MRS. MARY MAPES DODGE.
Beverly Farms, December 3, 1874.
Dear Mrs. Dodge,—The publishers assure me that they sent you a copy of “Childhood’s Songs,” as I requested. I hope you received it, at last. I care to have you like it, as a lover of children, quite as much as to have it spoken of in the magazine.
Your own little book must be nice; I hope to see it when I go to Boston.
Doubtless you are right about the verses. I always accept an editor’s decision, without objecting, as I know the difficulties of the position. I will write when I can. For a month or two, I shall be specially busy, and possibly may not have time for “St. Nicholas,” for which it is a pleasure to write.
Yours most truly,Lucy Larcom.
TO THE SAME.
Beverly Farms, December 30, 1874.
My dear Mrs. Dodge,—Your charming “Rhymes and Jingles” followed your pleasant note, and I thank you for both. The book is just what children most enjoy, as a real mother’s book will be sure to be; and you have some sweet little poems which seem to hide themselves too modestly among the merry rhymes.
I think I have the mother-feeling,—ideally, at least; a woman is not a woman quite, who lacks it, be she married or single. The children—God bless them!—belong to the mother-heart that beats in all true women. They seem even dearer, sometimes, because I have none of my own to love and be loved by, for there is a great emptiness that only child-love can fill. So God made us, and I thank Him for it. The world’s unmothered ones would be worse off if it were not so.
Thank you for writing of yourself, and your boys. I wish I knew you, face to face. I am sure we should find ourselves in sympathy in many ways.
I send a verse or two, for by and by, when the March winds blow.
When I get to a little clearing of leisure, I will write more for “St. Nicholas.”
Truly your friend,
Lucy Larcom.
TO MRS. J. T. FIELDS.
Beverly Farms, December 5, 1875.
Dear Annie,—I had a pleasant little visit at Mrs. Pitman’s after I left you. We went to Professor Thayer’s, in Cambridge, that evening, and heard Emerson’s noble paper on “Immortality,” which is soon to be published. There is great satisfaction in hearing such words from such a man’s own lips, for we know that Emerson has as little as mortal can have of the haze of vanity between himself and the truth; and it is this surely, oftener than anything else, that blinds men’s minds to the open secret of eternal life.
Mr. Longfellow was there, and I had a pleasant talk with him. He spoke of the book he is preparing and told me he wanted to put into it “Hannah Binding Shoes.”
Mr. Garrison and Henry Vincent, the lecturer, were at Mrs. P.’s the next day.
I have been in Newburyport since I left Somerville, at my friend Mrs. Spalding’s. Mr. Whittier came there on his way from Boston, and I did not see that he was the worse for the woman-avalanche that descended upon him at your door....
In 1875, “An Idyl of Work,” dedicated to working women, was issued by Osgood & Co. It is a long poem in blank verse, written chiefly in pentameters, and describes most beautifully the life of the Lowell factory girls, in “The Forties.” There is a song of delight in work, running through it all. The incidents of prosaic labor are invested with a charm; and the toiler’s lot is shown to have its bright side in the community of womanly interests that develop strong traits of character, and lead to lifelong attachments. It is an epic of labor, giving a history of an episode in American manufacture, that proved how mental and moral culture can be aided by hand-work, when the laborer looks upon his occupation as his privilege.
In the following year, “Roadside Poems,” a well-edited compilation of mountain poetry, added a new interest to the country and the mountains, for the summer traveler. Shelley, Wordsworth, Longfellow, Browning, and Lowell, were made to act as interpreters of the wonders of the lane, and the beauty of the sunrise over mountain sanctuaries, and to explain the meaning of the storm reverberating among the hills. It is a little book filled with glimpses of the sky, the fragrance of flowers, the earth-smell of ferns, and the coloring of autumn leaves.
TO J. G. WHITTIER.
83 Waltham Street, Boston,
January 1, 1878.... Of course you must have grown very tired of the poetry written to you, and about you. I sent my verses to the “Transcript,” because I thought you seemed too much pleased to think I had spared you the infliction! Discipline can never come too late in life, I am confident!
Still, I didn’t say a word more than the truth, and I think I spoke sincerely for many others. It is a great thing to have won a nation’s affection,—much greater than the greatest amount of mere fame.
Judging from our own inside view, none of us deserve to be as well thought of by our friends as we are; but the beauty of it is, that real friendship knows us best after all, because it sees in us our best aim, endeavor, and possibilities, and lets our failures and imperfections pass by and be forgotten. Why not, when the judge is always so imperfect, too?
The sum of which is, that we all think you a pretty good sort of man, as men go.
Always thy friend,
Lucy Larcom.
TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.
83 Waltham Street, January 17, 1878.
I have been reading the Book of Romans through, trying to forget that I had ever read it before, and I find that “justification by faith” seems to me a very different doctrine from the one I was brought up on. I don’t know that I should understand it as Luther did. But it seems to me grander than I have dreamed of before. It is freedom to stand with our faces to the light, whatever our past may have been; freedom to do right from the love of it, and not as burdensome duty; and the love of doing right as the proof of deliverance. Is not this the “grace wherein ye stand,” which Paul preached as free grace in Christ?
I find very little in the Book of Romans which points to some future salvation. It is the life redeemed from love of sin, which he seems to be talking to the Romans about. I do wish religion were made more practical in theology, after this Pauline fashion. I do not care for any commentator’s judgment. I think that common sense and a sincere desire for truth will be shown the right interpretation....