296 Beacon Street, November 17, 1880.
My dear Miss Larcom,—I have been reading your poems at all the spare moments I could find this evening. Many of them I read carefully—every page I tasted. My wife and daughter were sitting opposite to me, and I had to shade my eyes with my hand that they should not see the tears shining in them—this over and over again. The poems are eminently wholesome, sweet, natural. Their perfume is as characteristic of the soil they spring from as that of the sweet fern or the bayberry.
It is pleasant to me to find my name in such good company as it is in your pages, and if anything I have written has ever given you pleasure this volume has amply repaid me.
Very sincerely yours,
O. W. Holmes.
P.S. (Worth all the rest). I got a letter from Mr. Whittier which reads as follows:—
“Has thee seen Miss Larcom’s ‘Cape Ann’? I like it, and in reading it I thought thee would also. Get it and see if she has not a right to stand with the rest of us. Wishing thee a pleasant Thanksgiving after the manner of the enclosed card, I am faithfully thy friend,
J. G. Whittier.”
Cambridge, December 24, 1880.
Dear Miss Larcom,—I thank you very much for your beautiful volume of beautiful poems. I have been reading it this morning with great enjoyment.
I always liked your poetry, and now like it more than ever. It is not merely verse, but possesses the true poetic instinct and insight.
One little song among the many particularly charms me. It is “At her Bedside.” It ought to be set to music. Thanks, and all good wishes.
Sincerely yours,
Henry W. Longfellow.
CHAPTER IX.
RELIGIOUS CHANGES.
1881-1884.
The true poetic temperament has in it an element of religion; for religion and poetry both deal with the spiritual interpretation of life, and one who possesses the temperament for either is conscious of the vastness overshadowing common things, and sees the infinite meaning of the apparent finiteness of the visible world. The delicate perception of truth which is a distinctive quality of the poet often leads to the deep appreciation of the spirit in and through nature, and enables one to feel and know God.
Lucy Larcom possessed the poetic temperament, with this strong element of religion. She was pre-eminently religious, in the sense of possessing a spiritual power, dealing continually with spiritual things. She began early to interpret life in the light of divine truth; and truth made real in human character she considered the one thing worth striving for.
Her relations to organized Christianity are particularly interesting. Doubtless the history of her connection with the churches is a type of that of other lives numerous in our generation that have become dissatisfied with the communions in which they have been trained, and after a period of uncertainty and unrest have found a home in the Episcopal Church.
Her religious life began in a Puritan home, and in a Congregational meeting-house. The strong ethical teaching of her fathers made a lasting impression on her, and the dogmatic preaching of Calvinism influenced her young life. From both she gained a love for the simplicity of living which characterized her career, and that dearness of conscience which she always displayed. There was also a joy to her under the austerity of the worship, and the sternness of the theology. The sermons suggested new thoughts, which forced themselves between the sentences of the minister, and in this way she preached to herself another sermon than that spoken from the pulpit.
Her religious enthusiasm bore fruit at thirteen years of age, in church membership, in Lowell. Not many years after this she was sorry for the step she had taken, for the natural broadening of her mind and the deepening of her consciousness of truth led her far away from the doctrines she had accepted. The sermons that she heard did not seem to satisfy her needs; she longed for spiritual nourishment, for help on the daily path, for thoughts that had some connection with actual temptations and doubts. Most of the discourses dealt ingeniously with exegetical questions, or were massive arguments used to crush the objector, or efforts to prove some metaphysical doctrine. Relating one Sunday’s experience, which has been referred to before in her diary, she said, “I went to meeting, expecting and needing spiritual food, and received only burning coals and ashes. There was a sermon to prove that Satan will be tormented for ever and ever; and the stress of the argument was to prove the endlessness of his punishment.”