Memories grave and gay

by Florence Howe Hall

In those last years she seemed to us like a lovely saint whose faults had all been burned away by the fires of life, leaving only the ethereal spirit behind. Yet she was by no means entirely absorbed in religious meditation. This was an important part of her existence, but she also enjoyed the things of this world and was often full of fun and gaiety.

For all who knew her, and for all, I hope, who have read the story of her life, she has robbed old age of half its terrors. She met it bravely, smilingly, wisely, submitting with good grace to certain inevitable restrictions. Thus while she never gave up walking so far as her strength permitted, since more fresh air was desirable, she accepted the wheeled chair for additional exercise. To other limitations she would not submit. She would attend meetings, public and private; she would make the addresses which were so much prized by her audience; in a word, she would continue the intellectual and social intercourse with her fellow-men and women which was to her literally the breath of life. For their love and sympathy, their interest in her words, were to her a veritable elixir. The feeling that she still had a message which the world wished to hear helped to keep her alive. The veteran who believes that “he lags superfluous on the stage” is not likely to survive long.

When she attended the biennial of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in Boston, in 1908, I was her companion, as on many earlier club occasions. She confessed afterward that she had feared the delivery of her speech in the vast auditorium of Symphony Hall might kill her, but this did not deter her from reading it! In the last summer of her life we attended a suffrage meeting in Bristol Ferry at the house of Miss Cora Mitchell, founder and president of the Newport County Suffrage League. Here she told the ladies of her work for peace, begun shortly after the Franco-Prussian War. It should be said that, despite her interest in German philosophy, her sympathies in that conflict were entirely with the French, whom she felt to be the victims of German aggression. It was the wholly unnecessary nature of the conflict which made the author of the “Battle Hymn” call in the early ’seventies a Peace Congress of Women to protest against future wars of the sort. In her correspondence we find that she met with no encouragement from the women of Germany.

Her visit to Smith College, where the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon her, shortly before her death, has been described in her Life. The story of the awarding to her of the degree of LL.D. at Tufts College has a special interest because it was the first, and because in her speech she made a protest against Turkish cruelty, thus carrying on the work begun by her husband on the shores of Greece eighty years before! Her grandson, Dr. Henry Marion Hall, who accompanied her, has thus described the occasion:

Professor Evans, of the department of history, drove Grandmother and me from No. 241 Beacon Street to the college, where we remained in his rooms for a short while until Grandmother felt rested. Then we walked across the campus, which was bright with the colors seen only in coeducational institutions. Mrs. Howe joined the academic procession just before it entered the hall, and all at once she and I found ourselves on a platform, surrounded by men in caps and gowns, the instructors and those about to receive degrees. Grandmother was the only woman on the platform, and everybody in the audience seemed particularly interested in her. In spite of her great age I recall that there was something quite simple and almost childlike in her expression—absolutely different from the self-consciousness peculiar to most people under similar circumstances. When she rose to receive her degree there was a remarkable hush, such a hush as I have seldom known of with so many people in a large room. The hood was put about her shoulders by the president, Doctor Chapin, and she flushed with pleasure at the burst of applause.

At the dinner which followed the exercises she sat with the guests of honor, among whom was Mr. Moody, Secretary of the Navy. When Mrs. Howe arose to speak she took occasion to express the hope that the Secretary might indicate whether or not the government of the United States was going to exert its influence to mitigate the horrors of the Armenian atrocities, for the Turks were then carrying on systematic massacres. Mr. Moody spoke next, and gave a fine oration, but said that circumstances prevented him from indicating the policy of his government at that time. He deprecated, of course, the villainous behavior of the Turks. Grandmother was delighted to receive the degree, and we drove back to Boston with Professor Evans, Grandmother still wearing the hood and holding the sheepskin in her hands.

This grandson, Henry Marion Hall, received, a few years later, the degrees of M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. To our great delight, his thesis, “The Idylls of Fishermen,” was warmly praised by the critics.

She was as pleased as a young girl to hear that we were “going to give a party” during that last summer. “Flossy shall do my hair!” she gaily exclaimed. “The party” was only a small frolic for the Hall grandchildren and their young friends, with a few elders to play cards with her. No one enjoyed the occasion more than she did.

We still continued our duets on the piano, playing airs from “Il Pirata” and other old operas which she loved, as well as Händel’s quaint arias. Her fingers, which never lost their flexibility, played in these last years for her great-grandchildren to dance, as she had played for children and grandchildren.

An article published that autumn in the press, declaring that protestantism was on the decline, troubled her. She desired to make some reply, not in a controversial spirit, however. Her interest in religion was too broad to be confined to any sect. We were glad to have her preach whenever invited to do so, provided her strength permitted, but unreasonable requests were sometimes made. Thus when the zealous pastor of a negro church invited us, in the course of an afternoon call, to go down on our knees in prayer, I protested successfully. If he had not carried a large umbrella in his hand I might have yielded. But how impossible would have been any approach to solemnity in the presence of that most unecclesiastical object!