Memories grave and gay

by Florence Howe Hall

A great many people of all sorts and kinds came to “Green Peace.” All European travelers of note wished to see Laura Bridgman, the Helen Keller of the nineteenth century, and the man who had brought her into the human fold. While my father did not cross the seas to take part in European revolutions after 1832 until the Cretan uprising of 1867, he was, of course, deeply interested in them and in their promoters. Thus when the Hungarian patriot, Louis Kossuth, came to America to try to enlist the sympathies of our countrymen in his projects, my father saw a great deal of him and helped in his plans as much as possible.

By Kossuth’s desire, the committee in charge appointed my father as the person to whom “he could reveal in confidence so much of his plans and prospects as would show there was reason for hope and for immediate action.” He greatly impressed Doctor Howe who wrote to Charles Sumner, “Surely he is an inspired man.”

I can remember the Hungarian patriot standing with many other men, doubtless his suite, in the hall where hung Byron’s helmet. My childish imagination was much exercised about the Kossuth hat, which I heard talked about. This was of black felt, high and of Alpine shape. I was greatly disappointed because the sober citizens of Boston did not adopt the little black feather as well as the Kossuth hat!

Lowell, Longfellow, Theodore Parker, George Sumner, George S. Hillard, and Miss Catharine Sedgwick were among the guests on this occasion. Laura Bridgman was brought in after dinner. All were so much interested in her, and in the Hungarian patriot’s story of his cause, that teatime presently arrived and my mother entertained them with the remnants of the earlier feast!

Many of the foreigners who came to “Green Peace” were political refugees—Poles, Austrians, Hungarians. There were, of course, many Greeks also. One of my father’s self-imposed duties was finding employment for these people, who naturally were quite helpless in a strange land. Thus many of our early teachers and governesses were foreigners. We grew up in an international atmosphere less common in those early days than now. Professor Fiester, doubtless a very learned Austrian, gave us some rudimentary lessons in Latin and German. He was a very stout, large man, with fair, curly hair and gold spectacles. Some one nicknamed him “the mastodon calf.” He understood perfectly how to amuse children, and made us the most fascinating fly-houses and other paper objects. It is evident that I was a naughty child and quite determined to have my own way. One morning the patience of our gentle master came to an end.

“No, Mees!” he exclaimed. “I haf refused to opey the Emperor of Austria, and do you think I will opey you, you little thing?”

I was about eight years old when I was thus classed with the Hapsburg tyrant of the day!

One of our early teachers, Jules M——, had deserted from the French army. The family of his Greek wife had aided him in some way, and he married her, out of gratitude. Of course they found their way, like other foreigners, to my father’s office in Boston, No. 20 Bromfield Street. As neither of them could speak the other’s language, he interpreted between husband and wife when they got into difficulties. She wore an embroidered cap on the back of her head, with her hair braided outside of it.

M—— was of the blond French type, with a military air. It was his soldierly training, doubtless, which caused him to ring the door-bell in a very decided way, and then, without waiting for the maid to answer it, open the door himself and march straight into the parlor. This gave me an injured feeling, for I was apt to be late, and counted on those few minutes in which he should have waited, to get ready.

He wrote a beautiful copper-plate hand and was a good teacher. With a military desire to see everything in good order, he one day informed me that my stockings needed pulling up. This was more than the dignity of my nine years could brook, and I made no reply. He repeated his observation several times, but in vain! The peer of the Emperor of Austria was not going to yield to a deserter from the French army!