Memories grave and gay

by Florence Howe Hall

A quiet summer was indicated for me—but how was it possible to compass this when the letters from Greece were so moving? Sister Laura, in particular, wrote such harrowing accounts of the refugees that I could not remain inactive. Brother Harry, sister Maud and I were spending the greater part of the summer at our home in Lawton’s Valley, where our aunt, Mrs. Joseph N. Howe, and her daughters were installed for the season.

I rashly decided to arrange an amateur concert for the benefit of the Cretans. True, I knew something of music, but of the nature of amateur musicians I was blissfully ignorant. The first step was easy enough. The stirring letters from Greece afforded plenty of ammunition for a circular appeal to the leading people of Newport, of which we wrote many copies. Brother Harry, now a junior at Harvard College, was my right hand in the whole matter, working most unselfishly and constantly.

Day after day we took the six-mile drive to Newport, calling upon prospective patronesses and singers. The former responded nobly. Mrs. E. D. Morgan, wife of the war Governor of New York State, took fifty tickets, although her husband had already contributed to the cause.

But the singers! oh, the singers! Such backing and filling, such coy consents, withdrawn almost as soon as made! It had not occurred to my youthful mind that the amateur musician normally displays his talents before a private audience. In asking him to sing before the public, at an entertainment for which tickets were sold, I was requesting something unusual. Doubtless many felt their talents were not sufficient for the task. The Cretan concert might never have materialized except for the timely aid of Miss Jane Stuart. Daughter of the famous painter, Gilbert Stuart, and an artist herself, she was one of the characters of old Newport. Her father had been one of the few to give my father God-speed when the latter started for Greece in 1824, and he had reciprocated the kindness by helping Miss Jane in some undertaking. She was extremely grateful, and once showed her feeling by embracing him. “My dear, I might just as well have kissed that door!” she afterward said to my mother. My father was a true New Englander in disliking all such demonstrations, and Miss Jane was extremely plain.

She and her elder sister lived in a pleasant little cottage on Mill Street. This was practically headquarters for us during our Cretan concert campaign. Miss Jane gave us her aid and counsel in every possible way. I’m ashamed to think how often we imposed upon the kindness of the two ladies by staying to luncheon. Miss Anne, born toward the close of the eighteenth or at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was a gentlewoman of the old school. She wore a black head-dress covering a great part of her head—the successor to the turban, perhaps. She was not so witty as Miss Jane, whose conversation was very charming. The agreeable women of the older generation whom I remember in my youth had grown up before the day of the short story and almost before that of the magazine. Hence it was a part of their social education, the knowledge of how to tell anecdotes in a truly interesting way.

Another friend who helped us in our undertaking was Miss Anna Vernon, who thoroughly loved music and gave much time to it. She then lived in the historic Vernon house, the headquarters of Rochambeau. It is now decorated with a medallion portrait of him.

I was so much absorbed in my new undertaking as to suppose every one else would be interested in it. Perhaps that is the secret of successful canvassing! To my urgent request that he would go with me to drum up recruits Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson at last replied:

“Why, I am the only man in Newport who has anything to do!”

This gentle rebuke was disconcerting, but, having delivered it, and so freed his mind, the gallant colonel climbed into my pony-chaise and we made the projected calls together. At that time he and his first wife were living in Newport. She was a superior woman, but a victim of a form of rheumatism which made her almost helpless. Her husband was devoted to her.

The amateurs continuing hopelessly coy, we had, in a moment of desperation, an interview with the manager of an opera troupe. It did not prove practicable, however, to hand the concert over to professionals.