LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY
FROM A MINIATURE IN THE COLT COLLECTION
BY PERMISSION OF THE WADSWORTH ATHENEUM
And yet in her day she had a prodigious vogue and the reference to her as "The Hemans of America," while now holding a certain facetious implication, was gravely accepted at the time. Her journey abroad after her husband's death was in its way a sort of mild ovation. She met Queen Victoria and it is significant as well as amusing to find that our Hartford citizeness alluded to the Queen as "a sister woman." Her verses were translated into several languages and she received presents and letters of commendation from the King of Prussia, the Empress of Russia and the Queen of France.
The explanation of her contemporary popularity must lie in the state of mind of the period. In that era "sensibility" was the passport to literary success and Mrs. Sigourney certainly possessed sensibility, if nothing else, to a high degree. Those sentimental, yearly gift books known as "annuals" were a phenomenon of the time, and no "annual" was complete without one or more of her poems. It is time that some qualified person gave to the world a study of this old "annual" literature, so sentimental, so romantic, and so generally languishing. The most delightful appreciation that comes to mind at the moment, of the "annual" as a literary curio is contained in Professor Beers's life of Willis in the American Men of Letters series—or in his essay on Percival in "The Ways of Yale."
There is a certain pathos in the fact that the years have denied this Hartford poetess's gentle claim to immortality, because the impossibility of granting this claim has led the world to neglect two very definite and admirable characteristics she possessed.
One is that she was a remarkably good woman. She carried her Christian precepts into her daily practice in a way that few of us seem to succeed in doing. In spite of a little harmless vanity, everyone who came in contact with her appears to have admired and loved her.
In the social life of the old city she was a leading and popular figure. Samuel G. Goodrich in his "Recollections of a Life Time" describing Hartford in the second decade of the nineteenth century says of Mrs. Sigourney, then Miss Huntley: "Noiselessly and gracefully she glided into our social circle and ere long was its presiding genius. . . . Mingling in the gayeties of our social gatherings and in no respect clouding their festivity, she led us all toward intellectual pursuits and amusements. We had even a literary cotery under her inspiration, its first meetings being held at Mr. Wadsworth's." Before the writer lie a half dozen of Mrs. Sigourney's letters written in her distinct and regular handwriting. They relate to business matters, to social engagements, and a few are letters of consolation. Perhaps they seem a little stilted and formal, but in all the personal notes there is evident a very genuine and very charming spirit of sympathy and kindliness.
The other trait that has been largely forgotten is that she was a natural teacher of youth. In her early days in Hartford she conducted a school for girls on singularly successful and somewhat original lines. This she relinquished on her marriage, but for nearly half a century those of her old pupils who lived never failed to meet annually with her in remembrance of their early association. Clearly, she inspired in them all an ardent and lasting affection.
On the writer's desk, among her letters, lies an ancient school copy-book containing the transcript of an address she made to her old scholars August 17, 1822, "on their meeting to form a Charitable and Literary Society." It is characteristic that the greater part of this composition is concerned with affectionate and what now seem rather pathetic sketches of the five young girls of her flock who had died. The address confirms what we know from other sources—that her school was started in 1814, soon after she came from Norwich to Hartford.
The old manuscript abounds in unimpeachable moral aphorisms. One may, perhaps, smile at the carefully balanced phraseology of this: "Some sciences are more attractive to ambition, more congenial with fame, more omnipotent over wealth, but I know of none so closely connected with happiness as the science of doing good." Yet most of us would be better men and women if we applied that maxim in our lives as constantly as did this gentle "lady of old years." In her teaching "the science of doing good" was not a theoretical matter alone. It was directed to practical ends. "During a period of somewhat less than two years and a half," she says, "you completed for the poor 160 garments of different descriptions, many of which were carefully altered and repaired from your own—among them 35 pairs of stockings, knit without sacrifice of time during the afternoon reading and recitation of history. You likewise contributed ten dollars to the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, five dollars to the schools then established among the Cherokees, and distributed religious books to an amount exceeding ten dollars, among the children of poverty and ignorance. . . . Some of you were accustomed to gain time for these extra employments by rising an hour earlier in the morning."