I have been trying to do more than any mortal can, and now must stop to take breath and write to you. In the first place, M.'s illness cut out three months; then fitting up G.'s room at Princeton took a large part of the next three; then ever so many people wanted me to paint them pictures; then I began a book; then Moody and Sankey appeared, and I wanted to hear them, and was needed to work in co-operation with them. I don't know how you feel about Moody, but I am in full sympathy with him, and last Friday the testimony of four of the cured "gin-pigs" (their own language) was the most instructive, interesting language I ever heard from human lips. In talking to those he has drawn into the inquiry rooms, I find the most bitterly wretched ones are back-sliders; they are not without hope, and expect to be saved at last; but they have been trying what the world could do for them and found it a failure. Their anguish was harrowing; one after another tried to help them, and gave up in despair.
I had a vase given me at Christmas somewhat like yours, but a trifle larger, and shaped like a fish. The flowers never fell out but once. I had two little tables given me on which to set my majolica vases, with India-rubber plants, which will grow where nothing else will; also a desk and bookcase, and two splendid specimens of grass which grew in California, and had been bleached to a creamy white. They are more beautiful than Pampa, or even feather-grass.
A. is driven to death about a fair for the Young Women's Christian Association. I have given it a German tragedy which I translated a few years ago. [7] They expect to make $1,600 on it, but Randolph says if they make half that they may thank their stars. I have spent all my evenings of late in revising it, and it goes to the printers to-day. George is going to deliver a literary lecture for the same object this evening, this being the age of obedient parents. No, I never saw and never painted any window-screens. The best things I have done are trailing arbutus and apple-blossoms. A. invited me to do apple-blossoms for her, and said she should have to own that I had more artistic power than herself. I don't agree with her, but it is a matter of no consequence, anyhow. It is a shame for you to buy Little Lou; I meant to send you one and thought I had done so. The bright speeches are mostly genuine, made by Eddy Hopkins and Ned and Charley P.
How came you to have blooming hepaticas? It is outrageous. My plants do better this winter than ever before. I have had hyacinths in bloom, and a plant given me, covered with red berries, has held its own. It hangs in a glass basket the boys gave me and has a white dove brooding over it. Let me inform you that I have lost my mind. A friend dined with us on Sunday, and I asked him when I saw him last. "Why, yesterday," he said, "when I met you at Randolph's by appointment."
There, I must stop and go to work on one of my numerous irons.
The "German tragedy" referred to fell into her hands in the spring of 1869, and her letters, written at the time, show how it delighted her. It is, indeed, a literary gem. The works of its author, Baron Münch- Bellinghausen—for Friederich Halm is a pseudonym—are much less known in this country than they deserve to be. He is one of the most gifted of the minor poets of Germany, a master of vivid style and of impressive, varied, and beautiful thought. Griselda first appeared at Vienna in 1835. It was enthusiastically received and soon passed through several editions.
The scene of the poem is laid in Wales, in the days of King Arthur. The plot is very simple. Percival, count of Wales, who had married Griselda, the daughter of a charcoal burner, appears at court on occasion of a great festival, in the course of which he is challenged by Ginevra, the Queen, to give an account of Griselda, and to tell how he came to wed her. He readily consents to do so, but has hardly begun when the Queen and ladies of the court, by their mocking air and questions, provoke him to such anger that swords are at length drawn between him and Sir Lancelot, a friend of the Queen, and only the sudden interposition of the King prevents a bloody conflict. The feud ends in a wager, by which it is agreed that if Griselda's love to Percival endure certain tests, the Queen shall kneel to her; otherwise, Percival shall kneel to the Queen. The tests are applied, and the young wife's love, although perplexed and tortured in the extreme, triumphantly endures them all. The character of Griselda, as maiden, daughter, wife, mother, and woman, is wrought with exquisite skill, and betokens in the author rare delicacy and nobility of sentiment, as well as deep knowledge of the human heart.
The following extract gives a part of Percival's description of
Griselda:
PERCIVAL.
Plague take these women's tongues!