Reminiscences, 1819-1899

by Julia Ward Howe

THEODORE PARKER
From a photograph by J. J. Hawes.

I am almost certain that Parker was the first minister who in public prayer to God addressed him as "Father and Mother of us all." I can truly say that no rite of public worship, not even the splendid Easter service in St. Peter's at Rome, ever impressed me as deeply as did Theodore Parker's prayers. The volume of them which has been published preserves many of his sentences, but cannot convey any sense of the sublime attitude of humility with which he rose and stood, his arms extended, his features lit up with the glory of his high office. Truly, he talked with God, and took us with him into the divine presence.

I cannot remember that the interest of his sermons ever varied for me. It was all one intense delight. The luminous clearness of his mind, his admirable talent for popularizing the procedures and conclusions of philosophy, his keen wit and poetic sense of beauty,—all these combined to make him appear to me one of the oracles of God. Add to these his fearlessness and his power of denunciation, exercised in a community a great part of which seemed bound in a moral sleep. His voice was like the archangel's trump, summoning the wicked to repentance and bidding the just take heart. It was hard to go out from his presence, all aglow with the enthusiasm which he felt and inspired, and to hear him spoken of as a teacher of irreligion, a pest to the community.

As all know, this glorious career came too soon to an end. While still in the fullness of his powers, and at the moment when he was most needed, the taint of hereditary disease penetrated his pure and blameless life. He came to my husband's office one day, and said, "Howe, that venomous cat which has destroyed so many of my people has fixed her claws here," pointing to his chest. The progress of the fatal disease was slow but sure. He had agreed with Dr. Howe that they should visit South America together in 1860, when he should have attained his fiftieth year. Alas! in place of that adventurous voyage and journey, a sad exodus to the West Indies and thence to Europe was appointed, an exile from which he never returned.

Many years after this time I visited the public cemetery in Florence, and stood before the simple granite cross which marks the resting-place of this great apostle of freedom. I found it adorned with plants and vines which had evidently been brought from his native land. A dear friend of his, Mrs. Sarah Shaw Russell, had said to me of this spot, "It looks like a piece of New England." And I thought how this piece of New England belonged to the world.

One of the most imposing figures in my gallery of remembrance is that of Charles Sumner, senator and martyr. When I first saw him I was still a girl in my father's house, from which the father had then but recently passed. My eldest brother, Samuel Ward, had made Mr. Sumner's acquaintance through a letter of introduction given to the latter by Mr. Longfellow. At his suggestion we invited Mr. Sumner to pass a quiet evening at our house, promising him a little music. Our guest had but recently returned from England, where letters from Chief Justice Story had given him access both to literary and to aristocratic circles. His appearance was at that time rather singular. He was very tall and erect, and the full suit of black which he wore added to the effect of his height and slenderness of figure. Of his conversation, I remember chiefly that he held the novels of Walter Scott in very light esteem, and that he quoted with approbation Sir Adam Ferguson as having said that Manzoni's "Promessi Sposi" was worth more than all of Sir Walter's romances put together.

Mr. Sumner was at this time one of a little group of friends which an ironical lady had christened "the Mutual Admiration Society." The other members were the poet Longfellow, George S. Hillard, Cornelius Felton, professor of Greek at Harvard College, of which at a later day he became president, and Dr. Howe. These gentlemen were indeed bound together by ties of intimate friendship, but the humorous designation just quoted was not fairly applicable to them. They rejoiced in one another's successes, and Sumner on one occasion wrote to Dr. Howe, apropos of some new poem of Mr. Longfellow's, "What a club we are! I like to indulge in a little mutual." The developments of later years made some changes in these relations. When the Boston public became strongly divided on the slavery question, Hillard and Felton were less pronounced in their views than the others, while Longfellow, Sumner, and Dr. Howe remained united in opinion and in feeling. Hillard, who possessed more scholarship and literary taste than Sumner, could never understand the reason of the high position which the latter in time attained. He remained a Webster Whig, to use the language of those days, while Sumner was elected to Webster's seat in the Senate. Felton was a man of very genial temperament, devoted to the duties of his Greek professorship and to kindred studies. He was by nature averse to strife, and the encounters of the political arena had little attraction for him. The five always remained friends and well-wishers. They became much absorbed in the cares and business of public and private life, and the club as such ceased to be spoken of.

In the days of their great intimacy, a certain grotesqueness of taste in Sumner made him the object of some good-natured banter on the part of the other "Mutuals." It was related that on a certain Fourth of July he had given his office boy, Ben, a small gratuity, and had advised him to pass the day at Mount Auburn, where he would be able to enjoy quiet and profitable meditation. Felton was especially merry over this incident; but he, in turn, furnished occasion for laughter when on a visit to New York, in company with the same friends. A man-servant whom they had brought with them was ordered to carry Felton's valise to the Astor House. This was before the days of the baggage express. The man arrived late in the day, breathless with fatigue, and when questioned replied, "Faith! I went to all the oyster houses in Broadway before I could find yees."

I little thought when I first knew Mr. Sumner that his most intimate friend was destined to become my own companion for life. Charles Sumner was a man of great qualities and of small defects. His blemishes, which were easily discerned, were temperamental rather than moral. He had not the sort of imagination which enables a man to enter easily into the feelings of others, and this deficiency on his part sometimes resulted in unnecessary rudeness.

His father, Sheriff Sumner, had been accounted the most polite Bostonian of his day. It was related of him that once, being present at the execution of a criminal, and having trodden upon the foot of the condemned man, the sheriff took off his hat and apologized for the accident. Whereupon the criminal exclaimed, "Sheriff Sumner, you are the politest man I ever knew, and if I am to be hanged, I had rather be hanged by you than by any one else." It was sometimes remarked that the sheriff's mantle did not seem to have fallen upon his son.