I remember this summer as a particularly happy period. My younger brother and I had our lessons in a lovely green bower. Our French teacher came out at intervals in the Bloomingdale stage. My mother often took me with her for a walk in the beautiful garden, from which she plucked flowers that she arranged with great taste. There was much mysterious embroidering of small caps and gowns, the purpose of which I little guessed. The autumn came, and with it our return to town. And then, one bitter morning, I awoke to hear the words, "Julia, your mother is dead." Before this my father had announced to us that a little sister had arrived. "And she can open and shut her eyes," he said, smiling.
His grief at the loss of my mother was so intense as to lay him prostrate with illness. He told me, years after this time, that he had welcomed the physical agony which perforce diverted his thoughts from the cause of his mental suffering. The little sister of whose coming he had told us so joyfully was for a long time kept from his sight. The rest of us were gathered around him, but this feeble little creature was not asked for. At last my dear old grandfather came to visit us, and learned the state of my father's feelings. The old gentleman went into the nursery, took the tiny infant from its nurse, and laid it in my father's arms. The little one thenceforth became the object of his most tender affection.
He regarded all his children with great solicitude, feeling, as he afterward said to one of us, that he must now be mother as well as father. My mother's last request had been that her unmarried sister, the same one who had accompanied us on the journey to Niagara, should be sent for to have charge of us, and this arrangement was speedily effected.
This aunt of ours had long been a care-taker in her mother's household, where she had had much to do with bringing up her younger sisters and brothers. My mother had been accustomed to borrow her from time to time, and my aunt had threatened to hang out a sign over the door with the inscription, "Cheering done here by the job, by E. Cutler." She was a person of rare honesty, entirely conscientious in character, possessed of few accomplishments, but endowed with the keenest sense of humor. She watched over our early years with incessant care. We little ones were kept much in our warm nursery. We were taken out for a drive in fine weather, but rarely went out on foot. As a consequence of this overcherishing, we were constantly liable to suffer from colds and sore throats. The young physician of whom I have already spoken became an inmate of our house soon after my mother's death. He was afterward well known in New York society as an excellent practitioner, and as a man of a certain genius. Those were the days of mighty doses, and the slightest indisposition was sure to call down upon us the administration of the drugs then in favor with the faculty, but now rarely used.
JULIA CUTLER WARD (Mrs. Howe's mother)
From a miniature by Anne Hall.
My father's affliction was such that a change of scene became necessary for him. The beautiful house at the Bowling Green was sold, with the new furniture which had been ordered expressly for my mother's pleasure, and which we never saw uncovered. We removed to Bond Street, which was then at the upper extremity of New York city. My father's friends said to him, "Mr. Ward, you are going out of town." And so indeed it seemed at that time. We occupied one of three white freestone houses, and saw from our windows the gradual building up of the street, which is now in the central part of New York. My father had purchased a large lot of land at the corner of our street and Broadway. On a part of this he subsequently erected a house which was considered one of the finest in the city.
My father was disposed to be extremely careful in the choice of our associates, and intended, no doubt, that we should receive our education at home. At a later day his plans were changed somewhat, and after some experience of governesses and masters I was at last sent to a school in the near neighborhood of our house. I was nine years old at this time, somewhat precocious for my age, and endowed with a good memory. This fact may have led to my being at once placed in a class of girls much older than myself, especially occupied with the study of Paley's "Moral Philosophy." I managed to commit many pages of this book to memory, in a rather listless and perfunctory manner. I was much more interested in the study of chemistry, although it was not illustrated by any experiments. The system of education followed at that time consisted largely in memorizing from the text-books then in use. Removing to another school, I had excellent instruction in penmanship, and enjoyed a course of lectures on history, aided by the best set of charts that I have ever seen, the work of Professor Bostwick. In geometry I made quite a brilliant beginning, but soon fell off from my first efforts. The study of languages was very congenial to me; I had been accustomed to speak French from my earliest years. To this I was enabled to add some knowledge of Latin, and afterward of Italian and German.
The routine of my school life was varied now and then by a concert and by Handel's oratorios, which were given at long intervals by an association whose title I cannot now recall. I eagerly anticipated, and yet dreaded, these occasions, for my enjoyment of them was succeeded by a reaction of intense melancholy.
The musical "stars" of those days are probably quite out of memory in these later times, but I remember some of them with pleasure. It is worth noticing that, while the earliest efforts in music in Boston produced the Handel and Haydn Society, and led to the occasional performance of a symphony of Beethoven or of Mozart, the taste of New York inclined more to operatic music. The brief visit of Garcia and his troupe had brought the best works of Rossini before the public. These performances were followed, at long intervals, by seasons of English opera, in which Mrs. Austin was the favorite prima donna. This lady sang also in oratorio, and I recall her rendering of the soprano solos in Handel's "Messiah" as somewhat mannered, but on the whole quite impressive.