We passed the summer of 1868 at Stevens Cottage, which was very near the town of Newport. I do not exactly remember how it came about that my dear friend and pastor, Rev. Charles Brooks, invited me to read some of my essays at his church on Sunday afternoons. I had great pleasure in doing this. The church was well filled, and the audience excellent in character, and a lady among these one day kissed me after my lecture, saying, "This is the way I want to hear women speak." Another lady, it is true, was offended at some saying of mine. I think that it was to this effect. Speaking of the idle lives of some rich women, I said, "If God works, Madam, you can afford to work also." At this the person in question rose and went away, saying, "I won't listen to such stuff as this." I was not at all aware of the occurrence at the time, nor did I hear of it until the same lady having sent me cards for a reception at her house, I attended it, thereby provoking some comment. I was glad afterwards that I had done so, as the lady in question paid me every friendly attention, and made me quite sure that she had only yielded to a momentary ebullition of temper, to which, indeed, she was too prone.
I read the "Phædo" of Plato in the original Greek this summer, and was somewhat helped in this by an English scholar, a university man, who was passing the summer in Newport. He was "coaching" two young men who intended to enter one of the English universities, and was obliged to pass my house on his way to his lessons. He often paid me a visit, and was very willing to help me over a difficult passage.
The report of my parlor readings soon brought me invitations to speak in public. The first of these that I remember came from a committee having in charge a meditated course of Sunday afternoon lectures on ethical subjects, to be given without other exercises, in Horticultural Hall. I was heard more than once in this course, and remember that one of my themes was "Polarity," on which I had written an essay, of which I thought, perhaps, too highly. In the course of the season I was engaged in preparing for another reading. Meeting Rev. Phillips Brooks one day in my sunset outing, I said to him, "Do you ever, in writing a sermon, lose sight of your subject? I have a discourse to prepare and have lost sight of mine." "Oh, yes," he replied, "it often happens to me." This confession encouraged me to persevere in my work, and I finished my lecture, and read it with acceptance.
I suppose that I may have greatly exaggerated in my own mind the value of these writings to other people. To me, they brought much reflection and unfolding of thought. As I have said in another place, I read the two first named to a small circle of friends at my own house, and was somewhat disappointed at the result, as none of those present seemed willing to assume my point of view. Repeating one of them under similar circumstances at the house of a friend, Henry James, the elder, called upon me to explain some point which my lecture had brought into view. I asked if he could explain the point at issue. He replied that he could not. Being somewhat disconcerted, I said to him, "You should not ask questions which you yourself cannot answer." I meant by this to say that one must not be called upon to explain what is evidently inexplicable. Mr. James, however, did not so understand me, but told me afterwards that he considered this the most extraordinary statement that he had ever heard. He discoursed a good deal after my lecture with much color and brilliancy, as was his wont. His views of the Divine were highly anthropomorphic, and I remember that he said among other things, "My dear Madam, God is working all the time in his shirt-sleeves with all his might."
This dear man was a great addition to the thought-power current in Boston society. He had lived much abroad, and was for many years a student of Swedenborg and of Fourier. His cast of mind was more metaphysical than logical, and he delighted in paradox. In his writings he would sometimes overstate greatly, in order to be sure of impressing his meaning upon his readers or hearers. Himself a devout Christian, he nevertheless once said, speaking on Sunday in the Church of the Disciples, that the moral law and the Christian Church were the meanest of inventions. He intended by this phrase to express his sense of the exalted moral and religious obligation of the human mind, the dignity of which ought to transcend the prescriptions of the Decalogue and the discipline of the church. My eldest daughter, then a girl of sixteen, said to me as we left the church, "Mamma, I should think that Mr. James would wish the little Jameses not to wash their faces for fear it should make them suppose that they were clean." Mr. Emerson, to whom I repeated this remark, laughed quite heartily at it. In anecdote Mr. James was inexhaustible. His temperament was very mercurial, almost explosive. I remember a delightful lecture of his on Carlyle. I recall, too, a rather metaphysical discourse which he read in John Dwight's parlors, to a select audience. When we went below stairs to put on our wraps, I asked a witty friend whether she had enjoyed the lecture. She replied that she had, but added, "I would give anything at this moment for a look at a good fat idiot," which seemed to show that the tension of mind produced by the lecture had not been without pain.
I once had a long talk with Mr. James on immortality. I had recently lost my youngest child, a beautiful little boy of three years. The question of a future life then came to me with an agonized intensity. Should I ever meet again the exquisite little creature who had been taken from my arms? Mr. James was certain that I should have this coveted joy. He illustrated his belief in a singular way. "I lost a leg," he said, "in early youth. I have had a consciousness of the limb itself all my life. Although buried and out of sight, it has always remained a part of me." This reassuring did not appeal to me strongly, but his positive faith in a life after death gave me much comfort. Mr. James occasionally paid me a visit. As he was sitting in my parlor one day my little Maud, some seven or eight years old, passed by the open door. Mr. James called out, "Come here, Maud. You are the wickedest looking thing I have seen in some time." The little girl came, and Mr. James took her up on his knee. Presently, to my horror, she exclaimed, "Oh, how ugly you are! You are the ugliest creature I ever saw." This freak of the child so impressed my visitor that, meeting some days later with a lady friend, he could not help saying to her, "Mrs. ——, I know that I am ugly, but am I the ugliest person that you ever saw? Maud Howe said the other day that she had never seen any one so ugly."
My friend was in truth far from ill-looking. His features were reasonably good, and his countenance fairly glowed with amiability, geniality, and good-will. I found afterwards that my Maud had seriously resented the epithet "wicked looking" applied to her, and had simply sought to take a childish revenge in accusing Mr. James of ugliness. Although Mr. James held much to Swedenborg's point of view, he did not belong to the Swedenborgian denomination. I have heard that, on the contrary, he was considered by its members as decidedly heterodox. I think that he rarely attended any church services. I have heard of his holding a communion service with one member of his family. He published several works on topics connected with religion.
CHAPTER XV
A WOMAN'S PEACE CRUSADE
I had felt a great opposition to Louis Napoleon from the period of the infamous act of treachery and violence which made him emperor. The Franco-Prussian war was little understood by the world at large. To us in America its objects were entirely unknown. On general principles of good-will and sympathy we were as much grieved as surprised at the continual defeats sustained by the French. For so brave and soldierly a nation to go through such a war without a single victory seemed a strange travesty of history. When to the immense war indemnity the conquerors added the spoliation of two important provinces, indignation added itself to regret. The suspicion at once suggested itself that Germany had very willingly given a pretext for the war, having known enough of the demoralized condition of France to be sure of an easy victory, and intending to make the opportunity serve for the forcible annexation of provinces long coveted.