Dr. Wesselhoeft was asked on this occasion why, at her age, so severe an attack as this had not resulted in paralysis. "Because," he replied, "she brought to receive it the strength of forty years of age!"
Sure enough, the next day she felt as if her "nervous balance was very well restored," and in a week she was at work again.
"May 18.... In the evening had word of a Decoration Day poem needed. At once tried some lines."
"May 19. Doubted much of my poem, but wrote it, spending most of the working hours over it; wrote and rewrote, corrected again and again. Julia Richards mailed it at about 4 P.M.... Just as I went to bed I remembered that in the third verse of my poem I had used the words 'tasks' and 'erect' as if they rhymed. This troubled me a good deal. My prayer was, 'God help the fool.'"
"May 20. My trouble of mind about the deficient verse woke me at 6.30 A.M. I tossed about and wondered how I could lie still until 7.30, my usual time for rising. The time passed somehow. I could not think of any correction to make in my verse. Hoped that I should find that I had not written it as I feared. When I came to look at it, there it was. Instantly a line with a proper rhyme presented itself to my mind. To add to my trouble I had lost the address to which I had sent the poem. My granddaughter, Julia Richards, undertook to interview the Syndicate by long-distance telephone, and, failing this, to telegraph the new line for me. So I left all in her hands. When I returned, she met me with a smile and said, 'It is all right, Grandmother.' She had gone out, found a New York directory, guessed at the Syndicate, got the correspondent, and put her in possession of the new line. I was greatly relieved. I have been living lately with work running after me all the time. Must now have a breathing spell. Have still my 'Simplicity' screed to complete."
The Authors' Club celebrated her eighty-sixth birthday by a charming festival, modelled on the Welsh Eistedfodd, "at which every bard of that nation brought four lines of verse—a sort of four-leaved clover—to his chief."[146] Sixty quatrains made what she calls "an astonishing testimonial of regard." Colonel Higginson, who presided most charmingly, read many of these tributes aloud, and the Birthday Queen responded in a rhyme scribbled hastily the day before. Here are a few of the tributes, together with her "reply":—
EISTEDFODD
Each bard of Wales, who roams the kingdom o'er
Each year salutes his chief with stanzas four;
Behold us here, each bearing verse in hand
To greet the four-leaved clover of our band.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
FIVE O'CLOCK WITH THE IMMORTALS
The Sisters Three who spin our fate
Greet Julia Ward, who comes quite late;
How Greek wit flies! They scream with glee,
Drop thread and shears, and make the tea.
E. H. Clement.
If man could change the universe
By force of epigrams in verse,
He'd smash some idols, I allow,
But who would alter Mrs. Howe?
Robert Grant.
Dot oldt Fader Time must be cutting some dricks,
Vhen he calls our goot Bresident's age eighty-six.
An octogeranium! Who would suppose?
My dear Mrs. Julia Ward Howe der time goes!
Yawcob Strauss (Charles Follen Adams).
You, who are of the spring,
To whom Youth's joys must cling.
May all that Love can give
Beguile you long to live—
Our Queen of Hearts.
Louise Chandler Moulton.