CHAPTER VIII
LITTLE SAMMY: THE CIVIL WAR
1859-1863; aet. 40-44
There came indeed an hour of fate
By bitter war made desolate
When, reading portents in the sky,
All in a dream I leapt on high
To pin my rhyme to my country's gown.
'Tis my one verse that will not down.
Stars have grown out of mortal crown.
J. W. H.
I honour the author of the "Battle Hymn," and of "The Flag." She was born in the city of New York. I could well wish she were a native of Massachusetts. We have had no such poetess in New England.
Emerson's Journals.
In the winter of 1859 the Doctor's health became so much impaired by overwork that a change of air and scene was imperative. At the same time Theodore Parker, already stricken with a mortal disease, was ordered to Cuba in the hope that a mild climate might check the progress of the consumption. He begged the Howes to join him and his wife, and in February the four sailed for Havana. This expedition is described in "A Trip to Cuba."
The opening chapter presents three of the little party during the rough and stormy voyage:—
"The Philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,—keeled up in an upper berth, convulsively embracing a blanket, what conservative more immovable than he? The Great Man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if, like Farinata,—
'avesse l'inferno in gran dispetto,'—