stately, with ravens standing in niches along the sides, between the marble columns!
So this maiden, Julia, grew up to womanhood, dreamy and absent, absorbed in severe study and composition, yet always ready with the brilliant flashes of her wit, which broke like sunbeams through the mist of dreams. She was very fair to look upon. No one now pitied her for the glorious crown of red-gold hair, which set off the rose and ivory of her matchless complexion; every one recognized and acknowledged in her “stately Julia, queen of all.”
Once, while on a visit to Boston, Julia heard the wonderful story of Laura Bridgman, who had just been led out of darkness into the light of life and joy by a certain Dr. Howe, a man of whom people spoke as a modern paladin of romance, a Roland or Bayard. She saw him, and felt at once that he was the most remarkable man she had ever known. He, on his part, saw a youthful prophetess, radiant and inspired, crowned with golden hair. Acquaintance ripened into friendship, friendship into love; and so it happened that, in the year 1843, Samuel G. Howe and Julia Ward were married. The next chapter shall tell you of Julia Ward Howe, as we, her children, have known her.
CHAPTER VII.
OUR MOTHER.
(MRS JULIA WARD HOWE.)
Our mother’s story should be sung rather than said, so much has music to do with it. My earliest recollection of my mother is of her standing by the piano in the great dining-room, dressed in black velvet, with her beautiful neck and arms bare, and singing to us. Her voice was a very rare and perfect one, we have since learned; we knew then only that we did not care to hear any one else sing when we might hear her. The time for singing was at twilight, when the dancing was over, and we gathered breathless and exhausted about the piano for the last and greatest treat. Then the beautiful voice would break out, and flood the room with melody, and fill our childish hearts with almost painful rapture. Our mother knew all the songs in the world,—that was our firm belief. Certainly we never found an end to her repertory.
There were German student songs, which she had learned from her brother when he came back from Heidelberg,—merry, jovial ditties, with choruses of “Juvevallera!” and “Za hi! Za he! Za ho-o-o-o-o-oh!” in which we joined with boundless enthusiasm. There were gay little French songs, all ripple and sparkle and trill; and soft, melting Italian serenades and barcaroles, which we thought must be like the notes of the nightingale. And when we called to have our favorites repeated again and again, she would sing them over and over with never failing patience; and not one of us ever guessed, as we listened with all our souls, that the cunning mother was giving us a French lesson, or a German or Italian lesson, as the case might be, and that what was learned in that way would never be forgotten all our lives long.
Besides the foreign songs, there were many songs of our mother’s own making, which we were never weary of hearing. Sometimes
Julia Ward Howe.