This may have been the play of “Beauty and the Beast,” of which the manuscript is unhappily lost. I can recall but one passage:
“But he thought on ‘Beauty’s’ flower,
And he popped into a bower,
And he plucked the fairest rose
That grew beneath his nose.”
I remember the theatre well, and the puppets. They were quite unearthly in their beauty,—all except the “Beast,” a strange, fur-covered monstrosity. The “Prince” was gilded in a most enchanting manner, and his mustache curled with an expression of royal pride. I have seen no other prince like him.
All this was at Green Peace; but many as are the associations with her beloved presence there, it is at the Valley that I most constantly picture our mother. She loved the Valley more than any other place on earth, I think; so it is always pleasant to fancy her there. Study formed always an important part of her life. It was her delight and recreation, when wearied with household cares, to plunge into German metaphysics, or into the works of the Latin poets, whom she greatly loved. She has told, in one of her own poems, how she used to sit under the apple-trees with her favorite poet,—
“Here amid shadows, lovingly embracing,
Dropt from above by apple-trees unfruitful,
With a chance scholar, caught and held to help me,
Read I in Horace,” etc.
But I do not think she had great need of the “chance scholar.” I remember the book well,—two great brown volumes, morocco-bound, with “Horatius Ed. Orelli” on the back. We naturally supposed this to be the writer’s entire name; and to this day, ‘Quintus Horatius Flaccus’ (though I have nothing to say against its authenticity) does not seem to me as real a name as “Horatius Ed. Orelli.”
Our mother’s books,—alas that we should have been so familiar with the outside of them, and have known so little of the inside! There was Tacitus, who was high-shouldered and pleasant to handle, being bound in smooth brown calf. There was Kant, who could not spell his own name (we thought it ought to begin with a C!). There was Spinoza, whom we fancied a hunchback, with a long, thin, vibrating nose. (“What’s in a name?” A great deal, dear Juliet, I assure you.) Fichte had a sneezing sort of face, with the nose all “squinnied up,” as we used to say; and as for Hilpert, who wrote the great German dictionary, there can be no reasonable doubt that he was a cripple and went on crutches, though I have no authority to give for the fact beyond the resemblance of his name to the Scotch verb “hirple,” meaning “to hobble.”
Very, very much our mother loved her books. Yet how quickly were they laid aside when any head was bumped, any knee scratched, any finger cut! When we tumbled down and hurt ourselves, our father always cried, “Jump up and take another!” and that was very good for us; but our mother’s kiss made it easier to jump up.
Horace could be brought out under the apple-trees; even Kant and Spinoza sometimes came there, though I doubt whether they enjoyed the fresh air. But our mother had other work besides study, and many of her most precious hours were spent each day at the little black table in her own room, where papers lay heaped like snowdrifts. Here she wrote the beautiful poems, the brilliant essays, the earnest and thoughtful addresses, which have given pleasure and help and comfort to so many people throughout the length and breadth of the land. Many of her words have become household sayings which we could not spare; but there is one poem which every child knows, at whose opening line every heart, from youth to age, must thrill,—“The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Thirty years have passed since this noble poem was written. It came in that first year of the war, like the sound of a silver trumpet, like the flash of a lifted sword; and all men felt that this was the word for which they had been waiting. You shall hear, in our mother’s own words, how it came to be written:—
“In the late autumn of the year 1861 I visited the national capital in company with my husband Dr. Howe, and a party of friends, among whom were Governor and Mrs. Andrew, Mr. and Mrs. E. P. Whipple, and my dear pastor Rev. James Freeman Clarke.