Louise Chandler Moulton
Page 122
The brief records in Mrs. Moulton's journal in these days suggest her crowded life of social enjoyment and literary work. On New Year's day of 1885 she notes having been the night before at a party at Mrs. Ole Bull's; and on that day she goes to a reception at the Howard Ticknors'; friends come to her in the evening. January second falls on a Friday, and as she is about to visit her daughter and son-in-law in Charleston, this is her last reception for the season. Naturally, it is a very full one, and while she does not chronicle the list of her guests, it is constructively easy to fancy that among them may have been Dr. Holmes, Professor Horsford, the poet Aldrich and his lovely wife; Dean Hodges, always one of her most dearly esteemed friends; Mrs. Ole Bull, the Whipples, Oscar Fay Adams, Professor Lane of Harvard, Arlo Bates, in whose work, even then, she was taking great delight; Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, or her daughter, Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott; Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford; Mrs. Julius Eichberg and her brilliant daughter, Mrs. Anna Eichberg King (now Mrs. John Lane of London),—these and many others of her Boston circle who were habitués of her "Fridays," and seldom, indeed, was one of these receptions without some guests of special distinction who were visiting Boston. On one occasion it was Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Gosse of London; or again, Matthew Arnold; W.D. Howells was to be met there when in Boston; and not infrequently Colonel T.W. Higginson; Helen Hunt, whom Mrs. Moulton had long known; Mary Wilkins (now Mrs. Freeman), always cordially welcomed; Mrs. Clement Waters, the art writer; President Alice Freeman of Wellesley College (later Mrs. George Herbert Palmer); and Governor and Mrs. Claflin, at whose home Whittier was usually a guest during his sojourns in Boston, were among the familiar guests. Mr. Whittier could seldom be induced to appear at any large reception; but from Mrs. Moulton's early youth he had been one of her nearer friends, and his calls were usually for her alone.
Bliss Carman and Edgar Fawcett from New York were sometimes to be met in Mrs. Moulton's drawing-room; and there were also a group of Boston artists,—Arthur Foote who had set to music several of Mrs. Moultons' lyrics; B.J. Lang and his daughter, who had also set some of Mrs. Moulton's songs; the painters, I.M. Gaugengigl, Winthrop Pierce, John Enneking; Miss Porter and Miss Clarke, the editors of Poet-Lore; Caroline Ticknor, the young author whose work continued the literary traditions of her famous name; and often some of the clergy of Boston,—the Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon Ames, with Mrs. Ames, both of whom were among Mrs. Moulton's most dearly-prized friends; occasionally Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale, and Bishop Phillips Brooks; in a later decade, Rev. Dr. E. Winchester Donald, who succeeded Phillips Brooks as rector of Trinity; Rev. Bernard Carpenter, a brother of the Lord Bishop of Ripon; and beside the throngs of representative people who, at one time or another through some thirty years, were to be met at Mrs. Moulton's, the socially unknown guest received from the hostess the same cordial welcome. Her sympathies had little relation to social standing. No praise of the critics ever gave her more happiness than did a letter from a stranger in the West, written by a young girl who had for years been unable to move from her bed, telling of the blessed ministry of a poem by Mrs. Moulton, of which the first stanza runs:
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We lay us down to sleep, And leave to God the rest, Whether to wake and weep Or wake no more be best. |
A book of Mr. Stedman's of which he sent to Mrs. Moulton a copy bore on its fly-leaf the inscription:
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My life-long, loyalist friend, My sister in life and song. |
In the winter of 1885 the journal notes a visit to Mrs. Schaefer in Charleston, where amid all the festivities she finds time to send "four short stories and a poem" to various editors. On her way North she visited Washington, where dinners and receptions were given to her in private and in diplomatic circles. Then she went on to New York, and before sailing for Europe met Monsignor Capel at dinner, lunched with the Lawrence Barretts, attended Mr. Barrett's performance of "The Blot in the 'Scutcheon," which she found a "wonderful piece of acting," and at last sailed, as usual lavishly remembered with flowers and graceful tokens.
In Venice this year Mrs. Moulton wrote the charming pseudo-triolet,