Sunday, January 6, 1867.—A driving snow-storm. Last night Jamie went to the Club; met W. Everett, who said that while his father was member of Congress and was at one time returning from Washington to Boston he was stopped in the street as he passed through Philadelphia by a haggard man wrapped in a cloak. “I am Aaron Burr,” said the figure, “and I pray you to ask Congress for an appropriation to aid me in my misery.” Mr. E. replied that the member from his own district was the person to whom to apply. “I know that,” was the sad rejoinder, “but the others are all strangers to me and I pray you to help me.” After some reflection Mr. Everett promised to try to do something in his behalf; fortunately, however, he was released by death before Congress was again in session.
Then soon appears a more cheerful figure, in the person of the Rev. Elijah Kellogg whose lines of “Spartacus to the Gladiators” have resounded in many a schoolhouse. His tales of the Stowes and the family Bible may still divert a generation that knows not Spartacus.
Thursday, January 10, 1867.—Yesterday J. fell in with a Mr. Kellogg, a clergyman from Harpswell, Maine, the author of many noble things, among the rest, of the “Speech of Spartacus” which is in Sargent’s “School Speaker,” a piece of which the boys are very fond, but the masters are obliged to forbid their speaking it because it always takes the prize. He wrote it while in college, to speak himself. He went to school with Longfellow, though he is younger than the poet, and the latter calls him a man of genius. He is a preacher of the gospel and for the past ten months has been speaking every Sunday at the Sailor’s Bethel with great effect. He called to see J. and told him some queer anecdotes regarding his sea-life. He dresses like a fisherman, red shirt, etc., while at home. He remembers Professor Stowe and his wife well. He says their arrival at Brunswick was looked for with eagerness by many, with some natural curiosity by himself. One day about the time they were expected he was in his boat floating near the pier and preparing to return to his island where he lives, as the tide was going down and if he delayed much longer he would be ashore; but he observed a woman sitting on a cask upon the wharf swinging her heels, with two large holes the size of a dollar each in the back of her stockings, a man standing by her side, and several children playing about. At once he believed it must be the new professor, so he dallied about in his boat observing them. Presently the man cried out, “Hallo there, will you give my wife a sail?” “I can’t,” he replied, “there’s no wind.” “Will you give her a row then?” “The tide’s too low and I shan’t get home.” “Oh,” said the woman, “we will pay you; you’d better take me out a little way.” “No, I can’t,” he said. Presently he heard somebody say something about that’s being the minister and not a fisherman at all. “Do you think so?” said Mrs. Stowe. With that he dropped down into the bottom of his boat and was off before another word.
He told Mr. Fields also of the professor who preceded Professor Stowe. He was an unmarried man with three sisters, all of whom were insane at times and frequently one of them was away from home in an asylum. One day the brother was away, the eldest sister being at home in apparently good health, when another professor came to visit them to whom she wished to be particularly polite. “What will you have for dinner,” said she, “today?” “Oh! the best thing you’ve got,” he replied. So when dinner came she had stewed the family Bible with cabbage for his repast. He speaks with the greatest enthusiasm of the beauty of that Maine coast. We must go there.
Out of what seems a past almost pre-Augustan come these memories of N. P. Willis, a poet who suffered the misfortune of outliving much of his own fame.
Thursday, January 31, 1867.—The papers of last night brought the news of N. P. Willis’s death and that he was to be buried in Boston from St. Paul’s Church today. Early this morning a note came from Mrs. Willis asking Mr. Fields to see Dr. Howe and Edmund Quincy, to ask them to be pall-bearers with himself and Colonel Trimble. Fortunately last night J. had seen the announcement, and before going to Longfellow’s made up his mind to ask Longfellow and Lowell to come in to assist at the ceremony of their brother-author; he had also sent to Professor Holmes before the note came from Mrs. Willis. He then sent immediately for the others whom she mentioned and for a quantity of exquisite flowers. All his plans turned out as he had arranged and hoped and the poet’s grave was attended by the noblest America had to offer. The dead face was not exposed, but the people pressed forward to take a sprig from the coffin in memory of one who had strewn many a flower of thought on the hard way of their lives. There are some to speak hardly of Willis, but usually the awe of death ennobles his memory to the grateful world of his appreciators. “Refrain! refrain!” we long to say to the others who would carp. “If you have tears, shed them on the poet’s grave.”
There had been previously an exquisite and touching service at Idlewild where Octavius Frothingham did all a man could do, inspired by the occasion and the loveliness of the day and scene. The service here would have seemed cold as stone except for the gracious poets who surrounded the body and prevented one thought of chill lack of sympathy from penetrating the flowers with which it was covered. I could not restrain my tears when I remembered a few years, only two, and the same company had borne Hawthorne’s body to its burial. Which, which, of that beloved and worshipped few was next to be borne by the weeping remnant!!
Wednesday, July 1, 1868.—In our walk yesterday J. delighted himself and me by rehearsing his memories of Willis. J. was at the Astor House when Willis returned first from Europe with his young bride. He was then the observed of all observers. As in those days travellers crossed in sailing vessels, his coming was not heralded; the first that was known of their arrival was when he walked into the Astor with his beautiful young wife upon his arm. He wore a brown cloak thrown gracefully about his shoulders and was a man to remind one of Lady Blessington’s saying, “If Willis had been born to £10,000 a year he would have been a perfect man.” He was then at the head of the world of literature in America; his influence could do anything and his heart and purse were both at the service of the needy asker. Unfortunately from the first he never paid his debts. J. said he never believed the tales of Willis’s dissipation. He spent money freely even when he had it not. All the English folk, lords and ladies, who then came to see America were the guests of Willis.
I asked what his wife was like! “Like a seraph. She was lovely with all womanly attractions.”
Of the various “causes” to which Mrs. Fields and her husband paid allegiance, the cause of equal opportunity for men and women cannot justly be left unmentioned. They espoused it before its friends were taken with the seriousness they have long commanded, and, as the following passage will suggest, were full of sympathy with those who fought its early battles. The impact of one of these combatants, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, a reformer in sundry fields, against the rock of conservatism represented by the President of Harvard College, is the subject of a lively bit of record.