All graces and sweet charities unite
The old Greek beauty set in holier light;
And her for whom New England’s byways bloom,
Who walks among us welcome as the Spring,
Calling up blossoms where her light feet stray.
No effort or adventure seemed to daunt the companions in their journeyings. There was an indomitable quality in Mrs. Fields which Miss Jewett used to ascribe to her “May blood,” with its strain of abolitionism, and it showed itself when she accepted with enthusiasm, and successfully urged Miss Jewett to accept, an invitation to make a two months’ winter cruise in West Indian waters, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich, on the yacht Hermione of their friend, Henry L. Pierce. The diary of Mrs. Fields records discomforts and pleasures with an equal hand, and gives lively glimpses of island and ocean scenes. At Santo Domingo, for example, the President of the Republic of Haiti dined on the Hermione on St. Valentine’s Day, 1896, and talked in a manner to which the impending liberation of Cuba from the Spanish yoke may now be seen to have added some significance.
Anything more interesting than his conversation [wrote Mrs. Fields] would be impossible to find. He ended just before we left the table by speaking of Cuba. He is inclined to believe that the day of Spain is over. The people are already conquerors in the interior and are approaching Havana. Spain will soon be compelled to retire to her coast defenses and she is sure to be driven thence in two years or sooner. Of course, if the Cubans are recognized by the great powers they will triumph all the sooner.
“Do these island republics take the part of Cuba?” someone asked.
“I will tell you a little tale of a camel,” he said, “if you will allow me—a camel greatly overladen who lamented his sad fate. ‘I am bent to the earth,’ he said; ‘everything is heaped upon me and I feel as if I could never rise again under such a load.’ Upon his pack was seated a flea, who heard the lament of the camel. Immediately the flea jumped to the ground. ‘See!’ he said; ‘now rise, I have relieved you of my own weight.’ ‘Thank you, Mr. Elephant,’ said the camel, as he glanced at the flea hopping away. The recognition of these islands would help Cuba about as much,” he added laughingly.
But the President of Haiti, concerning whom much more might be quoted, is less a part of the present picture than Thomas Bailey Aldrich, of whom Mrs. Fields wrote, February 21:—