Quum talem videt
Et dish ambulavit cum spoonam.”
The question being asked by Mrs. Howe whether this last line was in strict accordance with grammar, the scholar gave the following rule: “The conditions of grammar should always give way to exigencies of rhyme.” In conclusion, two young girls, Annie Bigelow and Mariana Mott, were called forward to receive graduate degrees for law and medicine; the former’s announcement coming in this simple form: “Annie Bigelow, my little lamb, I welcome you to a long career at the ba-a.”
That time is long past, but “The Hurdy-Gurdy,” or any one of the later children’s books by Mrs. Howe’s daughter, Mrs. Laura Richards, will give a glimpse at the endless treasury of daring fun which the second generation of that family inherited from their mother in her prime; which last gift, indeed, has lasted pretty well to the present day. It was, we must remember, never absolutely out of taste; but it must be owned that she would fearlessly venture on half-a-dozen poor jokes for one good one. Such a risk she feared not to take at any moment, beyond any woman I ever knew. Nature gave her a perpetual youth, and what is youth if it be not fearless?
In her earlier Newport period she was always kind and hospitable, sometimes dreamy and forgetful, not always tactful. Bright things always came readily to her lips, and a second thought sometimes came too late to withhold a bit of sting. When she said to an artist who had at one time painted numerous portraits of one large and well-known family, “Mr. ⸺, given age and sex, could you create a Cabot?” it gave no cause for just complaint, because the family likeness was so pervasive that he would have grossly departed from nature had he left it out. But I speak rather of the perils of human intercourse, especially from a keen and ready hostess, where there is not time to see clearly how one’s hearers may take a phrase. Thus when, in the deep valley of what was then her country seat, she was guiding her guests down, one by one, she suddenly stopped beside a rock or fountain and exclaimed,—for she never premeditated things,—“Now, let each of us tell a short story while we rest ourselves here!” The next to arrive was a German baron well known in Newport and Cambridge,—a great authority in entomology, who always lamented that he had wasted his life by undertaking so large a theme as the diptera or two-winged insects, whereas the study of any one family of these, as the flies or mosquitoes, gave enough occupation for a man’s whole existence,—and he, prompt to obedience, told a lively little German anecdote. “Capital, capital!” said our hostess, clapping her hands merrily and looking at two ladies just descended on the scene. “Tell it again, Baron, for these ladies; tell it in English.” It was accordingly done, but I judged from the ladies’ faces that they would have much preferred to hear it in German, as others had done, even if they missed nine tenths of the words. Very likely the speaker herself may have seen her error at the next moment, but in a busy life one must run many risks. I doubt not she sometimes lost favor with a strange guest, in those days, by the very quickness which gave her no time for second thought. Yet, after all, of what quickness of wit may not this be said? Time, practice, the habit of speaking in public meetings or presiding over them, these helped to array all her quick-wittedness on the side of tact and courtesy. Mrs. Howe was one of the earliest contributors to the “Atlantic Monthly.” Her poem “Hamlet at the Boston” appeared in the second year of the magazine, in February, 1859, and her “Trip to Cuba” appeared in six successive numbers in that and the following volume. Her poem “The Last Bird” also appeared in one of these volumes, after which there was an interval of two and a half years during which her contributions were suspended. Several more of her poems came out in volume viii (1861), and the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in the number for February, 1862 (ix, 145). During the next two years there appeared six numbers of a striking series called “Lyrics of the Street.” Most of these poems, with others, were included in a volume called “Later Lyrics” (1865). She had previously, however, in 1853, published her first volume of poems, entitled “Passion Flowers”; and these volumes were at a later period condensed into one by her daughters, with some omissions,—not always quite felicitous, as I think,—this definitive volume bearing the name “From Sunset Ridge” (1898).
Mrs. Howe, like her friend Dr. Holmes, has perhaps had the disappointing experience of concentrating her sure prospects of fame on a single poem. What the “Chambered Nautilus” represents in his published volumes, the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” represents for her. In each case the poet was happy enough to secure, through influences impenetrable, one golden moment. Even this poem, in Mrs. Howe’s case, was not (although many suppose otherwise) a song sung by all the soldiers. The resounding lyric of “John Brown’s Body” reached them much more readily, but the “Battle Hymn” will doubtless survive all the rest of the rather disappointing metrical products of the war. For the rest of her poems, they are rarely quite enough concentrated; they reach our ears attractively, but not with positive mastery. Of the war songs, the one entitled “Our Orders” was perhaps the finest,—that which begins,—
“Weave no more silks, ye Lyons looms,
To deck our girls for gay delights!
The crimson flower of battle blooms,
And solemn marches fill the night.”