Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend

M. Germain to Mrs. Moulton

Paris, Wednesday.

My dear Mrs. Moulton: The little book is not quite what I was looking for. The binding I was searching for I did not find, but if I delay too long, I shall be away to Madrid; not the place most likely to reward my search.

I wonder if you will like the odd cover? It was ordered by me in an impulse without stopping to reflect that its associations to me mean nothing to you. The bit of tapestry is the relic of one of the oldest and most picturesque chambers in Normandy, and was given me by a nun who nursed me through an illness there—in fact I begged her for it because it is interwoven with a story which I think my best (not yet finished). If you hold the book so that the light plays horizontally, you will see the trace of time-wear in the shape of a †. The fabric was the vestment more than a hundred years in the service of the church there, and was worn by the hero of my story—a priest whose life was a long agony—for a fault nobly atoned. But I must not assume your interest in the tragedy. Perhaps the color—which an artist friend borrowed to robe one of his angels in—may please you. If not, kindly burn the packet, as it has been consecrated—the fabric, not the book;—for I owe the giver the courtesy of conforming to the old Catholic (nay, Egyptian, for the matter of that) rule to burn all sacred things when their day is done.

No doubt the cover does not look professional. I got it done at short notice by one not used to my sometimes eccentric requests and wishes. Will you kindly give it value by accepting it with the best wishes of

Your very faithful,

Pascal Germain.

So these letters remain, with their curious suggestiveness.

Mrs. Moulton's memorial volume on Arthur O'Shaughnessy was published in 1894,—a volume containing selections from his poems preceded by a biographical and critical introduction. Mrs. Spofford pronounced the book "an exquisite piece of work, full of interest and done with such delight in touch." Mrs. Moulton had written with her accustomed skill, and through every line spoke her intimate sympathy with the poet and with his work.

Her summers, after the visit to her daughter in Charleston, were still passed in Europe. Rome, Florence, and other southern cities were often visited before she went to England for her annual London season. Often, too, she made a stay in Paris either before or after her sojourn on the other side of the Channel. Among her friends in Paris were Marie Bashkirtseff and her mother, and not infrequently she took tea at the studio. After the death of the artist, a number of letters passed between Mrs. Moulton and the heart-broken mother.

Her friends in London were so many, and the diary records so many pleasant social diversions that it is no wonder that Thomas Hardy should write to her: "Why don't you live in London altogether? You might thus please us, your friends, and send to America letters of a higher character than are usually penned. You would raise the standard of that branch of journalism." Season after season she notes dinners, luncheons, drives, functions of all sorts, and one does not wonder that with this and her really arduous literary work her health began to suffer. A German "cure" came to be a regular part of the summer programme, and yet with her eager temperament and keen interest in the human, she could not bring herself to forego the excitement and enjoyment which probably did much to make this necessary.

Not a little did her voluminous correspondence add to the strain under which she lived. Continually in her diary are entries which show how heavy was the task of keeping up with the flood of correspondence which constantly flowed in at her doors. "Letters, letters, letters to answer. Oh, dear, it seems to me that the whole of my life goes in writing letters. I wrote what seemed necessary letters till one p.m. Oh, what shall I do? These letters are ruining my life!" "Letters all the morning." "Letters till luncheon." Her acquaintance was wide, and her relations with the literary world of her day made it inevitable that she should be called upon for large epistolary labors; but added to this was the burden, already alluded to, of the letters which came to her from strangers. She was too kindly to ignore or neglect these, and she expended much of her strength in answer to calls upon her which were unwarrantably made. Against the greater amount of literary work which she might have accomplished with the force thus generously expended, or the possible days which might have been added to her life, must in the great account be set the pleasure she gave to many, and the balance is not for man to reckon.

It is now well known that the poems published over the name "Michael Field" were written by Miss Bradley and Miss Edith Cooper in conjunction. To Miss Cooper, Mrs. Moulton, in the intimacy of a warm friendship which established itself between them, gave in loving familiarity the name "Amber Eyes." Many letters were exchanged, and from the correspondence of Miss Cooper may be quoted these fragments.

Miss Cooper to Mrs. Moulton

"We have just returned from Fiesole and Orvieto, and such names are poems. I had hoped to send you verses in The Academy, welded by Michael, on some Greek goddess in the British Museum. We very much care for the sympathy and interest of Americans."

"I don't know any poet who is so spontaneously true to himself as you are. I actually stand by you as I read, and see the harmonious movement of your lips, and the half-deprecating, half-shadowed look in your eyes.... Your verses are like music. What is this? You are not able to sing? Is this the effect of Boston on its winter guest? I can sympathize, for I have not written a line since our play was brought out last October."

"The placid hills [in the Lake Country] make one love them as only Tuscan hills besides can do. Some of the greatest ballads belong here. Wordsworth, Scott, and Burns, and many song-writers have given their passion to this country-side, where one has such joy as the best dreams are made of."

"In a cover somewhat like this paper in tone 'Stéphanie' presents herself to you.... We have the audacity to think it is nearly as well woven as one of the William Morris carpets. We have taken ten years over the ten pages."

On one of her visits to the cure at Wiesbaden Mrs. Moulton made the acquaintance of Friedrich von Bodenstedt and visited at his house. She characterized the lyrics of the author of the "Lieder des Mirza-Schaffy" as "warm with the love of life and the life of love, and perfumed with the roses of the East." Her description of his personal appearance is not without interest.

"A tall, handsome, active man of seventy-two, with gray hair, with eyes full, still, of the keen fire of youth; with the grand manner which belongs to the high-bred gentlemen of his generation, and the gift to please and to charm which is not always the dower even of a poet."

Her return voyage from Europe in 1891 was a sorrowful one. Just before sailing she notes in her diary: "A sad day,—a telegram in the morning to say that mother was failing." On the day before the steamer made land she writes: "A lovely day, but I am so anxious as to what news of my poor mother awaits me to-morrow"; and the first entry on shore is: "Landed to learn that my dear mother died last Monday, October 26, and was buried Tuesday. Oh, what it is to know that I shall never see her again!"

The letters of Mrs. Moulton show through these years a growing feeling in regard to the mystery of death. So many of her friends had gone that the brevity of life was more and more deeply impressed upon her. In the correspondence of many of her friends are traces that her letters to them, not now available, had touched upon the questions to her so vital. Mrs. Maxwell (Miss M.E. Braddon) for instance, wrote:

Mrs. Maxwell to Mrs. Moulton

"I have never believed in the gloomy and pitiless creed of the Calvinists. I believe every one is master of his destiny so far as perfect freedom of choice for good or evil. When we take the wrong road we do it perhaps in the blindness of passion, with eyes blind to consequences, minds darkened by selfish desires, by vanity, false ambitions, and by weakly yielding to bad influences."

Canon Bell to Mrs. Moulton

"I hope you are seeing your way clearly to faith in God and His dear Son. A sure trust in our Heavenly Father is the only true consolation in this world of change and sorrow. That brings peace."

Lady Henry Somerset to Mrs. Moulton

"I well understand what you say about looking onward. I think our eyes are turned that way when the steps of life lead us nearer to the journey's end with each setting sun. It is absorbingly interesting. Yes, I believe the love of God will be closest; and, in the last, victorious."

What the words were to which these were replies may in part be gathered from the following:

Mrs. Moulton to William Winter

Durnham House, Chelsea, London,

October 3, 1894.

Dear Willie: I hope your lecture last night was a success, but it seems to me that all you do is. Yes,—how well I remember that seventieth-birthday breakfast to Dr. Holmes. We sat very near each other, you and I, and I know how your words moved me, as well as how they moved Dr. Holmes. I felt his death very keenly, but I knew him far less than you did. To know him at all was to love him. How strange that you should have written of so many great pilgrims into the unknown. Thank God for your immortal hope. To me the outlook darkens as I draw nearer and nearer to the end. I am appalled by the immensity of the universe, and the nothingness of our little human atom among the infinite worlds. But God knows what is to come. You are happier than most in the love that surrounds you.

 

Thank you a thousand times for your dear letter. If I go to New York or you come to Boston, do not let us fail to meet, for the time in which earthly meetings are possible is short. Oh, how I hope there may be a life to come in which we shall find lost loves and hopes, and above all, lost possibilities. I think it is hardest of all to me to think what I might have been, might have done, and to be so utterly discontented with myself as I am. If you pray, say a prayer sometimes for one of the truest and fondest of your many friends,—this wanderer,

L.C.M.

Without doubt the state of Mrs. Moulton's health had much to do with her apprehensions in regard to a future life, and no one who was intimately associated with her could fail to know that these expressions of gloom and foreboding, while entirely genuine at the moment of their utterance, convey an impression of her usual state of mind far more dark than was warranted by the truth. She was too sincerely interested in life and friendship, too much of her time and thought went to earnest work, however, for her to be in general either brooding or fearsome. The extracts given rather indicate her attitude of mind toward certain grave questions than toward life in general.

The frankness of the following letter from a woman who possessed remarkable powers which the public never fully appreciated is striking and refreshing:

Mrs. Richard Henry Stoddard to Mrs. Moulton

Mattapoisett, January 20.

Dear Mrs. Moulton: Will you accept Mr. Stoddard's thanks for your pleasant notice through me? I write nearly all his personal letters, I may say, nearly all except business letters. He was always averse to letter writing, and since his blindness this aversion is increased; he hurts and angers many without meaning to do so.

I think your first quotation a very poor one. The value of reviews or notices seems to me to be in quotations rather than in the ordinary criticism. In reading them I have often taken the poems in a new and striking light; the medium—that is, the writer—has instructed and cleared my understanding. The happiest in regard to "The Lion's Cub" is the extract in The Critic. There has been no review of the book; the nearest, so far, is the Springfield Republican's and that is suggestive of a review. Mr. Stoddard considers the book a failure; I doubt if he ever collects again. Boyle O'Reilly once said that he saw Stoddard in Broadway and that no one noticed him; "had he been in Boston," he continued, "on Washington Street, every man's hat would have been off to his white head."

We are most delightfully set aside from the afternoon teas of the city, though the invitations chase us up here; the gray tranquil waters of our little bay, the solitary street, a dog occasionally going by, sometimes a man, is a pleasing contrast to 15th Street and Broadway. We shall remain a few days longer and then go into our incongruous life again. If Lorimer were acting in Boston as he did for the past three winters, we should go home that way, but as he has not been there this season we shall not appear.

Have you come across my friend, young Edward McDowell, the composer, who has made such a success? He and his wife are charming.

And Miss –, will you give her my regards when you see her? She has been not only attentive to me, but to my young sister, who followeth not in her aged sister's steps.

Mr. Stoddard also wished to be remembered kindly to you.

Yours truly,

Elizabeth Stoddard.

P.S. I meant to say while on "The Lion's Cub" that I never was so impressed with the gravity and dignity of S.'s verse, nor so clearly saw the profound melancholy of his mind. He really cares little for life. Ah, me!

E.S.

CHAPTER VII
1895-1900

 
… The laurel and the praise
But unto them, true helpers of their kind,
Who, daily walking by imagined streams
Rear fanes empyreal in Verse of Gold,—
Rare architects of figments and of dreams.—Lloyd Mifflin.
 

 
That jar of violet wine set in the air,
That palest rose sweet in the night of life.—Stephen Phillips.
 

 
I give you a day of my life;
My uttermost gift and my best.—L.C.M.
 

THE last decade of the century, to half of which the preceding chapter was given, stands out pre-eminently in Mrs. Moulton's life. Her fame, which had come to her so untainted by any self-seeking, and the abounding richness of friendship which so filled her life, friendship as sympathetic and cordial as it was widespread, made these years wonderful. Death and sorrow did bring into them a profound sadness, but even these brought her into closer touch with humanity and ripened her experiences. The recognition which her art won gave her something much more satisfying than merely

 
… to hear the nations praising her far off.
 

And if to deal with literature is only to know about the Eternal Beauty, while living and loving are in it and of it, she was indeed fortunate. In the life of no poet could be less of the abstraction of literary fame and more of the vitality of real existence. Her social life, both at home and abroad, was full of companionship sweet and genuine. For the mere ceremonial of life she cared little. Life was to her a thing too real, too precious, to make of it a spectacle. If her association was so largely with persons of distinction, it was because they interested her personally, and not because of the social position. That was incidental. Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, speaking after the death of Mrs. Moulton, remarked: "I honored her for her literary power; I loved her for herself. But especially I felt her refinement." Such refinement is incompatible with ostentation, and it was significant of her feeling on social matters that she copied in her note-book, with the remark, "I agree with this entirely," this paragraph from Henry James' "Siege of London":

"I hate that phrase 'getting into society.' I don't think one ought to attribute to one's self that sort of ambition. One ought to assume that one is in society—that one is society—and to hold that if one has good manners, one has from the social point of view achieved the great thing. The rest regards others."

While she was a woman of the world, she was not a worldly woman. She might easily have been presented at court during her many seasons in London, but she never cared to be. She not infrequently met the Princess Louise and other members of the Royal Family, and her own comings and goings were chronicled in the London press. She was the guest and the intimate friend of titled persons in England and of those first in American society; but all this never altered her simple and utterly unaffected cordiality toward those who were of no social prominence whatever. "The reason for her popularity," wrote Miss Josephine Jenkins very justly, "is summed up in the sympathy of her nature, which expands with loving and often helpful solicitude to those seeking encouragement, precisely as it expands toward those having attained some noble distinction. Not every human being is endowed with this genius for appreciation."

Mrs. Moulton wrote to Coulson Kernahan on one occasion: "I do wonder who spoke of me as 'a woman, above all things, of society.' Nothing could be more remote from truth. I simply will not go to balls; I don't care for large receptions, though I do go to them sometimes; I enjoy dinners, if I am by the right person. But I refuse ten invitations to every one I accept, and the thing I most and really care for in all the world is the love of congenial friends and quiet, intimate tête-à-tête with them. The superficial, external side of life is nothing to me. I long for honest and true love as a child set down in a desert might long for the mother's sheltering arms."

On New Year's day, 1895, she wrote, with that curious periodicity which characterized the opening of so many years for her, a sonnet entitled "Oh, Traveller by Unaccustomed Ways," fine and strong, and with haunting lines such as:

 
Searcher among new worlds for pleasures new.—....
Some wild, sweet fragrance of remembered days.
 

The sestet is as follows:

 
I send my message to thee by the stars—
Since other messenger I may not find
Till I go forth beyond these prisoning bars,
Leaving this memory-haunted world behind,
To seek thee, claim thee, wheresoe'er thou be,
Since Heaven itself were empty, lacking thee.
 

The letters of this time are as usual full of allusions to Mrs. Moulton's work, and are as usual from a very wide circle of literary friends. Sir Frederick Pollock expresses his appreciation of her book upon Marston, and the pleasure he and Lady Pollock anticipate in seeing her in London next season. J.T. Trowbridge writes to her that the technique of her songs and sonnets "is well-nigh faultless, and their melody never fails to respond to the tender feeling by which they are inspired." Lord de Tabley thanks her for a notice of his work, "and particularly," he adds, "for putting me in such good company as that of William Watson, whom I greatly admire." Sir Lewis Morris writes cordially, and reminds her of their "pleasant lunches at Lord Haylston's." Marie Corelli expresses her gratitude for pleasant things which Mrs. Moulton has said of her in a letter to Mrs. Coulson Kernahan. Other letters were from Miss Bayley (Edna Lyall), Andrew Lang, Rose Kingsley, Lady Temple, Stephen Phillips, the Hon. Florence Henniker. If, as Emerson says, "a letter is a spiritual gift," these gifts were showered upon Mrs. Moulton.

William Watson to Mrs. Moulton

Dear Mrs. Moulton: One of the most generous recognitions of my early poems came from your pen. I wished then to express my gratitude. I look forward to the pleasure of making your acquaintance. I am touched by your kind sympathy, and I know that you gladden all our group of friends. It is no ordinary thanks I owe you for your generous and delightful criticism. I have to thank you, already, for my best appreciation in America. You do not know how grateful I am to the first woman in America (and almost the first human being) who gave me hearty and inspiring praise. Your poems add to my store of beautiful things, and I do not prize them the less because some of their qualities are my own despair. When your letter came, that article which I call my conscience, and which I wear less for use than for ornament, gave me no peace. Yet the outward parts of life were to blame rather than I, their victim. I had been moving, and giving the Post Office the trouble of one who inherits a wandering tendency. I hope you will permit me to call upon you when next you are in London, and I am, dear Mrs. Moulton,

Sincerely yours,

William Watson.

To a friend Mr. Watson wrote of Mrs. Moulton: "Her letters show her absolute goodness of heart, which is worth all other human qualities put together."

Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett writes characteristically of that inner inspirer which she calls her "Fairy."

Mrs. Burnett to Mrs. Moulton

"… I am so glad you like my story.... It was not I who said 'Human beings can do anything if they set their minds to it'; it was that beloved thing which has said things for me all my life. Sometimes I call it 'The Fairy,' but I think it must be a kind of splendid spirit. It is so strong, it is so good to me, and I do so love it. When I said that thing it seemed to make something waken within me. I began to say it to myself, and to believe it. Only thus could I have finished the story, and this makes me know it is true.... I have sometimes thought the thing I had to give is nearly always part of a story, some note of love, or message that rings clear. I don't ask it should be a loud note, only that some one shall hear it and remember. The fact that you have heard, makes the story a success, so far as I am concerned. As for giving, you give always. I have seen that. You give of gentleness and kindness and all things that help. Your hands are full of things to give."

 

Just before Mrs. Moulton's sailing in the spring of 1895 a breakfast was given to her by a group of her friends, at which the decoration was very prettily all of mountain laurel. In the centre of the table was a basket of green osiers filled with the faintly pink kalmia, and this color-scheme was carried out in the menu-cards, the embroidered centre-piece, the candle-shades, and in the Venetian glass with which the table was furnished. It is to this breakfast that Mrs. Blake alludes in the little note which follows:

Mrs. John G. Blake to Mrs. Moulton

Dear Mrs. Moulton: Among all the laurels which are being laid before your conquering feet, will you take my little flower of good-will and congratulations? The sonnets are exquisite, so are you always to

Your affectionate

M.E.B.

In 1896 was published "Lazy Tours," Mrs. Moulton's most important book in prose. This volume records her impressions in her wanderings in Spain, in Southern Italy, in France, and in Switzerland. It is a delightful mosaic of bits about people and places, of glimpses of Rome, of Florence, of Paris, of the German "cures," and of pleasant experiences of all sorts. The book is dedicated to Sir Bruce and Lady Seton, "The well-beloved friends and frequent hosts of this lazy tourist." The dedication is as appropriate as it is pleasantly phrased, for the Setons were not only among the closest of Mrs. Moulton's English friends, but with them she had done a great deal of journeying. The book is charmingly vivid, and is a pleasant companion for the traveller in the places with which it deals. Mrs. Moulton neither was nor claimed to be an expert critic of painting and sculpture, but her artistic taste responded sensitively to what was best, and she recorded her feelings with a frank enthusiasm and a wonderful freshness.

Arlo Bates, in acknowledging a gift copy of "Lazy Tours" wrote: "I thank you for 'Lazy Tours.' It is done with a touch not only light and delicate, but strangely gentle. It is written with the experience of a woman and the enthusiasm of a girl." In another note of Mr. Bates', belonging to this time, are the remarks:

"Friendship is about the only real thing in humanity."

"The few of us who, in this muse-forgotten age, still care for real poetry, are to be congratulated no less."

The sculptor Greenough wrote: "Verily, your 'Lazy Tours' are a rebuke to industry, for it has woven a magic carpet, as that of the 'Arabian Nights,' only you transport the reader, in every sense of the word.... What excellent prose you poets write when you try." The critics were all agreed, and the verdict of the public endorsed that of Mrs. Moulton's friends and of the reviewers. The book had precisely that lightness of touch which is perennially charming, and which perhaps is due equally to literary expertness and to innate good taste.

The usual summer abroad, full of social experiences, followed; and then the winter in Boston with the crowded Friday receptions. A letter which belongs to this winter is full of a lightness and kindliness characteristic of the writer.

James Whitcomb Riley to Mrs. Moulton

"… You, after months and months of barbarous silence, are asking me why I have not written! Well, I'll answer in my artlessness and most truthfully tell you that my last letter (and a really appealing one) meeting with no response whatever, I just had concluded that I'd win highest favor in your estimate by not writing. So I quit writing, and went to pouting,—this latter so persistently indulged in that my previously benignant features now look as though they were being cast back on my very teeth, so to speak, by a tawdry, wavery, crinkly looking-glass in the last gasp of a boarding-house. But since your voice of yesterday, the eyes of me are lit again, and the whole face beams like radiant summer time. No wonder you continue in indifferent health. It's a judgment on you for your neglect of me. Now you'll begin to improve. And you can get into perfect health by strictly maintaining this rigorous course of writing to me. Heroic treatment, of a truth!…"

One of the entries in the diary of the winter reads:

"Could hardly get to the Browning Society, where I read 'A Toccata of Galuppi's.' Mr. Moulton seemed interested about the reading, and I read him the 'Toccata' after dinner, and other poems. A beautiful evening."

Strangely enough this was Mr. Moulton's last evening of being in health. The next day he was taken ill, and on February 19, 1898, he passed into "the life more abundant." The funeral service was read by the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, rector of Trinity, and Mrs. Moulton more than once spoke of the kindness and sympathy which he showed to her at this time. She wrote in her diary: "Dr. Donald called; he is, it seems to me, a nobly good man." Her daughter was with her, and her many friends were about her. Numerous were the letters of condolence, and they were full of the genuine feeling which could be called out only by one who was herself so ready and quick to respond to the sorrows of others.

In the summer following Mr. Moulton's death Mrs. Moulton remained in America. Her life was saddened and cumbered with the cares needful in business matters, and on the last day of the year she wrote in her diary: "This sad year which is now ending—how strange a year it has been for me. Mr. Moulton died in February and changed all. I have done nothing, enjoyed nothing. With 1899 I must turn over a new leaf, or give up life and all its uses, altogether." In this mood it was natural that her predisposition to brood upon the problem of death should reassert itself. She writes to William Winter: "No,—my dread of death does not seem to me to be physical, for it is not the pain of death that I ever think of. I hate the idea of extinction, but I could reconcile myself to that; … but what I dread most is the to-morrow of death,—the loneliness of the unclothed soul." And again: "For myself, I have an unutterable and haunting horror of going out into the dark.... I always wish I might die at the same moment with some well beloved friend, so that hand and hand we might go into the mystery."

Her literary work, however, continues. She said from time to time that she could not write, and that she should never write a line again; but the poetic instinct was strong, and asserted itself in its own time and way. In a letter to a friend she remarks in passing: "The Century has just come with my poem, 'A Rose Pressed in a Book,' and it seems to me to read pretty well." The lyric to which she modestly alludes as reading "pretty well" is beautifully characteristic of some of her choicest poetic qualities: easy and seemingly unconscious mastery of form, delicacy of touch, charming melody, and sincerity of emotion.

Always her correspondence goes on.

T.B. Aldrich to Mrs. Moulton

"Some day I must get you to tell me about Andrew Lang. One night last winter as I sat reading one of his books a kind of ghost, distinct, elusive, rose before me. Out of this impression grew my 'Broken Music.'"

In allusion to his much discussed "Modern Love," George Meredith writes:

George Meredith to Mrs. Moulton

"You are like the northern tribes of the Arabs, in that what you love you love wholly and without ceasing. This poem has been more roundly abused than any other of my much-castigated troop. You help me to think that they are not born offenders, antipathetic to the human mind. Americans who first gave me a reputation for the writing of novels will perhaps ultimately take part in the admission that I can write verse. They may thus carry a reluctant consent in England, when I no longer send out my rhyming note for revision. I have been taught, at least, to set no store upon English opinion in such matters. I would thank you, but gratitude is out of place. There is a feeling hard to verbalize."

Mrs. Moulton to Lloyd Mifflin

"It is five days since I received your 'Slopes of Helicon,' enriched by your kind inscription. I have been too ill to write; but I will no longer postpone the pleasure of telling you how delighted I am to have your charming book. I have already read enough to know that the book will be an abiding pleasure. You are as delightful a lyrist as you are a sonneteer, and I could not give you higher praise. Both the sonnets and lyrics in this volume charm me."

"… This morning, looking over a shelf of books that have accumulated during my absence,—as books are never forwarded to me,—I find your 'Fields of Dawn,' and also 'Lyrics,' by J.H. Mifflin, for both of which I want to thank you at once. I have a real pleasure to look forward to, for I love your sonnets. Am I right in supposing 'J.H.M.' to be your father, and that you are a poet by inheritance?…"

"I am sending a hurried note to tell you how entirely I agree with you about the demand for 'cheerful poetry.'"

"It is worth writing a book to have written the line,

 
"Made eminent by death,
 

in that noble poem, 'Peace to the Brave.' The poem entitled 'Herbert Spencer' makes me wonder whether you feel that assurance of the future which he certainly did not feel...."

Lloyd Mifflin to Mrs. Moulton

"… It is very uplifting, as you say in New England, to have such a genuine letter as yours. You read a book as I do, through at once. No one has said that my mind inclines to visions like Blake's, but I see visions. I used to sit and hold the pen and feel it hovering about, becoming nearer and nearer, till suddenly it came, the complete sonnet. I merely recorded it then. This was always wonderful to me. Where do they come from? Not death itself, to say nothing of our earth, can keep a born poet from writing. I can write a better poem about sunset by not seeing it...."

James Whitcomb Riley to Mrs. Moulton

"… Very slightly changing R.L.S.'s line,

 
"This be the verse which ye grave for me,
Home he is where he longed to be;
 

and very thankful I am to be at home again. True, the mother is away, the old father, too, and a sister, and a brother; but they all seem to be here still, with the happy rest of us,—for we all believe, thank God. And you must take this for answer to your very last question, for I do feel that I know. I know likewise why fuller assurance has been withheld from us, lest knowing that, not one of all God's children but would be hurrying to Him ere His own good time.... Always your books are near at hand. May I tell you that I think the sonnet is your true voice? Yours is the deep, strong utterance which belongs, with the soul-cry in it, as individual to yourself as Mrs. Browning's to herself. Somewhere we are to talk poetry together sometime!… Of my book, 'A Child's World,' I venture to send you Mr. Howells' printed blessing, … so delightfully characteristic (I think) of his very happiest way of saying things. And, oh! but I am gloating over a supernal letter from the Archangel Aldrich! Truly with hurtling praise and God-speed the heavenly battlements have loosened on me...."

From the same

"Has it been, and is it being, a beautiful Christmas season to you? for I have been so praying, though vexing you with no line of it in ink. And I've seen two new poems of yours, and they testify to your loyal love of this world of ours; so I know at least you can't be happier till you get to Heaven with no good word or gift forgotten, and such profusion! Since my return home I've been mostly working on pyramids of matter accumulated since my taking to the road. But last night I was struck with a real thought, while I was off guard, so to speak. So I've gone to work on that, and I'll send you the result, if I ever overtake it.... Lor! but don't praise unexpected hit the very crazybone of vanity!"

From the same

"How beautiful your new poems are! Oh, yes! Even to vaguely question your Divine Inspirer's ultimate intent!… Sometimes I even smilingly think that He has given you that haunting doubt here that your delight may be all the more ineffable a glory when you find His throne more real a fact than this first world of ours."

Among the pleasant friendships which came into a life whose entire texture seemed woven of friendship and song, was that with Coulson Kernahan, who, though one of the younger men of letters in England, had already made a recognized place. His warmly responsive nature made the two especially sympathetic, and they were alike in their devotion to literature. After the vanishing of the "Marston group," Mrs. Moulton's most intimate London circle came to comprise Sir Bruce and Lady Seton, with whom she stayed frequently at Durham House, Mr. Kernahan, Mrs. Campbell-Praed, and Herbert E. Clarke. Mr. Kernahan's acquaintance with Mrs. Moulton began from a critique on "Swallow Flights" which he had written for the Fortnightly. In it he had said: