"Howe," said the old President of Brown University, when the Chevalier called to pay his respects on his return from Greece, "I am afraid of you now! There may be a fire-cracker under my chair at this moment!"
Once out of college, it fared with the son as with the father. The current of restless energy hitherto devoted to "monkey shines" (as the Doctor called them) was now turned into another channel. Work, hardly less arduous and unremitting than his father's, became the habit of his life. Science claimed him, and her he served with the same singleness of purpose, the same intensity of devotion with which his parents served the causes that claimed them. He married, in 1874, Fannie, daughter of Willard Gay, of Troy, New York.
We love to recall the time at this house on Beacon Hill. We remember it as a cheerful house, ringing with song and laughter, yet with a steady undercurrent of work and thought; the "precious time," not to be interrupted; the coming and going of grave men and earnest women, all bent on high and hopeful errands, all seeking our two Wise Ones for counsel, aid, sympathy; the coming and going also of a steady stream of "lame ducks" of both sexes and all nationalities, all requiring help, most of them getting it; yet, as ever, the father leaving State Charities and Reforms, the mother flying from Fichte or Xenophon, at any real or fancied need of any child. It is thus that we love to think of No. 32 Mount Vernon Street, the last of the many homes in which we were all together.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PEACE CRUSADE
1870-1872; aet. 51-53
ENDEAVOR
"What hast thou for thy scattered seed,
O Sower of the plain?
Where are the many gathered sheaves
Thy hope should bring again?"
"The only record of my work
Lies in the buried grain."
"O Conqueror of a thousand fields!
In dinted armor dight,
What growths of purple amaranth
Shall crown thy brow of might?"
"Only the blossom of my life
Flung widely in the fight."
"What is the harvest of thy saints,
O God! who dost abide?
Where grow the garlands of thy chiefs
In blood and sorrow dyed?
What have thy servants for their pains?"
"This only,—to have tried."
J. W. H.
When a branch is cut from a vigorous tree, Nature at once sets to work to adjust matters. New juices flow, new tissues form, the wound is scarfed over, and after a time is seen only as a scar. Not here, but elsewhere, does the new growth take place, the fresh green shoots appear, more vigorous for the pruning.
Thus it was with our mother's life, as one change after another came across it. Little Sam died, and her heart withered with him: then religion and study came to her aid, and through them she reached another blossoming time of thought and accomplishment Now, with the marriage and departure of the children, still another notable change was wrought, rather joyful than sorrowful, but none the less marking an epoch.
Up to this time (1871) the wide, sunny rooms of the house on Beacon Hill had been filled with young, active life. The five children, their friends, their music, their parties, their talk and laughter, kept youth and gayety at full tide: the green branches grew and blossomed.
For all five she had been from their cradle not only mistress of the revels and chief musician, but spur and beacon of mind and soul.
Now four of the five were transplanted to other ground. Many women, confronting changes like these, say to themselves, "It is over. For me there is no more active life; instead, the shelf and the chimney corner." This woman, lifting her eyes from the empty spaces, saw Opportunity beckoning from new heights, and moved gladly to meet her. Now, as ever, she "staked her life upon the red."
The empty spaces must be filled. Study no longer sufficed: the need of serving humanity actively, hand and foot, pen and voice, was now urgent.
Her first work under this new impulse was for peace. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 made a deep and painful impression upon her. She had felt a bitter dislike for Louis Napoleon ever since the day when he "stabbed France in her sleep" by the Coup d'État of December, 1851; but she loved France and the French people; the overwhelming defeat, the bitter humiliation suffered by them filled her with sorrow and indignation. In a lecture on Paris she says: "The great Exposition of 1867 had drawn together an immense crowd from all parts of the world. Among its marvels, my recollection dwells most upon the gallery of French paintings, in which I stood more than once before a full-length portrait of the then Emperor.[70] I looked into the face which seemed to say: 'I have succeeded. What has any one to say about it?' And I pondered the slow movements of that heavenly Justice whose infallible decrees are not to be evaded."
Her "Reminiscences" say: "As I was revolving these matters in my mind, while the war was still in progress, I was visited by a sudden feeling of the cruel and unnecessary character of the contest. It seemed to me a return to barbarism, the issue having been one which might easily have been settled without bloodshed. The question forced itself upon me, 'Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters, to prevent the waste of that human life of which they alone bear and know the cost?' I had never thought of this before. The august dignity of motherhood and its terrible responsibilities now appeared to me in a new aspect, and I could think of no better way of expressing my sense of these than that of sending forth an appeal to womanhood throughout the world, which I then and there composed."
This appeal is dated Boston, September, 1870.
APPEAL TO WOMANHOOD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD
Again, in the sight of the Christian world, have the skill and power of two great nations exhausted themselves in mutual murder. Again have the sacred questions of international justice been committed to the fatal mediation of military weapons. In this day of progress, in this century of light, the ambition of rulers has been allowed to barter the dear interests of domestic life for the bloody exchanges of the battle-field. Thus men have done. Thus men will do. But women need no longer be made a party to proceedings which fill the globe with grief and horror. Despite the assumptions of physical force, the mother has a sacred and commanding word to say to the sons who owe their life to her suffering. That word should now be heard, and answered to as never before.
Arise, then, Christian women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country, to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: "Disarm, disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.