Julia Ward Howe - Richards Laura E.. Страница 120

"July 26. Had a little time of quiet thought this morning, in which I seemed to see how the intensity of individual desire would make chaos in the world of men and women if there were not a conquering and reconciling principle of harmony above them all. This to my mind can be no other than the infinite wisdom and infinite love which we call God."

"August 18. I prayed this morning for some direct and definite service which I might render. At noon a reporter from the 'New York Journal' arrived, beseeching me to write something to help the young Cuban girl, who is in danger of being sent to the Spanish Penal Colony [Ceuta] in Africa. I wrote an appeal in her behalf and suggested a cable to the Pope. This I have already written. The Hearsts will send it. This was an answer to my prayer. Our dear H. M. H. arrived at 3 P.M...."

"August 29. Had a little service for my own people, Flossy and her four children. Spoke of the importance of religious culture. Read the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Flossy thought the wise ones unkind not to be willing to share with the foolish. I suggested that the oil pictured something which could not be given in a minute. Cited Beecher's saying, which I have so long remembered, that we cannot get religion as we order a suit of clothes. If we live without it, when some overwhelming distress or temptation meets us, we shall not find either the consolation or the strength which true faith gives."

"September 23. Have just learned by cable from Rome that my dearest sister Louisa died yesterday morning. Let me rather hope that she awoke from painful weakness and infirmity into a new glory of spiritual life. Her life here has been most blameless, as well as most beautiful. Transplanted to Rome in her early youth and beauty, she became there a centre of disinterested hospitality, of love and of charity. She was as rare a person in her way as my sweet sister Annie. Alas! I, of less desert than either, am left, the last of my dear father's and mother's children. God grant that my remaining may be for good! And God help me to use faithfully my little remnant of life in setting my house in order, and in giving such completeness as I can to my life-work, or rather, to its poor efforts."

"September 25. Was sad as death at waking, pondering my many difficulties. The day is most lovely. I have read two of Dr. Hedge's sermons and feel much better. One is called 'The Comforter,' and was probably written in view of the loss of friends by death. It speaks of the spirit of a true life, which does not pass away when the life is ended, but becomes more and more dear and precious to loving survivors. The text, from John xvi, 7: 'It is expedient for you that I go away.' Have writ a good screed about the Rome of 1843-44."

To Laura

Oak Glen, September 27, 1897.

... My dear sister and I have lived so long far apart, that it is difficult for me to have a realizing sense of her departure. It is only at moments that I can feel that we shall meet on earth no more. I grieve most of all that my life has been so far removed from hers. She has been a joy, a comfort, a delight to so many people, and I have had so little of all this! The remembrance of what I have had is indeed most precious, but alas! for the long and wide separation. What an enviable memory she leaves! No shadows to dim its beauty.

I send you, dear, a statement regarding my relations with Lee and Shepard. I am much disheartened about my poems and almost feel like giving up. But I won't.

Affect.,

Mother.

In November, 1897, she sailed for Italy with the Elliotts.

CHAPTER X

THE LAST ROMAN WINTER

1897-1898; aet. 78

THE CITY OF MY LOVE

She sits among th' eternal hills,

Their crown, thrice glorious and dear;

Her voice is as a thousand tongues

Of silver fountains, gurgling clear.

Her breath is prayer, her life is love,

And worship of all lovely things;

Her children have a gracious port,

Her beggars show the blood of kings.

By old Tradition guarded close,

None doubt the grandeur she has seen;

Upon her venerable front

Is written: "I was born a Queen!"

She rules the age by Beauty's power,

As once she ruled by armed might;

The Southern sun doth treasure her

Deep in his golden heart of light.

Awe strikes the traveller when he sees

The vision of her distant dome,

And a strange spasm wrings his heart

As the guide whispers: "There is Rome!"

*        *        *        *        *        *

And, though it seem a childish prayer,

I've breathed it oft, that when I die,

As thy remembrance dear in it,

That heart in thee might buried lie.

J. W. H.

The closing verse of her early poem, "The City of My Love," expresses the longing that, like Shelley's, her heart "might buried lie" in Rome. Some memory of this wish, some foreboding that the wish might be granted, possibly darkened the first days of her last Roman winter. In late November of the year 1897 she arrived in Rome with the Elliotts to pass the winter at their apartment in the ancient Palazzo Rusticucci of the old Leonine City across the Tiber; in the shadow of St. Peter's, next door to the Vatican. The visit had been planned partly in the hope that she might once more see her sister Louisa. In this we know she was disappointed. They reached Rome at the beginning of the rainy season, which fell late that year. All these causes taken together account for an unfamiliar depression that creeps into the Journal. She missed, too, the thousand interests of her Boston life; her church, her club, her meetings, all the happy business of keeping a grandmother's house where three generations and their friends were made welcome. At home every hour of time was planned for, every ounce of power well invested in some "labor worthy of her metal." In Rome her only work at first was the writing of her "Reminiscences" for the "Atlantic Monthly." Happily, the depression was short-lived. Gradually the ancient spell of the Great Enchantress once more enthralled her, but it was not until she had founded a club, helped to found a Woman's Council, begun to receive invitations to lecture and to preach, that the accustomed joie de vivre pulses through the record. The sower is at work again, the ground is fertile, the seed quickening.