The Story of My Life
the Judases, and even the Devil, are broken spokes in the great wheel of
good which shall in due time be made whole.
It seems strange that my first reading of Shakespeare should have left
me so many unpleasant memories. The bright, gentle, fanciful plays--the
ones I like best now--appear not to have impressed me at first, perhaps
because they reflected the habitual sunshine and gaiety of a child's
life. But "there is nothing more capricious than the memory of a child:
what it will hold, and what it will lose."
I have since read Shakespeare's plays many times and know parts of them
by heart, but I cannot tell which of them I like best. My delight in
them is as varied as my moods. The little songs and the sonnets have a
meaning for me as fresh and wonderful as the dramas. But, with all my
love for Shakespeare, it is often weary work to read all the meanings
into his lines which critics and commentators have given them. I used
to try to remember their interpretations, but they discouraged and vexed
me; so I made a secret compact with myself not to try any more. This
compact I have only just broken in my study of Shakespeare under
Professor Kittredge. I know there are many things in Shakespeare, and
in the world, that I do not understand; and I am glad to see veil after
veil lift gradually, revealing new realms of thought and beauty.
Next to poetry I love history. I have read every historical work that
I have been able to lay my hands on, from a catalogue of dry facts and
dryer dates to Green's impartial, picturesque "History of the English
People"; from Freeman's "History of Europe" to Emerton's "Middle Ages."
The first book that gave me any real sense of the value of history was
Swinton's "World History," which I received on my thirteenth birthday.
Though I believe it is no longer considered valid, yet I have kept it
ever since as one of my treasures. From it I learned how the races of
men spread from land to land and built great cities, how a few great
rulers, earthly Titans, put everything under their feet, and with a
decisive word opened the gates of happiness for millions and closed them
upon millions more: how different nations pioneered in art and
knowledge and broke ground for the mightier growths of coming ages; how
civilization underwent as it were, the holocaust of a degenerate age,
and rose again, like the Phoenix, among the nobler sons of the North;
and how by liberty, tolerance and education the great and the wise have
opened the way for the salvation of the whole world.
In my college reading I have become somewhat familiar with French and
German literature. The German puts strength before beauty, and truth
before convention, both in life and in literature. There is a vehement,
sledge-hammer vigour about everything that he does. When he speaks, it
is not to impress others, but because his heart would burst if he did
not find an outlet for the thoughts that burn in his soul.
Then, too, there is in German literature a fine reserve which I like;
but its chief glory is the recognition I find in it of the redeeming
potency of woman's self-sacrificing love. This thought pervades all
German literature and is mystically expressed in Goethe's "Faust":
All things transitory
But as symbols are sent.
Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to event.
The indescribable
Here it is done.
The Woman Soul leads us upward and on!
Of all the French writers that I have read, I like Moliere and Racine
best. There are fine things in Balzac and passages in Mérimée which
strike one like a keen blast of sea air. Alfred de Musset is impossible!
I admire Victor Hugo--I appreciate his genius, his brilliancy, his
romanticism; though he is not one of my literary passions. But Hugo
and Goethe and Schiller and all great poets of all great nations are
interpreters of eternal things, and my spirit reverently follows them
into the regions where Beauty and Truth and Goodness are one.
I am afraid I have written too much about my book-friends, and yet I
have mentioned only the authors I love most; and from this fact one
might easily suppose that my circle of friends was very limited and
undemocratic, which would be a very wrong impression. I like many
writers for many reasons--Carlyle for his ruggedness and scorn of
shams; Wordsworth, who teaches the oneness of man and nature; I find an
exquisite pleasure in the oddities and surprises of Hood, in Herrick's
quaintness and the palpable scent of lily and rose in his verses; I like
Whittier for his enthusiasms and moral rectitude. I knew him, and the
gentle remembrance of our friendship doubles the pleasure I have in
reading his poems. I love Mark Twain--who does not? The gods, too, loved
him and put into his heart all manner of wisdom; then, fearing lest he
should become a pessimist, they spanned his mind with a rainbow of love
and faith. I like Scott for his freshness, dash and large honesty. I
love all writers whose minds, like Lowell's, bubble up in the sunshine
of optimism--fountains of joy and good will, with occasionally a splash
of anger and here and there a healing spray of sympathy and pity.
In a word, literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disfranchised. No
barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of
my book-friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of
ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and
heavenly charities."
CHAPTER XXII
I trust that my readers have not concluded from the preceding chapter on
books that reading is my only pleasure; my pleasures and amusements are
many and varied.
More than once in the course of my story I have referred to my love of
the country and out-of-door sports. When I was quite a little girl, I
learned to row and swim, and during the summer, when I am at Wrentham,
Massachusetts, I almost live in my boat. Nothing gives me greater
pleasure than to take my friends out rowing when they visit me. Of
course, I cannot guide the boat very well. Some one usually sits in
the stern and manages the rudder while I row. Sometimes, however, I go
rowing without the rudder. It is fun to try to steer by the scent of
watergrasses and lilies, and of bushes that grow on the shore. I use
oars with leather bands, which keep them in position in the oarlocks,
and I know by the resistance of the water when the oars are evenly
poised. In the same manner I can also tell when I am pulling against the
current. I like to contend with wind and wave. What is more exhilarating
than to make your staunch little boat, obedient to your will and muscle,
go skimming lightly over glistening, tilting waves, and to feel the
steady, imperious surge of the water!
I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I
especially like it on moonlight nights. I cannot, it is true, see the
moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the
heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is
there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water,
I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes. Sometimes
a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often a pond-lily
presses shyly against my hand. Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter
of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the
air about me. A luminous warmth seems to enfold me. Whether it comes
from the trees which have been heated by the sun, or from the water, I
can never discover. I have had the same strange sensation even in the
heart of the city. I have felt it on cold, stormy days and at night. It
is like the kiss of warm lips on my face.
My favourite amusement is sailing. In the summer of 1901 I visited Nova
Scotia, and had opportunities such as I had not enjoyed before to make
the acquaintance of the ocean. After spending a few days in Evangeline's
country, about which Longfellow's beautiful poem has woven a spell of
enchantment, Miss Sullivan and I went to Halifax, where we remained the
greater part of the summer. The harbour was our joy, our paradise. What
glorious sails we had to Bedford Basin, to McNabb's Island, to York
Redoubt, and to the Northwest Arm! And at night what soothing, wondrous
hours we spent in the shadow of the great, silent men-of-war. Oh, it was
all so interesting, so beautiful! The memory of it is a joy forever.
One day we had a thrilling experience. There was a regatta in the
Northwest Arm, in which the boats from the different warships were
engaged. We went in a sail-boat along with many others to watch the
races. Hundreds of little sail-boats swung to and fro close by, and
the sea was calm. When the races were over, and we turned our faces
homeward, one of the party noticed a black cloud drifting in from the
sea, which grew and spread and thickened until it covered the whole sky.
The wind rose, and the waves chopped angrily at unseen barriers. Our
little boat confronted the gale fearlessly; with sails spread and ropes
taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows,
now she sprang upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with
angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing,
we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with
impetuous fury. Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with
excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that
our skipper was master of the situation. He had steered through many
a storm with firm hand and sea-wise eye. As they passed us, the large
craft and the gunboats in the harbour saluted and the seamen shouted
applause for the master of the only little sail-boat that ventured out
into the storm. At last, cold, hungry and weary, we reached our pier.
Last summer I spent in one of the loveliest nooks of one of the most
charming villages in New England. Wrentham, Massachusetts, is associated
with nearly all of my joys and sorrows. For many years Red Farm, by King
Philip's Pond, the home of Mr. J. E. Chamberlin and his family, was
my home. I remember with deepest gratitude the kindness of these dear
friends and the happy days I spent with them. The sweet companionship
of their children meant much to me. I joined in all their sports and
rambles through the woods and frolics in the water. The prattle of the
little ones and their pleasure in the stories I told them of elf and
gnome, of hero and wily bear, are pleasant things to remember. Mr.
Chamberlin initiated me into the mysteries of tree and wild-flower,
until with the little ear of love I heard the flow of sap in the oak,
and saw the sun glint from leaf to leaf. Thus it is that
Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth,
Share in the tree-top's joyance, and conceive
Of sunshine and wide air and wingéd things,
By sympathy of nature, so do I
have evidence of things unseen.
It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the
impressions and emotions which have been experienced by mankind from the
beginning. Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth
and murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this
gift from past generations. This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth
sense--a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.
I have many tree friends in Wrentham. One of them, a splendid oak, is
the special pride of my heart. I take all my other friends to see this
king-tree. It stands on a bluff overlooking King Philip's Pond, and
those who are wise in tree lore say it must have stood there eight
hundred or a thousand years. There is a tradition that under this tree
King Philip, the heroic Indian chief, gazed his last on earth and sky.