Two Old Lovers: Maria and David's courting

Mary Eleanor Wilkins (later Mrs. Freeman) turned to writing as a source of income. In her teen years, she had written a few works for children but her first major success came when, on March 31, 1883, Harper's Bazaar printed her first mature short story, "Two Old Lovers."

"Two Old Lovers" takes place in a suburban neighborhood with very little variation among homes and gardens. The town, Leyden, is dominated by shoe factories and its people are cheerful, prosperous, and easy-going. Martha and Maria Brewster are mother and daughter (father having died 15 years earlier), aged 80 and 60, respectively. A slow-moving neighbor named David Emmons, two years older than Maria, is seen visiting the household every week with an offering of his homegrown vegetables. Maria, in return, offered him her baking skills on Saturdays. Though the townspeople talked of the presumed marriage between David and Maria, no arrangement was made between the two.They had been courting this way for 25 years:

There was something laughable, and at the same time rather pathetic, about Maria and David's courting. All the outward appurtenances of '' keeping company" were as rigidly observed as they had been twenty-five years ago, when David Emmons first cast his mild blue eyes shyly and lovingly on red-cheeked, quick-spoken Maria Brewster. Every Sunday evening, in the winter, there was a fire kindled in the parlour, the parlour lamp was lit at dusk all the year round, and Maria's mother retired early, that the young people might "sit up." The "sitting up" was no very formidable affair now, whatever it might have been in the first stages of the courtship. The need of sleep overbalanced sentiment in those old lovers, and by ten o'clock at the latest Maria's lamp was out, and David had wended his solitary way to his own home.

The more later revealed that David had never proposed but they assumed it would come eventually. Maria did not concern herself about his timing. "There was never at any time much of the sentimental element in her composition," according to the story, "and her feeling for David was eminently practical in its nature." Still, she was happy at the prospect and even bought herself fine silk to wear on what she presumed would be the inevitable wedding day. She soon gives away her beautiful silk. When David is on his deathbed, however, he calls her to his side...

The same year "Two Old Lovers" was published, Freeman moved from Brattleboro, Vermont to her home town Randolph, Massachusetts. There, she moved in with a friend named Mary John Wales. The two women remained close companions for years, living together for nearly twenty years before Wilkins married Dr. Charles Freeman. The marriage proved disastrous.

She April-fooled me years ago!

Eugene Field wrote his poem "April Fool" a few days shy of the titular date: It was dated March 27, 1884. In his usual tongue-in-cheek way, the Missouri-born humorist sets up his reader before twisting his/her expectations:

Fair was her young and girlish face,
   Her lips were luscious red as wine;
Her willowy form betrayed a grace
   That seemed to me to be divine.
One evening at the trysting-place
   I asked this maiden to be mine.
Unhappy, thrice-unhappy youth
   Was I to court the crushing blow;
But why delay the awful truth—
   She April-fooled me years ago!

Filled with a ghastly, grim dismay
   As kneeling at her feet I heard
This fair but cruel angel say
   That last, unhappy, severing word,
I fluttered hopelessly away
   Like some forlorn and stricken bird.
For years I played the cynic's part,
   For years I nursed my secret woe;
And this reflection galled my heart—
   She April-fooled me years ago!

But she is forty now, and fat,
   And vanished all her graces are:
And many a lusty, brawling brat
   Pulls at her skirts and calls her "ma,"
And I have information that
   Her horrid husband tends a bar.
And when I see that fleeting years
   Have changed my quondam angel so,
I thank my stars, 'mid grateful tears,
   She April-fooled me years ago!

Lynch and Willis: love or be famous

When Nathaniel Parker Willis and his (second) wife Cornelia heard of Anne Charlotte Lynch's engagement to Vincenzo Botta, they immediately wrote a letter of congratulations. The letter, dated March 24, 1855, expresses hope from the Willises for Lynch's future:

The positive news of your coming marriage affected us very strongly, of course. Nellie and I love you so well that we tremble while we rejoice in new wings so venturesome, though so expanding of scope and lift... You are above destiny — subject naturally to nothing.

Lynch had almost met Botta (pictured), a professor in Turin, Italy, while traveling through Europe two years earlier. The Italian government had sent him to the United States to research the American education system (he had previously been sent to Germany with a similar mission) and so they missed one another. Determined he should meet her, he supposedly carried six letters of introduction on his behalf. Back in New York after her European travels, Botta visited her daily until he finally proposed. He did not return to Italy, instead taking a job at City University of New York.

Willis had befriended Lynch, whom he called "Lynchie," many years earlier and was apparently ecstatic about her coming wedding. He invited the couple to visit him at Idlewild, his home on the Hudson River: "Our glen is a place for the happy... We trust you will both feel more at home at Idlewild than anywhere else." Willis adds that "no woman ever deserved more love" than Lynch. She, by then, had already established herself as a leading hostess for literary salons and had published several poems herself. In 1845, she had asked Willis for his opinion of her writing. Calling himself her "literary godfather," he offered a telling assessment of his own literary theory and his prediction for Lynch:

Poetry is a shadow over the heart that enables us to see to the bottom-like clouds cutting off the sunshine from a well. I now see the truth in the well of your heart, but I do not know as I dare tell you what it is like. You would be bound to deny a part of it, true or not, and (to tell a truth that is all my own) I do not yet feel sufficiently taken into your confidence to venture on translating your pulses to yourself—no; I will not venture!
...The intense passionateness of your nature is all ready for utterance in undying language; and that if you do not breathe your heart soon upon an absorbent object, you will either be corroded by the stifled intensity of undeveloped feeling, or you will overflow with poetry and (like other volcanoes that find a vent) blacken the verdure around you with the cinders of exposed agonies. In short, you must love or be famous!

Shroud him, Spotless Banner

Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was a beloved hero of the Confederacy during the Civil War. His death in 1863 inspired many poems and songs, including one by West Virginia writer Daniel Bedinger Lucas. Published in the Baltimore-based Southern Metropolis on March 20, 1869, the poem was likely meant to be sung. It is titled "Jackson's Grave" and begins with a quote from a contemporary biography of Jackson: "The Government shrouded Jackson in their battle flag, but the people shrouded him in May flowers" (he had died in May).

Fame had marked him from the cradle,
    Though the Soldier knew it not,
All unconscious of a mission,
    Save what holy living wrought;
Naught to him was vain ambition,
    Naught but fealty to the cause
Of God and Truth and Duty, made him
    All the hero that he was.

            Shroud him, Spotless Banner, hushing
            Shouts of Victory to rest.
            While his giant arms are folded,
            Grandly o'er the Warrior's breast!
            Here he sleeps in glory: let him!

Patriots ponder o'er this spot!
    For the soul that can forget him
Soon itself shall be forgot!
    Where this mound is held as sacred,
Men may overlook their chains,
    Wingless Victory defends them,
And eternal Hope remains.
                Shroud him, Spotless Banner, etc.—

Flowers of May, O! early Flowers,
    He was younger than you all;
For the bier that, scented, bore you,
    Was the cradle of his soul!
And this grave, so close and narrow
    Is the garden of his fame,
Which shall fill the earth forever
    With the perfume of his name.
                Shroud him, Spotless Banner, etc.— 

Lucas, who also wrote a poem in honor of Confederate Robert E. Lee, was a proud supporter of the Confederate cause even after the Civil War. In his poem to Jackson, he celebrates the man's piety and implies that the Union victory left the Southerners in chains but that the memory of Jackson gives them hope. One wonders if Lucas, nicknamed "The Poet Laureate of the Lost Cause," hoped for another rebellion.

Things of the heart can never be lost

Tennessee politician and orator Henry Clay was awarded a gold medal with his likeness from admirers in New York. When the committee asked for its return to complete an improvement of it, Clay left it in the hands of New York poet and socialite Anne Charlotte Lynch, who had been visiting Washington, D.C. and had served as Clay's personal secretary for a time. Lynch kept the medal in a satchel which she held for safekeeping. However, somewhere in her travels, she lost the medal. She contacted a friend of Clay's to notify the man on her behalf. This was the response, dated March 17, 1852:

I call on Mr. Clay and mentioned the loss of the medal. I found him not at all affected by it; his spirits were as good and he as cheerful as I have seen him... He, I assure you, has suffered not the slightest depression on this account.

Clay reportedly thought that just knowing the medal had been granted was enough for him to appreciate the respect and admiration it represented. Ultimately, he believed it was only a symbol and was, therefore, not really lost, "for things of the heart can never be lost."

Lynch, however, was not satisfied and was horrified by her error. She reported the loss to the police and offered a $500 reward. The satchel was ultimately found, severely damaged, and the medal was gone from it. Her feelings of guilt were apparently so strong that Clay himself wrote to calm her, as did the chairman of the committee which created the medal (he also offered a replacement for Clay, though in bronze rather than gold).

Fifteen years later, minus one week, a man from Maine wrote to Lynch (now Mrs. Vincenzo Botta) to alert her that he had seen the missing Clay medal! It had found its way to Switzerland, brought there by a sea-captain who purchased it in Philadelphia.

Clay and Lynch had met in Newport, Rhode Island in 1849 — the same year that Lynch's first collection of original poems was published. He apparently asked to see her poetry and she accordingly gave him a copy. Clay references an inscription in the book with her autograph which may or may not have been connected to a poem she dedicated to him. If a poem was written with Clay in mind, she did not acknowledge it in print. Instead, here is her poem "To One Who Wished to Read a Poem I Had Written":

Nay, read it not, thou wouldst not know
     What lives within my heart,
For from that fount it does not flow;
     'Tis but the voice of Art.

I could not bid my proud heart speak,
     Before the idle throng;
Rather in silence would it break
     With its full tide of Song.

Yes, rather would it break, than bare,
     To cold and careless eyes,
The hallowed dreams that linger there,
     The tears and agonies.

My lyre is skillful to repress
     Each deep, impassioned tone;
Its gushing springs of tenderness
     Would flow for one alone.

The rock, that to the parching sand
     Would yield no dewy drop,
Struck by the pilgrim prophet's wand,
     Gave all its treasures up.

My heart then, is my only lyre;
     The prophet hath not spoken,
Nor kindled its celestial fire;
     So, let its chords be broken.

I would not thou shouldst hear those lays,
     Though harsh they might not be;
Though thou, perchance, might'st hear and praise,
     They would not speak of me.

Dunbar: Howells has done me irrevocable harm

Paul Laurence Dunbar had reason both to be thankful to editor/critic William Dean Howells and to be upset with him. Howells had used his influence to launch Dunbar's national fame. In doing so, however, he also drew attention specifically to Dunbar's dialect poems and encouraged him to do more of them (and less of his more traditional works). In doing so, Howells limited the public's expectation of Dunbar's work as stereotypically black. Worse, the problem was compounded by other critics who followed the word of the "Dean of American Letters." The poet was acutely aware of the problem. As he wrote in a letter dated March 15, 1897:

One critic says a thing and the rest hasten to say the same thing, in many instances using the identical words. I see now very clearly that Mr. Howells has done me irrevocable harm in the dictum he laid down regarding my dialect verse.

Similar sentiments were expressed overseas as well. Dunbar wanted to stay popular and successful. As such, he had to cater much of his work to the expectations Howells created for his potential readers. Further, critics implied he only deserved recognition because he was black; similar writings from a white person were less impressive. Dunbar, confined to this sphere, had difficulty fighting against it. Still, enough of his works challenge and complicate his contemporary reputation. Such tension is clear in one of his most powerful works "We Wear the Mask":

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
     It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
     We wear the mask!

Birth of Pearl Rivers: The music of my heart

She was born near the Pearl River at Gainesville, Mississippi on March 11, 1849 and named Eliza Jane Poitevent. By her teen years, however, she was a published author and poet under the pseudonym Pearl Rivers. She became literary editor for the New Orleans Picayune in 1870 and, two years later, married the newspaper's owner Alva Holbrook (despite a 41 year age difference). When he died, she was left a 28-year old widow with $80,000 in debt. Under her leadership, however, the newspaper rallied and became successful again. She was the first woman in the United States to oversee a daily metropolitan newspaper.

The majority of her creative writings were published early in her life; her book Lyrics in 1873 is her biggest collection. Her acquaintance Paul Hamilton Hayne praised the book and noted his dismay that she would be writing less: "Your own sweet poems (genuine lyrics, indeed) I have perused with real pleasure, and regret to understand that you have almost given up writing." Pearl Rivers would live a relatively short life, dying at age 52. She predicted the reaction to her own death in the "Preface" to her Lyrics:

God gave a little harp to me;
    I hold it very dear,
I tune the strings to melody,
    And play on it by ear

I never spent a single day
    Learning the rules of art;
Unconsciously my fingers play
    The music of my heart.

Sometimes my songs are low and sad,
    And thrill with tender woe;
Sometimes my songs are light and glad,
    Because my heart is so.

I cannot reach the magic note
    That soothes the sorrowing,
Like dark-eyed David when he smote
    His harp to cheer the king.

Nor can I waken martial strains
    Like the great bards of old,
Whose music throbbed through England's veins
    And made her warriors bold.

My harp has only simple strings,
    My hands are weak and small;
I only sing of simple things
    In simpler words than all.

And when some day I bow my head,
    And friends look sad and say:
"The Singer's dead, the music fled,
    Go put her harp away!"

They will not hang it in the halls,
    The echoing halls of Fame,
Where every harp against the walls
    Vibrates a master's name;

But bear it tenderly to those
    Who loved the simple thing,
Because of simple joys and woes
    The Singer used to sing.

Cooper: exceedingly anxious to go abroad

James Cooper (he had not yet added the "Fenimore" to his name) was not happy with his financial situation in the United States. He had met with some success and substantial fame from his novels like Precaution, The Pioneer and The Last of the Mohicans but he felt that a job in Europe would be more suitable to him. More importantly, he anticipated that the Europeans had better taste than his fellow Americans.

Accordingly, on March 9, 1826, he wrote to New York Governor De Witt Clinton for help. Though he apologized for the unimportant request compared to his other duties, Cooper hoped Clinton would put in a good word for him for a federal appointment:

I am exceedingly anxious to go abroad with my family, for three or four years, and am induced both by prudence and feeling, to wish to do so, in some situation connected with the Government. My views are far from being very exalted, however, on this subject. I should prefer being on the waters of the Mediterranean, or near them, and would be exceedingly happy to find myself invested with any consulate that would yield me a moderate sum. I confess I know of no particular situation, and after waiting several years with the same desire, I do not find myself more likely to obtain the requisite information in time to apply.

Cooper noted frankly his embarrassment for requesting such a favor, also admitting he was unaware of "the propriety or impropriety" of such a request. He was living on Greenwich Street in New York with his family that winter and, it is said, he once bumped into his neighbor William Cullen Bryant. Cooper invited the poet to join him for dinner at his home at 345 Greenwich Street but Bryant asked him to write the address down lest he forget. The rather gruff Cooper responded, "Can't you remember three-four-five?"

Cooper traveled to Washington D.C. under the advisement of Governor Clinton (and, possibly, from Bryant too). There, Secretary of State Henry Clay offered him a position as Minister to Sweden and Norway; Cooper declined and was instead granted a consulship to Lyons (France). There, he continued to write, particularly stories at sea, including The Red Rover and The Water Witch. The Coopers returned to the United States in 1833.

Gibson as chaplain: it seems rather novel

It was not until March 7, 1876, that Ella Elvira Gibson received payment from the United States Treasurer for her services as a chaplain during the Civil War. Though born in Massachusetts, she was living in Wisconsin and organizing charitable societies for soldiers' aid. This work, along with her lecture experience (she reportedly gave nearly 300 lectures in 1858 alone) inspired a recommendation for a chaplaincy with the First Wisconsin Heavy Artillery Regiment, then stationed at Fort Lyon in Virginia. The governor of Wisconsin himself, James T. Lewis, advocated the appointment.

When President Abraham Lincoln heard of this possibly appointment in 1864, he wrote to the Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, "Miss Ella Elvira Gibson would be appointed chaplain... only that she is a female.The President has not legally anything to do with such a question, but he has no objection to her appointment."

Stanton apparently did not offer his approval. Even so, Gibson stepped into the role and performed its duties admirably — without pay but with the full support of the soldiers and officers until she was officially granted the title — but still no pay. Her job included offering three sermons every Sunday and on various weekdays (outdoors, as there was no chapel) as well as oversight of funerals and support in the hospitals. The soldiers reported on her efforts positively; one wrote home, "It seems rather novel to have a female chaplain, but I suppose if [she] is suited, we ought to be."

In 1869, Congress passed a bill authorizing payment to Gibson. The move, however, was controversial and met with several delays. Finally, 15 years after she first began her services, she received $1,210.56. Her health, however, was greatly affected by the exposure to the elements she endured without an indoor space; her appeal for a pension as an invalid, however, was denied. Gibson was also a published poet and an advocate for Free Thought after the war.

Death of Gibson: Ungodly Woman of the Nineteenth Century

Ella Elvira Gibson was 80 years old when she died in Barre, Massachusetts on March 5, 1901. Throughout her life, she was a teacher, reformer, public lecturer, poet, and even served as a chaplain during the Civil War.

After the war, the majority of her writing was focused on advancing the Free Thought movement. She particularly spoke out against the rigid dogmas of most Christian sects. Her supporters called her "a valiant worker on behalf of mental emancipation" (and even they admitted she was "a radical of the radicals"). Her obituary in the Free Thought Magazine even called her the female John the Baptist of Free Thought.

One of the many reform movements in which she was involved was for women's rights. She frequently criticized the Bible as a text that degraded women, culminating in her book The Godly Women of the Bible, listed as "by an Ungodly Woman of the Nineteenth Century." In that book, she wrote: "Christianity is an insult to the wisdom of the nineteenth century. To place before its progress and development a leader, ruler, king, savior, god, whose knowledge was less than a modern five-year-old school girl, is an outrage upon humanity." To the critics who called it obscene, she responded that God's word was obscene. Her poetry was decidedly less radical, including "The Star of Friendship":

O, what to me is golden treasure!
   O, what to me is famed renown!
O, what to me is worldly pleasure!
   O, what to me is beauty's crown!

For thieves may steal my golden treasure;
   And tongues may blast my famed renown —
Or death may end my worldly pleasure,
   And stars may fall from beauty's crown.

O, this shall be my golden treasure!
   O, this shall by my famed renown!
O, this shall be my sweetest pleasure!
   One star to own in friendship's crown!

Sigourney in England: With careful footsteps

In the summer of 1840, Lydia Huntley Sigourney went on a tour through Europe. Considered by some as the most famous woman writer in the United States in the first half of the 19th century, she found her reputation was no less substantial across the Atlantic. Visiting England, Scotland, and France, she took advantage of the inspirational trip to write a book, Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, the next year.

Among the sites she honored in her book was Hampton Court, London, written as the poem "Hampton Court" on March 3, 1841. "Twas with a bridal party," Sigourney wrote, "that we went / To Visit Hampton Court." The day was full of vows, music, and kind words:

...But all too soon the fond leave-taking came,
The parent's benediction, and the embrace
Of loving kindred; for impatient steeds
Curving their necks, by white-gloved coachmen reined,
Waited the bridge, and lo! her silvery veil
And lustrous satin robe, gave sudden place
To traveller's graver costume.
                            Thus doth fleet
Woman's brief goddess-ship, and soon she takes
The sober matron tint, content to yield
Tinsel and trappings, if her heart be right,
That in her true vocation she may shed
A higher happiness on him she loves,
For earth and heaven.

Sigourney muses on the transition from maiden to matron before exploring Hampton Court, the "lordly manor" with its birds and trees. Sigourney notes her attempts to describe the experience in verse will be in vain. Recalling the stories and history of the place, she continues for several hundred non-rhyming lines, ultimately thinking of Thomas Wolsey, a religious leader who amassed great power and influence in the 16th century, and for whom Hampton Court was originally built. Wolsey had used his power for personal gain and, as he himself allegedly admitted, more carefully did the work of his monarch, King Henry VIII, than the work of God. Sigourney wonders if, now that he is dead, Wolsey has had his faith restored and been forgiven:

Is pride for man? the crushed before the moth?
Is it for angels? Answer, ye who walked
Exulting on the battlements of Heaven,
And fell interminably. Dizzy heights
Suit not the born of clay. Oh, rather walk
With careful footsteps, and with lowly eyes,
Bent on thine own original nor mark
With taunt of bitter blame thy brother's fall.
In dust his frailties sleep. Awake them not,
Nor stir with prying hand the curtaining tomb,
But lead the memory of his virtues forth
Into the sun-light.
                           So shalt though fulfill
The law of love.

Dickinson: Safe in their alabaster chambers

The Springfield Republican in its March 1, 1862 issue included a short poem under the title "The Sleeping." Though it was printed anonymously, the author was 31-year old Emily Dickinson. The poem is notable not only because it is one of only a few published in her lifetime but also because it is one of only a few which she showed to another and asked for advice (which she followed). While working on the poem, she asked for a critique from Susan Gilbert Dickinson, wife of the poet's brother Austin. The poem, now known as "Safe in their alabaster chambers," was also one of several that she sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, asking if he could see if her verse was "alive."

The poem refers to dead bodies in their coffins awaiting the Biblical Resurrection. Scholar Helen Vendler notes the irony in the second stanza: the sounds of nature cannot be heard or appreciated by the dead with their "stolid ears". The final line somewhat blasphemy leaves doubt if a resurrection will really occur.

Today, other than the published version which was edited by the newspaper, there are two known versions of the poem, each with significant word choice changes. After its publication, Susan Dickinson offered suggestions particularly to improve the second stanza of her sister-in-law's poem. The word "Sleepy" replaced "Lie" in the earlier version, possibly to allow a more obvious possibility of awaking in the Resurrection. Here is the new version with its vastly different second stanza, using Dickinson's original and unique style of capitalization and dashes:

Safe in their Alabaster Chambers—
Untouched by Morning —
And untouched by noon—
Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection,
Rafter of Satin, and Roof of Stone.

Grand go the Years,
In the Crescent above them —
Worlds scoop their Arcs—
And Firmaments — row —
Diadems — drop —
And Doges — surrender —
Soundless as Dots,
On a Disc of Snow.