Chapter V (2)

Always,

Your old friend,

WILLIAM WINTER.

The solution of Mrs. Moulton's difficulty was found in the attractive title, "In the Garden of Dreams." The volume appeared in the following year.

Among the special friendships of Mrs. Moulton's life of both literary and personal interest, one of the most important and enjoyable to her was that with Professor Arlo Bates, the poet and romancist, whose work she appreciated highly and whose sympathetic companionship gave her great pleasure. With him she felt a peculiar sympathy, and to him she wrote a series of letters, extending over many years, beginning in the decade of the eighties. The extracts presented from these are here grouped, as, while they thus lose a strict chronological thread, they gain in a more complete representation, and their nature is such that the precise date (rarely given, indeed, as they were mostly dated by a month only) is, in any case, negligible in importance.

The extracts chosen deal almost exclusively with literary matters. The only son of Professor Bates, in his twentieth year, afterward the author of "A Madcap Cruise," whom Mrs. Moulton playfully called "Prince Oric," and to whom in his sixth year she wrote a delicious sonnet under that title, is alluded to, as well as is his mother, who wrote over the pen-name Eleanor Putnam.

_Mrs. Moulton to Arlo Bates_

"... Thanks for the charming book. My love to the sweetest
wife I know. Thank her for her letter...."

"... Your letter about Marston's songs came to me when he
and William Sharp happened to be passing the evening with
me. I read it aloud, to Mr. Marston's great delight. It
quite went to his heart.... I am so sorry I shall not find
you and Mrs. Bates where you were last year. That desperate
flirtation with Master Oric is off entirely...."

"... I have just been reading 'Childe Roland,' and it
baffles me, as it has so often done before. I feel less sure
that I understand it than any other of Browning's poems. Is
the Black Tower Death, do you think? But what a wonderful
poem it is! I suppose spiritual judgments concern themselves
with spiritual states...."

"... I am delighted with what you say of Mr. Marston's poem
in _Harper's_, because I think the poem too subtle and
delicate to be appreciated, save by the very elect; and I am
also delighted because what you said gave him so much
pleasure. Marston said of you, 'What a wonderful
psychological vein, almost as powerful as that of Browning,
runs through many of the poems of Mr. Bates.'..."

"... I am so eager to see your novel of artistic Boston.
'The Pagans,'--a capital title. I am glad you have had the
courage to tell the truth in it as you see it. I don't see
it quite as you do, I fancy, but I am thankful when any one
has the courage of his opinions, for it seems to me that the
English and American writers are just now very much like
cats standing on the edge of a stream, and afraid to put in
their feet. They say what they think is expected of them to
say, and they reserve the truth for the seasons when they
enter their closets and shut the door on all the world. I
think there is more hypocrisy in novels than in religion."

"... I am ashamed that two weeks have gone by since I
received your noble book, 'Told in the Gate.' I have not
been so neglectful of it as it seems. I have not only taken
my own pleasure in it, but I have shown it to other poets
who are interested in knowing what is being done in America.
It is a beautiful book externally--how beautiful it is
internally I am sure the world of readers will eagerly
perceive; but never one of them can love it more than I do.
Even in print it is hard for me to say which poem I prefer.
There is not one among them that is not well done from the
point of art, and thrillingly interesting as a story. The
lyrics star the book like gems. They sing themselves over
and over to my listening mind.... I feel a glow of exultant
pride that the author is my friend. I am proud and glad to
have my name inscribed in a volume I so admire and love. I
am enjoying London as I always do.... I go toward the end of
August to pay some visits in Scotland, and then to visit
Lady Ashburton in Hampshire and after that to Paris. I
enclose some foreign stamps for the young Prince.... Your
poems are among the pleasures of my life."

Of the sonnets of Mr. Bates Mrs. Moulton wrote:

"... Dante breathed through the sonnet the high aspirations
of that love which shaped and determined his soul's life. By
sonnets it was that Petrarch wedded immortally his name to
that of his ever-wooed, never-won Laura of Avignon. Strong
Michael Angelo wrote sonnets for that noble lady, Vittoria
Colonna, whose hand he kissed only after Death had kissed
the soul from her pure lips.

"The one personal intimacy with Shakespeare to which any of
his worshippers have been admitted is such as comes from
loving study of his sonnets, in 'sessions of sweet, silent
thought.' The sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning burned
with the pure flame of her perfect love. In the sonnets of
'The House of Life' Rossetti commemorated that love and loss
so passionate and so abiding that it seemed to him the whole
of life. In the sonnets of 'Song-Tide' Marston sang the
praises of his early love, as in those of 'All In All' he
bewailed her loss; and his sonnets of later years throb like
a tell-tale heart with the profoundest melancholy out of
whose depths a human soul ever cried for pity.

"Such and thus intimate have been the revelations made
through this form of verse--so rigid, yet so plastic and so
human.

"To the list of these sonneteers who have thus sounded the
deepest depths of love and sorrow, the name of Arlo Bates
has now been added, by the publication of his noble and
sincere 'Sonnets in Shadow.' Born of one man's undying pain,
these sonnets at once become, through the subtlety of their
research into the innermost depths of human emotion, the
property and the true expression of all souls who have loved
and suffered.

"A few of us know, personally, the rare charm, the exquisite
loveliness, of her thus royally honored and passionately
lamented; and all of us who read can feel that thus and thus
our own hearts might be wrung by such a loss--that in us,
also, if we have souls at all, such sorrow might bear fruit
in kindred emotion, even though for want of words our lips
be dumb. It seems to me that it is the dumb souls--who feel
all that the poet has sung, and yet cannot break the silence
with a cry--who owe the deepest debt to this, their
interpreter."

_Mrs. Moulton to Mr. Bates_

"OCTOBER 27, 1889.

"I have been passing this rainy afternoon with your sonnets.
I had read some of them more than once before, but this
afternoon I have been quite alone save for their good
company. I have read the strong, noble sequence through,
from first to last, enjoying them more than ever. I like
every one of them, but I had a pencil and paper by me and
put down the numbers that most moved me. I see that my list
is not short; do you care to see what it includes? It begins
with the beautiful sonnet of dedication; then the first,
with its wonderful procession of the gray days passing the
torpid soul, and laying their 'curious fingers, chill and
numb,' upon its wounds. Then the sixth, with the

"... drowned sailors, lying lank and chill
Under the sirupy green wave.

And the fifteenth with its visions of love.

"Never can joy surmise how long are sorrow's hours,

ought to be, like certain lines of Wordsworth, among the
immortal quotations. I think your sonnets noble alike in
thought and in execution. They can have no more faithful
lover than I am; and I do believe that if there is anything
in which my opinion has any value, it is on the form of
poetry. I love it so sincerely and I have studied it so
devotedly....

"... Mrs. Spofford has been to stay over Sunday with me and
I read through to her your new volume of poems, with the
exception of 'The Lilies of Mummel See,' which she read to
me. I think you would be pleased; could you know how much we
both enjoyed and admired the book. To my mind, 'Under the
Beech Tree' is the finest romantic drama of the time. I like
it far better than I do 'Colombe's Birthday,' much as I like
that. Mrs. Spofford is quite wild with enthusiasm about 'The
Gift.' She said the last line,

"His heart is still mine, beating warm in my grave,

is not only the finest line in your book, but the finest
line that has been written by any one in a score of years."

"... Your suggestion as to national characteristics of women
struck me as a curious coincidence with the fact that the
editor of the _Fortnightly_ has just asked me to write an
article on American and English women, contrasting and
comparing them, and discussing their differences. But the
differences; seem to me individual, not national.

"Thanks for your suggestion about the sonnet.

"Break through the shining, splendid ranks

seems to me simpler and more forcible, but then this
involves the 'I pray,' to which you greatly object.

"Break through their splendid militant array:

"I'll copy both, and see what you think. On the whole, I
like yours better.

"I have been arranging books all the afternoon, and I am so
tired that I wish I had the young prince here, or such
another,--only there is no other."

_The same to the same_

"DEAR PAGAN: I am on page 238 of 'The Puritans,' and I pause
to say how piteously cruel is your portrait of ----.
Sargent, at his best, was never so relentlessly realistic. I
pity Fenton so desperately I can hardly bear it. Why do I
sympathize so with him when he is so little worthy? Is it
your fault, or mine? I believe I am not pitiless enough to
write novels, even if I had every other qualification.

"Your character of Fenton is admirably studied. It is worthy
of the author of 'The Pagans' and 'A Wheel of Fire.'"

"... I have finished reading 'The Puritans,'--all the duties
of life neglected till I came to the end. I have not been so
interested in a book for ages. I am especially interested in
the conflict of the souls between degrees of agnosticism. It
is the keenest longing of my life to know what is truth."

"I have reason to be grateful for your birthday, since I
find you one of the most interesting persons I have ever had
the happiness to know."

"I have just finished reading 'The Diary of a Saint,' and I
cannot wait an hour to tell you how very greatly I admire
it. It has been said that all the stories were told. You
prove how untrue is this statement,--for your story, or
anything like it, has never been told before. It is
absolutely unique and original.... I am so interested in
every page of the book that I have an impatient desire to
know all the spiritual experiences that lead to it."

"Just now at Les Voirons (Haute Savoie) I have found a sort
of hilltop paradise. Four thousand and more feet above the
sea level, the air is like balm, and the views indescribably
lovely. I have never seen Mont Blanc half so well. It is far
more wonderful than the view from Chamounix. And just now at
night the white ghost of a young moon hangs above it, in a
pale, clear sky, and the lesser peaks all around shimmer in
the moonlight. This hotel is ten climbing miles from any
railroad station. You can buy nothing here but postage
stamps."

In a characteristic letter from Rome, Richard Greenough, the sculptor, says:

_Mr. Greenough to Mrs. Moulton_

"The sidereal certainty of your movements impresses me. It
reminds me of the man who ordered his dinner in England a
year in advance, and when the time came he was there to eat
it.... Do I feel sure of a life after this? Was ever a note
charged with such heavy ballast? To attempt an answer would
take a volume,--to give an answer would require a
conscience.... While reading Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
'On Grief,' I found a quotation from Sophocles that reminds
me of your loss in Philip's death.

"No comforter is so endowed with wisdom
That while he soothes another's heavy grief,
If altered fortune turns on him her blow,
He will not bend beneath the sudden shock
And spurn the consolation he had given.

"I wonder if you know how poetic you are? Do what you
may,--read, write, or talk, you make real life seem ideal,
and ideal life seem real. Your sweet 'After Death' is above
all praise."

On the appearance of "Robert Elsmere" Mrs. Moulton read it with the greater interest in that, as has already been noted, her own mind constantly reverted to religious problems. Writing to Mrs. Humphry Ward to congratulate her on the achievement, she received the following reply:

_Mrs. Ward to Mrs. Moulton_

LONDON, June 20, 1888.

DEAR MRS. MOULTON: Thanks for your interesting letter _in
re_ Robert Elsmere. There is no answer merely to the
problems of evil and suffering except that of an almost
blind trust. I see dimly that evil is a condition of good.
Heredity and environment are awful problems. They are also
the lessons of God.

Sincerely yours,

MARY A. WARD.

The publication in 1889 of the collection of poems entitled "In the Garden of Dreams" added greatly to Mrs. Moulton's standing as a poet. On the title-page were the lines of Tennyson:

Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite
Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.

The book contained a group of lyrics "To French Tunes," which showed that Mrs. Moulton had responded to the fashion for the old French forms of rondel, rondeau, triolet, and so on which in the eighties prevailed among London singers. They showed her facility in manipulating words in metre and were all graceful and delicate; but she was a poet of emotion too genuine and feeling too strong to be at her best in these artificial and constrained measures. She wrote a few in later years, which were included in the volume called "At the Wind's Will," but although they were praised she never cared for them greatly or regarded them as counting for much in her serious work. The book as a whole showed how the natural lyric singer had developed into the fine and subtle artist. The noblest portion of the collection, as in her whole poetic work, was perhaps in the sonnets; but throughout the volume the music of the lines was fuller and freer, the thought deeper, the emotion more compelling than in her earlier work. With this volume Mrs. Moulton took her place at the head of living American poets, or, as an English critic phrased it, "among the true poets of the day."

The voice of the press was one of unanimous praise on both sides of the Atlantic. The privately expressed criticisms of the members of the guild of letters were no less in accord. Mrs. Spofford said of "Waiting Night":

"It is a perfect thing. The wings of flying are all through
it. It is fine, and free, and beautiful as the 'Statue and
the Bust.' It is high, and sweet, and touching."

_Dr. Holmes to Mrs. Moulton_

296 BEACON ST.,
December 29, 1889.

MY DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I thank you most cordially for sending
me your beautiful volume of poems. They tell me that they
are breathed from a woman's heart as plainly as the
fragrance of a rose reveals its birthplace. I have read
nearly all of them--a statement I would not venture to make
of most of the volumes I receive, the number of which is
legion, and I cannot help feeling flattered that the author
of such impassioned poems should have thought well enough of
my own productions to honor me with the kind words I find on
the blank leaf of a little book that seems to me to hold
leaves torn out of the heart's record.

Believe me, dear Mrs. Moulton,

Faithfully yours,

O.W. HOLMES.

_Page 164_]

_Dr. Rolfe to Mrs. Moulton_

CAMBRIDGE, Christmas, 1889.

DEAR MRS. MOULTON: How can I thank you enough for giving me
a free pass to your "Garden of Dreams" with its delightful
wealth of violets, fresh and sweet; lilies and roses,
rosemary, and Elysian asphodel, and every flower that sad
embroidery weaves? Put your ear down close and let me
whisper very confidentially,--tell it not at our meetings at
the Brunswick, publish it not in the streets of Boston! that
I like your delicate and fragrant blossoms better than some
of the hard nuts that the dear, dead Browning has given us
in his "Asolando." Sour critics may tell us that the latter
will last longer,--they are tough enough to endure,--but I
doubt not that old Father Time,--who is not destitute of
taste, withal,--will press some of your charming flowers
between his ponderous chronicles, where their lingering
beauty and sweetness will delight the appreciation of
generations far distant. So may it be!

Luckily, one may wander at will with impunity in your lovely
garden, even if he has as bad a cold as at present afflicts
and stupefies your friend, though he may enjoy these all the
more when he recovers his wonted good health. If this poor
expression of his gratitude seems more than usually weak and
stupid, ascribe it to that same villainous cold, and believe
him, in spite of it, to be always gratefully and cordially
yours.

With the best wishes of the holiday time,

W.J. ROLFE.

_Mr. Greenough to Mrs. Moulton_

"DECEMBER, 1889.

"I took a long walk in 'The Garden of Dreams.' What a
perfect title! Dr. Charles Waldstein is staying with me on
his way to Athens, and I read him some of these poems which
most pleased me, finding instant response.

"You will feel Browning's death very much. Story was with
him only a few weeks ago. They were making excursions, and,
despite remonstrances, Browning insisted on scaling heights,
though often obliged to stop. It was a great disappointment
to his son that he could not be buried by E.B.B., as he
desired to be.... Yes, positively and inexorably, the past
exists forever. We do not apprehend it, owing to the
limitations of our faculties, but once granting the removal
of these limitations by organic change (as by death), then
the past becomes awakened, and we are again alive in the
entity of our being. Then the latent causes of our actions,
for good or evil, are as patent to us as to the Author of
our being. The friends we long to see are present. This is a
practical glance at the thing...."

Such extracts might be extended almost indefinitely, for with Mrs. Moulton's very large circle of friends the number of letters which naturally came to her after the appearance of a new volume was inevitably large, and "In the Garden of Dreams" was so notable an achievement as to make this especially true. The closing decade found her rich in fame and in friends with an acknowledged and indeed undisputed place in the literary world, not only on this side of the water but the other, and the consciousness that it had been won not alone by her great natural gifts and marked personal charm, but by sincere and conscientious devotion, untiring and unselfish, to her art.

A pleasant closing note was a Christmas card adorned with violets, on the back of which William Sharp had written the graceful lines:

TO L.C.M.

From over-sea
Violets (for memories)
I send to thee.

Let them bear thought of me,
With pleasant memories
To touch the heart of thee,
From over-sea.

A little way it is for love to flee.
Love winged with memories,
Hither to thither over-sea.