now. A HEART OF HOSPITALITY 489 little more wildly, and now and then the needle goes into the finger instead of the stocking. But the reading stops She loves the speech of the living, out of the abundance of the heart, better than any dead words. have your cordial grecting. You have, henceforth and ever, your devoted friend. You I suppose it is so still, but I know that in those days one did not need to go away from N. to hear of new things in literature, in theology, in politics, in society. I think they came to us amongst the first, and we had time enough to welcome and entertain them during those blessed, long days. Here was the old thought; revering, believing heartily in the Gospel tradition and dear churchly things and ways. There, right opposite, in the pleasant old house which has modestly withdrawn behind the comparatively new Town Hall, the new thought uttered itself in kindly, graceful speech, firm in protest and dissent, but just and tender towards persons. All came together sooner or later into that parlor, as we went up and down and in and out, as we were asked to meet summer visitors, or gathered on great occasions when the Courts were in session, or Webster and Choate came to argue the famous Will Case. Did "the Orthodox" come? the Unitarian asks, having heard, it may be, fearful accounts of a spirit of bigotry stealing up from Connecticut along the river banks. Yes, "the Orthodox" did come; the town met in that parlor and made their social, if not their theologic, report. It was a great blessing to the town that the door of that old dwelling was so easily opened, and that the heart of the household was altogether a heart of hospitality, not only for men. and women, but for truths and what claimed to be truths. We had a "Community" within our borders; and whosoever of the Community was seized with a consuming and irresistible longing for the fleshpots of civilization was welcome to fall back, within those walls, upon a cup of proscribed tea and a denounced hot biscuit, whilst all the vagaries of what we voted "a transition age" were quietly ventilated. All could come, because our friend was a large-minded, large-hearted, hospitable woman, eager not to divide but to gather and bind, earnest without narrowness and bigotry, a great blessing to a village. And she was so ready, so eager to serve! Was it a young man whose way to Harvard was to be smoothed and otherwise provided for? He could count upon her friendly offices; he could be sure that she would not fail him until the end had been reached. She was a good friend, so good that, when the movement was reversed and the force turned the other way, she could flash into wrath which did not smoulder into sullenness and maliciousness. Her quaint and racy speech, which alas! has perished with her, was a source of infinite entertainment to the young preacher; and when it was brought to bear, as it sometimes was, against some of his ministerial "juveniles," in word or deed, it always did him good, whether for the moment he liked the medicine or not,for "faithful are the wounds of a friend," and here was one who was a friend, first and last and midway, only a friend. When he seemed to be running low, she provided, not bitter words, but a pot of wormwood tea, which she persuaded the young parson to drink, hoping that, somehow, it would get into his sermons. Is there any such parlor there in these days? Is there any house which has been such a, I will not say "saint's rest," but minister's home? What one of our elder clergymen of those who have begun with me to delight in "reminiscences" has not slept under that roof, or preached in that pulpit, or felt the force of the words of the exasper A REVIEW OF CHANGES 491 ated man who tried to keep the Mansion House, and declared that "it was no use, for Judge Lyman invited everybody who came to town to stay with him"? I wonder how the conflict of the two thoughts gets on? Has the Community taken up all the religious radicalism? I could see no change in my day; each combatant stood by his and, I ought to add, "her" (for we were mostly women) guns. Emigration and death were the only causes of change in the relative numbers. It will take more time than a lifetime, even in these days, when we think or at least talk so fast, for a distracted Liberalism, numbering its adherents now in all churches, orthodox and heterodox, to find the higher unity which the fact of the incarnation, freed from the scholasticisms of theology, will surely become to all who are Christians, in any sense which a man of common sense need take into account. To go to Northampton during that beautiful season when its atmosphere is not too warm, and its glories have lost none of their gloriousness, would be to find much, very much, that is delightful; but it would be to find the old house changed, and the old forms vanished, the old interlocutors silent, even the old words changed. They talk about theisms now, and free thought, and right wing and left wing. Is it strange that the writer does not care to go? I began with a walk down town. I got only so far as one dwelling. I began with that first Saturday after the Master's Degree had been taken, and the work of life had been seriously entered upon. I got no farther than that first Sunday. How many walks, how many Sundays followed! How many houses became homes, and would be still, I think! Shall I ever have time to carry on these chapters?-to take some one with me to my first Association (pronounced then, by the elders in all that region, without the second syllable,-"Association"), where, to my great dismay, I was accounted a Transcendentalist, and, on the whole, a dangerous young man ?— to go over in some congenial company to see those dear old saints in Hadley; that calm old man, quietly farming and theologizing upon his broad, rich meadow, not knowing what a stir the son who returned on that Saturday, for his vacation, was destined to make in our Zion; that true Christian woman, his wife; that courtly and melancholy and wise and honorable and large-minded gentleman, under the evergreens in the brown house opposite ? -to drive up the river and talk with the old blind preacher in Deerfield? Perhaps so; but for the present this chapter must suffice, and, instead of writing personal history, I must be making it; and what I most wished was to say a word about my dear old friend, Mrs. L. E.* Mrs. L. Maria Child to Mrs. Lesley. DEAR SUSAN,I am glad to hear that you are preparing a memorial of your large-souled mother, for the benefit of her grand-children. She and your excellent father are among the noblest pictures in my Gallery of Memory. I recall very vividly those old times in Northampton, when we occupied a pew next to yours, and listened to the pleasant preaching of John S. Dwight. His soul was then, as now, harmoniously attuned to all lovely sights and sounds, and he seemed then, as he does now, like the poetic child in the "Story without an End," who went meandering through creation, wondering at its multiform miracles, and earnestly questioning all its forms of beauty. It was one of my delights at that time to observe your father and mother, as they walked up the aisle of the church. They had such a goodly presence! One rarely LYDIA MARIA CHILD'S LETTER 493 sees a couple so handsome, after they have passed the meridian of their life; and their bearing was an impersonation of unpretending dignity. Your mother especially was as stately in her motions, as if she had been reared in the atmosphere of royalty. We always liked each other; but in many respects it was the attraction of opposites. I was a born radical, and her training had been eminently conservative. Both of us were by temperament as direct and energetic as a locomotive under high-pressure of steam, and coming full tilt from opposite directions we often met with a clash; but no bones were ever broken. After such encounters, we shook hands and laughed, and indulged in a little playful raillery at each other's vehemence. She was too sincere to deny any proposition that she perceived to be right and true, however much it might be at variance with her preconceived opinions. I sup I often wondered that she had a liking for me. pose the carnestness of my convictions, and the fearless honesty with which I expressed them, proved attractive to her because her own nature was in sympathy with those traits; and I imagine she rather enjoyed the onset of our antagonisms as a sort of intellectual tournament. My attraction toward her is easily explained. I delighted in her earnestness, her energy, her abhorrence of all sorts of shams, her uprightness of principle, and her large views of men and things; and even when her opinions were most at variance with my own, I honored the downright sincerity with which she expressed them, and I greatly enjoyed the raciness of humor which she often employed in their defence. Aristocratic she undoubtedly was; but not in any narrow sense. She rose with a lofty disdain above all distinctions that were merely conventional and external. I have often smiled |