[Manchester—Saturday, 12 July 1873]
Manchester. July 12. 1873. Our week of pleasuring at the Shoals seems already far behind us. We have been here in our delightful home two days. I cannot bear to let fragments of pleasant talks and sweet memories fade. I wish I could write down more about Celia, and dear Mr. Whittier. The latter drew the hearts of all to him—his humility and his love would not allow anybody to be left outside the fall of his blessing. He was on the wharf to meet us, and came away with us from the islands as Celia did also last Tuesday afternoon. The sea wore a soft gray color to match the sky and was perfectly smooth. Whittier sat by our side and held my hand a part of the time as if trying to say rather than saying how tenderly his heart was stirred toward us. He had made up his mind not to go with us to Kittery and he wished us to understand how sweet it would be to him to prolong his journey with us but how impossible for his strength to hold out. When we were fairly parted they, (W., his niece & friend) on their way to Amesbury, we on our rambles about Portsmouth until the stage was ready. I saw how unequal he would have been to this kind of waiting. Finally we were all crammed higglety pigglety into an old fashioned coach where we stayed packed like figs for the hour and a half more or less of our journey. I saw his wisdom then. But the loveliness of the evening and the interest of our excursion the next day can never be properly told. How lovely that next day after the slight rain of the night. Celia Thaxter has written so much and so well of herself & she has so large a circle of friends to write of her that anything other would seem superfluous were it not that we all see such different things in & of each other and the world. She is one of those thoroughly energized and healthful beings always interesting and always rare in this world of disease and weariness. The first morning after our arrival at The Shoals, Jamie looked out of the window soon after 4 A.M. and saw Celia just going off. She returned soon after five laden with morning glories which she arranged skil[l]fully to droop from the chandelier & mirror of her little parlor, putting the stems carefully into concealed vials of water. Then she dressed for breakfast being completely wet through and was waiting for me when I opened my door. After breakfast we went to visit her mother, that dear fairy god-mother; afterward we sat with Mr. Whittier and a few ladies who dropped in talking all the morning. I can’t remember now what was said, but Mrs Guild, the young mother who is a sculptor by nature, and ill now, made one of the group. I remember several poems were quoted and we probably played at what dear George MacDonald calls “Water-Beetles,” jumping like those uneasy creatures from one flower of song to another.
In the evening the drift wood fire was lighted by our hostess in the little parlor and we sat there until bed-time—we two were the last. Karl poor boy, now over 21 years old with wandering wit came in early, so we were able to shut off the gas and retire. Poor Karl! He is fond of children & fond of his boat—so the days slip by with him. Yet I do not doubt he often asks himself what this existence of his means. He is not without sense, indeed his mind is full of poetry which he loves to repeat to anyone who asks him but his eyes are dull and he cannot be counted upon to do anything. He forgets from one moment to another what he should do. Celia suffers terribly—his presence among these gay or indifferent people who float up and down the piazzas of the hotel is agony. “I feel sometimes as if I could take him and fly to the loneliest end of the earth and hide my head” she said to me—as we stood together in the old graveyard at Kittery.
I shall not soon forget our talk one afternoon in the parlor at “The Shoals”. Whittier, as if inspired by that spirit residing in us, which is the very ground work of the Quaker belief, began to speak of Emerson’s faith and the pain it gave him to see the name of Jesus placed in his writings as but one among many. When he discoursed with Emerson of these things he could have no satisfaction. Celia on the other hand said she did not understand these things, she never prayed. “I am sure thee does without knowing it” said W. “else what do thy poems mean; thee has no set prayer perhaps, but some kind of prayer thee must have. No human being can exist without it. But what troubles me also in Emerson is that I can find no real faith in immortality”. Here I took up the question. I had heard Mr. Emerson at Thoreau’s grave, afterward speaking expressly on immortality and in both discourses I felt deeply his faith in our future progress & enduring life. Whittier was inclined to think me mistaken. I think too that his use of Jesus’s name is to prevent the worship of him instead of the One God. Whittier asked Celia to read a discourse of Emerson wh. she did aloud and again he spoke of the beauty of childlike worship, the necessity for it in our natures and quoted some lovely hymns. His whole heart was alive and poured out toward us as if he longed tenderly like the prophet of old to breathe a new life into us. I could seem to see that he reproached himself that so many days had passed without his trying to speak more seriously.
He was not perfectly well after this—a headache overtook him before our talk was over and did not leave him until he found himself in Amesbury again. I trust it did so there.
Mrs Guild was present—before we left, her two little girls and her husband arrived bringing the photographs of her statue which fell before being cast. It is full of spirit & the poor child’s eagerness and disappointment as she looked at it were most moving.
Whittier said one day when we were talking of the Life of Charlotte Bronte by Mrs Gaskell and I was saying how sad it was she should have made the old man her father suffer unto death as she did by telling the tale of his bad son’s life and “still worse” I said “she came out in the Athenaeum and declared that her story was false, when she knew it was true, hoping to comfort the old man”. “I don’t know” said Whittier “I am inclined to think that was the best part of it, if her lie would have done the old man any good!”
After we had our long afternoon session of talk over Emerson and future existence and the unknowable, Celia stood up and stretched herself and said, “how good it has been with the little song-sparrow putting in his oar above it all!”
I exclaimed the afternoon we drove to Newcastle at the beauty of the picture an old barn & a reeling load of hay and farmers etc. were making. “Yes, she said, Annie squawks more over a load of hay than over all the wide sea I can spread out before her.”
