This document consists of two parts.
Part 1 is a list of Thaxter's works known so far that have not
appeared in collections of her work.
Part 2 contains copies of a number of those works, mainly
those that are difficult to access on line.
Part 1: A Chronological List of the Uncollected
Works of Celia Thaxter
The Willow. (anonymous poem attributed to Thaxter by
FictionMags Index.)
The Atlantic Monthly 16: 94 (Aug
1865): 194.
Text
The Wreck of the Pocahontas. (poem)
The Atlantic Monthly 21: 126 (Apr
1868): 392.
All the Year Round 19: 466 (28 March 1868).
Text
The Kingbird. (poem)
Merry's Museum for Boys and Girls
1:
6
(Jun 1868): 217.
Text
Curious Instinct of a Canary. (story)
The Riverside Magazine for Young People
2: 21 (Sep 1868): 428.
Two Strange Visitors.: I. The Singing Mouse. II. A Treacherous
Guest. (article)
The Riverside Magazine for Young People (1867-1870);
New York 3: 35 (Nov 1869): 520.
Sample: One night, not many years ago, in a small
brown house near Boston, a curious thing happened. Mamma had
gone to her room, and was covering up her little baby, safe
and warm in his crib, when she heard papa calling her from the
room she had just left. She kissed the baby's rosy cheek, and
went back again. In the parlor it was warm and bright.
[Available by subscription from Proquest:
American Periodicals.] 1870
Kittery Annie's Dream. (poem)
Atlantic Monthly: 27 (Feb 1871):
220.
The Shadow of Doom. (poem)
The Atlantic Monthly 30: 182 (Dec
1872): 702.
Two Sonnets. (poem)
The Independent 25: 1301 (Nov 6, 1873): 1380.
Text
A Waif. (poem)
Atlantic Monthly 35 (Feb 1875):
216.
A Memorable Murder. (article)
Atlantic Monthly 35 (May 1875):
602.
Willie's Wonderful Flight.
St. Nicholas 3: 8 (Jun 1876): 522.
Text
The Sad Little Singer. (poem)
Wide Awake 3: 1 (Jul 1876): 20.
[ No on-line text, except perhaps through
subscription.]
A Lost Opportunity. (poem)
The Independent 28: 1440 (Jul 6, 1876): 1.
Text
Song: What good gift can I bring thee. (poem)
Scribner's Monthly 12 (Aug 1876):
478.
Tacking Ship Off-Shore. (poem)
Forest and Stream (1873-1930); New York 8: 18 (Jun 7,
1877): 277.
A Library of American Poetry and
Song (1870) William Cullen Bryant, editor: 477.
By the Drammenselven. (poem)
The Independent 29: 1490 (Jun 21, 1877): 1.
Text.
"O Pilgrim, Comes the Night so Fast?" (poem)
Scribner's Monthly 15: 5 (Mar
1878): 707.
The Gift. (poem)
Lippincott's Magazine 22 (Nov
1878): 581.
Beethoven: If God speaks anywhere, in any voice. (poem)
Scribner's Monthly 17: 1 (Nov
1878): 32.
William M. Hunt's Last Day: A Letter from Celia Thaxter
(letter to editor)
New York Tribune 18 Sep 1879: 5.
Text
The Pretty Puritan. (poem)
St. Nicholas 9: 5 (Mar 1882):
377.
The Crab Catchers. (poem)
Wide Awake 15: 2 (Aug 1882): 105.
How Far Yet? (poem)
St. Nicholas 9: 10 (Aug 1882):
808-9.
The Christmas Gift. (poem)
Wide Awake 16: 1 (Dec 1882): 68.
Gretchen. (poem)
St. Nicholas 10: 5 (Mar 1883):
343.
Beatrice. (poem)
Wide Awake 17: 2 (Jul 1883): 85.
The Story of the Castle. (poem)
St. Nicholas 10: 10 (Aug 1883):
752.
The Boy Bishop. (poem)
Western Christian Advocate 50: 32 (Aug 8, 1883): 250.
Wide Awake 16-17. (1883): 15.
"Six Men on the Hill." (poem)
The Independent 35: 1812 (Aug 23, 1883): 1.
[Available by subscription: Proquest:
American Periodicals. ]
Text
The Rosy Sail. (poem)
St. Nicholas 10: 11 (Sep 1883):
808.
Little Justine. (poem)
Wide Awake 17: 6 (Nov 1883): 347.
At Freiburg Gates. (poem)
Wide Awake 18: 3 (Feb 1884):
168.
Bird-Talk. (poem)
St. Nicholas 11: 6 (Apr 1884):
452.
A Little Witch. (poem)
Wide Awake 18: 5 (Apr 1884): 296.
Gold Robin. (poem)
St. Nicholas 11: 9 (Jul 1884):
696-7.
The Happy Spring (poem)
Wide Awake 19: 2 (Jul 1884): 99.
Maisy's Christmas. (poem by C.T., attributed to Thaxter in
FictionMags Index, but perhaps not by her.)
St. Nicholas 12: 3 (Jan 1885):
196.
What Wakes The Flowers? (poem)
St. Nicholas 12: 5 (Mar 1885):
331-2.
A Long Sermon. (poem)
Wide Awake 20: 6 (May 1885): 355.
From Zürich Town (poem)
St. Nicholas 12: 8. (June 1885):
587.
A November Evening. (poem)
St. Nicholas 13: 1 (Nov 1885): 7.
Friends' Intelligencer 43: 50 (Dec 11,
1886): 797.
The Lost Bell. (poem)
Wide Awake 22: 2 (Jan 1886): 113.
The Badge of Cruelty. (article)
The original has not yet been located. It
apparently appeared in
The Boston Evening Transcript
before the date of the following discussion:
Massachusetts
Ploughman and New England Journal of Agriculture 45: 29
(Apr 17, 1886) which is available by subscription from
Proquest: American Periodicals.
It is reprinted here:
Birds and All Nature 6:3 (October
1899): 128-131.
A Tiny Tale of Travel. (story)
Wide Awake 23: 5 (Oct 1886): 275.
Fishing. (poem)
Wide Awake 25: 4 (Sep 1887): 213.
To a Painter. (J. A. B.). (poem)
Century Illustrated Magazine 38,
4 (Aug 1889): 568.
A Mystery. (poem)
The Independent 42: 2148 (Jan 30,
1890): 1.
Zion's Herald 68: 7 (Feb 12, 1890): 54.
Lutheran Evangelist 14, Iss 8 (26 February
1890): 3.
Michigan Farmer 21: 9 (Mar 1, 1890): 6.
In the Early Summer Dawn. (poem)
St. Nicholas 17: 8 (Jun 1890):
635.
An Old Friend. (poem)
St. Nicholas 18: 1 (Nov 1890):
64.
Bare Boughs And Buds. (poem)
St. Nicholas 18: 3 (Jan 1891):
174.
The Golden Rule 6: 15 (Jan 7, 1892): 259.
The Fisher Boat. (poem)
The New England Magazine 5 (Nov
1891): 309.
Elodea. [The Marsh St. John's-wort.] (poem)
The Youth's Companion 64: 52 (Dec
24, 1891): 672.
The Glad New Year. (poem)
The Youth's Companion 64: 53 (Dec
31, 1891): 684.
Gudbrand's Good Luck. (poem)
Wide Awake 34: 2 (Jan 1892): 107.
The Rudder. (poem)
St. Nicholas 19: 3 (Jan 1892):
172.
Zion's Herald in Little Folks 70: 9
(Mar 2, 1892): 70.
Seven Little Gardens: Flower Work for Children. I - -An
Invitation. (article)
Boston Daily Globe (10 Apr 1892): 26.
Sample: O make a little garden for yourselves, all
by yourselves, to plant and watch and weed and water and care
for the whole...
[Available by subscription: Proquest:
American Periodicals. ]
Text
Choosing Seeds: Seven Little Gardens -- II. (article)
Boston Daily Globe (17 Apr 1892): 25.
Sample: Every year I get my seeds early, and I
keep the little rustling packets in a box near my writing desk
to be within my sight...
[Available by subscription: Proquest:
American Periodicals. ]
Text
"The Life Of All Is One." (poem)
The Youth's Companion 65: 16 (Apr
21, 1892): 204.
Starting Flowers in the House: Seven Little Gardens.--III. How
to Sow Sweet Peas. Starting Pansies Indoors. How to Transplant
Pansies. (article)
Boston Daily Globe (24 Apr 1892): 26.
Sample: Here are some localities in the Northern
States where flower seed cannot be sown in the garden before
the middle of May.
[Available by subscription: Proquest:
American Periodicals. ]
Text
Planting and Transplanting: Seven Little Gardens. Sweet Pea
Gardens. Pansy Gardens. Poppy Gardens. Iceland Poppy Gardens.
Nasturtium Gardens. Rose Campion Gardens. (article)
Boston Daily Globe (8 May 1892): 30.
[Available by subscription: Proquest:
American Periodicals. ]
Text
Rose Campion Gardens (article)
The Globe (Toronto) (14 May 1892): 10.
Sample: Rose Campion gardens are heavenly. The
plants grow only a foot high. The foliage is grassy--a little
like the garden pinks, but not se blue a green in color.
[Available by subscription: Proquest:
American Periodicals. ]
Text
Arrangement of Flowers: The Beautiful and Inexpensive in Reach
of All (article)
Courier-Journal (Louisville) 24 Jul 1892: 14.
The Atlanta Constitution 24 Jul 1892: 7.
Text
Arrangement of Flowers: Second Paper (article)
The Globe (Toronto) (30 Jul 1892): 6.
Boston Daily Globe (31 Jul 1892): 25.
Text
Sonnet [W. J. Winch] Carry us captive, thou with strong heart.
(poem)
Century Illustrated Magazine 44:4
(Aug 1892): 535.
An Artistic Treatment Of Rugs (article)
The Globe (Toronto) Ont] (17 Sep 1892): 11.
Text
A Prince Of Newfoundland. (poem)
The Friend 66: 26 (Jan 21, 1893): 204.
Santa Cruz
Evening Sentinel 6:16 (19 June
1901): 1.
Cats and Kittens (1906) in
Werner's
Readings and Recitations 35: 141.
The Raven and the Ring. (poem)
Wide Awake 36: 6 (May 1893): 539.
Niagara's Electrical Plant (article)
Detroit Free Press 03 Sep 1894: 4.
[Available by subscription from Proquest:
American Periodicals.]
Text
Part 2: Texts in Alphabetical Order
Mainly those that seem at the time of
compilation to have no freely accessible on-line source
A - B
Arrangement of Flowers. The
Beautiful and Inexpensive in Reach of All
The Atlanta Constitution 24 Jul 1892: 7.
This text is from the
Courier-Journal
(Louisville) 24 Jul 1892: 14.
The article received different titles in
different publications.
To love the wild rose and leave it on its
stalk," with Emerson, is a beautiful thing to do. No one
realizes his meaning more than I, no one more deeply deplores
the wholesale destruction that goes on among our wild flowers
every year.
In gardens it is different. We grow flowers
for pleasure, for the adornment of our home, to distribute
among the sick, and the more we gather the more lasting is the
beauty of our garden.
The interest in flowers has immensely
increased of late in this country. One has but to examine any
one number of the magazines published monthly by some of the
leading florists to realize how widespread it is. It is
delightful to see countless lonely and hard-working women
gladdened by their garden plots in summer, and how their
window gardens help them through the winter.
Generally the indestructible tomato cans
serve as flower pots in these solitary windows, and fully and
freely the plants flourish therein, but I wonder why the
flower-loving woman does not tear off the colored paper which
makes the tins hideous, and leave them in their quiet, gray
tone, which does not interfere with the hues of the blossoms.
One seldom sees this done; the cans are more likely to be
covered with some piece of wall-paper border. Or if they are
painted (the best way of preserving them) a fiery color is
selected, and leaf and blossoming are subordinate to the [
vermillion
so spelled ] cans. One longs to implore,
"Paint your cans olive-green and let the flowers have a
chance."
When the dooryards are beautified in the
spring the same thing happens -- the washtubs or firkins, or
pleasant, ancient iron pots used to hold the earth for the
plants are painted a screaming cobalt blue or a shouting
scarlet. Some missionary ought to go through the land
preaching the gospel of olive-green for those tubs and pots
and pails. Sink the tub, dear neighbor, and lift the
flowers. Who cares to see the washtub?
Passing through the adornments of the yard
and crossing the threshold of one of these little homes, the
ideas of decoration within are sometimes surprising. I
remember going once into a house in a village of Maine and
seeing several vases filled with grasses which had been first
dipped in water and then into flour. There they hung their
heavy heads with an effect of mould and misery impossible to
describe. The room was dark, the blue-green paper shades drawn
down close to save the colors in the carpet, the whole place
ugly with its monumental marble-topped table and magenta
worsted mat for the gaudy kerosene lamp with a "decorated"
shade, its clumsy photograph album, and all the rest of the
sorrowful accessories to make such a room.
In such rooms as these, in summer, one sees
crowded into some intensely colored vase a bunch of fading
flowers -- they seem always to be fading -- of every sort in
the garden. But this is not more deplorable than what
sometimes happens in the dwellings of the rich. I remember
reading with a shudder some years ago of the decoration of a
grand ball given at the house of some New York nabob, where
the door and window frames were "ornamented" with red and
white camellia flowers nailed through the center of each
flower, first a red, then a white one, and so on -- outlining
every door and window. I doubt if such a thing could be done
in these later days.
-----
"In matters of art we have everything
to learn from the Japanese," a famous artist once said to
me. Certainly they are the masters of the art of arranging
flowers. I wish our busy nation could share the interest
these people take in flowers. How charming that a whole
country makes a festival of the blossoming-time of certain
trees and plants, giving itself up to it, setting aside a
day, as in the time of cherry blossoms when the people
leave all other business to enjoy flowers.
A Japanese seldom puts more than one
branch or flower in a vase. Sometimes, perhaps, one or two
sprays of one kind of flower.
Still there are combinations that can
be made without transgressing any law of beauty. Doubtless
there is an instinct about these things. I have seen a
person, a most excellent person, too, go into my garden to
gather a nosegay and come back with a bunch of blossoms
that looked to alien I could hardly recognize them. They
lost their beauty merely from the way in which they had
been gathered and were held in the hand. They looked so
stupid, so clumsy, so discordant, they made me ache in
sympathy, for I am sure they were thoroughly
uncomfortable. This is no freak of imagination but simple
fact. I dread to see many people touch a flower. I have
seen them held by their heads in the hand of a grown-up
woman; and most people handle them as if they had no
feeling, instead of being among the most sensitive and
most exquisite creations of God.
Instinct and experience teach that it
is a risk to bring different kinds of flowers together in
one vase. I do not speak of the barbarity of putting wild
and cultivated flowers together -- that of course is
simply impossible. And it ought to be needless to say that
absolute sparkling purity is a first necessity with the
glass or pottery used to hold the flowers, and they never
should remain longer than 24 hours in the same water.
-----
There are few flowers that will keep
beautiful more than two days. Drummond's phlox is an
exception. I have known it to be fresh for a whole week,
and I have kept a Bon Silene and also a La France rose
fully that time, growing more exquisite every moment till
they shed their delicate shell-tinted petals over the
snowy linen cloth of the little table upon which they
stood. The golden coreopsis coronata will keep a
week. Of course this means changing daily the water in
which they are kept after the first twenty-four hours, in
all cases. Sweetpeas go off color in a day and night --
the white ones keep a little longer; nasturtiums, also,
unless a bit of the vine with buds on it is gathered, when
they go on blossoming for days and will very likely throw
down roots. Forget-me-nots are wonderful in this respect;
they will last indefinitely, and almost every stem will
send its cluster of clean white roots down into the clear
untainted water. Mignonette becomes a horror after
the first day. Poppies always keep for me two whole days,
perfectly fresh till their petals loosen and fall. Pansies
last two days and more, but the charming things have a way
of shrugging their shoulders and twisting and turning
themselves about, and presenting their backs to the
audience in spite of all you can do, after a few hours.
Simplicity of form, uniformity of
color, are safe guides for the selection of vases for use,
the lower in tone the better for the effect of the
blossoms. Clear white glass is always safe. When decorated
vases are used it is well to repeat in the flowers the
colors of the decoration, but this is dangerous ground. It
should be borne in mind that the vase is merely a [
unrecognized
word ] in which to display the beauty of the flower,
otherwise it is of no consequence, unless it enhances that
beauty.
Fortunately the vase is not a question
of money. There are inexpensive vases and jars much better
than the most elaborate creations of pottery. A Day &
Martin blacking bottle isn't at all a bad thing for
flowers: its plain, brown stone color is very good, and
its shape not at all objectionable.
Years ago we had suspended from the
ceiling over the center of the dining-room table a simple
vase, fashioned by a skillful hand. It was the empty shell
of an oval [ cocoanut
so spelled ], one-fourth of
its length being cut [ smoothely
so spelled ] from
the smaller end, the shell supported in a branch of twigs
carefully fastened together, jointed evenly and covered
here and there with patches of gray and pale green lichen.
The branch just clasped the shell, the arrangement was
simple and pretty, it was hung by three wires, so fine as
to be almost invisible. I kept it full of flowers in
water, with nodding wild columbine in spring, sweet with
rich spikes of the fragrant white elethra in late summer.
People who never had noticed or cared about flowers,
wondered at these, commented upon them, enjoyed them --
they were a constant subject of conversation.
In some little out-of-the-way Japanese
shop one finds frequently the prettiest imaginable things
for flowers. In one of these shops I once found a tiny jar
for five cents, not quit so large as a mandarin orange,
and in color a curious cool grayish lavender. I always set
this on the edge of some shelf and put into it two golden
pansies, never any more; they look over the edge and the
gray-blue throws their warm gold tints into an exquisite
intensity, the vase and the flowers twice as beautiful
because of each other.
-----
Often in large establishments where
pottery is sold you come upon some little jug which nobody
has cared about, and which is simply perfect for your
purpose. It is not money, it is thought, that brings
beautiful effects. There is nothing better for certain
kinds of flowers than the indurated fiber jars or
cylinders in common use among florists; these are straight
up and down, with ample room for stems, fine in color,
easily washed and absolutely indestructible, except by
fire. They are for sale in all sizes, from a few
inches to a yard or more in height, and at prices from
twelve cents upward. Their color is generally burnt
sienna, running into light golden brown: nothing could be
prettier for nasturtiums and most yellow flowers.
A small Japanese teapot, costing next
to nothing, of which myriads are for sale everywhere, of
warm, grayish ware, either glazed or unglazed, and rough
in surface, is an excellent thing for wild roses. The
clear gray is lovely with the green leaves and the
delicate pink of the roses. Low golden flowers like pot
marigolds, eschscholzia, coreopsis, coronata, are also
beautiful in this teapot; so are many other flowers,
notably rose campion, or certain pinks, or the red-gold
venidium.
Tall, slender [ grass
meaning glass
? ] tumblers, found everywhere, and costing only
five cents each, are more generally useful than any other
shape or material. They may be found in color also,
delicate green or rose, or amber, and most delicious
effects and combinations can be made with them. But
they must be kept brilliantly clean and clear, or their
beauty is gone.
Arrangement of Flowers: Second Paper
The Globe (Toronto) (30 Jul 1892): 6.
This text is from the
Boston Daily
Globe (31 Jul 1892): 25.
Title headline for
Boston Daily Globe: 200 Vases of
Flowers: In Celia Thaxter's Home at Appledore. How She Gathers
and Arranges Pretty Garden Flowers. Effect of Poppies and
Nasturtiums -- Asters and Grasses.
Appledore, Isles of Shoals, July 30.
I have nearly 200 vases that are kept full
of flowers all summer. I love to be surrounded by a
throng of flowers all the time. Some of the most effective of
these vases cost all the way from 5 to 25 cents only.
Years ago a large pearly shell of the whelk
tribe was given me. I did not know what to do with it. I don't
like flowers in shells on principle. I prefer the shells on
the beach where they belong, but as I cared about the giver of
the shell I set my wits at work to find some use for it.
In itself, it was very beautiful, a
condensed [ irridescence
so spelled ], a compact
mass of glimmering rainbows. I bored three holes in its edge
and suspended it from one of the simple chandeliers in my room
by invisible wires. It is the one exception to my rule with
regard to shells, and has never been repeated, but it is a
great success.
I keep it filled with fresh water, and in
it put clusters of monthly honeysuckle sparingly; the hues of
the flowers and the shell repeat themselves in each other,
mingle and blend divinely, and the whole effect is delicious.
When a few clusters of hydrangea are used
the effect is the same -- tints and tones all melt together;
so also with the most delicate lilac rose and white sweet
peas, and in the case of these I take a bit of the white
blossoming vine, [ echinocistus
so spelled ] lobata,
with it airy flowers, or the white clematis and weave it
sparingly about the the flowers and let it creep up on side,
and running up the wires entirely conceal them; the whole is
like an enchanted apparition afloat in midair.
How I Gather flowers.
There is a low bookcase on one side of my
room on which the light falls felicitously from the windows
opposite. In front of it hangs a curtain of warm rich olive
green to screen the books, and this mass of soft dull color
enhances the hues of flowers.
On the top of this
bookcase are set glasses, tall and short, to the number of
37, nearly all white, with a few pale green and pale rose
exceptions. They are in themselves beautiful to look upon,
clear as air and filled with brilliant white water. I take
the greatest care to have the water brought from a well,
where it is always colorless and clear as crystal.
In the morning between 5 and 6 o'clock my
Shirley poppies are gathered, just as they have unfolded their
pink petals to the air, and while their gray green leaves are
yet hoary with dew.
I take a tall, slender pitcher of water
with me into the garden, and as I cut each stem I drop the
flower into the pitcher so that the stem is covered nearly its
whole length with water, and so on till the pitcher is full:
gathered in this way they have no opportunity to lose their
freshness, indeed, the exquisite things hardly know they have
been gathered at all. This is the secret of keeping them
perfectly fresh two whole days.
An Arrangement of Poppies
When all I need are cut, I begin at the
left of my bookcase, and into the glasses on the extreme end I
put first the snow-white single poppy, the Bride, to lead the
sweet procession, a marvel of beauty, pure white, half
transparent, with a central altar of ineffable green and gold;
a few of the first, then a few delicate, tissue-paper-like
blossoms of snow in still another variety just as beautiful;
then the double snowdrift, which, being double, makes a deeper
body of whiteness, flecked with soft shadow; then I begin with
the palest rose tints, delicate as the palm of a baby's hand,
with just the faintest suffusion of a blush, and go on to next
shade of rose, still very light and delicate, then the next,
still not deeper than the soft tint on the lips of the great
whelk shells from southern seas, then the damask rose color,
and all shades of tender pink, like sky of dawn; and then the
deeper tones, to clear, rich cherry, and on to glowing
crimson; through these to burning maroon -- only one flower
almost black red, the deepest color for a final note.
The flowers are of all heights, the stems
of different lengths, and, though massed, are in broken and
irregular ranks, the tallest standing a little over two feet
high. But there is no crushing or crowding. Each individual
has room to display all its perfection of beauty.
The color gathers, softly flushing from the
dazzling snow at one end, though all rose, cherry, crimson
shades to the one note of darkest red; the long stems of
lovely green show through the clear glass; the radiant
tempered gold of the centre of each flower illumines the
whole. Here and there a few leaves, stalks and buds (if I can
bring my mind to cutting these last) are very sparingly
interspersed.
Of if I dare not cut the promise of the
budded stalks away, a few ferns are placed behind and among
the last rows against the wall, just to give the feeling of
the needed green.
Nasturtiums in Hyacinth Glasses.
Another gorgeous effect is made with
the massing of nasturtiums on a tall mantel with a mirror
at the back. The arrangement only covers a little more
than half the mantel. At the back of the shelf tall
hyacinth glasses are set, with a few very tall glass vases
at the left end close against the mirror.
There are so many glasses required for
this arrangement it doesn't matter what the back ones are,
for they are hidden. On the front, however, the slender
tumblers of white, green, amber and gold of different
heights are set at the edge.
Some nasturtium leaves are placed at
the back, then at the right hand I begin with a few almost
white nasturtiums in the first vase -- the pearl (which is
dwarf) and the Asa Gray varieties, this last the faintest
possible straw color, six or eight of these as low down as
I can put them; next, and partly behind, a few pale yellow
blossoms, just a shade deeper than the Pearl, then a clear
corn yellow, the Dunnett's orange, a superb rich, deep
yellow, and next these the wonderful yellow-bronzes massed
below; then above, behind and beyond them, the lighter
flame color, then the more vivid flame, then still deeper
flame, then clear scarlet, then the deep ruby of the dwarf
Empress of India, than which nothing can be more
magnificent in color, and after these at the very top,
against the wall climb, the deepest reds and maroons to a
velvet black, the blackest nasturtium known.
Each flower is put in lightly so that
its whole shape is visible, and though they nestle close
together no one interferes with another, and the effect of
the graduated shades of pale and deep gold, bronze, flame,
scarlet, ruby, maroon, melting one into the other in a
glorious conflagration of colors, is gorgeous beyond
telling, it really takes away one's breath. It is like a
living torch of harmless fire. Now this is barbaric, I
know, but it is nonetheless magnificent.
At the other end of the shelf a few low
yellow or white or olive green little jars hold pansies,
royal purple, Emperor William, Lord Beaconsfield, etc.
These cool, rich purples give great intensity to
nasturtium fires.
Beautiful effects
It would take too long to describe
one-half the beautiful effects one can obtain; for
instance, white sweet peas massed together -- massed,
not crushed -- in a white ground glass vase or jar,
which repeats as nearly as possible the tones of the
flowers. There is enough delicate green in the calyx
of each blossom, I do not add any more. This is a most
exquisite effect.
Water lilies, each afloat alone;
one in a flaring vase of colorless Venetian glass as
pure as white light, filled with water just as
brilliantly white, in which swims the perfumed cup of
dazzling snow with heart of gold, or perhaps a single
blossom of the richly stained pink variety. A low
yellow glass globe with one white water lily is most
beautiful.
A vase in the shape of a yellow
magnolia flower with an olive green leaf or two at the
base is charming with a few pale nasturtiums, not more
than six or eight, which repeat all the yellows in the
pottery, just laid in looking over the edge.
A basket of irridescent amber glass
is filled with forgetmenots -- the large, pale blue
clustered flowers with gold centres; the same basket
is often filled with mignonette, a mass of the rich
spikes of delicious fragrance.
In gathering mignonette I cut the
spikes very short to spare the budded shoots below and
fill the glass basket or little tubs of pottery or
deep saucers with the short tops set close together;
they will stand upright in a little while after having
been in water. The effect is very rich and handsome.
This will keep two days.
For the different shades of rose
sweet peas I use pink glass of differing tints and
sometimes stand the glass on a pale pink Japaneses mat
of crape like paper, The whole is like a rosy cloud, a
soft suffusion of color, heavenly beautiful.
Grasses and Poppies
I have a tall,
white glass vase, flaring at top, about three feet
high; in this I put tall spikes of grass, timothy
four feet high, all sorts of beautiful grasses,
barley and oats, if the birds allow me to have any
in my garden.
This glass is set on a table by
itself, and among the grasses I thrust upright,
poppies of every shade of scarlet and crimson and
cherry and garnet and ruby, pushing the stems well
down into the water so they keep two days. This is
a superb arrangement, stately, glorious to behold;
the whole glowing, graceful creation stands six or
eight feet high, and is imposing in its splendor.
Some of the most exquisite
varieties of roses can only be put each flower
alone by itself in a vase of crystal to do it
justice. Many kinds are glorious in large bowls or
jars of quiet tints, but there must be no jamming,
no crushing, each flower must be allowed to keep
the dignity of its individuality.
I have a bowl of palest
gray-green -- the color called celadon in china
painting, decorated with olive boughs and fruit in
the natural colors; filled with Jacqueminots, a
few soft pure pink Gibrielle de Luizet roses it is
simply magnificent. You may put them in glass, in
brass, in wood, in stone, they are glorious in
almost anything. Of course no one in their senses
would think of choosing a yellow vase for any but
yellow roses; but I think one of the most superb
sights I ever saw in my life as a huge brass bowl
filled with roses in the centre of the hall below
Sir Frederick Laighton's studio in London.
It was the first object that
took the eye when the house door was opened, and a
vision more beautiful can hardly be imagined. The
fowl was round, richly embossed, as large as a
small wash tub and was full of the most splendid
Jaqueminots and pink and white blooms -- a sight
never to be forgotten.
It is not necessary to say that
roses should never be mixed with other flowers --
that goes without saying.
In the case of lilies the rule
is even more strongly emphasized; they must never
under any circumstances be mixed with other
flowers. Tall glasses are best for them, or any
tall and slender vase of simple shape and color.
For asters and goldenrod one
may go to nature for their arrangement, she always
puts them together, and they are most beautiful
so. Asters by themselves do not lend themselves to
indoor decoration as readily as most flowers.
They are so very beautiful out
of doors one would imagine that they would be
effective within, but I have not found it so. With
goldenrod it is different, this is like bringing
massed sunshine into the house. I love to build,
as it were, a yellow altar of goldenrod -- it is
fine also in a great sheaf like garnered grain.
I must not now take any more
space or time to describe them, but the
possibilities of loveliness in this delightful
work are endless. And the joy for one's own soul
and the pleasure of all who behold these
enchanting effects more than compensates for any
labor or fatigue involved in their creation.
An Artistic Treatment Of Rugs
This text is from the
The
Globe (Toronto, Ont.), (17 Sep 1892): 11.
If it were possible to banish carpets
entirely -- I refer to those nailed to the floor -- I think it
would be a distinct gain to the world in comfort, cleanliness
and health.
It is an easy matter to make a handsome
floor on which rugs can be laid, and these can be taken up and
shaken out of doors often enough to keep them fresh and free
from dust.
I have a floor of hard southern pine which
is simply beautiful, and which grows more and more so with
every year's wear. It is varnished with a certain kind of wood
varnish, which is the king of all substances that I know for a
floor finish, being nearly as hard as marble and deepening the
rich dull, golden color of the wood till it fairly glows. But
a floor can be had at small expense of ordinary pine, smoothly
planed, and either colored with any of the pretty, inexpensive
stains on sale everywhere or varnished with the wood finish I
have spoken of -- and there you have it, growing handsomer all
the time, easily kept clean, and with no cumbrous carpet to
harbor bacterial germs of disease and that inlay of dust
rising [ inpalpably
so spelled ] but certainly with
every footstep upon it.
Of course the ordinary pine will not wear
like the hard woods -- the southern pine, ash, birch,
chestnut, oak and so forth. And as often as every other year a
new coat of stain or varnish should be added. But the cost is
very little, nothing in comparison to a new carpet, and the
housekeeper will not be obliged to shut out the delightful
cheer of winter sunshine for the purpose of preserving the
colors of a carpet.
One notices the closed blinds and drawn
blinds in large sections of almost every house in country
towns: room after room hermetically sealed from the sunshine
and air. "There's a bad case of carpet in the house," is my
comment as I drive by.
These wooden floors should have heavy
building paper laid between them and the boards and should be
accurately jointed. Then a few rugs here and there are all
that is necessary for comfort and for charming effect,
provided the rugs are, as Alma Tadema would say, "exactly
beautiful."
"Exactly beautiful" rugs they may be, even
with the resources of a slender purse. It is more often
thought than money which brings beauty to our homes.
The rich may have any number of superb rugs
for the choosing, exquisite Morris patterns in delicious,
subdued, soft colors that are a luxury to look upon, and woven
wonders of dull and rich design from Persia, Turkey, India,
Japan and other foreign lands.
But how to obtain lovely rug effects at
small expense has been a consideration with me. Looking about
among the shops I have often found rugs of very good weight
and quality, so hideous in color and design as to make them
really difficult to sell; "out of style" the salesman will
tell you, "not desirable patterns" and therefore cheap.
These undesirable rugs I buy and send to
some reliable dye house with a piece of stuff exactly the
shade of warm rich olive green that I wish to have them dyed,
and presently my rugs come back to me exactly the color of the
pattern I send, transformed from a terror of discord to a
soft, warm, charming harmony of tint and tone. For no matter
how manifold and glaring the colors may have been, all are
blended together now in differing shades of green; the pattern
also is generally lost or blurred into obscurity. Instead of
an outrage to every sense of beauty, the mat has become by
this coloring process a most attractive and agreeable object,
which makes you think of the warm gold-green moss of the
woods.
Any old and faded rugs that are yet good in
texture are quite as useful to dye in this way as new ones --
better indeed. Entire carpets, too, may be treated in this
way, becoming any rich color desired.
The floor -- if it is of southern pine and
varnished with the finish I have spoken of -- repeats the
tints of the pine needles that carpet the ground in the
forest; and, if stained, it suggests the charming tones of
fallen leaves and lichen-covered stones, brown twigs and all
the delightful mosaic nature spreads beneath our feet.
It really is a matter of astonishment to
reflect upon the ugliness which the hand of man has woven into
the rugs and carpets in general use; such ingenuity of
discord, such marvels of bad taste, such horrors of color,
with patterns which might have been designed in a lunatic
asylum. To live and move and have one's being with some of
these would be punishment enough for a very grave [ offence
so
spelled ].
Doubtless any of us remember the carpets in
the best parlors of our homes in childhood, or in those of our
neighbors; the wondrous webs which were looked upon with awe
and reverence by all beholders, wherein were woven astounding
combinations of scrolls in claret and chocolate color, framing
a woolly hint of a landscape with a Turkish mosque in the
distance, or the pyramids of Egypt or the heights of the
Himalayas, or any other wildly unexpected scene; about this
suddenly started group of calla lilies, combined with huge
crimson cabbage roses mixed with airy sprays of immense
cobalt-blue forget-me-not, an occasional palm tree to vary the
prospect, with a bird-of-paradise in a blaze of glory caught
somewhere in the medley, and everything draped with festoons
of flowers in every imaginable color -- the whole a spectacle
to unsettle the most perfectly balanced mind.
Though these things are long ago done away
with, and for the wealthy, as I said before, there are most
exquisite designs and colors to be had for the choosing, and
the cheaper ones are not so impossibly ugly as of yore, still
it is astonishing to see how general is the resistance of the
human mind to quiet and harmonious effects, how ingenious are
its efforts to produce something startling and unpleasant, and
how at war it seems with what is restful and simple, peaceful
and pure in form and color, tint and tone!
Surely it is better, cheaper, and
pleasanter to dispense with a carpet altogether and substitute
the pleasant uniform color of stained or varnished floors,
with the quiet-hued rugs which give a room an atmosphere of
dignity and repose.
By the Drammenselven.
Text from
The Independent
29: 1490 (Jun 21, 1877): 1.
By the quiet Drammenselven
Dwelt beautiful Marie,
While her young husband Olaf
Voyaged over the treacherous sea.
"Good-bye," he said, "my darling,
And have no fears, not one!
Good-bye, my wife, have patience,
The time will soon be gone."
She clasped her little children,
And her sad eyes filled with tears.
"Were it a short month only,
'T would seem a thousand years!"
In his good ship, the "Apollo,"
Young Captain Brand has sailed,
And on the cheek of Marie
The wild-rose bloom has paled.
She watches the Drammenselven
Before her dwelling glide,
And, fain to seek her Olaf,
She would follow its seaward tide.
Her little son, Marinius,
Stands close at his mother's knee.
{"}Oh, why do you look, my mother,
At the river so wistfully?
"Oh, look in my face, my mother!
Did not my father say
That baby and I would comfort you
When he was far away?"
She kissed him with many kisses,
And smiled in his sunny eyes,
And took up her life with patience,
And strove to be blithe and wise.
But the thought of the wild sea haunted her,
As its sound the hollow shell,
And the sight of the river sweeping down
Held her as with a spell.
"Oh river! O shining river!
Carry my prayer," she cried.
"Carry it down to the waves and winds,
That wait to rage outside.
"Bid the fierce sea spare my darling,
Nor harm a hair of his head.
Empty of joy would be the world,
Without my love." she said.
Among its reeds and rushes
The river whispered low.
What did it murmur softly,
Calm-lapsing, cool and slow?
She rose ere the summer sunrise
Had wakened the still Norseland;
While her children yet were sleeping,
She stood on the silent strand.
She stooped o'er the glassy water,
To dip from the placid stream;
And saw her own fresh beauty
Back from its darkness gleam.
She stooped to the Drammenselven,
And under her feet the sand
Slid swift, and the river caught her
With calm, resistless hand.
And the current drew her under,
With never a sigh or moan,
Till cold 'mid the reeds and rushes
She lay as still as a stone.
To the brave young Captain Olaf
The bitter news has fled,
And he turns his ship from far-off shores,
With heart as heavy as lead.
And he finds but her weeping children;
Sees only her empty seat;
Hears the awful greeting of Silence,
Instead of her voice, so sweet.
He looks at the Drammenselven,
With the dim eyes of despair.
"My love!" he cries, "my Marie!
Thou wert so dear and fair!
"O false and cruel river,
That stole my wife from me,
Carry thy cursed waters down
And perish in the sea!"
But the stream, among its rushes,
Goes whispering here and there.
That Olaf's heart is rent in twain
What does the river care?
L - R
The Kingbird.
Text from
Merry's Museum for Boys and Girls
1:
6
(Jun 1868): 217.
OH, little folk, eager at pictures to look,
And hear wonderful stories told,
Do any, I wonder, who read in this book,
Know aught of the kingbird bold?
He's only a flycatcher, dusky and small,
The robin is larger than he;
But, big birds or little, he lords it o'er all,
As saucy as saucy can be.
He chases the eagles, the hawks, and the crows,
Till weary they are of their life;
And after his frolic, triumphant he goes,
Singing "Victory!" home to his wife:
And perched on a twig by the aide of the nest,
Twitters loud of the conquests he won;
He smooths the white feathers so soft on his breast,
And tells her the news and the fun.
And, "Fear nothing, sweet!"' he cries, proudly and glad,
As she sits in her bower of green;
"Not a bird dare approach, for good purpose or bad,
While I guard you, and watch, little
queen."
So, over the pretty eggs, speckled with brown,
She patiently broods day and night;
Till out peep the tiny young heirs to the crown,
All alive, and so hungry and bright!
And when they are grown, every prince of them bears,
Hidden under his ashen-gray crest,
The crown of red gold that the father bird wears --
Of his race and his kingship the test
If you watch, little folk, in the blue summer sky,
You may see him pursuing the crow,
Or the dignified eagle, or hawk, strong and sly,
And 'tis none but the kingbird
you'll know.
When, late in September, the maple leaves burn,
They gather together for flight;
And whither they go, you'll perhaps like to learn,
When they vanish away in the night.
South-westward to Mexico ! High in the air,
Upborne on their powerful wings,
Flying dauntless and steady, with head winds, or fair,
Push forward these resolute kings.
And, when the snow chills us, and bitter winds bite,
And tempests are roaring amain,
In that wonderful, tropical land of delight,
They revel in summer again.
A Lost Opportunity.
Text from
The Independent
28: 1440 (Jul 6, 1876): 1.
He played a merry air so sadly! White
And thin his face; his lofty figure yet
Unbent, though worn; pale in the sunset light
He stood -- a picture I may not forget.
His wan cheek laid against his violin,
His gray locks fluttering in the wintry
wind;
No beggar seemed he, striving thus to win
Some smile from Fortune, niggard and
unkind.
The quiet court rang with the merry tune
He played so sadly, with no creature near,
In the chilled, waning, wintry afternoon,
Already growing dull with shadows drear.
I passed him swiftly. It was late. I thought:
"My errand done, I will return to him."
And straightway found within the friend I sought,
And straight returned through the high
portal dim.
'Twas but a moment; but 'twas long enough
To lose a joy I never can o'ertake.
I might have smoothed that weary path so rough,
And on the piteous face made light to
break.
No longer rang the sadly-merry strain.
The lofty figure with the patient air
Had vanished; and the little court again
Was silent, save for footsteps here and
there.
It seemed almost as if his pain and grief
Had fallen on me, regret so keen was mine.
I might have brought him cheer, however brief;
And he had gone and I had made no sign.
Unhappy, hopeless, in a foreign land,
So far from Germany, so old and poor!
And I had stretched to him no helping hand,
To make his dark day brighter than before.
My golden opportunity! Too late!
'Twas gone. And I recall that aspect high,
That mien of one whom sorrow had made great,
And I shall feel regret until I die.
Isle of Shoals, June, 1876.
Niagara's Electrical Plant
Text from
Detroit Free Press 03
Sep 1894: 4.
Almost certainly, the database Proquest: American
Periodicals is in error to attribute this piece to
Thaxter. This error may result from the
Free Press
running a column of four short pieces reprinted from various
other sources. The final item in the group is Thaxter's
poem, "Land-Locked," which probably first appeared in
Poems
(1872): 9. The first 3 pieces are anonymous; the author
is named only for the poem, at the end of the column. Probably
this led to Proquest attributing the first item in the
collection to Thaxter.
Thaxter's poem may be found in several
other locations. Only the other three pieces are transcribed
here, mainly to establish the unlikelihood that Thaxter
authored them.
Niagara's Electrical Plant.
Here is a concise description of the
electrical works at Niagara Falls: The supply canal leaves the
river about 7,000 feet above the falls. It is 188 feet wide
and 12 feed deep, with cut stone walls. From this canal water
passes by gates and penstocks to the turbines. At present the
wheel-pit is constructed only on the western side of the
canal. This pit is 21 feet wide, 179 feet deep and 150 feet
long, and the turbines are now being placed at the northern
end of it. The penstocks which supply the turbines are 7 1-2
feet in diameter, and the turbines themselves, each of which
is double, take the water at the center and discharge
outwardly. These are 5 feet 3 inches in diameter, and each
double turbine will develop 5,000 horsepower. The shaft from
the turbines is of hollow steel, 38 inches in diameter and
three-eights of an inch thick. At bearings the shaft is solid
and 11 inches in diameter. The turbines are so arranged that
the weight of shafts, turbines and gear is counterbalanced by
the upward thrust of the water, so that when running the
thrust will be on the bearings at the top. These are to run at
250 revolutions a minute. The breadth from the surface of the
water in the canal to a point half way between the two double
turbines is 136 feet. The tailrace is a tunnel 7,000 feet
long, 21 feet high, 18 feet 10 inches wide, lined throughout
with brick. It has a fall of 52 1-2 feet and opens at the
bottom of the gorge, just below the upper suspension bride, at
the level of the stream. - Boston Transcript.
-----
A Legend of the Pansy.
A pretty fable about the pansy is current
among French and German children. The flower has five petals
and five sepals. In most pansies, especially of the earlier
and less high developed varieties, two of the petals are plain
in color, and three are gay. The two plain petals have a
single sepal, two of the gay petals have a sepal each, and the
third, which is the largest of all, has two sepals.
The fable is that the pansy represents a
family, consisting of husband and wife and four daughters, two
of the latter being step-children of the wife. The plain
petals are the step-children, with only one chair; the two
small gay petals are the daughters, with a chair each, and the
large gay petal is the wife, with two chairs.
To find the father one must strip
away the petals until the stamens and pistils are bare. They
have a fanciful resemblance to an old man with a flannel wrap
about his neck, his shoulders upraised and his feet in a
bath-tub. The story is probably of French origin, because the
French call the pansy the step-mother. -- Household Magazine.
-----
A Valuable Book.
Valued at $500 an once is a certain book in
the British Museum. It is a perfect copy of the original
edition of [ Shakspeare's
so spelled ] sonnets,
published in 1609. There are only two copies in existence, and
the second one is valued at $5,000. As the book is only ten
ounces in weight, it is worth a good deal more than its weight
in gold.
Rose Campion Gardens.
This text is from
The Globe (Toronto) (14 May
1892): 10.
Rose Campion gardens are heavenly. The
plants grow only a foot high. The foliage is grassy -- a
little like the garden pinks, but not so blue a green in
color.
The five petalled flowers, somewhat larger
each than a single blossom of phlox, are borne well up above
the leaves on long, fine, strong stems, and their grace, their
delicacy, their supreme elegance of shape no words of mine can
express. They are pure white, they are rose pink, they are
clear, heavenly blue, and some are bright scarlet, some
crimson, some lavender, some have dark rich centres, some are
white within and pink without, some of the lavender flowers
have a ring of rich red in the centre, and they are all
variegated in endless charming ways.
I hope you have not been impatient if any
of your seeds failed to appear within a certain time. The
state of the weather, the temperature of the air, the amount
of rain which falls, make all the difference in the world in
the time it takes for the first green leaves to appear.
Sometimes if the weather is cold it is a fortnight before you
see the faint green lines along the planted rows.
When they do appear, you must watch well
for the weeds between their ranks and so must all the
gardeners in the other gardens.
There will be clover; that comes up with a
little circular leaf and has a root that seems to reach all
round in the under world, it grows everywhere and holds on to
the earth with a grip that is unequaled by anything that
grows. Don't leave an atom of the root in the ground, for if
you do it will send up shoots, and if not watched fill all the
space in a few weeks.
Then [ their
so spelled ] is
check-weed, a delicate weed most difficult to manage, because
when you try to pull it up the tender stalk is likely to break
just where it leaves the ground, and all the root will send up
fresh shoots to strangle your flowers if you leave it
unmolested.
Then there are the pigweeds, ragweed,
shepherd's purse, mallow, mustard and many others; these come
first.
The second crop consists largely of quitch
grass, the very worst of all, and purseley, of which Charles
Dudley Warner discourses so amusingly in his "My Summer in a
Garden." He has really made the purseley famous. The roots of
the quitch grass are strong as steel and run rapidly
everywhere beneath the surface, sending up tender shoots that
break off when you touch them. Get hold of the root and follow
it up and pull out every fibre. Purseley has a flat,
olive-green leaf and red, fleshy stems, and runs over the top
of the ground in a mat. But this is easily disposed of. Only
it keeps coming from time to time all summer. You must watch
for it and pull it up faithfully.
You will soon learn all these weeds by
heart and many more, and your seeds being planted in rows it
will be easy to pull up everything between these. But some
weeds will come with the flowers. You must study the flower
plants in the rows, and pull out the offending strangers.
Thin out your ranks as soon as the plants
get their second leaf -- leave three inches between each two
plants side by side. Water every night, a few weeks, and your
whole garden will soon be covered with its lovely green.
By the 1st of July the pretty buds will
begin to rise on the long fine stems, and in a few days the
whole bed will be a waving mass of delicate bloom, so
graceful, so exquisite, that you will be enchanted with it
The same rule holds good with this as with
other flowers. "Gather! gather! gather!" if you want an
endless succession of bloom. Don't let your flowers exhaust
their strength in forming seeds. Cut them (and, by the way,
every gardener must have a common, cheap pair of scissors for
cutting flowers; to break the stems or pull them is a most
disastrous and cruel fashion) every day; follow the stalk down
as far as you can find it, and cut it as long as possible; a
few buds and leaves will go with it, but there is such a
wealth of flowers you can spare the buds.
Tall crystal glasses are best for these
flowers, and they are perfectly beautiful mixed in all their
colors. Then the white are exquisite alone, also the blue, and
the blue and white together -- the white in one mass, the blue
in another, and put into one vase together. There is no end to
the possibilities of beautiful arrangement in these flowers. I
have a rainbow-tinted shell in which I hang them under a
chandelier; they repeat all the colors in the shell and are a
vision of loveliness never to be forgotten.
S
The Sad Little Singer.
Text from
Wide Awake 3: 1 (Jul
1876): 20.
The students thronged the school-room,
A crowd of merry girls;
Bright heads bent o'er the lesson,
Lovely with braids and curls.
The master stood on the platform,
And like a wizard he spoke,
And at once the sweet young voices
Into wonderful singing broke.
With infinite labor and patience
He taught them, and explained
The deep and difficult lesson,
Till not a doubt remained.
Again rang the fresh, clear voices,
And youth and beauty and grace,
Anxious for his approval,
Looked up in the master's face.
But one among the maidens
Desponding drooped aside;
The gifts of her happy comrades
To her seemed all denied.
Poor and plain and timid,
Doubtful, perplexed and sad,
She envied her fortunate school-mates.
Who sang so loud and glad.
But the searching eye of the master
Found her, and calm and mild,
He questioned and encouraged,
And cheered the despairing child;
And his golden moments gave her
When other tasks were done,
Till she could take her place at last,
And sing with the proudest one.
And the student worshiped her teacher;
Hardly her heart could hold
The reverence and the gratitude
That never could be told.
And as Christmas time drew nearer,
Her busy fingers strove
Out of her poverty to work
Some token of her love.
And so she wrought with patience,
A humble gift and small;
Oh, poor and mean it was, she knew,
Poor, but it was her all.
Again the lesson was finished,
The singing so sweet and loud,
And the grand, still face of the master
Looked down on the radiant crowd.
And he held in his hand the token
Of the student poor and plain;
Astonished the young girl listened
With joy that was almost pain.
For, “Better than any treasure,”
He said, “of gold or pearl,
Or crown of king or kaiser,
Was the gift of this little girl!”
Could she believe her senses?
He surely was standing there,
The light full on his quiet face
And beautiful silver hair.
She knew she was not dreaming!
Her wide eyes shone so bright
It seemed as if heaven's gladness
Had opened upon her sight.
And the glory of that moment
No future can destroy:
She found her way for once, poor child,
To the topmost heights of joy.
Seven Little Gardens: Flower Work for Children.
I - -An Invitation.
Text from
Boston Daily Globe (10
Apr 1892): 26.
To make a little garden for yourselves, all
by yourselves, to plant and watch and weed and care for the
whole summer long -- have you ever tried it?
I assure you it is the most delightful
thing in the world; more enchanting than any story in the
"Arabian Nights"; more fasci[
nating than a ] spectacle
in a theatre, better, in short, than anything else I can think
of.
Take a poppy seed for instance. It lies on
your palm, the merest speck of matter, like an atom of dust.
If you knew nothing at all about it, would
it not seem incredible to you if you were told that within it
was locked a marvel more surprising than the huge genie in the
fisherman's bottle, of whom we read in the "Arabian Nights?"
And quite as huge in proportion.
A radiant, living, glowing, graceful thing
that shall unfold its scarlet, silken splendor to the sun, and
rejoice every eye that looks on it.
Folded in this tiny, almost invisible seed
are roots, stalks, leaves, branches, buds, flowers, stamens,
anthers and seed vessels, and if the seed belongs to the
variety of umbrosum, literally hundreds of large scarlet
blossoms, with a gorgeous black spot at the base of each petal
and the plant will go on blossoming all summer long, if you
gather the flowers faithfully, so that it shall not exhaust
itself in seed-making.
Think of the pleasure of watching anything
so interesting as this!
The very act of planting a seed in the
earth has to me something sacred and beautiful in it. I always
do it with a joy that is largely mixed with awe.
I watch my garden bed after it is sown, and
think how one of God's exquisite miracles is going on in the
dark earth out of sight.
I never forget my planted seeds. Often I
wake in the night and think how the rains and dews have
reached to the dry shell and softened it, and how the life is
stirring within, and the individuality of the plant has begun
to assert itself; how it is thrusting two hands forth from the
imprisoning husk, one -- the root -- to grasp the earth, to
hold itself firm and absorb its food; the other to reach above
to help it find the light, that it may drink in the air and
sunshine, and climb to its full perfection of beauty.
And it has always been to me one of the
most amazing things that every plant should draw only its own
colors and forms from the great laboratory of nature, never
making a mistake, but each plant taking from its surroundings
just those qualities that will produce its own special
characteristics.
For instance, if left to themselves, the
California poppies will take yellow of many resplendent shades
for their color; the peacock will always be scarlet crimson,
with a very black spot rimmed with white in every petal; the
corn poppy will be clear scarlet; the opium white, and so on.
The subtle knowledge of plants -- instinct,
perhaps, would be the proper word -- is most astonishing. If
you dig a hole in the ground and put into it a rose-bush, and
fill up one side of the hole with rich earth and the opposite
side with poor soil, every root of that rose bush will leave
the poor half to inhabit the rich and nourishing portion.
That is a matter of course, but the
instinct of the rose is something to think about,
nevertheless.
Would you like to learn to think about
these things, to watch these wonderful growths and take part
in these miracles and transformations through the summer that
is coming? Believe me, there is nothing that will so well
repay you.
I will try to tell you, if you like, how to
make some little gardens, for I have had one ever since I
could walk, and nothing in my life has ever given me so much
pure joy and peaceful pleasure.
I do not think you would like to work so
well in a large general garden as in a very small one,
intended for just one beautiful flower, where you can plant
all its varieties and in your summer life work it, study it
and become well acquainted with it.
So I shall tell you how to make a phlox
garden, a pansy garden, an iceland poppy garden, a gorgeous
poppy garden. a sweetpea garden, a nasturtium garden, a rose
campion garden -- seven gardens in all.
You can choose, and each season you can
take a different one.
They are all small gardens, four feet by
two; or for those who really wish them larger, six feet by
two. They will be easy to plant, to water and to weed; they
will not be too large to take care of for even very young
gardeners.
Choosing Seeds:.
Seven Little Gardens -- II.
Text from
Boston Daily Globe (17
Apr 1892): 25.
Every year I get my seeds early, and I keep
the little rustling packets in a box near my writing desk to
be within my sight, for they make me happy every time I look.
I love to take them up, read their names
and think of the loveliness imprisoned in these small squares
of paper, and the joyful hours I shall pass in their company
in the summer days that are coming.
I will tell you the kinds of seed I think
you will like best for each garden.
The Phlox Garden.
Phlox is the easiest
thing to grow in the whole catalogue of flowers. For 10
cents you can buy a paper of mixed seed of every
imaginable color except yellow: scarlet, crimson, purple,
white rose, lavender, maroon, almost black and variegated
in all sorts of charming ways.
Then there is the variety called Star
of Quedlinburg, a quaint and pretty name which has the
centre of each petal drawn out at the edge like the tails
on the wings of the Luna moth.
The variety of sweet pease is almost
endless, but I advise you to try a paper of each of these
which I shall name, because I know them all to be
perfectly beautiful. I should first choose white, then
Princess Beatrice, Butterfly, Carmine Invincible, Imperial
Blue, Painted Lady and black purple.
These are all strong growers and
profuse blossomers, and, as I said before, beautiful
beyond telling.
The Princess Beatrice is a delicate
pink, a color so refined and exquisite as to be simply
wonderful; the Butterfly is white with an edge which melts
from rich mauve through pale lavender till lost in the
whiteness of the flower.
Carmine Invincible is gorgeous, clear
carmine all through and the strongest of them all;
Imperial Blue is a fine variety, the inner wings a real
blue, the outer a purple that melts into it deliciously;
and the Painted Lady is the dear old-fashioned kind which
grew in your grandmothers' gardens when they were
children, white within and rosy pink without.
The Nasturtium Garden.
Nasturtiums are among the most
beautiful of the gifts of Southern lands to ours. The
first were brought from Peru, I have heard.
They are satisfactory from every point
of view, so freely growing and blooming, so wonderfully
brilliant and varied, so picturesque in their methods of
growth, so fascinating in "their tricks and their
manners." They would go on blooming eternally, I think, if
frost did not stop them.["
so it appears ]
About choice of seeds, I should get a
couple ounces of mixed dwarf nasturtiums; if you get the
tall varieties they will wander all over the surface of
the ground in all directions and you cannot keep them
within bounds. Jack's beanstalk was not more determined to
reach up to the sky if possible than is a nasturtium vine.
But if your garden plot should happen
to lie close to a piazza or even with the upper edge
against the house, or near a fence or any means of
support, then by all means get some running varieties for
the upper row of your bed.
If you buy the mixed dwarfs do not fail
to secure a paper of the the Pearl, which bears flowers of
the palest vanishing straw color, almost white; and among
the tall kinds a paper of Asa Grey, Tropaecolum Lobbianum;
this last is the most delicately lovely of them, nearer
pure white than any other, and endlessly blooming
Among the dwarfs I should get a
separate paper of the Empress of India, the most superb
ruby-colored variety, deep fire-color; the stout plants,
not much over a foot high, and one glowing, burning mass
of splendor the whole summer. This is the very best one of
all.
Then the bronze colors are
inexpressibly beautiful, gold with a haze over it, as it
were, like a yellow sunset in the Indian summer. I could
talk to you all day of nasturtiums alone.
The Pansy Garden.
Pansies are the most responsive of
flowers. My seedman sells a paper of 250 seeds for 50
cents. These are mixed, and would be enough for your
garden.
But if you wish to select, there are,
for instance, Snow Queen, the most exquisite lustrous pure
white with small golden eye; Lord Beaconsfield, delicious
light purple melting to a silvery white at the edges;
Emperor William, nearly pure blue; the mahogany colors,
which word gives you no idea of the splendors of the old
reds and black purples of these large velvety flowers; the
fawn colors in a thousand hues of gold and bronze; the
Trimardeans, immense flowers and superb in all colors.
But there is simply no end to them --
all are gorgeous.
The Iceland Poppy Garden.
Mixed seeds,
yellow, orange and white; these poppies are exquisite.
The General Poppy Garden.
Make a triple bed; Californias
(eachscholtzia), mixed carnations and wonderful
Shirleys. The Californias are in golds, yellows,
oranges. All the combinations of hues in these
flowers are of the most dazzling splendor. There is a
satin sheen upon them indescribably brilliant and
beautiful.
The carnation varieties blossom in
scarlet, purple, rose, crimson, white, lavender and a
hundred shades between.
Their variety is almost
inexhaustible. There are the peacock, the mephisto,
mikado, umbrosum, the peony-flowered, the
ranunculus-flowered, the opium poppy and many others,
many indeed!
The Shirleys, crown of all beauty
among the poppies! I hardly think the mortal lives who
could venture to try to describe the beauty of Shirley
poppies! They are every shade from the purest white to
the deepest black red -- through every shade of rose,
pink, cherry, carmine, scarlet, crimson -- and their
delicacy in every blossom has something ethereal,
spiritual, divine about it.
The texture of the petals is thin
as fine tissue paper, so that if you put a red flower
behind a white one it blushes through the veil; the
white is the most delicate of all, but all have this
diaphanous quality. There is nothing among flowers so
like the sky of dawn as is the Shirley poppy bed.
The Rose Campion Garden.
You had best ask for this flower
seed by the less charming name of Viscaria. The
blossoms are in all colors except yellow, and they are
in bloom from the first of July until the last of
September. They are as hardy as they are exquisite.
Starting Flowers in the House,
Seven Little Gardens.--III.
Text from
Boston Daily Globe (24 Apr 1892): 26.
There are some localities in the Northern
States where flower seed cannot be sown in the garden before
the middle of May.
The young gardeners who live in these
places may start their flowers in the house; indeed, even
where out-of-door sowing can be begun on the first of May I
have seen plants started in the house -- sown about the 20th
of April and transplanted the 20th of May of later still --
quite out-blossom the open-air sowings.
Another reason for sowing in the house is
that some flowers love to be transplanted -- pansies and phlox
thrive on it and so do sweet peas.
If the ground is frozen hard outside, so
that a few spadesful cannot be taken up and thawed by the fire
and dried, you must get some earth from a greenhouse.
I always bring into the house in the autumn
several large firkins of earth for my spring planting indoors.
It is best to sift the soil and put it into
shallow pans, and set them in the oven to bake, that every egg
and worm and insect, and likewise every weed seed may be
destroyed before you plant your flowers.
How to Sow Sweet Peas
You want larger boxes -- common soap boxes will answer -- than
for any other seeds except nasturtiums. There must be a depth
of at least six inches of soil to give the strong roots room.
Sprinkle the pease thickly on the top. Don't have them so near
as to touch each other, but just separate.
When all are in, then sift over them an
inch more of earth, pat them down gently all over and then
sprinkle them with the watering pot.
Set them on the floor of the kitchen
somewhere, not far from the fire, and it is best with those,
as with all seeds planted in boxes, more especially the small
and delicate seeds, to lay a paper over the top to retain the
heat and moisture and prevent too much heat from reaching
them.
In a few days, in a [ marvellously
so
spelled ] short time, you will see your peas sprouting
-- little green loops of stems pushing up thickly all over the
top of the soil.
Now take them away from the heat at once,
without delay, carry them off to some cool sunny window, watch
them, water them, cover them at night if there is the least
danger of their being too cold.
If your windows open on a piazza roof, or
there is a shelf outside, then you are fortunate, and the care
of them will be comparatively easy.
Every night I cover them with an old sail
or pieces of carpet, or anything that is at hand, and every
morning at sunrise I uncover them and rejoice in their
strength and their promise.
By the middle of May your boxes should be a
solid mass of strong and vigorous plants five or six inches
high, already putting forth their tendrils for climbing.
Starting Pansies Indoors
It is not necessary to have such very rich
soil in which to start them. Sift and bake and when cool fill
your boxes to within half an inch of the top.
Then scatter your golden grains of seed all
over the top and sift over them just enough soil to cover them
about twice their bulk in depth. Very gently lay your open
hand over the surface, just its weight -- hardly any pressure.
Sprinkle with the fine spray of the rubber
hand bulb and set the box in a warm place as for sweet
peas. In a week's time or less you ought to see them
sprouting.
The soil must never get dry. Seeds do not
need light, but heat and moisture. But the moment they are up
you cannot give them enough light, nor can you give them too
little artificial heat, short of actual freezing.
Pansies love the cold, but of course, you
must be careful about the baby plants. The moment they have
sprouted carry them away to the cool, sunny window of some
upper room, perhaps, which is warmed by sunshine and safe from
frost. Open the windows for a few minutes every sunny day.
Keep the soil always moist, never wet.
How to Transplant Pansies
Save all the shells from eggs used in the
kitchen, beginning the 1st of January. Then when it is time
{to}transplant pansies you are all ready.
Take empty shallow boxes, about the height
of your eggs. Stand your eggshells upright in them till each
box is full. Then with a spoon half fill them all with rich,
sifted soil, first making a hole in the bottom of each shell
for drainage -- never forget this. Now take a half-filled
shell in your left hand, and with the right take the teaspoon
and lift carefully a little group of pansy plants from the
box.
Lay this on its side and take from it with
your finger and thumb one little plant by the stem. Hold it in
the middle of the eggshell, so that the roots will float out
and all the delicate fibres find their places without
cramping.
Then fill round them with earth to nearly
the top of the shell, and press it about the plant with the
end of your finger till it is safe and firmly fixed.
When all are full put enough earth in
between the shells to hold them steady in the box.
Shade them from the sun a day or two, keep
them moist, and after this they are safe if you don't forget
to water them.
In much the same way I plant Iceland poppy
seeds directly in the eggshells.
After ten days you may look for the tiny,
faint green sprouts from your small seeds. Then keep them in a
cool room, but in a sunshiny window, and don't give them too
much water. Yet they must not get dust dry.
Now, when the time comes to transplant
them, you lift out an eggshell, the top is full of the thickly
growing soft-green poppy plants, the earth within contains the
mat of roots in a compact oval ball of earth; you crack off
half the shell in bits, the earth within remains intact; you
make a little hole in the garden bed just big enough to hold
the ball and gently slip it in and press the soil carefully
and thoroughly about it, and so your poppies do not know they
have been moved at all.
The general poppy garden, the nasturtium
and the rose campion are to made out of doors in May; phlox
seed, too, and pansy and some sweet peas and Iceland poppy
seed can be reserved for sowing then; all the seed, in fact,
can be sown out of doors in May.
Planting and Transplanting.
Seven Little Gardens.
Text from
Boston Daily Globe
(8 May 1892): 30.
{ Phlox Gardens. }
Having everything in readiness, on May 10,
say, you have your seeds and tools, your beds all forked,
manured, hoed, raked and ready for planting. One thing more
you need -- a piece of board about two feet long and seven
inches wide.
Lay your bit of board straight across the
bed about 4 inches from the end. Lean one arm on it to hold it
firm, and with a little stick draw a furrow an inch deep in
the earth along it, straight and equal as you can in depth all
the way.
In this drop your seeds as evenly as may be
-- they are so large you can see them distinctly. When you
have sown that furrow make another on the opposite edge of the
board, and fill that.
Then lift the board, and lay it down
carefully the other side of the last furrow, and so on to the
end of the bed. The width of the board gives you just the
right distance between the rows, and saves a deal of trouble
in measuring.
Now, with your hand, draw over the seeds
the earth that was displaced in making the furrow; it will
give them just the right depth of covering -- about twice
their diameter. That is the rule for planting almost all
seeds.
Now, take your board and lay it over each
row, lean on it gently to make the earth perfectly firm, not
packed hard, but firm.
Lightly sprinkle the bed all over. Don't
sprinkle too long in one place, or you will wash out your
seeds. You need only to make the surface damp.
Water the bed lightly every night at sunset
-- unless it should rain. There is nothing so good as the
sweet rain out of heaven for our gardens.
If the weather is warm and your watering is
faithfully done, you should see in a week, or 10 days at most,
faint green shoots along the straight lines you planted.
Pull up every green thing between these
lines and then pass your little handfork like a comb to and
fro in the soil to removed roots and disturb new sprouts, but
be very careful not to go too near your phlox plants, except
to pull with careful finger and thumb the little weeds that
have sprouted very near.
Sweet Pea Gardens.
In the second or third week of May you may
transplant your sweet peas from the house boxes to the
open-air garden.
People do not generally know that sweet
peas are most easily and successfully transplanted. I
discovered it for myself accidentally -- in fact, I was driven
to it by my little friend, the song-sparrow, at the Isles of
Shoals.
When I plant out of doors I am obliged to
have a cover of woven wire to fit over my flower beds to keep
off the dear little pests.
They are especially trying in the case of
sweet peas, for they wait until the peas begin to sprout and
then they devour every single one.
Your little garden bed is all ready, your
boxes of treasures about you. Now take your hoe and make a
straight line about four inches from the edge of your bed,
lengthwise; if you find difficulty in making it straight, take
a string tied to two sticks and you will have your straight
line.
Take the hoe and cut down evenly from this
line, drawing the earth toward you and leaving a smooth
cutting six inches deep against which to stand your plants for
support.
Don't break the long white roots and
dislodge the little pea still clinging there if you can help
it.
Stand each plant against the wall you have
sliced down smooth with your hoe. Put the plants in, not more
than three inches apart, with the roots straight down, but if
very long, no matter if the ends lie horizontally an inch in
the bottom of the trench; draw the earth half way up over them
loosely so as to hold them in place, and then gently fill the
trench with water, draw the rest of the earth about the roots,
press it firmly with your hands about each separate plant,
making each stand perfectly straight and even, and be careful
that all the root is perfectly covered; indeed, the earth may
come up an inch about each slender stem without doing any
harm.
In a few days they will begin to grow again
in their new quarters. But during this time you must not
forget to water them at evening, unless it rains. Sweet peas
love moisture and flourish best when you give them all that
can take.
Pansy Gardens.
Remember two things: You can scarcely make
the soil too rich or keep it too moist for the well-being of
pansies.
For the enriching of your bed -- four feet
by two wide -- I should put in a bushel at least of
well-rotted manure and mix it most thoroughly with the soil.
And if you can find a spot which the sun
reaches for only half the day they will flourish much better
than if they have its light continually and their flowers will
be twice as large. Pansies love the shade.
If you are sowing seeds, follow the
instructions for the phlox gardens. If you are transplanting
you set the little plants about four inches apart.
When all are in and the bed is full water
them copiously. If the sun shines cover them with newspapers
pegged gown till evening, and then take off the coverings --
don't forget. If next day is bright and hot cover once more,
keep wet, and in a few days the bed will be safe.
Poppy Gardens.
I think the poppy gardens must have three
beds 4 feet long and 2 wide. Then we can plant each kind by
itself, California poppies in one, in the second the mixed
carnation poppies, and in the last the wonderful Shirleys.
I should add a peck of sand with the
half-bushel of manure to each bed.
Cover the seeds with only a slight layer of
soil about twice their thickness: hardly a layer at all in the
case of the Shirley seeds, for they are so delicate as to be
almost invisible; the carnations are much larger, the
Californias larger still.
Cover them with newspapers and water every
night (unless the weather is wet) for two or three days. They
should be up in a week if the weather is favorable.
Iceland Poppy Gardens.
These are early gardens, like all the
transplanted ones. Take your precious eggshells to your bed,
and crack them off the solid oval balls of earth and white
woven roots within, which will remain intact in your hand, and
set them in the ground.
Firm the little balls thoroughly into the
earth as you set them down. If it is a cloudy day you can take
your watering pot and water the whole bed thoroughly, but if
the sun is shining, pour the water about the roots only, and
do not wet the leaves.
Day by day as you watch them you can almost
see them stretching up to the sun and out on all sides, till
by and by the little garden is quite full.
Then, presently, you will find small round,
hard, green balls in the centre of each cluster, pushing upon
strong slender stems, higher and higher, every hour, every
moment! These are the flower buds, and they do not cease to
come up the whole summer long.
Nasturtium Gardens.
Those who choose nasturtiums for a garden
will have but little care, for they flourish in all sorts of
soils and don't want watering unless there should be a
desperate drought. Once freed from weeds they take care
of themselves almost entirely.
A nasturtium garden need not be manured. I
have found the poorer the soil the richer the flowers will be.
If the soils should be rich the plants will run to leaves and
the flowers will be comparatively few.
Plant them, after your bed is thoroughly
laid out as for phlox, in straight lines as much as six inches
apart, at least, for they must have room on all sides to grow.
Cover them a half an inch deep, press down the earth and leave
them.
They will germinate more rapidly if you
water the bed at night if the weather is dry. But after they
are up I never water them any more; they don't like it; don't
need it.
Rose Campion Gardens.
Plant the fine seeds, that are very like
poppy seeds, in the same way as the phlox seeds, in rows six
inches apart, and just barely cover them with enough soil to
hold them down. Water lightly and peg down some newspapers. If
the wind is strong lay stones of some weight along the edges
at intervals. Water every night until the little plants show
above the ground.
"Six Men on the Hill."
Text from
The Independent 35:
1812 (Aug 23, 1883): 1.
She laid her finger upon my arm,
The sweet old lady, with quiet grace,
And bade me notice the picture's charm,
"Did you ever see a more beautiful face?"
Beautiful! Well I thought it was more.
Radiant, wonderful, half divine!
Nature had fashioned with touch so sure
Such exquisite clay with an art so fine.
"He was killed in his prime. Oh! wrath burned hot!
'Twas some political feud, some strife
Of Federal, Democrat, Heaven knows what;
But it cost this glorious creature his
life!
"This is all that was ever known
Of the matter, my dear. Through the houses
one day
Suddenly sounded a fall and a groan,
And his body across the threshold lay;
A gash at the back of his kingly head.
(Cowards! that dared such blood to spill!)
They raised him gently, not quite dead,
And he faintly whispered: 'Six men on the
hill!'
"It was long ago, and no creature knows
To this day more of the whole affair;
Of the hoof of the satyr that trampled the rose;
Of the Vandals that ruined the temple rare.
"He had dragged himself home to die at the door,
And the clowns who shattered this Venice
glass --
Six men on the hill -- not six men more
Could have equaled in value this one, alas!
"Oh! the fires of morning so soon put out!
Oh! the aching hearts and despairing tears!
And brutes who murdered him lived, no doubt,
Seventy, eighty, a hundred years!"
Isle of Shoals.
T
To a Painter. (J. A. B.) [ John Appleton Brown ]
Text from
Century Illustrated Magazine
38, 4 (Aug 1889): 568.
Poet, whose golden songs in silence sung
Thrill from the canvas to the hearts of
men, --
Sweet harmonies that speak without a tongue,
Melodious numbers writ without a pen, --
The great gods gifted thee and hold thee dear;
Placed in thy hand the torch which genius
lit,
Touched thee with genial sunshine, and good cheer,
And swift heat lightnings of a charming wit
Whose shafts are ever harmless, though so bright;
Gave thee of all life's blessings this, the
best, --
The true love of thy kind, -- for thy delight.
So be thou happy, poet-painter blest,
Whose gentle eyes look out, all unaware,
Beneath the brow of Keats, soft-crowned with shadowy hair.
Two Sonnets
Text from
The Independent
25: 1301 (Nov 6, 1873): 1380.
I.
Not so! You stand as long ago a king
Stood on the seashore, bidding back the
tide
That onward rolled resistless still, to fling
Its awful volume landward, wild and wide,
And just as impotent is your command
To stem the tide that rises in my soul.
It ebbs not at the lifting of your hand,
It owns no [ gurt
? ], it yields to
no control;
Mighty it is, and of the elements --
Brother of the winds and lightning, cold
and fire;
Subtle as light, as steadfast and intense;
Sweet as the music of Apollo's lyre.
You think to rule the ocean's ebb and flow
With that sort of woman's hand? Nay, love, not so.
II.
And like the lighthouse on the rock you stand,
And pierce the distance with your searching
eyes;
Nor do you heed the waves that storm the land
And endlessly about you fall and rise.
But seek the ships that wander night and day
Within the dim horizon's shadowy ring;
And some with flashing glance you warn away.
And some you beckon with sweet welcoming.
So steadfast still you keep your lofty place,
Safe from the tumult of the restless tide,
Firm as the rock in your resisting grace,
And strong through humble duty, not through
pride.
While I -- I cast my life before your feet,
And only live that I may love you, sweet!
Two Strange Visitors.
I. The Singing Mouse. II. A
Treacherous Guest.
Text from
The Riverside Magazine for
Young People (1867-1870); New York 3: 35 (Nov 1869):
520.
I.
The Singing Mouse.
One night, not many years ago, in small
brown house near Boston, a curious thing happened. Mamma had
gone to her room, and was covering up her little baby, safe
and warm in his crib, when she heard papa calling her from the
room she had just left. She kissed the baby's rosy cheek, and
went back.again. In the parlor it was warm and bright:
everything was just as she had left it; the fire burned clear;
the pictures looked quietly down from the walls; the plants at
one window spread wide their beautiful green arms, and in a
large cage were two canaries fast asleep. On the centre-table,
with its pleasant confusion of books, etc., lay her work,
which she had just put down; and by the table stood papa, who
was not looking at all as she had left him, but wore a very
curious and puzzled expression indeed. Said mamma "What is the
matter?"
"Hush!" he answered; "listen, and tell me what you hear." So
she kept very still, and listened. At first she heard only the
old clock ticking sleepily from its corner, the quiet
crackling of the fire, and a little whispering of the wind
without; but presently she became aware of a wonderful, tiny,
delicate music in her ears, as if the fairies were piping and
fluting in midsummer moonlight, and, all amazed, she
whispered, "What is it?"
Papa shook bis head. Again she listened.
"Are the canaries singing in their dreams?"
"No," he said; "just go to the window and
look at them."
She went to them very softly; they were
sound asleep, done up like little golden balls, with their
heads under their wings; and still the marvelous music
continued, as if some strange bird were singing in the next
room. She had never heard a sound so fine and sharp and sweet,
except once, at sunset, when she was sitting high up in a
belfry, watching the sky, and myriads of dusky bats flew in
and out, and round about where she sat still as a stone, that
she might not frighten them away. They uttered continually
little cries, sharper than cambric needles, she thought. It
was charming to sit up there all alone, and look at them, and
listen to them!
But what was this sound so like the voices
of the bats? Suddenly she remembered stories she had read of
"singing mice." This must be one! "Isn't it a singing mouse?"
she asked; and papa said he thought it must be. The sound came
from the wall, near one of the windows; they concluded, of
course, that it was inside the wall; and as it grew very late,
she put away her work, and took a lamp to go to bed. Scarcely
had she left, the room, when-papa called again, "Do come back!
He is here, running about the room!" She ran back and shot the
door, and then they chased mouse up and down, and round and
round, till at last he ran up the long, fall curtain, and hid
himself in the folds. "Please give me my mittens," cried
mamma, for she remembered catching a bat once in her bare
hand, and how the creature had set its sharp teeth in her
palm, and she didn't fancy having that experiment repeated.
The mittens were brought; she held the curtain gathered into
one hand, and felt among the folds above with the other, and
caught him in a minute.
Dear me, how his little heart thumped, and
bow frightened he was! Then the question was, what to do with
him? Where could they put him? While papa went to seek
something to serve as a cage, she held him jn her hands. It
took a long time to find anything, and by and by, perceiving
everything to be quiet, and himself in a warm, soft nest,
mousie began once more to sing, O, so sweetly! Just like a
canary, -- only so very fine and sharp, -- it really seemed as
if he had taken lessons of the birds. At last papa brought a
large glass jar, and he was dropped into it very gently. How
pretty he was, with his shining brown coat, and bright black
eyes! He leaped about like a little kangaroo at first, but
finally, concluding he couldn't get out, he sat himself down
and sang again. Mama spread a piece of lace over the top of
the jar, and left him there for the night. Next morning he
seemed happy and lively, and the children were never tired of
looking at him, and listening to him. His abode was changed
from the jar to something more convenient, and he lived for
some time, singing at intervals as sweetly as ever, but died
at last, mamma always feared, from the effects of too great
confinement and — meal. She very much regrets not having sent
him to Professor Agassiz, for, though there have been many
stories of singing mice, I have heard of none in which one has
been made the subject of scientific investigation.
II.
A Treacherous Guest.
In the same house where the singing moose
appeared, the children sat one winter evening, round the lamp,
with their books and work. There was a great snow-storm
outside; everything was smothered in the blinding flakes, and
the wind came in heavy gasps, as if it were some huge giant,
breathing hard. Mamma thought of ships and sailors far at sea,
and, "I hope there's no poor creature out in this terrible
storm," she said. Presently the children said good-night, and
went up-stairs to bed. In a minute or two they called over the
balustrade, "Papa, papa!
do come here!" and one ran
down to tell mamma that, on going into his room, the elder
brother had noticed a little, round, dark-colored ball, on the
top of a picture which hung over his bed, and when he held the
lamp up to examine it, he found it was a beautiful gray bird,
which had flown into the half-open window, seeking a refuge
from the storm. Poor little bird! They were all so glad it had
chosen their house to fly into! It was such a piece of good
fortune, they couldn't sufficiently congratulate themselves on
the subject. The weary, storm-beaten creature was so
exhausted, that when papa took it gently Into his hand, and
brought it down-stirs and placed it on the top of one of the
cages in the parlor, it did not wake, nor did it move its head
from under its pretty gray wing. Ah! if it had, they would
have understood the meaning of its cruel beak, with the slight
but significant hook at the end, and have exiled him to the
barn or shed at once.
But in blissful ignorance, they left the
welcome guest quietly roosting on the top of tie cage. In the
morning, before any one was up, an alarming sound of
skirmishing and fluttering was heard in the parlor, and they
rushed down to find a most melancholy tragedy had just
occurred. The beautiful gray bird was standing on the canary's
cage, in the middle of the flower-stand, with bloody beak and
glittering eye, and within the cage lay the poor little pet
canary, with his skull crushed, — stone dead ! Great was the
lamentation of the whole family, and bitter the change in
their sentiments toward the stranger. He was caught, and
placed in an empty cage at once. So fierce and fearless a
creature they had never seen. He was about the size of a
robin, with black beak, eyes, and feet, and white breast, all
shades of gray melting into each other over his soft feathers.
Be was a handsome fellow, robber and murderer though he was!
They gave him raw meat, which he tore and devoured with a
ferocity astonishing in so small a bird! He seemed only an
embodiment of one fierce instinct of hunger; he did not notice
anything or anybody, but pulled and tugged at the strip of
beef they gave him, till he had eaten it all.
They looked him up in the "Natural
History," and found him to be a great Northern Shrike, or
Butcher Bird, and that he and all his family were in the habit
of committing such depredations, a fact which they learned for
the first time to their cost. He was taken to Agassiz's
museum, where it was decided that he should he sent to the
Jardin des Plantes, in Paris, but whether be ever reached
Fiance or not, I do not know.
W
William M. Hunt's Last Day: A Letter
from Celia Thaxter
Text from the
New York Tribune 18
Sep 1879: 5.
To the Editor of the Tribune.
Sir: To the many friends of William Hunt it
may be grateful to hear some trustworthy account of his sad
end less shocking than the bare and often incorrect statements
of the current journals. He had been living with his devoted
sister at the Isles of Shoals, eight weeks, the centre of a
bright and friendly circle in the cottage at Appledore, and in
spite of the disease of nervous prostration under which be was
laboring, I am thankful to believe be had hours of peace and
even happiness daring that time. He was sure of all our
sympathy, and everyone was glad to cheer and comfort him
whenever and wherever the least opportunity offered itself to
do him service. He wore such a brave, heroic front over all he
suffered, we never dreamed of such a terrible end at hand. In
and out of our pleasant parlor and about the sunny piazza, in
the sweet Summer weather, he passed, at all hours of the day,
watching the glowing colors in the little garden, or the
beautiful sea and sky, or lying in one of the hammocks
listening to the lovely music of piano and violin that floated
out to him from within, or chatting pleasantly with this or
that friend of the many who drew close about him, glad to have
the privilege of listening to his wonderful speech. So the
bright days passed,, and I am sure he must, have found some
pleasure in them, feeling himself so wholly beloved, honored
and appreciated by all. An the time drew near for the closing
of the house and he felt that he must leave this place, for
every one was going, his spirits sank anew, and he often
expressed great anxiety about his future movements, dreading
the change to other and less pure air, and feeling so little
strength to bear anything: that might be before him. We strove
to cheer him, nor did we see any cause for more than usual
anxiety about him till the sad Monday of September 8.
At the top of the ledge behind the cottage
at Appledore is a tiny basin hollowed out of tha rock to catch
the rains, a shallow reservoir filled with water which is
conducted by pipes to the wharf, for the use of the small
steam yacht Pinafore, which plies continually between the
islands during the season. It is a lovely place, this little
sheet of tranquil water lying out on the top of the rocks,
open to the sky and reflecting every tint and change as
perfectly as the great ocean beyond it. Hunt and his sister
had sat together near it in the pleasant days, while she
sketched it and the gable of the house close by, and he often
said how pretty it was. Round it the fragrant bayberry bushes
cluster thickly, and till late the wild roses blossom in
sweetness. At its brink all Summer long the little birds come
to drink and to wash, with twinkling wings ruffling the bright
surface; often I watched them from my window at sunrise --
sparrows, swallows, sandpipers, that made tu« place musical
with melodious cries. Here on that Monday morning when all our
little world was seeking him, I found all that was left of our
beautiful friend floating upon his face, while the wind
fluttered a fold of his long coast which lay on the water,
dark in the still and sunny glitter of the surface elsewhere
unbroken. In a moment help was on the spot and unavailing
efforts to resuscitate him were made, but life had been gone
some hours.
He had not seemed more depressed than usual
that morning; he sat without by the fire awhile after
breakfast -- it had been raining -- then he went out and we
never saw him again. It was an hour or two before we were
really roused to alarm about him, for each one thought him in
this or that place where is was accustomed to be, and no
anxiety entered our hearts, for of such a catastrophe we could
not dream.
I wish all who loved him could have looked
on his grand, still face when he was dead, for there was
peace. Of the splendor of the genius lost to the world, of the
beauty of that high nature, too noble to harbor bitterness or
any ungenerous thought toward any creature, there is no need
to speak. He is a great light untimely quenched, and there are
no words to match our love for him, our reverence and our
sorrow.
Willie's Wonderful Flight.
Text from
St. Nicholas 3: 8 (Jun
1876): 522.
About thirteen years ago there lived in
Jamaica Plain, near Boston, two little girls who each had a
canary-bird. The grandfather of these children lived in Fayal,
and had sent from that distant island her bird to the eldest
girl a short time before my story begins. May, for that was
her name, christened him Willie.
He was a green and yellow bird,
rather peculiarly marked, very pretty, and he sang sweetly,
and the little girl was very fond of the tiny creature her
grandfather had sent so far over the uncertain sea to find a
home with her. She was kind and good to him, and careful he
should lack nothing for which a bird might wish; so I do not
doubt he grew very fond of her, and was as happy as he could
be. But into that pleasant home the war of the Rebellion
brought its inevitable sorrow, and May's father joining the
army, the household was broken up, and the family went to New
York for the winter. Before going, May wrote to me asking if I
would keep Willie for her till the spring, when they hoped to
return. Of course I was glad to do so, and Willie was brought
from Jamaica Plain to Newton one day in late autumn. His cage
was covered with brown paper, so that he might not be alarmed
at all the unaccustomed confusion about him; he was taken in
the cars to Boston, and from Boston brought out to Newton in
another train of cars, and at last deposited safely in my
hands. I took the paper off the cage and hung it up at one of
the four windows of my sunny parlor, already cheerful with
birds and flowers, and Willie looked about him with bright
black eyes surveying his new surroundings. It was a pleasant
place, where the sun shone all day. He saw a robin and a
song-sparrow at one window, a yellow canary at another, and
still another bird, with dusky plumage like his own, stood in
the middle of the flower-stand in a bower of green. All about
the windows ivies and smilax were climbing, nasturtiums and
geraniums blossomed brightly, and every plant bloomed and
spread gay leaves of freshest green to make a summer in the
place when winter should storm without. I think he missed his
dear little May at first, but he soon grew accustomed to the
change and seemed quite content. A cherry-tree stood close to
the window inside which his cage was hung, and to the boughs
of this tree I was in the habit of tying mutton and beef bones
to feed the wild birds when the snow was on the ground. How he
used to watch them when they came! Sometimes the tree seemed
alive with pretty woodpeckers, chickadees, and Canada sparrows
with red brown caps, and handsome, screaming jays, resplendent
in brilliant blue. I wondered what he thought about them, but
apparently he was not troubled with many thoughts. He ate, and
drank, and sang his prettiest for me, till at last, the winter
ended, the final snow-storm flung us a bitter good-bye; the
strong sun unlocked the frozen earth, the grass crept out, and
the world grew glad and glorious again. The outside windows
were taken off, and all day long, when the sun shone, the
inner ones stood wide open with the cages close together on
the sills, shaded now by vines which grew outside, and touched
by long sprays of pink flowering-almond that waved in the warm
wind. Every night before sunset I took the birds in and hung
them up in their places. One afternoon I went as usual to take
care of my pets. What was my distress to find Willie's cage
missing! Half afraid lest I should see some prowling cat in
the act of devouring him, 1 looked out of the window. There on
the ground lay the empty cage, with the door open. How my
heart sank at the sight! May's little bird, which she had
intrusted to my care, was gone. Though we did not own a cat,
our neighbors did, and how could I be sure that one of the
stealthy creatures had not found its way to the birds and
selected my dear guest to destroy! I was in despair; fond as I
was of my pets, I would gladly have sacrificed all the rest
could I have brought back that one which had been intrusted to
me. I knew the family had returned to Jamaica Plain, and only
the day before I had said to myself that I was glad Willie was
in such good condition to return to May. And there lay the
open cage and he was gone! Very sad and sorry, I sat down to
write lo the little girl that she would never see her dear
bird again.
Now happened a wonderful thing.
I sent my letter, but before it reached its
destination that little bird had arrived in its old home, and
was safe in May's possession again! He flew straight from
Newton to Jamaica Plain, a distance of ten miles as the crow
flies, and entered at the nursery window where of old his cage
had hung. It was Willie himself, there was no mistaking the
bird. Now, was it not amazing that he should find his way with
such unerring certainty across the wide and varying country,
to that town, to that house, to that window? When his cage
fell off my window ledge to the ground, and the door sprang
open with the shock and set him free, how did he instantly
know which way to fly to reach his former home? What told him
to select a course due south-east instead of any other point
of the compass? For the world was all before him, where to
choose. Evidently he lost no time, for he arrived at his
destination toward nightfall the next day. The children heard
him fluttering at the window that night, but, supposing it
some wild bird, took no notice of him. So he lingered without;
and when in the morning the window was thrown open, swiftly
the little wanderer flew in and perched on the cage of the
other canary, which hung where he used to see it before he was
carried to Newton.
Now, how
did that little bird find
out the way over woods and fields, and hills and dales, and
many a town and group of houses? How could he be so wise as to
select Jamaica Plain from all the places he must have passed
over? Though he had lived there he had never really seen it,
you know, and he was brought to Newton by the way of Boston,
with his cage covered close with brown paper. Then, among all
the houses, how did he find the house where little May lived?
What led him straight to that nursery window? Of
whom could he have inquired the way ? To think that this tiny
tuft of feathers should carry a spark of .intelligence so
divine, so far beyond the power of man's subtlest thought!
Through the trackless air he found his way without hesitation
or difficulty; his frail and delicate wings bore him safely
across all those weary miles, and he entered contentedly the
cage prepared for him, and dwelt there peacefully the rest of
his little life.
Well may we look with wonder on everything
that exists on this wonderful earth, and that a canary-bird
can, in one sense, be so much wiser than the wisest man that
ever lived, is not the least astonishing thing among many
marvels.
The Willow.
(anonymous poem attributed to Thaxter by FictionMags
Index.)
Text from
The Atlantic Monthly 16: 94 (Aug
1865): 194.
O WILLOW, why forever weep,
As one who mourns an endless wrong?
What hidden woe can lie so deep?
What utter grief can last so long?
The Spring makes haste with step elate
Your life and beauty to renew;
She even bids the roses wait,
And gives her first sweet care to you.
The welcome redbreast folds his wing
To pour for you his freshest strain;
To you the earliest bluebirds sing,
Till all your light stems thrill again.
The sparrow trills his wedding song
And trusts his tender brood to you;
Fair flowering vines, the summer long,
With clasp and kiss your beauty woo.
The sunshine drapes your limbs with light,
The rain braids diamonds in your hair,
The breeze makes love to you at night, --–
Yet still you droop, and still despair.
Beneath your boughs, at fall of dew,
By lovers' lips is softly told
The tale that all the ages through
Has kept the world from growing old.
But still, though April's buds unfold,
Or Summer sets the earth aleaf,
Or Autumn pranks your robes with gold,
You sway and sigh in graceful grief.
Mourn on forever, unconsoled,
And keep your secret, faithful tree!
No heart in all the world can hold
A sweeter grace than constancy.
The Wreck of the Pocahontas.
Text from
The Atlantic Monthly 21: 126 (Apr
1868): 392.
I lit the lamps in the light-house tower,
For the sun dropped down and the day was
dead;
They shone like a glorious clustered flower,
Ten golden and five red.
Looking across, where the line of coast
Stretched darkly, shrinking away from the
sea,
The lights sprang out at its edge, -- almost
They seemed to answer me!
O warning lights, burn bright and clear,
Hither the storm comes! Leagues away
It moans and thunders low and drear, --
Burn till the break of day!
Good night! I called to the gulls that sailed
Slow past me through the evening sky;
And my comrades, answering shrilly, hailed
Me back with boding cry.
A mournful breeze began to blow,
Weird music it drew through the iron bars,
The sullen billows boiled below,
And dimly peered the stars;
The sails that flecked the ocean floor
From east to west leaned low and fled;
They knew what came in the distant roar
That filled the air with dread!
Flung by a fitful gust, there beat
Against the window a dash of rain:
Steady as tramp of marching feet
Strode on the hurricane.
It smote the waves for a moment still,
Level and deadly white for fear;
The bare rock shuddered, -- an awful thrill
Shook even my tower of cheer.
Like all the demons loosed at last,
Whistling and shrieking, wild and wide,
The mad wind raged, and strong and fast
Rolled in the rising tide.
And soon in ponderous showers the spray,
Struck from the granite, reared and sprung,
And clutched at tower and cottage gray,
Where overwhelmed they clung
Half drowning, to the naked rock;
But still burned on the faithful light,
Nor faltered at the tempest's shock,
Through all the fearful night.
Was it in vain? That knew not we.
We seemed, in that confusion vast
Of rushing wind and roaring sea,
One point whereon was cast
The whole Atlantic's weight of brine.
Heaven help the ship should drift our way!
No matter how the light might shine
Far on into the day.
When morning dawned, above the din
Of gale and breaker boomed a gun!
Another! We, who sat within,
Answered with cries each one.
Into each other's eyes with fear
We looked, through helpless tears, as
still,
One after one, near and more near,
The signals pealed, until
The thick storm seemed to break apart,
To show us, staggering to her grave,
The fated brig. We had no heart
To look, for naught could save.
One glimpse of black hull heaving slow,
Then closed the mists o'er canvas torn
And tangled ropes, swept to and fro
From masts that raked forlorn.
Weeks after, yet ringed round with spray,
Our island lay, and none might land;
Though blue the waters of the bay
Stretched calm on either hand.
And when at last from the distant shore
A little boat stole out, to reach
Our loneliness, and bring once more
Fresh human thought and speech,
We told our tale, and the boatmen cried:
“”T was the Pocahontas, -- all were lost!
For miles along the coast the tide
Her shattered timbers tost.”
Then I looked the whole horizon round, --
So beautiful the ocean spread
About us, o'er those sailors drowned!
“Father in heaven,” I said,
A child's grief struggling in my breast,
“Do purposeless thy creatures meet
Such bitter death? How was it best
These hearts should cease to beat?
“O wherefore! Are we naught to Thee?
Like senseless weeds that rise and fall
Upon thine awful sea, are we
No more then, after all?”
And I shut the beauty from my sight,
For I thought of the dead that lay
below.
From the bright air faded the warmth and light,
There came a chill like snow.
Then I heard the far-off rote resound,
Where the breakers slow and slumberous
rolled,
And a subtle sense of Thought profound
Touched me with power untold.
And like a voice eternal spake,
That wondrous rhythm, and “Peace, be
still!”
It murmured; “bow thy head, and take
Life's rapture and life's ill,
“And wait. At last all shall be clear.”
The long, low, mellow music rose
And fell, and soothed my dreaming ear
With infinite repose.
Sighing, I climbed the light-house stair,
Half forgetting my grief and pain;
And while the day died, sweet and fair,
I lit the lamps again.
Edited by Terry Heller, Coe College
February 2021