In the autumn of 1864 she wrote: "I feel I need to write in these
days, to keep from thinking of things that make me dizzy and blind,
and fill my eyes with tears so that I cannot see the paper. I mean
such things as are being done where our heroes are dying as Shaw died.
It is not wise that all our literature should run in a rut cut through
our hearts and red with our blood. I feel the need of a little gentle
household merriment and talk of common things, to indulge which I have
devised the following."
Notwithstanding her view of the need and her skillfully devised plans
to meet it, she soon sent another epistle, showing how impossible it
was to stem the current of her thought.
November 29, 1864.
My dear friend,--I have sent my New Year's article, the result of one
of those peculiar experiences which sometimes occur to us writers. I
had planned an article, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I
began and sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, an
irresistible impulse _wrote for me_ what followed,--an offering
of sympathy to the suffering and agonized whose homes have forever
been darkened. Many causes united at once to force on me this vision,
from which generally I shrink, but which sometimes will not be
denied,--will make itself felt.
Just before I went to New York two of my earliest and most intimate
friends lost their oldest sons, captains and majors,--splendid fellows
physically and morally, beautiful, brave, religious, uniting the
courage of soldiers to the faith of martyrs,--and when I went to
Brooklyn it seemed as if I were hearing some such thing almost every
day; and Henry, in his profession as minister, has so many letters
full of imploring anguish, the cry of hearts breaking that ask help of
him.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172