Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and FriendWhiting, Lilian
General
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend
Whiting, Lilian
Moulton, Louise Chandler, 1835-1908
In the letters of this period are to be found the truest records of
what most interested Mrs. Moulton and best expressed her personality.
Unfortunately she often asked that her letters should be destroyed, so
that no selection which may now be brought together does her complete
justice. The letters she received, however, reflect in many ways those
to which they replied; and extracts from them may be left to speak for
themselves.
_Louise Imogen Guiney to Mrs. Moulton_
"... On an awfully wild and windy day of last week I struck
off for Highgate over Hampstead Heath, and got so drenched
additionally in the memories of the men who reign over me,
Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Hunt, that I declare
now I must live there a while. Coleridge's tomb I knew to be
under the crypt of the Grammar School, and I found the
Gilmans' house where he died, thanks to the only knowledge
that I seem to have had from everlasting. The tomb is a
queer piece of masonry, so placed that you may put your hand
within an inch of his coffin. After some exploring and
inquiring, George Eliot's grave turned up in the new grounds
of Highgate Cemetery, where I suppose poor Philip Marston's
must be. Her grave is an entirely unconventional affair, to
the memory of Mary Ann Cross. I caught myself wondering
whether there were any special reason for laying that great
soul (here is some theological inaccuracy!) in so narrow and
crowded a space, when suddenly I shifted my position, and
saw that she was lying directly at the feet of George Henry
Lewes, born August 4, 1817, died December 30, 1878. It gave
me a queer sensation, I tell you, for Lewes' marble is half
hidden and not visible from the path. If it were George
Eliot's wish, honor to Mr. Cross for carrying it out!"
"Some agreeable witchery, sure to be transient, is about me
to-day, for I've made a 'pome,' the first since winter, and
patched up a trivial old one,--both of which I send you as
a slight token that I may get out of Bedlam yet. The sonnet
I want you to cherish, it is so abominably pessimistic...."
"I have been luxuriating in 'Atalanta.'... That is my
springtime. There is no such music and motion and solemn
gladness anywhere in modern verse. In a year or two more I
shall know it by heart from cover to cover.... And here is
England knee-deep in green and daisies; England piled with
ruined Abbey walls."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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