Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and FriendWhiting, Lilian
General
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend
Whiting, Lilian
Moulton, Louise Chandler, 1835-1908
DEAR MISS ROBBINS: I cannot thank you enough for these
devout and helpful verses of Mrs. Moulton's. I have read and
re-read them,--every time with new appreciation. They belong
to the great hymns.
It was a pleasure to meet you, and one I hope to have again.
Faithfully yours,
GEORGE HODGES.
_Dr. Hale to Mrs. Moulton_
APRIL 5, 1906.
DEAR MRS. MOULTON: I thank you indeed for the kind
expression of memories and hopes which calls up so much from
the past and looks forward so cheerfully into the future....
No, as life goes on with us, we do not rest as often as I
should like. But that is the special good of a milestone
like this,--it gives us a chance to look backward and
forward.
This note has carried me back to an old friend, Phillips,
the publisher, who died too early for the rest of us. You
will not remember it, but he introduced me to you. I wonder
if you can know how highly he prized your literary work?
With thanks for your kind note, dear Mrs. Moulton,
I am always yours,
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
Mrs. Moulton's visit to London in the summer of 1906 was her last.
While her health forced her to decline most invitations, she still saw
her numerous friends in quiet, intimate ways, and was made to feel
their abiding affection.
On her birthday of this year she received, with a single red rose,
this poem from the late Arthur Upson:
Does a rose at the bud-time falter
To think of the Junes gone by?
Shall our love of the red rose alter
Because it so soon must die?
Nay, for the beauty lingers
Though the symbols pass away--
The rose that fades in my fingers,
The June that will not stay.
I used to mourn their fleetness,
But years have taught me this:
A memory wakes their sweetness,
The hope of them, their bliss.
They are not themselves the treasure,
But they signal and they suggest
Imperishable pleasure,
Inviolable rest!
Among the Christmas gifts which she made this year was a copy of "At
the Wind's Will," which she sent to Miss Sarah Holland Adams, the
accomplished essayist and translator from the German. It was thus
acknowledged:
_Miss Adams to Mrs. Moulton_
"DEAR MRS. MOULTON: Your beautiful little book is a dear
thing. I thank you for sympathy in the loss of my only
brother. I am writing to the publisher for your 'Garden of
Dreams.' I've never read it and now I need to live in
dreams. Do you know Swinburne's lines on the death of Barry
Cornwall? No poem ever haunted me like this. The tone of it,
even in my brightest moods, seemed to color my words. Of
course this must be imagination, but the last lines are so
dear,--
"For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell,
Tho' the dead to our dead bid welcome--and we, farewell."
"Later.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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