Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and FriendWhiting, Lilian
General
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend
Whiting, Lilian
Moulton, Louise Chandler, 1835-1908
The problem of evil--my evil, yours, everybody's--was not
solved by Him with any reasoning; it was simply met and
overmatched by faith which saw all finite things held in the
Infinite, as all the stars are held in space.
Did sin abound? Grace did much more abound. To that
superabounding grace I commit all our needy souls. I know no
other resource. I need no other.
Not all the sins that we have wrought
So much His tender mercies grieve
As that unkind, injurious thought
That He's not willing to forgive.
As for unanswered questions,--let them rest. They rest while
you sleep; let them rest while you wake. In opening a window
to look out, we shall let in the blessed light of heaven.
How many hearts have found this true! Did any ever find it
untrue? To escape from self-attention is the sure cure of
morbid, self-consuming thoughts and moods....
While you and I are waiting for the sunset gun, what use can
we make of our afternoon except to welcome the sacred
horizontal light, which shows us how our resources and
energies can best be applied to the welfare of others? If in
considering our remaining opportunities and duties, we may
partly forget our own private troubles, that will be
salvation, will it not? We may be sure that all the
happiness we try to secure for others will return to
ourselves redoubled. You would say this to another, why not
say it insistently to yourself.
Faithfully yours,
CHARLES GORDON AMES.
In November her daughter and son-in-law arrived, and from that time
did not leave her. There were happy days in which Mrs. Moulton was
able to drive, although these were rare, and as the winter wore on she
was less and less able to see friends. The last letter she ever wrote,
save for some brief words to Mrs. Spofford, written when she could
with difficulty hold a pen, was one to Archdeacon Wilberforce, and
even this was left unfinished. It was entirely concerned with
religious questionings.
The entries in her diary became few and irregular. There is a pathetic
beauty in the fact that the latest complete record, in the early
summer of 1908, is a mention of a visit from "dear Hal," Mrs.
Spofford. The very last was simply the words "Florence and Will,"
which fitly closed the record which had extended over more than a
quarter of a century.
Hardly a month before her death Colonel Higginson wrote to her that he
felt that in her execution she excelled all other American
women-poets. She had questioned him of death, and he replied: "Your
question touches depths. I never in my life felt any fear of death, as
such. I never think of my friends as buried."
The transition came on Monday, August 10, 1908. On the Friday before
she had seemed better, and Mrs. Spofford, who was with her on that
day, remarked afterward that "It was delightful to hear her repeat her
lyric, 'Roses.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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