Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend — John Shaqi
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and FriendWhiting, Lilian
General
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend
Whiting, Lilian
Moulton, Louise Chandler, 1835-1908
"To this goodly company Mrs. Howe read a brilliant essay on
the subject of Polarity. She commenced by speaking of
polarity as applied to matter, in a manner not too abstruse
for the _savants_ who surrounded her, though it was too
philosophical and scholarly to receive the injustice of
being reported. The progress of polarity she found to give
us the division of sex; and Sex was the subject on which she
intended to write when she commenced the essay; but she
found it, like all fundamental facts in nature, to be an
idea with a history. In the pursuit of this history she
encountered the master agency of Polarity, and found herself
obliged to make that the primary idea, and consider sex as
derived from it."
Another letter, describing a meeting a few weeks later, gives a
glimpse at some of the women who frequented the club:
"There was Mrs. Severance, reminding one so much of an
Indian summer day, so calm and peaceful is the sweet face
that looks out at you from its framing of fair waving hair.
Not far away was Julia Ward Howe, who some way or other
makes you think of the old fairy story of the girl who never
opened her mouth but there fell down before her pearls and
diamonds. That story isn't a fairy story, not a bit of it.
It is real, genuine truth, and Mrs. Howe is the girl grown
up, and pearls of poetic fancy and diamonds of sparkling wit
are the precious stones which fall from her lips. Lucy Stone
was there, an attentive listener, looking the very picture
of retiring womanliness in her Quaker-like simplicity of
dress, and her pleasant face lighted with interest and
animation. Sitting by a table, busy with note-book and
pencil, was Miss Peabody, the Secretary of the Club. She has
a sparkling, animated face, brimming over with kindness and
good-will; she wins one strangely--you can't help being
drawn to her. There's a world of fun in the black eyes, and
you feel sure she would appreciate the ridiculous sides of
living as keenly as any one ever could."
In still another letter are these thumb-nail sketches of persons
well-known:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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