Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and FriendWhiting, Lilian
General
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend
Whiting, Lilian
Moulton, Louise Chandler, 1835-1908
"As we drew near Chestnut street we saw a goodly number of
pilgrims.... Nora Perry, with the golden hair, had journeyed
up from Providence with a gull's feather in her hat and a
glint of mischief in her glance; Celia Thaxter, whom the
Atlantic naturally delights to honor, since from Atlantic
surges she caught the rhythm of her life, sat intent; Mr.
Alcott beamed approval; Professor Goodwin had come from
Harvard; David A. Wasson had left his bonded ware-house a
prey to smugglers; Rev. Dr. Bartol, who seems always to
dwell on the Mount of Vision; and Mr. Sanborn, who had
sheathed his glittering lance, sat near; Mrs. Howe, taking a
little vacation from her labors for women, listened
serenely; Miss Peabody had a good word to say for Aspasia;
and Mrs. Cheney quoted Walter Savage Landor's opinion of
her."
A racy letter tells of the meeting when the Club discovered Darwin;
another deals with the day when Mrs. Howe discoursed of "Moral
Trigonometry"; and yet another of an occasion when the Rev. Samuel
Longfellow was essayist, and all the pretty women had new bonnets.
This allusion reminds one of a bit of witty verse when "Sherwood
Bonner" (Mrs. McDowell) served up the Radical Club in a parody of
Poe's "Raven," and described Mrs. Moulton as,
"A matron made for kisses, in the loveliest of dresses."
The "Twelve Apostles of Heresy," as the transcendental thinkers were
irreverently termed by the wits of the press, were about this time
contributing to the enlightenment of the public by a series of Sunday
afternoon lectures. These lectures were held to represent the most
advanced thought of the day, and were delivered by such speakers as
the Rev. O.B. Frothingham, Mary Grew (Whittier's friend and a woman of
equally cultivated mind and lovely character), the Rev. John Weiss,
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, T.W. Higginson, and Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney. In one
letter Mrs. Moulton writes thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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