Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and FriendWhiting, Lilian
General
Louise Chandler Moulton, Poet and Friend
Whiting, Lilian
Moulton, Louise Chandler, 1835-1908
I wonder if you will like the odd cover? It was ordered by
me in an impulse without stopping to reflect that its
associations to me mean nothing to you. The bit of tapestry
is the relic of one of the oldest and most picturesque
chambers in Normandy, and was given me by a nun who nursed
me through an illness there--in fact I begged her for it
because it is interwoven with a story which I think my best
(not yet finished). If you hold the book so that the light
plays horizontally, you will see the trace of time-wear in
the shape of a [cross symbol]. The fabric was the vestment
more than a hundred years in the service of the church
there, and was worn by the hero of my story--a priest whose
life was a long agony--for a fault nobly atoned. But I must
not assume your interest in the tragedy. Perhaps the
color--which an artist friend borrowed to robe one of his
angels in--may please you. If not, kindly burn the packet,
as it has been consecrated--the fabric, not the book;--for I
owe the giver the courtesy of conforming to the old Catholic
(nay, Egyptian, for the matter of that) rule to burn all
sacred things when their day is done.
No doubt the cover does not look professional. I got it done
at short notice by one not used to my sometimes eccentric
requests and wishes. Will you kindly give it value by
accepting it with the best wishes of
Your very faithful,
PASCAL GERMAIN.
So these letters remain, with their curious suggestiveness.
Mrs. Moulton's memorial volume on Arthur O'Shaughnessy was published
in 1894,--a volume containing selections from his poems preceded by a
biographical and critical introduction. Mrs. Spofford pronounced the
book "an exquisite piece of work, full of interest and done with such
delight in touch." Mrs. Moulton had written with her accustomed skill,
and through every line spoke her intimate sympathy with the poet and
with his work.
Her summers, after the visit to her daughter in Charleston, were still
passed in Europe. Rome, Florence, and other southern cities were often
visited before she went to England for her annual London season.
Often, too, she made a stay in Paris either before or after her
sojourn on the other side of the Channel. Among her friends in Paris
were Marie Bashkirtseff and her mother, and not infrequently she took
tea at the studio. After the death of the artist, a number of letters
passed between Mrs. Moulton and the heart-broken mother.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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