3. Once when Greeley was making one of his frequent visits to Mr. and
Mrs. Storrs, the widow of the minister who used to preach at
Mansfield, Connecticut, when Mr. Storrs was a boy, had been invited by
him to spend a week. She was a timid little woman, but she became so
shocked at several things that Greeley had said or written in his
paper that she inquired of Miss Proctor if she thought Mr. Greeley
would allow her to ask him two or three questions.
Miss Proctor found him in the dining-room, the floor strewn with
exchange papers, and having secured his consent, ushered in the lady.
She told me afterward that she heard the poor little questioner speak
with a rising inflection only two or three times. But Mr. Greeley was
always ready to answer at length and with extreme earnestness. He said
afterwards: "Why that woman is way back in the Middle Ages."
When she came away from the interview, she seemed excited and dazed,
not noticing anyone, but dashed upstairs to her room, closed the door,
and never afterward alluded to her attempt to modify Mr. Greeley's
views.
4. A little girl who was visiting Mr. Storrs said: "It would never
do for Mr. Greeley to go to Congress, he would make such a
slitter-slatter of the place."
Miss Proctor published _A Russian Journey_ after travelling through
that country; has published a volume of poems, and has made several
appeals in prose and verse for the adoption of the Indian corn as our
national emblem. She is also desirous to have the name of Mount
Rainier changed to Tacoma, its original Indian name, and has a second
book of poems ready for the press.
When I first met her at the home of Mrs. Storrs, I thought her one of
the most beautiful women I had ever seen--of the Andalusian type--dark
hair and lustrous starry eyes, beautiful features, perfect teeth, a
slender, willowy figure, and a voice so musical that it would lure a
bird from the bough. She had a way all her own of "telling" you a
poem. She was perfectly natural about it, a recitative semi-tone yet
full of expression and dramatic breadth, at times almost a chant. With
those dark and glowing eyes looking into mine, I have listened until
I forgot everything about me, and was simply spellbound. Mr. Fields
described Tennyson's reciting his own poems in much the same way.
Whittier once said to a friend, "I consider Miss Proctor one of the
best woman poets of the day," and then added, "But why do I say _one_
of the best; why not _the_ best?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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