The Story of My Life

I trust that my readers have not concluded from the preceding chapter on books that reading is my only pleasure; my pleasures and amusements are many and varied.

More than once in the course of my story I have referred to my love of the country and out-of-door sports.  When I was quite a little girl, I learned to row and swim, and during the summer, when I am at Wrentham, Massachusetts, I almost live in my boat.  Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to take my friends out rowing when they visit me.  Of course, I cannot guide the boat very well.  Some one usually sits in the stern and manages the rudder while I row.  Sometimes, however, I go rowing without the rudder.  It is fun to try to steer by the scent of watergrasses and lilies, and of bushes that grow on the shore.  I use oars with leather bands, which keep them in position in the oarlocks, and I know by the resistance of the water when the oars are evenly poised.  In the same manner I can also tell when I am pulling against the current.  I like to contend with wind and wave.  What is more exhilarating than to make your staunch little boat, obedient to your will and muscle, go skimming lightly over glistening, tilting waves, and to feel the steady, imperious surge of the water!

I also enjoy canoeing, and I suppose you will smile when I say that I especially like it on moonlight nights.  I cannot, it is true, see the moon climb up the sky behind the pines and steal softly across the heavens, making a shining path for us to follow; but I know she is there, and as I lie back among the pillows and put my hand in the water, I fancy that I feel the shimmer of her garments as she passes.  Sometimes a daring little fish slips between my fingers, and often a pond-lily presses shyly against my hand.  Frequently, as we emerge from the shelter of a cove or inlet, I am suddenly conscious of the spaciousness of the air about me.  A luminous warmth seems to enfold me.  Whether it comes from the trees which have been heated by the sun, or from the water, I can never discover.  I have had the same strange sensation even in the heart of the city.  I have felt it on cold, stormy days and at night.  It is like the kiss of warm lips on my face.

My favourite amusement is sailing.  In the summer of 1901 I visited Nova Scotia, and had opportunities such as I had not enjoyed before to make the acquaintance of the ocean.  After spending a few days in Evangeline’s country, about which Longfellow’s beautiful poem has woven a spell of enchantment, Miss Sullivan and I went to Halifax, where we remained the greater part of the summer.  The harbour was our joy, our paradise.  What glorious sails we had to Bedford Basin, to McNabb’s Island, to York Redoubt, and to the Northwest Arm!  And at night what soothing, wondrous hours we spent in the shadow of the great, silent men-of-war.  Oh, it was all so interesting, so beautiful!  The memory of it is a joy forever.

One day we had a thrilling experience.  There was a regatta in the Northwest Arm, in which the boats from the different warships were engaged.  We went in a sail-boat along with many others to watch the races.  Hundreds of little sail-boats swung to and fro close by, and the sea was calm.  When the races were over, and we turned our faces homeward, one of the party noticed a black cloud drifting in from the sea, which grew and spread and thickened until it covered the whole sky.  The wind rose, and the waves chopped angrily at unseen barriers.  Our little boat confronted the gale fearlessly; with sails spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind.  Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss.  Down came the mainsail.  Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from side to side with impetuous fury.  Our hearts beat fast, and our hands trembled with excitement, not fear, for we had the hearts of vikings, and we knew that our skipper was master of the situation.  He had steered through many a storm with firm hand and sea-wise eye.  As they passed us, the large craft and the gunboats in the harbour saluted and the seamen shouted applause for the master of the only little sail-boat that ventured out into the storm.  At last, cold, hungry and weary, we reached our pier.

Last summer I spent in one of the loveliest nooks of one of the most charming villages in New England.  Wrentham, Massachusetts, is associated with nearly all of my joys and sorrows.  For many years Red Farm, by King Philip’s Pond, the home of Mr. J. E. Chamberlin and his family, was my home.  I remember with deepest gratitude the kindness of these dear friends and the happy days I spent with them.  The sweet companionship of their children meant much to me.  I joined in all their sports and rambles through the woods and frolics in the water.  The prattle of the little ones and their pleasure in the stories I told them of elf and gnome, of hero and wily bear, are pleasant things to remember.  Mr. Chamberlin initiated me into the mysteries of tree and wild-flower, until with the little ear of love I heard the flow of sap in the oak, and saw the sun glint from leaf to leaf.  Thus it is that

Even as the roots, shut in the darksome earth,
Share in the tree-top’s joyance, and conceive
Of sunshine and wide air and winged things,
By sympathy of nature, so do I

gave evidence of things unseen.

It seems to me that there is in each of us a capacity to comprehend the impressions and emotions which have been experienced by mankind from the beginning.  Each individual has a subconscious memory of the green earth and murmuring waters, and blindness and deafness cannot rob him of this gift from past generations.  This inherited capacity is a sort of sixth sense—­a soul-sense which sees, hears, feels, all in one.

I have many tree friends in Wrentham.  One of them, a splendid oak, is the special pride of my heart.  I take all my other friends to see this king-tree.  It stands on a bluff overlooking King Philip’s Pond, and those who are wise in tree lore say it must have stood there eight hundred or a thousand years.  There is a tradition that under this tree King Philip, the heroic Indian chief, gazed his last on earth and sky.

I had another tree friend, gentle and more approachable than the great oak—­a linden that grew in the dooryard at Red Farm.  One afternoon, during a terrible thunderstorm, I felt a tremendous crash against the side of the house and knew, even before they told me, that the linden had fallen.  We went out to see the hero that had withstood so many tempests, and it wrung my heart to see him prostrate who had mightily striven and was now mightily fallen.

But I must not forget that I was going to write about last summer in particular.  As soon as my examinations were over, Miss Sullivan and I hastened to this green nook, where we have a little cottage on one of the three lakes for which Wrentham is famous.  Here the long, sunny days were mine, and all thoughts of work and college and the noisy city were thrust into the background.  In Wrentham we caught echoes of what was happening in the world—­war, alliance, social conflict.  We heard of the cruel, unnecessary fighting in the far-away Pacific, and learned of the struggles going on between capital and labour.  We knew that beyond the border of our Eden men were making history by the sweat of their brows when they might better make a holiday.  But we little heeded these things.  These things would pass away; here were lakes and woods and broad daisy-starred fields and sweet-breathed meadows, and they shall endure forever.

People who think that all sensations reach us through the eye and the ear have expressed surprise that I should notice any difference, except possibly the absence of pavements, between walking in city streets and in country roads.  They forget that my whole body is alive to the conditions about me.  The rumble and roar of the city smite the nerves of my face, and I feel the ceaseless tramp of an unseen multitude, and the dissonant tumult frets my spirit.  The grinding of heavy wagons on hard pavements and the monotonous clangour of machinery are all the more torturing to the nerves if one’s attention is not diverted by the panorama that is always present in the noisy streets to people who can see.

In the country one sees only Nature’s fair works, and one’s soul is not saddened by the cruel struggle for mere existence that goes on in the crowded city.  Several times I have visited the narrow, dirty streets where the poor live, and I grow hot and indignant to think that good people should be content to live in fine houses and become strong and beautiful, while others are condemned to live in hideous, sunless tenements and grow ugly, withered and cringing.  The children who crowd these grimy alleys, half-clad and underfed, shrink away from your outstretched hand as if from a blow.  Dear little creatures, they crouch in my heart and haunt me with a constant sense of pain.  There are men and women, too, all gnarled and bent out of shape.  I have felt their hard, rough hands and realized what an endless struggle their existence must be—­no more than a series of scrimmages, thwarted attempts to do something.  Their life seems an immense disparity between effort and opportunity.  The sun and the air are God’s free gifts to all we say, but are they so?  In yonder city’s dingy alleys the sun shines not, and the air is foul.  Oh, man, how dost thou forget and obstruct thy brother man, and say, “Give us this day our daily bread,” when he has none!  Oh, would that men would leave the city, its splendour and its tumult and its gold, and return to wood and field and simple, honest living!  Then would their children grow stately as noble trees, and their thoughts sweet and pure as wayside flowers.  It is impossible not to think of all this when I return to the country after a year of work in town.

What a joy it is to feel the soft, springy earth under my feet once more, to follow grassy roads that lead to ferny brooks where I can bathe my fingers in a cataract of rippling notes, or to clamber over a stone wall into green fields that tumble and roll and climb in riotous gladness!

Next to a leisurely walk I enjoy a “spin” on my tandem bicycle.  It is splendid to feel the wind blowing in my face and the springy motion of my iron steed.  The rapid rush through the air gives me a delicious sense of strength and buoyancy, and the exercise makes my pulses dance and my heart sing.

Whenever it is possible, my dog accompanies me on a walk or ride or sail.  I have had many dog friends—­huge mastiffs, soft-eyed spaniels, wood-wise setters and honest, homely bull terriers.  At present the lord of my affections is one of these bull terriers.  He has a long pedigree, a crooked tail and the drollest “phiz” in dogdom.  My dog friends seem to understand my limitations, and always keep close beside me when I am alone.  I love their affectionate ways and the eloquent wag of their tails.

When a rainy day keeps me indoors, I amuse myself after the manner of other girls.  I like to knit and crochet; I read in the happy-go-lucky way I love, here and there a line; or perhaps I play a game or two of checkers or chess with a friend.  I have a special board on which I play these games.  The squares are cut out, so that the men stand in them firmly.  The black checkers are flat and the white ones curved on top.  Each checker has a hole in the middle in which a brass knob can be placed to distinguish the king from the commons.  The chessmen are of two sizes, the white larger than the black, so that I have no trouble in following my opponent’s maneuvers by moving my hands lightly over the board after a play.  The jar made by shifting the men from one hole to another tells me when it is my turn.

If I happen to be all alone and in an idle mood, I play a game of solitaire, of which I am very fond.  I use playing cards marked in the upper right-hand corner with braille symbols which indicate the value of the card.

If there are children around, nothing pleases me so much as to frolic with them.  I find even the smallest child excellent company, and I am glad to say that children usually like me.  They lead me about and show me the things they are interested in.  Of course the little ones cannot spell on their fingers; but I manage to read their lips.  If I do not succeed they resort to dumb show.  Sometimes I make a mistake and do the wrong thing.  A burst of childish laughter greets my blunder, and the pantomime begins all over again.  I often tell them stories or teach them a game, and the winged hours depart and leave us good and happy.

Museums and art stores are also sources of pleasure and inspiration.  Doubtless it will seem strange to many that the hand unaided by sight can feel action, sentiment, beauty in the cold marble; and yet it is true that I derive genuine pleasure from touching great works of art.  As my finger tips trace line and curve, they discover the thought and emotion which the artist has portrayed.  I can feel in the faces of gods and heroes hate, courage and love, just as I can detect them in living faces I am permitted to touch.  I feel in Diana’s posture the grace and freedom of the forest and the spirit that tames the mountain lion and subdues the fiercest passions.  My soul delights in the repose and gracious curves of the Venus; and in Barre’s bronzes the secrets of the jungle are revealed to me.

A medallion of Homer hangs on the wall of my study, conveniently low, so that I can easily reach it and touch the beautiful, sad face with loving reverence.  How well I know each line in that majestic brow—­tracks of life and bitter evidences of struggle and sorrow; those sightless eyes seeking, even in the cold plaster, for the light and the blue skies of his beloved Hellas, but seeking in vain; that beautiful mouth, firm and true and tender.  It is the face of a poet, and of a man acquainted with sorrow.  Ah, how well I understand his deprivation—­the perpetual night in which he dwelt—­

O dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!

In imagination I can hear Homer singing, as with unsteady, hesitating steps he gropes his way from camp to camp—­singing of life, of love, of war, of the splendid achievements of a noble race.  It was a wonderful, glorious song, and it won the blind poet an immortal crown, the admiration of all ages.

I sometimes wonder if the hand is not more sensitive to the beauties of sculpture than the eye.  I should think the wonderful rhythmical flow of lines and curves could be more subtly felt than seen.  Be this as it may, I know that I can feel the heart-throbs of the ancient Greeks in their marble gods and goddesses.

Another pleasure, which comes more rarely than the others, is going to the theatre.  I enjoy having a play described to me while it is being acted on the stage far more than reading it, because then it seems as if I were living in the midst of stirring events.  It has been my privilege to meet a few great actors and actresses who have the power of so bewitching you that you forget time and place and live again in the romantic past.  I have been permitted to touch the face and costume of Miss Ellen Terry as she impersonated our ideal of a queen; and there was about her that divinity that hedges sublimest woe.  Beside her stood Sir Henry Irving, wearing the symbols of kingship; and there was majesty of intellect in his every gesture and attitude and the royalty that subdues and overcomes in every line of his sensitive face.  In the king’s face, which he wore as a mask, there was a remoteness and inaccessibility of grief which I shall never forget.

I also know Mr. Jefferson.  I am proud to count him among my friends.  I go to see him whenever I happen to be where he is acting.  The first time I saw him act was while at school in New York.  He played “Rip Van Winkle.”  I had often read the story, but I had never felt the charm of Rip’s slow, quaint, kind ways as I did in the play.  Mr. Jefferson’s, beautiful, pathetic representation quite carried me away with delight.  I have a picture of old Rip in my fingers which they will never lose.  After the play Miss Sullivan took me to see him behind the scenes, and I felt of his curious garb and his flowing hair and beard.  Mr. Jefferson let me touch his face so that I could imagine how he looked on waking from that strange sleep of twenty years, and he showed me how poor old Rip staggered to his feet.

I have also seen him in “The Rivals.”  Once while I was calling on him in Boston he acted the most striking parts of “The Rivals” for me.  The reception-room where we sat served for a stage.  He and his son seated themselves at the big table, and Bob Acres wrote his challenge.  I followed all his movements with my hands, and caught the drollery of his blunders and gestures in a way that would have been impossible had it all been spelled to me.  Then they rose to fight the duel, and I followed the swift thrusts and parries of the swords and the waverings of poor Bob as his courage oozed out at his finger ends.  Then the great actor gave his coat a hitch and his mouth a twitch, and in an instant I was in the village of Falling Water and felt Schneider’s shaggy head against my knee.  Mr. Jefferson recited the best dialogues of “Rip Van Winkle,” in which the tear came close upon the smile.  He asked me to indicate as far as I could the gestures and action that should go with the lines.  Of course, I have no sense whatever of dramatic action, and could make only random guesses; but with masterful art he suited the action to the word.  The sigh of Rip as he murmurs, “Is a man so soon forgotten when he is gone?” the dismay with which he searches for dog and gun after his long sleep, and his comical irresolution over signing the contract with Derrick—­all these seem to be right out of life itself; that is, the ideal life, where things happen as we think they should.

I remember well the first time I went to the theatre.  It was twelve years ago.  Elsie Leslie, the little actress, was in Boston, and Miss Sullivan took me to see her in “The Prince and the Pauper.”  I shall never forget the ripple of alternating joy and woe that ran through that beautiful little play, or the wonderful child who acted it.  After the play I was permitted to go behind the scenes and meet her in her royal costume.  It would have been hard to find a lovelier or more lovable child than Elsie, as she stood with a cloud of golden hair floating over her shoulders, smiling brightly, showing no signs of shyness or fatigue, though she had been playing to an immense audience.  I was only just learning to speak, and had previously repeated her name until I could say it perfectly.  Imagine my delight when she understood the few words I spoke to her and without hesitation stretched her hand to greet me.

Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful?  Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Sometimes, it is true, a sense of isolation enfolds me like a cold mist as I sit alone and wait at life’s shut gate.  Beyond there is light, and music, and sweet companionship; but I may not enter.  Fate, silent, pitiless, bars the way.  Fain would I question his imperious decree, for my heart is still undisciplined and passionate; but my tongue will not utter the bitter, futile words that rise to my lips, and they fall back into my heart like unshed tears.  Silence sits immense upon my soul.  Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, “There is joy in self-forgetfulness.”  So I try to make the light in others’ eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.