Storrov, Ann Cilia*
Utters of Ann Cilia
Storrov to J«r*d Sparks
APRIL.
Smith (x>lK- Studies
in History
P\> -he
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Hill o>I.I 51 I DIES IN HISTORY
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• • :: • : • r • • tinii l.ncf ti.itcn ..n the licl.l i.t Histor) ;iii«l Gov-
SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
VOL. I
OP CONM
<wra Joscphir.
Hcloise Abel
VOL II
AT10N IN
/tn;J.v/u7,.
1823-183 J .Edited by John Spencer Bassett
LUT; /tiiuifl
VOL. Ill
Na 1 IITUTION
C/ttfM
p EDWARD VI /: Charles Diets
STRV OP STEPHEN OF PERCHE DURING THE
.John C. Ilildt
No. 4 ;:HN OPINION OP APPROA< J.owrey
VOL. IV
Harold J.
N THE TIME OP SIR I'ullcr
Na 3. "A STUDY OP T; »F HADRIAN PRIOR
m Dodge Gray
I AYES-CON KLINC C v, 1877-1.^;' Chores
VOL.V
\, 1789- 1J«
•
SMITH COLLfcX.l sTUDIKs
IN HISTORY
KK HASSETT
*KY BRADSHAW FAY
»n
VOLUME VI
OCTOBKR, 1920, TO JUI
NORTHAMPTON, MASS.
PublUhed Quarterly by the Department of History of Smith Collefc
>NTKNTS OF VOLUME VI
No.. 1, 2, October. 1920, January, 1921
•NMMII \ I-'OSTER, LK I1 SEJOUR DE J.-J Kous-
SEAI \ I'VK.S. 1770-17: 1
No. 3, April, 1921
NCR* BRADSHAW BLANSHARD, EDITOR, LETTERS OF ANN
STORROW TO JARED SPARKS. CHAPTERS MI I 185
No. 4. July, 1921
PENCER BASSETT, EDITOR. I HK WESTOVER JOURNAL
JOHN A. SELDEN, ESQ.. 1858-1862 253
INDEX . . 333
VOL. VI. No. 3 APRIL, 1921
Smith College Studies
in History
JOHN SPENCER BASSETT
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY
LETTERS OF ANN GILLAM STORROW TO
JARED SPARKS
FRANCES BRADSHAW BLANSHARD, A.M.
NORTHAMPTON, MASS.
Publuhed Quarterly by the
Department of History and Government of Smith College
95
-nJM
v
APR 61966
;o
CONTENTS
PACE
PRODUCTION 189
I. To THE PIONEER MINISTER, 1820-1823 195
II. To THE EDITOR AND TRAVELLING HISTORIAN, 1825-1840 221
III To THE OLD FRIEND, 1827-1857.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 252
INTRODUCTION*
Among the letters which Jared Sparks carefully preserved,
there are many written in a clear, dainty hand without formal
salutation, and signed only A. G. S. These letters gossip about
notables of Cambridge and Boston : George Ticknor. George Ban-
croft, President Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett. They contain
appreciative criticisms of new books of the day, such as Southey's
<>/ WnUy. and Carlylc's Heroes and Hero WorMf. To
Sparks they carry Boston's opinion of his work, seconded when
favorable and opposed when hostile by the writer, who is obvi-
»ted to Sparks. The reader of these letters feels that he
is being introduced to a delightful community, hut even more, to
a charming, witty person with a keen yet kindly view of the
world, and a beautiful capacity for friendship. Fortunately
Sparks has given us a clue to the writer's identity by endorsing
each letter on the back in his methodical way, Miss Slorrow.
The two were not friends from childhood ; in fact, their early
lives were passed under quite dissimilar circumstances. Ann
(iillam Storrow's parents were both well-born; her mother.
Appleton, the descendant of the Appletons and \\Vmworths of
New Hampshire, her father. Thomas Storrow. an English gentle-
man and Captain in the English Army. Owing to Captain Stor-
row's ill health and lack of business shrewdness, the family led
a nomadic existence. Ann, the eldest daughter, was born in
Halifax, in 1784, but within a year the family had moved to St.
Andrews, New Brunswick, thence to Campobello, and finally,
when she was ten years old, to Jamaica. Each change left the
family poorer and her father's health more delicate. As Jamaica
did not agree with him, he decided to move once more, this time
to Boston, where his wife had relatives. But on the voyage the
s Storrow's letters to Jared Sparks are preserved in the Sparks'*
Collection of Manuscripts, which I have been permitted to use by the
courtesy of the Librarian of Harvard I'mvrrstty. Mrs. Eben Dale, grand-
niece of Miss Storrow. has helped roe by showing me unpublished family
papers, and by recalling family traditions.
190 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
gallant Captain died. Ann, a child of eleven, was old enough to
realize her loss, and to understand something of her mother's prob-
lems. Fortunately Mrs. Storrow was a clever woman. With the
help of friends, she established a school for girls in Hingham,
expecting to be able to support herself and her children. Here
Ann probably had a brief experience of school life, although
years later she wrote that she had never gone to school.
The experience was very brief, however, and terminated in only
a year and a half by the death of her mother. Life must have
looked bleak to the little girl, left without father or mother,
almost penniless in a strange country. Who befriended her at the
time is not known. Her younger sister, Louisa, was taken into
the family of a wealthy Boston merchant, Mr. Stephen Higginson.
Ann may have gone with her sister. Certainly, when Mr. Higgin-
son, after the death of his first wife, married the beautiful Louisa,
Ann became an established and indispensable member of the
household.
Although constantly busy taking care of her sister's numerous
children, and helping her with the lavish entertaining Mr. Hig-
ginson loved, Ann found time for much good reading of poetry,
essays, and history.
Stirring questions of the day probably interested her then as
later. csjK-cially the religious question raised by the growing con-
flict between liberal and orthodox theologians. Her many re-
sources stood her in good stead when, during the Jefferson em-
bargo, Mr. Higginson lost his entire fortune, and was forced to
retire to a farm at Bolton, Massachusetts. Ann described her
feelings at leaving Boston as "perfect anguish."1 But she grew
to love the beautiful, quiet place, and later looked back upon the
five years spent there as the happiest of her life. They were
made happy partly by the joy of a new friendship — that for
Jared Sparks.
Sparks's early life had been one of unmitigated poverty and
slowly lightening dullness. His parents, unlike Ann's, were
poor, humble people. He was born in 1789, in Willington, a
1 Utter of October 7, 1820.
LnTEts or ANN STOUOW 191
small country town in northern Connecticut. Here and on a
farm in New York, he spent most of the first twenty years of his
life, working hard at farming or carpentry, studying when he
could— finally attaining the height of district school teacher. He,
like Ann, was largely self-taught. When he was twenty years old,
a local minister, attracted by the young man's diligence and in-
tellectual promise, encouraged him to go to Exeter. There, and
at Harvard, he divided his time between hard study and
hard teaching to support himself. One of his schools was at
Bolton. He finished his last term there in February of his senior
year, 1815, two months before the Higginsons moved to Bolton.
Just how and when he met the Higginsons is uncertain. That
he should meet them was natural enough. His conspicuous
success at Harvard and his interest in Liberal Theology most
attract a man as devoted to the College and to the Unitarian
Movement as Mr. Higginson. Sparks speedily became the friend
Behold, and particularly of Ann Storrow.
i umstanccs, tastes and temperament all contributed to draw
the two together. Because Sparks was the friend of the whole
family, they met constantly, and on easy terms. Especial
circumstance that Ann was five years older than Sparks may
have facilitated a natural friendship. Further, they found in
each other the combination of similar tastes and different tempera-
ment which makes social intercourse delightful. They enjoyed
discussion so much that Ann could remind Sparks a few years
later of the times "when the day has proved too short for talking
and listening and we have been obliged 'to steal a few hours
from the night/ "* Books formed a chief topic of their conver-
sation, as later of their letters. "I thought of you a thousand
times I believe while I was reading these Lectures,"1 writes Ann,
il for the old talks. To a man with Sparks's literary
ambit n as critic was a friend worth having. She had a
fine mind, a :nind." one of her relatives has called it.
She was so well-read, and talked so brilliantly to distinguished
' Letter of September 6. 1820.
- of April 15. 1821.
192 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
visitors that her nephew, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, grew
up without "the slightest feeling that there was any distinction
of sex in intellect."4 Religion, too, was an absorbing interest
for Ann, perhaps even more than for Sparks. Her eagerness to
ice him in the ministry influenced him strongly in his choice
of that profession, and while he was a pastor in Baltimore she
gloried in his success. "Do you remember once you told me
that I should bear the responsibility of your success in your pro-
fession— since I talked so much and so earnestly to you about it,
and urged you so strongly not to look back after having put
your hand to the plough?"5 Both showed a pioneer spirit in
religion, Sparks choosing to go in the early days of Unitarianism
as "Apostle to the Gentiles" in Baltimore, Ann still inquiring into
theological questions until the age of fifty-eight.
Alike in serious interests, they differed widely in tempera-
ment. Sparks was unimaginative, calm, and so "judicious" that
as an historian, "he found it easy to convert himself into what
Madame de Stael so happily called 'contemporaneous posterity.' "6
He had at the same time a sweet serenity which made one of his
early pupils characterize his discipline as "truly paternal."7 Ann
could never have converted herself into "contemporaneous pos-
terity;" she identified herself too closely with the life around her.
Much more alive than Sparks, with warmer emotions, quicker
preceptions, keener tongue, and more acute sense of humor,
she must have constantly refreshed and stimulated the some-
what prosaic man. She must have piqued his interest, too, by
her changing moods, not always gay, often melancholy. Her
niece's description shows Ann as she appeared to one who
knew her intimately. "In conversing her face was full of sweet-
ness and vivacity, and lighted, up with the spark of genuine
enthusiasm, but its abiding expression was one of sadness. Her
temperament was indeed rather a melancholy one, combined as
'Higgiiuon, Cheerful Yesterdays, p. 16.
•Letter of January 7, 1820.
'Mayer, Memoir of Jared Sparks, p. 251.
f Ellis, Memoir of Jared Sparks, p. 16.
Lrrras or ANN Srouow 193
that often is with much wit and humor, and the quickest per-
ception of drollery in any form."1 Ann'i was the artist's temper-
ament. Sparks's, the scientist's ; they found each other mutually
complementary in disposition, while their chief interests were
identical. What wonder that they were friends for forty years?
During the first years of tl ulship, Sparks tutored at
Harvard and edited the North America* / > Boston, near
enough to Bolton for frequent visits to his friends. When, partly
as a result of Ann's urgings, he went as pastor to Bah in*
corresponded frequently with Ann, making her his chief con-
fidante in times of trouble. She in return, gave him good counsel
and news of happenings in the world he had left. By the second
year of his absence, she had much to tell him of affairs at Harvard,
for Mr. Higginson had been appointed steward of the college.
and had moved his family to Cambridge. After four years Sparks
resigned his pastorate, worn out by ill health and arduous duties.
As he returned to Boston to take control of the \orth American
Review, Ann's disappointment at his forsaking his 'high calling'
was mitigated by pleasure in his nearness. For twenty years
they lived no farther apart than Cambridge and Boston, except
during the periods Sparks spent in historical investigation in the
South and Europe. Letters became only occasional substitutes
for conversation.
They had been friends for seventeen years when Sparks
married Frances Anne Allen, of Hyde Park, New York.
was somewhat taken aback at this step, but she was unselfish
enough to find a new friend in Mrs Sparks, and to rejot.
her old friend's happiness. When Mrs. Sparks died, leaving a
little daughter two years old. Ann grieved for her friend's loss,
and cheered him in his absences from home by accounts of little
Maria's progress. Sparks's second marriage to Mary Cro
shield Silsbee, of Salem, could not have pleased Ann. Sparks
had known Miss Silsbee before his first marriage when, as
daughter of a Massachusetts Senator, she "reigned" in Washing-
ton society. At this time Ann had taken Sparks to task for his
* Higginson, Louisa, Memoir, (unpublished).
194 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
devotion to "a woman to whom common report gives so little
that is intrinsically interesting and valuable, though much that
is glaring and attractive/'9 But when Sparks finally married the
"Star of Salem," he and Ann felt enough mutual love and for-
bearance to preserve their friendship free from strain.
Three years after this marriage, in 1842, Ann and her sister,
Mrs. Higginson, moved to Brattleboro to live with Mrs. Higgin-
son's son, Francis. Brattleboro was a small place then, with
only its natural beauties to recommend it to an intelligent woman
who had lived long in such a centre of culture as Cambridge.
Ann found many good works to do, but she was lonely, and she
loved to write to Sparks about the old experiences she had enjoyed
with him. Perhaps Mrs. Sparks, twenty-five years younger than
Ann. could not sympathize with the older woman's feelings.
Perhaps she heard echoes of Ann's former criticism. That she
was ready to take serious offence at a slight omission is shown
plainly in Ann's letter to Sparks of April 5, 1846. Two more
letters from Ann dated soon after are recorded in Spark's letter
book, but they have not been preserved. Then there is a silence
of eleven years broken finally by a friendly little note of good
wishes to Sparks and his family as they sail for Europe. Sparks
records his prompt reply, which was to be the last communica-
tion between them.
But the benediction of Ann's last little note showed that
silence had caused no real estrangement. Ann was a gallant soul ;
she could not repine at injustice, nor let it destroy the spirit of
her greatest friendship. Sparks could have said truly then, as
he had said fourteen years before, "If ever I had a guardian
angel, it has been she for the last twenty years."10
•Utter of May 1, 1828.
"Adam*, Herbert B., Life and Writings of Jarcd Sparks, Vol. II,
p. 535.
Letters of Ann Storrow to Jared Sparks
Edfedby
FRANCES BRAD6HAW BLANSHARO
CHAPTER I
To THE PIONEER MINISTER, 1820-1823
Difficulty and Success
JANUARY 27. 1820.
. Do you remember once you told me that I should bear
the responsibility of your success in your profession, since I
talked so much and so earnestly to you about it. and urged you
so strongly not to look back after having put your hand to the
plough? And do you remember how willing I was. unlike my
usual feelings, to take the responsibility? Now I ask you if
you do not respect my judgment, or my second sight? Or call
it what you will, was I not right when I believed that you would
make a useful, efficient, and most beloved Pastor, and that in the
exercise of your sacred and interesting office you would be a
happy man? I should be glad if you could read Mr. Taylor's1
to Mr. Higginson*. and Charles ApplctonV which made
"my MTV een wot shod." If the last is an enthusiast. I doubt
if anybody will lay the same accusation against the first, and
your last letter to me. so full of spirit and zeal, was a perfect
joy to me. If I could think that I had had the remotest influence,
it in the concurrent testimony of all your friends I could suppose
ny voice had been heard in favour of your decision. I repeat
again and again I should not think I had lived in vain.
I am very glad you enjoyed so much and did so much good
to yourself and others in your Charleston tour.4 I regret with
you that we could not have a larger and abler Yankee repre-
1 James Taylor. Unitarian minister in Philadelphia, and an old friend
of Sparks,
1 Mr. Stephen Higginson. Mist Storrow's brother-in-law.
'Charles H. Appleton. a trustee of Sparks' church in Baltimore.
4 A trip to help ordain Samuel Oilman as Unitarian minister in Charleston.
196 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
scntation.6 but you should remember how sorely we are afflicted
in all ways, how necessary it is to provide for our own household
before we extend our views so far off. It seems to me we
are in general in as destitute a condition as any Southern state
cmn be, and in some respects more desolate, for our sheep, many
of them, have known the benefit of enlightened shepherds, but
it pleases God to smite the shepherd and the flock is necessarily
scattered. However, you should be thankful for what you can
get and not groan so much because you cannot have all. Have
you forgotten a Baltimore ordination ?e There never was a more
brilliant embassy than that. You are very unreasonable to hope
so much would be done for G. My mind is not half so much
enlarged, and my views not half so extensive, and my benevolence
half so diffusive as yours, and therefore you must not expect
me to be so much grieved in this case, as I should have been had
the same thing happened in the other. . .
I am thankful you have undertaken Ledyard,7 but I trust
you have not forgotten another narrative which will be even
more interesting to me. Remember I have your promise, and I
know you will not forfeit your word.
Farewell. Love from all. Write.
'Sparks wrote Miss Storrow, December 24, 1819:
"Thote who ought to be awake are slumbering, I shall not soon recover
from the mortification I felt, that one minister only could be found
to attend the ordination at Charleston. Had they come on as they ought
to have done, the trumpet of truth might have been sounded in the ears
of all the Southern States." Quoted, Adams, Life and Writings of Jared
Stark*. Vol. I, p. 164.
'When Sparks was ordained at Baltimore, May 5, 1819, the most
eminent Unitarians came from New England to assist at the ceremony.
William Ellery Charming preached the ordination sermon, "his most im-
portant contribution to the Unitarian Controversy, and to the definite
integration of the Unitarian body." Chadwick, William Ellery Channing,
Minister of Religion, p. 144.
f Sparks had begun to collect manuscripts for his life of John Ledyard,
explorer in Siberia and Africa (published, 1828).
Lrrros OF ANN STOUOW 197
The Theatrical Mr. £v<
AMUL, 20™, 1820.
Where are you, and what do you. my dear minuter? N it
your deliberate intention to renounce us all. both of hill and
valley? I am sorry to write you. two letter* for one. but my
has not won you to write me. and my silence does not
provoke you to. and therefore I have no alternative left but
to address you again and "still keep my memory green in your
M.ul," whether you will or not. I have heard of you
sometimes, through Mr. Lee. and always that you are doing a
great deal, that you are a constant and an arduous laborer, and
what is much better and more gratifying that your exertions
carry their reward with them in the attention and love of your
people, and your own increasing usefulness and respectabih
feel sometimes almost willing to defraud your hearers of a portion
of their intellectual food, for the sake of my own gratification;
and I very often think I need exhortation, council and even
reproof as much as any of them. Therefore why not consider
me as one of your flock, whose burden though you are not
bound to carry, still whom you may teach to bear more lightly,
her own.
i have had Mr. Everett8 with you. I should like extremely
to know how he seemed to you. He makes a prodigious noise in
the world, and I think the world is bewitched about him. for
though his preaching is an old story, still crowds on crowds as-
semble wherever he is to hold forth, people are astonished and
dazzled, and their most powerful emotions are drawn forth. Yet
as I heard one of his admirers say only a few days since, it is
theatrical effect. This cannot, it seems to me, this cannot last
long. We are rather too cold and calculating to be led away in
this manner. Everett is a most extraordinary young man. He
holds the web of his destiny almost solely in his own hands, and
who shall limit his power? His ambition is inordinate, and his
means of gratifying it abundant, and where will he rest? I have
* Edward Everett.
198 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
not teen him yet. My sister was in Boston when he arrived, and
I have repeatedly heard he meant to come to Bolton, but I would
rather you should. . . .
Wonders of Niagara
BOLTON, SEPTEMBER 6™, 1820.
I wish with all my heart I could have written a letter which
you might have found on your return to Baltimore, if it could
possibly have given you half the pleasure which I received from
yours. My friends and family greeted me with the warmest
welcome, and your letter seemed to me like the congratulations of
another dear friend, the tones of whose well remembered voice
was lost in the distance.
I have had a most delightful tour. We went, as you will
readily suppose, under the happiest auspices, everything smiled
on us at home, and persuaded us that we never could leave our
household gods with an easier mind. We had every accommoda-
tion which could render our journey comfortable and agreeable;
and on the twenty-seventh of June we left Boston without any
decided plan excepting to see everything that it was desirable to
see between Boston and Niagara. As Mrs. D wight and Catherine9
were both somewhat delicate, we traveled slowly, never going
more than thirty-five miles in a day, and as the weather was at
first extremely hot, we rarely did so much.
We went first to New Haven by a rout which our friends
thought proved our utter contempt for all geographical accu-
racy, for we spent two days in wandering about Rhode Island
before we reached Providence where we might be traced. We
took the Steam Boat at New Haven, and landed at New York
on Tuesday the fourth of July. This circumstance you will
readily imagine did not make this "mart of all the world" either
externally or internally more interesting to us. We remained
however until Friday in order to take advantage of the day boat
for the sake of the Highlands of the North River. We beguiled
' Mrs. Edmund Dwight, of Boston.
Lnras or ANN STOBBOW 199
ine as well as we could by making several little excursions
, one of which was particularly gratifying to us.
our ride to Patterson to see the Passmkk Falls. I dare say you
have been there. It is a wild, but singularly romantkk and
ful spot, and though the stream was extremely shallow
quence of the long drought, still we could form a good idea of
what it was, and what it would again be.
We enjoyed very highly the stupendous tcenery of the High-
lands and landed at West Point at six o'clock, just as the summer's
sun which had scorched us all day was drawing round his bead
a wat< of thin transparent vapours. I never shall forget
the exquisite colours which gilded and adorned the lofty peaks
of the high mountains as we approached this chosen spot, nor the
soft and gloomy light which gave to every object in nature the
magidc of painting.
had ordered the carriage to be ready for us at Fishkill.
and after spending sixteen hours at West Point, which seemed
then, and even now appears to me, like a beautiful dream, we
crossed the River to find our coach. We reached Albany exactly
a fortnight after our departure from Boston but nothing detained
us in this disagreeable city longer than was absolutely necessary,
and on our course towards Schenectady we only stopped a moment
to mourn over the ruins of grandeur and beauty in the Cohoes
Falls, which the drought had reduced to a few scanty rills.
"Alas no more the groves of pine, could in his mirror darkly
shine." We wandered along the shores of the Mowhawk until
we arrived near its source at Utica where we left it and took
another direction. We departed from our course here to make a
tnage to Oldenbarncvclt, to sec Mr. Van dcr Shemp. With
this singular and most interesting man and his family we past
a few very delightful hours. We travelled through a pan of
the state, the settlement and improvement of which increased
in a manner which almost baffles all credulity, to Geneva where
Mr. Henry Dwight10 resides. Here we remained three days by
Henry Dwight. Unitarian minister, then banker, of Geneva, N. Y
200 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
the borders of the sweetest lake which ever spread its translucent
waters to the sun. Here we were only an hundred miles from
Niagara, but as we made a visit of two days to some friends of
Mr. D. on our way, we did not reach Niagara until five days
after we left Geneva. I am not perfectly certain whether you
have ever seen this wonder of the nation. If you have, you know
past a doubt that no words can give an idea of its majesty or
beauty, if you have not, take my word for the truth of the asser-
tion. We were four days near the Cataract, and I saw it in
every possible light, and nearly all times of the day. How can
I describe to you the mingled emotions of ecstacy and awe, the per-
ceptions of sublimity and beauty which filled my heart when I
gazed on this most perfect work. I think I never felt my own
littleness so forcibly, and I can truly say I never felt the presence
of God so deeply. While the waves of an eternal ocean seemed
poured out before me, while my eyes were dazzled by the sight
and my ears deafened by the roar of the descending flood, my
continued though secret exclamation was, what must be the
power of that Omnipotent Being, when this work of his, which
almost annihilates my senses and deprives me of the power to
think, when this is but as "the outer skirt of his glory?" My
dear friend, "it is a sight your eye must see, to know how
beautiful this world can be." It was in vain to suppose that
our eyes could be satisfied with looking, so when our allotted time
had arrived, with slow and unwilling steps, with many longing
lingering glances we left Niagara. It excited in me a feeling
which I am sure, no other thing in nature can excite, and I must
always remember with peculiar gratitude that I have been per-
mitted to feast my senses upon its glories.
In order to redeem one day from the Steam Boat, we went
to Rochester eighty miles on the famous Ridge Road. There
are some very fine falls in the Genesee River which here empties
into Lake Ontario, but they seemed unprofitable and insignificant
to us after Niagara. We were under the necessity of waiting
longer than was desirable for our Boat, and we continued, not-
LrrrEts or ANN STOOOW ~ >1
•landing our high disdain for all meaner things, to
ourselves several hours in watching the little rainbows, which
after all did dance most sweetly and gracefully in the spray
of the Cascade. At length the Boat arrived which was to carry
us to Ogdensburgh.
Our sail to Ogdensburgh excepting the first night in which
I suffered severely from seasickness, was truly delightful. We
stopped a few hours at Sackets Harbour, and the afternoon of
the same day, we glided with a gentle breeze through the Lake
of the Thousand Islands. This was a scene of tranquil beauty
which I would have all troubled spirits to rest upon. Nothing
can be lovelier, nothing can offer a picture of more perfect
repose. We lost all recollection of the wind and waves of the
preceding night and were alive only to the peaceful sweetness
of the untroubled lake gemmed with these islands of the blot
At Ogdensburgh we took a common passage, or as they called it,
a Durham Boat, in which to "glide down the Rapids of the lordly
tide." We were in all about twenty, with a skillful and ex-
perienced Captain and a very stout hearted as well as stout
limbed crew. These Rapids afford scenes of a very different
nature from the one which we had just left. We were prepared
for emotion and high hut pleasurable excitement, and this we
certainly experienced, but we were told of dangers and hard-
in the passage, neither of which could we find. There
was but one lady besides ourselves, and this was a very sweet
young woman from Philadelphia, Mrs. Stocker. However we
none of us could "get up" one single fainting fit, or even a
lulltime shriek, so without any real adventure we landed nine
above Montreal the second day from our departure from
Ogdensburgh.
Canada is a dismal place to me. I never felt happy when
rothers lived there, and now that I remember how much
they suffered during that period, it is to me the very grave of
enjoyment. We remained in the Province ten days, dividing our
time between Montreal and Quebec, and very thankful was I
202 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
when the towers of the City receded from my sight as we crossed
the River for the last time, to go to St. Johns to take the Steam
Boat for Whitehall. We had a delightful sail down Lake Cham-
plain. The weather was as fine as possible, and we had a few
agreeable fellow travellers, but on the whole I assure you the
pleasant cs t hour to me, was the one in which we landed. We
took a very pleasant rout home through Vermont on the borders
of the White River, and through New Hampshire by the Merri-
mack. At length when we had exactly completed nine weeks,
we saw again with a pleasure which can be known only to
wanderers the spires of the "Elect Spot."
Thus my dear friend, I have given you an outline (I antici-
pate your smile, for I grant it is a peculiarly complete one)
of our journey. I shall take the greatest pleasure in filling it up
whenever you are disposed to let me talk to you. When shall it
be? I cannot regret your not coming here this summer, but I
cannot bear not to see you once more in our beloved Bolton. You
are so intimately associated with every scene I have cherished
here, that I shall feel if we leave Bolton without your being with
us again, as if we were 'removing much farther from you. This
very hour of "night's black hour the Key stone" reminds me
of you; for the time has been when the day has proved too
short for talking and listening and we have been obliged to
"steal a few hours from the night."
Thus I go on, saying all manner of things without mentioning
what is yet very near my heart, and very much in my thought,
The Book.11 I have as yet read only three letters, but those
I am extremely pleased with. I confess I did not come to the
work with a mind perfectly unbiased. I had no sort of doubt
that you would make your case perfectly clear to every candid
mind, and I know very well that you never would give to the
publick anything which was unworthy yourself, or the cause which
you support. / knew this, for I have the most perfect reliance
"Six "Letters on the Ministry, Ritual and Doctrines of the Protestant
Episcopal Church." Sparks's contribution to a press discussion with the
Rcwend W. E. Wyatt, Episcopal clergyman and theologian in Baltimore.
Lrrrcas or ANN STOKBOW 203
on your judgment, and it i> no great flattery to tell you to, and
1 «lo not believe you felt much more vexed than I did. at the
expression of Mr. H.'s" doubts and fears. But they arose from
his affection for and interest in you. Mine acts in a very
different way. His leads him always to /far, while tutus \
suades me nrtrr to doubt. As far as I have heard, certainly
among all our friends, the mmrrtal vuur i* in your favour.
When I have finished the book I shall write yon again. I
doubted whether I ought not to watt, but I was too impatient to
tt 11 you how thankful I was for your letter, how I rejoiced that
you had seen my brother and my young sister, how glad I was to
get home, and above all how truly I am your faithful and affec-
ite friend. A.
I beg you would not be alarmed at my long letter, but bless
your stars that it is not twice as long.
Tkt "Book of Books"
BOLTON, OCTOBER 7. 1820.
I dare say you have long before this discovered or been
informed of the opinions of all \ ids concerning the book
of books, and my feeble testimony in its favour can certainly add
. little to your satisfaction. As far, however, as it is of any
value let me assure you how completely it has secured my appro-
bation and admiration. It is perfectly satisfactory to my mind,
and I should think entirely unanswerable. The style in which
> written carries \vith it> evidence the simplicity of truth, and
the spirit is such as religious controversy should always main-
I think you have become a Humanitarian which you know
used to be the object of my dread. I am willing to think you
are right, although I cannot quite agree with you, for I am not
sufficient for these things. Although to consider our Saviour as
a mere law-giver may be to view him with all reverence when by
his law, life and immortality were brought to light, still it
does not quite satisfy my mind. You, my dear friend, are now
Mr. Stephen Higfinton. Ann Storrow't brother-in-law.
204 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
the only person to whom I look to be enlightened on these dark
subjects. Since the beloved guide of my soul has been called
to the reward of his faithful services, I wish to think and believe
rationally and justly, and there are very few of my friends who
mingle so much discretion with their zeal.
The more I consider your book the more surprising it seems
to me, and the more I think of you the more of a moral mi r;u -It-
do you appear to me. You should be the happiest man in the
world as well as the best, for surely you have been preserved
from evil in the very "hollow of his hand," and the angels who
have taken charge of you have guided you to all greatness and
goodness. Are you happy? Do the cares and duties which
multiply so thickly about you shut out the intrusions of sad and
painful thoughts and in the sympathy which is necessary to be
exerted for others, is the acuteness of your own sensibility turned
aside? This seems a strange expression and is a stranger idea,
but I am perfectly satisfied that it is only from such a result that
you can ever be happy. Happiness is a relative term, and many
of us understand very well how far it goes, but surely that sweet
peace should be yours which virtue bosoms ever.
You have heard from William Eliot13 no doubt since his
return. He can tell you of his delight, but others must say how
agreeable and amiable he is, and how very much he has improved.
I have not yet seen him, but I hear this account from everybody
who has. They say he has returned to his home, feeling and
thinking and behaving just as he ought to. I presume they are
to be married as soon as they can be prepared, for Catherine
writes me she is continually engaged with William and Margaret
visiting upholsterers, and giving her opinion concerning Cabinet
furniture. They are entering life with the gayest, brightest
visions floating before them. Will this always continue? Are no
reverses, no unkindnesses to cloud their happy sky ? Is it not ask-
" William H. Eliot, of Boston, a life-long friend of Sparks. He had
just returned from Paris, where he had been studying medicine. His
brother Samuel Atkins Eliot, was father of the future President of
Harvard University, Charles W. Eliot.
LETTEBS or ANN STOBBOW 205
ing too much of humai ;.i-mr that these will never occur?
In about six weeks we are to quit14 our beautiful
hills and vallies which have for five happy years risen and ex-
panded before our eyes. These years have been to me by far
the most pleasant and tran<iin! of my life, and do you think 1
feel no regrets at resigning this sweet open prospect, and rec<
strad (he sands of the desert? I cannot say indeed that the
feeling with which I quit Bolton bears any comparison to that
with which I left Boston.1* that was perfect anguish. I am
sure no cleavage what [ever] can affect me so deeply. I am. it is
true, considerably | older and I have more experience if not more
wisdom, but everything about me is connected with sweet asso-
:is. and I can never think of Bolton without a train of de-
lightful recollections. I should be delighted to see you here once
more, but I should have learned little in the school of this world,
indulged often in unavailing wishes.
Jefferson, and "Other Curiositi
BOLTON, NOVEMBE* 12. 1820.
One more letter from Bolton. and then to launch into our
new world. I assure you, my dear friend, it is not without
something very nearly allied to a pang that I quit a scene which
has produced for me so many simple and touching pleasures. I
am somewhat past the age for the indulgence of romantick regrets,
or I could find it in my heart to exclaim with Gray. "Oh happy
hilU! Oh pleasing shades! Oh fields beloved in vain!" But
my experience and my reason tells me it is after all but one of
the moves of life's great Chess Board, and time will show how
important it is to be. Whether I take a Bishop or a Cast If or
keep a "King in check" it is no great matter so that I can but win
the game at last. These have been five happy years, and it is
not strange that I should have a few misgivings about the un-
14 The Higgiotons left Bolton for Cambridge when Mr. Higginton
was appointed Steward of Harvard College,
"The Higginflonf moved from Boston to Bolton in 1815. when Mr.
Higginson failed in
206 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
certain future, since the past is all that we can call our own.
\\V shall have many pleasures, that I cannot and do not doubt,
but in this sweet quiet Bolton they were within our own power,
in Cambridge it must in a considerable degree be otherwise.
Trees and fields and summer airs and sweet flowers can shed only
kind and wholesome influences over us, but do men and women
always do thi-r 1 tlo not wish to disparage my fellow beings —
very few deserve it — but I really think if we were all angels
xhould be a good deal better off, and I am not good enough
always to be willing to wait the appointed time.
I had a delightful letter from you in October for which I
thank you with all my heart. I dare say you kept a journal. I
am sorry you would not send it to me. No, you need not fear
that 1 should bring Niagara to overwhelm your mountains. Our
travels through the country, like our journeys through life, lay
in such different paths that they are not in the least to be com-
pared, and you might as well fill up Lake Erie with the Peaks
of Otter as expect me to threaten you with my incomparable
Cataract. I saw very few persons, at least we never sought any
excepting Mr. Wadsworth, of Geneseo,16 and Mr. Hopkins, of
Moseau,17 men too remarkable in their different courses ever
to be passed by, they both live within a short distance of the
Genesee River, and have made a paradise for themselves in the
bosom of the wilderness. But places and things it was our object
to become familiar with, men and women we took as we might
chance to meet them. I am very glad you saw Mr. Jefferson,18
I should be extremely unwilling to be within twenty or thirty
miles of his "exhibition house," and not peep at the curiosity,
whether you call it "natural or artificial." He is a plant of most
peculiar genus, but I think he must be the perfection of his tribe,
and I hope I may see him yet. Don't you consider this among
my reasonable hopes? . . .
"Jarae* Wadsworth, philanthropist and educator, of Geneseo, N. Y.
w Probably Samuel Miles Hopkins, Jurist and Congressman. He died
at Geneva, N. Y., October 8, 1837.
"Sparks wrote, while on this tour, (August 7, 1820), "My way home
is to be by the Sweet Springs, Peaks of Otter, Natural Bridge, Madison's
Cave, Jefferson's College, and other curiosities." Adams, Life and Writings
jrtd Sparkt. VoL I, p. 173.
LETTEBS or ANN STOUOW 207
A "Tremendous Unitarian"
MARCH 2Oni, 1821.
Some i: and no very friendly spirit teems to tie my
hands, or at least cloud my understanding when I would write
to you. my dear Pastor. I address you very often with my
iiiiW; and if my pen could accomplish its task as easily, I
sin mid not have left your last and most warmly welcomed letter
so long unanswered. I was excessively disappointed on open-
ing one large packet addressed to me to find it only books
• • children and I could not help saying "could he not write
me one word ?' My dismay however did not last very long ; and
I am sure you would have been satisfied that the time which was
spent in framing the letter was not lost in the account of benev-
olence, if you could have known how much these tidings from my
absent and affectionately remembered friend came like a beam
of sun>hine to my heart.
I do not understand what you mean by saying you "feel
every day that you are rusting out." Has your ambition of
literary eminence increased in proportion as your labours are
heavier? You do more than any body else that I know. Pal-
frey19 says you study twelve hours in the day, that you absolutely
devour books, and yet with all this you use such an expression.
You use it, but certainly you cannot feel that it is a correct one.
Y<>ur n the last N. A.90 does not look much like rusting.
Your Unitarian Miscellany 31 sure does not savour of it. I like
:ttU- book of yours in general extremely. I think most of
the pieces arc calculated to do a great deal of good — to do away
with prejudice and to open the eyes of the unenlightened to the
purity and simplicity of truth ; and if you do not wear yourself
entirely away in the cause, I think you will live to see the suc-
cess of your endeavours in the just and liberal views which will
in the end prevail.
•John Gorham Palfrey, friend of Sparks and historian of New England.
North American Review, with which Sparks had been connected.
May. 1817-March. 1818. and which he was to edit. 182J-18JO.
"Unitarian Miscellany— propagandist periodical published by "The Balti-
more Society for the Distribution of Books," organized by Sparks.
SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
I am grieved that you meet with so much and [so] violent
opposition, for I find your words contantly verifying — "I shall
be t tremendous Unitarian" — are you not afraid that in support-
ing the doctrine you shall lose something of the spirit which is
of infinitely greater importance in the eye of God? Forgive me,
my dear friend, but how can I but be anxious for you under
circumstances in which I would not trust myself for the world,
even supposing other things equal. I know how great the pro-
vocation which you receive, and I know too that I am not cap-
able of being a judge in the case, but in two or three of your
pieces, there is a sort of recrimination, or retaliation22 which I
do not love to perceive. I do not think this is unnatural in the
least, alone and unsupported as you are, I know that it is abso-
lutely necessary to maintain a very high tone, yet may not this
be done without in any degree descending from your dignity?
You will tell me and perhaps truly that I am very presumptuous.
Convince me then of my error, and I will bow before your better
judgment in this, as well as in almost every instance in which we
have differed. Farewell — I have not half done but I shall write
again while you are at New York.
Excursions into Literature
CAMBRIDGE, APRIL ISrn, 1821.
. . . We have had a dismal long winter — dismal, however,
only because long — for in many respects it has been a very pleas-
ant one. We ceased to be in tumult and confusion after we
had been here six or seven weeks, and now I think we have a
more undisturbed possession of our time than we enjoyed in
Boiton. . . .
I have read a good many books this winter which have given
"Sparks replied in the Miscellany to attacks on Unitarianism made by a
Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Doctor Miller, of Princeton, N. J.
Edward Everett's comment on these letters resembles Miss Storrow's, "The
people here condemn your tone in the letter to Dr. Miller as too sharp. I
mm myself inclined to think the cool manner more efficacious," (May 17,
1821). Quoted by Adams, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 181.
Lrrnts or AN* STOUOW 209
me pleasure, among them SoutheyV3 Wesley holds the
foremost place. I don't know what may be your opinion, and 1
liml ve TV !--.v persons who speak and think of it as I do, but to
me it is one of the most delightful books I have read Cor many
years. The character of Wesley himself is inexpressibly inter-
esting, and however violent, mistaken, or even indiscreet his
zeal might sometimes have been, still it was a sort [of] enthu-
siasm, or quixottism if you please, uhich must find a correspond-
ing sympathy in every feeling soul. I think he was a very great
man, and a very good man. and if we had a few like him in this
world, we should not be in such hourly sorrow for the perpetual
langour and lukc-warmness of our holy things. He does, to be
sure, give some horrible descriptions of the effects of his preach-
ing and doctrines and some that are disgusting and almost
ions; Imt on the other hand there are a few which are as
sublime and touching as I ever read, and with all his ambition
and love of power he had the interests of religion as truly at
heart as ever man had; and a life of more entire, and absolute
self-denial I defy almost anybody to show.
I think we have one here14 who in many respects would
make a very clever Wesley. He would like nothing better than
to be the founder of a sect, nor do I believe he would be
particular what principles that sect should support, provided he
prescribed to them. In even-thing that regards effect he might
be another Wesley, but in the spirit which actuated him, Oh,
how mournfully would he fail. I suppose you will think by this
time I am a confirmed Methodist, but you are wrong, while I ad-
mire the Hero, I am extremely sensible to the extravagancies and
I was going to say, the abominations of the system. Wesley
somewhat redeems it. and the heavenly minded Fletcher1* sanc-
tifies it very bad business after all, I do believe.
I have been reading Mr. Ticknor's Lectures on "French Lit-
erature"—and a richer treat I should not desire. It is the fullest
"Southey. Robert. Life of Jokm Wfilry. 1821.
"* Edward Everett.
"John William Fletcher, "the St. Francis of early Methodism."
bridge History of English Literature. VoL X. p. 415.
210 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
and finest account of the French literary history that probably
has ever been written. A good deal of it, of course, can be
interesting only to scholars, that is, the origin of the language
and the earliest part of the history; but when he brings his ac-
count down to the times and names with which we are all con-
versant, nothing can be more beautiful or interesting. I thought
of you a thousand times, I believe, while I was reading these
Lectures, and one or two I perfectly longed to copy for you. That
upon Fenelon is one of the most exquisite Morceaux I ever
enjoyed, and that upon Madame de Stael is written with all the
eloquence and enthusiasm which could be produced by his un-
bounded admiration and his personal knowledge; and yet not-
withstanding these "thoughts that breathe" no one would sup-
pose from what he says that he has had the intimate inter-
course with all Madame de StaeTs family and friends which we
all know that he had. George Ticknor has the modesty of true
wisdom, and the simplicity and openness of a child.
"Mere Hercules"
NOVEMBER 7, 1821.
I am very glad your conscience smote you when you remem-
bered for how long a time my two letters had remained un-
answered, but I have the advantage of you for my conscience
would trouble me much more if I wrote you frequently. I think
it is a very good thing for everybody to have as much to do
as he can possibly accomplish, and perhaps a little more, but
you do so much more than anybody else in this world can or
than you ought, that it seems something a little short of wicked-
ness to add even the mite of one of my letters to the burden, be-
cause if I write, I do not feel quite satisfied unless you answer;
and so that being the case "I now," in true Yankee phrase "sit
down to write to you to let you know that I am well and hope
you arc the same."
My eyes are dazzled with excess of light, I suppose, in this
"my darling Cambridge," (I wonder where you learned such
an expression — / never taught it to you, I know) and most
LETTEKS or ANN STOUOW 211
MTIII dark and cloudy to me, but I hailed jour test
welcome letter as a beam of light, not making the darkness
visible but chasing it far away. I am ten times more sorry for
your disappoint men i with regard to Ledyard's manuscript than
you can be; for 1 had set my heart exceedingly upon seeing a
narrative of that remarkable man written by you, my dear
Pastor, and I am not going to give up the hope yet. Some happy
chance may still \ possession of these precious docu-
ments, and be it sooner or later. I am sure you will never lose
i to make the right use of them. I trust that you
are convinced of what my eloquence has always failed to sub-
>ur obdurate mind that you had better never have
become such a flaming champion for Unitarian IMH You see it
has cost you the Ledyard papers, at least you think so. How-
ever, this is but cold comfort to you, my devoted friend, devoted
to the cause of reason and the dissemination of religious truth.
Go on and prosper, for the blessing of God will rest on one
who so strenuously applies all his extraordinary powers to the
diffusion of light and lib*
Your Miscellany is constantly gaining reputation here — yes —
even here, where so many shocking things have been said and
thought of it.*6 I heard Mr. Cabot last week speak in the high-
est terms of it and you, which to spare your blushes I forbear to
repeat. We all look on you as a mere Hercules, and our little
stars hide their diminished heads, I assure you. when they see
how much more brilliant and steady is your light.
You say we must get you among us. I wish to Heaven you
could be. There is a lukc-warnmcss about our best, I mean our
best residents, which bodes no good to any cause, but least of
all to those of religion and morality. George Ticknor, to be
has been the instrument of a good deal of commotion concerning
"Sparks was censored in Boston "for asserting in hit own local organ,
without consultation with superiors* theological opinions calculated to
disturb the ecclesiastical peace." Adams* of. ril.. Vol. I. p. 183.
212 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
the want of Discipline in the College,27 and a great quantity of
paper has been blotted and abundance of words have been wasted
(I was going to say) on the occasion. Whether any thing will
come of it all remains to be proved. Some people are very
sanguine that there will be a thorough reformation but I know
very well the moral and perhaps the physical constitution of
some of the Governors must undergo a most surprising change
first For my own part I am sick of the name of College which
I iometimes hear exalted to little less than a third Heaven, but
much more frequently hear degraded into something scarcely
short of Pandemonium ; and to tell you a homely truth I find
most of the uses of this world stale and unprofitable. There is
nothing like freshness, and little like feeling, excepting in little
children ; and if it was not for their dear sakes, I think I would
willingly shut myself in a nunnery and close my eyes on the
world and all its busy follies. But children are my comforts and
delights and the longer I live among the interesting race the
more they become endeared to me and the more I am convinced
that they are the only animals worth living for. Unluckily they
have too strong a propensity to become men and women, and
then you know I must cease to care for them if I care for my-
self.
You have undoubtedly before this heard from himself that
Mr. Folsom26 has been elected Tutor. We think this is a great
acquisition to our society, and a very great gain to the College.
Mr. F. is agreeable, and though rather too reserved he is willing
"George Ticknor, Smith Professor of Modern Languages and Litera-
ture, was leading a movement to reform the government, academic standards,
and discipline of the College. He wrote, "But one thing is certain, a
change must take place. The discipline of College must be made more
exact and the instruction more thorough. All now is too much in the
nature of a show, and abounds too much in false pretences. ... It
is seen that we are neither an University which we call ourselves— nor a
respectable high school— which we ought to be,— and that with "Christo et
Ecclestae" for our motto, the morals of great numbers of the young men
who come to us are corrupted" Quoted, Holland, Life, Letters and Journal
of George Ticknor, p. 358.
•Charles Folsom, Librarian of the University, appointed Instructor in
Italian in 1825.
LOTTOS or ANN STOBBOW 213
to talk to those who are desirous to hear him. and are willing
to take a little pains for it. and 1 am one of those.
Tyrant "Tublifk Opinion"
DECEMBBB I. 1821.
Why should you not write me a "periodical journal"? Be-
lieve me there are few people to whom you could do to much
good, certainly no one to whom you could give to much pleas-
ure. Why then should you deprecate the thought of writing
to me more frequently than once in six months? I begin to be
tired of this wall of separation (though to be sure it is not the
most delicate thing in the world for me to be the first to say
much alxwt it). 1 have not seen you. it is now two years and a
half and the greater number of your letters have been printed
ones to me — now, for the most part I like these extremely— I
think some of them absolutely unanswerable and all of them the
product of a powerful and ingenious mind. Since the first letter
to Dr. M. of which I spoke to you in April. I find nothing to
object to cither in the Miscellany or the letters, on the contrary
find everything to admire and to wonder at. Yes. wonder at;
for you know I have told you a hundred times that I thought
you a mere standing miracle, and the more I see and know of
you the more I am confirmed in my impressions. In the first
place you are capable of greater exertion than any man living,
you do more than anybody else, and you do better too. because
you never leave anything until it is perfectly done.
You cannot wish to be at home half so much as we wish to
have you. I should think that was scarcely possible. But as
for peace and ease, alas, my dear friend, where upon the trou-
bled earth do you expect to find it ? It is true you could not be
so "goaded on every side" as you are now, but you know as
well as I do. and perhaps better than I do. the trials and vexa-
tions which attend the most eligible situations in this part of the
world. There is a spirit of entire independence which you can
sustain and enjoy, which is unavoidably abridged here. You are
214 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
amenable to no tribunal, here publick opinion governs with a sway
which is all but absolute, and there is little consistency in publick
opinion. I do not mean to abuse the system of things. But I
do think that a young man can scarcely pass through a more
tremendous trial than to be a minister in Boston, or engage in
a more thankless task than to be an officer of the College.
I rejoice to know that you have obtained the Ledyard Ms.
I think I ventured to prohesy that they would be yours at some-
time, though perhaps I did not expect it would be quite as
soon. . .
Farewell — your little blue-eyed friend29 is fast recovering
her beauty, and her brilliant little sister, Mary Lee,80 will stand a
good chance of rivalling her. I say nothing of my darling
Thachcr's80 beauty, but I have a feeling sense of his weight, see-
ing he has been in my arms three quarters of the day because
he has been sick. Farewell again. There is no house where
you would be received with such a heart warm welcome as ours
and no one who is more truly and faithfully your friend than —
A. G. S.
The "Man of the World"
FEB. 3RD, 1822.
I am sorry my dear "Chaplain"31 that I said anything in my
letter which you feel as if you did not deserve, as too "compli-
menting." "I scorn your words" — I should just as soon think
of complimenting the other Apostle of the Gentiles — so you
may set your modesty entirely at rest, and please to put
my offending letter into the fire, and forget that it has ever
been written. And so you are becoming a man of the world.32
Heaven forbid that you should lose your identity. I entreat
"One of the Higginson children of whom Sparks was especially fond.
* Mary Lee and Thacher Higginson, Miss Storrow's niece and nephew.
"Sparks was appointed Chaplain of the House of Representatives,
December 10. 1821.
•Sparks wrote Miss Storrow, January 20, 1822, "I am drawn into the
vortex here, and you may expect to see me a man of the world,— not the
route being I was seven years ago," Quoted by Adams, op. cit., Vol. I,
p. 190.
or ANN STOBBOW 215
you not to be quite polished before I fee you; if I were to find
you all soft and smooth and sweet. I should never bcJtr
was you, and of course you know half my pleasure in my South-
ern tour would be lost to me. So I beg you would ftmfffifrff
the midst of your refinements and reserve a little of the
nlil Iruvrn i..r my sake.
I suppose Mr. Higgtnson made honourable mention of his
new son11 in his letter t«» you. 'Plough sons and daughters are
not very rare blessings in our house, yet I do assure you we look
on this little new one \\itli \t-ry gentle glances
Gritf at Parting
FARLEY. MAY 6m. 1822.
I fear very much my dear friend, that you. who have so rarely
known what human weakness meant, have found it somewhat
difficult to excuse the display of it which was sufficiently visible
in me the day we were last together:84 nor do I mean to apol-
ogize for it. I have been led to believe that absolute
was not the leading trait in my character, but I fancy I
come very near to the truth if I were to confess that it was the
predominant feeling at that time. I hated to part from an old
friend— even to go towards those who were bound to me by
strong ties — but whose kindness and affection I had yet to pur-
chase by an exertion which I dreaded to make. I wished exceed-
to be a longer time with you. for I was thinking too much
of myself to say half so much as I desired to of you, or your
a flairs. In short. I felt homesick and friend sick if you know
such a disease; and I was afraid to express what I felt, lest in
your wonder at my weakness and irresolution you should for-
get that I aspired to be called your friend.
"Thomas Wentworth Higfinson.
** Miss Storrow saw Sparks in Baltimore on her way to visit her
Samuel Storrow. in Farley. Virginia.
216 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
Dull Virginia
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26rH, 1822.
I once heard you say, my dear friend, and if I remember
right my scanty portion of eloquence was called into action to
combat the idea, that we owed no gratitude for the mere gift
of existence. As is very common in such cases even with abler
orators than I am, I think I left the matter in your mind very
much where I found it and I have only to hope that expe-
rience and reflexion has taught you better things. However
should you still continue skeptical as it regards yourself, I am
sure you will not withold your sympathy with your friends who
may differ from you. Will you not be ready to congratulate my
brother and sister on the birth, or the gift of existence to their
first born son?. . . .
It will be somewhat difficult for me, unless like many
travellers, I can make a good story out of slender ma-
terials, to give any account of my impressions concerning
Virginia since I have never been beyond the gate of
Farley House. . . We all regret very much that you will not
be able to come to Culpepper this season. Though I have always
hoped such a pleasure I never calculated much upon it ; for I
knew you would be unwilling to leave home excepting under
the most favourable circumstances, or in a case of necessity.
Why you had no aid from New England in the Dedication of
the Washington Church is more than I can tell.35 You could
not however reasonably expect anybody from Cambridge, for
the term had commenced. Ingersol's ordination took place dur-
ing the vacation. . .
My brother leaves us tomorrow for Richmond, whither busi-
ness obliges him to go. . . He has been considerably indis-
posed, and we hope the journey will be of benefit to him. In
short, my dear friend, if I must confess the truth, Virginia is a
"mighty" poor place to be well in, but it is the poorest of all
places to be sick in. . .
•Sparks complained frequently of lack of support from Unitarians in
New England.
LCTTEBS or ANN STDMOW 217
"Afr. Norton's Unhappy Forgetful**** of Himtelf" mU Uf.
Bancroft'* Great "Alteration in Mam*
CAMsaiDGE, NOVEMHDI OTII. 1822.
Since you turned from us the light of your counten-
ance, the concerns of our own little world have gone on pretty
r usual course. Mr. H. has not become more re-
conciled to the Bible, nor ceased to rail at the want of real among
our theologians. Our atmosphere to say truth is rather a cold
one, and nobody feels it so keenly as he does, if only from its
very contrast with his own warmth. There is no doubt that
he frequently defeats his own object by the injudicious expres-
sion of his feelings, but he is considered a privileged man, and
Mich, unhappily, may say what they please; for everybody be-
Her* tent ion is good.
Greenwood3* will tell you of Mr. Norton's*7 unhappy
forget fulness of himself and his own dignity, at the Brighton
Show, the rumor of which may have reached Baltimore;
for it has flown like light all over the country. He ought to
•iiat there is but one opinion on the subject expressed
by friend and foe, and that is. utter reprobation of such foolish
and indecent conduct. Kven the account Mr. Norton gives makes
the matter no better. It only proves his utter ignorance of all
the usages of society and his overweening opinion of his own
power. There is no point from which the whole proceeding can
be viewed which can afford the least palliation for any part of it.
It has given the enemy very great occasion, and very just, for
triumph, and it is a thing which cannot soon be forgotten. He
is truly a city set on a hill, and it is a great pity that he shook!
n*r be unmindful of his own true dignity.
- F. W. P. Greenwood, of Boston,
editor at Baltimore after Spa:
Andrews Norton, Dexter • ro lessor of
a strait-laced person. Quick to condemn otncff fof any
(Cf. below his harshness to Bancroft.)
218 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
I believe you were one of the few who liked Bancroft88 at
rst appearance among us, and was willing to look beyond
the strangeness and wildness of his manner to the fine sense and
real good which he possessed. People were not willing to wait
until the delirious joy which he felt at first returning had sub-
sided into sober reason, and took it for granted that he must
always act like a fool. A little experience of him however has
taught these wise ones that they were false prophets, for I do
not believe you ever saw greater alteration in the manners of
any man. He is a very popular tutor and would be an eminently
useful one if he could meet with the least cooperation from tin'
government; but in all his plans he is obliged to stand by him-
self, and the boys are permitted to learn that they are omnip-
otent and may by a petition overturn the "best laid scheme."
He certainly has been exceedingly exercised since he came home.
He has preached two or three times, and you know pretty well
what awaits a young man at his first beginning from his best
friends. But when there is any irregularity in the proceeding,
and any great peculiarity in his manner, you may judge what
he is obliged to suffer from the various animadversions of those
who think the best way to cure a preacher of his faults is to
tell him all of them at once. I am almost principled against
ever telling anybody of his imperfections. I am sure that the
knowledge when not communicated in the most delicate of all
ways must give very great pain and it not infrequently occasions
a degree of irritation which to say the least it is best to avoid.
But Mr. Norton does not agree with me. He wrote a letter39 to
Bancroft while he was at Worcester telling him of all his faults
"George Bancroft returned from study abroad with a combination of
German and Byronic manners shocking to conservative Cambridge, and
particularly to Professor Andrews Norton, formerly one of Bancroft's
best friends.
•Bancroft writes of his feelings on receipt of this cruel letter, "I
was not offended I was wounded. My spirit almost bent beneath it.
Why? First, because Mr. Norton, I had believed, loved me, and I cer-
tainly loved him most sincerely, and now in this letter he tells me he
deems it 'desirable' that I should give over visiting at his house." (Bancroft
to S. A. Eliot April 2, 1823). Quoted by Bassett, The Middle Group of
American Historians, p. 140.
Lrrans or Axw STOEAOW 219
and all the little peculiarities of his manner. Mr. N. told us it
was as friendly a letter as he could write, and that Mr. B. had
taken it amiss, and that all communion between them had ceased.
Mr. II. read the letter however and said that he did not know
how after receiving it they could well meet Be that as it may,
they never have met. hut either that or hit own good sense has
worked a great change in the young man, for now, to use Tick-
nor's phrase, 'he is as quiet as a lamb.' He preached last Sun-
day at Frothingham and was very well liked by many people,
and absolr ned by no one. And this is the way Cam-
bridge folks go on. 1 think a great deal is effected, but on the
hand a great deal of strength is "wasted in strenuous idle-
ness." Ah my dear friend, when you come among us. what a
change will be seen in the face of things; and that you will (not)
come, either sooner or later, I cannot and will not believe.
Discreet Friendliness
CAMBRIDGE. APEIL 20, 1823.
I only now write you a few lines to thank you,
though late, for a long letter which you were so kind as to write
me sometime since, and to thank you too for a short one con-
firming a rumour which for two months I should think had been
••familiar in our lips as household words." On this subject so
interesting to us all and so moment*' ^elf I have not a
word to say. I know you have not taken so important a step40
involving such deep consequences without the most solemn de-
liberation, and as your friend, most firm, and faithful, I am
perfectly willing that you should abide by the decision of your
own judgment, and you must acknowledge this to be disinter-
ested when you remember how natural it is to wish to interfere
with the affairs of our neighbors. You are prepared for a diver-
sity of opinions in your case I doubt not, for on what subject
can people all think alike, but you have a place in the hearts of
your friends here, and an estimation in the publkk opinion from
•Sparks resigned hi< pastorale in the Spring of 1823. bceaos* of 01
health and the difficulties of hi* position.
220 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
which it would not be a very easy matter to dislodge you, I
rejoice to hear that we are to sec you in the season of flowers.
We shall all greet you most affectionately.
A. G. S.
The "Regenerator of Affairs"
CAMBRIDGE, JUNE 15, 1823
. A letter from Mr. Appleton told us yesterday that
you were to leave Baltimore this week for Bedford Springs. As
he does not say that you are ill absolutely, I hope you are doing
this as a precautionary measure. Keep well, I beseech you, or
if you are sick do everything to make yourself well, for we all
want you beyond anything that you can imagine. I cannot but
look forward to you as the regenerator of affairs in our little-
world, where I feel inclined to cry out everyday. "Help Lord for
the righteous fail !" I hope you will not think me lost to all
grace because I quote Scripture, but you may depend upon it
we are all in a dismal state and unless you come and help us
I do not see but we must go to destruction. I do not know that
you will be permitted to assist us by the light of your wisdom,
but it seems to me when the reins of government and good order
are altogether loosened and almost lost, it becomes a matter of
common interest, in which every energetick person should unite,
to endeavour to bring about a better order of things. I know
that Mr. Folsom writes you very often and I suppose you are
informed of everything that is going on beneath our sacred
shades. You will see then how much good you might do here,
if it was only by lifting up your powerful voice against the
abuses which have crept into our best things. I suppose you
will tell me this is moonshine. Maybe it is. I should almost
be willing to have you abuse me if you were only here.
Lrrrztft or ANN STOIBOW 221
CHAPTER II
TO THE EDITOR AND TRAVELLING HISTORIAN, 1825-1840
Caustic Criticism
OCTORER 11. 1825.
1 return your manuscript safely, my dear friend. You im-
posed on me a task which I am very sorry to assure you
impossible for me to perform With all my anxious wish to
oblige you 1 have not been able to read more than half of it.
It has not even the merit of being amusing from its nonsense.
It is die dullest and most excreable stuff that 1 ever attempted to
read and I would advise the author to hill his tobacco and hoe
his corn as much more eligible employment for him.
College Acrobats
APRIL 29. 1826.
I have no great college news to tell you. I heard yesterday
ii Italian instructor had been installed this week. Gym-
nasticks are very much the rage here at present. Indeed we think
ourselves fortunate when we look on to the Delta and see a
it walking or standing on his feet, the head being so much
more frequently substituted. The symmetry of the solid earth
is a good deal marred by the machinery necessary to the "carry-
ing out the plan," and yesterday a gallows was erected for our
young aspirants to climb upon, which I have no doubt is a good
deal higher than Hainan's. It all serves a good purpose, for a
lerable quantity of superfluous animation is spent here.
which for want of such a vent has heretofore expended itself
in breaking windows, dismantling recitation rooms, and making
bonfires.
Rival Claims
FEBRUARY 5. 1827.
Your most welcome and long expected letter, my dear friend.
I received a few days since. I need not say how much it rejoiced
me to hear of your success and happiness, and to find by the tone
SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
-.ir letter that the clouds which had gathered over the bright-
nets of your mind and spirits, and which seemed so almost im-
pervious were all removed. 1- it success that has made you so
0'iiti-ntcd, or has the blessed air of the South had such a delightful
influence? I heard of a strange sentence in one of your letters
lately, the one, I mean, to William Eliot. I do not know whether
it was reported to me correctly, but it led me to suppose that you
found the whole atmosphere south of New York rilled with balm.
I am glad if it was so. I am sure ours was anything else. Every-
thing with us has been frozen with the cold and buried in the
snow but our hearts, and I have sometimes thought mine beat
more feebly than usual. . . .
Ymi are a very fortunate or a very eloquent man, perhaps
both, so soon to arrange your affairs with Judge Washington.1
He who goes so straight to his object as you do it seems to me
always succeeds even if all the graces of persuasion have not been
accorded to him. I do not mean to disparage yours, my dear
friend, but I never thought you were formed for a courtier, and
it is no matter, since without it, you have gained access to the
treasury of Mount Vernon. But in this full tide of successful
experiment what becomes of the North American? If your
attention is divided by another object, not to say absorbed by it,
how can you expect that it will continue to retain its justly earned
reputation. The next number is provided for, but you will be
in Virginia until May or June, entirely occupied. Can you al-
ways have it prepared, and prepared as you like to have it, by
proxy? You will very likely tell me that I have no write [sic]
to ask you such questions, but you are mistaken. I have a
right to ask you any question which involves your reputation,
or welfare, and therefore you must have patience with me, as
you have always been obliged to, and I will endeavour not to
wear it quite out.
Our world has been in a state of great excitement about Mr.
r three years' effort. Sparks obtained from Judge Washington
permission to use George Washington's manuscripts at Mt. Vernon.
LOTOS or ANN Srotaow 223
Channing's New York Sermon.* the greatest effort which perhap*
he has ever made, but there are various opinions concerning
even among his friends. This was to be expected in so bold an
exposition of the effect of a popular doctrine. I wish you to tell
me precisely what you think of this sermon, and indeed 1 desire
much to know what you think of Mr. C. and how far you
with him in the ihtonts which he preaches so openly.
i i< is said to be in advance of his age, and I think this is very
hkdy, for he broaches new if not strange views of a state of
;u>n. liberty and perfection which may come, but certainly
which does not now exist, hut will it ever? Hut u the question,
is he only an enthusiast, or is he a prophet? I remember \-
fectly what you said of Mr. Channing, when five years ago
we were walking together in the Pennsylvania Avenue, where
perhaps you are walking at this moment, but then you were par-
ticularly disturbed by something which he had omitted to do.
and which you thought he ought to have done. I think you must
c seen occasion to change your opinion by this time, and if
so I think you are too wise a man not to say so. Here is another
question.
I thank you heartily for your kind intention with regard to
my "beloved Ledyard." Do not flatter yourself that you will
cnced me when Ledyard appears. Something else I dare
say I shall have to gratify my malice upon. So good bye. Think
of me as kindly and as often as you can. and believe me always
most truly your friend.
Boston Defended
CAM BUDGE. April 6. 1827.
I wrote you half a letter last week my dear Mr. Sparks (as
the title of friend has become hack-nicd. I will no longer use it
to you, of course). Something occurred to interrupt me in the
progress of my work, and accident has prevented me from at-
• William Ellery Chaimmg preached at the dedication of the Second
Congregational Unitarian Church, of New York. December 7. ISM, a
sermon entitled Umtorw* CarfrtM* Jfe* For^Mr * Pie*, sscomd in
fame only to his Baltimore Sermon at Soarks't
224 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
tempting to complete it until now. I am afraid I shall not be
very agreeable, for I am going to remonstrate, not ask questions,
mind you. These, I can answer more to my satisfaction than
you can, or rather than you do.
You abuse Boston in a most untoward manner, and for the
life of me I cannot see why. It is true that I am a recluse for
the most part, and not sailing along the current. I may be in
ignorance of what is passing. It is perhaps then not strange that
1 cannot realize the bigotry, prejudice and narrow-mindedness of
those whom taken in a mass, I have always been in the habit of
considering among the best and most enlightened. Where have
you ever lived, where have you found truer friends, or warmer
hearts, where have your views met with a readier cooperation, and
where have your projects received a more cordial support ? Where
have you been more uniformly treated with the consideration
which is your due, where has your society been more sedulously
coveted, and where might you have been happier, if indeed it is
in the power of circumstances to make you so? I do not pre-
tend to deny that prejudice and narrow-mindedness exist, but
they are the exceptions not the rule. Think better and more
kindly of us then, and if you do mean to leave us, at least give
us your parting blessing.
Danger to the North American
One reason why I have not written you sooner is because I
was desirous to hear the publick sentiment with regard to the
New Quarterly.8 I have not yet been able to read it myself, but
I hear the most agreeable report of it from all sources. It is
exceedingly popular and although I have not learned what patron-
age it has received here, yet I doubt not it is very considerable.
"Where, where is Roderick now?"
The North American has come out, and it is found to be
much less entertaining than Walsh's book. Now / for one cannot
but consider it a very unlucky circumstance that this number
' Amsrican Quarterly Rniew, edited by Robert Walsh.
LcTTtts or AN* Sroaaow -'-'
should not be i brilliant one. I am not afraid that the
id decrease, the world is so much governed by caprice, that
I should not be surprised if this should occasionally be the case
even when no other novelty is present; but you are away— r
to deny that this makes a very strong reason why the work
should lose something, and your time and thought* and the
energies of your soul are devoted to another object, a great and
noble and glorious one indeed, that \ believe no one will venture
to deny; but still that object is not the N. A. and all the wise,
la, and the friends of the work unite in
to make it what it should be, and to give it the
ii it ought to have, the work should receive the
attnition of the Editor. My dear friend, give the N. A. up if
you please, and devote yourself to whatever object you think
of more importance, or of greater national interest ; but 1
you do not sutler it to lose its well deserved fame in your
I feel a great deal on the subject for you, or I should not venture
to express what I now do at the risk of offending you. but 1
would rather peril the regard which it has been my pride and
pleasure to believe you have entertained for me, than that you
should not be true to yourself and to your reputation as an
or Editor.
1 have read Mr. Greenwood's4 beautiful Review with very
great and peculiar pleasure. I thank you for giving me the key
As to your heresy with regard to the Rev. Dr., I think I
HUM leave you to your unbelief, for I should gain little 1
dcavouring to convert you.
I have not much to say with regard to myself. I go along
much in the usual manner, not very strong either in soul or body,
not very good and not very bad. I suppose some "honest chroni-
tells you all the news, and it will be an old story when you
receive my letter, that Tom Lee is engaged to Elira Back-
er! "Oh tell it not in Gath. nor let the sound thereof reach
'Greenwood reviewed two collections of poem*. The Atlantic Sou-
venir" and 'The Memorial" for the Nortk Amtnem frvtrw. Vol. 21
p. 228, 1827.
226 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
Askalon!' If you have not heard it, you will be less surprised
At the news than many of Eliza's nearest friends, for it was
managed so very adroitly that no mortal, not even Miss Lowell
who lived in the house, had the least suspicion that the business
was in agitation. The world is much pleased with the match,
and if he likes, and she likes, who shall say them nay?
Farewell! I am always most truly your affectionate friend.
Charm of Flattery
MAY 20, 1827.
It is in vain to deny the fact, flattery is a very pleasant thing;
by its sweet influence we are enabled to swallow many a bitter
draught from the cup of life, and the worst wish I have for the
man or woman who enveighs against it is that they may never
have a friend who can administer it, in the proper manner. This
will l>c punishment enough. Such was the spontaneous feeling of
my heart, my dear friend when I read your letter ; the idea that
my "eloquence had quite disarmed you, and that from henceforth
you -would love Boston in spite of yourself," was so delightful
from you, who "never insinuated to man or woman that they
were finer people than they really were," that though in conscience
I did not believe a word of it, yet I was good natured one whole
day in consequence, and this is no small thing for a poor soul who,
like me, am confined to the region of the very most withering
wind that the east ever poured forth. And to receive praise, when
I dreaded wrath, wrath, not so much directed against my own
oted head, to be sure, but poured unspairingly on that un-
grateful community who were always taken with a new thing and
had neither sense nor taste enough to understand and enjoy fine
ideas clothed with proper words. I am most agreeably disap-
pointed, and I thank you with all my heart, and I am not un-
mindful of my obligation to the three kind friends who were
before me to propitiate you. After all, however, I still hold to
my opinion that the Quarterly is a popular book, and I have
heard it from so many sources that it is idle to say any contrary
thing. That however, is of no consequence, on the contrary it
LCTTEBS or ANN Srotaow 227
is very well that it should be to. I have no sort of objection
that two stars of brilliancy should appear in the literary hemi-
sphere, only let the North American be Lord of the Ascendant
You know vr that 1 never for an instant doubted your
power to accomplish anything you chose, all I desire is that it
may be made apparent to other people; and now I have
with this pan of my discourse, and since you are not
tny earnestness, I will not regret what I have written.
11 are in Paradise1 you say. I am glad of it I am %
and I am almost ready to believe it. since any place may be
Paradise on earth which is sheltered from East wind and free
from the eternal causes of dissent ion and excitement which make
MU h shipwreck of the peace of quiet-loving people. Men, women,
and children are all plagues, and yet I do not see how one can
long alone. One is sick, another is wicked, some talk
too much and others talk too little— people will be happy or
.iMc in their own way. and do what you can to
them that yours is unquestionably the best, you prevail nothing
with all your eloquence. Now are not these sufficient
of dissatisfaction ? From these you are happily preserved
sable friends may quarrel or love, may fight or dance, and what
does it signify to you? So that your food is arranged with due
regard to time and order, and your horse caparisoned at the
appointed hour. You are rather better off than if you had Eve
with you.
Our President is very >r several weeks he has
fered the most agonizing pain in his head, which was supposed
to be rheumatick. It has been necessary to reduce him in every
possible way. by bleeding, medicine and starvation ; and today I
have heard that his disease is probably a tendency of blood to
the head. He is however somewhat better, although the pain
is not removed. It is an awful consideration for those to whom
ie is valuable, for it involves [the] absolute necessity of a
degree of caution and abstinence which we all know will be the
very most difficult lesson which he can ever learn. The scandal
•Mt Vernon, where Sparks was at work on the W
SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
emus [erics] insinuate that the lady of his heart is in despair, but
I cannot tell how this may be. I should think the very idea that
such a lady laid claim to him was quite enough to make the
President sick.
The Steward is as usual absorbed in the promulgation of the
good word. What a pity you have looked back from the plough.
What a field is opened to you! Farewell, my dear friend! I long
to see you, and I am always truly yours.
Bon Voyage
DECEMBER HTH, 1827.
I was too much impressed with the idea that it was the last
time I was to see you for an indefinite time,6 to be able to say
more words to you than were absolutely necessary, my dear
friend, when you were in Cambridge. I am thankful you are
going because you desire it, and because your duty as well as
your pleasure and improvement will be promoted by this ar-
rangement. Yet I am not so disinterested as not to regret your
absence more than I can express. It is in vain to ask why it
should make any difference whether you are in Washington or
Mount Vernon during the next ten or twelve months, or whether
the wide ocean rolls between us. Depend upon it the feeling is
a very different one. Of this however it is not worth while
to say anything. Neither is it necessary for me to tell you how
much I shall miss you, nor how often "my thoughts will follow
you to distant lands o'er foaming seas." Mementoes are I know
rather useless things to those who can remember their friends
without, but I shall feel very much pleased if you will put my
"persevere" pencil case into your pocket and use it while you
are absent. I shall then have the gratification of thinking that
I can be associated with something that is useful to you.
And now farewell ! my dear and excellent friend ! The God
whom we both love and trust, will, I earnestly believe, preserve
you safe through all perils and dangers, and return you unharmed
'On March 24, 1828, Sparks sailed for Liverpool for a year's study
abroad.
or ANN STOUOW
to be a blessing and honour to your friends and your country.
We cannot indeed tell what a day may bring to pas*, and if
before another year closes, I should be laid in my narrow house.
should my senses be spared it must always be a delightful recol-
lection to me that 1 have enjoyed your friendship for so long a
and that it is but interrupted here to be renewed to a purer
state of existence. You will, I hope, write me
from the South. Think of us all as well and kappy performing
iily «lm> with alacrity and pleasure, willing to gather the
flowers which adorn our path, and not utterly dismay(ed) if we
omc lurking thorns. Is not this philosophy, better than
that, is it not religion?
Farewell again. God bless you, and keep you with his own
1 am ever most faithfully and affectionately
Yours,
A. G. S.
Captwe of a "Reigning BflU"
CAMBRIDGE, MAY lsr.1828.
I almost envy you the surprise and pleasure you will feel to
see your Yankee friends, my dear North American, and alt ho*
you will be sorry for the occasion. I think sorrow will scarcely
be the predominant feeling. When you are in Europe, you may
perhaps be willing to imagine that Boston is your home even
Boston, that place of narrow coldness and prejudice and your
heart may warm towards the headquarters of good principles
when you have near you in your exile such interesting represent*-
tives of those you have left behind. They go in full hope of
receiving both health and pleasure, and I think Mr. Norton is
ii a state to obtain both by a sea voyage and change of air
and scene. I cannot tell you how great the privation is to me just
now. Mr. H. and my sister have been absent a month, and no
day of that time has elapsed that I have not spent a considerable
pan of it with Mrs. Norton. This has made me feel her value
more sensibly, and though six months when it has past seems
almost nothing still the moments lag deplorably
230 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
their passage. I do not however mean to complain. It matters
little whether time's wings are tipt with feathers of the bird of
Paradise. So that his progress is marked by undeviating duty
we shall arrive at the desired haven at last. I have been and
still am exceedingly desirous that our friends should make this
voyage, and I doubt not the happiest results for both. You have
been at sea thirty-eight days or rather it is so long since you
have left New York. I trust before this you have reached your
resting place. You see I count the days.
Mr. H. and my sister are enjoying themselves very much in
their Southern tour, my last letter was from Baltimore. They
seem very fully to appreciate the value of the "happiest home
you ever had."7 They remained there nearly a week. The Ordi-
nation8 was a very splendid affair, and altho Mr. Walker did
not exceed himself, still he must always be more striking and
powerful than almost anybody else. Louisa is in great admira-
tion of Nancy Williams. I scarcely believed that she would
admire her so much. Her fine powers of mind, her sweet-
ness, grace, and dignity of manner, and the simplicity of her
character and feelings are constant themes of her praise.
Your spirit seems instinct at Baltimore, and I am sure no
other mortal ever so gifted can make your place good. Certainly
not the Pastor they have been obliged to choose; but my dear
friend there are some reports of you which do not rest in
Baltimore, for they are currently talked about in New York and
are believed by many persons in our colder climate. They say
you have so far forgotten the severe simplicity of your character
as to make one in the motley group to bow before the Altar of
Fashion; that you have laid your hardly earned laurels on the
shrine of Folly and Vanity, that, not contented with these sac-
rifices, you have even rooted up the trees of the Sacred Groves
to ornament the Idol. The Star of Salem I think is Lord of the
Ascendant everywhere, but I must say it gave me a sore feeling
1 The home of Mr. Amos A. Williams, with whom Sparks lived while
in Baltimore.
•The Ordination of George Washington Burnap, Sparks's successor.
Lrrrtas or ANN Stotaow 231
I heard that you must be one of the worshippers of Mis*
S.,» of a woman to whom common report gives so very little
that is intrinsically interesting and valuable, though so much that
is glaring and attractive. 1 hate to think that you are ssssiahlt
through your vanity. Now 1 am perfectly aware that this it a
harsh phrase and I doubt not will make you angry with me. but
i will examine your own heart, you will perceive the truth
of what I assert. I doubt not the lady has a great deal of talent.
and powtr she must have. This I hear from every source. But
her thirst for display and admiration is so utterly msatJahle
ads her I verily Micvc to sacrifice for the sake of it
much that i> lovely and beautiful in a woman's character — prop-
uhich y»u my susceptible friend, love and admire as
miu-h as anybody when you have the clear possession of your
faculties. A year of absence and change will do much to cure
you of your fever of the brain. I do not speak of all this as
. Nation of propriety or good feeling, but I always dislike
to sec you whom I set so high, descend from your elevation, and
I trust you will forgive me for supposing you superior to common
weakness, or to the enticements of common va ou would
think it strange that I could a such a strain as this to
you. if you know how much I felt at the receipt of your last kind
and most affecting letter ; believe UK- I realize in my inmost heart
all that it contained, and this is the principal reason why I say
what may chance to offend you. Thinking so highly as I do of
your powers and character, and loving you so affectionately. I
cannot bear to have you do anything which leads the enei
triumph. I cannot bear to have you let a reigning Belle lead you
captive.
Of the small doings, and very great results of your friends
the Corporators, I leave Mr. Norton to give you the **T*n*ff
I think you will believe we are in a strange state. For my pan it
seems to me when I look over to the College that I am con-
templating the return of chaos. The blackness of
•Miss Mary Crowninshield Silabee. daughter of the Honorable
Silsbcc. Massachusetts Senator, became Sparks't second wife » WJ9.
232 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
on all the affairs of Alma Mater, and where the light is to come
from I cannot divine. It is dismal to see the President's house
shut up, but it is more dismal to remember what the reason is.
We all think however that these proceedings have had the effect
of an electric shock on Dr. Kirkland's mind, for he seems to have
wakened from his lethargy to a greater degree of brightness and
vigour than I ever expected to see in him. We are all well, and
as happy as circumstances will allow us to be. . .
As for myself, my dear friend, I have very little to say. I
am the same dull woman that you have always known — very
keen to see faults, and not over prone to avoid them — yet min-
ing to the kindness of my friends for patience in the first and
benevolent blindness in the last. But under all circumstances
and at all times I am most faithfully and affectionately yours.
Elections — Academic and Otherwise
AUGUST 30, 1828.
You will long before this, my dear North American, have
received my letter by Mrs. Norton, and if I have not offended
you beyond all terms of reconciliation, you will not I know be
sorry to hear from me again. When I accuse a man of vanity,
if he knows himself lie will accede in a degree to the charge, and
the burden of proof remains with me after all, who in the folly
of my heart expected to see a son of Adam without. So thus
we stand, when I again hear that you have been carried captive
by the flattery so skillfully administered of another irresistible
I shall merely say with the good book "the creature is made sub-
ject to vanity not willingly" perhaps. . .
You wrote me a delightful letter, and I was truly thankful
to receive it. It was just what I desired to know, all about your-
self and your own doings. If I could have such a one every
month I know I should be much happier. But I never expect
what is impossible, and therefore I shall be perfectly contented
with what I can obtain. You have brought the beautiful country
of England before me, and have realized all my dreams of the
Lamas or AMV Sroaaow 2JJ
land of my Father's." You need not believe thai 1 shall caB
love of daisies And primroses, and viol'
rniixl cannot be deeply sophisticated which can be taken from it-
self by the love of flowers, and I Micve a heart cannot be far
from God when it is willing to open itself to the twee
i his small but beautiful works are ifftigntil to
We are in the midst of our summer vacation. The "Praa-
i! question"11 is not talked about, and the Corporation are
left at liberty to do their own work in their own way. Either
to have no President, giving the new and striking spectade of a
body without a head, or by delay to prepare the publick mind for
the admission of Mr. Ticknor (which has been said) or by the
•n of some new and unlocked for Candidate, to penetrate
every incredulous one with wonder and admiration, how this
may be I neither know nor care. It will be all the same to me.
i ii time elections of another kind have been inrcfai
fully carried on in our town of Cambridge; for instance Mr.
Farrar12 has chosen Miss Patch, the celebrated, as his adjunct
Professor for life, without asking consent of the Corporation.
Kollen" (he >inks the LL.D.) has persuaded Miss Kliia
Cabot to assist him in the instruction of the youth of the Uni-
versity and the Theological Institution, without laying his case
before the Faculty, and our own Francis.14 without saying a
word to the Medical Society, has chosen his cousin Susan Chai-
ning to be the Doctor's mate.
I have taken a small sheet of paper that I might not be
tempted to write you too long a letter, but I know I shall not
say half the things I desire to. There is no use in my being
sentimental and telling you how much I mist you this summer,
for you and summer are somehow associated in my mind. You
have been gone four months. I trust the time of your absence
"Miss Storrow's father. Captain Thomas Storrow. was an
lubject.
ruling a successor for President Ktrkland
•John Farrar, Hollis Professor of Mathematics and
"Charles Pollen. Instructor in German.
M Francis Higginson.
254 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
is half gone. This is a lovely evening after a very hot day (July
29th), the sun has set — but his parting beams are still seen in
those crimson and golden clouds which we have so often seen
from our western piazza, and as the shades grow deeper and
deeper until almost nothing is left but a dark line against the
^k\. I cannot help wishing you were here that I might say in-
stead of write Farewell !
"The World"
DECEMBER 1, 1828.
. A part of your letter I must confess has troubled
me more than was on the whole worth while. I do not
understand how I came to mention the words "vanity, young
lady" and above all the unpardonable word "world," a second
time, when I was sorry enough that I ever said anything on the
subject. I suppose that I entirely forgot what I had written
and with the "inconsequence" which usually, or rather, some-
times, attends me, said it all over again. I certainly have no
particular 'charge' to bring against the young lady whom you
confess yourself so much interested in. I never saw her, and
probably never shall, unless — . If she is as admirable as you
think I could not withold my homage from her and certainly I
never should wish to. When I used that terrible word "World"
which has given such high offence, I thought you might pos-
sibly understand that the world contained some of your best and
dearest and most honoured friends, whose names I did not on
the whole care to put into my letter. But the world! Strictly
speaking, do you think I care for the world? The world! What
has it given me? Alasl what can it give anybody? But this is
nothing to the purpose. Let "vanity" and all the disagreeable
thoughts the subject has given rise to be at rest between us, my
dear friend. I should feel too much grieved to think that any-
thing could disturb our good understanding.
I rejoice that you have with all your difficulties and hard
work had so much enjoyment in France. I doubt not that it is
the very Paradise for a citizen of the world, and you will prob-
Lrrrns or ANN STOUOW 235
ably always find it so. until you want die comfort* and
1 1 arc never to be found there.
We all go on in the full tide of successful fi|ffHfTrt in dm-
I • . I • . \\ « h^M»AAA***Ai*4 a?^ — ^ m m9 , . «a, • • ^ • - *•* — a a _ I
oriage. we are excessively literary, excesatveiy CBaflOBM, and
excessively useful. Since Mrs Pollen dawned upon us. a most
extensive Sunday School has been established which pots poor
Dr. Holmes all to naught. The Chapel young Ladies, headed
by Mrs. F.— with one or two Village Ladies, and several
theologians headed by Dr. Pollen, arc the teachers. It
a "great « nt," or as my wicked sister says, it b a
mcndous engine." It amuses and occupies the teachers and fives
them a pleasant topick of conversation, and it may do tome good
to the children who have no domcstick altars to surround. At any
rate it is an innocent gratification to us all. Then, an Infant
School was established last summer in Boston, and we are all
exceedingly engaged in getting up a fair, for the benefit of the
Infants, as it originated in Mrs. Higginson. who, when she was
at the South last spring, was let into all the mysteries of the
ess. The Cambridge ladies are busy in the matter, and
in the intervals of the meeting of Sunday-teachers select parties
of ladies and gentlemen meet and work for the fair. The young
Thcologues are publishing a small "Offering." (as their book is
to be called) for the benefit of the fair. And now I think you
\\ ill acknowledge that we are not likely to stagnate for want of
excitement ' I assure you it is high fun for me, who sit
in my Ming corner from morning until night, doing what my hands
find to do, but neither reading, nor teaching, nor writing, nor
working for the i
What do I think of your going to Timbucto?'* Just as I
did ten years ago, my dear friend. When you have the sweet and
consoling alternative of "resigning your mortal tenement to that
beautiful city of the dead Pere la Chaise." I cannot imagine
how you can think for a moment of leaving your bones to bleach
" Sparks had wanted to explore Africa since the lommer of 1812. He
had once tried unsuccessfully to have the African Society of
him on a voyage of discovery.
236 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
in the Great Desert, or if perchance a feeble member of your
party should have strength left to cover them, to merit that your
epitaph should run thus. "I was following a career most happy
to myself, most extensively useful to others. I was drawn away
by a flattering illusion, and here I lie, a victim to folly and for-
lorn hope." Now do you not think this would be a capital
epitaph? I assure you it is quite impromptu.
The Quincy Invasion
JANUARY 23, 1829.
The months and weeks and days go off wonderfully fast,
my dear friend, whether one is sick or well, happy or miserable,
so fast, that while I was writing the date of my letter I was
obliged to pause in order to remember what was the year. . .
I heard of you at La Grange,16 the other day, by your letter to
William Eliot, which to be sure I did not see, but I was very glad
to know how highly you were enjoying yourself. You really
believe La Fayette17 a great man! A great memory he certainly
has, and at any rate it is most useful to you and I am thankful
you have the privilege of using it to your advantage. How rich
you will be when you come home!
What do you think of our new President?18 I dare say his
election gave you as much surprise as it did us, or him. I do
not know whether I can use a stronger term, for he told me the
other day that he thought it was the strangest thing in the world
that without any new reason, (this year) he should have been
put out of the Mayoralty and have been put into the Presidency
was such a surprise to him that it was still the uppermost feeling
in his mind, what it could all mean. I believe the Corporation
have chosen him because they could not choose Mr. T. ; for the
publick would not swallow such a portion by any means, and they
had reasons of their own for not choosing another man who was
•Lafayette's home.
* Sparks visited Lafayette at Lagrange in the fall of 1828.
"Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, 1823-1828; President of Harvard,
1829-1845.
LrrnM or Ax* Sroaaow
much more fit ; and to they saw fit to choose a middle on.
expected would fall in with all their plant of ref<
all the various schemes which occupy their work-shop brains;
and if they have not caught a tartar. I am much m*ftfVr* 1 be-
lie vc Mr. Quincy is a high-minded honourable. imWprndes*
man, and I do not believe he will follow anybody's lead He
lacks judgment they say. and the poor man is subject to fits of
abstraction, and occasionally he is taken with a metaphor, where-
lie gets stuck. But what of all that ? He is very haniiiosns,
and remarkably agreeable, and as honest as the day. Is he not
fit for President, with these qualifications?
Then Mrs. Q. and all the young Q's; think what golden days
are preparing for us. Tom Lee said the other day. when he
heard that Mrs. Charming and her daughters were coming to
Cambridge to livr. you will soon become too strong for us/* bat
how will it be now ? I should advise the owners of the Charles
idge to sell their shares as soon as possible. Boston
will soon be such a small concern to us. that I expect grass will
grow on the causeway Mrs. Farrar, and Mrs. Pollen, and Mrs.
Norton. Mrs. Channing and Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Folsom. and
your interesting friend Miss Lowell, beside a good many stars
of more feeble radiance, form such a galaxy of brilliant orbs,
that we never need look beyond it for light or heat. It was rather
a doubtful matter at first how our three Queens, Mrs. Norton,
Farrar and Pollen, would manage to reign in the same age. and
under the same influences, but the nutter has most amicably been
adjusted. Their paths are very distinct, and there never has been
the least symptom of collision. Now when Mrs. Quincy comes,
this may well be termed a Holy Alliance, one which even yo*
may approve, heretick as you are in these matters. In the midst
of these changes, and undazzled by the brilliancy which sur-
rounds us, we continue to jog on much after the old manner. \V«
are too old to change much.
SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
Up-to-date Cambridge
FEB. 9, 1831.
. Cambridge has caught something at last of the spirit
of the age. When the whole world is given over to Lectures,
when every little nook and corner of New England has its Ly-
ceum, how strange that the people strictly speaking, living in the
sphere of so much light, should grope in utter darkness. This
has appeared in its true aspect to our professors, and they have
generously volunteered "to pour the fresh instruction o'er the
mind, to breathe the enlivening spirit." Judge Story19 began,
and as far as I can learn said nothing at all, for an hour. This
was kind, for if the full blaze had appeared at once, nobody can
ti-11 what the effect might have been. Ticknor came next, and
he gave us three very entertaining lectures on Shakespeare.
These I was so fortunate as to hear, and I was exceedingly grat-
ified, and very sorry when he left off. Mr. Farrar came next.
He has given two, one on electricity — one on the theory of sound ;
and on Friday next his last will be on the coming eclipse. Neither
of these have I heard, but they have been very much admired.
I am often behind the age you know, so you must not expect
much improvement in me when we meet, but certainly I stand in
a much less responsible, of consequence a safer position, than
that friend of ours — who is so far before the age in which he
lives. . . I earnestly hope you will write to me. It is very
long since I have been much acquainted with you and I feel as
if it was quite time to renew or brighten the chain. Farewell,
whether talkative or silent, believe me ever affectionately yours,
Formal Congratulations
JUNE 23w>, 1832.
My dear friend: —
I received your note of the fifteenth, three days after it was
written, and as you will believe I answered it immediately, but
the following morning I had the mortification to receive my note
"Judge Joteph Story, Dane Professor of Law and a Justice of the
Court of the United States.
Lrrnca* OF ANN STOMOW 219
again, with one from you announcing the mctsjiljr for your
immediate departure for Washington. 1 trust before this your
affairs in that quarter arc rightly settled and that the "jodg-
ment *° which threatened you because you never nave COB*
descended to be a "political pa will he averted. It is
too flattering :•• mr to suppose that 1 can have had any influence
in this your honourable course, but if indeed I have added one
featht i to t!»r balance, that bright little favour shall give
!«nul lirilli:iU'-\ to my plume.
niiiot more deeply sympathize m your happiness, now you
are permitted to proclaim the glad tidings to the world, than I
did when you first gave the idea of the bliss in prospect. Yon
know the strong and affectionate interest I have always taken
in everything that concerned you. You know how ardently I
have always supplicated for you the blessing of a lovely wife, of
a quiet and happy home, but even you can scarcely realize how
fervently I bless the Authour of all enjoyment, that your long
search has been so richly rewarded. I would tell you how much
cipate from the possession of a new friend, and from the
personal knowledge of one whom I have so much reason to be-
lieve worthy to be loved, but I am too old. and I have suffered
too much to look forward to anything this world can give me.
Be you, my beloved friend, as happy as I know you are capable
of being, and as I know you deserve, and one source of happiness
will be mine of which the world cannot deprive me.
I thought to write to Miss Allen,11 but my heart fails me, and
I do not hold the pen of a ready writer just now. I therefore
leave you to say a kind word for me of your Uis*rt, and to
an interest in her sweet thoughts for me, which perhaps I
not be able to make for myself.
We are all well, and ask you to receive the warmes
gratulations from the family circle.
I am ever affectionately yours,
•Probably connected with Sparks'i failure to obtain the right to pnbltsh
a second series of Diplomatic Correspondence, the right being ffhrea, for
party reasons, to the Democratic Editor of the frnfrrissMl Gistr.
" Sparks married Frances Anne Allen, of Hyde Park. N V
240 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
"Heretical Notions" on Education
PORTLAND, NOVEMBER lOrn, 1835.
I thank you my dear friend for your kind letter, and for
the honour of your perseverance in a good resolution. Let me
tell you that I received it just a fortnight after I left Cambridge,
and that was exactly the time when you promised to write me.
I am very much pleased with your account of Maria.22 I think
she already shows by her exemplary deportment that she is
worthy to be the daughter of her parents. I delight in her
astronomical discoveries. Why is not the light of Mrs. Austin's
candle just as good as a comet to her? I think one of the follies
of the present mode of education is the terrible anxiety to give
children "right ideas." It is true the little people sometimes form
strange combinations in their own minds — but what does it
signify? They have the happiness which the exercise of their
imaginations can give them, while the reason and judgment have
time to gain strength. And then the discipline of life, and daily
experience and judicious but not too exacting watchfulness will
do the rest. I think a child's mind ought to do something for it-
self. It certainly finds much less field for exertion, where it finds
everything done to its hand. These are terribly heretical notions,
my dear friend, and I pray you not to expose me to the educating
public. It will certainly be said of me, that never having learned
a lesson myself of any sort or kind, having never gone to a school
in my life, I have a sort of prejudice against those who have,
and would as certainly hang a man who was found with an
inkhorn in his pocket as Jack Cade. Perhaps this may be true,
but it is more likely that it is not.
I have had a good deal of experience of the modes of educa-
ting children, although I am not capable of conducting the tech-
nical part of it, and I never could find the use of cramming
"right ideas" into a child's mind before the place was large enough
to hold them, or strong enough to retain them. No, let Maria
mistake candles for comets and see three moons, or three dozen
Maria, daughter of Sparks, born, 1833.
Lrrrns or ANN Srocaow 24 i
if she can, her mind may be jUnVtolj impressed with the
ders of the first ind the beauty and mild radiance of the la* with-
out being undeceived. I never would do it. 1 know. Do not
distress yourself about her ''military That is a dtmculty
which u ill work its own cure, it may perhaps derange your ideas
of female gentleness and quiet dignity for a time, but the win
find her : 1 when she mingles in the world of other chil-
dren. She will always if she is true to her promise, be superior
to most others, and she cannot but feel this, but she is
and craves to be loved, and that is a principle of her
11 keep her love of rule in check. Thus you see I do
hesitate to give you my ideas about education, just as 1
would about anything of smaller consequence.
I should shock those deep ones who talk about "pi unary
causes" and "ultimate effects/' and what not. things, which not
understanding themselves they cannot of course make me under-
stand, but I have held forth to you too much to astonish you by
n- which I shall be likely to advance. You have
used to such talk too long. . . But you can scarcely
what a pleasure, mournful to my soul, it is, to write or talk to
you a .<r child that precious legacy11 of one so loved and
so lovely! That sweet link in the brightening chain which unites
you with the joys and promises of heaven! Long may she
be spared to you, and daily may she bring home to your sorrowing
heart the conviction that you are never alone!
I remembered your request to Mr. Davies as soon as I saw
him. He is very much pleased with the idea of writing a lift.
and says he shall think himself a much greater man for doing
it. He thought he would take General Knox. kt being em-
phatically the Great Man of Maine, and he said he could come
at the necessary documents very ca t after I received your
letter and told him that you meant to suggest Commodore
Prebfe,*4 he wondered he had not thought of him before, and
" Frances Allen Spark* died in July. IMS.
-Lorenzo Sabines eventually wrote the Lift of £4mrrf PrtUf for
Sparks's Library of
242 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
said the task would be much easier. He is very much in the
spirit of the business, and you might write him your ideas on the
subject and find that he entered into them very fully I have no
doubt. I do not know what Miss Sedtfwick--' may do. She
might give you her father's life perhaps, although haply it might
her better than you. I will not give you the trmihlc to ask
me. My genius does not lie that way, I should make droll work
in writing a book, so if you ever find I should be so silly as to
try — remember and tell me that my vocation is, more to watch
over lives than to write them. You will have time to write me
once more for I shall remain here a fortnight longer, and I hope
you will want to. Give my love to my dear little Maria, and 1
her, for her and your faithful and affectionate.
Happy Little Maria
FRIDAY, JULY IST, 1836.
I have just returned from the Botanic Garden. Your child
is well, and good, and happy, and lovely. You see, my dear
friend, how very artful I am. I want to bespeak a kind wel-
come to my letter, and I begin with the information which I
know very well will insure it. I heard Maria's happy joyous
laugh as soon as I opened the door. She knew my voice instantly
and wanted to come down and was not very well pleased to have
me come up, but I soon reconciled her to the solecism in polite-
ness, and when I had noticed and admired her "little fat arms"
as much as was desirable I told her I was going to write to
you and asked her what I should say. Of course she sent love
and kisses, and then poured forth a list of articles to be brought
for the baby beginning and ending with "a kiss and a kitty!' She
sends kisses too to Aunt Mag and Julia and Grandpapa, and
desires they would soon come back and see Nimmy, and not go
away any more. Her messages to you were not very coherent
for her attention was attracted to a vase of roses which was on
* Miss Catherine Maria Sedgwick, minor novelist and author of a
Memoir of Lucrctia Maria Davidson, published in Sparks's Library of
American Biography, Vol. 7, First Series.
Lrrnas or ANN Sroaaow . ^
the table, and her love to her father and her admiration of the
flowers seemed to divide the emotions of her heart so equally.
that it was difficult to say which pifduminalfrii Cherish these
hours my dear friend, when nothing separates your child's heart
wreathe of flowers.
On Wednesday I dined at Mr. Norton's. In my absence Mrs.
Sparhawk brought Maria up to see me. and how sorry I was not
to be here! She left a very polite invitation for me to come to
I shall accept next week. Yesterday she made a visit
to Mary Stearns, and behaved sweetly. Sarah said. Was ex-
tremely agreeable and affable to all the ladies and gentlemen she
hort she is becoming very popular. So that
mate that her gifts and graces are veiled by the groves
of the Botanic Garden. She is a lovely and a moat
child, and it is a source of continual thanksgiving to me
has been given to you. God grant in mercy that her
life may be spared!
1 do not think anything very special has occurred since I saw
I have dined twice at Mr. Wells,
day I went into town to execute some commissions for my
•man's life you know, they say, is a history of the heart,
and so it may be for anything I know in a great degree, but it is
not quite all. I have thought and pondered over your affairs
and plans, very deeply, for a week past, and now that I consider
the matter over, I will acknowledge how much I regret that you
could not have taken a different view.** Feeling as you did, or
do, your conclusion is just what it ought to be. for I would not
for the world have you engage in any undertaking which would
in the slightest degree abridge your freedom of thought or action,
or in the prosecution of which you would not be contented and
happy. I regret the failure, for the Institution, which I know it
is in your power so materially to benefit, and I regret it for my-
self, because— I am very selfish— and I have a vision that you and
your child would be near me — perhaps during the remainder of
"Sparks had declined President Qumcy'i offer of the Alford Profetsor-
p. which then included Philosophy. Economics and PoKtks.
244 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
my pilgrimage. This my dear friend is one of the infirmities of
a spirit which you do not yet quite comprehend. But believe
me notwithstanding what I have said no arrangement which you
could make would satisfy me if it was not exactly in all respects
what it seemed to me your character and your honourable exer-
tions merited, and if it did not make you happy as you are cap-
able of being. A high and a noble and a useful career is open
before you, and wherever your duty or your inclination leads
you, go— for you will do rightly wherever it may be. . .
Farewell. Give my best love to the dear friends with whom
you are associated. I need not tell you how much I think of
you during these sad days, nor how deep is the sympathy of your
faithful friend.
Illiterate Woodstock
WOODSTOCK, JULY SRD, 1837.
. . General Washington27 must be your "baby" in the
meantime — always hoping that he may grow up as fast as pos-
sible and soon be able to make his own way in the world. It
might be said that the contrast was rather too striking, between
a fair little girl of four years old, and a six foot, full grown
Virginian, even though so many wonderful gifts and graces center
in him but for all these suggestions there is a ready answer, "there
is no accounting for taste." How came it that you said no word
of either of your heroes? Did you forget my untiring interest
in their progress? There is a terrible lack of intellectual curiosity
in Woodstock, much more it seems to me than there used to be.
I doubt whether there is a single copy of Washington. I know
there is not a solitary North American and scarcely a Boston
Newspaper. I sometimes supplicate Norman28 to find me a
paper, and he brings me one of those detestable dirty little things
that I hate to soil my fingers withal. We have New York papers,
"Sparks finished his twelfth and last volume of the Life and Writings
of Washington on July 22, 1837. The early volumes had already been
published
* Norman Williams, husband of Miss Storrow's cousin, Mary Ann
Brown Williams, whom Miss Storrow was visiting in Woodstock.
Lrrros or ANN Stotaow 245
howe h are lent by Henry William*, and thete 1 have
had the pleasure of reading one or two precious extracts from
your friend Harriet,** the one on 'Mr Kvcrct* 1 have not seen.
I wonder what the will say about you! 1 understood thu
(herald?) was not to have any leaning towards a personal nar-
rative, "not a leaf of her private journal should be published,"
she amid in a letter, I think, to Henry Ware.10 but what sort of
affair must be her private journal, when in tin*. Euay I suppose.
she does not even conceal names. I last night read what she lov-
ingly says of the drunkenness of the ladies in this favoured land
We certainly feel mighty flattered by such a precious piece of
justice ami truth. Poor Harriet ! or as they call her the "Lady
of the Silver Trumphct." "Sad was the hour and ^ffrlfff was the
day" when she landed on our shores; I am glad I saw her once
for all that, and much more glad that I saw her but once. Who
knows but she would have thought me one of the intemperate if
she had seen me much and perhaps nothing short of it would
have led me to seek her society.
Queen Victoria
CAMBRIDGE, OCTOBER Urn, 1840.
My sister was very much gratified by your account of her
interesting young Queen,11 all but the latter clause, and that
fd her loyal and affectionate heart with equal indignation
and sorrow, indignation, that a report so base and utterly mm-
founded should go abroad, and sorrow, that you should have
fallen into such bad hands, among those bad wicked and malicious
people who would poison your pure mind. It is a pity that poor
^hould be subject to like passions with other strong-
1 children. I cannot understand however without sup-
posing her of a particularly bad temjier, how she is capable of
- Harriet Martineau made herself very unpopular ferine her stay in
Boston, 1835, by her uncompromising and open approval of the Abolitionist
h WM still unpopular, and by her book. Socuty i»
• d in London. 1837.
- Professor Henry Ware. Miss Martineau's host in
"Sparks was in Europe for the second time.
246 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
treating her mother with unkindness, particularly if the Duchess
of Kent is the tender mother and judicious woman she has al-
ways been represented. But this is no affair of mine, I leave
loyalty to Louisa. I believe I am a cosmopolitan. I am sure it
would be difficult for me to say to what country I belonged, or
in fact cared much for. I should be thankful if I could always
say that I sought a better city, that is our Heavenly.
i HAPTER ill
To THE OLD i
DICEMHOI 6. 1&42
I do not mean to ply you very hard with letters, my dear
friend, but I cannot find it in my heart to let many weeks pus
by without giving a short rub to the chain, just to keep it vtry
bright, and t<> tell you something about our whereabouts, al-
though no earthly tiling happens to us. We go out
a good deal in the daytime, my sister and the girls walk for the
pleasure of the thing, and I walk too for the necessity. I have
so great a respect for Mother Earth that I am rather unwilling
to tread her under- foot as much as some people do. You see,
I have just been reading Carlyle's Lectures on Hero-Worship.
which notwithstanding its many absurdities, is a wonderfully fine
book and he talks so much about the Earth — "the kind, just, good
Earth" — that I really have imbibed even a greater respect for
the universal Mother than ever. Now have I not an original
reason for my laziness? Be that as it may. I have done since
I have been in Portland what I almost never did in my life be-
fore, I have been to three evening lectures, and what is more,
all of them given by Orthodox men. Louisa is quite shocked
at my dissipation. She says the Chicopee Camp Meeting has
spoiled me, however that may be, I shall continue to go as I see
occasion, until I have come to the root of the matter. As yet
I have heard nothing that might not have been said by a Unit-
arian. Last evening I went to hear a Lecture from a certain
Professor Bush of New York I I believe, you may
know something about him. Me proposes to give a course on the
Progressive Nature of Christian Revelation, and this was the
Introductory. It was quite interesting and written in a very good
stile and spirit, but the Orthodoxy was missing, so much the
better for his peculiar subject. The admission of reason into any
r of speculative belief. I should think was rather new with
248 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
our Orthodox brethren. . . We are reading HarteV Life of
Gustavus. It is a most extraordinary book. The stile is partic-
ularly bad, and though I doubt not there is much truth in it, —
yet there is such a perpetual puff of the Hero of the North that
the Authour can be equalled only by Dugald Dalgetty2 himself.
I must confess I am generally very little interested, and too often
for my learning's sake, take the liberty to think my own thoughts
while the reading is going on. The ninth Vol. of Alison3 which
we left in the midst, because we could not keep Harte's book,
interests me much more. Alison has the "long resounding pomp
and energy divine" which I like much better than the eternal
involutions of Mr. Harte. . . .
Reminiscences
BRATTLEBORO, MARCH 7, 1844.
. . . I have thought of you very often this winter, and
often when at twilight the dry wood is heaped upon the andirons,
and the beautiful clear blaze illuminates every animate and in-
aminate thing in our little parlour, making the oldest of us and
the dullest, a little younger and a little less spiritless, I have
often wished that you were here, as you used to be in Bolton,
where so many pleasant hours went unheeded by. There are
not many years of my life that I love to recall and certainly
none that I would willingly live over again. But I believe those
MX years were on the whole the happiest of my life, and you
my dear friend, are most closely associated with them all.
Clwrming Wentworth Higginson
. . . Wentworth spent five weeks of the College vacation
with us. This you will readily believe was a most agreeable
addition to our stock of domestic pleasure. He is the gayest and
1 Harte, Walter, The History of the Life of Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, surnamed the Great, 2nd. ed. London, 1767.
'Dugald Dalgetty, character in Scott's The Legend of Montrosc.
'Alison. Archibald, History of Europe from the commencement of the
<: revolution in 1789, to the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, Paris,
1841-42. 10 Voli.
LETTERS or ANN STOUOW
happiest creature that ever 1 saw, an-. m hit heart and
mind miu'h num- pout r. as 1 think, than he knows of, or is yet
developed. You will perchance hear among the gossip of the
day. that he is engaged ami i! gossip will tell the truth.
He and his cousin Mary, \\altcr Oianning's second daughter —
have been much a: c. and Went -
worth feeling that he was tall enough if not old enough to have
a will of his own. and to declare it to the world, has persuaded
Mar>( to be of his mind. It i> a very happy occurrence to his
family. Mary has a fine character and many excellent qualities
trt and head, and she has suffered privation enough to
u.tlify her admirably to be a poor clergyman's wife.
For "AM Lang Sy**"
JUNE 14, 1844.
My dear friend. You will receive with this, and I trust they
may reach you in as beautiful a condition as they leave my hands,
a portion of the lovely flowers which adorn our woods, and make
our Green hills gay and glorious. I send them to you for the
sake of "Auld Lang Syne" and Mary4 will not feel slighted when
I send them to her husband instead of herself. You have not
forgotten our Bolton days, I very well know. The associations
i cluster round that greenest spot of my life are ever fresh
to me, and yours my dear friend, although they are of a different
nature, yet they can never arise in your mind without a certain
degree of happiness. These fair flowers are remembrances of
those days. TVie-y, continually renewed, are ever fresh and fair
however the person who sends them a votive offering, has fallen
into the "sere and yellow leaf."
BRATTLEBORO, JAN. 13rn, 1845.
1 am more and more satisfied that it was a wise
movement that brought us to Brattleboro. I always btlinvd so,
hut I am convinced from the experience of these two years. It
certainly cost me a good deal, far more than any mortal can
*Thc second Mrs. Sparks.
250 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
ever know, to be contented to leave Cambridge. I have had expe-
riences there, and shall always have such associations with the
place, as no other person can have. I lived there in my youth,
from the time I was eighteen until I was twenty-four — and this
period — although it would make no great figure in a book, was
a very eventful one to me. I do not expect that an Autobiog-
raphy will be found among my papers after my death, and the
flood gates of feeling which those years kept wide open have long
since been closed ; the stream has either become dry, or has been
diverted from its course, or has been broken up into a great
many little rills. They do not all fertilize the soil, but the traces
of some of them still leave it verdant. I would not now be will-
ing to live again in Cambridge — at least I believe not — and that
is saying much for my attachment to our hills and cascades and
waving groves.
Comfort in Sorrow
BRATTLEBORO, JAN. 29rn. 1846.
I received your letter of the nineteenth my dear friend, and
that of the twenty-seventh without surprise, although as you will
readily believe, with the deepest feeling. That the suffering
hours of your darling child5 draw near their termination, is a
source of thankfulness rather than grief, but I am too well ac-
quainted with the human heart to offer consolation to yours in
this time of bitter privation. I can only pray that you may be
sustained through your trial, and that you may be able with
a Christian submission to offer up to the God who gave it this
light of your eyes, this blessing of your mortal existence, secure
that you are again to be united in the regions of peace and purity.
You can never lose your child, she must and will be yours in
another world, for the Power who formed such strong and tender
ties, never could have done so with the purpose of dissevering
them. This precious creature belongs to you and her angelic
Mother, and what power can disunite you in Heaven.
I am thankful for all the alleviations which your grief re-
• Maria died February 3, 1846, at the age of 12.
Lamas or ANN STOUOW 251
ceives, how precious a privilege I should consider it, if it was in
my power to do more than assure you that 1 am ever most truly
:rs, A. G. S.
Give my love to Mary, and if my beloved Maria is in a state
to be spoken with on the subject tell her how much the little
love her and how very dear she is to me.
A Serious Misunderstanding
BtATTLEBOBO, APRIL Sill. 1846.
One part of your letter surprised me. nor can I
possibly remember anything in my late letters which should oc-
casion it. I am not a person to be influenced by reports of any
kind, and 1 have always endeavoured to form my opinions from
what I knew, not from what I heard merely. I believe I do Mary
ami I think you will be satisfied when I say so.
It was accident which prevented me from answering her last
note, I thought until a message came in one of Maria's letters
1 had done so; then, it seemed scarcely worth-while, for I
could not suppose that it was of any consequence.
FarewtU
BRATTLEBOR 10, 1857.
My dear friend —
I hear that you are to sail for Europe next week with all
your family, and I have so very earnest a desire to bid you adieu
that I trust I may be forgiven for yielding this time to the af-
fectionate impulse. I am very glad to hear of the arrangement
for I doubt not that it will be of much benefit to your health,
and afford you many sources for pleasurable thought, to which
as yet you have been a stranger.
Farewell then, my beloved friend of many years. May God
protect and bless you and yours. May all sweet influences at-
tend you, and may you be restored to your home in renewed
health and spirits I offer my kindest regards and best wishes
to Mrs. Sparks and my love to your children although they know
>ur faithful and affectionate. — A. G. Storrow.
252 SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Herbert B. — Life and Writings of Jarcd Sparks, 2 Vols. Houghton
Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1893.
Bassett, John Spencer— Middle Group of American Historians. The
Macmillan Company, New York, 1917.
Chadwick, John White — William Ellery Channing, Minister of Rcli<non.
Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1903.
Ellis, George E.— Memoirs of Jared Sparks, LLD. Printed from the
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Cambridge,
1869.
Hillard, George S.—Life, Letters and Journal of George Ticknor. James
R. Osgood and Company, Boston, 1876.
Higginson, Louisa — Memoir of A. G. S. Unpublished. Written shortly
after the death of Ann Storrow in 1862.
Higginson, Mary Thachcr — Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Houghton,
Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York, 1914.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth — Cheerful Yesterdays. Houghton, Mifflin
and Company, Boston and New York, 1898.
Mayer, Brantz — Memoir of Jared Sparks, LLD. Prepared at the Request
of the Maryland Historical Society, and read February 7, 1867.
Quincy, Josiah— History of Harvard University. J. Owen, Cambridge,
1840.
Ticknor, George — Remarks on Changes lately proposed or adopted in Har-
vard University. Cummings, Hilliard and Company, 1825.
PS
3537
T72U7
1921
Storrow, Ann Gills*
Utters of Ann Cilia*
Storrow to Jared Sparks
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