Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary. Daniel Dulany Addison
is just to look up to God, and be blessed by his love, and then move through the world quietly, radiating as we go. …
The development of her own religious life was marked by many radical changes. She was no longer satisfied by the theology in which she had been reared. She sought new foundations for her belief. Her classes in philosophy led her into the world of controversy. Plato was constantly by her side, and she refreshed herself by reading Coleridge’s “Aids to Reflection,” from which she gained more nutriment than from any other religious book, except the Bible. Swedenborg taught her that “to grow old in heaven is to grow young.” Sears’s “Foregleams and Foreshadows” made her feel the joy of living, as presented in the chapter on “Home.” She also read “Tauler’s Sermons,” and Hare’s “Mission of the Comforter.”
Interwoven with her religious thought were the life and influence of one of the dearest friends she ever knew, Miss Esther S. Humiston of Waterbury, Connecticut, a woman of rare powers, and wonderful sweetness of character. The two women were not unlike. They had the same spiritual longings, similar views of life, and equal intellectual attainments. Miss Larcom looked up to Esther for guidance, and such was the perfect accord between them, that she wrote to her fully about her deepest thoughts, and most sacred experiences.
In the spring of 1858, she wrote thus to Esther:—“You do not realize how very unorthodox I am. I do not think a bond of church-membership ought to be based upon intellectual belief at all, but that it should simply be a union in the divine love and life. Now I do not formally belong to any particular church—that is, I have a letter from a little Congregational church on the prairies, which I have never used, and I know not how, honestly I can. For should I not be required virtually to say I believe certain things? I believe the Bible, but not just as any church I know explains it, and so I think I must keep aloof until I can find some band, united simply as Christian, without any ‘ism’ attached. We all do belong to Christ’s Church who love Him, so I do not feel lost or a wanderer, even though I cannot externally satisfy others.”
TO ESTHER S. HUMISTON.
Beverly, Mass., August 2d, 1858.
… I regard Christianity as having to do with the heart and life, and not with the opinions; and my own opinions are not definite on many points. The disputed doctrines of total depravity, predestination, etc., with some of those distinctly called “evangelical,” such as the atonement, and the duration of suffering after death, I find more and more difficulty in thinking about; so that I cannot yet say what “views” I “hold.” There—will you be my “sister confessor”? As I see things now, the “atonement” is to me, literally, the “at-one-ment,”—our fallen natures lifted from the earthly by redeeming love, and brought into harmony with God; Jesus, the Mediator, is doing it now, in every heart that receives Him, and I think our faith should look up to Him as He is, the living Redeemer, and not merely back to the dead Christ—for “He is not dead.” Then, as to the future state of those who die unrepentant: after probing my heart, I find that it utterly refuses to believe that there is any corner in God’s universe where “hope never comes.” There must be suffering, anguish, for those who choose sin, so long as they choose it; but can a soul, made in the image of God, who is Light, choose darkness forever? There is but one God, whose is the “kingdom, the power, and the glory, forever and ever;” is there any depth of darkness, which this sovereign radiance shall not at last pierce? I know the Bible testimony, and it seems to me that the inmost meaning, even of those fearfully denunciatory passages, would confirm this truth. Now, you can imagine how these sentiments would be received by an Orthodox Church. …
TO THE SAME.
Norton, September 2, 1860.
… I enjoyed being with my friends. I told you that they were Universalists, but theirs is a better-toned piety than that of some Orthodox friends. Still, there was a want in it, a something that left me longing; it was as if they were looking at the sunlit side of a mountain, and never thought of the shadows which must be beyond. The mystery of life is in its shadows, and its beauty, in great part, too. There isn’t shadow enough in Universalism to make a comprehensible belief for me. And yet I believe there is no corner of God’s universe where His love is not brooding, and seeking to penetrate the darkest abyss. …
The question about her marriage was definitely settled while she was at Norton. She decided, in the first place, on general grounds, that it would be best for her not to marry. There were various reasons for this. She had many premonitions of the breaking down of her health, which finally came in 1862, when she had to give up teaching; and owing to some exaggeration of her symptoms—for at times she felt that her mind might give way—she thought it unwise for her to take up the responsibilities of matrimony. In addition to this, she grew fond of her independence, and as her ability asserted itself, she seemed to see before her a career as an authoress, which she felt it her duty to pursue. Special reasons, of course, one cannot go into fully, though there are some features of them that may be mentioned; to Esther she stated an abundantly sufficient one—“I am almost sure there are chambers in my heart that he could not unlock.” She also differed radically from her lover on the subject of slavery. Her feelings as an abolitionist were so strong that she knew where there was such a division of sentiments a household could not be at peace within itself. This difference of opinion concerning all the questions that culminated in the Civil War resulted in a final refusal, which afterwards found public expression in her noted poem, “A Loyal Woman’s No,” an energetic refusal of a loyal woman to a lover who upheld slavery:—
“Not yours—because you are not man enough
To grasp your country’s measure of a man,
If such as you, when Freedom’s ways are rough,
Cannot walk in them—learn that women can!”
The poem was not written entirely out of her own experience. In making a confession about it to a friend, she says, “I have had a thousand tremblings about its going into print, because I feel that some others might feel hurt by the part that is not from my own experience. If it is better for the cause, let me and those old associations be sacrificed.” The publication of the poem was justified by the way it was received everywhere. It was quoted in the newspapers all over the North. An answer was printed in “The Courier,” called “A Young Man’s Reply.” This interested Miss Larcom, and she referred to it as “quite satisfactory, inasmuch as it shows that somebody whom the coat fitted put it on! If it does make unmanly and disloyal men wince, I am glad I wrote it.”
TO ESTHER S. HUMISTON.
Norton, June 1, 1858.
… I shall probably never marry. I can see reasons why it would be unwise for me; and yet I will freely tell you that I believe I should have been very happy, “if it might have been.” A true marriage (the is the word I should have used) is the highest state of earthly happiness—the flowing of the deepest life of the soul into a kindred soul, two spirits made one—to be a double light and blessing to other souls has, I doubt not, been sometimes, though seldom, realized on earth. …
This touch of real romance in her life shows that she had a woman’s true nature, and that she did not escape the gentle grasping of the divine passion, though she shook herself free from it, deciding that it was better for her to walk alone. Some lines of her poem, “Unwedded,” suggest the reasons for her decision:—
“And here is a woman who understood
Herself, her work, and God’s will with her,
To gather and scatter His sheaves of good,
And was meekly thankful, though men demur.
“Would she have walked more nobly, think,
With a man beside her, to point the way,
Hand joining hand in the marriage link?
Possibly, Yes: it is likelier, Nay.”
TO MISS ESTHER S. HUMISTON.
Norton, January 15, 1859.
… The books came through the post-office, with the note separate; they were