Wellesley College - Legenda Yearbook (Wellesley, MA)

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English ladv, wife of a Baptist clergyman. At home, meanwhile, she was thoroiighlj ' trained in music and drawing, fine sewing, elaborate cooking, and all the domestic arts. Oh, yes, a teasing uncle used to say, we shan ' t keep her long. When she comes home from boarding school we ' ll put out a shingle to tell the world that within may be found the yoimg lady who, at the age of thirteen, could make anything that man requires, from a shirt to a loaf of cake. We ' ll not lie bothered with keeping her long. The boarding school chosen was one of the leading institutions of the day, — a French es- tablishment in New York City, under the charge of M. and Mtne. Cauda. The earnest- spirited young Southerner would have preferred Mount Holj ' oke Seminary, but here her mother stood firm. Mrs. Fowle had heard that at Mount Holyoke the custom prevailed of introducing the girls to foreign missionaries who came wife-hunting, and this precious, only daughter could not be so jeopardized. Mrs. Durant gives amusing accounts of the conditions of life in this fashionable lioarding school, where the studies were conducted for one half the day in English, and for the other in French. The girls slept in dormitories, the long dormitory holding thirty of the little iron beds. At the first bell the girls sprang to their feet with military promptitude, sleepilv hurrying on stockings, slippers, and dressing gowns, turning back beds, opening windows,, and betaking themselves with all inconvenient speed to the general dressing room above. Here some sixtv toilets were simultaneously performed, the girls seeking shelter between the open doors of the tall presses that shared the wall space with the rows of washstands. Ablu- tions before these washstands were attended with thrilling perils. If water was spilled upon the floor, the culprit had to copy pages upon pages of French poetry. If the slop was excep- tionally sloppy, the French poetry — for which one feels acutest sympath - — had to be learned by heart. After these appalling toilets the girls flocked back to the dormitories, made their beds, went to the schoolroom for prayers, and hungrily listened for the breakfast bell. Here Mrs. Durant passed the years from fourteen to eighteen, making girlish friendships, and probably learning as much as if she rose later in the morning. The processional prome- nade along Broadway was not to her liking, and she was allowed to substitute for it exercise in one of the earliest gymnasiums of the city. The Sundays were usually spent with an aunt in Brooklyn, to whom Mrs. Fowle, who could not long be absent from her daughter, often came for extended visits. There were occasional trips to Boston, too, bringing renewal of friendshid between the winsome schoolgirl and the brilliant, though reluctant apprentice to the law. ]Mr. Durant had had, as a child, an insatiate love of reading. To lie on the sofa with a book was his delight, in which his parents acquiesced as the surest recipe for keeping their

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eldest child, the little daughter not yet six years of age, who was to be for more than half a century to come the widow ' s earthly strength and stay. Mrs. Durant still remembers the sense of childish importance with which she led her toddling sister to the dressmaker, to see about their mourning dresses; for the mother, in the apathy of grief, left to this faithful five-year-old the choice and planning of the pitiful little frocks. The child ' s remarkable thoughtfulness and sense of responsibility had already been strikingly exemplified on the night of her father ' s death, — a catastrophe of which, in those days before the telegraph, the family still remained unconscious. A fire raged in the town; neighboring houses were in flames, and the children, caught up from their beds, were hurried away to a place of satety. But the sleepy little Pauline had a parting charge for her excited mother: Mamma, don ' t forget papa ' s trunk with the valuable pajjers in it. This capable, small mortal also took it upon herself to look after her mother in traveling, as her father had always done, but with the reticence of childhood she confided to no one how sorel} ' it galled her little soul to go on a half ticket. Her joy was great when, having passed her eighth birthday, the railroad officials could no longer brand her as half a person. The years in Alexandria were quiet, the natural mirthfulness of childhood subdued by the abiding shadow of sorrow. In less than two 3ears from the father ' s death the baby boy slipped from human hold, and three years later the little sister followed. The one surviving child, early learning the great lesson of self-forgetfulness, was ever her mother ' s comforter. Visiting aunts in Boston during this period, little Pauline, eight years of age, came to know her cousin Henry, ten years her senior, and then a student in Harvard. The poet- hearted youn g collegian, handsome, as became his Fowle descent, won the friendship of the gentle child, whose appearance at the time he afterwards tenderly pictured in verse. I well remember, cousin, What voii, perchance, forget; That fair child, like a rosebud, The dew upon it yet. That sweet face, like a rosebud Just opening to the air, With something of a maiden, More of an an el there. A pensive grace, dear cousin, And a thoughtful look was there. Like a loving girl ' s in reverie, Or a mother ' s in her prayer; But wiien she plaved in childish glee, And gayly laughed the while, A beauty like a breaking wave Beamed ever in her smile. The little girl ' s education was carcfullv looked after. In addition to her mother ' s teach- ing, she attended for some time a private school in Alexandria, kept by a Mrs. Kingsford, an 17

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wide-rtwake bo - out of mischief. He was a chivalrous little fellow, with romantic day dreams of his own, and in his boyhood an ambitious class student. But his Harvard educa- tion was largel} ' acquired in the college library. I studied immensely the last part of the time I was in Cambridge, he said, and to great advantage. I had but few recitations, and saw scarcely anyone, so that I had plenty of time. Greek was a favorite study with him, but he devoted much attention to English, reading widely and deeplv, and practicing himself in verse composition, as well as prose. He dreaded the law, being haunted by that horrid dream of a legal profession. But after graduation from Harvard, at nineteen, he tlutifully enteied the law office of his father, Mr. William Smith, in Lowell, the family having removed thither from Hanover, New Hampshire, wheie Mr. Durant was born. Writing to a friend, the young graduate said: I shall studv law for the present, to oblige father; he is in some trouble, and I wish to make him as happ ' as possible. The future course of my life is undetermined, except that all shall yield to hoi} ' poetry. Indeed, it is a sacred duty. 1 have begun studying law ; don ' t be afraid, however, that I intend to give up poetry. I shall always be a worshiper of that divinity, and I hope in a few years to be able to give up everything and be a priest in her temple. One year of Blackstone called out this second confidence : I have not written any poetry this whole summer. Old Mrs. Themis says that I shall not visit any more at the Miss Muses. I ' ll see the old catamaran hanged, though, but what I will, and I ' ll write a sonnet to my old shoe, directly, out of mere desperation. Pity and sympathize with me. After eighteen months of such tyrannical law studies, Mr. Durant, in the spring of 1S43,. his twenty-first birthday hardly passed, was admitted to the bar. Henceforth there was little opportunity for poetry. His legal practice ruthlessly swept him into the current of practical atlairs. It was impossible, he wrote, to imagine a school better fitted than this to develop any latent talent for business, and for breaking up any tendency toward literary tastes. However incompatible legal pursuits may be with writing poetrj ' , they fortunatelv admit of living poetry. But before love in its fullness should reawaken the benumbed spirit of song in the young lawver ' s heart, several years were yet to intervene. For him these were vears of intense mental activity. His genius, which many believed to be of the highest order, was primarily a genius for labor. He removed to Boston, establishing his law oflice in the northeast corner of the old State House, and changing his name, because another Henrv W. Smith was already practicing law in Boston, to Henry Fovvle Durant. In Boston his law partner was !Mr. Joseph Bell, brother-in-law of Rufus Choate, in Lowell his father, and his law business was divided between .Suffolk and Middlesex Counties. Rufus Choate began to 19