Wellesley College - Legenda Yearbook (Wellesley, MA)

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employ him as junior counsel, — an association of great and varied benefit to the younger man, who spared no toil to gain the phenomenal success which soon was his. At the Middlesex bar he was always in his place, and always alert. He had few associates, every hour of his time being absorbed by his profession. He apparently took little notice of current questions of the day. Sometimes he was genial, and sometimes icy, often preoccupied, absorbed, in- tense, and perhaps imperious, mysteriously making up a case, presenting it, and then retiring, only to reappear when he had a new case to win ; never reall} ' happ ' imless untiertaking some work of surpassing difficulty, which might fully tax all his powers. It was said of him that he was more frequently employed in what were considered desperate cases than any other lawyer of his time. An eminent man in his profession said of him that ' he was the most persistent, persistent, persistent man he ever saw. ' Meanwhile, his destined wife was ripening in every womanlj- grace. After her four years at boarding school were ended, she visited, with her mother, Trenton Falls, Niagara Falls, and Sharon. Here Mrs. Fowle had a hemorrhage, which determined them on spend- ing the next two winters in the south of Europe. The first of these was passed with Mrs. Wiggin, at the villa of the Marquise de La Valette, in Southern France, and the second in Rome, Florence, and Naples, their summer travels extending into Switzerland, England, and Scotland. On their return home, Mr. Durant, all engrossed with his profession as his asso- ciates supposed him to be, found time to meet them in New York. But his beautiful cousin passed the following winter south, in Augusta, Mobile, and New Orleans, and it was not initil the latter days of November, 1853, that his soul, long turned to hers, — so his poems whispered, — Like a pilgrim to liis shrine, knew its devotion accepted. There was one more winter of separation, in which blithest, sweetest love songs winged their way from the lawyer ' s desk, where the tedious writs and briefs must have marveled at them, to Washington and Alexandria. But Mr. Durant had already a practice of ten thou- sand dollars a year, and the marriage was not delayed. In the following May, her mother ' s wedding month, this younger Pauline wore the bridal veil. Then came household happiness almost unalloyed, love, as the lover had prophesied, deepening with the years. To Pauline. Tell me not that love is fleeting, Every day our love grows dearer, That its brightness fades away; Every night love ' s holy prayer While the hearts within us beating Makes the lofty sky seem nearer, Promise love and truth for aye. While the star of love is there.

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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

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Love is still a child immortal, And his wings will soon expand, As we near the shadowy portal To that other promised land. Whether born in joy or sorrow, Whether crowned with thorns or flowers, Love looks forward to a morrow In a brighter world than ours. Past the sleep that knows no waking. Past the night that turns to day. There the dawn of love is breaking, There the shadows pass away. Their Boston home was located, first, on the corner of Bowdoin and Allston vStreets. In iS6o they removed to 77 Mt. Vernon Street, and in 1S6S to Mrs. Durant ' s present residence, 30 Marlborough Street. The Wellesley estate was purchased the year after the marriage, and here the summers were spent in what is now known as the farmhouse. The young wife delighted in putting to use her domestic accomplishments. In these first summers at Welles- ley she used herself to skim every pan of milk that came into the house, and make all the preserves and delicacies. She loved the grounds, and knew each tree by name. She was interested in raising fowls, and was so proud of nineteen baby turkeys, of a choice breed from Brandywine, that on a stormy night she and her husband both rose to the rescue of that pre- cious brood. While Mr. Durant groped about in the thunderstorm, and hunted down, by the flashes of lightning, one aflrighted turkevkin after another, until all the nineteen had been caught, Mrs. Durant made a fire in the kitchen stove, and tenderly taking each little gobbler as it was triumphantly presented by its dripping deliverer, put a drop of wine down its throat and deposited it in a basket in the oven, to dream co .ily of Thanksgiving Day until it had recovered from its chill. In the spring of 1855 g ' ' eat joy befell them in the birth of their only son, Henry Fowle Durant, Jr., and in the fall of 1S57 ' I ' ttle Pauline Cazenove gladdened the household for a brief six weeks. The death of this infant was a poignant sorrow to the parents. Added to her maternal mourning was Mrs. Durant ' s keen disappointment that the pain of this loss did not turn her husband ' s heart to the Divine comforter. She had herself united with the Presby- terian church when a schoolgirl, in 1S47, and was as unswerving in her Christian faith as she had ever been untiring in Christian service. Mr. Durant was a man of essentially religious nature. An extract from a letter written soon after his twenty-first birthdav to a college friend is evidence enough of this, although other evidence, as his admiration for the Bible, or his pleasure in the church service, is not wanting. The letter runs : —