The Honolulu times. [volume], August 01, 1910, Page 7, Image 7

About The Honolulu times. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1902-1911

Image provided by: University of Hawaii at Manoa; Honolulu, HI

                
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States, recently celebrated her
ninety-first birthday at her home
on eBacon street. Congratulations
and good wishes expressing
the hope that she will pass the
century mark, flowed in from all
parts of the land and gave evidence
of the esteem and erverence
in which this venerable author,
virile poetess and loyal patriot is
held. Surrounded as she is by her
children and her grandchildren,
the event drew attention to one
more hour in the restful evening
she is passing of her long career
of good deeedes, that were not for
her family or sex alone, but for
the whole world, which has been
the beneficiary of her endeavors.
Although always a day to be
marked out on the calendar, especially
by the literary world, her
birthday this year was made more
picturesque by the fact that a portrait
of her by her son-in-law,
John Elliott, was hung in the New
Art Museum in Boston. Mrs.
Howe, whose mind is almost as
bright and clear as when she was
many years younger, showed
much delight over the painting of
herself, and she talked with many
friends about it, recalling episodes
in her eventful life when she was
quite active in the world of letters
and of reform.
Julia Ward Howe was born in
1819, near Bowling Green, New
York City, Samuel Ward, her
father, was a man of wealth and
culture, and he gave his daughter
a liberal education. Possessing a
true scholastic spirit and a brain
with which to think out her own
ideas, she formed a conception of
all subecjts peculiarly her own,
which became more settled and
clear when her father and her
brother died in the same year.
Though she married Dr. Samuel
G. Howe at the age of twenty-three
and spent several years subsequent
to that event in Europe,
she did not forsake her student
habits.
Her first distinct essay in literature
came in the publication of a
volume of her poems, entitled
"Passion Flowers," while soon afterwards
she wrote a play,
"The World's Own," which
was produced in New York, and
later "Hypolytus." In 1859 she
went with Doctor Howe to Cuba,
and a book on the island life came
frorm her pen. Doctor Howe assumed
the editorship of the Bos
THE HONOLULU TIMES
ton Commonwealth, the anti-slavery
organ of that day, and
Mrs. Howe became his assistant
and a frequent contributor during
the abolition agitation.
Sturdy Champion of Liberty.
Strong in her sympathies with
the slave, the attack on Fort Sumter
intensified her ardor for the
cause of liberty, and to one of the
greatest poems produced during
the war, which came from her
hand, she gave the name of "The
Battle Hymn of the Republic." It
was one of the potent inspirations
of the Union soldiers in the Civil
War, and is a poem which will
doubtless ever be in literature the
most vivid and fervent expression
of the aspiration which fired the
northern heart. It was inspired,
she said, by the sight of troops
marching to the tune of "John
Brown's Body."
Of her later years, her philosophy
of life, her interest and faith
in human nature and her plea for
freedom and equality for women
have found expression in her
books, though since old age has
emphasized each little burden her
large literary effusions have been
fewer, and lately she has been
content merely to contribute an
occasional verse to the press of
the day. The more significant of
her works since the Civil War
have been : "Sex and Education,"
in 1874; "Modern Society," in
1881; "A Life of Margaret Fuller,"
two years later, and valuable
autobiographical reminiscences,
which were published in 1899.
One of her most recent works is
"Sketches of Representative
Women of New England." Her
poems were collected in a volume
which she called, "From Sunset
Ridge: Poems Old and New,"
while her most recent contributions
to poetic literature have
been the treasured privilege of
many magazines to print.
After the war, in about 1870,
Mrs. Howe became convinced of
the justice of political enfranchisement
for women, and has always
been known as a noted advocate
of women's suffrage and of
prison and other reforms. For
these views she owed her enlightenment
to Mrs. Lucy Stone, who
struggled in its behalf only in
vain. Mrs. Howe's daughters
have become followers of their
mother's views concerning free-dorm
for women, and with her
have taken a prominent part in
promulgating them.
The nonagenarian author and
philanthropist has been highly
honored time and time again, by
universities, which have conferred
upon her degrees of doctor of letters,
which seldom come to women.
Sheerfulness has brightened
her life's history with its many
tear-stained chapters indeed, she
has been called "obstinately optimistic."
An Obstinate Optimist.
A profitable insight into the
mind and character of this remarkably
woman is given in her
unbounded faith in human nature.
As she herself has explained as
an example of her philosophy,
"My heart's desire was to assist
the effort of those who sought for
a helpful philosophy of life. I am
glad if I have borne the message
of good hope for humanity, despite
the faults a'nd limitations of
individuals.
"That hope casts its light over
the efforts of years that are past,
and gilds for me, with ineffaceable
glow the future of our race. The
world grows better everywhere
all the time. Wherever human effort
to a given end is intermitten,
society does not attain that end,
and is in danger of gradually losing
tt from view, and thus of suffering
an unconscious deterioration
which it may become difficult
to relieve. I do not think the
manners of socalled polite society
are quite so polite as they were in
my youth. Young women of fashion
seem to have lost in dignity
and in general tone and culture.
Young men of fashion seem to regard
the young ladies with less
esteem and deference, and an easy
standard of manner is the result.
"On the other hand, outside the
circles of fashion, I find the tone
of taste and culture much higher
than I remember it to have been
ing nobler and better lives, filling
in my youth. I find women lead-larger
and higher places, enjoying
the upper air of thought where
they used to rest upon the very
soil of domestic care and detail.
So the community gains, although
one class loses, and that, remember,
the class which assumes to
give to the rest the standard of
taste. Instead of dwelling upon
the fault of our neighbors, let us
ask whether we are not, one and
all of us, under sacred obligations