The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863

In a hospital the day treads closely on the night, and soon the morning came. We retired to our apartment for rest, but we could not sleep. We could only think of our loss, and after an hour or two we rose, somewhat rested, but not refreshed. Ever since my first acquaintance with Laetitia Sunderland, I had eagerly desired to learn her previous life. Glimpses of it I had obtained, but I wanted it as a whole, and now I was with one, perhaps for the last time, who could give me a full account of it. It was an opportunity not to be lost, and while partaking of our morning coffee, I asked Mrs. Simmons if she would tell me what I so longed to know. She willingly assented, and as I was relieved from duty for the day, and the morning was mild and beautiful, we sought a rustic seat in the garden, and there in a little nook retired from view, I heard the story of that life to which my own during the past year had been so closely knit.

'There is one thing,' said Mrs. Simmons, 'in regard to our friend, to which we have never alluded, and which, perhaps, you would rather have me now pass over; but on that very thing her whole character and history turn, and to omit it would leave nothing worth the telling—I mean her personal appearance.

'When I was a child, my parents moved into the suburbs of Condar, and as there were no houses between ours and Mr. Sunderland's, the two families soon became well acquainted. On the day that I was ten years old, my mother told me there was a baby girl at Mrs. Sunderland's, and said she would take me to see it. I was delighted, and wanted to go immediately, but mother said I must wait till to-morrow. To-morrow came, and I was sick; and at last the baby was a week old when I was taken, the happiest little mortal in existence, into that upper room where the little one lay in its nurse's arms. I looked at it, and then at my mother.'

"What is the matter, Mary?' said she.

"It isn't a very pretty baby, is it, mother?'

"Oh it will grow prettier," said my mother, and with that I was satisfied. I was extravagantly fond of babies, and this one I adopted as my especial care, for there was no other in the neighborhood; and besides, in my childish confusion of ideas, I supposed we were twins, our birthdays being the same.

'From the time Laetitia first learned to speak, she came to me with all her troubles and her interests, and I was always glad to be her sympathizer, her counsellor, and her playmate. When she was five or six years old she went to the nearest district school. She was always a marked girl, from her extreme homeliness, her excellent scholarship, her boldness in all active sports, and an odd humor which never failed to interest and amuse. My mother's prophecy, alas! was not fulfilled. She grew no prettier, but rather the reverse. She was the same in childhood as when you knew her, with the high, bold forehead, crowned with white, towy hair, small greenish-gray eyes, shaded and yet not shaded with light yellowish eyelashes, short and thin; scanty eyebrows of the same color; a nose so small and flat it seemed scarcely a projection from her face; teeth tolerably good, but chin and mouth receding in a peculiar manner, and very disagreeably; and a thick, waxy complexion, worse in childhood than of late years, for the spirit had not then found its way through it, as it did afterward. Moreover, by a singular malignancy of fortune, when she was twelve years old, she was attacked with varioloid, and taking a severe cold as she was getting well, had a relapse, and was left as you see her, not closely marked, but sufficiently pitted to attract attention.

'My parents thought more of education than the Sunderlands, and my advantages were much better than Laetitia's. I went for some time to a good select school in the town, and afterward two years to an excellent boarding school. When Laetitia had learned all that her instructors in the little district school could teach her, she came to me and begged that I would let her read with me. I was very glad to do so, and soon after my cousin and niece joined us. To those readings I am indebted for some of the most delightful hours of my life. My pupils, as I used to call them, were at that age when childhood is verging into womanhood, and it was my delight to watch the first dawnings of consciousness in their minds, the first awakening to the realities of life. Laetitia was the youngest of the three, but she was as intelligent and mature as the others. How well I remember the glow of enthusiasm with which she read of the heroes and martyrs of old, the intense sympathy with which she entered into the amor patriæ of the Greek and Roman, and her fervent admiration for the nobleness of action which this feeling called forth in them!

'The second year I began to see the development of new sentiments. The romance of life, as well as its heroism and duties, was revealed to them. Pieces of poetry which before had been read listlessly, or with only a distant apprehension of their meaning, were now full of interest. The sentiment which had passed unnoticed, now kindled their imaginations with delight; and there came, too, all the new attentions to dress and looks which first show themselves at this time. Life lay before them, golden and beautiful, and they saw all its shining angels coming to meet them—love, friendship, duty, praise, self-sacrifice, each with a joy in her hand, but the sorrow was concealed from their eyes, or, rather, was but another form of joy. They admitted its probability, but it was with the disguised pleasure which we feel in the troubles of the heroines of romance.

'Laetitia shared these feelings with the others, though with less reason; but her thought and imagination were so vivid, and gave color so completely to her life, that it would have been as absurd for her as for them to have looked at the probabilities of the case. Never once did she say to herself, that to one in her circumstances, life would most likely be full of disappointments and commonplace incidents. But time, the great revealer, soon opened to her those pages which her wisest friend would not have dared to show her so early.

'One evening I went to Mrs. Sunderland's on some trivial errand. The family were all out excepting Laetitia, whom I found sitting by the window, in the dark, with her head resting on her hand. Her manner indicated great depression; and I looked at her a moment and said, 'My dear child, what is the matter with you this evening?'

'Her head dropped upon the table, and she burst into tears. She continued to weep and sob, till, seeing she was not relieved, I put my hand upon her shoulder and said, 'Laetitia, Laetitia, don't cry so.'

'Don't call me Laetitia,' she replied. 'I shall never be Laetitia again.'

'The answer seemed melodramatic, but I knew she was suffering. Still I responded lightly: 'Oh yes, you will be Laetitia many, many times yet. 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,' you know.'

'She did not reply, and we sat a while in silence, till at length I begged of her to tell me the cause of her grief, just to see if I could not help her. I think she wanted to tell it, for she tried two or three times, but could not get any further than 'Yesterday afternoon'—At last she said, 'I have a very great trouble; it will never be any less as long as I live, and it will forever keep me from being happy. I cannot tell it to you: can you help me without knowing it?'

'This was a new appeal, and I did not know how to answer it, but a thought came to me, and I replied: 'Go and tell God about it.'

'This I said at a venture, for, old as I was, I had never called upon Him in deep distress, and I did not know what the effect would be; but I saw immediately that the advice was unexpected, and seemed to meet the exigency.

'Her mother's voice was at that moment heard at the door, and I went out to give Laetitia an opportunity of slipping off to her room without meeting the family.

''Have you seen 'Titia?' said Mrs. Sunderland to me.

''Yes, she has just gone to her room.'

''Well, I don't know what's the matter with the child since last night, she's acted so queer. I 'spect she'll get over it, though; she always did have tantrums.'

'In one sense, however, she never did get over it, and it was many years before she really recovered much of her old light-heartedness, although she had an appearance of it to superficial companions. For a long time her inner life was shut from the view of her friends; but I am at present able to read it for you, partly from what she herself told me afterward, and partly from that insight which we all have into those lives and experiences with which we are in sympathy.

'One afternoon she left me very happy and gay, and went to see a friend near the town. She was returning slowly toward home, satisfied with herself, and enjoying intensely the beauty of the season, when she saw two ladies approaching her. They were strangers, and she looked at them with interest, attracted by their pleasing faces and graceful bearing. As they passed her, she overheard one of them say in an undertone, 'What a frightfully homely girl!'

'There could be no mistake. She only was meant, and the words went like a sharp dagger to her heart.

'While she was thinking how charming they were, she to them appeared only frightful. The whole future in an instant opened before her, and she saw herself, as she moved through it, constantly exciting, wherever she went, only repulsion in the minds of strangers and friends.

'All the charm and interest of life fled at the moment. That day and the next she was in a stupor of grief, from which she was first awakened by my tones of sympathy. My advice, too, opened a door of relief by giving her something to do. For the first time she remembered there was a Being who knew all about her sorrow, knew it was coming, understood its cause, and its effects. This Being she could open her mind to, and only to Him. He would not be surprised, and He would not annoy her with sympathy which could not cure and would only irritate. She knelt down, and with minute fidelity told Him every thought of her heart. The next day she felt cheerful—she thought she was resigned; but it was only the reaction caused by the tears and confession of the previous night, and it soon passed away. The words 'frightfully homely' echoed and re-echoed through her heart. All that was dreary, hopeless, and miserable clustered around them, and shut out from her the bright, happy life of the past. Her duties were performed as before. With others she was sufficiently animated; but when alone, she was wretched. Thus the months rolled on, till they became a year; and I, who had never been deceived by her occasional liveliness, began to think what I could do to change the current of her thoughts, which seemed to have no tendency to change of themselves.

'But Laetitia's life was not all feeling. Feeling suffers passively, with greater or less endurance, according to the strength of the physical frame, but the intellect always seeks a remedy for sorrow. It seemed horrible to her that she of all the world—of all her world, at least—should be so homely that no one could look on her without pain. It was intolerable, it ought not to have been, but it was permitted, it must be. Rebellion came of course, bitter rebellion, but it could do no good. There was the fate, it was impossible to escape it. What then? Drag through a miserable life till death came happily to relieve it? She was too young. Fifty, sixty years of travel over a dreary, barren waste, with no joy upon it? No, no, she could not do it—suicide first. But suicide was wrong, and could never be resorted to. There must be some relief elsewhere. Where was it? what was it?

'Continual dropping will wear away a stone, and continual thinking will wear a hollow into the stoniest of mysteries. At length, through all the mists of proximate causes and natural laws, some glorious truths became clear to her. The near and the visible receded to their proper importance, and she learned to hold principles and ideas more dear than the externals which embody them. She saw that God loves His children equally, and though the laws of nature must take their course, there is room for each result in His design; and in the infinite of His heart and His work each individual has place and purpose. She found, too, that angels laden with joy might descend and ascend between His soul and hers without a ladder made of earthly triumphs and successes. Thus in place of rebellion came happy acquiescence.

'But she was not yet contented. She was convinced that there was a life for her which she could not or would not lead if she were like others; but this life she could not find. She saw no intimations of it in herself. She had no genius for any special thing, and she continued restless and disturbed, wondering what it was appointed to her to do. At length it came to her.

'One day, as she was passing the house of her physician, through the open window she saw and heard that which induced her to go in and offer her services. A man in a disgusting stage of intoxication had cut his arm badly, and had come to have it bound up. His little child was with him, shrieking with terror, her face and clothes covered with dirt. The doctor roughly and with ill-concealed repugnance was caring for the wound, while the cook, with no attempt at concealment, was loudly expressing her disapprobation of the whole proceeding. Laetitia assisted the doctor, and washed off the blood; then took the child home with her, bathed her, gave her clean clothes and a dinner, and sent her away with a new happiness in her heart. While she was doing all this, she found what she had been seeking. There are very many things in this world disagreeable in the extreme, which ought to be done with interest, with care, with love. Why should she not undertake to do them? In themselves they would be repugnant, but she would do them for God, and she loved her Heavenly Father so well that the hardest thing done for Him would be the sweetest. In a day or two the feeling settled itself: it was firmly impressed upon her mind that in these employments she would have rest.

'One morning, about two years perhaps after the first day of her sorrow, she dropped into my room with something of her old suddenness, and, after the customary greetings, said simply: 'I am happy again now.'

''You need not tell me that: I can see it in your face.'

'The pleased expression remained for a moment, and then an intensely black cloud fell upon her countenance. She said nothing more, and in a few minutes went away. You see how it was—by one of those freaks by which the imagination loves to torture us, my remark recalled her whole misery and its unalterable cause, and having lost for the time the keynote to her new-found joy, the other took entire possession of her mind and overwhelmed it. In a few days she came back to me, and I said: 'I pained you when you were here before. I do not know how, but I am very sorry.'

'You did pain me, but you were entirely innocent. Afterward it grieved me still more that I was pained—that what you said had the power to pain me. I will tell you all, if you will hear it;' and, without waiting for my answer, she gave me the key to the last two years of her life.

'She finished, but I had nothing to reply. She had said all. Hitherto I had led her, but now her experience was deeper than mine. Besides, I could then less than ever understand the life that was opening before her, for I had just yielded my heart and promised my hand to one whom I loved; and though I by no means thought it impossible that she, too, might have tried the same path, yet I knew she thought so; and I could not conceive how she could look forward with contentment to a life in which that element of happiness was wanting. I could only assure her of my own warm affection, an assurance which gave her a pleasure that it always makes me happy to think of.

'Notwithstanding the apparently contradictory evidence of her late depression, her new experience was not precarious and uncertain: it was firm, enduring, to be rested upon in the most trying emergencies; yet it was not, for many years, unwavering. During all that period of a woman's life when looks and manners pass for so much, and the real character for so little, she suffered at times greatly. As she went onward, every new phase of the feelings which possess a girl's heart brought with it its own pang, and each had to be overcome, some by stifling, some by postponement to another existence, and others by studying to dissever, if possible, the essential sentiment from the shows in which it was imbedded. She was unwilling passively to outgrow her trials, feeling that thereby she would lose the strength they were intended to give. Her work, however, helped her more than anything. She was not eager to enter upon it. She did not stretch forth impatient, unskilled hands toward what her Father had designed for her. Entirely confident, she was right, she was at ease, knowing her work would come to her in the proper time, and it did.

'I must say something about this work of hers, else you will be misled. She undertook to do that which others would not do, or would not do well, owing to a natural dislike to the thing itself. Not intending to become a drudge, she did not allow indolence or sentimentality to shift upon her that which others would be all the better for doing themselves. She knew what Master she served, and looked to Him for guidance, and not to the wishes and opinions of her fellow mortals. Gradually she found enough to do, first in her own house, and then outside. Friends and acquaintances called upon her, philanthropic societies applied for her services, surgeons and nurses sought her assistance, and even strangers learned that there was one who would willingly do for them, in cases of emergency, what they could not do, and what no wages could procure well done. As her life became known, she obtained the respect of some, the contempt of others, and the wonderment of most. I will not specify what she did, for my story is already getting too long; but you would be surprised to know how often she was needed.

'Her means, though small, were large enough to allow her to do most of her work gratuitously, but she received sufficient pecuniary compensation during the year to enable her to provide well for herself and give much to others.

'In pursuing the duties of her vocation, she came in contact at one time or another with almost every kind of misery, and though, from familiarity, she ceased to be shocked at new forms of suffering, yet she never became hardened, but each year grew more tender and sympathizing.

'In due time the practical workings of the great sin of the nineteenth century came under her observation. She talked with fugitive slaves, and all the pent-up fire within her burst forth in intense indignation. She had not thought of the question before—it had not been in her way; but now every feeling, her love of God, her love of country, her great interest in human rights and destinies, conspired to make her throw her whole soul into it, and she saw slavery as it is, its intense wickedness and its fearful results. She looked with dismay at its effect upon the country, its 'trail' upon everything in it, on church, on politics, on society, on commerce, on manufactures, on education. There was nothing which had not been corrupted by it—it was fast eating into the vitals of religion and liberty. The more she studied the subject the more earnest grew her feeling. But what should she do? She had not lost self-love, that passion which never deserts us; but she had lost its glamour—eyes that have wept much see clear—and she knew that the least valuable offering which a woman without good looks, high position, or great talent, can make to an unpopular cause, is—herself. So far from her conspicuous support of a new thing being an encouragement and assistance to others, it would be a hindrance: fear of being identified with her would be another lion to be encountered in the path.

'She loved her cause better than she loved herself, and would not make it more odious by any marked advocacy of it. It was a new trial to her, but she did not murmur. One who in early youth has rebelled against the very laws by which he has his existence, and has become reconciled, does not go through life hitting his head against every projection which society thrusts in his way. She did what she could. She cleared herself, as far as possible, from all participation in the sin, gladly avowed her views when called upon, and never hesitated to show, by suitable words and acts, her sympathy with a despised people. Yet she could not accomplish much. But if she did little for the cause, it did a great deal for her. It broadened her life, enlarged her views, increased her comprehension of the world's progress as revealed in history, and brought her into closer sympathy with reformers of all ages. It gave her a perpetual object of interest. It was like a great drama, whose acts were years and whose scenes were continually passing before her. It gave a new zest to life, made this world more real, and diminished her longings for the next. In narrowing her friendships it made them more vital and satisfactory; and being in communion with hundreds of other minds in the country, reading their thoughts became almost like personal intercourse with them, and was a new happiness to her. Studying daily a subject of such vast complications, her mind perceptibly grew, and from year to year she was able to grasp new and higher truths. She gained the hatred of a few clear-sighted opponents, but most persons only ridiculed her, contemptuously wondering why she should pursue this course when her interest lay so clearly the other way. But she was now far beyond the reach of such weapons.

'I have given you, thus, a sketch of the history and character of Laetitia, but I cannot reproduce her as she appears to my own mind. You must fill up the outlines from your own personal knowledge. I fear I have rendered her too intense, and, perhaps, too sombre. Intense she certainly was, but it did not oppress one in ordinary intercourse; and she was not at all sombre. After she recovered fully from her youthful grief, her elasticity of temperament returned, and her love of fun. She looked on the bright side of all things, and was full of encouragement and hope for her friends. To me, besides being, during the last five years particularly, a valuable friend and adviser—no one but myself can know how valuable—she was always an interesting companion. And yet she was not generally liked. She was seldom understood. Her life was so deep, her tone of thought so peculiar; and her dependence upon the opinions of others so slight, that persons ordinarily could not 'make her out,' as they said. Still she had very warm friends, and derived great pleasure from their friendship. I have never seen any one derive more. But she distrusted strangers; I mean their interest in her. She did not expect new persons to care for her, and it took her a long while to be sure that they did. I must myself confess, for the first and last time, that until within two or three years I never met her after an absence without being newly impressed with her exceeding homeliness. It was a sin against friendship, I knew, and I was glad when I felt I was free from it.'

'It was not so with me,' I said. 'After I became accustomed to her face it never affected me unpleasantly. I did not see the features, but the spirit which animated them.'

'Yes, you were with her continually, and, besides, she must have been so completely identified in your mind with the relief of pain, that you could think of her only as an angel of mercy. It was a great advantage to her that she was always scrupulously neat in her dress and person; and her clothes, too, were well put on, if without a great deal of taste.

'Upon the whole, her life was a happy one, though not perhaps triumphant except in periods of exaltation, for there was a large part of her nature unsatisfied; but she was thoroughly contented, willingly living as long as was necessary, glad to go whenever the time came. She never expected to die young, but she did; she was only thirty-six.'

'She seemed older,' I said.

'Yes, she always looked older than she was, and then she had lived so much that she necessarily impressed one as being old.

'She followed,' continued Mrs. Simmons, resuming her narrative, 'with increasing interest the progress of the grand anti-slavery drama, until that winter which, in defiance of all mathematical measurements, every American knows to be the longest in the annals of his country. With fixed attention she watched every event, every indication. What next would come she could not see, but she felt sure she should have some part in it, whatever it was. At length the signal gun pealed forth, the first shot was fired, the spell was broken. She wrote me, 'America calls her sons and daughters. Up! up! to work! all true-hearted men and women! live for me, die for me, and your reward shall be everlasting. There is a work for all, for all who love freedom, for all who love democracy, for all who love humanity, for all who love right law, union, and peace.'

'She felt that all her life had been preparing for this moment. Averse to war as she was from instinct and principle, she yet believed it necessary in the progress of the world, and her clear eyes scattered all the sophisms which made both sides partly wrong and partly right. She looked only at essential principles, and she saw that on one side was God, and in the current of His good will to men they were fighting; on the other was Satan, and by whatever plausible arguments he might deceive some, he could never do aught but cause and perpetuate evil. Her mind was quickly made up, and she asked me in her letter what steps she should take. I sent for her to come to me, and we applied to a committee to receive her as nurse. A great many questions were asked her, and then her application was accepted; but she was kept waiting for the final answer more than a week. Fast as heads and hearts and hands moved in those days, still time could not be annihilated—it must have its place in every work. I was present when her case was discussed.

''I think she is an enthusiast,' said one; 'I am sure she will not do.'