fault your being away at such a critical time in our long mutual fight against these Calvinists, but I must be assured that you are safekeeping Laura’s soul from this mess. She is our living proof that children learn morality and reverence by example and inference, not through indoctrination.
There are many orthodox and Good News bearers about, even on the grounds of your Institution, and you must protect the sanctity of our best and brightest philosophical weapon. The public still weeps before Laura’s goodness and purity, but once she is sullied with brimstone, we will have lost half the battle. Or more.
I care what is best for the girl, who is so dear to us all. What a perfect phrenological specimen, Dr. Combe tells me, as is your wife. My congratulations. I know no other man as lucky. The baby will most certainly sport the finest head in town.
September 1844, Laura to Dr. Howe
I don’t want a letter to share with Oliver. He doesn’t care. Miss Swift says that I cannot ask any questions about God. You have left me, so what I am supposed to do in a house full of silly girls?
I hope you and Julia are having a very excellent time.
October 1844, Dr. Howe to Miss Swift
I might long ago have taught the scriptures to Laura, and she might have learned, as other children do, to repeat line after line, precept upon precept, and to imitate others in prayer. But her enormous handicaps have proven a shield to protect her from being relentlessly subjected to the crude ideas and dogma with which other poor children are pilloried. God himself has given us the purity of her consciousness to be spared from the masses’ metaphysical speculations. I do not ask you to sin, in your book, but I will regard it as a sin in mine, if your Calvinist beliefs interfere with the generous terms of your employment.
I am surprised that you imagine that Laura’s eternal welfare will be imperiled by her remaining in ignorance of certain religious truths for a few more months. You are only her teacher in the seven subjects we have granted, nothing more. As the one who rescued her from darkness, I hold the high responsibility of the charge of her soul, at least for now. You may take it as sacred, Miss Swift, that even from afar, I bear that gift and burden as seriously as would the mother who bore her. I have been carefully preparing Laura’s mind for religious consciousness for eight years, and she will come gradually to understand every religious truth that it may be desirable for her to know.
If she behaves badly, you have my permission to punish her as you see fit; other than that, our accord remains the same.
November 1844, Julia to Louisa
I can’t help thinking of Mother’s death, of course. Maybe the fear of childbirth is all that is shrouding my happiness. Chev, archphysician that he is, has already pooh-poohed my apprehension. He swears it will be my finest hour. Actually, he says that it is every woman’s finest hour. Until now, my best have been those spent on poetry, but that life is now undone, and in its place, I have chosen a blended life. Forgive my grayness, darling. I am getting old and foreign.
November 1844, Miss Swift to Mrs. Bridgman, Laura’s mother
It is not my place, but with the Doctor gone, I am the one who must ask: please, Mrs. Bridgman, write to Laura. He is abroad on his honeymoon until we don’t know when, and she is very lonely. It’s back to being hard for her to eat, etc. It is also clear to me that she is upset that she hasn’t heard from you in several months, and it would do her more good than you know. She is smart as a lick, but she is more of a child at fifteen than your other children. She would no doubt like to come to Hanover, perhaps for the holidays.
Of course, we know that the Lord would prove the greatest source of comfort in her suffering, but Dr. Howe has forbidden me from giving your daughter even one page from the Good Book. I speak to you as a Congregationalist to a Baptist, and
There are many orthodox and Good News bearers about, even on the grounds of your Institution, and you must protect the sanctity of our best and brightest philosophical weapon. The public still weeps before Laura’s goodness and purity, but once she is sullied with brimstone, we will have lost half the battle. Or more.
I care what is best for the girl, who is so dear to us all. What a perfect phrenological specimen, Dr. Combe tells me, as is your wife. My congratulations. I know no other man as lucky. The baby will most certainly sport the finest head in town.
September 1844, Laura to Dr. Howe
I don’t want a letter to share with Oliver. He doesn’t care. Miss Swift says that I cannot ask any questions about God. You have left me, so what I am supposed to do in a house full of silly girls?
I hope you and Julia are having a very excellent time.
October 1844, Dr. Howe to Miss Swift
I might long ago have taught the scriptures to Laura, and she might have learned, as other children do, to repeat line after line, precept upon precept, and to imitate others in prayer. But her enormous handicaps have proven a shield to protect her from being relentlessly subjected to the crude ideas and dogma with which other poor children are pilloried. God himself has given us the purity of her consciousness to be spared from the masses’ metaphysical speculations. I do not ask you to sin, in your book, but I will regard it as a sin in mine, if your Calvinist beliefs interfere with the generous terms of your employment.
I am surprised that you imagine that Laura’s eternal welfare will be imperiled by her remaining in ignorance of certain religious truths for a few more months. You are only her teacher in the seven subjects we have granted, nothing more. As the one who rescued her from darkness, I hold the high responsibility of the charge of her soul, at least for now. You may take it as sacred, Miss Swift, that even from afar, I bear that gift and burden as seriously as would the mother who bore her. I have been carefully preparing Laura’s mind for religious consciousness for eight years, and she will come gradually to understand every religious truth that it may be desirable for her to know.
If she behaves badly, you have my permission to punish her as you see fit; other than that, our accord remains the same.
November 1844, Julia to Louisa
I can’t help thinking of Mother’s death, of course. Maybe the fear of childbirth is all that is shrouding my happiness. Chev, archphysician that he is, has already pooh-poohed my apprehension. He swears it will be my finest hour. Actually, he says that it is every woman’s finest hour. Until now, my best have been those spent on poetry, but that life is now undone, and in its place, I have chosen a blended life. Forgive my grayness, darling. I am getting old and foreign.
November 1844, Miss Swift to Mrs. Bridgman, Laura’s mother
It is not my place, but with the Doctor gone, I am the one who must ask: please, Mrs. Bridgman, write to Laura. He is abroad on his honeymoon until we don’t know when, and she is very lonely. It’s back to being hard for her to eat, etc. It is also clear to me that she is upset that she hasn’t heard from you in several months, and it would do her more good than you know. She is smart as a lick, but she is more of a child at fifteen than your other children. She would no doubt like to come to Hanover, perhaps for the holidays.
Of course, we know that the Lord would prove the greatest source of comfort in her suffering, but Dr. Howe has forbidden me from giving your daughter even one page from the Good Book. I speak to you as a Congregationalist to a Baptist, and
Similar Books
