It would be pleasant to record that the benefits derived from this happy outing on the Isle of Wight proved permanent, but unfortunately that was not the case. Had Clara returned to America in the autumn, it might have been better, but she went back to London for the winter determined to brave its fogs. She had discovered, with many of her countrymen, that it is a mistake to expect relief from cold weather by going to a warm climate. The people who live in warm climates do not know how to prepare for the cold. In London they knew at least the value of a fire. To London she went, and the results were depressing. Her throat and chest were affected badly by the London fogs. All the gains of previous months seemed to have been lost, and she was as far from well as she was at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. At this time she wrote to Mrs. Vassall, who had returned from Washington and was living in Worcester:
London, July 11, 1873
Euston Road
Dearest Fannie:
Your dear good letter and that of your “Bear” came a few days ago. It is funny to be interviewed at that distance, and I am glad that you got no worse reports than you did. I don’t think I am so homesick as it would seem, but I am weak, and little things seem such a burden to me that it hinders me from doing many things that would make me more at ease if they could be done. However, one must be patient; it is not a month yet that I was in my bed most of the day, and now I can go about town, and even once have been out of town, but not for a long trip.
It is kind of you all to offer to come to help me, but I believe I shall be able to get over my difficulties without giving so much trouble to any one. By “getting over them,” I mean measurably over them. I cannot say that I even hope to be strong again as I was before this last illness. I cannot tell, but it would be a wonder to me if sufficient nervous strength returns to permit any degree of real usefulness. The greatest trouble I meet now is to bear the little burdens of contact with the persons and things around me, and not show too plainly that I have not strength and composure to bear them calmly; in short, to “hold my horses,” You, dear Fannie, will know what that means, and how to the weak the grasshopper becomes a burden. I am glad you have found a physician who has some strength for you, if it is really so; but I must confess that my previously small share of confidence in medical aid and wisdom has not increased by the last year’s experience.
I hear of you in the most trying heat at home. It is just warm in England some days, but to-day, for instance, ladies are generally clothed in wool suits and a shawl. I went out just now for a few minutes with Mamie, while our rooms were put in order, and came back because I was too cold, and it is never very bright in London. I suppose this has its due influence on one’s nervous system, and I would have been glad at any time within the last month to be made ready and go over to France or Germany. I think it would be better, but I could not get strong enough to get ready and go. You wonder what “getting ready” means. It seems to you that it requires little preparation to put up a bag or small trunk of things and cross the Channel, and so it does, but it is summer, and I have several trunks of mainly woolen things for this cool climate. My little strength since I have been in Europe has made it necessary to have them, of course, unpacked, and in a state of utter confusion, for some trunks I have not had my hand in for months and months, but to others I constantly go, and in haste. The moths in London are like flies in abundance. It wouldn’t mend my nerves to know I had gone off traveling and left all I have to be devoured, and I have been made worse several times by simply attempting to get a dress or some little article from a trunk. My weak chest will not admit of the least labor of the arms yet. Let Mamie do it? Mamie is only a weak little girl, and until lately could not have packed her own trunk without harm to herself. So I wait for strength as an army waits for quartermaster and commissary supplies before it can march. I made one little trial or two, to see what I could do. Papa Holmes (with whose family I went to Italy) came one day to ask me if I could go to Liverpool where he was going, and over into Wales, and pass a week. It was about the time Colonel Hinton was going to sail, and I thought, with so many good friends on the road, I might try it. So I went as far as Stratford-on-Avon, but I grew so tired I gave out and let the party go on and I came home. It wasn’t much of a journey,—only a few hours,—but I found it quite sufficient.
It is really quite astonishing what those sleeping fellows tell, and how they look us all through! I don’t think I am so homesick, if that is the term they give it, but no one knows—only those who have tried it—what the depressing atmosphere of London may be to one who is not strong, and more especially to one who feels he is never to leave it, as I expected last winter. I think I could have faced the prospect of the dark river with a stouter heart if I had been strengthened by a few glimpses of sunlight sometimes, but I waited such months watching my little window panes for a patch of sky over which one could discover that a cloud moved, but the surface was never light and thin enough for this. It was as immovable as a sheet of zinc; one felt himself already in a metallic coffin, only waiting to be closed in a little snugger, and have the screws turned down. But I have tried to be cheerful and as full of life and fun as I could be, with so little ability to speak as I have had, and it may be that you and your Mamma Sally’s sleeping men see deeper and get nearer to the reality than those about me, or than perhaps even I am well aware of. It is possible I have at times succeeded in cheating myself a little; all the better if it is so. I should be glad to be spared the trial of going on to the continent of Europe again. I am so tired of it, I never want to see it again, but it may be best, and then Mamie ought not to leave Europe without going there. I should be sorry to embark her for America having seen only poor smoky old London. If some one of our friends had been coming over, with whom I could have sent her to journey some, I should have been very glad of it. I can perhaps arrange it from here, but up to the present moment I have not been able to find the right opportunity. I thank you very much, dear Fannie, for all your interest and care, and hope I may never find a chance to repay it in the same manner.
Afternoon
Mr. Sheldon has just drawn a letter out of his pocket and, looking very wise, announced to me that he had just commenced a correspondence with a very pleasant lady of Worcester and, showing the envelope, I judged the correspondence had been commenced with the lady’s husband. But I read it, and became convinced that it was from the lady herself. He informed me that he had replied at the earliest moment, and it happened to be just when they had succeeded in pushing me off for my trip, so he had an opportunity to talk large, but he had scarce time to answer until I was back, and he waited a day or two to see if he might show your letter to me.
I hope Ber will have had an opportunity to hear direct from me, as I gave his Boston address to Colonel Hinton, who promised to see him if he could find him. I have seen no one who was going to Worcester or I would have sent him to you. As for me, I shall try to go home this autumn, I suppose. America will at all events be as well as here, and has a greater range of climate with easier travel. As for the prospects of a full recovery of my original health (i.e., previous to last winter) I cannot decide yet. I may, when once out of this climate and atmosphere in which I have fallen, recover at once and fully; and I may never be able to throw off the effects of such prolonged prostration. My own opinion inclines strongly to the latter. I do not think any one need come to see me home; I should be sorry to give that trouble to any one, and will do my best to get on by myself. And now, with a kiss and great love to all, and the best to your own dear self, I am as ever
Yours
Clara
To Fannie’s husband, Bernard Barton Vassall, the “Ber” or “Bear” of her playful letters, she had already written:
5 Heusen St., Wansey St.
Walworth Road, London, April 8, 1873
My dear Good Boy Ber:
I cannot tell you how good and kind it was of you to hasten to write me as soon as you knew I had need of a word of sympathy; neither can I tell how it did me good and made me better and stronger. I was so weak and ill that day. It came at night with one from your mother, and they were the first words of sympathy that had come to me from the old home. I almost hesitate to tell you how long I held them in my hands. I looked at them till they were damp with fever and perspiration before I opened them and kept saying softly to myself, “There’s something good for me in there; there are good kind words and sympathy.” I waited still and held them close till I got a little accustomed to them, and then I got raised up a little in my hot bed and read them all through and through, and Mamie read them all to me again. How they helped me on after that worst and weakest and hardest of all the days I have passed in all this illness! It seemed providential that they should come just then. It was not my cough that was holding me so low at that moment. I don’t know if in all I have written your mother, I have ever told her how I got a part of my illness. I had two physicians, one daily and one consulting occasionally. He came one day in early March, and recommended me to be taken out of bed and bathed in water each day, put back awhile, then taken up and dressed. I could not stand alone, but this was done two days. I had only my cough then, but the third morning after the bathing and “gaping” I couldn’t straighten a limb. It proved to be inflammatory rheumatism from my body to my toes; then in two weeks a relapse and a rheumatic fever set in, which was at its height when your letters arrived. But the port wine broke the fever and I am nearly past the effects of the rheumatism, have little or no pain, and my cough is not dangerous now, I am sure; I sleep pretty well for me, and I eat good substantial food. Now, if I can hold fast to all these improvements, I cannot think it will be necessary for any person to leave home and business to come to me. I could not be come for at present, for I should not dare attempt the voyage yet, and I hope to be able to get along by myself, especially as it is almost summer now. But, dear Ber, I think every moment how good and kind it was of you to say you would come if I needed you, and if I should “go to the bad” again, I fear I shall need you. If such a miserable state of things comes, I will telegraph, and you will all consult, and do what seems best to you to do. You know much better than I what would be well to do, and, if it must be done, you will do it. Doesn’t the State want to send you over to make some investigations? In that case it wouldn’t seem such waste of ammunition on small game as to come just to look after poor miserable me, who never amount to anything anywhere.
But, Ber, I shall never have done thinking how quick and kind you were in writing me, and what strength and purpose I felt in every line of your letter, and it strengthens me still. You saw so clearly how I needed a strong arm near me; all about me is so weak. I have managed everything since my illness, for myself, and all around me, from my banking business and correspondence to my butcher and grocer, the airing of my linen, and the arranging of the chairs in my room. There is no mind or will or thought that can go one inch beyond me, when I stop. There is no hand that has enough magnetic force to take away one nervous twinge, not a hand that does not take magnetism from me even now, and days when I am weakest, I cannot let a hand be laid upon me, to rub, or even comb my hair. I feel the loss of strength directly and fall into nervous perspiration. I tell you all this because I read between the lines of your dear letter that you half divined the case, and I may as well confess it. I believe I can bring myself up out of this weakness, and then I will come home to thank you, and be “put in my little bed.” Won’t you write me again soon, now you know how it does me good?
Dear Fannie offers her “Bear” to me,—what a good Bearess she is, isn’t she? Now, dear Ber, with a great big kiss, and I can’t say that there aren’t a few other little things dropped along with it, here, my good boy, is my good-bye.
From Your Old Sick Auntie
Clara
Ber, you must hold your good mother steady and not let her get alarmed. It will never do for her to come all this way on such an errand. In any case it would be too hard for her.
Though neither medicine nor the climate availed to help her, she found some measure of relief in a cheerful spirit. Of her system of mental therapeutics she wrote to her niece Mamie Barton, Mrs. John Stafford:
Auntie wants to write Mamie a little letter. She is more sorry than she can tell that she has such a stupid illness that forbids her to be company for any one.
Auntie does not feel less social for this and, although it is hard and painful, she will not feel despondent a moment, but hopeful and cheerful for the present and future, if the circumstances immediately about her do not combine to depress her to a degree which she cannot control. If she had a headache or a nervous head which a noise would disturb or make ache, there would be some good reason for all about her to keep quiet, and leave her to her rest and reflections; but she has nothing of this, and never has. Her head is strong physically. (She will not refer to its mental qualities.) And as she has nothing to do all night but to rest and reflect, she does not need special opportunity for these during the day. If she were all alone, she would not get lonely or nervous on account of the quiet and silence about her. She has had great experiences in this and is accustomed to it. But when she feels herself imposing a dull dead silence on all persons about her, those whom she loves most dearly and for whose hourly comfort and happiness she would sacrifice anything in reason and see her dear little girls gliding about without speaking a sentence,—never sees a laugh or scarce a smile,—it makes her feel herself such a restriction, such a detractor from their happiness and leaves her such a prey to sad reflections and makes her feel the misfortune of her illness so deeply that at times it seems impossible to bear it. She grows more and more depressed every minute and the poor strained nerves refuse longer control, and, in spite of all her womanly determination, break into tears and groans. This would make me very ill in time. Mamie doesn’t want this of all things, Auntie knows, and she writes this poor little letter to explain to her the causes and the results, and tell her how to avoid the one and improve the other.
Just, then, throw away the old-time, never-to-be-departed-from notion, handed down from nobody knows where, that all ill or ailing persons are to be treated the same, and that mainly like a dead person, surrounded by dumb watchers, and dim tapers, waiting to be buried, and remember that one whose heart is cheery and one whose mind is active, but whose mouth is closed to speech, might like to borrow the use of the mouths of those around them—might and must want, most of all, some one to talk for them—to say the nonsense and make the fun they cannot say and make for themselves. And that nothing so much as a good funny time a day would so shorten and deaden the pain that must be borne in either case. Now, if the two dear good little girls could only bring themselves to have the same chatty day that Auntie knows they would have if they were in their own room by themselves, laughing, singing, doing nonsense, and, in short, feeling themselves perfectly free to enjoy themselves as I always know they do when by themselves, Auntie would be more grateful to them than for anything else they could do for her. And she has faith in the good understanding of her dear Mamie, to believe that she still sees the real state of the case as she could not see it before. And she knows that once she sees it, that big lump of Benevolence just on the top of her head, will not permit her to do anything but have a good jolly time in spite of her disagreeable old Auntie who can’t just now help a bit to make it, but who needs it more than ever, and most of all.
Mamie needn’t work on that old puzzling dress unless she greatly desires to.
Now, with great love, and great hopes, and sincere commiseration, Auntie closes this her first epistle to the daughter of David and waiting to hear her cry out in a “loud voice,” she remains as usual
Old Dolorous
The summer, however, did her some good. She was able to get out and do a little sight-seeing, her longest journey being to Stratford-on-Avon. Early in October she sailed for home on the steamship Parthia.
Only a few weeks before she had believed that she had but a short time to live, or that if she lived it must be as a hopeless and permanent invalid; but with even the beginning of a restoration to health she recalled her determination to introduce in America the Red Cross, under whose auspices she had labored on the battle-fields of Europe. She knew that America had no knowledge of, or interest in, the Red Cross. She had good reason to question whether it would be possible for her immediately to stir up any great enthusiasm for it. But she was determined to live and bring this to pass.
As usual on trans-Atlantic voyages, there was a concert in the cabin of the Parthia. Clara Barton, returning to America as the heroine of two wars, was asked to participate. She made her contribution to the evening’s entertainment in a poem which she wrote on shipboard, in which she expressed her ardent desire and her solicitude. She was going back to America after a long absence. Was there anything for her to do when she got here? For daily bread she had no concern and no need for concern. Her modest income was adequate for her still more modest needs. Even while traveling abroad she had found no occasion to encroach upon her principal, and her expenses at home were certain to leave her each year a little margin between income and outgo. But there had entered into her soul a vision of the contribution which she might be permitted to make to America and the world by securing America’s adhesion to the international treaty which included the recognition of the Red Cross. Would America listen to her when she pleaded for this? Had it room for her and her mission?
HAVE YE ROOM?
Five days from New York—five days did he say?
Only five days from the glistening bay,
That four years ago I sailed tearfully o’er
Watching the sunny light fade from the shore!
As the kerchiefs had faded along the dense pier,
And the God bless you’s died on the listening ear.
Tearfully, prayerfully, sailing away,
Past the green islands, and out of the bay,
Recalling in pain they who sorrowed and wept,
More painfully still the brave who had slept;
Tearfully, prayerfully sailing away
In search of the strength that went out in the fray.
It were easy to search for the gems of the sea,
The jewels and gold hid in mountain and lea,
The thin veins of silver that line the green sod,
But health is of wisdom, and strength is of God.
Four wearisome years in lands strange and old,
Watching the changes that over them rolled,
How the calm shadows lay in the valley of rest,
And the black war cloud gathered from out of the west;
How lancer and tireur dashed o’er the plain
And the smiles fled the face of sweet Alsace-Lorraine.
And helmet and turban lay soaked in the rain
And the masterless dog lapped the wounds of the slain.
Fair sons and brave husbands there lingered not one,
And the far childless widow prayed—Thy will be done.
How the old nations groaned on their unstable beds,
As the great car of progress rolled over their heads,
Uprooting old forms, time-honored of sages
Sowing new truths for the incoming ages.
Republics have sprung on the steps of the throne,
Kingdoms have crumbled, empires have grown;
Princes and prelates have listened their doom,
And ermine and gold-decked the refugee’s tomb.
Strange sights for strange eyes as the old cities burn,
And battle and siege follow each in their turn.
I have heard the faint note of the last sentry’s call,
And seen the white flag flutter out o’er the wall;
I have bound up death wounds lying dark and alone,
And the language that blessed me was strange and unknown.
The homeless and famished clung wild with despair,
And the noble and gentle have cherished me there.
Still trustingly,—loyally: loving and true,
Anxious and glad, I am coming to you.
Have ye place, each beloved one, a place in your prayer,
Have ye room, my dear countrymen, room for me there?
How the strength rose and fell in those perilous years!
What torture it made of my hopes and my fears,
When I joyed in its rise or wept for its fall,
It was never myself that I thought of at all.
But if only once more I might tread the loved land,
And toil for its weal with my heart, and my hand;
Have ye place, each beloved one, a place in your prayer,
Have ye work, my brave countrymen, work for me there?
Plow on, old Parthia, steady and true,
Each plunge of thy prow brings them nearer to view;
Brings me nearer the days that shall settle the doubt
If they’ve kept me within—or have left me without.
For my feeble hands failed while care rested on all,
And trouble and grief wrapped them round like a pall.
Who shall say that the storms have not scattered my sheaves,
Or the winter winds buried the fallen autumn leaves,
Or the gaping seas closed without anger or frown,
And the freighted ships crowd where the lone wreck went down?
Have ye place, each beloved one, a place in your prayer,
Have ye room, my dear countrymen, room for me there?
Steamship Parthia, Mid-Atlantic
October 8, 1873