Adelaide Procter
ADELAIDE PROCTER.
THERE are many who love this sweet and gentle poet. Patience, disinterested devotion, faith,
earnestness, courage, these are the themes which inspired her songs, and frequently the virtues which they directly
urge upon the reader. None of her poems lapse into rhymed sermons ; they are true poems, when most moral
and didactic. Of their authoress we know little, but that little is just what it is most pleasing to know. We
learn on the authority of Charles Dickens, that her poems were but the expression of her daily life; she was a too arduous worker, a faithful friend, a devoted helper of the poor
and suffering.
When she was yet too young to write, Dickens tells us, in the preface which he wrote for an edition of her works,
she had a little album made of small sheets of note-paper neatly sewed together, into which her mother copied for
her her favorite verses. This little book she read and reread, and constantly carried about with her. in her studies
she displayed a precocious ability, learning easily and rapidly, and showing a remarkable memory. As she
grew older she acquired French, German, and Italian, played well upon the piano, and evinced a marked talent
for drawing ; but she tired of each of these branches when she had mastered its chief difficulties. Her father, Bryan
Wailer Procter (the poet known as Barry Cornwall), although he considered her a girl of unusual capacity,
never suspected that she had inherited his poetical gift, nor did he know that she had ever composed a line of
poetry, until her first verses appeared in print. These were published in the Book of Beauty, and a few others
followed in various magazines, but her first volume, entitled A Chaplet of Verses, was not issued until 1862,
when she was thirty-seven years of age.
This little volume was published for the benefit of a London Night-Refuge, and in a preface Miss Procter
advances the claims of the institution, narrates its history, and solicits aid for its treasury. But she makes a
much more powerful plea in two of the poems Homeless," and " The homeless Poor." The latter, a striking
dialogue between the Angel of Prayers and the Angel of Deeds, in which the splendid services going on within the
churches of the city are contrasted with the misery of the poor creatures left shivering iii the streets at night, is
still a favorite with many of her readers. Some of the other poems too—such as " Milly's Expiation," a story
told by an Irish priest, " A Legend," and " Our Titles," are in her best manner. Many of the poems pertain to
her faith—she was a Roman Catholic—but it is not
necessary to be a catholic to appreciate the artistic beauty of such pieces as the " Shrines of Mary," and " A_ Chaplet
of Flowers."
It was in 1853 that Dickens, then editor of " Household Words," noticed among the contributions with which his
office table was littered, a short poem which he considered unusually good. It professed to be the work of a Miss
Mary Berwick, a name quite unknown to him, who was to be addressed through a London circulating library.
He wrote to her immediately, accepting the poem and requesting her to contribute another. She did so, and became
a writer for the periodical.
Miss Berwick was none other than Miss Procter, whom Dickens had known since she was a little girl, and whose
father was one of his oldest and dearest friends. She had chosen to correspond with him under an assumed name,
because she feared, had she used her own, and her poem not been such as he desired, that he would either
have accepted it for friendship's sake, or have found it very painful to refuse. It was more than a year before
the facts became known to him. Then, during the month of December, when going to dine with Barry Cornwall, he
carried with him an early proof of the Christmas number of Household Words, entitled "The Seven Poor Travelers."
As he laid it down upon the parlor table before the assembled family, he remarked that it contained an exceedingly
pretty poem by a certain Miss Mary Berwick. The next day he was informed that Miss Berwick and Miss Procter
were one, and shortly afterward she had the happiness of receiving the following delightful letter from her editor:
"My dear Miss Procter, you have given me a new sensation. I did suppose that nothing in this singular
world could surprise me, but you have done it.
"You will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and talent of our writing to be sincere. From the
first, I have always had an especial interest in that Miss Berwick, and have over and over again questioned
Wills about her. 1 suppose he has gone on gradually building up an imaginary structure of life and adventure
for her, but he has given me the strangest information! Only yesterday week, when we were 'making up' The
Poor Travelers,' I said to him, 'Wills, have you got that Miss Berwick's proof back, of the little sailor's song ?'
'No,' he said. ' Well, but why not?' I asked him. 'Why, you know,' he answered, ' as I have often told you
before, she don't live at the place to which her letters are addressed, and so there's always difficulty and delay
in communicating with her." Do you know what age she is ?' I said. Here he looked unfathomably profound,
and returned, 'Rather advanced in life.' "You said she was a governess, didn't you?' said I; to which he replied
in the most emphatic and positive manner, 'A governess.'
"He then came and stood in the corner of the hearth, with his back to the fire, and delivered himself like an
oracle concerning you. He told me that early in life (conveying to me the impression of about a century ago)
you had had your feelings desperately wounded by some cause, real or imaginary—' It does not matter which,'
said I with the greatest sagacity—and that you had then taken to writing verses. That you were of an unhappy
temperament, but keenly sensitive to encouragement. That you wrote after the educational duties of the day
were discharged. That you sometimes thought of never writing any more. That you had been away for some
time ' with your pupils.' That your letters were of a mild and melancholy character, and that you did not
seem to care as much as might be expected about money. All this time I sat poking the fire, with a wisdom upon
me absolutely crushing ; and finally I begged him to assure the lady that she might trust me with her real
address, and that it would be better to have it now, as I hoped our further communications, etc. You must have
felt enormously wicked last Tuesday, when I, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously prattling to you. But
you have given me so much pleasure, and have made me shed so many tears, that I can only think of you now in
association with the sentiment and grace of your verses.
"So pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of Richard Watts, though I am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion. Very faithfully yours, Charles
Dickens."
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The allusion in the last paragraph is to the house at Rochester known as " Watts' Charity," the inscription
upon which states that it will furnish a night's lodging to six poor travelers, "not being Rogues or Proctors."
The volume of Legends and Lyrics, Miss Procter's second book, is much better than her first, and contains
many of her finest, poems, including such favorites as " The Angel's Story," " True Honors," " A Tomb in Ghent,"
etc. American readers may note with interest that the motto placed beneath her dedication to a friend is from
Emerson.
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The second series which followed under the same title opened with the " Legend of
Provence," one of
the loveliest of Italian traditions clothed in exquisite verse, and contained other poems briefer but not less
beautiful. It was her last book.
Adelaide Procter died of overwork—not literary work, for all her poems together make a volume of but moderate
size, but of the ceaseless labors which she undertook in the cause of charity. She visited the sick ; she taught
the ignorant ; she aided the widening of woman's sphere of exertion, working for each object, as Dickens says,
" with a flushed earnestness that disregarded season, weather, time of day or night, food, rest." Even when
her failing health warned her to stop, she could not. It was in her nature to go on and on until she could go no
more. So long as she was able to move about, she went on with the task she had set herself, and only when at
last she was obliged to take to her bed, did her restlessness disappear. Then, indeed, she resigned herself to
her fate with a patience touching to witness; and during the fifteen months of her illness never spoke a single
impatient or complaining word. Some who have read her poems have thought of her as a person always pensive
and serious ; but indeed she was possessed of a lively sense of humor, and had a peculiarly pleasant, ringing
laugh. This cheerfulness remained with her to the end She died on the third of February, 1864, very early
in the morning. Her last words, uttered with a bright smile, were :
" It has come at last "
Adelaide Procter's poems are remarkable for their simplicity and directness of style. Many of them are
songs songs, whose full beauty can not be appreciated until we hear them sung. Those who have heard
"Cleansing Fires " or " The Lost Chord" fitly rendered will appreciate this truth.
THE LOST CHORD.
Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.
I knew not what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight
Like the close of an angel's Psalm;
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and' sorrow
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.
It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.
I have sought, but I seek it. vainly,
That one lost chord divine
That came from the soul of the organ,
And entered into mine.
It may be that Death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in Heaven
I shall hear that grand Amen.
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