Her house is full
of relics of the past. There is a portrait of Dickens as a young man
with long hair. He had a feminine face in those days, for all its
strength. Hard by is a sketch of Keats by Severn, with a lock of the
poet's hair. Opposite is a head of Thackeray, with a note in his
handwriting fastened below. "Good-bye, Mrs. Fields; good-bye, my dear
Fields; good-bye to all. I go home."
Thackeray left Boston abruptly because a sudden desire to see his
children had assailed him at Christmas time!
As you sit in Mrs. Field's spacious room overlooking the Bay, you
realize suddenly that before you ever came into it, Dickens and
Thackeray were both here, that this beautiful old lady who so kindly
smiles on you has smiled on them and on many other great men of letters
long since dead. It is here that they seem most alive. This is the house
where the culture of Boston seems no fad to make a joke about, but a
rare and delicate reality.
This--and Fen Court, the home of that wonderful woman Mrs. Jack
Gardiner, who represents the present worship of beauty in Boston as Mrs.
Fields represents its former worship of literary men. Fen Court is a
house of enchantment, a palace, and Mrs. Gardiner is like a great
princess in it.
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