THAXTER, CELIA. 



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riage took place when she was sixteen years of 

 age. Of their 3 sons, the youngest, Roland, is an 

 assistant professor at Harvard University. Mr. 

 Thaxter, as well as his wife, was a well-known 

 figure in New England literary circles. He de- 

 voted much time and attention to the study of 

 Browning's poetry before the various Browning 

 societies came into existence, and from the close 



CELIA THAXTER. 



of the civil war until his death, in 1884, gave 

 readings and interpretations of the poet in Bos- 

 ton. On Mr. Thaxter's death Mr. Browning 

 wrote a poetical epitaph, which has been en- 

 graved on a bowlder placed at the head of the 

 grave in the old Kittery burying ground at the 

 mouth of Portsmouth harbor. 



In her first prose volume, "Among the Isles of 

 Shoals " (1873), originally contributed as a series 

 of articles to the " Atlantic Monthly " in 1867- 

 '68, Mrs. Thaxter describes her life as a child 

 with great picturesqueness. " I do not think a 

 happier triad ever existed than we were, living 

 in that profound isolation. Every evening it 

 was a fresh excitement to watch the lighting of 

 the lamps, and think how far the lighthouse sent 

 its rays. As I grew older I was allowed to kindle 

 the lamps sometimes myself. . . . The faint 

 echoes of the far-off world hardly touched us 

 little ones. . . . We waited for the spring with 

 an eager longing ; the advent of the growing 

 grass, the birds and flowers and insect life, the 

 soft skies and softer winds, the everlasting beauty 

 of the thousand tender tints that clothed the 

 world, these things brought us unspeakable bliss. 

 To the heart of Nature one must needs be drawn 

 by such a life. With the first warm days we 

 built our little mountains of wet gravel on the 

 beach, and danced after the sandpipers at the 

 edge of the foam, shouted to the gossiping kitti- 

 wakes that fluttered above, or watched the 

 pranks of the burgomaster gull, or cried to the 

 crying loons." Elsewhere she has described the 

 way in which she became an author : " I never 

 sought the public ear, but writing and publish- 

 ing was forced on me. I had written some 



verses in pencil on an envelope 1 happened to 

 have in my pocket, and sent them to a friend, a 

 woman who I knew sympathized with my home- 

 sickness for the sea. She gave them to a relation 

 who was connected with a magazine, and he 

 handed them to James Russell Lowell, then 

 editor of the magazine (the 'Atlantic Monthly'), 

 who christened them ' Landlocked ' and printed 

 them without a word to me, and the first thing I 

 knew I saw my verses in print, to my profound 

 astonishment. After that I had to write, for 

 my friends James T. Fields, John G. Whittier, 

 and others insisted on it. ' Write thee must 

 it is thy kismet,' said the great, good poet, and 

 so I did.' The first volume of "Poems" was 

 collected and published in 1872, and confirmed 

 her reputation as a poet. At this time she had 

 become thoroughly identified as a writer with 

 the Isles of Shoals, and was then the central at- 

 traction of this charming resort. In fact, it is 

 quite as much as a personality as a poet that 

 Mrs. Thaxter will be remembered. After her 

 father's death her brothers Oscar and Cedric 

 became proprietors of the summer hotel, near 

 which Mrs. Thaxter occupied a small cottage. 

 Adjoining this, the flower garden, which has be- 

 come so well known, was laid out, and Mrs. Thax- 

 ter devoted many hours daily, from spring until 

 autumn, to its care. She was accustomed to 

 work in it during the morning hours before and 

 after sunrise, and it seemed almost impossible 

 that flowers should bloom so luxuriantly in that 

 northern climate as did hers. In "An Island 

 Garden," published the year of her death in re- 

 sponse to a multitude of requests for informa- 

 tion as to her methods of floriculture, she gives a 

 full account of her experiences with flowers and 

 their enemies, and the book is of great value as a 

 technical work as well as for its charming liter- 

 ary qualities. Her parlor was study and studio 

 combined, Mrs. Thaxter having a decided talent 

 for painting in water colors, and scattered about 

 on shelf and mantel were many small vases in 

 which she and the young girls about her daily 

 arranged a choice collection from the garden. 

 Here Mrs. Thaxter worked and received her 

 friends, and people came and went at will. She 

 took much pleasure in illustrating copies of her 

 books of poems with flowers and sea scenes suit- 

 able to the text, and spent much time in this 

 work, and copies of these little books, with illus- 

 trations done by herself in water color, were 

 much in demand. Besides the friends already 

 named, a goodly array of artists, musicians, and 

 men of letters spent a portion of the season at 

 Appledore Island. Among these may be men- 

 tioned James Russell Lowell, John G. Whittier, 

 William Morris Hunt, John Weiss, the artists 

 Childe Hassam and J. Appleton Brown, Dr. Will- 

 iam Mason, the composer, Henry M. Alden, and 

 Mrs. Clement Waters, who made the island a 

 veritable summer home of art. Mr. Hassam had 

 contributed, with other American artists, to a 

 large illustrated volume of " Idyls and Pasto- 

 rals," poems by Mrs. Thaxter, published in 1886, 

 and he was selected to make the colored illus- 

 trations of " An Island Garden," already men- 

 tioned. On the shore of the mainland opposite 

 the Isles of Shoals were the summer homes of a 

 number of Mrs. Thaxter's literary friends. Her 

 death occurred at a time when many of her old 



