Fanny Forester (1845 - 1846)

C H A P T E R V I I

Fanny Forester

[ 1845—1846 ]

N December, Adoniram was invited to attend a series of missionary meetings in Philadelphia. To make sure of his accepting, the Reverend Dr. A. D. Gillette of the Eleventh Street Baptist Church of that city visited him in Boston with an offer to accompany him on the trip.

Between New York and Philadelphia the train was held up for two or three hours by a railroad accident. Gillette, a solicitous companion, borrowed for Adoniram’s entertainment a copy of a newly published book which he saw in the hands of a friend. He had read it, he said, and it was attracting a great deal of deserved attention. Adoniram looked at the cover doubtfully. It read Tripping: in Author Land, and it bore the name of a woman, Fanny Forester. He did not think he would be interested. An elderly missionary, a scholar—he had no interest in tripping through morasses of gush about author land. But there was nothing else to do.

He took the book and idly riffled the pages. It consisted of sketches—half brief stories, half impressions—with titles such as “The Bank Note,” “Nickie Ben,” “The Chief’s Daughter.” Here and there a phrase caught his eye. In a few minutes he was absorbed. The subjects may have been trivial, but the writing had a lightness and vividness that held the reader. Fanny ForeSter, whoever she was, had the ability to create reality.

Gillette had left Adoniram when he saw the book had his attention. On his return he found Adoniram enthusiastic. “Who is Fanny Forester?” he asked. “This writing has great beauty, great power.” He repeated emphatically, “Great beauty and power.”

Her real name was Emily Chubbo[u]ck, Gillette told him. She had been a teacher at a seminary in Utica, in central New York. A few

FANNY FORESTER

years ago she had attracted the attention of N. P. Willis, editor of the N ew Y ork Mirror. Willis — worldly wise, superficially frivolous, with a keen eye for what women liked to read, nevertheless possessed taste, and integrity—the latter derived perhaps from his youth in Boston, where his father had been a deacon on “Brimstone Corner,” or perhaps from the sober influence of his undergraduate days at Yale. It was Willis who had told Emily Chubbock, when she bewailed the fact that she was getting nowhere in literature, “How can you expect anything better? Who will read a poem signed ‘Chubbock’? Sign yourself ‘Fanny Forester’ and you will see the change.” Whether or not the change of name was responsible, the name of Fanny Forester had skyrocketed to literary fame within the past two years.

To Adoniram, Fanny Forester’s bright personality was a refreshing contrast to the unrelieved sadness and soberness of recent months. He would willingly exchange a few hours of conversation with a woman like that for any number of panegyrics at missionary meetings. Ever since Sarah’s death he had felt himself almost dead. People spoke of him in his presence as if he were dead and they giving funeral orations. Even the farewells to his children were like deathbed leavetakings. Now Fanny Forester’s lively pages flaunted a colorful banner of persistent life and happiness. She knew death and misery existed. That was plain in several of the sketches. But the pert life in her character defied them.

It would be too much to expect a woman like this to have religious feelings. Adoniram asked Gillette, “Is she a Christian?”

When Gillette assured him that she was, Adoniram put his wishes into words. “I should be glad to know her. A lady who writes so well ought to write better. It is a pity that such fine talents should be employed upon such subjects.”

Gillette smiled. “You can meet her soon and tell her yourself. She is a guest at my house.”

Arrangements had been made for Adoniram to stay at the home of Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Roberts, but he wasted no time in calling on the Gillettcs the next morning, Christmas Day. Sure enough, the authoress was at home. In fact, that very moment she was being vaccinated against smallpox. When Adoniram was led into her presence and introduced, he found her informally bUt smartly garbed in morning dress, one arm bared, while the doctor made ready to introduce the vaccine.

Adoniram studied her silently during the vaccination. He saw a slender, self-possessed, dark-eyed woman of middle height. She seemed to be in her late twenties— thirty at most. Her nose and mouth were too large for beauty, her lips too thin. But she had something better than beauty—life, and a humor that bordered on playfulness. As Emily Chubbock she displayed the same spirited personality that appeared in her writing as Fanny Forester. Adoniram forgot the homeliness of her features as he saw their response to the emotions that lighted them. She seemed to find fun even in a vaccination.

No sooner had the doctor put away his instruments and left the room than Adoniram led her to the sofa, sat down beside her, and said he wanted to talk to her. With a smile, she replied she would be delighted and honored.

Bluntly Adoniram asked, “How can you reconcile it with your conscience to employ such noble talents in writing so little useful and spiritual as those sketches I read?”

Emily was anything but meek. Ordinarily, such an abrupt attack would have brought a sharp retort. But like most people she found it impossible to take offense when the attack came from Adoniram. Respect alone would have put a leash on her tongue, but it was not respect which made her heart soften to him so suddenly. It was that peculiar candor of Adoniram’s, the warmth and sweetness he was capable of radiating as a lamp radiates heat and light.

She understood at once that he was not blaming her—he really wanted to know. She told him honestly how she came to be Fanny Forester. Her childhood in central New York State, near Hamilton, had been one of poverty and bitter struggle. Her father, a hard worker, had never been able to make ends meet. His large brood of children never knew from one day to another whether they would have anything to eat. Emily had to go to work at the age of eleven in a woolen factory splicing rolls. With unbelievable effort she somehow managed to acquire an education of sorts, taught here and there, and finally settled down in the Utica Female Seminary, which was kept by two sisters with the interesting names of Urania and Cynthia Sheldon. Here she quickly manifested an extraordinary literary talent.

After a good many of her products had appeared in local newspapers, it occurred to her that she might be able to earn money by writing. Her first book—a little volume of moral stories for children called Charles Linn—sold fairly well and earned her some—thing more than fifty dollars. Popular magazines began publishing her work. Book followed book and eventually she was able to buy a small mortgaged home for her parents, who were now almost entirely dependent on her support. But her earnings only became substantial when she took on the name and literary character of the frivolous Fanny Forester. As Fanny, her writings were not quite the kind she preferred but they were not immoral. And could Adoniram blame her, she asked him seriously, turning toward him on the sofa, if she felt it necessary to use her only talent this way for her parents’ sake?

No, Adoniram admitted, he could not blame her. She might not be employing her talents to the highest purpose, but certainly she had the best of reasons for using them as she did. He changed the subject. He had been looking, he told her, for someone who could prepare a memoir of Sarah. It was this, partly, that had made him want to meet her as soon as he read her book. Would she be interested in helping him?

Emily would, of course. A devout Baptist since girlhood, she had thought of becoming a missionary herself when she was twelve or thirteen and read about the tragic deaths of Nancy and little Maria. Once in her teens she had even written to her pastor inquiring how to go about becoming a missionary. She had followed the careers of the Burma missionaries ever since.

The two promptly set to work discussing the matter—discussions that in a day or so were taking up nearly all their waking time. In spite of their different experiences, they seemed to have everything in common. Her religious faith was not equal to his own ——but neither had been Sarah’s in her early years with him. And Emily certainly had an innate goodness and determination to do right that formed a solid foundation for the building of faith in the future. Within a few weeks, probably jamlary 5, 1846, the day he noted in a personal chronology as having “commenced an acquaintanceship with Emily Chubbock,” Adoniram made up his mind that she should not only write Sarah’s biography — she should take Sarah’s place.

The decision made, he acted in the same quick way as always. In the most vivid language at his command he painted for her the East where he had worked so long: rich, beautiful, ornamented, but peopled with hungry souls. He described his life there: full of labor, dangers and frustrations, but completely satisfying because he was filling those souls with the truth and guiding them to heaven.

Emily listened with fascination. No man whom she fully respected had ever made love to her. Now here was the great Dr. Judson, revered around the world, offering her the most useful of all work, offering to take care of her, offering to lift her burdens, offering love. And offering with a fire and impetuosity and charm that seemed to belong more to a man of thirty than of fifty-seven. For that matter, he looked like a man of thirty. His hair was still untouched by gray. His movements were active as a youth’s. Only the huskiness of his voice betrayed the ravages of his life. But that husky voice did not lack passion, and volume was unnecessary. After all, she was not a congregation.

She felt she could not withstand him, yet his proposal frightened her. She was a public figure. What would Mr. Willis and the literary coterie in New York say when they learned that Fanny Forester—gay, witty, frothy Fanny F orester—meant to give up a career just at the rise, and bury herself among the heathen of Burma? Worse, she felt no real call to be a missionary. Entering such a life seemed like entering a kind of death.

Adoniram brushed aside her objeCtions. She could not deny they were a completely congenial pair. Their tastes, their natural gifts, even their exuberant humor, matched. His children needed a mother. He needed a companion. She revered him; bUt most of all he called forth her love.

Less than a month after their meeting he sent her the watch which had been worn by Nancy and Sarah, and with it a formal proposal:

Imzuary 20, 1846 I hand you, dearest one, a charmed watch. It always comes back to me, and brings its bearer with it. I gave it to Ann when a hemisphere divided us, and it brought her safely and surely to my arms. I gave it to Sarah during her husband’s lifetime (not then aware of the secret), and the charm, though slow in its operation, was true at last.

Were it not for the sweet sympathies you have kindly extended to me, and the blessed understanding that “love has taught me to guess at,” I should not venture to pray you to accept my present with such a note. Should you cease to “guess” and toss back the article, saying, “Your watch has lost its charm; it comes back to you, but bring: not its wearer with it”— 0 first dash it to pieces, that it may be an emblem of what will remain of the heart of

Your devoted,

A. JUDSON. It was the kind of letter a Fanny Forester might have written; certainly not what one would expect of the dean of American foreign missionaries.

Emily accepted the watch.

Four days later she wrote to Miss Sheldon at the Female Seminary in Utica, “My good doctor has now gone away, and I have just said to him the irrevocable yes, though I must acknowledge that I have acted it slightly before.”

That same day, Adoniram left for Washington and Richmond, Virginia, while Emily waited for the temperature in Utica to rise above zero so that she could go home and make the necessary arrangements for embarking on her new life.

The engagement raised a storm of talk over the country, much of it—perhaps mOSt of it—critical. Everywhere Adoniram had gone, people had insisted on regarding him as something more than human. On platform after platform he was so extolled, much to his own distaste. In reaction, he had been cold, almost insulting, to the men and women who persisted in viewing him as a plaster saint. Time after time he had disappointed audiences by refusing to discuss his adventures and instead repeating to them the simple message of the Gospel they heard every Sunday from their own ministers. They could see for themselves, so he thought, that he was a man like other men, with a family and family cares, with the frailties and foibles of other men. Nevertheless, many preferred the legend to the man.

Now they learned that the saintly Dr. Judson planned to marry a woman scarcely more than half his age! Worse, a woman who wrote light fiction for pOpular magazines! Still worse, a woman who wrote under an assumed name!

The legend was shattered. Those who had held to it most blindly now savagely took most pleasure in attacking the fragments, forgetting that Adoniram had children still in Moulmein who needed a mother, overlooking the fact that Emily Chubbock had begun her literary career with a series of religious books and that she turned to polite literature only when she had to do something to support her parents.

The criticism from the religious world was matched by that from the literary. Editors and readers alike blamed Adoniram for bewitching Emily by some dark sorcery. They thought of him almost as a seducer. How else could she be induced to give up her brilliant career at its most promising moment in order to bury herself in the Orient with a man old enough to be her father?

By the time the full storm broke, Emily had settled down 1n Utica while Adoniram continued his travels. They wrote every day. She was less prepared than he to withstand the gossip. Early in April she wrote disconsolately:

I wish they would just let me alone. Give me some place to be quiet in, if it be only a hovel, and I will be grateful. I am heart-sick now, and if the feeling be not wicked, would rather die than live. It is not enough that I have resolved on a step which is almost death— forgive me, dearCSt—I am troubled, and do not consider what I write. I shall be very happy with you, I know; but now I am mOSt miserable. It seems that all New York is alive about the affair. It is the common subject of conversation on steamboat and in hotel, in parlor and in grog-shop. H. Anable, who has juSt returned from New York, says there is no place or circle where my name is not heard. There is even talk of preventing such an insane proceeding as F. F.’s “throwing herself away." They say such a senseless sacrifice is unparalleled....

Adoniram, at his best under opposition, took a certain amount of wry amusement out of the furor. He was staying with the children at Plymouth and a letter of his crossed hers:

The children are mightily amused at their papa’s marrying Emily Chubbock. Abby Ann had found out from some neighbors that it was Fanny Forester: but she is quite sure that Fanny Forester must be very good, since she wrote E flie Maurice, one of her favorite books. Our affair, I find, has been, not the towntalk but the country-talk, for a fortnight or month past. The Philadelphia announcement, that “marriage was intended between the Rev., etc., and the dear, delightful Fanny Forester,” Opened people’s eyes a bit. Even that slow, deliberating committed it to memory, and was able to repeat it verbatim, which I made him do. He did not know, not he, but I had found a jewel, but timidly inquired whether you would be arrayed in other jewels and finery! ——evidently fearing that you would come dancing through the country, like other Fannies, in the style laid down in Isaiah, chap. iii.... The truth is, it is not strange that there should be a great wonderment; we calculated on it. But we need not care for it. We can both of us, perhaps, afford to be pretty independent of it. And we know it will soon pass away, and still more, that a reaction will probably take place....

Perhaps Emily sometimes thought uncomfortably that it was the experience of his two previous marriages that enabled Adoniram to keep so cool about the whole matter. She continued to protest that she felt as if she were “set up in a pillory.... It does not agree with my mental or moral constitution to occupy such a conspicuous position. I grow unamiable every day, and shall be a perfect Xantippe before we get to heathendom.” She felt all kinds of fears. She was “so nervous that the slightest thing startles and alarms me.” She dreaded “the coming of something that may separate us, or make us less happy in each other.”

Adoniram reassured her from Boston:

As to what the newspapers and the public say, can you not receive it with that cool, quiet composure which best becomes you, nor let any one but me know that it disturbs you? In fact, be not disturbed. There is nothing that ought to disturb one of your pure and high purpose. Before God we are indeed full of sin; but we may still feel that the path we are treading is one which the common people have neither capacity to investigate, nor right to judge.

He added that the opinion of one man such as President Wayland of Brown University was “worth that of ten thousand and here it is under March 26th: ‘I know not where you are, but hear you are tripping in author-land under the guidance of a fair Forester. I am pleased to hear of your engagement, as far as I know of it. Miss C. is everywhere spoken of as a pious, sensible, cultivated and engaging person. I pray God it may prove a great and mutual blessing.’ ” He admitted however, that it was easier for him than for Emily. “I have been so cried down at different periods of my life... thatI suppose I am a little hardened. But I feel for you, for it is your firSt field.”

Meanwhile, he had other cares.

I have just been having a good cry here alone, in Mr. Colby’s chamber, about my poor dear children. I left the two boys crying yesterday as they set off in the cars for Worcester. Abby Ann I took on to Bradford, and this morning I left her crying at the Hasseltine’s. And thoughts of the children bear my mind to their departed mother, and I review the scenes on board the Sophia Walker and at St. Helena. And then I stretch my way to my two little forsaken orphans in Burmah; and then I turn to you whom I love not less, though but a recent acquaintance. What a strange thing is the human heart!

But at least, he comforted himself, his children were settled for the present. George Boardman was to enter Brown in the fall. And Adoniram had money enough to care for his children and for Emily’s parents, “so that you can write as much or as little as you choose, and if you take any remuneration, you can have the pleasure of presenting it, through the missionary treasury, as an expression of gratitude to Him who gave His life for you, and is now preparing your seat and your crown.”

Clearly, this was not the Adoniram who, long ago, after Nancy’s death, had given all his property to the mission board as part of his self-punishment. But his recovery, his marriage to Sarah, the family which resulted had brought him to a more realistic attitude. Since then he had kept the sums his sister and mother had sent him. Possibly, too, well-to—do admirers had arranged for his own and the children’s care.

At any rate, Emily replied contritely, “You do take all the trouble away so sweetly! I don’t know why you should be so good and kind to me when I get out of patience. Yes, I do know that you will never repent the step you have taken, though the whole world should disapprove of it, and with full faith that I will not be disturbed by trifles. I know these are all trifles—things I shall laugh at when I get away from them; but sometimes they seem terrible now. They shall not any more, though; I will rest in your love and in a holier.. .” And as for his children, “Do not call them ‘orphans’ any more. I will love them and watch over them, and when I fail in any thing, you will point out the faults and teach me better.”

A few days later Adoniram went to Maine for a week. Other engagements kept him busy the rest of April, but early in May he was able to visit Emily in Utica. Together they went to Hamilton for a few days with her parents. Adoniram had lent Emily enough money to pay off the mortgage on the house she had bought for them so that at least it was theirs free and clear. She was to repay him from future royalties on her books.

At Hamilton that Sunday he was overjoyed to meet his old Andover professor Leonard Woods, who had preached his ordination sermon in the Tabernacle Church in Salem in 1812, and who preached again this day. Adoniram sat with him on the platform. After the sermon he told the audience how he had first gone to Andover, “a poor blind skeptic,” looking for enlightenment, and how he had received it from Dr. Woods. His hearers were thrilled —more so than those of the Morrisville church, where Emily had been baptized years before. That building had been so small he felt he could speak to the congregation without injuring his throat. Although the day was rainy, the church had been crowded with people who had learned he would have something to say. After the sermon he had spoken for some fifteen minutes “with singular simplicity, and... touching pathos,” as Emily thought, of the love of the Saviour, “what he has done for us, and what we owe to him.),

As he sat down [Emily recollected]... it was evident, even to the most unobservant eye, that most of the listeners were disappointed. After the exercises were over, several persons inquired of me, frankly, why Dr. Judson had not talked of something else; why he had not told a story... On the way home, I mentioned the subject to him.

“Why, what did they want?” he inquired; “I presented the most interesting subject in the world, to the best of my ability.”

“But they wanted something different—a story.” “Well, I am sure I gave them a story — the most thrilling one that can be conceived of.”

“But they had heard it before. They wanted something new of a man who had just come from the antipodes.”

“Then I am glad they have it to say, that a man coming from the antipodes had nothing better to tell than the wondrous story of Jesus’ dying love.”

From Hamilton they made the short journey to Eaton, where Emily had been born. They had tea in Underhill Cottage, which she had described in Trippings, and explored the alderfringed stream which was to give her neXt book its name, Alderbrook.

But the interlude in Hamilton had to end—Adoniram had engagements in New York and Philadelphia. Emily had arrangements to make before the wedding. Together they returned to Utica, and there they parted.

Their letters reflected their many concerns. From discussions of terms with publishers for her next book— “Will you try to make a bargain for me with Lippincott?”—she turned abruptly to clothing. “I think of you now and then between exclamations concerning pretty frocks. Oh, that is a charming blue! and that purple, how exquisite! You don’t know what absorbing things new frocks are, for you, poor man, never had any... .” She dreaded the voyage. “... The mention of the ship sends my heart down into my shoes. How nice could we but sleep a half year, and then awake in our own dear home.” She suggested that they take Abby Ann back to Moulmein with them—“She is your only daughter, you love her so much, and it will be so hard for the little creature to stay behind.”

Between religious meetings, Adoniram saw publishers for her. She wanted her new book to be a complete edition of her stories and sketches; her publishers did not want to include any material already in book form. So, wrote Adoniram:

I have got the stereotype plates out of the hands of Paine 8:

Burgess, and had them packed up, ordered to be sent, and deposited at Lewis Colby’s. They cost $190. P. 8: B. have also paid me $70 for you, being the percentage on the whole edition, beside what they have already paid you. So that your business with them is closed. The $70 I will send you, and take a receipt, dear, to avoid mistakes.... [New York publishers were not interested in the new miscellany.) People’s minds are full of the Mexican war, and probable rupture with England and all the world. Too much stern reality to allow time for fiction; too close engagement with Mars, to allow time for flirting with Venus and the Muses. You can arrange for the purchase of the additional lot, if you please, for $300, before I come, and for the fence at $50. I shall be able to let you have as much of the Sum appropriated for your outfit, that is $200, as you may wish.... Is not this a beautiful letter, full of gold and pearls, and costly array? Do not wear it in your hair. It will be contrary to Scripture...

And later:

Notwithstanding the nonsense I write you, I am full and overflowing with most serious, joyful thoughts. The past, the present, and the future are before me. If I should attempt to write, I should not know where to begin or end. May we meet in “love and happiness.” May God crown our union with his blessing, that we may be blessings to one another through life and to all eternity!

June 1, 1846, Adoniram was in Hamilton again. The next day they were married in Emily’s home by Dr. Nathaniel Kendrick, the elderly minister, now in the beginning of his last illness, of whom Emily had once inquired about the prospects of her becoming a foreign missionary. It was a quiet wedding. Only her immediate family and a few close friends were present. After the ceremony they spent a few days in Hamilton together, and a few more in Utica. Then they began a series of whirlwind visits to New York, Boston, Plymouth and Bradford, making last farewells. For their ship, the ceuil Hall, Captain Hallet, was to sail from Boston on July 1, bound for Moulmein.

The sailing was delayed, but a huge farewell meeting was held on schedule, the afternoon of June 30, in the Baldwin Place Church. Other missionaries were to accompany the Judsons—the Norman Harrises, the John S. Beechers, and Miss Lydia Lillybridge, who had been a school friend of Emily’s in Utica.

But Adoniram and Emily were the center of attention. The Storm aroused by their engagement had died down. Churchgoers had begun to learn that the new Mrs. Judson was a sincere Christian and not a light lady after all—though many of them felt (as did Emily herself, for that matter) that her consecration to religion and to missions was not quite as deep as could be wished in the spouse of so venerated a man.

The literary world, too, had come to the conclusion that the marriage might be a good thing. As N. P. \Villis wrote to Emily, “The more I think of your marriage, the more I think you are doing the best for your happiness.” He had met Adoniram in New York in May, and thought he had “a prodigal largeness of nature, and the kindest and most affectionate of hearts.” And, he felt, “Dr. Judson’s errand abroad will soon draw on your volcanic enthusiasm, and the vent will be healthful to soul and body.”

Emily had sent Willis money for some books, but he had returned it. He would give her a box of books from his own library. Moreover, he had spoken to Secretary of the Navy Bancroft at a party in Washington, and Mr. Bancroft “was, of course, proud of the opportunity to present you with his books, and so will be Prescott and Longfellow.. .”

In this letter \Villis announced his intention of being present at the sailing, “and see you, with a tearful Godspeed, off the shore." But a week or so later he wrote that he had changed his mind. “A little closer approach to the scene which that embarkation would probably be—-with the number of Mr. Judson’s friends and the enthusiasm felt for him —made me shrink from compelling you to reserve for me any of the attention which those friends will expect from you at the parting hour, and still more to shrink from adding to the emotion of that troubled hour the pain of parting with one who must be dear to you as the foster-father of your genius. I see that it is better that we exchange our farewells, as we have exchanged all other feelings, on paper.”

Adoniram seized the delay in the sailing to go to Worce5ter on July 4 and visit the two boys for the laSt time. After another missionary service on the fifth, he went to Bradford on the ninth to say farewell to Abby Ann. These leave-takings, painful as they were, at least helped him to escape the flood of callers in Boston. Emily bore the brunt of that, and complained to her sister, “I have been crowded almost to death with company. Sometimes my hand has been so swollen with constant shaking that I have not been able to get on a glove, and I have been obliged to use my left hand.”

On July 10 Adoniram wrote short, sad notes to his sons and to Abby Ann and his sister. His sister did not go to Boston to see him off. But her feelings had already revealed themselves when Adoniram had left Plymouth. She had closed the door of his room, leaving everything in it as he had left it. Thenceforth, so long as she lived —— nearly forty years— nothing in it was ever to be moved or disturbed.

On July n, 1846, “amidst the tearful adieus of hundreds,” they boarded the ship and sailed. Among those they saw on this last day were the family of Gardner Colby, who had entertained them in lordly fashion; the Gillettes; the Lincoln family; and, closer to Adoniram’s heart, George D. Boardman, Jr., Sarah’s only surviving child by her first husband.

As the ship sailed out of the harbor and the land dwindled to “a speck in the distance,” as Emily wrote to her mother in a letter she sent back by the pilot-boat, Adoniram must have thought of the last time he had left the United States that freezing February morning in 1812. Then, instead of hundreds on the wharf, there had been only a few to see the missionaries leave on their doubtful mission. Of the four who had sailed then, only he still lived. Nancy slept beside little Maria under the hopia tree at Amherst. All his living children, those he left in America and those he was returning to in Moulmein, were Sarah’s, now resting in the shade of the banyan at St. Helena. He had sent a stone for her grave in April. Emily, his companion now, had not even been born when he sailed the first time.

He would never see his native land again, of that he was sure. But although he felt sadness, he had no regrets. He Still felt like the Adoniram Judson of 1812. He was still capable of work and love. And he still looked forward to the future with confidence and even joy.

V I I I C H A P T E R