The Selected Letters of Elizabeth Stoddard

Letter 48. To Helen Hunt (Jackson), November 11, [1870]

145 letter 48 To Helen Hunt (Jackson) November 11, [1870] New York City, New York 75 East 10th St New York Nov 11th Dear Mrs Hunt I was torn with remorse at your reminder of my debt. I believe it is the first time I was ever so guilty, but I must have depended on Stoddard’s remembrance of it—and he has nothing to say for himself. We both rushed out within five minutes of the arrival of your letter and traced the wretched Gradot1 to her secret lair. I hope they will suit you.2 I hate to buy things for anybody. We came here last Saturday from the Bay Shawl state3 and are in agonies of getting to wrongs. We are poorer than goats milk cheese and have got beautiful big rooms. Miss Wager4 said last night that she knew Mrs Dodge5 got no 3000. Mr Putnam told me he paid female Ames6 5 a page for her serial—what do you think of that—of course Tilton7 did not lie to me about Mrs Ames, nor did Reid.8 You must let the mts tranquilize your contradictory spirit. The Independent is going to give me 15 for a sketch—liberal pay isn’t it?9 Stoddard sends you his poem of Caesar10 —I vow it is grand, at any rate, for a wonder he made me admire him for once—it is a noble poem. I am going to send with this, the cuffs in another envelope. I got a letter from Mrs Moulton11 the other day, in a ps she asks— “What do you think of Helen Hunt.” What shall I say? With Thackery shall I answer—we dont think.12 But I do—I like your opinionated, obstinate, self—I never called you names, except in fun. Stoddard sends his regards and wishes, since you are to publish a vol. that you had taken that alesandrine13 out of a sonnet of yours, which he read. If you were near him he would help you as he has me. Whether I have any genius or not without him, I do not believe that I 146 ever should have written one correct poem, not in substance I mean, but in form. What ails women? their genius runs away with them—I swear mine does not in prose. If I live—I will write. Of course Taylor’s praise is stuff—and I have told him so and made his leviathan14 blood boil with fury. Now be good and write me. I have seen no one you know yet. Mrs Bullard15 has mis-carried, can you imagine so, with an editor of the Revolution—Tilton is at the Curtis house a great deal.16 She thinks him a noble, generous man—well-a-day. Ever yours EDBS Manuscript: Helen Hunt Jackson Papers, Tutt Library Special Collections, Colorado College notes 1. Unidentified. 2. Stoddard seems to be referring to the “cuffs” that she mentions later in this letter. 3. A bay shawl is a twilled woolen shawl with plaid patterns that was made in Massachusetts in the nineteenth century. 4. Unidentified. 5. Probably Mary Mapes Dodge (1831–1905), American author and editor. At thetimeofthisletterDodgewasworkingasanassociateeditoratHearthandHome, where Stoddard had published four sketches in early 1869. 6. Mary Clemmer Ames (1838–1884), American journalist, poet, and novelist. From January to November 1870 she published a serial novel, A Woman’s Right, in Putnam’s Magazine. The novel was published as Eirene;or, A Woman’s Right by G. P. Putnam & Sons in 1871. Ames also wrote for the New York Independent and the Brooklyn Daily Union, both published by Henry C. Bowen (1813–1896). In 1871 Bowen reportedly paid Ames $5,000, which was the largest salary ever paid to a newspaper woman at that time. 7. Theodore Tilton. See Letter 45, note 6. 8. Whitelaw Reid. See biographical note. 9. There is no evidence outside this letter to indicate that Stoddard wrote for the Independent before 1885. 10. See Letter 47, note 13. 11. Louise Chandler Moulton. See biographical note. 12. Probably a reference to The Newcomes (1855), by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), in which an artist figure reflects on a letter he has received 147 from a young woman: “You see she says she shall always hear of me with pleasure: hopes I’ll come back soon, and bring some good pictures with me, since pictures I...