36. Celia Thaxter — A Picturesque Poet Turns to Crime Writing
AMY HELMES
Hey everybody! We're back with another Lost Ladies of Lit mini episode. I'm Kim…
KIM ASKEW
[Laughing]
AMY
No, I'm not Kim Askew! I'm Amy Helmes.
KIM
And I'm Kim Askew — we're just checking to see if you are listening out there!
AMY
I have not been drinking. No, actually, the truth is I have been editing one of our other podcasts for the last couple days, and so I think I have it in my head that intro: "I'm Kim Askew" because you're the one saying it on the other episode, so that's why I did that.
KIM
That's so funny. Okay.
AMY
Anyway...
KIM
On last week's episode, we had a delightful conversation with Sadie Stein about the Betsy and Tacy series and author Maud Hart Lovelace. In one of her books, Lovelace wrote, "It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside." It's almost June, and I'm really feeling all the summer vibes.
AMY
I know. And in fact, today was kind of cold and gloomy, and I actually got rained on, so I am ready for summer as well. Actually, there is an American poet and prose writer named Celia Thaxter who wrote about how to keep those summer vibes going basically forever. One of her most frequently quoted lines reads, "There shall be an eternal summer in the grateful heart."
KIM
Yeah, it's funny because that quote was actually at the top of an email I received from this local day spa recently. So it's safe to say it's a pretty ubiquitous quote about summer. But of course, Amy and I, being who we are, we were really curious about who this Celia Thaxter actually was. So we started doing a little digging, and what we found out was, of course, super interesting. For starters, she spent part of her childhood on New England's White Island in the Isles of Shoals, where her father Thomas Laighton, was the lighthouse keeper from 1839 to 1847. And Celia's two younger brothers were her only playmates, and she wrote about her childhood there: "One of the first things a settler on the Isles of Shoals has to learn is to live as independently as possible."
AMY
I can't decide if this all sounds really idyllic, or really spooky. Are you with me?
KIM
Yeah.
AMY
Because yes, I mean, in the summer months, you're like, yeah, standing on the shore ... a breeze caressing your face ... the seagulls overhead. But then I've also read so many stories about creepy things happening in lighthouses. So I'm kind of of two minds on this.
KIM
Yeah. Is it a children's book, or is it a Stephen King novel? It could go either way.
AMY
Yes. Anyway, Celia described evenings on White Island like this: "High above, the lighthouse rays streamed out into the humid dark, and the cottage windows were ruddy from the glow within. I felt so much a part of the Lord's universe. I was no more afraid of the dark than the wave or the winds." So I guess she's okay with it. She's more brave than I would be. But if you grew up there you would be you know? That's all she knew. Anyway, her father, Thomas, and his brother ended up buying three islands in the Isles of Shoals and eventually, her dad built a summer hotel on one of them which he renamed Appledore Island and side note: the nearest island to Appledore is called Smuttynose Island.
KIM
That's the worst name.
AMY
I know, I'd like to think that's the best worst name ever, but it's definitely dampening those idyllic New England seashore reveries when I hear that.
KIM
Back to Celia, at the age of 16, she married a 27-year-old Harvard graduate, Levi Thaxter. He had been Thomas's partner in building the hotel and also a tutor to Celia and her brothers. Levi moved the couple to a city house on the mainland in Massachusetts, and this move was huge because it severed Celia from the island life that she loved so much. It caused marital problems too, so she was really unhappy all around. And then she had her first child, a son, before she was 17 and eventually had two more boys. They summered on Appledore Island, but these long winters in the city were excruciating for her. She actually described it as being a domestic prison, and she wrote her first published poem called "Land-locked" in secret, as a way to sublimate her depression and the urge she felt to return to the Isles of Shoals. When Levi found Celia's poem, he sent it to a friend who worked as a publisher at The Atlantic Monthly. It was printed in the next issue,
AMY
I have to wonder what kind of marriage that was if she was 16 and he was 27. Like, did she want to marry him?
KIM
It sounds like it wasn't a great marriage. It never really was. But the fact that he saw that poem and saw something in it, even though it obviously was a metaphor for all the things she was unhappy about ... the fact that he took it and sent it in — that's a pretty cool thing to do. And then that it got published so quickly, it's kind of amazing and speaks to how great the poem was.
AMY
So this poem, "Land-locked," was published in 1861 and it was an immediate success actually. Her poems began appearing in Harper's, Scribner’s and The Atlantic after that, and I'm going to read it aloud. (And if you're thinking to yourself, "Poetry, no, I am out of here," just hang on because we're going to have a gruesome murder that factors into this lost lady's story and we're going to get to that in a second. But first, your moment of poetry. This is "Land-locked."
Black lie the hills; swiftly doth daylight flee;
And, catching gleams of sunset’s dying smile,
Through the dusk land for many a changing mile
The river runneth softly to the sea.
O happy river, could I follow thee!
O yearning heart, that never can be still!
O wistful eyes, that watch the steadfast hill,
Longing for level line of solemn sea!
Have patience; here are flowers and songs of birds,
Beauty and fragrance, wealth of sound and sight,
All summer’s glory thine from morn till night,
And life too full of joy for uttered words.
Neither am I ungrateful; but I dream
Deliciously how twilight falls to-night
Over the glimmering water, how the light
Dies blissfully away, until I seem
To feel the wind, sea-scented, on my cheek,
To catch the sound of dusky flapping sail
And dip of oars, and voices on the gale
Afar off, calling low, — my name they speak!
O Earth! thy summer song of joy may soar
Ringing to heaven in triumph. I but crave
The sad, caressing murmur of the wave
That breaks in tender music on the shore.
KIM
That was beautiful, Amy.
AMY
And it really does kind of evoke both of those feelings that I mentioned before, like, just this beauty of the island but then also, like, a bittersweet sadness as well.
KIM
Definitely. There's a mournful tone to it. You read it beautifully, though. So when the poems started getting published it made it possible for her, financially, then to actually spend more time at her family's hotel on Appledore Island, and she finally moved back there officially after 10 years on the mainland. Her books became very popular and also helped make her the darling of literary Boston. Some of New England's most well-known artists and writers visited her on Appledore Island, and she's actually credited with launching this area as a hotspot for vacationing artists and notables.
AMY
The hotel is not there anymore.
KIM
Right.
AMY
But there were a few pictures of hotels on the nearby islands and they said that it would have sort of looked like that. And it's a ... it was kind of a big old historic resort hotel looking thing, you know, almost like a New England, The Shining hotel. I'm going back to the spooky, I know.
KIM
I absolutely have been getting that vibe. I totally feel that, too. I think there's an undercurrent of that. Maybe that's what makes her work compelling, because I think if it were just kind of sweet and nice and you know, beautiful ... but there's something there. There's an edge there.
AMY
Yeah. And anyway, so with all these notables checking in at the hotel (we're talking about Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Longfellow, Childe Hassam and Sarah Orne Jewett. They are just a few of the well known guests who came to visit her there). She became close friends with Sarah Orne Jewett, actually, who wrote the preface for and edited her 1896 collection “The Poems of Celia Thaxter.” But then, okay, we're getting back to the spooky — William Morris Hunt, a painter and close family friend drowned there in 1879. So that is tragic. Celia discovered his body. He was thought to have committed suicide.
KIM
Yes, and Celia was also living in the Isle of Shoals when an infamous murder (actually a double murder) occurred. She knew everyone involved and wrote a compassionate essay about it called "A Memorable Murder" for The Atlantic Monthly. We'll link to it in our show notes. The essay was published a month before convicted murderer Louis Wagner was hanged in Maine. In 2008, the Library of America chose "A Memorable Murder" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American true crime.
AMY
And you know me, Kim, I'm the true crime junkie.
KIM
Yes, I knew you would love this part.
AMY
So yeah, apparently Louis Wagner was the most infamous axe murderer in this part of the country until he was supplanted by Lizzie Borden. So the country was kind of in a tizzy over these murders. And Anita Shreve also wrote a 1997 novel based on these murders, called The Weight of Water, which was later adapted to a film starring Sean Penn and Elizabeth Hurley. It's supposed to be not a very good movie.
KIM
Okay.
AMY
Basically, three Norwegian women were living in a little house on the island. Their husbands were fishermen. They had gone off that night in a little schooner to do their work (the husbands) leaving the women at home. Basically, only one of the women made it through alive after Louis happened upon them and went on a rampage. And actually, Celia Thaxter was one of the first people on the scene to comfort her the next morning after the tragedy. That woman's name was Maren, and I'm going to read a passage from a memorable murder. This is from when Maren is finally able to escape the murder scene because she had run off and tried to hide when the other two women were being attacked: At last she steals out. The little dog frisks before her. It is so cold her feet cling to the rocks and snow at every step till the skin is fairly torn off. Still and frosty is the bright morning. The water lies smiling and sparkling. The hammers have the workmen building the new hotel on Star Island sound through the quiet air. Being on the side of Smuttynose opposite Star, she waves her skirt and screams to attract their attention. They hear her, turn, and look to see a woman waving a signal of distress and, surprising to relate, turn tranquilly to their work again. She realizes at last there's no hope in that direction. She must go round toward Appledore in sight of the dreadful house. Passing it afar off, she gives one swift glance toward it terrified lest in the broad sunshine, she may see some horrid token of last night's work, but all is still and peaceful. She noticed the curtains the three had left up when they went to bed. They are now drawn down. She knows whose hand had done this and what it hides from the light of day.
KIM
Whoa, I mean, everything we've been talking about, with the darkness and sort of like the undercurrent to this life, really comes through. And you would not expect it at all. When we first looked into Celia Thaxter, I did not see this coming. But it's funny how these things happen when we start looking into people. There's so much more, there always is. This is fascinating. She was there, she ended up writing the story about this. I mean, the yin and yang with the beauty of nature, but also the darkness, really comes through in this too as well.
AMY
I found it really hard to pick a portion of that essay to read because it's very disturbing. She goes into a lot of detail. She writes it as if she was there when the murder is happening. And it reminded me of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. It's a long short story. You feel the drama and the tension building as she's describing the husbands leaving for work that night, and the women getting ready for bed and the actual crime itself and the screaming. It's, it's upsetting. Actually, if you're into things like this, I would recommend reading it.
KIM
It will be in the show notes for those people.
AMY
Yeah, if you're squeamish, you might want to shy away from it actually, but just for that time period, to think of a woman, you know, writing this sort of thing. I was intrigued by it.
KIM
Yeah, this is fascinating. She continued to draw inspiration from the natural world after this, and she actually died suddenly on Appledore Island in 1894. She's best known today for her prose works An Island Garden, illustrated by Childe Hassam, and Among the Isles of Shoals. It was her firsthand account of shipwrecks, storms and the day-to-day lives of people living in the Isles, but "Land-locked," with its sublime depictions of nature and personification of the ocean is thought to be the epitome of Thaxter's poetic style.
AMY
And that is actually a perfect segue to next week's author who is Elizabeth Stoddard. Her incredible book is called The Morgesons, and the ocean is a major motif in this 1862 novel. It's a bildungsroman set in a small New England seaport town. Nathaniel Hawthorne, himself, was a fan and Stoddard has been compared to Tolstoy, George Eliot, Balzac and the Bronte sisters.
KIM
Yes. And we have a guest with us for this episode — Rachel Vorona Cote, She's the author of Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today is going to be talking with us about The Morgesons. It's a bold, dramatic novel with an unforgettable heroine. And we're pretty sure you're going to love it as much as we did, so be sure to check back for next week's episode
AMY
And maybe plan a summer island vacation. I need to take a break from any place that has a lighthouse. But if you love Lost Ladies of Lit, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts. In addition to making us feel so great, it really helps new listeners find us.
KIM
Our theme song was written and performed by the wonderful Jennie Malone, and our logo was designed by the also wonderful Harriet Grant. Lost Ladies of Lit is produced by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes. See you next week!