LXX
Clara Barton was loved by the people of the whole world.
The Two Martyrs—By Hon. Francis Atwater.
Love is the life of the soul. William Ellery Channing.
The law of Heaven is love. Hosea Ballou.
The soul of woman lives in love. Mrs. Sigourney.
Love—’tis woman’s whole existence. Byron.
The religion of humanity is love. Mazzini.
Love is the Amen of the universe. Novalis.
Love is indestructible;
The holy flame forever burneth
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
Southey—Curse of Kehama.
There is in the heart of woman such a deep well of love that no age can freeze it. Bulwer-Lytton.
Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of everything.
La Cordaire.
Love lives on, and hath a power to bless when they who loved are hidden in their grave. Lowell.
Julia—His little speaking shows his love but small.
Lucetta—Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
Clara Barton’s Heart Secret — $10,000 in “Gold Dust”
Clara Barton was very non-communicative as to her personal affairs, confiding in no one her heart’s secrets. But a woman’s curiosity got the best of the closest friend Clara ever had, and on a certain occasion “Sister Harriette” ventured to draw out of her heart what she had long wanted to know:
“Clara, have you never had a sweetheart?”
“Oh yes!” she replied, “just the same as all other girls.”
“But tell me about yours,” Harriette ventured further.
“I will, sometime,” Clara said.
“Oh, no, tell me now,” Harriette continued.
“No, not now—some other time I’ll tell you all about it,” persisted Clara. Then she said: “Oh, well, I’ll tell you I had a dear friend in my younger days, but he went to California in the rush to the gold fields with my brother David, and never came back.”
“Did you really love him?” asked Harriette again, trying to draw her out.
“Now, don’t ask me anything more, for I am not going to tell you,” replied Clara.
“But you said you would and I am really curious,” continued Harriette.
Clara hesitated, then said: “I don’t feel like it now, but sometime I’ll tell you the story.”
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pined in thought;
And with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat (like patience on a monument)
Smiling at grief.
On a certain other occasion it became necessary for her attorneys to know in detail of her finances, and their origin, so they plied her with questions:—
Attorney—Now, Miss Barton, tell us where you got all your wealth.
Miss Barton—I haven’t much wealth—what do you mean?—Everything?
Attorney—You inherited some money did you not? Tell us about that.
Miss Barton—I inherited, no—Oh! yes, I got some money once, but why should I tell you?
Attorney—It may be brought up in “the investigation” by the attorney on the other side and we don’t want any surprise sprung on us.
Miss Barton—Well, that seems reasonable—I’ll tell you. My brother and another went to the California gold fields; my brother returned,—the other never did return. But he left me all his savings, $10,000 in gold.
Attorney—What did you do with the $10,000?
Miss Barton—I always regarded this too sacred to use, so I placed it in a New York bank. This was in 1851. I kept it there on interest until President Lincoln commissioned me to look up the names of the missing soldiers. I did not consider it too sacred for this purpose, and so in 1865 I drew it out of the bank, then with the interest about $15,000, and used it to pay the expenses....
The romance includes the trip in a sailing vessel around the “Horn,” the “49ers outfit” in San Francisco, and on the way to the “placer diggins,” the death scene in the pueblo of Los Angeles, the story of the sack of “gold dust” that reached the sweetheart, and its use later in giving cheer to thousands of unhappy homes.
Only on the two occasions were these disclosures of that heart secret, and yet visions of her sweetheart are said to have appeared to Clara in her dying hours. The most sacred of the heart secrets of womankind Clara Barton carried with her to the other world—a secret of her love affair which her closest friends think may have been the inspiration of her self-sacrifice for humanity.