● ● ● us that “those who do business in great waters see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep.” Some beautiful specimens of Madrepores, Harpa Ventricasa, Camea and the delicate transparent Nautilus pretty as Peri’s dream, Univalves and Bivalves in perfect formations[.]
The birds were various and rare, numberless parrots of brilliant plumage. . . .
The Taxidermist, Mr. Batchelder, did the civilities of the occasion with an old school politeness. . . . In the catechetical round of office we thought he exhibited in himself one of the rarest specimens of the museum, viz.: amiability in the genus homo.
Called at the sculptor’s room. Found his Newsboy the chief attraction. . . . Defining his ideal seemed the chief excellence or truth; we cannot say beauty, believing this term indefinite, not self-defining, but dependent for a standard on different tastes, as Shakespeare has it. The lover frantic sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.108
Later in the autumn Mrs. Patterson began writing regularly for the Portland papers, both prose and verse. After a while a column by her entitled “Way-side Thoughts” began to appear in the Daily Press at irregular intervals, discussing matters of private sentiment and public moment. She might write of slander as “a midnight robber, the red-tongued assassin of radical worth,” or express the hope that “our faithful Abraham will continue to blend justice with victory, that the rebellious States may be saved for a few just and loyal ones which may be found in them.”109 Poems addressed to personal friends alternated with ones “Written on Reading the Call of the Governor of New Hampshire for Soldiers” or in praise of “The Women of Tennessee.”110
108 M. M. Patterson, “Reminiscences of Portland,” Portland Daily Press, 21 October 1863, p. 1.
↑109 [Mary M. Patterson, “Way-side Thoughts,” Portland Daily Press, 29 January 1864, p. 1; M. M. Patterson, “Way-side Thoughts,” Portland Daily Press, 7 January 1864, p. 1.]
↑110 [M. M. Patterson, “Written on Reading the Call of the Governor of New Hampshire for Soldiers,” Portland Daily Press, 12 December 1863, p. 4; M. M. Patterson, “The Women of Tennessee,” Portland Daily Press, 8 March 1864, p. 4.] These are journalistic verses, the general level of which is suggested by two lines from a poem she published in the Daily Press:
The present if grievous, is quickly away.
Our trials are bubbles exploding to-day.
M. M. Patterson, “To S. J. F.,” Portland Daily Press, 16 November 1863, p. 4.
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