Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe, Florence Howe Hall, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, in two volumes, with portraits and other illustrations: volume 1

In her “Reminiscences” our mother records many vivid impressions of these Roman days. She had forgotten, or did not care to recall, a certain languor and depression of spirits which in some measure dimmed for her the brightness of the picture, but which were to give place to the highest joy she had yet known. On March 12, her first child was born, and was christened Julia Romana.

There are neither journals nor letters of this period; the only record of it — from her hand — lies in two slender manuscript books of verse, marked respectively “1843” and “1844.” In these volumes we trace her movements, sometimes by the title of a poem, as “Sailing,” “The ladies of Llangollen,” “The Roman beggar boy,” etc., sometimes by a single word written after the poem, “Berne,” “Milan.”

From these poems we learn that she did not expect to survive the birth of her child; yet with that birth a new world opened before her.

He gave the Mother's chastened heart,
He gave the Mother's watchful eye,
He bids me live but where thou art,
And look with earnest prayer on high.

Then spake the angel of Mothers
To me in gentle tone:
“Be kind to the children of others
And thus deserve thine own!”

When, in the spring of 1844, she left Rome with husband, sister, and baby, it seemed, she says, “like returning to the living world after a long separation from it.”