Must the Child Be Left

The next day, Sophia wrote again to Hinton. Her questions had moved beyond Richard’s biography. She now wanted to know what Hinton intended to do if the proposed publication of Realf’s poems produced money for the boy left behind. Sophia did not ask that the proceeds come to her. She asked whether Hinton, as “guardian and protector,” should oversee the child’s interest rather than place funds in the mother’s hands.

She also gives Hinton permission to reveal her marriage to Richard Realf in the book that Hinton was still preparing to publish soon, or leave her out of it. She put the matter into to Richard Hinton hands.

Springfield, Mass.

April 1, 1879

My dear Sir,

From the first I have had a painful appreciation of the almost insurmountable difficulties of the position of a friendly biographer of our dead. An enemy might find his task a light one. As it is, only the astuteness and audacity of a Gen. Butler could cope successfully with these dark records of R.’s life.^[1] Perhaps it would be well to tell the story of this life in Biblical style, or à la Bret Harte^⁠[2]  — as those inspired writers and the modern author alike make no comments in regard to the misdeeds of their heroes, but leave much to be read between the lines.

But I must not weary you with my views. When your work is finished, I shall accept it, knowing that of necessity there must be discrepancies, omissions, and some things that may give pain to those connected with him.

I have been so absorbed with other matters that it has never occurred to me to ask what your plans were in regard to publication — whether you purposed to bear the expense of publishing, or intended to sell the copyright at once? If the venture proved successful, is it your plan to put the proceeds in the hands of the mother for the benefit of the child, or should you not, as guardian and protector, oversee its interests?

During my correspondence with Clark I learned who the woman was with whom R. formed his second liaison — he hinted that there had been no pretense of marriage between them; but when I pressed him for all that he knew of the matter, he evidently thought he had gone far enough in sentiment and sincerity.^⁠[3] He speaks of Mrs. Whapham, but I imagined that she still lived in England, or I should have made myself known to her at once.

Finding that I knew in fact, and divined the rest, Mrs. W. gave me a brief, softened account of her trials with R. and the woman she had tried to benefit. Before I knew the whole of the bitter story of this connection, I charitably imagined that a young, innocent girl had been much wronged by R., and the child made her earnest in my thoughts. I had no wish save to befriend her and spare her unnecessary sufferings. The first liaison seemed a madness; the last one was a deliberate wrong — a purely demented alliance with no redeeming feature — and the woman, though not fiendish like her predecessor at heart, must have as little womanly honor.^⁠[4]

Must the child be left to her influence — to low surroundings — with all its other woeful heritages and birth taints? And can I do anything in the matter — not so much because it may be R.’s child, but because it is a child fatherless and even more motherless! I astonish myself by writing about these matters to you, for I know were you looking into my eye I should be struck dumb upon such a subject — one might write sometimes what he could not speak.

If during this correspondence I have ever thought of the impression that might be given to R.’s woman friend, it has been: “He must think me a silly goose of a woman to care a wittle for one who had so wronged and insulted me!” If the impression be more favorable, I am thankful. These sad letters of mine can give little idea of my cheerful characteristics, for I am deeply allied to the Mark Tapley^⁠[5] tribe, and generally find a ludicrous side.

Sincerely yours,

S.E. Realf

NOTES

¹ Benjamin F. Butler, Union general, lawyer, and politician, was famous for his shrewdness, audacity, and willingness to defend difficult or unpopular positions. Sophia’s reference is half-humorous and half-serious: she suggests that only a man with Butler’s tactical nerve could manage the “dark records” of Richard Realf’s life while still writing as a friendly biographer.

² Bret Harte was an American author best known for his California mining-camp stories, including “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.” Sophia’s comparison is wry. Harte often presented flawed, disreputable, or morally compromised characters with restraint and irony, allowing the reader to infer judgment from scene and consequence rather than authorial sermonizing. Sophia suggests that Hinton might do the same with Richard Realf: tell the story plainly, make few comments, and leave “much to be read between the lines.”

³ In the nineteenth century, whether Lizzy had been married to Richard was not merely a private question. If no ceremony had taken place, Richard Realf Jr. would have carried the legal and social burden of illegitimacy. Sophia’s concern that “the child” be spared “disgrace,” and that any proceeds from Hinton’s publication be protected for him, reflects this reality. Her silence was not only for Lizzy’s sake, but for the boy’s.

⁴ Sophia distinguishes here between Catherine Cassidy and Lizzy Whapham. By “the first liaison,” she appears to mean Realf’s connection with Catherine Cassidy, whom he illegally married in Rochester in 1867 while Sophia was still his lawful wife. Sophia describes that relationship as “madness,” likely because she associated it with drink, scandal, and moral collapse. By “the last one,” she means Realf’s later relationship with Lizzy Whapham, which produced Richard Realf Jr. and the triplet daughters. Sophia judged this later relationship more harshly because, as she understood it, Lizzy knew that Realf was married, no marriage ceremony to her had taken place and so, the child therefore bore the burden of illegitimacy. In Sophia's mind, Lizzy could not be treated simply as another woman deceived.

⁵ Mark Tapley is a character in Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit, famous for taking pride in remaining cheerful under miserable circumstances. Sophia’s reference is self-mocking and revealing: although her letters to Hinton are filled with sorrow, she insists that grief is not her whole nature. By claiming kinship with the “Mark Tapley tribe,” she presents herself as someone inclined to find cheer, endurance, and even humor in hardship.