Patrick Sullivan reached Boston in 1847, set up an academy and was successful. He always was successful. His probity was such that he could always command desirable influence and respect. He was familiar with polite forms. Later on, probably in 1850, the Geneva family also reached Boston. Somehow they met. The young Irishman, keen through training in the hard school of experience and self discipline was always wide awake; and this is what happened; he met the young girl, Andrienne, in the conventional way, was attracted by her grace of manner, her interesting broken English, her skilled piano playing; paid his court to her, professed love for her; they became engaged, and on the 14th of August, 1852, they were married. What is more likely is this; that he heard her playing of Chopin, Beethoven, et al., with approval, for he was fond of music; that he asked her to substitute dance music; that after the first few bars he was electrized—he had found a jewel without price. Her sense of rhythm, of sweep, of accent, of the dance-cadence with its reinforcements and languishments, the tempo rubato—was genius itself. He lost no time in marrying her as a business asset. She was lovable and he may have loved her. It is possible but hardly probable; for there is nothing in the record to show that he loved others, or that he loved himself. He was merely self-centered—not even cold. He was moderate of habit; drank a little wine, smoked an occasional cigar, and was an enthusiast regarding hygiene. The stage-setting augured well for the coming child. The stock was sound. All the tribe were black-haired. So he came to pay his visit in due time, as recorded, believed by his mother to be an angel from Heaven, so great, so illusioning is the Mother-passion. But, as regarded from the viewpoint of the chronicler, he was not an angel from heaven. At the age of two he had developed temper, strong will, and obstinacy. He became at times a veritable howling dervish. He bawled, he shrieked, he blubbered, sobbed, whined and whimpered. He seemed to be obsessed by fixed ideas. Once in a while, as time passed, there came periods of relative calm within the pervading tempest, and now and then he was not wholly unlovable. A rising sun seemed to be dawning within him. He became interested in his bath, given daily in a movable tub. Grandma would allow none but herself to perform this rite, and as she sponged him down, he would sing to her something about Marlbrouck s’en va-t’en guerre, or tell what this giant did, or that fairy. Life was beginning to break in upon him from outside. A continuous breaking in from the outside and breaking out from the inside was to shape his destiny.
He loved to look out of the window; to see people moving to and fro. But it was when first he saw the street-cleaners at work that there upsprung a life-fascination—the sight, the drama of things being done. South Bennett Street ran from Washington Street to Harrison Avenue, a short block, but for him a large world. The street was paved with cobble stones; the sidewalks were of brick. He was there at the window when the work began. Came on the front rank; four men armed with huge watering cans painted red; these they swung in rhythm one-two, one-two. The thrill began, the child breathed hard. Then followed the second rank—four men with huge brooms made of switches; they also, two-fisted, swung one-two, one-two, shaping a windrow in the gutter. Then came the glory of it all, the romantic, the utterly thrilling and befitting climax—an enormous, a wonderful speckled gray Normandy horse, drawing a heavy tip cart, and followed as a retinue by two men, one sweeping the windrows into hillocks, the other with shovel and with mighty faith, moving these mountains into the great chariot. Thus appeared from Washington Street, thus passed in orderly action, thus disappeared into Harrison Avenue the Pageant of Labor, leaving the child, alone, thrilled with a sort of alarm of discovery, held by an utter infatuation. He had missed nothing; he had noted every detail. He had seen it whole and seen it steady. It is a close surmise that what actually passed in the child’s mind, aside from the romance, was a budding sense of orderly power. Indeed, the rhythm of it all! And then, to the wondering child, there began the dawn of a wonder-world.
His mother often dandled him on her foot, holding his puny outstretched hands in hers, and in great glee and high spirits sang to him about Le bon roi Dagobert, Le grand St. Elois, and other heroes of the nursery. He felt these tales to be true, especially when the high points and low points of knee action were reached in a rushing climax. But one evening his mother took him for a visit; and on the return walk he tired and wailed. The mother raised him to her shoulder, and when the tears had dried he looked upward at the sky and beheld with delight the moon plowing its way through fleecy clouds. He called upon his mother to share in the joy.
