CHAPTER XVI
THE LAST OF GREEN PEACE
1872-1876; aet. 53-57
He who launched thee a bolt of fire
Strong in courage and in desire
Takes thee again a weapon true
In heaven's armory ever new.
Still shall the masterful fight go on,
Still shall the battle of Right be won
And He who fixed thee in upper air
Shall carry thy prowess otherwhere.
J. W. H.
As our father's health failed more and more, his
heart turned to the home he had made. He longed for
Green Peace; and—the lease falling in about this
time—in the spring of 1872 he and our mother and
Maud moved thither, and took up their quarters in the
"new part," while Laura and her husband came to
occupy the old. Here the first grandchild (Alice Maud
Richards) was born; here and at Oak Glen the next
four years were mainly passed.
The Doctor's ardent spirit longed for new fields of work, new causes to help; the earthly part could not follow. How he struggled, toiling, suffering, fighting the good fight to his last breath, has been told elsewhere:[74] suffice it to say that these years were grave ones for the household, spite of new joys that dawned for all.
The grandchildren opened a new world for both our parents: a world which one was to enjoy for a space all too brief, the other through long years, in which she was to be to the youngest generation a lamp of wisdom, a flame of warmth and tenderness, a fountain of joy.
Among the memory pictures of this time is one of her sitting at her desk, laboring at her endless correspondence; beside her, on the floor, the baby of the period, equally absorbed in the contents of the waste-paper basket.
Or we see the tall figure of the Doctor, stooping in the doorway between the two houses, a crowing child on his shoulders, old face and young alight with merriment. These were Richards grandbabes; the Hall children were the summer delight of the grandparents, as they and their mother usually spent the summer at Oak Glen.
"Friday, September 13. Before I open even my New
Testament to-day, I must make record of the joyful
birth of Flossy's little son [Samuel Prescott Hall]....
God bless this dear little child! May he bring peace
and love....
"During the confinement I could not think of anything divine or spiritual. It was Nature's grim, mechanical, traditional task. But now that it is over, my heart remembers that Life is not precious without God, and the living soul just given stands related to the quickening spirit."
"...I can get little time for study, as I must help nurse dear Flossy. My mind is strangely divided between my dear work and my dear child and grandchild. I must try to keep along with both, but on no account to neglect the precious grandchild."
"October 1. O year! thou art running low. The last trimester."
"October 2. This day, thirty-two years ago, my dearest brother Henry died in my arms, the most agonizing experience. Never again did Death so enter into my heart, until my lovely son of three years departed many years later, leaving a blank as sad and bitter. Henry was a rare and delicate person.... His life was a most valuable one to us for help and counsel, as well as for affection. Perhaps no one to-day thinks about his death except me, his junior by two years, wearing now into the decline of life. Dear brother, I look forward to the reunion with you, but wish my record were whiter and brighter."
"October 5. Boston. Came up for directors' meeting of New England Woman's Club. Went afterward to Mrs. Cheney's lecture on English literature.... A suggestive and interesting essay, which I was glad to hear and have others hear. It gave me a little pain, that, though she pleasantly alluded to me as one who has laid aside the laurel for the olive branch, she said nothing whatever about my writings, which deserve to be spoken of in characterizing the current literature of the day; but she perhaps does not read or like my works, and besides, people think of me nowadays more as an active woman's woman than as a literary character, as the phrase is. All life is full of trial, and when I hear literary performance praised, and remember my own love for it, and for praise, I think a little how much of all this I have sacrificed in these later years for a service that has made me enemies as well as friends. I felt called upon to do this, and I still think that if I made a mistake, it was one of those honest mistakes it is best to make."
She was giving Maud music lessons this autumn,
reading Plutarch with her, taking her to parties and
giving parties for her. Later, we find her holding mission
services at Vineyard Haven; addressing the Saturday
Morning Club ("Subject—Object: I smile at
this antithesis"); delivering a lecture at Albany—with
the lecture left behind.
"Got to work at once making abstracts from memory.... Spoke more than an hour.... Got my money—would rather have paid it than have had such an experience. Felt as if my inner Guide had misled and deserted me. But some good to some one may come of what I said and tried to say."
She returned from this trip very weary, only to find "my lecture advertised, not one line of it written—subject, 'Men's Women and Women's Women.' Set to work at once, almost overpowered by the task, and the shortness of the time."
The lecture was finished in the morning, delivered in the afternoon.
"Warm congratulations at the close.... Such a sense of relief!"
On December 19 she notes the departure of "dear Flossy and her dearest little Boy.... House very desolate without them. This boy is especially dear to Doctor Howe and myself."
"December 28. Maria Mitchell's Club lecture to-day was beautiful exceedingly. I might have envied her the steady grasp and unbroken advance of scientific study, did I not feel sure that God gives to each his own work. Mine, such as it is, would be helped and beautified by the knowledge which she imparts so easily, but perhaps all of her that I shall remember and try to follow is her spirit. Her silver hair seems lustrous with spiritual brightness, as do her dark eyes. Her movements are full of womanly grace, not ballroom grace."
From now on the movement is sempre crescendo.
Work for peace, work for clubs; lecturing, preaching,
tending the Doctor in his days of illness; taking the
youngest daughter to balls and parties; founding a
club for her, too. She felt that the young girls of
Maud's age needed the onward impulse as much as
their elders; accordingly, in November, 1871, she called
together a meeting of young women, and with their
aid and good-will formed the Saturday Morning Club
of Boston. The energy with which this organization
sprang into being showed that the time was ripe for it.
That energy, handed on through two generations, is no
less lively to-day; the name of the club recalls a hundred
beautiful and interesting occasions.
The Journal hurries us on from day to arduous day. Even the aspiration of New Year's Day, 1873, breathes the note of hurry: "Dear Lord, let me this year be worthy to call upon thy name!"
February 5 finds her on another quest: "Mem. Never to come by this route again. Had to turn out at Utica at 4 A.M. Three hours in depot...."
"March 1. Went to Saturday Morning Club. Found that John Fiske had failed them. Was told to improvise a lecture on the spot. Did so...."
"March 5. Went to hear the arguments in favor of rescinding the vote of censure against Charles Sumner...."
[In 1872, Sumner introduced in the Senate of the United States a resolution that the names of battles with fellow-countrymen should not be continued in the Army Register, nor placed on the regimental colors of the United States. This measure was violently opposed; the Legislature of Massachusetts denounced it as "an insult to the loyal soldiery of the Nation, ... meeting the unqualified condemnation of the Commonwealth." For more than a year Sumner's friends, headed by John G. Whittier, strove to obtain the rescinding of this censure; it was not till 1874 that it was rescinded by a large majority.]
"March 10. A morning for work in my own room, so rare a luxury that I hardly know how to use it. Begin with my Greek Testament...."
"March 17. Radical Club.... It was an interesting sitting, but I felt as if the Club had about done its work. People get to believing that talk turns the world: it is much, but it is nothing without work...."
"May 27. Fifty-four years old to-day. Thank God for what I have had and hope to have.... In the afternoon my dear children had a beautiful birthday party for me, including most of my old friends and some of the newer ones. Agassiz came, and his wife; he brought a bouquet and kissed me. I had beautiful flowers.... Poor Chev was ill with a frightful headache. I was much touched by the dear children's affectionate device and shall remember this birthday."
This was the first of the Birthday Receptions, which were to be our happiest festivals through many happy years.
Monday, June 2, was the day she had appointed as Mothers' Peace Day, her annual Peace Festival.
"The day of many prayers dawned propitious, and was as bright and clear as I could have wished."
She was up early, and found the hall "beautifully decorated with many fine bouquets, wreaths, and baskets, the white dove of Peace rising above other emblems." There were two services, morning and evening, and many speakers. "Mr. Tilden and Mr. Garrison both did nobly for me.... Thank God for so much!"
She had the great joy of hearing that the day was celebrated in other countries besides her own. In London, Geneva, Constantinople, and various other places, services were held, and men and women prayed and sang in behalf of peace: this she counted among the precious things of the year, and of several years to come.
"June 6. Quiet at last, and face to face with the eternal Gospel. Weary and confused, anxious to wind up my business well, and begin my polyglot sheet...."
Yet on June 10 she is arriving in New York at 5.40 A.M., bound for a peace meeting.
"June 11. I got two bricks from the dear old house at the corner of Broadway and Bond Street, now all down and rebuilding. Will have one enamelled for myself. Ah, Lord, what a bitter lesson is in this tearing-down! How I was wanting in duty to the noble parent who built this grand home for me! I hope to help young people to understand something of parental love and its responsibilities. But parents also must study children, since each new soul may require a new method."
"June 12. Home very gladly. Helped Maud with her Latin. At 3.30 to rehearse 'Midsummer-Night's Dream.' I Hermia and Snout. At 7.30 the reading, which was the pleasantest we have had."
[These readings were in the vestry of the Church of the Disciples. Mr. Clarke, our mother, Erving Winslow, and others of the congregation took part: we remember the late Professor James Mills Pierce as Orlando in "As You Like It"; his beautiful reading of the part contrasting oddly with his middle-aged, long-bearded personality. Our mother's rendering of Maria in "Twelfth Night" was something to remember.]
"June 17. Up at five and to get a boat. Maud and the Lieutenant [Zalinski] rowed me to Fort Independence and back, a most refreshing excursion. Dear Dr. Hedge came out to make a morning visit. I kept him as long as I could. We talked of Bartol, Rubinstein, Father Taylor, and Margaret Fuller, whom he knew when she was fourteen years old. He urged me to labor for dress reform, which he considered much needed. Had preached two sermons on the subject which his dressy parishioners resented, telling him that their husbands approved of their fine clothes. I begged him to unearth these sermons and give them to us at the club. We spoke of marriage, and I unfolded rapidly my military and moral theory of human relations. Thought of a text for a sermon on this subject: 'Arise, take up thy bed and walk.' This because the ills of marriage which are deemed incurable are not. We must meet them with the energetic will which converts evil into good, and without which all good degenerates into evil."
July finds her at Oak Glen. She is full of texts and
sermons, but makes time to write to Fanny Perkins,[75]
proposing "Picnics with a Purpose, sketching, seaside
lectures, astronomical evenings." This thought may
have been the germ from which grew the Town and
Country Club, of which more hereafter.
The writing of sermons seems to have crowded serious poetry out of sight in these days, but the Comic Muse was always at hand with tambourine and flageolet, ready to strike up at a moment's notice. There was much coming and going of young men and maidens at Oak Glen in those days, and much singing of popular songs of a melancholy or desperate cast. The maiden was requested to take back the heart she had given; what was its anguish to her? There were handfuls of earth in a coffin hid, a coffin under the daisies, the beautiful, beautiful daisies; and so on, and so on, ad lachrymam. She bore all this patiently; but one day she said to Maud, "Come! You and these young persons know nothing whatever of real trouble. I will make you a song about a real trouble!" And she produced, words and tune, the following ditty:—
COOKERY BOOKERY, OH!
My Irish cook has gone away
Upon my dinner-party day;
I don't know what to do or say—
Cookery bookery, oh!
Chorus:
Sing, saucepan, range, and kitchen fire!
Sing, coals are high and always higher!
Sing, crossed and vexed, till you expire!
Cookery bookery, oh!
She could cook every kind of dish,
"Wittles" of meat and "wittles" of fish,
And soup as fancy as you wish—
And she is gone away!
She weighed two hundred pounds of cheek,
She had a voice that made me meek,
I had to listen when she did speak—
Cookery bookery, oh!
My husband comes, a saucy elf,
And eyes the saucepan on the shelf;
Says he, "Why don't you cook yourself?"
Cookery bookery, oh!
Chorus:
Sing, saucepan, range, and kitchen fire!
Sing, coals are high and always higher!
Sing, crossed and vexed, till you expire!
Cookery bookery, oh!
Jocosa Lyra! one chord of its gay music suggests another. It may have been in this summer that she wrote "The Newport Song," which also has its own lilting melody.
Non sumus fashionabiles:
Non damus dapes splendides:
But in a modest way, you know,
We like to see our money go:
Et gaudeamus igitur,
Our soul has nought to fidget her!
We do not care to quadrigate
On Avenues in gilded state:
No gold-laced footmen laugh behind
At our vacuity of mind:
But in a modest one-horse shay,
We rumble, tumble as we may,
Et gaudeamus igitur,
Our soul has nought to fidget her!
When æstivation is at end,
We've had our fun and seen our friend.
No thought of payment makes us ill,
We don't know such a word as "bill":
Et gaudeamus igitur,
Our soul has nought to fidget her!
She always tried to go at least once in the summer to see the old people at the Town Farm, a pleasant, gray old house, not far from Oak Glen.
"In the afternoon visited the poorhouse with J. and F. and found several of the old people again, old Nancy who used to make curious patchwork; old Benny, half-witted; Elsteth, Henrietta, and Harriet, very glad to see us. Julia read them a Psalm, then Harriet and Elsteth sang an interminable Methodist hymn, and I was moved to ask if they would like to have me pray with them. They assented, and I can only say that my heart was truly lifted up by the sense of the universality of God's power and goodness, to which these forlorn ones could appeal as directly as could the most powerful, rich, or learned people."
Later she writes:—
"The summer seems to me to have been rich in good and in interest as I review it. Sweet, studious days, pleasant intercourse with friends, the joy of preaching, and very much in all this the well-being of my dear family, children and grandchildren, their father and grandfather enjoying them with me. This is much to thank God for."
Some of the family lingered on after most of the household impedimenta had been sent up to Boston, and were caught napping.
"Sitting quietly with Chev over the fire after a game of whist with Julia and Paddock,—a hack-driver knocked at the door of our little back parlor, saying that a gentleman was waiting at the front door for admission. I opened the door and found Dr. Alex Voickoff, who had learned in Boston of our being here and had come down to stay over Sunday. The floors of nearly every parlor and bedroom had been newly oiled. We had no spare bedding. I spared what I could from my ill-provided bed—we made the guest as comfortable as we could. The bedding had been sent up to Boston. Hinc illæ lachrymæ."
"November 26. Saw Salvini's 'Othello.' As wonderful as people say it is. The large theatre [the Boston] packed, and so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop. From the serene majesty of the opening scenes to the agony of the end, all was grand and astounding even to us to whom the play is familiar. The Italian version seemed to me very fine, preserving all the literary points of the original. In fact it seemed as if I had always before heard the play through an English translation, so much did the Italian speech and action light it up."
She found Salvini's "Hamlet" "not so good for him as 'Othello,' yet he was wonderful in it, and made a very strong impression."
She met the great actor, and found his manners "cordial, natural, and high-toned." She gave a dinner-party for him, and found him to improve more and more on further acquaintance. He became a valued friend, always greeted with delight.
In December, 1873, Richard Ward, her last surviving uncle, died. He had lived on at No. 8 Bond Street after the death of Uncle John, and had kept up the traditions of that hospitable house, always receiving her most affectionately.
"December 11. Uncle Richard's funeral. A quiet one, but on the whole satisfactory and almost pleasant, he having lived out his life and dying surrounded by his children and other relatives, and the family gathering around his remains wearing an aspect of cordiality and mutual good-will. I put a sprig of white daphne in the folds of the marble drapery of dear father's bust and kissed the bust, feeling that it had taken all of these years to teach me his value and the value of the moral and spiritual inheritance which I had from him and could not wholly waste with all the follies which checker the better intentions of my life. I went to Greenwood and into the vault, and saw the sacred names of the dear departed on the slabs which sealed the deposit of their remains. It was all like a dream and a sad one."
"December 12. No. 8 Bond Street. I came down here to write the records of yesterday and to-day in this dear old house, whose thronging memories rise up to wring my heart, in the prospect of its speedy dismantlement and the division of its dear contents. Here I came on my return from Europe in 1844, bringing my dear Julia, then an infant of six months. Uncle John had just bought and fitted it up. Here I came to attend Sister Louisa's wedding, Uncle John being rather distant to me, supposing that I had favored the marriage. Here I saw dear Brother Marion for the last time. Here I came in my most faulty and unhappy period. Here, after my first publications; here, to see my play acted at Wallack's. Here, when death had taken my dearest Sammy from me. Uncle John was so kind and merciful at that time, and always except that once, when indeed he did not express displeasure, but I partly guessed it and learned it more fully afterwards. God's blessing rest upon the memory of this hospitable and unstained house. It seems to me as if neither words nor tears could express the pain I feel in closing this account with my father's generation."
The most important episode of 1874, the visit to
Samana, has already been described. Turning the
leaves of the Journal for this year, we feel that the
change and break were necessary to her as well as to
the Doctor. There were limits even to her strength.
"January, 1874. A sort of melancholy of confusion, not knowing how I can possibly get through with the various requisitions made upon my time, strength, thought, and sympathy. Usually I feel, even in these moods, the nearness of divine help. To-day it seems out of my consciousness, but is not on that account out of my belief...."
"The past week one dreadful hurry. Things look colorless when you whirl so fast past them."
"The month ending to-day seems the most hurried of my life. Woman's Club, Saturday Club, Philosophical group, Maud's music, ditto party, and all her dressing and gayety, beside writing for [the Woman's] Journal, ... two lectures [Salem and Weston], both gratuitous, and the care of getting up and advertising Bishop Ferrette's lectures. And in all these things I seem not to do, rather than to do, the dissipation of effort so calls me away from the quiet, concentrated sort of work which I love."
It was time for the Doctor to say "Come!" and to carry her off to those tropical solitudes they had learned to love so well. Yet the departure was painful, for Maud must be left behind. On March 1 we read:—
"Of to-day I wish to preserve the fact that, waking early in painful perplexity about Maud, Santo Domingo, etc., and praying that the right way might open for me and for all of us, my prayer seemed answered by the very great comfort I had in hearing the prayer and sermon of Henry Powers of New York. The decided spiritual tone of the prayer made me feel that I must try to take, every day, this energetic attitude of moral will and purpose, even if I fail in much that I wish to do."
On May 27 she writes:—
"My birthday. Fifty-five years old. Still face to face with the mercies of God in health and sanity, enjoying all true pleasures more than ever and weaned from some false ones. I feel a great lassitude, probably from my cold and yesterday's fatigue. I have not worked this year as I did the year before, yet I have worked a good deal, too, and perhaps have tried more to fulfil the duty nearest at hand.... I thank God for my continued life, health, and comfort.... I ask to see Samana free before I go.... 'Thy will be done' is the true prayer."
Samana was not to be free, spite of the efforts of its friends, and she was not to see it again.
The record of this year and the next is a chronicle of arduous work, with the added and ever-deepening note of anxiety; it was only for a time that the visit to Samana checked the progress of the Doctor's physical failure. He was able in the summer of 1874 to write the forty-third report of the Perkins Institution: an important one in which he reviewed his whole work among the blind. He felt that this would probably be his last earthly task; yet the following summer found him again taking up the familiar work, laboring with what little strength was left him, and when eyes and hand refused to answer the call of the spirit, dictating to his faithful secretary. It has been told elsewhere how in this last summer of his life he labored to make more beautiful and more valuable the summer home which had become very dear to him.
Returned to Green Peace, he had some happy days in his garden, but for gardener and garden they were the last days. The city had decided to put a street through Green Peace: already workmen were digging trenches and cutting trees. Our mother went to the authorities, and told them of his feeble condition. The work was stopped at once, and not resumed during his lifetime.
Through these years her time was divided between the invalid and the many public duties which had already taken possession of her life. Little by little these were crowded out: instead of lecture or concert came the ever-shortening walk with the Doctor, the evening game of whist or backgammon which lightened a little his burden of pain and weariness.
Yet she was preparing, on January 4, 1876, to keep a lecture engagement of long standing, when the blow fell. He was stricken down, and lay for some days insensible, waiting the final summons.
There was no hope of his recovery: those around him waited patiently, any violence of grief held in check by the silent rebuke of the serene face on the pillow.
The day after his death she writes:—
"I awoke at 4.30, but lay still to bear the chastening hand of God, laid upon me in severe mercy....
"Some good words came to me: 'Let not your heart be troubled,' etc. 'He doth not willingly afflict,' etc.
"Before breakfast went into Chev's room, so sweet and peaceful.... I laid my lace veil, my bridal veil, upon the head of his bedstead.... In place of my dear husband I have now my foolish papers. Yet I have often left him for them. God accept the poor endeavor of my life!"
On the day after the funeral she writes: "Began my new life to-day. Prayed God that it might have a greatly added use and earnestness."
And several weeks later, after the memorial meeting in his honor:—
"Yesterday seems to have filled the measure of the past. To-day I must forward in the paths of the future. My dear love is sometimes with me, at least as an energizing and inspiring influence, but how shall I deserve ever to see him again?"
The paths of the future! She was to tread them with cheerful and willing feet through many long years, never wholly losing the sense of companionship with her good comrade.
She devoted the spring of 1876 to the writing of a brief memoir of him, which was printed in pamphlet form and in raised type for the use of the blind. With the latter object in view the memoir was necessarily brief. The labor of condensing into a small space the record of a long and super-active life was severe, but it was the tonic she needed. The days of quiet at Green Peace, the arduous work, with a page of Greek or a chapter of Baur for relaxation, brought mind and nerves back to their normal condition.
The work speaks for itself. As it is little known to-day outside the schools for the blind, we quote the concluding paragraph:—
"In what is said, to-day, concerning the motherhood of the human race, the social and spiritual aspects of this great office are not wholly overlooked. It must be remembered that there is also a fatherhood of human society, a vigilance and forethought of benevolence recognized in the individuals who devote their best energies to the interests of mankind. The man to whose memory the preceding pages are dedicated is one of those who have best filled this relation to their race. Watchful of its necessities, merciful to its shortcomings, careful of its dignity, and cognizant of its capacity, may the results of his labor be handed down to future generations, and may his name and example be held in loving and lasting remembrance."
CHAPTER XVII
THE WOMAN'S CAUSE
1868-1910
Women who weave in hope the daily web,
Who leave the deadly depths of passion pure,
Who hold the stormy powers of will attent,
As Heaven directs, to act, or to endure;
No multitude strews branches in their way,
Not in their praise the loud arena strives;
Still as a flameless incense rises up
The costly patience of their offered lives.
J. W. H.
We have seen that after the Doctor's death our
mother felt that another chapter of life had begun for
her. It was a changed world without that great and
dominant personality. She missed the strength on
which she had leaned for so many years, the weakness
which through the past months she had tended and
cherished. Henceforth she must lead, not follow;
must be captain instead of mate.
In another sense, the new life had actually begun for her some years before, when she first took up public activities; to those activities she now turned the more ardently for the great void that was left in heart and home. We must now go back to the later sixties, and speak of her special interests at that time.
Looking back over her long life, we see her in three aspects, those of the student, the artist, the reformer. First came youth, with its ardent study; then maturity, with its output of poems, plays, essays. So far she had followed the natural course of creative minds, which must absorb and assimilate in order that they may give out. It is in the third phase that we find the aspect of her later life, a clear vision of the needs of humanity, and a profound hospitality which made it imperative for her to give with both hands not only what she had inherited, but what she had earned. Having enjoyed unusual advantages herself, the moment she saw the way to give other women these advantages, she was eager to "help the woman-standard new unfurled."
In the first number of the "Woman's Journal," of which she was one of the founders and first editors, she writes (January 8, 1870):—
"We who stand beside the cradle of this enterprise are not young in years. Our children are speedily preparing to take our place in the ranks of society. Some of us have been looking thoughtfully toward the final summons, not because of ill health or infirmity, but because, after the establishment of our families, no great object intervened between ourselves and that last consummation. But these young undertakings detain us in life. While they need so much care and counsel, we cannot consent to death. And this first year, at least, of our Journal, we are determined to live through."
Again she writes of this new departure:—
"In an unexpected hour a new light came to me, showing me a world of thought and character. The new domain was that of true womanhood, woman no longer in her ancillary relation to man, but in direct relation to the divine plan and purpose, as a free agent fully sharing with man every human right and every human responsibility. This discovery was like the addition of a new continent to the map of the world. It did not come all at once. In my philosophizing I at length reached the conclusion that woman must be the moral and spiritual equivalent of man. How otherwise could she be entrusted with the awful and inevitable responsibilities of maternity? The Civil War came to an end, leaving the slave not only emancipated but endowed with the full dignity of citizenship. The women of the North had greatly helped to open the door which admitted him to freedom and its safeguard, the ballot. Was the door to be shut in their face?"
When this new world of thought, this new continent of sympathy was opened to her, she was nearly fifty years old. "Oh! had I earlier known," she exclaims, "the power, the nobility, the intelligence which lie within the range of true womanhood, I had surely lived more wisely and to better purpose."
Speaking of this new interest in her life, her old friend Tom Appleton (who had not the least sympathy with it) once said, "Your mother's great importance to this cause is that she forms a bridge between the world of society and the world of reform."
She soon found that she was not alone in her questioning; similar thoughts to hers were germinating in the minds of many women. In our own and other countries a host of earnest souls were awake, pressing eagerly forward. In quick succession came the women's clubs and colleges, the renewed demand for woman suffrage, the Association for the Advancement of Women, the banding together of women ministers. The hour had come, and the women. In all these varying manifestations of one great forward and upward movement in America, Julia Ward Howe was pars magna. Indeed, the story of the latter half of her life is the story of the Advance of Woman and the part she played in it.
The various phases may be taken in order. Oberlin, the first coeducational college, was chartered in 1834. Vassar, the first college for women only, was chartered in 1861, opened in 1865. Smith and Wellesley followed in 1875. Considering this brave showing, it is strange to recall the great fight before the barred doors of the great universities. The women knocked, gently at first, then strongly: our mother, Mrs. Agassiz, and the rest. They were greeted by a storm of protest. Learned books were written, brilliant lectures delivered, to prove that a college education was ruinous to the health of women, perilous to that of future generations. The friends of Higher Education replied in words no less ardent. Blast and counterblast rang forth. Still the patient hands knocked, the earnest voices called: till at length—there being friends as well as foes inside—slowly, with much creaking and many forebodings, the great doors opened; a crack, then a space, till to-day they swing wide, and the Higher Education of Women now stands firm as the Pyramids.
The idea of woman suffrage had long been repugnant to our mother. The demand for it seemed unreasonable; she was inclined to laugh both at the cause and its advocates; yet when, in November, 1868, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson asked her to give her name to a call for a meeting in behalf of woman suffrage she did not refuse. It would be "a liberal and friendly meeting," the Colonel said, "without bitterness or extravagance."
On the day of the meeting she "strayed into Horticultural Hall" in her "rainy-day suit, with no idea of taking any active part in the proceedings." Indeed, she had hoped to remain unnoticed, until summoned by an urgent message to join those who sat upon the platform; reluctantly she obeyed the summons. With this simple action the old order changed for her. On the platform were gathered the woman suffrage leaders, some of whom she already knew: William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, James Freeman Clarke; veteran captains of Reform, her husband's old companions-in-arms. Looking in their steadfast faces, she felt that she belonged with them; that she must help to draw the car of progress, not drag like a brake on its wheel.
Beside these were some unknown to her. She saw now for the first time the sweet face of Lucy Stone, heard the silver voice which was to be dear to her through many years. "Here stood the true woman, pure, noble, great-hearted, with the light of her good life shining in every feature of her face." These men and women had been the champions of the slave. They now asked for wives and mothers those civil rights which had been given to the negro; "that impartial justice for which, if for anything, a Republican Government should stand." Their speech was earnest; she listened as to a new gospel. When she was asked to speak, she could only say, "I am with you."
With the new vision came the call of a new duty. "What can I do?" she asked. The answer was ready. The New England Woman Suffrage Association was formed, and she was elected its first president. This office she held, with some interruptions, through life. It is well to recall the patient, faithful work of the pioneer suffragists, who, without money or prestige, spent themselves for the cause. Their efforts, compared to the well-organized and well-financed campaigns of to-day, are as a "certain upper chamber" compared with the basilica of St. Peter, yet it was in that quiet room that the tongues of Pentecost spoke.
"I am glad," she often said, "to have joined the suffrage movement, because it has brought me into such high company."
The convert buckled to her new task with all her might, working for it early and late with an ardor that counted no cost.
"Oh! dear Mrs. Howe, you are so full of inspiration!" cried a foolish woman. "It enables you to do so much!"
"Inspiration!" said "dear Mrs. Howe," shortly. "Inspiration means perspiration!"
She says of her early work for suffrage:—
"One of the comforts which I found in the new association was the relief which it afforded me from a sense of isolation and eccentricity. For years past I had felt strongly impelled to lend my voice to the convictions of my heart. I had done this in a way, from time to time, always with the feeling that my course in doing so was held to call for apology and explanation by the men and women with whose opinions I had hitherto been familiar. I now found a sphere of action in which this mode of expression no longer appeared singular or eccentric, but simple, natural, and, under the circumstances, inevitable."
It was no small thing for her to take up this burden. The Doctor, although a believer in equal suffrage, was strongly opposed to her taking any active part in public life. He felt as Grandfather Howe had felt forty years before when his son Sam spoke in public for the sake of Greece; it jarred on his traditions. Others of the family also deplored the new departure, and her personal friends almost with one accord held up hands of horror or deprecation. These things were inexpressibly painful to her; she loved approbation; the society and sympathy of "kent folk," whose traditions corresponded with her own; but her hand was on the plough; there was no turning back.
Suffrage worked her hard. The following year the New England Woman Suffrage Association issued a call for the formation of a national body; the names signed were Lucy Stone, Caroline M. Severance, Julia Ward Howe, T. W. Higginson, and G. H. Vibbert. Representatives from twenty-one States assembled in Cleveland, November 24, 1869, and formed the American Woman Suffrage Association. There was already a "National Woman Suffrage Association," formed a few months earlier; the new organization differed from the other in some points of policy, notably in the fact that men as well as women were recognized among the leaders. Colonel Higginson was its president at one time, Henry Ward Beecher, Bishop Gilbert Haven, and Dudley Foulke at others. The New England Woman's Club also admitted men to membership: it was a point our mother had much at heart. She held that the Quaker organization was the best, with its separate meetings of men and women, supplemented by a joint session of both. She always insisted upon the salutary influence that men and women exercise upon one another.
"The two sexes police each other," she often said. She always maintained the importance of their united action in matters of public as of private interest. She was essentially a humanist in contradistinction to a feminist.
She worked for the American Association during the twenty-one years of its separate existence, first as foreign corresponding secretary, afterward as president, and in various other capacities. When, in 1890, the two societies united to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, she became and continued through life one of the vice-presidents of that body. From the first, she was recognized as an invaluable leader. The years of philosophical study had made her mind supple, alert, quick to grasp and to respond, even as the study of languages brought her the gift of ready speech and pure diction. Her long practice in singing had given her voice strength, sweetness, and carrying power; above all, she was a natural orator, and speaking was a joy to her. The first time she ever made a speech in public was to a group of soldiers of the Army of the Potomac on the occasion of a visit to Washington during the war. She had driven out to visit the camp outside the Capital. Colonel William B. Greene disconcerted her very much by saying, "Mrs. Howe, you must speak to my men."
She refused, and ran away to hide in an adjacent tent. The Colonel insisted, and finally she managed to make a very creditable little speech to the soldiers.
Now, she no longer ran away when called upon to speak. Wherever the work called her, she went gladly; like St. Paul, she was "in journeyings often, ... in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often"; the journals are full of incidents picturesque to read, uncomfortable to live through. Occasionally, after some tremendous exertion, we read, "Maud must not know of this!" or, "No one must ever know that I took the wrong train!"
Much of her most important work for woman suffrage was done at the State House, Boston. In Massachusetts, the custom of bringing this subject before the legislature every year long prevailed. She always went to these hearings. She considered it a privilege to take part in them; counted them "among her most valued recollections." They extended over forty years or more.
These occasions were often exasperating as well as fatiguing. She never wearied of presenting the arguments for suffrage; she often suffered vexation of spirit in refuting those brought against it, but she never refused the battle. "If I were mad enough," she said once, "I could speak in Hebrew!"
She was "mad enough" when at a certain hearing woman suffrage was condemned as a "minority cause." Her words, if not in Hebrew, show the fighting spirit of ancient Israel.
We quote from memory:—
The Reverend ——: "The fact that most women are indifferent or opposed is a sufficient proof that woman suffrage is wrong."
Mrs. Howe: "May I ask one question? Were the Twelve Apostles wrong in trying to bring about a better social condition when almost the whole community was opposed to them?"
Dr. ——: "I suppose that question was asked merely for rhetorical effect."
Mrs. Howe (having asked for two minutes to reply, with the whispered comment, "I shall die if I am not allowed to speak!"): "I do not know how it is with Dr. ——, but I was not brought up to use the Bible for rhetorical effect. To my mind, the suffragists and their opponents are like the wise and the foolish virgins of the parable, equal in number but not in wisdom. When the Bridegroom cometh, may Dr. —— have his wedding garment ready!"
She thus recalls some of the scenes in the State House where she was so long a familiar figure:—
"I have again and again been one of a deputation charged with laying before a legislature the injustice of the law which forbids the husband a business contract with his wife, and of that which denies to a married woman the right to be appointed guardian of her children. We reasoned also against what in legal language is termed 'the widow's quarantine,' the ordinance which forbids a widow to remain in her husband's house more than forty days without paying rent, the widower in such case possessing an unlimited right to abide under the roof of his deceased wife. Finally, we dared ask that night-walkers of the male sex should be made liable to the same penalties as women for the same offence. Our bill passed the legislature, and became part of the laws of Massachusetts."
Elsewhere she writes: "In Massachusetts the suffragists worked for fifty-five years before they succeeded in getting a law making mothers equal guardians of their minor children with the fathers. In Colorado, when the women were enfranchised, the next legislature passed such a bill." Of the movement by which women won a right to have a voice in the education of their children, she says: "The proposal to render women eligible for service on the School Board was met at first with derision and with serious disapproval. The late Abby W. May had much to do with the early consideration of this measure, and the work which finally resulted in its adoption had its first beginning in the parlors of the New England Woman's Club, where special meetings were held in its behalf. The extension of the school suffrage to women followed, after much work on the part of men and of women."
"These meetings," she said once, speaking before the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association, "show, among other things, the character of those who believe in suffrage with their whole heart. We who are gathered here are not a frantic, shrieking mob. We are not contemners of marriage, nor neglecters of home and offspring. We are individually allowed to be men and women of sound intellect, of reputable life, having the same stake and interest in the well-being of the community that others have. Most of us are persons of moderate competence, earned or inherited. We have had, or hope to have, our holy fireside, our joyful cradle, our decent bank account. Why should any consider us as the enemies of society, we who have everything to gain by its good government?"
It seems fitting to add a few more of her words in behalf of the cause which she served so long,—words spoken at Club meetings, at Conventions before Legislatures.
"But besides the philosophy of woman suffrage, we want its religion. Human questions are not glorified until they are brought into touch with the Divine...."
"The weapon of Christian warfare is the ballot, which represents the peaceable assertion of conviction and will. Adopt it, O you women, with clean hands and a pure heart!"
"The religion which makes me a moral agent equally with my father and brother, gives me my right and title to the citizenship which I am here to assert. I ought to share equally with them its privileges and its duties. No man can have more at stake in the community than I have. Imposition of taxes, laws concerning public health, order, and morality, affect me precisely as they affect the male members of my family, and I am bound equally with them to look to the maintenance of a worthy and proper standard and status in all of these departments."
"God forbid that in this country chivalry and legislation should be set one against the other. I ask you, gentlemen, to put your chivalry into your legislation. Let the true Christian knighthood find its stronghold in your ranks. Arm yourselves with the best reasons, with the highest resolve, and deliver us poor women from the injustice which oppresses and defrauds us."
"Revere the religion of home. Keep its altar flame bright in your heart.... The vestals of ancient Rome were at once guardians of the hearth and custodians of the archives of the Roman State. So, in every time, the home conserves the sacred flame of life, and the destiny of the nation rests with those who keep it."
"Go abroad with the majesty and dignity of your home about you.... Let the modest graces of the fireside adorn you in the great gathering. This is a new sort of home missionary, one who shall carry the blessed spirit of home wherever she goes, a spirit of rest, of healing, of reconciliation and good-will."
"One aspect of this [the military argument] would make the protection which men are supposed to give to women in time of war the equivalent for the political rights denied them. But, gentlemen, let me ask what protection can you give us which shall compare with the protection we give you when you are born, little helpless creatures, into the world, without feet to stand upon, or hands to help yourselves? Without this tender, this unceasing protection, no man of you would live to grow up. It may easily happen that no man of a whole generation shall ever be called upon to defend the women of his country in the field. But it cannot happen that the women of any generation shall fail to give their unwearied and energetic protection to the infant men born of it. Some of us know how full of labor and detail this protection is; what anxious days, what sleepless nights it involves. The mothers are busy at home, not only building up the bodies of the little men, but building up their minds too, teaching them to be gentle, pure and honest, cultivating the elements of the human will, that great moralizing power on which the State and the Church depend. A man is very happy if he can ever repay to his mother the protection she gave him in his infancy. So, the plea of protection has two sides.
"If manhood suffrage is unsatisfactory, it does not at all show that woman suffrage would be. On the contrary, we might make it much better by bringing to it the feminine mind, which, in a way, complements the masculine, and so, I think, completes the mind of humanity. We are half of humanity, and I do frankly believe that we have half the intelligence and good sense of humanity, and that it is quite time that we should express not only our sentiments but our determined will, to set our faces as a flint toward justice and right, and to follow these through the difficult path, through the thorny wilderness. Not to the bitter end, but a very sweet end, and I hope it may be before my end comes."
Her last service to the cause of woman suffrage was to send a circular letter to all the editors and to all the ministers of four leading denominations in the four oldest suffrage States, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho, asking whether equal suffrage worked well or ill. She received 624 answers, 62 not favorable, 46 in doubt, and 516 in favor. A letter from her to the London "Times," stating these results, appeared on the same day that the news of her death was cabled to Europe.
Thinking of the long years of effort which followed her adoption of the cause of woman suffrage, a word of the Doctor's, spoken in 1875, comes vividly to mind.
"Your cause," said he, "lacks one element of success, and that is opposition. It is so distinctly just that it will slide into popularity." He little thought that the cause was to wait forty years for that slide!
Side by side with the suffrage movement, growing along with it and with the women's clubs, and in time to be absorbed by them, was another movement which was for many years very dear to her, the Association for the Advancement of Women.
This Association had its beginning in 1873, when Sorosis, then a sturdy infant, growing fast and reaching out in every direction, issued a call for a Congress of Women in New York in the autumn of that year. She says of this call:—-
"Many names, some known, others unknown to me, were appended to the document first sent forth. My own was asked for. Should I give or withhold it? Among the signatures already obtained, I saw that of Maria Mitchell,[76] and this determined me to give my own."
She went to the Congress, and "viewed its proceedings a little critically at first," its plan appearing to her "rather vast and vague."
Yet she felt the idea of the Association to be a good one; and when it was formed, with the above title, and with Mrs. Livermore as president, she was glad to serve on a sub-committee, charged with selecting topics and speakers for the first annual Congress.
The object of the Association was "to consider and present practical methods for securing to women higher intellectual, moral, and physical conditions, with a view to the improvement of all domestic and social relations."
At its first Congress she said:
"How can women best associate their efforts for the amelioration of Society? We must come together in a teachable and religious spirit. Women, while building firmly and definitely the fabric they decide to rear, must yet build with an individual tolerance which their combined and corporate wisdom may better explain. The form of the Association should be representative, in a true and wide sense. Deliberation in common, mutual instruction, achievement for the whole better and more valuable than the success of any,—these should be the objects held constantly in view. The good of all the aim of each. The discipline of labor, faith, and sacrifice is necessary. Our growth in harmony of will and in earnestness of purpose will be far more important than in numbers."
One hundred and ninety women formed this Association: a year later there were three hundred. The second Congress was held in Chicago, with an attendance "very respectable in numbers and character from the first, and very full in afternoon and evening."
On the second day, October 16, 1874, the subject considered was "Crime and Reform." The Journal says:—
"Mrs. Ellen Mitchell's paper on fallen women was first-rate throughout. I spoke first after it, saying that we must carry the war into Africa and reform the men...."
The meetings of the Congress grew more and more important to her. That of 1875 found her "much tossed in mind" about going, on account of the Doctor's ill health. She consulted Mr. Clarke, but felt afterward that this was a mistake.
"My dæmon says: 'Go and say nothing. Nobody can help you bear your own child.'"
She went.
No matter how fatiguing these journeys were, she never failed to find some enjoyment in them; many were the pleasant "fruits of friendship" gathered along the way. Some one of the sisters was sure to have a tiny teapot in her basket; another would produce a spirit-lamp; they drank their tea, shared their sandwiches, and were merry. She loved to travel with her "dear big Livermore," with Lucy Stone, and the faithful Blackwells, father and daughter; perhaps her best-loved companion was Ednah Cheney, her "esteemed friend of many years, excellent in counsel and constant and loyal in regard."
Once she and Mrs. Cheney appeared together at an "A.A.W." meeting in a Southern city, where speaking and singing were to alternate on the programme. It was in their later years: both were silver-haired and white-capped. Our mother was to announce the successive numbers. Glancing over the programme, she saw that Mr. So-and-So was to sing "The Two Grenadiers." With a twinkling glance toward Mrs. Cheney, she announced, "The next number will be 'The Two Granny Dears'!"
The Reverend Antoinette Blackwell, describing one of these journeys, says:—
"As we went onward I was ready to close my eyes and 'loll' or look lazily out to see the flying landscape seem to be doing the work. When I roused enough to look at Mrs. Howe she was reading. Later, I looked again, she was still reading. This went on mile after mile till I was enough interested to step quietly across the aisle and peep over Mrs. Howe's shoulder without disturbing her. She was reading a Greek volume, apparently with as much enjoyment as most of us gain from reading in plain English when we are not tired.... With apparent unwearied enjoyment, she told us anecdotes, repeated the little stories and rhymes and sang the little songs which she had given to her children and grandchildren....
"We lingered at the breakfast table in the morning and among other things came to comparing social likes and dislikes. 'I never can bring myself to destroy the least bit of paper,' said Mrs. Howe, meaning paper written on, containing the record of human thought and feeling which might be of worth, and its only record. To her these were the chief values of life."
The following notes are taken from the record of "A.A.W." journeys in the eighties:—
"Buffalo, October 22, 1881. I felt quite distracted about leaving home when I came this way for the Congress, but have felt clear about the good of it, ever since. I rarely have much religious meditation in these days, except to be very sorry for a very faulty life. I will therefore record the fact that I have felt an unusual degree of religious comfort in these last days. It seemed a severe undertaking to preach to-day after so busy a week, and with little or no time for preparation. But my text came to me as it usually does, and a hope that the sermon would be given to me, which, indeed, it seemed to be. I thought it out in bed last night and this morning...."
"My beautiful, beautiful West,
I clasp thee to my breast!
Or rather down I lie,
Like a little old babe and cry,
A babe to second childhood born,
Astonished at the mighty morn,
And only pleading to be fed,
From Earth's illimitable bread!"
"Left Schenectady yesterday. Drawing-room car. Read Greek a good deal. At Syracuse I took the tumbler of the car and ran out to get some milk, etc., for supper. Spent 25 cents, and took my slender meal in the car, on a table. After this, slept profoundly all the evening; took the sleeper at Rochester, and slept like the dead, having had very insufficient sleep for two nights past. Was awakened early to get out at Cleveland—much detained by a young woman who got into the dressing-room before me, and stayed to make an elaborate toilet, keeping every one else out. When at last she came out, I said to her, 'Well, madam, you have taken your own time, to the inconvenience of everybody else. You are the most selfish woman I ever travelled with.' Could get only a cup of coffee and a roll at Cleveland—much confusion about cars—regained mine, started, and found that I had left my trunk at Cleveland, unchecked. Flew to conductor, who immediately took measures to have it forwarded. Must wait all day at Shelby, in the most forlorn hole I ever saw called a hotel. No parlor, a dark bedroom for me to stay in, a cold hell without the fire, and a very hot one with it. Dirty bed not made up, a sinister likeness of Schuyler Colfax hanging high on the wall, and a print of the managers of Andy Johnson's impeachment. I—in distress about my trunk—have telegraphed to Mansfield for the title of my lecture and learn that it is 'Polite Society.' Must give it without the manuscript, and must borrow a gown to give it in."
"Minnesota in Winter
"The twistings and turnings of a lecture trip have brought me twice, in the present season, to Minnesota....
"To an Easterner, a daily walk or two is the first condition of health. Here, the frost seemed to enter one's very bones, and to make locomotion difficult.... Life at the hotel was mostly an anxious tête-à-tête with an air-tight stove. Sometimes you roasted before it, sometimes you froze. As you crammed it with wood at night, you said, 'Will you, oh! will you burn till morning?' Finally, on the coldest night of all, and at that night's noon, you bade it farewell, on your way to the midnight train, and wondered whether you should be likely to go further and fare worse....
"After the lecture an informal sitting was held in the parlor of my hostess, at which there was much talk of the clubs of Boston; 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem!' being the predominant tone in the minds of those present. And at noon, away, away, in the caboose of a freight car, to meet the passenger train at Owatonna, and so reach Minneapolis by early evening.
"To travel in such a caboose is a somewhat rough experience. The dirt is grimy and of long standing. The pictures nailed up on the boards are not of an edifying description. The railroad employees who have admitted us into their place of refuge wear dirty overalls, and eat their dinner out of tin pails all afloat with hot coffee. One of my own sex keeps me in countenance....
"Minneapolis
"Twenty years ago, a small collection of wooden houses, of no particular account, except for the natural beauties of the spot on which they stood. Now, a thriving and well-built city, whose manufacturers have settled the controversy between use and beauty, by appropriating the Falls of St. Anthony to the running of their saw- and flour-mills. My first sensation of delight here was at finding myself standing on Hennepin Avenue. To a reader of Parkman's histories, the spot was classic.... To refresh my own recollections, I had recourse to the Public Library of the town, where I soon found Parkman's 'Discovery of the Great West.' Armed with this volume, with the aid of a cheap and miserable railroad map, I traced out something of the movements of those hardy French explorers. It was like living part of a romance, to look upon the skies and waters which had seen them wandering, suffering, yet undaunted....
"St. Paul
"But I cannot rest so near St. Paul without visiting this famous city also. I contemplate a trip in the cars, but my friendly host leaves his business for a day, and drives me over in an open sleigh. I do not undertake this jaunt without Bostonian fears of death of cold, but Minnesota cold is highly stimulating, and with the aid of a bottle of hot water, I make the journey without a shiver.... Numbers of Indian squaws from Mendota walk the streets in groups. I follow three of them into a warehouse. One of them has Asiatic features—the others are rather pretty. They are Sioux. I speak to them, but they do not reply. The owner of the warehouse asks what he can show me. I tell him that I desire to see what the squaws will buy. He says that they buy very little, except beads, and have only come into the store to warm themselves. They smile, and obviously understand English. We dine at the hotel, a very pleasant one. There is no printed bill of fare, but the waiter calls off 'beefsteak, porksteak,' etc., and we make a comfortable meal. I desire to purchase some dried buffalo meat, and find some, not without difficulty, as the season for selling it is nearly over. The crowning romance of the day is a sleighride of five miles on the Mississippi, giving us a near view of its fluted bluffs and numerous islets. We visit also the Falls of Minnehaha, now sheeted in ice, but very beautiful, even in this disguise. We talk of 'Hiawatha,' and my companion says, 'If Mr. Longfellow had ever seen a Sioux Indian, he would not have written "Hiawatha."' The way to the bottom of the falls is so slippery with ice that I conclude not to attempt it. The day, which was one of great exposure, passed in great pleasure, and without chill or fatigue....
"In my days of romance, I remember watching late one night on board the Mediterranean steamer in order to be sure of the moment in which we should pass beyond the boundaries of the Italian shore. Something like such a feeling of interest and regret came over me when, in the unpoetic sleeper, I asked at what hour of the night the cars would pass out of Minnesota on the way back to Chicago. This sincere testimony from a veteran of travel, in all sorts, will perhaps convince those who do not know the young State that she has a great charm of beauty and of climate, besides a great promise of future prosperity and eminence."
"Kansas
"Travel in Minnesota was living romance. Travel in Kansas is living history. I could not cross its borders, new as these are, without unlocking a volume of the past, written in blood and in prayer, and sealed with the forfeit of noble lives. A ghostly army of warriors seemed to escort me as I entered the fair, broad territory. John Brown, the captain of them, stretched his hand to the Capitol, and Sumner, and Andrew, and Howe were with him. Here was the stand made, here the good fight begun, which, before it was well under way, divided the thought and sentiment of Europe, as well as those of America.
"My tired spirit sought to shake off at this point the commonplace sense of weariness and annoyance. To be in Kansas, and that for work, not for pastime. To bring the woman's word where the man's rough sword and spade had once wrought together, this was poetry, not prose. To be cold, and hungry, and worn with journeying, could not efface the great interest and pleasure....
"Atchison
"I was soon told that a gentleman was anxious to speak with me concerning my land at Grasshopper, which borders immediately upon his own. Judge Van Winkle accordingly, with due permission, waited upon me, and unfolded his errand. Grasshopper, he said, was a growing place. It possessed already a store and an apothecary. It had now occasion for a schoolhouse, and one corner of my land offered the most convenient place for such an institution. The town did not ask me to give this land—it was willing to pay a fair price for the two acres wanted. Wishing to learn a little more about the township, I asked whether it possessed the requisite variety of creeds.
"'Have you a Baptist, a Methodist, an Episcopalian, and a Universalist church?'
"'No,' said my visitor, 'we have no church at all. People who wish to preach can do so in some private house.' I afterwards learn that Judge Van Winkle is a student of Plato; who knows what may be his Hellenic heresy? He is endorsed, however, by others as a good, solid man, and the proposition for the schoolhouse receives my favorable consideration.
"Leavenworth
"My first visit to Leavenworth was a stay of a couple of hours between trains, on my way to southern Kansas. Short as this was, it yet brought to my acquaintance two new friends, and to my remembrance two old ones. Of the new friends, the first seen was Rev. Edward Sanborn, the Unitarian minister of the place. Mr. Sanborn met me at the comfortless depot, and insisted upon taking me to his lodgings, where Friend Number Two, in the shape of his amiable wife, added herself to the list of my well-wishers. Mr. Sanborn had just been burned out. His house took fire while he and his wife were spending Christmas Day with a neighbor, and burned so quickly that no article in it could be saved. He had found in the ashes the charred remains of his manuscript sermons, and had good hope of being able to decipher them. As the pleasant minutes passed in easy conversation, I could not help reflecting on the instinctive hospitality of Western life. This cosy corner in a mere hired bedroom had given me a rest and a shelter which I should have been unwilling to ask for in some streets of palaces which have been familiar to me from my youth up."
The Association for the Advancement of Women
was a pioneer society, and did vital work for twenty-five
years. During the greater part of that time she
was its president. She never missed (save when in
Europe) one of its annual congresses, or one of the
mid-year conferences (of officers only) which she considered
of high moment. She worked for the Association
with a loving enthusiasm that never varied or
faltered; and it was a real grief to her when the changing
of the old order resolved it into its elements, to
take new shape in the larger and farther-reaching
work of the General Federation of Clubs, and other
kindred societies.
Many of these may be called the children of "A.A.W." The greatest service of the latter was in founding women's clubs throughout the country. Wherever they went, to conferences or conventions, its leaders called about them the thoughtful women of the neighborhood, and helped them to plan local associations for study and work.
There was still another aspect of the Woman Question,
dearer to her even than "A.A.W."
A woman minister once said: "My conviction that Mrs. Howe was a divinely ordained preacher was gained the first time that she publicly espoused the question of woman suffrage in 1869."
We have seen that little Julia Ward began her ministrations in the nursery. At eight years old she was adjuring her little cousin to love God and he would see death approaching with joy. At eleven she was writing her "Invitation to Youth":—
Oh! let thy meditations be of God,
Who guides thy footsteps with unerring eye;
And who, until the path of life is trod,
Will never leave thee by thyself to die.
When morning's rays so joyously do shine,
And nature brightens at the face of day,
Oh! think then on the joys that shall be thine
If thou wilt early walk the narrow way.