Clara Barton came back from Europe wearing the jewel of the Red Cross presented to her by Queen Natalie of Serbia. She was the only person in America who then, or for nine years thereafter, wore the Red Cross. She was the sole person in the United States who, by service or any form of official recognition, was entitled to that decoration. She wore also the Iron Cross of Merit, presented to her by the Emperor and Empress of Germany. She wore a Gold Cross of Remembrance, presented to her by the Grand Duke and Duchess of Baden; and from Louise, the Grand Duchess, she wore, and prized beyond all wealth, a magnificent amethyst, said to have been the finest amethyst in this country. From poor, defeated France she wore no official decoration, but she brought the love and gratitude of innumerable people there to whom she had ministered.
On her return to America, she went to her old home in Washington, on Pennsylvania Avenue and Capitol Hill, the home she had purchased before leaving, but occupied so short a time before her nervous breakdown. But she was not permitted to live there very long, because the corner was too noisy. Her physician, Dr. Thompson, commanded her to live elsewhere. The doctor assigned her her limits, “jail-limits” she called them; she might live somewhere between Seventh and Sixteenth Streets, and on the farther side of New York Avenue.
She established herself at the corner of Fourteenth and F. Her letters to her nieces in this period are cheerful, but written under the burden of physical pain and nerve fatigue.
On May 23 she received word that her sister Sarah, Mrs. Vester Vassall, was fatally ill. Though far from well, she hastened to Massachusetts, arriving in the evening to find that her sister had died that morning. The shock of her sister’s death, coming as it did when her own health was so precarious, brought back her old trouble with full force. For several months she remained in Oxford and Worcester, and then went to North Grafton—New England Village it was called—where her relatives, the Learned family, had a country home. There she took a house, and remained for a considerable time attended by Minnie Kupfer, who had served with her in the Franco-Prussian War, and, like Antoinette Margot, had followed her to this country. Her health varied with the season and with other conditions not all of them easy to determine. There were times when she had hard chills, followed by dripping sweats. There were weeks when she had no strength even to lift her head. There were bright days also, when she moved about with some approach to health.
What was the real nature of Clara Barton’s illness during this long period of suffering? Material is not lacking for a fairly accurate diagnosis. Having exhausted the resources of local physicians, she entered into correspondence with a series of doctors, each of whom professed to be able to bring her permanent relief. Some of these called for very little information about her condition. Their remedies were supposed to cure almost anything. But others sent long lists of questions calling for full and minute replies. Copies of these questions and of her answers, she preserved.
From her replies it would appear that there was hardly a bodily function which was not disturbed. She was subject to hard colds, to severe headaches, a weak back, digestive trouble, and to periodic attacks of camp diarrhœa from which so many soldiers suffered for so many years after the war, this condition alternating with stubborn constipation.
But it is evident, as one reads critically these pathetic catechisms, that she had after all a basis of sound physical health. Her careful answers to these questions do not appear to indicate a single organic disease. She had yet to learn that her back, which she thought so weak, was really remarkably strong, and that her head had little need to ache when her eyes were not overstrained. And her digestion need not be seriously disturbed if her nerves were not worn and shattered.
The most serious symptom that Clara Barton had, through all these years, was a temperament abnormally sensitive. She was capable of enduring almost any possible physical or nervous strain, and of standing up under it well, but when the strain was over and she met some trivial exhibition of ingratitude, some captious and wholly negligible criticism, some petulant and despicable bit of opposition, her nervous energy gave way with a sudden collapse. Her voice failed; her eyes failed; whatever organ was weakest gave way first, and she went to pieces like the deacon’s “one-hoss shay.”
To one who reads those letters at this distance, it seems a thousand pities that some one, whose scientific judgment she could trust, did not say to her: “You are organically sound. There is no good reason why you should be sick. You are tired, and that is not surprising. And you have magnified innumerable foolish little matters of irritation. Forget them. Believe that you are well. Half your years are yet before you,—the better and happier and far the more useful half of your life. Get out in the fresh air. Live simply. Throw medicine away, and you can be strong again.”
In an undated letter written in the early spring of 1876, she gives to Mr. Dwight an account of her experience since her return to America:
[Undated. 1876, early spring]
Dear Mr. Dwight:
I am at New England Village. Some good angel must have inspired you to write me. I was so anxious to hear of you, and only my physical weakness has kept me from commencing a search for you long ago. I had “somewhat” to say to you, as you know, and as soon as I am strong enough shall find a way to say it. Yes, it is true I am at New England Village and have been since last April.
The “world” has not treated me badly in the last four years; but I could have better borne some bad treatment from others than all I have had to bear from myself. I have been an invalid most of the time. I grew very weak at Carlsruhe directly after Belfort, recovered a little, went to England in the spring of ’72, kept about some months, but in October broke down with a cough, became too ill to get off the island, was confined to my bed eight months; in June, ’73, was able to get over to Paris and recovered sufficiently to come home in October. My cough had left me, but I was weak, and fearing its return went to Washington as soon as I could for the winter, broke down again with “prostration of the nervous system,” if any one knows what that is, which was deepened and nearly rendered fatal by the illness of my only sister in Worcester, whom I strove for months to reach. Was finally brought to Worcester at the peril of my life on the 23d of May, ’74, arriving at 4 P.M. to find that she had died at 6 in the morning. I never saw her dead face even. It was one year from that time before I left the house again, and that to be removed here. I could not tell you the suffering, physical and mental, of that year, and I would not if I could. Only a small portion of the time could I stand alone; averaged less than two hours’ sleep in twenty-four for almost a year; could not write my name for over four months, and could not have a letter read to me or see my friends or scarcely my attendants. Little by little I have grown better until now I am about my house (for I always keep house). I have for attendant and nurse and housekeeper Miss Kupfer, of Berne, Suisse, a friend I made there, and who came to me as soon as she heard of my illness here a year or more ago and who never leaves me. I am gaining slowly, though weak still; have had neither physician nor medical treatment for over a year. Nature does her work as best she knows how; what measure of strength she may ever give me back I cannot know, probably not great. I suppose diseased nerve centers and worn-out systems are not likely to mend very firmly. But one day I shall want to see you, and you will let me do so, I think. If I am not able to go to Boston, you will come to see me, I believe, and when I see how it is likely to be with me I shall write and tell you. Meantime, it would interest me just as deeply to know how the world has treated you in these last few years as it does you to hear of me. Can I not know something of you and can I not send my most sincere and respectful regards to Mr. Jackson, whom I hope one day to see?
While Clara Barton was touring New York State on her lecture tours, she spoke at Dansville, New York, and was entertained at the sanitarium, popularly spoken of as the water cure. On March 16, 1876, a lady from Worcester who had been a patient at Dansville called and spent the greater part of a day with her. She told her that Dansville was “The place to go and get well.” Miss Barton had resumed her diary, and she recorded that this Miss Adams seemed to her “not an enthusiast, but a calm, sensible girl; looks at things in the light of reason and common sense; and I feel that I can take her reports without discount, and her opinions on trust.”
Before many days she had practically determined to go to Dansville, and that place became her home for about ten years. At first she lived in the sanitarium; then she bought a home of her own. She adopted the simple habits of life which there were inculcated. Little by little her strength returned, until, instead of being an invalid, she was for her years a woman in remarkably good health. With the return of health came back her determination to establish the American Red Cross, and it was in Dansville that the first local organization in America was established under that name. How she secured the organization and official recognition we shall presently learn. From her letters at this time, two may be selected which give some account of the troubled years through which she had passed, and the great hope which she was now ardently cherishing. One of these was addressed to the Public Printer at Washington, whose services she remembered kindly, and with whom she hoped to have dealings. The other was to her cherished friend, the Grand Duchess Louise of Baden.
Dansville, Sept. 8, 1877
John D. De Frieze, Esq.
Public Printer, Washington, D.C.
Dear and Esteemed Sir:
It occurs to me that it may not be entirely necessary to introduce myself to you. Even after a lapse of almost a decade you will not quite have forgotten that there was once a woman by the name of Clara Barton who, in common with the rest of the moving world, gave you more or less trouble. However faint these traces remain in your memory, that cannot dim the brightness which gilds her recollection of the uncounted favors you so kindly and generously meted out to her in the hard, busy days when she tried, with little strength and less power, to carry heavy burdens, and accomplish hard things. Through all these years the grateful memory of these kindnesses has never waned, and it so presses itself upon me that I cannot resist the desire to pick up my pen, far away in this quiet nook of the country, and tell you how glad I am, and have been, to know you are back again at your old post, which you ought never to have left, and how thankful I am to our good President for having recalled you. My first impulse was to thank him directly, but unfortunately he does not know of my existence, and could never have found an excuse for my boldness, but you, my good and honored friend, will excuse it and will not call it even bold that a hard-worked woman has remembered the strong, kind hands that helped her on, and after long years has ventured to speak of it.
Physically these intervening years have not been easy years for me, four of them with broken health and a wanderer in foreign lands, two of them in the Franco-Prussian War and its devastations, four more a helpless invalid in my own country, and this year for the first, once more on my feet walking about like other persons, but up to the present never leaving my home even for a short journey. I think of you all in that busy capital and wonder if it is true that I too was once a part of it, and stood erect amid its jostling and excitement. Thank God He has given you strength to endure to the end!
Lest I give a wrong impression, let me add that it was physically only that I referred to my life as hard. Socially and pecuniarily it is and has been easy and beautiful. I have all the world for friends and no unsatisfied wants, no necessities, no regrets except that I am not strong enough to do the work around me which the world needs to have done. Until now it has not in five long years dared ask of me the smallest service. Lately the European people have laid upon my hands an international matter pertaining to humanity for which it seems proper that I see the President. If I should be able to go to Washington for this purpose after his return, would you think it probable I could see and speak with him?
I hope, Mr. De Freize, my long letter has not been too great a burden to you. If so, let it console you that it is not without its uses, for it is a great relief to me to have said a little of that which I wanted to say so much, and I beg to remain with the highest esteem,
Always gratefully your friend
Clara Barton
Dansville, Livingston Co., N.Y.
May 19, 1877
My dear Grand Duchess:
How shall I commence to write you after all these years of silence? Can it ever appear to you inexcusable? Will the generosity of your noble nature make you equal to the overlooking of an act which all the world, less noble and generous than yourself, would condemn as neglectful or forgetful? But, my preciously beloved friend, if these thoughts have ever taken hold upon your mind, and left their unpleasant shadow over the memory of your old-time friendship for me, and led you to feel that not only Republics, but their people as well, are ungrateful, and that you are only too happy in being relieved of such as you have known,—if all these dark thoughts and shadows lay there in your memory of me to-day, and I knew it, and knew also that they could only be removed by a full portrayal on my part of all the days and years of weakness, illness, suffering, and affliction which have caused the silence, I should hesitate long before I brought the picture to you; your active life and needed energies are not to be clogged and burdened by woes which do not belong to you, and the tax upon your sympathies is great enough from those who feel that they look rightfully to you for sympathy and help. Then let me say as little as possible of all this, and pass on to other things, and that little is, that during almost two years of the time since I last saw you in London, I have been not only too ill to write you, but too weak to have heard read a letter from you if it had been sent to me. You will understand from theory, and I pray the great and good God that you may never know by experience, what helplessness and suffering may follow in the train of utter “prostration of the nervous system.” This was the misfortune that fell upon me directly upon my arrival in this country at the close of the year 1873, hastened and deepened by the death of my only sister whose life had been always dearer to me than my own. It was only last year, 1876, that I was able to leave my bed and learn to walk feebly about my room, sometimes see a friend, write a letter, and read my letters; then I was removed from my home in Massachusetts to this place, the largest and most noted water and rest cure in the country, where I have resided since, gradually regaining my strength, and coming back to life a little, but whether to usefulness remains to be seen. I have done everything to surround myself with healthful and strength-giving influences. The climate is delicious and I nearly live in the open air. Sleep, which in all years has been only a visitor, has come back to abide with me more constantly, and there is no night now in which it quite forsakes me. This was the great necessity, and I feel my strength returning under its blessed influence. My flesh is also returning and I am regaining some power of endurance. So far as any usefulness to others is concerned, I can see in all these years of helplessness only entire loss, but to myself I hope they may not have been without their uses and benefits. Through them I have walked narrower and darker paths than ever before, and stood very close to the dark still river. Aye, I have pitched my tents and rested there, waited calmly and sometimes, I fear, looked longingly over on to its other restful and brighter shore; but its shadows have not alarmed, its waters have not terrified. God has stood very near, my trust in Him has never faltered, and my faith has never wavered nor changed. I have known no fear, and if weakness, suffering, and inaction have made me more tender and thoughtful, it is well; if the silvery hair they have spread over temple and brow are a daily reminder that I have no longer the vigor of young strength, that, too, is well, and I will hope for added wisdom and gentler kindness.
Now, my dear, this is all of me, but how is it with you and yours? For I have heard of you ill and suffering, and dared not ask more. I trust that is all past, and I should see only the bright, happy face that left its lovely picture on my memory. The noble husband, is he well? The beautiful “children”—I can scarcely picture them, for some of them are men and women now, and I never forget to pray God to keep and bless them all for the wife’s and mother’s sake. You will remember that the first great love in my heart for you carried me at one bound beyond all lines of courtly etiquette, blinded me to the positions and conditions of rank and royalty, and made me stupidly, awkwardly dumb to every titled phrase and courtly sentence; it closed and sealed my senses to all these, but opened them to the loving, tender wife and mother, the noble woman and the priceless friend. I could not have spoken a word of flattery to you sooner than I could have put it in my prayer; it could never have entered my thought to courtesy or bend the knee in your presence, but I should have lain in the dust at your feet without knowing it, if I had felt that it could serve you. A strange, uncourtly friend you have in me, this far-away American woman, my child, but a friend, nevertheless.
And now comes up that dread theme that first brought me to know you—war, dreadful war. My heart has stood still for weeks in anxiety, fear, and dread. Is Germany, dear Germany, to be drawn into that terrible vortex? Are her mothers to give out their sons, and her wives their husbands again so soon? Are the graves to be opened again almost before they are green, and the wounds before they are healed? Are the fair fingers of her maidens again to ply the busy hours with bandages and lint and the trembling grandmothers to labor again with shirts and socks? And you and yours, who hold and guard the weal of all, are you to stand in jeopardy, and watch in agony again so soon? Are these dreadful days I so well remember all to be lived over again? I cannot yet believe it; neither can I yet rid me of the fear which haunts me day and night. Constantly the question rises, What can I do? And my weakness answers back, “Nothing, nothing.” If I had the strength of ten years ago, and the war opened upon you, I should prepare myself and go, not single-handed and alone, as I was overtaken in 1870, but I would make my arrangements with my people here for all material to work with, select my assistants from the German and German-speaking populations here, take my surgeons and nurses, and go at once and ask you for a field of labor. Surely you and your good husband and father and mother would assign me one somewhere! But it is all too late for this; at the best I can only use my influence and the little strength I have at home. As a means to this, I have written our good friend, Dr. Appia, of Geneva, to ask if any help from me would be desirable, and to say that if it would be acceptable, I would, upon his writing me to that effect, make the effort to establish an international organization in my own country for the collection and receipt of supplies, which should work under the insignia of the Red Cross, and forward through a headquarters which I would attempt to establish somewhere near or at New York. Thus would I try to bring the early and organized efforts of America into direct communication with the activities of Europe, and try for once to make our charities of some timely and real benefit, which the great distance and want of proper organization has hitherto greatly hindered, or nearly prevented. Our people are generous, tender of heart, and quick in their sympathies, but they are busy and spread over a quarter of the globe. They do not become aware of the necessities for assistance in other lands till great suffering exists and the general Press brings it to their knowledge. Then they spring with a bound of sympathy and generosity and give without stint, but their stream has no channel prepared for it to flow in and runs over and wastes, so that little, very little, ever reaches the real scene of suffering and want for which it is so generously given. If I can learn that it would be acceptable and that there can be established a direct coöperation between the charitable activities of America and Europe, and that Europe desires it, I shall do all in my power to organize the work early, at once in America. It is for this I have written Dr. Appia to have him send me his request that I would do it, that I may use it as a lever with our Government to gain its sanction, protection, prestige, and coöperation so far as I can. I shall watch with all interest every movement and I would be so grateful for any information that I might gain from European sources regarding the true condition of things. How glad I should be of any published work or matter, if any exists, which explains the working of your remarkable system of, or what we term, “Relief Societies.” I do not know where to send for this but to you who were the originator and head. If the condition of Europe renders it desirable, and I am strong enough to organize aid in America, every word of information on these points would be held priceless. I am gleaning all I can from such foreign papers as I can get; both the German and French languages are familiarly used in my house. My amanuensis is Swiss and speaks both natively, of course. The more I read, the more I fear what the next months may bring to you, to dear Germany and to all Europe. And the more I fear, the more anxious I am to help. Let us pray God the storm may pass, but if it must come, give us strength and wisdom to meet it well.
I have long been the debtor of good Madame de Mentzinger, and my next European letter will be to her, who I hope will forgive my delay. I was not able to answer her in time. To our dear Hannah I have not written in years, nor heard. I know the parent family is nearly gone, and that she has one of her own. I shall hope to hear of her some day,—the precious child!
And dear Princess Wilhelm, who seems to me always to be a part of yourself, may I dare send my love through you to her? I remember once she graciously told me I might write her. I wonder if the privilege still exists, or has time annulled it? I know she has had her griefs and that her precious mother has gone home.
All that happens to you there in that beloved Court circle is reflected and felt here in my distant home as if it were a part of it. I joy in your prosperity and sorrow for your griefs as if in some way they belonged to me or mine. I could not if I attempted to divest myself of this interest. I even could not help feeling a solicitous interest in all that pertained to Prince Alexis in his recent visit to my country, and rejoiced with a kind of motherly pride in all the good impressions he made, and felt that I ought to see him, because he was of your house, and the home cousin of dear Princess Wilhelm. He, the gallant, princely man, would have laughed at the idea of a plain, unpretending American woman cherishing a family pride in him and keeping a motherly watchfulness for his welfare, but your love and kindness to me when a stranger in your country won my gratitude and love forever for all that pertains to you. I have followed the late journeying and visits of your noble father with wonder and joy for his continued vigor. I so well remember the tender care and love that dwelt in my heart for my honored father when fourscore winters had whitened his locks and bared his brow, yet his firm marching step told not more than fifty summers, and his eye was still clear and his voice strong; but he left me, the brave old soldier.
I always regret that I never saw your honored mother, and it was my purpose not to have left Europe without this distinguished pleasure. But her precious gift, the beautiful cross, is the chiefest among my treasures, lying always beside yours. You cannot conceive, I am sure, how precious those gifts are to me, and do you recollect the sweet picture of yourself you once sent me for a Christmas gift? It has comforted me every day through all these suffering years, always near my bed. It was the first to greet me in the morning, and now, in these days of better strength and activity, it is no less the admiration of my friends than it has been the companion of my weakness.
But I must somewhere make an end to this seemingly endless letter, and with one thought more I will.
May I entreat you that, if disturbances and war come upon you, and there arises any contingency, any want, any point upon which it may seem that I could, being here, be of the smallest or largest use to you, or your people, you will not hesitate a moment in making any use of me that you possibly can; consult with me upon any plan (that it shall be strictly confidential I need not add) and it will be always possible for me to confer directly with the head or heads of our Government, and so far as I can I will influence our people to any charitable activities or movements which might be desired and which you kindly suggest to me. How glad I should be to feel myself once more working with you, that I was perhaps helping you a little, and the American people would be glad, for you are no stranger to them, and I want them to know you better still. I pray you let
Your grateful and loving friend
Clara Barton
What she found at Dansville that restored her health is shown in some of her home letters. She found congenial society, wholesome and simple food, and an atmosphere that believed health to be possible. The world is moderately full of sick and half-sick people who could be well if they knew how, and would believe that they were well.
She grew strong enough for short tours to neighboring cities. She became a star performer in the evening entertainments in the sanitarium, reciting poetry, sometimes writing a poem for a special occasion, and after a time giving a short lecture about her experiences abroad. A few of her letters will show her state of health and of mind. There was nothing miraculous or sudden about her recovery. She had periods of depression and times of weakness, but she gained strength and gained it permanently, and was able to take up the greatest work of her life and carry it through triumphantly.
“Our Home on the Hillside”
Dansville, Livingston Co., N.Y.
July 15, 1876
Dear Coz:
If Miss Kupfer had not written me that she had written to you since our departure, I should have written earlier, but I knew she had told you of our safe arrival, and I thought I had then nothing of interest to say until I could tell you how I liked my surroundings. I have now been here seven weeks and find no occasion to regret coming. The place is simply beautiful in its location and surroundings, made up of hills and valleys under a high state of cultivation and taste.
The institution is larger and more flourishing than I had expected, with about three hundred patients, or persons as patients, and I think I never saw together any group of people that combines the degrees of intellect, general intelligence, and culture as is collected here. The speech of every person one meets is kind, charitable, and refined.
The faculty connected with the institution is, I should judge, skillful and competent, but the general means for promoting health through proper food, water, bathing, dress, rest, sunshine, open air, and pleasant surroundings are mainly relied upon; little or no medicines are ever used. I have neither seen nor heard of any being used by any person since I have been here; indeed, the great struggle and effort seems to be to get out of the patients the remnants of the medicines already taken in the past.
We have several excellent lectures in the hall during the week and services on the Sabbath. The Hall is so situated that all can attend. No change or addition of dress required, more than to go from one room to another. If one is not able to walk, he is carried if he chooses to be, and if one does not wish to sit up, he lies down and listens, so there is no getting weary, no exhaustion, no getting over-tired. One gets all the good without the bad.
The tables are excellent and most abundantly supplied. Meats plainly but well cooked, the freshest of vegetables from their own gardens, and such abundance of fruit as I never saw, all in its turn. We have passed through the era of strawberries and cherries and currants, and are now in the raspberries, white, red, and black. I believe the blackberries follow next, and so on to the peaches, pears, and apples of autumn, but the astonishing thing after their freshness and perfection is their abundance. They are not served to us in saucers, or on individual plates, but placed in large fruit dishes once in about three feet through all the scores of tables, each one to help himself over and over, the dishes being refilled to the last, and we leaving the tables filled as we find them. The fruit is mainly picked from the gardens that day for dinner, or the evening before for breakfast, from two hundred to four hundred quarts for a meal. Besides this we have always the greatest abundance of “Shaker” dried fruits cooked for those who cannot take the fresh. New milk from their own dairy (they have forty or fifty cows), all one can use at every meal; the freshest of oatmeals and grahams, sweet butter, tapioca, etc. The vegetables are largely cooked in milk, and harmless. With all these fruits and vegetables there is no summer complaint here. I have not heard of a case, and among all these invalid people not a person in bed, except a few rheumatics who were brought here in beds and are not up yet. No fevers, no colics, but all out and about in the sunshine, and on the Hillside’s stretchers and hammocks under the trees. One has only to be lazy and jolly and get well if they can.
There are a good many very pretty cottages outside the Main Institute where persons room, but all meet in the same dining-hall, and in the same parlor for prayers and singing after breakfast and the distribution of the mail after dinner. I am in the Institute, or main building. The views from the verandas are as fine as many I have heard extolled in foreign countries. A single glance takes in a stretch of the valley of over ten miles in length, as handsome as a landscape garden. We are so high above the town that we seldom walk, but there are always livery teams waiting orders at the door. One drives or is driven as the choice may be. Dr. Jackson has a stable of about twelve horses for his and family uses and the work. They are handsome enough for a fair, and I occasionally find that they are good roadsters. The village below us is pretty and thriving.
Miss Atwater lives in the village about a mile from me, but comes to lectures. She is well and seems very happy. I have ridden down to see her a few times. Her uncle is still with her. He had worked hard in his hotels for a great many years, been broken of his rest a great deal, and was considerably worn down, and seems to be glad of an opportunity to rest a little outside of a hot city. It makes it pleasant for Fanny till she gets more acquainted, but the people are very kind and social here. There is no stiffness.
There are something like fifty people employed as help to do the work of this Home, but not one servant; the word, nor position is not known here, all are treated equally, all ladylike and gentlemanly, all treated alike. There is an amusement society, and one of its features is a beautiful dance once a week from 5 till 8 P.M. Piano and violin music,—no round dances,—but cotillions and all dances which are not injurious, and the prettiest and most elegant dancers in the hall are from among the help.
There is a regularly organized fire company on the grounds, and the houses are watched and patrolled all night like a first-class manufactory. No doors are ever locked; all stand open if not too cold. I have never turned a key in the house. Now, I believe I have told you all the most important features of the place I have come to, but I have been very careful not to overdraw it, for I hope some of your journeys may sometime bring you to take a look at it for yourself, and I would not like you to be disappointed.
I hope this severely hot weather has not been too much for you, and that sometime you will find time to drop a line to your
Affectionate Coz
Clara
I neglected to say that I find a good many old friends here. Our chaplain was a member of the Sanitary Commission in Washington, and the Reverend Dr. Abbott, who is here with his family, was President of the Christian Commission. Love to any who may inquire.
Clinton Hotel, Rochester
Sunday [1876]
Dearest Mamie:
Does the date take you by surprise? Don’t be alarmed, it’s all right. I am only on a visit of a few days. Dr. Jackson, Miss Austin, and several other lady friends made a party and came last Friday to stay several days in Rochester, and enjoy the change and rest, and here we are having a glorious time. All but I can go to operas, church, lectures, galleries, etc., etc., and I can stay by and keep guard and direct the servants how to order the rooms, to have all ready and jolly for them when they get back. Mrs. Jones, principal of the Dansville Seminary, and a Miss Reynolds, who is “Thirza Ann” in a Betsey Bobbet Club we have here and a capital dramatist, are my room companions in the hotel. There is no lack of fun with two such fertile brains about. We go home next Tuesday.
Now that I am through with myself, let me turn to you and say how glad I am that you have been to the Centennial and enjoyed it so well, made so much of it, and got home so well. What a beautiful gift that was from Mr. and Mrs. Shrubler, to you, that trip, a hundred-fold more than the beautiful dress which was a thing to be most grateful for, but it will wear out in time, while nothing short of eternity can take from you the knowledge and benefits of that exhibition. It is a thing for a lifetime, not only its pleasure but its profits. Please thank them both for me for this thoughtful courtesy to you and for the good dress also, and indeed for all their kindnesses to my little girl, who I know is grateful for herself, but I am also grateful for her.
Now, you see I have not your letter here and cannot answer it as I ought, for I really do not recollect the questions it asks, neither do I recollect when I wrote you last, or what I told you then, so this letter is liable to be a repetition or an omission, but you will forgive this in either of the circumstances. I had a good letter from Ida just an hour before I started from Dansville and have answered it from there. She is a very easy, natural correspondent and would make a fine writer in some special directions if she could be cultivated. She sends me advertisement of your Papa D.’s farm. I was a little surprised at this, but it shows him in earnest in his assertion that he would like to be rid of it, and I do not wonder that he feels it a burden. It is more so than if it were larger and would afford more and efficient help, and pay for outlays. I consider it one of the most laborious sizes that a farm can have if one intends to use it as a farm, and if not, then it is too large. Four acres of nice buildings would really be worth more in the way of comfort, and these buildings have got to an age which will call for constant repairs, and the house is never convenient nor built for a farmhouse; in fact it was not intended for a farm by Grandpa, and there was no farm till your father made it so by his cultivation, for it was waste land.
Did I tell you that the Taylors had sailed for England? They must be there now. How sweet and beautiful they were when here, and how in the two or three little days they spent here they made themselves felt and beloved. Mrs. Taylor is really one of the sweetest women I have ever known. Fannie is at the Centennial and I have just one line from her. She is almost frantic from the confusion. You know her head gets troubled easily, and she had not got it rested from the journey and the first days of the great show. She will remain long enough to find herself and look clearly and see what she “went for to see,” I trust. I am glad you have heard from Etta and glad they are getting on so well. Please give a great deal of love to dear Anna and congratulate her on her Centennial trip which, I trust, she enjoyed to its fullest, and thank Mr. Shrubler for his good gift to my dear old brother. I know it has made a warm spot in his heart for all the time he will live to wear it, and with his poor health and tendency to melancholy his joys are not too many. Mr. Shrubler has given him a great many pleasures, and I thank him most earnestly for them all.
My kitty is charming. She knows almost as much as folks, and has just taken to mousing. She often carries in two and three and sometimes four and five bits of game a day, and all the family have to recognize each one before she will be at all quiet. She is too comical, standing at the door with her nice white face and her mouth full of mouse and grass, calling all the household out to see her.
Yours lovingly
Clara
Miss Barton’s views on health, on politics, on society, on idle women, and incidentally, perhaps, her best description of herself, her tastes and habits, is contained in a letter of this period to a learned German professor, who, knowing of her life in Germany, wrote to her, and proposed to visit her. It is interesting to note that in this letter she speaks of her hair as having been dark brown and changed in a few months of illness to a silvery gray. It did not remain gray, but with her return of health resumed its color of brown, though not so dark as before:
Dansville, Livingston Co., N.Y.
April 17, 1877
Esteemed and dear Friend:
I beg you not to be alarmed even if you were correct in your conjecture that illness caused my silence. It is very true, but I am so far recovered now that, although not released from my bed, I have taken up my pen again, and yesterday, before receiving your card, had laid out your last letter as one of the first to be answered. I might, or I might not, have reached it to-day in regular order, but now, I place it first, and commence my morning roll-call with “Prof. Thed. Pfau,” and a long, narrow, blue-tinted envelope responds, half wearily, half impatiently, “Here.” So “here” we have it.
First, having admitted illness, which I never do if possible to avoid, I must settle your apprehensiveness; it is no new play, or act or scene, simply a calling before the curtain for repetition. I have in these exhausted days only a given amount of strength, and if, by any accident or oversight, I overdraw on my accounts, I am at once bankrupt, and can carry on business no further. Having been in former days accustomed to draw from an unlimited and ever-recruiting stock of strength and health, I find it a difficult problem to solve, how to bring myself down to the necessary economies of my present condition. I cannot realize that a few hours, a few rods, a few steps even, a little overwork at my desk, the quiet arranging of a simple room, a little overrun of company, may use up all my little capital, and I must wait and compromise with my creditors, start business anew on a smaller scale, and work my way up again to the lost point, probably only to lose it again. A month or six weeks ago I committed some one of these extravagances, and immediately comes a notice from my physical banker shutting off my supply of sleep. He had been allowing me nearly seven hours in the four and twenty, but he cut it down to three, two, one, a few minutes, none at all, and so left me for several days and nights, then let it come back in a similar ratio up to—Oh, well, no matter how much, but not seven hours, no, nor for a long time to come; but I can get up and walk about my room and sit part of the day; and I write, because it is better for me to write chatty letters, with no thought in them, than to relapse into solid thinking as I would in doing nothing. One sometimes needs to be saved from himself.
I do not know if I have ever told you of my illness, or what holds me so weak. It is what is known as “prostration of the nervous system,” and very complete at that, I suppose. I am not aware of any decided organic disease, only as all the organs are affected by this great letting down of nerve power and force. Of the class of disease generally denominated “female weaknesses” I know nothing experimentally. Of the lame backs and aching lower spine, that the majority of feeble women suffer torture from, I am ignorant, and can sympathize with them only through observation, but of the hot sore spot on the spine, high up between the shoulders, leading up to the base of the brain, bursting into flame at every over-taxation of mental energy, I know all. It is the same thing that over-worked public men sink under, in sudden deaths, softening of the brain, paralysis, or something analogous to these. This is the illness that has become my master and will one day prove my conqueror. There is no looking forward to “restored health,” soundness and security. The price of not only my liberty, but my life is “eternal vigilance.” Now a truce to illness, to which, thank God, you are a comparative stranger, and I pray Him you always may be.
I have received “Puck” since his advent into this warring world, and he is growing to be a fine little fellow, stout and healthy, a jolly little elf, isn’t he? His wit will get him some clips over the nose by and by, when it begins to be felt, but this he does not care for, for he means to bite. I laughed heartily at his satire on Stanley two weeks ago, and yet Stanley is a valued friend, and I have fought terrible battles for him on both continents, but the imitation is excellent and full of ingenuity. The cuts are, of course, inimitable. Mr. Kepler’s pencil has a master touch, and I wish him long life, abundant success, full pockets, and artistic fame.
The spring is opening well here. We have had a succession of charming days, followed now by a rain which is bringing up the green grass and swelling the buds almost to bursting, but we have no leaves yet. Some wild trees which precede their leaf life by their flowers are out in spring dress; a kind of woods willow, which bedecks itself in deep yellow, is very gaudy just now; the peach trees are pushing out their little soft gray pussy toes all over their red branches, and the horse-chestnuts, with their blunt ends tipped with swollen round buds, look as if they had doubled up their fists for fighting and said to all their more tapering, slender neighbors, Come on, we are ready! We are yet a month too early for the first roses.
Perhaps I told you that I removed to a snug brick city-built house for the winter. I have changed it this spring for a much older and country-like wood house, which has some trees, grass, and shade, a garden, and perhaps some flowers if the sunshine brings them up. I am, of course, all too unpretending and simple in my life to have a gardener, so shall lack the beauties which such assistance would develop. I was once a very tolerable gardener myself among flowers, but I have no longer strength to spend on the strong lap of Mother Earth, much as I love her and her dear little nurslings of cowslip and violets, but good sturdy old dame, she does a great deal without help, and knows very well how to dress herself without the aid of a fille de chambre.
But here I am on this fourth large page, and not even yet noted the contents of your letter. The photograph! I am sorry that you withheld it, I should have been very glad to receive it, if you would entrust it to me, and I still hope you will decide to do so. I should prize it, but I cannot say when I should be able to return the favor. I have no photographs either good or bad. I am never able to go to a gallery to sit for one. The last time was in Paris. All I ever had have been picked away long ago. I am the debtor of all my friends for pictures, some of them several times over, but they know how it is, and I hope excuse me. If I should ever again be in condition to sit, and can get a result that my friends will accept, I will take them by the hundred and relieve myself from embarrassment, but you should know that as a picture my photograph is not at all to be coveted. If natural, it must be uncomely. I was never what the world calls even “good-looking,” leaving out of the case all such terms as “handsome,” and “pretty.” My features were strong and square, cheek-bones high, mouth large, complexion dark; my best feature was perhaps a luxuriant growth of glossy dark hair shading to blackness, but that is comparatively thin now, and silver gray, all within the last three years. It changed from its original blackness to its present shade in the first six weeks of this present illness in 1874. I never cared for dress, and have no accomplishments, so you will find me plain and prosy both in representation and reality if ever you should chance to meet either. I beg you to believe this and to remember it to avoid any disappointment which might possibly occur. Not that I think it could change the friendship of a sensible person, but I like people, and especially my friends, to know me as I am, and not hold a false estimate of me.
Of poor Miss R. (Lorraine Raymond) I never hear a word. It is charitable to attribute her silence to want of scholarship, but I am inclined to disbelieve the verity of this. I believe her to be a very fair scholar, and an average (to say the least of it) correspondent; but she seldom writes, I know. She wrote me a few letters from Europe years ago, none of late years. She has a kind heart, and I am so so sorry for her.
I hope the trial of your brother will not result disastrously to him. Perhaps one cannot easily control a dislike, but he has certainly chosen a most powerful foe, and the odds seem unequal. I agree with you in more than word, when you declare the Imperial Family of Germany to be a respectable one; it is all of that, nothing in Europe stands before it, and those of it whom I have known personally are of the highest excellence and purest worth. I am sure the more intimately they are known, the better they must be beloved. The Grand Duchess of Baden is to me the loveliest woman on the earth; in this term I mean to combine all qualities of both mind and body; both nature and culture have made her a Princess. And I cannot see why she is not as good a Republican as if she had been born a peasant, or a Suisse, or American citizen; in no position would she knowingly do a wrong or commit an act of tyranny to the lowest human being whether subject or not. “Tired of Republics,” you say. Perhaps if you study your own meaning closely you will find that you are rather tired of politics than Republics. And, my esteemed and valued friend, let me in all childlike simplicity suggest what does not perhaps clearly appear to you, viz., that the standpoint one occupies, the surroundings one has, the outlook one takes, have a great deal to do in forming the opinion and swaying the judgment. I am sorry that you must perforce see our country, its political, moral, and social sides, through the slum, and mire, and haze of a lens like New York City. Out on our millions of acres of hills, valleys, and plains is a better, purer, nobler population, the force of whose earnestness and honesty will save our Nation long ages after the pollution of its cities would have turned it into a Sodom and Gomorrah. There is a true, steady, honest pulse beating in the veins of the yeomanry of this land that never throbbed a second in a city like New York, and never will; but when the trial comes, it is the pulse that will tell. Tweed and his “ring” didn’t go to the farmers sweating in their hay-fields with their bargains. They went to the politicians, and burrowed in the cities and made their nests like the bats and owls, under the eaves of churches and in halls and steeples; they can plan, and connive, and twiddle and fiddle with the lines a long time while the farmers work in their fields, but when real danger appears, when the load topples and is likely to upset, stouter hearts than theirs will come to the front, stronger hands than theirs will take the reins, and bring out the load in safety. We are not so near destruction as it would seem from your standpoint, and because a few poor, vain, foolish women, with little money and less brains and shriveled hearts, have betaken themselves to the boarding-houses of New York City, and are living false, empty, silly, idle lives for show, it does not make it that this is the character or life of all the women of America, nor that well-regulated homelife is not the rule of the country, for it is; and I, who am a part of it, and have lived it, and over and among it, all my lifetime, know it well. Shall we judge France and its whole people by the courtesans of Paris, or Germany by Berlin? Oh! my friend and brother, do, I beseech of you, get another standpoint, and a wider outlook and a clearer, purer atmosphere than New York City with its floodtide of immigration before you judge, in final judgment, the whole population, male and female, of this great country.
I thank you very much for the hope expressed that we may meet in Paris in ’78, but there is small prospect of this. I shall scarcely cross the ocean again. I have much to do to save my strength with no unnecessary waste, but the hope expressed that we may meet before that time is something nearer home, and more within the range of possibilities. I should never dare by any means to invite you to visit me, and I never go to your part of the country, so the prospect of our meeting is small. Perhaps I ought to explain the above remark, having very incautiously made it, and I will. I am a so much more simple person in my mode of life than you have probably ever seen (except those whom poverty compelled to simplicity) that you would not feel happy or homelike in my house. I am simple in my tastes, and plain, avoiding luxuries from choice and principle, both about my house and in its dress, and my table and its furnishings. My living is simple as a hermit’s, heavy meats, and wines, teas, and coffees are unknown at my table, my rooms plain. I have only my housekeeper—no retinue of servants at all, no show, no ornaments, no excuses; but with all this there is great peace and quiet, no worry, no fret, no fears of what the world will think or say, no pressure in any direction, abundant supplies for all necessities, no scandal either spoken or listened to, no backbiting, and no “skeleton in the closet,” not even the shadow of one. Now, all this simplicity and plainness, and the absence of excitement and luxurious surroundings and living, must be so different from all that you are accustomed to that you could not be happy or even comfortable among it, so I should never dare invite you to visit me, even if you were journeying near me, and so, when you see that I do not, you will understand the true reason and assign the right motive on my part and not feel piqued or slighted, or that I am cold, or eccentric, or reserved, or in any way unaccountable, or any other thing, but just what I am, a plain woman with enough of common sense to perceive that our modes of life are so different that you could not enjoy visiting me, and fearless candor enough to tell you so.
Your sincere friend
Clara Barton
How Clara Barton was regarded at Dansville is shown in many ways, as in the following cutting from the Dansville “Advertiser” of June 7, 1877, giving account of an exercise on the previous Memorial Day: