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Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897

<h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> <h2>ENGLAND AND FRANCE REVISITED.</h2> On arriving at Basingstoke we found awaiting us cordial letters of welcome from Miss Biggs, Miss Priestman, Mrs. Peter Taylor, Mrs. Priscilla McLaren, Miss Müller, Mrs. Jacob Bright, and Mme. de Barrau. During the winter Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas, Drs. Kate and Julia Mitchell, Mrs. Charles McLaren, Mrs. Saville, and Miss Balgarnie each spent a day or two with us. The full-dress costume of the ladies was a great surprise to my little granddaughter Nora. She had never seen bare shoulders in a drawing room, and at the first glance she could not believe her eyes. She slowly made the circuit of the room, coming nearer and nearer until she touched the lady's neck to see whether or not it was covered with some peculiar shade of dress, but finding the bare skin she said: "Why, you are not dressed, are you? I see your skin!" The scene suggested to me the amusing description in Holmes' "Elsie Venner," of the efforts of a young lady, seated between two old gentlemen, to show off her white shoulders. The vicar would not look, but steadily prayed that he might not be led into temptation; but the physician, with greater moral hardihood, deliberately surveyed the offered charms, with spectacles on his nose. In December Hattie and I finished Dowden's "Life of Shelley," which we had been reading together. Here we find a sensitive, refined nature, full of noble purposes, thrown out when too young to meet all life's emergencies, with no loving Mentor to guard him from blunders or to help to retrieve the consequences of his false positions. Had he been surrounded with a few true friends, who could appreciate what was great in him and pity what was weak, his life would have been different. His father was hard, exacting, and unreasonable; hence he had no influence. His mother had neither the wisdom to influence him, nor the courage to rebuke her husband; and alas! poor woman, she was in such thraldom herself to conventionalisms, that she could not understand a youth who set them all at defiance. <div style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 400px; height: 303px;" alt="THREE GENERATIONS." title="THREE GENERATIONS." src="image/010.jpg"> </div> <div style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 400px; height: 551px;" alt="MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY." title="MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY." src="image/011.jpg"></div> We also read Cotton Morrison's "Service of Man," which I hope will be a new inspiration to fresh labors by all for the elevation of humanity, and Carnegie's "Triumphant Democracy," showing the power our country is destined to wield and the vastness of our domain. This book must give every American citizen a feeling of deeper responsibility than ever before to act well his part. We read, too, Harriet Martineau's translation of the works of Auguste Comte, and found the part on woman most unsatisfactory. He criticises Aristotle's belief that slavery is a necessary element of social life, yet seems to think the subjection of woman in modern civilization a matter of no importance. All through that winter Hattie and I occupied our time studying the Bible and reading the commentaries of Clark, Scott, and Wordsworth (Bishop of Lincoln). We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. Surely the writers had a very low idea of the nature of their God. They make Him not only anthropomorphic, but of the very lowest type, jealous and revengeful, loving violence rather than mercy. I know no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman. Miriam, the eldest sister of Moses and Aaron, a genius, a prophetess, with the family aptitude for diplomacy and government, is continually set aside because of her sex—permitted to lead the women in singing and dancing, nothing more. No woman could offer sacrifices nor eat the holy meats because, according to the Jews, she was too unclean and unholy. But what is the use, say some, of attaching any importance to the customs and teachings of a barbarous people? None whatever. But when our bishops, archbishops, and ordained clergymen stand up in their pulpits and read selections from the Pentateuch with reverential voice, they make the women of their congregation believe that there really is some divine authority for their subjection. In the Thirty-First Chapter of Numbers, in speaking of the spoils taken from the Midianites, the live stock is thus summarized: "Five thousand sheep, threescore and twelve thousand beeves, threescore and one thousand asses, and thirty-two thousand women and women-children," which Moses said the warriors might keep for themselves. What a pity a Stead had not been there, to protect the child-women of the Midianites and rebuke the Lord's chosen people as they deserved! In placing the women after the sheep, the beeves, and the asses, we have a fair idea of their comparative importance in the scale of being, among the Jewish warriors. No wonder the right reverend bishops and clergy of the Methodist Church, who believe in the divine origin and authority of the Pentateuch, exclude women from their great convocations in the American Republic in the nineteenth century. In view of the fact that our children are taught to reverence the book as of divine origin, I think we have a right to ask that, in the next revision, all such passages be expurgated, and to that end learned, competent women must have an equal place on the revising committee. Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas came, in February, to spend a few days with us. She was greatly shocked with many texts in the Old Testament, to which we called her attention, and said: "Here is an insidious influence against the elevation of women, which but few of us have ever taken into consideration." She had just returned from a flying visit to America; having made two voyages across the Atlantic and traveled three thousand miles across the continent in two months, and this at the age of sixty-eight years. She was enthusiastic in her praises of the women she met in the United States. As her name was already on the committee to prepare "The Woman's Bible," we had her hearty approval of the undertaking. In October Hattie went to London, to attend a meeting to form a Woman's Liberal Federation. Mrs. Gladstone presided. The speeches made were simply absurd, asking women to organize themselves to help the Liberal party, which had steadily denied to them the political rights they had demanded for twenty years. Professor Stuart capped the climax of insult when he urged as "one great advantage in getting women to canvass for the Liberal party was that they would give their services free." The Liberals saw what enthusiasm the Primrose Dames had roused for the Tory party, really carrying the election, and they determined to utilize a similar force in their ranks. But the whole movement was an insult to women. The one absorbing interest, then, was the Queen's Jubilee. Ladies formed societies to collect funds to place at the disposal of the Queen. Every little village was divided into districts, and different ladies took the rounds, begging pennies at every door of servants and the laboring masses, and pounds of the wealthy people. One of them paid us a visit. She asked the maid who opened the door to see the rest of the servants, and she begged a penny of each of them. She then asked to see the mistress. My daughter descended; but, instead of a pound, she gave her a lecture on the Queen's avarice. When the fund was started the people supposed the Queen was to return it all to the people in liberal endowments of charitable institutions, but her Majesty proposed to build a monument to Prince Albert, although he already had one in London. "The Queen," said my daughter, "should celebrate her Jubilee by giving good gifts to her subjects, and not by filching from the poor their pennies. To give half her worldly possessions to her impoverished people, to give Home Rule to Ireland, or to make her public schools free, would be deeds worthy her Jubilee; but to take another cent from those who are hopelessly poor is a sin against suffering humanity." The young woman realized the situation and said: "I shall go no farther. I wish I could return every penny I have taken from the needy." The most fitting monuments this nation can build are schoolhouses and homes for those who do the work of the world. It is no answer to say that they are accustomed to rags and hunger. In this world of plenty every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the rudiments of education. "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" when one-tenth of the human family, booted and spurred, ride the masses to destruction. I detest the words "royalty" and "nobility," and all the ideas and institutions based on their recognition. In April the great meeting in Hyde Park occurred—a meeting of protest against the Irish Coercion Bill. It was encouraging to see that there is a democratic as well as an aristocratic England. The London journals gave very different accounts of the meeting. The Tories said it was a mob of inconsequential cranks. Reason teaches us, however, that you cannot get up a large, enthusiastic meeting unless there is some question pending that touches the heart of the people. Those who say that Ireland has no grievances are ignorant alike of human nature and the facts of history. On April 14 I went to Paris, my daughter escorting me to Dover, and my son meeting me at Calais. It was a bright, pleasant day, and I sat on deck and enjoyed the trip, though many of my fellow passengers were pale and limp. Whirling to Paris in an easy car, through the beautiful wheatfields and vineyards, I thought of the old lumbering diligence, in which we went up to Paris at a snail's pace forty years before. I remained in Paris until October, and never enjoyed six months more thoroughly. One of my chief pleasures was making the acquaintance of my fourth son, Theodore. I had seen but little of him since he was sixteen years old, as he then spent five years at Cornell University, and as many more in Germany and France. He had already published two works, "The Life of Thiers," and "The Woman Question in Europe." To have a son interested in the question to which I have devoted my life, is a source of intense satisfaction. To say that I have realized in him all I could desire, is the highest praise a fond mother can give. My first experience in an apartment, living on an even plane, no running up and down stairs, was as pleasant as it was surprising. I had no idea of the comfort and convenience of this method of keeping house. Our apartment in Paris consisted of drawing room, dining room, library, a good-sized hall, in which stood a large American stove, five bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen, and a balcony fifty-two feet long and four feet wide. The first few days it made me dizzy to look down from this balcony to the street below. I was afraid the whole structure would give way, it appeared so light and airy, hanging midway between earth and heaven. But my confidence in its steadfastness and integrity grew day by day, and it became my favorite resort, commanding, as it did, a magnificent view of the whole city and distant surroundings. There were so many Americans in town, and French reformers to be seen, that I gave Wednesday afternoon receptions during my whole visit. To one of our "at homes" came Mlle. Maria Deraismes, the only female Free Mason in France, and the best woman orator in the country; her sister, Mme. Féresse-Deraismes, who takes part in all woman movements; M. Léon Richer, then actively advocating the civil and political rights of women through the columns of his vigorous journal; Mme. Griess Traut, who makes a specialty of Peace work; Mme. Isabelle Bogelot, who afterward attended the Washington Council of 1888, and who is a leader in charity work; the late Mme. Emilie de Morsier, who afterward was the soul of the International Congress of 1889, at Paris; Mme. Pauline Kergomard, the first woman to be made a member of the Superior Council of public Instruction in France, and Mme. Henri Gréville, the novelist. Among the American guests at our various Wednesday receptions were Mr. and Mrs. John Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs. James G. Blaine, Mr. Daniel C. French, the Concord sculptor; Mrs. J.C. Ayer, Mr. L. White Busbey, one of the editors of the Chicago Inter-Ocean; Rev. Dr. Henry M. Field, Charles Gifford Dyer, the painter and father of the gifted young violinist, Miss Hella Dyer; the late Rev. Mr. Moffett, then United States Consul at Athens, Mrs. Governor Bagley and daughter of Michigan; Grace Greenwood and her talented daughter, who charmed everyone with her melodious voice, and Miss Bryant, daughter of the poet. One visitor who interested us most was the Norwegian novelist and republican, Bjornstjorne Bjornson. We had several pleasant interviews with Frederick Douglass and his wife, some exciting games of chess with Theodore Tilton, in the pleasant apartments of the late W.J.A. Fuller, Esq., and his daughter, Miss Kate Fuller. At this time I also met our brilliant countrywoman, Louise Chandler Moulton. Seeing so many familiar faces, I could easily imagine myself in New York rather than in Paris. I attended several receptions and dined with Mrs. Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, greatly enjoying her clever descriptions of a winter on the Nile in her own dahabeeyeh. I heard Père Hyacinthe preach, and met his American wife on several occasions. I took long drives every day through the parks and pleasant parts of the city. With garden concerts, operas, theaters, and the Hippodrome I found abundant amusement. I never grew weary of the latter performance—the wonderful intelligence displayed there by animals, being a fresh surprise to me every time I went. I attended a reception at the Elysée Palace, escorted by M. Joseph Fabre, then a deputy and now a senator. M. Fabre is the author of a play and several volumes devoted to Joan of Arc. He presented me to the President and to Mme. Jules Grévy. I was also introduced to M. Jules Ferry, then Prime Minister, who said, among other things: "I am sorry to confess it, but it is only too true, our French women are far behind their sisters in America." The beautiful, large garden was thrown open that evening,—it was in July,—and the fine band of the Republican Guard gave a delightful concert under the big trees. I also met M. Grévy's son-in-law, M. Daniel Wilson. He was then a deputy and one of the most powerful politicians in France. A few months later he caused his father's political downfall. I have a vivid recollection of him because he could speak English, his father having been a British subject. I visited the picture galleries once more, after a lapse of nearly fifty years, and was struck by the fact that, in that interval, several women had been admitted to places of honor. This was especially noticeable in the Luxembourg Sculpture Gallery, where two women, Mme. Bertaux and the late Claude Vignon, wife of M. Rouvier, were both represented by good work—the first and only women sculptors admitted to that gallery. At a breakfast party which we gave, I made the acquaintance of General Cluseret, who figured in our Civil War, afterward became War Minister of the Paris Commune, and is now member of the Chamber of Deputies. He learned English when in America, and had not entirely forgotten it. He told anecdotes of Lincoln, Stanton, Sumner, Fremont, Garibaldi, the Count of Paris, and many other famous men whom he once knew, and proved to be a very interesting conversationalist. Old bookstands were always attractive centers of interest to Theodore, and, among other treasure-troves, he brought home one day a boy of fourteen years, whose office it had been to watch the books. He was a bright, cheery little fellow of mixed French and German descent, who could speak English, French, and German. He was just what we had desired, to run errands and tend the door. As he was delighted with the idea of coming to us, we went to see his parents. We were pleased with their appearance and surroundings. We learned that they were members of the Lutheran Church, that the boy was one of the shining lights in Sunday school, and the only point in our agreement on which they were strenuous was that he should go regularly to Sunday school and have time to learn his lessons. So "Immanuel" commenced a new life with us, and as we had unbounded confidence in the boy's integrity, we excused his shortcomings, and, for a time, believed all he said. But before long we found out that the moment we left the house he was in the drawing room, investigating every drawer, playing on the piano, or sleeping on the sofa. Though he was told never to touch the hall stove, he would go and open all the draughts and make it red-hot. Then we adopted the plan of locking up every part of the apartment but the kitchen. He amused himself burning holes through the pantry shelves, when the cook was out, and boring holes, with a gimlet, through a handsomely carved bread board. One day, in making up a spare bed for a friend, under the mattress were found innumerable letters he was supposed to have mailed at different times. When we reprimanded him for his pranks he would look at us steadily, but sorrowfully, and, immediately afterward, we would hear him dancing down the corridor singing, "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." If he had given heed to one-half we said to him, he would have been safer in our hands than in those of his imaginary protector. He turned out a thief, an unmitigated liar, a dancing dervish, and, through all our experiences of six weeks with him, his chief reading was his Bible and Sunday-school books. The experience, however, was not lost on Theodore—he has never suggested a boy since, and a faithful daughter of Eve reigns in his stead. During the summer I was in the hands of two artists, Miss Anna Klumpke, who painted my portrait, and Paul Bartlett, who molded my head in clay. To shorten the operation, sometimes I sat for both at the same time. Although neither was fully satisfied with the results of their labors, we had many pleasant hours together, discussing their art, their early trials, and artists in general. Each had good places in the Salon, and honorable mention that year. It is sad to see so many American girls and boys, who have no genius for painting or sculpture, spending their days in garrets, in solitude and poverty, with the vain hope of earning distinction. Women of all classes are awaking to the necessity of self-support, but few are willing to do the ordinary useful work for which they are fitted. In the Salon that year six thousand pictures were offered, and only two thousand accepted, and many of these were "skyed." It was lovely on our balcony at night to watch the little boats, with their lights, sailing up and down the Seine, especially the day of the great annual fête,—the 14th of July,—when the whole city was magnificently illuminated. We drove about the city on several occasions at midnight, to see the life—men, women, and children enjoying the cool breezes, and the restaurants all crowded with people. Sunday in Paris is charming—it is the day for the masses of the people. All the galleries of art, the libraries, concert halls, and gardens are open to them. All are dressed in their best, out driving, walking, and having picnics in the various parks and gardens; husbands, wives, and children laughing and talking happily together. The seats in the streets and parks are all filled with the laboring masses. The benches all over Paris—along the curbstones in every street and highway—show the care given to the comfort of the people. You will see mothers and nurses with their babies and children resting on these benches, laboring men eating their lunches and sleeping there at noon, the organ grinders and monkeys, too, taking their comfort. In France you see men and women everywhere together; in England the men generally stagger about alone, caring more for their pipes and beer than their mothers, wives, and sisters. Social life, among the poor especially, is far more natural and harmonious in France than in England, because women mix more freely in business and amusements. Coming directly from Paris to London, one is forcibly struck with the gloom of the latter city, especially at night. Paris with its electric lights is brilliant everywhere, while London, with its meager gas jets here and there struggling with the darkness, is as gloomy and desolate as Dore's pictures of Dante's Inferno. On Sunday, when the shops are closed, the silence and solitude of the streets, the general smoky blackness of the buildings and the atmosphere give one a melancholy impression of the great center of civilization. Now that it has been discovered that smoke can be utilized and the atmosphere cleared, it is astonishing that the authorities do not avail themselves of the discovery, and thus bring light and joy and sunshine into that city, and then clean the soot of centuries from their blackened buildings. On my return to England I spent a day with Miss Emily Lord, at her kindergarten establishment. She had just returned from Sweden, where she spent six weeks in the carpenter's shop, studying the Swedish Slöjd system, in which children of twelve years old learn to use tools, making spoons, forks, and other implements. Miss Lord showed us some of her work, quite creditable for her first attempts. She said the children in the higher grades of her school enjoyed the carpenter work immensely and became very deft in the use of tools. On November 1, 1887, we reached Basingstoke once more, and found all things in order. My diary tells of several books I read during the winter and what the authors say of women; one the "Religio Medici," by Sir Thomas Browne, M.D., in which the author discourses on many high themes, God, Creation, Heaven, Hell, and vouchsafes one sentence on woman. Of her he says: "I was never married but once and commend their resolution who never marry twice, not that I disallow of second, nor in all cases of polygamy, which, considering the unequal number of the sexes, may also be necessary. The whole world was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman. Man is the whole world—the breath of God; woman the rib and crooked piece of man. I speak not in prejudice nor am averse from that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful. I can look all day at a handsome picture, though it be but a horse." Turning to John Paul Friedrich Richter, I found in his chapter on woman many equally ridiculous statements mixed up with much fulsome admiration. After reading some volumes of Richter, I took up Heinrich Heine, the German poet and writer. He said: "Oh, the women! We must forgive them much, for they love much and many. Their hate is, properly, only love turned inside out. Sometimes they attribute some delinquency to us, because they think they can, in this way, gratify another man. When they write they have always one eye on the paper and the other eye on some man. This is true of all authoresses except the Countess Hahn Hahn, who has only one eye." John Ruskin's biography he gives us a glimpse of his timidity in regard to the sex, when a young man. He was very fond of the society of girls, but never knew how to approach them. He said he "was perfectly happy in serving them, would gladly make a bridge of himself for them to walk over, a beam to fasten a swing to for them—anything but to talk to them." Such are some of the choice specimens of masculine wit I collected during my winter's reading! At a reception given to me by Drs. Julia and Kate Mitchell, sisters practicing medicine in London, I met Stepniak, the Russian Nihilist, a man of grand presence and fine conversational powers. He was about to go to America, apprehensive lest our Government should make an extradition treaty with Russia to return political offenders, as he knew that proposal had been made. A few weeks later he did visit the United States, and had a hearing before a committee of the Senate. He pointed out the character of the Nihilist movement, declaring Nihilists to be the real reformers, the true lovers of liberty, sacrificing themselves for the best interests of the people, and yet, as political prisoners, they are treated worse than the lowest class of criminals in the prisons and mines of Siberia. I had a very unpleasant interview, during this visit to London, with Miss Lydia Becker, Miss Caroline Biggs, and Miss Blackburn, at the Metropole, about choosing delegates to the International Council of Women soon to be held in Washington. As there had been some irreconcilable dissensions in the suffrage association, and they could not agree as to whom their delegate should be, they decided to send none at all. I wrote at once to Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren, pointing out what a shame it would be if England, above all countries, should not be represented in the first International Council ever called by a suffrage association. She replied promptly that must not be, and immediately moved in the matter, and through her efforts three delegates were soon authorized to go, representing different constituencies—Mrs. Alice Cliff Scatcherd, Mrs. Ormiston Chant, and Mrs. Ashton Dilke. Toward the last of February, 1888, we went again to London to make a few farewell visits to dear friends. We spent a few days with Mrs. Mona Caird, who was then reading Karl Pearson's lectures on "Woman," and expounding her views on marriage, which she afterward gave to the Westminster Review, and stirred the press to white heat both in England and America. "Is Marriage a Failure?" furnished the heading for our quack advertisements for a long time after. Mrs. Caird was a very graceful, pleasing woman, and so gentle in manner and appearance that no one would deem her capable of hurling such thunderbolts at the long-suffering Saxon people. We devoted one day to Prince Krapotkine, who lives at Harrow, in the suburbs of London. A friend of his, Mr. Lieneff, escorted us there. We found the prince, his wife, and child in very humble quarters; uncarpeted floors, books and papers on pine shelves, wooden chairs, and the bare necessaries of life—nothing more. They indulge in no luxuries, but devote all they can spare to the publication of liberal opinions to be scattered in Russia, and to help Nihilists in escaping from the dominions of the Czar. The prince and princess took turns in holding and amusing the baby—then only one year old; fortunately it slept most of the time, so that the conversation flowed on for some hours. Krapotkine told us of his sad prison experiences, both in France and Russia. He said the series of articles by George Kennan in the Century were not too highly colored, that the sufferings of men and women in Siberia and the Russian prisons could not be overdrawn. One of the refinements of cruelty they practice on prisoners is never to allow them to hear the human voice. A soldier always accompanies the warder who distributes the food, to see that no word is spoken. In vain the poor prisoner asks questions, no answer is ever made, no tidings from the outside world ever given. One may well ask what devil in human form has prescribed such prison life and discipline! I wonder if we could find a man in all Russia who would defend the system, yet someone is responsible for its terrible cruelties! We returned to Basingstoke, passed the few remaining days in looking over papers and packing for the voyage, and, on March 4, 1888, Mrs. Blatch went with me to Southampton. On the train I met my companions for the voyage, Mrs. Gustafsen, Mrs. Ashton Dilke, and Baroness Gripenberg, from Finland, a very charming woman, to whom I felt a strong attraction. The other delegates sailed from Liverpool. We had a rough voyage and most of the passengers were very sick. Mrs. Dilke and I were well, however, and on deck every day, always ready to play whist and chess with a few gentlemen who were equally fortunate. I was much impressed with Mrs. Dilke's kindness and generosity in serving others. There was a lady on board with two children, whose nurse at the last minute refused to go with her. The mother was sick most of the way, and Mrs. Dilke did all in her power to relieve her, by amusing the little boy, telling him stories, walking with him on deck, and watching him throughout the day, no easy task to perform for an entire stranger. The poor little mother with a baby in her arms must have appreciated such kindly attention. When the pilot met us off Sandy Hook, he brought news of the terrible blizzard New York had just experienced, by which all communication with the world at large was practically suspended. The captain brought him down into the saloon to tell us all about it. The news was so startling that at first we thought the pilot was joking, but when he produced the metropolitan journals to verify his statements, we listened to the reading and what he had to say with profound astonishment. The second week in March, 1888, will be memorable in the history of storms in the vicinity of New York. The snow was ten feet deep in some places, and the side streets impassable either for carriages or sleighs. I hoped the city would be looking its best, for the first impression on my foreign friends, but it never looked worse, with huge piles of snow everywhere covered with black dust. I started for Washington at three o'clock, the day after our arrival, reached there at ten o'clock, and found my beloved friends, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Spofford, with open arms and warm hearts to receive me. As the vessel was delayed two days, our friends naturally thought we, too, had encountered a blizzard, but we had felt nothing of it; on the contrary the last days were the most pleasant of the voyage. <hr style="width: 65%;"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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