Part 1 (1/2)
Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897.
by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD.
The psychical growth of a child is not influenced by days and years, but by the impressions pa.s.sing events make on its mind. What may prove a sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that may last for years, may make no impression on another. People wonder why the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had the same domestic discipline, the same school and church teaching, and have grown up under the same influences and with the same environments.
As well wonder why lilies and lilacs in the same lat.i.tude are not all alike in color and equally fragrant. Children differ as widely as these in the primal elements of their physical and psychical life.
Who can estimate the power of antenatal influences, or the child's surroundings in its earliest years, the effect of some pa.s.sing word or sight on one, that makes no impression on another? The unhappiness of one child under a certain home discipline is not inconsistent with the content of another under this same discipline. One, yearning for broader freedom, is in a chronic condition of rebellion; the other, more easily satisfied, quietly accepts the situation. Everything is seen from a different standpoint; everything takes its color from the mind of the beholder.
I am moved to recall what I can of my early days, what I thought and felt, that grown people may have a better understanding of children and do more for their happiness and development. I see so much tyranny exercised over children, even by well-disposed parents, and in so many varied forms,--a tyranny to which these parents are themselves insensible,--that I desire to paint my joys and sorrows in as vivid colors as possible, in the hope that I may do something to defend the weak from the strong. People never dream of all that is going on in the little heads of the young, for few adults are given to introspection, and those who are incapable of recalling their own feelings under restraint and disappointment can have no appreciation of the sufferings of children who can neither describe nor a.n.a.lyze what they feel. In defending themselves against injustice they are as helpless as dumb animals. What is insignificant to their elders is often to them a source of great joy or sorrow.
With several generations of vigorous, enterprising ancestors behind me, I commenced the struggle of life under favorable circ.u.mstances on the 12th day of November, 1815, the same year that my father, Daniel Cady, a distinguished lawyer and judge in the State of New York, was elected to Congress. Perhaps the excitement of a political campaign, in which my mother took the deepest interest, may have had an influence on my prenatal life and given me the strong desire that I have always felt to partic.i.p.ate in the rights and duties of government.
My father was a man of firm character and unimpeachable integrity, and yet sensitive and modest to a painful degree. There were but two places in which he felt at ease--in the courthouse and at his own fireside.
Though gentle and tender, he had such a dignified repose and reserve of manner that, as children, we regarded him with fear rather than affection.
My mother, Margaret Livingston, a tall, queenly looking woman, was courageous, self-reliant, and at her ease under all circ.u.mstances and in all places. She was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, who took an active part in the War of the Revolution.
Colonel Livingston was stationed at West Point when Arnold made the attempt to betray that stronghold into the hands of the enemy. In the absence of General Was.h.i.+ngton and his superior officer, he took the responsibility of firing into the _Vulture_, a suspicious looking British vessel that lay at anchor near the opposite bank of the Hudson River. It was a fatal shot for Andre, the British spy, with whom Arnold was then consummating his treason. Hit between wind and water, the vessel spread her sails and hastened down the river, leaving Andre, with his papers, to be captured while Arnold made his escape through the lines, before his treason was suspected.
On General Was.h.i.+ngton's return to West Point, he sent for my grandfather and reprimanded him for acting in so important a matter without orders, thereby making himself liable to court-martial; but, after fully impressing the young officer with the danger of such self-sufficiency on ordinary occasions, he admitted that a most fortunate shot had been sent into the _Vulture_, ”for,” he said, ”we are in no condition just now to defend ourselves against the British forces in New York, and the capture of this spy has saved us.”
My mother had the military idea of government, but her children, like their grandfather, were disposed to a.s.sume the responsibility of their own actions; thus the ancestral traits in mother and children modified, in a measure, the dangerous tendencies in each.
Our parents were as kind, indulgent, and considerate as the Puritan ideas of those days permitted, but fear, rather than love, of G.o.d and parents alike, predominated. Add to this our timidity in our intercourse with servants and teachers, our dread of the ever present devil, and the reader will see that, under such conditions, nothing but strong self-will and a good share of hope and mirthfulness could have saved an ordinary child from becoming a mere nullity.
The first event engraved on my memory was the birth of a sister when I was four years old. It was a cold morning in January when the brawny Scotch nurse carried me to see the little stranger, whose advent was a matter of intense interest to me for many weeks after. The large, pleasant room with the white curtains and bright wood fire on the hearth, where panada, catnip, and all kinds of little messes which we were allowed to taste were kept warm, was the center of attraction for the older children. I heard so many friends remark, ”What a pity it is she's a girl!” that I felt a kind of compa.s.sion for the little baby.
True, our family consisted of five girls and only one boy, but I did not understand at that time that girls were considered an inferior order of beings.
To form some idea of my surroundings at this time, imagine a two-story white frame house with a hall through the middle, rooms on either side, and a large back building with grounds on the side and rear, which joined the garden of our good Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Simon Hosack, of whom I shall have more to say in another chapter. Our favorite resorts in the house were the garret and cellar. In the former were barrels of hickory nuts, and, on a long shelf, large cakes of maple sugar and all kinds of dried herbs and sweet flag; spinning wheels, a number of small white cotton bags filled with bundles, marked in ink, ”silk,” ”cotton,” ”flannel,” ”calico,” etc., as well as ancient masculine and feminine costumes. Here we would crack the nuts, nibble the sharp edges of the maple sugar, chew some favorite herb, play ball with the bags, whirl the old spinning wheels, dress up in our ancestors'
clothes, and take a bird's-eye view of the surrounding country from an enticing scuttle hole. This was forbidden ground; but, nevertheless, we often went there on the sly, which only made the little escapades more enjoyable.
The cellar of our house was filled, in winter, with barrels of apples, vegetables, salt meats, cider, b.u.t.ter, pounding barrels, washtubs, etc., offering admirable nooks for playing hide and seek. Two tallow candles threw a faint light over the scene on certain occasions. This cellar was on a level with a large kitchen where we played blind man's buff and other games when the day's work was done. These two rooms are the center of many of the merriest memories of my childhood days.
I can recall three colored men, Abraham, Peter, and Jacob, who acted as menservants in our youth. In turn they would sometimes play on the banjo for us to dance, taking real enjoyment in our games. They are all at rest now with ”Old Uncle Ned in the place where the good n.i.g.g.e.rs go.”
Our nurses, Lockey Danford, Polly Bell, Mary Dunn, and Cornelia Nickeloy--peace to their ashes--were the only shadows on the gayety of these winter evenings; for their chief delight was to hurry us off to bed, that they might receive their beaux or make short calls in the neighborhood. My memory of them is mingled with no sentiment of grat.i.tude or affection. In expressing their opinion of us in after years, they said we were a very troublesome, obstinate, disobedient set of children. I have no doubt we were in constant rebellion against their petty tyranny. Abraham, Peter, and Jacob viewed us in a different light, and I have the most pleasant recollections of their kind services.
In the winter, outside the house, we had the snow with which to build statues and make forts, and huge piles of wood covered with ice, which we called the Alps, so difficult were they of ascent and descent. There we would climb up and down by the hour, if not interrupted, which, however, was generally the case. It always seemed to me that, in the height of our enthusiasm, we were invariably summoned to some disagreeable duty, which would appear to show that thus early I keenly enjoyed outdoor life. Theodore Tilton has thus described the place where I was born: ”Birthplace is secondary parentage, and transmits character.
Johnstown was more famous half a century ago than since; for then, though small, it was a marked intellectual center; and now, though large, it is an unmarked manufacturing town. Before the birth of Elizabeth Cady it was the vice-ducal seat of Sir William Johnson, the famous English negotiator with the Indians. During her girlhood it was an arena for the intellectual wrestlings of Kent, Tompkins, Spencer, Elisha Williams, and Abraham Van Vechten, who, as lawyers, were among the chiefest of their time. It is now devoted mainly to the fabrication of steel springs and buckskin gloves. So, like Wordsworth's early star, it has faded into the light of common day. But Johnstown retains one of its ancient splendors--a glory still fresh as at the foundation of the world. Standing on its hills, one looks off upon a country of enameled meadow lands, that melt away southward toward the Mohawk, and northward to the base of those grand mountains which are 'G.o.d's monument over the grave of John Brown.'”
Harold Frederic's novel, ”In the Valley,” contains many descriptions of this region that are true to nature, as I remember the Mohawk Valley, for I first knew it not so many years after the scenes which he lays there. Before I was old enough to take in the glory of this scenery and its cla.s.sic a.s.sociations, Johnstown was to me a gloomy-looking town. The middle of the streets was paved with large cobblestones, over which the farmer's wagons rattled from morning till night, while the sidewalks were paved with very small cobblestones, over which we carefully picked our way, so that free and graceful walking was out of the question. The streets were lined with solemn poplar trees, from which small yellow worms were continually dangling down. Next to the Prince of Darkness, I feared these worms. They were harmless, but the sight of one made me tremble. So many people shared in this feeling that the poplars were all cut down and elms planted in their stead. The Johnstown academy and churches were large square buildings, painted white, surrounded by these same sombre poplars, each edifice having a doleful bell which seemed to be ever tolling for school, funerals, church, or prayer meetings. Next to the worms, those clanging bells filled me with the utmost dread; they seemed like so many warnings of an eternal future. Visions of the Inferno were strongly impressed on my childish imagination. It was thought, in those days, that firm faith in h.e.l.l and the devil was the greatest help to virtue. It certainly made me very unhappy whenever my mind dwelt on such teachings, and I have always had my doubts of the virtue that is based on the fear of punishment.
Perhaps I may be pardoned a word devoted to my appearance in those days.
I have been told that I was a plump little girl, with very fair skin, rosy cheeks, good features, dark-brown hair, and laughing blue eyes. A student in my father's office, the late Henry Bayard of Delaware (an uncle of our recent Amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James's, Thomas F.
Bayard), told me one day, after conning my features carefully, that I had one defect which he could remedy. ”Your eyebrows should be darker and heavier,” said he, ”and if you will let me shave them once or twice, you will be much improved.” I consented, and, slight as my eyebrows were, they seemed to have had some expression, for the loss of them had a most singular effect on my appearance. Everybody, including even the operator, laughed at my odd-looking face, and I was in the depths of humiliation during the period while my eyebrows were growing out again.