Part 15 (1/2)
Hungering, that day, for gifted women, I called on Alice and Phebe Cary and Mary Clemmer Ames, and together we gave the proud white male such a serving up as did our souls good and could not hurt him, intrenched, as he is, behind creeds, codes, customs, and const.i.tutions, with vizor and breastplate of self-complacency and conceit. In criticising Jessie Boucherett's essay on ”Superfluous Women,” in which she advises men in England to emigrate in order to leave room and occupation for women, the _Tribune_ said: ”The idea of a home without a man in it!” In visiting the Carys one always felt that there was a home--a very charming one, too--without a man in it.
Once when Harriet Beecher Stowe was at Dr. Taylor's, I had the opportunity to make her acquaintance. In her sanctum, surrounded by books and papers, she was just finis.h.i.+ng her second paper on the Byron family, and her sister Catherine was preparing papers on her educational work, preparatory to a coming meeting of the ladies of the school board.
The women of the Beecher family, though most of them wives and mothers, all had a definite life-work outside the family circle, and other objects of intense interest beside husbands, babies, cook stoves, and social conversations. Catherine said she was opposed to woman suffrage, and if she thought there was the least danger of our getting it, she would write and talk against it vehemently. But, as the nation was safe against such a calamity, she was willing to let the talk go on, because the agitation helped her work. ”It is rather paradoxical,” I said to her, ”that the pressing of a false principle can help a true one; but when you get the women all thoroughly educated, they will step off to the polls and vote in spite of you.”
One night on the train from New York to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, I found abundant time to think over the personal peculiarities of the many n.o.ble women who adorn this nineteenth century, and, as I recalled them, one by one, in America, England, France, and Germany, and all that they are doing and saying, I wandered that any man could be so blind as not to see that woman has already taken her place as the peer of man. While the lords of creation have been debating her sphere and drawing their chalk marks here and there, woman has quietly stepped outside the barren fields where she was compelled to graze for centuries, and is now in green pastures and beside still waters, a power in the world of thought.
These pleasant cogitations were cut short by my learning that I had taken the wrong train, and must change at Harrisburg at two o'clock in the morning. How soon the reflection that I must leave my comfortable berth at such an unchristian hour changed the whole hue of glorious womanhood and every other earthly blessing! However, I lived through the trial and arrived at Williamsport as the day dawned. I had a good audience at the opera house that evening, and was introduced to many agreeable people, who declared themselves converted to woman suffrage by my ministrations. Among the many new jewels in my crown, I added, that night, Judge Bently.
In November, 1869, I pa.s.sed one night in Philadelphia, with Miss Anthony, at Anna d.i.c.kinson's home--a neat, three-story brick house in Locust Street. This haven of rest, where the world-famous little woman came, ever and anon, to recruit her overtaxed energies, was very tastefully furnished, adorned with engravings, books, and statuary. Her mother, sister, and brother made up the household--a pleasing, cultivated trio. The brother was a handsome youth of good judgment, and given to sage remarks; the sister, witty, intuitive, and incisive in speech; the mother, dressed in rich Quaker costume, and though nearly seventy, still possessed of great personal beauty. She was intelligent, dignified, refined, and, in manner and appearance, reminded one of Angelina Grimke as she looked in her younger days. Everything about the house and its appointments indicated that it was the abode of genius and cultivation, and, although Anna was absent, the hospitalities were gracefully dispensed by her family. Napoleon and Shakespeare seemed to be Anna's patron saints, looking down, on all sides, from the wall. The mother amused us with the sore trials her little orator had inflicted on the members of the household by her vagaries in the world of fame.
On the way to Kennett Square, a young gentleman pointed out to us the home of Benjamin West, who distinguished himself, to the disgust of broadbrims generally, as a landscape painter. In commencing his career, it is said he made use of the tail of a cat in lieu of a brush. Of course Benjamin's first attempts were on the sly, and he could not ask paterfamilias for money to buy a brush without encountering the good man's scorn. Whether, in the hour of his need and fresh enthusiasm, poor puss was led to the sacrificial altar, or whether he found her reposing by the roadside, having paid the debt of Nature, our informant could not say; enough that, in time, he owned a brush and immortalized himself by his skill in its use. Such erratic ones as Whittier, West, and Anna d.i.c.kinson go to prove that even the prim, proper, perfect Quakers are subject to like infirmities with the rest of the human family.
I had long heard of the ”Progressive Friends” in the region round Longwood; had read the many bulls they issued from their ”yearly meetings” on every question, on war, capital punishment, temperance, slavery, woman's rights; had learned that they were turning the cold shoulder on the dress, habits, and opinions of their Fathers; listening to the ministrations of such worldlings as William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Tilton, and Oliver Johnson, in a new meeting house, all painted and varnished, with cus.h.i.+ons, easy seats, carpets, stoves, a musical instrument--shade of George Fox, forgive--and three brackets with vases on the ”high seat,” and, more than all that, men and women were indiscriminately seated throughout the house.
All this Miss Anthony and I beheld with our own eyes, and, in company with Sarah Pugh and Chandler Darlington, did sit together in the high seat and talk in the congregation of the people. There, too, we met Hannah Darlington and Dinah Mendenhall,--names long known in every good work,--and, for the s.p.a.ce of one day, did enjoy the blissful serenity of that earthly paradise. The women of Kennett Square were celebrated not only for their model housekeeping but also for their rare cultivation on all subjects of general interest.
In November I again started on one of my Western trips, but, alas! on the very day the trains were changed, and so I could not make connections to meet my engagements at Saginaw and Marshall, and just saved myself at Toledo by going directly from the cars before the audience, with the dust of twenty-four hours' travel on my garments.
Not being able to reach Saginaw, I went straight to Ann Arbor, and spent three days most pleasantly in visiting old friends, making new ones, and surveying the town, with its grand University. I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Seaman, a highly cultivated Democratic editor, author of ”Progress of Nations.” A choice number of guests gathered round his hospitable board on that occasion, over which his wife presided with dignity and grace. Woman suffrage was the target for the combined wit and satire of the company, and, after four hours of uninterrupted sharpshooting, pyrotechnics, and laughter, we dispersed to our several abodes, fairly exhausted with the excess of enjoyment.
One gentleman had the moral hardihood to a.s.sert that men had more endurance than women, whereupon a lady remarked that she would like to see the thirteen hundred young men in the University laced up in steel-ribbed corsets, with hoops, heavy skirts, trains, high heels, panniers, chignons, and dozens of hairpins sticking in their scalps, cooped up in the house year after year, with no exhilarating exercise, no hopes, aims, nor ambitions in life, and know if they could stand it as well as the girls. ”Nothing,” said she, ”but the fact that women, like cats, have nine lives, enables them to survive the present _regime_ to which custom dooms the s.e.x.”
While in Ann Arbor I gave my lecture on ”Our Girls” in the new Methodist church--a large building, well lighted, and filled with a brilliant audience. The students, in large numbers, were there, and strengthened the threads of my discourse with frequent and generous applause; especially when I urged on the Regents of the University the duty of opening its doors to the daughters of the State. There were several splendid girls in Michigan, at that time, preparing themselves for admission to the law department. As Judge Cooley, one of the professors, was a very liberal man, as well as a sound lawyer, and strongly in favor of opening the college to girls, I had no doubt the women of Michigan would soon distinguish themselves at the bar. Some said the chief difficulty in the way of the girls of that day being admitted to the University was the want of room. That could have been easily obviated by telling the young men from abroad to betake themselves to the colleges in their respective States, that Michigan might educate her daughters.
As the women owned a good share of the property of the State, and had been heavily taxed to build and endow that inst.i.tution, it was but fair that they should share in its advantages.
The Michigan University, with its extensive grounds, commodious buildings, medical and law schools, professors' residences, and the finest laboratory in the country, was an inst.i.tution of which the State was justly proud, and, as the tuition was free, it was worth the trouble of a long, hard siege by the girls of Michigan to gain admittance there.
I advised them to organize their forces at once, get their minute guns, battering rams, monitors, projectiles, bombsh.e.l.ls, cannon, torpedoes, and crackers ready, and keep up a brisk cannonading until the grave and reverend seigniors opened the door, and shouted, ”Hold, enough!”
The ladies of Ann Arbor had a fine library of their own, where their clubs met once a week. They had just formed a suffrage a.s.sociation. My visit ended with a pleasant reception, at which I was introduced to the chaplain, several professors, and many ladies and gentlemen ready to accept the situation. Judge Cooley gave me a glowing account of the laws of Michigan--how easy it was for wives to get possession of all the property, and then sunder the marriage tie and leave the poor husband to the charity of the cold world, with their helpless children about him. I heard of a rich lady, there, who made a will, giving her husband a handsome annuity as long as he remained her widower. It was evident that the poor ”white male,” sooner or later, was doomed to try for himself the virtue of the laws he had made for women. I hope, for the sake of the race, he will not bear oppression with the stupid fort.i.tude we have for six thousand years.
At Flint I was entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Jenny. Mr. Jenny was a Democratic editor who believed in progress, and in making smooth paths for women in this great wilderness of life. His wife was a remarkable woman. She inaugurated the Ladies' Libraries in Michigan. In Flint they had a fine brick building and nearly two thousand volumes of choice books, owned by the a.s.sociation, and money always in the treasury. Here, too, I had a fine audience and gave my lecture ent.i.tled ”Open the Door.”
At Coldwater, in spite of its name, I found a warm, appreciative audience. The president of the lyceum was a sensible young man who, after graduating at Ann Arbor, decided, instead of starving at the law, to work with his hands and brains at the same time. When all men go to their legitimate business of creating wealth, developing the resources of the country, and leave its mere exchange to the weaker s.e.x, we shall not have so many superfluous women in the world with nothing to do. It is evident the time has come to hunt man into his appropriate sphere.
Coming from Chicago, I met Governor Fairchild and Senator Williams of Wisconsin. It was delightful to find them thoroughly grounded in the faith of woman suffrage. They had been devout readers of the _Revolution_ ever since Miss Anthony induced them to subscribe, the winter before, at Madison. Of course a new glow of intelligence irradiated their fine faces (for they were remarkably handsome men) and there was a new point to all their words. Senator Williams, like myself, was on a lecturing tour. ”Man” was his theme, for which I was devoutly thankful; for, if there are any of G.o.d's creatures that need lecturing, it is this one that is forever advising us. I thought of all men, from Father Gregory down to Horace Bushnell, who had wearied their brains to describe woman's sphere, and how signally they had failed.
Throughout my lyceum journeys I was of great use to the traveling public, in keeping the ventilators in the cars open, and the dampers in fiery stoves shut up, especially in sleeping cars at night. How many times a day I thought what the sainted Horace Mann tried to impress on his stupid countrymen, that, inasmuch as the air is forty miles deep around the globe, it is a useless piece of economy to breathe any number of cubic feet over more than seven times! The babies, too, need to be thankful that I was in a position to witness their wrongs. Many, through my intercessions, received their first drink of water, and were emanc.i.p.ated from woolen hoods, veils, tight strings under their chins, and endless swaddling bands. It is a startling a.s.sertion, but true, that I have met few women who know how to take care of a baby. And this fact led me, on one trip, to lecture to my fair countrywomen on ”Marriage and Maternity,” hoping to aid in the inauguration of a new era of happy, healthy babies.
After twenty-four hours in the express I found myself in a pleasant room in the International Hotel at La Crosse, looking out on the Great Mother of Waters, on whose cold bosom the ice and the steamers were struggling for mastery. Beyond stretched the snow-clad bluffs, sternly looking down on the Mississippi, as if to say, ”'Thus far shalt thou come and no farther'--though sluggish, you are aggressive, ever pus.h.i.+ng where you should not; but all attempts in this direction are alike vain; since creation's dawn, we have defied you, and here we stand, to-day, calm, majestic, immovable. Coquette as you will in other lat.i.tudes, with flowery banks and youthful piers in the busy marts of trade, and undermine them, one and all, with your deceitful wooings, but bow in reverence as you gaze on us. We have no eyes for your beauty; no ears for your endless song; our heads are in the clouds, our hearts commune with G.o.ds; you have no part in the eternal problems of the ages that fill our thoughts, yours the humble duty to wash our feet, and then pa.s.s on, remembering to keep in your appropriate sphere, within the barks that wise geographers have seen fit to mark.”
As I listened to these complacent hills and watched the poor Mississippi weeping as she swept along, to lose her sorrows in ocean's depths, I thought how like the att.i.tude of man to woman. Let these proud hills remember that they, too, slumbered for centuries in deep valleys down, down, when, perchance, the sparkling Mississippi rolled above their heads, and but for some generous outburst, some upheaval of old Mother Earth, wis.h.i.+ng that her rock-ribbed sons, as well as graceful daughters, might enjoy the light, the suns.h.i.+ne and the shower--but for this soul of love in matter as well as mind--these bluffs and the sons of Adam, too, might not boast the alt.i.tude they glory in to-day. Those who have ears to hear discern low, rumbling noises that foretell convulsions in our social world that may, perchance, in the next upheaval, bring woman to the surface; up, up, from gloomy ocean depths, dark caverns, and damper valleys. The struggling daughters of earth are soon to walk in the sunlight of a higher civilization.
Escorted by Mr. Woodward, a member of the bar, I devoted a day to the lions of La Crosse. First we explored the courthouse, a large, new brick building, from whose dome we had a grand view of the surrounding country. The courtroom where justice is administered was large, clean, airy--the bench carpeted and adorned with a large, green, stuffed chair, in which I sat down, and, in imagination, summoned up advocates, jurors, prisoners, and people, and wondered how I should feel p.r.o.nouncing sentence of death on a fellow-being, or, like Portia, wisely checkmating the Shylocks of our times. Here I met Judge Hugh Cameron, formerly of Johnstown. He invited us into his sanctum, where we had a pleasant chat about our native hills, Scotch affiliations, the bench and bar of New York, and the Wisconsin laws for women. The Judge, having maintained a happy bachelor state, looked placidly on the aggressive movements of the s.e.x, as his domestic felicity would be no way affected, whether woman was voted up or down.
We next surveyed the Pomeroy building, which contained a large, tastefully finished hall and printing establishment, where the La Crosse _Democrat_ was formerly published. As I saw the perfection, order, and good taste, in all arrangements throughout, and listened to Mr. Huron's description of the life and leading characteristics of its chief, it seemed impossible to reconcile the tone of the _Democrat_ with the moral status of its editor. I never saw a more complete business establishment, and the editorial sanctum looked as if it might be the abiding place of the Muses. Mirrors, pictures, statuary, books, music, rare curiosities, and fine specimens of birds and minerals were everywhere. Over the editor's table was a beautiful painting of his youthful daughter, whose flaxen hair, blue eyes, and angelic face should have inspired a father to n.o.bler, purer, utterances than he was wont, at that time, to give to the world.
But Pomeroy's good deeds will live long after his profane words are forgotten. Throughout the establishment cards, set up in conspicuous places, said, ”Smoking here is positively forbidden.” Drinking, too, was forbidden to all his employes. The moment a man was discovered using intoxicating drinks, he was dismissed. In the upper story of the building was a large, pleasant room, handsomely carpeted and furnished, where the employes, in their leisure hours, could talk, write, read, or amuse themselves in any rational way.
Mr. Pomeroy was humane and generous with his employes, honorable in his business relations, and boundless in his charities to the poor. His charity, business honor, and public spirit were highly spoken of by those who knew him best. That a journal does not always reflect the editor is as much the fault of society as of the man. So long as the public will pay for gross personalities, obscenity, and slang, decent journals will be outbidden in the market. The fact that the La Crosse _Democrat_ found a ready sale in all parts of the country showed that Mr. Pomeroy fairly reflected the popular taste. While mult.i.tudes turned up the whites of their eyes and denounced him in public, they bought his paper and read it in private.
I left La Crosse in a steamer, just as the rising sun lighted the hilltops and gilded the Mississippi. It was a lovely morning, and, in company with a young girl of sixteen, who had traveled alone from some remote part of Canada, bound for a northern village in Wisconsin, I promenaded the deck most of the way to Winona, a pleased listener to the incidents of my young companion's experiences. She said that, when crossing Lake Huron, she was the only woman on board, but the men were so kind and civil that she soon forgot she was alone. I found many girls, traveling long distances, who had never been five miles from home before, with a self-reliance that was remarkable. They all spoke in the most flattering manner of the civility of our American men in looking after their baggage and advising them as to the best routes.