Part 18 (1/2)
”There shall I bathe my wearied soul In seas of endless rest.
And not one wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast.
”By all natural laws, stagnation breeds disease and death, and what could stir up this most venerable and respectable inst.i.tution more than an application of the strong-minded, with short hair and shorter skirts, invading its dignified realm and elucidating all the excellences of female suffrage. Moreover, if these ladies could ever succeed in the providence of G.o.d in obtaining a report from that committee, it would end this question forever; for the public at large and myself included, in view of that miracle of female blandishment and female influence, would surrender at once, and female suffrage would become const.i.tutional and lawful. Sir, I insist upon it that, in deference to this committee, in deference to the fact that it needs this sort of regimen and medicine, this whole subject should be so referred.”
This gives a very fair idea of the character of the arguments produced by our opponents, from the inauguration of the movement. But, as there are no arguments in a republican government in favor of an aristocracy of s.e.x, ridicule was really the only available weapon. After declaring ”that no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed,” ”that taxation without representation is tyranny,” it is difficult to see on what basis one-half the people are disfranchised.
CHAPTER XX.
WRITING ”THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.”
The four years following the Centennial were busy, happy ones, of varied interests and employments, public and private. Sons and daughters graduating from college, bringing troops of young friends to visit us; the usual matrimonial entanglements, with all their promises of celestial bliss intertwined with earthly doubts and fears; weddings, voyages to Europe, business ventures--in this whirl of plans and projects our heads, hearts, and hands were fully occupied. Seven boys and girls dancing round the fireside, buoyant with all life's joys opening before them, are enough to keep the most apathetic parents on the watch-towers by day and anxious even in dreamland by night. My spare time, if it can be said that I ever had any, was given during these days to social festivities. The inevitable dinners, teas, picnics, and dances with country neighbors, all came round in quick succession. We lived, at this time, at Tenafly, New Jersey, not far from the publisher of the _Sun_, Isaac W. England, who also had seven boys and girls as full of frolic as our own. Mrs. England and I entered into all their games with equal zest. The youngest thought half the fun was to see our enthusiasm in ”blindman's buff,” ”fox and geese,” and ”bean bags.” It thrills me with delight, even now, to see these games!
Mr. England was the soul of hospitality. He was never more happy than when his house was crowded with guests, and his larder with all the delicacies of the season. Though he and Mr. Stanton were both connected with that dignified journal, the New York _Sun_, yet they often joined in the general hilarity. I laugh, as I write, at the memory of all the frolics we had on the blue hills of Jersey.
In addition to the domestic cares which a large family involved, Mrs.
Gage, Miss Anthony, and I were already busy collecting material for ”The History of Woman Suffrage.” This required no end of correspondence. Then my lecturing trips were still a part of the annual programme. Was.h.i.+ngton conventions, too, with calls, appeals, resolutions, speeches and hearings before the Committees of Congress and State legislatures, all these came round in the year's proceedings as regularly as pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, plum pudding for Christmas, and patriotism for Was.h.i.+ngton's birthday. Those who speak for glory or philanthropy are always in demand for college commencements and Fourth of July orations, hence much of Miss Anthony's eloquence, as well as my own, was utilized in this way.
On October 18, 1880, I had an impromptu dinner party. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, May Wright Thompson (now Sewall), Phoebe W. Couzins, and Arethusa Forbes, returning from a Boston convention, all by chance met under my roof. We had a very merry time talking over the incidents of the convention, Boston proprieties, and the general situation. As I gave them many early reminiscences, they asked if I had kept a diary. ”No,” I said, ”not a pen scratch of the past have I except what might be gathered from many family letters.” They urged me to begin a diary at once; so I promised I would on my coming birthday.
My great grief that day was that we were putting in a new range, and had made no preparations for dinner. This completely upset the presiding genius of my culinary department, as she could not give us the bounteous feast she knew was expected on such occasions. I, as usual, when there was any lack in the viands, tried to be as brilliant as possible in conversation; discussing Nirvana, Karma, reincarnation, and thus turning attention from the evanescent things of earth to the joys of a life to come,--not an easy feat to perform with strong-minded women,--but, in parting, they seemed happy and refreshed, and all promised to come again.
But we shall never meet there again, as the old, familiar oaks and the majestic chestnut trees have pa.s.sed into other hands. Strange lovers now whisper their vows of faith and trust under the tree where a most charming wedding ceremony--that of my daughter Margaret--was solemnized one bright October day. All Nature seemed to do her utmost to heighten the beauty of the occasion. The verdure was brilliant with autumnal tints, the hazy noonday sun lent a peculiar softness to every shadow--even the birds and insects were hushed to silence. As the wedding march rose soft and clear, two stately ushers led the way; then a group of Va.s.sar cla.s.smates, gayly decked in silks of different colors, followed by the bride and groom. An immense Saint Bernard dog, on his own account brought up the rear, keeping time with measured tread. He took his seat in full view, watching, alternately, the officiating clergyman, the bride and groom, and guests, as if to say: ”What does all this mean?” No one behaved with more propriety and no one looked more radiant than he, with a ray of sunlight on his beautiful coat of long hair, his bright bra.s.s collar, and his wonderful head. Bruno did not live to see the old home broken up, but sleeps peacefully there, under the chestnut trees, and fills a large place in many of our pleasant memories.
On November 12, 1880, I was sixty-five years old, and, pursuant to my promise, I then began my diary. It was a bright, sunny day, but the frost king was at work; all my grand old trees, that stood like sentinels, to mark the boundary of my domain, were stripped of their foliage, and their brilliant colors had faded into a uniform brown; but the evergreens and the tall, prim cedars held their own, and, when covered with snow, their exquisite beauty brought tears to my eyes. One need never be lonely mid beautiful trees.
My thoughts were with my absent children--Harriot in France, Theodore in Germany, Margaret with her husband and brother Gerrit, halfway across the continent, and Bob still in college. I spent the day writing letters and walking up and down the piazza, and enjoyed, from my windows, a glorious sunset. Alone, on birthdays or holidays, one is very apt to indulge in sad retrospections. The thought of how much more I might have done for the perfect development of my children than I had accomplished, depressed me. I thought of all the blunders in my own life and in their education. Little has been said of the responsibilities of parental life; accordingly little or nothing has been done. I had such visions of parental duties that day that I came to the conclusion that parents never could pay the debt they owe their children for bringing them into this world of suffering, unless they can insure them sound minds in sound bodies, and enough of the good things of this life to enable them to live without a continual struggle for the necessaries of existence. I have no sympathy with the old idea that children owe parents a debt of grat.i.tude for the simple fact of existence, generally conferred without thought and merely for their own pleasure. How seldom we hear of any high or holy preparation for the office of parenthood! Here, in the most momentous act of life, all is left to chance. Men and women, intelligent and prudent in all other directions, seem to exercise no forethought here, but hand down their individual and family idiosyncrasies in the most reckless mariner.
On November 13 the New York _Tribune_ announced the death of Lucretia Mott, eighty-eight years old. Having known her in the flush of life, when all her faculties were at their zenith, and in the repose of age, when her powers began to wane, her withdrawal from among us seemed as beautiful and natural as the changing foliage, from summer to autumn, of some grand old oak I have watched and loved.
The arrival of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Gage, on November 20, banished all family matters from my mind. What planning, now, for volumes, chapters, footnotes, margins, appendices, paper, and type; of engravings, t.i.tle, preface, and introduction! I had never thought that the publication of a book required the consideration of such endless details. We stood appalled before the ma.s.s of material, growing higher and higher with every mail, and the thought of all the reading involved made us feel as if our lifework lay before us. Six weeks of steady labor all day, and often until midnight, made no visible decrease in the pile of doc.u.ments.
However, before the end of the month we had our arrangements all made with publishers and engravers, and six chapters in print. When we began to correct proof we felt as if something was accomplished. Thus we worked through the winter and far into the spring, with no change except the Was.h.i.+ngton Convention and an occasional evening meeting in New York city. We had frequent visits from friends whom we were glad to see.
Hither came Edward M. Davis, Sarah Pugh, Adeline Thompson, Frederick Cabot of Boston, Dr. William F. Channing, and sweet little Clara Spence, who recited for us some of the most beautiful selections in her repertoire.
In addition we had numberless letters from friends and foes, some praising and some condemning our proposed undertaking, and, though much alone, we were kept in touch with the outside world. But so conflicting was the tone of the letters that, if we had not taken a very fair gauge of ourselves and our advisers, we should have abandoned our project and buried all the valuable material collected, to sleep in pine boxes forever.
At this time I received a very amusing letter from the Rev. Robert Collyer, on ”literary righteousness,” quizzing me for using one of his anecdotes in my sketch of Lucretia Mott, without giving him credit. I laughed him to scorn, that he should have thought it was my duty to have done so. I told him plainly that he belonged to a cla.s.s of ”white male citizens,” who had robbed me of all civil and political rights; of property, children, and personal freedom; and now it ill became him to call me to account for using one of his little anecdotes that, ten to one, he had cribbed from some woman. I told him that I considered his whole cla.s.s as fair game for literary pilfering. That women had been taxed to build colleges to educate men, and if we could pick up a literary crumb that had fallen from their feasts, we surely had a right to it. Moreover, I told him that man's duty in the world was to work, to dig and delve for jewels, real and ideal, and lay them at woman's feet, for her to use as she might see fit; that he should feel highly complimented, instead of complaining, that he had written something I thought worth using. He answered like the n.o.bleman he is; susceptible of taking in a new idea. He admitted that, in view of the shortcomings of his entire s.e.x, he had not one word to say in the way of accusation, but lay prostrate at my feet in sackcloth and ashes, wondering that he had not taken my view of the case in starting.
Only twice in my life have I been accused of quoting without giving due credit. The other case was that of Matilda Joslyn Gage. I had, on two or three occasions, used a motto of hers in autograph books, just as I had sentiments from Longfellow, Lowell, Shakespeare, Moses, or Paul. In long lyceum trips innumerable autograph books met one at every turn, in the cars, depots, on the platform, at the hotel and in the omnibus. ”A sentiment, please,” cry half a dozen voices. One writes hastily different sentiments for each. In this way I unfortunately used a pet sentiment of Matilda's. So, here and now, I say to my autograph admirers, from New York to San Francisco, whenever you see ”There is a word sweeter than Mother, Home, or Heaven--that word is Liberty,”
remember it belongs to Matilda Joslyn Gage. I hope, now, that Robert and Matilda will say, in their posthumous works, that I made the _amende honorable_, as I always strive to do when friends feel they have not been fairly treated.
In May, 1881, the first volume of our History appeared; it was an octavo, containing 871 pages, with good paper, good print, handsome engravings, and nicely bound. I welcomed it with the same feeling of love and tenderness as I did my firstborn. I took the same pleasure in hearing it praised and felt the same mortification in hearing it criticised. The most hearty welcome it received was from Rev. William Henry Channing. He wrote us that it was as interesting and fascinating as a novel. He gave it a most flattering notice in one of the London papers. John W. Forney, too, wrote a good review and sent a friendly letter. Mayo W. Hazeltine, one of the ablest critics in this country, in the New York _Sun_, also gave it a very careful and complimentary review. In fact, we received far more praise and less blame than we antic.i.p.ated. We began the second volume in June. In reading over the material concerning woman's work in the War, I felt how little our labors are appreciated. Who can sum up all the ills the women of a nation suffer from war? They have all of the misery and none of the glory; nothing to mitigate their weary waiting and watching for the loved ones who will return no more.
In the spring of 1881, to vary the monotony of the work on the history, we decided to hold a series of conventions through the New England States. We began during the Anniversary week in Boston, and had several crowded, enthusiastic meetings in Tremont Temple. In addition to our suffrage meetings, I spoke before the Free Religious, Moral Education, and Heredity a.s.sociations. All our speakers stayed at the Parker House, and we had a very pleasant time visiting together in our leisure hours.
We were received by Governor Long, at the State House. He made a short speech, in favor of woman suffrage, in reply to Mrs. Hooker. We also called on the Mayor, at the City Hall, and went through Jordan & Marsh's great mercantile establishment, where the clerks are chiefly young girls, who are well fed and housed, and have pleasant rooms, with a good library, where they sit and read in the evening. We went through the Sherborn Reformatory Prison for Women, managed entirely by women. We found it clean and comfortable, more like a pleasant home than a place of punishment.
Mrs. Robinson, Miss Anthony, and I were invited to dine with the Bird Club. No woman, other than I, had ever had that honor before. I dined with them in 1870, escorted by ”Warrington” of the Springfield _Republican_ and Edwin Morton. There I met Frank Sanborn for the first time. Frank Bird held about the same place in political life in Ma.s.sachusetts, that Thurlow Weed did in the State of New York for forty years. In the evening we had a crowded reception at the home of Mrs.
Fenno Tudor, who occupied a fine old residence facing the Common, where we met a large gathering of Boston reformers. On Decoration Day, May 30, we went to Providence, where I was the guest of Dr. William F. Channing.