Part 25 (1/2)
”Of all the voices to which these walls have echoed for over half a century, how few remain to tell the story of the early days, and when we part, how few of us will ever meet again; but I know we shall carry with us some new inspiration for the work that still remains for us to do. Though many of us are old in years, we may still be young in heart. Women trained to concentrate all their thoughts on family life are apt to think--when their children are grown up, their loved ones gone, their servants trained to keep the domestic machinery in motion--that their work in life is done, that no one needs now their thought and care, quite forgetting that the hey-day of woman's life is on the shady side of fifty, when the vital forces heretofore expended in other ways are garnered in the brain, when their thoughts and sentiments flow out in broader channels, when philanthropy takes the place of family selfishness, and when from the depths of poverty and suffering the wail of humanity grows as pathetic to their ears as once was the cry of their own children.
”Or, perhaps, the pressing cares of family life ended, the woman may awake to some slumbering genius in herself for art, science, or literature, with which to gild the sunset of her life. Longfellow's beautiful poem, 'Morituri Salutamus,' written for a similar occasion to this, is full of hope and promise for all of us. He says:
”'Something remains for us to do or dare; Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers, When each had numbered more than four-score years.
And Theophrastus, at three-score and ten, Had but begun his Characters of Men; Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales, At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales; Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions; but they show How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow Into the Arctic regions of our lives, Where little else than life itself survives.
For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.'”
On December 21, 1892, we celebrated, for the first time, ”Foremothers'
Day.” Men had celebrated ”Forefathers' Day” for many years, but as women were never invited to join in their festivities, Mrs. Devereux Blake introduced the custom of women having a dinner in celebration of that day. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker spent two days with me, and together we attended the feast and made speeches. This custom is now annually observed, and gentlemen sit in the gallery just as ladies had done on similar occasions.
My son Theodore arrived from France in April, 1893, to attend the Chicago Exposition, and spent most of the summer with me at Glen Cove, Long Island, where my son Gerrit and his wife were domiciled. Here we read Captain Charles King's stories of life at military posts, Sanborn's ”Biography of Bronson Alcott,” and Lecky's ”History of Rationalism.”
Here I visited Charles A. Dana, the Nestor of journalism, and his charming family. He lived on a beautiful island near Glen Cove. His refined, artistic taste, shown in his city residence in paintings, statuary, and rare bric-a-brac, collected in his frequent travels in the Old World, displayed itself in his island home in the arrangement of an endless variety of trees, shrubs, and flowers, through which you caught glimpses of the Sound and distant sh.o.r.es. One seldom meets so gifted a man as the late editor of the _Sun_. He was a scholar, speaking several languages; an able writer and orator, and a most genial companion in the social circle. His wife and daughter are cultivated women. The name of this daughter, Zoe Dana Underhill, often appears in our popular magazines as the author of short stories, remarkable for their vivid descriptions.
I met Mr. Dana for the first time at the Brook Farm Community in 1843, in that brilliant circle of Boston transcendentalists, who hoped in a few years to transform our selfish, compet.i.tive civilization into a Paradise where all the altruistic virtues might make co-operation possible. But alas! the material at hand was not sufficiently plastic for that higher ideal. In due time the community dissolved and the members returned to their ancestral spheres. Margaret Fuller, who was a frequent visitor there, betook herself to matrimony in sunny Italy, William Henry Channing to the Church, Bronson Alcott to the education of the young, Frank Cabot to the world of work, Mr. and Mrs. Ripley to literature, and Charles A. Dana to the press. Mr. Dana was very fortunate in his family relations. His wife, Miss Eunice MacDaniel, and her relatives sympathized with him in all his most liberal opinions.
During the summer at Glen Cove I had the pleasure of several long conversations with Miss Frances L. MacDaniel and her brother Osborne, whose wife is the sister of Mr. Dana, and who is now a.s.sisting Miss Prestona Mann in trying an experiment, similar to the one at Brook Farm, in the Adirondacks.
Miss Anthony spent a week with us in Glen Cove. She came to stir me up to write papers for every Congress at the Exposition, which I did, and she read them in the different Congresses, adding her own strong words at the close. Mrs. Russell Sage also came and spent a day with us to urge me to write a paper to be read at Chicago at the Emma Willard Reunion, which I did. A few days afterward Theodore and I returned her visit. We enjoyed a few hours' conversation with Mr Sage, who had made a very generous gift of a building to the Emma Willard Seminary at Troy. This school was one of the first established (1820) for girls in our State, and received an appropriation from the New York legislature on the recommendation of the Governor, De Witt Clinton. Mr. Sage gave us a description that night of the time his office was blown up with dynamite thrown by a crank, and of his narrow escape. We found the great financier and his wife in an unpretending cottage with a fine outlook on the sea. Though possessed of great wealth they set a good example of simplicity and economy, which many extravagant people would do well to follow.
Having visited the World's Exposition at Chicago and attended a course of lectures at Chautauqua, my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, returned to the city, and as soon as our apartment was in order I joined her. She had recently been appointed Director of Physical Training at the Teachers' College in New York city. I attended several of her exhibitions and lectures, which were very interesting. She is doing her best to develop, with proper exercises and sanitary dress, a new type of womanhood.
My time pa.s.sed pleasantly these days with a drive in the Park and an hour in the land of Nod, also in reading Henry George's ”Progress and Poverty,” William Morris on industrial questions, Stevenson's novels, the ”Heavenly Twins,” and ”Marcella,” and at twilight, when I could not see to read and write, in playing and singing the old tunes and songs I loved in my youth. In the evening we played draughts and chess. I am fond of all games, also of music and novels, hence the days fly swiftly by; I am never lonely, life is ever very sweet to me and full of interest.
The winter of 1893-94 was full of excitement, as the citizens of New York were to hold a Const.i.tutional Convention. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi endeavored to rouse a new cla.s.s of men and women to action in favor of an amendment granting to women the right to vote. Appeals were sent throughout the State, gatherings were held in parlors, and enthusiastic meetings in Cooper Inst.i.tute and at the Savoy Hotel. My daughter, Mrs.
Stanton Blatch, who was visiting this country, took an active part in the canva.s.s, and made an eloquent speech in Cooper Inst.i.tute. Strange to say, some of the leading ladies formed a strong party against the proposed amendment and their own enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. They were called the ”Antis.” This opposing organization adopted the same plan for the campaign as those in favor of the amendment. They issued appeals, circulated pet.i.tions, and had hearings before the Convention.
Mrs. Russell Sage, Mrs. Henry M. Sanders, Mrs. Edward Lauterbach, Mrs.
Runkle, and some liberal clergymen did their uttermost to secure the insertion of the amendment in the proposed new const.i.tution, but the Committee on Suffrage of the Const.i.tutional Convention refused even to submit the proposed amendment to a vote of the people, though half a million of our most intelligent and respectable citizens had signed the pet.i.tion requesting them to do so. Joseph H. Choate and Elihu Root did their uttermost to defeat the amendment, and succeeded.
I spent the summer of 1894 with my son Gerrit, in his home at Thomaston, Long Island. Balzac's novels, and the ”Life of Thomas Paine” by Moncure D. Conway, with the monthly magazines and daily papers, were my mental pabulum. My daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, returned from England in September, 1894, having had a pleasant visit with her sister in Basingstoke. In December Miss Anthony came, and we wrote the woman suffrage article for the new edition of Johnson's Cyclopedia.
On March 3, 1895, Lady Somerset and Miss Frances Willard, on the eve of their departure for England, called to see me. We discussed my project of a ”Woman's Bible.” They consented to join a revising committee, but before the committee was organized they withdrew their names, fearing the work would be too radical. I especially desired to have the opinions of women from all sects, but those belonging to the orthodox churches declined to join the committee or express their views. Perhaps they feared their faith might be disturbed by the strong light of investigation. Some half dozen members of the Revising Committee began with me to write ”Comments on the Pentateuch.”
The chief thought revolving in my mind during the years of 1894 and 1895 had been ”The Woman's Bible.” In talking with friends I began to feel that I might realize my long-cherished plan. Accordingly, I began to read the commentators on the Bible and was surprised to see how little they had to say about the greatest factor in civilization, the mother of the race, and that little by no means complimentary. The more I read, the more keenly I felt the importance of convincing women that the Hebrew mythology had no special claim to a higher origin than that of the Greeks, being far less attractive in style and less refined in sentiment. Its objectionable features would long ago have been apparent had they not been glossed over with a faith in their divine inspiration.
For several months I devoted all my time to Biblical criticism and ecclesiastical history, and found no explanation for the degraded status of women under all religions, and in all the so-called ”Holy Books.”
When Part I. of ”The Woman's Bible” was finally published in November, 1895, it created a great sensation. Some of the New York city papers gave a page to its review, with pictures of the commentators, of its critics, and even of the book itself. The clergy denounced it as the work of Satan, though it really was the work of Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Lillie Devereux Blake, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Clara Bewick Colby, Ursula N. Gestefeld, Louisa Southworth, Frances Ellen Burr, and myself.
Extracts from it, and criticisms of the commentators, were printed in the newspapers throughout America, Great Britain, and Europe. A third edition was found necessary, and finally an edition was published in England. The Revising Committee was enlarged, and it now consists of over thirty of the leading women of America and Europe.[A]
The month of August, 1895, we spent in Peterboro, on the grand hills of Madison County, nine hundred feet above the valley. Gerrit Smith's fine old mansion still stands, surrounded with magnificent trees, where I had played in childhood, chasing squirrels over lawn and gardens and wading in a modest stream that still creeps slowly round the grounds. I recalled as I sat on the piazza how one time, when Frederick Dougla.s.s came to spend a few days at Peterboro, some Southern visitors wrote a note to Mr. Smith asking if Mr. Dougla.s.s was to sit in the parlor and at the dining table; if so, during his visit they would remain in their own apartments. Mr. Smith replied that his visitors were always treated by his family as equals, and such would be the case with Mr. Dougla.s.s, who was considered one of the ablest men reared under ”The Southern Inst.i.tution.” So these ladies had their meals in their own apartments, where they stayed most of the time, and, as Mr. Dougla.s.s prolonged his visit, they no doubt wished in their hearts that they had never taken that silly position. The rest of us walked about with him, arm in arm, played games, and sang songs together, he playing the accompaniment on the guitar. I suppose if our prejudiced countrywomen had been introduced to Dumas in a French salon, they would at once have donned their bonnets and ran away.
Sitting alone under the trees I recalled the different generations that had pa.s.sed away, all known to me. Here I had met the grandfather, Peter Sken Smith, partner of John Jacob Astor. In their bargains with the Indians they acquired immense tracts of land in the Northern part of the State of New York, which were the nucleus of their large fortunes. I have often heard Cousin Gerrit complain of the time he lost managing the estate. His son Greene was an enthusiast in the natural sciences and took but little interest in property matters. Later, his grandson, Gerrit Smith Miller, a.s.sumed the burden of managing the estate and, in addition, devoted himself to agriculture. He imported a fine breed of Holstein cattle, which have taken the first prize at several fairs. His son, bearing the same name, is devoted to the natural sciences, like his uncle Greene; whose fine collection of birds was presented by his widow to Harvard College.