IRLF SB E73 LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. OF" C/ass if The Mother of Clubs OF THE UNIVERSITY OF The Mother of Clubs CAROLINE M. SEYMOUR SEVERANCE An Estimate and an Appreciation ELLA GILES RUDDY EDITOR "The Eternally Feminine Leads Us Upward and On." Goethe BAUMGARDT PUBLISHING CO. 1906 Copyright 1906 Baumgardt Publishing Company Table of Contents FOREWORD 13 CHAPTER I THE GENESIS AND PURPOSE OF THE CLUB IDEA 21 History of the Initiative of Woman's Clubs in America. CHAPTER II FROM BOSTON TO LOS ANGELES 30 Farewell Luncheon given by New England Woman's Club. Addresses and letters to New England Woman's Club. CHAPTER III WOMAN'S CLUB AND FRIDAY MORNING CLUB OF LOS AN- GELES 44 First Club in Los Angeles. Friday Morning Club. Addresses to Friday Morning Club. CHAPTER IV A BIT OF PERSONAL EVOLUTION S4 Address before Congress of Religions, Los Angeles. 155772 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER V LETTEBS AND ADDKESSES 63 Letter to Association for the Advancement of Women. 1894. Letter to Woman's Congress. 1894. Address before Woman's Parliament of Southern California. Kemarks before Woman's Club of Santa Barbara. Address to Twentieth Century Club of San Francisco. General Federation; Papers and Addresses. 1902. Introducing Miss Anthony at Venice Assembly, Cal., 1905. CHAPTER VI CONTRIBUTIONS TO CUKKENT THOUGHT 78 Peace Memorial. Words to Mothers. The Ideal Home. The Kindergarten in Los Angeles. Christian Socialism. Letter Written for Woman's Socialist Gathering. Letter to a Multi-Millionaire. The Beauties of Los Angeles. The New Italy. Other Topics. CHAPTER VII EEMINISCENCES 108 John G. Whittier. Memories of Emerson. Wendell Phillips. The Garrisons. The Beechers. Julia Ward Howe. Jennie C. Croly. The Fremonts. Helen Hunt Jackson. Kate Douglas Wiggin Eastern Press Women. California Friends. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS WRITTEN TO MADAME SEVER- ANCE 142 Lucy Stone. Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Dr. Marie Zakrzewska. Julia A. Sprague. Sophia Townsend. Abby Gould Woolson. Madame Helena Modjeska. Susan Look Avery. Helen Gardner. Lucretia B. Garfield. Jane L. Stanford. Georgia B. Ferguson. Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Mary Newberry Adams. Mrs. Jennie DeWitt. Mrs. Helen Densmore. Lillian Whiting. Elizabeth B. Custer. Sarah Burger Stearns. Mary Florence Denton. Will Allen Dromgoole. William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. N. 0. Nelson. Charles Ferguson. Mr. and Mrs. Louis Prang. Henry Demarest Lloyd. William E. Smythe. B. Fay Mills. J. Stitt Wilson. Charles F. Lummis. Bishop Montgomery. Dr. John R. Haynes. CHAPTER IX "EL NIDO," The Home "Nest" 182 FOREWORD It was in 1869 that the editor of this volume first met Madame Severance not in the flesh, but in the spirit. "Eminent Women of the Age" was the imposing title of a book published in that year. Among the various sketches the pages relating to Mrs. Severance were especially interesting. Here may be inserted a quotation from Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, written thirty-seven years ago : "Mrs. Severance now resides in West Newton, a suburb of Boston, where she is living a quiet life in a beautiful home. She is using her pen in a way which she hopes will some day prove a means of broader influence. In manner and appearance, Mrs. Severance is very attractive. She has a handsome face and figure, dignified carriage and fine conversational powers. She is an amiable, affectionate, conscientious woman, faithful alike in her private and public duties." Although brief, the article was lively and tactful. Mrs. Stanton had requested a sketch of Mrs. Severance, nolens volens, stating that it rested with herself whether the article should be an objective view, such as could be taken a hundred miles away, or a subjective one taken by being en rapport with her through frank correspondence. Mrs. Severance chose the latter and wrote the following letter : Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dear Friend: Isn't this an interesting dilemma, to find one's self in, to be exhibited whether you will or not? One who has reached years of discretion surely, in our free land, to have no chance of a choice, whether to remain incog, or be set on high for all the daws to peck at? But to this we have come at last and in my extremity, if I may choose nothing else, I surely shall snatch at the chance to say by whom this most undesirable service shall be performed and I gladly submit to your second choice. I have done so little to justify my years that I might shrink from such a sketch as you propose with better reason than could influence Cfte Sjjot&er of Clubs many of our sex. But lest you should think my humility affectation, I frankly avow that I was born in Canandaigua, New York, in January, 1820, if you consider date and birthplace important to the sketch; of neither poor nor pious parents, although cultivated, conscientious persons. My father's name was Orson Seymour, a banker, and my mother's name was Caroline M. Clarke. I was married in 1840 to Theodoric C. Severance, a banker of Cleveland, Ohio. Neither the world nor my historian would have any particular in- terest in what I said or did after that remarkable event of January 12th, and the good sense of choosing so beautiful a portion of the earth's surface for a birthplace, until the mother of five children, with little experience in life and less in society, having devoted myself to home and books, I was chosen in 1853 to read, before the ' ' Mercantile Library Association" of Cleveland, the first lecture ever delivered by a. woman before such a society. My subject was "Humanity; a Definition and a Plea." I had already been identified with the Woman's Eights movement, having at- tended conventions in Indiana, Ohio and New York; and this accounts for my invitation on this occasion. I cannot tell you how long I hesi- tated about accepting this position. The more I pleaded my unfitness, the more I was pressed with a sense of duty, and at last I wrote the most exhaustive essay I could on the subject, to make sure that my city should have all that could be said upon it. An immense audience lis- tened, with becoming silence and respect, through an hour and three- quarters. This lecture I repeated several times in different parts of the state. After that the Ohio "Woman's Rights Association" asked me to prepare a tract for its circulation. Later, I was appointed to present to the Legislature a memorial, asking suffrage and such amendments to the state laws of Ohio, as should place woman on a civil equality with man. In 1855 we came to Massachusetts, the home of my heart always, and here I have done nothing deserving the punishment of public ex- posure, that I now remember against myself, until as one of the lecture committee of the "Theodore Parker Fraternity Association," it became my duty to assist in securing a woman lecturer for the course. We invited you, Mrs. Stanton, but when, at the last moment, you were obliged to disappoint us, I was not able to resist the entreaties of the committee and the obligation that I felt myself under to make good your place, so far as in me lay. That was, I believe, the first lecture ever delivered in Boston by a woman befor.e a Lyceum Association. I will not tell you how prosy and dull I fear it was; but I know it was earnest and well considered, and that the beaming eyes of dear Mrs. Follen and Miss Elizabeth Peabody, glowing with interest before me from below the platform of Tremont Temple, kept me in heart all through. Since then, from want of gifts and voice, I have not spoken much in public, though I have given soul-service in many directions, standing of CIu60 15 as corresponding secretary for the Boston Anti-slavery Society, as one of the Board of Managers of the Boston Woman's Hospital, and reading a course of lectures on practical ethics before Dio Lewis' school for girls, at Lexington, Mass. These lectures cover the relation of the young woman to the school, the State, the home, and to her own development. As a mother, I am happy to say that my sons and daughter have never disgraced, and I see no reason to believe, ever will dishonor my name, or bring in question my influence over them or fidelity to them. Pure in heart, noble in all their tastes and tendencies, they are my joy in the present, my hope in the future and my best legacy to it. Here you have me, my good friend, in a nut-shell, not multum in parvo, it must be confessed. Yours sincerely, C. M. S." The utilization of the truth, the goodness, the intelligence of the literary and philanthropic women of New England, and the vast benefits which she foresaw would flow from such a union, was a problem over which Mrs. Severance pondered long and which she finally solved by calling sympathetic women to- gether in parlor meetings to talk over her ideas. It is a far cry from the club organizations of today to these women who, in 1868, dimly catching the outline themselves, in- troduced to the world a new form of social and mental architec- ture. What is now an old ambition among women the form- ation of a club for the purpose of general, or literary, culture, or for civic improvement, was at that time a new departure. Up to this time there had been no women 's clubs, distinctively so-called or so-organized, so far as these women knew; or as recorded by Mrs. Croly, after an exhaustive research for her "History of the Club Movement." Mrs. Severance, as founder and first president of the first woman's club in our country the New England Woman's Club of Boston, builded an ideal of a broader and more symmetrical fellowship of women than had hitherto existed. There are recognized leaders of certain special movements and these are epoch-making men and women. To speak of the "Mother of Clubs" is to suggest a tremendous mental and social force in the world of women. And as the thrones of the eternal fern- 16 Cfte a^otftet of Clubs inine cannot be perpetually located far from the seats of the mighty masculine, the world of women must be inclusive. It means eventually the world of men and women. The "Mother of Clubs" should be no shadowy figure; histor^ ical significance attaches to her personality. She is not a mere fiction, but a solid fact in American history. She is generally recognized by the best authorities on the subject, as the prima] force in a movement that has become a stupendous factor in our civilization. "Madame Momentum" would be a fitting name for Madame Severance. She has within her what one of her friends aptly terms the "divine urge." Her pioneer work in this and in many other organizations in New England and in California has proved a forceful argument, if any were needed, in establishing her inherent right to many of the honors attached to club motherhood. In this connection, a letter of Mrs. J. C. Croly, author of "The History of the Woman's Club Movement in America," will be interesting tes- timony. NEW YORK STATE FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS AND SOCIETIES. September 15, 1896. My dear Mrs. Severance: Perhaps you will have noticed by the report of the G. F. W. C., that it has been assigned to me to write the history of the club movement. My object in sending you this trouble- some letter is to ask you for a brief resumS of the true inwardness of the beginning of the New England Woman's Club. I have two sketches, printed at different times, which widely differ. Mrs. Diaz gave another version with the names of the men at first associated with it, at Bay View, Mich., last summer. I wrote to Mrs. Alice Ives Breed, and she wrote me back that I had given her a very difficult task; that one after another, Mrs. Cheney and other leaders to whom she had applied, had referred her to some one else; but every one had been "supremely indifferent" and didn't care about it one way or another. I only want the truth of history. You were the first president, and your character is such that the word from you will be accepted as indisputable. I have only a line in which to say that certain representative clubs will receive special attention. Among these is the "Friday Morning Club." Will you be so good as to present my requirement of a brief, C6e Sgot&er of Clu6 IT but intelligent summary, of the Club's life, work, methods; its great leaders and founder photos or block pictures of them, and also club insignia, colors, and motto, if it has any; or any picture of club rooms, library or outgrowth. Dear Mrs. Severance, please send me your own picture, not only as founder, but as one of the first club women in America, and if you could accompany it with an outdoor, or indoor, glimpse of your California home, it shall be reproduced, in order to give an environment of which I have heard a fascinating description. If you have any printed sketch of your own life, I shall be most grateful for it. The vast correspondence this work entails, and the very short time allotted for it, must be my excuse for killing as many birds as possible with one stone. Any suggestions, or any help from anyone, in the interest of a faithful record, I shall be most grateful for. With warm admiration and a life-long regard, I am, really and sin- cerely yours, J. C. CKOLY. There are numerous other opinions as to the value of the club movement in America, which Madame Severance keenly appre- ciates. One of these is from the pen of her life-long friend, Olive Thome Miller: 1 'The more one thinks upon the state of public opinion a quarter of a century ago, the more one is impressed with the bravery of the two little groups of women in Boston and in New York, who dared to form a Woman's Club. Never in the his- tory of the world has there been an institution that has done so much for women, and its work is only begun. And how wisely they did it, too, in their different lines ! Women will yet crown these sisters who caught the first gleams of the rising sun of womanhood, crystallized their hopes, their ambitions, their prophecies, in the Woman's Club. Its progress is a stately march down the ages with which, sooner or later, every woman will keep step, and with results to the race which no one can predict. " Octave Thanet writes: "The women's clubs consist of the picked women of the country, who have position, wealth, brains and culture and the trained ability to use it all to the last inch of value. This tremendous power is called into being at a time full of great and terrible problems. The century will soon see is Cl)e 0oti)tr of Clubs enormous changes. * * * * Here comes in the burden of the woman, as well as of our brothers, * * * * but the work of the women must be intelligent and well directed." The commendation of Jacob Riis greatly pleases Madame Severance: "I find women's clubs a great moral force; some- times the only conspicuous moral force in a city ; when there is no moral grip on anything, a woman 's club furnishes it. ' ' On a recent visit to El Nido, Madame Severance's home,Char- lotte Perkins Stetson wrote: "The essential benefit of the woman's club is that it trains women in 'team' work, in the great human force of organization. Whether the club is large or small, whether it works for civic improvement or to under- stand poetry, its effort is organized effort; its aim, a common end. Therefore, the woman whose range of life was wholly per- sonal, learns gradually to enter human relationships, to care for the general good, and to work for it. "If the women in a club behave foolishly, are childishly sensi- tive, irrational, just remember they were that before in the home-life that made them so ; and that if they had not joined the club, they could not have grown beyond these follies." Her friend, Mary Newberry Adams has written: "If I wanted to make a club take hold with interest on so- cial affairs and civil reform, I would recommend to it the study of civics, as influenced by women; what I call 'matriot- Ism,' which includes education, religion, industrial art and arts; while the study of patriotism is law, war, government, finance, building, and so on.* * * * The clubs are so numerous and so interlocked in their interests, yet each having an individ- ual character of its own, that one must go often and stay long to enjoy them. The clubs are an 'institution* now, like the church, a post-graduate course for college, a rendezvous to discuss social questions." It has been a great pleasure to the editor to search for bi- ographical, scientific, physiological and psychical facts concern- ing Madame Severance; and in this estimate and appreci- ation, she attempts to speak for hundreds of men and women MADAME SEVERANCE IN THE EMERSON CORNER OF THE EDITOR'S HOME. f)c CQotber of Clubs 19 who, for long years, have known the "Mother of Clubs " as an individual and by her wide reputation. In her eighty-seventh year, with mind still active, eager and alert, Madame Severance is a center of light for those who are in sympathy with the broadest humanitarian impulses, who love the loftiest literature and who believe in the highest life. ELLA GILES RUDDY. Los Angeles, 1904. Note. The thanks of Madame Severance and the editor are due Miss Rose L. Ellerbe for her invaluable aid in the prepara- tion of this volume. "No country seems to owe so much to its women as America to owe to them so much of what is best in its social institutions and in the beliefs that govern conduct." Prof. James Bryce. THE GENESIS AND PURPOSE OF THE CLUB IDEA. A PAPEE BY MADAME SEVEEANCE. (Printed in the Eighties.) A hope begun In doubt and darkness 'neath a fairer sun Cometh to fruitage, if it be of Truth; And to the law of meekness, faith and ruth, By inward sympathy, shall all be won. James Eussell Lowell. For many years I have been entreated by my friends to put on permanent record my memory of the beginnings of club-life for the women of our country. To make a satisfactory record, I must begin with the advent of the club-idea in my own mind in the early fifties while living in Cleveland. The first fifteen years of my married life were passed in that city, which was then a frontier town, with schools and churches galore, and with a Library Association, but with few intellectual resources beyond these. I hailed, therefore, with delight the coming to our lecture platforms of eminent wise men and women from the East. I was especially attracted and influenced by Emerson and by Bronson Alcott, for whom we arranged parlor meetings, their themes being on too lofty a plane of scholarship and thought to win them popular audiences. Alcott was often my guest, and on these occasions we talked far into the night of the group of men and women who had made New England and Boston famous in the world of letters, morals, and unfettered thought. I betrayed to our Plato my inextinguishable longing to ex- change Ohio for Massachusetts, as a place of residence, in order to gain the advantage of Harvard for my sons and of the best schools for my daughter, as well as to gratify my own desire 21 22 Cfte fit&otfier of Clu&$ to "touch, if only with extremest flounce, the circle" of noble women. He replied that if I wished to live in Boston for its broader and finer atmosphere, I would not be disappointed ; but that my hope to meet easily the wise women in literature, re- form work, and so on, would not be realized, for they were wide- ly scattered in different circles, churches and suburbs. In my zeal I argued, and finally convinced him, that it might not be impossible to bring these noble women together on some com- mon ground of fellowship and service. On his visits thereafter, and later in Boston, Mr. Alcott, with his ardent faith in woman and her limitless sphere of activity and influence, was the stead- fast friend of club-life for women. I cannot say confidently, after this lapse of time, and in the absence of data, whether this idea of the possibilities and gains of club life for women came to me from the fact of the exist- ence of men's clubs, or whether I was then aware, through the " English Woman's Journal," edited by Emily Faithful, of the formation of clubs for women in England. However that may be, when in 1855 we left Cleveland for Boston, I went with this hope hid in my heart, and for this and for other high reasons with an ecstacy of expectation for our future, seldom ex- ceeded by any "passionate pilgrim" to the shrines of Mecca, Lourdes or Palestine. During the three years of settling into the new home and life, and finding my footing socially as chance offered, I began to agitate gently the club idea. My early membership on the board of the New England Hospital for Women and Children deepened my desire for closer fellowship with the rare women with whom I was associated; gave me manifold opportunities for discussing the project so dear to me, and made more evident the need for a quiet and central place where friends might meet informally, and thus avoid the waste of time and strength involved in going from one suburb, crossing the city in a slow omnibus, and catching a train to another suburb, perhaps to find a friend going through the same useless process. For we had no telephones or "at home" days then. Cfte @otfcer of Clubs The engrossing preparations for service during the civil war were upon us, while we were still active in the broadening field of our hospital enterprise, and many women, of all circles, de- voted themselves unsparingly, as elsewhere throughout the land, to the work of the "Sanitary Commission," the "Freedman's Bureau/' etc. When the stress of that terrible experience was passed, many women who had discovered their own capacity for public effort, and learned the lesson of working harmoniously together for common interests and aims, were prepared and in- clined, to put the same faculties to use in other urgent special ways. And thus our chats over the club idea as a possibility came to action in a series of parlor meetings. Among others with whom I had discussed the possibilities was Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, who had won by her personal ability and success a large practice under a title which no medical school would then confer. She opened her home for some of our earliest meetings to consider the project. Mrs. Harriet Winslow Sewall and her sympathetic husband also opened their picturesque country home for our meetings. Lucy Goddard, a brilliant woman and most helpful member of James Freeman Clarke's "Church of the Disciples," was one of the early advocates of the idea, as was Abby May. Among the most valued movers in the cause was Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, who had accepted a position on the faculty of a so-called "Woman's Medical College, on the condition that a hospital should be established in which the students could receive practical in- struction and that some earnest friends of her own should be put upon the board. We had to meet, as you may imagine, opposition from the public and the press and also from some of the husbands, who feared the effects of club life upon the interests of the home. Husbands who had, no doubt, urged their wives into the bur- densome and absorbing war-time activities, now objected to the new movement, possibly from a half-conscious fear that our clubs might be modeled on the already existing clubs for men. On March 10, 1868, officers were elected, a constitution adopted, and systematic club life then began. Against my 24 c&e figotjjer of Clu60 earnest protests my name was unanimously proposed for pres- ident and I, who had so slight claim to the office, in past ex- perience or in qualifications, was obliged to face the duty bravely in the presence of Boston culture and of speakers and guests of renown. The title of "club" had been chosen after considerable dis- cussion as being broad, significant and novel, and with the hope and the promise to the few objectors, that it would be redeemed from the objectionable features of many of the clubs of men. It was claimed to be an escape from the old special titles used for women 's unions, in church and other activities, while in- clusive of all these within its membership, and therefore sig- nificant of a new departure in fellowship and effort. It was a ''woman's club" an unknown quantity heretofore and therefore novel. The historian of the club in searching for the etymology of the title found it defined in Anglo-Saxon and in German as "to embrace," "to adhere," which well covers the sincere, cordial companionship and the faithful adherence of the membership of women's clubs as since developed. Club rooms were first secured in quiet, but central Tremont Place, near to suburban trains and in the rear of the popular Tremont House. On May 30, 1868, the first meeting to intro- duce the New England Woman's Club to the public was held in Chickering Hall. At this meeting such able friends and ad- visers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, Jacob Manning, John Weiss, 0. B. Frothingham, Thomas Went- worth Higginson, Bronson Alcott, Julia W. Howe and Mrs. E. D. Cheney were the speakers. The president stated the purposes of the club as "To organ- ize the social forces of the women of New England, now work- ing nobly in small circles and in solitary ways, and to econ- omize time and strength so valuable as theirs by making this center of thought and action, also a center of comfort and con- veniencea larger home for those who love and labor for the greater human family. Its plan involves no special pledge to any one form of activity, but implies only a womanly interest in Cftc 0otfjer of Clubs all true thought and effort on behalf of woman, and of society in general, for which women are so largely responsible." Mrs. Julia Ward Howe added that, "Although seemingly feeble, we are the suggestion of a mighty theme," and spoke of the need of combining "recreation with the pursuit of wis- dom." Mrs. E. D. Cheney spoke of the comforts of the club to the lonely, in city and suburb, and of its proposed useful work in a registry of women seeking the so-called higher occu- pations, and of providing rooms for women who came to Boston for concerts, operas lectures, and so on. Singularly enough, our scholarly brothers, Weiss and Frothingham, while endorsing the social and intellectual features of the program, emphasized, most strongly the material side in the registry, and the dealing with the servant question. The program first adopted for the New England Woman's Club will show its scope and activities. The meetings were held upon Mondays. The first Monday of the month was de- voted to the committee on "Art and Literature," of which Mrs. Howe was chairman. The session was followed by a simple tea, which function was made memorable by the brilliant bon- mots of its presiding officer, and the prose, poetry and repartee of other members. The committees on Work, Education and Discussion, filled the succeeding Mondays and the occasional fifth Monday was given over to the Recreation committee which provided entertainments in the club rooms, or, in summer time, delightful picnic parties at the beautiful country homes of the members, or in quiet groves within reach of Boston. Among the accomplishments of this club during the busy years of its existence have been many worthy of more than passing note. One of the first of these was the establishment of a Horticultural School, for women^ in which the pupils erected their own greenhouses and painted the buildings ; which school was later merged into the "Bussey," a department of Harvard. The efforts of the club secured the passage of the first school- suffrage law in the country. This permitted women to be elected as members of the Boston school board, and of other 26 cfee ^otftet of school boards. Under it, two members of the club held office as school supervisors for many years. The club aided, by funds and helpers, in the establishment of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, which was officered and man- aged by women, with eminent doctors of the other sex as con- sulting physicians. In co-operation with the Honorable Josiah Quincy, Dr. Bowditch and others, the club joined in the incor- poration of a "Co-operative Building Association," to which our able member, Abby May, gave most earnest work as an official. This Association proved to be a safe business venture, even at low rates of interest, and a great assistance to the poor but self-respecting wage-earner, as well as an object lesson to the philanthropists of other cities. The club also provided scholarships in Boston and other Universities, for studious young women; aided in the noble work of its honorary member, "Saint Elizabeth" Peabody, in establishing the Kindergarten system ; and used its weighty in- fluence to promote the higher education of women, one of the means employed being the sending out of circulars through- out the state, which resulted in the founding of the Girl's Latin School, of Boston. In legislation the New England Woman's Club began the agi- tation which resulted in the appointment of police matrons in the large cities; of a needed change in the "age of consent" law; and placed women on the boards of all public in- stitutions. A notable result of the latter law was the astonish- ingly successful career of Mrs. Johnson, as superintendent of the Sherborne prison for women. Homes of detention for women were also a result of the action of the club. It aided the fund of the Egyptian Exploration society, joined the Archaeological Institute of Greece, and abetted the efforts of the New York Society for the suppression of ob- scene literature. After a most impressive address by our honorary member, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, on "Reform in Dress," of which her own simple and suitable clothing was a consistent example, the e Qiotfcer of Clu60 27 club ventured on a hazardous crusade by forming a committee, of which the president was chairman, Dr. and Mrs. Dio Lewis and Dr. Mary Safford, the latter an active worker on the San- itary commission, were members, with our clever Abby Gould Woolson as secretary and historian. This committee prepared designs for a healthful and sensible dress, which were ap- proved by the club officials, by artists and by physicians, and which created so much interest when exhibited, that church parlors and vestries were thrown open for further exhibits and two eminent physicians declined to treat patients who would not wear these garments. The committee found itself an invol- untary bureau of correspondence and advice, receiving inquiries from far and near; it opened a sales-room for the reform gar- ments and the business, when well established, was successfully disposed of. So the movement grew and prospered and the words " dress reform," so long reviled, became honorable and their copyright saleable. But alas for the millennium which we saw in the near future ! We reckoned without our despotic host, Fashion. She soon changed all that and only left us, as one of its temporary loans, the short skirt for outdoor sports. Aside from its outside work, the club arranged classes in English literature, languages, etc.; as early as 1876 it had classes in political economy, and in 1891 formed a "Current Topics" class. The discussion under these various topics shows a wide range of interest and courageous hospitality ; club mem- bers listened to experts upon such subjects as Political Devel- opment, Railroad Laws, Prohibition Laws, George's "Progress and Poverty," Sumner's "Obligations of the Social Class," Bryce's "American Commonwealth," Socialism of Today, Mun- icipal Reform, Rent, The Lobby System, The Silver Question, Food Waste, Prison Reform, The Responsibility of the Em- ployer and the Employed, as well as many special topics bear- ing upon the standing of woman and her influence in all depart- ments of human activity. Charming receptions were given by the club for Monsieur Co- querel, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emily Faithful, Mary Car- Cfte 6ot6er of Clubg penter, Lord and Lady Amberly ; for Harriet Hosmer and Anne Whitney, our women sculptors; Professor Maria Mitchell and Dr. Parsons, the Dante scholar; Professors Pierce and Gould, Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Professor John Fiske, and endless other notables. Anniversaries and silver weddings of the mem- bers were celebrated, and memorial services for many dis- tinguished personages were held. This diversity of activities and of sympathy illustrates well the broad purpose and intent of the originators of club-life for American women. The first president continued in office until 1875, although her absence in the south and in Washington made the vice- president the presiding officer for the last two years of this time. Upon her departure for California in 1875, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe was made president of the New England Woman 's Club, and she still continues graciously to honor the office. An amiable controversy still lingers among us over the date of the earliest Woman's Club in our country. I beg to refer you for its settlement to the records as given in Mrs. Croly's "Club Movement in America/' For myself, my non arithmetic- al mind falters before the somewhat rambling dates given there as the real birthday of the New York Sorosis. They seem to indicate a slight difference only, in days or in weeks, between its birth and that of the New England Woman's Club. Kate Field reported to the New York women, in a complimentary way, that the " Boston women are already in action and know what they want." But no date to this letter is given. The title of the "twin clubs" was given to the two organizations later by a witty member of the Century Club of San Francisco. For myself, I am quite content to be called, with the honored Jennie Croly, one of the grandmothers of our first Woman's Clubs, now distanced by the prosperity and numbers of their brilliant progeny. The seed thus sown has been nurtured by our successors until its branches cover all the cities and byways of the land. The Federation of Women's Clubs, an almost countless number has an immense personal membership and is, there- fore, a power for good which is almost limitless, to which Cfte figjot&er of Clu60 29 nothing can be impossible if it once joins hands and hearts. This was foreseen and longed for by the founders. The clubs of Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, New Orleans and many other localities, are now recognized as faithful and able factors in the service of their communities, and we may add to this list the clubs of our beloved and needy Los Angeles. May our children and our race reap the fruitage of all this early and faithful sowing! H. FROM BOSTON TO LOS ANGELES. Born of the oldest East, I seek only rest, In the fair city of the youngest west. Charles Warren Stoddard. The history of the New England Woman's Club was written by its own official historian, Julia A. Sprague, and published by Lee and Shepard, Boston, in 1894. She wrote : "We gave a farewell luncheon to our first president, Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, when, in 1875 she left us for what was then far away California ; and in 1881 we greeted with joy her return visit." Among the incidents of this reception is mentioned a remin- iscence in verse ; from the amusing stanzas may be culled four lines : There Severance, Howe and Cheney sat; Peabody, Woolson, Brown, While Kendall, May and Sewell led The converse up and down. Since those days other women, not so famous, but undoubt- edly quite as sparkling in a social sense, have been the shining constellations revolving around the central spirit, as the found- er and first president of the Friday Morning Club, of Los An- geles, in 1891. It is the successor to an earlier Woman's Club, which Mrs. Severance had founded and which lapsed during her two absences in the east. Those occasions in Boston when Mrs. Severance and Mrs. Rebecca Spring, of Los Angeles, were present, have been vividly recalled more than once for the edifying pleasure of large circles of men and women who enjoy hearing of the poets, phil- osophers and philanthropists of early American history from I)C QDOtftCC Of CIU&0 31 eye-witnesses and ear-listeners. Those were times of delight and of trial, days of " wisdom, wit and indignation, that are unforgettable," terms used by Emerson in quite another channel, but which may be appropriate in connection with Mrs. Severance's knowledge of literary, philosophical, and emanci- pation beginnings in New England. But what was there in the character of the Mother of Clubs that made her what is sometimes called a creative, historical influence? It was her supreme desire to serve; "Heart-life is- suing in helpfulness," as another has expressed it. She was not seeking to distinguish herself above other women, but to carry forward certain high purposes through those to whom she looked up; and to be a quiet, impelling force, and to in- spire concentrated usefulness, by enkindling their best thought and extending it. If there were any personal gain for herself, it was to come through the conscious happiness of helpfulness. Says the above-named historian of the first club, after all evidence widely considered, and referring to Mrs. Severance, "There are a few private letters which have been preserved, that show her anxiety to do the right thing to insure success to the new cause, and they are examples of the purest unselfish- ness. ' ' The editor of this volume has in her possession several letters exchanged among Boston women of the long-ago, who are loyal to their first club leader. Some of them have not enjoyed see- ing credit misapplied ; but they all show breadth of spirit ; and while true to Mrs. Severance, as they believe the mother of all American women's clubs, they express due appreciation of her talented successors and contemporaries. Of the farewell entertainment given in honor of its first pres- ident by the New England Woman's Club, there are many ac- counts. She was about to leave for what Emerson had called the "new and unapproachable west." It was a goodly com- pany, indeed, that gathered to bid the travelers God-speed. Mary A. Livermore, Elizabeth Peabody, Bronson and Louisa Alcott, Lucy Stone, James Freeman Clarke, William Lloyd Gar- 32 Cfte Qgotfter of rison, Ednah D. Cheney and Julia Ward Howe, were among the illustrious men and women who thus expressed apprecia- tion of their fellow-philanthropist. Those who realize how many avenues of usefulness have been opened in Los Angeles through the direct influence of Madame Severance, can testify to the fulfilment of Mrs. Livermore's prophecy; when voicing the regret of Mrs. Severance's co- workers at losing her, she is reported as saying, " We can better spare her when we think that we are sending Mrs. Severance forth as a pioneer among western women, in the line of club and other work, for the cause of humanity at large." A letter written by Madame Severance to the New England Women's Club, in May, 1881, evidently previous to her first return there, shows the depth of her love and loyalty to it : ' 'Dear friends: I stretch my eyes and my hands longingly toward you. My heart bounds to be with you during this jubi- lee week of the New England year. But it is not wise to forego just yet the quiet and rest of my California exile. * * The club is only a larger home which welcomes and harmonizes ; it strives to bring into broader and finer relations to each other all vari- eties of taste, temperament and purpose, so these be only help- ful and noble. While nothing human is foreign to its sym- pathies, the vital interests of woman and the home lie nearest to its heart and prompt its efforts." The manifold papers and letters written by Madame Sever- ance for the Boston clubs and journals are all silent proofs of her intense desire to realize the high calling of women ; to see them utilize to the full, "not only the new opportunities of their club life for social development within that life, but to make all this helpful to the outside world for civic betterment." Indeed, Madame Severance has said that she is prone to make a pulpit of her platform and often suspects that her listeners may recall the reply of Charles Lamb to Coleridge when asked if he had ever heard him preach. "I've never heard you do anything else," Lamb replied. C&e Q^ot&er of CIu60 33 AN ADDRESS OP MADAME SEVERANCE BEFORE THE NEW ENG- LAND WOMAN'S CLUB, ON HER RETURN VISIT IN 1881. ''It gives me unspeakable pleasure to look once more into your friendly faces ; to find myself once more in the atmosphere of your presence, and of New England genuineness of character and steadfastness of purpose. Only the exiles from all this can comprehend and share the joy of my return to it. "Looking at our New England Club through the long vista of such space and contrasts as my late absence has given me, you will not wonder that its value and its blessings have grown upon me. The public, the associated action of women, is of so recent a date, and is, as yet, so crude and ill-balanced, as is all transitional effort, that one turns with a * Thank God' to the refreshment and satisfaction of a body whose judgment and good sense are not overcome by the zeal without knowledge of the fanatic; but whose motto, 'never hasting, never resting,' is in the line of all true progress. "I return to find my pleasant dream of the 'ideal Club' as a fellowship of women, as a 'center of unity of thought and action' by woman and for woman, coming to be a reality. * * * * * The experiments of the past few years, in the free and full discussion of many valuable papers upon educational and general topics, will inevitably train women to think on their feet, which is still an uncommon accomplishment among us. The double purpose of the club associate effort and counsel, and associate recreation is emphasized, however unconscious- ly, by the very criticism we hear upon it. It does offer and aims to offer, both work and rest; rest, in variety of work, or in quiet sympathy and genuine fellowship to those of its already overtaxed members who seek such relief ; and to the young and free, it offers work, such as their capacities and tastes may in- dicate, arranged and sanctioned by the more matronly and ex- perienced members of the executive board. 34 Cfte Sgot&er of Clu60 " Certainly a dispassionate observer of the public action of women must often find it difficult to pronounce Mr. Beecher's tremendous and emphatic, 'Nevertheless, brethren, I am in favor of women as helpers in our social church meetings.' This was given after the third verbatim repetition of a com- monplace and inconsequent prayer by the only woman who had ventured to improve the new opportunity offered in his church. * * * If we have not yet solved all of the difficulties re- lating to the position and power of our tiers etat, of our large membership, some of whom are as yet unknown to us, and in a measure unwilling to be drafted into any form of service, it is because we are aiming to prevent our work and our purpose from being thwarted by rash, tyrannic impulse. 1 'It were well, it seems to me, to disabuse the public mind of the impressions that have gained currency somewhat, name- ly: that our Club is a center of formidable criticism and of overpowering intellectual effort ; that it is devoted, or commit- ted to any one idea or purpose; that it is intended to be ex- clusive and is unnecessarily difficult of access. Formed, as you all know, on the basis of the broadest fellowship, inviting and welcoming thinkers of all schools, workers in all departments of philanthropic effort, and believers of all forms of faith, this Club has striven, and will strive, to make no one topic or inter- est paramount; welcoming all, it commits itself and its mem- bers to none. "It is neither an intellectual center solely, nor an artistic nor a philanthropic center. It is an effort to realize a true union of women of women whose convictions and relations may be as unlike as can be conceived, but to whom nothing that concerns woman and the interests of society and the home, is foreign. When once this central purpose is well apprehended by the public, we may hope that to the clubs will gravitate, by a natural and inevitable magnetism, the questions that await solution at the hands of womankind; and also will come the women of anxious interest and intelligent convictions upon these problems. Cf)t a3otl)er of Iub0 35 "That it is not difficult of access to such women, is shown by the conditions of admission. * * * * "If we have made blunders and have not yet reached the best methods, we may console ourselves with the confession of one of our most uncompromising reviewers, ' that the race is a race of mistake-makers,' which is only another way of stating the law of growth, the divine process for organizations as well as for individuals. "I have striven, friends, as your presiding officer in the past, to recognize the many-sided purpose and promise of our Club, its invaluable possibilities, and the comprehensive and catholic faith from which it sprang; I have tried to be receptive and fluent, not too rigid in method, not too rash in discussion, that thus the results of our counsel and our action might be the more representative. " At a reception given by Madame Severance to the New Eng- land Woman's Club, during her visit in 1882, she is reported as having confessed her fear that she had been "too much in a trance of pleasure in Boston and elsewhere" to do her full share in strengthening the hands of those who had borne the burdens of the programs, but being "neither 'impromptu by nature' nor a college graduate with faultless training for ready speech," she had done what she could in other ways. She said at that time. "You all remember that the pioneers of California be- came a famous folk as ' forty-niners. ' Those of us who are Club pioneers we sixty-niners for euphony have always recalled with vivid delight the early times when we were a feeble folk, so few that we stood shoulder to shoulder and heart to heart. And I wish to confess to you of the larger Club, that we have just been attempting in an adjoining room, a small revival of our early love-feasts at 3, Tremont Place. ' ' We have been reminiscent, as elders will, but we turn now to salute the future in you, our well-beloved young members, who are so soon to fill our vacant places and make the his- tory of the dear old Club. You will forgive me, I know, that 36 Cf)e 9@otJ)er of Clu&g I have not been able to include you all, nor even all the 'birth- right' members, in the earlier gathering. There are limitations in all things and I was obliged to draw the line at those with whom I have worked intimately and officially from the first, with a small staff of cupbearers to those Gods and Goddesses. "But I will promise you that in 1890, when we two shall have returned to celebrate our golden wedding, we will hope to call the roll of our sixty-niners and eighty-niners at a love feast in the fine new home for which Mrs. Cheney appealed at our an- nual meeting. "This should be a home with a hall ample for the largest gatherings and for which some woman scientist shall have solv- ed the vexing problem of ventilation, the members meantime, let us hope, having grown wise enough to demand the life- giving draught, rather than tolerate as now, the slow but dead- ly poison of bad air and worse contagion. It should be a home in which shall be realized all our early dreams for the Club: a dainty restaurant for members and their families, supplied by the famous cooking school of our Club sister, Mrs. Hooper, who, still young and useful, will be aided by the hands and heads she has so well trained; she will also supply other trained helpers, we will hope, to the placid descendants of the tormented house- keepers of today, helpers who shall know something of the chemistry and hygienic value of the food they prepare for the building up of the bodies and souls of the households they serve, and who shall be duly recognized in this high vocation. "It should be a home in which our brilliant and buoyant Mrs. Diaz shall find her heart's desire in ample quarters for her be- loved 'Industrial Union.' It should be a home from which should come another class of trained helpers, who will aid anx- ious, overburdened, conscientious mothers, children's nurses, taught the sacred responsibilities of their high office as workers with God and witfi the mother in the salvation of the little in- nocents, now daily and nightly slaughtered in the so-called 'best of homes/ through ignorance or prejudice. "Alas, my prophetic soul ! The sixty-nineps will tell you that Cfie Q^Ptfiet of Clu&s 37 I am at my dreaming again. Ah, well ! As Emerson says, * our highest hopes are the beginnings of their own fulfillment. I have found it true already as regards the past of our Club and I shall find it true yet more abundantly of its future, I doubt not. "Permit me to verify another of my claims for our Club, that it is, like the old commonwealth of Virginia, the mother of Presidents, by calling the roll of our suburban Women's Clubs and presenting to you such of their presidents as are able to be with us today. It is well for you to realize, dear friends, how many of your members have felt so keenly the gain in our Club life that they have repeated it after this model, in their own town and for their neighbors. This reminds me also, that on my trip among the Berkshires, last summer, I chanced upon a charming nucleus of a club of ten members, called by the kindly and simple name, the 'Neighbors,' and presided over by our friend, Mrs. Yale, a woman whose force and presence were in themselves no small part in a liberal education. ' ' We elders have had our souls filled of late by two spectacles not common in our early days. We have seen with our own eyes the beginning of a fulfillment, in the best ways, of Tenny- son's dream in his 'Princess.' How proud and how happy we were over our girl graduates on their alumna? day, not long ago. How full of satisfaction and of promise were the closing exer- cises of Boston University, in Music Hall, this week, when 'fair men' orators argued and pleaded with the fervor and force of our older apostles of freedom, for political justice to the moth- ers and sisters of today; and where 'brave' young women bore themselves with credit and dignity through the ordeal of public speech before the vast, but sympathetic, audience. "It is our own 'sweet girl graduates' of the Club, however, who are most in my mind today. I wish to emphasize my own sincere interest and faith in them, by a small gift of such as I have; my son's 'Hammersmith, His Harvard Days,' a vigor- ous transcript of American university life in the past, which may suggest to them by contrast, the better conditions which they have helped to bring into it, the new order in which men 38 Cfte s@otj)er of Clu60 are 'fair' and women 'brave.' The book grew day by day under our Southern California skies, as simply and as natur- ally as the flowers beneath them opened their petals to the sun. I take pleasure in presenting you these copies, my dear young friends, through the hands of my friend's daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell. "Only one other duty of my program remains, that of pre- senting to you all, in response to requests made long ago and often repeated, and in keeping with my desire to be always with you in all proper and possible ways, a portrait of your first president. This, as is so often the case with her, I fear, is not at her best ; I hope, however, you may find it a not unendurable 'counterfeit.' That it may come into its true order on your walls, I put it in charge of my dear old-time and constant friend, Lucy Goddard, who has, by a sort of divine right, the monopoly of your decorative art, but who may need the help- ing hand of those less worn by service, so I name with her my friends, Mrs. Kennard and Miss Talbot." To complete this record of a most interesting event, as it will surely be considered by women of the Federated Clubs of today, certain other facts have been gathered. It was Miss Goddard who unveiled the crayon picture of Madame Sever- ance. Mrs. A. A. Claflin, of Quincy, responded on behalf of the later members of the Club, in a felicitous speech of combined wit and wisdom, closing with a grateful tribute to the hostess, Madame Severance, who had been of unconscious service to her in her impressible young womanhood. Madame Severance re- sponded with a toast to Julia Ward Howe, "Our President, God bless her ! Our president, of whom the Club can say, as Went- worth Higginson once said of Emerson, '"We have been brought up on a diet of Mrs. Howe,' and have found it always good to take, good to begin with at our feast, good to end with ! ' Her motto should be, 'Semper parata,' and the other classic one, whatever it may be, for the always willing, with voice, pen, or deed." Cfte flgjot&er of Clu&s so EXTEACT FKOM AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S CLUB ON A LATER VISIT TO BOSTON. "Unfortunately the wonderland of California has wrought no miracle upon me. I am no more gifted in speech, no more ready- witted or eloquent, and can, therefore, not reply on the moment in words fitly chosen, to tributes like these. "I can only thank you from my heart and give you the plod- ding prose which I have put upon paper in greeting and in de- fense of what I know your partiality would prompt. You can scarcely imagine what it was to me, to leave all this, to live without you, for these long years. Let me say rather that I have lived upon the strength and courage which came of your noble trust and appreciation. These have been my sure defense in days of self-distrust, or in the face of work for which I felt myself unfit. Membership with you has given me the instant entree of heart and home ; for here we have known that contact of heart with heart made wise by life's experiences, that tender consideration for all honest striving, that sympathy of aim which makes true fellowship, and, supplementing sweet home affections, makes life worth living. "Here, too, we have had the comedy of our committee work, the memorable dress committee on which some of us served, and the wit that never wounds, of our spicy Club teas and poet- ical picnics. Shall we ever cease to remember, and to be merry over it all? * ' I remain one of the grandmothers of the Club who has sat at the feet of the beloved 'grandmother of Boston/ Elizabeth Peabody, and who is proud and happy to have prepared the way for your present brilliant and accomplished president. Long may she live to bless us and the sex which she has en- nobled by her life and her gifts!" ADDRESS OF MADAME SEVERANCE TO THE NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S CLUB, ON A VISIT IN 1886. "Beloved friends of the olden time : What a small but prec- ious remnant is this of the early band, whose faces always come 40 Cbe 0otlur of thronging before me when your annual gathering is near, or in- deed, at all recollections of our New England Woman's Club! It is you who stand for that noble conclave now, you, the val- iant remnant. You bring to my mind the dear ones in the sac- red old haunts, the earliest home of the Club in Tremont Place and the second home, the spacious and historic Quincy parlors, with all their inspiring memories and their outlook upon the grand old common. "Goddard, Peabody, May, Pitman, Sewall, Safford, Mitchell, Lucy Stone, Howe, Livermore, Cheney, Diaz, Zakrzewska, all the beloved sisterhood of the pioneer days, gifted, sympathetic and now many of them sainted all these are in their wonted places on platform and on floor, their delight in the new fel- lowship uttered by eye, voice and handclasp. And you are their precious heirs. 1 'Indeed, that time seems to me the Elizabethan age for New England women, especially if we include within it the names of Margaret Fuller, Elizabeth Peabody, Lydia Maria Child and Mrs. Maria Chapman a royal anti-slavery leader. On its literary side this same period of time has well been called New England's 'Augustan age/ At every remembrance of the noble souls comrades and helpers of those days, I thank God. "I feel even now a fresh pang over my own audacity, I, a newcomer from the unlettered west in consenting to be put at the front in such presence as that at our Chickering hall meeting and in many other gatherings and in allowing myself to be persuaded into attempting to fill the place on the Parker Fraternity course left vacant by our brilliant Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It brings a blush to my cheek to recall this formidable role for me so untrained and ineligible before a Boston audi- ence that filled Tremont Temple from floor to ceiling. Only a compelling enthusiasm for bearing my personal testimony to the convictions which burned within me, could have so blinded me to my unfitness and made me submissive to the wishes of my too partial friends. "Confession is good for the over-burdened soul, and mine is Cfte aiJot&er of Clu60 41 relieving itself of the fear that any one of you should imagine me to have been oblivious of my own shortcomings, and unem- barrassed by the honors thrust upon me. "The supreme comfort to me is that I can rejoice and be proud of the rapid results of those early ventures the clubs formed by women in New England and in New York the movement being almost simultaneous. What harvests in all fields are being reaped by women from that sowing ! Who can set bounds, even to imagination, to the mighty influence in all lands of this organized womanhood? The women's clubs and the members of the churches, the world over, might, with one united stroke, overthrow the strongholds of vice, of selfish greed and oppression which stand entrenched in law and custom and defiant of human welfare." A LETTEE WEITTEN BY MADAME SEVERANCE FOB THE NEW ENGLAND WOMAN'S CLUB TO THE WOMEN OF ENGLISH CLUBS, 1871. "Dear English Sisters: Whom having not seen, we love; to whom our hearts are knit, not only by the ties of a common language, but by the ties also of kindred womanly sympathies and aims we women of the New England Woman's Club send you cordial greeting and good cheer by the hands of Rev. Ireson, who asked it of us in the faith that it would give you pleasure and be of mutual good. "We were happy in hearing his words of sympathy and encouragement at our Anniversary meeting in this city last month, and we respond most heartily to his suggestion. We are but a small group of New England women who seek to create a true fellowship of women through an organization founded on no test of creed or partisan purpose, but on our simple woman- hood and on a generous hospitality to all ideas and efforts that aim to advance the highest interests of woman and through her, of the family and the state. We combine in the details of our plan, rest, recreation and philanthropic work. We seek to give ourselves training in thinking together and in giving our thought adequate expression. We seek to bring into 42 C ft e S@ o t ft e r of Clubs relations of sympathy and service, the women of thought and experience and of earnest purpose and the women of leisure and of aspirations, and to do this by methods free from the constraints and formalities of ordinary social intercourse. "We say a 'fellowship of women,' but we do not exclude men. We admit our husbands, sons and friends, as associate members, to our literary gatherings and our recreations. We welcome their counsel and sympathy and receive most valuable and generous help from them. But, since woman pre-eminently needs the benefits of such an organization and of practice in directing it, we wish them to be free in debate and in executive detail from the constraining presence of their more experienced brothers. Our short existence of not more than three years has proven not only one of great pleasure, but of great profit in its restful companionship and in its quiet, but effective educa- tional influence. It was our wish at the outset to put ourselves into official relation with all efforts by women and for women, in foreign lands as well as in our own country. To this end a committee of correspondence was appointed. *' Through Mrs. Lucas, whom we have found it a great pleasure to know as a sister in good works, as well as a sister of her honored brothers, John and Jacob Bright, we shall send to such organizations among you as desire them, copies of our club reports and other documents. She will explain these to you in detail and ask for us a return of your records and plans. "We are not altogether ignorant, however, of many of the good deeds done among you. We have felt the liveliest interest and satisfaction in the work of many of your excellent and able women ; we have had unbounded admiration for Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Florence Nightingale, and for your Somer- ville, Jameson, Martineau and Cobbe women who have been the peers of poets, thinkers and scholars of all time. We have watched with interest the efforts of your Social Science and other organizations, for the elevation of woman in the far East, the immigration movement in the provinces, the betterment of women and children of your needier classes, and not least, in Cfte QUotfter of Clu60 43 your brave resistance by protest and petition to the 'Contagious Disease Act' of your late disgraceful and demoralizing legis- lation. We shall turn to your example for suggestion and for courage, if ever the same short-sighted, partial methods are sought to be legalized here. "Let us add, also, that many of us realize how much the present civil and political status of women affects injuriously their character, their interests and their influence, and how much the state needs their moral force organized into the most direct representation and protest against the evils of society. We hail with delight the earnest, dignified and effective work done by you in the cause of woman's political enfranchisement and rejoice that large numbers of your noblest and best men and women have lent to this cause names known and honored throughout the world. We believe that when the divine instincts and powers of women come to their full recognition, the causes of peace, of temperance, of human rights and human brother- hood, will find their most helpful allies. "To these ends wise and true women are now aspiring and working. Let us hope, dear sisters, that we may all come into a true sisterly rapport a real hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart union, and thus fire and consecrate anew the zeal, the hope and the courage of each. "For the New England Woman's Club. "CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE, "President." Boston, June, 1871. III. THE WOMAN'S CLUB AND THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB OF LOS ANGELES. Through the influence of Madame Severance, the first woman's club in Los Angeles was formed in 1878, with herself as president, and Mrs. Charlotte L. Wills as vice-president, and continued in existence with one or two lapses during the absence of the president in the east until 1887. In the words of Madame Severance, ''the purpose of this club was defined to be, like that of its prototype of Boston, to form a center of united thought and action; to give all persons and all topics of vital interest a hearing at its bar; to give sympathy and help when possible, but to be merged as a club into no special cause. Any woman willing to work on its committees and listen to its papers was eligible and could be presented to the board of directors for membership. The club was intended to welcome all classes and conditions of women that it might become familiar with their outlook and needs. Among the activities of those early years was a report by Dr. Follansbee, urging that the destruction of shade trees in the city was a crime. The press took the matter up and the council passed ordinances for the protection of the trees. The club also moved in the appointment of women on the school board. At one of the closing sessions of the Club, the president was able to congratulate the members of this organization that they had resisted the temptation to become a "mutual admiration society" only. After Madame Severance's return from her second trip east, in 1887, the club interest and the population of the city had both grown to such an extent that the need was felt for a successor to the lapsed Woman's Club. The Friday Morn- ing Club, of Los Angeles, was then organized in 1891, the first meeting being held in the parlors of the Hollenbeck, April 16th. 44 C6e Spotfier of C I lifts 45 Mrs. C. M. Severance was chosen president, Mrs. G. B. Eastman and Miss Fremont, vice-presidents. At the suggestion of Mrs. Eliza Boynton Harbert, a prominent club woman of Evanston, 111., who was present, the motto: "In Essentials, Unity; in non-Essentials, Liberty; in All Things, Charity," was -adopted. The fees were fixed at $2.00 for admission and twenty-five cents monthly dues. The programs, which were of the most varied character, were arranged for by committees. The club at once became popular and a factor to be reckoned with in all movements for the advance of women's interests, the improve- ment of civic affairs, and the inauguration of reforms. It was one of the first clubs to join the General Federation, having been admitted in 1892; it established the Woman's In- dustrial Exchange, out of which has grown the present Wo- men's Exchange ; it secured the appointment of a woman on the city school board and supported the candidacy of Mrs. Kate Tupper Galpin for county superintendent of schools; it has always stood staunchly by the woman librarians ; it has taken a deep interest in establishing and supporting the Juvenile Court and in the efforts to secure industrial education in our schools. The club was at first a peripatetic institution, removing from the Hollenbeck to Caledonia hall, on Spring street, to the Potomac building, the old St. Vincent's College, and to the Owens block on Broadway. Here it retained its headquarters until the removal, in January, 1900, to the beautiful and com- modious "Woman's Club House," on Figueroa street, erected for the club by the Woman's Club House Association, of which Mrs. W. C. Patterson was president. Very appropriately, their new home was dedicated upon the eightieth birthday of the founder of the club, Madame Severance. So rapidly has the club grown, the membership now exceeding one thousand, that this, one of the finest women's club houses in the United States, is now inadequate and steps have been taken for the erection of a still larger club home. Mrs. Severence declined re-election in 1894:, and the 46 Cfte a^otfter of CIu60 title of President Emeritus was bestowed upon her in gratitude for her past services. Mrs. J. A. Osgood was elected to the presidency and served two years; she was followed by Mrs. Margaret Collier Graham, Mrs. Joseph F. Sartori, Mrs. Josefa Tolhurst, Mrs. Roy Jones and the incumbent, Mrs. E. K. Foster. The weekly programs of the club have always been of a high order. At first they were largely provided by members, and the older members have some delightful memories of "days" with the pioneers, Spanish Days, receptions, especially those at the home of Mrs. Margaret Collier Graham. Of late years many distinguished men and women, litterateurs, artists, musicians, actors and other notables have appeared before the club. The Friday Morning Club has re- ceived as guests, visitors of note from every section of the world; its receptions, club teas and other social functions have added much to its attractiveness. EXTEACTS FROM AN EARLY ADDRESS BEFORE THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB. "It is scarcely less than a miracle, even to those of us who were its sponsors, that the club idea has now spread and taken root in the uttermost parts of the earth. We now have club sisterhoods in Finland, Iceland, Russia, India, China and Africa. Think what that fact means as signifying a genuine need ; and as showing that the woman's club is in the natural development of things and not a forced, abnormal growth. Think what it means of progress and of new opportunities for women, every- where ! "And it heartens me immensely to know how thoroughly most of these clubs are in touch with many of the vital topics of the hour; to know that the clubs are not absorbed simply in their own individual culture and well-being, that they are not ignoring the interests of the home and of home life, but that they are taking up outside work because it is pressing upon these interests. As wise women, they are perceiving that the Cfte egotftet of Clu60 47 tremendous reaction of social and civil life upon home and children, that the disorder, the pestilence, the vice which prevails outside, cannot be barred out of the best appointed home by any Chinese wall of exclusion. * * * * My joy is great in this rapid wakening of women to their social and civic responsibilities, which exist for them, in their very nature as women, as wives, as mothers and as daughters, and which must be wisely met in the future. My faith, then, dear friends, in the gains of club fellowship for women grows with the years; is justified and, indeed, is inevitable, from the large experience which these years have brought. " ' 'Tis hard for many human beings,' as Emerson says, Ho whip their own tops. Concert fires people to a certain fury of performance which they can rarely reach alone.' This fine fury, kept well in hand by the conservative instincts of the 'eternal womanly,' is sure to materialize in the noblest action. One can say also with Emerson, 'Give me insight into today and you may have the antique, and the future world. ' This is true, because in having the present with its magnificent endow- ments and opportunities, we have also the past which has made the present what it is, and the future which it, in turn, will make and for which it is responsible. Not backward, but forward lies the Golden Age of the race the true Saturnalia. Let us believe undoubtingly in its coming, and know that we must help to bring it. "And if, as Emerson says again and who can doubt it? 'It is the fine souls which serve us, and not what is called fine society,' we have in this fact the highest endorsement of club life for women. For it is in our clubs that I have found many of the finest souls and much of the most helpful social service. Indeed, my own early dreams of what such association and com- radeship might do for us all, are happily coming true in my own day. And I am thankful beyond words that it has been my high privilege to be in any degree helpful in foreseeing, wel- coming and enjoying the realization. "From month to month, as I look into your faces, dear friends, 48 c&e 90otj)er of Clufis and hear your words, I see the fulfillment of my high hopes in the testimony you bear of devotion to home duties and of recognition of these as the nearest and most sacred duties. I rejoice in believing that it is faithful motherhood and wife- hood, that brings you here for counsel and for helpfulness. "And so, once more, I say my word of love and gratitude to you one and all and my 'all hail' for that fair future which I confidently hope will soon open for you in a beautiful and fit club house. " EXTRACT FROM ANOTHER ADDRESS BEFORE THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB. "I lack language to express just how delightful it is to be with you again on the opening day of a new club-year. It must mean much more to me than to any one of you, because I can look back to the very sowing of the seed of the club idea for women now so many years ago which has grown into such magnificent fruitage. How sure we few beginners were that we were right in that sowing and yet how long we had to bear the taunt of being 'out of our sphere' as if women were the Supreme power, and could escape the sphere assigned them by the Creator! In the faith that we were in the right in keeping abreast with our brothers and in the spirit of the new time, which was teaching us all its new duties, we kept steadily on." MADAME SEVERANCE'S LAST ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB, OCTOBER, 1894. "I hope to read in your kindly faces the fact that the taking up of our club fellowship again, is as great a pleasure to you as it is to me. And I am free to confess that the two months of our separation have lengthened into a year under my own keen sense of loss. It is a sincere satisfaction to me to know, also, through the many voluntary testimonies of our members, that our club life has been a source of great help and cheer to them. To some, it has been the one delight of the busy weeks, Ct)e spot&et of Ciu60 49 outside of their own home life. What testimony could be finer and stronger as to the value of our attempt at organized life, although it is yet only in its early stages? "I have said (perhaps a little extravagantly) that your faces may report as great a joy over our coming together again, as is found in my own heart. I do not know that I am warranted in such a statement when I recall the ardor of my own feeling. If you knew fully the degree of that feeling, you might call me with some show of justice a 'club fanatic.' But when you realize, dear ladies, that this is no mere emotion of the passing hour, no sentimental theory, but the deliberate and growing conviction of nearly thirty years of club life, as presi- dent much of that time, you must believe that my estimate of and faith in such life have, justifiably, a profitable basis in hard facts, aside from those of my own temperament and special experience. This experience has been, of course, on a broader scale than that of a simple member, and having this firmer basis for thorough judgment, is entitled to weight, I am sure. " Indeed, aside from the beginnings of the work set on foot since our organization, I see, as you must also, the growth of the true club spirit among us in that larger charity and greater valuation of persons and of questions which comes from sympathetic contact and from kindred aims and work. One learns in the sensible, democratic fraternity of club life where creed and fashion and politics do not count, (except to be equally tolerated and equally ignored) that the dangerous or distressing topic, or person, is quite harmless, and as broadly human and worthy of respect as ourselves, or our pet theories and beliefs. Indeed, we often find that we gain most in noble development and grander outlook from persons to whom we may have once felt superior before knowing them as we can best do under the more intimate relations of club life. From being indifferent to new ideas, one thus becomes an enthusiastic investigator or even a zealous advocate. For ignorance is the true parent of prejudice; and prejudice is the most stubborn hindrance to the growth of human beings in any respect, phys- 50 Cfte Sgjcit&er of C 1 1160 ical, mental or moral--the densest barrier which obstructs the entrance of the light of truth to any soul. It is the parent also of the worst cruelties which afflict, or ever have afflicted, the human race. 4 'The first function and result, then, of club life as I know it and understand it, is to help the individual members to this better knowledge of, and sympathy with, each other. When this is, done, the second and no less valuable and almost inevita- bleresult follows that union in action of these moral forces to which nothing is impossible, for which, I truly believe, all human good is only waiting. "Yes, dear women, after being a help an uplifting and inspiring help to the individual, club life must be a stimulat- ing factor in the welfare of the community. It cannot be otherwise and be anything that justifies its own existence. The mere fact of so much associated spiritual force must tell on any community as a powerful object lesson toward a higher stand- ard of social life than the past unworthy one of fashion and so-called 'society/ "And it is ours, who realize this, to utilize to the full, as we grow strong in each other and in the certainty of our higher aims, this nobler opportunity of service to mankind, this noblesse oblige of our own vantage ground. As conscientious creatures, we can do no less and find favor in our own eyes, or indeed, comfort in our own lives. The command 'Freely ye have received, freely give,' is written in the innermost fiber of every true soul as clearly as in any Christian code of morals. Obedience to this divine instinct is the key to the most exquis- ite and incomparable earthly happiness. It is also the key to happiness in all other and future worlds, we must believe, since it is an inseparable feature of the moral order, the keynote of the divine economy another name only for that 'Love which is Lord of life and death/ and claims all being for its own- sometime, somewhere. "Of course, we find the critic inside our happy enclosure, as well as elsewhere. Let us learn not only to tolerate, but to Cfie Sgjot&er of Clti6$ si utilize this helpful force. If it be true that the artistic faculty involves a keen sense of the best and the 'not best/ that the formula of life thus far is, as Professor Swing astutely says, 'Given a good and beautiful thing, to seek a bettter and more beautiful/ then we see that we must rate our critics very highly, if they teach us this divine discontent. "With this faith in the nature and the possibilities of our club life, let us take up its work and its fellowship heartily and hopefully, dear ladies. It can be anything and all that we choose to make it to ourselves and to others. Let us mean it to be (not boastfully, but humbly and honestly) a new source of strength to our own lives and a beacon light to the worn toilers of our own sex, to the wronged under any legal or social oppression a matchless force for bringing in "the nobler modes of life." MADAME SEVERANCE'S DEDICATION, PLACED IN THE CORNER STONE OF THE WOMAN'S CLUB HOUSE, ON FIGUEROA STREET. "To the highest welfare of our homes, our schools, our city, our country and the world, we dedicate the beautiful Club home which is to arise upon this foundation pledging ourselves that nothing human shall be foreign to our sympathy and our help- fulness herein. "We rejoice in what woman has already wrought for herself and for others through her club fellowship and we feel assured that greater things than these she will do in the fairer future before her." On behalf of the Friday Morning Club, September 14, 1899. MADAME SEVERANCE INTRODUCING MADAME MODJESKA TO THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB, IN 1896, SAID: "It was a clever and creditable thought of the managers of the Woman's Department of the World's Fair at Chicago, to as- sign an evening to the representative women of the stage. It was to me the most memorable and impressive session of all that series of notable meetings by women. On that occasion an 52 ci)c egotfter of Clu&0 eager audience gathered from far and near packed the hall; the noble sisters of the craft spoke earnest, glowing words on behalf of their great art and of the less eminent workers in it ; and the profession which had been so long under the ban of a narrow pulpit and press was paid a high tribute. It was in all ways a most memorable occasion and of the distinguished women on that roll of honor, the name of our guest today, led all the rest. Its bearer won all hearts, then, as now, and always. "You know her career, how nobly she has illustrated the highest art upon the stage; how she has always adorned womanhood and worn the white flower of a blameless life, in public and in private. "You know that she has her modest but artistic home among us ; that she was a Calif ornian long before many of us claimed the title ; that she is one of us in the club, in aims and in sympathy. I am, therefore, sure that I give you great pleasure when I tell you that I am permitted to ask you to make her an honorary member of our club, by a rising vote." BEFORE THE FEIDAY MORNING CLUB, ON JANUARY 12, 1905, THE EIGHTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY OF MADAME SEVERANCE. "Beloved friends the earlier and the later: It is good to be here today, on your anniversary and mine so good that I find no fit words to welcome the day and express my happiness in it, and so must borrow the happy lines of the dear Whittier lines which you have helped me to value more deeply. "I am fond of calling my Boston life my 'University course,' and of feeling that its delights and high comradeship could never be reached elsewhere ; but it is you, my dear comrades, who have set me to questioning this; who have given me so much more than the rest and the climate that we sought in this land, in the dear delight of a true fellowship of kindred minds and aims, so that I can say with sincere emphasis, I mourn no more my vanished years. Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again. UNIVERSITY ^kSj Cfie HortWat Clufis 53 I feel the earth move sunward; I join the great march onward; And take by faith, while living, My freehold of thanksgiving. "Thanksgiving, also, that in our city of wondrous possi- bilities in beauty and in highest welfare, we have a band of brave 'light-bearers' whose hands are upheld by the members of our own, and other clubs, and that so the promise grows of the coming of the mother of men and the Queen of the Realm, into her own a place beside the son and the king. "And thus, with heartfelt tributes from family and from friends, far and near, I begin my eighty-fifth birthday, dear friends." A TEIBUTE TO MADAME SEVERANCE ON HER EIGHTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY, WRITTEN BY MRS. T. W. BROWN, AND READ AT THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB: MAY SHE LIVE till the rights of the weakest, The poorest, the blackest, are won: Till the night that is darkest and bleakest Shall fade at the touch of the sun! Then when nothing is left to reform, May she live just to keep our hearts warm! IV. A BIT OF PERSONAL EVOLUTION. 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. Whittier. On Monday afternoon, March 9, 1903, Madame Severance read a paper at the Congress of Religions, held at the Woman's Club House in Los Angeles. This admirable production she has since revised somewhat and placed in the hands of the editor. "It is necessary to my record to say that my maternal grand- mother was a woman of strong nature, yet sweet to the core, who trained her daughters and grand-daughters in the details of wise housekeeping, for which they all blessed her when settled in their own homes. She was also an ardent Episco- palian, and her devoted husband, although he had been born of New England Presbyterian parents, not only yielded to her preference, but became a lay-reader of the service and of Bishop Seabury's sermons to an audience of neighbors and friends, gathered in the large parlors of their country home. Could devotion and tolerant sympathy go further than that? My grandfather's keen interest in public questions, as a Feder- alist, gave me a strong bias in this direction, which led however, in after years, to quite an opposite attitude than his toward them. My father, a Connecticut Presbyterian, had also followed my mother into her church. Thus it will be seen that I was cradled and nurtured in the Episcopalian faith. But my guardian, who was my father's brother, a man of integrity and greatly re- 54 C6e q^otftet of Clii&s 55 spected in his county and state, was a Presbyterian of the most pronounced type, a deacon and an elder of his church through- out his long life. At an early age, I came under the spell of his zeal and of the doctrines and customs of that denomination. Among these were the revival meetings of the Reverends Burchard and Finney, excitements which recurred as regularly and inevitably as the spring and fall house-cleanings of that time, and which were as disturbing to the peace and routine of many homes. "My father's early death and my mother's constant mourn- ing for him had made me a serious and super-sensitive child, naturally reverential to the authority of the home and the church. I was thus always under torture for my sins which were supposed to consist in a love for * worldly pleasure' child that I was, and sins that were never mine even in my mature years! I was in this state by day and by night, constantly haunted by the torture of the doom to eternal punishment, so vividly pictured in sermon, exhortation and prayer, for those whose sins were not confessed and forsaken. I had brief inter- vals of exaltation from a comforting sense of safety in having, at times, found forgiveness and made my 'peace with God,' as it was termed. "One feature of this torture was especially trying; in the seasons of so-called blacksliding, I was sometimes found with a group of merry-hearted children swinging back and forth on the heavy iron gate of my uncle's banking-house grounds, then my home. In the midst of our innocent frolic a musical but severe voice would ring out from the street, ' Car-o-line, do you know you are swinging on the gate of hell ? ' This was 'the voice of a leading lawyer, a close friend of my uncle, a man so elegant and so handsome that he was the admiration of the young people, in the peaceful intervals between the fearful revival times. "I was under bondage to authority, dogmas and conservative ideas until I married into a family of strong anti-slavery con- victions, who had the courage to stand for these convictions 56 Cije Q0otljcr of Clubs in an unsympathetic community and time. This marriage led me into active sympathy with their ideas, as well as into ardent admiration for the great-hearted house-mother who had taken under her sheltering care and wise training, from time to time, thirteen young girls to whom she had given a home until they were fitted for homes of their own. She had also done the rarer kindness of persuading her husband to offer a home to the four orphaned sons of a deceased cousin, for whom he had had a warm attachment. That dear woman should have had her place upon the calendar of saints ; I have her on mine. "With many others, our family seceded from the old Presby- terian church of the town, because we could no longer sit conscientiously under a preacher, or in a fellowship, where the golden rule of Christianity was not recognized as applicable to all men, whatever the color of their skin, or crinkle, or non- crinkle, of their hair. We afterward formed a new church which welcomed the advocates of the anti-slavery principles and which prospered in numbers and in influence in the com- munity. Still later, the Rev. Charles Fitch, a man of majestic presence and courageous enthusiasm, was called to this church. He wrought mightily upon his congregation and upon many thoughtful people outside it, with the striking array of texts from the Old Testament prophets which he made to bear, con- vincingly it seemed, upon the second coming of Christ and the near approach of the event. Among others, my husband a banker and a light-hearted man of affairs was so much im- pressed that, to the amazement of his staid business friends, he ordered work abandoned upon the house which we were then building for a permanent home. And his impetuous wife, sup : ported by an earnest sister of the church, and fortified by what they thought unassailable arguments drawn from an infallible Bible these two set off on an audacious effort to confront and they doubted not to convert the preacher, a man of mature years and of unusual dignity of character, of the church they had left. That he was dumb with surprise at the unwonted foray, they did not then suppose, but flattered themselves that it was his inability to refute the arguments they advanced. C6e Sgot&et of C 1 1160 57 But the failure of that honest attempt to use the Bible by a grouping of selected texts, in support of a special theory, resulted in the weakening of my faith in the infallible authority of any man or book. Thereafter I was free to examine and accept any truth or doctrine which commended itself to my reason and conscience the 'light which lighteth every man/ "An event which occurred soon after this and which many amused themselves by calling a specimen of simple fanaticism, was an address by Andrew Jackson Davis. Yet this was helpful, I am sure, to all who dared venture to hear the proscribed man 'infidel/ as he was then called. The address was a rhapsody on the unrecognized value of life its marvelous resources and possibilities and the responsibilities resting upon all thoughtful and fortunate persons to make life known as such, and worth living to all of God 's children. Its effect upon me was so great, so thrilling, that I struck off at white heat some stanzas, be- ginning : Heirs of the Ages, rise, be bold; The hour calls for you and the old In sin and shame, awaits your stroke. ' ' Thereafter I heard gladly writers and speakers who had, or claimed to have, a helpful message. "About this time the Hutchinson family, called by N. P. Wil- lis 'a nest of brothers with a sister in it,' came to our city on one of their western trips. Beguiled by the charm and sweet- ness of their music, I joined them on a visit to a neighboring town, to be a spectator at a meeting held in the interest of 'Women's Rights.' I found there a group of earnest, thought- ful women, with a few friends of the other sex; I found, also, another broadening of my moral and mental horizon. It seemed to me then, as since, that there was no flaw in the logic which claimed it to be the duty of our legislators to take the mother from the category of the alien, the criminal and the lunatic, and place her on an equal with her sons and as an equal partner of the 'two who sit beside the hearth.' 58 Cfu Qgotftet of "This experience led rue to a confession of my new belief through the press of the city and brought me an invitation from the Cleveland Library Association to lecture before it. This was an opportunity I dared not decline, since it would be useful in drawing attention to so vital an issue and would, no doubt, open the platform of similar Associations to women, which had not hitherto been done. "Feeling that I should never live for another such effort, I put into my paper, under the broad title of 'Humanity a Defi- nition and a Plea, ' all the arguments I could muster to my aid. This effort brought me into relation with a sympathetic band of Ohio women and eventually resulted in my appearing before its legislature to urge their petition for suffrage. I did this under a courteous introduction from Judge John A. Foote, a leader in our church, a brother of Commodore Foote, and at that time a member of the Ohio state senate. But I had no gift for public speaking, and after a few repititions of my paper I did little in that way. "About this time I began exploring the subject of hygiene, by the aid of all the literature then extant which mainly consisted of treatises by Drs. Alcott and Graham upon reformed diet and water-cures, and by foreign physicians upon their in- vestigations. Through this study I became largely emancipated from the physicians and learned to trust nature to do her own work by her own remedies mainly rest for the stomach as well as for other muscles; pure, untainted air by night as well as by day, and food which should be nourishing but not stimulat- ing and irritating in character in short, that 'plain living,' by which we compass high thinking. ' ' This hygienic study came about through my anxiety for my husband, whose parents had died in mid-life from New Eng- land's scourge consumption and whose three brothers had early followed through the same disease. I naturally feared, also, that our children might develop a tendency in the same direction. And I was well rewarded for my study by the escape of my children and the lengthened life of my husband to the age of seventy-eight. C6e {otfter of Clu60 59 "This experience and others of its like, together with the resultant close observation and eager following of the scientific investigation of specialists, I count as among the most helpful of my mature years. It has confirmed my faith in Huxley's fine statement of the physical basis of life and Drummond's 'Natural Law in the Spiritual Realm/ and emphasized the unity of all life and law. Advanced scientists are now teaching the unity of all natural forces and that the law of health is the proper adjustment of these over-ruling forces. This is, to me, a vital part of the gospel of glad tidings and has so inspired me with its value that I have often erred, I fear, in seeking to spread it where it was really needed but not always welcome. Self-control and daily vigilance are so difficult with the best of us, and so often distasteful. "Life grew still richer for me as the years went on, through the coming of noble men and women from the east, with their messages upon vital themes. My desire to meet these great ones of the earth in their own homes and haunts, became unconquerable and led ultimately to the removal of my family to New England, and to the intimate association with the many noble women who were united in bonds of sympathy and helpfulness by the organization of the New England Wo- man's Club and its diverse interests and labors for the uplifting of humanity and the enlarging of woman's sphere. "On reaching Boston, in 1855, we became attendants at Music Hall, where Theodore Parker was then preaching to vast audiences. We admired his superb courage in driving home to each hearer his immediate duty to his fellows, as brother and as patriot. This he did with the power and fervor of the Hebrew prophets, under the command to cry aloud and spare not 'tell my people that they go forward.' A great service was his to pul- pit and to pew, and to all good causes, the country over. His home life was also an ideal one. But the bigotry of even so late a day was shown most emphatically in the bitter scorn of the press and in the prayers of the conservative pulpit, which blindly assume, even yet, that the truth is endangered by a brave utter- 60 CJ)C C@otijer of Clubs ance that is not in line with the old thought. In these attacks upon Parker, such appeals were made as 'that the Lord would put a bit in his mouth,' and would 'deliver the city from the curse of his presence and heresies. ' Only a few free souls, even of the Unitarians, stood by him in his sincere utterances, or invited him to speak from their pulpits ; yet now this denomina- tion claims him as a leader. This is the final reward of all valiant and sincere 'disturbers of the peace' of the conserva- tism of their day Like Parker, Mr. Emerson was also rated as a disturber when, under the stern stress of conviction, he left the Unitarian pulpit. These two courageous souls, with William Lloyd Garrison, were alike in their passion for justice for all and in the calm ignor- ing of results to themselves. The personal sympathy and inter- course with such men was a liberal education in itself. They all realized what Emerson wrote impersonally, 'Nor knowest thou what argument thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent/ To see Emerson enter a room, where his presence brought re- lease from all worries or small interests, to hear him read, in his rich, quiet voice, at our New England Woman's Club, manu- scripts intended later for a larger public, to associate with him at the famed and unique Eadical Club, where his profound grasp of all vital topics made him a reconciling factor as well as a leader all this was to be blest indeed! One of the events which has never lost its impressiveness, was his reading, with impassioned emphasis, his 'Boston Hymn/ to the thrilled audience in Music Hall. One special phrase in a paper read by him before the Radical Club, put me under lasting personal obligation to him, as, for the first time, it described me satis- factorily to myself. This was his mention of an earnest French woman who had spoken of herself as only having 'the gift of loving superior persons/ "Fannie Kemble's reading, with her most tragic power, Longfellow's magnificent 'Building of the Ship,' at this same stirring period the close of the civil war was another inspir- ing memory. The dear poet, silver-haired and radiant, was in the audience, as were Holmes, Lowell, Sumner and, I think, C6e Qgotfiet of C I it 60 ei Garrison and Phillips, also Mrs. Howe and other literary and sympathetic women. 11 Another and one of the most helpful of my experiences came to me from the work of the 'Free Religious Association/ organized after Theodore Parker's death and as a result of his attitude and teachings. This was a fore-runner of this Con- gress, founded, like that, not to separate but to unite all honest searchers after the essentials of the universal, in religion and in life. In this work were engaged Rev. 0. B. Frothingham, scholarly and courageous, representing the aristocracy of Bos- ton; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the charming litterateur; Rev. William J. Potter, of most gentle nature; the brilliant John Weiss ; Felix Adler of New York and David A. Wasson, of New England, a writer of remarkable and powerful poems written from an agonizing invalidism. One of these, l Jubilate,' although the name was changed by his publishers to the weaker one of * All's Well,' places him among the major poets. It is a royal trumpet-toned celebration of the resources of the soul in its mental and spiritual endowments and opportunities. The women active in this work were Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, Mr. Parker's helper, and Hannah Stevenson, also one of his intel- lectual friends. In their companionship I filled my lesser role with great delight and profit. "But I cannot call the roll of all the inspiring persons and associations which the fruitful years in Boston brought me. I went to the Mecca of my hopes for its atmosphere only, but I found most gracious welcome to hearts and homes and rejoice always in the fate that brought me such blessedness. It is thus, dear friends, that I have taken my college course in the Uni- versity of Life, under these broad-minded tutors, souls eager for any truth which might widen and broaden their vision and help toward human welfare. After such vital training, one might almost say of conventional training, as Emerson said of going through Harvard that the gain of it was only 'to learn how little one needed to go.' "But this New England experience ended in 1875, when we 62 Cfte Sgot&er of Clu&s removed to California. We found Los Angeles at that time a town of great possibilities and many attractions, but with the few advantages of a frontier town. I soon plunged ardently into the work of helping to add to these by organizing a Free Kindergarten Association, a Woman's Club, later re-organized into the Friday Morning Club, and a Neighborhood Book Club. This latter was formed with the efficient aid of our Unitarian pastor, John D. Wells. At his coming we had opened our library for the gathering of those interested in that church. Our interest was enlisted in this movement, because that church stands for character rather than creed for the father- hood of God and the brotherhood of man. We have since felt drawn into a helpful effort to make this faith practical under the earnest and eloquent efforts of the Rev. W. P. D. Bliss, of J. Stitt Wilson, of Rev. R. M. Webster and of the Rev. Burt Estes Howard, who seemed the embodiment of the text which he incorporated into each Sunday service and read with great emphasis, 'I am annointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to open the prison doors, to let the oppressed go free.' "We seem now to have come in our political history to the parting of the ways to the choice between serving God and Mammon. 'Things are in the saddle and ride mankind/ Greed, avarice, and cruel selfishness have come to scoff at the ideals which made us a true * world-power' and the hope of the nations. They ignore the ten commandments of the old dis- pensation and the golden rule of the new making havoc of them and coolly claiming that they have no bearing on the week-day, business life. "And now, my friends, I am in my sunset years, still reaping as the rich harvest of my rare opportunities and associations, and from fields where I have not personally sown such ap- preciation and gratitude as are often overwhelming. Not only this, but the thought of what I have aspired to be and was not, comforts me." V. VARIOUS LETTERS AND ADDRESSES. LETTER TO THE ASSOCIATION FOE THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN, 1894. "Dear Friends : It pains me more than I can say that I have been obliged to miss so much of your wonderful Pentecost the momentous gatherings of the past few months in Chicago ; and that now again I cannot renew the delightful friendships so finely formed at the organization of our A. A. W., so many years ago. I must content myself with a few words by pen instead of profiting by, and enjoying as of old, your helpful counsel and presence. * * * * "The Association for the Advancement of Women was the child of high enthusiasm, large hopes and lofty aims. It was a leading pioneer among the national organizations distinct- ively for women, outside church boundaries and strictly phil- anthropic work, and its future seemed big with promise to our fond maternal eyes. * * * * "I think we can truly say that it has in a large measure, justified our hopes and fulfilled its early promise and that even at the present it has not outlived its usefulness; but has rather transferred it to our later clubs and councils and may now, therefore, be put upon the roll of honor the retired list." ANOTHEE LETTEE TO THE WOMAN'S CONGEESS, 1894. "Dear Sisterhood of the Woman's Congress: As a veteran in the various good causes which now bring you together, I cannot forbear to give you my word of hearty greeting and ' God Speed, ' with the assurance of my undiminished interest in their progress and faith in their final success. For, as certain- 63 64 c&e C^otfter of Clu60 ly as 'God is in His Heaven/ all is on the way to being right with His world else there is no adequate meaning to life and the growth which life is evidently meant to be. 1 'I rejoice in the part, small though it was, which I bore in the pioneer work of these various movements and in the de- lightful relations which I enjoyed with the brave and beloved pioneer women, and I rejoice unspeakably in the numberless new recruits vastly better equipped for their work and re- sponsible positions in the home and elsewhere than were we. To the suffrage ranks they come now, not as aforetime, by the slow process of individuals, but by battalions and by States, and so we have every reason to take courage and to thank God. * * 1 'From my long experience, I wish to urge upon you the su- preme importance of beginning well at the beginning with the little people. Give them the kindergarten and apply its true and natural methods to all classes throughout the school course; elect the best men and women and only the best to that post of sacred responsibility, the city and county school boards. Let no other duties eclipse, or forestall, this one, I implore you the present welfare of the precious child, the future of the State, these wonderful new commonwealths of ours which hold the hope of the world, hang tremblingly in the balance, for your decision. * * * * "The child reared under lofty ideals, under a controlling faith in the Fatherhood of God and in loving labor as the best birthright and the chief joy, will not find the labor question a hard one to settle, under the practical working of the Broth- erhood of man. Then will the kingdom of God have come and His will be done by His children," And o'er the glad earth, from shore to shore, The song of peace, unbroken, pour. ADDRESS BEFORE WOMAN'S PARLIAMENT OF SOUTHERN CAL- IFORNIA. "Dear Friends: I count it a great privilege to be one of you. It is because of you and such as you both men and women who face your duties and responsibilities fearlessly, ot&er of CIu60 65 that we are justified in our high hopes for the race. In the fellowship of kindred minds, within the home and outside of it, lies the supremest happiness of life. But there is still much to be done to make life worth living for the mass of our fellows. " There are surely Hen righteous' in any city and multitudes more|, counting large-hearted and wise women, enough to save the city and our country as well. Therefore do I trust in the union which is strength. * * * * "I place justice before charity, justice, which is the highest charity. And while we must, and do, recognize the need of charity under our present conditions, let us look for and labor for the time when industry will be so organized as to make sure that no man, woman or child, in our broad, bountiful land, shall be homeless and helpless; when each shall have the certainty of work and of the just reward which insures all the needed op- portunities for the home, for education, and for development. Surely this much is the birthright of every child of God and of every individual of a free people. Never will our land be either a Christian, or a civilized, country until this is brought about by those who believe that the Golden Rule is the only just basis for business and for political activities. . "You may call this socialismas the world does, with a sneer, and confound it with anarchy. But to know what socialism is, in its animus and in the briefest terms, we have only to consult our dictionaries, to be able to defend it against all objectors. " Follow your own clear and divine intuitions, dear friends, 'It is the heart and not the brain alone, but both combined, which, working to the highest outlook and uses, doth attain/ I sometimes think that the most serious defect in woman's de- velopment, in our time as in the past, is the lack of courage to follow bravely the promptings of her higher nature. But when one has acquired this freedom from the slavery to thoughtless conventionalities, one cannot easily backslide from it and its delights. of CIu60 "So my final word as it may truly be is to seek first this commanding attitude and untold recompense will surely come to you. Plant yourselves upon the rock of human Brotherhood and the world will be the better for your having lived and you will be doubly blest. This will solve the fearful problems which now menace our social order ; and this alone will do it. "I would particularly call the attention of the women of the Parliament to immediate work along the lines of civil service reform, enfranchisement of women, election of women upon school boards, and agitation for the municipal ownership of public utilities. This latter will decrease our heavy taxes and put money in the public treasury, as it has elsewhere done. I would also call your attention to the booklet, 'Letters of a Chinese Official; A View of Eastern and Western Civilization/ This is most useful as propaganda, helping our boastful people to see themselves as others see them, and if it was not written by a scholarly Chinaman, it is the result of keen observ- ation and clear insight. " Madame Severance was, on one occasion, in her eightieth year, so remarkable an example of what has been called a charming old age, that many women cherish the memory of her as she looked and as she spoke at a meeting of the Woman's Parliament of Southern California. Before the large body she gave the following words of welcome, which are quite char- acteristic of the genial "club mother:" "It seems by my presence here that we are entering the new era, indeed, when grandmothers of my years are assigned to a post of honor on club and other platforms, and not condemned to the old-time chimney-corner; when these platforms, like the family, are not complete without one such. So much the better for the grandmamma, if not always for the family or the plat- form! It is a most -pleasant duty to give you welcome to our hearts, as well as our homes and our City of the Angels, to look into your earnest, sympathetic faces, and realize how helpful, how beyond price, womanly fellowship has grown to be in these C6e egotfter of Clu&s 67 later days; to feel how much it is to us all, not alone to the younger women, who are still in the thick of life's duties and its hoped-for successes, or its sad failures, but to us elders, who remember keenly the limitations of our past, when outside effort meant only the 'sewing circle' and the profitless form- alities of miscalled ' society/ "Let me add, dear friends, to my word of welcome and retro- spect, the assurance of my undiminished, my growing faith in woman's capacity and efforts toward social betterment in all lines, in the women intelligent enough to have convictions, and courageous to stand to them. To such, nothing is im- possible." Remarks made by Madame Severance on presenting a Medal- lion of herself, made by Miss Peel, of Canada, to the Santa Barbara Woman's Club, in August, 1898: "Dear Friends: I will detain you but a few moments from the pleasant social hour which you have so kindly arranged for my friend, Miss Peel, and myself. The little gift which I have thought to make you does not require any special cere- mony. I beg of you to believe that the thought has not come to me from any personal vain-glory, but from my deep interest in you as a club, the successor of the early one whose founding and fellowship I so much enjoyed. It is partly in memory of that and also that I may feel that I am always in the midst of you, that I offer you the counterfeit presentment of myself which hangs upon yonder wall. "It gives me especial pleasure to do this, since it is the work of my dear friend, Miss Peel, and will give you a most satis- factory specimen of her workmanship. "May I hope, also, that this presence among you may be a stimulus toward the ideal club, the club of helpful action as well as of pleasant social intercourse; that you will not be content in sitting at ease in your lovely bit of Zion, but will make your organized life tell for all things which tend to the highest human welfare. 68 cfte a^ot&et of Ciufis "To this end I would advise you most earnestly to keep in touch with the large group of women united in the General Fed- eration; to work along the lines of their programs, which the multitudes of clubs accept, and so feel the current of thought which is stirring the hearts of women all over our land. And I would also urge you to keep on file for your members the Woman's Journal, of Boston, which will give you weekly, full reports of woman's activity, in all lines, the world over, and a marvelous activity it surely is, as you will there find." Letter from Madame Severance to the Century Club, of San Francisco : "Dear friends and members of the Century Club: My per- sonal presence in your club has been infrequent, but my mem- ories of those opportunities of your club life in general have been a joy to me always. When last with you I had a hope that my friend, Miss Peel, would find at least a temporary home in your city, and we pleased ourselves with the idea of pre- senting you, as our joint gift, a copy of the bust of myself which she had already made for the Friday Morning Club of Los Angeles. Meantime, Miss Peel has been 'called up higher' by her own government, as an Art Commissioner from Canada to the Paris Exposition, and I am left to perform the pleasant task. "Receive the gift, dear ladies, as a token of my ardent de- sire to be always with you, enjoying keenly the wit and wis- dom which flow there so spontaneously and richly. It will be also a mute reminder, I trust, of the high aim and noble service for which our club life is, I am confident, more and more to stand ; a reminder that culture, by the testimony of our highest American authority, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'is only a means to an end,' and that we as individuals and as a people are only safe and sane and wise when we look well to the ways of all, the homes of all our people, and see that the foundations of our so-called order are built upon the love and justice which alone shall endure. Cfte ^otftet of Clii&0 69 "With this little preachment go my heartiest wishes for a glad New Year and many more like unto it, and my faith in your future welfare and even broader service." GENERAL FEDERATION. At the opening meeting of the General Federation of Women's Clubs held in Los Angeles in 1902, its president, Mrs. Dimies T. C. Denison, expressed her appreciation of pioneer workers in the club movement and it was then moved that Caroline M. Severance be made honorary president of the con- vention and honorary vice-president of the General Federation. Amid great applause the motion was unanimously carried, the assembly rising in a body. Mrs. Severance was escorted to the speaker's stand, and, embowered among thousands of festooned roses, with a deep light in her large blue eyes and a smile of loving response upon her lips, the venerable Mother of Clubs bowed her thanks and spoke in a clear voice that could be heard to the furthest corner of the vast auditorium. She said in part : ' ' My own prof oundest wish, my unquench- able longing (and faith as well) is that the power of organized womanhood in our clubs and in all kindred efforts by women toward social betterment and the safety of the home, should make and will make its united protest against war, that ghastly anachronism of our civilization and our century, with its inevitable barbarities and horrors, and its utter insanity as a normal or Christian method for adjusting the differences of nations. Upon woman fall the heaviest burdens, the cruelest anguish of war. It is she who furnishes the most indispensable munitions of war the soldiers of the battlefield. I urge you, oh, club women of the country, to make united protest against ADDRESS OF MADAME SEVERANCE BEFORE THE BIENNIAL SESSION OF 1902. "I am deeply sensible of the honor which this recognition of my early service and abiding interest in club life for women TO cfce Q@ at Set of C 1 1160 has brought to me today. That recognition, and this gath- ering here, mean vastly more to me, in vivid retrospect and in keen delight, than it can mean to any one, or all, of you. "I have recalled elsewhere the first impulse which came to me toward a truer, broader fellowship of women than had been then known. When, at an informal meeting of the board of our Friday Morning Club, a few years ago, each was asked over the coffee and the cake what she considered the most remarkable an.d fruitful discovery of the nineteenth century, my spontan- eous reply was, * The discovery of woman by herself. ' My com- rades perhaps thought it only a fresh airing of an old hobby, but indeed, dear friends, the achievements of organized woman- hood, since this awakening to the scope of her abilities and duties and to the endless vista of possibilities which lie before her, this wonderful beginning upon the new day fully jus- tifies my seemingly audacious remark. "When one looks over the field which woman, in such a brief space of time, has already won both within and without the limits of her new club life and despite the many barriers to be overcome, the gains seem magical, indeed almost miraculous. This gathering, dear friends, in its numbers and the vaster ma- jorities which it represents, in its inspiring enthusiasm and the uplift of the new and tender comradeship which has leaped all bounds of denominations, society and class, and rests on the strong basis of simple womanhood in its aims, needs and re- sponsibilities, does not this eclipse all the vaunted mechanical inventions and discoveries, all advances in art and literature? Does it not hold in its hands a force which can and must pur- ify, exalt and perpetuate all these, a force which once thorough- ly organized for its helpful work in the world, will surely bring the reign of justice and of love to this beautiful world of ours, thus making it the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, foreseen by the prophets, promised by the poets, prayed for by the saints, by saints, however, who have not always realized that 'work is worship ' ? Inasmuch as it is done unto the least and humblest of the brethren it is done unto the highest and holiest. None are saved alone. Cfte Qpotfiet of Clu&0 71 "Yes, dear friends, when I look upon you here, I feel that I have not lagged superfluous on the stage, since my eyes are blessed by so soul-stirring a sight as this, a sight so far be- yond my early dreams as it is possible should come in my own short span of years." THE BIENNIAL AND ITS AFTERMATH. (Read Before the Friday Morning Club of Los Angeles.) "A poet has written lines apropos of another matter which emphasizes the late gathering, by contrast : It charms awhile, the listening throng, But, with the days man never can recall, It faints and fades and vanishes, ere long In the vast silence which receiveth all. "It did charm awhile, our Biennial, but did not vanish into the vast silence. Critics may doubt and penny-a-liners carp, and unsympathetic editors may cudgel their brains to turn in- nocent incidents into sensational paragraphs, and to manu- facture facts from their own inner consciousness, but we who know it best in its progress day by day ; in its aims and in its re- sults, feel that, like Tennyson's 'Brook', its influence will go on forever with ever widening and increasing volume. After this lapse of time we are better able to take account of stock than in its rushing business hours. To begin at the beginning, it is a fact of large import that thousands of women traversed the many miles and endured the fatiguing trip, to gather in council on common needs and interests and in the broadest freedom of utterance and fellowship. "Next, it was an object lesson in the business ability of the women who managed so large an affair, carrying out every de- tail to perfection ; comfortably housing and caring for the large number of delegates, providing for their ease and artistic de- light at the auditorium, even to the attendance of skilled phy- icians; and the unique shower of rose petals from the galleries as a fitting farewell. 72 Cfie (otfter of Clubs 1 1 The program and its rendering made also a creditable show- ing of woman's ability, in the consideration of matters which vitally concern herself, in the home, the city and the state, and in her handling of the closely packed and eager crowds who thronged the sessions. One omission from the program, some of us lamented deeply and strove to rectify in an informal way, the protest against war which lies latent in every mother's heart and which needs especial and united utterance just now. It was brought to the surface by the hearty response of the vast audience to the brief appeal made and, notably, to the thrilling poem, 'The Feet of the Young Men are at the Door,' written by Mrs. Mary Austin and read by our oldest resident and club-member, Mrs. Marcus Spring. " Again, our Biennial made a creditable record for itself by its calm and just treatment of the 'color question,' which was dealt with in the spirit of the Golden Rule and under the honest conviction that, with political freedom not even yet se- curely gained for our Afro- American citizens, their social equal- ity can only come through 'the slow process of the suns.' In this discussion we were in line with, and were influenced by, the impartial opinion of the acknowledged leaders of that race and of the calmest thinkers of our own. Aside from Booker Washington's attitude, we had the entreaty of the bishops of the colored churches not to jeopardize the fellowship, so help- ful they affirmed, to both races, by introducing even in dis- cussion an element of discord which could reach only a fore- gone conclusion, in the present temper of the public mind. "We may be very sure that the action of the northern major- ity, in this matter, was not influenced by any fear that the ad- mission of colored Clubs would, in itself, be a menace to the harmony and work of the Federation, since it is not thinkable that there would be any such rush of these clubs as to work mischief by their numbers, or that they would gain admission to any northern Clubs except as they came under the proper qualifications of education and character. Nor was there any force in the position of some opposers that this admission C6e figjot&er of C I it 60 73 would mean the opening to them of private homes, since it does not now involve that intimacy within the circle of our clubs of white members. As to the other 'bugbear,' the mixing of the races, let us remember that it is not yet a frequent result of the presence and opportunities of the two races in the North, while, as a spicy writer puts it, 'the fact of the frequent presence of the mulatto in the South shows that exclusion from social equality has not prevented the mixing of the races.' "We may comfort themselves, also, that the best authorities among us understand the condition under the late action of the Federation to be that the states have a right to admit colored clubs to their own Federations, on their own terms; but that the general Federation committee has the final vote as to ad- mission to the larger membership. Already the Afro-Amer- ican women are doing a good work in organizing their own single clubs and National Federation. They surely have the hearty good-will and will have the sympathetic help of their more experienced sisters. "Our Biennial was a Pentecost a spiritual feast to me, who had seen the seed sown in weakness on the Atlantic Coast, not many years ago, to behold the magnificent blossoming here on the Pacific shore. It was a great privilege to be able to meet and greet the host of dear women whom my age would forbid my meeting elsewhere; to welcome under my own roof the noble workers from not only the Northern States, but also from the South, the brave Southern women who have risen at a bound from their former luxury and are reaching after the better things that are before us all. Marvelous to me has been their progress, in self-help and therefore in human helpfulness, as I have followed it not only in the daily press, but in Mrs. Croly's 'Club Movement in America.' It well nigh parallels the growth of the Western States under their earlier exper- iences. "And so we march on in solid phalanx to our peaceful con- quests and shall at last see, eye to eye, from the same point of vision, it may be." Cfie fi@ot&er of Clu&s BEFORE THE FRIDAY MORNING CLUB. (1902.) "I think I do not need to ask unanimous consent to speak to a question of personal privilege, as is common in Congress. What I wish to say will be pertinent to the last topic before us and so not out of order. ' ' I find that I was much misunderstood in my few and hasty remarks at a late club session. Even my daughter from Boston, who was with us on that occasion, felt that I might be called a backslider from my past position on the question of the free- dom of the slave. My intention was only to endorse the posi- tion of the General Federation in recommending the remand- ing of the admission of colored clubs to the State Federations, and not to endorse the proposition to engraft the word 'white' upon the constitution of our National Federation. I thought then, as I surely think now, that the forcing of colored clubs upon the south, in the Federation, would be as unfair and as unwise as for the southern clubs to force the word ' white ' into our constitution. For, consider, dear friends, that we must first 'cast the beam out of our own eye.' Aside from Massachu- setts, 'the foremost state of the world's civilization,' as George William Curtis was fond of calling it and a very few other northern States, colored women are not received into clubs of white women, or into our social life. "You all remember the late sad struggle in the Woman's Club of Chicago, over the admission of a single colored woman one of education and unexceptionable character. While we live in glass houses as clubs, it seems to me that we must not cast stones at our southern sisters. White women of both North and South must first be educated to the point of draw- ing the line of social fellowship at education, character and good breeding. "Booker Washington, who is the present leader of his race, beseeches his people to seek neither political nor social position, but to make their own place by industry, integrity and honor- able success and, in due time, all other things will be added Cfte auotfier of Clu60 75 unto them. His own magnificent career justifies his words and is an object lesson to both races. Out of the depths, he has risen to a height of recognition in our own country and abroad, which many of those who have condemned his race to perpetual servitude, have never reached, and can never reach themselves. "At this point, let me say that the crimes so strongly con- demned in that race are only duplicates of those committed by white criminals in all of our States, and are such as might be expected from the examples set by many white masters under slavery, toward the women of the subject race. "In holding these opinions in regard to the admission of the colored clubs, I do not abate a jot my early desire for the political freedom of the race as of all races. And I am amazed at the illogical position of Americans of culture and broad views, who can draw the line at color, in the case of our own southern blacks, while receiving socially representatives of other dark races, Spanish, Italian, East Indian, etc., and giving them national recognition and honors. But all this will pass, as I so often say of other wrong and ignorance, by the sure appeal of truth and justice to time. So let us possess our souls in patience, while we help, as in us lies, to bring that better time for individuals and for nations." MADAME SEVERANCE AT THE VENICE ASSEMBLY, INTRODUC- ING SUSAN B. ANTHONY, JULY, 1905. "I count it one of the rare privileges of my life to stand here before you today, side by side with my pioneer friend and our brave and beloved leader, Susan B. Anthony, as well as with these other valiant workers. "It carries me back to the early fifties, when we met with the few but fit women who were wise enough to see and who had hearts large enough to feel the disabilities of our sex, under our 'free government/ and who were courageous enough to stand on the platform of our heroic forefathers and claim their rights as citizens and as taxpayers, under our boasted Declar- ation. 76 Ce fiot)er of "What an interval of struggle, of scorn, of abuse, between that early time and this, between the egg-throwing and the jeers and the flower-laden platforms, the newspaper eulogies, even the pulpit fellowship, now accorded us ! Let us thank God and the brave pioneers and take courage, although so much yet remains to be conquered in social life and in civic life. "I greet in the name of the elders of the cause everywhere our ardent and active successors and feel (almost) like Simeon, 'ready to depart,' since we now see the salvation of the sex and of the race looming on the horizon. I give as our bequest to them this appeal of the poet : How prayest thou on altar stairs For God to do His will! Go forth! Thou art His instrument, And thine own wish fulfill. A LETTER WRITTEN FOR THE EIGHTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY OF ELIZABETH CADY STANTON: "Dear Friends : I am most happy to lay my 'rose leaf on the mantling tide of loyalty' to one of the noble, historic women of our day, a mere rose leaf, alas, when I should be glad if it were the laurel crown of which her brow is so worthy and which posterity will surely place there. "A fortunate little town was humble Johnstown, N. J., to be the birthplace, on a November day of 1815, of our revered friend who is now known and honored in all civilized lands. A fortunate day, also, was it for the sex which she has so grac- iously adorned and so loyally defended. "The tributes and the gathering in her honor today bear witness to the fact that a creditable minority, at least, of her sex are free from the charge of ingratitude, and we bid her 'all hail' to this reward of merit which she has so richly earned. "The lesson of such a life as hers is not only a blessing and a delight to those who have shared it, but it will be an inspiration to the youth of all time. Others will fully and ably enforce the Cfte otf)er of Clu60 77 lesson of that life while I, in failing strength, will only bear my personal testimony to the noble satisfaction of her fellow- ship, to her brilliant capacity as advocate, to her unflinching devotion to the welfare of her sex and of the race at the cost of great misconception and abuse. "She might have won and honored the role of brilliant scholar, or of queen of society, or of a kingdom ; besides her acquisitions as a student and her rare ability as a writer, de- bater and orator, the power of her stately presence and the poise given by the finest social opportunities, she had the gift of ready repartee. One instance of this I now recall, told me by an eye-witness. The railway car and its appointments must be imagined for the setting of the picture. The distinguished oc- cupant was approached by an audacious unknown, who enter- tained her with his arguments against woman suffrage until his words, or his breath, gave out. Then our majestic friend, from the contrasting height of her commanding proportions swept her gaze deliberately from crown to heel of the puny manikin, and in the most untroubled tone assured him that 'she did not fear that he would seriously block the wheels of progress. ' It was a deserved rebuke a scene which those who know her can well make actual. This is not the serious side of our friend's nature, but it was one which added greatly to her power and her charm. " Peace be to her, the peace which she has helped to bring about, the peace which her superb courage and true heart have helped to win for all women of the future. With our noble Lucretia Mott, our beloved and brave Lucy Stone, our still liv- ing and heroic Susan B. Anthony, she has done yeoman serv- ice for the women of today. Under such leaders, and their later recruits, no just cause could suffer defeat, and with the memory of such leaders, no woman need blush for her sex, or doubt the triumph of its future. ' ' VI. CONTRIBUTIONS TO CURRENT THOUGHT. PEACE MEMOEIAL. In January, 1899, Madame Severance, being deeply impressed by the calling of the Conference at The Hague, felt impelled to set on foot an effort to rally the large membership of the Woman's Clubs, through their state presidents, officers and prominent members, to the help of the cause which is so vital to the interests of the home and so dear to the hearts of all thoughtful mothers. She therefore drew up the following memorial to be cir- culated among the clubs, but it was already so near the time of the Conference that she could reach but a small number. Madame Severance signed a copy of the Memorial with her club title, as being the representative of a large and weighty constituency, and asked for signatures of other representative women, club presidents and officials, and, for an active canvass as rapidly as possible. Hon. A. D. White, United States Commissioner to Hague Conference. Gentlemen and Brothers : We, the undersigned, come before you as women, from the homes of our favored and beloved land its daughters, sisters, wives, and the mothers of its sons. We represent the large membership of the organized bodies of the women of our country, and we beg of you in their name that you respond heartily and endorse practically the noble and inspiring manifesto of the "Czar of all the Russias," look- ing to progressive disarmament of all civilized nations, in the interest of permanent peace and human welfare. 78 Cfte fiotfter of Clubs 79 We regret keenly that our Republic has not taken the initia- tive in a movement so in line with its best traditions, and its position among the progressive nations of the world. But we must believe that our nation now earnestly seconds this appeal of the Czar, and will so place itself on record, without delay, and we implore you gentlemen, as its standard bearers, to do this in the interests of civilization, education, society, religion, and particularly of the home, which is, at once, the best product of these and the true basis of their progress and well-being. We beg, also, to call your attention to the pathetic vow of the women of some provinces in Spain, to bear no more sons for the butchery of the battlefield, a protest against the horrors of war which comes from the hearts of bereaved women in their desolated homes, and must thrill and find an echo in the souls of all true mothers, and of all women who are unbiased by partisan or conventional influences. We women, the mothers of your sons, forming one-half of the human race, but having in State affairs "no language but a cry," even in this freest commonwealth of the globe, beseech you to heed this, our appeal, and thus the right of woman to a hear- ing in these momentous matters, which so vitally affect her and the peace and safety of the home and of the race. May we not safely trust to your magnanimity, your sense of justice as statesmen, your honor as gentlemen, and your responsibility as fathers? May we not hope to see through you, at the coming con- ference, the superb spectacle of international brotherhood, worthy of the end of our remarkable century, and of the poets our modern prophets, who have foreseen and rejoiced in the better time when nations shall learn war no more, but unite on a "holy alliance" of "peace and good will to all men," A parliament of nations, The Federation of the world? Then can the menacing and pressing problems of our times so c&e Qjjot&er of Clu60 find their humane and just solution, and you, brothers, may reap the gratitude of all coming time for your share in this result. CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE, Founder and first president of the New England Woman's Club, at Boston, Mass. Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 1899. This memorial was signed by many prominent women, among whom were, for California, Phoebe Hearst, Jane L. Stan- ford, Mrs. David Starr Jordan, Ellen Sargent, and others; Julia Ward Howe, Clara Barton, Mary A. Livermore, and many others in the East. In regard to this memorial, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore wrote Madame Severance, under date of Feb. 3, 1899: "No one ob- jects in the least to your ' Memorial' on the subject of the Czar's Peace Conference. The topic is in our minds continually and we are much stirred up over it. To my letters there have come postal card replies, always endorsing your scheme. The great objection is the brevity of the time. If we can get to- gether a half-dozen live young women to help, we can put your plan through in ten days, or a fortnight." On February 8, Mrs. Livermore wrote: " 1 am entirely willing to put my name to the Memorial, and so are many others, who can do no work. Hoping something may come of it, ." March 3, the same able assistant wrote: "We now have held three meetings of women interested in the scheme of your letters and have, at last, reached conclusions. We shall, therefore, hold a Woman's Peace meeting in Trernont Temple, on Monday, April 3. There will be mass meetings in the same place on the four preceding Mondays. Ours will be the fifth. We shall distribute literature and urge people to buy books, in cheap form, like Charles Sumner's 'True Grandeur of Nations in Peace/ which in paper covers can be sold for a trifle. The women's meeting will come out squarely for an 'International Court of Arbitration/ and we shall try to make a permanent thing of it. So you see, my dear friend, if we have not carried out your plans, we are going to do something better, stir up the people at home to work for Cfte agotftet of lub$ si universal peace. Your petition and other documents are circu- lating among the clubs." May 24, she writes : ' ' We had 2,500 people at our mass meet- ing, excellent short speeches, which were heard everywhere; we passed strong resolutions. The report of the meeting, with the number in attendance, names of leading officers and the full resolutions were sent to the Russian legation, translated into Russian and forwarded to the Czar at St. Petersburg, to be presented at the Peace Conference at the Hague. We raised in all some $250 to $300 for Peace literature and every woman's organization in Massachusetts has been supplied with it, as we purchased it cheaply." Miss Clara Barton wrote on January 25, 1899: "I am in sympathy with the spirit which inspired the manifesto of the Czar. I think he should have the sympathy of all civilized nations. With the warmest interest in your grand movement and hoping for its success at a very early date, I am, yours most cordially." Mrs. May Wright Sewall wrote May 17, 1899: "I see by your letter that we have already done what you wished us to do. I have received reports, also, from fifty-eight meetings held on May 15, at which were present 27,482, representing 85,291 women, who had voted for our resolution to the Peace Confer- ence. It is beautiful, my dear Mrs. Severance, to realize that in all parts of our country, the hearts of women are united in a common purpose for the elevation of humanity. I remain, sincerely yours, Mrs. May Wright Sewall, Vice-President at large, of the International Council of Women." WORDS TO MOTHERS. (A club paper read by Madame Severance.) The bearing and the training of a child Is woman's wisdom. Tennyson. Dear women of many burdens and anxious hours, who are yet faithful to the supreme trust of motherhood : 82 Cbe fi@ o 1 6 e r of Clubs There be those, a multitude, perhaps, in our rapid and reck- less time, who are willing to rush on their giddy way of mis- called pleasure, content in their own ignorance, or even boastful in their inexperience, of their own superior wisdom in the care of their little ones. This is the spirit of our Young America carried over into the new relation of parenthood and is, in effect, an arraignment of the divine order which sets the parent before and over the child, that it may have the benefit of the elder's experience and wisdom. For, if one has had experience, one should be wiser therefrom and better able to guide suc- cessfully the younger feet on their unknown path. This wisdom should be definitely and religiously treasured for the help of the dear, dependent ones, and by those who enter in this spirit upon their paternal duties, the counsel of other parents is gladly welcomed. It is to such parents that I venture a few results of my own reading and studious observation. I will not " begin at the beginning," today the first and fundamental right of the child to be well-born, of sound, clean, harmonious parents. This right, although a somewhat modern idea, has been so frequently and so forcibly presented, and is so evidently based upon good sense and the ethics of the golden rule, that one may now assume it as a self-evident proposition and be sure of its universal acceptance, in due time. The child is, like its elders, an air plant and gets its food in as large a proportion from the air as from the earth. This fact is absolutely and exactly proven by the latest researches of our investigating age. Indeed, some of our most careful scientists have declared, as the result of their experiments, that they can give the exact proportions necessary of pure air for the proper digestion and assimilation of food; that any less amount of pure air, to oxygenate the blood with which it comes into con- tact in the lungs, leaves the half-digested food to enter the system and clog the tissues and thus becomes the direct cause of numberless colds, nervous derangements, fevers and con- gestions, the naturally weak organs, in any case, being the first or chief sufferers. Cfte Q^otftet of Clu60 83 This fact throws light upon the cause of much infant and adult illness and is most helpful towards its prevention. Not drugs, but the open door and window by day and night ! Not tonics, which as the famous Frenchman said of all drugs, are 1 ' things of which we know nothing, put into stomachs of which we know less ; ' ' not these, but the life-giving air of forest and ocean, flowing all about us from its exhaustless reservoir of forty miles in depth, and seeking and forcing entrance to house and to lungs at every moment of the live-long day and night ! Why do we how can we disregard this magnificent provision for our well-being ; why do we turn instead and put our trust in the difficult, dangerous and expensive substitutes for fresh air? The dread of a draught, 'the shrinking from the chill of pure, fresh air is so nearly universal and so extreme with many persons, that one almost suspects, among those whose profession it is to treat disease, a conspiracy to keep the people ignorant, prejudiced and ailing. Yet we cannot believe this of the noble men we know in the profession, and so are forced 'to believe that a doctor is not always wise, outside of his materia medica, when we find closed windows and doors and foul air in his own dwelling and in those of his patients and hear his emphatic orders to " avoid the night air, by all means. " Pray, is night air less pure and wholesome than the stagnant, re-breathed air of a closed house? We are told by scientific authority that the causes of impurity in the air are respiration, stagnation, combustion, exhalations from marshes, and the smoke and dust of trades and towns ; that a man produces, by breathing, six parts of a cubic foot of deadly carbonic acid gas per hour, and needs a room ten feet in height and twenty-two in breadth, for perfect health; that this room should have, in winter, an inch opening in a window for each person in it; that two gas burners produce as much carbonic acid gas in an hour, as do ten men, and other lights, their proportion! But that the carbonic gas from these lights is less injurious than that of the re-breathed air; that a man might live an hour in a fair-sized room, hermetically sealed, if a candle burning in the 84 Cfte 8 o tier of Clubs room, three-quarters of an hour ; if a lamp, a half -hour ; if two gas-burners, five minutes ; and that it is by far more healthful to drink unpurified and foul river water, than to breathe daily and nightly, the air of unventilated rooms; that there is no difference in town and country air, except as it is indoor or outdoor air; the ozone of the sea-shore is never found in the city or town away from reach of the sea. From these facts we may learn, with horror, how far the common ignorance is responsible for the many discomforts and numberless diseases which afflict our race, from the cradle upward; we may learn why consumption is the fell destroyer which it now is, in the regions where life is largely lived within doors, and why outdoor climate and life offer the best conditions for its prevention and cure. The anxious young mother thus finds that she may ward off disease and insure robust health for her dear ones, by the simple use of fresh air and other abundant gifts of the good Father ; and she finds that she and the earthly father, who should second and support her warmly in this joint responsibility, are before God and at the bar of common sense guilty, if from inheritance or environment, their helpless and innocent little ones are doomed to early death or to wretched invalidism. It is most comforting to know that the means for avoiding such a fate for the little ones are ample and at our door. Where in life can be found more solid satisfaction than in the close fellowship between mother and child, which gives her the study of the precious young soul in its unfolding and in its eager curiosity concerning the mysteries of the world it enters, trailing clouds of wonder as it comes? THE IDEAL HOME. "Home is the grandest of all institutions. " Spurgeon. Under this heading, Madame Severance wrote for the press in 1889, as follows: Both the exterior and interior of the home come alike under the same supreme condition: that of the intellectual develop- Cfte ogotber of Ciu&0 35 ment of its owner and designer. As is he or she, so is his or her home, in its essentials and its ornamentation. You say, the architect is betrayed in his building. But no ! the man or the woman who selects the architect, is responsible for him and his order of work. Is it not so? It is easy for the person of trained and alert eye to classify the residents of any street, somewhat accurately, by this choice of architect, hindered a trifle in this and helped, also by the fact that each archi- tect has a more or less personal style, or modification of one, which he is tempted to apply recklessly to all "sorts and con- ditions" of house and lot, unless forbidden by the taste or means of the owner. A person of fine taste may sometimes, it is true, be the victim of concurrent circumstances, and buy a ready-made house under pressure a house which meets his needs in size, location and plan, better than it does his taste. And the artistic and re- sourceful purchaser often modifies his purchase by such deft touches here and there of line and color, or of addition in appropriate places, that it grows easily into a thing of beauty and satisfaction. One can only write of homes which approach one's ideal, under the general well-known canons of simplicity, of propor- tion, of fitness to climate and location, to the demands of purse and of family-life, and 'to general and specific surroundings. In all cases climate is necessarily the item of first importance. Given so unique a climate as ours of Southern California, one would expect it to be hailed gladly as a helper in the solution of this problem, of how and where to build and how to adorn one's home. For it really meets the most 'trying items of the problem, making it a pure pleasure. Instead, then, of the styles which suit the winter-climate of other States, and which, transplanted here, have grown too often into mongrel specimens of foreign style and other times we should adapt our Southern California homes, first of all, to the climatic conditions which prevail here. With our con- tinuous sunshine through most of the year, we should so place 86 Cfte Sgot&er of C I it 60 our houses on lot and street as to welcome it into all our rooms, especially into our sleeping rooms. But we should also secure the shelter of deciduous vines and trees from the annoying glare and enervating heat of its summer noon-day beams. Being deciduous shade it will ensure us full sunlight during the winter months; for we must fain confess to ' * winter months, ' ' even in our Lotus Land, although to tourists they may seem only a lingering of summer in the lap of autumn. But the cooler months are to be reckoned with, here as else- where, although on a different scale ; and one who values the first requisite of health and comfort will surely see to it that the best of artificial heat replaces the lost sunlight, on the cool, raw days that come with our rainy season; and to do this by the most healthful and the least costly means, where the home treasury is not amply filled; for here too comes in a weighty factor in the cost of fuel in our almost woodless land. And until our capitalists furnish and our monopolists allow a lower freight rate on the coal which is not far from our doors, or to the gas and electricity which would so bless the burdened house-mother, we must lament and protest, and waste our substance helplessly. By far the most healthful and not the least costly means of heating, are open fireplaces and cellar furnaces, on a small scale ; the fireplace securing the necessary ventilation and the furnace giving opportunity for open doors and windows at all times. The prevailing winds must also be carefully considered in building. In this climate it is well to leave the southwest ex- posure of the house fully open to them for the hot summer months. The kitchen should be placed on the north side, when possible, to escape any unnecessary addition to its own arti- ficial heat ; the piazzas should be placed, one on the north side for the shade where it will shut out no direct sunlight in winter, and one on the south and east for the sun on cool, clear days. We should also take a leaf from the life of our native Spanish population, and adopt the court, or patio, which makes the most and the best of our balmy, sunny air, and of our almost Cfie @otf)er of Clit&g 87 daily summer breezes. We can thus create an ideal meeting place for family and friends, and a bower of beauty, by the use of tender climbing and fragrant plants and vines. KINDERGARTENS. It may be observed that when Madame Severance is asked to give the history of the movements that she herself started, she invariably begins, as one must from sheer modesty in such cases, by placing the credit upon a "small group of women." But in all organizations there is a central and centrifugal first force to be counted on. This applies to the Los Angeles Free Kindergarten Asso- ciation, of which Mrs. Severance was the founder. Of it she writes : "The first experimental beginning in kindergarten work in our city was made, in 1876, by Miss Emma Marwedel, for whom Mrs. Judge Widney and myself had labored diligently to secure pupils, before her coming. It is pleasant to remember that Miss Kate Smith, later Mrs. Kate Douglas Wiggin, the well known author and an authority in kindergarten literature and work, had her first training under Miss Marwedel in this city. Later, with the help of Professor Felix Adler, of New York, she established the famous and beneficent kindergarten work in San Francisco, which is a delight and a model to all kindergartners. 1 ' Our own Free Kindergarten Association had its beginning in 1885, with a small band of earnest, thoughtful and public- spirited women, aided by sympathetic husbands and friends, who worked faithfully and harmoniously through all the ob- stacles and discouragements of that early time. Knowledge of the value of this new departure in education was scant and experience in this frontier state was even less. Ignorance and indifference were formidable obstacles in the pathway of the young Association. "Finding it difficult to rally sufficient financial and moral 88 Cfte 0ott)er of Clubs support by personal argument and appeal, we resorted to raising funds by means of attractive entertainments, which proved eminently successful. It is a pleasure to recall the fact that these were the first entertainments of a fine literary value ever given in Los Angeles. Courses of reading were given by Locke Richardson, who is still unexcelled in his art; by Mrs. Humphrey Smith, of San Francisco, the accomplished inter- preter of Browning, Emerson and other poets; George W. Cable and Max O'Rell lectured. The Cradle Songs of the Nations was one of the delightful events. In addition, the Association had the generous help of the few professional and amateur musicians of that time, in concerts, and other ways. "The work of this Association was limited, for some years, to maintaining a kindergarten on Sansevain street, in a mission chapel kindly loaned for that purpose by the first Congrega- tional church, whose pastor, Rev. A. J. Wells, gave most valued and active endorsement to the work. Later a second kinder- garten was opened on Chavez street, in a chapel also given rent free, by the same generous congregation. "While rejoicing over the acceptance by the school board of our strenuous appeals to make the kindergarten a part of the public school system, we found ourselves, as an Association, confronted with a serious difficulty in the fact that, under the law, children under the age of four-and-a-half years are not al- lowed to enter the public kindergarten. This seems a most illogic- al provision to be made by those who sufficiently appreciated the value of the new method to incorporate it upon the school system. It leaves, of course, large numbers of little ones afloat upon the street and under its vile influences, or upon the hands of the charitable, to be brought into schools supported by voluntary effort on the part of those who have already been taxed equally with others for the support of public education. And it leaves our Association the severe labor of still arous- ing the public conscience to a sense of its duties to these waifs and strays, until we can count upon the enlightened sentiment which will put the statute into better form." Cbe egotftet of Clu&s LETTER TO THE FIRST NATIONAL CONGRESS OF MOTHERS, AT WASHINGTON, D. C., 1897. "Dear Friends: I am out of active service and only on the list of 'honor' in club and kindergarten work. But I cannot forbear my word of heartiest greeting to you for the work which you have now in hand. It is beginning at the true beginning with the mother and with the problems of the home. And I feel sure that in solving these, or in attempting to do so, you will find that you cover all social problems. Nothing that concerns the welfare of the race can be of indifference to the home. And when women have learned, by wise fellowship and organized methods, to meet the home problems, they will be nobly prepared to meet those same problems in the larger home the state. "Much thought upon these questions and such study and observation as I have been able to compass in my brief life have led me to the firm conviction that defiance of law human and divine which appalls us in our political and public life, and which should receive its right title, 'anarchy,' whether practised by men eminent in party, government, finance, etc., or by a 'revolutionist,' that this anarchy has its roots in the lack of home-training in the common duties of obedience, truth and unselfishness in regard to the rights of others. This lack of training is most pronounced in the case of our boys, who are put under a standard of manners and morals, from the cradle, as 'only boys,' who must have their way in the home, the street and in public places. Thus they begin their career as genteel rowdies and hoodlums; later they are the youths who must sow their wild oats no matter at what cost to mates, family, or public. It is small wonder that such 'unchartered freedom, if it do not tire with its weight and chaos of chance desire,' should end in making the most dangerous class of our community a class which by character and by the opportun- ities of wealth and position, is naturally inclined to oppress and crush all in their power, to serve party or personal ends. 90 cfte fi@ o t ft e r of C I u 6 And it is this class who become 'beasts of prey' upon the other sex. "The responsibility for this condition, and the remedy for it, must come largely upon the home, upon the father and the mother for the woman alone cannot solve this great problem." CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM. Christianity, let us remember, is an attitude of mind, a habit of feeling, a condition of soul; it is not an Institution. And the very gist of Christianity may quite as readily be embodied in Socialism as in any formal church; and Socialism, whenever it appears in any sincere guise, always has an aim in accord with Christianity it aims at giving more freedom to the spiritual side of man, it aims at putting man's life under such outward conditions that he can practise virtue more easily and find happiness more readily in this life. Bliss Carmen. If Christian Socialism means fellowship in church and State, the corporate life, the virtue of walking with and working with others, count me a Christian Socialist. Eugene B. Shippen. An article prepared by Madame Severance for the Los Ange- les Herald, in answer to the question: "WHAT IS THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN TO MAN- KIND IN THIS OPENING YEAE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY?" No thoughtful or well-read person now looks for the "glor- ious millennium" which was so long the dream of the latter- day churches to burst upon the world like a meteor, at given date, and to banish sin and evil from our earth, at a stroke. The fearless leaders of thought, and the tireless investigators of the last century have changed all that, scorned though they were at the outset as blasphemers and disturbers of the peace. Such persons, having read history and observed the march of events, even in their own day, with unbiased mind, have come to trust in the undeniable law of growth to carry us forward. They can only earnestly, but confidently, hope, that as the race develops its higher faculties "puts off the tiger and puts on the man" this progress will be less and Ci>e 90ot&er of Clu&s 91 less hindered by destructive and wasteful methods, either be- tween individuals and classes, or between nations. Love will be then recognized as "the unerring light," the irresistible force, in all human affairs. The brotherhood of man will come to be the accepted creed of all civilized, and necessarily of all "Christian," nations. Under its "golden rule" the vexing questions of labor and capital, of forced poverty and ill-got- ten riches, of classes privileged by legislators above their fel- lows, and unpunished for their flagrant disobedience and defi- ance of laws, these problems will find their peaceful solution at the ballot box. They do not believe that this solution will come as a miracle, wrought by unseen agencies, but it will be brought about by strenuous human effort, and along definite lines, through single or by organized action, as all past gains have come. Besides the noble, upright character which does its large share in moulding and in laying broad and safe the foundations of our private and public life, the present century will, no doubt, give us the "direct legislation" and the "public owner- ship of public utilities" which have been tried to the gain of peoples elsewhere; and this without any "change in human nature," except as it has hitherto been developed to clearer vision and to higher issues. Under this development the "paramount issue" of woman's position, as a human being and a citizen, will come to just recognition; as will also her equality with the son whom she has borne and the husband whom she has often protected from himself by her wisdom and patient love, and kept from want, by the labor of her own weaker muscle. She will be pro- tected by good laws from the beasts of prey on our city streets, and rescued from her present dishonorable political classification (by her father, husband and sons!) with the in- competent and criminal non-voters an audacious program, but coming true, year by year. Let me give your readers the superbly brave reply which I see in none of our dailies by Mark Twain, in response to a 92 Cbe Qiotfur of Clubs request for a sentiment at an entertainment by the New York Red Cross: "I bring you the stately matron named Christendom- returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Manchuria, South Africa and the Philippines with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. 1 'Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass!" Let me give you, also, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's ''Dream of a statesman with a heart too large for England ; of courage to speak of the hurt to neighboring peoples, of England's commercial greed." My own dream, of the far future, is that of Kipling, albeit he is a strenuous poet, of a time When none shall work for money, And none shall work for fame; But all for the joy of the doing. "Joy," because none need then labor under the murderous spur of starvation for wife and child, and of the equally mur- derous spur of competition. Brave men and women, speed the day ! (Letter written for Woman's Day, at a Socialist gathering, May 30, 1898.) Dear Friends: I could not find it in my heart to decline the request of your committee to give such small service as I may be able today to the good cause which appeals so strongly to me and for which our League stands, the cause of "peace on earth, good will to men." For that blessed mission it surely stands ! Not for the deliverance of man from the wrath to come and the vengeance of an offended Creator, as the outworn dogmas proclaimed, but to deliver him from the wrath that has come, through the greed and injustice of those to whom "might Cbe S^otfter of Clubs 93 makes right " and rights, a greed which has made him a pauper and a bond slave in this bountiful world of ours where there is enough and to spare for each and for all. The creed of our League is co-operation for the good of all, as against the deadly competition, which has brought upon the industrial world its present miseries and misrule. It sees and believes that ''through the ages an increasing purpose runs." It believes that co-operation is as much a fact and a factor in evolution as competition has been in the past, and is the next step in industrial development the only sufficient instrumen- tality for averting a destructive revolution. It stamps as blas- phemy to God and man and as untrue to the facts of life and of history, the claim that competition is necessary to the highest development of the individual or of society. It finds in the fierce selfishness of competition, the development and growth of all the baser passions, perhaps we should say that it is re- sponsible for their creation and existence. It sees, in the de- light of the student in his library, the artist in his studio, the scientist in his laboratory, the preacher in his pulpit and, most of all, in the faithful service of wife and mother in innumer- able homes, the nobler incentives and the truer happiness. Nowhere under competition as a motive can such broad and sure results be shown. Ah, yes, my friends, let us be proud and happy to enroll our- selves in the goodly company of prophets and poets who have foreseen the better way and time, "when swords shall be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks;'* * * when the nations shall learn war no more, the war drums beat no longer and the battle flags be furled." In this faith and in this noble fellowship we enroll ourselves and call upon all who care for the world's welfare to rally to the wise work. LETTER TO A MULTI-MILLIONAIRE. Dear Sir: I have learned with much interest and pleasure* from a brief sketch I have just seen of yourself, that you are a grandson, on your mother's side, of the Reverend John Pier- Cbe Qiotftet of Clubs pont, whom I knew well in Boston, and whom I exceedingly honored. He was a man of the old, heroic type, who stood for the truth as he saw it, and lost his fine parish and many friends thereby. Nothing in my life has been more pathetic to me than to see this dear old man, poet and scholar, of whom it may be truly written, 'He loved his countrymen,' toiling up and down the many long flights of stairs in the Treasury department at Washington, sincerely happy, and grateful to Secretary Chase for giving him a position there, when all else had failed. It is, therefore, because I believe, from the seventy years of my mature experience, that "blood tells" that I am moved to send to you, dear sir, these lines, and to beg something of you. I do not desire money nor personal aid of any sort; I only wish to recall to you the noble example of your ancestor and to implore you to use your opportunities to earn an im- mortality of blessedness, by a magnificent service to your fellow men of all lands and of future times. You, dear sir, no doubt have inherited a wonderful gift of or- ganization and of financial skill from your father; from your mother and her noble father, I must also believe that you have inherited a faith in the right as a conquering power in all human affairs, and in love, as the fulfilling of the divine law. Remembering that these are the only safe and enduring bases of true success and that we can carry none of this world's gains, except these, into the other life, will you not, dear sir, make it your aim to use your untold wealth in the bettering of the condition of manual laborers in your employ, by the system of profit-sharing, so eminently satisfactory wherever tried? This system, properly set on foot in your vast enterprises, would revolutionize, by the contagion of its high example, the indus- tries of all countries. What memorial, what niche in history, could be more worthy of your ambition or bring you more enor- mous returns of happiness ? One of our New England poets sings, Cfte 90otftet of C lu 60 95 What 's mine alone is mine far less Than bounty shared by every soul. No conqueror of boundless provinces in the past, no holder of princely revenues today, has a more superb and appealing opportunity than this to you, dear sir, to make glad your own life with the blessings of millions, now oppressed by the un- hallowed and suicidal greed of our time, and to win the love and the widespread appreciation of all right-minded men and women the world over. May it not be for this end that you have 'toiled to win the " coign of vantage," when a word, a pressing of a button by your hand would lift a tremendous pressure of want and de- spair from those to whom life, in the scant comfort and the tortures of poverty for the the weak wife and helpless children, seems a frightful mockery? Oh, my dear sir, remember He hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth and that "Inasmuch as ye have helped one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Him." Letter written for the Banquet to Mayor Jones, of Toledo, Ohio, in Los Angeles, 1900. I find it not wise to be with you tonight, but so much wish to be counted one of you on this memorable passing of the old century and coming of the new, that I must comfort myself with a few words of fellowship and cheer. I give you a hearty "all hail," as true, brave souls, the seers of our time. It is a rare delight, but also a perilous re- sponsibility, to be granted a sight of the forces of evolution at play and at work in human affairs; to catch enchanting glimpses of the nobler dawn of the race. Those thus favored may well afford to bear the world's contumely and scorn, since the coming vision will not tarry because of that unbelief, but will come to bless alike the wise and the unwise. All good causes have their Bunker Hills and their Bull Runs, and we, who have lived to see many victories for the right, can never be 96 C ft e 9 o t ft e r of Clubs disheartened. I share fully the faith of the Countess Von Suttner, whose book, " Ground Arms," it is said, inspired the Czar to his late manifesto. In a forcible article in one of our reviews, she meets the ob- jectors who quote against her arguments and hopes, the fact of the present armed warfare of the very nations represented at the Hague Conference, meets this argument by stating that this condition is a harvest of seeds sown long before and that the horrors of the present barbarous wars are surely arousing, in the thoughtful of all nations, a righteous indignation which will, in time, tell mightily on the side of peace and true broth- erhood. THE BEAUTIES OF LOS ANGELES. The radiant beauty shed abroad On all the glorious works of God Shows freshly to my sobered eye Each charm it wore in days gone by. William Cullen Bryant. The great interest taken by Madame Severance in the growth and development of her beloved western home city is nowhere shown more practically than in her many appeals in matters of public interest. An article written in 1895 has had wide influence in the in- auguration of local improvements which have since that time been slowly developing. Full of local pride and hope, and better yet of practical plans, she wrote as follows: "So beautiful for situation, between its guardian mountain ranges and the smiling sea, so wonderful in its resources and its possibilities, is this charming valley of ours, that one cannot reasonably doubt that its manifest destiny is to be a world sani- tarium. One who abhors sea and desert travel may, indeed, say that it is a Paradise because it is reached only through a purgatory of sea or desert. But once here, every prospect pleases and only a few men are vile considering the many nations, tongues and races here represented. of Clu60 97 "In sober truth, we older residents know that our range of climates, latitudes, and altitudes, of fruits and products from all zones, suffice to meet royally the demands both of health and of invalidism. To him who seeks it wisely here, no demand of necessity, comfort, or luxury is impossible. He cannot be ac- credited with wisdom, however, who leaves a trying, rigorous climate elsewhere, to immure himself and his feeble vitality in a crowded, sunless, perhaps fireless, hotel or boarding house. Such places are to be avoided by health seekers here, as well as in other climates, and are no longer prescribed by physicians. "But our climate, which makes possible a constant out-of- door life for fully eleven months out of twelve, is surely as nearly ideal as this planet of ours affords, one worth forsak- ing father and mother, it may be, to secure. And most cer- tainly it is worthy of our united effort in making it known abroad and in utilizing all its desirable features. "Once here, how can the invalid best enjoy the delights and the gains of our climate; how can the tourist of artistic sense find the most pleasure ; how can the resident who has adopted the country, best compass its benefits and enjoyments? "One way in which this may be accomplished is by means of drive-ways which shall make sight-seeing an irresistible temp- tation; which, over a roadbed that does not jar upon the body and set the sensibilities on edge, shall carry us past lawns and shrubberies of rare beauty and tropical luxuriance and past homes of stately architecture or of simple, artistic construction. "In our much-favored city, with its lovely environments, we have abundant raw material for magnificent results. Our mountain ranges, with their varied skylines and snowy summits, front us with splendor ; under their daily sunrise, noontide, and sunset changes of light, shadow and coloring, they afford a superb background; the living green of orange groves, of al- falfa fields, of lawns and gardens, of eucalyptus, peppers and other evergreens, even of the symmetrical Chinese gardens of our outskirts, make beautiful our city streets and our valley 98 c ft e 80 a t ft e r of C I u 6 $ stretches. And our suburbs and our parks offer most attract- ive termini for such driveways. 1 'If, then, our city is to take its proper rank, which is to be a leader, if it will, or at least a close second in the proces- sion of beautiful cities of the country and of the world; if it would take its proper place, it should at once lay out a gener- ous system of boulevards, broad, perfectly graded, tree-lined, which boulevards should connect the various parks, the present ones and those to come, and thus give miles of splendid drive- ways. "The cities of the old world offer many object lessons in this direction. Their magnificent boulevards are an indis- pensable part of their attractions. At their summer and winter resorts, driveways for the daily outing are a necessary feature and the places would soon be deserted, if not thus provided. Keen business sense and a natural rivalry urge their con- struction, however expensive the step may be at the outset. Our own eastern cities are learning the value of such roadways and are following the European cities in the planning and con- struction of comprehensive boulevard systems. "Let us take a leaf from their experience, both in theory and in practice. Let us not prate endlessly of industries, man- ufactories and commerce as the only indispensables. Let us, rather, cultivate the industries which nature here offers us on every hand those which invite and follow naturally in the wake of wealth, culture and invalidism; which minister to the sense of beauty and comfort, while also filling the heart and the purse. A health-seeking and beauty-loving population needs to be well fed and housed and to be entertained, mentally as well as physically, and it also needs to be transported readily and comfortably. And for these things it gives in return as proved by the experience of noted resorts elsewhere an income equal to that which other towns receive from the noisy, filthy, ordinary and often unhealthful, industries. Towns which have not the attractions and the possibilities of our own, may accept and even welcome such industries. Fortunately no such ne- Cfte e@otftet of Clu&$ cessity is laid upon us in this favored quarter of the globe. Our pathway lies along the lines of artistic, enchanting and health- giving activities. Let those regions which are barren of these rare delights and opportunities make the most of their own less attractive advantages. "For those to whom nature has administered with such lav- ish hands, it should be easy to complete the charms at hand. And despite the blunders of our early city surveys, which call a sudden halt on nearly all of our cross town streets, by their bewildering jogs, 'despite this, we have new territory to deal with in a better way; several fine thoroughfares already well laid out for considerable distances, which, properly continued, and, most vital of all, saved from the dangers and unsight- liness of street car tracks, would give us drive-ways of unsur- passed beauty. "For instance, what could be finer as a seaward and sub- urban boulevard than the two broad roadways of Figueroa and Adams streets, now so well begun, which according to the old proverb, is 'half done/ These are already partially shaded and in sections, well built up. One should be continued on its pres- ent line, south to the sea, near Redondo, passing through a fer- tile and soon to be luxuriant grain and fruit region ; the north- ern extension of Figueroa should reach Elysian Park. Adams street should reach the sea at Santa Monica ; at the pretty sta- tion of The Palms, it would meet its western extension, already graded and partially shaded. This driveway would command from its many level heights, a panorama of sea, mountain, foot- hills and valleys verdant with alfalfa and barley, or golden with grain stubble. The same street should be carried eastward across the river into the country beyond, which would also give glorious outlooks of mountain and valley. ' ' These should be made a part, moreover, of our park system, by bringing Alvarado street, which is now broad and fine where graded, past Echo Park and Westlake to Adams and by con- tinuing it on the north to Elysian Park. Adams street should also be connected on the east with a similar boulevard which should cross Eastlake Park and swing around to Elysian. That loo C&e quotfter of Clufis these connections would not be rectangular would only add to their beauty and fascination. "It is a pity that we have already lost beyond redemption the most charming of our inland suburban drives, that through the arroyo to Pasadena. Five lines of cars now destroy its beauty and its safety. But that loss should make us pause before all other possibilities are sacrificed to the greed of com- petition. Even our best driveways, Adams and Figueroa are al- ready under the doom of the electric car think of it ! Have invalids, tourists, the aged and the infant, the artist and the beauty-lover, have these no rights which blind politicians and self-seeking money-makers are bound to respect? Let at least the patriotic and high-minded assert themselves, claim their rights as tax-payers and property owners, and join in a friendly crusade to wrest this heavenly birthright from the hands of those who would barter it for a mere 'mess of pottage.' "Taking the matter on its practical business side, however, the increased taxes for these improvements would be but a fraction of the enhanced value of the land in sight and reach of them and of the increase in all city and suburban property." Oh, city of my later life and longing, Nestled in vale fair as Italia 's own, With sons of dauntless will and loyal-hearted, And daughters dowered for all heroic striving; May thy high fortune be to lead our land In the world struggle toward the lofty rule Of calm-eyed Justice and of sweet-browed Peace, The royal consorts of the coming time. C. JA. S. THE NEW ITALY. The angel of summer aloft, I see, And the soul of roses about to be! And the heart in me sings the heart knows why 'Tis winter on earth, but June in the sky! Edith M. Thomas. As evidence of Madame Severance's enthusiastic appreciation of Southern California, the use of the following descriptive article has been permitted: "One is disposed to put 'climate' in the plural when writ- C f) e e o t ij e t of Clubs 101 ing of so large a state as California and one so wonderfully en- dowed with conditions which make health, comfort and beauty in all seasons. Its great length of coast line and its mountain ranges irregularly paralleling that, offer a wealth of resource in varying temperature, altitudes, shelter from the sea breezes or exposure to them, perhaps unequalled by any state in the union, or indeed, by any country in the world. This topic may seem worn threadbare at first thought; but it is necessary to recapitulate the features which are still but vaguely under- stood. Its mountain ranges offer sunny or shaded canyons and nooks, for the invalid, the bee culturist and the indolent pleas- ure seeker; higher up, bracing air and summer snow and ice offer new life and recreation, while the snowy heights, the sheltered canyons give rise to the streams which furnish the water supply. The inland valleys, shut in by knobby moun- tains or foothills, give an almost tropic temperature, even dur- ing the winter months, grateful to the enfeebled or the tourist. Many a wrecked man of affairs, many a chronic patient the despair of medical faculties has found life well worth living as a result of the natural balms for brain and body found in the health-giving quiet and atmosphere of these valleys. "The advantages of our California winters have been ac- cepted as facts by most intelligent persons; but the popular conception leaves a heavy balance against California for the summer months, and is more at fault in this, perhaps, than in regard to any other fact of our climatic conditions. The truth is that our summer climate surpasses that of the eastern summer as really as does our winter weather that of the fierce eastern winter. "We of the 'new Italy' might well say, as did the loyal citi- zens of the old-time Italy, 'Why go away when all men come to us?' But while this may be true of the winter travel to our favored state, why should it not also be true of our sum- mer traffic ? Why should not tourists come to us for our sum- mer climate ? It can only be because they are still ignorant of the unsurpassed attractions as a summer resort of our 'beau- tiful corner of the earth : ' because they do not know that while 102 Cftc 0otftcr of Clubs the rains do not often come as a flood in winter time, their ab- sence in the summer months does not leave us comfortless and shorn of beauty; that our valleys are still green, in the dry season, with orange groves and other orchards, with alfalfa fields and vegetable gardens, or rich with a golden brown that pleases the eye of artist and poet ; that our mountain sides and summits, where not covered with noble pines and firs, or white with silvery snow-caps, show beauty still in the varied coloring which runs through all the gamut of greys, browns, yellows and purples. "And all of this is but a regal setting for days that lap one in a dream of Elysium, so crystal clear and cloudless, and yet so delicious with mountain and ocean ozone, so full of the music of bird and the perfume of perpetual bloom, crowned with the temperature of the 'perfect June day.' This temper- ature has one distinct feature ; while the heat may seem severe under the open sky, the shelter of roof, tree, or umbrella, makes it enjoyable, and its best feature not to be found elsewhere, is the entire relief from the day's he^t afteri sunset. The nights the long year through are blissfully cool, and the hor- rors of the gasping, suffocating nights of the eastern sum- mer, when one cries out in desperation, ' Would God it were morning!' are absolutely unknown. "These natural advantages have been largely developed and utilized by the marvelous spirit of enterprise for which our western people are known. Our hotels outrank most eastern hostelries. Echo Mountain House and Alpine Tavern, at Mount Lowe, challenge comparison with any known resorts upon mountain heights, as does the marvelous scheme of engineering by which these are reached. Golden Gate Park, in San Fran- cisco, created from nothing one might say, looking upon its con- tiguous sand dunes; the charming suburbs of that city, rival- ling those of Boston; San Rafael and its idyllic Ross Valley; Piedmont Heights, aristocratic Menlo Park, a tract of noble live oaks, pre-empted by the millionaires of the city for their stately summer homes; the seventeen miles of driveway along the tempting beach at Monterey, overhung by picturesque, C ft e @ o t ft c r of I u b 103 wind-swept cypresses; Santa Cruz, with its unique mountain back-ground; Santa Monica, Ocean Park, Redondo, Long Beach, Coronado, each with special virtues and attractions; Riverside, with its unrivalled orange groves; Redlands and its world-famous Smiley Heights, a marvel of landscape garden- ing ; Pasadena, the royal crown of the historic San Gabriel val- ley ; and beautiful Santa Barbara, fairest pearl of this priceless necklace, in its unique setting of mountain and sea, all of these make an array of temptations for the invalid, the artist, the bon-vivant tourist and sight-seeker, which once enjoyed are not easily resisted thereafter. "It is not intentional to slight our 'Lady of the Angels;' that it is last on the list. Her natural advantages equal any others in varied hill sites for noble homes throughout city and suburbs, in commanding mountain views from all points, of easy access to summer and winter resorts. Its crowning attraction to many intending tourists and residents is its life and enterprise as a commercial and railroad center, destined perhaps to be the capital city of a new state of Southern California. ''Think of the charm of a land where one's windows and doors may stand open day and night; where one may sit upon the broad veranda, taking in health, beauty, perfume and music the livelong day ! "We have still to add that nowhere else, in a commonwealth so young and so distant from the old centers of literature and culture, can more be offered to the making of a full, rich life on either the lines of art, of study, or of worthy leisure ; for we have here the creditable beginnings of all these. We can al- ready boast two Universities which compare favorably with the older institutions of the east, Berkeley, with its fine record and ' groves of Academe, ' and Stanford with its royal demesne and its ideal faculty and atmosphere ; we have Mount Hamilton and its royal road to the celestial outlook; the lesser colleges of Southern California on the way to becoming universities, no doubt ; the numberless and flourishing musical societies, art galleries and studios of San Francisco and the counterpart of these 'in small,' in our own quarter, the public schools of the 104 i)e Dottier of Clubs state, whose teachers are, in the main, a proverb for efficiency, as are also those of most of our private schools. "In Los Angeles we have a public library an institution most creditable; numerous parks, somewhat in the embryo, as yet; a boulevard system planned which shall connect the city with the seashore at various points, and which will be one of our great attractions. * ' Utilizing our bountiful resources, we might imitate the Ital- ians of the time of the Medici, by building so generously as to find a refuge from the heat of summer days in the airy court and the north and west rooms of the lower story, the arcaded porticoes and sheltered gardens, all beautiful with bronzes and marbles ; while we spent winter days in glass-screened bal- conies and gardens, and in sunned upper rooms and roof gar- dens. Palaces these which still stand on the fair Tuscan hills, and which our English and American brethren are now oc- cupying, and often, alas, modernizing out of their classic lines of beauty. These are homes rich with the memories of Petrarch, Milton, Leigh Hunt, Landor, the Brownings, and others, and priceless because of these associations. "Shall not we, too, build and adorn our homes with sweet, simple and high art, creating homes which will bring blessings not only to their owners and neighbors, but to posterity in the ages to come, homes fragrant with the indestructible aroma of high living and noble art, of art that is true to its age and therefore helpful and inspiring, the harmonious and graceful handmaid of nature at her best, as here she surely is?'* BEMAEKS MADE BY MADAME SEVEEANCE AT A FUNEEAL, IN 1860. "When one is asked to say a few words in the presence of this mystery we call death, it is as a tribute to the memory of the one gone and an attempt to offer comfort and hope to the sad survivors. "I am little qualified to speak of our friend as being espec- ially familiar with her own faith about a future life. But I C ft e e o tftet of Clufrg 105 have known enough of her life here, which must be the best key to a preparation for any future, to speak most heartily of its simplicity, its genuineness, its generosity, even to the sac- rifice of ease and self for another's comfort, and this spon- taneously, gladly. "To come into her home was to feel the presence and the spell of all the sweet home virtues ; to face the substance of all life's best things; to realize that life is a thousand times well worth living when it offers such peace and sweetness and char- acter, as the result. This, our tribute to a life simply and purely lived, is the more emphatic, has a broader sanction, when we know that it was lived from its own inner sense of duty and delight, and not from any formula of duty, or of personal safety for the future, endorsed by mere custom or tradition. It was the happy overflow of a wholesome, noble human nature, which some of us dare to call divine, in its capacity and destiny; be- cause we find ourselves the creatures of a supreme power which makes for righteousness in each of us, if we only will. "Not knowing her faith, beyond the noble one shown in her life of helpfulness and sweetness, her joy in all the loveliness that lives in nature, the flower, the shell, the bird, the sea and the sky, I can best attempt to comfort the sorrowing in the words which most comfort me in such trials. Our dear David Wasson sings in a magnificent strain of the glories of our present inheritance in his 'All Hail,' which I feel sure our friend felt ringing in her own soul ; and our beloved Whittier sees in all this superb endowment, an undeniable token and promise of what is yet to come, as life goes on through the ages ; Charles G. Ames, the Brownings and Emerson all sing of the same high hope and trust. ' ' OTHER TOPICS. Besides the topics and papers which have been presented, Madame Severance has written many papers which are too lengthy for insertion here. One of these on the Chinese ques- tion, was written at the request of the Association for the Ad- 106 Cfte a&otfier of Clu60 vancement of Woman, and was read at its Congress held at Portland, Maine, in the early eighties. This paper was prepared after a careful study of the reports of congressional committees, on the hiring of Chinese labor by the Central Pacific Railroad Company, and from material furnished by George Sewall, then a United States official in China. Another paper was on "The Beginnings of Anarchy in the Home": others on "Venti- lation," with strong scientific arguments in its behalf; "The Evitable and the Inevitable," showing how much that is con- sidered inevitable in the wrongs and evils of the past has yield- ed to modern science and effort; "Silk Culture in California" was written with the aid of the enthusiasm and experience of Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr, and by request, read at a session of the Woman's Parliament of Southern California. Several papers have been prepared to be read before the Unitarian Confer- ences, in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Many other articles on hygiene, kindergartens, women on the school boards and in public institutions, suffrage, and kindred topics, have been written for the daily press, for magazines and for clubs. Madame Severance has also indulged in verse on occasions of public interest. At Cleveland, in the fifties, she wrote an ap- preciative welcome to the eloquent patriot, Louis Kossuth; she also wrote a farewell verse upon leaving Cleveland for Boston in 1855. While spending the winter in Tennessee she was requested to write an ode for the memorial services at Chat- tanooga Cemetery. She has often enlivened, or marked, the family festivities, birthdays, etc., by humorous or tender rhymes. As a specimen of her responses this instance may be quoted : On being asked by the president of a Massachusetts club, "What woman would you like to be?" she answered: "I'd like to be the perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort and command, compounded of the characteristic gifts and virtues, the sweetness and the strength which have made for righteousness C f) e Corbet of Clubs 107 and human weal, of our beloved Lucretia Mott, Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone and Mary A. Livermore. Could audacious wishing go further?" Madame Severance has been made honorary president and vice-president of many State Federations and Suffrage Leagues, and has been honored by many remembrances and verses from her friends upon her birthday and other anniversaries. She often says that her cup runs over with the blessings of love and gratitude from dear women of all circles and faiths. VII. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. JOHN G. WHITTIEE. EEAD BY MADAME SEVEBANCE AT WHITTIEE, CALIFOENIA, ON THE EIGHTY-THIED BIETHDAY OF JOHN GEEENLEAF WHITTIEE. I think we see our valley 's brightness brighter For faces that once brightened by our side; The peace of the eternal mountains deepens At thought of peace on faces that have died. William C. Gannett. It is often a matter of some moment how the richest ex- periences of our lives come to us. In Cleveland, Ohio, in the early forties, I, a young wife and mother, was feeling keenly the responsibilities of my position and seizing eagerly all pos- sible helps. Cultivated men and women, mainly from the New England states, often visited us on their various educational and literary pilgrimages. Among these were the dear, old father of Louisa Alcott; Theodore Parker, proscribed then as a heretic, even by his own denomination; the eloquent Wendell Phillips and the heroic William Lloyd Garrison; Wentworth Higginson, and many more; there were also excellent women, not a few, sweet-natured, womanly, yet strong by word and by pen. Such were Abby Kelley Foster, in her early days of martyrdom ; Lucy Stone, compelling in the music of her voice and her eloquence, and others. The presence of these quickened my desire for the older civ- ilization of the East, and, when circumstances favored, our family group was transplanted to the stimulating atmosphere and companionship of beloved Boston. Being not to the manor born, as you see, you will relieve me of the charge of egotism 108 Cfte figot&er of Clu60 109 and provincial narrowness in my warm tribute to what has been the deepest, the most valuable influences of my later life. One of the rarest privileges which good fortune brought to me in this new environment was the meeting with the saintly and shy Whittier. This was won through the introduction of a friend of his George Bradburn to whom I owe a passing men- tion. Mr. Bradburn had come to Cleveland as the editor of one of its journals. He was a man of the sweetest nature, a bon comrade, but in his public capacity, as terrible to shams, to meanness, to injustice, as an army with banners. He was a man of might with tongue and pen and of a courage equal to his convictions. All these qualities, and the superb record which he had made for himself, in the early anti-slavery movement and in the Massachusetts legislature where, as the terror of evil doers, he was known as 'that Bradburn from Nantucket,' or simply as 'Nantucket Bradburn;' and where, with fearless courage and vigorous English, he served every true cause un- flinchingly ; his record in the Unitarian pulpit, on school boards and in many other helpful positions, all this had won for him the intimate regard and friendship of the noble poet of human- ity. And when our little clan set off for the land of prom- ise, we were preceded by a warm letter from Mr. Bradburn to the poet. I never can forget the place and the manner of my first meeting with Whittier, the moment when I first looked into those wonderful eyes and felt myself face to face with my ideal poet, one who had not been willing merely to weave idle rhymes, but had used his exquisite gift in the highest service of his fellow men and thus of his God. It was in the historic Music Hall of Boston, where from week to week, we drank in the new and broader gospel of Theodore Parker's Sunday sermons. This was not a Sunday service, but some of the larger afternoon or evening meetings, in the inter- ests of Anti-slavery, the Cause in Kansas, the Missouri Com- promise, or something of the sort, then so common. I remember only the enthusiasm of the meeting and the personnel of the assembly. On the va^^SUS^^ere gathered the staunch ' V* OF THE UNIVERSITY OF no Cfte Sgotfter of Clu60 souls who dared to face the criticism of an adverse public, Garrison, Phillips, Parker, Alcott, May, Higginson, Emerson (I think,) and other brave ministers and laymen and women. As we lingered after the usual custom in these exciting times for earnest chat, some one called my name and the good Whit- tier in spite of shyness which made it a rare thing for him to appear in a public place, leaned over to me, gave me a warm hand clasp and a warmer greeting from those cordial yet searching poet-eyes, and said most graciously, "Ah, I know thee already, from our dear friend Bradburn." Other intimates of his I came to know and so had glimpses of him on his rare visits to Boston and vicinity. Sometimes it was at the famous Radical Club in the historic house on Chest- nut street, made doubly famous by those meetings at which Emerson, Alcott, Hedge, Weiss, Wasson, Cranch, Higginson, Frothingham, Sumner, Schurz, William H. Charming, Holmes, Longfellow, Lucretia Mott, Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Cheney, and many others were guests or speakers. Here, as at our New Eng- land Woman's Club, manuscripts which later startled or de- lighted the larger public were sometimes read and delightfully discussed. The hostess, Mrs. Sargent, sometimes captured the shy poet and secured him from dreaded notice in the friendly shelter of an ante-room, where he could hear what went on and we could feel his presence and sometimes, when the crowd had scattered, have the pleasure of a few quiet words with him. Even a smile from him was, as Charles Dudley Warner says of the embrace of an eminent person, "an heirloom in one's fam- ily." Faith in man and belief in all things good ran in the blood perforce, while under the spell of that smile of those pure, celestial eyes! My last meeting with the dear poet, after driving with a neighbor of his to his charming, home-like residence, Oak Knoll, in Danvers, only to find him away was in the fall of 1880. He was spending the winter, as he occasionally did at that time, at a quiet family hotel on Beacon Hill, Boston. I wrote to ask him if I might see him once more and bring with me a friend who had, I knew, no idle curiosity to see him, but instead, the Cfte Qpotftet of Clu60 in grateful sense of past help, in her widowhood and sorrow, from the sustaining faith of his poems. I received a hearty note in response which is precious because it may be my last from him. At first the poet kept somewhat in the shadow of his timid- ity, but my friend, in her sincerity, soon put him at ease. The call was made a merry one by a past blunder of mine, over which I was making some earnest but playful apologies. The facts were that the year before a company of tourists had driv- en through our home place in Los Angeles, as is the custom of many visitors in sight-seeing, and when I responded from the piazza to their interest in the beauty of our common semi-tropic growths, one of the party remarked of the ladies in the back seat, "These are Mr. Whittier's cousins who live with him in Danvers." The fact that Danvers was spoken of when Ames- bury had been his home ever since our knowledge of him: that they had brought no line of introduction to show their relationship, and the more damaging fact that imposters, under the best of names, had just been making havoc with our faith in strangers ; all of these had raised my suspicions and caused me to be less cordial in my reply, no doubt, and the party had driven on. Later I learned of my absurd mistake and now hastened to make such amend as I might by full confession. The merry- hearted poet enjoyed immensely the absurdity of such sus- picions regarding his honest, sturdy, New England cousins, who had been his home gaiardians of late years, and would have me then and there get a near view of them. My mortification would have been doubled by this had not the poet and his cousins made so good a joke of it. Moreover, the mood of this incident may have impelled him to amusing reminiscences of his early days, one of which was of the time when he, a genuine " barefoot boy," was used to bring or carry of early mornings, across the broad meadows to and from the nearest neighbors, the firebrand which was the usual method for lighting fires, be- fore the days of matches. The joyous spirit of the hour recalls his own lines to the be- loved sister: 112 Cfte Q^otfter of Clu60 Away with weary care and themes, Swing wide the golden gate of dreams; Thou wilt not chide my turning, To con, at times, an idle rhyme, To pluck a flower from childhood's clime, Or listen at life's noonday chime, For the sweet bells of morning. It is a charming memory, to have seen the poet, usually so serious under the weight of the world's woe and wrongs, in this delightful, mirthful mood. Later, in days and nights of agony over the unconquerable illness of the darling " Benjamin" of our flock, our outlook from a sunny height near Boston commanded the uplift of the Danvers hills and of the neighboring plains of Concord. And certain I am that the peace which sometimes stole into my soul like a benediction was the conscious nearness to those noble homes and lives. I more than ever realized what those seers beyond the flesh Emerson and Whittier can do for solace and for uplifting in all great crises of life and of sorrow. Like the friend whom I had presented to Whittier, I felt that one must be braver, stronger, truer for the legacy of such high living and noble thinking. Last of all, a charming remembrance has reached me from the poet, in the shape of his latest volume of poems, a lovely book with the fair, firm autograph, printed for private circu- lation only. It bears the significant title of " Sundown," and gives testimony to the mental vigor of the poet's declining years and his undiminished faith in the Eternal Goodness. The last poem of the series gives us an exquisite companion piece to the "Waiting Beside the Sea" the poet waiting amid the failing sunset shadows of the last days of summer the last summer of life, as it may be, it seems to him. Following is the poem written by Madame Severance for the occasion : J. G. W. 83rd Birthday, December 17, 1890. Sweet saint, of our too worldly, sensuous time! Dear poet, of the lofty thought and rhyme! We give thee greeting, on this day of days, Cfte S@ot|)er of Clu&s 113 From thy fair namesake's hallowed homes, and ways Where pine and palm meet 'neath a summer sky, And snow-peaks on the near horizon lie I We send glad greeting to thy " snow-bound " height, Where tender love keeps life and hearth alight. We bless thee for that life, which long has stood Firm-rooted in the faith that God is good; That, ' ' step by step, since time on earth began, Has been the steady, upward growth of man," And, sweetly leavening thus the old-time creed, Will make men brethren yet, in very deed! LETTER FROM JOHN G. WHITTIER. Amesbury, Mass., 11 month 20, 1890. Dear Friend : Thy kind letter has been read with great pleasure. I am glad to know that the fever of speculation which swept over Southern California and visited the San Gabriel Valley has subsided, and that the town which honors me by its name is now in a healthy and prosperous condition and that the industry and taste of the inhabitants have added much to the natural beauties of admirable location. It must prove a most desirable home for those who are driven by our rigorous clim- ate from the Atlantic Coast. Its oranges, figs, nuts, olives, apples, pears, grapes, peaches and apricots look very inviting to us on this side of the moun- tains, where our fruit crop, always scanty, has this year almost entirely failed. You are in the center of the great fruit growing region which is to supply the continent. Your future is secure. Your peculiar advantages of successful cultivation have no rivals. My prayer is that, grateful to the kind providence that has led you into a fairer Land of Promise than that which the Israelites found beyond the Jordan, you may add to your annual harvest "the peaceful fruits of righteousness." I am very truly thy friend, JOHN G. WHITTIER. 114 Cfce Sgotfter of C I it 60 MEMORIES OF EMERSON. My first personal acquaintance with Emerson came through his lecture trips in the west in the late forties and early fifties. His earliest books had found their way but slowly to the west, but the excitement and the fame of his Divinity School address, in 1838, and his articles in the Dial had won for him hearers and admirers. Rev. Mr. Forbush and A. D. Mayo, of the Unitarian fellow- ship, had already rallied a small group of liberal thinkers in Cleveland and had thus helped largely to prepare a welcome for such speakers as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott. A few of these sympathetic friends found parlors and small audiences gathered to listen reverently to Emerson, though somewhat awed by the majesty of this foremost leader of thought in our time and by his majesty of bearing. They were soon entirely won by the benignity, the simplicity and the sweetness that shone in his radiant smile and by the rich, sonorous voice, which made a musical setting for the wonderful thought. He seemed to us then present to be, as James Russell Lowell said of him later, " living in a diviner air," and we felt that he was bringing us messages from a supernal sphere. For this reason we were sent with illumined eyes and kindled hearts to his later books as they appeared. On our removal to Boston in 1855, we found Emerson speak- ing in the small Freeman Place chapel, off Beacon street, to a select but worshipful audience an audience so at one with him that the peculiarities of his quiet and hesitating delivery were only an additional charm. To meet him thereafter, if only on the pavement, made the day uplifting and memorable. To see him enter any company was to note the changed atmos- phere that his mere presence brought, and to put to flight all small talk or even serious griefs and worries. Later we had the delight of his hearty endorsement of our New England "Woman's Club, and his acceptance of an invita- tion to our mass meeting at Chickering hall. As time passed, he sometimes honored this club by reading fresh manuscripts, Cfte 9@ot|)et of C I it 60 us on which he invited the criticism of our members; but those who dared speak at all in such presence Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Cheney and a few of the more scholarly women had only words of praise for these papers. We also saw and heard him at the famous and unique Radical Club, where all honest and able thinkers on large subjects were welcomed, and where Emerson's profound grasp of all vital, moral and literary topics made him the reverenced leader not only, but also the reconciling factor. Another supreme delight a landmark in one's life was the privilege of hearing him read, with impassioned emphasis, his Boston Hymn, written at the crisis of the civil war, to an immense and electric audience in the vast Music Hall, of Boston. Two other scenes of a quite different order come to my mind. We had placed our eldest son in Mr. Sanborn's school at Con- cord, in preparation for entrance at Harvard. This also gave him the companionship of the sons and daughters of its noted families, the Emersons, Alcotts, Hawthornes, Manns and the James family, and had secured for him the benefit of the shelter, with its beautiful life and choice diet, of the Alcott home. Our son had been trained and greatly benefitted under the new Swedish gymnastics taught by Dr. Dio Lewis, who was then introducing the system into the Boston and New England schools. Mr. Sanborn engaged our son to teach the system in his school and Dr. Lewis was secured to give an exhibition of the method in the town hall of the village. The interest in this affair became so great and so contagious that, through some rare good fortune, Mr. Emerson and Mr. Alcott were among the many citizens who filled the hall. So compelling was the Doctor's forceful address, inspired largely, no doubt, by the presence of the distinguished persons before him, that when the lines were formed for a simple bean-bag exercise, behold, Emerson and Alcott were on their feet and joined in the vigorous tossing of the bags. Emerson, however, at the close of the first exercise seemed to awaken from the spell of the Doctor's magnetism and turning to me said in a half -serious, half -quizzical way, "Mrs, Sever- 116 Cfte Qgotfter of CIu60 ance, are not the Doctor 's sentences somewhat over-weighted ? ' ' Of a still different type was another experience of mine. The collector of the port, Thomas Russell the brilliant son- in-law of the original and beloved Father Taylor of Bethel memory had invited a few friends to join himself and Emer- son on a trip in his revenue cutter. On the way, we visited the training ship for boys, which lay anchored in the harbor. The sail was a joy and the companionship of the scholar charming, but when Emerson was called upon to address the boys, our sympathies were severely strained so difficult it seemed for the poet and philosopher to get in touch with these unwonted hearers. The sincerest sympathy we knew was there but not the skill of practice in addressing boys. The art of gleaning knowledge and even wisdom, as he declared, from the unlettered stage driver or sailor, was easy and common to Emerson, but not this effort, in which he was outdone by the less scholarly of the visitors. Many enchanting and inspiring glimpses of Concord life I had from time to time through visits to the hospitable home of Mrs. Horace Mann, where, by the lively reports of the notable people and their doings, and through the unequalled courtesy and enthusiasm of Elizabeth Peabody, I learned to know and prize the charm of Concord and its people. My latest glimpse of the historic town was on a return visit from California when I met many of these and other noble guests at sessions of the Concord School of Philosophy in the rear of Mr. Alcott's home. At this time I had an impressive sight of Mr. Emerson's grave in Sleepy Hollow, in which I was accompanied by his friend and mine an artist who made me a fine water color sketch of the glowing, rosy granite boulder, beside which are the graves of Hawthorne, Thoreau, the Alcotts and others of Concord's nobility. Peace has come to these sleepers, and visitors from all lands flock to their graves as to holy shrines. As to Emerson's books in prose and poetry, they seem to cover all our own later development of thought, in literature, in morals and in religion, and they might well be called the Cfte ^otfiet of C I u 60 117 scriptures of the twentieth century and no doubt of many later ones. I must implore those who have not already read them thoroughly and resolutely to do so at once and thus gain the nobler outlook on life and on service to their fellows which breathes through them and rings like a trumpet call to the ear. I should like to quote largely but must forbear, referring only to Emerson's portrayal and impeachment of the corrup- tion of the times in social and political life and to his pro- nounced attitude toward the effort for woman's recognition as a citizen and a voter. At a Woman's Rights Convention in Worcester, Mass., in 1855, he said: "Let the land be purged of every barbarous remainder; of every barbarous impediment to woman. If you do refuse her a vote, you will also refuse to tax her, according to our Teutonic principle, 'No representation no tax.' " Again he said: "The new claim of woman to a political status is, of itself, an honorable testimony to the civilization which has given her a social status new in history. " Emerson's companionship with Margaret Fuller as an equal and his recognition of her ideas and ideals is practical proof of his attitude toward the sex. I am happy to add a striking instance of the intense sympathy with him in these views and in loyalty to her sex, of the late Mrs. Emerson. When the movement to crush the efforts of women for the ballot and its advantages was set on foot by politicians of the basest stamp, I went to her one day with a protest and asked her signature. She answered, rising to her full height and with her eyes aflame, "Is it possible? It is infamous ! If it shall be done, I will leave the country it will be my country no longer. ' ' Ah, yes, as a poet has sung of Emerson Thou wert the morning star among the living Ere thy fair light had fled; Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving, New splendor to the dead, and we may add, to the living to whom he still speaks and the world listens. 118 cfte epotfjer of Clu60 WENDELL PHILLIPS. During our Boston life we met many times and on many oc- casions, Wendell Phillips, the unequalled orator and an Apollo of the most winning personality. He was never known to deny himself to any gathering, and declined no opportunity to lift his voice in defense of liberty, for all colors and races. The time came when all prejudice and politics turned against him so bitterly that young men, mostly Germans, made them- selves a volunteer body-guard and escorted him, in broken ranks, to and from the place of meeting. I was made very happy one day when returning from a State House hearing, walking somewhat in the rear of the Phillips group, to hear my lovely but conservative sister, then visiting us, beg that we step up nearer, ''as the sight of women might do much in pre- venting an attack by the roughs." My son Seymour and I were present, in the gallery, at the so-called "Law and Order" riot in Tremont Temple, when Phillips tried to speak and was hissed down by clerks, it was said, who were hired to break up the meeting. He persisted long enough to face the reporters below the platform and give them his word for the public. Governor Andrews would have sent troops to quell the disturbance, it was whispered about, but he could not do so until called upon by the mayor. Fred Douglas, Frank Sanborn, Thoreau, George L. Stearns and others, were on the platform ; but to prevent violence, they at last filed out. Apropos of Phillips 's valiant, unhesitating services, it is interesting to know that he confessed to me that his natural tastes and talents were not for the forum. "I should have been born in Italy," he said. THE GARRISONS. The Garrisons, father, mother, sons and the one daughter, were a delight to meet and were our very dear friends. Their house was an oasis of peace and cheer, Mr. Garrison and the devoted wife and beloved mother being the center of its life. Cfte egotfter of Clu60 119 This home was well ordered, even in the early times when Mrs. Garrison had small help in its care, and it was subject to unex- pected company at any hour. The daughter, Fannie, was gifted musically, and enlivened the evening hours with her piano. She later married Mr. Villard, who gave her the devo- tion of a true lover, and enabled her to indulge her generous impulses toward the many friends of early days who were in any need. Mr. Villard had been at Port Royal during the war as cor- respondent for the New York Tribune. Mr. Severance had taken him and Nathaniel Page, another Tribune correspondent, into his Custom House mess, and had found them delightful ad- ditions to it. When Mr. Villard returned to the north, Mr. Severance gave him a note to me. I found him desiring earnestly with all the German student enthusiasm for the living American defenders of liberty to meet the abolitionist leaders. My introduction of him to the Garrisons gave him great pleasure and ended in his marriage to the daughter. One of the -many delightful occasions when we were bidden to the Garrison home was to view a bust of the "grand old man," just completed by the talented poet and sculptor, Anne Whitney, of Boston, whom it was also my privilege to know and admire. Another pleasant memory is of the day when, in company with the Garrisons, Wendell Phillips, Governor Andrew, and others, we witnessed the unveiling of a statue of John Brown, at the charming suburban home of George L. Stearns, of Medford. Mr. Stearns was a hero of the anti- slavery campaign, sparing not time, strength or purse in its furtherance, and Mrs. Stearns, a charming woman, gave generous hospitality and service for the cause. THE BEECHERS. We have all heard of the squib of a wit "All the world is divided into three classes, saints, sinners, and the Beecher family." I have found the family, as General Saxton said of the negroes under his rule during the civil war, "intensely 120 Cfte Qiotfter of C I it 60 human, very humane and lovable saints and fascinating sinners. " Very interesting has been my personal experience with some members of the Beecher family. I first met Katherine, the eldest and sturdiest of the sisters. She was indefatigable in her schemes for the higher education and uplifting of woman, and many of them reached realization, even in her own day. I met her often in New England and enjoyed the hearty en- thusiasm and the ability which she brought to her work. One incident I well remember ; her description of a composi- tion which she was set to write by the family, at the age of eight years, on "the everlasting punishment of the wicked!" Think of it at that age ! And, helped by the strenuous belief and discussion of her elders, she valiantly went at her topic. My husband was appointed collector of customs at Port Royal, by Secretary Chase, during the civil war, and I spent two winters with him there. My first meeting with Mrs. Isa- bella Beecher Hooker, was after a visit to our eldest son, who was then in Beaufort, S. C., also under the treasury department. As I boarded the little steamer for Port Royal, a sweet-faced lady came up the gang-plank, beaming with delight as she caught sight of the bouquet of winter roses which I carried. She asked, "Is this my welcome to the sunny Southland?" Of course I presented them to her, as I passed. When I reached our headquarters at Port Royal, a telegram was brought to me which announced that the lady whom I had passed was Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, who would come to us on the return steamer. She had come south to find a friend who had been wounded, but had learned that the wound was not serious. By her invitation I visited the camp of her brother, Colonel James Beecher, whose regiment was stationed on Morris Island, comanding Fort Wagner. This visit was a most unique ex- perience, and my nearest glimpse of war and its horrors. The Colonel was a most considerate and helpful host and put us on as much of a peace footing as was possible in sight of the enemy. Cfte otfter of C I it 60 121 From this beginning there followed many talks on topics of mutual interest and various visits from Mrs. Hooker in our New England Home, often in the interests of the suffrage work. We also spent delightful hours at the Hartford home of the Hookers. Their charming home was in the outskirts of the city, only a block or two from that of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, which stood on the river bank ; while the elder sister, Mrs. Perkins, lived directly opposite the Hookers, in a nest made bird-like and beautiful by ivy vines. These were rooted in a pretty conservatory on the south, climbed freely through a bay window into the long library-parlor and made a living frame for the portraits and paintings on its walls. Mrs. Perkins was the first traveler to introduce the English ivy for house decoration into this country. Mrs. Stowe had imitated her in growing and using it in the same pretty fashion in her home. One of my most charming memories is that of the silver wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Hooker. The house, with its many simple but original effects and its beautiful vistas through ample and vine-screened windows, was a bower for a bride in itself. But the supreme beauty of the place was in the grounds the noble trees, with their dancing shadows, the velvety emerald turf, the sylvan dell which lay in full view from the broad piazza, where I was permitted to have my outlook on the fairy scene and the illustrious company. And of all that company my heart and eyes feasted upon the family circle, which at the luncheon hour gathered about one long table on the lawn. Here were gathered that gifted family of brothers and sisters a noticeable group, anywhere. Off duty now, each seemed conscious only of the old time home atmosphere and the exchange of bon mot and repartee was almost as rapid and incessant as the flash of light artillery in action. When the four, Henry Ward, Mrs. Stowe, Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Perkins, turned to reminiscences of their youthful days at home, the oldest and soberest of the group broke into convulsive laughter which brought the tears. I had previously met Mrs. Stowe in New York and Boston, 122 Cfte Sgjotfter of Clu60 in connection with various philanthropic efforts. She was a quiet, undemonstrative person, clear headed and practical in suggestion and counsel. There was about her no hint of any consciousness of her remarkable ability or of the eminence which she held in the world of letters ; even when she was the central figure in the famous company which her publishers gathered in her honor, on her seventieth birthday, at the elegant country home of Governor Clanin, of Massachusetts, and his accomplished and noble wife. In her own home, with its unique finish and furnishings, and its tributes from many lands, Mrs. Stowe was also the simple, courteous hostess, lending herself most graciously to the entertainment of any who had claims upon her. Of Mrs. Stowe 's family, it is perhaps pleasant to know something. It consisted of two daughters twins who used in their earlier days, it is said, to pose somewhat in public as the daughters of an illustrious mamma. Of late years I have lost sight of them, but know that they have made no special position for themselves in the world of art, letters or philan- thropy. The third daughter, the domestic one the Cinderella -she was sometimes called, of the family, married an Episcopal clergyman and has been a true helpmate. The son, Charlie, the supposed original of the clever sketch, ''What shall we do with our Charlie?" the apparent puzzle of his parents, became a credit and a comfort to them, as a clergyman of fair and useful career. Thomas K. Beecher, the own brother of Mrs. Hooker, as was also Colonel James Beecher, I met at Elmira, New York, where he was the beloved and inspiring pastor. He was most cordial and genial in manner. He often visited the Water Cure estab- lishment where I was taking treatment, and joined in a game of ten pins, in which we were pitted against each other in an amiable rivalry as representatives of our respective states- Ohio and New York. He, with the Beecher manliness and chivalry, did not scorn to acknowledge a woman as worthy of his " balls. " He one day committed an offense which came perilously near the unpardonable, by listening, uninvited and Cfte Qjjot&et of Clu60 123 invisible, to a repetition of my maiden address at Cleveland, which at the urgent request of Dr. Gleason, I had read to the women patients. When I had finished, Mr. Beecher stepped from his hiding place with the most exultant air of victory. But he soon made amends for his fault by valuable and kindly advice, turning mainly upon the point, which he set forth with all the Beecher sense of humor, by declaring that like himself with his first sermon, I had felt in my fright that it might be my last opportunity for such service, and must, therefore, hold back nothing congruous or helpful. I had used material enough for three addresses in the one, he said. Henry Ward Beecher I met at the raising of the flag at Fort Sumpter one of the most remarkable of our experiences in the south. William Lloyd Garrison was also one of that historic company which, after the event, gathered at the famous Charleston Hotel, in the midst of the desolation wrought by war upon the fair city. Afterwards I met Beecher at a suffrage gathering arranged by Mrs. Hooker, in the church of her pastor, Dr. Burton. Here I found that I had been placed on the list of speakers to follow Mr. Beecher, and was well nigh rebellious in consequence. MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE. One of the opportunities which I had desired, in coming to Boston, was that of meeting our brilliant scholar and writer, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, whose volumes of poems I had enjoyed in my western home. Her husband, Dr. Howe, had thrilled all of our hearts by his heroic work in the struggle of the Greeks for freedom. As a result of his efforts, a cultivated and progressive young Greek, Mr. Anagnos, came to this country and was for a long time assistant to Dr. Howe in his original and successful work in the Institute for the Blind, at South Boston, over which Mr. Anagnos has been the presiding official since the death of Dr. Howe. Another fortunate result of this relation was the marriage of Mr. Anagnos to the exquisite, intellectual and poetic, Julia 124 Cfte figotfter of Howe, the eldest daughter of the family, who was as truly a helpmeet to her husband in his work as she had been to her father. When our New England Woman's Club was organized and appointed its first open meeting to enlighten the public as to the purposes and plans of the new candidate for favor and endorse- ment, Mrs. Howe was invited to be one of the speakers who were to give prestige and influence to the movement, and later became one of our members. When organizing our committees, she was unanimously elected chairman of the Art and Litera- ture committees combined, and by reason of her social and literary gifts held the office with great credit to herself and entire satisfaction to the club, until elected president upon my own departure for California. Her ready repartee and cordial comradeship made the simple tea which closed the committee's sessions, a thronged and much enjoyed occasion. I had not the gifts to shine there, but sat and shared gladly in its flood of brilliancy. Those were red letter days on the calendar of our club. I recall one occasion on which Professor John Fiske, of Cambridge, was the speaker, discussing the theory of evolu- tion and man's descent from the ape. Under this Mrs. Howe grew restive and finally made vigorous protest against the latter theory. The impulse came to me to suggest that the word "descent" changed to "ascent," would overcome her objec- tions : but with my usual timidity, I hesitated to offer the sug- gestion in such presence. The change was made later, as we know, by Dr. Drummond. I dared to join Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore and Lucy Stone, as speakers at Suffrage meetings in Lowell and other suburban towns, and was comforted to find that Mrs. Howe, like myself, was dependent upon pen and paper. We two made a memorable trip together to a suffrage convention at Cleveland, on which journey she generously shared with me her lower berth in the crowded car, sharing also, an extra wrap, a shawl which had been made historic by her visit to the Acropolis at Athens. I recall a very delightful afternoon with Mrs. Howe, at her Newport cottage, located in a pretty dell. Here I had the C6e 90otf)er of C 1 1160 125 pleasure of meeting her nephew, Marion Crawford, on his return from India. He was then a splendid specimen of manly vigor, but as yet inclined to pessimism and uncertain as to his future. I remember rallying him somewhat on his attitude. Later, after returning to his mother's home in Italy, he began his successful career as a novelist. I treasured some verses written by Mrs. Howe in my honor, on my return visit to Boston, in 1881; but some avaricious admirer of hers, has I fear, abstracted them from my hoard. Even now, the dear and far-famed woman is presiding over the Club to which she has been so much and from which she has received rare honor. She has given her valuable services to it with unabated vigor, as well as to suffrage, peace and all other good causes that make for human welfare, at home or abroad. At a late noted gathering of Greek visitors in Boston, she spoke before them in their own tongue and was decorated by them with a medal. We may well say that other nations, as well as our own, already call her " blessed." JENNIE C. CROLY. My own personal knowledge of Mrs. Croly was limited to a few occasions a visit to her rooms in New York; a dinner, as an invited guest, at Delmonico's, while she was president of Sorosis; and later, glimpses of her at the home of a friend and neighbor of her early days, in my own Boston suburb. Mrs. Croly and I were working in Boston and New York with the same aim but on slightly varying lines and methods. As is shown in Mrs. Croly 's "History of the Club Movement in America," the impulse in her city came from the affront to the women of the press, who had then reached numbers and pub- licity, by the Men's Press Club refusing to permit the attend- ance of their women co-workers at a dinner given to Charles Dickens. Mrs. Croly was a self -made woman both financially and in- tellectually, at a time when this achievment was much more formidable and commendable than in the present day. She 126 Cfte fit&ot&er of Clu6$ bravely made the most of her opportunities, and thus and by her stimulating example helped create better opportunities for other women. In her earlier years she won self-support by her needle, which she laid down to wield an able pen. In journalism she was preceeded by Margaret Fuller and Lydia Maria Child, but she was one of the pioneers in the field and won her way well to the fore. Of her work in the club movement, her own history bears noteworthy record. This work is indispensable to club libraries and to women who wish to familiarize themselves with past and present club activities. It is a monumental work her own best monument next to her club, Sorosis. Let us take it as her bequest to us as organizations; let us illustrate it anew by nobler deeds in our club life, by fidelity to our best stand- ards and traditions, as she would have us do. THE FREMONTS. "I consider it one of the greatest pleasures of my life in California to have known General Fremont and family as near neighbors and cordial friends, and thus found my early admira- tion for General and Mrs. Fremont fully justified. They were my near neighbors and most enjoyable. It is one of my keenest satisfactions that I was enabled to enlist a circle of sympathetic friends in forming a committee, to secure a home in Los Angeles for the beloved widow and devoted daughter of General Fremont. His death cut off the pension which had come to him from the government only after exhausting per- sonal effort at Washington but a short time before, and left his family almost unprovided for, after his long and valuable ser- vice to his country. The responses to the appeal of this com- mittee were generous and gracious, the list being led by Mrs. Phoebe Hearst, C. P. Huntington, President R. B. Hayes, Mrs. Lucretia Garfield, Mrs. Jane L. Stanford, Mrs. Fanny Garrison Villard, Mrs. Henry Ivison, and many local friends. A lot was selected along the line of the daily walks of General and Mrs. Fremont and the house was built after plans chosen by Mrs. Cfte Qgotftet of Clu&tf 127 Fremont. Never have more hearty enjoyment and sincere grat- itude repaid an effort of this kind, and than in this case. "Mrs. Fremont's letters and notes were, like herself, bril- liant, spontaneous and original. She writes in a letter of six pages (from only around the corner of four city squares) of her effort from day to day to visit myself, of the dressing of Christmas dolls, of sitting to Mr. Borglum for her bust, and of her bed of violets. 'Some day, I will be footloose again and until then be sure I often think of you and wish to be with you.' Again, speaking of the new, soft green paper on the walls, 'You know what it is to have walls insensibly influenc- ing your thoughts.' Apropos of our dietetic discussions, she describes minutely the process of boiling eggs, which she has found best for her, 'I have made a little discovery on my stomach which may be of use to your limited diet. ***** This new method has put me into absolute equilibrium of body, and mind follows.' "She writes again: 'The tourist visits have begun, very nice, but very time consuming. They come in 'job lots,' on some days.' She speaks of the delight of hearing the comments of old army and navy friends, in admiration of the artistic touches and comforts of the new home, where she shows them, also her 'wreckage' of the earlier days. She writes fully of her children and grandchildren; the kindergarten system, in which she was deeply interested; 'I wish, literally, from my heart, to be of use in that most wise, patriotic and benevolent care of children, our future citizens and law-makers, or law- breakers. It is our national fault if reform schools have to be provided. The kindergarten is the prevention, while the cure becomes a doubtful problem, after neglected childhood. The kindergarten is wise economy. We all need to learn the in- stincts, the curious outreaching and unforeseen grasps of these young creatures.' Writing of the annoyance of neglected children in the streets in her own neighborhood, she says, 'It must either be Herod, or, the kindergarten.' "There are many tender personal expressions: 'Can't you try a little of that enlightened selfishness which Carlisle says 128 Cfte otj)et of Clufi$ must govern wise people? I am as wise as an owl in my seclusion and, consequently, well!' By way of remedy for overdoing: 'I expect to hear that you were at the club this morning; hot weather, a crowd, perhaps a hot discussion, are well-known remedies for over-wrought nerves!' 'As I cannot walk to you, I send you this two-cent dose of wisdom, feeling sure that it will not be taken. But I will go on wishing you well all the same and you will go on getting well again and doing it all over, in spite of your disapproving but affection- ate friend.' * * * 'There's a great deal of sun in our lives, too, yet. Get well and make the best of yourself for yourself and for those who love you, of whom I am one, as you know.' " 'Los Angeles, Sept. 7, 1895. My dear Mrs. Severance: You will do your friends a kindness by sending them this, my positive denial, of any Eugene Beauharnais as a rela- tive. Why couldn't he call himself Bonaparte at once? * * * As a Virginian of degree, I was brought up to know my pedigree as clearly as my catechism.' "I have also had delightful letters from the beloved daught- er, Miss Fremont, and from the wives of Lieutenants Frank and Charles Fremont, and have enjoyed visits from these families on their coming to Los Angeles. One of the family letters speaks thus of the 'Dear, tiny, wee Benton,' who stood with so manly a bearing beside his mother, at a reception at 'El Nido:' 'He is a treasure, and being gifted with a fund of words and a vivid imagination, we are constantly led along new paths, not marked out by Lindley Murray or the 'un- abridged.' What he positively lacks in accurate knowledge of life, love and all things, he makes up for in manner. Alto- gether he is a pocket edition of a charming man of the world, unrevised, with the proofs not corrected.' ' J. C. F. (Written by C. M. S. Printed in Overland.) Fremont! A name to thrill thro* coming time, Brave, noble hearts, of ev ; ry race and clime! Dauntless explorer! who thro' perils dire, of CIu60 129 With brow unfaltering and a heart of fire, Won for his land an empire and a sea, And led the "pioneers" of states-to-be! A knightly leader, and beloved by all; An office-holder but at freedom's call; A soldier-statesman, quick to strike the blow Soonest to save, by crippling sore the foe; A husband-lover, to his latest day, And worthy her who was his manhood's stay;- Such shall his country yet, with one acclaim, Write on her proudest roll his stainless name! HELEN HUNT JACKSON. My own knowledge of "H. H." began with her brilliant letters from abroad, read to us by Wentworth Higginson, as they came to him or to his wife. I remember especially the lengthy description she gave of a ceremony at the College of Rome which was most piquant, full of color and of dash. She saw like a poet, a philosopher and a painter, in one. Later I visited her home, the pretty "poet's nest" in Colo- rado, although she was absent at the time. I first met her here in Los Angeles. How full she was of life and joy! She found this city "so quaint so rubbishy the place and the people." I spent some pleasant hours with her, and recall a luncheon at my own home when she proved herself a royal guest and raconteur. I particularly recollect her dashing description of a merciless young creature who had just stolen in upon her precious privacy and enlisted her sym- pathy; for in her own literary career one large-hearted friend had greatly assisted her, and she in turn, had given her visitor hints which had involved a mention of contemporary authors. And this interview, the ungracious creature had exaggerated, amplified and printed! Mrs. Jackson was royal again in her righteous rage against "such villainy." My last sight of the author of Ramona was on her bed in her last illness. She was not only a dainty picture here, as always, but so full of delightful humor that I recall her most vividly as 130 cfie sgjotijet of Clu60 she appeared at that time, and Pierpont's lines come to me now I cannot make her dead, Her fair sunshiny head The silvery shine of her soft, white hair had so regal, so defiant a strength. I read a letter from a dear, mutual friend, whom we both believed most unfairly caricatured in a recent magazine story; the doctor coming in upon us, she begged me to bring it to finish another day. But this was my last sight of her, my last words from her, except one precious letter, in which she parried my attempt to defend Los Angeles against the cruel thought of having been unkind to her its lover in bringing her down with malaria. If the doctors were right in their final diagnosis of her case, I am glad to think that I, too, was right in attributing her illness to other probable causes. Her courage under her sufferings was superb and worthy of her noble written words and lofty character and faith. KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. . It seems appropriate to mention an incident which has been most gratifying to me and which, I feel sure, will give pleasure to the many friends of Kate Douglas Wiggin, who cannot fail to recall her delightedly as a temporary resident of Los Angeles and as a generous and brilliant contributor to its early social life. Among my Christmas remembrances, a volume came to me bearing this inscription : * ' To my dear friend, Mrs. Sever- ance, who set my feet in the paths traversed by this little book, and who kindled the best in me by giving me to the work which my heart needed. Kate Douglas Wiggin." The book was the first number in a series, "The Republic of Childhood," and was written in collaboration with her sister, Nora A. Smith, who was her hearty and capable comrade in the first free kindergarten in San Francisco, established by Mrs. Cfte 90otj)et of Clubs Wiggin and Dr. Adler. This was the since famous Silver street kindergarten, from whose training classes many of our best kindergartners have graduated. Taking this gracious proof of gratitude as my text, I am tempted to add a few facts in the early career of the brilliant author to which this episode refers which are not known outside the circle of her kindred and her Santa Barbara friends and neighbors. As a warrant for so much personality, I quote from a letter of hers written in 1896 : ' ' Of course I shall always feel honored by any paragraph or article which you may write about my beginnings or endings." Mrs. Wiggin 's step-father, Dr. Bradbury, brought his wife and three children from Maine to Santa Barbara in the sixties, or early seventies. Kate, the eldest, being musical, a gift which she could more readily utilize at her age than those which have since won her fame and fortune, made an effort to teach music in the Santa Barbara college, of which our son Mark Sibley was then president. But the field for a music teacher was limited and over-crowded, and her success was not equal to her merits or to the family needs. Meantime the father's death came suddenly upon the family, leaving them encumbered with debts. The mother, who had been a petted child a belle in her circle and untrained for any self-supporting work, could turn to nothing remunerative save the dismal resource of taking haphazard inmates into the pretty home an experience which Mrs. Wiggin drew upon in her clever way in "Polly Oliver's Problem," as those who can read between the lines suspect. Just after this calamity had befallen the family, Mr. Sever- ance and myself were visiting in Santa Barbara and our sons begged me to see Miss Kate and advise with her as to her future, since it was evident that she was to be the bread-winner for the family, for the time at least. Needless to say that T was most happy to do what I could and was won at once by her grace and her charm as well as by her resolute looking of the stern facts full in the face. I invited her to pass the winter with 132 Cfie Qpotfter of CIu60 us m Los Angeles and take training in the kindergarten class of Miss Emma Marwedel. This is, in brief, the start in life of which she writes so gratefully. But in justice to the brilliant young woman I must fill it out somewhat by saying how abundantly she made me her debtor during her stay with us, by her charming social gifts and her generous use of them; how she brightened the daily life and shared fully its interests notably in our son's book, " Hammersmith," then under way, and the chapters of which were brought into the family circle to be read aloud, enjoyed or criticised, as the case might be. Miss Kate often accepted the role of reader, until, perchance, the pathos of a page impelled her to pass the manuscript to the presumably less emotional sex. She naturally shone as the bright particular star of Miss Marwedel's graduating class and made the kindergarten sys- tem popular at sight. While in Los Angeles, although her friends made no effort at proselyting, she accepted the sweet reasonableness of the Unitarian gospel of good news, as set forth by the Reverend J. D. Wells, of Quincy, Mass., and made herself most useful in the church work and entertainments. She acted as organist of its embryo choir, composed mainly of the members of the Severance family, and on one occasion she rallied the town and played havoc with its dignitaries in her "Jarley wax-works," which were unequalled, unless it be by some of the presentations made by Louise Alcott and Lucretia Hale, in Boston. As years have passed by, it has been a great delight to some of us who knew her then, to watch the development of the noble womanliness and motherliness of her gifted nature, which has made her the zealous apostle of the better way of education for the multitude who will reap the rich harvest of the seed which she has so abundantly sown. Some extracts from Mrs. Wiggin's letters may be of interest. Writing regretfully of having missed seeing me in New York, she says: "The only way in which we can ever supply 'back of Clu60 IBS numbers' is by a ten hours' talk." From England, in Septem- ber, 1890, after mentioning Ireland as "this disthressful coun- try," she reports a "ten days' charming visit with the Primate of Ireland, at the palace of Cumagh. He is one of the most de- lightful of Irishmen. I think you must know of his wife, now dead, who wrote beautiful hymns 'There is a green hill far away,' 'The Burial of Moses,' and others." Of her daily routine at her summer home in Maine, she writes: "I rise at six-thirty, breakfast at seven, work until one (our country dinner hour), chat until two or two-thirty, pay a little attention to my mother, write letters for an hour and then no more toil, generally speaking, for that day." Other letters show how much joy and helpfulness are brought into the life of the village by the wise initiative of Mrs. Wiggin and her sister and their helpful companionship. She says of her Penelope : "I never began to give a tenth part of the same prep- aration for my other books. Of course with my omelette-souffle style, it is needless to say that I'll get no credit for knowledge or preparation so little do they show." "The illustrated editions of the English and Scottish Penelopes have been arriv- ing for the last six weeks and are most exquisite productions. As they will cost eight shillings apiece, while one and six pence about measures my value to the public, they will probably not be a financial success. It will be a pleasure, in- deed, to look at the pictures on rainy days and see my people looking exactly as they should under all conditions. I hope you will think as well of the illustrations as I do." Again, "If this reads somewhat mechanically and does not contain any effusive measure of affection or longing, it may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that there will be three carbon copies sent to three intimate friends, widely separated, all of whom have suffered the most vicious neglect at my hands. ' ' ' l Thanks for your charming letter. You know very well that I value your praise more than a dozen newspaper criticisms. I wish you were here today. Mr. and Mrs. Rudyard Kipling, Mr. Howells and children, Mr. and Mrs. Brander Mathews, 134 Cfte 8ot6er of Mrs.. Curtis and Stephen Crane take supper." Again she speaks of her autograph table-cloth embroidered with the names of her winter guests, Mrs. Burton Harrison, Ruth MeEnery Stuart, Mrs. Dodge, Laurence Hutton, Carl Schurz, Richard Harding Davis, Margaret Merrington, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, John Drew, John Oliver Hobbs, Anna Carey, Emma Thursby, St. Gaudens, Daniel French and others, a brilliant and cosmopolitan company. MEMORIES OF EASTERN PRESS WOMEN. What are the best days in memory? Those in which we met a com- panion who was truly such. Emerson. The New England Woman's Club historian alludes to the Cleveland life of Madame Severance, " where her book-review- ings and writings had brought her into acquaintance with the scholarly and thoughtful people of the New England literary, philanthropic and newspaper world. Her high thought, her broad love of humanity and her sorrow at its wrongs, her courage to stand firm under fire, led to a beautiful companion- ship with them, and with the more earnest women of the times, then a proscribed company." Among miscellaneous reports of addresses given by Madame Severance, one before the Woman's Press Club of Southern California, in 1896, contains literary memories worth pre- serving. "As you are already established in your press work and are becoming leaders and ancestors to the larger groups that will follow in your footsteps and in the paths which you have aided, by so many hard strokes, to make smooth and easy for their feet, and as you do not need my help in those ways, I turn to my own experience in the beginnings of woman's connection with the press so many years ago. "I recall vividly the startling report which our friend, Rich- ard Hildreth, of Boston, made to me about 1855, of his remem- brance of the time in the thirties when the question was debated in Boston, as to whether women should be permitted to attend Cfte $ot{)er of Clu60 135 the first course of lectures on literary topics! Even at that, time he seemed to me an octogenarian to be able to recall so distant a period as that fact represented. But he was then a man of forty, perhaps, busy with his work as one of our earliest historians. And that discussion took place in Boston less than sixty years ago ! Contrast that fact with our present freedom and opportunities and say if we have not cause for gratitude and hope. "My own beginnings with the pen and the press were in my young wifehood and motherhood, as social questions and needs forced themselves upon me, and as I began to realize that nothing human is foreign to the home and its interests. As the years went on and my experience enlarged, my convictions and my ardor grew, as no doubt has been true with all the elders among you. "Let me bear testimony to the high aims and noble service of the army of women writers and journalists whom it has been my privilege to know more or less intimately. I was too late in Boston to meet Margaret Fuller, who had already departed for Italy, but she had made a brilliant record for herself and her sex in journalism, not only by her work on the Tribune, but also by her unusual conversational gifts and rare scholar- ship. I met many disciples and pupils of hers and everywhere in Boston I found the impress of her life and helpfulness. "Among those who carried aloft the high educational and social standards of * Margaret/ as she was fondly called, being to them the only Margaret of her time, was Elizabeth P. Peabody our 'Saint Elizabeth.' You all know of her life and work which won for her the title of 'Grandmother of Boston/ so many generations of its best families had been set on the high road to new and better education by her loving hands and great brain. "Lydia Maria Child, it was also my privilege to know, from her clever and helpful work on the New York Tribune and later from her books. I was brought into association with her through her work in the anti-slavery cause and for woman's 136 Cfte Sgotfter of Clubs proper place in a true Democracy. I also knew and admired the work of Martha Goddard, a brilliant and worthy helpmate of her husband on the Boston Advertiser. She was also widely known and warmly commended for her able correspond- ence to the Worcester Spy. 11 Sally Joy White I knew well in her early struggles to win self-support with her pen. She won a place as reporter on two of the leading Boston dailies, the forerunner in this work of Kate Tannett Woods, of Salem; of Lillian Whiting; of Mrs. Merrill, now president of the New England Press Association, and many another able and popular writer for the daily and weekly press. " Among the editors I am glad to have known and to be able to bear testimony to the admirable work of such women as Mary A. Livermore, Lucy Stone and her daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, a born journalist; Clara B. Colby, editor of the Woman's Tribune; Mary E. Booth, of Harper's Bazaar; Mary Mapes Dodge, in her unique work as editor of St. Nicholas- unrivalled in its line. " Grace Greenwood I first met in Washington, where she was correspondent for the New York Tribune. Her criticisms of public affairs were most trenchant and able and were eagerly read by Washington officials, and her spontaneous and ready wit was the 'town talk' of the time. She was also at one time editor of 'The Little Pilgrim,' published in Philadelphia, one of the first magazines devoted exclusively to the children and a worthy forerunner of 'St. Nicholas.' "Gail Hamilton I first met at a reception given at the home of her uncle, James G. Blaine, in Washington. Here she, in her brilliancy, held the front of the stage, parrying jokes in her unique way with reverends, officials and scholars. She was another witty and forcible newspaper correspondent, writing for New York papers and for 'The National Era,' of Wash- ington, edited by Dr. Bailey. "Later we met her in Boston, while stopping at the Belle- vue Hotel on Beacon street. Here we aided in shielding her Cfte Q^ot&er of C 1 1160 137 from the intrusion of the curious public and gave her the title 'Artful Dodger/ on account of her skill in avoiding visitors. She even evaded an informal meeting with Louisa Alcott and Lucy Larcom. "Lucy Larcom was once my roommate on a visit to our com- mon friend, Mrs. Harriet Minot Pitman, of Providence, R. I. We chatted far into the night over her new venture, another children's magazine, 'Young Folks,' and she was much gratified by my hope and faith in its future. "I have mentioned these among the many professional journ- alists, as I might mention a multitude of the eminent women writers, that I may bear my personal testimony to their ability, their success and their conscientious aims and to my belief that they have written few lines which they will wish, or need, to blot. "With this noble class of exemplars before you and with your own lofty ideals, success must come to you in time. I am supremely happy in this belief, for my faith in woman's capacity and her possibilities, is almost boundless. But I know too well my tendency to make a pulpit of my platform, where- ever it may be, and will curb the impulse to preach at you, dear friends. But one thing more, I will venture: do not lower your ideals to a supposed necessity. Appeal to the highest and best in the human being and you will find it. To me there seems no greater business fallacy than the attempt of the ordinary editor and writer to 'write down' to the level of the least educated and morally developed. To do so is to insult man and his Creator." CALIFORNIA REMINISCENCES. First in time, of my early friends and sympathetic co- workers in Los Angeles, was Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr, of Pasadena. She and her husband, Professor Carr, have left a joint witness to their faith in the higher education of woman, by securing the opening to women of the colleges, from Vermont to Cali- 138 Cfte Sigotfjer of Clubs fornia, in which they were, at some time, teachers. Of her share in the educational work in this state, too much cannot be said. She has left a strong testimony to her love of nature and her knowledge of plant life and of botany, in the noted home place on Orange Avenue, in Pasadena, now known as the 1 1 Reed" place. Fortunately for us, the early friendship with our valued Ohio neighbors, Senator J. P. Jones and family, was renewed here and has been a constant pleasure for many years. We found the senator, as of old, sturdy, upright and broad-minded and his wife always charming and sympathetic. We have also had a very genuine and cordial acquaintance with the sisters of the senator, Mrs. Gorham, Mrs. Lester and Mrs. Hamilton, and with the loyal son, Roy, and his wife, one of our Friday Morning Club presidents. It was an especial delight to see the dear aged mother of Senator Jones, who spent her last days as an honored member of the family, beautifully housed in her own suite of rooms and surrounded by every comfort and luxury. Among the earliest neighbors and friends with whom my associations have been most pleasant are Mrs. Margaret Collier Graham, Mrs. B. C. Whiting and Mrs. H. T. Lee, with their families. Soon after our arrival in Los Angeles, our Cleveland and Washington friends, the Sayles-Browns, settled here. They have been our faithful friends until now when only the de- voted daughter of the family is left. She is a worthy rep- resentative of her parents and is highly valued by all who share her friendship and know her large-mindedness and gen- erous service to all best causes. I have also gained and enjoyed the friendship of Dr. Eli Fay and his wife, Harriet K. Fay. Dr. Fay was for many years the able pastor of Unity church. He resigned a pastorate of sixteen years in England on hearing of the vacancy here, made by the retirement of Rev. John D. Wells. The doctor was a scholar and a preacher of remarkable vigor and ability, Cfte 0@ot6er of Clu60 139 and won a large following here. He was helped greatly in his work by the trained intellect and true sympathy of his wife. Mrs. Rebecca Buffum Spring was a valued acquaintance of ours in the east, where she was well known for her intellectual and philanthropic qualities. Her husband, Marcus Spring, was a charming gentleman and a proverb for integrity, as a man of business. His business interests prospered, nevertheless or because of this, I should say. His fortune was spent generously to further anti-slavery, suffrage, peace, and in many other beautiful ways, as in taking Margaret Fuller abroad with his family and giving her a tour of Southern Europe. This led to her remaining in Italy and her marriage to Count Ossoli, who with their child and his gifted wife, was lost off the shore of Long Island. Mrs. Spring cherishes the letter written by her friend from Gibraltar at the outset of this return voyage and sent by a speedier steamer, as the last word ever written by this eminent woman. Mrs. Spring, now in her ninety-fifth year, is a very remark- able woman herself, not only in her enjoyable reminiscences, but in the vivacity which enlivens all her chat, and in a memory which retains poems of great length. These she repeats ver- batim, without a lapse, to the entertainment and surprise of her listeners. She appeared on a late occasion as the ' * leading lady" in a lively little play written for one of her birthdays by her talented daughter, Jeannie Peet, who is both a sculptor and a poet. Among other faithful friends, I can only mention the earliest, Mrs. Charlotte LeMoyne Wills, daughter of the Mr. LeMoyne, of French birth, who was the earnest advocate of cremation, and who established the first crematory in this country, in Washington, Penn. We had been introduced by Grace Green- wood, in Washington, where Mr. Wills had cases in court. The family removed to Los Angeles a few years after our coming, and we soon formed a close personal acquaintance and friendship. 140 C ft e 99 o t ft e r of Clubs Mrs. Wills and her family have been active in many of the philanthropic affairs of the city and a large factor in the well-being of Los Angeles. Their progressiveness is shown by the fact, among many other similar acts, that in the early period of American life in this city, they chose as the architect for the handsome home they built here, the daughter of Dr. William Channing the grand-daughter of the eminent William Ellery Channing then living with her family in Pasadena. Mrs. Wills and her daughter, Frances, were deeply and financially interested in the founding of the Friday Morning Club. They were also active and valiant helpers in the early efforts to establish a kindergarten. Mrs. Wills is one of our eminent "Ancients and Honorables" a woman of independent thought, of great force of character, tempered by the vivacity of her French inheritance, which keeps her mentally young and fresh, at the age of eighty. The love and devotion of my early club friends of the New England Woman's Club seem to have been bequeathed to their loyal successors on the western coast a list too long for quot- ing, but it includes the presidents of the Friday Morning Club. the lesser officers and the early members. Among the many dear, devoted friends of early club life here, are Mrs. C. L. Osgood and Miss Margaret M. Fette. Mrs. Osgood was first vice-president of the Friday Morning Club, and then my suc- cessor in the presidency, an office which she filled with great acceptance as a loving, lovable and tactful woman. Miss Fette is an admirable organizer, capable and thorough in her own special duty and generous in taking up the neglected work of others. She is an invaluable helper in church work and in other public service. Mrs. Kate Tupper Galpin and Reverend Eliza Tupper Wilkes have been for years inspiring friends and co-workers in every effort for the good of humanity. Rare women, gifted beyond the ordinary and devoting every talent to the general good, their friendship has been one of the compensations of life. Mrs. W. A. Spalding is another of the early friends and fellow-workers whom it has been my privi- Cfie Sgotfcet of C I u 60 141 lege to know. Among my most enjoyable acquaintances are Mrs. Ella H. Enderlein, who was one of the secretaries of the early clubs and has since been intimately associated with the Friday Morning Club, and her brilliant sister, Mrs. Theo- dosia B. Shepherd, the Burbank of her sex. Mrs. Kate Hagan and her gifted daughter, Jennie, have also been sympathetic and helpful friends. Mrs. Clara B. Capen, one of the early supporters of the Woman's Exchange; Mrs. Gertrude B. Eastman, helpful in the formation of early clubs and in bringing the Biennial to Los Angeles; and Mrs. J. E. Cowles, a leader in State and General Federation circles, have been among my valued friends and colleagues in club life. Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Heineman are es- teemed later friends. But time fails me to call the roll of the dear women who have gratefully over-rated my cluB service, overlooked my personal shortcomings and won my sincerest love. Hail also, to the coming singers, Hail, to the brave light-bringers! Forward I reach and share All that they sing, and dare. What matters I, or they, Mine, or another day, So the right word b said, And life the gweeter made. VIII. EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS WRITTEN TO MADAME SEVERANCE. "I sometimes think that even today more can be learned of a man from the letters he receives than from the things at which he laughs once considered the test." Eliza E. Pennell (apropos of her uncle, Charles G. Leland, otherwise "Hans Breitman. ") SUSAN B. ANTHONY. "San Francisco, August 29, 1890. Mrs. Sargent and I attend- ed a meeting of the chairmen of the twenty voting precincts in this 24th Assembly district and heard each tell what and how she had done. It was better than an old fashioned love feast." "Rochester, N. Y., March 30, 1900. My dear Pioneer Friend, it was good of you, away off there in your sunny orange grove, to think of me and our good cause on Feb. 15, when all were assembled in Lafayette Opera house, Washing- ton, to celebrate my eightieth birthday. Among all the beau- tiful words that have come to me, none is more grateful to me than this sweet letter of yours. I see by the papers that you, too, are passing over your fourth score into the fifth. I had forgotten we were so near of an age. Well, my dear, it is a grand and heroic work we have done through all these more than fifty years, since the day you started out in Ohio. I can never forget that beautiful home of yours on Euclid Avenue, where so many friends have met. There were Fanny Gage, Mrs. Rose, Antoinette Brown, Lucy Stone, and Abby Kelly, a simple host to be sure, but as grand women as any who have come to the front in these later days. Isn't it strange, my dear, that the young editors and orators cannot get rid of the idea that our pioneer women were coarse, mannish, ill- 142 MRS REBECCA SPRING MADAME SEVERANCE SUSAN B. ANTHONY Ij C 13 t ft C t Of C I U b 9 143 dressed and ill-mannered? I wish we had some kind of flying machine, or better still, some telegraphic conveyance, so that I could slip over to that lovely cottage of yours this spring morning and we could chat over all the old friends of those days and the new ones of these. With pleasant memories and best wishes to all your family, I thank you again for the lovely word of greeting, and am, very sincerely your friend/ 7 "Mar. 7, 1901. Your letter was just in time to greet me on my eighty-first birthday. I am glad you liked the calendar. It served for me to send around as a New Year's gift. Those early days are splendid to live over. Mrs. Stearns is a real, live woman and I am glad that she has settled among you. I believe it is the first time you have had suffrage headquarters in Los Angeles. I am glad you have taken the presidency, pro tern, and hope you will stick to it. Nothing is so bad as for us older people to retire from active work altogether. Nom- inally, I am out of office, but there are more letters coming every day than I can possibly answer. "I do not expect anything from a government that ignores one half of its own people. It will do whatever comes in its way that is unconstitutional. The first thing for us to do is to make the men feel the enormity of their crime against women. If we fail in that, we may despair of all the rest. 'If ye love not those whom ye have seen, how can ye love those whom ye have not seen?' They are doing for the men of Hawaii, Porto Rico, Cuba and the Philippines a great deal more than they have done for us, and I have no sympathy to waste on those half-civilized men while we are without the rights of citizens at home. * * * * LUCY STONE. July, 1882. I think of you in the beautiful Berkshire hills and hope you will have a good time. These are the ' ' hills from whence come my help." "March, 1883. There is great need of a hostess at the office. 144 Cfte Qgotftet of CIit60 People come in and want to talk to some one. You know Mrs. Howe was to have been at the office, but she is hurt. Now I should like it very much if your pleasant face could be there part of one day during the week. * * * * Alas, alas! the state house votes us down again! Shame on the senators! God forgive them if He can!" ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. Madame Severance has said: "My own first meeting with Mrs. Stanton and other early leaders of the suffrage move- ment was at a great gathering, 1852, at Syracuse, N. Y. A most impressive assembly it was as represented on the plat- form. I sat thrilled and spellbound under their eloquence and enthusiasm a new heaven and new earth seemed opened be- fore me, and I marked these as 'white days 7 in my life-cal- endar, predecessors of many which followed and which chang- ed the current of my longings and plans for a literary life into the channel of the Golden Rule, as leading toward social and civic justice and peace." "My last meeting with Mrs. Stanton was in her apartments in New York City, in 1893. I found her in her usual quaint and careful costume, seated at her desk, pen in hand, looking a modern sybil and as strong and unconquerable in spirit as in her earlier years." Madame Severance carried on a long correspondence with Mrs. Stanton. In later years this related largely to the "Wo- man's Bible" which she published. Of this book Mrs. Stanton writes: "I have endeavored by showing the absurdities of the invidious distinctions of sex in the Pentateuch, to show women how this book emanated from the brain of men without any divine inspiration. 'Thus saith the Lord' has made woman a. victim under all religions. "I ordered six copies of Part I of the Woman's Bible sent to you, but the publishers write me that there is not one left" "I thought today, I would report to you of my doings. I Cfte 9ot6er of CIu60 145 am busy on Part II of the Woman's Bible. The object of the book is to lift women out of their superstitions. "The celebration of my eightieth birthday has been a great sweep." Two years later she writes: "In addition to books, I am writing leaflets, trying to clean up our villages and cities. Nothing disfigures our streets more than papers flying in all directions. Although I shall be eighty-two in November, I work five hours every day for the public good." DR. MARIA ZAKRZEWSKA. The largest budget of Madame Severance's correspondence, outside of that of her family and near relatives, is that of Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, who was a physician in the New England Hospital for Women and Children, located on Boston High- lands. Madame Severance describes the doctor as a woman of rare ability, an independent thinker and a student of the advanced German philosophy. She had come to this country alone, at the age of twenty, to secure the medical degree then denied to women in her own country. She applied to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, in New York, who sent her to Mrs. Severance, in Cleveland, where the medical college had been opened to women. The Severance family felt a warm friendship for the brave young woman. After their removal to Boston she vis- ited them and became connected with the Female Medical Col- lege, then striving for existence, and was interested with Mrs. Severance and other earnest women, in organizing and estab- lishing the Hospital for Women and Children, in Boston. This preface explains the doctor's references and her grati- tude, as shown in her letters. The first letters to Madame Severance in California were mainly in reference to club life in Boston and the progress of the hospital. After the death of Mr. Severance and the return of Madame Severance from an Eastern trip, the doctor writes: "Again you have put the con- tinent between yourself and your eastern friends, leaving us yearning for opinions and advice upon many points. It is our 146 Cfte Sfijotfter of hope that your usefulness in Los Angeles will compensate you by bringing kind and appreciative friends near you to make your life there enjoyable. This morning came the first snow- fall, covering field and forest and spreading peace and rest, not only out of doors, but also in the souls of men. It inspires me to the worship of absent friends and you are the first to whom I turn. "Do we love less strongly at sixty-four than at twenty-four? It seems to me that we love more strongly as the years go on. We cling, after all, to those we have known for many years. even if the habit to adapt us to each other has been prevented by separation. In my case there is mingled with this personal appreciation toward you the spirit of gratitude for favors re- ceived when young and in need." After bemoaning various differences between workers, she adds : ' * Ah me, there are so many ways to Rome ! And surely all these young and enthusiastic workers must, as a conse- quence of evolution, walk their different ways, as we did ours, from the generation before us." In her Christmas letter of 1894, she writes warmly of Madame Severance's eastern children and grandchildren and of the arrival of the dear ones from Boston, then enroute to California, "May joy and blessedness be yours and theirs and many more seasons be in store for you!" She comforts herself by going to her picture case and "seeing a vision of you sit- ting in the shade of that beautiful climbing ivy, but I saw much more than all this." In a letter of 1895, in answer to some comments upon the industrial situation, she says: "This sociological problem will have to be fought by and for the next generation, for the ten- dency to provide higher education, greater development of mind and consequently of all that is elevating, even to lux- uries in environment, is not counterbalanced by providing the means to gratify these desires desires fostered by even the lowest grades of the public schools. It is not gold, nor sil- ver, nor tariff, nor free trade, which will help us; it is the great economic question of distribution, Where must we be- Cfie ot6et of Clu60 147 gin to reform? We must raise the price of labor; we must secure a mode of living to the humblest workers, worthy of a human being and worthy the reputation of our wealthy land. In a word, we must be willing to share all profits in a way to permit neither millionaires nor beggars. I could write vol- umes on this subject, but can only tell you now that I am your faithful and loving friend, forever and forever." This was the topic of much of the correspondence. But always, also, the tender tribute followed, as, "Now for a few words of your- selfto me you are a wonderful woman when I think back to how faithful you have always been to the improvement of yourself and of women in general. How, amidst sorrow, care, anxiety and disappointment, you have kept your interest in humanity and especially in women, unselfishly and with an evenness of spirit which is charming. This is what keeps you alive and strengthens you in body and in spirit. Please do not take this as flattery. It is the sincere truth, directly from my heart, and often spoken to our friends, who agree with me fully. Miss Sprague is often troubled lest your absence from Boston deprive you of the appreciation due to you in this locality." Writing in 1896 of a visit to Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, who had returned to her home in England, she says : ' ' On 'the 12th of January we drank to your health, dear friend, in a cup of tea, and had continual chats on the earlier years of our work and our aspirations. The doctor celebrated her seventy-fifth birthday on July 8th." In 1897, she writes: "Dear Mrs. S., friend of many years, how I wish that I might take wings and fly across the continent, if only to say my * Happy New Year' to you ! Alas, I would like to say so much more, which to put upon paper seems sacrilege. How much there is in the sight of a beloved face, the warm pressure of a hand ! Should I put down here how much we long to see you again in our club, you would not, nay, you could not believe it. What a change is going on all about us! What progress in woman's activity! Often when I think of old times and how you trembled when, as the first woman, you lectured before a lyceum in Cleveland, 148 C6e agot&er of Clu6 I am looked upon as a centenarian as belonging to a far-off age. Many of the younger members of our club ask questions about you and your portraits in the club parlors." Again in 1897: "Mrs. W. (after a visit to Los Angeles) speaks of you with such enthusiasm, of your influence upon all associated with you in humanitarian efforts. You are in your sphere, a * pioneer among pioneers.' When I hear so many speak of the pleasure they have had in seeing you in your idyllic home, I cease wishing you on this side of American civilization. How short life is ! I don't fear death, but I like to live. It would be stupid vanity to say that we older ones exercise any real influence. We are honored and often revered, but after that, set aside respectfully. That is as it should be, the world must remain young." Planning later to come to Los Angeles, with her devoted friend, Miss Julia Sprague, and their faithful maid, Cornelia, she writes: "That we wish to see you once more in this beau- tiful world, I need not assure you. You must keep yourself well not to disappoint us in this last of our ambitious aims. ***** The fact that you are living among the roses under a balmy sky, which renders you active in spite of years, is an example and a tonic to your distant friends. Surrounded as you are by children and grandchildren, by friends and co- workers, years count for very little in themselves." Of the taking of the Philippines she writes: "This abom- inable and horrible war ! The United States has nothing to do in the Orient. The less we talk to the czar and the less fingers we put in his political pie, the wiser for us and the more dig- nified. We have so many faults to correct here, that Russia may be called far ahead of us, even in its prison management." And she goes on to cite the barbarities still practised in our own prisons. Speaking of her large practice in the hospital and in the best of families, she says: "You will hardly believe it when I tell you that it is twice as hard to dissuade people from having an operation as it is to persuade them to it." Again, "I can hardly express my indignation over the short- sightedness of the politicians and the lack of common sense of the people. Even now that the war is over, I cannot feet en- Cfie otf)et of Clu60 149 thusiastic, because of the consequences among the young fel- lows who were foolish enough to enjoy going to fight. And these consequences will be felt for many years to come, for the physical suffering is small compared with the moral, and the vicious iniquities which have taken root in the form of animal pleasures when in camps and the excitements of animal strength on the battlefield." And she adds that "a third party must arise which will bear on its banner: 'For progres- sive Humanity, Honor and Honesty." And through all this serious chat glows the love she bears "the beloved friend," and her joy in her sympathy and her wonderful activity. Af- ter her visit to Los Angeles, she writes of her delight in find- ing Madame Severance "as full of hopes and plans as in her younger days." JULIA A. SPRAGUE. "Jamaica Plain. It is so pleasant to have a greeting from you on the Pacific Coast, and you are so full of life and energy and interest in all living humans that you are a kind of spur, when one feels a little drooping. How I wish you could have been at the Club when the veterans gathered in October, a small but worthy band! I suppose you have been told who were there, so I will not repeat, as the years are bringing infirmities of various kinds to me. I find I am obliged to withdraw more and more from active participation, but my love for the New England Woman's Club increases. I want you to read my verses in the "Hospital Souvenir," and I want you to like them, not because they are great, not at all, but because they are heartfelt. I think as activity diminishes we cling to the pleasures of the past still more. Among those who, by spirit, are associated with my past, how vividly you. stand out in prominence, from the time when I first saw you on a lyceum platform, down to the pleasant day on York Harbor paizza, in our 'Roaring Rock' cottage! With loving remem- brance. ' ' 150 Cfte fi@ot6er of SOPHIA TOWNSEND. (Teacher of Greek, and called "our beautiful Greek" in the New England Woman's Club.) "Newport, July 18, 1873. How delightful the thought of being with you for one whole week! A thousand thanks. I only thought of getting a boarding place near you. And sweet Ellen Lee to be there, too, nothing could be better! As to 'crowding/ I should be willing to 'be put into a pint cup and have the cover put on' for the sake of feeling myself in the presence of such souls. Kindest love to your daughter and to Mr. Severance the man of cheer and pleasantness. Hull will suit me as well as Newport. I care more for people than for things." ABBY GOULD WOOLSON. Abby Gould Woolson, author of the lively record of the Dress Committee of the New England Woman's Club, in the early seventies, and now president of the Castilian club of Cambridge and vice-president of the New England Woman's Club, writes of the claim for Madame Severance as founder of that club: "I had the impression that no one disputed it," and she adds, "I have been ashamed of my country from the day that she entered upon these unnecessary, hypocritical and wicked wars with Spain and the poor Philippinos. I rejoice in any success of the latter in their struggle for freedom from a foreign oppression." Of the Peace Memorial, in June, 1899, she writes: "I can not conceive how any intelligent, right-minded woman could fail to give the most cordial support to your efforts on behalf of peace. They have my heartiest sympathy." MADAME HELENA MODJESKA, "How very kind of you to have written that charming letter to me! Do I deserve it? I am sure I never have done much good in this world; all that I do is my pleasure and there is Cfte Qiot&er of Clu60 i5i no merit in that. Nevertheless, I thank you very much and from all my heart, for your past kindness to me. As for me, work is my element and I feel well only when I am very busy. Hoping you will return to us well and strong, I recommend myself to your heart. With Mr. Chlaponsky's deep respects, Yours very sincerely." "Arden, July 10, 1899. I cannot tell you, dear Mrs. Sever- ance, how dreadfully sorry I am not to be able to move from home. I have looked forward to your reception with a great deal of joy, and it is difficult to express how disappointed I am. Are you very angry with me ? Please forgive me for this time, for I am feeling very unhappy about the unfortunate occur- rence. " "August 2, 1903. Believe me that your kindness to me is highly appreciated, as no one in this country has given me more proofs of true friendship and sacrifice than you. It is such a comfort to know that you sometimes think of me. With repeated thanks and many good wishes, I am, most sincerely yours." "Arden, Jan. 8, 1904. Your dear letter received and I thank you most heartily for your good wishes. I should have sent my New Year's wishes to you, but they could not have reached you in time, as nearly all of our men took a vacation at that time and there was no mail for a week. We live several miles from the nearest station. * * * Nothing is more sympathetic to me than an institution for children's education. So much the more as I now have a kindergarten at home. My nephew's wife, who recently died in Pasadena, left to my care two girls. I told you I was going to teach and I am teaching, not the art of acting, it is true, but we must be contented with what the good God sends us and do His will. I take real delight in guiding these little souls. They are devoted to me and I con- sider them as a gift from God." 152 c ft e motbtt of c l ti 6 MRS. SUSAN LOOK AVERT. (Letter from Madame Severance's cousin, Mary Ann Warren.) " Chicago, Feb. 3, 1898. I have found a bonanza in a lady eighty-four years of age who lives near me Mrs. Avery, mother of Mrs. Lydia Avery Coonley-Ward. She is a most remarkable woman; strong mentally and physically. 'I am a hobby rider,' she said to me. First, she is a woman's suf- fragist; she is especially interested just now in the monetary question she calls it the question of the age. She is full of the literature of the subject and understands its mysteries from A to Z. She read me a paper last week on * Moral Sani- tation,' a noble, wonderful work." FROM MRS. AVERY. "Wyoming, N. Y., Sept. 30, 1902. I am making a scrap book of portraits and biographical sketches of woman suffrag- ists, Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Lucy Stone, Miss Anthony, and others, those women around whose heads we are a halo, who ought to be canonized and will be sometime. I wish to place yours among them. * * * My daughter, Mrs. Coonley Ward's visit in your town and with you has given and still gives her no end of enjoyment. * * * I cannot tell you how gratified I am by the fulfillment of my long anticipated enjoy- mentthat of meeting you face to face; and that you, like myself, should be a reader of Unity, the Commoner, The Public, The Woman's Journal, The Woman's Tribune, etc., not that we need them, but that they need us!" Mrs. Avery 's daughter writes: "Rochester, N. Y., Aug. 15, 1902. You did much to make my Los Angeles visit delightful and memory recalls every visit to your lovely home with great pleasure. I do wish mother could see you. It would rejuven- ate her, not that she needs it, except from the longing of the heart to know you personally. She is as fresh and vivid in all her interests as a girl, I might say equally with you. I love to think of you and shall always rejoice in any line you Cfte QMtftet of Clufis 153 may send to me. Affectionately and admiringly your friend, Lydia Avery Coonley-Ward. " "Pasadena, Apr. 1, 1904. Enclosed please find clipping expressive of some of my wisdom on subjects which seem to me vital, if we are to survive as a free nation. I come this moment to an utterance of Hon. M. L. Lockwood at the anti- trust meeting in Chicago, some years ago, which I copy, al- though I doubtless send coals to Newcastle in so doing. "Up from the centuries, up from all the sacrifices of all the patriots, heroes and martyrs of the past, has come this govern- ment of ours, based upon the doctrine of the equal rights of man. If we fail, liberty is lost forever. There is no virgin soil, no unbroken wilderness in which to plant again the tree of liberty as our forefathers planted it. It seems to me that if the good people of our country would awaken to our real condition, our imperial danger might be averted. * * * * Susan L. Avery." "May 16, 1904. Thanks for the 'Letters of a Chinese Of- ficial/ which came last night. I have scanned them enough to know that the writer is wise and brave. I shall read it carefully and not hide it under a bushel. * * * You have doubtless read in the Springfield Republican the article of Mr. Patterson and Sixto Lopez. I wish it might be read by every man and woman in the world. Both gentlemen were our guests for a week or more, three years ago. I can never for- give our administration for refusing to receive and listen to them." HELEN H. GARDNER. "No one could more fully appreciate your frank and warm generosity in sending me your cards to use with your friends in China and Japan. I know the value of your kind introduc- tions and I thank you most truly. It is so lovely to see men and women of your age and experience keep sweet and will- ingly helpful in the world. So fe wdo ! The disappointment in those we love and trust, the failures to live up to the prom- 154 Cfte Sgot&er of ise given by so many who 'fall by the wayside,' after one has built on their strength and truth and reality, is apt to sap confidence and sour the milk of human joy, if not of kindness. ***** Personally, I do not look for wings to appear upon very many people the moment single tax, woman suffrage, government ownership, or any other good or reasonably ad- vanced idea blossoms and bears fruit.* * * * * I should have indeed enjoyed seeing you. You are the one person whose mental life has attracted me to Southern California, the one with whom I have felt 'in touch,' without words, from the be- ginning and I do get so intellectually weary at times. * * * * No one more than I can understand what it means to 'touch intellects' with your equals, no matter whether you agree or disagree with the particular outlook of those minds. The stimulus and absolute food of such contact is more vital to me than is anything else on earth, I think. Without it, I am a clod. ***** You women who call me brave and have spoiled nie by your generous, loving admiration of the few things I have written that you feel have helped the world, don't begin to realize how utterly .dependent I am upon what you and your type give me. When I am not able to surround myself with such minds, I am worthless. My own mentality closes up and I shrink to fit the sizes about me." MRS. LUCRETIA R. GARFIELD. "Mentor, Ohio, May 22, 1899. The home country is in all its summer glory now, only the soft and gracious airs of South- ern California are needed to make it just as perfect. Mrs. Rudolph joins me in the remembrance of the worthy days spent with, or near, you and in best love to you. ' ' "Feb. 6, 1901. (Eightieth birthday of Madame Severance.) My congratulation goes to you that you are still so young in every way but in years ; and I hope that youth may be contin- ued to you for many more years. It would have given me great pleasure to have been one of the circle of friends who gathered around you on that occasion and I thank you for C ft c 13 a t ft e r of Clubs 155 including me among your invited guests. Will you give to dear Mrs. Fremont and to her daughter, my loving remem- brance. Again, with kindest wishes, I am your devoted friend. " "It is very dear of you to keep us in mind. We would love to see you often, but I have been on the health-watching list so long that enterprise has taken leave of me. You are such an example of vigor and of interest in the work of all the world, that I am condemned whenever I think of you. But such as I am, my heart is full of love for and admiration of you." MRS. JANE L. STANFORD. "San Francisco, May 20, 1899. Your letter dated May 19 is just received. I was pleased to have that little glance at you on the car and did hope to meet you again while you were at Menlo, but we shall meet, I am sure. * * * * I have often remarked that those who are in sympathy and fellowship do meet along the pathway of life even here ; and in the far Be- yond, we shall all have time to enjoy the society of those near- est and dearest in ties of love and ties of friendship. Ever your sincere friend and well-wisher. MRS. GEORGIA R. FERGUSON. (Wife of Professor Charles Ferguson, Author of "The Relig- ion of Democracy. ") "December, 1903. The greetings of the season to you, dear lady, you who have been long in the strife and who are so brave a striker for the right you who know better than I do what we all ought to do next, to pull together to help the poor and the weak. More and more am I convinced that the social question ought and can only be solved by religion. A religious enthusiasm will be like a bugle call heard all over the inhabited globe. * * * * Why do I write you all this ? Just because you are one of the few women in the world who stands 156 C6e Sotf)er of and cares for these things. Always affectionately, gratefully and with deep respect/' "Jan. 10, 1904. And that dear picture that makes it seem as if I could say 'How do;' could ask you questions and get answered; could tell you about life's dealings with me, good or evil, and get philosophy from the lady who lives in the City of the Angels where philosophy certainly ought to orig- inate. I like your poets, too, and the picture of the Los An- geles house on West Adams street, and the words of Keith. In fact I liked it all, but cared most that it came from you, came with a Christmas greeting of friendship. Thank you!" "March 25, 1904. Meadville Theological Seminary. So go our fine ambitions ; first comes the wif ehood ; then the mother- hood; then the worldhood. Somehow you have achieved all three the trinity of being for womankind. "With what a breath of spring and violets and love your letter came to me! Sometime I shall bridge the gulf of the continent which stretches between us and I shall rejoice to breathe the air of California California, God's greatest gift to America, and we will talk of the problems and of the work to be done, in the nest where the violets grow." CHARLOTTE PERKINS OILMAN. "The quiet week under your vine-hung roof is a very pleas- ant memory, and I am glad, too, that you could go down that Sunday morning and see that I had a place in the hearts of the people. Gratefully and affectionately yours." "Hull House, Aug. 9, 1895. And now I am comfortably ensconced in Hull House, warmly welcomed and very happy. * * * * It is exceedingly pleasant to be so kindly remem- bered and to find you really have such confidence in me. May I deserve it all! I gave your message to Miss Addams Saint Jane who was pleased therewith." otftet of Clufis 157 MARY NEWBERRY ADAMS. "Dubuque, Iowa. If only some one had kept good, full scrap books on one subject, women and their work, how invaluable they would now be ! These set occasions are most interesting and from them history is to learn what the ideals of these days were. I was much pleased with your remarks, I only wish you had a diary to publish. * * * * History is making so rapidly that to even read of it and be posted as re- gards facts, so as to form suitable and true opinions for future statements, takes all the time. These two Christian, Protestant nations, claiming to stand at the head of civilization, 'holding up' two struggling republics and murdering the people, and nearly all the people in this republic acquiescing in it! Is it any wonder that robbers hold up express trains? Both give the same excuse, 'It pays!' * * * * I think of you often and always with love and admiration. We think so much alike, we must, in fact, be often together preparing for a perpetual fellowship out of the flesh. "Do not lose strength trying to mend things! Get your life written as you have done things, and what you have said, and then we will have the spirit to inspire us through the coming years. Give us the full history of kindergartens in Los An- geles, the easiest way you can, by letter, or otherwise." MRS. JENNIE D. DeWITT. (Ex-president of the Woman's Suffrage Association of New Jersey, and sister of Dr. Thomas Dowling.) "Pasadena, March 15, 1901. I am most deeply interested in all these struggles for progress, although the responsibility of deciding among vast numbers of plans for reform and ad- vancement is almost too much :pr me, and I am sometimes thankful women have not yet been obliged to wield the ballot. * * * * j wa g very sorry to leave the other night before the discussion was finished, but was glad to have met a body of men and women who are always looking upward. I shall hope to meet them again and to talk with you upon all these great 158 Cfte Sgjotfier of CIu60 issues, which are stirring the world to the foundation. Many thanks for your kindness. I long for a sight of your face and a tone of your voice." " Pasadena, Dec. 19, 1902. Your letter of sweet sympathy was a comfort to me. My sister (Mrs. Dr. Dowling) was truly one of the most lovable women I ever knew. She did little with her hands, but her brain and heart were always at high pressure. They will all realize a void which none other can fill. We, too, shall never know a sister like her. * * * We were sorry not to be able to attend the University extension lec- ture. Thanks for your card. It was very thoughtful of you. Yours for light and progress. " "Pasadena, June 14, 1902. With you, I regret that no word was uttered by the women of the Federation expressing sym- pathy with the agonized women in South Africa. Is it not strange that men and women can look on all over the world, and at this age of the world, and do nothing to stop the horror? I noted your plea for peace. It went straight to my heart, and to all hearts, I am sure, although tongues were tied. "The Transvaal League in Chicago is trying to organize concerted appeal to the President to take some steps in this country for the relief of the Boer women and children, and to prevent the shipment of horses from this country to South Africa. The work is so stupendous that it calls for a na- tional, or even an international, movement. I received a re- quest from the secretary of the League to favor him with a list of the most prominent Boer sympathizers in Los Angeles, so I want to ask you to give me a few names of the leading pro- Boers. Lilia D. DeWitt." (Daughter of Mrs. Jennie D. De Witt.) HELEN DENSMORE. (Active friend of Mrs. Maybrick.) "Chicago, Mar. 20, 1899. I am sending you by this post an article published in the Chicago Record-Herald, giving a de- scription of the workings of an insane asylum at Kankakee, Cfte 9@otftet of Clu60 159 It fills me with delight, as I know it will you, to know that there is one spot on the earth that has adopted love as a rul- ing force in the management of its institutions, and made human kindness the method of its operations. My husband has long contended that the time will come on the earth when all its affairs will be managed through love, when man will be more anxious for the happiness and well-being of his neigh- bor than for himself. It seems to me that this institution offers a promise of this. * * * * This seems, after California, like Paradise Lost, and it will not be my fault if Paradise is mot regained as speedily as possible." "Belair, llth Ave. and 14th St., Brooklyn, L. L, April 27, 1900. I believe there is no one in the world, who deprecates more than I do the horrors of war. War ought to be and will be when the race develops its altruistic side, an unthink- able thing ; but we cannot be blind to the fact that it has been through this terrible scourge that civilization has been pos- sible, and like all other evils that have attended the growth of the race, it is being constantly minimized, as a realization of its true character takes possession of the public mind. We sail May fifth and I shall be glad to hear from you at Knees- worth house. "Kneesworth House, 76 Elm Park Koad, Chelsea, London, July 24, 1901. The season is nearly at its close here and it has not been a very gay one on account of the death of the queen. I suppose they will make up for it next year with the festivities of the coronation, for which they have begun preparation. I am going next week to Aylesbury prison to visit poor Mrs. Maybrick. There seems to be no hope of her release, for the present at least. It is a very mysterious case and the worst of it is the continued and stubborn refusal of the English government to release her, so out of all sense and reason that it leaves an impression, very difficult to overcome, that they must have some knowledge of her guilt which is not known to the public. They do not take into consideration that the Lord Chief Justice Russell must necessarily know it 160 Cfte QMtfter of CIu60 this were true. But he has assured the friends of Mrs. May- brick that it was not, and so the mystery stands and we will have to bear it the best way we can. I fancy the poor little woman is as brave as any one interested. Such experiences as this give me almost the strongest faith of any one thing, that mortals are sustained, upheld and comforted by a spiritual power, though not necessarily conscious of it. I should like very much to hear from you." " We have made two very valuable additions to our social circle in London, Mr. and Mrs. Borglum and Mr. and Mrs. Hare, (formerly Miss Freeman, of Southern California.) The Borglums were very glad to hear of you and to see some one who had recently seen you." LILIAN WHITING. "The Brunswick, Boston, Oct. 24, 1897. What a new stim- ulus and joy in life to have your kind remembrances! How can I thank you? And how strange or what an illustration of spiritual laws it is that this direct word came to me from you when I was mentally searching space for you. Again I am caught up into a new blessedness of faith in the invisible leadings. Indeed, all the causes in life are in the unseen, the effects in the seen. What an inspiration of truth was upon Lowell when he wrote, 'We see not half the causes of our deeds here in this outer world, etc.!' You remember the pas- sage. My spiritual searchlight went out in quest of you in relation to my beloved friend, Kate Field, whom I think you knew well. I am engaged on her biography and every word or link is so precious to me. ***** y ou are graciously kind, my dear Mrs. Severance, in your allusion to any little work of mine. And while I am grateful for it, as a standard to grow toward and as dear encouragement, from a woman so great as yourself, I realize how far beyond my desert it is. I reason to myself, if I only had what I deserve, what a terribly poor, barren and meager life I should have, to be sure!" otficr of Cltt&s i6i ELIZABETH B. CUSTEE. "Your delightful hospitality to us today has filled us with enthusiasm and I thank you very much for your kindness in receiving strangers as we were greeted. I shall carry away the vision of your home as one of the pleasantest souvenirs of the Pacific coast." SARAH BURGER STEARNS. "Baltimore, May 22, 1903. Your precious letter came this morning. I hasten to thank you for it. * * * It is true I have read and thought much since coming here on socialism, and other good themes, but have not tried to turn my thoughts to much account. Have been lazily resting. You seem to rest your brain by writing. That is more than most people can do. Otherwise I would say you must not write me such long letters. But they are such intensely interesting letters that I have not the courage to discourage you from writing to me, of delightful friends and visitors and co-workers, in Woman's Parliament, Congress of Religions, etc. * * * * I have known something of all those of whom you write and would like to know more of them. Would thank you very much for a copy of anything of yours that appears in print. Each one would be put among those I am saving for my daughter.' 7 MARY FLORENCE DENTON. (Pasadena.) (Teacher in Woman's College, Tokio, Japan.) "Do you think of any ladies who would be interested in our girl? We are very near our mark (in finance.) If those of you who started it had held back we could not have done it. I am very grateful. Thank you more than I can say, my dear Mrs. Severance, for all you have accomplished to help the women everywhere. God bless you! I know He will. I can never tell how your goodness has inspired me, how it has 162 C6e QSJot&er of CIu60 given me courage and strength in these days that have some- times seemed dark. I am glad to have met you." WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE. "Sept. 6, 1901. It is so good of you to say such beautiful things of me and to me, and in all the world there is nothing more dear to me than your valued friendship. God bless you always for all your goodness to me ! ' ' "Yellowhammer's Nest, Tenn. If I could be here at work from May to November and with you the 'rest of the year, I should be happy. The people here were so glad to see me and eager for the word 1 brought them from 'the warm bright West, and withal, so poor, so needy, truly I feel my work is here. Some one brought me a box of fine oranges (to the train) about two dozen fine tmes. I did not eat one. They made others so happy, brought a smile to so many faded faces, that I did not have the heart to touch one of them. I only wished I might have brought a hundred. With a heart full of love to you, I am your affectionate little lover. " "The Nest, Sept. 1, 1902. My dear friend. Your letter is here this hour. ' I can think of no happiness greater than that of living with you. I am trying my best and, oh, I do want to come ! Everyone is leaving now and the gloom of autumn is settling upon us." WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, JR. "Brookline, Oct. 25, 1902. It was a great pleasure to re- ceive your letter of Oct. 2, which would have received earlier reply had I been at home on its arrival. * * * * We have a vague plan of spending part of this winter in Southern Cal- ifornia, if it is possible. It would be worth a journey across the continent just for the pleasure of seeing you again. * * * * * A dear friend of ours has just gone to live in Los Angeles with her husband, and she urges us to take the trip. She is Mrs, Dr r Elbert Wing, late of Chicago. * * * * * Your ac- C ft e o t ft e t of Cl it 6 IBS count of your intellectual activity and broad interest in cur- rent progress was charming and delightful. How much I should like to talk with you on the many matters of common concern! I always ask eagerly of you from the travelers who return from the Pacific coast. Good Mr. Prang and his wife are coming to see us tomorrow, and I shall ply them with per- sonal questions. It was a comfort to know that my occas- ional writings pass under your eye. * * * * I delight in the Public and the Springfield Republican, but am not enthusi- astic over the Commoner, although a subscriber and willing to acknowledge the courage and ability of many of its dis- cussions. * * * * We shall think of you next Wednesday at the memorial service to be held in honor of Dr. Zakrzewska. * * * * As regards Mrs. , whom I remember well, I am sorry to say that her spirit autograph of " John Ralph Burroughs" mystifies me. I cannot recall ever knowing such a man. As for the handwriting, it seems to me to be that of Mrs. pure and simple. How I wish that one glimmer of intelligence con- cerning dear ones who have passed on could ever fall in my way! In all the years since my father died I have, in the various communications purporting to come from him, been unable to recognize a single characteristic sentence. ***** I should be glad to feel now the certitude regarding continu- ance after death which I thought I believed in youth. I am content to leave the question to its near solution, with the hope that I may wake to learn what it is. I know there are unnumbered wonders beyond my ken in this life and would not deny that greater may exist beyond the grave. ***** I suppose you know that we are grandparents, having three descendants of this generation. They are a great comfort to us. Our youngest son, William Lloyd Garrison, Jr., has a bouncing boy of nine months, bearing the paternal name and making the fourth William Lloyd Garrison. ***** I am driven to the use of the machine in my correspondence be- cause of the fatigue of writing with my injured hand. So I discard the pen when I can play upon the keys instead. 164 cfte Qgotftet of CIu60 Father, who found writing such a bondage, would have de- lighted in this deliverance from manual labor. With affection- ate regards, in which my wife joins, Sincerely yours." "I received your letter of Jan. 23d duly, and am delighted to find myself in accord with you on the Philippine question and jingoism generally. We are in the midst of a momentous struggle for the preservation of democratic ideals, and every voice and pen is needed at this crisis to oppose the betrayers of the nation now in power. ***** I often think of you and the dear old days and friends, and wish I were near enough to drop in and talk over with you themes which are near our hearts. I am sure we would agree on fundamentals and that it is only a difference of phraseology and understanding that makes us see social questions in conflicting lights. * * * * * *]y[y wife has gone to Washington to attend the Woman Suffrage Convention and Susan's eightieth birthday. I re- gret that I was unable to accompany her. * * * * If you were to come back to Roxbury, you would hardly know the old place. Highland street is a nest of cheap tenements and its glory has departed. Your old house, however, and its neigh- bors are as of yore. * * * * Dear me, how time flies ! It will be twenty-one years in May since my father died, and I am now an old, gray-headed man of sixty-two and the procession keeps right along. However, the past is secure and the retro- spect is full of pleasure in spite of occasional sadness." "Lexington, Jan. 4, 1904. The blessings of the New Tear upon you and our hearty congratulations on your approach- ing birthday, which, alas, is beyond my calling distance. How I should love to repeat my birthday call of last year. What would one not give to be so useful at eighty-four. Must I confess to homesickness for Southern California? The beauty of it haunts me. Yesterday and today the mercury records six below zero. In this bleak country-house I have to keep two furnaces in full blast, and additional coal fires and open ones of wood besides. Life is a struggle to keep warm. Our new home is on a hillside exposed on all sides to the bitter ot6er of C I it 60 IBS blast. It has the blessing of sunshine and light and is near my dear son and his family and not far from my brothers. But no condition is free from drawbacks and the domestic ques- tion is acute in this remoteness. Girls are lonesome and likewise fearful at night in their home-coming. We are on our seventh cook since September and count ourselves lucky when we think of our Brookline tenant who has had twenty-one cooks in the same time. ***** j a m reminded of Los Angeles by the presence of Madame Yamei Kin, who spoke at the lunch of the ' Century Club last Saturday. I was afraid that the drifting snows would block our roads and I would be kept at home. Mrs. Halliday and the Wings keep us stirred up with envy, and other friends will not let us forget, if we could, the land that has no winter in its calendar. I had an interesting letter a few days ago from Mrs. Spring, may her days be lengthened yet many years! I hope she is still showing what youth is in the nineties. ****** j wonder if you know Francis F. Brown, editor of the Dial, Chicago, who has a winter home at Pasadena? He was most helpful and friendly to us last year and is an interesting and true man. We met him again in Chicago on our return and Mrs. Coonley Ward invited him to stay at her house with us. * * * * * Mrs. Avery, Mrs. Ward's mother, wrote me the other day that she had heard from Mr. Brown who was in 'Paradise as well as in Pasadena.' * * * * The political situation has few signs of encouragement to the reformer's eye, but all the same, events big with fate may be near at hand. I am delight- ing myself with Morley's Life of Gladstone and find there much that parallels our condition, from which I draw hope. * * * Last month Mr. Higginson celebrated his eightieth birth- day and scouts the idea of old age. Indeed he seems unusually active in writing and speaking. And here is Mr. Hale, several years older, going to Washington to be Chaplain of the Sen- ate. Mrs. Howe is about with her ordinary, or extraordinary activities and Mrs. Livermore at eighty-three, I believe, is 'on tap' for every function that calls her." 166 cfje Sgjotfcer of ' 'Boston, Nov. 1, 1904. Taking up your welcome commun- ication of July 16th, I gaze with delight and satisfaction on the charming picture of 'El Nido,' of blessed memory. How often have I wished that it were nearer Lexington and con- venient for a morning call ! I do often drop in on you in spirit and see you busy with your pen at your familiar desk. * * * * Your letter speaks of Rockledge [the Garrison homestead, now devoted to the use of colored people] and the new use it has been put to. Yesterday we went over the house and view- ed with satisfaction the marked changes. A sun parlor has been built on in front and a large bay window on the side, while at the back a large balcony has been put up. The house itself is renovated and attractive, only the chapel upstairs, with its shrine, seems far removed from the Garrison days. The nice sisters who care for the little ones are most agree- able. *****! read with much interest and sympathy J. Stitt Wilson's 'The Message of Socialism to the Church/ Its spirit is admirable and I regret not having met Mr. Wilson when I was in Los Angeles. I have no desire to quarrel with such earnest people who are aiming at a noble goal, although by a different path from the one that most appeals to me. But I am sure no one can read that discourse without conceiving a high regard for the speaker. * * * * We had a week of great profit and delight when the International Peace conference met in this city. Many of our English friends came over and were blessed with October's choicest weather. I have no doubt that the meeting will result in good and help increase the growing protest against war. Now the people have scattered, carry- ing away strength for their work and richer by new friend- ships. Prof. Bryce is in Boston lecturing at the Lowell In- stitute and in Cambridge. Tonight the Armenians give him a reception at the Vendome. Mrs. Howe will preside. She holds her own wonderfully for one who doesn't live in Los Angeles." N. 0. NELSON. Among the efforts for bettering the condition of our wage earners, Madame Severance has been deeply interested in the profit-sharing which was begun in England and France dec- ades ago by the Owens and Godins and which is now follow- ed at Leclaire, near St. Louis, and in Alabama by N. O. Nelson. While Mr. Nelson and family were spending a winter at Pasadena, Madame Severance wrote him for business advice concerning the Woman's Exchange just then inaugurated in Los Angeles. In reply he wrote of his active connection with the St. Louis Woman's Exchange, and stated that for fifteen years this had been a steady disappointment to its ardent friends and patrons. He advised instead a co-operative fac- tory running on solid work, children's wear, underclothing, etc., and adds, "Let me say that what I have learned of you and from you has helped much to give me confidence in the future." Madame Severance's comment is: "That Mr. Nelson's wise method and noble-hearted services for his fellows, help her to the same faith." From this time their correspondence has been most hearty, full and frequent. "St. Louis, Oct. 2, 1902. I spent most of yesterday with Mayor Jones and he showed me your letter of Aug. 6th. If good wishes of two men wishing together are equal to a prayer, then you will live a long time to enjoy life yourself and bless a whole countryful of people. We walked together from the station up to the mayor's office, two miles, and later we went to dinner in the Golden Rule Dining Room, above the factory. Jones works an hour or two a day in plain, straight factory work and dines with the rest of the fellows, including his son who is learning the machinist's trade. After a good plain fifteen-cent dinner Jones did some introducing and then I, of course, had to do some talking. * * * * We talked over our plans for getting a little additional morals into our business and the work, which means to get it entirely into the 168 cfte fifijotfter of 1 1160 employees' hands. That, I think you will agree with us, is the only right thing. Then we walked up to the office again, had a pleasant call from Mrs. Jones, and he saw me off on the six o'clock train. In New York I lunched twice with Mrs. Perkins Oilman whom I found in good health and spirits and genial, as usual. * * * * I went to hear Charles Ferguson preach and after the sermon met him and his wife and Wil- shire. They were all anxious to meet Mrs. Gilman and I took it on myself to ask them all over after the lunch. We then had a splendid afternoon. Your name, of course, came up in the course of the talking and we were all of one mind. Somehow you manage to hypnotize us all. * * * * From several of my Wall street and big trust friends I learned, somewhat to my surprise, that they are convinced the Morganization of business will keep going on and that no one can feel secure in any kind of business. I also got some particulars from the inside as to how the really big Wall street men round up the property of the smaller speculators. They handle it with mathematical precision. * * * * I count on the great pleasure of seeing you before long." "St. Louis, May 4, 1904. I found Leclaire out in beautiful, rich, spring blooming colors, with Mrs. Nelson on deck, di- recting the planting of flowers in the garden, and the like. We have two good-sized tulip beds with enough bright color to illuminate a dark night. The birds, oh, the birds are so friendly, for nobody in Leclaire hurts them. My good vigor- ous hoeing from 5 :30 in the morning, after a cup of coffee (not cereal) until seven o'clock breakfast with wife and daughter is the cheeriest part of the day. Sometimes I take a little run down to the lake, about three hundred yards away, and peer into the big oak woods alongside of it. There are ten new houses this spring in Leelaire and five more to start soon. ***** What a monster victory Jones got ! Wonder if you saw the figures. More than twice the votes of all other can- didates put together. Then, Tom Johnson also won out partly on the same ground, the goodwill qualities of the man. * * The Cfte Cgjotfter of CItt&0 169 world is moving along at about as good a rate as we have any historical reason to expect. * * * The unions, like other people, do many foolish things, but if rightly met they, as well as the employer's side, can be talked out of the foolish- ness. * * * * I cannot make any forecast of the political future. Whether the Democratic party will get socialized or the conservative prevail, is only guessing. I have no par- ticular choice between them. Socialist success, I think, can at best only be looked for, in our time, in municipalities. In fact, I think Socialism will come by gradual assumption of public ownership, mainly municipal, but with some possibil- ities of national. San Francisco will, I think, in the coming election vote for bonds to build the Geary street system, and with its success, of which I am confident, the idea will spread. The breakdown of the Yerkes consolidated street car system in Chicago is, I think, likely to result in early municipal own- ership there, by some plan or other. Trusting all is well with you, faithfully yours. " Again: "Will you pardon a lazy man's pencil, because it comes handier in this lazy chair, in this lazy room ? By all means let us encourage laziness in this strenuous time and country, as well as simplicity in this world of luxury. Welcome the penciling, or burn the sheet. * * * * I would like something easy but perhaps I wouldn't. When I get to your age I am going to take a day off and loaf and learn. It may be on your veranda where serenity always reigns. Yet my friend Hoi- yoke, three or four years your senior, is as irrepressibly active with his pen as he was fifty, sixty, seventy years ago. * * * * You always have more fresh things on your table and in your head than any of the thirty-year-old professors or club mem- bers. I guess there is nothing in the matter of years. Our theosophical friends would say, I suppose, that our karma doesn't grow old, but it may grow stupid if we let it. * * * They tell us that thought is the parent of action. If they had said that thought was married to action, I would answer that 170 Cfte Q^otftet of C 1 1160 they seem to have been married and got divorced ! Of course I mean reform, and preaching thoughts." "St. Louis, July 16, 1903. Dear Mrs. Severance. Yes, I got your long letter and was glad it was so long, and glad that I was alive, if for no other reason than to get the letter. This one is short, but equally interesting in proportion. * * * Take good rests in your hammock on the porch, read Emerson's Divinity Address and Dartmouth Address, and the American Scholar, and such inspiring stuff, you will be keeping your ac- tivities moderated, as I think you generally do, you will con- tinue to be the ethical magnet of Southern California, and to some extent, the United States, for many years to come. Of course, I can't advise you to do a boy's work as I do, hoeing corn a few hours a day and outdoing the best man we can hire, and then on holidays, the big flower beds about the factories and the school house grounds, of which I am sole architect, workman and nurse. Daughter has gone on a five months' trip to the foreigners. We get weekly letters of from twenty-four tc forty pages. She gives a very interesting and amusing ac- count of her visit to the House of Lords. The Industrial School at Leclaire is a hummer. I suppose you keep up with modern slang as well as the more serious sounding things. I work every day on the farm with the boys. Busi- ness gets only a day a week in St. Louis and but two or three hours a day at Leclaire. I like my jean suit and flannel shirt better than the city rig. I am pleased to inform you that a majority of the boys choose the farm work with me and one of the teachers. Second choice is house building. Third and last and smallest the factory work. This is entirely to my taste. We have good times, lots of them. Physical culture classes, singing, bowling, dancing, Sunday afternoon singing and reading, rowing on the lake, and am just now starting a tent camp by the lake for the boys and some grown folks. I de- voutly trust that you are in good health and I shall be de- lighted to hear from you whenever the spirit moveth." Cl)e Qjjotfcer of Clu60 m (Writing from Indio, Cal., where he established a resort for invalid workmen, and others.) "I have about decided to locate here. It is the best tuber- culosis climate known and excellent for other diseases. Water is abundant everywhere and land exceedingly productive and cheap. I brought Mr. Harriman along and he is already much improved and feels happy and encouraged. ****** Nine months of pleasant weather, three months very hot. Only one- half to three inches rainfall; winter nights down to 25 and 20 degrees, but so dry that colds or pneumonia are almost un- known. ***** We are four hours from Los Angeles; fare $3.00 not bad. While it is a desert valley, it is yet very picturesque, high mountains either side, gorgeous daybreaks and sunsets, grand snow peaks in full view. Exactly sea level, but dry. I assure you your interest and your kind and cheering words are always appreciated." "April 14, 1904. To report progress in things you are al- ways interested in, which are many, the Indio camp is ex- ceeding expectations. It has now, in its hot weather, 31 consumptives and about 65 in all, including accompany- ing friends. * * * * Before I left we had a very congenial com- pany, a good social settlement. It was an agreeable place to be in, not alone for the good that was being done, but for good company and natural beauty, including gorgeous day-breaks and magnificent sunsets and after-glows. Nothing finer than the desert." "Feb. 9, 1905. Only to say that your letters cheer me more than any other, though there are a number of good friends, especially old ones like Holyoke and Hale, who often say me a good word. I will let your glorious letter 'lay in soak' for a while and then break loose. * * * I am, like you, an oppor- tunist socialist, with a strong leaning toward the voluntary, the educational." After the Biennial meeting in Los Angeles, in May, 1902, Mr. Nelson wrote Madame Severance in his genial way, apropos of the "rising vote in tribute to her age," given in 172 Cfte S^otfier of Clufis response to the president's motion to make Madame Sever- ance honorary president, "No occasion for rising on account of her age ; there were better reasons ! As I read them, I was happy to know and to love her as they all do. May the sun- shine of her gentle and kind spirit long bless us ! " His last farewell, August 8th, 1905, in Los Angeles, was to pledge her, in his jolly way, to "hold on for another twenty years and see us all through." In his January and June letters and circulars Mr. Nelson delights the heart of Madame Severance by showing the cul- mination of his plans for profit-sharing and cooperation : "St. Louis, Jan. 1, 1905. To Employees : The amount now handed you makes a continuous dividend for nineteen years of from four to ten pen cent annually on your wages and sal- aries. On the stock you received for your dividends, you have received from eight to seventeen per cent a year. Dur- ing this period the company has cared for its sick and dis- abled and has contributed toward public relief and better- ment in various directions. We have now decided to take our customers also into partnership. Out of the profits, capital will get bank rate of interest and the remaining profits will be apportioned in the proportion of one per cent on capital, one and a half per cent on wages and salaries and two per cent on the gross profit on customers' trade. Relief expendi- tures are charged as business expenses. In addition, all the interest and profit accruing on my stock, which is about four- fifths of the whole, will be apportioned: four-tenths to the trade, three-tenths to the employees and three tenths to such public and benevolent purposes as I initiate and supervise. The management of the company remains unchanged, the unit- ed interests will increase its prosperity and enlarge its bene- fits. The dividends will be paid in my stock. It should not take many years for the complete ownership and control to pass into the hands of the employees and customers, who to- gether are the makers of the profit. Very sincerely, N. O. Nelson/' Cfte auotfter of Clufis 173 CHARLES FERGUSON. "You have been a great friend to us both. It is a fine thing to us to feel that you belong somehow to us and we to you. With most sincere respect, and, may I say, affection, ." "Dear Gentlewoman: Always yourself, as the whole world knows. It would perhaps be worth while to have a broken head or a broken heart, just for the sake of coming to you to have it mended. But, alas, my martyrdom is a pure impos- ture. I have been called 'anarchist' by some village hood- lums, but try as I migh't, I have not been able to get further along. I could not even find any two-legged being to face me with the word. How good it is to be just human, acknowl- edging the kinship of princes and presidents, when they be- have themselves, and poor devils of assassins always ! "The 'Affirmative Intellect' is getting in its word gradually, edgewise. This morning I received, by the kindness of Ern- est Crosby, a copy of the London Daily News, with a column about the book. Also, I find a column and a half in the Bos- ton Transcript of January." MR. AND MRS. LOUIS PRANG. Extract from the many letters of "The Dear Tramps," as Madame Severance calls them: "Grand Canyon of the Colorado, April 21, 1902. The place is crowded, all indoor accommodations spoken for, so we had to take up with a tent, which we gladly did, as a new exper- ience in our peregrinations is always welcome. And the storm which tried its best to lift us up into an aerial flight into the canyon, the hail rattling on the canvas over our heads, the thunder and lightning and the icewater to wash in in the morning at a temperature of 25 degrees gave us an ex- perience to satisfy our appetites for once, completely. "L. P." 174 Cfje figjotfcer of Clu60 "Sunshine Cottage, Oracle, Arizona. Mr. D. has written to us the meeting for Mr. Lloyd Garrison at your house and what a fine occasion it was. What a reception you all gave to Booker Washington and what a fine, sound, splendid char- acter he has to be able not only to accomplish the wonders he has at Tuskegee, but also to hold his head level in the midst of his successes !_ * * * Last night our thermometer stood at 12 degrees, but it has rapidly risen until now, at 10 o'clock, it stands at 34 degrees. The sky is cloudless and the sun bril- liant. With very affectionate greeting, from us both. Yours, Mary and Louis Prang. " HENRY DEMAREST LLOYD. On his arrival in Los Angeles for a brief stay, Mr. Lloyd called upon Madame Severance. She found him a man of great charm of manner, bearing indisputably the fine old name of gentleman, earnest as an apostle and without pose or self- consciousness. His utter sincerity is borne out by his last words, when having thrown himself into a day and night struggle against the efforts of the politicians to secure in- definite street franchises in Chicago, he said to a friend who lamented the fatal result of his zeal, "Oh, but I'd do it again." Besides his pamphlets and articles, he sent Madame Sever- ance the note from which we quote: "Boston, Jan. 2, 1902. Your most welcome note has arrived and one of the pleasantest duties of the New Year is to tell you how glad I am to be thus remembered. Your cards to the delightful, fine people you know here will strengthen me in their esteem and I shall certainly present them. I am not so sanguine that they will all want to 'hear reform talk'. There is an optimism among the well-to-do in Boston, as everywhere, which turns from those who point out rising tides and talk of floods, to those who can amuse them with the sweet languors of culture. Of all the audiences I am addressing and all the C6e Q^otftet of C lu 60 175 people I meet, there are none so receptive and responsive as those of California." WILLIAM E. SMYTHE. Madame Severance was naturally warmly interested in the campaign of William E. Smythe, of San Diego, as nominee for congress, because of the causes for which he stood suffrage for women the true democracy, as embodied in equal rights for all and special privileges for none ; rule of, for and by the people; and as an able and eloquent advocate of national irri- gation of our arid lands, of which movement he was the founder. She was urged to write a plea to the voters on his behalf, being assured that it would be of service. She did this and it had large circulation, .but the political opposition prevailed. Mr. Smythe 's letters to her refer to this effort and to other mutual interests in current questions the new evangelism of B. Fay Mills, Mr. Smythe 's book on Constructive Economics, etc. "August, 1904. Mighty forces are at work, more powerful than party platforms and conventions." Mr. Smythe declares his own work to be to deliver society from water-monopoly and thus secure the economic freedom of the millions who are to live on arid lands. He declines to run for congress again, lest it interfere with this special work and ends, "I deeply ap- preciate what you did in the congressional campaign two years ago and know that you would do it again." "August 28, 1904. Your exceedingly welcome and interest- ing letter has come to hand. * * * We must do thoroughly and bravely the work of today and trust God to make us ready for the greater work of tomorrow. * * * Are you reading Lawson's articles in Everybody's? If not, do get the mag- azines beginning with July. * * * With sincere regards and best wishes for your health, in which Mrs. Smythe joins me." B. FAY MILLS. Madame Severance also became warmly interested in the work of B. Fay Mills and Mrs, Mary Russell Mills, in their 176 cfte epot&er of Clii60 broad field of the Los Angeles Fellowship, which stands for unselfish and trustful living, and emphasizes the Golden Rule in civic and social life, the Fatherhood of God and the Brother- hood of all men. "San Diego, Oct. 24, 1903. I am doing what I believe to be a pioneer work for our time and so far I have found only an embarrassment of riches. * * * I have long known you as the 'Edward Everett Hale of Los Angeles' and who can say more of any incarnate soul ? I shall be delighted to meet you personally when I pass through Los Angeles. I am thinking somewhat of spending a week or two with my friend, Mr. Pease, at Long Beach and preaching in his ideal little church this primal gospel. This church has over its doors, as perhaps you know, the inscription, 'A Temple of Brotherhood and Truth/ Again expressing my hearty appreciation of your interest, I remain, most sincerely yours. " Again: "We hold you in a very tender place in our hearts and in the very highest esteem in our thoughts ; and account it a great privilege to have you associated with us in our attempt to put a new content into the idea of religion. With the heartiest good will and good wishes." "Jan. 29, 1903. I should also have gone out to call upon you, if I could by any possibility have gotten the time. I live under such pressure that I hardly get time to eat or sleep, and am rarely able to enter so much as the doors of a private house. While I feel perfectly at home in your delightful and restful abode, I have to decline practically all social invi- tations and say 'This one thing I do. 7 I am sure you will not think I am unappreciative in not coming. * * * We regard you as one of our most vigorous young women. With every good wish." J. STITT WILSON. In the early nineties, Rev. W. D. P. Bliss came to Los An- geles, fresh from an effort in Boston to arouse the thoughtful Cfte aporfter of 1 uft$ 177 of all churches to the dangerous conditions prevailing in our industrial world. With the sympathetic endorsement of his Bishop there and here. Rev. Bliss aroused great interest in all classes in the vital questions of the hour. Later J. Stitt Wilson visited Los Angeles upon the same mission, having left his church in Illinois for the wider field of sociological study. With most compelling enthusiasm, rare eloquence and consecration, he rallied large audiences to hear his message. Madame Sever- ance had been largely interested in the work of Mr. Bliss and took a warm interest in that inaugurated by Mr. Wilson. A correspondence has grown out of their mutual interests in which Mr. Wilson frequently expresses his appreciation of Madame Severance's assistance. "February 18, 1903. How can you stop to think of me and mine and my labors in the midst of your unending interests? Your love and interest in me, humbles and exalts me. I am truly surprised. * * * I must do as I think best, even though I do not please my dearest friends. As you have quoted for me in the beautiful poem of Edith Wharton's, Truth's way, not mine say your word, Not yours or mine, but Truth's as you receive it, The socialists attack my socialism; my other friends attack my Inspired Life Message, * * * Well, the truth is that all the life and light and inward power that now possesses me, I have found in refusing any voice but God's and going on. First, rejecting the church and on to socialism. Then re- fusing to let the socialists hinder me in my Life Message to the individual. Now, under criticism of friends both ways. But I press forward to the mark of my high calling in the eternal Christhood of the race-life, hearing but one voice. "Let me add my word of benediction while your noble years last. Let me love you for your goodness to me I mean that for my work's sake and for the world's sake you have been good to me. I count it no common privilege to receive your 178 Cfje 8ot|)er of Clu&0 blessing. All are well and happy. Mrs. Wilson joins me in all I write you." "January 30, 1906. Instead of my ranch experience silenc- ing my soul concerning the world affairs, my silence has led to the festering point such as I have seldom felt since I left the church. I have lived all these great questions over again and my soul is hot within me and I am more than ever con- vinced that I should make my contribution to the social re- construction, and make it according to the best work I have ever done, viz., from the moral and ethical standpoint. * * * How I wish years upon years could now be added to your event- ful life ! So much that you have lived for and hoped for must soon ripen in our national life. I would that you might be spared to see it!" CHARLES F. LUMMIS. "March 13, 1900. I do not feel any need of defense; but I do care for the spirit which raises up defenders. So far as I can judge, I would fight for what seems to me decent, if every hand on earth were against me. But I wouldn't if I thought no other hand would presently be raised in defense of the same truth. It wouldn't be worth while. To throw one's self away literally for nothing isn't heroic, but stupid. But it is as stupid, I hope, not to be able to feel that no life is thrown away which is given to a good cause. * * * The hopeful thing is that there are still chivalry and faith that there are people whose blood leaps to defend not only a cause, but any fighter for the cause. All reforms need extremists born fighters; but all reforms are carried out finally because there are more conservative people, less violent but as true, who will rally (very much in the order and procession of their relative intelligence) to the cause. It is very good for me when a woman like you can bid me godspeed. Doubtless it is partly vanity (though a vanity which would rather have the right few than the wrong many) ; but it is doubly dear because it Cfte 90otj)et of Clu&s 179 means that the things I love and believe in have more and better allies than my own fist though I am confident enough of that so far as it goes." "Nov. 23, 1900. Your letters are not only so generous, but so good! They are always a pleasure to me. * * * Our only hope for righteousness of any sort is in the slow, stupid, but I believe, persistent conscience of the people. And I shall never despair of it. I may not live to see the revulsion; but it shall come. And no work toward it is lost." "January 2, 1901. All good thoughts and all good wishes for you, this opening of a new year, dear Mrs. Severance. I hope it may be very rich to you." "Jan. 30, 1902. All good works interest me; but I can not do them all. My only chance is to concentrate on a few." "Dec. 27, 1905. That was very sweet and very like you to send a letter of holiday greeting, and we all appreciate it. When in their convenience the bookseller and the postman bring the other ' remembrances ' they also will be treasured ; but the letter is the chief thing. * * * I believe in keeping up the few human feasts of the old time * * * and in this house we do it. I wish you might have seen our Christmas tree for not all the wise men of the East ever beheld its like." "Feb. 25, 1905. The Sequoia League is preparing for pub- lication in the daily papers, a sort of symposium of very brief letters from prominent and interested people, on the subject of the need for a new reservation for the Campo Indians. "We would like to have something from you on the subject. We feel sure that you appreciate the importance of action by Con- gress on this subject, if these Indians are to be saved from periodic starvation and made self -supporting. " BISHOP GEORGE MONTGOMERY. "Los Angeles, Jan. 15, 1901. My dear Mrs. Severance, I arrived home yesterday evening to find your letter when too late to accept your kind invitation to be among the number of those to wish you every blessing on your 81st birthday. As 180 Cfte Sgotfter of C 1 1160 that was impossible, permit me in this way to assure you of my own good wishes for you as hearty, I am sure, as any on the part of those who were able to be present. Hoping that God may grant you many years yet to do the good you are always striving to do, I remain, yours most sincerely, G. Mont- gomery." (Bishop of Monterey and Los Angeles.) DR. JOHN R. HAYNES. "My dear Madam: On this, the eighty-first anniversary of your birth, allow me to express my keen appreciation of your great sympathy for all the unfortunate and down-trodden of the world ; your great contempt for all brands and shams ; your indomitable courage in fearlessly writing, speaking and work- ing for your highest ideals and their consummation. * * * When one looks over the land and sees the degradation, abject and seemingly hopeless, of the masses of the nations of the world, the spirit of ruthless commercialism that excites the expenditure of five times as much money in the efforts to de- stroy a liberty-loving people and desolate their land in South Africa, as would keep in plenty the starving millions in India ; that incites the greatest republic on earth, whose proud boast was its government by, for, and of the people, to force a hated foreign yoke upon a people that have fought for liberty for four hundred years; the trampling under foot of honor, fair play, liberty and moral law, in the mad rush for power and wealth among the leading spirits of the people ; when one sees all this and does not become a hopeless pessimist, it is because he sees in you and others actuated by your motives the force that will leaven the mass. * * * May you live many years, my dear Mrs. Severance, and continue to aid with your dear, brave and kindly heart, the spread of the doctrine of brotherly love ! With utmost respect, I am most sincerely and cordially. ' ' Time and space would fail, to quote even a full list of Madame Severance's valued and valuable correspondence. Besides her eastern friends and those who have passed on, she has a num- Cfte Qfjotftet of Clu&s isi ber of occasional corespondents in this State and neighbor- hood, all of whom bear the same testimonials and treat of the same live topics. She has also a large number of autographic notes from em- ient persons Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eliza Sproat Turner, whose "Rooster-pecked Hen" was a clever retort for the "Hen- pecked Husband"; Celia Thaxter, Gail Hamilton, Anne Whit- ney, poet and sculptor; Clara Morris, Jean Davenport Lander, Senator and Mrs. Bard, Wendell Phillips, George W. Curtis, George W. Cable, Frederick Douglas, Charles D. Warner ; Gen. Armstrong, of Hampton; Prof. J. H. Allen, of Cambridge; Vivekananda, the Buddhist, with interpretation of his name as "conscience and pleasure one taking pleasure in con- science." Kate Sanborn writes from her "Abandoned Farm" ; Florence Williams, daughter of G. P. R. James, the English author, writes of her plans and of Madame Severance's kindness. There are prized letters from Elizabeth Cady Stanton and from Ednah D. Cheney, and from many other prominent suffrage workers. IX. "EL NIDO." Fair house of peace; green leaves, sweet rest; Flowers of the garden and the heart; A hostess blessing every guest, We love to meet, we grieve to part. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in Ye Geste Book. August 10, 1905. Under "Red Roof", as Madame Severance's Adams street home was once called, many distinguished persons have so- journed. And since the later name was chosen, "El Nido" has been visited by a succession of eminent men and women. For more than thirty years this hospitable home has been a rendezvous for literary people visiting Los Angeles, for leaders in progressive thought in whatever direction, it may tend, and for men and women interested also in local or municipal reforms and improvements. The title "Mother of Clubs" has been supplemented by that of the "Ethical Magnet of Southern California," bestowed by one of her friends. Until 1892 "Red Roof" was blessed by the genial spirit and ready wit of the loved father and husband, Theodoric C. Sev- erance, whose presence was always an added charm to every social gathering. On entering the house one sees first the library, there being no vestibule, but direct entrance to the room where book shelves and book-laden tables abound. Many of the volumes here are valuable, not only in themselves, but for their auto- graphic inscriptions. Mrs. Severance highly prizes a full set of the works of her admired friend, Charles Sumner, presented to her by the New England Woman's Club on her departure for California, in 1875. Upon the flyleaf, Mrs. Julia Ward 182 Cfte 9@otJ)er of Iu60 iss Howe wrote, "A farewell tribute of esteem and affection," and the books were presented, with fitting words, by the late Ednah D. Cheney. In presenting her with his book, "The Affirmative Intellect, " Charles Ferguson aptly wrote on the title-page, "To Madame Severance, of the widest horizons and the most venturesome faith." The various sentiments of admiration and apprecia- tion written in the books presented by their authors are ample proof of her high affiliations with some of the most noted men and women that America has produced. Among others are Alcott 's Emerson, Trowb ridge's "Vagabonds," several volumes of travel written by Henry M. Field, editor of the Evangelist ; the autobiography of Ednah D. Cheney, and various volumes presented by Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont. One of the sou- venirs presented by the latter is a tortoise shell fan, ordered by General Fremont in Italy, and decorated with Mrs. Fre- mont's monogram, also a chair cushion made by herself for Madame Severance, from an India shawl. One of the most valued possessions of Madame Severance is a mug made for her great grandmother in 1790, from conti- nental silver dollars and engraved "H. F." (Hannah Fisher.) Upon a bracket in her library are arranged a series of pho- tographs which Madame Severance denominates her "Immor- tals." They include Mrs. Browning, George Eliot, Margaret Fuller, Lydia Maria Childs, Lucy Stone, Louisa Alcott, Celia Burleigh, Ednah D. Cheney, and Lucretia Mott. On a cor- responding one are pictures of Junipero Serra, Wendell Phil- lips, Longfellow, Whittier, James Freeman Clarke, William H. Channing, Lowell, Samuel Johnson, and others. One of the valued souvenirs is a medallion of Charles Sumner, done by a Mrs. Johnson, of Washington, a friend of his, in her eightieth year her first work of art. One of the most prized treasures is a photograph of Louisa Alcott which she sent to Madame Severance's son, Seymour. Beneath the picture Miss Alcott wrote, "For Professor Bags," referring to his gymnastic exercises in his preparatory school days, when he resided with 184 cbe S@ot0er of Clufis the Alcott family; and on the other side of the picture, she wrote, "Height, five feet weight, 140 pounds useful but not ornamental ; goes well in single harness ; worth at present $50,- 000; but not for sale! May, 1875. " Another prized relic, as representing two noted Concord fam- ilies, is a pebble painted by May Alcott, the artist of the family, showing a rustic summer house, built by her "impractical" father, for Emerson on his grounds. A picture of interest is a photograph of five generations of the Severance family, from Mrs. Severance's mother to her first great grand-daughter a rare sight in this generation. Other treasures are a plate from the famous Sevres set of Napoleon I ; a daguerreotype of George Sand, taken from life, and one of Mazzini, copied from a painting. These were brought to her by their friend and well-known suffrage worker, Ernestine L. Rose, of New York City. Indeed, the cottage, "El Nido," is filled with a variety of such objects as always become of value to relic-hunters and historical enthusiasts. Madame Severance may well prize many of her books; but the most valuable and unique of them all are the Silver Wed- ding Record, presented to Mr. and Mrs. Severance in 1865, on the celebration of their silver wedding at their home, Elm Lawn, Massachusetts; and Ye Geste Book of later years. The first entry on opening the Silver Wedding Record is a poem, too long to quote, written by Mrs. Severance's old-time friend and comrade in suffrage work in the West, Frances Dana Gage, and about which she adds, "You see, dear Carrie, how old and hoarse my muse hath grown!" Next is a dedication by Car- oline H. Dall, who had been a comrade in the early Boston suf- frage campaigns. Charming verses follow by Mrs. Harriet Winslow Sewall, the author of the well known poem, "Why this longing, why this sighing?" Mrs. Sewall and her hus- band, Judge Sewall, were among the earliest and most intimate friends of Mr. and Mrs. Severance and Mrs. Sewall's verses fill a page of the volume. Two of the verses testify to her appre- ciation : Cfte at fur of Clubs 185 Dear friends, at this returning nuptial hour, Need I invoke that spirit to preside, Who, for long years, with harmonizing power, Has filled your hearts; your home has sanctified? And since, where love the poorest threshold passes, All other blessings follow in her train, I weave in one, all wishes for your welfare, An ardent prayer for her perpetual reign. Then follow the signatures of the beloved " Mother Long" and her grandson, Solon Severance, who had come from Cleve- land to be present on this occasion; Isabella Beecher Hooker; Dr. and Mrs. Dio Lewis, of Lexington, Mass.; Mattie Griffith, of Kentucky, and her husband; Albert G. Browne and sister, Mrs. Satterlee; Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ivison (sister of Mrs. Severance) ; the Burrage family, of Boston, and many others. Regrets follow from New England and Cleveland friends. Signatures of George Bradburn, then of Melrose ; Mrs. Harriet Minot Pitman; James Freeman Clarke and Mrs. Clarke; of William Lloyd Garrison and Frank Garrison, representing this family of friends, and Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, of Boston, follow. The names of the Customs House staff, of Port Royal, S. C., are written; these men presented a handsome epergne, engrossed by the bold hand of one bearing the historic name of Hancock. The list ends with the signatures of many of those who have since passed on, the Aliens, Rev. Zachos, and William H. Avery, among others. Then come regrets and blessings from distant friends. Secretary Chase writes thus: "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Severance If I were nearer Boston I should make one of the company at your silver wedding. May you only know the lapse of time, turning your silver into gold, by the blessings coming with it! Sincerely your friend, Salmon P. Chase." This, too, is worth giving here: "The great comfort and beauty of human life, that which more than all else makes it worth the living, is in the family and the home, in the wife and children, in the love, care, joy and sorrow of married life. May your silver wedding turn to gold and your life grow, year 186 Cf)c Qfjot&er of Clubs by year, into 'what is more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold!' Ever yours, Theodore Tilton." Congratulations were received from Bronson Alcott and wife, with the gift of his "Life of Emerson." "I wish I could give you more than words, but you know, 'speech is silver/ and if on the next great wedding day which you may keep among your grand-children, you miss even my poor words, you must still believe in the love that cannot die, and accept my 'silence as golden/ Grace Greenwood." "Our best and kindest wishes for your constant happiness and prosperity. Truman Seymour, U. S. A., Williamstown r Mass." "I have real pleasure in the remembrance of the welcome to your pleasant home on the beach at Hilton Head, and the temp- tation to forego duties in order to meet you on this interesting occasion is very great. May many long years of happiness be in store for you! James F. Hall." (An army acquaintance in South Carolina.) "I congratulate you and all your family, with a warm heart, on this beautiful anniversary. What a happiness to have twenty-five years of married home life ! I hope you will have a very 'happy wedding' and that it will begin another quarter century of love on earth. Ednah D. Cheney." "Ashfield, Mass., Sept. 27, 1865. I have here, and only to- day, by some curious delay at home, your kind and pleasant summons to your happy anniversary. I can only fling an old shoe after you, for I am a month behind. Yet, if it should give you the best and fairest fortunes, it would give you only what I mean. Certainly I should not have believed it your silver wedding, if you had not said it yourself. May your silver turn to gold, dear madam, and my card then reach me' earlier than a 'month late !' Ever faithfully yours, George Wm. Curtis." "I am glad the sun shines so brightly for your beautiful festival, my dear Mrs. Severance. Thanks to you for your kind intimation of a welcome were I privileged to join the Cfte a&ot&er of Clu&s isr friends who, circle within circle, will cluster around you and Mr. Severance today to offer their double congratulations for the rich and fruitful past secure to you forever, which gives such assurance of faith. Anna Q. T. Parsons." (Miss Par- sons was one of the wisest and best beloved friends of the New England Woman's Club. With her pen she had been active in its organization and its work, although for twenty years prostrate upon a couch. And now, after fifty years of invalid- ism, her mental vigor is unabated, and her great heart still throbs for her friends and their activities.) "Mt. Desert, August, 1865. What can I say to you, dear friends, who so far happily advanced on life's journey, now start anew, as it were, from a fresh bridal ? Is not all included in this, 'God bless you'? The blessings of heaven rest on your aims and plans on your hopes and hearts! Lucy Goddard." "Ye Geste Book," so titled by Mrs. Strobridge, of Los An- geles, who has just given it a fresh and unique binding, is an autographic treasure-trove, containing, as it does, the signa- tures of many men and women, eminent in scholarship, in litera- ture, or in service to their fellow men. In connection with this book, which was installed in the Severance household in the sixties, an interesting incident is related of W. W. Story, the artist. A cousin of his, visiting him in Rome and noting the throng of distinguished visitors constantly crossing the threshold of his studio, suggested a guest book, after Mrs. Severance's idea. The artist at once accepted the suggestion, installed the book and sent a message of gratitude and respect to Madame Severance. Turning the leaves of this book, one finds first the home records, the birthdays and holidays and outings of the family, together with the names of neighbors and guests and greetings from far and near, with many tributes to the host and hostess. Soon after the settling in Los Angeles, in 1875, appear the names of a group of cousins, the George B. Grinnells, from Audubon Park, New York. In September, 1878, General and Mrs. Fremont, Miss Fremont, Lieut. Frank Fremont, and a 188 C b e @ o t J) e r of Clubs secretary, en route to Arizona, dined at the Severance home and left a tribute to "a midsummer day's reality of pleasure." In 1879 appear the names of John W. Hutchinson and wife, with a record of "58 years old, 39 years singing, and 10,000 concerts." Later are the names of Ludlow Patten and wife (Abby Hutchinson) with the words, "May we meet one hundred years hence in the City of the Angels ! ' ' Henry M. Field, the brother of Cyrus and David Field, and family, * * lunch on the lawn and sign the book. 7 ' Among many names of interest appear those of Emily Faithful and Charlotte Robinson, of England; in 1885, of Helen Hunt Jackson ; Captain R. H. Pratt, superintend- ent of the Indian school at Carlilse, Pa.; J. Wells Champney and wife, who wrote "New England in the Tropics." From New Bedford we find the names of William J. Rotch, father of the beloved daughter-in-law, Isabel Rotch Severance, with his family and the Hathaways. Locke Richardson, the Shake- spearean reader, said, " Tis the very richest of thyself that I am at." Such names appear as Charles Dudley Warner, George W. Cable, Elizabeth B. Custer and sisters ; John W. Chadwick and wife; Mrs. J. S. Langrana, of Poona, India; John W. Hoyt, governor of Wyoming, and wife. On an eastern visit in 1888, Mrs. Severance secured the names of the full list of home and foreign celebrities attending a Suffrage Congress, beginning with Mary A. Livermore, and Lucy Stone, including Mrs. Ormiston Chant of England, Alice Trygg and Countess Gripenberg, of Finland, and ending after three full pages, with Frank and Wm. L. Garrison, sons of William Lloyd Garrison. Later, the name of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had been unable to attend, being then in her 87th year, was added to the list. In 1889, on the 49th wedding anniversary, the record shows many messages of greeting and congratulation, among others from Senator Jones and family, and the Fremonts. Later appear signatures of Governor Waterman and wife ; of William Cfte a^otfter of Clufts 189 Milburn, the blind chaplain; of a group of friends of Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, with "a day to be remembered while memory lasts"; Edward Everett Hale added to his name, his famous motto, "Look up and not down"; Susan Hale, Charlotte Per- kins Stetson and Grace Ellery Channing, wrote their names on the same date and were followed later by Rev. J. Minot Savage ; Kate Sanborn, who wrote, "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare ' ' there are signatures of Cordelia Kirk- land and Ina Coolbrith, the San Francisco poet; Susan B. Anthony wrote in October, 1896, "Best love and goodbye at my third visit to this dear little home ' ' ; this is followed by the names of Carrie Chapman Catt, Mrs. E. 0. Smith, of San Jose ; Vivekananda, who wrote these words, "From the unreal, lead me to the real from darkness into light." Among many other words of appreciation appear those of Richard Burton, the poet; Miss Florence Denton, of Kyoto, Japan ; Will Allen Dromgoole, Tennessee ; Jan Krigo, of Trans- vaal, South Africa; Henry Demarest Lloyd, who wrote, "We can preserve the liberties we have inherited only by winning new ones to bequeath" ; Mrs. James Eels, "With other pilgrims, bowing at the shrine of one who has shown how good and pleasant a thing it is to be forever young"; Frances Enriquita Miiller, born in "Valparaiso, Chili ; Eliza Tupper Wilkes, ' ' Noth- ing human is foreign to me ' ' ; May Wright Sewall, ' ' Lead kind- ly light to harmony and peace"; Louis Prang, "In memory of a visit never to be forgotten"; Prof. Frank Parsons, "With deepest esteem for the dear lady whose thought is full of light, and whose heart throbs with love for all good in human life and progress"; Walter Thomas Mills wrote, "All the world belongs to all the people and you and I are of the people"; J. Stitt Wilson, "The tongue that hath lost the power to wound hath not attained the power to teach"; Sam Jones, "Golden Rule" mayor of Toledo, Ohio, "I have looked for equals and lovers and have found them ready for me, in all lands"; later Mrs. Lucretia R. Garfield and Mrs. Garfield Brown. Many of the women attending the Biennial in Los Angeles 190 c&e a^otftet of Clufis in 1902, left their names in Madame Severance's guest book. Among these appear Mrs. Denison, the president; Mrs. Lowe, ex-president; Mrs. Coonley-Ward, "The happiest week that I remember "; Mrs. Barnes ,of Kentucky; Jane Addams, of Hull House; Mrs. Maud Nathan, and Florence Kelley, of the Con- sumers' League, "who has been consuming a charming luncheon in her own individual capacity, and enjoying a delightful chat with Madame Severance"; Miss Ladd of Boston, Madame Sev- erance's whilom opponent on the subject of the use of the mili- tary drill in schools ; Helen E. Bradbury, mother of Kate Doug- las Wiggin; Clara Bewick Colby, editor of the Woman's Tribune, who wrote, "Once more I am delighted to find myself at 'El Nido' and find my revered friend full-summed in all her powers"; Laura M. Johns, of Kansas, said, "A woman's woman is dear Madam Severance, and the world is better for her life. Certainly she is blessed in great giving." George W. Woodbey, colored socialist lecturer; and ex-Gov- ernor Hughes and daughter of Arizona wrote their names. William E. Smythe wrote that "to make the desert blossom with the homes of men" was his purpose; Judge Tuley, of Chi- cago, wrote, "The only use I have for the technicalities of the law, is in the interest of personal liberty"; Josephine C. Locke wrote, "There is no religion higher than truth"; Ella Wheeler Wilcox penned these lines: New thought means only the eternal youth, Of all the oldest principles of Truth. Among later names are those of Jack London, Mrs. Mary A. Sperry, president State Suffrage League ; Mary Anthony, Sarah J. Eddy, of New Jersey, and many other prominent people. The vine-screened porch of "El Nido" is an ideal California breathing-place, and, summer or winter its mistress has greeted her visitors from the hammock as often as from her open door- way. No better description can be given,- perhaps, than the one embodied in a characteristic letter to the Woman's Journal of Boston, written by herself in 1900 : Cfte ^otftet of C I it 60 191 " 'Old memories and the whispering ghosts of dear, dead days, when life was young/ come to me as I lie in my hammock, while the sunset light filters soothingly through the many rose and ivy-wreathed arches of the long veranda, with the accom- paniment of a mocking-bird orchestra from a single throat, as the performer sits jauntily poised on the top-most bough of a graceful pepper tree. To give you a complete picture of the restfulness of the position, let me tell you that my hammock is not of the netted sort, which shuts one closely in at the risk of dainty muslins and silks, and may treacherously toss one out at a change of position ; but is of barrel stave foundation, with a light mattress over its broad level surface. "I rest in my hammock, and dream of the charming New England life and friends, and here receive my ghostly but be- loved visitants. My New England grand-daughter and name- sake is my vis-a-vis, in a twin hammock at the other end of the veranda, and by her presence and her chat recalls, delight- fully, the past. It is a peaceful situation and we may believe ourselves happy beyond most others. ***** Groups of friends and neighbors have met at my house weekly, or monthly, for the past three years, to canvass and discuss the magazines, Congressional Reports, etc. These readings have included Bellamy and Henry George, with their critics ; Henry D. Lloyd's startling "Wealth versus Commonwealth ", which arraigns, by authentic court and government records, the Standard Oil Trust and its affiliated railroads, in their open or covert defiance of law, of courts, legislatures and of Congress. We have also studied the works of the late Professor Ely, and' other writers on Economics. " Six years have passed since the above was penned by Madame Severance*, but the graveled roadway leading to the charming cottage under the big magnolia and rubber trees is still trav- ersed by local representatives of numerous literary, club and civic affairs and by those who are eagerly seeking encourage- ment in broad humanitarian movements. OF THE UNIVERSITY 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWE1 LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to .mmed.ate recall. 24NOV63PV - JUN o 8 ?nnj REC'D LD JAN 1 0'64^PM LD 2lA-40m-4,'63 (D6471slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley YB 1248-