i PUBLISHERS 'OUR FAMOUS WOMEN. AN 2Uitl)ort?e5 emb Complete Becorft OF THE LIVES AND DEEDS OF EMINENT WOMEN OF OUR TIMES. GIVING FOB THE FIRST TIME THE LIFE HISTORY OF WOMEN WHO HAVE WON THEIR WAY FROM POVERTY AND OBSCURITY TO FAME AND GLORY. REPLETE WITH SJnecliotes, grilling Incidents, anti AN ENTIRELY NEW AND ORIGINAL WORK WRITTEN BY THE FOLLOWING TWENTY DISTINGUISHED AUTHOES: ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. ROSE TERRY COOKE. MARY A. LIVERMORE. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. MARION HARLAND. MARY CLEMMER. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY. LUCY LARCOM. JULIA WARD HOWE. SUSAN COOLIDGE. KATE SANBORN. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE. LAURA CURTIS BULLARD. LILIAN WHITING. ELIZABETH T. SPRING. ELIZABETH BRYANT JOHNSTON. MAUD HOWE. Illustrated WITH FULL-PAGE PORTRAITS MAINLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK, AND FINE FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS. -SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. HARTFORD, CONN.: THE HARTFORD PUBLISHING COMPANY. 1888. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883- BY A. D. WORTHINGTON A1SD COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. D.C, TO fHnr ant OTomen WHO HONOR MAN AND WOMAN, AND SEE THE SPECIAL FITNESS OF THIS BOOK, TO-DAY, IT IS DEDICATED. PUBLISHEES' PKEFACE. N these book-making days, a new volume of biography needs, perhaps, a word of intro- duction to the kindly households wherein it seeks a welcome. Probably no aspect of our time is more sig- nificant of progress than the ever-growing dis- cussion of the place and duties of women in the social state. Causes both economical and moral have tended to break up old habits of life and thought, and make new demands upon their capacity and conscience, which experience has not yet taught them to satisfy. All over the land, women are conscious of a fer- ment and disturbance of thought which is the prophecy of better things. Everywhere they are asking, " What can /do to hasten the New Day ? " It seemed, therefore, to the Publishers of this volume that the time had come when the simple story of what a few women have done would prove an inspiration and incentive to the many women who long to do. The book contains thirty sketches of lives, which, in various ways, have made the world richer for their presence. Excepting six, the subjects vi PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. of the sketches are living and working. With the natural modesty of worth, these ladies shrank from needless publicity, and at first hesitated to allow the use of their names. But when assured by the Publishers that the aim of the book was not to gratify a vulgar curiosity, but to kindle new hopes and ambitions in unknown hearts, and that it was the story of their labors, discouragements, and successes which was desired, rather than of their private joys and sorrows, they generously said that if the knowledge of anything which they had done could be of use to other women, struggling for Dread, or the right to labor, or an honorable fame, they should hold it churlish to refuse. In no case has the name of a living person been used without its owner's consent. In almost every instance the writer of the sketch is the personal friend of its subject, a relation which has insured an ex- ceptional faithfulness and sympathy in treatment. The arrangement of the papers is, of course, purely arbitrary, an alphabetical order having been held the most convenient. The Publishers believe that they may fairly call their book representative. For while there are necessarily omitted names perhaps as well-known and well-beloved as those which appear, these thirty cover as wide a range of endeavor and achievement as the limits of the volume permit. That the subjects of the memoirs are all American, either by birth or adoption, gives the book a title to be considered not less national than representative. The twenty women who have contributed these sketches need no commendation. Their names are a sufficient guar- antee of the volume's worth. But the Publishers desire to express their sense of personal indebtedness to these co- workers for the accuracy, ability, and hearty good-will which have made the book better than their hopes. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. yii In the mechanical execution of the work, the Publishers take an honest pride. They have spared neither money nor trouble to make it worthy of the subject-matter. Its por- traits represent the best work of the best workers, and the likenesses are as faithful as the execution is artistic. Finally, the Publishers venture to hope that they have not misconceived the temper of the time, and that to every one of the thousands of homes which the book may enter, it will bring something of the courage, patience, steadfastness of purpose, cheerfulness, and lofty aspiration which fill the lives whose history it records. NAMES OF AUTHORS WHO HAVE WRITTEN FOR THIS WORK, WITH A LIST OF THEIR SUBJECTS. SUBJECTS. AUTHORS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE ( Cathenne E. Beecher. \ Mrs, A.D.T. Whi HOSE TERRY COOKE ' Harriet Beecher Stowe ' Whitney*'' \ Harriet Prescott Spofford.' Rose Terry HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD Clara Louise Kellogg. Louise Chandler Mary L. Booth. ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS ......... Mafy ^ Livermore ^ a Lcc* LAECOM MES.A'.D.T.WH.TKEY L,,c y (Margaret Fuller. Frances E. Willard. Mary Virginia Terhune (" Marion Harland"). Loom OHun, MOOLTO. ......... Lovis* M. Alcott. MARY CLEMMER . , ......... Lucretia Mott. MARY A. LIVERMORE . . A . . ...... Anne Whitney. MARIOS HARLAND . . ........... Elizabeth Prentiss. NAMES OF AUTHORS. 1* AUTHORS. SUBJECTS. SUSAN COOLIDGE Lydia Maria Child. f T7ie Doctors Blackwell. LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLB | Mary Mapes Dodge. [ Abby Hopper Gibbons. JULIA WARD HOWE Maria Mitchell. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON Susan B. Anthony. LAURA CURTIS BULLARD Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (Mary Clemmer. ' * Charlotte Cushman. ELIZABETH T. SPRING Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. ELIZABETH BRYANT JOHNSTON Frances Hodgson Burnett. MAUD HOWB . Julia Ward Howe.^ LIST OF OUR FAMOUS WOMEN," IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEIR LIVES ARE SKETCHED IN THIS WORK, WITH THE NAMES OF THE WRITERS. SUBJECTS. WRITERS. PAGE LOUISA M. ALCOTT Louise Chandler Moulton .... 29 SUSAN B. ANTHONY Elizabeth Cady Stanton 53 CATHERINE E. BEECHER .... Harriet Beecher Stowe 75 CLARA BARTON Lucy Larcom 94 MARY L. BOOTH Harriet Prescott Spofford .... 117 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL .... Lucia Gilbert Runkle 134 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT . . . Elizabeth Bryant Johnston ... 152 ROSE TERRY COOKE Harriet Prescott Spofford .... 174 CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN Lilian Whiting 207 LYDIA MARIA CHILD Susan Coolidge 230 MARY CLBMMBR Lilian Whiting 250 MARY MAPES DODGE Lucia Gilbert Runkle 270 MARGARET FULLER Kate Sanborn ........ 295 ABBY HOPPER GIBBONS Lucia Gilbert Runkle 316 JULIA WARD HOWE Maud Howe 337 CLARA LOUISE KELLOGQ .... Harriet Prescott Spofford .... 359 MARY A. LIVERMORE Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 386 LUCY LARCOM Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney 415 LIST OF "OUR FAMOUS WOMEN." xi SUBJECTS. WRITERS. PAGE MARIA MITCHELL Julia Ward Howe 437 LUCRETIA MOTT Mary Clemmer ^62 LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON . . . Harriet Prescott Spofford .... 498 HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD . . Rose Terry Cooke 521 ELIZABETH PRENTISS ...... "Marion Harland" 539 ELIZABETH -STUART PHELPS . . . Elizabeth T. Spring ...... 560 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE .... Rose Terry Cooke -581 ELIZABETH CADY STANTON .... Laura Curtis Bullard 602 V MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE .... Kate Sanborn 624 ("Marion Harland.") MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY .... Harriet Beecher Stowe 652 ANNE WHITNEY Mary A. Livermore 668 FaANCfiS E. WILLARD Kate Sanborn . 691 LIST OF PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS, THESE PORTRAITS WERE ENGRAVED MAINLY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK, AND THE FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS ARE FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS BY MR. T. W. WILLIAMS. PAGK. 1. ILLUSTRATED TITLE-PAGE . . . To precede Title. 2. PORTRAIT OF LOUISA M. ALCOTT To face 30 3. A PROUD MOMENT Miss ALCOTT DISCOVERING THE AN- NOUNCEMENT OF " BERTHA " ,, 38 4. How Miss ALCOTT WRITES HER STORIES 38 5. PORTRAIT OF CLARA BARTON 96 6. SCENES IN THE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON HOSPITAL SUPPLIES ON THE WAY TO ANTIETAM 104 7. THE DYING REBEL'S WARNING 104 8. WRITING LETTERS FOR THE SOLDIERS 104 9. MIDNIGHT AFTER THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY THE DYING BOY 104 10. CLARA BARTON ENTERING STRASBURG WITH THE GERMAN ARMY ,, 112 11. THE BANNER OF THE RED CROSS n H2 12. AN INCIDENT IN THE STUDENT LIFE OF DR. ELIZABETH BLACK- WELL AN ACTUAL SCENE IN THE OPERATING ROOM OF A MEDICAL COLLEGE 142 13. THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL AND INFIRMARY, NEW YORK CITY . . 142 14. PORTRAIT OF ROSE TERRY COOKE 176 15. PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN , 208 16. PORTRAIT OF MARY CLEMMER ,, 252 17. SCENES AT THE BATTLE OF MARYLAND HEIGHTS THE RE- TREAT n 264 18. PORTRAIT OF MARY MAPES DODGE 278 19. WRECK OF THE SHIP " ELIZABETH " AND DEATH OF MARGARET FULLER, HER HUSBAND AND CHILD 314 LIST OF PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. xiii 20. CHRISTIAN WORK AMONG CONVICTS AND FELONS MRS. GIB- BONS VISITING A CONDEMNED MURDERER IN HIS CELL AT THE NEW YORK TOMBS To face 320 21. CASTAWAY CHILDREN CHILD-LIFE IN CITY STREETS .... 320 22. THE REIGN OF TERROR DURING THE DRAFT RIOTS IN NEW YORK THE INFURIATED MOB ATTACKING MRS. GIBBONS' HOUSE tt 332 23. THE TOMBS, THE CITY PRISON >f 333 24. PORTRAIT OF MARY A. LIVERMORE 388 25. MRS. LIVERMORE TRANSPORTING TWENTY-THREE WOUNDED SOLDIERS TO THEIR HOMES IN THE NORTHWEST THE STEAMBOAT CAPTAIN'S THREAT M 400 26. THE MISSISSIPPI STEAMER, "FANNY OGDEN," ON HER WAY WITH SANITARY SUPPLIES FOR SUFFERING SOLDIERS ... 400 27. A THRILLING INCIDENT OF CHICAGO LIFE THE NIGHT SUM- MONS FOR MRS. LIVERMORE 408 28. AT THE BEDSIDE OF THE DYING GIRL 408 29. NURSING SOLDIERS IN UNION HOSPITALS 408 30. PORTRAIT OF LUCY LARCOM 416 31. SCENES IN THE LIFE OF LUCY LARCOM THE LITTLE DOFFER . 428 32. PIONEER LIFE IN ILLINOIS TEACHING SCHOOL IN A " TWO- MILE NEIGHBORHOOD " M 428 33. PORTRAIT OF MARIA MITCHELL n 438 34. PORTRAIT OF LUCRETIA MOTT 464 35. LUCRETIA MOTT SURROUNDED BY A MOB A RUFFIAN'S PRO- TECTION 484 36. PORTRAIT OF LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON 500 37. PORTRAIT OF HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD 522 38. PORTRAIT OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 562 39. SUMMER LIFE BY THE SEA 574 40. AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS " THIMBLE OR PAINT BRUSH, WHICH ? " 574 41. PORTRAIT OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 594 42. BROUGHT TO BAY A RUNAWAY SLAVE TRACKED BY BLOOD- HOUNDS ,, 594 43. UNCLE TOM AND LITTLE EVA ,, 594 44. PORTRAIT OF MARIA VIRGINIA TERHUNE (Marion Harland) . . ,, 626 45. PORTRAIT OF MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 654 46. PORTRAIT OF FRANCES E. WILLARD , 692 47. LOCKED OUT THE PRAYING BAND PRAYING IN THE STREET AT THE DOOR OF A SALOON ,, 704 CONTENTS. I. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. PAGE Amos Bronson Alcott His Early Life The ** Sage of Concord " Louisa M. Alcott Girlhood Days High Talk and Low Diet Her First Story A Very Stage-Struck Young Lady End of Her Dreams of Dramatic Glory Seeking Her Own For- tuneToilsome Years Story -Writing Advised to "Stick to Teaching " Hospital Nurse. Shattered Health Her First Book How " Little Women" Came to be Written Fame and Fortune at Last Amusing Requests An Extraordinary Effusion Miss Alcott's Portrait of Herself at Fifteen Miss Alcott at Fifty Incidents Precious Memories Methods of Work An Old Atlas for a Desk How She Plans Her Stories . 29 ii, SUSAN B. ANTHONY. BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. Susan B. Anthony's Parentage Her Girlhood A Rebellious Qua- ker Incident in Her Early Life The Heighth of Her Ambition A "High-Seat'' Quaker Incident in Her Experience as Teacher Advocating Temperance, Anti-Slavery, and Woman Suffrage Her Facility and Power as an Orator Speaking to a Deaf and Dumb Audience Incident on a Mississippi Steamboat Celebrating Her Fiftieth Birthday Trip to Europe Inci- dents of Foreign Travel Arrested for Voting The Legal Struggle that followed Her Labors for Woman Suffrage Her Industry and Self-denial for the Cause Personal Appearance . 53 XVI CONTENTS. (Ctmptcv ill. CATHERINE E. BEECHER. BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. PAGE A Leaf from Dr. Lyman Beecher's Diaiy The Old Parsonage at Litchfield Miss Beecher's Early Education Her Keen Sense of Humor A Sprightly Poem Lines Written on the Death of Her Mother Her First Published Poems 4 ' Who is this C. D. D. ?" Engagement to Prof. Alexander M. Fisher Bright Prospects for the Future Prof. Fisher Sails for England Ship- wreck of the " Albion " and Death of Prof. Fisher The Sur- vivor's Narrative of the Shipwreck Effect of the Distressing News Miss Beecher Establishes the Hartford Female Seminary Her Energy and Incessant Activity Last Years of Her Life Her Death Lines Written to a Dying Friend ....... 75 iv. CLARA BARTON. BY LUCY LARCOM. Clara Barton's Early Life A Faithful Little Nurse at Eleven Devotion to Her Sick Brother Breaking Out of the Civil War Her Loyalty and Devotion to the Union The Old Sixth Mas- sachusetts Regiment First Blood Shed for the Union Miss Barton's Timely Services Consecrating Her Life to the Soldiers' Needs At the Front Army Life and Experiences Her Un- daunted Heroism Terrible Days Errands of Mercy " The Angel of the Battlefield " Instances of Her Courage and Devo- tionNarrow Escapes Her Labors for Union Prisoners Record of the Soldier Dead Dorrance At water Work After the War Her Visit to Europe The Franco-Prussian War At the Front Again Unfurling the Banner of the Red Cross Record of a Noble Life ........ 94 CONTENTS. XVii feapter v. MARY LOUISE BOOTH. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. PAGE A Woman of Rare Intellect Childhood of Maiy Louise Booth An Indefatigable Little Student Beginning of Her Literary Life A Great Historical Work Breaking Out of the Civil War Miss Booth's Sympathy with the North Her Anxiety to Help the Cause How She did it A Prodigious Task " It Shall be Done " Marvellous Industry and Perseverance Charles Sumner's Friendship A Letter of Thanks from Abraham Lincoln Assuming the Management of " Harper's Bazaar " A Signal Success A Model Paper Miss Booth s Home True Hospitality Pen-portrait of a Gifted Woman ....... 117 vi. THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE. Early Home of the Blackwell Sisters " Little Shy " Her Indom- itable Pluck and Wonderful Physique A Feat Showing Her Strength Death of Her Father Struggle of the Family with Misfortune and Poverty Elizabeth Begins the Study of Medi- cine How She Acquired Her Professional Education Sur- mounting Great Difficulties Some of Her Experiences as a Medical Student Graduates with High Honor First Medi- cal Diploma ever Granted to a Woman A Proud Moment in Her Life Her Sister, Emily Blackwell Her College Life Battling Against Opposition Final Success Her Studies Abroad The Two Sisters Establish Themselves in Practice in New York Founding the Woman's Hospital and College . 134 yn. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. BY ELIZABETH BRYANT JOHNSTON. Mrs Burnett's English Home Tales of Her Childhood Emigra- tion to America A Helpless Family in a Strange Land The 2 xviii CONTENTS. PAOE Struggle for Subsistence Incidents of Her Girlhood Sym- pathy for the Poor How She Acquired Her Knowledge of English Dialect The Original "Lass o' LowrieV -First Literary Efforts Seeking a Publisher Devising Ways and Means Diplomacy A Day of Triumph and Happiness " Who is She ? " Life at Mt. Ararat Revisiting England Her Washington Home A Thrilling Incident at Long Branch A Heroine in Real Life Mrs. Burnett's Personal Appearance . 152 fcaptev vin. ROSE TERRY COOKE. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. Rose Terry Cooke's Ancestry Her Description of an Old-Fash- ioned Thanksgiving Scenes in Her Childhood A Picture of Old New-England Life Her Deep Love of Nature Passion for Flowers School Life Reading at the Age of Three - Inimitable Skill in Depicting New-England Life and Character Her Bright Humor and Keen Sense of the Ridiculous Begin- ning Her Literary Career Opening of Her Genius A Novel Incident in Plymouth Church The Story of an Opal Ring How a Little Slave-Child was made Free A Romantic Story Odd Experiences with Impostors and Counterfeiters Mrs. Cooke's Home and Domestic Life A Woman of Rare Genius . 174 1X . CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN. BY LILIAN WHITING. Charlotte Cushman's Childhood Her Remarkable Imitative Faculty First Appearance on the Stage A Scanty Stage Wardrobe A Friend in Need An Amusing Experience The Struggle for Fame Macready's Sympathy and Influence First Visit to Europe " Waiting in the Shadow " D6but in London A Brilliant Triumph Her Ability Recognized at Last in Her Native Land Glimpse of Her Life in Rome Unfaltering Patriotism Her Munificent Gift to the Sanitary Commission The Culmination of Her Power A Notable Dramatic Tri- umph Her Farewell to the Stage Address of William Cullen Bryant Miss Cushman's Response Her Illness, Death, and Last Resting-Place , 207 CONTENTS. xix X. LYDIA MARIA CHILD. BY SUSAN COOLIDGE. PAGE The Little Maid of Medford Her Early Life and Happy Mar- riage Books She has Written Surprise and Indignation ex- cited by Her " Appeal" The Battle of Life Rowing against the Tide Her Patience, Fortitude, and Reliance Stirring Times Devotion to Her Husband Life at Wayland Her Bright Humor Her Sympathy for Old John Brown Mrs. Mason's Violent Letter Mrs. Child's Famous Reply She is Promised a " Warm Reception " Her Loyalty, Self-Denial, and Work during the Civil War Princely Generosity Serene Old Age Death of Her Husband Mrs. Child's Tribute to His Memory Waiting and Trusting Her Death and Funeral . 230 xi. MARY CLEMMED. BY LILIAN WHITING. Mary Clemmer's Ancestry Pen-portraits of Her Father and Mother Her Childhood School-life and Early Education Publishing Her First Verses Beginning Her Literary Career Removal to New York First Newspaper Letters Marvellous Industry and Capacity for Work Contracting to Write a Column a Day for Three Years A Chapter from Her Experiences During the War Vivid Description of the Surrender of Maryland Heights Her Journalistic Work How she Gathers Materials for "A Woman's Letter from Washington " Charles Sumner's Friend- ship A Busy Life Tribute to the Memory of Alice and Phoebe Gary Mary Clemmer's Washington Home ...... 250 xn. MARY MAPES DODGE. BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE. New York Society Forty Years Ago Prof. James J. Mapes An Ideal Home Genuine Hospitality Mary Mapes Dodge Her XX CONTEXTS. PAGE Two Boys What First Turned Her Attention to Writing First Workshop A Cosy " Den " Birthday Feasts for Jamie and Harry A Birthday Poem Red-letter Days How " Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates," came to be Written Merited Reward Mrs. Dodge's Remarkable Editorial Capacity Her Clear Insight and Sound Judgment Editing " St. Nicholas " A Model Magazine for Children Who and What Makes it So The Care and Labor Bestowed upon Each Number Mrs. Dodge's Home Life and Happy Surroundings 276 xin. MARGARET FULLER. (MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI). BY KATE SANBORN. Conflicting Opinions An English Estimate of Margaret Fuller Her Childhood and School-life Her Life as Seen by Others A Peep at Her Journal An Encounter with Doctor Channing Emerson's Opinion Wonderful Power as a Converser Her Great Ambition The Influence She Exerted Horace Greeley's Friendship Connection with the "New York Tribune" " Alone as Usual " Visits Europe Noted Men and Women of the Time Harriet Martineau's Opinion The Great Change in Miss Fuller's Life Her Romantic Marriage in Italy Ter- rible Trials Homeward Bound Shipwrecked on the Shores of Her Native Land Last Scenes in Her Life . . .295 totter xiv. ABBY HOPPER GIBBONS. BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE. " Father Hopper's " Work Among Convicts and Felons First Sun- day Services in a Jail Abby Hopper's Girlhood Following in the Footsteps of Her Father Her Work Among the Inmates of the New York Tombs The "Isaac T. Hopper Home" The School for Street Children The Waifs and Strays of Randall's Island Charity Children An Appeal for Dolls Generous Response Affecting Incident The Story of Robert Denyer CONTENTS. xxi PAGE Mrs. Gibbons' Work During the War Nursing Union Soldiers The Draft Riots in New York An Exciting Time Attacking Mrs. Gibbons' House Havoc and Devastation Wrought by the Mob Work After the War A Noble Life . . 316 xv. JULIA WARD HOWE. BY HER DAUGHTER, MAUD HOWE. "Little Miss Ward" The Influences that Surrounded Her Early Life Her Education Her Faculty for Acquiring Languages ' 'Bro. Sam" Miss Ward's First Visit to Boston Meets Dr. Samuel G. Howe Her Marriage Wedding Trip to the Old World Cordial Reception by Famous People Declining Tom Moore's Offer to Sing Reminiscences of European Travel Her Patriotism in the Days of the Rebellion " Madame, You Must Speak to My Soldiers " Writing the Battle-Hymn of the Republic The '* Brain Club " A Many-sided Woman Mrs. Howe as a Public Speaker Reminiscences of Her Life in Santo Domingo A Woman of Genius and Intellect .... 337 xvi. CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. Clara Louise Kellogg's Birth and Parentage Girlhood and Early Education Her Extraordinary Musical Genius Its Early Development Intuitive Knowledge of Tone and Pitch Mar- vellous Execution Patient Study and Unwearied Devotion to Her Art Beginning of Her Career An Unusual Compliment at Rehearsal First Trial in Opera Her Debut Carrying the Audience Captive Wild Enthusiasm Triumphant Suc- cess Verdict of the Critics Visits Europe Debut in Lon- don A Brilliant and Enthusiastic Audience Acknowledged to be the Queen of Song Return to America Reception in New York Triumphal Tours Her Charity and Kindness Personal Appearance and Characteristics ......... 359 XX11 CONTENTS. xvn. MARY A. LIVERMORE. BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. PAGE Mrs. Livermore's Ancestry Stories of Her Childhood The Little Minister Her Marriage Journalistic Experiences The War of the Rebellion Her Loyalty and Devotion to the Union The Northwestern Sanitary Commission Army Experiences Incidents of Hospital Life Wonderful Nerve and Ready Resources in Emergencies A Remarkable Achievement Mighty Work for Union Soldiers Their Love and Reverence for Her " Mother " to them All Touching Story of a Soldier's Ring A Thrilling Incident of Chicago Life An Errand of Mercy Terrible Death-Bed Scene Labors after the War Her Christian Life and Influence Work as a Reformer Fame as an Orator Personal Appearance Home Life A Grand and Noble Woman ................ 386 feapler xvni. LUCY LARGO M. BY MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY. A Happy Name Lucy Larcom's Childhood First Literary Ven- ture Removal of the Family to Lowell Lucy's Mill Life The Little "Doffer" A Glimpse of the Daily Life of a Lowell Mill Girl The Lowell " Offering " First Meeting with the Poet Whittier His Lifelong Friendship Removal to Illinois Pioneer Life Teaching a Real Deestrick " School Incidents in Her Life as Teacher Mysterious Disappearance of one of Her Pupils An Amusing Incident Return to Old New England Work as Teacher in Wheaton Seminary Her Loyalty During the War Editing " Our Young Folks ". . 415 teprter xix. MARIA MITCHELL. BY JULIA WARD HOWE. Miss Mitchell's Nantucket Home Her Ancestors " Poor but Happy " -Her Early Life Her Father's Love for Astronomy - How She Obtained Her Education Unwearied Devotion to her CONTENTS. XXlll PAE Studies A Great Event in Her Life Discovers a Telescopic Comet Claiming the Prize Offered by the King of Denmark Difficulty in Obtaining it Edward Everett's Efforts in Her Behalf Final Recognition of Her Claim Receives the Gold Medal from the Danish King Her Fame Abroad Visiting the Old World Entertained and Honored by Distinguished Scien- tists Her own Account of Some of Them Amusing Experi- ences Interesting Incidents Her Life and Daily Work . . . 437 Trailer XX. LUCRETIA MOTT. BY MARY CLEMMER. A Rare Example of Womanhood Ancestry of Lucretia Mott The Women of Nantucket Celebrating the Fourth of July A Nantucket Tea-party Lucretia Mott's Marriage A Marvel- lously Mated Pair A Perfect Wedded Life of Fifty-seven Years Power as a Preacher Abhorrence of Slavery How the Colored People Revered Her Name Surrounded by a Mob Claiming and Receiving Protection from a Ruffian Daunt- less Bravery Reception in England Mrs. Mott's Domestic Life Devotion to Her Children Her Thrift, Industry, and Economy Her Home a Refuge for Runaway Slaves The Meeting-place of Reformers Last Years of Her Life A Great Philanthropist, Great Preacher, and Perfect Woman ..... 462 xxi. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. A Charming Woman Mrs. Moulton's Parentage Influences that Surrounded Her Childhood Rigid New England Training Girlhood and School Days First Literary Efforts Pub- lication of Her First Book Letters to the New York " Tribune " First Visit to Europe Impressions of the Old World Paris Rome Pictures of Italian Life Venice Cordial Reception in London Honors Shown by Distinguished People Flattering Attention Delightful Experiences How Her Book of Poems was Received in London High Praise from Eminent Critics A Famous Traveller Her Personal Appearance Her Charm of Manner A Gifted and Popular Woman , . , .498 XXIV CONTENTS. xxn. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. PAGE Mrs. Spofford's Parentage Anecdotes of Her Childhood A Novel Expedition Girlhood Days Writing Dramas for School Exhi- bition First Literary Efforts Brilliant Debut The Story that First Made Her Famous How it was Received The Commotion it Created Wonderful Command of Language Newburyport and its Surroundings A City by the Sea Some of its Odd People A Locality Justly Famed for its Noted Persons Old Traditions and Associations Amusing Anecdote Why the Colored Woman Named Her Baby Genevieve instead of Harriet Mrs. Spofford's Present Home A Romantic Spot Genuine Hospitality A Charming New England Home . . 521 Tmpler XXI II. ELIZABETH PRENTISS. BY MARION HARLAND. Childhood of Elizabeth Payson Her Parentage Death of Her Father The Struggle with Adversity A Glimpse of Her Life at Nineteen " The Night Before Thanksgiving " Fond- ness and Facility for Writing Preparing to Become a Teacher Early Religious Experiences Marriage to Rev. Dr. Prentiss Wife and Mother Mrs. Prentiss' First Books A Peep into Her Domestic Life Cares of a Pastor's Wife Ill-health and Suffering Patience in Affliction Marvellous Industry and Courage Writing under Difficulties How " Stepping Heaven- ward " was Written Its Wonderful Sale Fortitude and Resignation of a Noble Christian Woman ........ 539 xxiv. ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. BY ELIZABETH T. SPRING. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps' Ancestry Her Childhood The Old Home at Andover Her Story-telling Faculty Improvising Stories for Her Schoolmates Her Education Pen-portrait of CONTENTS. XXV PAGE Miss Phelps at Sixteen Memories of the War An Unwritten Story An Incident in Her School-life "Thimble or Paint- brush, Which?" First Literary Ventures The Abbott Mis- sion "The Gates Ajar" Its Enormous Sale and Helpful Influence Miss Phelps as a Lecturer Power Over Her Audi- ences Her Summer Home by the Sea Her Winter Study Interest in Reform Movements Personal Work Among the Fishermen The Strength of Her Writings 560 xxv. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. BY ROSE TERRY COOKE. Mrs. Stowe's Father, Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher His Fame and Worth His Wife, Roxanna Foote Mrs. Stowe's Early Training Incidents in Her Childhood A Famous School Reminiscences of Her Girlhood Early Passion for Writing Marriage to Prof. Calvin E. Stowe Life on the Banks of the Ohio Where and How She Received Her First Impressions of Slavery What Led to the Writing of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " Difficulties Under Which it was Written How it was Received Excite- ment it Created Mrs. Stowe's Visit to England Her Recep- tionThe True Stcry of "A Vindication of Lady Byron "- Celebrating Mrs. Stowe's Seventy-first Birthday Her Two Homes Looking Toward the Other Side of Jordan .... 581 Txaptcr xxvi. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. BY LAURA CURTIS BULLARD. George Sand's Inquiry Mrs. Stanton as the Originator of the Woman Suffrage Movement Birth and Parentage Early Sympathies with Ill-treated Women Tries to be. a Boy Studies Law in Her Father's Office Her Marriage and Wed- ding Tour Meets Lucretia Mott, and Decides upon a Future Career Calls the First Woman Sum-age Convention Fred- erick Douglass Her only Helper Effect of the Convention Progress of the Movement Lectures and Addresses Edits "The Revolution" Travels in France and England Wit Anecdotes Personal Appearance and Characteristics Future of the Cause 602 xxvi CONTENTS. XXVII. MARY VIRGINIA TERHUNE. ("MARION HARLAND.") BY KATE SANBORN. PAGE A Popular Fallacy " Marion Harland " A Versatile and Successful Author A Visit to Her Home Her Domestic Life A Peep into Her Kitchen An Inviting Place Her Husband, Rev. Dr. E. P. Terhune ; the Man and His Power Characteristic Letter from "Marion Harland" An Interesting Bit of Autobiography Her Own Account of Her Early Life Reminiscences of Her Girlhood Her First Book Its Marked Success Career as a Novelist A New Departure Her " Cookery Books " Their Enormous Sale A Boon to Housekeepers Her Love for Little Folks What She says about Santa Glaus Sound Advice to Girls and Wise Words for Wives A Gifted and Famous Woman .................... 624 xxvni. MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY. BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. The Influence of Good Literature in the Formation of Character Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney Her Childhood Early Life and Sur- roundings Memories of Good Old Days Her Education and Religious Training Marriage Faculty for Portraying Do- mestic Life Why She Excels in Painting Perfect Homes Books She has Written Selections from Her Poems Sympa- thy with Young People Gaining an Insight into Practical Questions The Sparkle and Humor of Her Writings The Soundness of their Teachings Their Great Influence for Good Comparison between Her Books and Miss Edgeworth's Ex- tracts Illustrating their Religious Tendencies ....... 652 xxi x. ANNE WHITNEY. BY MARY A. LIVERMORE. Anne Whitney's Girlhood School Days Testimony of One of Her Teachers Her Literary Talents Book of Poems The Cir- CONTENTS. xxvii PAGE cumstance that turned Her Thoughts to Art An Interesting Incident Beginning Her Work in Sculpture First Attempts Marvellous Skill Her Statue of " Godiva " Attention it Attracted " Africa " " The Lotus- Eater" Studies and Travels Abroad " Roma " " A Thinking Statue" Com- mission from the State of Massachusetts Statue of Samuel Adams Miss Whitney's Studio Devotion to Her Art Work that will Endure .... . . 60S Irapte* xxx. FRANCES E. WILLARD. BY KATE SANBORN. An After-dinner Speech An Amusing Incident A Southern Clergyman's Opinion Miss Willard's Ancestry Memories of Childhood's Days Scenes from the Past Amusing Extract from Her Diary Her Keen Sense of Humor Climbing the Pyramids " Genteel " Gymnastics " Paul Tucker, of New York, Aged 18J " Miss Willard's Life- Work Delivering Her First Lecture A Genuine Sensation Enlisting in the Tem- perance Work Liberality and Sense of Justice Religious Nature Specimen of Her Oratory Marvellous Command of Language Experiences in the South A Southern Welcome How She is Appreciated at Home Universally Loved, Honored, and Respected 691 " It is an ungenerous silence which leaves all the fair words of honestly-earned praise to the writer of obituary notices, and the marble worker" OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, OUR FAMOUS WOMEN. CHAPTER I. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTOK Amos Bronson Alcott His Early Life The " Sage of Concord " Louisa M. Alcott Girlhood Days High Talk and Low Diet Her First Story A Very Stage-Struck Young Lady End of Her Dreams of Dramatic Glory Seeking Her Own Fortune Toilsome Years Story- Writing Advised to " Stick to Her Teaching " Hospital Nurse Shattered Health Her First Book How "Little Women" Came to be Written Fame and Fortune at Last Amusing Requests An Extraordinary Effusion Miss Alcott' s Portrait of Herself at Fifteen Miss Alcott at Fifty- Incidents Precious Memories Methods of Work An Old Atlas for a Desk How She Plans Her Stories Where They are Written. N writing of an author still living, and still busily at work, there is always a certain difficulty. We are too near at hand for perspective, and too much under the spell of a sympathetic per- sonality to be able to anticipate the judgments of posterity. Our utmost endeavor, then, must be to make the world, so far as possible, sharers in the pleasure of personal intercourse with a gifted and remarkable woman, and to gratify to some extent the general curiosity about a general favorite. In the literature of our own country and time there are few more picturesque figures than Louisa May Alcott ; since we must consider not only her own distinguished achievement, but also the surroundings of her life. Unless heredity were 30 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. a word without a moaning the world had a right to expect much of Miss Alcott by virtue of inheritance, and the highest of these expectations she has certainly fulfilled. Her father, Amos Bronson Alcott, the " Sage of Concord," as he has often been called, is not less widely known than his distinguished daughter. He came of a good old New Eng- land stock, his ancestors having been among the earliest settlers of the town of Wolcott, Conn., where Mr. Alcott himself was born, in 1799. Wolcott was in the neighbor- hood of wooden clocks, and while still a schoolboy Mr. Alcott worked, in his vacations, at clock-making. After he left school came a season of peddling, with alternations of school-teaching ; and through those years a half-formed pur- pose of entering the ministry of the Episcopal church had some influence on his studies and his life. By the time he was twenty-six, however, the young philosopher who was afterwards to be so closely connected with the great Trans- cendental movement in New England had discovered that he was not called to the ministry, and had get himself to the task of reforming the prevailing methods of early edu- cation. He first began the development of his educational ideas in Cheshire, Conn., but in 1828, at the age of twenty-nine, he was invited to take charge of a school for young children in Boston by certain persons who had seen and admired the working out of his ideas in Cheshire. In 1830 he married Miss May, a daughter of Col. Joseph May, and a descendant of the Sewells and the Quincys of Boston. I have heard that the May family were strongly opposed to the union of their beautiful daughter with the penniless teacher and philosopher. But love found out a way to soften their opposition ; and the poverty of plain liv- ing and high thinking had no terrors for the petted child of the prosperous Boston merchant. Tall and slight, fair, blue- eyed, and delicate, she was yet strong enough to resolve and to do, this gently-nurtured young lady, of whom her hus- band long afterwards wrote : LOUISA M. ALCOTT. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 33 " Mean are all titles of nobility And kings poor spendthrifts, while I do compare, The wealth she daily lavishes on me Of love the noble kingdom, that I share." This auspicious marriage took place in King's Chapel, Bos- ton, in the month of May fit time for these happy, tune- ful, improvident young lovers to pair. In November of the same year they removed to Germantown, Perm., where Mr. Alcott opened a school, which he continued for four years. It was in Germantown, November 29, 1832, that Louisa May Alcott was born. Concerning this date she writes : " I was born on the 29th of November. The same day was my father's own birthday, that of Christopher Columbus, Sir Philip Sidney, Wendell Phillips, and other worthies." Until I began to retrace her history for the purpose of this brief biography, I had always supposed that Miss Alcott had been born in Concord that town with which she is so in- timately associated in the minds of us all. I fancied she might even herself have been the child-sage whom the stranger in Concord saw digging in the soil, and accosted with the question, " What are you doing, my pretty maid?" " Digging for the infinite ," was the unexpected answer ; and all Concord seems to me to have been digging for the infinite for two or three generations. Miss Alcott, however, has been rather the exception to this Concordian habit. She has contented herself with the study of the finite, which she has pursued to such purpose that she has given more lively and more living characters to juvenile literature than any other author of her time. Perhaps she escaped the fate of a philosopher by being born in Germantown, and not going to Concord until she was eight years old. Her first remove from Germantown was to Boston, where, in 1834, Mr. Alcott opened a school in the Masonic Temple, which Miss Peabody described in her book, entitled " Record of Mr. Alcott's School," first published in 1835. This " Rec- ord of a School " would be, in itself, sufficient to prove Mr. Alcott's claim to a high place in the ranks of the world's edu- 34 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. cators. He knew, at that time, little or nothing of the theories of Pestalozzi, yet his own were always kindred, and sometimes the same. Miss Peabody, herself a distinguished educator, once said to me, "I would never say to a child, f You have a soul,' but rather, 'You have a body,' since the real ' you' is the inde- structible soul." Proceeding upon this principle, Mr. Alcott addressed himself to the spiritual nature of his pupils. He substituted appeals to their moral instincts and their affec- tions for un discriminating punishments, and sought rather to awaken in them a thirst for knowledge than to force them at the point of a ferule to acquire it. Concerning this school, Mr. Frank B. Sanborn has written that it failed in consequence of a public outcry against cer- tain opinions, supposed to be inculcated in a remarkable book, entitled " Conversations with Children on the Gospels," which Miss Peabody compiled from Mr. Alcott's daily talks with his pupils, and which was clamorously assailed by the Boston newspapers. Their unjust criticisms drew forth a public defence from Mr. Emerson, who began by saying, " In behalf of this book I have but one plea to make, this, namely, let it be read." In 1837 Mr. Alcott removed the school from the Masonic Temple to his own house ; and after that removal committed the still further enormity of showing his readiness to admit little colored children to share the instruction bestowed on the inheritors of the blue blood of Boston. Finally, in 1839, the philosopher abandoned school-keeping, and, in 1840, removed to Concord. If I seem to have dwelt too long on the early history of the serene Sage of Concord it is because the importance of such a parentage cannot be overestimated, and I think Louisa Alcott experienced her first supreme good fortune in being the daughter of her father and her mother. I like to think of her as she was when, at eight years of age, she went to live in Concord, first at the Hosmer Cottage, and afterwards at " The Wayside," Hawthorne's old home, at LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 35 present so fitly occupied by fair Rose Hawthorne Lathrop and her gifted husband. After the Hawthorne house came the o episode of "Fruitlands," in Harvard, Mass., where Mr. Al- cott took his family to live, with a few congenial souls, in a sort of community, on high talk and low diet. This was the experience which Miss Alcott afterwards described so vividly in Transcendental Wild Oats." After "Fruitlands" came a short residence in Boston, and then the Alcott family went back to congenial Concord, to pass, in their home called "The Orchards," the twenty-five fullest and most active years of Miss Alcott's over-active life.* As I have said, I love to picture to myself the girl of eight, unusually tall, and so lithe and active that even before she left Boston she could drive a hoop entirely round the " Com- mon "without once stopping, able to run faster than most boys, and therefore always welcome to share their sports. After her father left off school-teaching she went no more to school, but studied at home. She learned religion from Nature, and the high example of virtuous parents, who literally loved their neighbors better than themselves, and in the pure atmosphere of whose daily life it was impossible that anything small or mean should thrive. Her literary ambition was of early origin. At eight years of age she perpetrated her first literary attempt, in the shape of the following : ADDRESS TO A ROBIN". " Welcome, welcome, little stranger, Fear no harm, and fear no danger ; We are glad to see you here, For you sing sweet spring is near. Now the snow is nearly gone, Now the grass is coining on The trees are green, the sky is blue, And we are glad to welcome you." "This gem," said Miss Alcott, "my proud mother pre- served with tender care, assuring me that if I kept on in this hopeful way I might be a second Shakspeare in time." 3 36 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. Fired by this modest and laudable ambition, she continued to write poems upon dead butterflies, lost kittens, the baby's eyes, and other kindred themes, until, suddenly, the story- telling mania set in, and the world began to be peopled for her with ideal shapes. For a long time she only frightened her sisters by awful tales whispered in bed. It makes one think of those other sisters in the Moorlands of Yorkshire, who used to sit and " make up " stories round the fire, when the sun had set, and the shadows haunted the corners, and they drew close together in the shadow-casting firelight. After a while Louisa began to write out these histories of giants, and ogres, and dauntless maidens, and magic transfor- mations, till the children's room at the Wayside had quite a library of small paper-covered volumes, illustrated by their author. Later on, the poems grew sad and sentimental, and the tales less tragic, lovely elves and spirits of earth and air tak- ing the place of the former monsters. At sixteen Miss Alcott wrote, for Ellen Emerson's pleas- ure, her first book. It was entitled "Flower Fables." It was afterwards published, but not until 1854, when Miss Alcott was twenty-two. It made no marked impression, its dainty fancies being obscured by too many adjectives, and its illustrations so bad as to be anything but an adornment. At sixteen, besides writing "Flower Fables," Miss Alcott began to teach a little school of some twenty pupils, to whom she told her stories instead of writing them. She says that she never liked teaching ; though, in one way or another, she pursued it for some fifteen years sometimes teaching home- schools, sometimes going out as daily governess. Among her pupils in those years she numbered the children of E. P. Whipple, E. E. Apthorpe, John T. Sargent, J. S. Lovering, and many others. Story-telling time, she says, was the one pleasant hour in her school-day ; and even now she meets from time to time the young men and women who had the happiness to be her pupils in those old days, and finds that they still recall her tales and laugh over them afresh with LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 37 their children, when some of them reappear in new forms in her many books. Miss Alcott's first full-grown romantic story was printed in " Gleason's Pictorial," and for this tale she received five dollars. Ah, who of us scribes does not remember the pride and pleasure with which we received our first five dollars earned by literature ; and why is a beginner's recompense always five dollars, no more, no less? This first published story appeared in 1851, when Miss Alcott was nineteen. The next year she sent to the "Boston Saturday Evening Gazette" rr The Rival Prima Donnas," which was accepted, and munifi- cently, as it then seemed, rewarded with ten dollars, and a request for more. Nor was this all ; for Miss Alcott herself dramatized the tale, and it was accepted by Mr. Thomas Barry, then manager of the Boston Theatre. The play was never really put upon the stage, owing to a disagreement about the distribution of the parts between Mrs. Barrow and Mrs. John Wood, then rival actresses at "The Boston." In spite of this mischance, however, its author considered it a transcendent success ; since, for its sake, a free pass was given her, and she went to the theatre forty times that winter. Think of the unmitigated rapture of those forty evenings to a very stage-struck young lady ! So strong, indeed, was Miss Alcott's passion at that time for acting that she made an engagement to appear upon the stage herself as Widow Pottle, in " The Jacobite," and was anxiously waiting for the night to be fixed, when the friendly manager broke his leg, and in consequence his contract, and thus came to an untimely end the young girl's dream of dramatic glory. A farce of her composition was, however, actually put upon the stage, and she tells me that she well remembers the wild beating of her heart as she sat on this glorious occasion in a stage box, holding an enormous bouquet, presented by a friend as stage-struck as herself; and saw Mrs. W. H. Smith, Josie Orton, and Mr. LeMoine enact "Nat Bachelor's Pleas- ure Trip," for the benefit of Mrs. Smith. 38 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. " The Rival Prima Donnas " afforded Miss Alcott another glimpse of glory, which she herself described as follows : " One of the memorial moments of my life is that in which, as I trudged to school on a wintry day, my eyes fell upon a large yellow poster with these delicious words : '" Bertha," a new tale by the author of " The Rival Prima Donnas," will appear in the " Saturday Evening Gazette." ' I was late ; it was bitter cold ; people jostled me ; I was mortally afraid I should be recognized ; but there I stood feasting my eyes on the fascinating poster, and saying proudly to myself, in the words of the great Vincent Crummies, f This, this is fame ! * That day my pupils had an indulgent teacher ; for, while they struggled with their pot-hooks, I was writing immortal works, and when they droned out the multiplication table, I was counting up the noble fortune my pen was to earn for me in the dim, delightful future. That afternoon my sisters made a pilgrimage to behold this famous placard, and finding it torn by the wind, boldly stole it, and came home to wave it like a triumphal banner in the bosom of the excited family. The tattered paper still exists, folded away with other relics of those early days, so hard and yet so sweet, when the first small victories were won, and the enthusiasm of youth lent romance to life's drudgery." These thrilling experiences, however, came after that memorable autumn, described with such rare blending of humor and pathos long afterwards, in " Work," when Louisa Alcott went out into the world to seek her own fortune, as did the heroine of that book. I think the true story was quite as pathetic as the romance. A trunk "a little trunk" full of the plainest clothes of her own making, and twenty dollars which she had earned by writing, these were the armor with which she went forth to fight for existence in the world's struggle for the survival of the fittest. Nay, she had more she had firm principles, perfect health, and the dear consciousness of a loving and waiting home to which to retreat if worsted in the fight. And thus armed she struggled and conquered. With this out- 1. A PROUD MOMENT. DISCOVERING THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF "BERTHA.' 2. How Miss ALCOTT WRITES HER STORIES. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 39 fit she travelled to Boston one dull November day, intent on carrying out her resolution to be, for evermore, self-helpful and independent. And she succeeded triumphantly. By teaching, sewing, writing anything that came to hand to be done she not only supported herself for many long, busy, toilsome years before any grand, paying triumph came, but sent home to the dear ones left behind an ever-increasing store of material help and comfort ; an unselfish pleasure which lightened her hard tasks and sweetened every small success. Her days were devoted to unrelenting toil, but her even- ings, when she was not writing, she gave to such small pleasures as came in her way ; and chief among these she reckoned the golden hours spent at the house of Theodore Parker, where, sitting bashfully in a corner, she caught glimpses of all that was best in Boston society. Emerson came there, with ever a kind word for the girl he had known in his own Concord; Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, Mrs. Howe, just then beginning her crusade against all sorts of iniquities ; all those brave women who in those days were leading the van in the cause of abolition, and who, later, set themselves to win for women suffrage and social freedom. Fugitive slaves came there, too ; cultured and inquiring for- eigners ; transcendentalists, with bees in their bonnets and the light of enthusiasm in their eyes ; the hangers-on, who surround all great men, striving to glorify themselves a little by means of reflected light, since they have no candles of their own ; beautiful women ; merchant princes ; all kinds and conditions of men. Such was the society as varied and shifting as the scenes in a panorama, and interesting as life is interesting which the tall girl out of Concord watched with those eager, gray-blue eyes of hers, whose keen glances nothing escaped. Dearest, best, most inspiring, and most memorable of all was her host himself the one only Parker who never omitted to give her at least a few words of greeting and fare- well. No other hand, she says, had so firm and warm a 40 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. grasp as his ; and his cheery, " How goes it, my child ? " or, "God bless you; keep your heart up, Louisa," helped her over many a rough place, and sustained her under that de- spondency which comes sometimes to the bravest young woman fighting her own battle in a world where her place is not ready made. Theodore Parker is the " Mr. Power" of "Work," as Miss Alcott herself is the " Christie " of that book. Who does not remember the description of Mr. Power's prayer "so devout, so comprehensive, and so brief, a quiet talk with God," and of his "judgment-day sermons," in which " kingdoms and thrones seemed going down, and each man being sent to his own place." As he spoke thus, what won- der that " a curious stir went through the crowd at times, as a great wind sweeps over a cornfield, lifting the broad leaves to the light and testing the strength of root and stem." In those years Miss Alcott began to write "sensation" stories ; following up the first attempts already mentioned with many others. It seems almost incredible, but after a little practice in crowding much wrath, ruin, and revenge into twenty-five manuscript pages, she found she could turn out ten or twelve tales in a month. Frank Leslie gladly accepted these exciting romances for his numerous publica- tions. After a while Louisa grew weary of this kind of writ- ing. "Wrath, ruin, and revenge" pall at length upon the bravest of us ; and when novellettes were called for, of twenty-four chapters, with a breathless catastrophe in at least every other chapter, thirty pages a day of such work proved too much even for the indefatigable Miss Alcott. Then she knocked at the doors of the " Atlantic Monthly" ; and the first story she sent there was returned by Mr. Fields, with the friendly advice that she should stick to her teaching. Soon after this, however, the "Atlantic" opened its pages to her and she also began to write for some of the semi- religious papers, where a reasonable amount of the milk of human kindness was admissible, and which therefore offered a welcome change from the " sensation stories." LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 41 After all, those were happy years in which she dreamed through the summer in that Concord of which Hawthorne has said : " It was necessary to go but a little way beyond my threshold before meeting with stranger moral shapes of men than might have been encountered elsewhere in a circuit of a thousand miles" and which yet, in spite of its strange and gifted denizens, must have been a very sane place, since Mr. F. B. Sanborn says of it, in his admirable "Life of Thoreau " : "Perpetuity, indeed, and hereditary transmission of every- thing that, by nature and good sense, can be inherited, are ainon^ the characteristics of Concord." O Here, where great and good men were growing old, and other great and good men had left behind them fragrant memories of their just lives where Nature herself appeared to have a sense of her own responsibility, and not to be quite the capricious vagrant she seems elsewhere Miss Alcott went with the spring, like the home-returning birds ; and like them went away again in the autumn, not to the South and the summer, but to busy Boston, teaching there her little invalid pupil on Beacon street, or writing away at her numer- ous stories in the nest she found under the eaves of some quiet house, or indulging her taste for acting by taking part in a play for the benefit of some charity she would not other- wise have been able to assist. One does not half know Miss Alcott who has not seen her as Mrs. Jarley display her "wax- works." I think it is quite the best bit of broad comedy I can remember. One break in these busy years I have not mentioned that December of 1862, when she went forth full of enthusi- asm to nurse in the Soldier's Hospital a veritable Florence Nightingale for courage, tenderness, and helpfulness, as I have been told blessing scores of dying-beds with her presence, and laboring until she herself was stricken down with fever, and brought home with her dark hair shorn from her head, with wan face, shaken strength, and unstrung nerves, and for sole reward the blessed consciousness that she had done what she could. "I was never ill," she said to- me, 42 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. " until after that hospital experience, and I have never been well since." It was concerning this period of Miss Alcott's life that her father wrote his sonnet " When I remember with what buoyant heart, 'Midst war's alarms and woes of civil strife, In youthful eagerness thou did'st depart At peril of thy safety, peace, and life, To nurse the wounded soldier, swathe the dead How, pierced soon by fever's poisoned dart, And brought unconscious home with wildered head Thou, ever since, 'mid languor and dull pain, To conquer fortune, cherish kindred dear, Hast with grave studies vexed a sprightly brain, In myriad households kindled love and cheer ; Ne'er from thyself by Fame's loud trump beguiled ; Sounding in this and the farther hemisphere : I press thee to my heart as duty's faithful child." "Hospital Sketches " was first published in 1865, but re- published, with additions, in 1869. Even before "Hospital Sketches," "Moods" had been fssued by Loring ; but that has also been recently reprinted, with a large amount of revision. When Miss Alcott first wrote this book she was still so young as to be in love with the tragic aspects of life ; and death seemed to her the only possible solution for the perplexities of her heroine. When it was republished she had grown old enough to perceive that nothing is irreparable but death ; and as the sun sets to rise to-morrow, it is possible that the sun of a human life shall rise again after it has seemed to set forever ; and she kindly allowed Sylvia the benefit of this larger knowledge and more cheerful faith. In the July of 1865 Miss Alcott went abroad for the first time. She went over as the companion of an invalid lady, and passed the summer at German baths, the autumn at Vevay, and the spring in Paris and London. By this time she was alone ; and she stayed in London with the Con ways, LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 43 and made the acquaintance of such well-known persons as John Stuart Mill, George H. Lewes, Jean Ingelow, Frances Power Cobbe, and many others. It was in 1868 that Mr. Alcott took to Roberts Brothers those publishers whose name has been so intimately associated with all the most successful and brilliant years of Miss Alcott' s life a volume composed of various stories with which the readers of newspapers were already familiar. Mr. Niles, one of the firm, read them, and recognized their merit, but he said : " We do not care just now for volumes of col- lected stories. Will not your daughter write us a new book consisting of a single story for girls ? *' The result of this suggestion was " Little Women." Miss Alcott says she wrote it to prove that she could not write a girls' story, having always preferred to play with boys, and therefore knowing very little about any girls except her sisters and herself. This matchless tale was sent to the pub- lishers in about two months after it had been first asked for, with the amusing suggestion that if the title that happiest title which juvenile book ever had was not liked the author would willingly change it for something else. The first part of " Little Women " was published in October, 1868 ; but it attracted comparatively little attention until the publication of the second part, in April, 1869, when sud- denly Miss Alcott became famous. I do not, of course, mean that the first part of the book was not widely read and cordially welcomed ; but only that the actual furore began with the publication of the second part. Many young read- ers got quite desperately excited over the first, and one such enthusiast wrote to Miss Alcott : DEAR Miss ALCOTT, I have read the first part of " Little Women," and cried quarts over Beth's sickness. If you don't have her marry Laurie in the second part, I shall never forgive you, and none of the girls in our school will ever read any more of your books. Do ! Do ! have her, please. All the young people who had read the first part of this fascinating story were eager to get hold of the second, and 44 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. these readers talked about the wondrous tale to others, so that the sale grew and grew. No more hard work for Miss Alcott ! The tide of her fortunes was rising fast. As early as the 29th of December, 1869, she wrote to her publishers : Many thanks for the check which made my Christmas an unusually merry one. After toiling so many years along the up-hill road, always a hard one to women-writers, it is peculiarly grateful to me to find the way growing easier at last, with pleas- ant little surprises blossoming on either side, and the rough places made smooth. This was the beginning of the most shining success ever achieved by any author of juvenile literature so great a success that when "Little Men" was issued, its publication had to be delayed until the publishers were prepared to fill advance orders for fifty thousand copies. "Little Women" was succeeded by the new edition of "Hospital Sketches," "An Old-Fashioned Girl," "Little Men," "Eight Cousins," "Rose in Bloom," "Under the Lilacs," " Jack and Jill," " Work," " Moods," in the revised edition " Silver Pitchers," "Proverb Stories," and the six volumes of "Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag," namely, "My Boys," "Shawl-Straps," "Cupid and Chow-Chow," "My Girls," "Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore," and "An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving," those last six volumes having been chiefly compiled from her numerous contributions to " St. Nicholas " and other juvenile publications. There is another book of Miss Alcott's, the authorship of which is still a mystery to the general public, "A Modern Mephistopheles." This was contributed to the first series of Roberts Brothers' "No Name" books, and the puzzle of its authorship has remained a vexed question. It was so much more like Mrs. Spoflbrd than like Miss Alcott that many people set it down to the author of " Sir Rohan's Ghost," and were satisfied. On these various books Miss Alcott has received copyright amounting to not far from one hundred thousand dollars. They have not only been reprinted and largely sold in Eng- LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 45 land, but also translated into several foreign languages, and thus published with persistent success. Take it altogether, Miss Alcott has had a most prosperous life ; and yet she com- plains, mildly, of the drawbacks attending success. She says it is very trying to "live in a lantern"; and to an obscurity-loving soul it is not pleasant to feel that one has suddenly become public property. She endorses, with re- freshing zeal, Dr. Holmes's "Atlantic" article on the Right of Authors to Privacy. She says she could compile a very amusing book from the curious requests she has received, and the ill-judged confidences bestowed on her during the last ten years. Of these modest requests here is one, from a lady in South Carolina : MADAME, As it has pleased God to bless you with a million, I feel no hesitation in asking you for the sum of one hundred dol- lars, to get a communion service for the new Episcopal chapel in our town. A speedy reply is requested. The petition which follows, from a resident of Los Vegas, is even more amazing : L. M. ALCOTT, Author. I am interested in the oldest ruin in the United States. We wish to rebuild and keep the Pecas Ruin as long as the U. S. Government lasts. If you can interest your friends in the cause, and send us funds, They will be gratefully received. Our Country is full of Relicts of the past. If you wish to write a legion of the ruins we will send the facts. It is about the residence of Montezuma, and the indians tell how a hedi- ous flying serpent carried him to Mexico and his fate. I am a teacher. Not all Miss Alcott's odd letters, however, are of the "your-money-or-your-life" order. Here is one which con- tains an amusing offer of assistance : DEAR AUNT Jo, I am nine years old. I like your books most of all in the world. Please do some more. Have a sequel to Jack and Jill. I will pay for it if you will. I have seventy- five cents. Won't that be enough ? Your little friend, WILLY. 46 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. Miss Alcott generously keeps secret the amazing confidences which have been reposed in her unresponsive heart. The religious advice, so freely proffered, she accepts gratefully ; the " matrimonial advances " she will not disclose ; and of all the reams of poetry which have been lavished at her shrine she has only afforded me this one remarkable example : TO MY DEAR. " Who is the geranium of the world, Blooming proud and fair Sweet as mignonette is she, Perfuming all the air Louisa M. Alcott. " Who is best of human women, Growing ever to the sky, Scattering joy and compensation From her life's inspiring eye Louisa M. Alcott." This extraordinary production was signed " Jim " ; and Miss Alcott tells me that so many similar effusions, all signed w Jim," and all postmarked " Hartford," have been received as to suggest to her that she has inspired the profound and lasting admiration of some amiable occupant of the Hartford Retreat for the Insane. Perhaps it is hardly matter for wonder that the recipient of a long series of such letters and such rhymes should have grown inflexible, and should turn a deaf ear to the syren tongue of the interviewer, and reject all petitions for auto- graphs and photographs. If people want to know her they must divine her from her books ; and, indeed, the works of no writer with whom I am acquainted convey so faithful and complete an impression of their author as those of Miss Alcott. One of the questions I asked her in behalf of this sketch was how large a portion of her books was actually founded upon the facts of her life. She has told me that " Little Women" was really the story of herself and her sisters, with such slight changes of time, place, and denouement as LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 47 were necessary to make the tale complete. "Meg," who afterwards became Mrs. Annie Pratt, with her genius for making a happy home "Amy," otherwise May, with her artistic taste and aspirations " Beth," with her sweet and gentle nature, and early death and " Jo," who was Miss Louisa herself did not Concord know them all, and smile at them as old friends when they looked out of the pages of " Little Women " ? " Mr. March " was Mr. Alcott, who did not, however, really go to the war ; and " Mrs. March " was the dear house-mother, for whom the utmost prSise never seemed to her fond child half good enough. " John Brooke's " life and death, "Demy's" quaint character, all the little domestic devices and diversions these are history, as veri- table as it is entertaining. Here is Miss Alcott's portrait of herself at fifteen : " Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way. She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, or funny, or thoughtful. Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net to be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, and big hands and feet, a fly-away look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman, and didn't like it." "Work," as I have said before, was very largely the story of the author's own struggle with the world ; as " Hospital Sketches " was the simple record of her own experience as a hospital nurse. " Little Men " was chiefly imaginary, and was written in Eome in 1871. " Moods " was composed, in its earliest form, at eighteen ; and was, says Miss Alcott, " the book into which I put most time, love, and hope ; and it is much truer than people suppose. Sylvia was suggested by my own moods, through which, however, I never got into any senti- mental woes. But they have gone with me through my life, 48 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. and made it both harder and richer by the alternations of delight and despondency which they have brought me the success the world sees, and the private trials and defeats are known to myself only." Some time after " Moods " was published a lady asked Miss Alcott how she knew her story. " I had never known be- fore," said Miss Alcott, "that she had a story at all. But I was glad of the question, which assured me that the fanciful heart-experiences of my book were possible." " An Old-Fashioned Girl," and, indeed, all the remaining books, with the exception of " Shawl-Straps," are imaginary. K Shawl-Straps " is the record of Miss Alcott's second Euro- pean journey a year in duration in which she was accom- panied by her artist sister May, and Miss Bartlett, an inti- mate friend. This journey, taken in 1870-71, is described in so lively a manner that the reader really feels as if he had shared it. In this book the author figures as " Livy," other- wise "the Raven," otherwise "the old Lady ; " the last a title which she began to bestow on herself before the rest of the world had dreamed of calling her middle-aged. She repre- sents Livy as groaning with rheumatism and neuralgia, nurs- ing her woes, and croaking as dismally as any other raven ; but you cannot help finding out that she was, after all, the brightest, most delightful travelling companion, and most in- dulgent duenna with whom any two girls were ever blessed. Miss Alcott had learned her London by heart in 1865, and had made up her mind that, next to Boston, it was the most delightful of cities. Its mud and fog were dear to her ; its beef and beer outrivalled nectar and ambrosia ; and its steady-going, respectable citizens were heroes and heroines to her fancy. Therefore, when she got there, " the old lady" sniffed with delight the familiar fogs, and found herself in a paradise more congenial than France or Italy had been. The last twelve years have been for Miss Alcott full of tri- umphant prosperity. She has orders so numerous that she cannot fulfil them her books go through edition after edi- tion -and in acknowledgment of a gift from her publishers LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 49 on her fiftieth birthday, November 29, 1882, she wrote : "It was very kind of you to remember the old lady, and thus to make this peculiarly sad birthday happier. . . . The burden of fifty years is much lightened by the expressions of affec- tion that come to me from east and west, and as I turn my face toward sunset I find so much to make the down-hill jour- ney smooth and lovely, that, like Christiana, I go on my way rejoicing with a cheerful heart." Miss Alcott certainly carries the burden of her fifty years lightly. If you met her now, you would see a stately lady, unusually tall, with thick, dark hair, clear-seeing, blue-gray eyes, and strong, resolute features, full of varied expression. How well I remember the humorous twinkle in her eyes, which half belied the grave earnestness of her manner, when she told me once that she was inclined to believe in the trans- migration of souls. "I have often thought," she said, " that I may have been a horse before I was Louisa Alcott. As a long-limbed child I had all a horse's delight in racing through the fields, and toss- ing my head to sniff the morning air. Now, I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman's body." " Why do you think that?" I asked, in the spirit of Bos- well addressing Dr. Johnson. "Well, for one thing," and the blue-gray eyes sparkled with laughter, " because I have fallen in love in my life with so many pretty girls, and never once the least little bit with any man." These recent years, that have brought to Miss Alcott such great prosperity, have also brought to her much keen sorrow. The dear mother, whose story reads like one of the lives of the saints, who never was so poor that she had not something to give, and who was herself the guide and teacher of her children, not in books alone, but in everything that was lovely and noble and of good report, lived long enough, thank Heaven, to taste all the sweetness of her daughter's good fortune. The most precious thing in Miss Alcott's 50 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. triumph was that she could lay its fruits at her mother's feet, and cheer with them the last years of that brave and faithful life. Mrs. Alcott had dearly loved noble books. When her girls were young she used to read aloud to them from the best authors while they sewed ; and this was a large part of their education. Her own love for books went with her all through her life, till one day in 1877, a week before her death, she laid down her favorite Johnson, too weary to go on with him, and said, quietly, "I shall read no more, but I thank rny good father for the blessing the love of literature has been to me for seventy years." The death of this faithful and loving mother was as beauti- ful as her life had been. Her last words to her husband were, " You are laying a very soft pillow for me to rest on." And when her failing breath made it difficult to speak, she whispered, with a lovely, loving look, " A smile is as good as a prayer," and soon, waving her hand to the picture of her absent daughter, then in Europe, she said " Good-by, my little May, good-by ! " and so died, to use Miss Alcott's own words, "in the arms of that child who owed her most, who loved her best, and had counted as her greatest success the power of making these last years a season of happy rest to the truest and tenderest of mothers." It is the dearest plan in Miss Alcott's scheme of future literary work to write the biography of this noble mother, who had a heart warm enough and large enough to shelter the sinful as well as the sorrowful ; and who so loved the worst and weakest of her fellow-creatures that she joyed in noth- ing so much as in spending and being spent for them. In March, 1878, Miss Alcott's youngest sister, May, was married, in Paris, to Ernst Nieriker; and in December, 1879, she died, leaving to Louisa's care her infant daughter, Louisa May Nieriker, who was brought home to her aunt in September, 1880, the partial consolation for so grievous a loss. *The Orchards," for twenty-five years the home of the Alcotts, is now devoted to the " Summer School of Philoso- LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. 51 phy," and Miss Alcott and her father live at present in the house where Thoreau died, together with Mrs. Pratt, Miss Alcott's widowed sister, and her children. Here for some time past Miss Alcott had been absorbed in the care of her father, stricken the 22d of October, 1882, with paralysis. I cannot forget my own last interview with this serene old man, of whom Thoreau wrote : " Great Looker ! Great Ex- pecter ! to converse with him was a New England night's entertainment." It was, I think, in February, 1882, I stood under an um- brella, in a light snow, waiting for a horse-car. Mr. Alcott came by and stopped to speak to me, with that wise yet genial smile which always seemed like a benediction. He said a few friendly sentences, and then I spoke of his book of " Sonnets and Canzonets," and asked, " How is it, Mr. Alcott, that at eighty-two you are so vigorous and strong, and with a poet's heart alive in you yet? " "It is," he said, "because I have kept the ten command- ments. Men were meant to live a hundred years at least only they have disobeyed the taws. Let Us have several generations of people who live healthfully and keep the com- mandments, and we may have those who will be able to say, ' I think I will not stop at a hundred years. I will live onf " Great Expecter," indeed ! It seemed to me, then, that he might probably realize his own idea of living a hundred years ; and the news of his illness shocked me with surprise as w r ell as with grief. He is a man who has walked so long in heavenly places that for him to die will be but " to pass from this room into- the next." 9 Concerning Miss Alcott, it remains only to speak of her education and her methods of work. She was educated rather by reading than by study. She was always a great reader, never a great student. At fifteen Ralph Waldo Em- erson introduced her to the works of Goethe, which have ever since been her delight. Her personal library consists of Goethe, Emerson, Shakspeare, Margaret Fuller, Miss Edge- worth, and George Sand. George Eliot she does not care 4 52 LOUISA MAY ALCOTT. for, nor does she enjoy any of the modern poets, except Whittier ; but she likes Coleridge, Keats, and, farther back, Crashaw, and godly George Herbert, and a few of their con- temporaries. She never had a study any corner will answer to write in. She is not particular as to pens and paper, and an old atlas on her knee is all the desk she cares for. She has the wonderful power to carry a dozen plots in her head at a time, thinking them over whenever she is in the mood. Sometimes she carries a plot thus for years, and suddenly finds it all ready to be written. Often, in the dead waste and middle of the night, she lies awake and plans whole chapters, word for word, and when daylight conies has only to write them off us if she were copying. In her hardest-working days she used to write fourteen hours in the twenty-four, sitting steadily at her work, and scarcely tasting food till her daily task was done. Very few of her stories have been written in Concord. This peaceful, pleasant place, whose fields are classic ground, utterly lacks inspiration for Miss Alcott. She calls it " this dull town " ; and when she has a story to write she goes to Boston, hires a quiet room, and shuts herself up in it, and waits for an east wind of inspiration, which never fails. In a month or so the book will be done, and its author comes out, " tired, hungry, and cross," and ready to go back to Concord and vegetate for a time. When engaged in the work of com- position her characters seem more real to her than actual people. They will not obey her she merely writes of them what she seems to see and hear and sometimes these shadows whom she has conjured almost affright her with their wilful reality. She never copies, and seldom corrects from before these men and women, great and small, she pulls away the curtain and lets us see them as they are. CHAPTER II. SUSAN B. ANTHONY. BY ELIZABETH CADY STANTOX. Susan B. Anthony's Parentage Her Girlhood A Rebellious Quaker Incident in Her Early Life The Heighth of Her Ambition A " High-Seat" Quaker Incident in Her Experience as Teacher Advo- cating Temperance, Anti-Slavery, and Woman Suffrage Her Facility and Power as an Orator Speaking to a Deaf and Dumb Audience Incident on a Mississippi Steamboat Celebrating Her Fiftieth Birth- day Trip to Europe Incidents of Foreign Travel Arrested for Voting The Legal Struggle that followed Her Labors for Woman Suffrage Her Industry and Self-denial for the Cause Personal Ap- pearance. " He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune ; for they are impedi- ments to great enterprises either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit, for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men ; which, both in affection and means, have married and endowed the public." HIS bit of Baconian philosophy, as alike applica- ble to women, was the subject, not long since, of my conversation with a remarkably gifted young English woman. She was absorbed in many public interests, and had conscientiously ^ resolved never to marry, lest the cares neces- sarily involved should make inroads upon her time and thought to the detriment of the gen- eral good. "Unless," said she, " some women dedicate themselves to the public service, society is robbed of needed guardians for the special wants of the weak and unfortunate. There should be in the secular world certain orders, corresponding in a measure to the grand 63 54 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. sisterhoods of the Catholic Church, to the members of which, as freely as to men, all offices, civic and ecclesiastical, should be open." That this ideal will be realized may be inferred from the fact that exceptional women have, in all ages, been leaders in great projects of charity and reform, and that now many stand waiting only the sanction of their century, ready for wide altruistic labors. The world has ever had its vestal virgins, its holy women, mothers of ideas rather than men : its Marys, as well as its Marthas, who, rather than be busy housewives, preferred to sit at the feet of divine wisdom, and ponder the mysteries of the unknown. All hail to Maria Mitchell, Harriet Hosmer, Charlotte Cushman, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Louisa Alcott, and Frances Willard ! All honor to the noble women that have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual needs of man- kind ! In this galaxy of single women we shall place one other star, to be pronounced, perhaps, by the future as of the first magnitude. If we seek out what first kindled that flame, we find but a tiny spark, a few rough words, roughly spoken : "It takes sometime to get the hang of the barn," uncouth answer to kindly inquiry of gentle Quaker host, as to the new teacher's first day's experience in his public school. The vulgar words fell not on stony grounds, but on rich virgin soil, and have borne fruit to us. Demure Quaker daughter sitting there, apparently intent upon the wholesome New England dinner, was, in truth, putting to her ardent soul a mighty question, to which her life was to give answer. The modest, conscientious girl of twenty for Susan Anthony was twenty on the fifteenth day of the second month of that year, 1840, just a score of years younger than her century fell to pondering. For many days Susan had been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the male teacher, whom the board of education had selected to take her school during the win- ter. Surely, thought she, he must be very superior ; for even her teaching and discipline had now unbounded praise, and he was to receive treble her salary ! And here at last is SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 55 the ugly fact, " It takes some time to get the hang of the barn ! " Think you not that our quiet, earnest, Susan longed to rescue her village bairns, with immortality struggling in each little soul, from the guidance of that homespun farmer lad? Burning questions arose in the girl's mind, and she went apart to think. Susan Anthony did not then solve her vast problem : perhaps true solution has not yet come to any seeker ; but friends and even many foes begin to think that she had found at least one unknown quantity in this equation of the vague, this world mystery, what is the true rela- tion of man to woman ; what can render justice between them? This bit of womanhood had not received unwholesome train- ing for a clear insight into questions of absolute right. Susan B. Anthony was of sturdy New England stock, and it was at the foot of Old Grey lock, South Adams, Massachu- setts, that she gave forth her first rebellious cry against the world of formulas that awaited her. There the baby steps were taken, and at the village school the first stitches were learned, and the A, B, C, in good, old, stupid, orthodox fashion, duly mastered. When five winters had passed over the solemn little head there came a time of great domestic commotion, and the child-mind, in its small way, seized the idea that permanence is not the rule of life. The family moved to Battenville, New York, wiiere Mr. Anthony became one of the wealthiest men in Washington County. Susan can still recall the stately coldness of the great house, how large the bare rooms, with their yellow painted floors, seemed in contrast with her own diminutiveness, and the outlook of the schoolroom where for so many years, with her brothers and sisters, she pursued her studies under private tutors. The father of our young heroine was a stern Hicksite Qua- ker c In Susan's early life he objected on principle to all forms of frivolous amusement, such as music, dancing, novel reading ; games and even pictures were regarded as mean- ingless luxuries, if not as relaxing to strict morality. Such puritanical convictions might have easily degenerated into the meagerest formalism, expressing itself in most nasal cant;-*- 56 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. but underlying all was a broad and firm basis of wholesome respect for individual freedom, and a brave adherence, in deed as well as word, to the best truth that lay hid in the heart of him. No personal belief could blind him to the essentials of life. He was a man of good business capacity, and a thorough manager of his wide and lucrative interests. He saw that compensation and not chance ruled in the commercial world ; and he believed in the same just, though often severe, law in the sphere of morals. Such a man was riot apt to walk humbly in the path mapped out by his religious sect. He early of- fended by choosing a Baptist for his wife. Heinous offence ! for which he was disowned, and, according to Quaker usage, could only be received into fellowship again by declaring him- self " sorry " for his crime in full meeting. Sad plight this for a happy bridegroom ! yea, very sad ! For his heart said that he was full of devout thankfulness for the good woman by his side, and destined to be thankful to the very end for this companion, so calm, so just, so far-seeing. Sturdily he rose in meeting, and in quiet, manly way, said he was " sorry " that the rules of the society were such, that, in marrying the woman he loved, he had committed offence ! Here 's a man of worth ; necessary to the society ; he admits he is " sorry " for something, it does not matter what, let him be taken back into the body of the faithful ! But this rebel's faith had begun to weaken in many minor points of discipline ; his coat soon becomes a cause of offence, and calls forth another reproof from the moralities tightly buttoned in conforming garments. The convenient coat was adhered to ; forgiveness once more granted. The petty forms of Liberal Quaker- ism began to lose their weight with him altogether, and he was finally disowned for allowing the village youth to be taught dancing in a large upper room of his dwelling. He was applied to for this favor on the ground that young men were under great temptation to drink if the lessons were given in the hotel ; and, being a rigid temperance man, he readily consented, though his principles in regard to dancing would not allow his own sons and daughters to join in the SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 57 amusement. But the society could accept no such nice dis- crimination in what it deemed sin, nor such compromise with worldly frivolity. Flagrant cause this for reprimand ! But the final appeal, this time, the rebel makes to his own con- science, and receives the verdict, " well done, good and faithful servant," and he is seen no more in meeting, nor in churches where the creeds rule. But in later years, in Rochester, he sits an attentive listener to the soul truths of Rev. William Henry Channing. The effect of all this on our young reformer is the question of interest. No doubt she early weighed the comparative moral effects of coats cut with capes and those cut without, of purely Quaker conjugal love, and that deteriorated with Baptist affection. Weighty problems, too, she heard dis- cussed, and decisions on all the vital questions of the hour, overriding compromises based on the absolutely true. Susan had an earnest soul, a conscience tending to morbidity ; but a strong, well-balanced body and simple family life soothed the too active moral nature, and gave the world, instead of a religious fanatic, hypochondriac philosopher, a sincere, con- centrated worker. Every household art was taught her by her mother, and so great was her ability that the duty de- manding especial care was always given into her hands. But ever, amid school and household tasks, the day-dream of the demure little maid was that in time she might be a " high- seat" Quaker. Each Sunday, up to the time of the third disobedience, Mr. Anthony, with honest faith, went to his distant Mecca, the Quaker meeting-house, some thirteen miles from home, wife and children usually accompanying him ; though, as non-members, they were rigidly excluded from all business discussions. Exclusion was very pleasant in the bright days of summer ; but not so for the seven year-old Susan, her father's sole companion, on one occasion in frosty December. When the blinds were drawn at the close of the religious meeting, and non-members retired, Susan, with de- termination on her brow, remained. Soon she saw a thin old lady with blue goggles come down from the " high-seat." 58 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. Approaching her, the Quakeress spoke softly ; and Susan wondered if she was moved by the spirit when she said, "Thee is not a member, thee must go out." "No; my mother told me not to go out in the cold,'' was the child's firm response. "Yes, but thee must go out, thee is not a member." But my father is a member." Calm logic fol- lowed. " Thee is not a member." Finally, with all the voice she could muster, the child pleads, " It is cold ! " But t*he " high-seat " constable of the decencies gently answers, "Thee must go," and Susan felt as if the spirit was moving her, and soon found herself in outer coldness. Fingers and toes be- coming numb, and a bright fire in a cottage over the way beckoning warmly to her, the exile from the chapel of the tender mercies resolved to seek secular shelter. But alas ! she was confronted by an advocate of " might makes right," in the shape of a huge dog, and just escaped with whole skin though capeless jacket. Stern defender this was, no doubt, of Quaker faith as to fitting style of garment. We may be sure there was much talk that night at the home fireside o about " high-seat goggles," meaningless forms, and cant, and stern resolution was taken by the good Baptist wife that no child of hers should attend meeting again till made a mem- ber. " So it was," says Miss Anthony, " by means of a rent in my best jacket that I can lay claim to being a member of any church. Later definite convictions took root in Miss Anthony's heart. Hers is, indeed, a sincerely religious nature, not of the " blue-goggle" sort, but of the humanitarian. To be a simple, earnest Quaker was the aspiration of her girlhood ; but she shrank from adopting the formal language and plain dress. Dark hours of conflict were spent over all this, and she interpreted her disinclination as evidence of un worthiness. Poor little Susan, as we look back with the knowledge of your later life, we translate the heart-burnings as unconscious protests against labelling your free soul, against testing your reasoning conviction of to-morrow by any shibboleth of to- day's belief. We hail this child-intuition as a prophecy of SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 59 the uncompromising truthfulness of the mature woman. Su- san Anthony was trained to no dogmas, taught simply that she must enter into the holy of holies of her own self, meet herself, and be true to the revelation. She first found words to express her convictions in listening to William Henry Channing, whose teaching had a lasting spiritual influence upon her. To-day Miss Anthony is an agnostic ; as to the nature of the Godhead, and of the life beyond her horizon she does not profess to know anything. Every energy of her soul is centred upon the needs of the world. To her work is worship. She has not stood aside shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty ; but has moved on with the whirling world, has done the good given her to do, and thus in darkest hours has been sustained by an unfaltering faith in the final perfection of all things. Her belief is not orthodox, but it is religious, based on the high and severe moralities. In ancient Greece she would have been a Stoic ; in the era of the Reformation, a Calvinist ; in King Charles's time, a Puritan ; but in this nineteenth century, by the very laws of her being, she is a Reformer. For the arduous work that awaited Miss Anthony her years of young womanhood had given preparation. The father, though a man of wealth, made it a matter of conscience to train his girls as well as his boys to honest self-support. Accordingly Susan chose the profession of teacher, and made her first essay during a summer vacation, in a school her father had established for the children of his employees. Her success was so marked, not only in imparting knowledge, but also as a disciplinarian, that she followed this career steadily, with the exception of some months given in Philadelphia to her own training, for fifteen years. Of the may school rebellions which she overcame one rises before me prominent in its ludicrous aspects. Before whirling off into Miss Anthony's broader fields of conquest, let us take a peep into the district school at Centre Falls, in the year 1839. Bad reports were current there of male teachers ignominiously driven out by a certain strapping lad, through open windows. 60 SUSAN B. AXTHONT. Rumor new tells of a Quaker maiden coming to teach, Quaker maiden of peace principles. She can be sent out circum- spectly by open door. She is to be gently dealt with, for she 's against floggings. The anticipated day and Susan arrive. She looks very meek to the barbarian of fifteen, so he soon begins his antics. He is called to the platform, told to lay aside his jacket, and thereupon with much astonishment receives from the mild Quaker maiden, with a birch-rod applied calmly but with precision, an exposition of the argumentum ad hominem based on the a posteriori method of reasoning. Thus Susan departed from her principles, but not from her school. But now there are mighty conflicts in the outside world disturbing our young teacher. Her mind wanders ; the multiplication-table and spelling-book no longer enchain her thoughts ; larger questions begin to fill her mind. About the year 1850 Susan B. Anthony hid her ferule quite away, and put off her laurel crown in teach erdom. Temperance, anti-slavery, woman suffrage, three pregnant questions, presented themselves, demanding consideration. Higher, ever higher, rose their appeals, until she resolved, in the silence of her individual self, to dedicate her every energy and thought to the burning needs of the hour. Owing to early experience of the disabilities of her sex, the first demand for equal rights for women found echo in Susan Anthony's heart. And though she was in the beginning startled to hear that women had actually met in convention, and by speeches and resolutions declared themselves man's peer in political rights, urging radical changes in State constitutions, and the whole system of American jurisprudence ; yet the most casual review convinced her that these claims were but the logical outgrowth of the fundamental theories of our republic. Miss Anthony first carried her red flag of rebellion into the State conventions of teachers, and there fought, almost single- handed, the battle of equality. At the close of the first decade she had compelled conservatism to yield its ground so far as to permit women to participate in all debates, deliver SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 61 essays, vote, and hold honored positions as officers. She labored as sincerely in the temperance movement, until con- vinced that woman's moral power amounted to little as a civil agent until backed by a ballot, and coined into State law. She still never loses an occasion to defend teetotalism and prohibition ; but to every question the refrain of Poe's raven was not more persistently "never more," than Miss Anthony's response, " woman suffrage." It was in 1852 that anti-slavery, through the eloquent lips of such men as Pillsbury, George Thompson, Phillips, and Garrison, first proclaimed to her its pressing necessities. To their inspired words she gave answer four years afterwards by becoming a regularly employed agent in the Anti-Slavery Society. For her espoused cause she has always made boldest demands. In the abolition meetings she used to tell each class why it should support the movement financially, invariably calling upon Democrats to give liberally, as the success of the cause would enable them to cease bowing the o knee to the slave power, and to be "decent sort of men." Mr. Garrison said, the first time he heard this plea, "Well, Miss Anthony, you 're the most audacious beggar I ever heard." There is scarce a town, however small, from New York to San Francisco, that has not heard the ringing voice of our heroine. Who can number the speeches she has made on lyceum platforms, in churches, school-houses, halls, barns, and in the open air, with lumber wagons and carts for her rostrum? Who can describe the varied audiences and social circles she has cheered and interested? Now we see her on the far-off prairies entertaining, with her sterling common sense, large gatherings of men. women, and children, seated on rough boards in some unfinished building ; again, holding public debates in some town with half-fledged editors and clergymen ; next, sailing up the Columbia River, and, in hot haste to meet some appointment, jolting over the rough mountains of Oregon and Washington Territories ; and, then, before legislative assemblies, constitutional conventions, and 62 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. congressional committees, discussing with senators and judges the letter and spirit of constitutional law. Miss Anthony's style of speaking is rapid and vehement ; in debate, ready and keen ; and she is always equal to an emergency. Many times in travelling with her through the West, especially on our first trip to Kansas and California, we were suddenly called on to speak to the women assembled at the stations. Filled with consternation, I usually appealed to her to go first ; and, without a moment's hesitation, she could always fill five minutes with some appropriate words, and inspire me with thoughts and courage to follow. The climax of these occasions was in an institution for the deaf and dumb in Michigan. I had just said to my friend, " There is one comfort in visiting this place, we shall not be asked to speak," when the superintendent approaching us said, "Ladies, the pupils are assembled in the chapel ready to hear you. I promised to invite you to speak to them as soon as I heard you were in town." The possibility of addressing such an audience was as novel to Miss Anthony as to me ; yet she promptly walked down the aisle to the platform as if to per- form an ordinary duty, while I, half distracted with anxiety, wondering by what process I was to be placed in communi- cation with the deaf and dumb, reluctantly followed. But the manner was simple enough when illustrated. The super- intendent, standing by our side, repeated in the sign language what was said as fast as uttered, and by tears, laughter, and earnest attention the pupils showed that they fully appreciated the pathos, humor, and argument. One night, crossing the Mississippi at McGregor, Iowa, we were ice-bound in the middle of the river. The boat was crowded with people, standing hungry, tired, cross with the delay. Some gentlemen, with whom we had been talking on the cars, started the cry for a speech on woman suffrage. Accordingly, in the middle of the Mississippi river, at mid- night, we presented our claims to political representation, and debated the question of universal suffrage until we landed. Our voyagers were quite thankful that we had shortened the SUSAN 3. ANTHONY. 63 many hours, and we equally so at having made several con- verts, and held a convention in the very bosom of the great "Father of Waters." Only once in all these wanderings was Miss Anthony taken by surprise, and that was on being asked to speak to the inmates of an insane asylum. "Bless me," said she, " it is as much as I can do to talk to the sane ! What could I say to an audience of lunatics?" Her com- panion, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, of St. Louis, replied, " This is a golden moment for you, the first opportunity you have ever had, according to the constitutions, to talk to your 'peers'; for is not the right of suffrage denied to 'idiots, criminals, lunatics, and women?" Much curiosity has been expressed as to the love-life of Miss Anthony ; but if she has enjoyed or suffered any of the usual triumphs or disappointments of her sex she has not yet vouchsafed this information to her biographers. While few women have had more sincere and lasting friendships, or a more extensive correspondence with a large circle of noble men, yet I doubt if one of them can boast of having received from her any exceptional attention. She has often playfully said, when questioned on this point, that she could not con- sent that the man she loved, described in the constitution as a white male, native-born, American citizen, possessed of the right of self-government, eligible to the office of President of the great Republic, should unite his destinies in marriage with a political slave and pariah. " No, no ; when I am crowned with all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a citizen, I may give some consideration to these social prob- lems ; but until then I must concentrate all my energies on the enfranchisement of my own sex." Miss Anthony's love- life, like her religion, has manifested itself in steadfast, earnest labors for man in general. She has been a watchful and affectionate daughter, sister, friend ; and those who have felt the pulsations of her great heart, know how warmly it beats for all. As the custom has long been observed among married women of celebrating the anniversaries of their wedding-day, 64 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. quite properly the initiation has been taken, in late years, of doing honor to the great events in the lives of single women. Being united in closest matrimony to her profession, Dr. Har- riet K. Hunt, of Boston, celebrated her twenty-fifth year of faithful service as a physician by giving to her friends and patrons a large reception, which she called her silver-wed- ding. From a feeling of the sacredness of her life-work, the admirers of Susan B. Anthony have been moved to mark by reception and conventions her rapid flowing years, and the passing decades of the suffrage movement. To the most brilliant occasion of this kind, the invitation cards, finely engraved, with the letters " W. B " elaborately wrought in an embossed monogram, were as follows : " The ladies of the Woman's Bureau invite you to a reception on Tuesday evening, February 15, to celebrate the fiftieth birth- day of Susan B. Anthony, when her friends will have an oppor- tunity to show their appreciation of her long services in behalf of woman's emancipation. " ELIZABETH B. PHELPS, "ANNA B. DARLING, " CHARLOTTE BEEBE WILBOUR. "49 EAST 23o STREET, NEW YORK, February 10, 1870." In response to the invitation the parlors at the Bureau were crowded with friends to congratulate Miss Anthony on the happy event, many bringing valuable gifts as an expression of their gratitude. Among other presents were a handsome gold watch, and checks to the amount of a thousand dollars. The guests were entertained with music, recitations, the read- ing of many piquant letters of regret from distinguished peo- ple, and witty rhymes, written for the occasion by the Gary sisters. Miss Anthony received her guests with her usual straightforward simplicity, and in a few earnest w^ords ex- pressed her thanks for the presents and praises showered upon her. The comments of the leading journals next day were highly complimentary and as genial as amusing. All dwelt on the fact that at last a woman had arisen brave SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 65 enough to assert her right to grow old, and openly declare that half a century had rolled over her head. As a writer Miss Anthony is clear and concise, dealing in facts rather than rhetoric. Of carefully-prepared written speeches she has had few ; but these, by the high praise they called forth, prove that she can in spite of her own declara- tion to the contrary put her sterling thoughts on paper concisely and effectively. After her exhaustive plea in 1880 for a XVIth Amendment before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, Senator Edmunds accosted her as she was leaving the Capitol, and said he neglected to tell her in the committee- room that she had made an argument, no matter what his personal feelings were as to the conclusions reached, which was unanswerable, an argument, unlike the usual platform oratory given at hearings, suited to a committee of men trained to the law. It was in 1876 that Miss Anthony gave her much criticised lecture on "Social Purity" in Boston. As to the result she felt very anxious ; for the intelligence of New England com- posed her audience, and it did not still her heart-beats to see sitting just in front of the platform her revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison. But surely every fear vanished when she felt the grand old abolitionist's hand warmly press- ing hers, and heard him say, that to listen to no one else would he have had courage to leave his sick-room, and that he felt fully repaid by her grand speech, which neither in matter nor manner would he have changed in the smallest particular. But into Miss Anthony's private correspondence one must look for examples of her most effective writings. Verb or subject is usually wanting, but you can always catch the thought, and will ever find it clear and suggestive. It is a strikingly strange dialect, but one that touches at times the deepest chords of pathos and humor, and, when stirred by some great event, is highly eloquent. From being the most ridiculed and mercilessly persecuted woman, Miss Anthony has become the most honored and re- spected in the nation. Witness the praises of press and peo- 66 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. pie, and the enthusiastic ovations she received on her depart- ure for Europe. Never were warmer expressions of regret for an absence, nor more sincere prayers for a speedy return, accorded any American on leaving his native shores. This slow awaking to the character of her services shows the abid- ing sense of justice in the human soul, that, sooner or later, seeks to atone for the martyrdom of those who are called to expiate the sins of the people. Having spent the winter of 1882-3 in Washington, trying to press to a vote the bill for a XVI th Amendment before Congress, and the autumn in a vigorous campaign through Nebraska, where a constitutional amendment to enfranchise women had been submitted to the people, she felt the imperative need of an entire change in the current of her thoughts. Accordingly, after one of the most successful conventions ever held at the national capital, and a most flattering ovation in the spacious parlors of the Riggs House, she went to Philadelphia. Here she was given another public reception by the Citizens' Suffrage Associa- tion, whose president, Mr. Robert Purvis, presented to her, in the name of the society, an engraved testimonial of their regard and allegiance. To some it may suggest a pregnant thought that the date of Miss Anthony's departure for Europe was the birthday anniversary of the first President of the United States. Fortunate in being perfectly well during the entire voyage, our traveller received perpetual enjoyment in watching the ever-varying sea and sky. To the captain's merry challenge to find anything so grand as the ocean, she replied : " Yes, these mighty forces in nature do indeed fill me with awe ; but this vessel, with deep-buried fires, powerful machinery, spacious decks, and tapering masts, walking the waves like a thing of life, and all the work of man, impresses one still more deeply. Lo ! in man's divine creative power is fulfilled the prophecy, ' Ye shall be as gods ! ' " In all her journeyings through Germany, Italy, and France, Miss Anthony was never the traveller, but always the humanitarian incognito, the reformer in traveller's guise. SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 67 Few of the great masterpieces of art gave her real enjoy- ment ; the keen appreciation of the beauties of sculpture, painting, architecture, one would have expected to find in so deep a religious nature, was wanting, warped, no doubt, by her early training in Quaker utilities. That her travels gave her more pain than pleasure, was, perhaps, not so much that she had no appreciation of aesthetic beauty, but that she quickly grasped the infinitude of human misery ; not because her soul did not feel the heights to which art had risen, but that it vibrated in every fibre to the depths to which man- kind had fallen. Wandering through a gorgeous palace one day, she exclaimed, "What do you find to admire here? If it were a school of five hundred children being educated into the right of self-government, I could admire it, too ; but standing for one man's pleasure, I say, No ! " In the quarters of one of the devotees, at the old monastery of the Certosa, there lies, on a small table, an open book in which visitors register themselves. On the occasion of Miss Anthony's visit the pen and ink proved so unpromising that her entire party declined this opportunity to make themselves famous. But our heroine looked higher than individual glory, and made the rebellious pen inscribe the principle, "Perfect equality for woman, social, political, religious. Susan B. Anthony, U. S. A." Friends who visited the monastery next day reported that lines had been drawn through this heretical sentiment. During her visit at the Berlin home of Senator and Mrs. Sargent, Miss Anthony quite innocently posted her letters in the official envelopes of the Suffrage Association of Amer- ica. After the revolutionary sentiment, " No just govern- ment can be formed without the consent of the governed," printed on the outside, had been carefully examined by the German officials, all the letters were returned ; prob- ably nothing saving her from arrest as a socialist under the tyrannical police regulations but the fact that she was the guest of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States. 5 68 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. Miss Anthony's host, during her visit in Paris, writes : "I had never before seen her in the rdle of tourist. She seemed interested only in historical monuments and in the men and questions of the hour. The galleries of the Louvre had little attraction for her, but she gazed with deep pleasure at Napo- leon's tomb, Notre Dame, and the ruins of the Tuilleries. She was always ready to listen to discussions on the political problems before the French people, the prospects of the republic, the divorce agitation, and the revolution in favor of women's instruction. f l had rather see Jules Ferry than all the pictures of the Louvre, Luxembourg, and Salon,' she remarked at table. A day or two later she saw Ferry at Laboulaye's funeral. The three things which made the deepest impression on Miss Anthony, during her stay at Paris, were probably the interment of Laboulaye, the friend of the United States and of the women's movement ; the touching anniversary demonstration of the Communists, at the Cemetery of Pere La Chaise, on the very spot where the last defenders of the Commune of 1871 were ruthlessly shot and buried in a common grave ; and a woman's rights meet- ing, held in a little hall in the Rue de Rivoli, at which the brave, far-seeing Mile. Hubertine Auchet was the leading spirit. While on the continent, Miss Anthony experienced the unfortunate sensation of being deaf and dumb ; to speak and not be understood, to hear and not comprehend, were to her bitter realities. We can imagine to what desperation she was brought, when her Quaker prudishness could hail an emphatic oath in English from a French official with the exclamation, "Well, it sounds good to hear some one even swear in old Anglo-Saxon ! " After two months of enforced silence, she was buoyant in reaching the British Islands once more, where she could enjoy public speaking and general con- versation. Here she was the recipient of many generous social attentions, and on May 25 a large public meeting of representative people, presided over by John Bright, was called in her honor by the National Association of Great SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 69 Britain. She spoke on the educational and political status of America, leaving to me the religious and social position of our countrywomen. Before closing my friend's biography, I shall trace two golden threads in this closely-woven life of incident. One of the greatest services rendered by Miss Anthony to the suffrage cause was in casting a vote in the Presidential election of 1872, in order to test her rights under the XlVth Amendment. For this offence the brave woman was arrested on Thanksgiving Day,- the national holiday handed down to us by Pilgrim Fathers escaped from England's persecutions. New World republicanism, based on inconsistencies, does not contrast favorably with Old World injustice, founded on pro- scriptive rights. But this farce of the equities hastens on quickly to its close. Miss Anthony appeals for a ivrit of habeas corpus. The writ being flatly refused her in January, 1873, the courtly counsel gives bonds. Our daring defendant, finding, when too late, that this not only keeps her out of jail, but her case out of the Supreme Court of the United States, regretfully determines to fight on and gain the utter- most by a State decision. Her trial is appointed for the Rochester term in May. Quickly she canvasses the whole country, laying before every probable juror the strength of her case. The time of trial arrives ; but the Attorney-Gen- eral, fearing the result if decision be left to a jury drawn from Miss Anthony's enlightened county, postpones the trial to the Ontario County Session, in June, 1873. Another county is now to be instructed in all its length and breadth. So short is the time that Miss Anthony asked and received valuable assistance from Matilda Joslyn Gage ; and to meet all this new expense, financial aid was generously given, unsolicited, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Gerrit Smith, and other sympathizers. But in vain was every effort ; in vain the appeal of Miss Anthony to her jurors ; in vain the logical argument of her gifted counsel, Henry R. Selden ; in vain the moral influence of the leading representatives of the bar of Central New York filling the court-room, for Judge Hunt, 70 SUSAN B. ANTHCXNT. without sympathy or precedent to sustain him, declaring it a case of law and not fact, refuses to give the case to the jury, reserving to himself final decision. Is it not an historic scene being enacted here in this little court-house of Canandaigua ? Do we not witness there all the inconsistencies embodied in this judge, so punctilious in manner, so scrupulous in attire, so conscientious in trivialities, and so obtuse on great prin- ciples, fitly described by Charles O' Conner, " a very lady-like judge." Behold him sitting there, balancing all the niceties of law and equity in his Old World scales, and at last saying, w The prisoner will stand up. [Whereupon the accused arose.] The sentence of the court is, that you pay a fine of one hun- dred dollars and the costs of the prosecution." Strange, unruly defendant, this : " May it please your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty,' 4 and more to the same effect, all of which she has lived up to. The "lady- like " judge has gained some insight into the determination of the prisoner ; so, not wishing to incarcerate her to all eternity, he adds gently, ''Madame, the court will not order you committed until the fine is paid.'' It was on the 17th of June that the verdict was given ; the decision was a victory for the inconsistencies. On that very day, a little more than a century before, other injustices gained in an encounter with truth. The brave militia was driven back at Bunker's Hill, back, back, almost wiped out ; yet truth was in their ranks, and justice, too ; but how ended this rebellion of weak colonists? The cause of American womanhood, embodied for the moment in the liberty of a single individual, received a rebuff on June 17, 1873 ; but just so sure as our Revolutionary heroes were in the end victorious, so sure will the alienable rights of our heroines of the nineteenth century receive final vindication. In his speech of 1880 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard, Wendell Phillips said what as a rule is true that a reformer to be conscientious must be free from bread- winning. I should like to open my heroine's account-book and show that this reformer, being perhaps the exception SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 71 which proves the rule, has been consistently and conscien- tiously in debt. Turning over her year-books the pages give a fair record up to 1863. Here begins her first herculean labor. The Woman's Loyal League, sadly in need of funds, is not an incorporated association, so its secretary assumes the debts. Accounts here became quite lamentable, the deficit reaching five thousand dollars. It must be paid, and, in fact, will be paid. Anxious, weary hours were spent in crowding Cooper Institute, from week to week, with paid audiences, to listen to such men as Phillips, Curtis, and Douglass, who contributed their services, and lifted the secretary out of debt. Next a cunning device was resorted to in asking the people who signed petitions against slavery to contribute a cent each. "Audacious beggar," this? Yes, and successful, too. At last, after many wanderings, we see cash- book 1863 honorably pigeon-holed. In 1867 we can read account of herculean labor the second. Twenty thousand tracts are needed to convert the voters of Kansas to woman suffrage. That occasions all the sorry plights revealed in the accounts of this year. Travelling expenses to Kansas and the rebellious tracts make the debtor column overreach the creditor some two thousand dollars. There is recognition on these pages of more than one thousand dollars obtained by soliciting advertisements, but no note is made of the weary, burning July days spent in the streets of New York to procure this money, nor of the ready application of the savings made by petty economies from her salary from the Hovey Committee. Enough is it to say that herculean labor number two reached a victorious conclusion cash-book 1867 honorable burial in some pigeon-hole ; and chiefest wonder, that our bread-winning reformer remained conscientiously faithful to the truth revealed in her. It would have been fortunate for our brave Susan, if cash- books 1868, 1869, and 1870 had never come down from their shelves ; for they sing and sing in notes of debts till all unite in one vast chorus of more than ten thousand dollars. These were the days of the " He volution," the newspaper, not the war, 72 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. though this was warfare for the debt-ridden manager. What is to be done? is the question. Well, five thousand dollars she paid with her fees for lecturing, and with money given her for personal use. One Thanksgiving was in truth a time of returning thanks; for she received, cancelled, from her cousin, Mr. Lapham, her note for four thousand dollars. After the funeral of Paulina Wright Davis, the bereaved widower pressed into Miss Anthony's hand cancelled notes for five hundred dollars, bearing on the back the words, " In memory of my beloved wife." One other note was cancelled in recognition of her perfect forgetfulness of self-interest and ready sacrifice to the needs of others. When laboring in 1874 to fill every engagement in order to meet her debts her mother's sudden illness called her home. Without one selfish regret, the anxious daughter hastened to Rochester. When recovery was certain, and Miss Anthony was about to return to her fatiguing labors, her mother gave her at parting her note for a thousand dollars, on which was written, in trembling lines, " In just consideration of the tender sacrifice made to nurse me in severe illness." At last all the "Revolu- tion " debt was paid, except that due to her generous sister, Mary Anthony, who used often humorously to assure her she was a fit subject for the bankrupt act. But nothing daunted, this Hercules of the nineteenth century vanquished creditor after creditor, and in 1876 cash-books of revolutionary epoch were safely pigeon-holed. There is something humorously pathetic in the death of this first-born of Miss Anthony, whose life proved too rebellious and erratic for even her democratic nature. Mrs. Laura Curtis Bullard generously assumed the care of the trouble- some child, and in order to make the adoption legal, gave the usual one dollar greenback. The very night of the transfer Miss Anthony went to Rochester with the almighty dollar in her pocket, and the little change left after purchas- ing her ticket. She arrived safely with her debts, but nothing more, her pocket had been picked ! Oh, thief, would you could but know what value of faithful work you purloined ! SUSAN B. ANTH01S[Y. 73 From the close of the year 1876, annals show favorable signs as to the credit column ; indeed, at the end of five years, there is a solid balance of several thousand dollars earned on severe lecturing tours. But alas ! the accounts grow dim again, in fact, credit column fades quite away. Herculean labor in form of " Woman Suffrage History " rises up, and ruthlessly swallows every vestige of Miss Anthony's bank account, excepting one thousand dollars reserved for the European trip. Within the past two years she has been left some twenty thousand dollars, in trust for the cause of woman suffrage, by the will of Mrs. Eddy, daughter of Francis Jack- son ; but, as the will is in litigation, no part of the money has as yet been received. In vain will you search these tell-tale books for evidence of personal extravagance ; for although Miss Anthony thinks it true economy to buy the best, and like Carlyle dislikes shams, her tastes are simple even to Quaker excess. Is there not something very touching in the fact that she has never bought even a book or picture for her own enjoyment? The meagre, personal balance-sheets show but four lapses from severest discipline, lapses that she even now regards as ruthless ex- travagances, the purchase of two inexpensive brooches, a much-needed watch, and a pair of cuffs to match a point-lace collar presented by a friend. Long since, friends interested in Miss Anthony's personal appearance have ceased to trust her with the purchase-money for any ornament ; for, however firm her resolution to comply with y our wish, the check invariably finds its way to the credit column of these same little cash-books as " money received for the cause." Now, reader, you have been admitted to a private view of Miss Anthony's financial records, and you can appreciate her devo- tion to an idea. Do you not agree with me that a " bread- winner " can be a conscientious reformer ? In finishing this sketch of the most intimate friend I have had for the past thirty years, with whom I have spent weeks and months under the same roof, I can truly say she is the most upright, courageous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous 74 SUSAN B. ANTHONY. human being I have ever known. I have seen her beset on every side with the most petty annoyances, ridiculed and mis- represented, slandered and persecuted ; I have known women refuse to take her extended hand without vouchsafing an explanation, women to whom she presented handsomely bound copies of the " History of Woman Suffrage," return it unnoticed, others keep it without one word of acknowledg- ment, others write most insulting "letters in answer to hers of affectionate conciliation. And yet, under all the cross-fires incident to a reform, never has her hope flagged, her self- respect wavered, nor a feeling of revenge shadowed her mind. Oftentimes when I have been sorely discouraged, thinking that the prolonged struggle was a waste of forces, that in other directions might be rich in achievement, with her sub- lime faith in humanity, she would breathe into my soul renewed inspiration, saying, " Pity rather than blame those who persecute us." In their present condition of slavery women cannot have any esprit de corps ; they are the victims of gen- erations of bigotry, prejudice, and oppression. If you can- not stand the malignity of an enemy, and the treason of a friend, where and how can I reinforce myself for the conflict. Thus have we supplemented each other ; and through these long years, though striving, side by side, as writers, as speakers in conventions and on the lyceum platform, and as officers in an influential national society, never has a single break come in our friendship, never has one feeling of envy marred the happiness of each in the success of the other. So closely interwoven have been our lives, our purposes, and experiences, that separated we have a feeling of incomplete- ness, united such strength of self-assertion that no ordinary obstacles, difficulties, or dangers ever appear to us insur- mountable. Eeviewing the life of Susan B. Anthony, I ever liken her to the Doric column in Grecian architecture, so simply, so grandly she stands, free from every extraneous ornament, supporting her one vast idea, the enfranchise- ment of woman. CHAPTER III. CATHERINE E. BEECHER. BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. A Leaf from Dr. Lyman Beecher's Diary The Old Parsonage at Litchfield Miss Beecher's Early Education Her Keen Sense of Humor A Sprightly Poem Lines Written on the Death of Her Mother Her First Published Poems "Who is this C. D. D. ?" Engagement to Prof. Alexander M. Fisher Bright Prospects for the Future Prof. Fisher Sails for England Shipwreck of the " Albion," and Death of Prof. Fisher The Survivor's Narrative of the Shipwreck Effect of the Distress- ing News Miss Beecher Establishes the Hartford Female Seminary Her Energy and Incessant Activity Last years of Her Life Her Death Lines Written to a Dying Friend. gfe.ISS CATHERINE E. BEECHER, celebrated in a past generation as a leader in the cause of female education, was the oldest child of the numerous family of Dr. Lyman Beecher. She was born at East Hampton, an obscure parish on the shores of Long Island Sound, where her fathers ministerial career commenced. Among the family relics is a leaf from Dr. Beecher's diary, a fragment yellow with age and bearing the following entry : "SATURDAY, September 6, 1800. "This moment, blessed be God, my dear, dear wife is delivered of a daughter, and my soul, my very soul from agony. Oh, may I never forget the goodness of God who has heard our prayer. Jesus ! Thou former of the body and father of the spirit, accept as Thine the immortal soul Thou hast ushered into life. Take, O take it to be Thine before it cling round my heart, and never suffer us to take it back again. May it live to glorify Thee on earth, and to 75 76 CATHERINE E. BEECHEK. enjoy Thee forever in heaven. Now, Lord, we look to Thee for grace to help us rear it for Thee, may it be Thine forever, Amen and Amen." The spirit of devout earnestness expressed in this relic was characteristic of the whole life of Dr. Beecher. His minis- terial career, afterwards so celebrated, commenced in earnest missionary labors in this obscure field. Every night during the week he held some meeting along the shore, now among the Montauk Indians and now in a little settlement of free blacks, and again in the East Hampton village proper. The first nine years of Miss Beecher's life were spent in this region. As her father's eldest child she became his compan- ion, and often was taken in the old chaise between him and her mother to his pastoral visitations. Mrs. Beecher was a woman uniting a rare culture with great strength and sweet- ness. As the salary of the parish was a limited one, she opened a family school, receiving a select number of young ladies to study under her instruction. She was aided in these cares by a sister, a lady of great beauty, elegance, and refinement, to whose early instructions Miss Beecher often recurred as having a strong influence upon her life. In her ninth year Dr. Beecher removed to Litchfield, Conn., a mountain town celebrated alike for the beauty of its scenery and the exceptional cultivation and refinement of its inhabitants. The law school under Judge Reeves, and sub- sequently under Judge Gould, drew to the place students from every part of the Union. The female seminary, under Miss Sarah Pearse, and Mr. J. P. Brace, drew every year hundreds of young ladies while the resident families of the town numbered many of a class distinguished by intel- lectual culture and refinement. The house, which was bought by Dr. Beecher, and which is remembered still as the early home of the family, was a large, plain, old-fashioned mansion, shaded by elms and maples. The front windows commanded a beautiful prospect, where the waters of two lovely lakes gleamed out from encircling forests of pines, and the blue outlines of Mount Tom rose CATHERINE E. BEECHER 77 in the distance. On another side the wooded heights of Chestnut Hills were covered with a veil of native forest trees, which in spring, summer, and autumn gave a rich and varied horizon of verdure. The village street was wide and green, overshadowed with lofty trees, and giving glimpses through deep, shady yards of the ample white houses which, encircled by stately, old-fashioned gardens, stood in summer- time with doors and windows hospitably open. Here, under the care of Miss Pearse, Miss Beecher began her career as a school-girl. Possessed of perfect health and an unfailing store of cheer- fulness and energy, warm-hearted, enthusiastic, and vigorous, Catherine Beecher was a universal favorite, both with teach- ers and companions. In music, painting, poetry, and general literature she evinced both taste and talent, she soon learned to play on the piano, and sing quite a repertoire of the songs and ballads then in vogue. She also showed an early and ready talent for versification, and at a very early age her poetical effusions were handed about among her family friends, and helped diversify the routine of the parson- age. Most of them were of a sprightly and humorous turn, called forth by some domestic chance or mischance, such as the breaking of the largest dish in a new dinner-service, which was thus bewailed : " High mounted on the dresser's side, Our brown-edged platter stood with pride ! A neighboring door flew open wide, Knocked out its brains, and straight, it died. " Come, kindred platters, with me mourn, Hither, ye plates and dishes, turn ! Knives, forks, and carvers, all give ear, And each drop a dish-water tear ! " No more with smoking roast-beef crowned Shall guests this noble dish surround, Roast pig no more here show his vizard, Nor goose nor even goose's gizzard. 78 CATHERINE E. BEECHER. " But broken-hearted must it go Down to the dismal shades below, While kitchen muses, platters, plates, Knives, forks, and spoons upbraid the Fates ; With streaming tears cry out " I never," Our brown-edged platter's gone forever ! Another sprightly lyric detailed the nocturnal capers and frolics of the rats that infested the walls of the old parsonage, and were set forth under the title of " The Great Ratification Meeting." In her later years Miss Beecher amused herself with collecting and arranging the memorials of these early days in Litchfield, under the head of " The Merriment and Romance of My Early Life," and often said, in looking back, that her young life seemed to her one continued frolic. Picnics, promenades, concerts, parties of pleasure, in all of which she was the animating spirit, succeeded each other with the varying months. In her sixteenth year came the first stroke that taught her the reality of life. On the night of September 25, 1816, after a short illness, her mother died, the mother who had been to her teacher, friend, and guide for so many years. Instead of gay and fanciful lyrics, she now wrote in a graver, sadder strain, lines entitled " The East Graveyard of Litchfield " : " The busy hum of day is o'er, The scene is sweet and still, And modest eve, with blushes warm, Walks o'er the western hill ; " All nature round looks sweetly sad, And smiles with pensive gloom, The evening breeze soft gliding by Seems sighing o'er the tomb. " The great, the good, the weak, the wise, Lie shrouded here in gloom, And here, with aching heart, I mark My own dear mother's tomb. CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 79 " Oh, as upon her peaceful grave I fix my weeping eyes, How many fond remembrances In quick succession rise. " Again I see her gentle form, As when in infant days, And through my sporting childish years, She guarded all my ways. " As when, w r ith fond and anxious care, She watched my early day, And through the dangerous snares of youth She gently cleared my way. " Far through the vista of past years As memory can extend, She walked, my counsellor and guide, My guardian and my friend. " From works of science and of taste, How richly stored her mind ; And yet how mild in all her ways, How modest, meek, and kind. "Religion's pure and heavenly light Illumined all her road ; Before her house she led the way To virtue and to God. " Like some fair orb she blessed my way With mild and grateful light ; Till called from hence the opening heavens Received Ler from my sight. left in dark and dubious paths, I mourn her guidance o'er, And sorrow that my longing eyes Shall see her face no more. " Father in Heaven ! my mother's God, Oh, grant before Thy seat, Among the blessed sons of light, Parent and child again may meet. 80 CATHERINE E. BEECHER. " There may I see her happy face, And hear her gentle voice, And gladdened by Thy gracious smile Through endless years rejoice." The death of the mother brought upon her, as the eldest daughter of the family, many cares and responsibilities. Though only sixteen years of age, she was the eldest of a family of eight children, and, having always been treated by her father as a companion, she sympathized with him fully in the sorrows and anxieties of this bereavement. When, there- fore, after a suitable interval, lier father announced to her that he had found a lady of culture and piety willing to assume the cares and labors of the head of his family, Miss Beecher at once with generous openness wrote a letter of welcome to the prospective stepmother, and a friendship arose between the two which continued through life. Under the new organization the parsonage became a centre of a very charming, cultivated circle of society, where music, painting, and poetry, all combined to shed a charm over life. Parties were formed for reading, and at these parties original compositions were often handed in and read. Mr. J. P. Brace and Miss Beecher simultaneously took up the idea of writing poems, the scene of which should be laid in Litchfield during the time when it existed as an Indian village, called Bantam. Both these poems were presented and read, and circulated in manuscript through the appreciative circles of Litchfield. At that time there was no daily press, and none of those magazines which now stimulate the young composer to rush into print. The literature thus confined to an appreciative circle had a charm of its own, uninvaded by sneering criticism, and certainly added to the interest of the Litchfield society. Miss Beecher's ballad of "Yala" possessed no mean poetic merit as tiie composition of a girl of seventeen, and was circulated even among the literary circles of New Haven. CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 81 Dr. Beecher, who had risen into the front ranks of influence in Connecticut, at this time, in concert with the literary gen- tlemen connected with Yale College, projected the idea of a monthly magazine of literature and theology to be called the w Christian Spectator." Dr. Beecher was a regular contributor under the signature "D.D." Miss Beecher's first published poems appeared in this under the signature " C. D. D." These poems first drew towards her the notice of one, her connection with whom was destined to reverse the whole course of her life. The young professor of mathematics, Alex- ander M. Fisher, was led to inquire of a friend, " Who is this r C. D. D.' that writes these poems ?" and the replies that he received so far increased his interest that he asked a class- mate who was to supply Dr. Beecher's pulpit for a Sabbath to allow him to accompany him. As Professor Fisher had hitherto avoided society, and lived a life of scholarly seclu- sion, this step was the more remarkable. Miss Beecher, how- ever, devoted herself to his entertainment, played and sang for him, and knowing that he was an accomplished musician, drew him out of his diffidence and reserve to play and sing in return, and in fact made his visit so delightful that the memory of it followed him back to his study. After a while, hearing from different sources of the lady who had so interested him, he wrote a frank and manly letter to Dr. Beecher, avowing his interest, and begging permis- sion to seek the regard of his daughter, and soliciting his aid in providing opportunities. As Miss Beecher was very soon going to take a place as teacher of music and painting in New London, it was easily arranged that she should on her way spend a week in New Haven, at the house of a mutual friend. After a week of devoted attention, Professor Fisher announced to Dr. Beecher that he was going to Massachu-* setts in a chaise to bring back his sister, and that he would be happy to take Miss Beecher to New London, and so it was arranged. A correspondence followed, in which the delicacy and elegance of his mind, his high principle and keen sense of honor were displayed, while a vein of gentle humor gave a 82 CATHERINE E. BEECHER. grace to scholarly exactness. To this correspondence fol- lowed an engagement, and it was arranged that immediately on Professor Fisher's return from a tour in Europe the mar- riage was to take place. On all hands Miss Beecher received congratulations. Professor Fisher had already distinguished himself in his department of science, and was now going abroad to form the acquaintance of scientists and to observe the methods of teaching in European universities, with a view of improving his department in Yale College. The prospect before Miss Beecher was of a home in the beautiful rural city of New Haven, in cultured literary society, and at the distance of only an hour or two from father and home. Nothing could be asked on her own part or that of her friends more perfectly desirable. But like a stroke of lightning from a clear sky came the news in a letter to Dr. Beecher, that on the 22d of April the "Albion" in which Professor Fisher had sailed was wrecked on Kinsale Point, and that every passenger but one had perished. Miss Beecher was prostrated by the stroke both in mind and body, and was for some time unable to leave her room. The small glimmer of hope which the saving of one passenger afforded was soon extinguished by further particulars. The sole survivor, Mr. Everhard, thus described the dreadful catastrophe. After saying that a heavy sea had carried away the masts of the "Albion," stove in the hatchways, and carried off the wheel which enabled them to steer, he adds : "All night long the wind blew a gale directly on shore, towards which the ' Albion ' was drifting at the rate of about three miles an hour. The complete hopelessness of our situation was known to few except Captain Williams. The coast was familiar to him ; and he must have seen in despair and horror throughout the night the certainty of our fate. " At length the ocean dashing and roaring upon the preci- pice of rocks under the lee of the ship told us that the hour had come. Captain Williams summoned all on deck, and briefly told us that the ship must soon strike ; it was impos- CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 83 sible to preserve her. We were crowded about the fore- castle, our view curtained by the darkest night I ever beheld, surrounded by waves running mountains high, propelled by a tremendous storm towards an iron-bound shore. The rocks, whose towering heads appeared more than a hundred feet above the level of the sea, against whose side the mighty waves beat with unremitting fury, by their terrific collision gave the only light by which we were enabled to see our unavoidable fate and final destruction. The sea beating for ages against this perpendicular precipice has worn large caverns into its base, into which the waves rush violently with a sound re-echoing like distant thunder, then running out in various directions, form whirlpools of great force. For a perch or two from the precipice rocks rise out of the water, broad at bottom and sharp at top ; on one of these, just at the gray of dawn, the ' Albion ' first struck. The next wave threw her further on the rock, the third further still, until, nearly balanced, she swung round and her stern was driven against another nearer in shore. " In this situation, every wave making a breach over her, many were drowned on deck. It is not possible to conceive the horrors of our situation. The deadly and relentless blast impelling us to destruction ; the ship a wreck the raging of the billows against the precipice on which we were driving the sending back from the caverns and the rocks the hoarse and melancholy warnings of death dark, coid, and wet in such a situation the stoutest heart must have quailed in utter despair. When there is a ray of hope there may be a corresponding buoyancy of spirit. When there is anything to be done, the active man may drown the sense of danger while actively exerting himself; but here there was nothing to do but to die. Every moment might be considered the last. Terror and despair seized upon the most of us with the iron grasp of death, augmented by the wild shrieks of the females, expressive of their terror. Major Gough, of the British army, remarked, that f Death, come as he would, was an unwelcome messenger, but we must meet him as we O ' 6 g4 CATHERINE E. BEECHER. could.' Very little was said by others ; the men waiting the expected shock in silence. " Presently the ship broke in two, and all those who re- mained near the bow were lost. Several from the stern of the ship had got on the side of the precipice and were hang- ing by the crags as they could. Although weakened by previous sickness and present suffering, I made an eifort and got upon the rock, and stood on one foot, the only hold that I could obtain. I saw several around me, and among the rest Colonel Prevost, who observed on seeing me take my station, 'here is another poor fellow !' but the waves rolled heavily against us, and often dashing its spray fifty feet over our heads, gradually swept those who had taken refuge one by one away. One poor fellow, losing his hold, as he fell caught me by the leg, and nearly pulled me from my place. Weak and sick as I was, I stood several hours on one foot on a little crag, the billows dashing over me, benumbed with cold. "As soon as it was light, and the tide ebbed so as to render it possible, the people descended the rocks as far as they could, and dropped a rope which I fastened round my body, and was drawn out to a place of safety." Such were the distressing images which gathered around a loss in itself great and irreparable. Some lines written at this time express the sufferings and sorrows of those days : " Where can the sorrowing heart find peace Whose every throb is filled with woe ; When can the aching head find rest, And bitter tears no longer flow ? "Wisdom with kind, inviting voice, Directs the soul to paths of peace ; And points the weeping eye to heaven, Where pain shall end and sorrow cease. "But vain her call the wayward heart, Its best hopes wrecked, its comfort o'er, Wanders despairing and unblest, To Erin's cliffs and dismal shore. CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 85 " There where the dark and stormy wave, Hides the dear form forever lost ; Still hovers round uncomforted, Afflicted, lone, and tempest-tossed. " Oh, Saviour, at whose sovereign word The winds and waves of sorrow cease ; Thou seest my tears, thou hear'st my sighs, Speak but the word and all is peace. " Be thou my trust while I resign, The dearest boon thy mercy gave ; And yield my cherished earthly hopes To Erin's cliffs and ocean's wave." It was not at once that the peace so ardently desired was attained. It is not without a struggle that the soul can accept heavenly hopes in place of earthly joys. Miss Beecher at the earnest solicitation of Professor Fisher's parents went to visit them, and spent several months of the ensuing season, and at first the visit seemed only to intensify her sense of loss. She wrote thus to her father : " I am now sitting by the fireside which has so often been cheered by the most dutiful son, the most affectionate brother, and the dearest friend. His beautiful picture is hanging be- fore me, his piano is near, his parents, brothers, and sisters around. I have read letters to his family where are disclosed the dutiful, affectionate feelings of his generous heart. I have seen with what almost idolatrous affection he was beloved by his family, and how dear a place I find in all their hearts for his sake, who loved me so truly alas, I knew but little how tenderly I was beloved till his heart was stilled in death, but now I every day discover renewed proofs of his affection and care. Is it strange that I sometimes feel that my sorrow is greater than I can bear? Oh, that the clouds and darkness that are around Him who made me, might pass away ! " In a more cheerful strain she describes their family life : " Every evening we gather around the par- lor fireside to talk over past days. His brother and two gfl CATHERINE E. BEECHEK. sisters have the sweetest voices I ever heard, and as they all sing by note and can read music readily, and have a large collection of good music, we have some delightful singing." To prevent herself from sinking into hopeless melancholy she now undertook, under the care of the brother, Willard Fisher, a course of mathematical study as the best means of giving mental discipline and diverting the mind from dis- tressing thoughts. It was, however, unfortunate for the attainment of that religious peace that she was seeking that the family were punctual attendants on the preaching of the celebrated Dr. Emmons. In his austere mode of presentation God appeared, not as a tender Father but an exacting autocrat, and the chances for shipwrecked souls of final salvation seemed as hopeless as those iron-bound rocks on which the hapless " Albion " was wrecked . The dreary effect of this teaching was increased by finding the mother of Professor Fisher the victim of a settled relig- ious melancholy, and discovering by reading Professor Fisher's private journal that those same views had clouded his own religious hopes and driven him at times almost to despair. Miss Beecher kept up a vigorous correspondence with her father, in which the then current New England theology was discussed from every point of view. At last she came to the conclusion to let these insoluble problems alone and devote herself to the simple following of Jesus Christ in a life of practical usefulness. She came back to Litchfield, united with her father's church, and selected the field of education as the one to which she would hereafter devote her energies. In the year 1823 she began, in connection with her sister, a select school in Hart- ford. She commenced the Latin grammar only a fortnight before she began to teach it herself. Her brother, Edward Beecher, was at this time at the head of the Hartford Latin School, and boarded in the same family with his sisters, and she studied with him while she taught her pupils. Sur- rounded by young life, enthusiastic in study and teaching, CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 87 Miss Beecher recovered that buoyant cheerfulness which had always characterized her. She was at this time in her twenty-third year, and had a ready sympathy with all the feelings of the young ; she en- couraged her scholars to talk freely with her of the subjects they studied, and the recitation hours were often enlivened by wit and pleasantry. She had under her care some of the brightest and most receptive of minds, and the results, as shown in the yearly exhibitions, to which the parents and friends were invited, were quite exciting. Latin and English compositions versified translations from Virgil's Eclogues and Ovid's Metamorphoses astonished those w r ho had not been in the habit of expecting such things in a female school. The school increased rapidly ; pupils were drawn in from abroad, and it became difficult to find a place to contain the numbers to be taught. Miss Beecher had always enjoyed the friendship of the leading ladies of Hartford, and when at the end of four years she drew the plan of the Hartford Female Seminary it was by their influence that the first gentlemen in Hartford subscribed money to purchase the land and erect such a building as she desired, with a large hall for study and general exercises, eight recitation-rooms, and a room for chemical laboratory and lectures. A band of eight teachers, each devoted to some particular department, carried on the course of study. At this time she published " Suggestions on Education," in which she forcibly compared the provision that had hitherto been made for the education of men with those which had been deemed sufficient for the other sex. For the brothers of a family the well-endowed college, with its corps of pro- fessors, each devoted to one department of knowledge, and with leisure to perfect himself in it and teach it in the most complete manner for the sisters of the family only such advantages as they could get from one teacher in one room, w r ho had the care of teaching in all branches ; and she asked what but superficial knowledge could be the result of such a system. The article was vigorously written and excited much 88 CATHEKINE E. BEECHEK. attention. It was favorably noticed in the " North American," and in the "Revue Encyclopedique," and drew instant atten- tion to the system that was being carried on in the Hartford Female Seminary. There was at the time an educational current rising strongly in New England. Mr. Woodbridge, the author of a geog- raphy much in use, edited a " Journal of Education," in which the methods of Fellenberg and other European educators were described ; frequent teachers' conventions were held in which information on these subjects was disseminated. Miss Beecher was enthusiastic in education, and succeeded in imparting her enthusiasm both to her teachers and scholars, and there was scarce a week in which the school was not visited by strangers desirous to observe its methods. The example soon was copied. One of her associate teachers inaugurated a similar institution in Springfield, Mass., supplied with teachers of Miss Beecher's training. A gentleman came north from Huntsville, Alabama, desiring teachers to com- mence a similar institution in that State, and Miss Beecher despatched them four of her most promising scholars to com- mence the work. The efficiency and energy that Miss Beecher displayed at this time of her career was the wonder of every one who knew her. With all the cares of a school of between one and two hundred pupils, many of them from distant States of the Union, Miss Beecher's influence was felt everywhere, regu- lating the minutest details. She planned the course of study, guided and inspired the teachers, overlooked the different boarding-houses, corresponded with parents and guardians. With all these cares she prepared an arithmetic which was printed and used as a text-book in her school and those that emanated from it. The peculiarity of this book was its re- quiring of the pupil at every step a clear statement of the rationale of the arithmetical processes. It was never pub- lished, but printed as wanted for her school and those after- wards founded by her teachers. When the teacher in mental CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 39 philosophy left her institution for that in Springfield, Miss Beecher took charge of that department, and wrote for it a text book of some four or live hundred pages, entitled "Mental and Moral Philosophy, Founded on Reason, Obser- vation, and the Bible." Like the arithmetic, this book was printed and not published. As it applied common sense to the interpretation of the language of the Bible, it came in collision with many theological dogmas, but the views of the divine love which it exhibited made it a most powerful assistant in religious and moral education. She constantly enforced it upon her teachers that education was not merely the communication of knowledge, but the formation of character. Each teacher had committed to her special care a certain number of scholars, whose character she was to study, whose affection she was to seek, and whom she was to strive by all means in her power to lead to moral and religious excellence. The first hour every morning was given to a general relig- ious exercise with the assembled school, and the results of those exercises and of the whole system of influences were such that multitudes can look back to the Hartford Female Seminary as the place where they received influences that shaped their whole life for this world and the world to come. During all her multiplied cares and engagements she kept up her health by systematic daily exercise on horseback, generally in the early morning hours, and often accompanied by some of her teachers or pupils. She also kept up the practice of piano music as a recreation, and now and then furnished a poem for the weekly " Connecticut Observer," and received on one evening of the week her own friends and those of her pupils, to a social gathering, enlivened by music and conversation. The weekly levees of the Hartford Fe- male Seminary were a great addition to the social life of Hartford. For some years it seemed as if there were to be no limit to what she could plan and accomplish. As the making money was no part of her object in teaching, so every improvement 90 CATHERINE E. BEECHER. which money could procure was added to the many advan- tages of the seminary. A lecturer on history was hired who introduced charts of ancient and modern history, afterwards used as the basis of instruction. A lady who first brought into use the system of calisthenics was employed to give a course in the seminary, and thus the exercises became a daily part of the school duties. Dr. Barbour, afterwards Pro- fessor of Elocution in Harvard College, was hired to give a course of instruction in his department, and his book (a con- densation of Dr. Rush's treatise on the voice) was introduced into the school. So many were the teachers employed, so many the advantages secured to the pupils, that Miss Beecher, at the head of it all, made no more than a comfortable sup- port, and laid up nothing for the future. After seven years of this incessant activity, her nervous system began to give out, and after several attacks of sciatica she relinquished the charge of the seminary into the hands of Mr. John P. Brace, the associate teacher in the celebrated Litchfield School. In 1830, she accompanied her father in his first journey of observation to Cincinnati, preparatory to the removal of his family to the West. When the family went out she also went with them, and, in connection with the younger sister, commenced a school in Cincinnati, which she furnished with teachers of her own training. But after this time she did not herself labor personalty as a teacher. In connection with many other ladies she formed a league for supplying the West with educated teachers. Governor Slade of Vermont, as agent for this association, travelled and lectured, and as the result many teachers were sent West and many schools founded. It was planned to erect one leading seminary in every Western State, where teachers should be trained to supply the country, and the plan was successfully carried out in Milwaukee and Dubuque, and some other cities. During the latter years of her life Miss Beecher was prin- cipally occupied in authorship. By great exactness and care CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 91 of her health she was able to give certain regular daily hours to these labors. Her first work was a treatise on " Domestic Economy," designed as a school-book, and treating of all those subjects which relate to the home-life of women the care of house and furniture, the making and repairing of garments, the care of young children, the nursing of the sick the training of servants. When this work was first issued there was no other of its kind, and it was felt to be a most important aid in female education. It was published first in Boston and afterwards transferred to the Harpers of New York. This was followed by a " Domestic Keceipt Book," devoted to the preparation and care of food. The mode of preparing this was somewhat peculiar. She collected round her in Hartford the graduates of her school, and induced them to bring to her from each family the best receipts. As the housekeepers of Hartford had always been famous for the excellence of their menages, she had a basis of solid fact and experience to go upon in preparing her work, which also was published by the Harpers. Under their care the sale of these works afforded her a yearly income, which she spent freely in forwarding her educational plans.* Miss Beecher lived to be seventy-eight years of age, and though the last ten years of her life she was crippled by sciatica and in many respects an invalid, the activity of her mind and her zeal in education continued to the last. In her sixty-first year she united with the Episcopal church by confirmation, in company with three of her young nieces. Her reason for the step she gave in her belief that the religious educational theory of the Episcopal church was superior to * At the request of the writer the Messrs. Harpers have furnished the fol- lowing list of her published works: Duty of American Women to their Country, 1845 ; A Treatise on Domestic Economy for the Use of Ladies at Home and in School, 1845; Miss Beecher's Domestic Receipt Book, 1846; Miss Beecher's Address, 1846; Letters to the People, 1855; Physiology and Calisthenics, 1856; Common Sense Applied to Religion, 1857; An Appeal to the People, 1860; The Religious Training of Children, 1864; The Housekeeper and Healthkeeper, 1873. 92 CATHERINE E. BEECHER. that of any other, and ever after that she was an attendant on the services of that church. Her death at last was sudden. She was visiting a brother at Elmira, N. Y., but intending shortly to journey eastward. On the llth of May, 1878, she arranged everything for her departure, made cheerful farewell calls on all her friends, and retired to rest at night at her usual hour. The next morning, as she did not appear, her brother entered her room and found her in a heavy stupor, from which it was impossible to rouse her, and in the course of a few hours, on Sunday, May 12, 1878, she quietly passed from the pain and weakness of earth to the everlasting rest of heaven. In many respects the manner of her death seemed merci- fully ordered. She had a great shrinking from physical pain and all that usually precedes death, and there was none of this in her last hours. Death came to her as a tranquil sleep. We cannot more fittingly close this memoir than by quoting her " Hymn for the Bed of Death." It was written for a lovely and much afflicted friend of her early days, who, after a life of peculiar suffering, was lying on her deathbed. When Miss Beecher received a few trembling lines from this friend, expressing her feeling that the final hour was near, she composed and sent to her this hymn : "And is there One who knows each grief, And counts the tears His children shed, Whose soothing hand can bring relief, And smooth and cheer their painful bed ? Saviour ! invisible, yet dear Friend of the helpless, art Thou near ? " Forgive the faltering faith and fears Of this weak heart that seeks Thine aid ; Forgive these often flowing tears, Thou who hast fainted, wept, and prayed. Ah, who so well our wants can know As He who felt each human woe ? CATHERINE E. BEECHER. 93 " Yes, Thou hast felt the withering power Of mortal weakness and distress ; And Thou hast known the bitter hour Of desolating loneliness, Hast mourned Thy friends so faithless fled, And wept in anguish o'er the dead. " Thou, too, hast tried the tempter's power, And felt his false and palsying breath ; And known the gloomy fears that wait Along the shadowy vale of death, And what the dreaded pang must be, Of life's last parting agony. " My only hope, my stay, my shield, Thy fainting creature looks to Thee ; Thy gracious love, Thy guidance yield, In this my last extremity. With Thy dear guardian hand to save, Lord, I can venture to the grave." CHAPTER IV. CLAKA BAETON. BY LUCY LARCOM. Clara Barton's Early Lif e A Faithful Little Nurse at Eleven Devotion to Her Sick Brother Breaking Out of the Civil War Her Loyalty and Devotion to the Union The Old Sixth Massachusetts Regiment First Blood Shed for the Union Miss Barton's Timely Services Consecrat- ing Her Life to the Soldier's Needs At the Front Army Life and Experiences Undaunted Heroism Terrible Days Errands of Mercy "The Angel of the Battlefield" Instances of Her Courage and Devotion Narrow Escapes Her Labors for Union Prisoners Record of the Soldier Dead Dorrance Atwater Work After the War Visit to Europe The Society of the Red Cross The Franco-Prussian War At the Front Again Unfurling the Banner of the Red Cross Record of a Noble Life. HE women who have lived nobly are far more worthy of honor than those who have only written or spoken well. Great inspirations, whether sudden as lightning or slow as the steady unfolding of dawn, find their perfect end only through embodiment in action. The every-day life of woman is full of difficult demands, grandly met ; and these are none the less heroisms because they often occur in some obscure corner, where they are not looked upon as anything remarkable. But when an unusual occa- sion reveals a duty which must be done in the face of the whole world, the true woman does not shrink back into her beloved seclusion, and let the opportunity pass. She may dread notoriety with all the strength of her womanly nature, but the voice of God within her is imperative ; she cannot be disobedient unto the heavenly vision ; and the really heroic soul forgets herself and everything except the high demand 94 CLARA BARTON. 95 of the hour, and undertakes the difficult public labor as sim- ply as she would any humble fireside service. Clara Barton's life is before the world, not through any effort or wish of her own, but only through her having taken hold, with all her heart and with all her strength, of work that she saw needed to be done. Her labors have been almost unique in the annals of womanly endeavor, for their steady perseverance, for the wisdom, the courage, and the self-forge tfulness which has animated them. Quick to see the exigencies of a situation, and prompt and wise to meet them ; understanding both how to direct and how to obey ; her bravery and self-reliance balanced by her generosity and warm-heartedness, there is much in her character that reminds us of Wordsworth's description of "The Happy Warrior," while it would be unjust to her not to add that she is one of the most womanly of women. She is a daughter of New England. Her birthplace was North Oxford, among the hills of Worcester County, Massa- chusetts ; and the fact that she was born on Christmas day is not without significance in her history. Her childhood was blessed with outdoor freedom and indoor comfort and peace, such as are known to the healthy, well-cared-for coun- try children of our Commonwealth. The youngest of a large family, with many years intervening between her and her brothers and sisters, she was left a good deal to herself for amusement and occupation, both of which she readily found, going through wild snow-drifts or summer sunshine two miles to school, playing on the hillsides, wading in the brooks, or scampering across her father's fields on any untamed pony she could find. So it went on until she was eleven years old, when more care fell upon her than often comes to so young a child. One of her brothers, an athletic young man, had a fall from the top of a building he was helping to raise. He seemed not at all hurt at the time, but the shock resulted in a long period of utter prostration, during which his little sister became his nurse, for two years scarcely leaving his bedside, day or night. 9(3 CLARA BARTON. It may seem strange that this wearing task should have been given to the youngest of the family ; but it was charac- teristic of Clara Barton from the first to assume the most self-denying work as her own especial right. Moreover, she grew into her position through a natural fitness for it. Placed beside the sick man, as the little girl of the household, to fan him or bring him a glass of water at need, he became accustomed to her cleft ways and fresh sympathies, and could not well do without them. And the child-nurse, for love of the sufferer and of the work of ministering, took only a half day's respite for herself during that long period. After the invalid's recovery, when Clara was about sixteen years old, having prepared herself in the studies ordinarily required, she began to teach in the district-schools of her own home-neighborhood, not shrinking from those where rough boys had been in the habit of forcibly ejecting the master. She had no trouble with her pupils, winning at once their hearts and their obedience. Her services were in constant demand, and she pursued the occupation for several years, during intervals of leisure assisting her brothers, who had become prominent business men of their native place, in their counting-house labors. Later, she went through a thorough course of study in Clin- ton, N. Y., and then resumed teaching in the State of New Jersey. In 1853 we find her doing a remarkable work at Borden- town, where there had been a strong prejudice against the establishment of free schools. She had been told that such an undertaking would certainly be unsuccessful ; but she agreed to assume the entire responsibility for three months at her own expense. She took a tumble-down building, and began with six scholars, making it understood that the chil- dren of rich and poor were alike welcome. In four or five weeks the building proved too small for the number who came, and the one school grew into two. The result in one year was the erection of a fine edifice, and the establishment of a free school at Bordentown, with a roll of five hundred CLARA BARTON. CLARA BARTOX. 99 pupils. It is but just to the authorities of the town to say that they insisted upon Miss Barton's receiving the salary she had agreed to do without. Her exertions here, added to the fatigues of previous years, began to tell upon her health, and she was obliged to rest. She went to Washington, where she had relatives, .for change of scene and a more favorable climate. eJust at this time, through the treachery of clerks, troubles had arisen in the Patent Office. Secrets had been betrayed, and great annoyance caused to inventors who had applied for patents. The Commissioner was at a loss what to do, when Miss Barton was recommended to him as a person who could be trusted, and whose clear chirography and aptitude for busi- ness affairs well fitted her for the situation. Her services were at once secured. But although her new employment was less fatiguing than teaching, it was not with- out its trials. Hitherto, male clerks only had been employed, and these men did not like to see their province invaded by a woman. They were perhaps the more displeased because they had brought her there by their own unfaithfulness, which could no longer profit them. They adopted the chivalrous course of making her position as uncomfortable as they could, hoping to drive her from it by personal annoyance. They ranged themselves every morning, in two rows, against the walls of the long corridor through which she had to pass on her way to her desk, staring hard at her, and whistling softly as she went by. Miss Barton felt the insult keenly, but she determined to bear it, for the sake of the principle involved. Day after day she passed through this ordeal, with her eyes upon the floor, seeing nothing of those two lines of indignant masculines but their boots. Failing to oust her in this way, they tried slander, but signally failed, her accusers instead of herself receiving their discharge. She suffered no further indignities of the kind, and remained in the Patent Office three years, doing her work so well that her books are still exhibited as models. 100 CLARA BARTON. In the Buchanan administration, her acknowledged anti- slavery sentiments drew upon her the charge of " Black Re- publicanism," and she was removed; but, being urgently recalled again by the same administration, she yielded to her father's advice and returned. When the civil war broke out, and the Government found itself involved in serious pecuniary troubles, Miss Barton looked about to see what relief she could bring to the situa- tion. There were clerks of known disloyalty in the Patent Office, and she offered to do with her own hands, and without additional pay, the work of two of these, if they might be dis- missed. The offer, though warmly appreciated, could not legally be accepted. But she decided that she could at least save her own salary to the impoverished Treasury, and she resigned her position, determining to find some other way of serving her country in its need. And ways were opening before her in which none could walk but with bleeding feet and a martyr's fortitude. Every energy was to be tested, every fibre of her loyal heart strained to its utmost tension. Many of us can remember the inspiring thrill of patriotism to which we awoke after the first sharp pang of sorrow and surprise at finding our country drawn into the horrors of civil war. We knew now to our heart's depths that we belonged to a Nation ; that our separate interests were nothing, except as they were identified with the Republic, which was to us fireside and home. No sacrifices seemed too great for us to make that the Union we loved might be preserved. Women felt all this as deeply at least as men. We were all lifted out of ourselves upon the tide of patriotic enthusiasm, and were grateful indeed, if we might in any way be permitted to take part in the struggle which we felt sure was for hu- manity's sake no less than for our own. The departure of the Sixth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers from Boston was a scene which the women who witnessed it can never forget ; and there were naturally more women than men among the spectators. A look of solemn CLARA BAETON. 101 consecration was upon the eager faces of those who went, and in the tearful eyes of those who said farewell. The very air seemed to breathe the joy of heroic, self-forgetting purpose. Clara Barton was in Washington when these soldiers of her own State arrived there from Baltimore, where the first blood of the war had been shed. She was among those who met them at the station ; she saw the forty wounded men taken to the Infirmary, and the rest quartered at the Capitol ; and she Visited both with such help as she could command. On ac- count of the suddenness of the call, little provision had been made, in a regular way, for the hungry crowd at the Capitol, and she caused food to be brought in great baskets, and dis- tributed among the men, while she read to them from the Speaker's desk an account of their own progress from Boston to Washington, as it had been recorded in the daily papers. From that hour she identified herself with the soldiers in their risks and sufferings. During the campaign of the Peninsula, her custom was to go down the Potomac on the boats which carried provisions to the army and returned loaded with wounded men, taking with her such things as would give them relief and refresh- ment until they could be cared for in the hospitals. In this way she became a medium of communication between the soldiers and their friends at home, she writing letters for the men, and receiving such comforts and delicacies as were intrusted to her care for them. Not only was her own room soon filled with these contributions ; she hired several spa- cious storerooms, which continually overflowed. It became a serious problem how to get these things the offerings of individuals, of churches or of town societies to the persons for whom they were intended. As regiments were ordered further away from Washington, the difficulty increased. But Miss Barton determined that if she could compass it, they should at least reach the rank and file of the army. Meanwhile, other matters perplexed and troubled her yet more. 7 102 CLARA BARTON. On her errands of mercy down the river, she was con- stantly distressed at the sight of sufferings which might have been avoided, could the wounded men have been attended to on the battle-field where they fell. They were sent up from the swamps of the Chickahominy, covered with mud and gore, in which they had lain for days. There was no relief for them, except of the voluntary kind Miss Barton gave, until they were landed at Washington. While saddened beyond measure at this state of things, she was called home to her father's sick-bed. It was late in the year 1861. He had attained the ripe age of eighty-six years, and this was his last illness, although his death did not occur until the following March. Sitting beside the beloved old man, who had himself in his youth been an officer under General Wayne, she talked with him of what she was doing, and of what more she might do for the soldiers. She told him of her desire to go to the front, of her feeling that she ought to be there to relieve suffering, and perhaps to save lives. It was a new thing for a woman to undertake, and among other dangers the possibility of exposure to insult was discussed, as what she most dreaded. But her father said: " Go, if you feel it your duty to go ! I know what sol- diers are, and I know that every true solder will respect you and your errand." And comforted by the good man's blessing, she returned to her post with little anxiety about herself, but with a con- firmed resolution to persevere in the labor of love which she had chosen. It was not easy to carry out her purpose. At first she waited, hoping that influential ladies of the capital would take steps that she might follow. But they only touched the matter slightly. Things remained much in the same sorrow- ful condition. When at last she did apply for a pass beyond the army- lines, she was everywhere rebuffed. Perhaps her youthful looks were against her. Officers could not understand what CLARA BARTON. 103 this dark-haired young woman with the keen bright eyes had undertaken to do, and was so earnest about. But she per- severed, although so discouraged that when, as her last hope, she stood before Assistant Quartermaster-General Rucker, she could not tell him her wish for tears. This kind-hearted man listened to her, sympathized with her, and befriended her in her work, then and ever after. To his warning suggestions and inquiries, she replied that she was the daughter of a soldier, and that she had no fears of the battle-field, or of being under the enemy's fire. She told him of her large storerooms filled with supplies which she could not get to the soldiers, and she asked of him means of transportation for herself and for them. Everything she requested, and more, was cheerfully given ; for the good Quartermaster had that in his own nature which enabled him to look into the large heart and strong character of the woman who stood before him. Abundant means of transportation were furnished, and she was free to go to the relief of soldiers in battle whenever and wherever she would. In the quartermaster's department of the army, at whatever point she appeared, her errand was at once understood and its purposes forwarded. The record of the good she accomplished during the war could never be fully written out, even by herself; and in this brief sketch only a hint of it can be given. We may catch a glimpse of her at Chantilly, in the darkness of the rainy midnight bending over a dying boy who took her supporting arm and soothing voice for his sister's, or falling into a brief sleep on the wet ground in her tent, almost under the feet of flying cavalry ; or riding in one of her train of army-wagons towards another field, subduing by the way a band of mutinous teamsters into her firm friends and allies ; or at the terrible battle of Antie- tam (where the regular army-supplies did not arrive until three days afterward), furnishing from her wagons cordials and bandages for the wounded, making gruel for the faint- ing men from the meal in which her medicines had been 104 CLARA BARTON. packed, extracting with her own hand a bullet from the cheek of a wounded soldier, tending the fallen all day, with her throat parched and her face blackened by sulphurous smoke, and at night, when the surgeons were dismayed at finding themselves left with only one half-burnt candle amid thousands of bleeding, dying men, illumining the field with candles and lanterns her forethought had supplied. No won- der they called her the "Angel of the Battlefield ! " We may see her at Fredericksburg, attending to the wounded who were brought to her, whether they wore the blue or the gray. One rebel officer, whose death-agonies she soothed, besought her with his last breath not to cross the river, in his gratitude betraying to her that the movements of the rebels were only a ruse to draw the Union troops on to destruction. It is needless to say that she followed the sol- diers across the Rappahannock, undaunted by the dying man's warning. And we may watch her after the defeat, when the half-starved, half-frozen soldiers were brought to her, having great fires built to lay them around, administering cordials, and causing an old chimney to be pulled down for bricks to warm them with, while she herself had but the shelter of a tattered tent between her and the piercing winds. Or we may follow her to Morris Island, to the attack upon Fort Wagner, where no one but herself was prepared for repulse, and see her ministering to the men who dragged themselves back over the burning sands that the sea-winds blew like needle-points into their wounds. When asked by a friend how she dared risk in midsummer the climate of Morris Island, with its sickly swamps and shadeless sand-hills, the unconscious heroism of her answer was characteristic : "Why, somebody had to go and take care of the soldiers, so I went." It was the same story of courage, and helpfulness, and endurance, all through the war. She was in many battles, often directly under fire, but she bore a charmed life ; for, although her clothing was frequently grazed or pierced, she was never wounded. At the battle of Antietam, as she ViSJS W KV SW VVV1S WK'VM XHKX TO K\\T \tt KVK ' V N SCENES IN TPIE LIFE OF CLARA BARTON. 1. HOSPITAL SUPPLIES ON THE WAY TO ANTIETAM. 2. THE DYING REBEL'S 3. WRITING LETTERS FOR THE SOLDIERS. 4. MIDNIGHT AFTER THE BATTLE OF CHANTILLY. THE DYING BOY. CLARA BARTON. 105 stooped to lift the head of a wounded man, a ball passed between her arm and her body, entering the soldier's breast, and instantly killing him. As the conflict drew to a close, and prisoners were ex- changed, Miss Barton received numerous letters from the mothers of soldiers, who had willingly given their sons to their country, but who felt that they ought at least to be told what had become of them. She conferred with President Lincoln, whose great heart felt the necessities of the case, but who could not decide at once how to meet them. Meanwhile she was called home to Massachusetts by family afflictions. While there, she saw it announced in the daily papers that Miss Clara Barton had been appointed by the President to correspond with the friends of missing prisoners, and that she might be addressed at Annapolis, where the survivors of An- dersonville were received. Leaving her own sorrow behind her, she went at once to Annapolis, finding there that during the three days since the announcement, about four bushels of letters had arrived, erery one of them full of heart-breaking appeal. These let- ters continued to accumulate after the discharge of the Ander- sonville prisoners, and Miss Barton went to Washington to go on with the work, which, in her hands, was sure to be meth- odical and thorough. She established at her own expense, a Bureau of Records of missing men of the United States armies, employing several clerks to assist her. These records, compiled from hospital and prison rolls and from burial lists, came to be of great value to the government in the settle- ment of bounties, back pay, and pensions, no less than to the friends of the soldiers; to whom, indeed, they brought often but a mournful satisfaction the confirmation of dreaded loss, Miss Barton went to Andersonville, and, with the aid of Dorrance Atwater, a Union prisoner who had been employed in hospital service there, and had preserved the prison rolls, identified all but about four hundred of the thirteen thousand graves of buried soldiers. She had a suitable headboard placed at each grave, and a fence built around the cemetery. 106 CLARA BARTON. In all that she had done through the war she had never asked for money. She had used her own income freely, say- ing, when friends demurred : " What is money to me if I have no country ? " But the work of this Bureau could not be carried on with- out large expenditures. She had already used several thou- sand dollars of her own, and there were five or six thousand letters yet awaiting examination. This came to the knowledge of some members of Congress, and it was voted that Miss Barton be reimbursed, and the means for going on furnished her, an appropriation of fifteen thousand dollars being made for that purpose. For her services, then, as always before and after, she neither desired nor received pay ; they were a free-will offering to her country and to humanity. It may be added that her income is almost entirely the result of her own patient earnings and wise investments. Her remarkable busi- ness faculty might easily have won her great wealth ; but she has preferred to be rich in the most royal way, that of doing good. At this Bureau she continued four years, giving meanwhile to large audiences East and West her thrilling war reminis- cences. But her army labors were not yet ended. There was service for humanity awaiting her in another hemisphere. There is nothing in the divine ordering of human lives more beautiful than the way in which opportunities to do noble work grow out of similar work which has already been faithfully done. Life is no longer fragmentary, every part has meaning and unity, and the toiler goes thankfully on through the broader activities, and into the deeper consecra- tion, developing always a less self-conscious personality, but one everywhere more definitely recognized and honored. Even a careless observer cannot fail to see in Clara Barton's work a unity peculiar to itself, a work which has grown out of her own character, and which no one bujb herself could have done. Her labors have been going on in mind and heart and will, even while she has been still in the helplessness of prostration ; for she has more than once been obliged to yield CLARA BARTON. 107 to the physical reaction resulting from her unsparing strain upon her powers. But new work has always been awaiting her recovery ; new, and yet invariably a widening and deep- ening of the old, as a stream, however impeded, swells to a river, its fulness flowing from the freshness of its own dis- tinctive source. The autumn of 1869 found her seeking renewal of her strength under the shadow of the Alps at Geneva. There she was waited upon by leading members of the International Committee of Geneva for the relief of the wounded in war, who had for several years been doing, as an organization, what she had attempted personally and alone. The most striking feature of their plan was its wide humanity, which recognized in the wounded soldier the man only, not asking on which side he fought. On this principle Miss Barton had persistently worked in our civil war, although subject .often to official reproof, and sometimes even accused of disloyalty to the national cause. The society these gentlemen represented had ministered to the wounded on many battle-fields, under a treaty of neutral- ity for all who wore its badge, and were doing its humane work. This treaty had been signed by nearly all civilized nations, and also by some not commonly regarded as such. It had twice been offered to the United States for signature, but no response had been received. Knowing something of what Miss Barton had done for wounded soldiers in her own country, these gentlemen naturally turned to her as one who might be able to explain the reticence of our government. She could only say to them that she had never even heard of the treaty, nor of the society organized under it ; that the documents relating to it, being in a foreign language, had probably been passed on from one official to another, pos- sibly unread ; and that the fact of its existence was doubtless quite forgotten. The silence and seeming apathy on the part of the United States must have seemed the more strange to these philan- thropic men, since the idea of their work had partly been 108 CLARA BARTON. suggested by the methods of the Sanitary Commission, and of other humane efforts on our battle-fields, during the rebellion. The object of the Society as set forth in the articles of the Geneva Convention of August, 1864, was the exemption from capture, and the protection, under treaty, of those who were taking care of the wounded on battle-fields, and also of such inhabitants of invaded territories as gave them shelter and assistance. It undertook to care for wounded men where they fell, no matter to which of the belligerent armies they belonged. The Society had agreed to adopt a uniform flag, which was to be recognized and protected by all belligerents ; and also an arm-badge corresponding to the flag, to be worn by mem- bers in active service. The design chosen for the flag and badge was a red cross on a white ground, simply the colors of the national flag of Switzerland reversed, that bear- ing a white cross on a red ground. The association took its name from its flag, the Society of the Red Cross. It was not a secret or knightly order ; it w r as just what its name purported, a society for the relief of sufferings inseparable from war; a society in whose benevolent en- deavors all nations were invited to participate, and which had no more official machinery than was necessary for efficient working. o Geneva was the international centre, through which all national committees might confer with each other. Every national society was to be responsible for the work in its own country, all local societies being under the direction of their own national head. Simpler organization than this was scarcely possible ; with it, great good had already been accomplished. Miss Barton, with her clear-headedness and natural execu- tive talent, saw at once what a long step forward in her own direction this society had taken. She examined the matter carefully, and became ever, as she says, " more deeply im- pressed with the wisdom of its principles, the good practical sense of its details, and its extreme usefulness in practice." CLARA BARTON. 109 With local societies of this kind scattered over every country, all bound together for national and international work in a world-encircling bond, a world-weight of suffering might be lifted. It became possible, by these means, " to oppose the arms of charity to the arms of violence, and to make a kind of war upon war itself." For if nations could forget their separate causes of quarrel in trying to alleviate the sufferings which that quarrel had caused, would they not soon come to see the inhumanity of settling any dispute by bloodshed ? It was a glimpse of the millennium. Miss Barton says, in one of her addresses on this subject : " There is not a peace society on the face of the earth so potent, so effectual against war, as the Ked Cross of Geneva." Europe was then at peace, and Miss Barton was travelling on the continent in the hope of regaining her health. She was unequal to any serious exertion ; but if we know what sympathy with a great cause and a generous resolution once formed mean to a nature like hers, practical, decisive, loyal, and steadfast, we can easily understand that sho was thoroughly a member of the Society of the Red Cross long before she served under its banner ; and we shall not err in predicting that if one woman's efforts availed, her own country would before long enter into the treaty by which other nations had bound themselves together for the mitigation of the horrors of war. In the summer of 1870 she was at Berne, still a slowly- recovering invalid. In July of that year, the continent was startled by a declaration of war France against Prussia. The summons to the field was the signal for the unfolding of the Red Cross flag. Within three days after war had been declared, Miss Barton was waited upon at her villa by a party, with Dr. Appia, one of the founders of the Society, at their head, who invited her to go with them to the place of conflict, and assist them in whatever way she could. Not feeling able to set out at once, she followed them in a few days, taking with her only one companion, a young French HO CLARA BARTON. girl, the " fair-haired Antoinette," who had offered herself to the Eed Cross Society for active service. They passed down from Berne to Basle, thence across the frontier country toward Strasburg, meeting everywhere fly- ing, frightened people, who believed that they had left their native villages sacked behind them, as in the barbarous war- fare of the Middle Ages. The two women were implored to return. The people could not believe that they were actually bound to the battle-field of their own free will and purpose. Pressing on, they at last reached the German army, and were admitted within its lines. There they remained several weeks during which time the battle of Hagenau was fought assisting in the Red Cross work. Miss Barton had now opportunity to study the practical operation of this beneficent organization. Everything was done systematically and quietly ; surgeons, nurses, assistants trained for the emergency promptly at work, supplies abun- dant, the wounded and the dead removed from the battle-field at once, so that the next day none of the dreadful debris of the conflict remained. The terrible scenes of our own war came back to her in vivid contrast. She says : " I thought of the Peninsula in McClellan's campaign, of Pittsburg Landing, Cedar Moun- tain, and second Bull Run, Antietam, old Fredericksburg, with its acres of snow-covered and gun-covered glacis and its fourth day flag of truce, of its dead, and starving wounded, frozen to the ground, and our commissions and their supplies in Washington with no effective organization or power to go beyond ; of the Petersburg mine with its four thousand dead and wounded and no flag of truce, the wounded broiling in a July sun, the dead bodies putrefying where they fell. As I saw the work of these Red Cross societies in the field, ac- complishing in four months under their systematic organiza- tion what we failed to accomplish in four years without it, no mistakes, no needless suffering, no waste, no confusion, but order, plenty, cleanliness, and comfort wherever that little flag made its way, a whole continent marshalled under the CLARA BARTON. Ill banner of the Red Cross, as I saw all this, and joined and worked in it, you will not wonder that I said to myself, 'If I live to return to my country, I will try to make my people understand the Red Cross and that treaty.' But I did more than to resolve ; I promised other nations I would do it, and other reasons pressed me to remember my promise." Chief among these reasons was the futility of attempts made by charitable persons in the United States to relieve sufferings caused by the devastations of this Franco-Prussian war. Ships were sent over, freighted with supplies, but when these things arrived, no one was authorized to receive them, and for the most part they went to utter waste. Had they borne the stamp of the Red Cross Society, they would have been for- warded, and through them a vast amount of misery might have been saved. It was indeed a pity that so much generous effort should have failed of its end. On reaching her summer retreat at Berne, Miss Barton learned that the Grand Duchess of Baden had been making inquiries for her through the legations, desiring her presence at her court at Carlsruhe. Acceding to the request, she found the Grand Duchess Louise, the only daughter of the Em- peror of Germany, a noble lady in the noblest sense of the word, whose warm heart was deeply moved by the distresses of the conflicts in which her nearest relatives were involved, anxious to understand more clearly the peculiarities of the field-hospital service in our civil war. There were features of it new to her, which she felt might be made available to relieve suffering in the German armies. The women of her country and court, with herself at their head, were already doing their utmost under the Red Cross flag on the battle-field, the " Frauenverein," or Woman's Union of Baden, which had grown up under her patronage, having constituted itself a Society of the Red Cross. She asked Miss Barton to stay with her, that they might each become acquainted with the other's methods, and for an exchange of suggestions. The long, weary weeks of the siege of Strasburg had be- gun, and Miss Barton agreed to remain at Carlsruhe until that 112 CLARA BARTON. was ended. As soon as it was possible to enter the city, she must go there, and help relieve the distresses the besieging armies had caused. During this visit she was enabled to see how generously the Grand Duchess had devoted herself to the aid of wounded men, whether foes or friends. Miss Barton says : " Her many and beautiful castles, with their magnificent grounds, throughout all Baden, were at once transformed into military hospitals, and her entire court, with herself at its head, formed into a committee of superintendence and organization for relief. I have seen a wounded Arab from the French armies, who knew no word of any language but his own, stretch out his arms to her in adoration and blessing as she passed his bed." No wonder that two workers like these, so earnestly unsel- fish, found themselves one in a friendship which has remained undimmed through the flight of busy years. Miss Barton still has frequent letters from the Grand Duchess, and she cherishes among her treasured mementos a beautiful gold-and- enamel Red Cross brooch, presented to her before they parted by that lady ; who also, with her husband, the Grand Duke, decorated her with the Gold Cross of Remembrance, attached to the colors of the Grand Duchy of Baden. The Empress Augusta, with the Emperor, conferred upon her the Iron Cross of Merit, accompanied by the colors of Germany and the Red Cross the Iron Cross being only bestowed upon those who have earned it by deeds of heroism on the battle-field. Those were anxious weeks that Miss Barton passed with her noble hostess at Carlsruhe, for the sufferers within the besieged city could neither be heard from nor approached. But at last Strasburg yielded. The gates were thrown open, and the German army entered; and with it, Miss Barton made her way across the Rhine, and into the city unattended, for so she always chose to go to her army work. She found sad havoc there, but the wounded by shot and shell were well cared for by the Sisters of Mercy. The con- 1. CLARA BARTON ENTERING STRASBURO WITH THE GERMAN ARMY. 2. THE BANNER OF THE BED CROSS. CLARA BARTON. 113 dition of the poorer people, whose employments had been stopped, and who were degenerating into rags and pauperism, she saw required immediate attention. Squalid and half- starved, huddled into cellars where they had gone for shelter during the bombardment, their destitution was painful beyond description. Having looked into their wants, and returned for a brief conference with the Grand Duchess, she estab- lished herself among these poor women with only one assist- ant ; this time the faithful, devoted Anna Zimmerman. The details of the work these two did cannot be given here, but they are intensely interesting. All that can be said is that the raising of hundreds of women from utterly de- moralized poverty to a well-clad, self-helpful condition, seems to us, as it seemed to the leading men of Strasburg, who watched its progress and lent it their aid, well nigh miraculous. A similar work of relief was carried on by Miss Barton in other cities which had suffered from siege. We hear of her aiding the starving inhabitants of Metz, ministering to the wounded returning from Sedan, and distributing at Belfort, Montbeliard, and in Paris, the large contributions of the Bos- ton Reliei Fund, which its agent had intrusted to her care. She reached Paris in the closing days of the Commune, bring- ing with her large supplies of clothing from Strasburg the work of the women she had helped as the gift of the poor of that city to the poor of Paris. Here she remained several weeks, acting under the direc- tion of the Prefect, whose house she had been invited to make her headquarters for the distribution of supplies. She gave with her own hands, into the hands of every needy person sent to her, money or clothing, as the case required, taking the name of every one who was assisted, and rendering an account of the same, exact to a franc. This has always been Miss Barton's method. She has done nothing irresponsibly ; and through her careful business hab- its, and direct sympathetic contact with the people she has served, she has come into those personal relations by which 114 . CLAKA BARTON. the ties of human fraternity are made real and strong. Her image is, beyond doubt, enshrined in the memory of a great multitude of the European poor, with gratitude that borders upon adoration. Such labors are not carried on without drawing upon one's treasury of vital power to the last farthing. Miss Barton was far from well when she began them, not having recovered from the strain of service during our own war, and when she crossed over from the continent to London she fell ill, and lay there a long time, unable to return to America. She came back in 1873, but through extreme physical pros- tration, she was for several years debarred from all exertion. As soon as she was able, she went to Washington, to urge the acceptance of the Geneva treaty, under which the phil- anthropic work of the Red Cross might be efficiently or- ganized. The matter was delayed, apparently for no other reason than that it had always been delayed. No satisfactory re- sponse vvas received until the inauguration of President Gar- field. From him it met with prompt approval, and only the assassin's hand stayed his from signing the treaty. It re- ceived the signature of his successor, President Arthur, in March, 1882 ; and our country may know that one of its wisest, most humane treaties exists through the unwearying perseverance of a woman. In 1877 a few ladies and gentlemen had formed themselves, at Washington, into an "American National Committee of the Red Cross," which, on President Garfield's accession, reorgan- ized, and was incorporated under the title of the " American Association of the Red Cross." Miss Barton was appointed to the presidency of this society by the martyred Garfield himself, and since that time she has devoted herself to carry- ing out its benevolent purposes. It is to be hoped that we shall have no more wars of our own ; atid, knowing that we are less exposed to that scourge than the more crowded nations of Europe, the provisions of CLARA BARTON. 115 the American Society have been extended so as to cover the calamities to which we are peculiarly liable by fire, flood, and pestilence. Great help has already been rendered in various disasters. The Red Cross Society of Western New York at once sent relief to the sufferers by the terrible fires in Michigan ; and from Mississippi, and from Louisiana, where there is a State organization earnestly at work, come back words of overflow- ing gratitude for aid from the National Association during the recent devastating floods. It is easy to see, now that Clara Barton shows it to us, that this work is one that belongs to erery city and town in the country ; and the people are see- ing it, and are everywhere gathering themselves together under the banner of the Red Cross. It is scarcely possible to know Miss Barton and not catch from her a contagion of enthusiasm for her work for her work is herself. Under her quiet demeanor, one feels the stirring of irresistible energies, centred and steady as the forces of the universe. And these energies all move forward to beneficent ends, warmed and impelled by a heart over- flowing with sympathy. How little she has thought of her- self, how willingly she has given all she has, time, thought, strength, money, to carry out her generous plans, one sees incidentally only in reviewing her life, for by no hint of hers would it appear that she has done what she has, except as the simplest matter of course, because it fell into her hands to be done. " I have no mission," she says. "I have never had a mis- sion. But I have always had more work than I could do lying around my feet, and I try hard to get it out of the way, so as to go on and do the next." Large in her comprehensions, and of penetrative insight, careful, just, systematic, her work has to be done well, or not at all. There is nothing of the visionary in her composition. Life presents itself to her in its practical issues, which she meets with the grand calmness of a nature thoroughly disci- plined. A woman of simple manners, carrying with her no 116 CLARA BARTON. air of superiority, she is one of the very few whose life illus- trates to the world the heroic womanly ideal. Miss Barton, having accepted the superintendency of the Reformatory Prison for Women at Sherburne, Mass., entered upon her duties there in May, 1883. The work is different from any in which she has hitherto been engaged ; but it seems not unsuitable that she who has done so much to re- lieve sufferers in other conflicts, should devote herself to the fallen on moral battle-fields. For this work, she may wear her Red Cross badge with an added meaning, the cross of sacrifice, whereby souls are to be won back to purity and peace. But she resigns nothing of the larger responsibility she had already assumed. She is pledged to the American Associa- tion of the Red Cross as its President, to carry on its work until the men and women of her country shall take it into their hearts and hands, where she feels that it belongs. So entirely is she wedded to her grand purpose, it does not seem strange to hear her say, "Until this work is done, I cannot go to heaven." CHAPTER V. MAKY LOUISE BOOTH. BY HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. A Woman of Rare Intellect Childhood of Mary Louise Booth An Inde- fatigable Little Student Beginning of Her Literary Life A Great Historical Work Breaking Out of the Civil War Miss Booth's Sym- pathy with the North Her Anxiety to Help the Cause How She did it A Prodigious Task " It Shall be Done" Her Marvellous Industry and Perseverance Charles Sumner's Friendship A Letter of Thanks from Abraham Lincoln Assuming the Management of "Harper's Bazaar" A Signal Success A Model Paper Miss Booth's Home True Hospitality Pen-portrait of a Gifted Woman. EW women in America have wielded the influence, both in public and in domestic matters, that has been exercised by Mary Louise Booth, or have performed their part so quietly ; for her work in the civil war was great as ever woman was called to do, and her editorial work since that time has given the keynote to life in a hundred thousand homes, and penetrated them with that spirit of innocence, dignity, poetry, and industry which actuates all her endeavors. The subject of this sketch w r as a precocious child, so much so that, on being asked, she once confessed she had no more recollection of learning to read either French or English than of learning to talk. As soon as she could walk, her mother says, she was following her about, book in hand, beg- ging to be taught to read stories for herself. She read them soon to so much purpose that before she was five years old she had finished the Bible, being rewarded by a polyglot Testament for the feat, and had also read Plutarch, which at every subsequent reading has given her an equal pleasure, 8 117 118 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. and at seven had mastered Racine in the original, upon which she began the study of Latin with her father. From that time she was an indefatigable reader, troubling her parents only by her devotion to books rather than to the play natural to her age. Her father had a considerable library, the contents of every book in which she made her own, always preferring history, before she had finished her tenth year being acquainted with Hume, Gibbon, Alison, and kindred writers. At this point she was sent away to school. Her father and mother, seeing the intellect for which they were responsible, took all possible pains with her education, and fortunately her physical strength was sufficient to carry her through an unin- terrupted course in different academies and a series of lessons with masters at home. She cared more for languages and natural sciences, in which she was very proficient, than for most other studies, and took no especial pleasure in mathe- matics. When she was about thirteen years of age her father moved his family from the quiet and pretty little village in Suffolk County, New York, with the quaint Indian name of Yaphank, in which she was born, to Brooklyn, E.D., and there Mr. Booth organized the first public school that was established in that city. Mr. William Chatfield Booth was a man well qualified both by education and by native character for the guidance of such an intelligence as that developed by his daughter. Deeply interested in scholarly matters, a man of great directness of purpose and of fearless integrity, he and his daughter were in perfect sympathy, and he watched her growth with tender solicitude, and in subsequent years cherished with pride every word of her writing. But he could never quite bring him- self to believe, even after she had won a handsome independ- ence by her exertions, that she was really altogether capable of her own support, and always insisted upon making her the most generous gifts. As the President of the United States lately said of him, " A kinder and more honorable gentleman I MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 119 it would be hard to find." Another daughter and two sons comprised the remainder of his family, the younger of the sons, Colonel Charles A. Booth, who has seen some twenty years' service in the army, having been born so much later than herself that he was naturally his sister's idol from his infancy. Mr. Booth was descended from one of our earliest settlers, John Booth, who came to this country in 1649, a kinsman of the Sir George Booth, afterwards Baron Delamere and Earl of Warrington, who, as the faithful friend and companion of Charles II. in his exile and wanderings, only showed that trait of fidelity to friendship which still marks his race. In 1652 Ensign John Booth purchased Shelter Island from the Indians, and the original deed is yet in possession of the family who, for two hundred years and over, have not wandered a great way from the region where their ancestor made his first home on these shores. Miss Booth's mother, who is still living, at the age of eighty, active and vigorous in body and in mind, shows her origin so plainly in her sparkling black eyes, her vivacity, her picturesqueness, and her gentle manners that it is hardly necessary to say one of her grandparents was a French emigrg of the Revolution. Miss Booth's literary career began, as might be expected, at an early age. She had the foundation of long and hard study, and extensive reading, aided by an immense memory, an in- tense enthusiasm and faculty of appreciation, and a poetic soul. Her writing at first consisted chiefly of sketches, essays, and poems. But after compiling the " Marble- Worker's Manual," and the "Clock and Watchmaker's Manual," both successful and standard works in request by artisans, and rendering French and German with such ease and freedom as she did, she by degrees drifted into translation more than she had intended, the field being almost entirely unoccupied. She translated and published Mary's " Andre Ch^nier," Victor Cousin's " Life and Times of Madame de Chevreuse," Marmier's " Russian Tales," and Sue's " Mysteries of the 120 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. People," connecting her name inseparably with all these works, and with Edinond About's exquisite creation of r Germaine," and "King of the Mountain" the latter of which remains an inimitable burlesque of modern Greek government to this day as the epigrammatic brilliancy and beauty of the style of which she has rendered as an object is reflected in a mirror. Miss Booth was still scarcely more than a young girl when a friend suggested to her that no complete history of the city of New York had ever been written, and that it might be well to prepare such a one for the use of schools. Although without ambition to attempt the impossible, yet never daunted by the possible, she has that patience and perseverance which is as much a second description of genius as of valor, and she at once busied herself in the under- taking, and, after some years spent in preparation, finished one that became, on the request of a publisher, the basis of a more important work upon the same subject, her material having far outgrown the limits proposed, and her experience having taught her the best way of using it. This task was thoroughly delightful and congenial to her taste and capacity. She knew, moreover, that it was no petty work, as many of the most stirring events of colonial and national history were connected with its story, and she loved the city of her adoption as if it had been the place of her birth. "It is certain," she says, "that New York is rich in memories, which are worthy of the most reverent respect, and which belong alike to all its inhabitants, but which are too often unheeded. Throngs of busy citizens pass and repass the grave of Stuyvesant and the tomb of Montgomery, ignorant of their locality, and look with indifference on the Battery, and Bowling Green, teeming with reminiscences of the old Dutch Colony days, and on that cradle of liberty, the Park, where still may be seen one of the old prison-houses of the Revolution. In these things we are far more remiss than our neighbors. Boston never forgets to celebrate her MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 121 tea-party ; few New Yorkers even know that a similar one was once held in their own harbor. Boston proudly commem- orates her " Massacre ; " how many New Yorkers are aware that two months previous to this brief affray, the earliest battle of the Revolution, lasting two days, was fought in the streets of New York, on Golden Hill, where the first blood was shed in the cause of freedom ? " During the course of her historical work, Miss Booth met with great and spontaneous kindness on all sides. She had the fullest access to libraries and archives, accessible to but few, and received from everybody the most considerate courtesy ; especially did the older historians seem pleased that a young girl should exhibit such powers and such inclina- tions, and they admitted her to the guild with the ceremony of every kindness at the^r command. Washington Irving sent her a letter of cordial encouragement, and D. T. Valen- tine, Henry B. Dawson, W. J. Davis, E. B. O'Callaghan, and numerous others showered her with documents and every assistance. " My Dear Miss Booth," writes Benson G. Lossing, " the citizens of New York owe you a debt of grati- tude for this popular story of the life of the great metropolis, containing so many important facts in its history, and included in one volume accessible to all. I congratulate you on the completeness of the task and the admirable manner in which it has been performed." The history appeared in one large volume, and met at once with a generous welcome, whose pecuniary results were very considerable. So satisfactory, indeed, was its reception, that the publisher proposed to her to go abroad and write popular histories of the great European capitals, London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. It was a bright vision for the young writer, but the approach of war and other fortuitous circum- stances prevented its becoming a reality. A second edition of the history was published in 1867, and a third edition, revised and brought down to date, appeared in 1880. A large paper edition of the work was taken by well-known book-collectors, extended and illustrated by them 122 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. with supplementary prints, portraits, and autographs on the interleaved pages. One copy, enlarged to folio and extended to nine volumes by several thousand maps, letters, and other illustrations, is owned in the city of Naw York, and is an unequalled treasure-house of interest ; Miss Booth herself owns a copy that was presented to her by an eminent bib- liopolist, enriched by more than two thousand of those illus- trations on inserted leaves ; and a collector in Chicago is so in love with the great city and with the work recounting its part in the drama of civilization, that he has extended his own copy to twenty-two volumes. The first sentences of the book enlist the attention of the reader, as they present a picture of the wilderness of Man- hattan Island in vivid contrast to the peopled and cultured city of to-day. "At this time, yie Dutch were the richest commercial nation on the globe. Having conquered their independence from Spain, and their country from the sea, they turned their attention to commerce, and with such success that it was not long before their sails whitened the waters of every clime. A thousand vessels were built annually in Holland, and an extensive trade was carried on with all the European nations. But their richest commerce was with the East Indies ; and the better to secure themselves against all competition, the merchants engaged in this traffic had, in 1602, obtained a charter of incorporation for twenty-one years from the States General, under the name of the East India Company, granting them the exclusive monopoly of the trade in tli3 Eastern seas beyond the Cape of Good Hope on one side and the Straits of Magellan on the other, with other valuable privileges. "This obtained, it next became desirable to shorten the passage thither, and thus to render the commerce more lucrative. The voyage to China by the only known route, that by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, consumed two years, and the time seemed long to the impatient merchants. It was thought that a more expeditious passage might be dis- covered by the way of the Polar seas, and three expeditions, MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 123 under the command of Barentsen, Cornelissen, and Heems- kerck, were despatched, one after the other, in search of it. But they found nothing but snow and ice, where they had hoped to find a clear sea, and they returned after having endured unheard-of hardships and earned a lasting fame as the earliest Polar navigators." With this she tells the story of Henry Hudson, sailing in his yacht, the " Half-Moon," up " the beautiful river with its lofty palisades, its broad bays, its picturesque bends, its romantic highlands, and its rocky shores covered with luxu- riant forests." As the tale proceeds, the origin of the Patroon system is explained ; vigorous outlines are drawn of the robust ad- venturers and of the various early governors ; the exploits of the renowned Wouter Van Twiller are recounted with as much quiet humor as the stories of the Indian troubles, the Leisler affair, and the relation of the Colony to the revolu- tion of 1689, are given with dramatic vividness, and a com- plete Dutch painting is made of New Amsterdam in the old Dutch Colony days, making an invaluable record. "The province thus passed away forever from the hands of its Dutch rulers," says the author, at the conclusion of this epoch, "but many years elapsed before the Holland manners and customs were uprooted, and New York became in truth an English city. Indeed, some of them linger still, and New York yet retains a marked individuality which distinguishes it from the eastern cities and savors strongly of its Dutch origin. The memorials of the Dutch dynasty have fallen one by one ; the Stuy vesant pear-tree was long the last token in being of the flourishing nation which so long possessed the city of New Amsterdam, the last link that connected the present with the traditional past, and this fell in 1867, before the slow decay of age. But the broad and liberal nature of the early settlers is still perpetuated in the cosmo- politan character of the city, in its freedom from exclusive- ness, in its religious tolerance, and in its extended views of men and things. . . . The Dutch language has disappeared, 124 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. the Dutch signs have passed away from the streets, and the Dutch manners and customs are forgotten save in a few strongholds of the ancient Knickerbocker. But the Dutch o spirit has not yet died out, enough of it is still remaining to enable New York to trace its lineage in a direct line to its parent, New Amsterdam." As we continue to turn these enchaining pages, we find the true story of Captain Kidd recited for the first time, the great negro plot, whose atrocities far outdid those of the Salem witchcraft, rehearsed with judicial impartiality, the era of the Revolution set before us in burning words, and all the events of the life of the great city, so intertwined with the national life, are swiftly and strongly told, down to the times of the cruel draft riots and the robberies of the 'ring,' which are yet unnoted by any other historian. Here and there a lively anecdote brightens the text ; a character is limned in black and white so sharply that one sees wh} r the traits of the old Stuyvesants, Van Rensselaers, and Rapelyes, should still mark their descendants, or a bit of forcible word-painting is given, as in the sketch of the foun- dation of the fur-trade which made the beginning of so many colossal fortunes. "This opening of a new path in commerce wrought a revolution in the aims and lives of the young men of the city. These youths, instead of remaining, as formerly, behind their fathers' counters, or entering the beaten track of the West India trade, now provided themselves with a stock of guns and blankets, and set out with a trusty servant in a bark canoe to explore the pathless wilderness. Here they roamed for months in the primeval forests, forced at every step to turn aside to avoid some deadly reptile or fierce beast of prey, or to guard against the wiles of an insidious foe, ever on the alert to entrap them in some snare, and to purchase their goods at the expense of their lives. Forced to depend for their subsistence on the quickness of their eye and the sureness of their aim, to journey by day through thicket and marsh, over cataract and rapid, to sleep at night with no other canopy than the stars and sky, and to be con- MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 125 stantly on their guard against the unseen danger which was lurking everywhere about them this forest education called forth all their resources of courage and sagacity, and they came from the trial with muscles of iron, nerves of steel, and a head and eye that never flinched before the most deadly peril. No fiction of romance can surpass the adventurous career of those daring travellers who thus pursued the golden fleece in the wilds of America ; and those who came forth from this school of danger were well fitted to play their part in the approaching tragedies of the French and Indian war and the drama of the coming Revolution." To linger a moment on a subject where there is still so much to be said, perhaps no better example can be seen of the facile grace of the author's style and the calm and well- balanced power of presenting a case than in the following extract from this work, which has the interest of a romance and the value of an encyclopedia of reference : " The truth is that Great Britain contemptuously regarded the colonists as rich barbarians, the chief end of whose existence was to fur- nish an ample revenue to the mother-country. Their interests were wholly disregarded in the government councils, and the restrictions imposed on them were rigorous in the extreme. The English parliament claimed the right of regulating the trade of the colonies, and, under cover of this pretext, levied heavy duties upon imports, ostensibly for the purpose of de- fraying custom-house expenses, and at the same time sedu- lously suppressed all attempts at home manufactures. By a series of navigation acts, the colonists were forbidden to trade with any foreign country, or to export to England merchan- dise of their own in any but English vessels. The country was full of iron, but not an axe or a hammer could be manu- factured by the inhabitants without violating the law. Beaver was abundant, but to limit its manufacture no hatter was per- mitted to have more than two apprentices, and not a hat could be sold from one colony to another. Of the wool which was sheared in such abundance from the flocks, not a yard of cloth could be manufactured except for private use, nor a 126 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. pound exported from one town to another ; but the raw mate- rial must all be sent to England to be manufactured there, then to come back as imported cloths, laden with heavy duties. Imposts were also levied upon sugar, molasses, and all articles of foreign luxury imported into the colonies, and America was, in fact, regarded only as a place from which to raise money. " Notwithstanding, the colonists had patiently submitted to this manifest injustice. They had evaded the payment of the duties by living frugally and dispensing with the luxuries which could only be obtained at such a cost. They had accepted the royal governors, profligate and imbecile as they often were, and had contented themselves with opposing their unjust exactions. In the French and Indian wars they had acted nobly, and by lavish expenditure of their blood and treasure had secured to England the possession of a rich and long-coveted territory. These wars, which had added such lustre to the crown of Great Britain, and had secured the broad lands of Canada to her domain, had cost the colonies thirty thousand of their bravest soldiers and left them bur- dened with a debt of thirteen million pounds. But, in- satiable in her desires, in return for this she required still more. The country which had been able to contribute so largely in the intercolonial wars had not, she thought, been taxed to the utmost, and, in order to wring from it a still larger revenue, new means were proposed by the British ministry for establishing a system of parliamentary taxation, a right which the colonists had ever persistently denied." Shortly after the publication of the first edition of this invaluable work, the civil war broke out. Miss Booth had always been a warm anti-slavery partisan and a sympathizer with movements for what she considered true progress, although directed by that calm judgment which never lets the heart run away with the head. But here heart and head were in accord, the country was aflame with fervor to prevent the destruction of the noblest government ever given to man ; and all hoped that a certain result of the struirzle MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 127 would be that universal freedom without which the freedom already vaunted was a lie. Miss Booth was, of course, enlisted on the side of the Union, and longing to do something to help the cause in which she so ardently believed. She did not feel herself qualified to act as a nurse in the military hospitals, not only having that inherent antipathy to the sight of sickness and suffering common to many poetic natures, although willing to endure all that such sight and association could bring, but being, through her life among books^ too inexperienced in such work to venture assuming its tasks with their consequent risk of life. Still something she must do. That she had sent her brother to the front, scarcely more than a boy, as he was, seemed not half enough ; and, when, while burning with eager- ness she received an advance copy of Count Agenor de Gas- parin's " Uprising of a Great People," she at once saw her opportunity in bringing heartening words to those in the terrible struggle. She took the work, without loss of time, to Mr. Scribner, proposing he should publish it. He demurred a little, saying he would gladly do so if the translation were ready, but that the war would be over before the book was out, Mr . Sew- ard having authoritatively limited its duration to a small number not of weeks but of days. Mr. Scribner finally said, perhaps but half believing in the possibility, that if it could be ready in a week he would publish it. " It shall be done," was her reply, and she went home and went to work, work- ing twenty hours of every twenty-four, receiving the proof- sheets at night and returning them with fresh copy in the morning. The week lacked several hours of its completion when the work was finished, and in a fortnight the book was out, and its message rang from Maine to California. Nothing published during the war made half the sensation that did this prophetic volume, whose predictions were so wonderfully accurate that very few of them were found to have proved false at the end of the dark contest, dark not only because beginning to be so doubtful, and laden with sor- 128 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. row, and suffering, and loss, but because, although the North shone in the light of a glorious resolve, and the South con- tended for principle, the struggle was still one between broth- ers. The newspapers of the day were full of reviews and notices, eulogistic and otherwise, according to the party repre- sented. The book revived courage and rekindled hope. " It is worth a whole phalanx in the cause of human freedom," wrote Charles Sumner ; and Abraham Lincoln paused in the midst of his mighty work to send her a letter of thanks and lofty cheer. The publication of the book was the means of putting Miss Booth at once into communication with the author and his wife, who begged her to visit them in Switzerland ; and it subsequently brought about a correspondence with most of those European sympathizers with the North who handled a pen, such as Augustin Cochin, Edouard Laboulaye, Henri Martin, Edmond de Pressense, Conte du Montalembert, Monseigneur Dupanloup, and others, men of all shades of religious and political belief at home, but united in the hatred of slavery, and in sympathy for the cause in whose success its extinction was involved. These gentlemen vied with each other in sending her advance-sheets of their books, and numerous articles, letters, and pamphlets to meet the question of the day, which she swiftly translated, publishing them without money and with- out price, in the daily journals, and through the avenues afforded by the Union League Club. In return, she kept these noble Frenchmen accurately informed of the progress of events, and sent them such publications as could be of service. The Uprising of a Great People " was followed rapidly by Gasparin's "America Before Europe," by Laboulaye's " Paris in America," and two volumes by Augustin Cochin, " Results of Emancipation " and " Results of Slavery." Cochin's work attracted even more attention than Gasparin's had done. She received hundreds of appreciative letters from the leading Republican statesman Henry Winter Davis, Senator Doo- little, Galusha A. Grow, Dr. Lieber, Dr. Bell, the president MAKY LOUISE BOOTH. 129 of the Sanitary Commission, and a host of others, among them George Simmer, Cassius M. Clay, and Attorney-Gen- eral Speed, Charles Sumner writing her that Cochin's work had been of more value to the cause " than the Numidian cavalry to Hannibal." It will easily be seen from this brief and condensed recital how important was Miss Booth's share in the great national work, a share in firing and sustaining the public heart second only to that of Mrs. Stowe's, before the war, when "Uncle Tom's Cabin'' went through the land like the Fiery Cross that, seared in fire and dipped in blood, flashed from hand to hand for the rousing of the clans. "As I went over some of those letters last night," she wrote once, concerning this "Sturm and Drang" period of her life, " it was like opening the grave of the past. My present life seemed thin and frivolous compared with those glowing hours so full of earn- est work, in which the fate of a nation was involved ; and I could not sleep for thinking of the days that are no more." In the meantime she pursued her translations as before, adding to her list Laboulaye's " Fairy Tales," and Jean Mace's " Fairy Book," and several of the religious works of the Count and Countess do Gasparin, "Happiness" by the former, and " Camille," " Vesper," and " Human Sorrows " by the latter. Her translations in all number nearly forty vol- umes. She had thought of adding to this number, at the request of Mr. James T. Fields, an abridgment of Madame Sand's voluminous " Histoire de ma Vie" and, with her customary delicacy, not liking to undertake a task of that nature without permission, she wrote the author, giving her proposed plan, and receiving the following reply : "MADAME, J f ai ete absente de chez moi, et je recois vos deux lettres a la fois. Yotre maniere a dire et de penser, et la delica- tesse de vos scrupules, me donnent une confiance entiere dans Votre discernement et dans votre conscience. Je vous autorise done & faire les coupures que vous jugiez ne"cessaires, et vous prie de me croire toute a vous, GEORGE SAND. Nohant, 22 Mai, '63, Par la Chatre, Indre. 130 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. Circumstances, however, prevented the completion of the work. Her pleasant correspondence with people of interest still continued, and, among others, with Mr. Suinner, passages from which I have begged, and with difficulty obtained per- mission to transcribe for the sake of their value to those who love his name. " I cannot express to you all the gratitude I feel for your kindness to the memory of my late brother. His death was a release to him, but it has been a trial to us. It leaves me more than ever alone." Afterwards, acknowledging a message, he says, " I am touched and gratified by those beautiful words of Madame de Gasparin. When you write to her, be good enough to let her know how constantly my brother cherished the recollection of his visit to her family, and that he often went over its incidents. I had not the good fortune of know- ing personally any of this remarkable family, but I am familiar with their history and with their labors. Madame de Gasparin is not the least remarkable of this distinguished connection." o Still later he writes her in touching words that seem to cry for the rest that never came, " It is hard to contend always. I long for repose. But there is no rest for me so long as the freedmen are denied their rights, and the only chance of placing them beyond assault is through the national gov- ernment." Miss Booth did not cease her labors after her work in con- nection with the war was over, but at once began the trans- lation of Henri Martin's "Unabridged History of France," six of whose volumes she translated. Since then, in connection with Miss Alger, she has translated Martin's abridgement of the "History of France," in six volumes, 'now in course of publication. She has been in friendly communication with most of the authors to whose writings she has turned her attention, and all without exception have taken warm interest in her work, and commended it in flattering terms. In the year 1867 Miss Booth undertook another enter- prise of an entirely opposite but no less important nature, MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 131 in assuming the management of " Harper's Bazar," a weekly journal devoted to the pleasure and improvement of the domestic circle. She had long been in pleasant relations with the Messrs. Harper, the four brothers who founded the great house which bears their name, and who conducted its business to such splendid results ; and when they resolved upon issuing a family newspaper of this description they immediately asked her to take its editorial control. Diffident concerning her abilities in this untried direc- tion, she accepted with hesitation. But the correctness of their judgment was soon displayed ; for under her editorial management it proved the swiftest journalistic success on record, numbering its subscribers by the hundred thousand, and while other papers take a loss for granted in the begin- ning, putting itself upon a paying basis at the outset. While she has assistants in every department, among their names those of some most distinguished in our literature, she is her- self the inspiration of the whole corps, and under the advice and suggestion of its proprietors she has held it on an even course, whatever winds of doctrine blew outside. There is scarcely a poet, or a story-writer, or novelist of any rank in America or England who is not a contributor to its pages, and its purity, its self-respect, its high standard, and its lite- rary excellence, are unrivalled among periodical publications. The influence of such a paper within American homes is something hardly to be computed. It has always been on the side of good and sweet things ; it has made the right seem the best and pleasantest ; it has taught while it has amused ; it has had the happiness, well-being, and virtue of women and the family for its first consideration, and it has created a wholesome atmosphere wherever it is constantly read. Through its columns its editor has made her hand felt o in countless families for nearly sixteen years, and has helped to shape the domestic ends of a generation to peace and righteousness. Perhaps Miss Booth could not have accomplished so much if she had been hampered, as many women are, by conditions 132 MARY LOUISE BOOTH. demanding exertion in other than her chosen path, and with- out the comfort about her of a perfect home. She lives in the city of New York, in the neighborhood of Central Park, in a house which she owns, with her sister by adopt- ion, Mrs. Anne W. Wright, between whom and herself there exists one of those lifelong and tender affections which are too intimate and delicate for public mention, but which are among the friendships of history, a friendship that was begun in childhood and that cannot cease in death. To Mrs. Wright, more than to any other woman I have known, do Wordsworth's lines apply : " A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet. The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill, A perfect woman, nobly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command." Their house is one particularly adapted to entertaining, with its light and lovely parlors and connecting rooms ; there are always guests within its hospitable walls, and if there is such a thing in this country as a salon, it is to be found here, where every Saturday night may be met an assemblage of the beauty and wit and wisdom, resident or transient, in the city authors of note, great singers, players, musicians, statesmen, travellers, publishers, journalists, and pretty women, making the time fly on wings of enchantment. A few years ago these friends of the house took the occasion of a birthday to present Miss Booth with a magnificent album full of portraits and autographs of great value. Miss Booth is a person who has been singularly blest with steadfast friends ; one has only to look at the benig- nancy of her habitual expression to see the reason why. She forgets herself in serving others, and is happy in their happiness. Exquisitely sensitive herself, sympathetic and delicate, she is further characterized by a lofty nobility and honor. Many-sided as a faceted jewel, to the man of busi - MARY LOUISE BOOTH. 133 ness she is merely a woman of business ; but to the poet she is full of answering vibrations. She values beauty in every form, betraying the fact in a deep and intelligent love of nature, in a passion for flowers, gems, and perfumes, and in an intense delight and thorough knowledge of music. Warm in her affections, quick in her feelings, cool in her judg- ments, untiring in her energies, imperious in her will, and almost timid in her self-distrust in spite of her achievement, her character is a singular combination of the strength on which you can rely, and the tenderness you would protect, while there is a certain bounteousness of nature about her, like the overflowing sweetness and spice of a full-blown rose. All these qualities are held within bounds by a shy and suf- fering modesty that will make it impossible for her to read these words ! In person Miss Booth is majestic and commanding, being taller and larger than women usually are. Her dress is sim- ple to plainness when about her business, but rich and becom- ing otherwhere, for she has the weakness of other women about rare old lace, and cashmeres that are drawn through a bracelet. Her hands are as perfect as sculpture, and sparkle with quaint and costly rings ; and her skin of infantile deli- cacy and rose-leaf color, her dimples, her straight, short nose, her soft brown eyes, and her prematurely silvered hair, worn rolled over cushions, give her a striking appearance that approaches beauty. But there is a beauty of the soul more precious than any other ; it shines in the purity of the countenance, in the quiet independence, of movement, in the sincerhVy and straightfor- wardness of utterance, in the care and concern for others, and in the glance that seeks their sympathy ; and this beauty is still more pre-eminently hers. Strong for troublous times and sweet for gentle ones, she is one woman in a myriad, and the world is better because she has lived in it. 9 ' CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOKS BLACKWELL. BY LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE. Early Home of the Blackwell Sisters "Little Shy " Her Indomitable Pluck and Wonderful Physique A Feat Showing Her Strength Death of Her Father Struggle of the Family with Misfortune and Poverty Elizabeth Begins the Study of Medicine How She Acquired Her Profes- sional Education Surmounting Great Difficulties Some of Her Experi- ences as a Medical Student Graduates with High Honor First Medical Diploma Ever Granted to a Woman A Proud Moment in Her Life Her Sister, Emily Blackwell Her College Life Battling Against Oppo- sition Final Success Her Studies Abroad The Two Sisters establish Themselves in Practice in New York Founding the Women's Hospital and College Recognition and Success at Last. ARDINAL MAZARIN said to Don Luis de Haro, at the time of the Peace of the Pyrenees : " How lucky you are, in Spain ! There, women are satisfied with being coquettish or devout; they obey their lover or their confessor, and interfere with nothing else." His eminence held, in common with the public opinion of his time, that the political and social troubles of less well-regulated countries proceeded from the failure of the meddlesome sex to mind its own business. But as women came more frequently to be heard upon the subject, it appeared that a respectable minority disagreed with the majority as to the nature and limits of that business. Presently a clear-eyed woman wrote : " History jeers at the attempts of physiologists to bind great original laws by the forms which flow from them. They make a rule : they say, from observation, what can and cannot be. In vain ! Nature provides exceptions to every rule. She sends women to battle, and sets Hercules spinning; she enables women to bear immense burdens, cold, and frost ; she enables the man, 134 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 135 who feels maternal love, to nourish his infant like a mother. . . . Presently she will make a female Newton, and a male siren. . . . But if you ask me what offices they may fill, I reply a ny. I do not care what case you put ; let them be sea-captains, if you will. I do not doubt there are women well-fitted for such an office, and if so, I should be as glad to see them in it as to welcome the Maid of Saragossa, or the Maid of Missolonghi, or the Suliote heroine, or Countess Colonel Emily Plater." The female Newton is yet to come, but in tjie very year that saw the publication of Margaret Fuller's brave plea for her sex, a young woman in the West, alone, unaided, and poor, began those studies which have made her name eminent in medical science, and freed a new domain of labor to the occupation of women. That America, however grudgingly, afforded Elizabeth Blackwell, and, afterward, her sister, Emily, that opportunity for professional instruction and prac- tice which their native England withheld, constitutes her claim to reckon them among her noble women. Their father, Mr. Samuel Blackwell, a rich sugar-refiner of Bristol, was a man of singular high-mindedness, catholicity, energy, honesty, and benevolence. Their home offered a fruitful soil for virtues to take root in, which throve the better, as it seemed, for the overrunning tangle of innocent wild- oats that grew up with them. Winters were given to hard work in the school-room, summers to equally hard play at the seaside. Long walks in all weathers kept heads clear and complexions bright. The wise mother was not frightened at the name of torn-boy, nor disturbed by the cheerful din of the host of children who " rampaged " through the passages between lesson-hours. Birthdays, which seemed to have a jovial trick of recurring oftener than in other families of like spaciousness, were celebrated with a frenzy of affectionate zeal. Holidays brought " sport that wrinkled care derides, and laughter holding both his sides." The sunshine and fresh air of this hearty, sensible, hilarious household developed a sturdy growth of juvenile character. 136 THE DOCTORS BLACK WELL. | Elizabeth, the third daughter, was a tiny creature, fair, with blonde hair, beautiful hands, and a voice of extraordinary sweetness. As a child, she was so unusually reserved and silent that her father, to whom she was devoted, nicknamed her tf Little Shy." But this singularly delicate and shrinking exterior hid a tenacity of purpose and muscular strength almost incredible. An elder sister relates that before the little maid was five years old, her father was once obliged to go to Dublin on business. This necessity was made the occasion of a frolic for the children, who went in force to the Hotwells to see him off. Elizabeth, bent on being useful, persisted in holding his heavy portmanteau in her lap all the way to the anchorage. As the steamer swung off and moved slowly down the river, the children ran along the bank, shouting their good-bys. But when the rest were ready to turn homeward, " Little Shy " only quickened her pace. She had made up her small mind that since she was forbidden to accompany her father, as she had entreated, she would make the journey on foot, and rejoin him in Ireland ! Coaxing and remonstrance were vain. The tiny pilgrim, bound on her filial errand, had already the con- stancy of a devotee. At last it was made plain to her that her father had taken the ship because it was impossible to reach Ireland by land, and that should she walk to Holy- head she must there be turned back by the Channel. Even her indomitable little spirit saw the futility of contending with the natural divisions of the earth, however arbitrary and senseless they might appear to her, and she turned home- ward with injured and resentful countenance, too indignant with Circumstance to utter a word. In earliest girlhood she read Foster's "Essay on Decision of Character" which became an inspiration to her. All her ideals were heroic, Elizabeth, the huntress Diana, the Valkyries, with their lofty self-dependence and undaunted courage, Boadicea, Lady Russell, Madame Roland. She herself had the perfect physique of the mythical maids of Valhalla. Her muscles were corded steel, her delicate hands THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 137 had a grip of iron. She would pick up the other children and carry them about the house, till, tired out with laughter and struggling, they consented to her terms of release. While still in the school-room her feats of strength were astonishing. It is related of her that she once used the argwnentum ad hominem in a peculiarly convincing way. Some intimate friends having called one evening at her father's house, the conversation happened to turn on the feeble muscular develop- ment of women. A certain gentleman maintained that the weakest man, putting forth his full strength, could overcome the strongest woman. " But that must be a mistake," declared her brother, " for when Elizabeth chooses she is more than a match for the best of us at wrestling or at lifting, and carries us about as she likes." " She could not lift me! No woman living could lift me ! " exclaimed the champion of his sex. "Try it, Miss Eliza- beth," he continued, settling himself for resistance ; "do your utmost ! I defy you to move me out of this chair." Deliberately the new Brunhilda approached, deliberately lifted the scoffer, deliberately settled him on her left arm, and holding him firmly with the other, despite his desperate struggles to escape, bore him three times round the room, with the slow stateliness of a triumphal march. Commercial disorders following on the political crisis of 1830-31 crippled the prosperous house of Blackwell, whose head resolved to emigrate with his family to the United States, where the sugar business was then lucrative. In August, 1832, the new settlers landed in New York. A sugar-refinery was soon established, which was immediately prosperous. But the financial ruin of 1837 spared no in- dustry. Though avoiding personal bankruptcy, Mr. Black- well found his fortune again swept away by the failure of weaker houses. But he was a man incapable of defeat. Even then he saw the great opportunities which the widening West offered, and in 1838 removed with his family to 138 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. Cincinnati. The summer proved hot and pestilential. His health, already impaired by anxiety and the severe strain of the American climate, gave way under the change from sea air to the humid heats of a Western river-town. While working with characteristic energy to establish a new sugar- refinery, he was smitten by fever, and died, after a brief illness, at the early age of forty-five. In a strange city the family now found themselves penni- less and unknown. The wreck of their fortune had been in- vested in the new business. Debts due the estate were disregarded. . An agent in New York sold the valuable house- hold furniture which had been left in his charge, and kept the proceeds. Rent was owing on the house they occupied and on the business premises. Protested notes were to be paid. Doctors' and undertakers' bills demanded settlement, two more deaths having occurred in the family during that terrible autumn. Every day brought its tale of expenses, however narrowly the schedule of necessities was made up. But the scrupulous honesty of the father was a characteristic of the rest. No one dreamed of evading one just claim upon his name, and in the end every penny of indebtedness was paid. The three elder daughters, of whom Dr. Elizabeth, just seventeen years old, was the third, at once assumed the sup- port of the younger children and their mother. With ready self-denial the two boys, next in age, left their studies to take clerkships. Four little ones, of whom Dr. Emily was the eldest, were still in the nursery. But one way of support offered itself to these needy gentlewomen, and the Misses Blackwell opened a boarding-school for young ladies. They were thoroughly and liberally educated. They were full of the family courage and energy. Respect for their abilities and interest in their misfortunes soon filled the school. The assurance that the family could be kept together, and the younger children educated, was worth almost any cost to these devoted sisters. But the old household ways had been those of comfortable ease and rare good-fellowship. The toil, THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 139 confinement, and incessant responsibilit} 1 " of a boarding-school ; the inevitable formality and rigidity of the daily routine ; more than all, the irksome need of a thrift approaching parsi- mony, weighed heavily on young shoulders hitherto exempt from burdens. Pay was small, compared with the endless labor and self-denial of the work. The fact that they were shut in to this one weary way of bread-winning was, in itself, harassing. A sort of gentle Jacobin club grew up among them, whose entire membership they constituted, and at whose irregular meetings, in the insecure privacy of their bed- rooms, they arraigned society for its unfairness to their sex. Had they been men, or, being women, had they received a thorough business and professional training, they saw how much easier and more honorable their struggle for existence would have been. Each year deepened their conviction that an enlargement of woman's opportunities was the necessary condition of a higher social well-being. But hard necessity kept them to their familiar treadmill. By night they might plan new achievements and rewards for their sex. By day they must conjugate French verbs, listen to blundering scales, or vainly strive to impose habits of conscientious study on the spoiled young tyrants of the class-room. Six years of this patient grind placed the younger children in self-supporting positions, and the school was given up. Already Elizabeth had resolved to devote her future to the science of medicine. Shrinking with the strong instinct of perfect health from all contact with disease, loathing the atmosphere of the sick-room, and naturally intolerant of the moral weakness of invalidism, she yet believed women to be specially fitted by nature for the medical profession. Of the many fields of honorable labor then closed against them it seemed to her that this might most easily be won. And she saw clearly that if prejudice could be made to yield a single outpost, the taking of the citadel was but a question of time. Examples were not wanting of women who had enriched medical science. She remembered Marie Catherine Biheron, the Paris apothecary's little daughter, who, working eagerly 140 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. over dead bodies, by night, in her attic chamber, perfected the common manikin, and was the first to unfold, by the aid of prepared wax, the inner mysteries of the human frame. She remembered Elizabeth Nihell, contending with calm good sense and steady judgment against the obstetrical quackeries of the fashionable London doctors of the last age. She re- membered that noble Elizabeth Blackwell of the eighteenth o century, Scotch and sturdy, who, studying midwifery to sup- port her sick husband, himself a physician of repute, found her means of livelihood taken away by the trades'-union of the faculty, and turned to the preparation of the first medical botany. She remembered the nurses and healers of the middle ages, a great cloud of witnesses to the fitness of women for the profession of her choice. The very need of conquering her personal dislike of the task she had set herself whetted her courage. But that task was herculean, and the money required was yet to be earned. In 1844 she took charge of a large country school in Ken- tucky, hoarding every penny of pay for professional uses, and every moment of leisure for professional studies. The next year a higher salary was offered her as music teacher in a fashionable boarding-school at Charleston, South Carolina. There, while working hard at medicine, she began the study of Latin, being already a good French and German scholar. There, too, it was her good fortune to meet the distinguished Doctor Samuel Henry Dickson, who took a generous interest in her plans, admitted her among his office students, and gave her invaluable help and encouragement. In May, 1847, after three years of indefatigable prepara- tion, she sought admission to the Philadelphia Medical School. The physicians in charge, without exception, re- jected her, professing to be shocked at the indelicacy of her application. College and hospital were closed against her, and she was forced to take private courses of anatomy and dissection with one physician, and of midwifery with another. But however able the teacher or zealous the pupil, no private certificate of capacity could equal the guarantee of a diploma. THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 141 And Miss Blackwell was not more anxious to obtain a thorough training for herself than to make straight the path for other women who should follow her. Besides, there already flourished a guild of ignorant or half-educated female doctors, whose code was immoral, and whose practice was em- pirical. It was plain that only qualified women, bearing the diploma of a reputable college, could bar out these pretenders from practice, or hinder their misuse of the professional name. The young student's next step was to obtain a list of all the medical schools of the country, and send her dignified appli- cation to each in turn. Twelve of these institutions promptly rejected her, most of them rebuking either her immodest desire to understand the laws of physical nature, or her pre- sumptuous invasion of those high intellectual regions habitable only by man. Only the faculties of the college at Geneva, New York, and of that at Castleton, Vermont, courteously consented to consider her application. At Geneva, the ques- tion of her admission was referred to the students themselves, These young men, to their honor be it said, unanimously decided in her favor, and voluntarily pledged themselves " individually and collectively," that, should she enter the college, "no word or act of theirs should ever cause her to regret the step." In November, 1847, she was entered on the college register as "No. 417," and saw herself at the beginning of the end. In a brief monograph published twenty-five years ago, to which this sketch is much indebted, Miss Anna Blackwell says : " Aware that the possibility of her going through the course depended on her being able, by her unmoved deport- ment, to cause her presence there to be regarded by those around her, not as that of a woman among men, but of one student among five hundred, confronted only with the truth and dignity of natural law, she restricted herself for some time after her entrance into the college to a diet so rigid as almost to trench upon starvation, in order that no involuntary change of color might betray the feeling of embarrassment occa- sionally created by the necessary plain-speaking of scientific 142 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. analysis. How far the attainment of a self-command which rendered her countenance as impassible as that of a statue can be attributed to the effect of such a diet may be doubtful ; but her adoption of such an expedient is too characteristic to be omitted here. " From her admission into the college until she left it she also made it an invariable rule to pass in and out without taking any notice of the students ; going straight to her seat, and never looking in any other direction than to the professor and on her note-book. How necessary was this circumspection may be inferred from something which occurred in the lecture- room a short time after her admission. The subject of the lecture happened to be a very trying one ; and while the lecturer was proceeding with his demonstration, a folded paper, evidently a note, was thrown down by some one in one of the upper tiers behind her, and fell upon her arm, where it lay, conspicuously white, upon the sleeve of her black dress. She felt, instinctively, that this note contained some gross impertinence, that every eye in the building was upon her ; and that, if she meant to remain in the college, she must repel the insult, then and there, in such a way as to preclude the occurrence of any similar act. Without mov- ing or raising her eyes from her note-book, she continued to write, as though she had not perceived the paper ; and when she had finished her notes she slowly lifted the arm on which it lay, until she had brought it clearly within view of every one in the building, and then, with the slightest possible turn of the wrist, she caused the offensive missile to drop upon the floor. Her action, at once a protest and an appeal, was perfectly understood by the students ; and in an instant the amphitheatre rang with their energetic applause, mingled with hisses directed against her cowardly assailant. Through- out this scene she kept her eyes constantly fixed upon her note-book ; taking no more apparent notice of this welcome demonstration than she had done of the unwelcome aggression which had called it forth. But her position in the college was made from that moment, and not the slightest annoyancr of AN INCIDENT IN THE STUDENT LIFE OF DR. ELIZABETH BLACKWELL. AN ACTUAL SCENE IN THE OPERATING-ROOM OF A MEDICAL COLLEGE. 2. THE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL AND INFIRMARY, NEW YORK CITV. THE DOCTORS BLACK WELL. 143 any kind was ever again attempted throughout her stay. On the contrary, a sincere regard, at once kindly and respectful, was thenceforward evinced toward her by her fellow-students ; and though, for obvious reasons, she still continued to hold herself aloof from social intercourse with them, yet, when- ever the opportunity of so doing presented itself, in the course of their common studies, they always showed them- selves ready and anxious to render her any good offices in their power, and some of them are of her truest friends at this day." By degrees the embarrassment of her position was for- gotten in her devotion to her work. The wonderful and beautiful mechanism of the human body filled her with a reverence which cast out self-consciousness. But the pain she had already endured convinced her of the imperative need of a separate medical school for women. Never was Little Peddlington more distracted by a question of social etiquette than Geneva by the coming of the " lady student." Boarding-house keepers were warned that their lodgers would leave them if asked to sit at table with so doubtful a character. Boys followed her about the streets, with audible and unflattering comments on her personal appearance and supposed intentions. Well-dressed men and women felt at liberty to stop on the sidewalk and stare openly at the prodigy. But the dignity of the quiet little figure, dressed always in black, and intent upon its own business, soon conquered civility. And when it was known that the professors' wives had called upon her, the boarding-houses capitulated. An incredible self-denial and industry marked Miss Black- well's college course. Even the hot summer vacation was spent in study and active practice in one of the outlying hospitals of Philadelphia. Like all finely-organized women, she had an intense liking for flowers, odors, beautiful surroundings, and dainty apparel. But she contented herself with a cheap room, plain garments, and the rarest necessaries. Years afterwards she used to smile at the recollection of the 144 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. struggle it cost her to deny herself a ten-cent bottle of cologne. She remembered its exact place on the chemist's shelf, and the pang she felt in leaving it there. The price of her graduation gown seriously encroached on the little hoard so carefully kept for future study. But as always, she faced the inevitable with serenity. In a letter written at that time she says : " I am working hard for the parchment which I suppose will come in good time ; but I have still an immense amount of dry reading to get through with and to beat into my memory. I have been obliged to have a dress made for the graduation ceremony, and mean- while it lies quietly in my trunk biding its time. It is a rich black silk, with a cape, trimmed with black silk fringe, and some narrow white lace round the neck and cuffs. I could not avoid the expense, though a grievous one for a poor student ; for the affair will take place in a crowded church. I shall have to mount to a platform on which sits the presi- dent of the University, in gown and triangular hat, surrounded by rows of reverend professors ; and of course I can neither disgrace womankind, the college, nor the Blackwells by presenting myself in a shabby gown." On a bright January day of 1849 the largest church in Geneva was packed with spectators eager to see the presenta- tion of the first medical diploma ever granted to a woman. Whatever marvel they may have expected, the reality was simple enough. A slender, black-robed girl ascended the steps, with a group of her brother students, and standing undismayed, the focus of a thousand eyes, received from the venerable president of the college the blue-ribboned parchment which converted " No. 417 " into Doctor Eliza- beth Blackwell. A door hitherto closed against women stood open. A whole world of fresh interests and aspir- ations invited them to possess it. The old order had changed, giving place to new. And never was revolution so quietly accomplished. When it came to Dr. Elizabeth's turn to return thanks, she said, in a low voice, which the utter stillness made audible in THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 145 the remotest corner, tf l thank you, Mr. President, for the sanction given to my studies by the institution of which you are the head. With the help of the Most High, it shall be the endeavor of my life to do honor to the diploma you have conferred upon me." No change could well be greater than that from rural Geneva to cosmopolitan Paris. But the indomitable Dr. Elizabeth next besieged the doors of that ancient city's schools. An unwritten Salic law excluded women from inheritance in their unrivalled opportunities. The most emi- nent physicians, to whom she had brought letters of intro- duction, declared her quest hopeless, and advised her to assume a man's dress and register a man's name. But like that great reformer who said : "I will be as uncompromising as justice. I am in earnest ; I will not equivocate ; I will not excuse ; I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard," she held to her purpose with dogged tenacity. After months of weary- ing delay, the great lying-in hospital of theMaternite admitted her as a resident-pupil, and some others consented to tolerate her visits. These concessions demanded a heavy return of application and labor. But Dr. Elizabeth was a very Hotspur of young doctors, vanquishing difficulties as Percy his Scots, and finding time for exacting private studies under the ablest professors in Paris. Returning to London, she obtained ad- mission to St. Bartholomew's and the Women's Hospital, and again took private instruction. She had always intended to practise in America, partly be- cause it offered a better field than England ; partly because she was anxious to help and encourage the many women whom her example had stimulated to attempt the study of medicine. In 1851, after seven years of the hardest study, she arrived in New York to enter on her profession. But her Hill of Difficulty stretched high and steep before her. Prejudice and ignorance are tough combatants who too often push large- minded ability into the ditch. The sensible young doctor knew how slowly a good practice must grow. But it seemed, 146 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. at first, as if she would not be permitted even to plant the germ. The mere mention of her profession closed the doors of reputable boarding-houses against her. And when sub- mission to an exorbitant rent finally secured tolerable office room, the suspicions or neglect of her landladies sent away patients, or failed to deliver messages. Intelligent women of the class she had hoped to benefit sneered at " female doc- tors." Reputable physicians ignored her claims as a fellow- practitioner. But the quiet, steadfast, indomitable woman refused to be dismayed. As in Charleston, Philadelphia, Paris, and London, a few able physicians recognized her high character and capacity, and treated her with profound profes- sional and personal respect. Without this encouragement her attempt would have been impracticable from the outset. With it, she could say, like Walter Scott, "Time and I against any two." In 1852 she delivered a series of lectures to ladies, on hygiene and physical development. Health had not yet come into fashion, but these talks attracted many listeners, partly drawn by curiosity to hear one of the " strong-minded," partly by worthier motives. Even those who came to scoff, however, remained to praise, while not a few became eager patrons and patients of this learned and high-minded teacher. The next year she published an excellent treatise called, " The Laws of Life, considered with reference to the Physi- cal Education of Girls," and, with an increasing practice, found time to establish a Dispensary for Women and Chil- dren. This long-needed charity began its work in a single room, with the free furnishing of advice and medicine to out- door applicants. But Dr. Blackwell saw in it the germ of a beneficent and wide-spreading growth. As its funds in- creased it was to receive indoor patients, providing indigent women with able physicians of their own sex. It was to give this class of patients, beside needed advice and medL cine, plain and kind counsel concerning the care of health, rearing and education of children, household management, and personal habits. It was to educate an efficient body of THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 147 nurses for the community, a service of benefit not only to the sick, but to those deserving and competent women who would gladly earn their bread as nurses, could they command the necessary training. So steady was the success of Dr. Elizabeth's dispensary, that in May, 1857, she was enabled to add to it that Hospital for Women which, both as relief-agency and as training- school, had been the hope of so many years. This Infirm- ary was the first medical charity established by female physicians, as well as the first hospital organized for the in- struction of women in practical medicine. In ten years over fifty thousand patients were relieved by its means. Thirty- one students had been received, who resided from one to two years in the house, and nineteen nurses had been trained and established in the city. The record of the seven subsequent years has been even more satisfactory. Meantime Dr. Elizabeth had welcomed a coadjutor, able, wise, and zealous as herself. In 1848 her younger sister, Emily, began a course of medical reading and dissection with Dr. Davis, demonstrator of anatomy in the Cincinnati Col- lege. Like Dr. Elizabeth, she brought perfect health and in- domitable energy to her work. Like her, she possessed quick perception, and an exceptional memory. Latin, French, and German she knew well. In Greek and mathe- matics her standing was fair. Earning as teacher the funds required as student, she worked hard in both capacities till 1851, when she applied for admission to the Medical School at Geneva. To her surprise she was refused, the same fac- ulty which had testified that the presence of her sister " had exercised a beneficial influence upon her fellow-students in all respects," and that " the average attainments and general con- duct of the students during the period she had passed among them, were of a higher character than those of any class which had been assembled in the college since the connection of the president with the institution," now declaring that they were not prepared to consider the case of Dr. Elizabeth a precedent. Ten other colleges in succession refused her application. 148 THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. Meanwhile the Free Hospital of Bellevue, in New York, gave her admission to study, and, after more than a year of waiting, the young Medical College of Chicago accepted her as a student. Her summer vacation she passed in hospital work at Bellevue and in the chemical laboratory of Dr. Doremus. Returning to Chicago for the next term, to her surprise and dismay she found the doors closed against her. The State Medical Association had censured the college for having admitted a woman. The woman was therefore left to shift for herself. After much delay she was received by the college of Cleveland, where she completed her course, triumphantly passing the examinations. From Cleveland to Edinburgh, studying in the Lying-in Hospital and under the eminent Dr. Simpson ; from Edinburgh to Paris, follow- ing the clinical lectures of the great masters of their art through the Hotel Dieu, Beaujou, St. Louis, the Hopital des Enfans Malades, living and working in the vast establish- ment of the Maternite ; from Paris to London, walking the wards of St. Bartholomew and other hospitals, Dr. Emily toiled along her conscientious way, bringing back to America in the autumn of 1856 the highest testimonials of capacity and acquirement from the men most competent to bestow them. A curious ebb-tide of feeling concerning the fitness of pro- fessional life for women seemed, at that time, to be bearing away all that had been gained. After the graduation of the Doctors Blackwell, and two or three of their immediate suc- cessors, the schools which had received them closed their doors upon subsequent applicants. It was as if the Faculties, on the impulse of the moment, had said, " Anything so simple and natural as medical attendance upon women by women must be right," but, having time to think about it, had amended their formula to " Anything so simple and natural as medical attendance upon women by women must be wrong." Separate schools for female students of course sprang up. But small means and small classes necessaiily confined the teaching of these schools to lectures, unaccompanied by prac- THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 149 tical study and observation, while all existing hospitals and dispensaries were closed against women, whether as physicians or students. It was this meagreness of opportunity which led Dr. Black- well to conclude that hospital experience would be more immediately valuable to female medical students than college study, and perhaps more readily sustained by public opinion. But even to so humane and necessary an experiment as that of the hospital objection waxed loud. The projectors were assured that no one would let a house for the purpose ; that the plan would invite suspicion and the interference of the law ; that if deaths occurred, their death certificates would not be recognized ; that improper persons would apply for treatment ; that, without resident male physicians, discipline could not be maintained ; and, finally, that they would never be able to collect money for so unpopular an undertaking. The Doctors Blackwell had the courage of their opinions. They held nothing which was right to be impossible. They found the house. They prepared the sick wards. Through discouragement and distrust they held their serene way. The practice was conducted entirely by women, but a board of consulting physicians, men of the highest standing, gave it sanction and reputation. Necessary operations were per- formed by its attending female physicians, and performed with adequate skill and nerve. In a year or two the govern- ment of a hospital by women for women was a proved success. In 1865 the trustees obtained from the Legislature a char- ter conferring college powers upon the institution. The new college began with certain amendments of established customs, which the profession at large had vainly urged upon the older schools ; namely, the extension of the college course through three years, the lengthening of the college year, the grading the course, so that each year's study was not a repetition of the preceding one. A chair of hygiene was established, which, surprising as is the statement, for the first time made hygiene a branch of instruction in any medical college in this 10 150 THE DOCTOKS BLACXWELL. country. " Of the forty-six students who had passed through the Infirmary prior to 1878, nine were married women, five of them the wives of physicians, all now engaged in practice with their husbands. Three graduates were daughters of physicians, now in practice with their fathers. Four had gone abroad as missionaries, it having been found that women physicians obtain access to Eastern women as no other mis- sionaries can. One of these has succeeded in establishing in China a hospital for women, through which she is exerting a widespread influence. Sixteen graduates have engaged in hospital work as resident physicians, or as physicians to women's colleges, as Yassar and Mount Holyoke. Seven have pursued their studies at European universities. One of these in connection with one of the professors at Zurich has published a paper of original research on some points of physiology. The thesis of another has been republished by an English medical journal as one of the most important papers contributed to the subject. Two graduates have ap- plied for hospital positions given by competitive examina- tions, these being the first instances in which women have been allowed to compete. Both candidates passed honorably. One obtained the desired position at Mount Sinai Hospital, and filled it well. The other was refused the post of Interne at the Charity Hospital, because no arrangement had been made for giving it to a woman." Almost invariably the pupils of the Infirmary have remained in the practice of their profession, supported themselves by it, and in many instances acquired a competence. From the beginning, all the professional work of the insti- tution has been done by women. Daily prescribing in the dispensary, charge of patients in the wards, visiting the poor in their own homes, exposure to wet, fatigue, bad air, con- tact with every form of disease, all the hardships and horrors known to the city practitioner, have not discouraged the ardor or impaired the health of these physicians. On the contrary, their roused mental activities vivify and strengthen the physical nature. THE DOCTORS BLACKWELL. 151 When the institution she had founded was strong enough to do without her, when the scores of women whom she had helped to help themselves were able to help others, when the public sentiment which her example had created was ready to release new fields of labor to her sex, Dr. Elizabeth felt that she could do more useful work in England than in America. For some years she has lived in London, writing, lecturing, advising, organizing, saying the fit word in the fit place, helping the efforts of women towards self-support and higher culture. Dr. Emily has remained in New York, busy, useful , and honored. The Women's Hospital and College profit by her attendance and instruction, her private practice is large, the best physicians of the city acknowledge her remarkable attainments, and willingly meet her in consultation. Other women are making a high professional name. Other women have toiled faithfully for high professional education. But in their undertaking the Black well sisters stood not more for personal success than for woman's right to labor. They chose an interdicted and uncongenial calling, pursuing it in the face of poverty, suspicion, misrepresentation, and the preju- dice which denies opportunity, not more to vindicate their conscious capacity than to justify woman's right to learning. And if paid industry is coming into fashion for their sex, the new mode owes no little of its vogue to the discussion of woman's work and wage which their brave experiment excited. The moral of biography, said a great man, is, that by heroic encouragements, it holds us to our task. Lives like these make toil and self-denial seem easy, kindle new hopes and aspirations, lift those who ponder them above their old selves and their old lot, and take the sting from that bitter curse of Timon of Athens, " If there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be as they are." CHAPTER VII. FKANCES HODGSON BUKNETT. BY ELIZABETH BRYANT JOHNSTON. Mrs. Burnett's English Home Tales of Her Childhood Emigration to America A Helpless Family in a Strange Land The Struggle for Sub- sistence Incidents of Her Girlhood Her Sympathy for the Poor How She Acquired Her Knowledge of English Dialect The Original "Lasso' Lowrie's" First Literary Efforts Seeking a Publisher De vising Ways and Means Diplomacy A Day of Triumph and Happi- ness "Who is She?" Life at Mt. Ararat Revisiting England Her Washington Home A Thrilling Incident at Long Branch A Heroine in Real Life Mrs. Burnett's Personal Appearance. T is as difficult to write a faithful biography as to paint a true portrait. The artist gives form, line, color, and a phase of life or expression ; the biographer gives country, lineage, personal appearance, deeds ; but the better part of a life, the incentive, is as hard to catch, as delicate to transcribe, as the soul is to imprison on canvas. Indeed, a perfect biography may only be written when it is possible to divest the mind of the conviction that in writing it a privilege is being taken with individual rights. It will be conceded that the few incidents usually scattered "through the years of a woman's life are enclosed by two words "opportunity," "duty." Men make their oppor- tunities ; women accept the appointment of destiny ; therefore, their lines in life are more dependent on the accident of birth, and are longer under the governance of another will. Woman's duty is her own, not limited by station, but may rather be called limitless, knowing only such bounds as mental and .physical strength have set. In writing the life of a woman, 152 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT 153 these obstinate facts are encountered at the beginning first, the scarcity of event, and second, the ever present realization that whatever is best, strongest, loveliest, and most worthy to be admired and imitated, is so delicately interwoven with the sacredness of domestic ties that the world may never know that life's full beauty. Therefore the drawing, tone, and color of a woman's pen-portrait must be found in incidents rather than in important events. Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in the thrifty old manufacturing city of Manchester, Lancashire, England. She is the daughter of Edwin Hodgson, a merchant who lived near the suburbs of the city, in a commodious house facing Islington Square, and near the well-known Isling- ton House, a mansion quite pretentious within this gen- eration. Her father, having died when she was about four years old, was little more than a memory to her. Her mother was Miss Eliza Boond, daughter of William Boond, a heavy cotton manufacturer. He was an heroic character, such as would have delighted Mrs. Gaskell or Charles Reade as a model in that crisis when the ill-feeling between manufac- turer and operative was most bitter, consequent upon the introduction of machinery into the mills. In these periods of excitement his personal danger was not small, and on their way to and from church his daughters were often hooted at by the angry weavers. . The description given by her mother of the coolness and hauteur of one of these aunts under circumstances so embar- rassing used to delight Frances. She had no recollection of her grandfather, but one of the pleasures of her childhood was an intimate association with her grandmother, a beautiful old lady^ of fourscore, with stately carriage, placid brow, and snowy hair. Her maiden name was Hannah Clegg, and her family was of gentry, which had intermarried with wealthy manufacturers. In the home circle Frances was thought to have inherited the characteristics of her maternal grandmother, and it may have been this similarity that made her a chosen companion 154 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. of the old lady. She would often ask Frances to remain through the night with her, and the little maiden, before breakfast was served, would read aloud from a well-marked copy of Young's "Night Thoughts," always a welcome author to the listener. Sometimes the aged mother would interest the child with family legends, several of which she recalled years after. One was of a certain Lady Alice Clegg, of Ordsall Hall, who was privately married to a mysterious stranger, with whom she soon removed to the Continent, and never returned. The country folk started the rumor that the deserted hall was haunted, as strange, fitful lights were seen moving to and fro at the " wee sma' hours ; " but the sudden advent of London detectives, who arrested a band of counter- feiters established there, laid the ghosts. Another story was of a beautiful girl, the eldest of seven Misses Clegg, who, from an unhappy love-affair, resolved to become dumb, and for seven years no persuasion nor arti- fice could induce her to speak, or hold communication in any manner with man, woman, or child. There was no paralysis only a very firm will, and it was conjectured that she had made a vow. One afternoon she astonished the maids by walking into the kitchen, and with her own hands prepar- ing tea ; then calling her sisters to the table, took her rightful seat at the head ; and this particularly composed maiden lady led the conversation on the current events of the neighborhood, but could in no way be induced to explain her self-imposed silence. During these seven years her only occupation was writing, and she always destroyed her manuscript when it seemed to be completed. The intimacy of Frances and her grandmother continued as long as the aged lady lived, who often said, " No one knows what a comfort that dear child has been to me." At the time of Mr. Hodgson's death his business was in flourishing condition, and he left it to the management of an experienced business man, to be turned over to his sons when they were of suitable age to accept the responsibility. Affairs were badly managed, and the civil war in America gave the FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 155 final blow to their fortunes. In a few years Mrs. Hodgson discovered that she was utterly without means to rear and educate her five children Herbert, John, Frances, Edith, and the baby, Edwina, who was born after her husband's death. She was a woman of refinement, accustomed to ease and luxury, and the situation was one that demanded imme- diate action. A brother had some time previously removed to the United States, and was established in prosperous busi- ness in Knoxville, Tenn. He wrote to her to come to America, holding out as an inducement the promise of imme- diate employment for the two boys. She ventured into a strange land with her helpless family, but about the time of her arrival her brother became involved in ruinous litigation, and was powerless to fulfil his kind intentions. They left their home cheerfully, and no one of them had finer spirits than the eldest daughter, Frances. To this pre- cocious girl, life in the New World had great fascination. It altogether assumed the form of charming adventures in search of fortune, where every change was not only sure to bring success, but in addition to present interesting studies of a strange people. The reality was very different. From the date of their arrival the struggle began a hand-to-hand fight for subsistence, in which the willing hands, the an- swering genius of her daughter came to the rescue. The civil war gave Frances Hodgson Burnett to America pov- erty called forth her strength and gave her work to the world. Frances was the eldest daughter and third child, and her remarkable mind had always been a matter of pride to the family. At the early age of three sh e stood by the side of her aunt and read one of the parables out of a large Bible.* The little one had apparently absorbed the art of reading, as no one had taken any special care in teaching her. Her childhood was marked by a passionate fondness for books ; reading, when permitted, or by stealth, was her daily avocation. Finally books became her crime, and ff that child * In a recent biographical sketch of Madame Henri Greville, it is stated that she read fluently at the same age. 156 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. has a book again," was the signal for new prohibitory resolu- tions made by the mother, and persistently disregarded by the child ; until the sorrow and disobedience of her young life was "a book, always a book/' Nooks and closets were utilized by her to secrete favorite volumes, until one day she offended beyond endurance. She had been hurriedly des- patched to the domestic realm with a message of importance, when she sat down on the broad stairway, and, beginning to read, forgot all about the order. There was a commotion, and the hitherto indulgent mother made laws, the breaking of which would have been unprecedented in any well-regulated English household. o The little maiden's hunger for romance had, for a time, to be satisfied by her own creations. Her dolls had always lived in her mind, each china-baby and wax-darling assuming roles; and she loved to play alone with them, weaving for each a romantic destiny. In the wide range of her reading, this girl, now seven, had found great attractions in Stevens' "Central America." She therefore immediately equipped an exploring expedition, and the daily report of the doll voyagers was indeed unique. " Uncle Tom's Cabin " was among her favorite works, and she was not contented until a black doll was purchased, which she dressed and invested with all the woes and virtues of Topsy. That gentle lady, her mother, was distressed one day upon entering the nursery to discover her little daughter, whom she thought an amiable child, vigorously whipping poor Topsy. She had improvised a whipping-post, and assumed the character of "Legree." One of the happiest incidents of her childhood was dis- covering in a collection of books left by her father, a complete set of " Blackwood's Magazine." These books were in a hand- some mahogany bookcase or secretary that then stood in her mother's bedroom. She had never thought those dark, heavy-looking volumes could contain anything except legal lore, until her eye was accidentally arrested by the word Magazine. She clambered up and opened a volume. Here were stories short and stories long, a literary bonanza. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 157 Seating herself upon the ledge of the secretary, with her little legs dangling over, she daily read, until from sheer weariness she almost fell from her perch. In this small library were many good books, and her mother becoming each season more absorbed and perplexed with business entanglements allowed greater liberty to the reader, so docile in other ways. Sitting thus, in the room seldom entered during the day, she read Shakspeare, Scott, Byron, Burns Aikin's "British Poets" complete. It was here she read " The Fair Maid of Perth," which opened a new world to her, and it would have been impossible to convince her, as she hung with delight over this beautiful romance, that the world held in reserve for her another joy so entrancing. Byron was, from seven to twelve, the poet of her idolatry. When only eight she startled a dignified Scotch gentleman by expressing the opinion that " the travels of Don Juan was a very pleasing book of adventures," quoting the description of Haidee as one of its gems : "Her hair's long auburn waves down to her heels Flowed like an Alpine torrent which the sun Dyes with his morning light ; " The young man was so surprised that he satisfied himself as to the correctness of the quotation, and suggested that he should select books more suited to her age, whereupon the little lady decided him to be "deficient in literary taste." From this incident arose a firm friendship between the precocious reader and the cultivated man of business ; one of many pleasant relations which it was a sorrow to break, upon removing to the United States. Her compan- ionship with maturer minds was somewhat peculiar. She had many grown-up friends, whose conversation on books and authors, though a delight to her, did not appear to arouse her vanity. The fondness Frances evinced for history, a year or two later, would seem somewhat paradoxical ; yet she read such works with no less eagerness than she had shown in perusing the wildest romance, and at a remarkably early age, she was 158 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. quite well versed in the histories of Greece, Rome, France, England, and America. History had a special charm to her creative mind. The most momentous national event was to her a splendid romance, bristling with situations, her vivid imagination supplying all that the conscientious historian had not found. Her education was given into the hands of the Misses Hadfield, who had a small private school. They w r ere the daughters of an artist, and enjoyed good social relations. With them she had a careful English course with music, in which she became quite proficient. Her mother preferred that she should not study the languages in England ; she intended to take her to France and Germany. The school had the advantage of a fine art atmosphere. Books and magazines on art were at her command, and at an early age she had read much on the subject, and had also seen a great many fine pictures, for the City of Spindles could boast its public exhibitions and private collections. She was the " star " of domestic troupes, and their fre- quent entertainments presented to her occasions of great enjoyment as well as improvement. Her three friends and schoolmates were also sisters of her teachers, Suzette, Annie, and Hetty Hadfield. After school hours they used to wander into the neigh- borhood where the operatives lived. They were first attracted by the charm of the broad Lancashire dialect, which they attempted to imitate. The effect of indulgence in this was soon observed by their teachers, and a penalty imposed for using it. They had, however, acquired con- siderable knowledge of the provincial phrases, and often were offenders in their use. Their childish sympathy had been awakened by the scenes of poverty which they wit- nessed, and the family of Mrs. Hodgson were soon able to recognize the humble friends, who had been encour- aged by Frances to solicit alms at the back-door. These came to be distinguished as "Frances' pin-and-needle- woman," " Frances' fitty woman," " Frances' dumb man," etc. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT., 159 As a small child, she began the study of character, and especially such as she met among the operatives. Their house faced Islington Square, and the rear yard extended to a nar- row street where the long, low rows of workmen's houses had been built. In these adjacent homes there was fine opportunity for observation, and Frances was frequently awakened by the reflection on the nursery ceiling of a single candle in the hand of a woman, who groped about before the daylight in her little kitchen, preparing breakfast for her sulky " man." The child would spring out of her bed, and softly creeping to the window, lest the nurse should l>e aroused, would watch each stage in the progress of the morn- ing meal. She closely observed the various types found in these humble homes, the besotted and often brutal husband, the hopeless wife-drudge, the children, hungry, prema- turely old, and preternaturally wise. Islington Square was entered by a large iron gate, and through this she was wont to watch the operatives, home- ward-bound women and girls, with their clogs heavily clanking on the paved walks, and their brooding faces en- shrouded in the indispensable woollen shawl. Through the bars of this gate, when nine years of age, she first saw the girl whom she afterwards draped in romance and sent out to the world as " That Lass o' Lowrie's," a tall, handsome figure, clothed, according to the custom of mill-girls, with a long, coarse linen apron over the dress, and tied close down the back with strong tapes to guard against accidents from machinery. She stood in a group of children playmates all, save her for in the midst of their romps her fingers busily knitted on a dark, rough sock. She was so different from the others strong, massive frame, large, luminous gray eyes, pale, clear-cut face, and head rivalling in pose the Venus of Milo, she instantly riveted the attention of the maiden at the gate ; but not till long years after did Frances realize her to have been so wondrously beautiful, for at that period of the young romancer's life her type of female loveli- ness demanded rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes. The refined 160 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. strength of the girl had a fascination she could not then analyze, but she has since looked in vain for a face so fair, a form so majestic. The boisterous children apparently recog- nized her superiority, as appeals were made to her in the adjustment of all differences, and her voice answered the expectation of the listener at the gate, as the replies fell upon her ears in broad, yet musical Lancashire. Frances saw her only once more in the square as before, not at play, but friend and adviser of the children. This time a brutal-looking man, whose face was swollen from drink, came and drove her out with angry words and threatening gestures. She obeyed silently, proudly, yet without defiance or apparent fear. For many afternoons Frances watched at the gate for her, but in vain ; that noble form was never again seen amid the group in the sunny square. What is known as the "Lancashire distress" 1863-64 will be remembered as having elicited universal sj^mpathy. The pathetic poem by Miss Muloch ff A Lancashire Dox- ology " was written upon reading the following : " Some cotton has been imported into Farrington, where the mills have been closed for a considerable time. The people, who were previously in deepest distress, went down to meet the cotton ; the women wept over the bales, kissed them, and finally sang the Doxology over them." Such great suffering called upon the active offices of both young and old, and Frances improved the opportunity of being permitted to be the dispenser of modest charity. Per- haps the calamitous effects of the civil war were nowhere, save in the South, so much felt as in the good old cotton- weaving city of Manchester. As before stated, the Hodgson family were financially ruined by it. For four years, in reply to every coveted indulgence, Frances received the unwelcome answer, " Wait until the war is over in America, then we shall have more money." An incident illustrating the precocious development of Frances Hodgson occurred when she had just entered her thirteenth year. A friend of Mrs. Hodgson's, who had been FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 161 reduced from affluence, had opened a school, and her daughter was her assistant as teacher of music and other higher o branches. She was suddenly called away, and the good lady being sorely distressed to supply the place sent to Mrs. Hodgson, asking if Frances might be loaned to her for a few days. It was an important period, just before the close of the session, but the request seemed ridiculous, as some of the scholars were nearly grown. However, the emergency had to be met, and the happy thought of putting her in long dresses immediately set all doubt at rest. Her auburn hair was twisted into an awe-inspiring club, and with fearless heart she entered the hall and taught to the close of the term. Her first literary effort was written at the age of seven, and was a poem "Church Bells," which was immediately destroyed. Her second, also a poem, in the same year, was shown to her mother. One Sunday evening when the family had all gone to church she began a dolorous poem entitled, " Alone." Suddenly striking another key, she launched into a humorous description of the woes of old bachelorhood. When Mrs. Hodgson returned, Frances followed her to her room, and read the effusion. The reader was interrupted with exclamations of " How clever I " w How very funny ! " r Where did you find this ? " the mother said when it was ended. Learning that Frances had written it, she stooped down and kissed her, saying, " My child, I believe you have the gift of ten talents." " No, mamma," replied Frances, with calm conviction, " I am not clever ; you think so because you love me. A little girl who is clever would love arith- metic better than I do." A story immediately followed the poem, the title of which was "Frank Ellsworth, or Bachelors' Buttons." It was the history of a woman-hater, ending in his total and abject enslavement by some dazzling daughter of Eve. This was read in sections to her mother, and then destroyed ; for her brothers, discovering her delight in scribbling, insti- tuted a system of bantering and teasing, holding her efforts in utter contempt as "girl's romance," "silly stuff," and treating 162 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. it all with undisguised disdain. So the little .girl hid her manuscript with trembling anxiety from these audacious critics, who voted her a jolly playfellow if they could only get books and pens out of her hands. Every English girl keeps a small book of personal expenses, and in her earlier efforts in romance Frances would fre- quently utilize her account-book. Once, when visiting an aunt in the country, the good lady looked through the bureau in Frances' room to satisfy herself as to the orderly habits of her charge. She opened the little book, and supplementary to the modest rows of figures was a story, entitled " Millicent's Romance." " What is this ? " sternly demanded the lady of the culprit, who stood near. " Only a little scribbling of mine," said the abashed girl. "Do not waste your time in that foolish way," was the discouraging advice. Her second story was rather more pretentious, and was read to the dear mother as before. Its title was " Celeste, or Fortune's Wheel," and the manuscript was kept until the family left England, when it was burned, with an accumula- tion of like nature. Before she came to the United States she had made notes for a story, which was finished in Tennessee, and sent to "Ballou's Magazine." It was the first story for which she attempted to find a publisher, and the trial was made the third year after their removal to America. In the privations of their new life it occurred to Frances, who was then teaching a country school in New Market, that she would make this venture. The school-room was in their own home, an old log-house, which they had dubbed "Noah's Ark." The payment for her services was almost entirely in vegetable currency, potatoes, cornmeal, flour, and occasionally bacon. Frances did not have the nerve to submit to her mother, nor yet to her brothers, the daring pro- posal to send her manuscript to a publisher, but of her sister Edith, who was the " Dame Durden " of the establishment, she took counsel. From the first suggestion Edith was sanguine, and the manuscript of w Miss Carruthers' Engagement " was FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 163 revised, but at the outset the two girls had to meet a very embarrassing question ; " Where were they to get the money for postage ? " It would not do to ask Herbert, for he would demand to know what they intended doing with such an amount. It never occurred to them to ask a favor a loan. " Dame Burden " at last proposed that they should spend a morning gathering blackberries, which they could dispose of in town. The possible return of the manuscript was another perplexity which must be guarded against ; for that it should fall into the hands of the family was a mortification that could not be endured. It was finally determined to ask permis- sion of a gentleman friend to have some letters or pack- ages enclosed to him. He was only too glad to oblige the young English girls ; and besides this the request had a flavor of romance, as visions of returned love-letters flitted across his mind. "But how can I distinguish your letters or packages from my own?" "I will have ' The Second 'put on mine," replied Frances. The story was despatched, and the editor replied that he was pleased with it, and would publish it, but did not propose to pay for it. This was stoutly opposed by Edith, who maintained that " if it was worth publishing, it was worth paying for" which sound position the young author approved. So they wrote for the story to be returned, and then sent it to Mr. Godey, who promptly replied, inquiring if it was an original story, as it seemed strange that a tale of English life should emanate from Eastern Tennessee. He also requested her to write another, and Frances at once wrote " Hearts and Diamonds," by " The Second." This was published in " Godey's Maga- zine," in June, 1868, and "Miss Carruthers' Engagement" followed in October of the same year; the editor paying thirty-five dollars for the two short stories. It need not be said that this was a far larger amount than had been anticipated by the girls ; and it was a day of tri- umph and happiness when Herbert took the young author in his arms and kissed her. From that day until this, work with her pen has been the first duty of this gifted woman* 164 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. She had not anticipated or cared for a literary career ; nor does she appear, even at the present moment, to have de- veloped, in the great pressure of her busy life, an ambition comparable with her rich endowments. Urgent need has been the spur ; but there is little doubt if she had continued in the sphere of ease and luxury to which she was born some crisis in life would have called for her aid or work. When she had once begun, she wrote with amazing rapidity. Her contributions were accepted by Ballou, Frank Leslie, Peterson, Harper, and Scribner. " Dolly " appeared in 1872, in "The Ladies' Friend," edited by Mrs. Henry Peterson, and was the first novel which was afterwards published in book form. To the timely and unselfish encouragement of Charles J. Peterson, more than to any other person, does Mrs. Burnett attribute her success. For this she never fails to give him due meed of praise, speaking with affectionate gratitude. "But for that man's honest consideration, I might early have become discouraged, as I never for a moment contemplated writing without remuneration ; the need was too urgent.'* She contributed to his magazine for years, and from time to time, without a suggestion from the modest writer, he would increase the pay, writing, " You are growing more and more valuable to my magazine." Later, he said to her husband, " I know Mrs. Burnett will rapidly advance in popularity, and I may not be able to pay her such prices as she can command. When that time comes I do not want her to hesitate to write for others, or to feel that she is under obligations to me. I am more her friend than her pub- lisher.'' 1 He liberally advanced money for the trip to Europe, and when she wrote " Louisiana " to meet this indebtedness, he gave ready consent that it should be sent to Scribner, and waited until she could write " A Fair Barbarian." The first story sent to the Scribners was in 1872, and was -entitled "The Woman who Saved Me." This was returned, with the comment that it was too long ; but the real reason, as was afterwards admitted, was that they feared it was not original, because of the finished style and English manner FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 165 of writing, they thought it might have been taken from some trans- Atlantic magazine. However, they requested her to send a shorter story, and she wrote ? Surly Tim's Troubles." The following note, upon the receipt of the second MSS., left no doubt as to its acceptance : "NEW YORK, Feb. 23, 1872. "DEAR Miss HODGSON, Dr. Holland and Dr. Holland's daughter (Miss Annie) and Dr. Holland's right-hand man (myself) have all wept sore over * Surly Tim.' Hope to weep again over MSS. from you. Very sincerely and tearfully, "WATSON GILDER." Both of these stories " by Miss Fannie E. Hodgson," ap- peared in " Scribner," and from that time, a period of eleven years, she has been a regular contributor. The profit of this young girl's pen soon began to lift the family from indigence to comparative comfort. The gentle mother lost some of the deep lines furrowed by anxiety, and the household, having abundant capacity for enjoyment, was a very happy one. It was an unequal fight with poverty, as they had no training for such a struggle. They removed as early as 1868 to Knoxville, finding a house that pleased them, on the banks of the Tennessee, in the suburbs of the town. They chose this house because its tiers of wide verandas made it resemble a boat ; and Herbert had a boat, though many other important things were not purchased. The gay young people named this home " Mt. Ararat ; " and it was a home from which care was banished, and indul- gence in fun and frolic was encouraged by the loving mother, who assented to any suggestion within the bounds of pro- priety. Entirely emancipated from conventional austerity, they were amiable, talented, and contented, and by their varied gifts some new interest was continually afforded. One could paint, another play or sing, while the third could write or improvise a story. It is true they had no carpets on the floor, no lace curtains at the windows, but they had a piano, a harp, an organ, a guitar, a violin, a piccolo, and a banjo, so that a concert could be given impromptu at any 11 166 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. hour. Frequently there was no pudding for dinner, but there was a painting on the easel, a new book to be read, or a manu- script by Frances, over which they might laugh or cry. In the dawning of this more prosperous future the beloved mother died. Frances, as eldest daughter, was burdened with increased care, which, with the sudden bereavement, was very hard to bear. A year later the household presented a group of engaged young people ; all five, 'every member of the family, except their cousin, Frederick Boond, w r ere determined to face the perils of matrimony. Those were halcyon days. Fun and frolic were succeeded by a summer of poetry and happy dreams. Herbert married Miss Burnett, the sister of Dr. Swan M. Burnett, to whom Frances had become engaged ; and when the brother brought home his bride, "Mt. Ararat" became the model of "Vagabond! a." Soon after the marriage of her brother, Miss Hodgson, being released from the responsible care of her sisters, went to England, intending also to visit the Vienna Exposition. Being taken ill at her relative's in Manchester, she remained there, and wrote " Dolly." During this long visit she read a series of articles in the " Manchester Guardian," which directed her sympathies anew to the lives of miners and weavers. This resulted in the production, after her return to Tennessee, of "That Lass o' Lowrie's " "the flower and crown of all recent fiction." She remained abroad about fifteen months, returned September 16, 1873, and was married to Dr. Burnett on the 17th. Dr. Burnett was practising in Knoxville, and for a year pursued this uneventful, unpromising, and laborious life. His wife, never ambitious for herself, saw not only that her husband was unappreciated, but, w r ith the example of so many physicians around her, that he was in danger of falling into a rut, and with the care of a family, of accepting the situation. She knew his ability, and his desire to devote himself to the specialty for which he had already spent one winter in New York, and she determined he should have every advantage. But anxious as he was to complete his FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 167 studies as an oculist, he very naturally inquired where the means could be found. The reply was "My pen." Nothing else was thought of by the wife and mother for a brown- eyed boy Lionel had been born to them. It was deter- mined to start in quest of fortune, and they began pre- parations for their forlorn venture. Friends remonstrated in vain, pleading that they were leaving a certainty in a land where any good doctor (if he did not die in the trying) was sure to make a respectable competency. Mrs. Burnett, who had firmly resolved not to accept such drudgery for either her husband or herself, worked through that one year with a will and concentration that, had she not been blessed with a splendid constitution, would doubtless have cost her life. While the doctor was on his long, weary rides to see his poor patients his wife was weaving with her pen the pathetic stories that made the readers weep, and the world begin to inquire " Who is she ?" With hands often burning with fever, and head throbbing with excitement, she daily sat by her table. Under such circumstances she wrote in about fifteen months " That Lass o' Lowrie's," " Pretty Polly Pemberton," " The Fire at Grantley Mills," and " The Fortunes of Philippa Fairfax." Effecting a favorable engagement with her considerate friend, Mr. Peterson, the little family, husband, wife, baby and black "Mammy," started on their tour; and in this crisis our brave woman, our admired writer, rivals in heroism the knights of old, made famous in song and story. They were armed cap-a-pie* ; she, with fearless exaltation born of love and hope, dared more than they in all their fine, vaulting bravado. First they went to Manchester, then to London, Rotterdam,- Utrecht, and Dusseldorf the last two cities being selected with a view to the advantages afforded the doctor in his studies. They spent the autumn in Rome, going to Paris in the winter, and in both cities the studies of the husband and the writing of the wife were continued. In Paris, she wrote " Smethurstses," "Seth," and other stories. In this city, in 168 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. the spring, a second son, Vivian, was born to them. In the summer of 1876 they returned to the home of the doctor's father, in New Market, and Doctor Burnett determined to establish himself in Washington. It was six months before affairs financial justified the removal of the rest of the family. Mrs. Burnett, with her two children, spent the interim in the quiet Tennessee village of New Market ; but she was not idle. She wrote "Lodusky," " Esmeralda," " Mere Giraud's Little Daughter," etc., etc. For nearly a year after joining her husband in Washington they lived quite obscurely and plainly in the West End. Her children were a great care, and through months of weakness, she lived a life of almost utter hopelessness in this city, where soon her name was known in every household. In a short time she began her' work with renewed deter- mination, sending " Louisiana " to " Scribner's," and " A Fair Barbarian " to " Peterson's Magazine," and writing " Ha- worths," a work which, though it never attained the popu- larity of " That Lass o' Lowrie's," is undoubtedly, as an ex- ample of literary art, the finest she ever produced, and the rival of any romantic creation in the New World. In 1878 the family removed to the pleasant house which they now occupy, 1215 I street, and Mrs. Burnett has a large circle of devoted personal friends. Nor is her accomplished husband less popular. Their home is one of luxury, though not ex- travagance, filled with works of art, handsome hangings, and interesting bric-a-brac. Upon entering the hall the fact ap- pears that it is the abode of refinement and culture. Here the visitor at the Capital seeks to know the writer whose pen has furnished so many hours of pleasure ; and here they are met with such a genial welcome and such hospitality that even the most shy are placed at perfect ease. The doctor, who delights in art, has collected old engravings and fine etchings ; and he often surprises his wife with a vase of roses, or a bunch of field-flowers, painted, as he says, by an unknown artist, in whom she is quick to recognize himself. It is a home free from the iron rule of conventionality, and though FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. 169 not " Vagabondia," is the outgrowth, as far as the environ- ments of a city allow, of such freedom. Each Tuesday evening in the season the parlor is filled with visitors, a large proportion being strangers. For a year or so Mrs. Burnett, with her genial nature, essayed to take up the burden of social life in Washington, but it was too great a burden, es- pecially as the demands of the busy pen were not less exact- ing ; indeed, rather more, now that the boys grew rapidly, and luxuries were added to necessities. Mrs. Burnett's work- room is known as the " Den," and to the favored few who are received into its privacy the very mention will recall the delightful home circle and agreeable friends met there. Early each morning Mrs. Burnett seats herself at her table and writes until noon. Mood, not even health is con- sulted. If she is in happy mental frame, the hours are not heeded, and the sentences flow freely from her pen ; if not, the afternoon is given to recreation, walks, drives, and visit- ing. The evenings, except those of the more formal Tues- days, are spent in the "Den," and "the children's hour" there is one to be remembered. There, to amuse two rest- less boys, were improvised "The Proud Little Grain of Wheat," "Editha's Burglar," "Behind the White Brick," and other stories that have delighted the juvenile readers of " SL Nicholas." Here, too, she has recently completed " Through One Administration." The world has set its critical seal upon the productions of this woman of genius, and should she never write an- other word of fiction, the fame of Frances Hodgson Burnett will rest secure upon " That Lass o' Lowrie's," " Haworths," w Smethurstses," and " Louisiana." Having written these, she must remain her own rival. Of poetry Mrs. Burnett has published but little ; occa- sionally a short poem appears from her hand such as "Yes- terday and To-day," so exquisite as to make us ask for more. At the Garfield Memorial of the "Literary Society," Washington, D.C., she read a poem that will never be for- gotten by those who were present. As neighbor and friend, 170 FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT. President Garfield had been much beloved, and this was a heart utterance which, indeed, rose to the heroic : " We cry, but he who suffers lies Meeting sharp-weaponed pain with steadfast eyes, And makes no plaint ; while on the threshold Death Half draws his keen sword from its glittering sheath, And looking inward, pauses lingering long Faltering himself the weak before the strong." * A Woman's Reason," which appeared in the " Century n January, 1883, gives a happy portrayal of a woman's heart by a woman's hand : " And now my hand clings closer to your breast ; Bend your head lower, while I say the rest The greatest change of all is this, that I Who used to be so cold, so fierce, so shy, In the sweet moment that I feel you near, Forget to be ashamed and know no fear Forget that life is sad and death is drear Because because I love you." If called upon to discriminate as to the characteristics of this eminent woman I should call her personal courage the most distinguishing. She is delicate in her womanly instincts, modest in valuing her literary achievements, socially not ambitious of display, and right feminine in all her pleasures and avocations, yet possessing a coolness and courage in an emergency which is not generally a female attribute. A paragraph which appeared two years since in the daily papers describing her rescue at Long Beach of Mr. Larz Anderson of Cincinnati, was not overstated. Mrs. Burnett, with Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, were walking on the beach ready to have an early morning swim in the Inlet. Mr. Anderson declared his intention of diving from the bridge a purpose he had several times declared. His wife had doubts as to its safety ; but he was determined to try it. The two ladies saw the plunge, and in an instant a white face appeared on the surface of the water, then went down. FRANCES HODGSON BUKNETT. 171 The frightened wife ran for assistance, and Mrs. Burnett, who was that summer learning to swim, dashed into the waves and swam rapidly to him. The helpless form, for, as may be surmised, his head had struck a rock, was going under for the third time. She clutched him, and putting forth all her strength reached the beach with her still insensible bur- den, and, with a power almost superhuman, bore him across the stretch of sand to a grass-plot, where Mrs. Anderson had brought assistance and restoratives. The friendship based on this incident has grown to be one of the pleasantest associations of this heroic woman. Dress has abundant attraction for her. She enjoys it artis- tically, and has an honest delight in a new gown. This is not really an individual consideration, but a part of the love she has for all that is beautiful in art or nature. She fancies working in dainty lace, adjusting bows on robe or hat, and is apt to give all such detail as far as possible her personal attention. She is aesthetic in all her belongings, and in her own boudoir every nook and corner indicates the fancies of its occupant, or the thought of her husband, who, with pic ture or bric-a-brac, adds frequently to her collection of novelties. Mrs. Burnett is modest in her estimate of her achievements ; while she listens to words of praise, she is not embariassed, but pleasantly surprised, and often says that when met with more than ordinary effusiveness she accepts it as absolutely impersonal, as though it was some other writer of whom they are speaking. Although she is certainly not indifferent to criticism, she is philosophical, accepting the abuse and the approval with equanimity; freely discussing reviews in her home circle, yet I feel at liberty to say that nothing yields her greater happiness than a realization that she has given solace or enjoyment to so many. I remember one evening just at twilight I went in to sit an hour with her. As soon as she saw me she called to her husband, " Please light the