 Chapter 24. England and France Revisited. On arriving at Basingstoke we found awaiting us cordial letters of welcome from Miss Biggs, Miss Priestman, Mrs. Peter Taylor, Mrs. Priscilla McLaren, Mrs. Muller, Mrs. Jacob Bright, and Mademoiselle de Barrault. During the winter Mrs. Margaret Bright-Lucas, doctors Kate and Julia Mitchell, Mrs. Charles McLaren, Mrs. Seville, and Miss Belgarney each spent a day or two with us. The full dress costume of the ladies was a great surprise to my little granddaughter Nora. She had never seen bare shoulders in a drawing room, and at first glance she could not believe her eyes. She slowly made the circuit of the room, coming nearer and nearer until she touched the lady's neck to see whether or not it was covered with some peculiar shade of dress, but finding the bare skin she said, Why you are not dressed, are you? I see your skin! The scene suggested to me the amusing description in Holmes's Elsie Venner of the efforts of a young lady seated between two old gentlemen to show off her white shoulders. The vicar would not look, but steadily pray that he might not be led into temptation. But the physician, with greater moral heartyhood, deliberately surveyed the offered charms with spectacles on his nose. In December Hattie and I finished Doudin's life of Shelley, which we had been reading together. Here we find a sensitive, refined nature, full of noble purposes, thrown out when too young to meet all life's emergencies, with no loving mentor to guard him from blunders or to help to retrieve the consequences of his false positions. Had he been surrounded with a few true friends who could appreciate what was great in him and pity what was weak, his life would have been different. His father was hard, exacting and unreasonable, hence he had no influence. His mother had neither the wisdom to influence him nor the courage to rebuke her husband, and alas poor woman she was in such thralldom herself to conventionalisms that she could not understand a youth who set them all at defiance. We also read Cotton Morrison's service of man, which I hope will be a new inspiration to fresh labours by all for the elevation of humanity, and Carnegie's triumphant democracy, showing the power our country is destined to wield in the vastness of our domain. This book must give every American citizen a feeling of deeper responsibility than ever before to act well his part. We read, too, Harriet Martineau's translation of the works of Auguste Comte, and found the part on women most unsatisfactory. He criticises Aristotle's belief that slavery is a necessary element of social life, yet seems to think the subjection of women in modern civilisation a matter of no importance. All through that winter, Hattie and I occupied our time studying the Bible, and reading the commentaries of Clark, Scott, and Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln. We found nothing grand in the history of the Jews, nor in the morals inculcated in the Pentateuch. Surely the writers had a very low idea of the nature of their God. They make him not only anthropomorphic, but of the very lowest type, jealous and revengeful, loving violence rather than mercy. I know no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of women. Miriam, the elder sister of Moses and Aaron, a genius, a prophetess, with the family aptitude for diplomacy and government, is continually set aside because of her sex, permitted to lead the women in singing and dancing, nothing more. No woman could offer sacrifices nor eat the holy meats, because according to the Jews, she was too unclean and unholy. But what is the use, say some, of attaching any importance to the customs and teachings of a barbarous people? None whatever. But when our bishops, archbishops and ordained clergymen stand up in their pulpits and read selections from the Pentateuch with reverential voice, they make the women of their congregation believe that there really is some divine authority for their subjection. In the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, and speaking of the spoils taken from the Midianites, the livestock is thus summarised. Five thousand sheep, three score and twelve thousand bees, three score and one thousand asses, and thirty-two thousand women and women children, which Moses said the warriors might keep for themselves. What a piteous stead had not been there to protect the child women of the Midianites and rebuke the Lord's chosen people as they deserved. In placing the women after the sheep, the bees and the asses, we have a fair idea of their comparative importance in the scale of being among the Jewish warriors. No wonder the right reverend bishops and clergy of the Methodist Church, who believe in the divine origin and authority of the Pentateuch, exclude women from their great convocations in the American Republic in the nineteenth century. In view of the fact that our children are taught to reverence the book as of divine origin, I think we have a right to ask that in the next revision all such passages be expurgated, and to that end learned competent women must have an equal place on the revising committee. Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas came in February to spend a few days with us. She was greatly shocked with many texts in the Old Testament to which we called her attention, and said, Here is an insidious influence against the elevation of women, which but few of us have ever taken into consideration. She had just returned from a flying visit to America, having made two voyages across the Atlantic, and traveled three thousand miles across the continent in two months, and this at the age of sixty-eight years. She was enthusiastic in her praises of the women she met in the United States. As her name was already on the committee to prepare the woman's Bible, we had her hearty approval of the undertaking. In October Hattie went to London to attend a meeting to form a woman's Liberal Federation. Mrs. Gladstone presided. The speeches made were simply absurd, asking women to organize themselves to help the Liberal Party, which had steadily denied to them the political rights they had demanded for twenty years. Professor Stuart capped the climax of insult, when he urged as, One great advantage in getting women to canvas for the Liberal Party was that they would give their services free. The Liberals saw what enthusiasm the permerose dames had roused for the Tory Party, really caring the election, and they determined to utilize a similar force in their ranks, but the whole movement was an insult to women. One absorbing interest then was the Queen's Jubilee. Ladies formed societies to collect funds to place at the disposal of the Queen. Every little village was divided into districts, and different ladies took the rounds, begging pennies at every door of servants and the laboring masses, and pounds of the wealthy people. One of them paid us a visit. She asked the maid who opened the door to see the rest of the servants, and she begged a penny of each of them. She then asked to see the mistress. My daughter descended, but instead of a pound she gave her a lecture on the Queen's avarice. When the fund was started the people supposed the Queen was to return it all to the people in liberal endowments of charitable institutions, but her Majesty proposed to build a monument to Prince Albert, although he already had one in London. The Queen, said my daughter, should celebrate her Jubilee by giving good gifts to her subjects and not by filtering from the poor their pennies. To give half her worldly possessions to her impoverished people, to give home rule to Ireland, or to make her public schools free, would be deeds worthy her Jubilee. But to take another cent from those who are hopelessly poor is a sin against suffering humanity. The young woman realized the situation and said, I shall go no farther. I wish I could return every penny I have taken from the needy. The most fitting monuments this nation can build are schoolhouses and homes for those who do the work of the world. It is no answer to say that they are accustomed to rags and hunger. In this world of plenty every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the rudiments of education. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark when one-tenth of the human family, booted and spurred, ride the masses to destruction. I detest the words royalty and nobility and all the ideas and institutions based on their recognition. In April the Great Meeting in Hyde Park occurred, a meeting of protest against the Irish coercion bill. It was encouraging to see that there is a democratic as well as an aristocratic England. The London Journals gave very different accounts of the meeting. The Tories said it was a mob of inconsequential cranks. Reason teaches us, however, that you cannot get up a large enthusiastic meeting unless there is some question pending that touches the heart of the people. Those who say that Ireland has no grievances are ignorant alike of human nature and the facts of history. On April 14 I went to Paris, my daughter escorting me to Dover, and my son meeting me at Calais. It was a bright pleasant day, and I sat on deck and enjoyed the trip, though many of my fellow passengers were pale and limp. Whirling to Paris in an easy car, through the beautiful wheat fields and vineyards, I thought of the old lumbering diligence in which we went up to Paris at a snail's pace forty years before. I remained in Paris until October, and never enjoyed six months more thoroughly. One of my chief pleasures was making the acquaintance of my fourth son, Theodore. I had seen but little of him since he was sixteen years old, as he then spent five years at Cornell University and as many more in Germany and France. He had already published two works, The Life of Theirs and The Woman Question in Europe. To have a son interested in the question to which I have devoted my life is a source of intense satisfaction. To say that I have realized in him all I could desire is the highest praise a fond mother can give. My first experience in an apartment, living on an even plane, no running up and down stairs, was as pleasant as it was surprising. I had no idea of the comfort and convenience of this method of keeping house. Our apartment in Paris consisted of drawing room, dining room, library, a good-sized hall, in which stood a large American stove, five bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen, and a balcony fifty-two feet long and four feet wide. The first few days it made me dizzy to look down from this balcony to the street below. I was afraid the whole structure would give way. It appeared so light and airy, hanging midway between earth and heaven. But my confidence in its steadfastness and integrity grew day by day, and it became my favorite resort, commanding as it did a magnificent view of the whole city and distant surroundings. There were so many Americans in town and French performers to be seen, that I gave Wednesday afternoon receptions during my whole visit. To one of our at-homes came Mlle. Maria de Remay, the only female freemason in France, and the best woman orator in the country. Her sister, Mlle. Thérèse Thérémée, who takes part in all women movements, Mlle. Leon Richer, then actively advocating the civil and political rights of women through the columns of his vigorous journal, Mlle. Gré Trot, who makes a specialty of peace-work, Mlle. Isabelle Bougalat, who afterward attended the Washington Council of 1888, and who was a leader in charity work. The late Mlle. Mlle. de Mosier, who afterward was the sole of the International Congress of 1889 at Paris. Mlle. Pauline Curgamard, the first woman to be made a member of the Superior Council of Public Instruction in France, and Mlle. Henri Gréville, the novelist. Among the American guests at our various Wednesday receptions were Mr. and Mrs. John Bigelow, Mr. and Mrs. James G. Blaine, Mr. Daniel C. French, the Concord sculptor, Mrs. J. C. Ayer, Mr. L. White Busby, one of the editors of the Chicago Interotion, Reverend Dr. Henry M. Field, Charles Gifford Dyer, the painter and father of the gifted young violinist, Ms. Hella Dyer, the late Reverend Mr. Moffat, then United States Consulate Athens, Mrs. Governor Bagley and daughter of Michigan, Grace Greenwood and her talented daughter, who charmed everyone with her melodious voice, and Ms. Bryant, daughter of the poet. One visitor who interested us most was the Norwegian novelist and Republican, Bjorn Signorne Bjornsson. We had several pleasant interviews with Frederick Douglas and his wife, some exciting games of chess with Theodore Tilton in the pleasant apartments of the late W. J. A. Fuller Esquire and his daughter, Ms. Kate Fuller. At this time I also met our brilliant countrywoman, Louise Chandler Moulton. Seeing so many familiar faces, I could easily imagine myself in New York rather than in Paris. I attended several receptions and dined with Mrs. Charlotte B. B. Wilbur, greatly enjoying her clever descriptions of a winter on the Nile, and her own de Javier. I heard Pair Hyacinth preach and met his American wife on several occasions. I took long drives every day through the parks and pleasant parts of the city. With garden concerts, operas, theatres and the hippodrome I found abundant amusement. I never grew weary of the latter performance, the wonderful intelligence displayed there by animals, being a fresh surprise to me every time I went. I attended a reception at the Elyse Palace, escorted by M. Joseph Faber, then a deputy and now a senator. M. Faber is the author of a play and several volumes devoted to Joan of Arc. He presented me to the President and to M. Moselle Jules-Grivy. I was also introduced to M. Jules-Verry, then Prime Minister, who said, among other things, I am sorry to confess it, but it is only too true. Our French women are far behind their sisters in America. The beautiful large garden was thrown open that evening. It was in July, and the fine band the Republican Guard gave a delightful concert under the big trees. I also met M. Grivy's son-in-law, M. Daniel Wilson. He was then a deputy and one of the most powerful politicians in France. A few months later he caused his father's political downfall. I have a vivid recollection of him because he could speak English, his father having been a British subject. I visited the picture galleries once more, after laps of nearly fifty years, and was struck by the fact that, in that interval, several women had been admitted to places of honour. This was especially noticeable in the Luxembourg Sculpture Gallery, where two women, M. Moselle Bertot and the late Claude Vignon, wife of M. Jules-Rouvier, were both represented by good work, the first and only women sculptors admitted to that gallery. At a breakfast party which we gave, I made the acquaintance of General Clouseret, who figured in our civil war afterward became War Minister of the Paris Commune and is now member of the Chamber of Deputies. He learned English when in America and had not entirely forgotten it. He told anecdotes of Lincoln, Stanton, Sumner, Fremont, Garibaldi, the Count of Paris, and many other famous men whom he once knew, and proved to be a very interesting conversationalist. Old book stands were always attractive centres of interest to Theodore, and among other treasure troves he brought home one day a boy of fourteen years whose office it had been to watch the books. He was a bright, cheery little fellow of mixed French and German descent, who could speak English, French and German. He was just what we had desired to run errands and tend the door. As he was delighted with the idea of coming to us, we went to see his parents. We were pleased with their appearance and surroundings. We learned that they were members of the Lutheran Church, but the boy was one of the shining lights in Sunday school, and the only point in our agreement on which they were strenuous was that he should go regularly to Sunday school and have time to learn his lessons. So Immanuel commenced a new life with us, and as we had unbounded confidence in the boy's integrity, we excused his shortcomings and for a time believed all he said. But before long we found out that the moment we left the house he was in the drawing room investigating every drawer, playing on the piano or sleeping on the sofa. Though he was told never to touch the hall stove, he would go and open all the drops and make it red-hot. Then we adopted the plan of locking up every part of the apartment but the kitchen. He amused himself burning holes through the pantry shelves when the cook was out and boring holes with a gimlet through a handsomely carved breadboard. One day, in making up a spare bed for a friend, under the mattress were found innumerable letters he was supposed to have mailed at different times. When we reprimanded him for his pranks he would look at us steadily but sourfully, and immediately afterward we would hear him dancing down the corridor singing Safe in the Arms of Jesus. If he had given heed to one half we said to him, he would have been safer in our hands than in those of his imaginary protector. He turned out a thief, an unmitigated liar, a dancing dervish, and through all of our experiences of six weeks with him. The chief reading was his Bible and Sunday school books. The experience, however, was not lost at Theodore. He has never suggested a boy since, and a faithful daughter of Eve reigns in his stead. During the summer I was in the hands of two artists, Miss Hannah Klumpke, who painted my portrait, and Paul Bartlett, who molded my head in clay. To shorten the operation sometimes I sat for both at the same time. Although neither was fully satisfied with the results of their labors, they had many pleasant hours together, discussing their art, their early trials, and artists in general. Each had good places in the salon, and honorable mention that year. It is sad to see so many American girls and boys who have no genius for painting or sculpture, spending their days in garrets, and solitude and poverty, with the vain hope of earning distinction. Women of all classes are awakened to the necessity of self-support, but few are willing to do the ordinary, useful work for which they are fitted. In the salon that year 6,000 pictures were offered, and only 2,000 accepted, and many of these were skyed. It was lovely on our balcony at night to watch the little boats with their lights sailing up and down the Seine, especially the day of the Great Annual Fet, the 14th of July, when the whole city was magnificently illuminated. We drove about the city on several occasions at midnight to see the life, men, women, and children enjoying the cool breezes, and the restaurants all crowded with people. Sunday in Paris is charming. It is the day for the masses of the people. All the galleries of art, the libraries, concert halls, and gardens are open to them. All are dressed in their best, out driving, walking, and having picnics in the various parks and gardens. Husbands, wives, and children laughing and talking happily together. The seats and the streets and parks are all filled with the laboring masses. The benches all over Paris, along the curbstones and every street and highway, show the care given to the comfort of the people. You will see mothers and nurses with their babies and children resting on these benches, laboring men eating their lunches and sleeping there at noon. The organ grinders and monkeys, too, taking their comfort. In France you see men and women everywhere together. In England the men generally stagger about alone, caring more for their pipes and beer than their mothers, wives, and sisters. Social life, among the poor especially, is far more natural and harmonious in France than in England because women mix more freely in business and amusements. Coming directly from Paris to London, one is forcibly struck with the gloom of the latter city, especially at night. Paris, with its electric lights, is brilliant everywhere, while London, with its meager gas jets here and there struggling with the darkness, is as gloomy and desolate as door's pictures of Dante's Inferno. On Sunday, when the shops are closed, the silence and solitude of the streets, the general smoky blackness of the buildings, and the atmosphere give one a melancholy impression of the great centre of civilization. Now that it has been discovered that smoke can be utilized and the atmosphere cleared, it is astonishing that the authorities do not avail themselves of the discovery and thus bring light and joy and sunshine into that city and then clean the soot of centuries from their blackened buildings. On my return to England I spent a day with Miss Emily Lorde at her kindergarten establishment. She had just returned from Sweden, where she spent six weeks in the carpenter's shop, studying the Swedish slot system, in which children of twelve years old learned to use tools, making spoons, forks, and other implements. Miss Lorde showed us some of her work, quite creditable for her first attempts. She set the children in the higher grades of her school, enjoyed the carpenter work immensely, and became very deft in the use of tools. On November 1, 1887, we reached Basingstoke once more and found all things in order. My diary tells of several books I read during the winter that the authors say of women. One, The Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Brown, M.D., in which the author discourses on many high themes, God, creation, heaven, hell, and vouchsafes, one sentence on women. Of her, he says, I was never married but once and commend their resolution who never married twice, not that I disallow a second, nor in all cases of polygamy, which, considering the unequal number of the sexes, may also be necessary. The whole world was made for man, but the twelve part of man for woman. Man is the whole world, the breath of God, woman the rib and crooked piece of man. I speak not in prejudice, nor am a verse from that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful. I can look all day at a handsome picture, though it be but a horse. Turning to John Paul Friedrich Richter, I found in his chapter and women many equally ridiculous statements mixed up with some much fulsome admiration. After reading some volumes of Richter, I took up Heinrich Heim, the German poet and writer. He said, Oh the women, we must forgive them much, for they love much and many. Their hate is properly, only love turned inside out. Sometimes they attribute some delinquency to us, because they think they can in this way gratify another man. When they write they have always one eye on the paper and the other eye on some man. This is true of all authorises, except the Countess Han Han, who has only one eye. John Ruskin's biography he gives us a glimpse of his timidity in regard to the sex, when a young man. He was very fond of the society of girls, but never knew how to approach them. He said he was perfectly happy in serving them, would gladly make a bridge of himself for them to walk over, a beam to fasten a swing to for them, anything but to talk to them. Such are some of the choice specimens of masculine wit I collected during my winter's reading. At a reception given to me by doctors Julia and Kate Mitchell, sisters practising medicine in London, I met Stepniak, the Russian nihilist, a man of grand presence and fine conversational powers. He was about to go to America, apprehensive lest our government should make an extradition treaty with Russia to return political offenders, as he knew that proposal had been made. A few weeks later he did visit the United States and had a hearing before a committee of the Senate. He pointed out the character of the nihilist movement, declaring nihilists to be the real reformers, the true lovers of liberty, sacrificing themselves for the best interests of the people, and yet, as political prisoners, they are treated worse than the lowest class of criminals in the prisons and mines of Siberia. I had a very unpleasant interview during this visit to London with Miss Lydia Becker, Miss Carolyn Biggs, and Miss Blackburn at The Metricle about choosing delegates to the International Council of Women soon to be held in Washington. As there had been some irreconcilable dissensions from the Suffrage Association, and they could not agree as to whom their delegates should be, they decided to send none at all. I wrote it once to Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren, pointing out what a shame it would be if England, above all countries, should not be represented in the first International Council ever called by a Suffrage Association. She replied promptly that must not be, and immediately moved in the matter. And through her efforts, three delegates were soon authorized to go, representing different constituencies. Mrs. Alice Cliffs-Catchard, Mrs. Ormiston Chant, and Mrs. Ashton Dilke. Toward the last of February, 1888, we went again to London to make a few farewell visits to dear friends. We spent a few days with Mrs. Mona Caird, who was then reading Carl Pearson's lectures on women, and expounding her views on marriage, which she afterward gave to the Westminster Review, and stirred the press to white heat both in England and America. Is marriage a failure? Furnished the heading for our quack advertisements for a long time after. Mrs. Caird was a very graceful, pleasing woman, and so gentle in manner and appearance that no one would deem her capable of hurling such thunderbolts at the long-suffering sacks and people. We devoted one day to Prince Kropotkin, who lives at Harrow in the suburbs of London. A friend of his, Mr. Leinef, escorted us there. We found the prince, his wife, and child in very humble quarters, on carpeted floors, books and papers on pine shelves, wooden chairs, and accessories of life. Nothing more. They indulge in no luxuries, but devote all they can spare to the publication of liberal opinions to be scattered in Russia and to help nihilists in escaping from the dominions of the Tsar. The prince and princess took turns in holding and amusing the baby, then only one year old. Fortunately it slept most of the time, so that the conversation flowed on for some hours. Kropotkin told us of his sad prison experiences, both in France and Russia. The two articles by George Kennan in the century were not too highly colored, that the sufferings of men and women in Siberia and the Russian prisons could not be overdrawn. One of the refinements of cruelty they practice on prisoners is never to allow them to hear the human voice. A soldier always accompanies the water who distributes the food to see that no word is spoken. In vain the poor prisoner asks questions no answer is ever made, no tidings from the outside world ever given. One may well ask what devil and human form has prescribed such prison life and discipline. I wonder if we could find a man in all Russia who would defend the system, yet someone is responsible for its terrible cruelties. We return to Bezingstoke, past the few remaining days of looking over papers and packing for the voyage, and on March 4, 1888, Mrs. Blatch went with me to Southampton. On the train I met my companions for the voyage. Mrs. Gustafson, Mrs. Ashton Dilke and Baroness Gryppenberg from Finland, a very charming woman to whom I felt a strong attraction. The other delegates sailed from Lugarpool. We had a rough voyage and most of the passengers were very sick. Mrs. Dilke and I were well, however, and on deck every day, always ready to play wist and chess with a few gentlemen who were equally fortunate. I was much impressed with Mrs. Dilke's kindness and generosity in serving others. There was a lady on board with two children whose nurse at the last minute refused to go with her. The mother was sick most of the way, and Mrs. Dilke did all in her power to relieve her by amusing the little boy, telling him stories, walking with him on deck, and watching him throughout the day. No easy task to perform for an entire stranger. The poor little mother with a baby in her arms must have appreciated such kindly attention. When the pilot met us off Sandy Hook, he brought news of the terrible Blizzard New York had just experienced by which all communication with the world at large was practically suspended. The captain brought him down into the saloon to tell us all about it. The news was so startling that at first we thought the pilot was joking. But when he produced the metropolitan journals to verify his statements, we listened to the reading and what he had to say with profound astonishment. The second week in March, 1888, will be memorable in the history of storms in the vicinity of New York. The snow was ten feet deep in some places, and the side streets impassable either for carriages or sleighs. I hoped the city would be looking its best for the first impression on my foreign friends. But it never looked worse, there were huge piles of snow everywhere, covered with black dust. I started for Washington at three o'clock, the day after our arrival, reached there at ten o'clock, and found my beloved friends, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Spofford, with open arms and warm hearts to receive me. As the vessel was delayed two days, our friends naturally thought we too had encountered a Blizzard, but we had felt nothing of it. On the contrary, the last days were the most pleasant of the voyage. CHAPTER XXIV Recording by Amanda Friday CHAPTER XXV OF EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE REMINISCENCES 1815-1897 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Linda Bellwest EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE REMINISCENCES 1815-1897 By Elizabeth Cady Stanton CHAPTER XXV THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN Pursuant to the idea of the feasibility and need of an international council of women mentioned in a preceding chapter, it was decided to celebrate the fourth decade of the women's suffrage movement in the United States by calling together such a council. At its nineteenth annual convention held in January 1887, the National Woman Suffrage Association resolved to assume the entire responsibility of holding a council and to extend an invitation for that purpose to all associations of women in the trades, professions, and reforms as well as those advocating political rights. Early in June 1887 a call was issued for such a council to convene under the auspices of the National Woman Suffrage Association at Washington D.C. on March 25, 1888. The grand assemblage of women coming from all the countries of the civilized globe proved that the call for such a council was opportune while the order and dignity of the proceedings proved the women worthy the occasion. No one doubts now the wisdom of that initiative step, nor the added power women have gained over popular thought through the international council. As the proceedings of the convention were fully and graphically reported in the women's tribune at that time and as its reports were afterwards published in book form revised and corrected by Miss Anthony, Miss Foster, and myself I will merely say that our most segwine expectations as to its success were more than realized. The large theater was crowded for an entire week and hosts of able women spoke as especially inspired on all the vital questions of the hour. Although the council was called and conducted by the Suffrage Association yet various other societies were represented. Miss Anthony was the financier of the occasion and raised $12,000 for the purpose which enabled her to pay all the expenses of the delegates in Washington and for printing the report in book form. As soon as I reached Washington Miss Anthony ordered me to remain conscientiously in my own apartment and to prepare a speech for delivery before the committees of the cabinet and house and another as president for the opening of the council. However, as Miss Bofford placed her carriage at our service I was permitted to drive an hour to every day about that magnificent city. One of the best speeches at the council was made by Helen H. Gardiner. It was a criticism of Dr. Hammond's position in regard to the inferior size and quality of women's brain. As the doctor had never had the opportunity of examining the brains of the most distinguished women and probably those only of paupers and criminals she felt he had no data on which to base his conclusions. Moreover, she had the written opinion of several leading physicians that it was quite impossible to distinguish the male from the female brain. The hearing at the capital after the meeting of the council was very interesting as all the foreign delegates were invited to speak each in the language of her own country. To address their alleged representatives in the halls of legislation was a privilege they had never enjoyed at home. It is very remarkable that English women have never made the demand for a hearing in the House of Commons nor even for a decent place to sit where they can hear the debates and see the fine proportions of the representatives. The delegates had several brilliant receptions at the Riggs House and at the houses of Senator Stanford of California and Senator Palmer of Michigan. Ms. Anthony and I spent two months in Washington that winter. One of the great pleasures of our annual conventions was the reunion of our friends at the Riggs House where we enjoyed the boundless hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Boughford. The month of June I spent in the Riggs City where I attended several of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll's receptions and saw the great orator and iconoclast at his own fireside surrounded by his admirers and heard his beautiful daughters sing which gave all who listened great pleasure as they have remarkably fine voices. One has since married and is now pouring out her richest melodies in the opera of Lullaby in her own nursery. In the fall of 1888 as Ohio was about to hold a constitutional convention at the request of the Suffrage Association I wrote an appeal to the women of the state to demand their right to vote for delegates to such convention. Mrs. Southworth had 5,000 copies of my appeal published and distributed at the exposition in Columbus. If ten righteous men could save Sodom all the brilliant women I met in Cleveland should have saved Ohio from masculine domination. The winter of 1888 to 89 I was to spend with my daughter in Omaha. I reached there in time to witness this celebration of the completion of the first bridge between that city and Council Bluffs. There was a grand procession in which all the industries of both towns were represented and which occupied six hours in passing. We had a desirable position for reviewing the pageant and very pleasant company to interpret the mottos, symbols and banners. The bridge practically brings the towns together as electric streetcars now run from one to the other in ten minutes. Here for the first time I saw the cable cars running uphill and down without any visible means of locomotion. As the company ran in open car all winter I took my daily ride of 9 miles in it for 15 cents. My son Daniel who escorted me always sat inside the car while I remained on an outside seat. He was greatly amused with the remarks he heard about that queer old lady that always rode outside in all kinds of wintery weather. One day someone remarked loud enough for all to hear it is evident that woman does not know enough to come in when it rains. Bless me said the conductor who knew me. That woman knows as much as the queen of England too much to come in here by a hot stove. How little we understand the comparative position of those whom we often criticize. There I sat enjoying the bracing air the pure fresh breezes indifferent to the fate of an old cloak and hood that had crossed the Atlantic and been saturated with saltwater many times pinning the women inside breathing air laden with microbes that dozens of people had been throwing off from time to time sacrificing themselves to their stylish bonnets cloaks and dresses suffering with the heat of the red hot stove and yet they in turn pitying me. My 73rd birthday I spent with my son Garrett Smith Stanton on his farm near Portsmouth, Iowa. As we had not met in several years it took us a long time in the network of life to pick up all the stitches that had dropped since we parted. I am used by self-darning stockings and drawing plans for an addition to his house. But in the spring my son and his wife came to the conclusion that they had had had enough of the solitude of farm life and turned their faces eastward. Soon after my return to Omaha the editor of the women's tribune Mrs. Clara B. Colby called and lunched with us one day. She announced the coming state convention at which I was expected to make the best speech of my life. She had all the arrangements to make and invited me to drive round with her in order that she might talk by the way. She engaged the opera house, made arrangements at the Paxton House for a reception called on all her faithful co-adjuders to arouse enthusiasm in the work and climbed up to the sanctums of the editors, Democratic and Republican alike asking them to advertise the convention and to say a kind word for our oppressed class in our struggle for emancipation. They all promised favorable notices and comments and they kept their promises. Mrs. Colby, being president of the Nebraska Suffrage Association opened the meeting with an able speech and presided throughout with tact and dignity. I came very near meeting with an unfortunate experience at this convention. The lady who escorted me and her carriage to the opera house carried the manuscript of my speech which I did not miss until it was nearly time to speak when I told the lady who sat by my side that our friend had forgotten to give me my manuscript. She went at once to her and asked for it. She remembered taking it but what she had done was that she did not know. It was suggested that she might have dropped it in a lighting from the carriage and lo, they found it lying in the gutter. As the ground was frozen hard it was not even soiled. When I learned of my narrow escape I trembled for I had not prepared any train of thought for extemporaneous use. I should have been obliged to talk when my turn came and if inspired by the audience or the good angels might have done well or might have failed utterly. The moral of this episode is hold on to your manuscript. Owing to the illness of my son-in-law Frank E. Lawrence he and my daughter went to California to see if the balmy heir of San Diego would restore his health and so we gave up housekeeping in Omaha and on April 20th, 1889 in company with my eldest son I returned east and spent the summer on Hempstead Long Island with my son Garrett and his wife. We found Hempstead a quiet, old dutch town, undisturbed by progressive ideas. Here I made the acquaintance of Chauncey C. Parsons and wife formerly of Boston who were liberal in their ideas on most questions. Mrs. Parsons and I attended one of the Seidel Club meetings at Coney Island where Seidel was then giving some popular concerts. The club was composed of 200 women to whom I spoke for an hour in the dining room of the hotel. With the magnificent ocean views, the grand concerts and the beautiful women I passed two very charming days by the seaside. My son Henry had given me a feyaton low and easy as a cradle and I enjoyed many drives about Long Island. We went to Brian's house on the north side several times and in imagination I saw the old poet in the various shady nooks indicting his lines of love and praise of nature in all her varying moods. Walking along the many colored rustling leaves in the dark days of November, I could easily enter into his thought as he penned these lines The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, of wailing winds and naked woods and meadows down and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove the autumn leaves lie dead. They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbits' tread. In September, 1889 my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, came east to attend a school of physical culture and my other daughter, Mrs. Stanton Blanche, came from England to enjoy one of our bracing winters. Unfortunately we had rain instead of snow and fogs instead of frost. However, we had a pleasant reunion at Hempstead. After a few days in and about New York visiting friends, we went to Geneva and spent several weeks in the home of my cousin, the daughter of Garrett Smith. She and I have been most faithful devoted friends all our lives and regular correspondence for more than 50 years. In the family circle, we are with Julius and Johnson. These euphonious names originated in this way. When the Christy minstrels first appeared, we went one evening to hear them. On returning home, we amused our seniors with, as they said, a capital rehearsal. The wit and philosopher of the occasion were called, respectively, Julius and Johnson. So we took their parts and reproduced all the bright gifts they made. The next morning, as we appeared at the breakfast table, cousin Garrett Smith in his deep rich voice said, Good morning, Julius and Johnson. And he kept it up the few days we were in Albany together. One after another, our relatives adopted the pseudonyms and Mrs. Miller has been Julius and I, Johnson, ever since. From Geneva we went to Buffalo, but as I had a bad cold and a general feeling of depression, I decided to go to the Danesville Sanatorium and see what doctors James and Kate Jackson could do for me. I was there six weeks and tried all the rubbings and pinchings, steemings, the Swedish movements of the arms, hands, legs, feet, dieting, massage, electricity, and though I succeeded in throwing off only five pounds of flesh, yet I felt like a new being. It is a charming place to be in. The home is pleasantly situated in the scenery very fine. The physicians are all genial and a cheerful atmosphere pervades the whole establishment. As Christmas was at hand, the women were all half crazy about presents. And while good doctors James was all in their power to cure the nervous affections of their patients, they would thwart the treatment by sitting in the parlor with a thermometer at 72 degrees and brodering all kinds of fancy patterns. Some on Muslim, some on satin, and some with colored worsteds on canvas. Inhaling the poisonous dies, straining the optic nerve counting threads and stitches hour after hour utterly exhausted. I spoke to one poor victim of the fallacy of Christmas presents and of her injuring her health in such useless employment. What can I do, she replied, I must make presents and cannot afford to buy them. Do you think, said I, any of your friends would enjoy a present you made at the risk of your health? I do not think there is any must in the manner. I never feel that I must give presents and never want any, especially from those who make some sacrifice to give them. This whole custom of presents at Christmas, New Year's and at weddings has come to be a bore, a piece of hypocrisy leading to no end of unhappiness. I do not know a more pitiful sight than to see a woman tatting, knitting and brodering working cats on the lap of some slipper or tulips on an apron. Oh, the amount of nervous force that is expended in this way is enough to make angels weep. The necessary stitches to be taken in every household are quite enough without adding fancy work. From Dansville my daughters and I went to Washington to celebrate the 70th birthday of Miss Anthony who has always been to them as a second mother. Mrs. Blatch made a speech at a celebration and Mrs. Lawrence gave a recitation. First came a grand supper at the Riggs House. The dining-room was beautifully decorated. In fact, Mr. and Mrs. Boughard spared no pains to make the occasion one long to be remembered. May Wright Seawall was the mistress of ceremonies. She read the toasts and called on the different speakers. Phoebe Cousins, Reverend Isabella Beecher Hooker, Matilda Jocelyn Gage, Clara B. Colby, Senator Blair of New Hampshire and many others responded, I am ashamed to say that we kept up the festivities till after two o'clock. Miss Anthony, dressed in dark velvet and point lace spoke at the close with great pathos. Those of us who were there would soon forget February 15th, 1890. After speaking before the committees of the Senate and House, I gave the opening address at the annual convention. Mrs. Stanton Blatch spoke a few minutes on the suffrage movement in England, after which we hurried off to New York and went on board the Aller, one of the North German Lloyd steamers bound for Southampton. At the ship we found Captain Milinowski and his wife and two of my sons and two of my friends. The ship was full of people. As we had 18 pieces of baggage it took Mrs. Blatch some time to review them. My faetan, which we decided to take filled six boxes. An easy carriage for two persons is not common in England. The dog carts prevail. The most uncomfortable vehicles one can possibly use. Why some of our Americans drive in England is a question. I think it is because they are so English. The only reason the English use them is because they are cheap. The tax on two wheels is one half what it is on four and in England all carriages are taxed. Before we Americans adopt fashions because they are English we had better find out the raison d'etre for their existence. We had a very pleasant smooth blustering February and March. As I dislike close state rooms I remained in the lady's saloon night and day sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of eleven days we landed at South Ampton March 2nd 1890. It was a beautiful moonlit night and we had a pleasant ride on the little tug to the wharf. We reached Bassing Stoke at eleven o'clock, found the family well and all things in order. Chapter 25 Chapter 26 of Eighty Years and More Reminisances 1815-1897 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Eighty Years and More Reminisances 1815-1897 By Elizabeth Cady Stanton Chapter 26 My last visit to England As soon as we got our carriage put together Hattie and I drove out every day. As the roads in England are in fine condition all the year round. We had lovely weather during the spring but the summer was wet and cold. With reading, writing, going up to London and receiving visitors the months flew by without our accomplishing half the work that we had proposed. As my daughter was a member of the Albemarle Club, we invited several friends to dine with us there at different times. There we had a long talk with Mr. Stead, the editor of the Paul Maul Gazette, on his position in regard to Russian affairs, the deceased wife's sister-bill, and the divorce laws in England. Mr. Stead is a fluent talker as well as a good writer. There was a great authority movement in England. The wisdom of his course towards Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Parnell was questioned by many, but there is a touch of the religious fanatic in Mr. Stead, as in many of his followers. There were several problems in social ethics that deeply stirred the English people in the year of our Lord 1890. One was Charles Stuart Parnell's Lord Chancellor's decision in the case of Mrs. Jackson. The pulpit, the press, and the people vied with each other in trying to dethrone Mr. Parnell as the great Irish leader, but the United Forces did not succeed in destroying his self-respect, nor in hounding him out of the British parliament, though after a brave and protracted resistance on his part they did succeed in hounding him into the grave. Mr. Parnell was very difficult to see the Irish themselves, misled by a hypocritical popular sentiment in England. Turned against their great leader, the only one they had had for half a century who was able to keep the Irish question uppermost in the House of Commons year after year. The course of events since his death has proved the truth of what he told them, to wit, that there was no sincerity in the interest of the people, and that the debates on that point would cease as soon as it was no longer forced on their consideration. And now, when they have succeeded in killing their leader, they begin to realize their loss. The question evolved through the ferment of social opinions was concisely stated thus, can a man be a great leader, a statesman, a general, an admiral, a learned chief that he has ever broken the Seventh Commandment? I expressed my opinion in the Westminster Review at the time in the affirmative. Mrs. Jacob Bright, Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrich of Boston, Kate Field, in her Washington, agreed with me. Many other women spoke out promptly in the negative, and with a bitterness against those who took the opposite view that was lamentable. The Jackson case would be as it brought out other questions of social ethics, as well as points of law which were ably settled by the Lord Chancellor. It seems that immediately after Mr. & Mrs. Jackson were married the groom was compelled to go to Australia. After two years he returned and claimed his bride. But in the interval she felt a growing aversion and determined not to live with him. As she would not even see him. With the assistance of friends he kidnapped her one day as she was coming out of church, and carried her off to his home where he kept her under surveillance, until her friends with a writ of habeas corpus compelled him to bring her into court. The popular idea, based on the common law of England, was that the husband had this absolute right. The lower court, in harmony with this idea, maintained the husband's right, and remanded her to his keeping. But the friends appealed to the higher court, and the Lord Chancellor reversed the decision. With regard to the writ so frequently claimed, giving husbands the power to seize, imprison, and chastise their wives, he said, I am of the opinion that no such writ exists in law. I am of the opinion that no such writ ever did exist in law. I say that no English subject has the right to imprison another English subject, whether his wife or not. Through this decision the wife walked out of court a free woman. The passage of the married women's property bill in England in 1882 was the first blow at the old idea of coverage, giving to wives their rights of property, the full benefit of which they are yet to realize when clear-minded men administer the laws. The decision of the Lord Chancellor rendered March 18, 1891, declaratory of the personal rights of married women, is a still more important blow by just so much as the rights of persons are more sacred than the rights of property. One hundred years ago Lord Chief Justice Mansfield gave his famous decision in the Somerset case that no slave could breathe on British soil, and the slave walked out of court a free man. The decision of the Lord Chancellor in the Jackson case is far more important, more momentous in its consequences, as it affects not only one race, but one half of the entire human family. From every point of view this is the greatest legal decision of the century. Like the great Chief Justice of the last century, the Lord Chancellor, with a clearer vision than those about him, rises into a purer atmosphere of thought, and vindicates the eternal principles of justice and the dignity of British law by declaring all statutes that make wives the bond slaves of their husbands obsolete. How long it will be in our republic before some man will arise, great enough to so interpret our national constitution, as to declare that women, as citizens of the United States, cannot be governed by laws in the making of which they have no part. It is not constitutional amendments nor statute laws we need, but judges on the bench of our Supreme Court, who in deciding great questions of human rights shall be governed by the broad principles of justice rather than precedent. One interesting feature in the trial of the Jackson case was that both Lady Coleridge and the wife of the Lord Chancellor were seated on the bench and evidently much pleased with the decision. It is difficult to account for the fact that, while women of the highest classes in England take the deepest interest in politics and court decisions, American women of wealth and position are wholly indifferent to all public matters. While English women take an active part in elections, holding meetings and canvassing their districts, here even the wives of judges, governors, and senators speak with bated breath of political movements, and seem to feel that a knowledge of laws and constitutions would hopelessly unsex them. Toward the last of April, with my little granddaughter and her nurse, I went down to Bournemouth, one of the most charming watering places in England. We had rooms in the cliff-house, with windows opening on the balcony, where we had a grand view of the bay, and could hear the waves dashing on the shore. While Nora, with her spade and pale, played all day in the sands, digging trenches and filling them with water, I sat on the balcony reading Diana of the Crossways, and Bjornsson's last novel, In God's Way, both deeply interesting, as all the characters in the latter come to a sad end, I could not see the significance of the title. If they walked in God's Way, their career should have been successful. I took my first airing along the beach in an invalid chair. These bath-chairs are a great feature in all the watering places of England. They are drawn by a man, or a donkey. The first day I took a man, an old sailor, who talked incessantly of his adventures, having to rest every five minutes, dissipating all my pleasant reveries, and making an unendurable bore of himself. The next day I told the proprietor to get me a man who would not talk all the time. The man he supplied jogged along in absolute silence. He would not even answer my questions. Supposing he had his orders to keep profound silence. After one or two attempts I said nothing. When I returned home the proprietor asked me how I liked this man. Ah, I said, he was indeed silent, and would not even answer a question, nor go anywhere I told him. Still I liked him better than the talkative man. He laughed heartily and said, This man is deaf and dumb. I thought I would make sure that you should not be bored. I joined in the laugh and said, Well, tomorrow get me a man who can hear but cannot speak if you can find one constructed on that plan. Bournemouth is noteworthy now as the burial place of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Shelleys. I went to see the monument that had been recently reared to their memory. On one side is the following inscription. William Godwin, author of Political Justice, born March 3, 1756, died April 7, 1836. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, author of The Vindication of the Rights of Women, born April 27, 1759, died September 10, 1797. These remains were brought here in 1851 from the Churchyard of St. Pancras, London. On the other side are the following inscriptions. Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, daughter of William Godwin and widow of the late Percy Bish Shelly, born August 30, 1797, died February 1, 1851. Percy Florence Shelly, son of Percy Shelly and Mary Wollstonecraft, 3rd Marinette, born November 12, 1819, died December 5, 1889. In Christ's Church, six miles from Bournemouth, is a Baugh relief in memory of the Great Poet. He is represented tripping with seaweed in the arms of the Angel of Death. As I sat on my balcony hour after hour, reading and thinking of the Shellies, watching the changing hues of the clouds and the beautiful bay, and listening to the sad monotone of the waves, these sweet lines of wittiers came to my mind. Its waves are kneeling on the strand as kneels the human knee, their white locks bowing to the sand, the priesthood of the sea. The blue sky is the temple's arch, its transept earth and air, the music of its starry march, the chorus of a prayer. American letters during this sojourn abroad told of many losses, one after another from our family circle. Nine passed away within two years. The last was my sister Mrs. Bayard, who died in May 1891. She was the oldest of our family and had always been a second mother to her younger sisters and her house our second home. The last of June my son Theodore's wife and daughter came over from France to spend a month with us. Lisette and Nora, about the same size, played and quarreled most amusingly together. They spent their mornings in the kindergarten school, and the afternoons with their pony. But rainy days I was impressed into their service to dress dolls and tell stories. I had the satisfaction to hear them say that their dolls were never so prettily dressed before, and that my stories were better than any in the books. As I composed the wonderful yarns as I went along, I used to get very tired, and sometimes, when I heard the little feet coming, I would hide. But they would hunt until they found me. When my youngest son was ten years old and could read for himself, I graduated in storytelling, having practiced in that line twenty-one years. I vowed that I would expend no more breath in that direction, but the eager face of a child asking for stories is too much for me, and my vow has been often broken. All the time I was in England, Nora claimed the twilight hour, and in France Lisette was equally pertinacious. When Victor Hugo grew tired telling his grandchildren stories, he would wind up with the story of an old gentleman who, after a few interesting experiences, took up his evening paper and began to read aloud. The children would listen a few moments and then, one by one, slip out of the room. Young fellow's old gentleman, after many exciting scenes in his career, usually stretched himself on the lounge and feigned sleep. But grandmothers are not allowed to shelter themselves with such devices. They are required to spin on until the bedtime really arrives. On July 16, one of the hottest days of the season, Mrs. Jacob Brighton's daughter, Herbert Burroughs and Mrs. Pankhurst came down from London, and we sat out of doors taking our luncheon under the trees and discussing theosophy. Later in the month Hattie and I went to Yorkshire to visit Mr. and Mrs. Scatchard at Morley Hall, and there spent several days. We had a prolonged discussion on personal rights. One side was against all governmental interference, such as compulsory education and the protection of children against cruel parents. The other side in favour of state interference that protected the individual in the enjoyment of life, liberty and happiness. I took the latter position. Many parents are not fit to have the control of children. Hence the state should see that they are sheltered, fed, clothed and educated. It is far better for the state to make good citizens of its children in the beginning than in the end to be compelled to care for them as criminals. While in the north of England we spent a few days at Howard Castle, the summer residents of Lord and Lady Carlyle, and their ten children, so large a family in high life is unusual. As I had known Lord and Lady Amberly in America when they visited this country in 1867, I enjoyed meeting other members of their family. Lady Carlyle is in favour of woman's suffrage and frequently speaks in public. She is a woman of great force of character and of very generous impulses. She is trying to do her duty in sharing the good things of life with the needy. The poor for miles round often have picnics in her park, and large numbers of children from manufacturing towns spend weeks with her cottage tenants at her expense. Lady Carlyle is an artist and a student, as he has a poetical temperament and is aesthetic in all his tastes. Lady Carlyle is the business manager of the estate. She is a practical woman with immense executive ability. The castle, with its spacious dining hall and drawing rooms, with its chapel, library, galleries of painting and statuary, its fine outlook, extensive gardens and lawns, is well worth seeing. We enjoyed our visit very much and discussed every imaginable subject. When we returned to Basingstoke we had a visit from Mrs. Cobb, the wife of a member of Parliament, and sister-in-law of Carl Pearson, whose lectures on woman I had enjoyed so much. It was through reading his work, The Ethic of Free Thought, that the matriarchate made such a deep impression on my mind, and moved me to write a tract on the subject. People who have never read nor thought on this point question the facts, as stated by Boccov and Morgan and Wilkison, but their truth, I think, cannot be questioned. They seem so natural in the chain of reasoning and the progress of human development. Mrs. Cobb did a very good thing a few days before visiting us. At a great meeting called to promote Mr. Cobb's election, John Morley spoke. He did not even say, ladies and gentlemen, in starting, nor make the slightest reference to the existence of such beings as women. When he had finished Mrs. Cobb arose mid-grade cheering and criticized his speech, making some quotations from his former speeches of a very liberal nature. The audience laughed and cheered, fully enjoying the rebuke. The next day in his speech he remembered his countrywomen, and on rising said, ladies and gentlemen. During August 1891 I was busy getting ready for my voyage, as I was to sail on the Ems on August 23rd. Although I had crossed the ocean six times in the prior ten years, I dreaded the voyage more than words can describe. The last days were filled with sadness, imparting with those so dear to me in foreign countries, especially those curly-headed little girls. So bright, so pretty, so winning in all their ways. Hattie and Theodore went with me from Southampton in the little tug to the great ship Ems. It was very hard for us to say the last farewell, but we all tried to be as brave as possible. We had a rough voyage, but I was not seasick one moment. I was up and dressed early in the morning, and on deck whenever the weather permitted. I made many pleasant acquaintances, with whom I played chess and wist, wrote letters to all my foreign friends, ready to mail on landing, read The Egoist by George Meredith, and Ibsen's plays as translated by my friend Francis Lorde. I had my own private stewardess, a nice German woman who could speak English. She gave me most of my meals on deck or in the ladies' saloon, and at night she would open up the porthole two or three times and air our stateroom. That made the nights indurable. The last evening before landing, we got up in entertainment with songs, recitations, readings, and speeches. I was invited to preside and introduce the various performers. We reached Sandy Hook the evening of the twenty-ninth day of August, and lay there all night. And the next morning we sailed up our beautiful harbor, brilliant with the rays of the rising sun. Being fortunate in having children in both hemispheres, here too I found a son and daughter waiting to welcome me to my native land. Our chief business for many weeks was searching for an inviting apartment where my daughter Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, my youngest son Bob and I, could set up our family altar and sing our new Psalm of life together. After much weary searching we found an apartment. Having always lived in a large house in the country, the quarters seemed rather contracted at first, but I soon realized the immense saving in labor and expense in having no more room than is absolutely necessary, and all on one floor, to be transported from the street to your apartment in an elevator in half a minute, to have all your food and fuel sent to your kitchen by an elevator in the rear, to have your rooms all warmed with no effort of your own seemed like a realization of some fairy dream. With an extensive outlook of the heavens above, of the park in the boulevard beneath, I had a feeling of freedom, and with a short flight of stairs to the roof, an easy escaping case of fire, of safety too. No sooner was I fully established in my airy than I was summoned to Rochester by my friend Miss Anthony to fill an appointment she had made for me with Miss Adelaide Johnson, the artist from Washington, who was to idealize Miss Anthony and myself in marble for the world's fair. I found my friend demurely seated in her mother's rocking chair, hemming table linen and towels for her new home, a non-bargaining with butchers, bakers and grocers, making cakes and puddings, talking with enthusiasm of palatable dishes and the beauties of various articles of furniture that different friends had presented her. All there was to remind one of the Napoleon of the Suffrage Movement was a large escrooir covered with documents in the usual state of confusion. Miss Anthony never could keep her papers in order. In search of any particular document she roots out every drawer and pigeonhole, although her mother's little spinning wheel stands right beside her desk, a constant reminder of all the domestic virtues of the good housewife, with whom order is of the utmost importance, and heaven's first law. The house was exquisitely clean and orderly, the food appetizing, the conversation pleasant and profitable, and the atmosphere genial. A room in an adjoining house was assigned to Miss Johnson and myself, where a strong pedestal and huge mass of clay greeted us, and therefore nearly a month I watched the transformation of that clay into human proportions and expressions, until it gradually emerged with the familiar facial outlines ever so dear to one's self. Sitting there four or five hours every day I used to get very sleepy, so my artist arranged for a series of little naps. When she saw the crisis coming, she would say, I will work now for a time on the ear, the nose, or the hair, as you must be wide awake when I am trying to catch the expression. I rewarded her for her patience and indulgence by summoning up, when awake, the most intelligent and radiant expression that I could command. As Miss Johnson is a charming, cultured woman with liberal ideas and brilliant in conversation, she readily drew out all that was best in me. Before I left Rochester, Miss Anthony and her sister Mary gave a reception to me at their house. As some of the professors and trustees of the Rochester University were there, the question of coeducation was freely discussed, and the authorities urged to open the doors of the university to the daughters of the people. It was rather aggravating to contemplate those fine buildings and grounds, while every girl in that city must go abroad for higher education. The wife of President Hill of the university had just presented him with twins, a girl and a boy, and he facetiously remarked that if the creator could risk placing sexes in such near relations, he thought they might with safety walk on the same campus and pursue the same curriculum together. Miss Anthony and I went to Geneva the next day to visit Mrs. Miller and to meet by appointment Mrs. Eliza Osbourne, the niece of Lucretia Mott, and eldest daughter of Martha C. Wright. We anticipated a merry meeting, but Miss Anthony and I were so tired that we no doubt appeared stupid. In a letter to Mrs. Miller afterward, Mrs. Osbourne inquired why I was so solemn. As I pried myself on being impervious to fatigue or disease, I could not own up to any disability, so I turned the tables on her in the following letter. New York, 26 West 61st Street, November 12, 1891, Dear Eliza In a recent letter to Mrs. Miller, speaking of the time when we last met, you say, why was Mrs. Stanton so solemn? To which I reply, ever since an old German emperor issued an edict ordering all the women under that flag to knit when walking on the highway, when selling apples in the marketplace, when sitting in the parks, because to keep women out of mischief their hands must be busy. Ever since I read that, I have felt solemn whenever I have seen any daughters of our grand republic knitting, tatting, embroidering, or occupied with any of the ten thousand digital absurdities that fill so large a place in the lives of Eve's daughters. Looking forward to the scintillations of wit, the philosophical researches, the historical traditions, the scientific discoveries, the astronomical explorations, the mysteries of theosophy, palmistry, mental science, the revelations of the unknown world where angels and devils do congregate, looking forward to discussions of all these grand themes, in meeting the eldest daughter of David and Martha Wright, the niece of Lucretia Mott, the sister-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison, a queenly-looking woman five feet eight in height, and well proportioned, with glorious black eyes, rivaling even distals in power and pathos. One can readily imagine the disappointment I experienced when such a woman pulled a cotton wash-rag from her pocket and forthwith began to knit with bowed head. Fixing her eyes and concentrating her thoughts on a rag one foot square, it was impossible for conversation to rise above the wash-rag level. It was enough to make the most aged optimist solemn to see such a wreck of glorious womanhood. And still worse, she not only knit steadily hour after hour, but she bestowed the sweetest words of encouragement on a young girl from the Pacific coast, who was embroidering rose-butts on another rag. The very girl I had endeavored to rescue from the maelstrom of embroidery, by showing her the unspeakable folly of giving her optic nerves to such base uses, when they were designed by the Creator to explore the planetary world with chart and compass to guide mighty ships across the ocean, to lead the sons of Adam with divinest love on earth to heaven. Think of the great beseeching optic nerves and muscles by which we express our admiration of all that is good and glorious in earth and heaven, being concentrated on a cotton wash-rag. Who can wonder that I was solemn that day? I made my agonized protest on the spot, but it fell unheeded, and with satisfied sneer Eliza knit on, and a young Californian continued making the rose-butts. I gazed into space and, when alone, wept for my degenerate countrywoman. I not only was solemn that day, but I am profoundly solemn whenever I think of that queenly woman and that cotton wash-rag. One can buy a whole dozen of these useful appliances, with red borders and fringed for twenty-five cents. Oh, Eliza, I beseech you, knit no more. Affectionately yours, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. To this Mrs. Osborne sent the following reply. Dear Mrs. Stanton, in your skit against your sisterhood who knit, or useful make their fingers, I wonder if deny it not the habit of Lucretia Mott within your memory lingers. In retrospective vision bright, can you recall dear Martha Wright without her work or knitting? The needles flying in her hands on washing-graggs or baby's bands or other work as fitting. I cannot think they thought the less or ceased the company to bless with conversations riches, because they thus improved their time and never deemed it was a crime to fill the hours with stitches. They even used to preach and plan to spread the fashion so that man might have the satisfaction. Instead of idling as men do with nervous meddling fingers too, why not mate talk with action? But as a daughter and a niece I pride myself on every piece of handiwork created, while reveling in social chat or listening to gossip flat my gain is unabated. That German emperor you scorn seems to my mind a monarch born worthy to lead a column. I a warrant he could talk and work, and neither being used to shirk was rarely very solemn. I could say more upon this head, but must before I go to bed your idle precepts mocking get out my needle and my yarn, and carrying not a single darn. Just finish up this stocking.