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Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897

<h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> <h2>MY LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND.</h2> 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 we 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 Pall Mall Gazette, on his position in regard to Russian affairs, "The Deceased Wife's Sister Bill," and the divorce laws of England. Mr. Stead is a fluent talker as well as a good writer. He is the leader of the social purity movement in England. The wisdom of his course toward 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 Stewart Parnell's platonic friendship with Mrs. O'Shea, and the other was the 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. It was pitiful to see the Irish themselves, misled by a hypocritical popular sentiment in England, turn 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 English politicians manifested in the question of Home Rule, 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 justice, a trusted lawyer, or skillful physician, if 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 Dietrick 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 was a profitable study, 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. and 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 kidnaped her one day as she was coming out of church, and carried her 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 right so frequently claimed, giving husbands the power to seize, imprison, and chastise their wives, he said: "I am of the opinion that no such right exists in law. I am of the opinion that no such right 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 the 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 coverture, giving to wives their rights of property, the full benefit of which they are yet to realize when clearer-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 person 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 will it 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 pail, played all day in the sands, digging trenches and filling them with water, I sat on the balcony reading "Diana of the Crossways," and Bjornson'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, stopping 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, to-morrow 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 Wolstonecraft 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 3rd, 1756, died April 7th, 1836. Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, author of the 'Vindication of the Rights of Women,' born April 27th, 1759, died September 10th, 1797." These remains were brought here, in 1851, from the churchyard of St. Pancras, London. On the other side are the following inscriptions: "Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, daughter of William Godwin and widow of the late Percy Bysshe Shelley, born August 30th, 1797, died February 1st, 1851. Percy Florence Shelley, son of Percy Shelley and Mary Wolstonecraft, third baronet, born November 12th, 1819, died December 5th, 1889. "In Christ's Church, six miles from Bournemouth, is a bas-relief in memory of the great poet. He is represented, dripping with seaweed, in the arms of the Angel of Death. As I sat on my balcony hour after hour, reading and thinking of the Shelleys, watching the changing hues of the clouds and the beautiful bay, and listening to the sad monotone of the waves, these sweet lines of Whittier's came to my mind: <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> "Its waves are kneeling on the strand, As kneels the human knee,— Their white locks bowing to the sand, The priesthood of the sea! </div> <div class="stanza"> "The blue sky is the temple's arch, Its transept earth and air, The music of its starry march The chorus of a prayer." </div> </div> 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 story telling, 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. Longfellow'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 Bright and daughter, Herbert Burroughs, and Mrs. Parkhurst 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. Scatcherd 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 favor 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 residence of Lord and Lady Carlisle and their ten children. So large a family in high life is unusual. As I had known Lord and Lady Amberley in America, when they visited this country in 1867, I enjoyed meeting other members of their family. Lady Carlisle is in favor of woman 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. Lord Carlisle is an artist and a student. As he has a poetical temperament and is aesthetic in all his tastes, Lady Carlisle 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 paintings and statuary, its fine outlook, extensive gardens and lawns was 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 Karl 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 neither read nor thought on this point, question the facts as stated by Bachofen, Morgan, and Wilkeson; 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 great cheering and criticised 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 23. 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, in parting 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 whist; wrote letters to all my foreign friends, ready to mail on landing; read the "Egotist," by George Meredith, and Ibsen's plays as translated by my friend Frances Lord. 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 the porthole two or three times and air our stateroom; that made the nights endurable. The last evening before landing we got up an 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 29th 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 and the Boulevard beneath, I had a feeling of freedom, and with a short flight of stairs to the roof (an easy escape in case of fire), of safety, too. No sooner was I fully established in my eyrie, 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, anon 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 escritoire 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 pigeon hole, 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 there, for 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 co-education 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 Osborne, 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. Osborne inquired why I was "so solemn." As I pride 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: <div class="blkquot"> "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 market place, 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 De Staël's 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 rosebuds 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 sea, to lead the sons of Adam with divinest love from 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 the young Californian continued making the rosebuds. 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." </div> To this Mrs. Osborne sent the following reply: <div class="blkquot"> "Dear Mrs. Stanton: </div> <div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> "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! </div> <div class="stanza"> "In retrospective vision bright, Can you recall dear Martha Wright Without her work or knitting? The needles flying in her hands, On washing rags or baby's bands, Or other work as fitting? </div> <div class="stanza"> "I cannot think they thought the less, Or ceased the company to bless With conversation's riches, Because they thus improved their time, And never deemed it was a crime To fill the hours with stitches. </div> <div class="stanza"> "They even used to preach and plan To spread the fashion, so that man Might have this satisfaction; Instead of idling as men do, With nervous meddling fingers too, Why not mate talk with action? </div> <div class="stanza"> "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. </div> <div class="stanza"> "That German emperor you scorn, Seems to my mind a monarch born, Worthy to lead a column; I'll warrant he could talk and work, And, neither being used to shirk, Was rarely very solemn. </div> <div class="stanza"> "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, caring not a single darn. Just finish up this stocking." </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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