Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
Grace Greenwood and her talented daughter, who charmed everyone with her
melodious voice, and Miss Bryant, daughter of the poet. One visitor who
interested us most was the Norwegian novelist and republican,
Bjornstjorne Bjornson.
We had several pleasant interviews with Frederick Douglass and his wife,
some exciting games of chess with Theodore Tilton, in the pleasant
apartments of the late W.J.A. Fuller, Esq., and his daughter, Miss 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 Beebe Wilbour, greatly enjoying her clever
descriptions of a winter on the Nile in her own dahabeeyeh. I heard Père
Hyacinthe 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, theaters, 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 Elysée Palace, escorted by M. Joseph
Fabre, then a deputy and now a senator. M. Fabre is the author of a play
and several volumes devoted to Joan of Arc. He presented me to the
President and to Mme. Jules Grévy. I was also introduced to M. Jules
Ferry, 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 of the Republican
Guard gave a delightful concert under the big trees. I also met M.
Grévy'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 a lapse of nearly fifty
years, and was struck by the fact that, in that interval, several women
had been admitted to places of honor. This was especially noticeable in
the Luxembourg Sculpture Gallery, where two women, Mme. Bertaux and the
late Claude Vignon, wife of M. 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
Cluseret, 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 bookstands were always attractive centers 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, that 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
draughts 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 bread board. 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
sorrowfully, 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 our experiences of
six weeks with him, his chief reading was his Bible and Sunday-school
books. The experience, however, was not lost on 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 Anna 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,
we 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, in solitude and poverty, with the vain hope of earning
distinction. Women of all classes are awaking 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 six thousand pictures
were offered, and only two thousand 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 fête,--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 in the streets
and parks are all filled with the laboring masses. The benches all over
Paris--along the curbstones in 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 Dore'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 center 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 Lord, at her
kindergarten establishment. She had just returned from Sweden, where she
spent six weeks in the carpenter's shop, studying the Swedish Slöjd
system, in which children of twelve years old learn to use tools, making
spoons, forks, and other implements. Miss Lord showed us some of her
work, quite creditable for her first attempts. She said 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 and what the authors say of women; one the "Religio Medici," by
Sir Thomas Browne, M.D., in which the author discourses on many high
themes, God, Creation, Heaven, Hell, and vouchsafes one sentence on
woman. Of her he says: "I was never married but once and commend their
resolution who never marry twice, not that I disallow of 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
twelfth 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 averse 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 on woman
many equally ridiculous statements mixed up with much fulsome
admiration. After reading some volumes of Richter, I took up Heinrich
Heine, 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 authoresses except the Countess Hahn
Hahn, 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 Drs. Julia and Kate Mitchell, sisters
practicing 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,