Eighty Years and More; Reminiscences 1815-1897
cloak and hood that had crossed the Atlantic and been saturated with
salt water many times, pitying 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 seventy-third birthday I spent with my son Gerrit 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 amused myself 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 enough of the solitude
of farm life and turned their faces eastward.
Soon after my return to Omaha, the editor of the _Woman'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 coadjutors 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 in 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 a 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 with
it she did not know. It was suggested that she might have dropped it in
alighting 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 air of San Diego would
restore his health, and so we gave up housekeeping in Omaha, and, on
April 20, 1889, in company with my eldest son I returned East and spent
the summer at Hempstead, Long Island, with my son Gerrit 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 Seidl club meetings at Coney
Island, where Seidl was then giving some popular concerts. The club was
composed of two hundred 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 phaeton, low and easy as a cradle, and I
enjoyed many drives about Long Island. We went to Bryant's home on the
north side, several times, and in imagination I saw the old poet in the
various shady nooks, inditing his lines of love and praise of nature in
all her varying moods. Walking among 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 brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread."
In September, 1889, my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, came East to
attend a school of physical culture, and my other daughter, Mrs. Stanton
Blatch, 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 Gerrit Smith.
She and I have been most faithful, devoted friends all our lives, and
regular correspondents for more than fifty years. In the family circle
we are ofttimes referred to as "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, humorous remarks they
made. The next morning as we appeared at the breakfast table, Cousin
Gerrit 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 Dansville Sanatorium and
see what Doctors James and Kate Jackson could do for me. I was there six
weeks and tried all the rubbings, pinchings, steamings; 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 and 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 and Kate were doing all in their power to
cure the nervous affections of their patients, they would thwart the
treatment by sitting in the parlor with the thermometer at seventy-two
degrees, embroidering all kinds of fancy patterns,--some on muslin, some
on satin, and some with colored worsteds on canvas,--inhaling the
poisonous dyes, straining the optic nerves, counting threads and
stitches, hour after hour, until 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 matter. 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, embroidering--working cats
on the toe of some slipper, or tulips on an apron. 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 on to Washington to celebrate the
seventieth birthday of Miss Anthony, who has always been to them as a
second mother. Mrs. Blatch made a speech at the 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.
Spofford spared no pains to make the occasion one long to be remembered.
May Wright Sewall was the mistress of ceremonies. She read the toasts
and called on the different speakers. Phoebe Couzins, Rev. Anna Shaw,
Isabella Beecher Hooker, Matilda Joslyn 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 will not soon forget February 15,
1890.
After speaking before 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 waiting our arrival. As we
had eighteen pieces of baggage it took Mrs. Blatch some time to review
them. My phaeton, which we decided to take, filled six boxes. An easy
carriage for two persons is not common in England. The dogcarts prevail,
the most uncomfortable vehicles one can possibly use. Why some of our
Americans drive in those uncomfortable carts 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'être_ for their existence.
We had a very pleasant, smooth voyage, unusually so for blustering
February and March. As I dislike close staterooms, I remained in the
ladies' saloon night and day, sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of
eleven days we landed at Southampton, March 2, 1890. It was a beautiful
moonlight night and we had a pleasant ride on the little tug to the
wharf. We reached Basingstoke at eleven o'clock, found the family well
and all things in order.
CHAPTER XXVI.
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 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