[Speech of Theodore Tilton at the sixtieth annual dinner of the New
England Society in the City of New York, December 22, 1865. The
Chairman, Joseph H. Choate, gave the following toast, "Woman--the
strong staff and beautiful rod which sustained and comforted our
forefathers during every step of the pilgrims' progress." Theodore
Tilton was called upon to respond.]
GENTLEMEN:--It is somewhat to a modest man's embarrassment, on
rising to this toast, to know that it has already been twice partially
spoken to this evening--first by my friend, Senator Lane from Indiana,
and just now, most eloquently, by the mayor-elect of New York [John T.
Hoffman], who could not utter a better word in his own praise than to
tell us that he married a Massachusetts wife. [Applause.] In choosing
the most proper spot on this platform as my standpoint for such remarks
as are appropriate to such a toast, my first impulse was to go to the
other end of the table; for hereafter, Mr. Chairman, when you are in
want of a man to speak for Woman, remember what Hamlet said, "Bring me
the recorder!"[7] [Laughter.] But, on the other hand, here, at this end,
a prior claim was put in from the State of Indiana, whose venerable
Senator [Henry S. Lane] has expressed himself disappointed at finding no
women present. So, as my toast introduces that sex, I feel bound to
stand at the Senator's end of the room--not, however, too near the
Senator's chair, for it may be dangerous to take Woman too near that
"good-looking man." [Laughter and applause.] Therefore, gentlemen, I
stand between these two chairs--the Army on my right [General Hancock],
the Navy on my left [Admiral Farragut]--to hold over their heads a name
that conquers both--Woman! [Applause.] The Chairman has pictured a
vice-admiral tied for a little while to a mast; but it is the spirit of
my sentiment to give you a vice-admiral tied life-long to a master.
[Applause.] In the absence of woman, therefore, from this gilded feast,
I summon her to your golden remembrance. There is an old English
song--older, sir, than the Pilgrims:--
"By absence, this good means I gain,
That I can catch her
Where none can watch her,
In some close corner of my brain:
There I embrace and kiss her:
And so I both enjoy and miss her!"
You must not forget, Mr. President, in eulogizing the early men of New
England, who are your clients to-night, that it was only through the
help of the early women of New England, who are mine, that your boasted
heroes could ever have earned their title of the Pilgrim Fathers. [Great
laughter.] A health, therefore, to the women in the cabin of the
Mayflower! A cluster of May-flowers themselves, transplanted from summer
in the old world to winter in the new! Counting over those matrons and
maidens, they numbered, all told, just eighteen. Their names are now
written among the heroines of history! For as over the ashes of Cornelia
stood the epitaph "The Mother of the Gracchi," so over these women of
the Pilgrimage we write as proudly "The Mothers of the Republic."
[Applause.] There was good Mistress Bradford, whose feet were not
allowed of God to kiss Plymouth Rock, and who, like Moses, came only
near enough to see but not to enter the Promised Land. She was washed
overboard from the deck--and to this day the sea is her grave and Cape
Cod her monument! [Applause.] There was Mistress Carver, wife of the
first governor, and who, when her husband fell under the stroke of
sudden death, followed him first with heroic grief to the grave, and
then, a fortnight after, followed him with heroic joy up into Heaven!
[Applause.] There was Mistress White--the mother of the first child
born to the New England Pilgrims on this continent. And it was a good
omen, sir, that this historic babe was brought into the world on board
the Mayflower between the time of the casting of her anchor and the
landing of her passengers--a kind of amphibious prophecy that the
new-born nation was to have a birthright inheritance over the sea and
over the land. [Great applause.] There, also, was Rose Standish, whose
name is a perpetual June fragrance, to mellow and sweeten those December
winds. And there, too, was Mrs. Winslow, whose name is even more than a
fragrance; it is a taste; for, as the advertisements say, "children cry
for it"; it is a soothing syrup. [Great laughter.]
Then, after the first vessel with these women, there came other
women--loving hearts drawn from the olden land by those silken threads
which afterwards harden into golden chains. For instance, Governor
Bradford, a lonesome widower, went down to the sea-beach, and, facing
the waves, tossed a love-letter over the wide ocean into the lap of
Alice Southworth in old England, who caught it up, and read it, and
said, "Yes, I will go." And she went! And it is said that the governor,
at his second wedding, married his first love! Which, according to the
New Theology, furnishes the providential reason why the first Mrs.
Bradford fell overboard! [Great laughter.]
Now, gentlemen, as you sit to-night in this elegant hall, think of the
houses in which the Mayflower men and women lived in that first winter!
Think of a cabin in the wilderness--where winds whistled--where wolves
howled--where Indians yelled! And yet, within that log-house, burning
like a lamp was the pure flame of Christian faith, love, patience,
fortitude, heroism! As the Star of the East rested over the rude manger
where Christ lay, so--speaking not irreverently--there rested over the
roofs of the Pilgrims a Star of the West--the Star of Empire; and to-day
that empire is the proudest in the world! [Applause.] And if we could
summon up from their graves, and bring hither to-night, that olden
company of long-mouldered men, and they could sit with us at this
feast--in their mortal flesh--and with their stately presence--the whole
world would make a pilgrimage to see those pilgrims! [Applause.] How
quaint their attire! How grotesque their names! How we treasure every
relic of their day and generation! And of all the heirlooms of the
earlier times in Yankeeland, what household memorial is clustered round
about with more sacred and touching associations than the
spinning-wheel! The industrious mother sat by it doing her work while
she instructed her children! The blushing daughter plied it diligently,
while her sweetheart had a chair very close by. And you remember, too,
another person who used it more than all the rest--that peculiar kind of
maiden, well along in life, who, while she spun her yarn into one "blue
stocking," spun herself into another. [Laughter.] But perhaps my toast
forbids me to touch upon this well-known class of Yankee
women--restricting me, rather, to such women as "comforted" the
Pilgrims. [Laughter.]
But, my friends, such of the Pilgrim Fathers as found good women to
"comfort" them had, I am sure, their full share of matrimonial thorns in
the flesh. For instance, I know of an early New England epitaph on a
tombstone, in these words: "Obadiah and Sarah Wilkenson--their warfare
is accomplished." [Uproarious laughter.] And among the early statutes of
Connecticut--a State that began with blue laws, and ends with black
[laughter]--there was one which said: "No Gospel minister shall unite
people in marriage; the civil magistrates shall unite people in
marriage; as they may do it with less scandal to the church." [Loud
laughter.] Now, gentlemen, since Yankee clergymen fared so hard for
wedding-fees in those days, is it to be wondered at that so many Yankee
clergymen have escaped out of New England, and are here to-night?
[Laughter.] Dropping their frailties in the graves which cover their
ashes, I hold up anew to your love and respect the Forefathers of New
England! And as the sons of the Pilgrims are worthy of their sires, so
the daughters of the Pilgrims are worthy of their mothers. I hold that
in true womanly worth, in housewifely thrift, in domestic skill, in
every lovable and endearing quality, the present race of Yankee women
are the women of the earth! [Applause.] And I trust that we shall yet
have a Republic which, instead of disfranchising one-half its citizens,
and that too by common consent its "better half," shall ordain the
political equality, not only of both colors, but of both sexes! I
believe in a reconstructed Union wherein every good woman shall have a
wedding-ring on her finger, and a ballot in her hand! [Sensation.]
And now, to close, let me give you just a bit of good advice. The
cottages of our forefathers had few pictures on the walls, but many
families had a print of "King Charles's Twelve Good Rules," the eleventh
of which was, "Make no long meals." Now King Charles lost his head, and
you will have leave to make a long meal. But when, after your long meal,
you go home in the wee small hours, what do you expect to find? You will
find my toast--"Woman, a beautiful rod!" [Laughter.] Now my advice is,
"Kiss the rod!" [Great laughter, during which Mr. Tilton took his
seat.]