Section 3, of the State Constitution, striking out the word "male,"

[Illustration: Elizabeth Cady Stanton]

EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE

REMINISCENCES 1815-1897

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON

"Social science affirms that woman's place in society marks the level of

civilization."

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME TO

SUSAN B. ANTHONY,

MY STEADFAST FRIEND FOR HALF A CENTURY.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

I. CHILDHOOD

II. SCHOOL DAYS

III. GIRLHOOD

IV. LIFE AT PETERBORO

V. OUR WEDDING JOURNEY

VI. HOMEWARD BOUND

VII. MOTHERHOOD

VIII. BOSTON AND CHELSEA

IX. THE FIRST WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION

X. SUSAN B. ANTHONY

XI. SUSAN B. ANTHONY (_Continued_)

XII. MY FIRST SPEECH BEFORE A LEGISLATURE

XIII. REFORMS AND MOBS

XIV. VIEWS ON MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE

XV. WOMEN AS PATRIOTS

XVI. PIONEER LIFE IN KANSAS--OUR NEWSPAPER "THE

REVOLUTION"

XVII. LYCEUMS AND LECTURERS

XVIII. WESTWARD HO!

XIX. THE SPIRIT OF '76

XX. WRITING "THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE"

XXI. IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE

XXII. REFORMS AND REFORMERS IN GREAT BRITAIN

XXIII. WOMAN AND THEOLOGY

XXIV. ENGLAND AND FRANCE REVISITED

XXV. THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN

XXVI. MY LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND

XXVII. SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1832--THE

WOMAN'S BIBLE

XXVIII. MY EIGHTIETH BIRTHDAY

INDEX OF NAMES

LIST OF PORTRAITS.

The Author, _Frontispiece_

Margaret Livingston Cady

Judge Daniel Cady

Henry Brewster Stanton

The Author and Daughter

The Author and Son

Susan B. Anthony

Elizabeth Smith Miller

Children and Grandchildren

The Author, Mrs. Blatch, and Nora

The Author, Mrs. Lawrence, and Robert Livingston Stanton

EIGHTY YEARS AND MORE.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD.

The psychical growth of a child is not influenced by days and years, but

by the impressions passing events make on its mind. What may prove a

sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that

may last for years, may make no impression on another. People wonder why

the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had

the same domestic discipline, the same school and church teaching, and

have grown up under the same influences and with the same environments.

As well wonder why lilies and lilacs in the same latitude are not all

alike in color and equally fragrant. Children differ as widely as these

in the primal elements of their physical and psychical life.

Who can estimate the power of antenatal influences, or the child's

surroundings in its earliest years, the effect of some passing word or

sight on one, that makes no impression on another? The unhappiness of

one child under a certain home discipline is not inconsistent with the

content of another under this same discipline. One, yearning for broader

freedom, is in a chronic condition of rebellion; the other, more easily

satisfied, quietly accepts the situation. Everything is seen from a

different standpoint; everything takes its color from the mind of the

beholder.

I am moved to recall what I can of my early days, what I thought and

felt, that grown people may have a better understanding of children and

do more for their happiness and development. I see so much tyranny

exercised over children, even by well-disposed parents, and in so many

varied forms,--a tyranny to which these parents are themselves

insensible,--that I desire to paint my joys and sorrows in as vivid

colors as possible, in the hope that I may do something to defend the

weak from the strong. People never dream of all that is going on in the

little heads of the young, for few adults are given to introspection,

and those who are incapable of recalling their own feelings under

restraint and disappointment can have no appreciation of the sufferings

of children who can neither describe nor analyze what they feel. In

defending themselves against injustice they are as helpless as dumb

animals. What is insignificant to their elders is often to them a source

of great joy or sorrow.

With several generations of vigorous, enterprising ancestors behind me,

I commenced the struggle of life under favorable circumstances on the

12th day of November, 1815, the same year that my father, Daniel Cady, a

distinguished lawyer and judge in the State of New York, was elected to

Congress. Perhaps the excitement of a political campaign, in which my

mother took the deepest interest, may have had an influence on my

prenatal life and given me the strong desire that I have always felt to

participate in the rights and duties of government.

My father was a man of firm character and unimpeachable integrity, and

yet sensitive and modest to a painful degree. There were but two places

in which he felt at ease--in the courthouse and at his own fireside.

Though gentle and tender, he had such a dignified repose and reserve of

manner that, as children, we regarded him with fear rather than

affection.

My mother, Margaret Livingston, a tall, queenly looking woman, was

courageous, self-reliant, and at her ease under all circumstances and in

all places. She was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, who took

an active part in the War of the Revolution.

Colonel Livingston was stationed at West Point when Arnold made the

attempt to betray that stronghold into the hands of the enemy. In the

absence of General Washington and his superior officer, he took the

responsibility of firing into the _Vulture_, a suspicious looking

British vessel that lay at anchor near the opposite bank of the Hudson

River. It was a fatal shot for André, the British spy, with whom Arnold

was then consummating his treason. Hit between wind and water, the

vessel spread her sails and hastened down the river, leaving André, with

his papers, to be captured while Arnold made his escape through the

lines, before his treason was suspected.

On General Washington's return to West Point, he sent for my grandfather

and reprimanded him for acting in so important a matter without orders,

thereby making himself liable to court-martial; but, after fully

impressing the young officer with the danger of such self-sufficiency on

ordinary occasions, he admitted that a most fortunate shot had been sent

into the _Vulture_, "for," he said, "we are in no condition just now to

defend ourselves against the British forces in New York, and the

capture of this spy has saved us."

My mother had the military idea of government, but her children, like

their grandfather, were disposed to assume the responsibility of their

own actions; thus the ancestral traits in mother and children modified,

in a measure, the dangerous tendencies in each.

Our parents were as kind, indulgent, and considerate as the Puritan

ideas of those days permitted, but fear, rather than love, of God and

parents alike, predominated. Add to this our timidity in our intercourse

with servants and teachers, our dread of the ever present devil, and the

reader will see that, under such conditions, nothing but strong

self-will and a good share of hope and mirthfulness could have saved an

ordinary child from becoming a mere nullity.

The first event engraved on my memory was the birth of a sister when I

was four years old. It was a cold morning in January when the brawny

Scotch nurse carried me to see the little stranger, whose advent was a

matter of intense interest to me for many weeks after. The large,

pleasant room with the white curtains and bright wood fire on the

hearth, where panada, catnip, and all kinds of little messes which we

were allowed to taste were kept warm, was the center of attraction for

the older children. I heard so many friends remark, "What a pity it is

she's a girl!" that I felt a kind of compassion for the little baby.

True, our family consisted of five girls and only one boy, but I did not

understand at that time that girls were considered an inferior order of

beings.

To form some idea of my surroundings at this time, imagine a two-story

white frame house with a hall through the middle, rooms on either side,

and a large back building with grounds on the side and rear, which

joined the garden of our good Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Simon

Hosack, of whom I shall have more to say in another chapter. Our

favorite resorts in the house were the garret and cellar. In the former

were barrels of hickory nuts, and, on a long shelf, large cakes of maple

sugar and all kinds of dried herbs and sweet flag; spinning wheels, a

number of small white cotton bags filled with bundles, marked in ink,

"silk," "cotton," "flannel," "calico," etc., as well as ancient

masculine and feminine costumes. Here we would crack the nuts, nibble

the sharp edges of the maple sugar, chew some favorite herb, play ball

with the bags, whirl the old spinning wheels, dress up in our ancestors'

clothes, and take a bird's-eye view of the surrounding country from an

enticing scuttle hole. This was forbidden ground; but, nevertheless, we

often went there on the sly, which only made the little escapades more

enjoyable.

The cellar of our house was filled, in winter, with barrels of apples,

vegetables, salt meats, cider, butter, pounding barrels, washtubs, etc.,

offering admirable nooks for playing hide and seek. Two tallow candles

threw a faint light over the scene on certain occasions. This cellar was

on a level with a large kitchen where we played blind man's buff and

other games when the day's work was done. These two rooms are the center

of many of the merriest memories of my childhood days.

I can recall three colored men, Abraham, Peter, and Jacob, who acted as

menservants in our youth. In turn they would sometimes play on the banjo

for us to dance, taking real enjoyment in our games. They are all at

rest now with "Old Uncle Ned in the place where the good niggers go."

Our nurses, Lockey Danford, Polly Bell, Mary Dunn, and Cornelia

Nickeloy--peace to their ashes--were the only shadows on the gayety of

these winter evenings; for their chief delight was to hurry us off to

bed, that they might receive their beaux or make short calls in the

neighborhood. My memory of them is mingled with no sentiment of

gratitude or affection. In expressing their opinion of us in after

years, they said we were a very troublesome, obstinate, disobedient set

of children. I have no doubt we were in constant rebellion against their

petty tyranny. Abraham, Peter, and Jacob viewed us in a different light,

and I have the most pleasant recollections of their kind services.

In the winter, outside the house, we had the snow with which to build

statues and make forts, and huge piles of wood covered with ice, which

we called the Alps, so difficult were they of ascent and descent. There

we would climb up and down by the hour, if not interrupted, which,

however, was generally the case. It always seemed to me that, in the

height of our enthusiasm, we were invariably summoned to some

disagreeable duty, which would appear to show that thus early I keenly

enjoyed outdoor life. Theodore Tilton has thus described the place where

I was born: "Birthplace is secondary parentage, and transmits character.

Johnstown was more famous half a century ago than since; for then,

though small, it was a marked intellectual center; and now, though

large, it is an unmarked manufacturing town. Before the birth of

Elizabeth Cady it was the vice-ducal seat of Sir William Johnson, the

famous English negotiator with the Indians. During her girlhood it was

an arena for the intellectual wrestlings of Kent, Tompkins, Spencer,

Elisha Williams, and Abraham Van Vechten, who, as lawyers, were among

the chiefest of their time. It is now devoted mainly to the fabrication

of steel springs and buckskin gloves. So, like Wordsworth's early star,

it has faded into the light of common day. But Johnstown retains one of

its ancient splendors--a glory still fresh as at the foundation of the

world. Standing on its hills, one looks off upon a country of enameled

meadow lands, that melt away southward toward the Mohawk, and northward

to the base of those grand mountains which are 'God's monument over the

grave of John Brown.'"

Harold Frederic's novel, "In the Valley," contains many descriptions of

this region that are true to nature, as I remember the Mohawk Valley,

for I first knew it not so many years after the scenes which he lays

there. Before I was old enough to take in the glory of this scenery and

its classic associations, Johnstown was to me a gloomy-looking town. The

middle of the streets was paved with large cobblestones, over which the

farmer's wagons rattled from morning till night, while the sidewalks

were paved with very small cobblestones, over which we carefully picked

our way, so that free and graceful walking was out of the question. The

streets were lined with solemn poplar trees, from which small yellow

worms were continually dangling down. Next to the Prince of Darkness, I

feared these worms. They were harmless, but the sight of one made me

tremble. So many people shared in this feeling that the poplars were all

cut down and elms planted in their stead. The Johnstown academy and

churches were large square buildings, painted white, surrounded by these

same sombre poplars, each edifice having a doleful bell which seemed to

be ever tolling for school, funerals, church, or prayer meetings. Next

to the worms, those clanging bells filled me with the utmost dread; they

seemed like so many warnings of an eternal future. Visions of the

Inferno were strongly impressed on my childish imagination. It was

thought, in those days, that firm faith in hell and the devil was the

greatest help to virtue. It certainly made me very unhappy whenever my

mind dwelt on such teachings, and I have always had my doubts of the

virtue that is based on the fear of punishment.

Perhaps I may be pardoned a word devoted to my appearance in those days.

I have been told that I was a plump little girl, with very fair skin,

rosy cheeks, good features, dark-brown hair, and laughing blue eyes. A

student in my father's office, the late Henry Bayard of Delaware (an

uncle of our recent Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Thomas F.

Bayard), told me one day, after conning my features carefully, that I

had one defect which he could remedy. "Your eyebrows should be darker

and heavier," said he, "and if you will let me shave them once or twice,

you will be much improved." I consented, and, slight as my eyebrows

were, they seemed to have had some expression, for the loss of them had

a most singular effect on my appearance. Everybody, including even the

operator, laughed at my odd-looking face, and I was in the depths of

humiliation during the period while my eyebrows were growing out again.

It is scarcely necessary for me to add that I never allowed the young

man to repeat the experiment, although strongly urged to do so.

I cannot recall how or when I conquered the alphabet, words in three

letters, the multiplication table, the points of the compass, the

chicken pox, whooping cough, measles, and scarlet fever. All these

unhappy incidents of childhood left but little impression on my mind. I

have, however, most pleasant memories of the good spinster, Maria Yost,

who patiently taught three generations of children the rudiments of the

English language, and introduced us to the pictures in "Murray's

Spelling-book," where Old Father Time, with his scythe, and the farmer

stoning the boys in his apple trees, gave rise in my mind to many

serious reflections. Miss Yost was plump and rosy, with fair hair, and

had a merry twinkle in her blue eyes, and she took us by very easy

stages through the old-fashioned school-books. The interesting Readers

children now have were unknown sixty years ago. We did not reach the

temple of knowledge by the flowery paths of ease in which our

descendants now walk.

I still have a perfect vision of myself and sisters, as we stood up in

the classes, with our toes at the cracks in the floor, all dressed alike

in bright red flannel, black alpaca aprons, and, around the neck, a

starched ruffle that, through a lack of skill on the part of either the

laundress or the nurse who sewed them in, proved a constant source of

discomfort to us. I have since seen full-grown men, under slighter

provocation than we endured, jerk off a collar, tear it in two, and

throw it to the winds, chased by the most soul-harrowing expletives. But

we were sternly rebuked for complaining, and if we ventured to introduce

our little fingers between the delicate skin and the irritating linen,

our hands were slapped and the ruffle readjusted a degree closer. Our

Sunday dresses were relieved with a black sprig and white aprons. We had

red cloaks, red hoods, red mittens, and red stockings. For one's self to

be all in red six months of the year was bad enough, but to have this

costume multiplied by three was indeed monotonous. I had such an

aversion to that color that I used to rebel regularly at the beginning

of each season when new dresses were purchased, until we finally passed

into an exquisite shade of blue. No words could do justice to my dislike

of those red dresses. My grandfather's detestation of the British

redcoats must have descended to me. My childhood's antipathy to wearing

red enabled me later to comprehend the feelings of a little niece, who

hated everything pea green, because she had once heard the saying, "neat

but not gaudy, as the devil said when he painted his tail pea green." So

when a friend brought her a cravat of that color she threw it on the

floor and burst into tears, saying, "I could not wear that, for it is

the color of the devil's tail." I sympathized with the child and had it

changed for the hue she liked. Although we cannot always understand the

ground for children's preferences, it is often well to heed them.

I am told that I was pensively looking out of the nursery window one

day, when Mary Dunn, the Scotch nurse, who was something of a

philosopher, and a stern Presbyterian, said: "Child, what are you

thinking about; are you planning some new form of mischief?" "No, Mary,"

I replied, "I was wondering why it was that everything we like to do is

a sin, and that everything we dislike is commanded by God or someone on

earth. I am so tired of that everlasting no! no! no! At school, at home,

everywhere it is _no_! Even at church all the commandments begin 'Thou

shalt not.' I suppose God will say 'no' to all we like in the next

world, just as you do here." Mary was dreadfully shocked at my

dissatisfaction with the things of time and prospective eternity, and

exhorted me to cultivate the virtues of obedience and humility.

I well remember the despair I felt in those years, as I took in the

whole situation, over the constant cribbing and crippling of a child's

life. I suppose I found fit language in which to express my thoughts,

for Mary Dunn told me, years after, how our discussion roused my sister

Margaret, who was an attentive listener. I must have set forth our

wrongs in clear, unmistakable terms; for Margaret exclaimed one day, "I

tell you what to do. Hereafter let us act as we choose, without asking."

"Then," said I, "we shall be punished." "Suppose we are," said she, "we

shall have had our fun at any rate, and that is better than to mind the

everlasting 'no' and not have any fun at all." Her logic seemed

unanswerable, so together we gradually acted on her suggestions. Having

less imagination than I, she took a common-sense view of life and

suffered nothing from anticipation of troubles, while my sorrows were

intensified fourfold by innumerable apprehensions of possible

exigencies.

Our nursery, a large room over a back building, had three barred windows

reaching nearly to the floor. Two of these opened on a gently slanting

roof over a veranda. In our night robes, on warm summer evenings we

could, by dint of skillful twisting and compressing, get out between the

bars, and there, snugly braced against the house, we would sit and enjoy

the moon and stars and what sounds might reach us from the streets,

while the nurse, gossiping at the back door, imagined we were safely

asleep.

I have a confused memory of being often under punishment for what, in

those days, were called "tantrums." I suppose they were really

justifiable acts of rebellion against the tyranny of those in authority.

I have often listened since, with real satisfaction, to what some of our

friends had to say of the high-handed manner in which sister Margaret

and I defied all the transient orders and strict rules laid down for our

guidance. If we had observed them we might as well have been embalmed as

mummies, for all the pleasure and freedom we should have had in our

childhood. As very little was then done for the amusement of children,

happy were those who _conscientiously_ took the liberty of amusing

themselves.

One charming feature of our village was a stream of water, called the

Cayadutta, which ran through the north end, in which it was our delight

to walk on the broad slate stones when the water was low, in order to

pick up pretty pebbles. These joys were also forbidden, though indulged

in as opportunity afforded, especially as sister Margaret's philosophy

was found to work successfully and we had finally risen above our

infantile fear of punishment.

Much of my freedom at this time was due to this sister, who afterward

became the wife of Colonel Duncan McMartin of Iowa. I can see her now,

hat in hand, her long curls flying in the wind, her nose slightly

retroussé, her large dark eyes flashing with glee, and her small

straight mouth so expressive of determination. Though two years my

junior, she was larger and stronger than I and more fearless and

self-reliant. She was always ready to start when any pleasure offered,

and, if I hesitated, she would give me a jerk and say, emphatically:

"Oh, come along!" and away we went.

About this time we entered the Johnstown Academy, where we made the

acquaintance of the daughters of the hotel keeper and the county

sheriff. They were a few years my senior, but, as I was ahead of them in

all my studies, the difference of age was somewhat equalized and we

became fast friends. This acquaintance opened to us two new sources of

enjoyment--the freedom of the hotel during "court week" (a great event

in village life) and the exploration of the county jail. Our Scotch

nurse had told us so many thrilling tales of castles, prisons, and

dungeons in the Old World that, to see the great keys and iron doors,

the handcuffs and chains, and the prisoners in their cells seemed like a

veritable visit to Mary's native land. We made frequent visits to the

jail and became deeply concerned about the fate of the prisoners, who

were greatly pleased with our expressions of sympathy and our gifts of

cake and candy. In time we became interested in the trials and sentences

of prisoners, and would go to the courthouse and listen to the

proceedings. Sometimes we would slip into the hotel where the judges and

lawyers dined, and help our little friend wait on table. The rushing of

servants to and fro, the calling of guests, the scolding of servants in

the kitchen, the banging of doors, the general hubbub, the noise and

clatter, were all idealized by me into one of those royal festivals Mary

so often described. To be allowed to carry plates of bread and butter,

pie and cheese I counted a high privilege. But more especially I enjoyed

listening to the conversations in regard to the probable fate of our

friends the prisoners in the jail. On one occasion I projected a few

remarks into a conversation between two lawyers, when one of them turned

abruptly to me and said, "Child, you'd better attend to your business;

bring me a glass of water." I replied indignantly, "I am not a servant;

I am here for fun."

In all these escapades we were followed by Peter, black as coal and six

feet in height. It seems to me now that his chief business was to

discover our whereabouts, get us home to dinner, and take us back to

school. Fortunately he was overflowing with curiosity and not averse to

lingering a while where anything of interest was to be seen or heard,

and, as we were deemed perfectly safe under his care, no questions were

asked when we got to the house, if we had been with him. He had a long

head and, through his diplomacy, we escaped much disagreeable

surveillance. Peter was very fond of attending court. All the lawyers

knew him, and wherever Peter went, the three little girls in his charge

went, too. Thus, with constant visits to the jail, courthouse, and my

father's office, I gleaned some idea of the danger of violating the law.

The great events of the year were the Christmas holidays, the Fourth of

July, and "general training," as the review of the county militia was

then called. The winter gala days are associated, in my memory, with

hanging up stockings and with turkeys, mince pies, sweet cider, and

sleighrides by moonlight. My earliest recollections of those happy days,

when schools were closed, books laid aside, and unusual liberties

allowed, center in that large cellar kitchen to which I have already

referred. There we spent many winter evenings in uninterrupted

enjoyment. A large fireplace with huge logs shed warmth and cheerfulness

around. In one corner sat Peter sawing his violin, while our youthful

neighbors danced with us and played blindman's buff almost every evening

during the vacation. The most interesting character in this game was a

black boy called Jacob (Peter's lieutenant), who made things lively for

us by always keeping one eye open--a wise precaution to guard himself

from danger, and to keep us on the jump. Hickory nuts, sweet cider, and

_olie-koeks_ (a Dutch name for a fried cake with raisins inside) were

our refreshments when there came a lull in the fun.

As St. Nicholas was supposed to come down the chimney, our stockings

were pinned on a broomstick, laid across two chairs in front of the

fireplace. We retired on Christmas Eve with the most pleasing

anticipations of what would be in our stockings next morning. The

thermometer in that latitude was often twenty degrees below zero, yet,

bright and early, we would run downstairs in our bare feet over the cold

floors to carry stockings, broom, etc., to the nursery. The gorgeous

presents that St. Nicholas now distributes show that he, too, has been

growing up with the country. The boys and girls of 1897 will laugh when

they hear of the contents of our stockings in 1823. There was a little

paper of candy, one of raisins, another, of nuts, a red apple, an

_olie-koek_, and a bright silver quarter of a dollar in the toe. If a

child had been guilty of any erratic performances during the year, which

was often my case, a long stick would protrude from the stocking; if

particularly good, an illustrated catechism or the New Testament would

appear, showing that the St. Nicholas of that time held decided views

on discipline and ethics.

During the day we would take a drive over the snow-clad hills and

valleys in a long red lumber sleigh. All the children it could hold made

the forests echo with their songs and laughter. The sleigh bells and

Peter's fine tenor voice added to the chorus seemed to chant, as we

passed, "Merry Christmas" to the farmers' children and to all we met on

the highway.

Returning home, we were allowed, as a great Christmas treat, to watch

all Peter's preparations for dinner. Attired in a white apron and

turban, holding in his hand a tin candlestick the size of a dinner

plate, containing a tallow candle, with stately step he marched into the

spacious cellar, with Jacob and three little girls dressed in red

flannel at his heels. As the farmers paid the interest on their

mortgages in barrels of pork, headcheese, poultry, eggs, and cider, the

cellars were well crowded for the winter, making the master of an

establishment quite indifferent to all questions of finance. We heard

nothing in those days of greenbacks, silver coinage, or a gold basis.

Laden with vegetables, butter, eggs, and a magnificent turkey, Peter and

his followers returned to the kitchen. There, seated on a big ironing

table, we watched the dressing and roasting of the bird in a tin oven in

front of the fire. Jacob peeled the vegetables, we all sang, and Peter

told us marvelous stories. For tea he made flapjacks, baked in a pan

with a long handle, which he turned by throwing the cake up and

skillfully catching it descending.

Peter was a devout Episcopalian and took great pleasure in helping the

young people decorate the church. He would take us with him and show us

how to make evergreen wreaths. Like Mary's lamb, where'er he went we

were sure to go. His love for us was unbounded and fully returned. He

was the only being, visible or invisible, of whom we had no fear. We

would go to divine service with Peter, Christmas morning and sit with

him by the door, in what was called "the negro pew." He was the only

colored member of the church and, after all the other communicants had

taken the sacrament, he went alone to the altar. Dressed in a new suit

of blue with gilt buttons, he looked like a prince, as, with head erect,

he walked up the aisle, the grandest specimen of manhood in the whole

congregation; and yet so strong was prejudice against color in 1823 that

no one would kneel beside him. On leaving us, on one of these occasions,

Peter told us all to sit still until he returned; but, no sooner had he

started, than the youngest of us slowly followed after him and seated

herself close beside him. As he came back, holding the child by the

hand, what a lesson it must have been to that prejudiced congregation!

The first time we entered the church together the sexton opened a white

man's pew for us, telling Peter to leave the Judge's children there.

"Oh," he said, "they will not stay there without me." But, as he could

not enter, we instinctively followed him to the negro pew.

Our next great fête was on the anniversary of the birthday of our

Republic. The festivities were numerous and protracted, beginning then,

as now, at midnight with bonfires and cannon; while the day was ushered

in with the ringing of bells, tremendous cannonading, and a continuous

popping of fire-crackers and torpedoes. Then a procession of soldiers

and citizens marched through the town, an oration was delivered, the

Declaration of Independence read, and a great dinner given in the open

air under the trees in the grounds of the old courthouse. Each toast was

announced with the booming of cannon. On these occasions Peter was in

his element, and showed us whatever he considered worth seeing; but I

cannot say that I enjoyed very much either "general training" or the

Fourth of July, for, in addition to my fear of cannon and torpedoes, my

sympathies were deeply touched by the sadness of our cook, whose drunken

father always cut antics in the streets on gala days, the central figure

in all the sports of the boys, much to the mortification of his worthy

daughter. She wept bitterly over her father's public exhibition of

himself, and told me in what a condition he would come home to his

family at night. I would gladly have stayed in with her all day, but the

fear of being called a coward compelled me to go through those trying

ordeals. As my nerves were all on the surface, no words can describe

what I suffered with those explosions, great and small, and my fears

lest King George and his minions should reappear among us. I thought

that, if he had done all the dreadful things stated in the Declaration

of '76, he might come again, burn our houses, and drive us all into the

street. Sir William Johnson's mansion of solid masonry, gloomy and

threatening, still stood in our neighborhood. I had seen the marks of

the Indian's tomahawk on the balustrades and heard of the bloody deeds

there enacted. For all the calamities of the nation I believed King

George responsible. At home and at school we were educated to hate the

English. When we remember that, every Fourth of July, the Declaration

was read with emphasis, and the orator of the day rounded all his

glowing periods with denunciations of the mother country, we need not

wonder at the national hatred of everything English. Our patriotism in

those early days was measured by our dislike of Great Britain.

In September occurred the great event, the review of the county militia,

popularly called "Training Day." Then everybody went to the race course

to see the troops and buy what the farmers had brought in their wagons.

There was a peculiar kind of gingerbread and molasses candy to which we

were treated on those occasions, associated in my mind to this day with

military reviews and standing armies.

Other pleasures were, roaming in the forests and sailing on the mill

pond. One day, when there were no boys at hand and several girls were

impatiently waiting for a sail on a raft, my sister and I volunteered to

man the expedition. We always acted on the assumption that what we had

seen done, we could do. Accordingly we all jumped on the raft, loosened

it from its moorings, and away we went with the current. Navigation on

that mill pond was performed with long poles, but, unfortunately, we

could not lift the poles, and we soon saw we were drifting toward the

dam. But we had the presence of mind to sit down and hold fast to the

raft. Fortunately, we went over right side up and gracefully glided down

the stream, until rescued by the ever watchful Peter. I did not hear the

last of that voyage for a long time. I was called the captain of the

expedition, and one of the boys wrote a composition, which he read in

school, describing the adventure and emphasizing the ignorance of the

laws of navigation shown by the officers in command. I shed tears many

times over that performance.

CHAPTER II.

SCHOOL DAYS.

When I was eleven years old, two events occurred which changed

considerably the current of my life. My only brother, who had just

graduated from Union College, came home to die. A young man of great

talent and promise, he was the pride of my father's heart. We early felt

that this son filled a larger place in our father's affections and

future plans than the five daughters together. Well do I remember how

tenderly he watched my brother in his last illness, the sighs and tears

he gave vent to as he slowly walked up and down the hall, and, when the

last sad moment came, and we were all assembled to say farewell in the

silent chamber of death, how broken were his utterances as he knelt and

prayed for comfort and support. I still recall, too, going into the

large darkened parlor to see my brother, and finding the casket,

mirrors, and pictures all draped in white, and my father seated by his

side, pale and immovable. As he took no notice of me, after standing a

long while, I climbed upon his knee, when he mechanically put his arm

about me and, with my head resting against his beating heart, we both

sat in silence, he thinking of the wreck of all his hopes in the loss of

a dear son, and I wondering what could be said or done to fill the void

in his breast. At length he heaved a deep sigh and said: "Oh, my

daughter, I wish you were a boy!" Throwing my arms about his neck, I

replied: "I will try to be all my brother was."

[Illustration: MARGARET LIVINGSTON CADY.] [Illustration: JUDGE DANIEL

CADY.] Then and there I resolved that I would not give so much time as

heretofore to play, but would study and strive to be at the head of all

my classes and thus delight my father's heart. All that day and far into

the night I pondered the problem of boyhood. I thought that the chief

thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and

courageous. So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse.

Having formed this conclusion I fell asleep. My resolutions, unlike many

such made at night, did not vanish with the coming light. I arose early

and hastened to put them into execution. They were resolutions never to

be forgotten--destined to mold my character anew. As soon as I was

dressed I hastened to our good pastor, Rev. Simon Hosack, who was always

early at work in his garden.

"Doctor," said I, "which do you like best, boys or girls?"

"Why, girls, to be sure; I would not give you for all the boys in

Christendom."

"My father," I replied, "prefers boys; he wishes I was one, and I intend

to be as near like one as possible. I am going to ride on horseback and

study Greek. Will you give me a Greek lesson now, doctor? I want to

begin at once."

"Yes, child," said he, throwing down his hoe, "come into my library and

we will begin without delay."

He entered fully into the feeling of suffering and sorrow which took

possession of me when I discovered that a girl weighed less in the scale

of being than a boy, and he praised my determination to prove the

contrary. The old grammar which he had studied in the University of

Glasgow was soon in my hands, and the Greek article was learned before

breakfast.

Then came the sad pageantry of death, the weeping of friends, the dark

rooms, the ghostly stillness, the exhortation to the living to prepare

for death, the solemn prayer, the mournful chant, the funeral cortège,

the solemn, tolling bell, the burial. How I suffered during those sad

days! What strange undefined fears of the unknown took possession of me!

For months afterward, at the twilight hour, I went with my father to the

new-made grave. Near it stood two tall poplar trees, against one of

which I leaned, while my father threw himself on the grave, with

outstretched arms, as if to embrace his child. At last the frosts and

storms of November came and threw a chilling barrier between the living

and the dead, and we went there no more.

During all this time I kept up my lessons at the parsonage and made

rapid progress. I surprised even my teacher, who thought me capable of

doing anything. I learned to drive, and to leap a fence and ditch on

horseback. I taxed every power, hoping some day to hear my father say:

"Well, a girl is as good as a boy, after all." But he never said it.

When the doctor came over to spend the evening with us, I would whisper

in his ear: "Tell my father how fast I get on," and he would tell him,

and was lavish in his praises. But my father only paced the room,

sighed, and showed that he wished I were a boy; and I, not knowing why

he felt thus, would hide my tears of vexation on the doctor's shoulder.

Soon after this I began to study Latin, Greek, and mathematics with a

class of boys in the Academy, many of whom were much older than I. For

three years one boy kept his place at the head of the class, and I

always stood next. Two prizes were offered in Greek. I strove for one

and took the second. How well I remember my joy in receiving that prize.

There was no sentiment of ambition, rivalry, or triumph over my

companions, nor feeling of satisfaction in receiving this honor in the

presence of those assembled on the day of the exhibition. One thought

alone filled my mind. "Now," said I, "my father will be satisfied with

me." So, as soon as we were dismissed, I ran down the hill, rushed

breathless into his office, laid the new Greek Testament, which was my

prize, on his table and exclaimed: "There, I got it!" He took up the

book, asked me some questions about the class, the teachers, the

spectators, and, evidently pleased, handed it back to me. Then, while I

stood looking and waiting for him to say something which would show that

he recognized the equality of the daughter with the son, he kissed me on

the forehead and exclaimed, with a sigh, "Ah, you should have been a

boy!"

My joy was turned to sadness. I ran to my good doctor. He chased my

bitter tears away, and soothed me with unbounded praises and visions of

future success. He was then confined to the house with his last illness.

He asked me that day if I would like to have, when he was gone, the old

lexicon, Testament, and grammar that we had so often thumbed together.

"Yes, but I would rather have you stay," I replied, "for what can I do

when you are gone?" "Oh," said he tenderly, "I shall not be gone; my

spirit will still be with you, watching you in all life's struggles."

Noble, generous friend! He had but little on earth to bequeath to

anyone, but when the last scene in his life was ended, and his will was

opened, sure enough there was a clause saying: "My Greek lexicon,

Testament, and grammar, and four volumes of Scott's commentaries, I will

to Elizabeth Cady." I never look at these books without a feeling of

thankfulness that in childhood I was blessed with such a friend and

teacher.

I can truly say, after an experience of seventy years, that all the

cares and anxieties, the trials and disappointments of my whole life,

are light, when balanced with my sufferings in childhood and youth from

the theological dogmas which I sincerely believed, and the gloom

connected with everything associated with the name of religion, the

church, the parsonage, the graveyard, and the solemn, tolling bell.

Everything connected with death was then rendered inexpressibly

dolorous. The body, covered with a black pall, was borne on the

shoulders of men; the mourners were in crape and walked with bowed

heads, while the neighbors who had tears to shed, did so copiously and

summoned up their saddest facial expressions. At the grave came the

sober warnings to the living and sometimes frightful prophesies as to

the state of the dead. All this pageantry of woe and visions of the

unknown land beyond the tomb, often haunted my midnight dreams and

shadowed the sunshine of my days. The parsonage, with its bare walls and

floors, its shriveled mistress and her blind sister, more like ghostly

shadows than human flesh and blood; the two black servants, racked with

rheumatism and odoriferous with a pungent oil they used in the vain hope

of making their weary limbs more supple; the aged parson buried in his

library in the midst of musty books and papers--all this only added to

the gloom of my surroundings. The church, which was bare, with no

furnace to warm us, no organ to gladden our hearts, no choir to lead our

songs of praise in harmony, was sadly lacking in all attractions for the

youthful mind. The preacher, shut up in an octagonal box high above our

heads, gave us sermons over an hour long, and the chorister, in a

similar box below him, intoned line after line of David's Psalms, while,

like a flock of sheep at the heels of their shepherd, the congregation,

without regard to time or tune, straggled after their leader.

Years later, the introduction of stoves, a violoncello, Wesley's hymns,

and a choir split the church in twain. These old Scotch Presbyterians

were opposed to all innovations that would afford their people paths of

flowery ease on the road to Heaven. So, when the thermometer was twenty

degrees below zero on the Johnstown Hills, four hundred feet above the

Mohawk Valley, we trudged along through the snow, foot-stoves in hand,

to the cold hospitalities of the "Lord's House," there to be chilled to

the very core by listening to sermons on "predestination,"

"justification by faith," and "eternal damnation."

To be restless, or to fall asleep under such solemn circumstances was a

sure evidence of total depravity, and of the machinations of the devil

striving to turn one's heart from God and his ordinances. As I was

guilty of these shortcomings and many more, I early believed myself a

veritable child of the Evil One, and suffered endless fears lest he

should come some night and claim me as his own. To me he was a personal,

ever-present reality, crouching in a dark corner of the nursery. Ah! how

many times I have stolen out of bed, and sat shivering on the stairs,

where the hall lamp and the sound of voices from the parlor would, in a

measure, mitigate my terror. Thanks to a vigorous constitution and

overflowing animal spirits, I was able to endure for years the strain of

these depressing influences, until my reasoning powers and common sense

triumphed at last over my imagination. The memory of my own suffering

has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with any of the

superstitions of the Christian religion. But there have been many

changes, even in my native town, since those dark days. Our old church

was turned into a mitten factory, and the pleasant hum of machinery and

the glad faces of men and women have chased the evil spirits to their

hiding places. One finds at Johnstown now, beautiful churches,

ornamented cemeteries, and cheerful men and women, quite emancipated

from the nonsense and terrors of the old theologies.

An important event in our family circle was the marriage of my oldest

sister, Tryphena, to Edward Bayard of Wilmington, Delaware. He was a

graduate of Union College, a classmate of my brother, and frequently

visited at my father's house. At the end of his college course, he came

with his brother Henry to study law in Johnstown. A quiet, retired

little village was thought to be a good place in which to sequester

young men bent on completing their education, as they were there safe

from the temptations and distracting influences of large cities. In

addition to this consideration, my father's reputation made his office a

desirable resort for students, who, furthermore, not only improved their

opportunities by reading Blackstone, Kent, and Story, but also by making

love to the Judge's daughters. We thus had the advantage of many

pleasant acquaintances from the leading families in the country, and, in

this way, it was that four of the sisters eventually selected most

worthy husbands.

Though only twenty-one years of age when married, Edward Bayard was a

tall, fully developed man, remarkably fine looking, with cultivated

literary taste and a profound knowledge of human nature. Warm and

affectionate, generous to a fault in giving and serving, he was soon a

great favorite in the family, and gradually filled the void made in all

our hearts by the loss of the brother and son.

My father was so fully occupied with the duties of his profession, which

often called him from home, and my mother so weary with the cares of a

large family, having had ten children, though only five survived at this

time, that they were quite willing to shift their burdens to younger

shoulders. Our eldest sister and her husband, therefore, soon became our

counselors and advisers. They selected our clothing, books, schools,

acquaintances, and directed our reading and amusements. Thus the reins

of domestic government, little by little, passed into their hands, and

the family arrangements were in a manner greatly improved in favor of

greater liberty for the children.

The advent of Edward and Henry Bayard was an inestimable blessing to us.

With them came an era of picnics, birthday parties, and endless

amusements; the buying of pictures, fairy books, musical instruments and

ponies, and frequent excursions with parties on horseback. Fresh from

college, they made our lessons in Latin, Greek, and mathematics so easy

that we studied with real pleasure and had more leisure for play. Henry

Bayard's chief pleasures were walking, riding, and playing all manner of

games, from jack-straws to chess, with the three younger sisters, and we

have often said that the three years he passed in Johnstown were the

most delightful of our girlhood.

Immediately after the death of my brother, a journey was planned to

visit our grandmother Cady, who lived in Canaan, Columbia County, about

twenty miles from Albany. My two younger sisters and myself had never

been outside of our own county before, and the very thought of a journey

roused our enthusiasm to the highest pitch. On a bright day in September

we started, packed in two carriages. We were wild with delight as we

drove down the Mohawk Valley, with its beautiful river and its many

bridges and ferryboats. When we reached Schenectady, the first city we

had ever seen, we stopped to dine at the old Given's Hotel, where we

broke loose from all the moorings of propriety on beholding the paper on

the dining-room wall, illustrating in brilliant colors the great events

in sacred history. There were the Patriarchs, with flowing beards and in

gorgeous attire; Abraham, offering up Isaac; Joseph, with his coat of

many colors, thrown into a pit by his brethren; Noah's ark on an ocean

of waters; Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; Rebecca at the well, and

Moses in the bulrushes. All these distinguished personages were familiar

to us, and to see them here for the first time in living colors, made

silence and eating impossible. We dashed around the room, calling to

each other: "Oh, Kate, look here!" "Oh, Madge, look there!" "See little

Moses!" "See the angels on Jacob's ladder!" Our exclamations could not

be kept within bounds. The guests were amused beyond description, while

my mother and elder sisters were equally mortified; but Mr. Bayard, who

appreciated our childish surprise and delight, smiled and said: "I'll

take them around and show them the pictures, and then they will be able

to dine," which we finally did.

On our way to Albany we were forced to listen to no end of dissertations

on manners, and severe criticisms on our behavior at the hotel, but we

were too happy and astonished with all we saw to take a subjective view

of ourselves. Even Peter in his new livery, who had not seen much more

than we had, while looking out of the corners of his eyes, maintained a

quiet dignity and conjured us "not to act as if we had just come out of

the woods and had never seen anything before." However, there are

conditions in the child soul in which repression is impossible, when the

mind takes in nothing but its own enjoyment, and when even the sense of

hearing is lost in that of sight. The whole party awoke to that fact at

last. Children are not actors. We never had experienced anything like

this journey, and how could we help being surprised and delighted?

When we drove into Albany, the first large city we had ever visited, we

exclaimed, "Why, it's general training, here!" We had acquired our ideas

of crowds from our country militia reviews. Fortunately, there was no

pictorial wall paper in the old City Hotel. But the decree had gone

forth that, on the remainder of the journey, our meals would be served

in a private room, with Peter to wait on us. This seemed like going back

to the nursery days and was very humiliating. But eating, even there,

was difficult, as we could hear the band from the old museum, and, as

our windows opened on the street, the continual panorama of people and

carriages passing by was quite as enticing as the Bible scenes in

Schenectady. In the evening we walked around to see the city lighted, to

look into the shop windows, and to visit the museum. The next morning we

started for Canaan, our enthusiasm still unabated, though strong hopes

were expressed that we would be toned down with the fatigues of the

first day's journey.

The large farm with its cattle, sheep, hens, ducks, turkeys, and geese;

its creamery, looms, and spinning wheel; its fruits and vegetables; the

drives among the grand old hills; the blessed old grandmother, and the

many aunts, uncles, and cousins to kiss, all this kept us still in a

whirlpool of excitement. Our joy bubbled over of itself; it was beyond

our control. After spending a delightful week at Canaan, we departed,

with an addition to our party, much to Peter's disgust, of a bright,

coal-black boy of fifteen summers. Peter kept grumbling that he had

children enough to look after already, but, as the boy was handsome and

intelligent, could read, write, play on the jewsharp and banjo, sing,

dance, and stand on his head, we were charmed with this new-found

treasure, who proved later to be a great family blessing. We were less

vivacious on the return trip. Whether this was due to Peter's untiring

efforts to keep us within bounds, or whether the novelty of the journey

was in a measure gone, it is difficult to determine, but we evidently

were not so buoyant and were duly complimented on our good behavior.

When we reached home and told our village companions what we had seen in

our extensive travels (just seventy miles from home) they were filled

with wonder, and we became heroines in their estimation. After this we

took frequent journeys to Saratoga, the Northern Lakes, Utica, and

Peterboro, but were never again so entirely swept from our feet as with

the biblical illustrations in the dining room of the old Given's Hotel.

As my father's office joined the house, I spent there much of my time,

when out of school, listening to the clients stating their cases,

talking with the students, and reading the laws in regard to woman. In

our Scotch neighborhood many men still retained the old feudal ideas of

women and property. Fathers, at their death, would will the bulk of

their property to the eldest son, with the proviso that the mother was

to have a home with him. Hence it was not unusual for the mother, who

had brought all the property into the family, to be made an unhappy

dependent on the bounty of an uncongenial daughter-in-law and a

dissipated son. The tears and complaints of the women who came to my

father for legal advice touched my heart and early drew my attention to

the injustice and cruelty of the laws. As the practice of the law was my

father's business, I could not exactly understand why he could not

alleviate the sufferings of these women. So, in order to enlighten me,

he would take down his books and show me the inexorable statutes. The

students, observing my interest, would amuse themselves by reading to me

all the worst laws they could find, over which I would laugh and cry by

turns. One Christmas morning I went into the office to show them, among

other of my presents, a new coral necklace and bracelets. They all

admired the jewelry and then began to tease me with hypothetical cases

of future ownership. "Now," said Henry Bayard, "if in due time you

should be my wife, those ornaments would be mine; I could take them and

lock them up, and you could never wear them except with my permission. I

could even exchange them for a box of cigars, and you could watch them

evaporate in smoke."

With this constant bantering from students and the sad complaints of the

women, my mind was sorely perplexed. So when, from time to time, my

attention was called to these odious laws, I would mark them with a

pencil, and becoming more and more convinced of the necessity of taking

some active measures against these unjust provisions, I resolved to

seize the first opportunity, when alone in the office, to cut every one

of them out of the books; supposing my father and his library were the

beginning and the end of the law. However, this mutilation of his

volumes was never accomplished, for dear old Flora Campbell, to whom I

confided my plan for the amelioration of the wrongs of my unhappy sex,

warned my father of what I proposed to do. Without letting me know that

he had discovered my secret, he explained to me one evening how laws

were made, the large number of lawyers and libraries there were all over

the State, and that if his library should burn up it would make no

difference in woman's condition. "When you are grown up, and able to

prepare a speech," said he, "you must go down to Albany and talk to the

legislators; tell them all you have seen in this office--the sufferings

of these Scotchwomen, robbed of their inheritance and left dependent on

their unworthy sons, and, if you can persuade them to pass new laws, the

old ones will be a dead letter." Thus was the future object of my life

foreshadowed and my duty plainly outlined by him who was most opposed

to my public career when, in due time, I entered upon it.

Until I was sixteen years old, I was a faithful student in the Johnstown

Academy with a class of boys. Though I was the only girl in the higher

classes of mathematics and the languages, yet, in our plays, all the

girls and boys mingled freely together. In running races, sliding

downhill, and snowballing, we made no distinction of sex. True, the boys

would carry the school books and pull the sleighs up hill for their

favorite girls, but equality was the general basis of our school

relations. I dare say the boys did not make their snowballs quite so

hard when pelting the girls, nor wash their faces with the same

vehemence as they did each other's, but there was no public evidence of

partiality. However, if any boy was too rough or took advantage of a

girl smaller than himself, he was promptly thrashed by his fellows.

There was an unwritten law and public sentiment in that little Academy

world that enabled us to study and play together with the greatest

freedom and harmony.

From the academy the boys of my class went to Union College at

Schenectady. When those with whom I had studied and contended for prizes

for five years came to bid me good-by, and I learned of the barrier that

prevented me from following in their footsteps--"no girls admitted

here"--my vexation and mortification knew no bounds. I remember, now,

how proud and handsome the boys looked in their new clothes, as they

jumped into the old stage coach and drove off, and how lonely I felt

when they were gone and I had nothing to do, for the plans for my future

were yet undetermined. Again I felt more keenly than ever the

humiliation of the distinctions made on the ground of sex.

My time was now occupied with riding on horseback, studying the game of

chess, and continually squabbling with the law students over the rights

of women. Something was always coming up in the experiences of everyday

life, or in the books we were reading, to give us fresh topics for

argument. They would read passages from the British classics quite as

aggravating as the laws. They delighted in extracts from Shakespeare,

especially from "The Taming of the Shrew," an admirable satire in itself

on the old common law of England. I hated Petruchio as if he were a real

man. Young Bayard would recite with unction the famous reply of Milton's

ideal woman to Adam: "God thy law, thou mine." The Bible, too, was

brought into requisition. In fact it seemed to me that every book taught

the "divinely ordained" headship of man; but my mind never yielded to

this popular heresy.

CHAPTER III.

GIRLHOOD.

Mrs. Willard's Seminary at Troy was the fashionable school in my

girlhood, and in the winter of 1830, with upward of a hundred other

girls, I found myself an active participant in all the joys and sorrows

of that institution. When in family council it was decided to send me to

that intellectual Mecca, I did not receive the announcement with unmixed

satisfaction, as I had fixed my mind on Union College. The thought of a

school without boys, who had been to me such a stimulus both in study

and play, seemed to my imagination dreary and profitless.

The one remarkable feature of my journey to Troy was the railroad from

Schenectady to Albany, the first ever laid in this country. The manner

of ascending a high hill going out of the city would now strike

engineers as stupid to the last degree. The passenger cars were pulled

up by a train, loaded with stones, descending the hill. The more

rational way of tunneling through the hill or going around it had not

yet dawned on our Dutch ancestors. At every step of my journey to Troy I

felt that I was treading on my pride, and thus in a hopeless frame of

mind I began my boarding-school career. I had already studied everything

that was taught there except French, music, and dancing, so I devoted

myself to these accomplishments. As I had a good voice I enjoyed

singing, with a guitar accompaniment, and, having a good ear for time, I

appreciated the harmony in music and motion and took great delight in

dancing. The large house, the society of so many girls, the walks about

the city, the novelty of everything made the new life more enjoyable

than I had anticipated. To be sure I missed the boys, with whom I had

grown up, played with for years, and later measured my intellectual

powers with, but, as they became a novelty, there was new zest in

occasionally seeing them. After I had been there a short time, I heard a

call one day: "Heads out!" I ran with the rest and exclaimed, "What is

it?" expecting to see a giraffe or some other wonder from Barnum's

Museum. "Why, don't you see those boys?" said one. "Oh," I replied, "is

that all? I have seen boys all my life." When visiting family friends in

the city, we were in the way of making the acquaintance of their sons,

and as all social relations were strictly forbidden, there was a new

interest in seeing them. As they were not allowed to call upon us or

write notes, unless they were brothers or cousins, we had, in time, a

large number of kinsmen.

There was an intense interest to me now in writing notes, receiving

calls, and joining the young men in the streets for a walk, such as I

had never known when in constant association with them at school and in

our daily amusements. Shut up with girls, most of them older than

myself, I heard many subjects discussed of which I had never thought

before, and in a manner it were better I had never heard. The healthful

restraint always existing between boys and girls in conversation is apt

to be relaxed with either sex alone. In all my intimate association with

boys up to that period, I cannot recall one word or act for criticism,

but I cannot say the same of the girls during the three years I passed

at the seminary in Troy. My own experience proves to me that it is a

grave mistake to send boys and girls to separate institutions of

learning, especially at the most impressible age. The stimulus of sex

promotes alike a healthy condition of the intellectual and the moral

faculties and gives to both a development they never can acquire alone.

Mrs. Willard, having spent several months in Europe, did not return

until I had been at the seminary some time. I well remember her arrival,

and the joy with which she was greeted by the teachers and pupils who

had known her before. She was a splendid-looking woman, then in her

prime, and fully realized my idea of a queen. I doubt whether any royal

personage in the Old World could have received her worshipers with more

grace and dignity than did this far-famed daughter of the Republic. She

was one of the remarkable women of that period, and did a great

educational work for her sex. She gave free scholarships to a large

number of promising girls, fitting them for teachers, with a proviso

that, when the opportunity arose, they should, in turn, educate others.

I shall never forget one incident that occasioned me much unhappiness. I

had written a very amusing composition, describing my room. A friend

came in to see me just as I had finished it, and, as she asked me to

read it to her, I did so. She enjoyed it very much and proposed an

exchange. She said the rooms were all so nearly alike that, with a

little alteration, she could use it. Being very susceptible to flattery,

her praise of my production won a ready assent; but when I read her

platitudes I was sorry I had changed, and still more so in the

_denouement_.

Those selected to prepare compositions read them before the whole

school. My friend's was received with great laughter and applause. The

one I read not only fell flat, but nearly prostrated me also. As soon as

I had finished, one of the young ladies left the room and, returning in

a few moments with her composition book, laid it before the teacher who

presided that day, showing her the same composition I had just read. I

was called up at once to explain, but was so amazed and confounded that

I could not speak, and I looked the personification of guilt. I saw at a

glance the contemptible position I occupied and felt as if the last day

had come, that I stood before the judgment seat and had heard the awful

sentence pronounced, "Depart ye wicked into everlasting punishment." How

I escaped from that scene to my own room I do not know. I was too

wretched for tears. I sat alone for a long time when a gentle tap

announced my betrayer. She put her arms around me affectionately and

kissed me again and again.

"Oh!" she said, "you are a hero. You went through that trying ordeal

like a soldier. I was so afraid, when you were pressed with questions,

that the whole truth would come out and I be forced to stand in your

place. I am not so brave as you; I could not endure it. Now that you are

through it and know how bitter a trial it is, promise that you will save

me from the same experience. You are so good and noble I know you will

not betray me."

In this supreme moment of misery and disgrace, her loving words and warm

embrace were like balm to my bruised soul and I readily promised all

she asked. The girl had penetrated the weak point in my character. I

loved flattery. Through that means she got my composition in the first

place, pledged me to silence in the second place, and so confused my

moral perceptions that I really thought it praiseworthy to shelter her

from what I had suffered. However, without betrayal on my part, the

trick came to light through the very means she took to make concealment

sure. After compositions were read they were handed over to a certain

teacher for criticism. Miss ---- had copied mine, and returned to me the

original. I had not copied hers, so the two were in the same

handwriting--one with my name outside and one with Miss ----'s.

As I stood well in school, both for scholarship and behavior, my sudden

fall from grace occasioned no end of discussion. So, as soon as the

teacher discovered the two compositions in Miss ----'s writing, she came

to me to inquire how I got one of Miss ----'s compositions. She said,

"Where is yours that you wrote for that day?"

Taking it from my portfolio, I replied, "Here it is."

She then asked, "Did you copy it from her book?"

I replied, "No; I wrote it myself."

"Then why did you not read your own?"

"We agreed to change," said I.

"Did you know that Miss ---- had copied that from the book of another

young lady?"

"No, not until I was accused of doing it myself before the whole

school."

"Why did you not defend yourself on the spot?"

"I could not speak, neither did I know what to say."

"Why have you allowed yourself to remain in such a false position for a

whole week?"

"I do not know."

"Suppose I had not found this out, did you intend to keep silent?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Did Miss ---- ask you to do so?"

"Yes."

I had been a great favorite with this teacher, but she was so disgusted

with my stupidity, as she called my timidity, that she said:

"Really, my child, you have not acted in this matter as if you had

ordinary common sense."

So little do grown people, in familiar surroundings, appreciate the

confusion of a child's faculties, under new and trying experiences. When

poor Miss ----'s turn came to stand up before the whole school and take

the burden on her own shoulders she had so cunningly laid on mine, I

readily shed the tears for her I could not summon for myself. This was

my first sad lesson in human duplicity.

This episode, unfortunately, destroyed in a measure my confidence in my

companions and made me suspicious even of those who came to me with

appreciative words. Up to this time I had accepted all things as they

seemed on the surface. Now I began to wonder what lay behind the visible

conditions about me. Perhaps the experience was beneficial, as it is

quite necessary for a young girl, thrown wholly on herself for the first

time among strangers, to learn caution in all she says and does. The

atmosphere of home life, where all disguises and pretensions are thrown

off, is quite different from a large school of girls, with the petty

jealousies and antagonisms that arise in daily competition in their

dress, studies, accomplishments, and amusements.

The next happening in Troy that seriously influenced my character was

the advent of the Rev. Charles G. Finney, a pulpit orator, who, as a

terrifier of human souls, proved himself the equal of Savonarola. He

held a protracted meeting in the Rev. Dr. Beaman's church, which many of

my schoolmates attended. The result of six weeks of untiring effort on

the part of Mr. Finney and his confreres was one of those intense

revival seasons that swept over the city and through the seminary like

an epidemic, attacking in its worst form the most susceptible. Owing to

my gloomy Calvinistic training in the old Scotch Presbyterian church,

and my vivid imagination, I was one of the first victims. We attended

all the public services, beside the daily prayer and experience meetings

held in the seminary. Our studies, for the time, held a subordinate

place to the more important duty of saving our souls.

To state the idea of conversion and salvation as then understood, one

can readily see from our present standpoint that nothing could be more

puzzling and harrowing to the young mind. The revival fairly started,

the most excitable were soon on the anxious seat. There we learned the

total depravity of human nature and the sinner's awful danger of

everlasting punishment. This was enlarged upon until the most innocent

girl believed herself a monster of iniquity and felt certain of eternal

damnation. Then God's hatred of sin was emphasized and his

irreconcilable position toward the sinner so justified that one felt

like a miserable, helpless, forsaken worm of the dust in trying to

approach him, even in prayer.

Having brought you into a condition of profound humility, the only

cardinal virtue for one under conviction, in the depths of your despair

you were told that it required no herculean effort on your part to be

transformed into an angel, to be reconciled to God, to escape endless

perdition. The way to salvation was short and simple. We had naught to

do but to repent and believe and give our hearts to Jesus, who was ever

ready to receive them. How to do all this was the puzzling question.

Talking with Dr. Finney one day, I said:

"I cannot understand what I am to do. If you should tell me to go to the

top of the church steeple and jump off, I would readily do it, if

thereby I could save my soul; but I do not know how to go to Jesus."

"Repent and believe," said he, "that is all you have to do to be happy

here and hereafter."

"I am very sorry," I replied, "for all the evil I have done, and I

believe all you tell me, and the more sincerely I believe, the more

unhappy I am."

With the natural reaction from despair to hope many of us imagined

ourselves converted, prayed and gave our experiences in the meetings,

and at times rejoiced in the thought that we were Christians--chosen

children of God--rather than sinners and outcasts.

But Dr. Finney's terrible anathemas on the depravity and deceitfulness

of the human heart soon shortened our newborn hopes. His appearance in

the pulpit on these memorable occasions is indelibly impressed on my

mind. I can see him now, his great eyes rolling around the congregation

and his arms flying about in the air like those of a windmill. One

evening he described hell and the devil and the long procession of

sinners being swept down the rapids, about to make the awful plunge

into the burning depths of liquid fire below, and the rejoicing hosts in

the inferno coming up to meet them with the shouts of the devils echoing

through the vaulted arches. He suddenly halted, and, pointing his index

finger at the supposed procession, he exclaimed:

"There, do you not see them!"

I was wrought up to such a pitch that I actually jumped up and gazed in

the direction to which he pointed, while the picture glowed before my

eyes and remained with me for months afterward. I cannot forbear saying

that, although high respect is due to the intellectual, moral, and

spiritual gifts of the venerable ex-president of Oberlin College, such

preaching worked incalculable harm to the very souls he sought to save.

Fear of the judgment seized my soul. Visions of the lost haunted my

dreams. Mental anguish prostrated my health. Dethronement of my reason

was apprehended by friends. But he was sincere, so peace to his ashes!

Returning home, I often at night roused my father from his slumbers to

pray for me, lest I should be cast into the bottomless pit before

morning.

To change the current of my thoughts, a trip was planned to Niagara, and

it was decided that the subject of religion was to be tabooed

altogether. Accordingly our party, consisting of my sister, her husband,

my father and myself, started in our private carriage, and for six weeks

I heard nothing on the subject. About this time Gall and Spurzheim

published their works on phrenology, followed by Combe's "Constitution

of Man," his "Moral Philosophy," and many other liberal works, all so

rational and opposed to the old theologies that they produced a profound

impression on my brother-in-law's mind. As we had these books with us,

reading and discussing by the way, we all became deeply interested in

the new ideas. Thus, after many months of weary wandering in the

intellectual labyrinth of "The Fall of Man," "Original Sin," "Total

Depravity," "God's Wrath," "Satan's Triumph," "The Crucifixion," "The

Atonement," and "Salvation by Faith," I found my way out of the darkness

into the clear sunlight of Truth. My religious superstitions gave place

to rational ideas based on scientific facts, and in proportion, as I

looked at everything from a new standpoint, I grew more and more happy,

day by day. Thus, with a delightful journey in the month of June, an

entire change in my course of reading and the current of my thoughts, my

mind was restored to its normal condition. I view it as one of the

greatest crimes to shadow the minds of the young with these gloomy

superstitions; and with fears of the unknown and the unknowable to

poison all their joy in life.

After the restraints of childhood at home and in school, what a period

of irrepressible joy and freedom comes to us in girlhood with the first

taste of liberty. Then is our individuality in a measure recognized and

our feelings and opinions consulted; then we decide where and when we

will come and go, what we will eat, drink, wear, and do. To suit one's

own fancy in clothes, to buy what one likes, and wear what one chooses

is a great privilege to most young people. To go out at pleasure, to

walk, to ride, to drive, with no one to say us nay or question our right

to liberty, this is indeed like a birth into a new world of happiness

and freedom. This is the period, too, when the emotions rule us, and we

idealize everything in life; when love and hope make the present an

ecstasy and the future bright with anticipation.

Then comes that dream of bliss that for weeks and months throws a halo

of glory round the most ordinary characters in every-day life, holding

the strongest and most common-sense young men and women in a thraldom

from which few mortals escape. The period when love, in soft silver

tones, whispers his first words of adoration, painting our graces and

virtues day by day in living colors in poetry and prose, stealthily

punctuated ever and anon with a kiss or fond embrace. What dignity it

adds to a young girl's estimate of herself when some strong man makes

her feel that in her hands rest his future peace and happiness! Though

these seasons of intoxication may come once to all, yet they are seldom

repeated. How often in after life we long for one more such rapturous

dream of bliss, one more season of supreme human love and passion!

After leaving school, until my marriage, I had the most pleasant years

of my girlhood. With frequent visits to a large circle of friends and

relatives in various towns and cities, the monotony of home life was

sufficiently broken to make our simple country pleasures always

delightful and enjoyable. An entirely new life now opened to me. The old

bondage of fear of the visible and the invisible was broken and, no

longer subject to absolute authority, I rejoiced in the dawn of a new

day of freedom in thought and action.

My brother-in-law, Edward Bayard, ten years my senior, was an

inestimable blessing to me at this time, especially as my mind was just

then opening to the consideration of all the varied problems of life. To

me and my sisters he was a companion in all our amusements, a teacher

in the higher departments of knowledge, and a counselor in all our

youthful trials and disappointments. He was of a metaphysical turn of

mind, and in the pursuit of truth was in no way trammeled by popular

superstitions. He took nothing for granted and, like Socrates, went

about asking questions. Nothing pleased him more than to get a bevy of

bright young girls about him and teach them how to think clearly and

reason logically.

One great advantage of the years my sisters and myself spent at the Troy

Seminary was the large number of pleasant acquaintances we made there,

many of which ripened into lifelong friendships. From time to time many

of our classmates visited us, and all alike enjoyed the intellectual

fencing in which my brother-in-law drilled them. He discoursed with us

on law, philosophy, political economy, history, and poetry, and together

we read novels without number. The long winter evenings thus passed

pleasantly, Mr. Bayard alternately talking and reading aloud Scott,

Bulwer, James, Cooper, and Dickens, whose works were just then coming

out in numbers from week to week, always leaving us in suspense at the

most critical point of the story. Our readings were varied with

recitations, music, dancing, and games.

As we all enjoyed brisk exercise, even with the thermometer below zero,

we took long walks and sleighrides during the day, and thus the winter

months glided quickly by, while the glorious summer on those blue hills

was a period of unmixed enjoyment. At this season we arose at five in

the morning for a long ride on horseback through the beautiful Mohawk

Valley and over the surrounding hills. Every road and lane in that

region was as familiar to us and our ponies, as were the trees to the

squirrels we frightened as we cantered by their favorite resorts.

Part of the time Margaret Christie, a young girl of Scotch descent, was

a member of our family circle. She taught us French, music, and dancing.

Our days were too short for all we had to do, for our time was not

wholly given to pleasure. We were required to keep our rooms in order,

mend and make our clothes, and do our own ironing. The latter was one of

my mother's politic requirements, to make our laundry lists as short as

possible.

Ironing on hot days in summer was a sore trial to all of us; but Miss

Christie, being of an inventive turn of mind, soon taught us a short way

out of it. She folded and smoothed her undergarments with her hands and

then sat on them for a specified time. We all followed her example and

thus utilized the hours devoted to our French lessons and, while reading

"Corinne" and "Télémaque," in this primitive style we ironed our

clothes. But for dresses, collars and cuffs, and pocket handkerchiefs,

we were compelled to wield the hot iron, hence with these articles we

used all due economy, and my mother's object was thus accomplished.

As I had become sufficiently philosophical to talk over my religious

experiences calmly with my classmates who had been with me through the

Finney revival meetings, we all came to the same conclusion--that we had

passed through no remarkable change and that we had not been born again,

as they say, for we found our tastes and enjoyments the same as ever. My

brother-in-law explained to us the nature of the delusion we had all

experienced, the physical conditions, the mental processes, the church

machinery by which such excitements are worked up, and the impositions

to which credulous minds are necessarily subjected. As we had all been

through that period of depression and humiliation, and had been

oppressed at times with the feeling that all our professions were arrant

hypocrisy and that our last state was worse than our first, he helped us

to understand these workings of the human mind and reconciled us to the

more rational condition in which we now found ourselves. He never grew

weary of expounding principles to us and dissipating the fogs and mists

that gather over young minds educated in an atmosphere of superstition.

We had a constant source of amusement and vexation in the students in my

father's office. A succession of them was always coming fresh from

college and full of conceit. Aching to try their powers of debate on

graduates from the Troy Seminary, they politely questioned all our

theories and assertions. However, with my brother-in-law's training in

analysis and logic, we were a match for any of them. Nothing pleased me

better than a long argument with them on woman's equality, which I tried

to prove by a diligent study of the books they read and the games they

played. I confess that I did not study so much for a love of the truth

or my own development, in these days, as to make those young men

recognize my equality. I soon noticed that, after losing a few games of

chess, my opponent talked less of masculine superiority. Sister Madge

would occasionally rush to the defense with an emphatic "Fudge for these

laws, all made by men! I'll never obey one of them. And as to the

students with their impertinent talk of superiority, all they need is

such a shaking up as I gave the most disagreeable one yesterday. I

invited him to take a ride on horseback. He accepted promptly, and said

he would be most happy to go. Accordingly I told Peter to saddle the

toughest-mouthed, hardest-trotting carriage horse in the stable. Mounted

on my swift pony, I took a ten-mile canter as fast as I could go, with

that superior being at my heels calling, as he found breath, for me to

stop, which I did at last and left him in the hands of Peter, half dead

at his hotel, where he will be laid out, with all his marvelous

masculine virtues, for a week at least. Now do not waste your arguments

on these prigs from Union College. Take each, in turn, the ten-miles'

circuit on 'Old Boney' and they'll have no breath left to prate of

woman's inferiority. You might argue with them all day, and you could

not make them feel so small as I made that popinjay feel in one hour. I

knew 'Old Boney' would keep up with me, if he died for it, and that my

escort could neither stop nor dismount, except by throwing himself from

the saddle."

"Oh, Madge!" I exclaimed; "what will you say when he meets you again?"

"If he complains, I will say 'the next time you ride see that you have a

curb bit before starting.' Surely, a man ought to know what is necessary

to manage a horse, and not expect a woman to tell him."

Our lives were still further varied and intensified by the usual number

of flirtations, so called, more or less lasting or evanescent, from all

of which I emerged, as from my religious experiences, in a more rational

frame of mind. We had been too much in the society of boys and young

gentlemen, and knew too well their real character, to idealize the sex

in general. In addition to our own observations, we had the advantage

of our brother-in-law's wisdom. Wishing to save us as long as possible

from all matrimonial entanglements, he was continually unveiling those

with whom he associated, and so critically portraying their intellectual

and moral condition that it was quite impossible, in our most worshipful

moods, to make gods of any of the sons of Adam.

However, in spite of all our own experiences and of all the warning

words of wisdom from those who had seen life in its many phases, we

entered the charmed circle at last, all but one marrying into the legal

profession, with its odious statute laws and infamous decisions. And

this, after reading Blackstone, Kent, and Story, and thoroughly

understanding the status of the wife under the old common law of

England, which was in force at that time in most of the States of the

Union.

CHAPTER IV.

LIFE AT PETERBORO.

The year, with us, was never considered complete without a visit to

Peterboro, N.Y., the home of Gerrit Smith. Though he was a reformer and

was very radical in many of his ideas, yet, being a man of broad

sympathies, culture, wealth, and position, he drew around him many

friends of the most conservative opinions. He was a man of fine

presence, rare physical beauty, most affable and courteous in manner,

and his hospitalities were generous to an extreme, and dispensed to all

classes of society.

Every year representatives from the Oneida tribe of Indians visited him.

His father had early purchased of them large tracts of land, and there

was a tradition among them that, as an equivalent for the good bargains

of the father, they had a right to the son's hospitality, with annual

gifts of clothing and provisions. The slaves, too, had heard of Gerrit

Smith, the abolitionist, and of Peterboro as one of the safe points _en

route_ for Canada. His mansion was, in fact, one of the stations on the

"underground railroad" for slaves escaping from bondage. Hence they,

too, felt that they had a right to a place under his protecting roof. On

such occasions the barn and the kitchen floor were utilized as chambers

for the black man from the southern plantation and the red man from his

home in the forest.

The spacious home was always enlivened with choice society from every

part of the country. There one would meet members of the families of the

old Dutch aristocracy, the Van Rensselaers, the Van Vechtens, the

Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Bleeckers, the Brinkerhoffs, the Ten

Eycks, the Millers, the Seymours, the Cochranes, the Biddles, the

Barclays, the Wendells, and many others.

As the lady of the house, Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, was the daughter of a

wealthy slaveholder of Maryland, many agreeable Southerners were often

among the guests. Our immediate family relatives were well represented

by General John Cochrane and his sisters, General Baird and his wife

from West Point, the Fitzhughs from Oswego and Geneseo, the Backuses and

Tallmans from Rochester, and the Swifts from Geneva. Here one was sure

to meet scholars, philosophers, philanthropists, judges, bishops,

clergymen, and statesmen.

Judge Alfred Conkling, the father of Roscoe Conkling, was, in his late

years, frequently seen at Peterboro. Tall and stately, after all life's

troubled scenes, financial losses and domestic sorrows, he used to say

there was no spot on earth that seemed so like his idea of Paradise. The

proud, reserved judge was unaccustomed to manifestations of affection

and tender interest in his behalf, and when Gerrit, taking him by both

hands would, in his softest tones say, "Good-morning," and inquire how

he had slept and what he would like to do that day, and Nancy would

greet him with equal warmth and pin a little bunch of roses in his

buttonhole, I have seen the tears in his eyes. Their warm sympathies and

sweet simplicity of manner melted the sternest natures and made the most

reserved amiable. There never was such an atmosphere of love and peace,

of freedom and good cheer, in any other home I visited. And this was the

universal testimony of those who were guests at Peterboro. To go

anywhere else, after a visit there, was like coming down from the divine

heights into the valley of humiliation.

How changed from the early days when, as strict Presbyterians, they

believed in all the doctrines of Calvin! Then, an indefinite gloom

pervaded their home. Their consciences were diseased. They attached such

undue importance to forms that they went through three kinds of baptism.

At one time Nancy would read nothing but the Bible, sing nothing but

hymns, and play only sacred music. She felt guilty if she talked on any

subject except religion. She was, in all respects, a fitting mate for

her attractive husband. Exquisitely refined in feeling and manner,

beautiful in face and form, earnest and sincere, she sympathized with

him in all his ideas of religion and reform. Together they passed

through every stage of theological experience, from the uncertain ground

of superstition and speculation to the solid foundation of science and

reason. The position of the Church in the anti-slavery conflict, opening

as it did all questions of ecclesiastical authority, Bible

interpretation, and church discipline, awakened them to new thought and

broader views on religious subjects, and eventually emancipated them

entirely from the old dogmas and formalities of their faith, and lifted

them into the cheerful atmosphere in which they passed the remainder of

their lives. Their only daughter, Elizabeth, added greatly to the

attractions of the home circle, as she drew many young people round her.

Beside her personal charm she was the heiress of a vast estate and had

many admirers. The favored one was Charles Dudley Miller of Utica,

nephew of Mrs. Blandina Bleecker Dudley, founder of the Albany

Observatory. At the close of his college life Mr. Miller had not only

mastered the languages, mathematics, rhetoric, and logic, but had

learned the secret windings of the human heart. He understood the art of

pleasing.

These were the times when the anti-slavery question was up for hot

discussion. In all the neighboring towns conventions were held in which

James G. Birney, a Southern gentleman who had emancipated his slaves,

Charles Stuart of Scotland, and George Thompson of England, Garrison,

Phillips, May, Beriah Greene, Foster, Abby Kelly, Lucretia Mott,

Douglass, and others took part. Here, too, John Brown, Sanborn, Morton,

and Frederick Douglass met to talk over that fatal movement on Harper's

Ferry. On the question of temperance, also, the people were in a

ferment. Dr. Cheever's pamphlet, "Deacon Giles' Distillery," was

scattered far and wide, and, as he was sued for libel, the question was

discussed in the courts as well as at every fireside. Then came the

Father Matthew and Washingtonian movements, and the position of the

Church on these questions intensified and embittered the conflict. This

brought the Cheevers, the Pierponts, the Delevans, the Nortons, and

their charming wives to Peterboro. It was with such company and varied

discussions on every possible phase of political, religious, and social

life that I spent weeks every year. Gerrit Smith was cool and calm in

debate, and, as he was armed at all points on these subjects, he could

afford to be patient and fair with an opponent, whether on the platform

or at the fireside. These rousing arguments at Peterboro made social

life seem tame and profitless elsewhere, and the youngest of us felt

that the conclusions reached in this school of philosophy were not to be

questioned. The sisters of General Cochrane, in disputes with their

Dutch cousins in Schenectady and Albany, would end all controversy by

saying, "This question was fully discussed at Peterboro, and settled."

The youngsters frequently put the lessons of freedom and individual

rights they heard so much of into practice, and relieved their brains

from the constant strain of argument on first principles, by the wildest

hilarity in dancing, all kinds of games, and practical jokes carried

beyond all bounds of propriety. These romps generally took place at Mr.

Miller's. He used to say facetiously, that they talked a good deal about

liberty over the way, but he kept the goddess under his roof. One

memorable occasion in which our enthusiasm was kept at white heat for

two hours I must try to describe, though words cannot do it justice, as

it was pre-eminently a spectacular performance. The imagination even

cannot do justice to the limp, woe-begone appearance of the actors in

the closing scene. These romps were conducted on a purely democratic

basis, without regard to color, sex, or previous condition of servitude.

It was rather a cold day in the month of March, when "Cousin Charley,"

as we called Mr. Miller, was superintending some men who were laying a

plank walk in the rear of his premises. Some half dozen of us were

invited to an early tea at good Deacon Huntington's. Immediately after

dinner, Miss Fitzhugh and Miss Van Schaack decided to take a nap, that

they might appear as brilliant as possible during the evening. That they

might not be late, as they invariably were, Cousin Lizzie and I decided

to rouse them in good season with a generous sprinkling of cold water.

In vain they struggled to keep the blankets around them; with equal

force we pulled them away, and, whenever a stray finger or toe appeared,

we brought fresh batteries to bear, until they saw that passive

resistance must give place to active hostility. We were armed with two

watering pots. They armed themselves with two large-sized syringes used

for showering potato bugs. With these weapons they gave us chase

downstairs. We ran into a closet and held the door shut. They quietly

waited our forthcoming. As soon as we opened the door to peep out, Miss

Fitzhugh, who was large and strong, pulled it wide open and showered us

with a vengeance. Then they fled into a large pantry where stood several

pans of milk.

At this stage Cousin Charley, hearing the rumpus, came to our

assistance. He locked them in the pantry and returned to his work,

whereupon they opened the window and showered him with milk, while he,

in turn, pelted them with wet clothes, soaking in tubs near by. As they

were thinly clad, wet to the skin, and the cold March wind blew round

them (we were all in fatigue costume in starting) they implored us to

let them out, which we did, and, in return for our kindness, they gave

us a broadside of milk in our faces. Cousin Lizzie and I fled to the

dark closet, where they locked us in. After long, weary waiting they

came to offer us terms of capitulation. Lizzie agreed to fill their guns

with milk, and give them our watering pots full of water, and I agreed

to call Cousin Charley under my window until they emptied the contents

of guns and pots on his head. My room was on the first floor, and Miss

Fitzhugh's immediately overhead. On these terms we accepted our freedom.

Accordingly, I gently raised the window and called Charley

confidentially within whispering distance, when down came a shower of

water. As he stepped back to look up and see whence it came, and who

made the attack, a stream of milk hit him on the forehead, his heels

struck a plank, and he fell backward, to all appearance knocked down

with a stream of milk. His humiliation was received with shouts of

derisive laughter, and even the carpenters at work laid down their

hammers and joined in the chorus; but his revenge was swift and capped

the climax. Cold and wet as we all were, and completely tired out, we

commenced to disrobe and get ready for the tea party. Unfortunately I

had forgotten to lock my door, and in walked Cousin Charley with a quart

bottle of liquid blacking, which he prepared to empty on my devoted

head. I begged so eloquently and trembled so at the idea of being dyed

black, that he said he would let me off on one condition, and that was

to get him, by some means, into Miss Fitzhugh's room. So I ran screaming

up the stairs, as if hotly pursued by the enemy, and begged her to let

me in. She cautiously opened the door, but when she saw Charley behind

me she tried to force it shut. However, he was too quick for her. He had

one leg and arm in; but, at that stage of her toilet, to let him in was

impossible, and there they stood, equally strong, firmly braced, she on

one side of the door and he on the other. But the blacking he was

determined she should have; so, gauging her probable position, with one

desperate effort he squeezed in a little farther and, raising the

bottle, he poured the contents on her head. The blacking went streaming

down over her face, white robe, and person, and left her looking more

like a bronze fury than one of Eve's most charming daughters. A yard or

more of the carpet was ruined, the wallpaper and bedclothes spattered,

and the poor victim was unfit to be seen for a week at least. Charley

had a good excuse for his extreme measures, for, as we all by turn

played our tricks on him, it was necessary to keep us in some fear of

punishment. This was but one of the many outrageous pranks we

perpetrated on each other. To see us a few hours later, all absorbed in

an anti-slavery or temperance convention, or dressed in our best, in

high discourse with the philosophers, one would never think we could

have been guilty of such consummate follies. It was, however, but the

natural reaction from the general serious trend of our thoughts.

It was in Peterboro, too, that I first met one who was then considered

the most eloquent and impassioned orator on the anti-slavery platform,

Henry B. Stanton. He had come over from Utica with Alvin Stewart's

beautiful daughter, to whom report said he was engaged; but, as she soon

after married Luther R. Marsh, there was a mistake somewhere. However,

the rumor had its advantages. Regarding him as not in the matrimonial

market, we were all much more free and easy in our manners with him than

we would otherwise have been. A series of anti-slavery conventions was

being held in Madison County, and there I had the pleasure of hearing

him for the first time. As I had a passion for oratory, I was deeply

impressed with his power. He was not so smooth and eloquent as Phillips,

but he could make his audience both laugh and cry; the latter, Phillips

himself said he never could do. Mr. Stanton was then in his prime, a

fine-looking, affable young man, with remarkable conversational talent,

and was ten years my senior, with the advantage that number of years

necessarily gives.

Two carriage-loads of ladies and gentlemen drove off every morning,

sometimes ten miles, to one of these conventions, returning late at

night. I shall never forget those charming drives over the hills in

Madison County, the bright autumnal days, and the bewitching moonlight

nights. The enthusiasm of the people in these great meetings, the

thrilling oratory, and lucid arguments of the speakers, all conspired to

make these days memorable as among the most charming in my life. It

seemed to me that I never had so much happiness crowded into one short

month. I had become interested in the anti-slavery and temperance

questions, and was deeply impressed with the appeals and arguments. I

felt a new inspiration in life and was enthused with new ideas of

individual rights and the basic principles of government, for the

anti-slavery platform was the best school the American people ever had

on which to learn republican principles and ethics. These conventions

and the discussions at my cousin's fireside I count among the great

blessings of my life.

One morning, as we came out from breakfast, Mr. Stanton joined me on the

piazza, where I was walking up and down enjoying the balmy air and the

beauty of the foliage. "As we have no conventions," said he, "on hand,

what do you say to a ride on horseback this morning?" I readily accepted

the suggestion, ordered the horses, put on my habit, and away we went.

The roads were fine and we took a long ride. As we were returning home

we stopped often to admire the scenery and, perchance, each other. When

walking slowly through a beautiful grove, he laid his hand on the horn

of the saddle and, to my surprise, made one of those charming

revelations of human feeling which brave knights have always found

eloquent words to utter, and to which fair ladies have always listened

with mingled emotions of pleasure and astonishment.

One outcome of those glorious days of October, 1839, was a marriage, in

Johnstown, the 10th day of May, 1840, and a voyage to the Old World.

Six weeks of that charming autumn, ending in the Indian summer with its

peculiarly hazy atmosphere, I lingered in Peterboro. It seems in

retrospect like a beautiful dream. A succession of guests was constantly

coming and going, and I still remember the daily drives over those grand

old hills crowned with trees now gorgeous in rich colors, the more

charming because we knew the time was short before the cold winds of

November would change all.

The early setting sun warned us that the shortening days must soon end

our twilight drives, and the moonlight nights were too chilly to linger

long in the rustic arbors or shady nooks outside. With the peculiar

charm of this season of the year there is always a touch of sadness in

nature, and it seemed doubly so to me, as my engagement was not one of

unmixed joy and satisfaction. Among all conservative families there was

a strong aversion to abolitionists and the whole anti-slavery movement.

Alone with Cousin Gerrit in his library he warned me, in deep, solemn

tones, while strongly eulogizing my lover, that my father would never

consent to my marriage with an abolitionist. He felt in duty bound, as

my engagement had occurred under his roof, to free himself from all

responsibility by giving me a long dissertation on love, friendship,

marriage, and all the pitfalls for the unwary, who, without due

consideration, formed matrimonial relations. The general principles laid

down in this interview did not strike my youthful mind so forcibly as

the suggestion that it was better to announce my engagement by letter

than to wait until I returned home, as thus I might draw the hottest

fire while still in safe harbor, where Cousin Gerrit could help me

defend the weak points in my position. So I lingered at Peterboro to

prolong the dream of happiness and postpone the conflict I feared to

meet.

But the Judge understood the advantage of our position as well as we

did, and wasted no ammunition on us. Being even more indignant at my

cousin than at me, he quietly waited until I returned home, when I

passed through the ordeal of another interview, with another

dissertation on domestic relations from a financial standpoint. These

were two of the most bewildering interviews I ever had. They succeeded

in making me feel that the step I proposed to take was the most

momentous and far-reaching in its consequences of any in this mortal

life. Heretofore my apprehensions had all been of death and eternity;

now life itself was filled with fears and anxiety as to the

possibilities of the future. Thus these two noble men, who would have

done anything for my happiness, actually overweighted my conscience and

turned the sweetest dream of my life into a tragedy. How little strong

men, with their logic, sophistry, and hypothetical examples, appreciate

the violence they inflict on the tender sensibilities of a woman's

heart, in trying to subjugate her to their will! The love of protecting

too often degenerates into downright tyranny. Fortunately all these

sombre pictures of a possible future were thrown into the background by

the tender missives every post brought me, in which the brilliant

word-painting of one of the most eloquent pens of this generation made

the future for us both, as bright and beautiful as Spring with her

verdure and blossoms of promise.

However, many things were always transpiring at Peterboro to turn one's

thoughts and rouse new interest in humanity at large. One day, as a bevy

of us girls were singing and chattering in the parlor, Cousin Gerrit

entered and, in mysterious tones, said: "I have a most important secret

to tell you, which you must keep to yourselves religiously for

twenty-four hours."

We readily pledged ourselves in the most solemn manner, individually and

collectively.

"Now," said he, "follow me to the third story."

This we did, wondering what the secret could be. At last, opening a

door, he ushered us into a large room, in the center of which sat a

beautiful quadroon girl, about eighteen years of age. Addressing her, he

said:

"Harriet, I have brought all my young cousins to see you. I want you to

make good abolitionists of them by telling them the history of your

life--what you have seen and suffered in slavery."

Turning to us he said:

"Harriet has just escaped from her master, who is visiting in Syracuse,

and is on her way to Canada. She will start this evening and you may

never have another opportunity of seeing a slave girl face to face, so

ask her all you care to know of the system of slavery."

For two hours we listened to the sad story of her childhood and youth,

separated from all her family and sold for her beauty in a New Orleans

market when but fourteen years of age. The details of her story I need

not repeat. The fate of such girls is too well known to need rehearsal.

We all wept together as she talked, and, when Cousin Gerrit returned to

summon us away, we needed no further education to make us earnest

abolitionists.

Dressed as a Quakeress, Harriet started at twilight with one of Mr.

Smith's faithful clerks in a carriage for Oswego, there to cross the

lake to Canada. The next day her master and the marshals from Syracuse

were on her track in Peterboro, and traced her to Mr. Smith's premises.

He was quite gracious in receiving them, and, while assuring them that

there was no slave there, he said that they were at liberty to make a

thorough search of the house and grounds. He invited them to stay and

dine and kept them talking as long as possible, as every hour helped

Harriet to get beyond their reach; for, although she had eighteen hours

the start of them, yet we feared some accident might have delayed her.

The master was evidently a gentleman, for, on Mr. Smith's assurance that

Harriet was not there, he made no search, feeling that they could not do

so without appearing to doubt his word. He was evidently surprised to

find an abolitionist so courteous and affable, and it was interesting to

hear them in conversation, at dinner, calmly discussing the problem of

slavery, while public sentiment was at white heat on the question. They

shook hands warmly at parting and expressed an equal interest in the

final adjustment of that national difficulty.

In due time the clerk returned with the good news that Harriet was safe

with friends in a good situation in Canada. Mr. Smith then published an

open letter to the master in the New York _Tribune_, saying "that he

would no doubt rejoice to know that his slave Harriet, in whose fate he

felt so deep an interest, was now a free woman, safe under the shadow of

the British throne. I had the honor of entertaining her under my roof,

sending her in my carriage to Lake Ontario, just eighteen hours before

your arrival: hence my willingness to have you search my premises."

Like the varied combinations of the kaleidoscope, the scenes in our

social life at Peterboro were continually changing from grave to gay.

Some years later we had a most hilarious occasion at the marriage of

Mary Cochrane, sister of General John Cochrane, to Chapman Biddle, of

Philadelphia. The festivities, which were kept up for three days,

involved most elaborate preparations for breakfasts, dinners, etc.,

there being no Delmonico's in that remote part of the country. It was

decided in family council that we had sufficient culinary talent under

the roof to prepare the entire _menu_ of substantials and delicacies,

from soup and salmon to cakes and creams. So, gifted ladies and

gentlemen were impressed into the service. The Fitzhughs all had a

natural talent for cooking, and chief among them was Isabella, wife of a

naval officer,--Lieutenant Swift of Geneva,--who had made a profound

study of all the authorities from Archestratus, a poet in Syracuse, the

most famous cook among the Greeks, down to our own Miss Leslie.

Accordingly she was elected manager of the occasion, and to each one was

assigned the specialty in which she claimed to excel. Those who had no

specialty were assistants to those who had. In this humble

office--"assistant at large"--I labored throughout.

Cooking is a high art. A wise Egyptian said, long ago: "The degree of

taste and skill manifested by a nation in the preparation of food may be

regarded as to a very considerable extent proportioned to its culture

and refinement." In early times men, only, were deemed capable of

handling fire, whether at the altar or the hearthstone. We read in the

Scriptures that Abraham prepared cakes of fine meal and a calf tender

and good, which, with butter and milk, he set before the three angels in

the plains of Mamre. We are told, too, of the chief butler and chief

baker as officers in the household of King Pharaoh. I would like to call

the attention of my readers to the dignity of this profession, which

some young women affect to despise. The fact that angels eat, shows that

we may be called upon in the next sphere to cook even for cherubim and

seraphim. How important, then, to cultivate one's gifts in that

direction!

With such facts before us, we stirred and pounded, whipped and ground,

coaxed the delicate meats from crabs and lobsters and the succulent peas

from the pods, and grated corn and cocoanut with the same cheerfulness

and devotion that we played Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words" on the

piano, the Spanish Fandango on our guitars, or danced the minuet, polka,

lancers, or Virginia reel.

During the day of the wedding, every stage coach was crowded with guests

from the North, South, East, and West, and, as the twilight deepened,

carriages began to roll in with neighbors and friends living at short

distances, until the house and grounds were full. A son of Bishop Coxe,

who married the tall and stately sister of Roscoe Conkling, performed

the ceremony. The beautiful young bride was given away by her Uncle

Gerrit. The congratulations, the feast, and all went off with fitting

decorum in the usual way. The best proof of the excellence of our viands

was that they were all speedily swept from mortal view, and every

housewife wanted a recipe for something.

As the grand dinner was to come off the next day, our thoughts now

turned in that direction. The responsibility rested heavily on the heads

of the chief actors, and they reported troubled dreams and unduly early

rising. Dear Belle Swift was up in season and her white soup stood

serenely in a tin pan, on an upper shelf, before the town clock struck

seven. If it had not taken that position so early, it might have been

incorporated with higher forms of life than that into which it

eventually fell. Another artist was also on the wing early, and in

pursuit of a tin pan in which to hide her precious compound, she

unwittingly seized this one, and the rich white soup rolled down her

raven locks like the oil on Aaron's beard, and enveloped her in a veil

of filmy whiteness. I heard the splash and the exclamation of surprise

and entered the butler's pantry just in time to see the heiress of the

Smith estate standing like a statue, tin pan in hand, soup in her curls,

her eyebrows and eyelashes,--collar, cuffs, and morning dress

saturated,--and Belle, at a little distance, looking at her and the soup

on the floor with surprise and disgust depicted on every feature. The

tableau was inexpressibly comical, and I could not help laughing

outright; whereupon Belle turned on me, and, with indignant tones, said,

"If you had been up since four o'clock making that soup you would not

stand there like a laughing monkey, without the least feeling of pity!"

Poor Lizzie was very sorry, and would have shed tears, but they could

not penetrate that film of soup. I tried to apologize, but could only

laugh the more when I saw Belle crying and Lizzie standing as if hoping

that the soup might be scraped off her and gathered from the floor and

made to do duty on the occasion.

After breakfast, ladies and gentlemen, alike in white aprons, crowded

into the dining room and kitchen, each to perform the allotted task.

George Biddle of Philadelphia and John B. Miller of Utica, in holiday

spirits, were irrepressible--everywhere at the same moment, helping or

hindering as the case might be. Dear Belle, having only partially

recovered from the white-soup catastrophe, called Mr. Biddle to hold the

ice-cream freezer while she poured in the luscious compound she had just

prepared. He held it up without resting it on anything, while Belle

slowly poured in the cream. As the freezer had no indentations round the

top or rim to brace the thumbs and fingers, when it grew suddenly

heavier his hands slipped and down went the whole thing, spattering poor

Belle and spoiling a beautiful pair of gaiters in which, as she had very

pretty feet, she took a laudable pride. In another corner sat Wealthea

Backus, grating some cocoanut. While struggling in that operation, John

Miller, feeling hilarious, was annoying her in divers ways; at length

she drew the grater across his nose, gently, as she intended, but alas!

she took the skin off, and John's beauty, for the remainder of the

festivities, was marred with a black patch on that prominent feature.

One can readily imagine the fun that must have transpired where so many

amateur cooks were at work round one table, with all manner of culinary

tools and ingredients.

As assistant-at-large I was summoned to the cellar, where Mrs. Cornelia

Barclay of New York was evolving from a pan of flour and water that

miracle in the pie department called puff paste. This, it seems, can

only be accomplished where the thermometer is below forty, and near a

refrigerator where the compound can be kept cold until ready to be

popped into the oven. No jokes or nonsense here. With queenly dignity

the flour and water were gently compressed. Here one hand must not know

what the other doeth. Bits of butter must be so deftly introduced that

even the rolling pin may be unconscious of its work. As the artist gave

the last touch to an exquisite lemon pie, with a mingled expression of

pride and satisfaction on her classic features, she ordered me to bear

it to the oven. In the transit I met Madam Belle. "Don't let that fall,"

she said sneeringly. Fortunately I did not, and returned in triumph to

transport another. I was then summoned to a consultation with the

committee on toasts, consisting of James Cochrane, John Miller, and

myself. Mr. Miller had one for each guest already written, all of which

we accepted and pronounced very good.

Strange to say, a most excellent dinner emerged from all this uproar and

confusion. The table, with its silver, china, flowers, and rich viands,

the guests in satins, velvets, jewels, soft laces, and bright cravats,

together reflecting all the colors of the prism, looked as beautiful as

the rainbow after a thunderstorm.

Twenty years ago I made my last sad visit to that spot so rich with

pleasant memories of bygone days. A few relatives and family friends

gathered there to pay the last tokens of respect to our noble cousin.

It was on one of the coldest days of gray December that we laid him in

the frozen earth, to be seen no more. He died from a stroke of apoplexy

in New York city, at the home of his niece, Mrs. Ellen Cochrane Walter,

whose mother was Mr. Smith's only sister. The journey from New York to

Peterboro was cold and dreary, and climbing the hills from Canastota in

an open sleigh, nine hundred feet above the valley, with the thermometer

below zero, before sunrise, made all nature look as sombre as the sad

errand on which we came.

Outside the mansion everything in its wintry garb was cold and still,

and all within was silent as the grave. The central figure, the light

and joy of that home, had vanished forever. He who had welcomed us on

that threshold for half a century would welcome us no more. We did what

we could to dissipate the gloom that settled on us all. We did not

intensify our grief by darkening the house and covering ourselves with

black crape, but wore our accustomed dresses of chastened colors and

opened all the blinds that the glad sunshine might stream in. We hung

the apartment where the casket stood with wreaths of evergreens, and

overhead we wove his favorite mottoes in living letters, "Equal rights

for all!" "Rescue Cuba now!" The religious services were short and

simple; the Unitarian clergyman from Syracuse made a few remarks, the

children from the orphan asylum, in which he was deeply interested, sang

an appropriate hymn, and around the grave stood representatives of the

Biddles, the Dixwells, the Sedgwicks, the Barclays, and Stantons, and

three generations of his immediate family. With a few appropriate words

from General John Cochrane we left our beloved kinsman alone in his

last resting place. Two months later, on his birthday, his wife, Ann

Carroll Fitzhugh, passed away and was laid by his side. Theirs was a

remarkably happy union of over half a century, and they were soon

reunited in the life eternal.

CHAPTER V.

OUR WEDDING JOURNEY.

My engagement was a season of doubt and conflict--doubt as to the wisdom

of changing a girlhood of freedom and enjoyment for I knew not what, and

conflict because the step I proposed was in opposition to the wishes of

all my family. Whereas, heretofore, friends were continually suggesting

suitable matches for me and painting the marriage relation in the most

dazzling colors, now that state was represented as beset with dangers

and disappointments, and men, of all God's creatures as the most

depraved and unreliable. Hard pressed, I broke my engagement, after

months of anxiety and bewilderment; suddenly I decided to renew it, as

Mr. Stanton was going to Europe as a delegate to the World's

Anti-slavery Convention, and we did not wish the ocean to roll between

us.

Thursday, May 10, 1840, I determined to take the fateful step, without

the slightest preparation for a wedding or a voyage; but Mr. Stanton,

coming up the North River, was detained on "Marcy's Overslaugh," a bar

in the river where boats were frequently stranded for hours. This delay

compelled us to be married on Friday, which is commonly supposed to be a

most unlucky day. But as we lived together, without more than the usual

matrimonial friction, for nearly a half a century, had seven children,

all but one of whom are still living, and have been well sheltered,

clothed, and fed, enjoying sound minds in sound bodies, no one need be

afraid of going through the marriage ceremony on Friday for fear of bad

luck. The Scotch clergyman who married us, being somewhat superstitious,

begged us to postpone it until Saturday; but, as we were to sail early

in the coming week, that was impossible. That point settled, the next

difficulty was to persuade him to leave out the word "obey" in the

marriage ceremony. As I obstinately refused to obey one with whom I

supposed I was entering into an equal relation, that point, too, was

conceded. A few friends were invited to be present and, in a simple

white evening dress, I was married. But the good priest avenged himself

for the points he conceded, by keeping us on the rack with a long prayer

and dissertation on the sacred institution for one mortal hour. The Rev.

Hugh Maire was a little stout fellow, vehement in manner and speech, who

danced about the floor, as he laid down the law, in the most original

and comical manner. As Mr. Stanton had never seen him before, the hour

to him was one of constant struggle to maintain his equilibrium. I had

sat under his ministrations for several years, and was accustomed to his

rhetoric, accent, and gestures, and thus was able to go through the

ordeal in a calmer state of mind.

Sister Madge, who had stood by me bravely through all my doubts and

anxieties, went with us to New York and saw us on board the vessel. My

sister Harriet and her husband, Daniel C. Eaton, a merchant in New York

city, were also there. He and I had had for years a standing game of

"tag" at all our partings, and he had vowed to send me "tagged" to

Europe. I was equally determined that he should not. Accordingly, I

had a desperate chase after him all over the vessel, but in vain. He had

the last "tag" and escaped. As I was compelled, under the circumstances,

to conduct the pursuit with some degree of decorum, and he had the

advantage of height, long limbs, and freedom from skirts, I really stood

no chance whatever. However, as the chase kept us all laughing, it

helped to soften the bitterness of parting.

[Illustration: H.B. Stanton] [Illustration: MRS. STANTON AND DAUGHTER,

1857.]

Fairly at sea, I closed another chapter of my life, and my thoughts

turned to what lay in the near future. James G. Birney, the anti-slavery

nominee for the presidency of the United States, joined us in New York,

and was a fellow-passenger on the Montreal for England. He and my

husband were delegates to the World's Anti-slavery Convention, and both

interested themselves in my anti-slavery education. They gave me books

to read, and, as we paced the deck day by day, the question was the

chief theme of our conversation.

Mr. Birney was a polished gentleman of the old school, and was

excessively proper and punctilious in manner and conversation. I soon

perceived that he thought I needed considerable toning down before

reaching England. I was quick to see and understand that his criticisms

of others in a general way and the drift of his discourses on manners

and conversation had a nearer application than he intended I should

discover, though he hoped I would profit by them. I was always grateful

to anyone who took an interest in my improvement, so I laughingly told

him, one day, that he need not make his criticisms any longer in that

roundabout way, but might take me squarely in hand and polish me up as

speedily as possible. Sitting in the saloon at night after a game of

chess, in which, perchance, I had been the victor, I felt complacent

and would sometimes say:

"Well, what have I said or done to-day open to criticism?"

So, in the most gracious manner, he replied on one occasion:

"You went to the masthead in a chair, which I think very unladylike. I

heard you call your husband 'Henry' in the presence of strangers, which

is not permissible in polite society. You should always say 'Mr.

Stanton.' You have taken three moves back in this game."

"Bless me!" I replied, "what a catalogue in one day! I fear my Mentor

will despair of my ultimate perfection."

"I should have more hope," he replied, "if you seemed to feel my rebukes

more deeply, but you evidently think them of too little consequence to

be much disturbed by them."

As he found even more fault with my husband, we condoled with each other

and decided that our friend was rather hypercritical and that we were as

nearly perfect as mortals need be for the wear and tear of ordinary

life. Being both endowed with a good degree of self-esteem, neither the

praise nor the blame of mankind was overpowering to either of us. As the

voyage lasted eighteen days--for we were on a sailing vessel--we had

time to make some improvement, or, at least, to consider all friendly

suggestions.

At this time Mr. Birney was very much in love with Miss Fitzhugh of

Geneseo, to whom he was afterward married. He suffered at times great

depression of spirits, but I could always rouse him to a sunny mood by

introducing her name. That was a theme of which he never grew weary,

and, while praising her, a halo of glory was to him visible around my

head and I was faultless for the time being. There was nothing in our

fellow-passengers to break the monotony of the voyage. They were all

stolid, middle-class English people, returning from various parts of the

world to visit their native land.

When out of their hearing, Mr. Birney used to ridicule them without

mercy; so, one day, by way of making a point, I said with great

solemnity, "Is it good breeding to make fun of the foibles of our

fellow-men, who have not had our advantages of culture and education?"

He felt the rebuke and blushed, and never again returned to that

subject. I am sorry to say I was glad to find him once in fault.

Though some amusement, in whatever extraordinary way I could obtain it,

was necessary to my existence, yet, as it was deemed important that I

should thoroughly understand the status of the anti-slavery movement in

my own country, I spent most of my time reading and talking on that

question. Being the wife of a delegate to the World's Convention, we all

felt it important that I should be able to answer whatever questions I

might be asked in England on all phases of the slavery question.

The captain, a jolly fellow, was always ready to second me in my

explorations into every nook and cranny of the vessel. He imagined that

my reading was distasteful and enforced by the older gentlemen, so he

was continually planning some diversion, and often invited me to sit

with him and listen to his experiences of a sailor's life.

But all things must end in this mortal life, and our voyage was near

its termination, when we were becalmed on the Southern coast of England

and could not make more than one knot an hour. When within sight of the

distant shore, a pilot boat came along and offered to take anyone ashore

in six hours. I was so delighted at the thought of reaching land that,

after much persuasion, Mr. Stanton and Mr. Birney consented to go.

Accordingly we were lowered into the boat in an armchair, with a

luncheon consisting of a cold chicken, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of

wine, with just enough wind to carry our light craft toward our

destination. But, instead of six hours, we were all day trying to reach

the land, and, as the twilight deepened and the last breeze died away,

the pilot said: "We are now two miles from shore, but the only way you

can reach there to-night is by a rowboat."

As we had no provisions left and nowhere to sleep, we were glad to avail

ourselves of the rowboat. It was a bright moonlight night, the air

balmy, the waters smooth, and, with two stout oarsmen, we glided swiftly

along. As Mr. Birney made the last descent and seated himself, doubtful

as to our reaching shore, turning to me he said: "The woman tempted me

and I did leave the good ship." However, we did reach the shore at

midnight and landed at Torquay, one of the loveliest spots in that

country, and our journey to Exeter the next day lay through the most

beautiful scenery in England.

As we had no luggage with us, our detention by customs officers was

brief, and we were soon conducted to a comfortable little hotel, which

we found in the morning was a bower of roses. I had never imagined

anything so beautiful as the drive up to Exeter on the top of a coach,

with four stout horses, trotting at the rate of ten miles an hour. It

was the first day of June, and the country was in all its glory. The

foliage was of the softest green, the trees were covered with blossoms,

and the shrubs with flowers. The roads were perfect; the large,

fine-looking coachman, with his white gloves and reins, his rosy face

and lofty bearing and the postman in red, blowing his horn as we passed

through every village, made the drive seem like a journey in fairyland.

We had heard that England was like a garden of flowers, but we were

wholly unprepared for such wealth of beauty.

In Exeter we had our first view of one of the great cathedrals in the

Old World, and we were all deeply impressed with its grandeur. It was

just at the twilight hour, when the last rays of the setting sun,

streaming through the stained glass windows, deepened the shadows and

threw a mysterious amber light over all. As the choir was practicing,

the whole effect was heightened by the deep tones of the organ

reverberating through the arched roof, and the sound of human voices as

if vainly trying to fill the vast space above. The novelty and solemnity

of the surroundings roused all our religious emotions and thrilled every

nerve in our being. As if moved by the same impulse to linger there a

while, we all sat down, silently waiting for something to break the

spell that bound us. Can one wonder at the power of the Catholic

religion for centuries, with such accessories to stimulate the

imagination to a blind worship of the unknown?

Sitting in the hotel that evening and wanting something to read, we

asked the waiter for the daily papers. As there was no public table or

drawing room for guests, but each party had its own apartment, we needed

a little change from the society of each other. Having been, as it were,

shut from the outside world for eighteen days, we had some curiosity to

see whether our planet was still revolving from west to east. At the

mention of papers in the plural number, the attendant gave us a look of

surprise, and said he would get "it." He returned saying that the

gentleman in No. 4 had "it," but he would be through in fifteen minutes.

Accordingly, at the end of that time, he brought the newspaper, and,

after we had had it the same length of time, he came to take it to

another party. At our lodging house in London, a paper was left for half

an hour each morning, and then it was taken to the next house, thus

serving several families of readers.

The next day brought us to London. When I first entered our lodging

house in Queen Street, I thought it the gloomiest abode I had ever seen.

The arrival of a delegation of ladies, the next day, from Boston and

Philadelphia, changed the atmosphere of the establishment, and filled me

with delightful anticipations of some new and charming acquaintances,

which I fully realized in meeting Emily Winslow, Abby Southwick,

Elizabeth Neal, Mary Grew, Abby Kimber, Sarah Pugh, and Lucretia Mott.

There had been a split in the American anti-slavery ranks, and delegates

came from both branches, and, as they were equally represented at our

lodgings, I became familiar with the whole controversy. The potent

element which caused the division was the woman question, and as the

Garrisonian branch maintained the right of women to speak and vote in

the conventions, all my sympathies were with the Garrisonians, though

Mr. Stanton and Mr. Birney belonged to the other branch, called

political abolitionists. To me there was no question so important as the

emancipation of women from the dogmas of the past, political, religious,

and social. It struck me as very remarkable that abolitionists, who felt

so keenly the wrongs of the slave, should be so oblivious to the equal

wrongs of their own mothers, wives, and sisters, when, according to the

common law, both classes occupied a similar legal status.

Our chief object in visiting England at this time was to attend the

World's Anti-slavery Convention, to meet June 12, 1840, in Freemasons'

Hall, London. Delegates from all the anti-slavery societies of civilized

nations were invited, yet, when they arrived, those representing

associations of women were rejected. Though women were members of the

National Anti-slavery Society, accustomed to speak and vote in all its

conventions, and to take an equally active part with men in the whole

anti-slavery struggle, and were there as delegates from associations of

men and women, as well as those distinctively of their own sex, yet all

alike were rejected because they were women. Women, according to English

prejudices at that time, were excluded by Scriptural texts from sharing

equal dignity and authority with men in all reform associations; hence

it was to English minds pre-eminently unfitting that women should be

admitted as equal members to a World's Convention. The question was

hotly debated through an entire day. My husband made a very eloquent

speech in favor of admitting the women delegates.

When we consider that Lady Byron, Anna Jameson, Mary Howitt, Mrs. Hugo

Reid, Elizabeth Fry, Amelia Opie, Ann Green Phillips, Lucretia Mott, and

many remarkable women, speakers and leaders in the Society of Friends,

were all compelled to listen in silence to the masculine platitudes on

woman's sphere, one may form some idea of the indignation of

unprejudiced friends, and especially that of such women as Lydia Maria

Child, Maria Chapman, Deborah Weston, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, and

Abby Kelly, who were impatiently waiting and watching on this side, in

painful suspense, to hear how their delegates were received. Judging

from my own feelings, the women on both sides of the Atlantic must have

been humiliated and chagrined, except as these feelings were outweighed

by contempt for the shallow reasoning of their opponents and their

comical pose and gestures in some of the intensely earnest flights of

their imagination.

The clerical portion of the convention was most violent in its

opposition. The clergymen seemed to have God and his angels especially

in their care and keeping, and were in agony lest the women should do or

say something to shock the heavenly hosts. Their all-sustaining conceit

gave them abundant assurance that their movements must necessarily be

all-pleasing to the celestials whose ears were open to the proceedings

of the World's Convention. Deborah, Huldah, Vashti, and Esther might

have questioned the propriety of calling it a World's Convention, when

only half of humanity was represented there; but what were their

opinions worth compared with those of the Rev. A. Harvey, the Rev. C.

Stout, or the Rev. J. Burnet, who, Bible in hand, argued woman's

subjection, divinely decreed when Eve was created.

One of our champions in the convention, George Bradburn, a tall

thick-set man with a voice like thunder, standing head and shoulders

above the clerical representatives, swept all their arguments aside by

declaring with tremendous emphasis that, if they could prove to him that

the Bible taught the entire subjection of one-half of the race to the

other, he should consider that the best thing he could do for humanity

would be to bring together every Bible in the universe and make a grand

bonfire of them.

It was really pitiful to hear narrow-minded bigots, pretending to be

teachers and leaders of men, so cruelly remanding their own mothers,

with the rest of womankind, to absolute subjection to the ordinary

masculine type of humanity. I always regretted that the women themselves

had not taken part in the debate before the convention was fully

organized and the question of delegates settled. It seemed to me then,

and does now, that all delegates with credentials from recognized

societies should have had a voice in the organization of the convention,

though subject to exclusion afterward. However, the women sat in a low

curtained seat like a church choir, and modestly listened to the French,

British, and American Solons for twelve of the longest days in June, as

did, also, our grand Garrison and Rogers in the gallery. They scorned a

convention that ignored the rights of the very women who had fought,

side by side, with them in the anti-slavery conflict. "After battling so

many long years," said Garrison, "for the liberties of African slaves, I

can take no part in a convention that strikes down the most sacred

rights of all women." After coming three thousand miles to speak on the

subject nearest his heart, he nobly shared the enforced silence of the

rejected delegates. It was a great act of self-sacrifice that should

never be forgotten by women.

Thomas Clarkson was chosen president of the convention and made a few

remarks in opening, but he soon retired, as his age and many infirmities

made all public occasions too burdensome, and Joseph Sturge, a Quaker,

was made chairman. Sitting next to Mrs. Mott, I said:

"As there is a Quaker in the chair now, what could he do if the spirit

should move you to speak?"

"Ah," she replied, evidently not believing such a contingency possible,

"where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

She had not much faith in the sincerity of abolitionists who, while

eloquently defending the natural rights of slaves, denied freedom of

speech to one-half the people of their own race. Such was the

consistency of an assemblage of philanthropists! They would have been

horrified at the idea of burning the flesh of the distinguished women

present with red-hot irons, but the crucifixion of their pride and

self-respect, the humiliation of the spirit, seemed to them a most

trifling matter. The action of this convention was the topic of

discussion, in public and private, for a long time, and stung many women

into new thought and action and gave rise to the movement for women's

political equality both in England and the United States.

As the convention adjourned, the remark was heard on all sides, "It is

about time some demand was made for new liberties for women." As Mrs.

Mott and I walked home, arm in arm, commenting on the incidents of the

day, we resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and

form a society to advocate the rights of women. At the lodging house on

Queen Street, where a large number of delegates had apartments, the

discussions were heated at every meal, and at times so bitter that, at

last, Mr. Birney packed his valise and sought more peaceful quarters.

Having strongly opposed the admission of women as delegates to the

convention it was rather embarrassing to meet them, during the intervals

between the various sessions, at the table and in the drawing room.

These were the first women I had ever met who believed in the equality

of the sexes and who did not believe in the popular orthodox religion.

The acquaintance of Lucretia Mott, who was a broad, liberal thinker on

politics, religion, and all questions of reform, opened to me a new

world of thought. As we walked about to see the sights of London, I

embraced every opportunity to talk with her. It was intensely gratifying

to hear all that, through years of doubt, I had dimly thought, so freely

discussed by other women, some of them no older than myself--women, too,

of rare intelligence, cultivation, and refinement. After six weeks'

sojourn under the same roof with Lucretia Mott, whose conversation was

uniformly on a high plane, I felt that I knew her too well to sympathize

with the orthodox Friends, who denounced her as a dangerous woman

because she doubted certain dogmas they fully believed.

As Mr. Birney and my husband were invited to speak all over England,

Scotland, and Ireland, and we were uniformly entertained by orthodox

Friends, I had abundant opportunity to know the general feeling among

them toward Lucretia Mott. Even Elizabeth Fry seemed quite unwilling to

breathe the same atmosphere with her. During the six weeks that many of

us remained in London after the convention we were invited to a

succession of public and private breakfasts, dinners, and teas, and on

these occasions it was amusing to watch Mrs. Fry's sedulous efforts to

keep Mrs. Mott at a distance. If Mrs. Mott was on the lawn, Mrs. Fry

would go into the house; if Mrs. Mott was in the house, Mrs. Fry would

stay out on the lawn. One evening, when we were all crowded into two

parlors, and there was no escape, the word went round that Mrs. Fry felt

moved to pray with the American delegates, whereupon a profound silence

reigned. After a few moments Mrs. Fry's voice was heard deploring the

schism among the American Friends; that sol many had been led astray by

false doctrines; urging the Spirit of All Good to show them the error of

their way, and gather them once more into the fold of the great Shepherd

of our faith. The prayer was directed so pointedly at the followers of

Elias Hicks, and at Lucretia Mott in particular, that I whispered to

Lucretia, at the close, that she should now pray for Mrs. Fry, that her

eyes might be opened to her bigotry and uncharitableness, and be led by

the Spirit into higher light. "Oh, no!" she replied, "a prayer of this

character, under the circumstances, is an unfair advantage to take of a

stranger, but I would not resent it in the house of her friends."

In these gatherings we met the leading Quaker families and many other

philanthropists of different denominations interested in the

anti-slavery movement. On all these occasions our noble Garrison spoke

most effectively, and thus our English friends had an opportunity of

enjoying his eloquence, the lack of which had been so grave a loss in

the convention.

We devoted a month sedulously to sightseeing in London, and, in the line

of the traveler's duty, we explored St. Paul's Cathedral, the British

Museum, the Tower, various prisons, hospitals, galleries of art, Windsor

Castle, and St. James's Palace, the Zoological Gardens, the schools and

colleges, the chief theaters and churches, Westminster Abbey, the Houses

of Parliament, and the Courts. We heard the most famous preachers,

actors, and statesmen. In fact, we went to the top and bottom of

everything, from the dome of St. Paul to the tunnel under the Thames,

just then in the process of excavation. We drove through the parks,

sailed up and down the Thames, and then visited every shire but four in

England, in all of which we had large meetings, Mr. Birney and Mr.

Stanton being the chief speakers. As we were generally invited to stay

with Friends, it gave us a good opportunity to see the leading families,

such as the Ashursts, the Alexanders, the Priestmans, the Braithwaites,

and Buxtons, the Gurneys, the Peases, the Wighams of Edinburgh, and the

Webbs of Dublin. We spent a few days with John Joseph Gurney at his

beautiful home in Norwich. He had just returned from America, having

made a tour through the South. When asked how he liked America, he said,

"I like everything but your pie crust and your slavery."

Before leaving London, the whole American delegation, about forty in

number, were invited to dine with Samuel Gurney. He and his brother,

John Joseph Gurney, were, at that time, the leading bankers in London.

Someone facetiously remarked that the Jews were the leading bankers in

London until the Quakers crowded them out.

One of the most striking women I met in England at this time was Miss

Elizabeth Pease. I never saw a more strongly marked face. Meeting her,

forty years after, on the platform of a great meeting in the Town Hall

at Glasgow, I knew her at once. She is now Mrs. Nichol of Edinburgh,

and, though on the shady side of eighty, is still active in all the

reforms of the day.

It surprised us very much at first, when driving into the grounds of

some of these beautiful Quaker homes, to have the great bell rung at the

lodge, and to see the number of liveried servants on the porch and in

the halls, and then to meet the host in plain garb, and to be welcomed

in plain language, "How does thee do, Henry?" "How does thee do

Elizabeth?" This sounded peculiarly sweet to me--a stranger in a strange

land. The wealthy English Quakers we visited at that time, taking them

all in all, were the most charming people I had ever seen. They were

refined and intelligent on all subjects, and though rather conservative

on some points, were not aggressive in pressing their opinions on

others. Their hospitality was charming and generous, their homes the

beau ideal of comfort and order, the cuisine faultless, while peace

reigned over all. The quiet, gentle manner and the soft tones in

speaking, and the mysterious quiet in these well-ordered homes were like

the atmosphere one finds in a modern convent, where the ordinary duties

of the day seem to be accomplished by some magical influence.

Before leaving London we spent a delightful day in June at the home of

Samuel Gurney, surrounded by a fine park with six hundred deer roaming

about--always a beautiful feature in the English landscape. As the

Duchess of Sutherland and Lord Morpeth had expressed a wish to Mrs. Fry

to meet some of the leading American abolitionists, it was arranged that

they should call at her brother's residence on this occasion. Soon after

we arrived, the Duchess, with her brother and Mrs. Fry, in her state

carriage with six horses and outriders, drove up to the door. Mr. Gurney

was evidently embarrassed at the prospect of a lord and a duchess under

his roof. Leaning on the arm of Mrs. Fry, the duchess was formally

introduced to us individually. Mrs. Mott conversed with the

distinguished guests with the same fluency and composure as with her own

countrywomen. However anxious the English people were as to what they

should say and do, the Americans were all quite at their ease.

As Lord Morpeth had some interesting letters from the island of Jamaica

to read to us, we formed a circle on the lawn to listen. England had

just paid one hundred millions of dollars to emancipate the slaves, and

we were all interested in hearing the result of the experiment. The

distinguished guest in turn had many questions to ask in regard to

American slavery. We found none of that prejudice against color in

England which is so inveterate among the American people; at my first

dinner in England I found myself beside a gentleman from Jamaica, as

black as the ace of spades. After the departure of the duchess, dinner

was announced. It was a sumptuous meal, most tastefully served. There

were half a dozen wineglasses at every plate, but abolitionists, in

those days, were all converts to temperance, and, as the bottles went

around there was a general headshaking, and the right hand extended

over the glasses. Our English friends were amazed that none of us drank

wine. Mr. Gurney said he had never before seen such a sight as forty

ladies and gentlemen sitting down to dinner and none of them tasting

wine. In talking with him on that point, he said:

"I suppose your nursing mothers drink beer?"

I laughed, and said, "Oh, no! We should be afraid of befogging the

brains of our children."

"No danger of that," said he; "we are all bright enough, and yet a cask

of beer is rolled into the cellar for the mother with each newborn

child."

Colonel Miller from Vermont, one of our American delegation, was in the

Greek war with Lord Byron. As Lady Byron had expressed a wish to see

him, that her daughter might know something of her father's last days,

an interview was arranged, and the colonel kindly invited me to

accompany him. His account of their acquaintance and the many noble

traits of character Lord Byron manifested, his generous impulses and

acts of self-sacrifice, seemed particularly gratifying to the daughter.

It was a sad interview, arranged chiefly for the daughter's

satisfaction, though Lady Byron listened with a painful interest. As the

colonel was a warm admirer of the great poet, he no doubt represented

him in the best possible light, and his narration of his last days was

deeply interesting. Lady Byron had a quiet, reserved manner, a sad face,

and a low, plaintive voice, like one who had known deep sorrow. I had

seen her frequently in the convention and at social teas, and had been

personally presented to her before this occasion. Altogether I thought

her a sweet, attractive-looking woman.

We had a pleasant interview with Lord Brougham also. The Philadelphia

Anti-slavery Society sent him an elaborately carved inkstand, made from

the wood of Pennsylvania Hall, which was destroyed by a pro-slavery mob.

Mr. Birney made a most graceful speech in presenting the memento, and

Lord Brougham was equally happy in receiving it.

One of the most notable characters we met at this time was Daniel

O'Connell. He made his first appearance in the London convention a few

days after the women were rejected. He paid a beautiful tribute to woman

and said that, if he had been present when the question was under

discussion, he should have spoken and voted for their admission. He was

a tall, well-developed, magnificent-looking man, and probably one of the

most effective speakers Ireland ever produced. I saw him at a great

India meeting in Exeter Hall, where some of the best orators from

France, America, and England were present. There were six natives from

India on the platform who, not understanding anything that was said,

naturally remained listless throughout the proceedings. But the moment

O'Connell began to speak they were all attention, bending forward and

closely watching every movement. One could almost tell what he said from

the play of his expressive features, his wonderful gestures, and the

pose of his whole body. When he finished, the natives joined in the

general applause. He had all Wendell Phillips' power of sarcasm and

denunciation, and added to that the most tender pathos. He could make

his audience laugh or cry at pleasure. It was a rare sight to see him

dressed in "Repeal cloth" in one of his Repeal meetings. We were in

Dublin in the midst of that excitement, when the hopes of new liberties

for that oppressed people all centered on O'Connell. The enthusiasm of

the people for the Repeal of the Union was then at white-heat. Dining

one day with the "Great Liberator," as he was called, I asked him if he

hoped to carry that measure.

"No," he said, "but it is always good policy to claim the uttermost and

then you will be sure to get something."

Could he have looked forward fifty years and have seen the present

condition of his unhappy country, he would have known that English greed

and selfishness could defeat any policy, however wise and far-seeing.

The successive steps by which Irish commerce was ruined and religious

feuds between her people continually fanned into life, and the nation

subjugated, form the darkest page in the history of England. But the

people are awakening at last to their duty, and, for the first time,

organizing English public sentiment in favor of "Home Rule." I attended

several large, enthusiastic meetings when last in England, in which the

most radical utterances of Irish patriots were received with prolonged

cheers. I trust the day is not far off when the beautiful Emerald Isle

will unfurl her banner before the nations of the earth, enthroned as the

Queen Republic of those northern seas!

We visited Wordsworth's home at Grasmere, among the beautiful lakes, but

he was not there. However, we saw his surroundings--the landscape that

inspired some of his poetic dreams, and the dense rows of hollyhocks of

every shade and color, leading from his porch to the gate. The gardener

told us this was his favorite flower. Though it had no special beauty in

itself, taken alone, yet the wonderful combination of royal colors was

indeed striking and beautiful. We saw Harriet Martineau at her country

home as well as at her house in town. As we were obliged to converse

with her through an ear trumpet, we left her to do most of the talking.

She gave us many amusing experiences of her travels in America, and her

comments on the London Convention were rich and racy. She was not an

attractive woman in either manner or appearance, though considered great

and good by all who knew her.

We spent a few days with Thomas Clarkson, in Ipswich. He lived in a very

old house with long rambling corridors, surrounded by a moat, which we

crossed' by means of a drawbridge. He had just written an article

against the colonization scheme, which his wife read aloud to us. He was

so absorbed in the subject that he forgot the article was written by

himself, and kept up a running applause with "hear!" "hear!" the English

mode of expressing approbation. He told us of the severe struggles he

and Wilberforce had gone through in rousing the public sentiment of

England to the demand for emancipation in Jamaica. But their trials were

mild, compared with what Garrison and his coadjutors had suffered in

America.

Having read of all these people, it was difficult to realize, as I

visited them in their own homes from day to day, that they were the same

persons I had so long worshiped from afar!

CHAPTER VI.

HOMEWARD BOUND.

After taking a view of the wonders and surroundings of London we spent a

month in Paris. Fifty years ago there was a greater difference in the

general appearance of things between France and England than now. That

countries only a few hours' journey apart should differ so widely was to

us a great surprise. How changed the sights and sounds! Here was the old

diligence, lumbering along with its various compartments and its

indefinite number of horses, harnessed with rope and leather, sometimes

two, sometimes three abreast, and sometimes one in advance, with an

outrider belaboring the poor beasts without cessation, and the driver

yelling and cracking his whip. The uproar, confusion, and squabbles at

every stopping place are overwhelming; the upper classes, men and women

alike, rushing into each other's arms, embrace and kiss, while drivers

and hostlers on the slightest provocation hurl at each other all the

denunciatory adjectives in the language, and with such vehemence that

you expect every moment to see a deadly conflict. But to-day, as fifty

years ago, they never arrive at that point. Theirs was and is purely an

encounter of words, which they keep up, as they drive off in opposite

directions, just as far as they can hear and see each other, with

threats of vengeance to come. Such an encounter between two Englishmen

would mean the death of one or the other.

All this was in marked contrast with John Bull and his Island. There the

people were as silent as if they had been born deaf and dumb. The

English stagecoach was compact, clean, and polished from top to bottom,

the horses and harness glossy and in order, the well-dressed, dignified

coachman, who seldom spoke a loud word or used his whip, kept his seat

at the various stages, while hostlers watered or changed the steeds; the

postman blew his bugle blast to have the mail in readiness, and the

reserved passengers made no remarks on what was passing; for, in those

days, Englishmen were afraid to speak to each other for fear of

recognizing one not of their class, while to strangers and foreigners

they would not speak except in case of dire necessity. The Frenchman was

ready enough to talk, but, unfortunately, we were separated by different

languages. Thus the Englishman would not talk, the Frenchman could not,

and the intelligent, loquacious American driver, who discourses on

politics, religion, national institutions, and social gossip was unknown

on that side of the Atlantic. What the curious American traveler could

find out himself from observation and pertinacious seeking he was

welcome to, but the Briton would waste no breath to enlighten Yankees as

to the points of interest or customs of his country.

Our party consisted of Miss Pugh, Abby Kimber, Mr. Stanton, and myself.

I had many amusing experiences in making my wants known when alone,

having forgotten most of my French. For instance, traveling night and

day in the diligence to Paris, as the stops were short, one was

sometimes in need of something to eat. One night as my companions were

all asleep, I went out to get a piece of cake or a cracker, or whatever

of that sort I could obtain, but, owing to my clumsy use of the

language, I was misunderstood. Just as the diligence was about to start,

and the shout for us to get aboard was heard, the waiter came running

with a piping hot plate of sweetbreads nicely broiled. I had waited and

wondered why it took so long to get a simple piece of cake or biscuit,

and lo! a piece of hot meat was offered me. I could not take the

frizzling thing in my hand nor eat it without bread, knife, or fork, so

I hurried off to the coach, the man pursuing me to the very door. I was

vexed and disappointed, while the rest of the party were convulsed with

laughter at the parting salute and my attempt to make my way alone. It

was some time before I heard the last of the "sweetbreads."

When we reached Paris we secured a courier who could speak English, to

show us the sights of that wonderful city. Every morning early he was at

the door, rain or shine, to carry out our plans, which, with the aid of

our guidebook, we had made the evening before. In this way, going

steadily, day after day, we visited all points of interest for miles

round and sailed up and down the Seine. The Palace of the Tuileries,

with its many associations with a long line of more or less unhappy

kings and queens, was then in its glory, and its extensive and beautiful

grounds were always gay with crowds of happy people. These gardens were

a great resort for nurses and children and were furnished with all

manner of novel appliances for their amusement, including beautiful

little carriages drawn by four goats with girls or boys driving, boats

sailing in the air, seemingly propelled by oars, and hobby horses

flying round on whirligigs with boys vainly trying to catch each other.

No people have ever taken the trouble to invent so many amusements for

children as have the French. The people enjoyed being always in the open

air, night and day. The parks are crowded with amusement seekers, some

reading and playing games, some sewing, knitting, playing on musical

instruments, dancing, sitting around tables in bevies eating, drinking,

and gayly chatting. And yet, when they drive in carriages or go to their

homes at night, they will shut themselves in as tight as oysters in

their shells. They have a theory that night air is very injurious,--in

the house,--although they will sit outside until midnight. I found this

same superstition prevalent in France fifty years later.

We visited the Hôtel des Invalides just as they were preparing the

sarcophagus for the reception of the remains of Napoleon. We witnessed

the wild excitement of that enthusiastic people, and listened with deep

interest to the old soldiers' praises of their great general. The ladies

of our party chatted freely with them. They all had interesting

anecdotes to relate of their chief. They said he seldom slept over four

hours, was an abstemious eater, and rarely changed a servant, as he

hated a strange face about him. He was very fond of a game of chess, and

snuffed continuously; talked but little, was a light sleeper,--the

stirring of a mouse would awaken him,--and always on the watch-tower.

They said that, in his great campaigns, he seemed to be omnipresent. A

sentinel asleep at his post would sometimes waken to find Napoleon on

duty in his place.

The ship that brought back Napoleon's remains was the _Belle Poule_

(the beautiful hen!), which landed at Cherbourg, November 30, 1840. The

body was conveyed to the Church of the Invalides, which adjoins the

tomb. The Prince de Joinville brought the body from Saint Helena, and

Louis Philippe received it.

At that time each soldier had a little patch of land to decorate as he

pleased, in which many scenes from their great battles were illustrated.

One represented Napoleon crossing the Alps. There were the cannon, the

soldiers, Napoleon on horseback, all toiling up the steep ascent,

perfect in miniature. In another was Napoleon, flag in hand, leading the

charge across the bridge of Lodi. In still another was Napoleon in

Egypt, before the Pyramids, seated, impassive, on his horse, gazing at

the Sphinx, as if about to utter his immortal words to his soldiers:

"Here, forty centuries look down upon us." These object lessons of the

past are all gone now and the land used for more prosaic purposes.

I little thought, as I witnessed that great event in France in 1840,

that fifty-seven years later I should witness a similar pageant in the

American Republic, when our nation paid its last tributes to General

Grant. There are many points of similarity in these great events. As men

they were alike aggressive and self-reliant. In Napoleon's will he

expressed the wish that his last resting place might be in the land and

among the people he loved so well. His desire is fulfilled. He rests in

the chief city of the French republic, whose shores are washed by the

waters of the Seine. General Grant expressed the wish that he might be

interred in our metropolis and added: "Wherever I am buried, I desire

that there shall be room for my wife by my side." His wishes, too, are

fulfilled. He rests in the chief city of the American Republic, whose

shores are washed by the waters of the Hudson, and in his magnificent

mausoleum there is room for his wife by his side.

Several members of the Society of Friends from Boston and Philadelphia,

who had attended the World's Anti-slavery Convention in London, joined

our party for a trip on the Continent. Though opposed to war, they all

took a deep interest in the national excitement and in the pageants that

heralded the expected arrival of the hero from Saint Helena. As they all

wore military coats of the time of George Fox, the soldiers, supposing

they belonged to the army of some country, gave them the military salute

wherever we went, much to their annoyance and our amusement.

In going the rounds, Miss Pugh amused us by reading aloud the

description of what we were admiring and the historical events connected

with that particular building or locality. We urged her to spend the

time taking in all she could see and to read up afterward; but no, a

history of France and Galignani's guide she carried everywhere, and,

while the rest of us looked until we were fully satisfied, she took a

bird's-eye view and read the description. Dear little woman! She was a

fine scholar, a good historian, was well informed on all subjects and

countries, proved an invaluable traveling companion, and could tell more

of what we saw than all the rest of us together.

On several occasions we chanced to meet Louis Philippe dashing by in an

open barouche. We felt great satisfaction in remembering that at one

time he was an exile in our country, where he earned his living by

teaching school. What an honor for Yankee children to have been taught,

by a French king, the rudiments of his language.

Having been accustomed to the Puritan Sunday of restraint and solemnity,

I found that day in Paris gay and charming. The first time I entered

into some of the festivities, I really expected to be struck by

lightning. The libraries, art galleries, concert halls, and theaters

were all open to the people. Bands of music were playing in the parks,

where whole families, with their luncheons, spent the day--husbands,

wives, and children, on an excursion together. The boats on the Seine

and all public conveyances were crowded. Those who had but this one day

for pleasure seemed determined to make the most of it. A wonderful

contrast with that gloomy day in London, where all places of amusement

were closed and nothing open to the people but the churches and drinking

saloons. The streets and houses in which Voltaire, La Fayette, Mme. de

Staël, Mme. Roland, Charlotte Corday, and other famous men and women

lived and died, were pointed out to us. We little thought, then, of all

the terrible scenes to be enacted in Paris, nor that France would emerge

from the dangers that beset her on every side into a sister republic. It

has been a wonderful achievement, with kings and Popes all plotting

against her experiment, that she has succeeded in putting kingcraft

under her feet and proclaimed liberty, equality, fraternity for her

people.

After a few weeks in France, we returned to London, traveling through

England, Ireland, and Scotland for several months. We visited the scenes

that Shakespeare, Burns, and Dickens had made classic. We spent a few

days at Huntingdon, the home of Oliver Cromwell, and visited the estate

where he passed his early married life. While there, one of his great

admirers read aloud to us a splendid article in one of the reviews,

written by Carlyle, giving "The Protector," as his friend said, his true

place in history. It was long the fashion of England's historians to

represent Cromwell as a fanatic and hypocrite, but his character was

vindicated by later writers. "Never," says Macaulay, "was a ruler so

conspicuously born for sovereignty. The cup which has intoxicated almost

all others sobered him."

We saw the picturesque ruins of Kenilworth Castle, the birthplace of

Shakespeare, the homes of Byron and Mary Chaworth, wandered through

Newstead Abbey, saw the monument to the faithful dog, and the large

dining room where Byron and his boon companions used to shoot at a mark.

It was a desolate region. We stopped a day or two at Ayr and drove out

to the birthplace of Burns. The old house that had sheltered him was

still there, but its walls now echoed to other voices, and the fields

where he had toiled were plowed by other hands. We saw the stream and

banks where he and Mary sat together, the old stone church where the

witches held their midnight revels, the two dogs, and the bridge of Ayr.

With Burns, as with Sappho, it was love that awoke his heart to song. A

bonny lass who worked with him in the harvest field inspired his first

attempts at rhyme. Life, with Burns, was one long, hard struggle. With

his natural love for the beautiful, the terrible depression of spirits

he suffered from his dreary surroundings was inevitable. The interest

great men took in him, when they awoke to his genius, came too late for

his safety and encouragement. In a glass of whisky he found, at last,

the rest and cheer he never knew when sober. Poverty and ignorance are

the parents of intemperance, and that vice will never be suppressed

until the burdens of life are equally shared by all.

We saw Melrose by moonlight, spent several hours at Abbotsford, and

lingered in the little sanctum sanctorum where Scott wrote his immortal

works. It was so small that he could reach the bookshelves on every

side. We went through the prisons, castles, and narrow streets of

Edinburgh, where the houses are seven and eight stories high, each story

projecting a few feet until, at the uppermost, opposite neighbors could

easily shake hands and chat together. All the intervals from active

sight-seeing we spent in reading the lives of historical personages in

poetry and prose, until our sympathies flowed out to the real and ideal

characters. Lady Jane Grey, Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, Ellen

Douglas, Jeanie and Effie Deans, Highland Mary, Rebecca the Jewess, Di

Vernon, and Rob Roy all alike seemed real men and women, whose shades or

descendants we hoped to meet on their native heath.

Here among the Scotch lakes and mountains Mr. Stanton and I were

traveling alone for the first time since our marriage, and as we both

enjoyed walking, we made many excursions on foot to points that could

not be reached in any other way. We spent some time among the Grampian

Hills, so familiar to every schoolboy, walking, and riding about on

donkeys. We sailed up and down Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond. My husband

was writing letters for some New York newspapers on the entire trip, and

aimed to get exact knowledge of all we saw; thus I had the advantage of

the information he gathered. On these long tramps I wore a short dress,

reaching just below the knee, of dark-blue cloth, a military cap of the

same material that shaded my eyes, and a pair of long boots, made on the

masculine pattern then generally worn--the most easy style for walking,

as the pressure is equal on the whole foot and the ankle has free play.

Thus equipped, and early trained by my good brother-in-law to long

walks, I found no difficulty in keeping pace with my husband.

Being self-reliant and venturesome in our explorations, we occasionally

found ourselves involved in grave difficulties by refusing to take a

guide. For instance, we decided to go to the top of Ben Nevis alone. It

looked to us a straightforward piece of business to walk up a mountain

side on a bee line, and so, in the face of repeated warnings by our

host, we started. We knew nothing of zigzag paths to avoid the rocks,

the springs, and swamps; in fact we supposed all mountains smooth and

dry, like our native hills that we were accustomed to climb. The

landlord shook his head and smiled when we told him we should return at

noon to dinner, and we smiled, too, thinking he placed a low estimate on

our capacity for walking. But we had not gone far when we discovered the

difficulties ahead. Some places were so steep that I had to hold on to

my companion's coat tails, while he held on to rocks and twigs, or

braced himself with a heavy cane. By the time we were halfway up we were

in a dripping perspiration, our feet were soaking wet, and we were

really too tired to proceed. But, after starting with such supreme

confidence in ourselves, we were ashamed to confess our fatigue to each

other, and much more to return and verify all the prognostications of

the host and his guides. So we determined to push on and do what we had

proposed. With the prospect of a magnificent view and an hour's

delicious rest on the top, we started with renewed courage. A steady

climb of six hours brought us to the goal of promise; our ascent was

accomplished. But alas! it was impossible to stop there--the cold wind

chilled us to the bone in a minute. So we took one glance at the world

below and hurried down the south side to get the mountain between us and

the cold northeaster.

When your teeth are chattering with the cold, and the wind threatening

to make havoc with your raiment, you are not in a favorable condition to

appreciate grand scenery. Like the king of France with twice ten

thousand men, we marched up the hill and then, marched down again. We

found descending still more difficult, as we were in constant fear of

slipping, losing our hold, and rolling to the bottom. We were tired,

hungry, and disappointed, and the fear of not reaching the valley before

nightfall pressed heavily upon us. Neither confessed to the other the

fatigue and apprehension each felt, but, with fresh endeavor and words

of encouragement, we cautiously went on. We accidentally struck a trail

that led us winding down comfortably some distance, but we lost it, and

went clambering down as well as we could in our usual way. To add to our

misery, a dense Scotch mist soon enveloped us, so that we could see but

a short distance ahead, and not knowing the point from which we started,

we feared we might be going far out of our way. The coming twilight,

too, made the prospect still darker. Fortunately our host, having less

faith in us than we had in ourselves, sent a guide to reconnoiter, and,

just at the moment when we began to realize our danger of spending the

night on the mountain, and to admit it to each other, the welcome guide

hailed us in his broad accent. His shepherd dog led the way into the

beaten path. As I could hardly stand I took the guide's arm, and when we

reached the bottom two donkeys were in readiness to take us to the

hotel.

We did not recover from the fatigue of that expedition in several days,

and we made no more experiments of exploring strange places without

guides. We learned, too, that mountains are not so hospitable as they

seem nor so gently undulating as they appear in the distance, and that

guides serve other purposes besides extorting money from travelers. If,

under their guidance, we had gone up and down easily, we should always

have thought we might as well have gone alone. So our experience gave us

a good lesson in humility. We had been twelve hours on foot with nothing

to eat, when at last we reached the hotel. We were in no mood for

boasting of the success of our excursion, and our answers were short to

inquiries as to how we had passed the day.

Being tired of traveling and contending about woman's sphere with the

Rev. John Scoble, an Englishman, who escorted Mr. Birney and Mr. Stanton

on their tour through the country, I decided to spend a month in Dublin;

while the gentlemen held meetings in Cork, Belfast, Waterford, Limerick,

and other chief towns, finishing the series with a large, enthusiastic

gathering in Dublin, at which O'Connell made one of his most withering

speeches on American slavery; the inconsistency of such an "institution"

with the principles of a republican government giving full play to his

powers of sarcasm. On one occasion, when introduced to a slaveholder, he

put his hands behind his back, refusing to recognize a man who bought

and sold his fellow-beings. The Rev. John Scoble was one of the most

conceited men I ever met. His narrow ideas in regard to woman, and the

superiority of the royal and noble classes in his own country, were to

me so exasperating that I grew more and more bellicose every day we

traveled in company. He was terribly seasick crossing the Channel, to my

intense satisfaction. As he always boasted of his distinguished

countrymen, I suggested, in the midst of one of his most agonizing

spasms, that he ought to find consolation in the fact that Lord Nelson

was always seasick on the slightest provocation.

The poverty in Ireland was a continual trial to our sensibilities;

beggars haunted our footsteps everywhere, in the street and on the

highways, crouching on the steps of the front door and on the

curbstones, and surrounding our carriage wherever and whenever we

stopped to shop or make a visit. The bony hands and sunken eyes and

sincere gratitude expressed for every penny proved their suffering real.

As my means were limited and I could not pass one by, I got a pound

changed into pennies, and put them in a green bag, which I took in the

carriage wherever I went. It was but a drop in the ocean, but it was all

I could do to relieve that unfathomed misery. The poverty I saw

everywhere in the Old World, and especially in Ireland, was a puzzling

problem to my mind, but I rejected the idea that it was a necessary link

in human experience--that it always had been and always must be.

As we drove, day by day, in that magnificent Phoenix Park, of fifteen

hundred acres, one of the largest parks, I believe, in the world, I

would often put the question to myself, what right have the few to make

a pleasure ground of these acres, while the many have nowhere to lay

their heads, crouching under stiles and bridges, clothed in rags, and

feeding on sea-weed with no hope, in the slowly passing years, of any

change for the better? The despair stamped on every brow told the sad

story of their wrongs. Those accustomed to such everyday experiences

brush beggars aside as they would so many flies, but those to whom such

sights are new cannot so easily quiet their own consciences. Everyone in

the full enjoyment of all the blessings of life, in his normal

condition, feels some individual responsibility for the poverty of

others. When the sympathies are not blunted by any false philosophy, one

feels reproached by one's own abundance. I once heard a young girl,

about to take her summer outing, when asked by her grandmother if she

had all the dresses she needed, reply, "Oh, yes! I was oppressed with a

constant sense of guilt, when packing, to see how much I had, while so

many girls have nothing decent to wear."

More than half a century has rolled by since I stood on Irish soil, and

shed tears of pity for the wretchedness I saw, and no change for the

better has as yet come to that unhappy people--yet this was the land of

Burke, Grattan, Shiel, and Emmett; the land into which Christianity was

introduced in the fifth century, St. Patrick being the chief apostle of

the new faith. In the sixth century Ireland sent forth missionaries from

her monasteries to convert Great Britain and the nations of Northern

Europe. From the eighth to the twelfth century Irish scholars held an

enviable reputation. In fact, Ireland was the center of learning at one

time. The arts, too, were cultivated by her people; and the round

towers, still pointed out to travelers, are believed to be the remains

of the architecture of the tenth century. The ruin of Ireland must be

traced to other causes than the character of the people or the Catholic

religion. Historians give us facts showing English oppressions

sufficient to destroy any nation.

The short, dark days of November intensified, in my eyes, the gloomy

prospects of that people, and made the change to the _Sirius_ of the

Cunard Line, the first regular Atlantic steamship to cross the ocean,

most enjoyable. Once on the boundless ocean, one sees no beggars, no

signs of human misery, no crumbling ruins of vast cathedral walls, no

records of the downfall of mighty nations, no trace, even, of the mortal

agony of the innumerable host buried beneath her bosom. Byron truly

says:

"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow--

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."

When we embarked on the _Sirius_, we had grave doubts as to our safety

and the probability of our reaching the other side, as we did not feel

that ocean steamers had yet been fairly tried. But, after a passage of

eighteen days, eleven hours, and fifteen minutes, we reached Boston,

having spent six hours at Halifax. We little thought that the steamer

_Sirius_ of fifty years ago would ever develop into the magnificent

floating palaces of to-day--three times as large and three times as

swift. In spite of the steamer, however, we had a cold, rough, dreary

voyage, and I have no pleasant memories connected with it. Our

fellow-passengers were all in their staterooms most of the time. Our

good friend Mr. Birney had sailed two weeks before us, and as Mr.

Stanton was confined to his berth, I was thrown on my own resources. I

found my chief amusement in reading novels and playing chess with a

British officer on his way to Canada. When it was possible I walked on

deck with the captain, or sat in some sheltered corner, watching the

waves. We arrived in New York, by rail, the day before Christmas.

Everything looked bright and gay in our streets. It seemed to me that

the sky was clearer, the air more refreshing, and the sunlight more

brilliant than in any other land!

CHAPTER VII.

MOTHERHOOD.

We found my sister Harriet in a new home in Clinton Place (Eighth

Street), New York city, then considered so far up town that Mr. Eaton's

friends were continually asking him why he went so far away from the

social center, though in a few months they followed him. Here we passed

a week. I especially enjoyed seeing my little niece and nephew, the only

grandchildren in the family. The girl was the most beautiful child I

ever saw, and the boy the most intelligent and amusing. He was very fond

of hearing me recite the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes entitled "The

Height of the Ridiculous," which I did many times, but he always wanted

to see the lines that almost killed the man with laughing. He went

around to a number of the bookstores one day and inquired for them. I

told him afterward they were never published; that when Mr. Holmes saw

the effect on his servant he suppressed them, lest they should produce

the same effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the

Boston newspapers. My explanation never satisfied him. I told him he

might write to Mr. Holmes, and ask the privilege of reading the original

manuscript, if it still was or ever had been in existence. As one of my

grand-nephews was troubled in exactly the same way, I decided to appeal

myself to Dr. Holmes for the enlightenment of this second generation. So

I wrote him the following letter, which he kindly answered, telling us

that his "wretched man" was a myth like the heroes in "Mother Goose's

Melodies":

"DEAR DR. HOLMES:

"I have a little nephew to whom I often recite 'The Height of the

Ridiculous,' and he invariably asks for the lines that produced the

fatal effect on your servant. He visited most of the bookstores in

New York city to find them, and nothing but your own word, I am

sure, will ever convince him that the 'wretched man' is but a

figment of your imagination. I tried to satisfy him by saying you

did not dare to publish the lines lest they should produce a

similar effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the

Boston journals.

"However, he wishes me to ask you whether you kept a copy of the

original manuscript, or could reproduce the lines with equal power.

If not too much trouble, please send me a few lines on this point,

and greatly oblige,

"Yours sincerely,

"ELIZABETH CADY STANTON."

"MY DEAR MRS. STANTON:

"I wish you would explain to your little nephew that the story of

the poor fellow who almost died laughing was a kind of a dream of

mine, and not a real thing that happened, any more than that an old

woman 'lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know

what to do,' or that Jack climbed the bean stalk and found the

giant who lived at the top of it. You can explain to him what is

meant by imagination, and thus turn my youthful rhymes into a text

for a discourse worthy of the Concord School of Philosophy. I have

not my poems by me here, but I remember that 'The Height of the

Ridiculous' ended with this verse:

"Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,

I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write

As funny as I can."

"But tell your nephew he mustn't cry about it any more than because

geese go barefoot and bald eagles have no nightcaps. The verses are

in all the editions of my poems.

"Believe me, dear Mrs. Stanton,

"Very Truly and Respectfully Yours,

"OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES."

After spending the holidays in New York city, we started for Johnstown

in a "stage sleigh, conveying the United States mail," drawn by spanking

teams of four horses, up the Hudson River valley. We were three days

going to Albany, stopping over night at various points; a journey now

performed in three hours. The weather was clear and cold, the sleighing

fine, the scenery grand, and our traveling companions most entertaining,

so the trip was very enjoyable. From Albany to Schenectady we went in

the railway cars; then another sleighride of thirty miles brought us to

Johnstown. My native hills, buried under two feet of snow, tinted with

the last rays of the setting sun, were a beautiful and familiar sight.

Though I had been absent but ten months, it seemed like years, and I was

surprised to find how few changes had occurred since I left. My father

and mother, sisters Madge and Kate, the old house and furniture, the

neighbors, all looked precisely the same as when I left them. I had

seen so much and been so constantly on the wing that I wondered that all

things here should have stood still. I expected to hear of many births,

marriages, deaths, and social upheavals, but the village news was

remarkably meager. This hunger for home news on returning is common, I

suppose, to all travelers.

Our trunks unpacked, wardrobes arranged in closets and drawers, the

excitement of seeing friends over, we spent some time in making plans

for the future.

My husband, after some consultation with my father, decided to enter his

office and commence the study of the law. As this arrangement kept me

under the parental roof, I had two added years of pleasure, walking,

driving, and riding on horseback with my sisters. Madge and Kate were

dearer to me than ever, as I saw the inevitable separation awaiting us

in the near future. In due time they were married and commenced

housekeeping--Madge in her husband's house near by, and Kate in Buffalo.

All my sisters were peculiarly fortunate in their marriages; their

husbands being men of fine presence, liberal education, high moral

character, and marked ability. These were pleasant and profitable years.

I devoted them to reading law, history, and political economy, with

occasional interruptions to take part in some temperance or anti-slavery

excitement.

Eliza Murray and I had classes of colored children in the Sunday school.

On one occasion, when there was to be a festival, speaking in the

church, a procession through the streets, and other public performances

for the Sunday-school celebration, some narrow-minded bigots objected to

the colored children taking part. They approached Miss Murray and me

with most persuasive tones on the wisdom of not allowing them to march

in the procession to the church. We said, "Oh, no! It won't do to

disappoint the children. They are all dressed, with their badges on, and

looking forward with great pleasure to the festivities of the day.

Besides, we would not cater to any of these contemptible prejudices

against color." We were all assembled in the courthouse preparatory to

forming in the line of march. Some were determined to drive the colored

children home, but Miss Murray and I, like two defiant hens, kept our

little brood close behind us, determined to conquer or perish in the

struggle. At last milder counsels prevailed, and it was agreed that they

might march in the rear. We made no objection and fell into line, but,

when we reached the church door, it was promptly closed as the last

white child went in. We tried two other doors, but all were guarded. We

shed tears of vexation and pity for the poor children, and, when they

asked us the reason why they could not go in, we were embarrassed and

mortified with the explanation we were forced to give. However, I

invited them to my father's house, where Miss Murray and I gave them

refreshments and entertained them for the rest of the day.

The puzzling questions of theology and poverty that had occupied so much

of my thoughts, now gave place to the practical one, "what to do with a

baby." Though motherhood is the most important of all the

professions,--requiring more knowledge than any other department in

human affairs,--yet there is not sufficient attention given to the

preparation for this office. If we buy a plant of a horticulturist we

ask him many questions as to its needs, whether it thrives best in

sunshine or in shade, whether it needs much or little water, what

degrees of heat or cold; but when we hold in our arms for the first

time, a being of infinite possibilities, in whose wisdom may rest the

destiny of a nation, we take it for granted that the laws governing its

life, health, and happiness are intuitively understood, that there is

nothing new to be learned in regard to it. Yet here is a science to

which philosophers have, as yet, given but little attention. An

important fact has only been discovered and acted upon within the last

ten years, that children come into the world tired, and not hungry,

exhausted with the perilous journey. Instead of being thoroughly bathed

and dressed, and kept on the rack while the nurse makes a prolonged

toilet and feeds it some nostrum supposed to have much needed medicinal

influence, the child's face, eyes, and mouth should be hastily washed

with warm water, and the rest of its body thoroughly oiled, and then it

should be slipped into a soft pillow case, wrapped in a blanket, and

laid to sleep. Ordinarily, in the proper conditions, with its face

uncovered in a cool, pure atmosphere, it will sleep twelve hours. Then

it should be bathed, fed, and clothed in a high-necked, long-sleeved

silk shirt and a blanket, all of which could be done in five minutes. As

babies lie still most of the time the first six weeks, they need no

dressing. I think the nurse was a full hour bathing and dressing my

firstborn, who protested with a melancholy wail every blessed minute.

Ignorant myself of the initiative steps on the threshold of time, I

supposed this proceeding was approved by the best authorities. However,

I had been thinking, reading, observing, and had as little faith in the

popular theories in regard to babies as on any other subject. I saw

them, on all sides, ill half the time, pale and peevish, dying early,

having no joy in life. I heard parents complaining of weary days and

sleepless nights, while each child, in turn, ran the gauntlet of red

gum, jaundice, whooping cough, chicken-pox, mumps, measles, scarlet

fever, and fits. They all seemed to think these inflictions were a part

of the eternal plan--that Providence had a kind of Pandora's box, from

which he scattered these venerable diseases most liberally among those

whom he especially loved. Having gone through the ordeal of bearing a

child, I was determined, if possible, to keep him, so I read everything

I could find on the subject. But the literature on this subject was as

confusing and unsatisfactory as the longer and shorter catechisms and

the Thirty-nine Articles of our faith. I had recently visited our dear

friends, Theodore and Angelina Grimke-Weld, and they warned me against

books on this subject. They had been so misled by one author, who

assured them that the stomach of a child could only hold one

tablespoonful, that they nearly starved their firstborn to death. Though

the child dwindled, day by day, and, at the end of a month, looked like

a little old man, yet they still stood by the distinguished author.

Fortunately, they both went off, one day, and left the child with Sister

"Sarah," who thought she would make an experiment and see what a child's

stomach could hold, as she had grave doubts about the tablespoonful

theory. To her surprise the baby took a pint bottle full of milk, and

had the sweetest sleep thereon he had known in his earthly career. After

that he was permitted to take what he wanted, and "the author" was

informed of his libel on the infantile stomach.

So here, again, I was entirely afloat, launched on the seas of doubt

without chart or compass. The life and well-being of the race seemed to

hang on the slender thread of such traditions as were handed down

by-ignorant mothers and nurses. One powerful ray of light illuminated

the darkness; it was the work of Andrew Combe on "Infancy." He had,

evidently watched some of the manifestations of man in the first stages

of his development, and could tell, at least, as much of babies as

naturalists could of beetles and bees. He did give young mothers some

hints of what to do, the whys and wherefores of certain lines of

procedure during antenatal life, as well as the proper care thereafter.

I read several chapters to the nurse. Although, out of her ten children,

she had buried five, she still had too much confidence in her own wisdom

and experience to pay much attention to any new idea that might be

suggested to her. Among other things, Combe said that a child's bath

should be regulated by the thermometer, in order to be always of the

same temperature. She ridiculed the idea, and said her elbow was better

than any thermometer, and, when I insisted on its use, she would

invariably, with a smile of derision, put her elbow in first, to show

how exactly it tallied with the thermometer. When I insisted that the

child should not be bandaged, she rebelled outright, and said she would

not take the responsibility of nursing a child without a bandage. I

said, "Pray, sit down, dear nurse, and let us reason together. Do not

think I am setting up my judgment against yours, with all your

experience. I am simply trying to act on the opinions of a

distinguished physician, who says there should be no pressure on a child

anywhere; that the limbs and body should be free; that it is cruel to

bandage an infant from hip to armpit, as is usually done in America; or

both body and legs, as is done in Europe; or strap them to boards, as is

done by savages on both continents. Can you give me one good reason,

nurse, why a child should be bandaged?"

"Yes," she said emphatically, "I can give you a dozen."

"I only asked for one," I replied.

"Well," said she, after much hesitation, "the bones of a newborn infant

are soft, like cartilage, and, unless you pin them up snugly, there is

danger of their falling apart."

"It seems to me," I replied, "you have given the strongest reason why

they should be carefully guarded against the slightest pressure. It is

very remarkable that kittens and puppies should be so well put together

that they need no artificial bracing, and the human family be left

wholly to the mercy of a bandage. Suppose a child was born where you

could not get a bandage, what then? Now I think this child will remain

intact without a bandage, and, if I am willing to take the risk, why

should you complain?"

"Because," said she, "if the child should die, it would injure my name

as a nurse. I therefore wash my hands of all these new-fangled notions."

So she bandaged the child every morning, and I as regularly took it off.

It has been fully proved since to be as useless an appendage as the

vermiform. She had several cups with various concoctions of herbs

standing on the chimney-corner, ready for insomnia, colic, indigestion,

etc., etc., all of which were spirited away when she was at her dinner.

In vain I told her we were homeopathists, and afraid of everything in

the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdoms lower than the two-hundredth

dilution. I tried to explain the Hahnemann system of therapeutics, the

philosophy of the principle _similia similibus curantur_, but she had no

capacity for first principles, and did not understand my discourse. I

told her that, if she would wash the baby's mouth with pure cold water

morning and night and give it a teaspoonful to drink occasionally during

the day, there would be no danger of red gum; that if she would keep the

blinds open and let in the air and sunshine, keep the temperature of the

room at sixty-five degrees, leave the child's head uncovered so that it

could breathe freely, stop rocking and trotting it and singing such

melancholy hymns as "Hark, from the tombs a doleful sound!" the baby and

I would both be able to weather the cape without a bandage. I told her I

should nurse the child once in two hours, and that she must not feed it

any of her nostrums in the meantime; that a child's stomach, being made

on the same general plan as our own, needed intervals of rest as well as

ours. She said it would be racked with colic if the stomach was empty

any length of time, and that it would surely have rickets if it were

kept too still. I told her if the child had no anodynes, nature would

regulate its sleep and motions. She said she could not stay in a room

with the thermometer at sixty-five degrees, so I told her to sit in the

next room and regulate the heat to suit herself; that I would ring a

bell when her services were needed.

The reader will wonder, no doubt, that I kept such a cantankerous

servant. I could get no other. Dear "Mother Monroe," as wise as she was

good, and as tender as she was strong, who had nursed two generations of

mothers in our village, was engaged at that time, and I was compelled to

take an exotic. I had often watched "Mother Monroe" with admiration, as

she turned and twisted my sister's baby. It lay as peacefully in her

hands as if they were lined with eider down. She bathed and dressed it

by easy stages, turning the child over and over like a pancake. But she

was so full of the magnetism of human love, giving the child, all the

time, the most consoling assurance that the operation was to be a short

one, that the whole proceeding was quite entertaining to the observer

and seemingly agreeable to the child, though it had a rather surprised

look as it took a bird's-eye view, in quick succession, of the ceiling

and the floor. Still my nurse had her good points. She was very pleasant

when she had her own way. She was neat and tidy, and ready to serve me

at any time, night or day. She did not wear false teeth that rattled

when she talked, nor boots that squeaked when she walked. She did not

snuff nor chew cloves, nor speak except when spoken to. Our discussions,

on various points, went on at intervals, until I succeeded in planting

some ideas in her mind, and when she left me, at the end of six weeks,

she confessed that she had learned some valuable lessons. As the baby

had slept quietly most of the time, had no crying spells, nor colic, and

I looked well, she naturally came to the conclusion that pure air,

sunshine, proper dressing, and regular feeding were more necessary for

babies than herb teas and soothing syrups.

Besides the obstinacy of the nurse, I had the ignorance of physicians

to contend with. When the child was four days old we discovered that the

collar bone was bent. The physician, wishing to get a pressure on the

shoulder, braced the bandage round the wrist. "Leave that," he said,

"ten days, and then it will be all right." Soon after he left I noticed

that the child's hand was blue, showing that the circulation was

impeded. "That will never do," said I; "nurse, take it off." "No,

indeed," she answered, "I shall never interfere with the doctor." So I

took it off myself, and sent for another doctor, who was said to know

more of surgery. He expressed great surprise that the first physician

called should have put on so severe a bandage. "That," said he, "would

do for a grown man, but ten days of it on a child would make him a

cripple." However, he did nearly the same thing, only fastening it round

the hand instead of the wrist. I soon saw that the ends of the fingers

were all purple, and that to leave that on ten days would be as

dangerous as the first. So I took that off.

"What a woman!" exclaimed the nurse. "What do you propose to do?"

"Think out something better, myself; so brace me up with some pillows

and give the baby to me."

She looked at me aghast and said, "You'd better trust the doctors, or

your child will be a helpless cripple."

"Yes," I replied, "he would be, if we had left either of those bandages

on, but I have an idea of something better."

"Now," said I, talking partly to myself and partly to her, "what we want

is a little pressure on that bone; that is what both those men aimed at.

How can we get it without involving the arm, is the question?"

"I am sure I don't know," said she, rubbing her hands and taking two or

three brisk turns round the room.

"Well, bring me three strips of linen, four double." I then folded one,

wet in arnica and water, and laid it on the collar bone, put two other

bands, like a pair of suspenders, over the shoulders, crossing them both

in front and behind, pinning the ends to the diaper, which gave the

needed pressure without impeding the circulation anywhere. As I finished

she gave me a look of budding confidence, and seemed satisfied that all

was well. Several times, night and day, we wet the compress and

readjusted the bands, until all appearances of inflammation had

subsided.

At the end of ten days the two sons of Aesculapius appeared and made

their examination and said all was right, whereupon I told them how

badly their bandages worked and what I had done myself. They smiled at

each other, and one said:

"Well, after all, a mother's instinct is better than a man's reason."

"Thank you, gentlemen, there was no instinct about it. I did some hard

thinking before I saw how I could get a pressure on the shoulder without

impeding the circulation, as you did."

Thus, in the supreme moment of a young mother's life, when I needed

tender care and support, I felt the whole responsibility of my child's

supervision; but though uncertain at every step of my own knowledge, I

learned another lesson in self-reliance. I trusted neither men nor books

absolutely after this, either in regard to the heavens above or the

earth beneath, but continued to use my "mother's instinct," if "reason"

is too dignified a term to apply to woman's thoughts. My advice to every

mother is, above all other arts and sciences, study first what relates

to babyhood, as there is no department of human action in which there is

such lamentable ignorance.

At the end of six weeks my nurse departed, and I had a good woman in her

place who obeyed my orders, and now a new difficulty arose from an

unexpected quarter. My father and husband took it into their heads that

the child slept too much. If not awake when they wished to look at him

or to show him to their friends, they would pull him out of his crib on

all occasions. When I found neither of them was amenable to reason on

this point, I locked the door, and no amount of eloquent pleading ever

gained them admittance during the time I considered sacred to the baby's

slumbers. At six months having, as yet, had none of the diseases

supposed to be inevitable, the boy weighed thirty pounds. Then the

stately Peter came again into requisition, and in his strong arms the

child spent many of his waking hours. Peter, with a long, elephantine

gait, slowly wandered over the town, lingering especially in the busy

marts of trade. Peter's curiosity had strengthened with years, and,

wherever a crowd gathered round a monkey and hand organ, a vender's

wagon, an auction stand, or the post office at mail time, there stood

Peter, black as coal, with "the beautiful boy in white," the most

conspicuous figure in the crowd. As I told Peter never to let children

kiss the baby, for fear of some disease, he kept him well aloft,

allowing no affectionate manifestations except toward himself.

My reading, at this time, centered on hygiene. I came to the

conclusion, after much thought and observation, that children never

cried unless they were uncomfortable. A professor at Union College, who

used to combat many of my theories, said he gave one of his children a

sound spanking at six weeks, and it never disturbed him a night

afterward. Another Solomon told me that a very weak preparation of opium

would keep a child always quiet and take it through the dangerous period

of teething without a ripple on the surface of domestic life. As

children cannot tell what ails them, and suffer from many things of

which parents are ignorant, the crying of the child should arouse them

to an intelligent examination. To spank it for crying is to silence the

watchman on the tower through fear, to give soothing syrup is to drug

the watchman while the evils go on. Parents may thereby insure eight

hours' sleep at the time, but at the risk of greater trouble in the

future with sick and dying children. Tom Moore tells us "the heart from

love to one, grows bountiful to all." I know the care of one child made

me thoughtful of all. I never hear a child cry, now, that I do not feel

that I am bound to find out the reason.

In my extensive travels on lecturing tours, in after years, I had many

varied experiences with babies. One day, in the cars, a child was crying

near me, while the parents were alternately shaking and slapping it.

First one would take it with an emphatic jerk, and then the other. At

last I heard the father say in a spiteful tone, "If you don't stop I'll

throw you out of the window." One naturally hesitates about interfering

between parents and children, so I generally restrain myself as long as

I can endure the torture of witnessing such outrages, but at length I

turned and said:

"Let me take your child and see if I can find out what ails it."

"Nothing ails it," said the father, "but bad temper."

The child readily came to me. I felt all around to see if its clothes

pinched anywhere, or if there were any pins pricking. I took off its hat

and cloak to see if there were any strings cutting its neck or choking

it. Then I glanced at the feet, and lo! there was the trouble. The boots

were at least one size too small. I took them off, and the stockings,

too, and found the feet as cold as ice and the prints of the stockings

clearly traced on the tender flesh. We all know the agony of tight

boots. I rubbed the feet and held them in my hands until they were warm,

when the poor little thing fell asleep. I said to the parents, "You are

young people, I see, and this is probably your first child." They said,

"Yes." "You don't intend to be cruel, I know, but if you had thrown

those boots out of the window, when you threatened to throw the child,

it would have been wiser. This poor child has suffered ever since it was

dressed this morning." I showed them the marks on the feet, and called

their attention to the fact that the child fell asleep as soon as its

pain was relieved. The mother said she knew the boots were tight, as it

was with difficulty she could get them on, but the old ones were too

shabby for the journey and they had no time to change the others.

"Well," said the husband, "if I had known those boots were tight, I

would have thrown them out of the window."

"Now," said I, "let me give you one rule: when your child cries,

remember it is telling you, as well as it can, that something hurts it,

either outside or in, and do not rest until you find what it is.

Neither spanking, shaking, or scolding can relieve pain."

I have seen women enter the cars with their babies' faces completely

covered with a blanket shawl. I have often thought I would like to cover

their faces for an hour and see how they would bear it. In such

circumstances, in order to get the blanket open, I have asked to see the

baby, and generally found it as red as a beet. Ignorant nurses and

mothers have discovered that children sleep longer with their heads

covered. They don't know why, nor the injurious effect of breathing over

and over the same air that has been thrown off the lungs polluted with

carbonic acid gas. This stupefies the child and prolongs the unhealthy

slumber.

One hot day, in the month of May, I entered a crowded car at Cedar

Rapids, Ia., and took the only empty seat beside a gentleman who seemed

very nervous about a crying child. I was scarcely seated when he said:

"Mother, do you know anything about babies?"

"Oh, yes!" I said, smiling, "that is a department of knowledge on which

I especially pride myself."

"Well," said he, "there is a child that has cried most of the time for

the last twenty-four hours. What do you think ails it?"

Making a random supposition, I replied, "It probably needs a bath."

He promptly rejoined, "If you will give it one, I will provide the

necessary means."

I said, "I will first see if the child will come to me and if the mother

is willing."

I found the mother only too glad to have a few minutes' rest, and the

child too tired to care who took it. She gave me a suit of clean

clothes throughout, the gentleman spread his blanket shawl on the seat,

securing the opposite one for me and the bathing appliances. Then he

produced a towel, sponge, and an india-rubber bowl full of water, and I

gave the child a generous drink and a thorough ablution. It stretched

and seemed to enjoy every step of the proceeding, and, while I was

brushing its golden curls as gently as I could, it fell asleep; so I

covered it with the towel and blanket shawl, not willing to disturb it

for dressing. The poor mother, too, was sound asleep, and the gentleman

very happy. He had children of his own and, like me, felt great pity for

the poor, helpless little victim of ignorance and folly. I engaged one

of the ladies to dress it when it awoke, as I was soon to leave the

train. It slept the two hours I remained--how much longer I never heard.

A young man, who had witnessed the proceeding, got off at the same

station and accosted me, saying:

"I should be very thankful if you would come and see my baby. It is only

one month old and cries all the time, and my wife, who is only sixteen

years old, is worn out with it and neither of us know what to do, so we

all cry together, and the doctor says he does not see what ails it."

So I went on my mission of mercy and found the child bandaged as tight

as a drum. When I took out the pins and unrolled it, it fairly popped

like the cork out of a champagne bottle. I rubbed its breast and its

back and soon soothed it to sleep. I remained a long time, telling them

how to take care of the child and the mother, too. I told them

everything I could think of in regard to clothes, diet, and pure air. I

asked the mother why she bandaged her child as she did. She said her

nurse told her that there was danger of hernia unless the abdomen was

well bandaged. I told her that the only object of a bandage was to

protect the navel, for a few days, until it was healed, and for that

purpose all that was necessary was a piece of linen four inches square,

well oiled, folded four times double, with a hole in the center, laid

over it. I remembered, next day, that I forgot to tell them to give the

child water, and so I telegraphed them, "Give the baby water six times a

day." I heard of that baby afterward. It lived and flourished, and the

parents knew how to administer to the wants of the next one. The father

was a telegraph operator and had many friends--knights of the

key--throughout Iowa. For many years afterward, in leisure moments,

these knights would "call up" this parent and say, over the wire, "Give

the baby water six times a day." Thus did they "repeat the story, and

spread the truth from pole to pole."

CHAPTER VIII.

BOSTON AND CHELSEA.

In the autumn of 1843 my husband was admitted to the bar and commenced

the practice of law in Boston with Mr. Bowles, brother-in-law of the

late General John A. Dix. This gave me the opportunity to make many

pleasant acquaintances among the lawyers in Boston, and to meet,

intimately, many of the noble men and women among reformers, whom I had

long worshiped at a distance. Here, for the first time, I met Lydia

Maria Child, Abby Kelly, Paulina Wright, Elizabeth Peabody, Maria

Chapman and her beautiful sisters, the Misses Weston, Oliver and

Marianna Johnson, Joseph and Thankful Southwick and their three bright

daughters. The home of the Southwicks was always a harbor of rest for

the weary, where the anti-slavery hosts were wont to congregate, and

where one was always sure to meet someone worth knowing. Their

hospitality was generous to an extreme, and so boundless that they were,

at last, fairly eaten out of house and home. Here, too, for the first

time, I met Theodore Parker, John Pierpont, John G. Whittier, Emerson,

Alcott, Lowell, Hawthorne, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E. Sewall, Sidney Howard

Gay, Pillsbury, Foster, Frederick Douglass, and last though not least,

those noble men, Charles Hovey and Francis Jackson, the only men who

ever left any money to the cause of woman suffrage. I also met Miss

Jackson, afterward Mrs. Eddy, who left half her fortune, fifty thousand

dollars, for the same purpose.

I was a frequent visitor at the home of William Lloyd Garrison. Though

he had a prolonged battle to fight in the rough outside world, his home

was always a haven of rest. Mrs. Garrison was a sweet-tempered,

conscientious woman, who tried, under all circumstances, to do what was

right. She had sound judgment and rare common sense, was tall and

fine-looking, with luxuriant brown hair, large tender blue eyes,

delicate features, and affable manners. They had an exceptionally fine

family of five sons and one daughter. Fanny, now the wife of Henry

Villard, the financier, was the favorite and pet. All the children, in

their maturer years, have fulfilled the promises of their childhood.

Though always in straitened circumstances, the Garrisons were very

hospitable. It was next to impossible for Mr. Garrison to meet a friend

without inviting him to his house, especially at the close of a

convention.

I was one of twelve at one of his impromptu tea parties. We all took it

for granted that his wife knew we were coming, and that her preparations

were already made. Surrounded by half a dozen children, she was

performing the last act in the opera of Lullaby, wholly unconscious of

the invasion downstairs. But Mr. Garrison was equal to every emergency,

and, after placing his guests at their ease in the parlor, he hastened

to the nursery, took off his coat, and rocked the baby until his wife

had disposed of the remaining children. Then they had a consultation

about the tea, and when, basket in hand, the good man sallied forth for

the desired viands, Mrs. Garrison, having made a hasty toilet, came

down to welcome her guests. She was as genial and self-possessed as if

all things had been prepared. She made no apologies for what was lacking

in the general appearance of the house nor in the variety of the

_menu_--it was sufficient for her to know that Mr. Garrison was happy in

feeling free to invite his friends. The impromptu meal was excellent,

and we had a most enjoyable evening. I have no doubt that Mrs. Garrison

had more real pleasure than if she had been busy all day making

preparations and had been tired out when her guests arrived.

The anti-slavery conventions and fairs, held every year during the

holidays, brought many charming people from other States, and made

Boston a social center for the coadjutors of Garrison and Phillips.

These conventions surpassed any meetings I had ever attended; the

speeches were eloquent and the debates earnest and forcible. Garrison

and Phillips were in their prime, and slavery was a question of national

interest. The hall in which the fairs were held, under the auspices of

Mrs. Chapman and her cohorts, was most artistically decorated. There one

could purchase whatever the fancy could desire, for English friends,

stimulated by the appeals of Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Pease, used

to send boxes of beautiful things, gathered from all parts of the

Eastern Continent. There, too, one could get a most _recherché_ luncheon

in the society of the literati of Boston; for, however indifferent many

were to slavery _per se_, they enjoyed these fairs, and all classes

flocked there till far into the night. It was a kind of ladies' exchange

for the holiday week, where each one was sure to meet her friends. The

fair and the annual convention, coming in succession, intensified the

interest in both. I never grew weary of the conventions, though I

attended all the sessions, lasting, sometimes, until eleven o'clock at

night. The fiery eloquence of the abolitionists, the amusing episodes

that occurred when some crank was suppressed and borne out on the

shoulders of his brethren, gave sufficient variety to the proceedings to

keep the interest up to high-water mark.

There was one old man dressed in white, carrying a scythe, who imagined

himself the personification of "Time," though called "Father Lampson."

Occasionally he would bubble over with some prophetic vision, and, as he

could not be silenced, he was carried out. He usually made himself as

limp as possible, which added to the difficulty of his exit and the

amusement of the audience. A ripple of merriment would unsettle, for a

moment, even the dignity of the platform when Abigail Folsom, another

crank, would shout from the gallery, "Stop not, my brother, on the order

of your going, but go." The abolitionists were making the experiment, at

this time, of a free platform, allowing everyone to speak as moved by

the spirit, but they soon found that would not do, as those evidently

moved by the spirit of mischief were quite as apt to air their vagaries

as those moved by the spirit of truth.

However, the Garrisonian platform always maintained a certain degree of

freedom outside its regular programme, and, although this involved extra

duty in suppressing cranks, yet the meeting gained enthusiasm by some

good spontaneous speaking on the floor as well as on the platform. A

number of immense mass meetings were held in Faneuil Hall, a large,

dreary place, with its bare walls and innumerable dingy windows. The

only attempt at an ornament was the American eagle, with its wings

spread and claws firmly set, in the middle of the gallery. The gilt was

worn off its beak, giving it the appearance, as Edmund Quincy said, of

having a bad cold in the head.

This old hall was sacred to so many memories connected with the early

days of the Revolution that it was a kind of Mecca for the lovers of

liberty visiting Boston. The anti-slavery meetings held there were often

disturbed by mobs that would hold the most gifted orator at bay hour

after hour, and would listen only to the songs of the Hutchinson family.

Although these songs were a condensed extract of the whole anti-slavery

constitution and by-laws, yet the mob was as peaceful under these paeans

to liberty as a child under the influence of an anodyne. What a welcome

and beautiful vision that was when the four brothers, in blue broadcloth

and white collars, turned down _à la_ Byron, and little sister Abby in

silk, soft lace, and blue ribbon, appeared on the platform to sing their

quaint ballads of freedom! Fresh from the hills of New Hampshire, they

looked so sturdy, so vigorous, so pure, so true that they seemed fitting

representatives of all the cardinal virtues, and even a howling mob

could not resist their influence. Perhaps, after one of their ballads,

the mob would listen five minutes to Wendell Phillips or Garrison until

he gave them some home thrusts, when all was uproar again. The Northern

merchants who made their fortunes out of Southern cotton, the

politicians who wanted votes, and the ministers who wanted to keep peace

in the churches, were all as much opposed to the anti-slavery agitation

as were the slaveholders themselves. These were the classes the mob

represented, though seemingly composed of gamblers, liquor dealers, and

demagogues. For years the anti-slavery struggle at the North was carried

on against statecraft, priestcraft, the cupidity of the moneyed classes,

and the ignorance of the masses, but, in spite of all these forces of

evil, it triumphed at last.

I was in Boston at the time that Lane and Wright, some metaphysical

Englishmen, and our own Alcott held their famous philosophical

conversations, in which Elizabeth Peabody took part. I went to them

regularly. I was ambitious to absorb all the wisdom I could, but,

really, I could not give an intelligent report of the points under

discussion at any sitting. Oliver Johnson asked me, one day, if I

enjoyed them. I thought, from a twinkle in his eye, that he thought I

did not, so I told him I was ashamed to confess that I did not know what

they were talking about. He said, "Neither do I,--very few of their

hearers do,--so you need not be surprised that they are incomprehensible

to you, nor think less of your own capacity."

I was indebted to Mr. Johnson for several of the greatest pleasures I

enjoyed in Boston. He escorted me to an entire course of Theodore

Parker's lectures, given in Marlborough Chapel. This was soon after the

great preacher had given his famous sermon on "The Permanent and

Transient in Religion," when he was ostracised, even by the Unitarians,

for his radical utterances, and not permitted to preach in any of their

pulpits. His lectures were deemed still more heterodox than that sermon.

He shocked the orthodox churches of that day--more, even, than Ingersoll

has in our times.

The lectures, however, were so soul-satisfying to me that I was

surprised at the bitter criticisms I heard expressed. Though they were

two hours long, I never grew weary, and, when the course ended, I said

to Mr. Johnson:

"I wish I could hear them over again."

"Well, you can," said he, "Mr. Parker is to repeat them in

Cambridgeport, beginning next week." Accordingly we went there and heard

them again with equal satisfaction.

During the winter in Boston I attended all the lectures, churches,

theaters, concerts, and temperance, peace, and prison-reform conventions

within my reach. I had never lived in such an enthusiastically literary

and reform latitude before, and my mental powers were kept at the

highest tension. We went to Chelsea, for the summer, and boarded with

the Baptist minister, the Rev. John Wesley Olmstead, afterward editor of

_The Watchman and Reflector_. He had married my cousin, Mary Livingston,

one of the most lovely, unselfish characters I ever knew. There I had

the opportunity of meeting several of the leading Baptist ministers in

New England, and, as I was thoroughly imbued with Parker's ideas, we had

many heated discussions on theology. There, too, I met Orestes Bronson,

a remarkably well-read man, who had gone through every phase of

religious experience from blank atheism to the bosom of the Catholic

Church, where I believe he found repose at the end of his days. He was

so arbitrary and dogmatic that most people did not like him; but I

appreciated his acquaintance, as he was a liberal thinker and had a

world of information which he readily imparted to those of a teachable

spirit. As I was then in a hungering, thirsting condition for truth on

every subject, the friendship of such a man was, to me, an inestimable

blessing. Reading Theodore Parker's lectures, years afterward, I was

surprised to find how little there was in them to shock anybody--the

majority of thinking people having grown up to them.

While living in Chelsea two years, I used to walk (there being no public

conveyances running on Sunday) from the ferry to Marlborough Chapel to

hear Mr. Parker preach. It was a long walk, over two miles, and I was so

tired, on reaching the chapel, that I made it a point to sleep through

all the preliminary service, so as to be fresh for the sermon, as the

friend next whom I sat always wakened me in time. One Sunday, when my

friend was absent, it being a very warm day and I unusually fatigued, I

slept until the sexton informed me that he was about to close the doors!

In an unwary moment I imparted this fact to my Baptist friends. They

made all manner of fun ever afterward of the soothing nature of Mr.

Parker's theology, and my long walk, every Sunday, to repose in the

shadow of a heterodox altar. Still, the loss of the sermon was the only

vexatious part of it, and I had the benefit of the walk and the

refreshing slumber, to the music of Mr. Parker's melodious voice and the

deep-toned organ.

Mrs. Oliver Johnson and I spent two days at the Brook Farm Community

when in the height of its prosperity. There I met the Ripleys,--who

were, I believe, the backbone of the experiment,--William Henry

Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles A. Dana, Frederick Cabot, William

Chase, Mrs. Horace Greeley, who was spending a few days there, and many

others, whose names I cannot recall. Here was a charming family of

intelligent men and women, doing their own farm and house work, with

lectures, readings, music, dancing, and games when desired; realizing,

in a measure, Edward Bellamy's beautiful vision of the equal conditions

of the human family in the year 2000. The story of the beginning and end

of this experiment of community life has been told so often that I will

simply say that its failure was a grave disappointment to those most

deeply interested in its success. Mr. Channing told me, years after,

when he was pastor of the Unitarian church in Rochester, as we were

wandering through Mount Hope one day, that, when the Roxbury community

was dissolved and he was obliged to return to the old life of

competition, he would gladly have been laid under the sod, as the

isolated home seemed so solitary, silent, and selfish that the whole

atmosphere was oppressive.

In 1843 my father moved to Albany, to establish my brothers-in-law, Mr.

Wilkeson and Mr. McMartin, in the legal profession. That made Albany the

family rallying point for a few years. This enabled me to spend several

winters at the Capital and to take an active part in the discussion of

the Married Woman's Property Bill, then pending in the legislature.

William H. Seward, Governor of the State from 1839 to 1843, recommended

the Bill, and his wife, a woman of rare intelligence, advocated it in

society. Together we had the opportunity of talking with many members,

both of the Senate and the Assembly, in social circles, as well as in

their committee rooms. Bills were pending from 1836 until 1848, when the

measure finally passed.

My second son was born in Albany, in March, 1844, under more favorable

auspices than the first, as I knew, then, what to do with a baby.

Returning to Chelsea we commenced housekeeping, which afforded me

another chapter of experience. A new house, newly furnished, with

beautiful views of Boston Bay, was all I could desire. Mr. Stanton

announced to me, in starting, that his business would occupy all his

time, and that I must take entire charge of the housekeeping. So, with

two good servants and two babies under my sole supervision, my time was

pleasantly occupied.

When first installed as mistress over an establishment, one has that

same feeling of pride and satisfaction that a young minister must have

in taking charge of his first congregation. It is a proud moment in a

woman's life to reign supreme within four walls, to be the one to whom

all questions of domestic pleasure and economy are referred, and to hold

in her hand that little family book in which the daily expenses, the

outgoings and incomings, are duly registered. I studied up everything

pertaining to housekeeping, and enjoyed it all. Even washing day--that

day so many people dread--had its charms for me. The clean clothes on

the lines and on the grass looked so white, and smelled so sweet, that

it was to me a pretty sight to contemplate. I inspired my laundress with

an ambition to have her clothes look white and to get them out earlier

than our neighbors, and to have them ironed and put away sooner.

As Mr. Stanton did not come home to dinner, we made a picnic of our noon

meal on Mondays, and all thoughts and energies were turned to speed the

washing. No unnecessary sweeping or dusting, no visiting nor

entertaining angels unawares on that day--it was held sacred to soap

suds, blue-bags, and clotheslines. The children, only, had no deviation

in the regularity of their lives. They had their drives and walks,

their naps and rations, in quantity and time, as usual. I had all the

most approved cook books, and spent half my time preserving, pickling,

and experimenting in new dishes. I felt the same ambition to excel in

all departments of the culinary art that I did at school in the

different branches of learning. My love of order and cleanliness was

carried throughout, from parlor to kitchen, from the front door to the

back. I gave a man an extra shilling to pile the logs of firewood with

their smooth ends outward, though I did not have them scoured white, as

did our Dutch grandmothers. I tried, too, to give an artistic touch to

everything--the dress of my children and servants included. My dining

table was round, always covered with a clean cloth of a pretty pattern

and a centerpiece of flowers in their season, pretty dishes, clean

silver, and set with neatness and care. I put my soul into everything,

and hence enjoyed it. I never could understand how housekeepers could

rest with rubbish all round their back doors; eggshells, broken dishes,

tin cans, and old shoes scattered round their premises; servants ragged

and dirty, with their hair in papers, and with the kitchen and dining

room full of flies. I have known even artists to be indifferent to their

personal appearance and their surroundings. Surely a mother and child,

tastefully dressed, and a pretty home for a framework, is, as a picture,

even more attractive than a domestic scene hung on the wall. The love of

the beautiful can be illustrated as well in life as on canvas. There is

such a struggle among women to become artists that I really wish some of

their gifts could be illustrated in clean, orderly, beautiful homes.

Our house was pleasantly situated on the Chelsea Hills, commanding a

fine view of Boston, the harbor, and surrounding country. There, on the

upper piazza, I spent some of the happiest days of my life, enjoying, in

turn, the beautiful outlook, my children, and my books. Here, under the

very shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, my third son was born. Shortly

after this Gerrit Smith and his wife came to spend a few days with us,

so this boy, much against my will, was named after my cousin. I did not

believe in old family names unless they were peculiarly euphonious. I

had a list of beautiful names for sons and daughters, from which to

designate each newcomer; but, as yet, not one on my list had been used.

However, I put my foot down, at No. 4, and named him Theodore, and, thus

far, he has proved himself a veritable "gift of God," doing his

uttermost, in every way possible, to fight the battle of freedom for

woman.

During the visit of my cousin I thought I would venture on a small,

select dinner party, consisting of the Rev. John Pierpont and his wife,

Charles Sumner, John G. Whittier, and Joshua Leavitt. I had a new cook,

Rose, whose viands, thus far, had proved delicious, so I had no anxiety

on that score. But, unfortunately, on this occasion I had given her a

bottle of wine for the pudding sauce and whipped cream, of which she

imbibed too freely, and hence there were some glaring blunders in the

_menu_ that were exceedingly mortifying. As Mr. Smith and my husband

were both good talkers, I told them they must cover all defects with

their brilliant conversation, which they promised to do.

Rose had all the points of a good servant, phrenologically and

physiologically. She had a large head, with great bumps of caution and

order, her eyes were large and soft and far apart. In selecting her,

scientifically, I had told my husband, in triumph, several times what a

treasure I had found. Shortly after dinner, one evening when I was out,

she held the baby while the nurse was eating her supper, and carelessly

burned his foot against the stove. Then Mr. Stanton suggested that, in

selecting the next cook, I would better not trust to science, but

inquire of the family where she lived as to her practical virtues. Poor

Rose! she wept over her lapses when sober, and made fair promises for

the future, but I did not dare to trust her, so we parted. The one

drawback to the joys of housekeeping was then, as it is now, the lack of

faithful, competent servants. The hope of co-operative housekeeping, in

the near future, gives us some promise of a more harmonious domestic

life.

One of the books in my library I value most highly is the first volume

of Whittier's poems, published in 1838, "Dedicated to Henry B. Stanton,

as a token of the author's personal friendship, and of his respect for

the unreserved devotion of exalted talents to the cause of humanity and

freedom." Soon after our marriage we spent a few days with our gifted

Quaker poet, on his farm in Massachusetts.

I shall never forget those happy days in June; the long walks and

drives, and talks under the old trees of anti-slavery experiences, and

Whittier's mirth and indignation as we described different scenes in the

World's Anti-slavery Convention in London. He laughed immoderately at

the Tom Campbell episode. Poor fellow! he had taken too much wine that

day, and when Whittier's verses, addressed to the convention, were

read, he criticised them severely, and wound up by saying that the soul

of a poet was not in him. Mr. Stanton sprang to his feet and recited

some of Whittier's stirring stanzas on freedom, which electrified the

audience, and, turning to Campbell, he said: "What do you say to that?"

"Ah! that's real poetry," he replied. "And John Greenleaf Whittier is

its author," said Mr. Stanton.

I enjoyed, too, the morning and evening service, when the revered mother

read the Scriptures and we all bowed our heads in silent worship. There

was, at times, an atmosphere of solemnity pervading everything, that was

oppressive in the midst of so much that appealed to my higher nature.

There was a shade of sadness in even the smile of the mother and sister,

and a rigid plainness in the house and its surroundings, a depressed

look in Whittier himself that the songs of the birds, the sunshine, and

the bracing New England air seemed powerless to chase away, caused, as I

afterward heard, by pecuniary embarrassment, and fears in regard to the

delicate health of the sister. She, too, had rare poetical talent, and

in her Whittier found not only a helpful companion in the practical

affairs of life, but one who sympathized with him in the highest flights

of which his muse was capable. Their worst fears were realized in the

death of the sister not long after. In his last volume several of her

poems were published, which are quite worthy the place the brother's

appreciation has given them. Whittier's love and reverence for his

mother and sister, so marked in every word and look, were charming

features of his home life. All his poems to our sex breathe the same

tender, worshipful sentiments.

Soon after this visit at Amesbury, our noble friend spent a few days

with us in Chelsea, near Boston. One evening, after we had been talking

a long time of the unhappy dissensions among anti-slavery friends, by

way of dissipating the shadows I opened the piano, and proposed that we

should sing some cheerful songs. "Oh, no!" exclaimed Mr. Stanton, "do

not touch a note; you will put every nerve of Whittier's body on edge."

It seemed, to me, so natural for a poet to love music that I was

surprised to know that it was a torture to him.

From our upper piazza we had a fine view of Boston harbor. Sitting there

late one moonlight night, admiring the outlines of Bunker Hill Monument

and the weird effect of the sails and masts of the vessels lying in the

harbor, we naturally passed from the romance of our surroundings to

those of our lives. I have often noticed that the most reserved people

are apt to grow confidential at such an hour. It was under such

circumstances that the good poet opened to me a deeply interesting page

of his life, a sad romance of love and disappointment, that may not yet

be told, as some who were interested in the events are still among the

living.

Whittier's poems were not only one of the most important factors in the

anti-slavery war and victory, but they have been equally potent in

emancipating the minds of his generation from the gloomy superstitions

of the puritanical religion. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his eulogy of

Whittier, says that his influence on the religious thought of the

American people has been far greater than that of the occupant of any

pulpit.

As my husband's health was delicate, and the New England winters proved

too severe for him, we left Boston, with many regrets, and sought a more

genial climate in Central New York.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FIRST WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION.

In the spring of 1847 we moved to Seneca Falls. Here we spent sixteen

years of our married life, and here our other children--two sons and two

daughters--were born.

Just as we were ready to leave Boston, Mr. and Mrs. Eaton and their two

children arrived from Europe, and we decided to go together to

Johnstown, Mr. Eaton being obliged to hurry to New York on business, and

Mr. Stanton to remain still in Boston a few months. At the last moment

my nurse decided she could not leave her friends and go so far away.

Accordingly my sister and I started, by rail, with five children and

seventeen trunks, for Albany, where we rested over night and part of the

next day. We had a very fatiguing journey, looking after so many trunks

and children, for my sister's children persisted in standing on the

platform at every opportunity, and the younger ones would follow their

example. This kept us constantly on the watch. We were thankful when

safely landed once more in the old homestead in Johnstown, where we

arrived at midnight. As our beloved parents had received no warning of

our coming, the whole household was aroused to dispose of us. But now in

safe harbor, 'mid familiar scenes and pleasant memories, our slumbers

were indeed refreshing. How rapidly one throws off all care and anxiety

under the parental roof, and how at sea one feels, no matter what the

age may be, when the loved ones are gone forever and the home of

childhood is but a dream of the past.

After a few days of rest I started, alone, for my new home, quite happy

with the responsibility of repairing a house and putting all things in

order. I was already acquainted with many of the people and the

surroundings in Seneca Falls, as my sister, Mrs. Bayard, had lived there

several years, and I had frequently made her long visits. We had quite a

magnetic circle of reformers, too, in central New York. At Rochester

were William Henry Channing, Frederick Douglass, the Anthonys, Posts,

Hallowells, Stebbins,--some grand old Quaker families at

Farmington,--the Sedgwicks, Mays, Mills, and Matilda Joslyn Gage at

Syracuse; Gerrit Smith at Peterboro, and Beriah Green at Whitesboro.

The house we were to occupy had been closed for some years and needed

many repairs, and the grounds, comprising five acres, were overgrown

with weeds. My father gave me a check and said, with a smile, "You

believe in woman's capacity to do and dare; now go ahead and put your

place in order." After a minute survey of the premises and due

consultation with one or two sons of Adam, I set the carpenters,

painters, paper-hangers, and gardeners at work, built a new kitchen and

woodhouse, and in one month took possession. Having left my children

with my mother, there were no impediments to a full display of my

executive ability. In the purchase of brick, timber, paint, etc., and in

making bargains with workmen, I was in frequent consultation with Judge

Sackett and Mr. Bascom. The latter was a member of the Constitutional

Convention, then in session in Albany, and as he used to walk down

whenever he was at home, to see how my work progressed, we had long

talks, sitting on boxes in the midst of tools and shavings, on the

status of women. I urged him to propose an amendment to Article II,

Section 3, of the State Constitution, striking out the word "male,"

which limits the suffrage to men. But, while he fully agreed with all I

had to say on the political equality of women, he had not the courage to

make himself the laughing-stock of the convention. Whenever I cornered

him on this point, manlike he turned the conversation to the painters

and carpenters. However, these conversations had the effect of bringing

him into the first woman's convention, where he did us good service.

In Seneca Falls my life was comparatively solitary, and the change from

Boston was somewhat depressing. There, all my immediate friends were

reformers, I had near neighbors, a new home with all the modern

conveniences, and well-trained servants. Here our residence was on the

outskirts of the town, roads very often muddy and no sidewalks most of

the way, Mr. Stanton was frequently from home, I had poor servants, and

an increasing number of children. To keep a house and grounds in good

order, purchase every article for daily use, keep the wardrobes of half

a dozen human beings in proper trim, take the children to dentists,

shoemakers, and different schools, or find teachers at home, altogether

made sufficient work to keep one brain busy, as well as all the hands I

could impress into the service. Then, too, the novelty of housekeeping

had passed away, and much that was once attractive in domestic life was

now irksome. I had so many cares that the company I needed for

intellectual stimulus was a trial rather than a pleasure.

There was quite an Irish settlement at a short distance, and continual

complaints were coming to me that my boys threw stones at their pigs,

cows, and the roofs of their houses. This involved constant diplomatic

relations in the settlement of various difficulties, in which I was so

successful that, at length, they constituted me a kind of umpire in all

their own quarrels. If a drunken husband was pounding his wife, the

children would run for me. Hastening to the scene of action, I would

take Patrick by the collar, and, much to his surprise and shame, make

him sit down and promise to behave himself. I never had one of them

offer the least resistance, and in time they all came to regard me as

one having authority. I strengthened my influence by cultivating good

feeling. I lent the men papers to read, and invited their children into

our grounds; giving them fruit, of which we had abundance, and my

children's old clothes, books, and toys. I was their physician,

also--with my box of homeopathic medicines I took charge of the men,

women, and children in sickness. Thus the most amicable relations were

established, and, in any emergency, these poor neighbors were good

friends and always ready to serve me.

But I found police duty rather irksome, especially when called out dark

nights to prevent drunken fathers from disturbing their sleeping

children, or to minister to poor mothers in the pangs of maternity.

Alas! alas! who can measure the mountains of sorrow and suffering

endured in unwelcome motherhood in the abodes of ignorance, poverty,

and vice, where terror-stricken women and children are the victims of

strong men frenzied with passion and intoxicating drink?

Up to this time life had glided by with comparative ease, but now the

real struggle was upon me. My duties were too numerous and varied, and

none sufficiently exhilarating or intellectual to bring into play my

higher faculties. I suffered with mental hunger, which, like an empty

stomach, is very depressing. I had books, but no stimulating

companionship. To add to my general dissatisfaction at the change from

Boston, I found that Seneca Falls was a malarial region, and in due time

all the children were attacked with chills and fever which, under

homeopathic treatment in those days, lasted three months. The servants

were afflicted in the same way. Cleanliness, order, the love of the

beautiful and artistic, all faded away in the struggle to accomplish

what was absolutely necessary from hour to hour. Now I understood, as I

never had before, how women could sit down and rest in the midst of

general disorder. Housekeeping, under such conditions, was impossible,

so I packed our clothes, locked up the house, and went to that harbor of

safety, home, as I did ever after in stress of weather.

I now fully understood the practical difficulties most women had to

contend with in the isolated household, and the impossibility of woman's

best development if in contact, the chief part of her life, with

servants and children. Fourier's phalansterie community life and

co-operative households had a new significance for me. Emerson says, "A

healthy discontent is the first step to progress." The general

discontent I felt with woman's portion as wife, mother, housekeeper,

physician, and spiritual guide, the chaotic conditions into which

everything fell without her constant supervision, and the wearied,

anxious look of the majority of women impressed me with a strong feeling

that some active measures should be taken to remedy the wrongs of

society in general, and of women in particular. My experience at the

World's Anti-slavery Convention, all I had read of the legal status of

women, and the oppression I saw everywhere, together swept across my

soul, intensified now by many personal experiences. It seemed as if all

the elements had conspired to impel me to some onward step. I could not

see what to do or where to begin--my only thought was a public meeting

for protest and discussion.

In this tempest-tossed condition of mind I received an invitation to

spend the day with Lucretia Mott, at Richard Hunt's, in Waterloo. There

I met several members of different families of Friends, earnest,

thoughtful women. I poured out, that day, the torrent of my

long-accumulating discontent, with such vehemence and indignation that I

stirred myself, as well as the rest of the party, to do and dare

anything. My discontent, according to Emerson, must have been healthy,

for it moved us all to prompt action, and we decided, then and there, to

call a "Woman's Rights Convention." We wrote the call that evening and

published it in the _Seneca County Courier_ the next day, the 14th of

July, 1848, giving only five days' notice, as the convention was to be

held on the 19th and 20th. The call was inserted without signatures,--in

fact it was a mere announcement of a meeting,--but the chief movers and

managers were Lucretia Mott, Mary Ann McClintock, Jane Hunt, Martha C.

Wright, and myself. The convention, which was held two days in the

Methodist Church, was in every way a grand success. The house was

crowded at every session, the speaking good, and a religious earnestness

dignified all the proceedings.

These were the hasty initiative steps of "the most momentous reform that

had yet been launched on the world--the first organized protest against

the injustice which had brooded for ages over the character and destiny

of one-half the race." No words could express our astonishment on

finding, a few days afterward, that what seemed to us so timely, so

rational, and so sacred, should be a subject for sarcasm and ridicule to

the entire press of the nation. With our Declaration of Rights and

Resolutions for a text, it seemed as if every man who could wield a pen

prepared a homily on "woman's sphere." All the journals from Maine to

Texas seemed to strive with each other to see which could make our

movement appear the most ridiculous. The anti-slavery papers stood by us

manfully and so did Frederick Douglass, both in the convention and in

his paper, _The North Star_, but so pronounced was the popular voice

against us, in the parlor, press, and pulpit, that most of the ladies

who had attended the convention and signed the declaration, one by one,

withdrew their names and influence and joined our persecutors. Our

friends gave us the cold shoulder and felt themselves disgraced by the

whole proceeding.

If I had had the slightest premonition of all that was to follow that

convention, I fear I should not have had the courage to risk it, and I

must confess that it was with fear and trembling that I consented to

attend another, one month afterward, in Rochester. Fortunately, the

first one seemed to have drawn all the fire, and of the second but

little was said. But we had set the ball in motion, and now, in quick

succession, conventions were held in Ohio, Indiana, Massachusetts,

Pennsylvania, and in the City of New York, and have been kept up nearly

every year since.

The most noteworthy of the early conventions were those held in

Massachusetts, in which such men as Garrison, Phillips, Channing,

Parker, and Emerson took part. It was one of these that first attracted

the attention of Mrs. John Stuart Mill, and drew from her pen that able

article on "The Enfranchisement of Woman," in the _Westminster Review_

of October, 1852.

The same year of the convention, the Married Woman's Property Bill,

which had given rise to some discussion on woman's rights in New York,

had passed the legislature. This encouraged action on the part of women,

as the reflection naturally arose that, if the men who make the laws

were ready for some onward step, surely the women themselves should

express some interest in the legislation. Ernestine L. Rose, Paulina

Wright (Davis), and I had spoken before committees of the legislature

years before, demanding equal property rights for women. We had

circulated petitions for the Married Woman's Property Bill for many

years, and so also had the leaders of the Dutch aristocracy, who desired

to see their life-long accumulations descend to their daughters and

grandchildren rather than pass into the hands of dissipated, thriftless

sons-in-law. Judge Hertell, Judge Fine, and Mr. Geddes of Syracuse

prepared and championed the several bills, at different times, before

the legislature. Hence the demands made in the convention were not

entirely new to the reading and thinking public of New York--the first

State to take any action on the question. As New York was the first

State to put the word "male" in her constitution in 1778, it was fitting

that she should be first in more liberal legislation. The effect of the

convention on my own mind was most salutary. The discussions had cleared

my ideas as to the primal steps to be taken for woman's enfranchisement,

and the opportunity of expressing myself fully and freely on a subject I

felt so deeply about was a great relief. I think all women who attended

the convention felt better for the statement of their wrongs, believing

that the first step had been taken to right them.

Soon after this I was invited to speak at several points in the

neighborhood. One night, in the Quaker Meeting House at Farmington, I

invited, as usual, discussion and questions when I had finished. We all

waited in silence for a long time; at length a middle-aged man, with a

broad-brimmed hat, arose and responded in a sing-song tone: "All I have

to say is, if a hen can crow, let her crow," emphasizing "crow" with an

upward inflection on several notes of the gamut. The meeting adjourned

with mingled feelings of surprise and merriment. I confess that I felt

somewhat chagrined in having what I considered my unanswerable arguments

so summarily disposed of, and the serious impression I had made on the

audience so speedily dissipated. The good man intended no disrespect, as

he told me afterward. He simply put the whole argument in a nutshell:

"Let a woman do whatever she can."

With these new duties and interests, and a broader outlook on human

life, my petty domestic annoyances gradually took a subordinate place.

Now I began to write articles for the press, letters to conventions held

in other States, and private letters to friends, to arouse them to

thought on this question.

The pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Mr. Bogue, preached several

sermons on Woman's Sphere, criticising the action of the conventions in

Seneca Falls and Rochester. Elizabeth McClintock and I took notes and

answered him in the county papers. Gradually we extended our labors and

attacked our opponents in the New York _Tribune_, whose columns were

open to us in the early days, Mr. Greeley being, at that time, one of

our most faithful champions.

In answering all the attacks, we were compelled to study canon and civil

law, constitutions, Bibles, science, philosophy, and history, sacred and

profane. Now my mind, as well as my hands, was fully occupied, and

instead of mourning, as I had done, over what I had lost in leaving

Boston, I tried in every way to make the most of life in Seneca Falls.

Seeing that elaborate refreshments prevented many social gatherings, I

often gave an evening entertainment without any. I told the young

people, whenever they wanted a little dance or a merry time, to make our

house their rallying point, and I would light up and give them a glass

of water and some cake. In that way we had many pleasant informal

gatherings. Then, in imitation of Margaret Fuller's Conversationals, we

started one which lasted several years. We selected a subject each week

on which we all read and thought; each, in turn, preparing an essay ten

minutes in length.

These were held, at different homes, Saturday of each week. On coming

together we chose a presiding officer for the evening, who called the

meeting to order, and introduced the essayist. That finished, he asked

each member, in turn, what he or she had read or thought on the subject,

and if any had criticisms to make on the essay. Everyone was expected to

contribute something. Much information was thus gained, and many spicy

discussions followed. All the ladies, as well as the gentlemen, presided

in turn, and so became familiar with parliamentary rules. The evening

ended with music, dancing, and a general chat. In this way we read and

thought over a wide range of subjects and brought together the best

minds in the community. Many young men and women who did not belong to

what was considered the first circle,--for in every little country

village there is always a small clique that constitutes the

aristocracy,--had the advantages of a social life otherwise denied them.

I think that all who took part in this Conversation Club would testify

to its many good influences.

I had three quite intimate young friends in the village who spent much

of their spare time with me, and who added much to my happiness: Frances

Hoskins, who was principal of the girls' department in the academy, with

whom I discussed politics and religion; Mary Bascom, a good talker on

the topics of the day, and Mary Crowninshield, who played well on the

piano. As I was very fond of music, Mary's coming was always hailed with

delight. Her mother, too, was a dear friend of mine, a woman of rare

intelligence, refinement, and conversational talent. She was a Schuyler,

and belonged to the Dutch aristocracy in Albany. She died suddenly,

after a short illness. I was with her in the last hours and held her

hand until the gradually fading spark of life went out. Her son is

Captain A.S. Crowninshield of our Navy.

My nearest neighbors were a very agreeable, intelligent family of sons

and daughters. But I always felt that the men of that household were

given to domineering. As the mother was very amiable and

self-sacrificing, the daughters found it difficult to rebel. One summer,

after general house-cleaning, when fresh paint and paper had made even

the kitchen look too dainty for the summer invasion of flies, the queens

of the household decided to move the sombre cook-stove into a spacious

woodhouse, where it maintained its dignity one week, in the absence of

the head of the home. The mother and daughters were delighted with the

change, and wondered why they had not made it before during the summer

months. But their pleasure was shortlived. Father and sons rose early

the first morning after his return and moved the stove back to its old

place. When the wife and daughters came down to get their breakfast (for

they did all their own work) they were filled with grief and

disappointment. The breakfast was eaten in silence, the women humbled

with a sense of their helplessness, and the men gratified with a sense

of their power. These men would probably all have said "home is woman's

sphere," though they took the liberty of regulating everything in her

sphere.

[Illustration: MRS. STANTON AND SON, 1854.]

[Illustration: Susan B. Anthony 1820-Feb. 15, 1858--]