a strange, pathetic, and heart-stirring movement known as the Temperance
Crusade. Gentle, home-loving women, white-haired mothers bent with toil
and grief, marched through the streets, singing hymns, praying, and
making direct appeals to keepers of saloons "for the sake of humanity
and their own souls' sake to quit their soul-destroying business." Their
very weakness was their strength. Their simple faith and the things they
had suffered through the drink evil pleaded for them. A great religious
revival was under way.
In Chicago a band of women who were marching to the City Council to
ask that the law for Sunday closing of saloons be enforced were rudely
jostled and insulted by a mob. Miss Willard, who had before been
deeply stirred by the movement, was now thoroughly aroused. She made
several eloquent speeches in behalf of the cause, which was, she said,
"everybody's war." Her first instinct was to leave her college and give
her all to the work. Then it seemed to her that she ought to help just
where she was--that everybody ought. So, just where she was, the young
dean devoted her power of eloquent speech and her influence with people
to the cause. Day by day her interest in reform became more absorbing.
She realized that the early fervor and enthusiasm of the movement needed
to be strengthened by "sober second thought" and sound organization.
"If I only had more time--if I were more free!" she exclaimed.
Then the turn of events did indeed free her from her responsibility
to her college. A change of policy so altered the conditions of her
work that she decided to resign her charge and go east to study the
temperance movement. The time came when she had to make a final choice.
Two letters reached her on the same day: One asked her to assume the
principal-ship of an important school in New York at a large salary;
the other begged her to take charge of the Chicago branch of the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union at no salary at all. The girl who
had worshiped culture and lived in books decided to accept the second
call; and turning her back on a brilliant career and worldly success,
she threw in her lot with the most unpopular reform of the day. Frances
Willard, the distinguished teacher, writer, and lecturer, became a
crusader.
"How can you think it right to give up your interest in literature and
art!" wailed one of her friends and admirers.
"What greater art than to try to restore the image of God to faces that
have lost it?" replied Miss Willard.
Those early days in Chicago were a brave, splendid time. Often walking
miles, because she had no money for car-fare, the inspired crusader
"followed the gleam" of her vision of what this woman's movement might
accomplish. Where others saw only an uncertain group of overwrought
fanatics, she saw an organized army of earnest workers possessed of
that "loftiest chivalry which comes as a sequel of their service to the
weakest."
"I seemed to see the end from the beginning," she said; "and when one
has done that, nothing can discourage or daunt."
Miss Willard often said that she was never happier than during this
time, when her spirit was entirely free, because she neither longed for
what the world could give nor feared what it might take away. She felt
very near to the poor people among whom she worked.
"I am a better friend than you dream," she would say in her heart, while
her eyes spoke her sympathy and understanding. "I know more about you
than you think, for I am hungry, too."
Of course, in time, the women discovered that their valued leader did
not have an independent income as they had imagined (since she had
never seemed to give a thought to ways and means for herself), and a
sufficient salary was provided for her. But always she spent her income
as she spent herself--to the utmost for the work.
The secret of Miss Willard's success as a speaker lay in this entire
giving of herself. The intensity of life, the irrepressible humor, the
never-failing sympathy, the spirit that hungered after all that was
beautiful shone in her clear eyes, and, in the pure, vibrant tones of
her wonderful voice, went straight to the hearts of all who listened.
She did not enter into her life as a crusader halt and maimed; all of
the woman's varied interests and capacities were felt in the work of the
reformer.
"She is a great orator because in her words the clear seeing of a
perfectly poised mind and the warm feeling of an intensely sympathetic
heart are wonderfully blended," said Henry Ward Beecher.
Miss Willard was not only a gifted speaker, whose pure, flame-like
spirit enkindled faith and enthusiasm in others; she was also a rare
organizer and indefatigable worker. As president of the National Union,
she visited nearly every city and town in the United States, and, during
a dozen years, averaged one meeting a day. The hours spent on trains
were devoted to making plans and preparing addresses. On a trip up the
Hudson, while everybody was on deck enjoying the scenery, Miss Willard
remained in the cabin busy with pad and pencil.
"I know myself too well to venture out," she said to a friend who
remonstrated with her. "There is work that must be done."
Under Miss Willard's leadership the work became a power in the life and
progress of the nation and of humanity. There were those who objected
the very breadth and inclusiveness of her sympathies and interests, and
who protested against the "scatteration" policies, that would, they
said, lead to no definite goal.
"I cannot see why any society should impose limitations on any
good work," said this broad-minded leader. "Everything is not in
the temperance movement, but the temperance movement should be in
everything."
In 1898 the loyal crusader was called to lay down her arms and leave the
battle to others. She had given so unstintedly to every good work all
that she was, that at fifty-eight her powers of endurance were spent. "I
am so tired--so tired," she said again and again; and at the last, with
a serene smile, "How beautiful it is to be with God!"
In the great hall of the Capitol, where each State has been permitted
to place statues of two of its most cherished leaders, Illinois has put
the marble figure of Frances E. Willard, the only woman in a company
of soldiers and statesmen. In presenting the statue to the nation, Mr.
Foss, who represented Miss Willard's own district in Illinois, closed
his address with these words:
Frances E. Willard once said: "If I were asked what was the
true mission of the ideal woman, I would say, 'It is to make
the whole world home-like.'" Illinois, therefore, presents this
statue not only as a tribute to her whom it represents,--one of
the foremost women of America,--but as a tribute to woman and
her mighty influence upon our national life; to woman in the
home; to woman wherever she is toiling for the good of humanity;
to woman everywhere who has ever stood "For God, for home, for
native land."
JULIA WARD HOWE: THE SINGER OF A NATION'S SONG
We have told the story of our mother's life, possibly at too
great length; but she herself told it in eight words.
"Tell me," Maud asked her once, "what is the ideal aim of
life?"
She paused a moment, and replied, dwelling thoughtfully on
each word:
"To learn, to teach, to serve, to enjoy!"
_Life of Julia Ward Howe._
THE SINGER OF A NATION'S SONG
Two little girls were rolling hoops along the street when they suddenly
caught them over their little bare arms and drew up close to the
railings of a house on the corner.
"There is the wonderful coach and the little girl I told you about,
Eliza," whispered Marietta, pushing back the straw bonnet that shaded
her face from the sun and pointing with her stick.
It was truly a magnificent yellow coach, pulled by two proud gray
horses. Even Cinderella's golden equipage could not have been more
splendid. Moreover, the little girl who sat perched upon the bright-blue
cushioned seat wore an elegant blue pelisse, that just matched the
heavenly color of the lining, and a yellow-satin bonnet that was clearly
inspired by the straw-colored outer shell of the chariot itself. The
fair chubby face under the satin halo was turned toward the children,
and a pair of clear gray eyes regarded them with eager interest.
"She looked as if she wanted to speak!" said Marietta, breathlessly.
"Oh, Eliza, did you ever see any one so beautiful? Just like a doll or a
fairy-tale princess!"
"Huh!" cried Eliza, the scornful; "didn't you see that she has red hair?
Who ever heard of a doll or a princess with red hair?"
"Maybe a witch or a bad fairy turned her spun-gold locks red for spite,"
suggested Marietta. "Anyway, I wouldn't mind red hair if I was in her
place--so rich and all. Wouldn't it be grand to ride in a fine coach and
have everything you want even before you stop to wish for it!"
How astonished Marietta would have been if she could have known that the
little lady in the chariot was wishing that she were a little girl with
a hoop! For even when she was very small Julia Ward had other trials
besides the red hair. Nowadays, people realize that red-gold hair is a
true "crowning glory," but it wasn't the style to like it in 1825, at
the time this story begins. So little Julia's mother tried her best to
tone down the bright color with sobering washes and leaden combs. One
day, however, the child heard a visitor say, "Your little girl is very
beautiful; her hair is pretty, too, with that lovely complexion."
Eagerly Julia climbed upon a chair and then on the high, old-fashioned
dressing-table, so that she could gaze in the mirror to her heart's
content. "Is that all?" she cried after a moment, and scrambled down,
greatly disappointed.
Eliza and Marietta would have been truly amazed if they had known that
the little queen of the splendid coach had very little chance for the
good times that a child loves. In these days I really believe that
people would pity her and say, "Poor little rich girl!" She was brought
up with the greatest strictness. There were many lessons,--French,
Latin, music, and dancing--for she must have an education that would
fit her to shine in her high station. When she went out for an airing,
it was always in the big coach, "like a little lady." There was never a
chance for a hop-skip-and-jump play-hour. Her delicate cambric dresses
and kid slippers were only suited to sedate indoor ways, and even when
she was taken to the sea-shore for a holiday, her face was covered with
a thick green veil to keep her fair skin from all spot and blemish.
Dignity and Duty were the guardian geniuses of Julia Ward's childhood.
Her father, Samuel Ward, was a rich New York banker, with a fine
American sense of _noblesse oblige_. He believed that a man's wealth and
influence spell strict accountability to his country and to God, and he
lived according to that belief. He believed that as a banker his most
vital concern was not to make himself richer and richer, but to manage
money matters in such a way as to serve his city and the nation as a
whole. In those times of financial stress which came to America in the
early part of the nineteenth century, his heroic efforts more than once
enabled his bank to weather a financial storm and uphold the credit of
the State. On one occasion his loyalty and unflagging zeal secured a
loan of five million dollars from the Bank of England in the nick of
time to avert disaster.
"Julia," cried her brother, who had just come in from Wall Street, "men
have been going up and down the office stairs all day long, carrying
little wooden kegs of gold on their backs, marked 'Prime, Ward & King'
and filled with English gold!"
Mr. Ward, however, did not see the triumphal procession of the kegs;
he was prostrated by a severe illness, due, it was said, to his too
exacting labors. Years afterward, Mr. Ward's daughter said that her best
inheritance from the old firm was the fact that her father had procured
this loan which saved the honor of the Empire State.
"From the time I was a tiny child," said Julia Ward, "I had heard
stories of my ancestors--colonial governors and officers in the
Revolution, among whom were numbered General Nathanael Greene and
General Marion, the 'Swamp Fox' whose 'fortress was the good green
wood,' whose 'tent the cypress-tree.' When I thought of the brave and
honorable men and the fair and prudent wives and daughters of the line,
they seemed to pass before my unworthy self 'terrible as an army with
banners'--but there was, too, the trumpet-call of inspiration in the
thought that they were truly mine own people."
If a sense of duty and the trumpet-call of her forebears urged little
Julia on to application in her early years, she soon learned to love
study for its own sake. When, at nine years of age, she began to attend
school, she listened to such purpose to the recitations of a class in
Italian that she presently handed to the astonished principal a letter
correctly written in that language, begging to be admitted to the study
of the tongue whose soft musical vowels had charmed her ear. She had
not only aptitude, but genuine fondness, for languages, and early tried
various experiments in the use of her own. When a child of ten she
began to write verse, and thereafter the expression of her thoughts and
feelings in poetic form was as natural as breathing.
If you could have seen some of the solemn verses entitled, "All things
shall pass," and, "We return no more," written by the child not yet in
her teens, you might have said, "What an extraordinary little girl! Has
she always been ill, or has she never had a chance for a good time?"
It was certainly true that life seemed a very serious thing to the
child. Her eyes were continually turned inward, for they had not
been taught to discover and enjoy the things of interest and delight
in the real world. New York was in that interesting stage of its
growth that followed upon the opening of the Erie Canal. Not yet a
city of foreigners,--the melting-pot of all nations,--the commercial
opportunities which better communication with the Great Lakes section
gave caused unparalleled prosperity. In 1835 the metropolis had a
population of 200,000; but Broadway was still in large part a street of
dignified brick residences with bright green blinds and brass knockers,
along which little girls could roll their hoops. Canal Street was a
popular boulevard, with a canal bordered by trees running through the
center and a driveway on either side; and the district neighboring on
the Battery and Castle Garden was still a place of wealth and fashion.
It is to be doubted, however, if Julia Ward ever saw anything on her
drives to call her out of her day-dreaming self. Nor had she eyes for
the marvels of nature. The larkspurs and laburnums in the garden had no
language that she could understand. "I grew up," she said, "with the
city measure of the universe--my own house, somebody else's, the trees
in the park, a strip of blue sky overhead, and a great deal about nature
read from the best authors, most of which meant nothing at all. Years
later I learned to enjoy the drowsy murmur of green fields in midsummer,
the song of birds and the ways of shy wood-flowers, when my own children
opened the door into that 'mighty world of eye and ear.'"
When Julia was sixteen, the return of her brother from Germany opened
a new door of existence to her. She had just left school and had begun
to study in real earnest. So serious was she in her devotion to her
self-imposed tasks that she sometimes bade a maid tie her in a chair
for a certain period. Thus, in bonds, with a mind set free from all
temptation to roam, she wrestled with the difficulties of German grammar
and came off victorious. But Brother Sam led her to an appreciation of
something besides the poetry of Schiller and Goethe. He had a keen and
wholesome enjoyment of the world of people, and in the end succeeded in
giving his young sister a taste of natural youthful gaiety.
"Sir," said Samuel, Junior, to his father one evening, "you do not keep
in view the importance of the social tie."
"The social what?" asked the amazed Puritan.
"The social tie, sir."
"I make small account of that," rejoined the father, coldly.
"I will die in defense of it!" retorted the son, hotly.
The young man found, however, that it was more agreeable to live for
the social tie than to die for it. And Julia, beginning to long for
something besides family evenings with books and music varied by
an occasional lecture or a visit to the house of an uncle, seemed
to herself "like a young damsel of olden times, shut up within an
enchanted castle." When she was nineteen she decided upon a declaration
of independence. If she could only muster the courage to meet her
affectionate jailer face to face, she thought that the bars of his
prejudice against fashionable society must surely fall.
"I am going to give a party--_a party of my very own_," she announced to
her brothers; "and you must help me with the list of guests."
Having obtained her father's permission to invite a few friends "to
spend the evening," she set about her preparations. This first party of
her young life should, she resolved, be correct in every detail. The
best caterer in New York was engaged, and a popular group of musicians.
She even introduced a splendid cut-glass chandelier to supplement the
conservative lighting of the drawing-room. "My first party must be a
brilliant success," she said, with a smile and a determined tilt of her
chin.
A brilliant company was gathered to do the débutante honor on the
occasion of her audacious entrance into society. Mr. Ward showed no
surprise, however, when he descended the stairs and appeared upon
the festive scene. He greeted the guests courteously and watched the
dancing without apparent displeasure. Julia, herself, betrayed no
more excitement than seemed natural to the acknowledged belle of the
evening, but her heart was beating in a fashion not quite in tune with
the music of the fiddles. When the last guest had departed she went,
according to custom, to bid her father good night. And now came the
greatest surprise of all! Mr. Ward took the young girl's hand in his.
"My daughter," he said with tender gravity, "I was surprised to see
that your idea of 'a few friends' differed widely from mine. After this
you need not hesitate to consult me freely and frankly about what you
want to do." Then, kissing her good night with his usual affection, he
dismissed the subject forever.
Julia's brief skirmish for independence proved not a rebellion, but a
revolution. Her brother's marriage to Miss Emily Astor introduced an era
of gaiety at this time; and when the young girl had once fairly taken
her place in society, there was no such thing as going back to the old
life. "Jolie Julie," as she was lovingly called in the home-circle,
became a reigning favorite. Even rumors of her amazing blue-stocking
tendencies could not spoil her success. It was whispered that she was
given to quoting German philosophy and French poetry. "I believe she
dreams in Italian," vowed one greatly awed damsel.
However that might be, "Jolie Julie" certainly had a place in the dreams
of many. Her beauty and charm won all hearts. The bright hair was now
an acknowledged glory above the apple-blossom fairness of her youthful
bloom. But it was not alone the loveliness of the delicately molded
features and the tender brightness of the clear gray eyes that made
her a success. Notwithstanding the early neglect of "the social tie,"
it was soon plain that she had the unfailing tact, the ready wit, and
native good humor that are the chief assets of the social leader who is
"born to the purple." Besides, Miss Ward's unusual acquirements could be
turned so as to masquerade, in their rosy linings, as accomplishments.
Her musical gifts were not reserved for hours of solitary musing, but
were freely devoted to the pleasure of her friends; and even the lofty
poetic Muse could on occasion indulge in a comic gambol to the great
delight of her intimates.
Miss Ward soon tried her wings in other spheres beyond New York. She
found a ready welcome in Boston's select inner circle, where she made
the acquaintance of Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes, and other
leading figures in the literary world. Charles Sumner, the brilliant
statesman and reformer, was an intimate friend of her brother, and
through him she met Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who not long after became
her husband.
From both Longfellow and Sumner Miss Ward had heard glowing accounts of
their friend Howe, who was, they declared, the truest hero that America
and the nineteenth century had produced and the best of good comrades.
He had earned the name of "Chevalier" among his friends because he was
"a true Bayard, without fear and without reproach," and because he
had, moreover, been made a Knight of St. George by the King of Greece
for distinguished services during the Greek war for independence. For
six years he had fought with the patriots, both in the field and as
surgeon-in-chief. While in hiding with his wounded among the bare rocks
of the heights, he had sometimes nothing to eat but roasted wasps and
mountain snails. When the people were without food, he had returned
to America, related far and wide the story of Greece's struggles and
dire need, and brought back a shipload of food and clothing. Having
relieved the distress of the people, he had helped them to get in touch
with normal existence once more by putting them to work. A hospital was
built, and a mole to enclose the harbor at Ægina. Then, after seeing
the hitherto distracted peasants begin a new life as self-respecting
farmers, he had returned to America.
[Illustration: Julia Ward Howe]
At this time he was doing pioneer work in the education of the blind. As
director of the Perkins Institution, in Boston, he was not only laboring
to make more efficient this first school for the blind in America,
but he was also going about through the country with his pupils to
show something of what might be done in the way of practical training,
in order to induce the legislatures of the several States to provide
similar institutions for those deprived of sight. In particular, Dr.
Howe's success in teaching Laura Bridgman, a blind deaf-mute, was the
marvel of the civilized world.
One day, when Longfellow and Sumner were calling upon Miss Ward, they
suggested driving over to the Perkins Institution. When they arrived
the hero of the hour--and the place--was absent. Before they left,
however, Mr. Sumner, who had been looking out of the window, suddenly
exclaimed, "There is Howe now on his black horse!" Miss Ward looked with
considerable eagerness in her curiosity, and saw, as she afterward said,
"a noble rider on a noble steed."
In this way the Chevalier rode into the life of the fair lady. As the
knight of the ballad swung the maiden of his choice to the croup of his
charger and galloped off with her in the face of her helpless kinsmen,
so this serious philanthropist and reformer carried off the lovely
society favorite, in spite of the fact that he cared not at all for her
gay, care-free world, and was, moreover, twenty years her senior. The
following portion of a letter which Miss Ward wrote to her brother Sam
shows how completely she was won:
The Chevalier says truly--I am the captive of his bow and
spear. His true devotion has won me from the world and from
myself. The past is already fading from my sight; already I
begin to live with him in the future, which shall be as calmly
bright as true love can make it. I am perfectly satisfied to
sacrifice to one so noble and earnest the day-dreams of my youth.
Dr. Howe and his bride went to Europe on their wedding-trip--on the same
steamer with Horace Mann and his newly made wife, Mary Peabody, the
sister of Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne. The teacher of Laura Bridgman was
well known in England through Dickens's "American Notes," and people
were anxious to do him honor. Dickens not only invited the interesting
Americans to dinner, but he offered to pilot Dr. Howe and his brother
reformer, Horace Mann, about darkest London and show them the haunts of
misery and crime which no one knew better than the author of "Oliver
Twist," "Little Dorrit," and "Bleak House." The following note, written
in Dickens's characteristic hand, shows the zest with which the great
novelist undertook these expeditions and his boyish love of fun:
My dear Howe,--Drive to-night to St. Giles's Church. Be
there at half past 11--and wait. Somebody will put his head
into the coach after a Venetian and mysterious fashion, and
breathe your name. Follow that man. Trust him to the death.
So no more at present from
Ninth June, 1843. THE MASK.