Volume III Part 137 (1/2)

There, too, I met some Positivists, who, though quite reasonable on religious questions, were very narrow on the sphere of woman. The difference in s.e.x, which is the very reason why men and women should be a.s.sociated in all spheres of activity, they make the strongest reason why they should be separated. Mrs. Hertz belongs to the Harrison school of Positivists. I went with her to one of Mrs. Orr's receptions, where we met Robert Browning, a fine looking gentleman of seventy years, with white hair and mustache. He is frank, easy, playful, and a good talker. Mrs. Orr seemed to be taking a very pessimistic view of our present sphere of action, which Mr. Browning, with poetic coloring, was trying to paint more hopeful.

The next day I dined with Mrs. Margaret Bright Lucas, in company with Mr. John P. Thoma.s.son, member of parliament, and his wife, and afterwards we went to the House of Commons and had the good fortune to hear Gladstone, Parnell, and Sir Charles Dilke. Seeing Bradlaugh seated outside the charmed circle, I sent my card to him, and in the corridor we had a few moments' conversation. I asked him if he thought he would eventually get his seat; he replied, ”Most a.s.suredly I will. I shall open the next campaign with such an agitation as will rouse our politicians to some consideration of the changes gradually coming over the face of things in this country.”

The place a.s.signed ladies in the House of Commons is really a disgrace to a country ruled by an Empress. This dark perch is the highest gallery immediately over the speaker's desk and government seats, behind a fine wire-work, so that it is quite impossible to see or hear anything. The sixteen persons who can crowd in the front seat, by standing with their noses partly through some open work, can have the satisfaction of seeing the cranial arch of their rulers, and hearing an occasional pean to liberty, or an Irish growl at the lack of it. I was told this net work was to prevent the members on the floor from being disturbed by the beauty of the women. On hearing this I remarked that I was devoutly thankful that our American men were not so easily disturbed, and that the beauty of our women was not of so dangerous a character.

I could but contrast our s.p.a.cious galleries in that magnificent capitol at Was.h.i.+ngton, as well as in our grand State capitols, where hundreds of women can sit to see and hear their rulers at their ease, with these dark, dingy buildings, and such inadequate accommodations for the people. My son, who had a seat on the floor just opposite the ladies' gallery, said he could compare our appearance to nothing better than birds in a cage. He could not distinguish an outline of anybody. All he could see was the moving of feathers and furs, or some bright ribbon or flower.

In the libraries, the courts, and the House of Lords, I found many suggestive subjects of thought. Our American inventions seem to furnish them cases for litigation. A suit in regard to Singer's sewing machine was just then occupying the attention of the Lord Chancellor. Not feeling much interest in the matter, I withdrew and joined my friends, to examine some frescoes in the ante-room. It was interesting to find so many historical scenes in which women had taken a prominent part. Among others, there is Jane Lane a.s.sisting Charles II. to escape, and Alice Lisle concealing the fugitives after the battle of Sedgemoor. Six wives of Henry VIII.

stand forth a solemn pageant when one recalls their sad fate. Alas!

whether for good or ill, woman must ever fill a large s.p.a.ce in the tragedies of the world.

I pa.s.sed a few pleasant hours in the house where Macaulay spent his last years. The once s.p.a.cious library and the large bay window looking out on a beautiful lawn, where he sat from day to day writing his flowing periods, possessed a peculiar charm for me, as the surroundings of genius always do. I thought as I stood there how often he had unconsciously gazed on each object in sight in searching for words rich enough to gild his ideas. The house is now owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Winckworth. It was at one of their sociable Sunday teas that many pleasant memories of the great historian were revived.

We went with Mrs. Lucas to a meeting of the Salvation army, in Exeter Hall, which holds 5,000 people. It was literally packed--not an inch of standing-room even, seemed to be unoccupied. This remarkable movement was then at its height of enthusiasm in England, and its leaders proposed to carry it round the world, but it has never been so successful in any other lat.i.tude. They not only hold meetings, but they march through the streets, men and women, singing and playing on tambourines. The exercises on this occasion consisted of prayers, hymns, and exhortations by Mr. and Mrs. Booth. When this immense audience all joined in the chorus of their stirring songs, it was indeed very impressive. The whole effect was like that of an old-fas.h.i.+oned Methodist revival meeting.

I purchased their paper, _The War Cry_, and pasted it in my journal to show the wild vagaries to which the human mind is subject. There is nothing too ridiculous or monstrous to be done under the influence of religious enthusiasm. In spite, however, of the ridicule attached to this movement, it is at least an aspiration for that ignorant, impoverished mult.i.tude. The first thing they were urged to do was to give up intoxicating drinks, and their vicious affiliations. If some other organization could take hold of them at that point, to educate them in the rudiments of learning and right living, and supplement their emotions with a modic.u.m of reason and common sense in the practical affairs of life, much greater good might result from this initiative step in the right direction.

One of the most remarkable and genial women we met was Miss Frances Power Cobbe. She called one evening at 10 d.u.c.h.ess street, and sipped with us the five o'clock cup of tea, a uniform practice in England. She is of medium height, stout, rosy, and vigorous looking, with a large, well-shaped head, a strong, happy face, and gifted with rare powers of conversation. I felt very strongly attracted to her. She is frank and cordial and p.r.o.nounced in all her opinions. She gave us an account of her efforts to rescue unhappy cats and dogs from the hands of the vivisectionists. We saw her, too, in her own cozy home and in her office in Victoria Row.

The perfect order in which her books and papers were all arranged, and the exquisite neatness of the apartments were refres.h.i.+ng to behold.

My daughter, having decided opinions of her own, was soon at loggerheads with Miss Cobbe on the question of vivisection. After showing us several German and French books with ill.u.s.trations of the horrible cruelty inflicted on cats and dogs, enlarging on the hypocrisy and wickedness of these scientists, she turned to my daughter and said, ”Would you shake hands with one of these vivisectionists?” ”Yes,” said Harriot, ”I should be proud to shake hands with Virchow, the great German scientist, for his kindness to a young American girl. She applied to several professors to be admitted to their cla.s.ses, but all refused except Virchow; he readily a.s.sented, and requested his students to treat her with becoming courtesy. 'If any of you behave otherwise,' said he, 'I shall feel myself personally insulted.' She entered his cla.s.ses and pursued her studies unmolested and with great success. ”Now,” said she, ”would you refuse to shake hands with any of your statesmen, scientists, clergymen, lawyers or physicians, who treat women with constant indignities and insults?” ”Oh, no”; said Miss Cobbe.

”Then,” said Mrs. Blatch, ”you estimate the physical suffering of cats and dogs as of more consequence than the humiliation of human beings. The man who tortures a cat for a scientific purpose is not as low in the scale of being, in my judgment, as one who sacrifices his own daughter to some cruel custom.” Though Miss Cobbe weighs over two hundred pounds, she is as light on foot as a deer and is said to be a great walker. After seeing her I read again some of her books. Her theology now and then evidently cramps her, yet her style is vigorous, earnest, sarcastic, though at times playful and pathetic. In regard to her theology, she says she is too liberal to please her orthodox friends and too orthodox to please the liberals, hence in religion she stands quite solitary.

Suffering from the effects of the prolonged fogs, we took our letters of introduction from Dr. Bayard of New York to the two leading high-dilution homeopathic physicians in London, Drs. Wilson and Berridge. We found the former a good talker and very original.

We were greatly amused with his invectives against the quacks in the profession; the ”mongrels,” as he called the low dilutionists.

The first question he asked my daughter was if she wore high heels; he said he would not attempt to cure any woman of any disease so long as she was perched on her toes with her spine out of plumb.

His advice to me was to get out of the London fogs as quickly as possible. No one who has not suffered a London fog can imagine the terrible gloom that pervades everywhere. One can see nothing out of the windows but a dense black smoke. Drivers carry flambeaux in the streets to avoid running into each other. The houses are full; the gas burns all day, but you can scarcely see across the room; theaters and places of amus.e.m.e.nt are sometimes closed, as nothing can be seen distinctly. We called on Dr. Berridge, also, thinking it best to make the acquaintance of both that we might decide from their general appearance, surroundings, conversation and comparative intelligence, which one we would prefer to trust in an emergency. We found both alike so promising that we felt we could trust either to give us our quietus, if die we must, on the high dilutions. It is a consolation to know that one's closing hours at least are pa.s.sed in harmony with the principles of pure science. On further acquaintance we found these gentlemen true disciples of the great Hahneman.

As we were just then reading Froude's ”Life of Carlyle,” we drove by the house where he lived and paused a moment at the door, where poor Jennie went in and out so often with a heavy heart. It is a painful record of a great soul struggling with poverty and disappointment; the hope of success as an author so long deferred and never wholly realized. His foolish pride of independence and heads.h.i.+p, and his utter obliviousness as to his domestic duties and the comfort of his wife, made the picture still darker. Poor Jennie, fitted to s.h.i.+ne in any circle, yet doomed all her married life to domestic drudgery, with no a.s.sociations with the great man for whose literary companions.h.i.+p she had sacrificed herself. It adds greatly to one's interest in Scott, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Bulwer, James and George Eliot, to read them amidst the scenes where they lived and died. Thus in my leisure hours, after the fatigues of sight-seeing and visiting, I re-read many of these authors near the places where they spent their last days on earth.

As I had visited Ambleside forty years before and seen Harriet Martineau in her prime, I did not go with Miss Anthony to Lake Windermere. She found the well-known house occupied by Mr. William Henry Hills, a liberal Quaker named after William Henry Channing.

Mrs. Hills received the party with great hospitality, showed them through all the apartments and pointed out the charming views from the windows. They paused a few moments reverently in the chamber where that grand woman had pa.s.sed her last triumphant days on earth. On the kitchen hearth was still sitting her favorite cat, sixteen years old, the spots in her yellow and black fur as marked as ever. Puss is the observed of all observers who visit that sacred shrine, and it is said she seems specially to enjoy the attention of strangers. From here Miss Anthony drove round Grasmere, the romantic home of Wordsworth, wandered through the old church, sat in the pew he so often occupied and lingered near the last resting-place of the great poet. As the former residence of the anti-slavery agitator, Thomas Clarkson, was on Ulswater, another of the beautiful lakes in that region, Miss Anthony extended her excursion still further and learned from the people many pleasing characteristics of these celebrated personages. On her way to Ireland she stopped at Ulverston and visited Miss Hannah Goad, who was a descendant of the founder of Quakerism, George Fox.

She was in the old house in which he was married to Margaret Fell and where they lived many years; attended the quaint little church where he often spoke from the high seats, looked through his well-worn Bible, and the minutes of their monthly meetings, kept by Margaret Fell two centuries ago.

Returning to London we attended one of Miss Biggs' receptions and among others met Mr. Stansfeld, M. P., who had labored faithfully for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases acts, and in a measure been successful. We had the honor of an interview with Lord Shaftsbury at one of his crowded receptions, and found him a little uncertain as to the wisdom of allowing married women to vote, for fear of disturbing the peace of the family. I have often wondered if men see in this objection what fatal admissions they make as to their own selfishness and love of domination.

Miss Anthony was present at the great Liberal conference at Leeds on October 17, to which Mrs. Helen Bright Clark, Miss Jane Cobden, Mrs. Tanner, Mrs. Scatcherd and several other ladies were duly elected delegates from their respective Liberal leagues, and occupied seats on the floor. Mrs. Clark and Miss Cobden, daughters of the great Corn-law reformers, spoke eloquently in favor of the resolution to extend parliamentary suffrage to women, which was presented by Walter McLaren of Bradford. As these young women made their impa.s.sioned appeals for the recognition of woman's political equality in the next bill for the extension of suffrage, that immense gathering of 1,600 delegates was hushed into profound silence. For a daughter to speak thus in that great representative convention in direct opposition to her loved and honored father, the acknowledged leader of that party, was an act of heroism and fidelity to her own highest convictions almost without a parallel in English history, and the effect on the audience was as thrilling as it was surprising. The resolution was pa.s.sed by a large majority. At the reception given to Mr. John Bright that evening, as Mrs. Clark approached the das on which her n.o.ble father stood shaking the hands of pa.s.sing friends, she remarked to her husband, ”I wonder if father has heard of my speech this morning, and if he will forgive me for thus publicly differing with him?” The query was soon answered. As he caught the first glimpse of his daughter he stepped down and, pressing her hand affectionately, kissed her with a fond father's warmth on either cheek in turn. The next evening the great Quaker statesman was heard by the admiring thousands who could crowd into Victoria Hall, while thousands, equally desirous to hear, failed to get tickets of admission. It was a magnificent sight, and altogether a most impressive gathering of the people. Miss Anthony with her friends sat in the gallery opposite the great platform, where they had a fine view of the whole audience. When John Bright, escorted by Sir Wilfred Lawson, took his seat, the immense audience rose, waving hats and handkerchiefs and with the wildest enthusiasm giving cheer after cheer in honor of the great leader. Sir Wilfred Lawson in his introductory remarks facetiously alluded to the resolution adopted by the conference as somewhat in advance of the ideas of the speaker of the evening. The house broke into roars of laughter, while the father of Liberalism, perfectly convulsed, joined in the general merriment.

But when at length his time to speak had come, and Mr. Bright went over the many steps of progress that had been taken by the Liberal party, he cunningly dodged all in the direction of the emanc.i.p.ation of the women of England. He skipped round the agitation in 1867 and John Stuart Mill's amendment presented at that time in the House of Commons; the extension of the munic.i.p.al suffrage in 1869; the partic.i.p.ation of women in the establishment of national schools under the law of 1870, both as voters and members of school-boards; the Married Woman's Property bill of 1882; the large and increasing vote for the extension of parliamentary suffrage in the House of Commons, and the adoption of the resolution by that great conference the day before. All these successive steps towards woman's emanc.i.p.ation he carefully remembered to forget.

During Miss Anthony's stay in Leeds she and her cousin, Dr. Fannie d.i.c.kinson, were guests of Mrs. Hannah Ford at Adel Grange, an old and lovely suburban home, where she met many interesting women, members of the school-board, poor-law guardians and others. The three daughters of Mrs. Ford, though possessed of ample incomes, have each a purpose in life; one had gathered hundreds of factory girls into evening schools, where she taught them to cut and make their garments, as well as to read and write; one was an artist and the third a musician, having studied in London and Florence. It was during this ever-to-be-remembered week that Miss Anthony, escorted by Mrs. Ford, visited Haworth, the bleak and lonely home of the Brontes. It was a dark, drizzly October day, intensifying all the gloomy memories of the place. She sat in the old church pew where those s.h.i.+vering girls endured such discomforts through the fearful services, with their benumbed feet on the very stone slab that from time to time was taken up to deposit in the earth beneath their loved dead! She was shown through the house, paused at the place under the stairs where the imperial s.h.i.+rley had her fierce encounter with that almost human dog, Keeper; she stood in the drawing-room where the sainted three sisters, arm-in-arm, paced up and down plotting their weird stories. She walked through the same old gate, on the same single stone pavement and over the same stile out into the same heather fields, gazing on the same dreary sky above and the same desolate earth on every side. She dined in the same old ”Black Bull”; sat in poor Branwell's chair and was served by the same person who dealt out the drinks to that poor unfortunate--then a young bar-maid, now the aged proprietor.

Miss Anthony crossed from Barrow to Belfast, where she was given a most cordial reception at the house of one of Ireland's distinguished orators, Miss Isabella M. Tod, who took her to one of her Ulster temperance meetings at Garvah, where they were the guests of Rev. Thomas Medill, a cousin of the distinguished Chicago editor. There, as Miss Anthony listened to the prayers and exhortations of the Presbyterian ministers and to the arguments of Miss Tod, and heard no appeals to the audience to join in the work of suppressing the traffic, a realizing sense of the utter powerlessness of the queen's subjects in Ireland dawned upon her for the first time. In all that crowd there was not one who had any voice in the decision of that question. The entire control of the matter rested with three magistrates appointed by the queen, who are in nowise responsible to the tax-paying people to whom they administer the laws. Had Miss Tod been addressing an American audience, she would have appealed to every man to vote only for candidates pledged to no-license. From Garvah they made a pilgrimage to the Giant's Causeway. Miss Anthony had, when at Oban, visited Fingal's Cave, and the two wonders that always fix themselves upon the imagination of the youthful student of the world's geography fully matched her expectations.

At Dublin she visited the Castle, the old parliament building, now a bank; Kings and Queens College, that gives diplomas to women; the parks, the cemeteries, the tomb of Daniel O'Connell. She attended a meeting of the common council, of which Alfred Webb, the only surviving son of the old abolitionist, Richard D. Webb, was a member, and there she listened to a discussion on a pet.i.tion to the queen that the people of Dublin might be allowed to elect their own tax-collector instead of having one placed over them by ”the powers that be” at London, as the official thus appointed had just proved a defaulter. In listening to the outrages perpetrated upon a helpless people by foreign officials, the one wonder to her was, not that so many of Ireland's sons are discontented, but that they are not in open rebellion.

There Miss Anthony made the acquaintance of numbers of excellent Friends,[579] and with Mrs. Haslam visited their large free library and attended their First-day meeting. In Dublin, too, she met Michael Davitt, who seemed to her a most sincere champion of liberty for himself and his people. Miss Anthony spent a week with Mr. and Mrs. Haslam in Cork, visiting Blarney Castle, the old walled city of Youghal with its crumbling Quaker meeting-house and fine old mansion in which Sir Walter Raleigh lived, and thence to the beautiful Lakes of Killarney, and in a jaunting-car through the evicted tenants' district, entering the hovels and talking with the inmates. The sad stories poured into her ears, and the poverty and wretchedness she saw, proved to her that none of Mr. Redpath's revelations, so shocking to the humanity of our people, were in the least over-drawn. The circuit through Limerick, Galway, Clifton and Belfast was made in third-cla.s.s cars, that she might talk with the people of the working cla.s.s. This was the season for their county fairs, which gave her an opportunity to see the farmers driving their cattle and taking their meagre products to the fair. The women and girls were uniformly barefooted, while some of the men and boys wore shoes. In reply to her query why this was so, one man said, ”It is all we can do to get shoes for them as airnes the money.” The same old story; woman's work, however arduous, brings no price in the market.

While in London we attended several large and enthusiastic reform meetings. We heard Bradlaugh address his const.i.tuency on that memorable day at Trafalgar Square, at the opening of parliament, when violence was antic.i.p.ated and the parliament houses were surrounded by immense crowds, with the military and police in large numbers to maintain order. We heard Michael Davitt and Miss Helen Taylor at a great meeting in Exeter Hall, the former on home-rule for Ireland, and the latter on the nationalization of land, showing that in ancient times the people had many privileges long since denied. They even had forests and commons and the road-side, where their cows, sheep and geese could glean something. The facts and figures given in these two lectures as to the abject poverty of the people and the cruel system by which every inch of land had been grabbed by their oppressors, were indeed appalling. A few days before sailing we made our last visit to Ernestine L. Rose and found our n.o.ble coadjutor, though in delicate health, pleasantly situated in the heart of London, as deeply interested as ever in the struggles of the hour.

Dining one day with Mrs. Lucas, we were forcibly impressed with the growing liberality of people of all shades of belief and of all professions. The guests on that occasion were Mrs. Hallock, sister-in-law of Robert Dale Owen, thoroughly imbued with his religious and social ideas; Dr. Mary J. Hall, the only woman practicing homeopathy in England; Miss Henrietta Muller, member of the London school-board; Miss Clara Spence, a young actress from America, who gave us some fine recitations; and such liberals in politics and religion as Mrs. Stanton Blatch and myself, while our hostess was an orthodox Friend. However we were all agreed on one point, the right of women to full equality everywhere. In the evening we went to see Mrs. Hallock's daughter, Ella Deitz, in the play of ”Impulse.” We urged Mrs. Lucas to accompany us, but she said she had never been to a theater in her life.

A great discomfort in all English homes is the cold draughts through their halls and unoccupied rooms. A moderate fire in the grates in the family apartments is their only mode of heating, and they seem quite oblivious as to the danger of throwing a door open into a cold hall on one's back while the servants pa.s.s in and out with the various courses' at dinner. As we Americans were sorely tried under such circ.u.mstances, it was decided in the Basingstoke mansion to have a hall stove, which, after a prolonged search, was found in London and duly installed as a presiding deity to defy the dampness that pervades all those ivy-covered habitations, as well as the neuralgia that wrings their possessors. What a blessing it proved, more than any one thing making the old English house seem like an American home! The delightful summer heat we in America enjoy in the coldest weather is quite unknown to our Saxon cousins.