Julia Ward Howe - Richards Laura E. (бесплатная регистрация книга TXT) 📗

Side by side with the suffrage movement, growing along with it and with the women's clubs, and in time to be absorbed by them, was another movement which was for many years very dear to her, the Association for the Advancement of Women.

This Association had its beginning in 1873, when Sorosis, then a sturdy infant, growing fast and reaching out in every direction, issued a call for a Congress of Women in New York in the autumn of that year. She says of this call:—-

"Many names, some known, others unknown to me, were appended to the document first sent forth. My own was asked for. Should I give or withhold it? Among the signatures already obtained, I saw that of Maria Mitchell,[76] and this determined me to give my own."

She went to the Congress, and "viewed its proceedings a little critically at first," its plan appearing to her "rather vast and vague."

Yet she felt the idea of the Association to be a good one; and when it was formed, with the above title, and with Mrs. Livermore as president, she was glad to serve on a sub-committee, charged with selecting topics and speakers for the first annual Congress.

The object of the Association was "to consider and present practical methods for securing to women higher intellectual, moral, and physical conditions, with a view to the improvement of all domestic and social relations."

At its first Congress she said:

"How can women best associate their efforts for the amelioration of Society? We must come together in a teachable and religious spirit. Women, while building firmly and definitely the fabric they decide to rear, must yet build with an individual tolerance which their combined and corporate wisdom may better explain. The form of the Association should be representative, in a true and wide sense. Deliberation in common, mutual instruction, achievement for the whole better and more valuable than the success of any,—these should be the objects held constantly in view. The good of all the aim of each. The discipline of labor, faith, and sacrifice is necessary. Our growth in harmony of will and in earnestness of purpose will be far more important than in numbers."

One hundred and ninety women formed this Association: a year later there were three hundred. The second Congress was held in Chicago, with an attendance "very respectable in numbers and character from the first, and very full in afternoon and evening."

On the second day, October 16, 1874, the subject considered was "Crime and Reform." The Journal says:—

"Mrs. Ellen Mitchell's paper on fallen women was first-rate throughout. I spoke first after it, saying that we must carry the war into Africa and reform the men...."

The meetings of the Congress grew more and more important to her. That of 1875 found her "much tossed in mind" about going, on account of the Doctor's ill health. She consulted Mr. Clarke, but felt afterward that this was a mistake.

"My d?mon says: 'Go and say nothing. Nobody can help you bear your own child.'"

She went.

No matter how fatiguing these journeys were, she never failed to find some enjoyment in them; many were the pleasant "fruits of friendship" gathered along the way. Some one of the sisters was sure to have a tiny teapot in her basket; another would produce a spirit-lamp; they drank their tea, shared their sandwiches, and were merry. She loved to travel with her "dear big Livermore," with Lucy Stone, and the faithful Blackwells, father and daughter; perhaps her best-loved companion was Ednah Cheney, her "esteemed friend of many years, excellent in counsel and constant and loyal in regard."

Once she and Mrs. Cheney appeared together at an "A.A.W." meeting in a Southern city, where speaking and singing were to alternate on the programme. It was in their later years: both were silver-haired and white-capped. Our mother was to announce the successive numbers. Glancing over the programme, she saw that Mr. So-and-So was to sing "The Two Grenadiers." With a twinkling glance toward Mrs. Cheney, she announced, "The next number will be 'The Two Granny Dears'!"

The Reverend Antoinette Blackwell, describing one of these journeys, says:—

"As we went onward I was ready to close my eyes and 'loll' or look lazily out to see the flying landscape seem to be doing the work. When I roused enough to look at Mrs. Howe she was reading. Later, I looked again, she was still reading. This went on mile after mile till I was enough interested to step quietly across the aisle and peep over Mrs. Howe's shoulder without disturbing her. She was reading a Greek volume, apparently with as much enjoyment as most of us gain from reading in plain English when we are not tired.... With apparent unwearied enjoyment, she told us anecdotes, repeated the little stories and rhymes and sang the little songs which she had given to her children and grandchildren....

"We lingered at the breakfast table in the morning and among other things came to comparing social likes and dislikes. 'I never can bring myself to destroy the least bit of paper,' said Mrs. Howe, meaning paper written on, containing the record of human thought and feeling which might be of worth, and its only record. To her these were the chief values of life."

The following notes are taken from the record of "A.A.W." journeys in the eighties:—

"Buffalo, October 22, 1881. I felt quite distracted about leaving home when I came this way for the Congress, but have felt clear about the good of it, ever since. I rarely have much religious meditation in these days, except to be very sorry for a very faulty life. I will therefore record the fact that I have felt an unusual degree of religious comfort in these last days. It seemed a severe undertaking to preach to-day after so busy a week, and with little or no time for preparation. But my text came to me as it usually does, and a hope that the sermon would be given to me, which, indeed, it seemed to be. I thought it out in bed last night and this morning...."

"My beautiful, beautiful West,

I clasp thee to my breast!

Or rather down I lie,

Like a little old babe and cry,

A babe to second childhood born,

Astonished at the mighty morn,

And only pleading to be fed,

From Earth's illimitable bread!"

"Left Schenectady yesterday. Drawing-room car. Read Greek a good deal. At Syracuse I took the tumbler of the car and ran out to get some milk, etc., for supper. Spent 25 cents, and took my slender meal in the car, on a table. After this, slept profoundly all the evening; took the sleeper at Rochester, and slept like the dead, having had very insufficient sleep for two nights past. Was awakened early to get out at Cleveland—much detained by a young woman who got into the dressing-room before me, and stayed to make an elaborate toilet, keeping every one else out. When at last she came out, I said to her, 'Well, madam, you have taken your own time, to the inconvenience of everybody else. You are the most selfish woman I ever travelled with.' Could get only a cup of coffee and a roll at Cleveland—much confusion about cars—regained mine, started, and found that I had left my trunk at Cleveland, unchecked. Flew to conductor, who immediately took measures to have it forwarded. Must wait all day at Shelby, in the most forlorn hole I ever saw called a hotel. No parlor, a dark bedroom for me to stay in, a cold hell without the fire, and a very hot one with it. Dirty bed not made up, a sinister likeness of Schuyler Colfax hanging high on the wall, and a print of the managers of Andy Johnson's impeachment. I—in distress about my trunk—have telegraphed to Mansfield for the title of my lecture and learn that it is 'Polite Society.' Must give it without the manuscript, and must borrow a gown to give it in."