CHAPTER XXVI.

MY LAST VISIT TO ENGLAND.

As soon as we got our carriage put together Hattie and I drove out every

day, as the roads in England are in fine condition all the year round.

We had lovely weather during the spring, but the summer was wet and

cold. With reading, writing, going up to London, and receiving visitors,

the months flew by without our accomplishing half the work we proposed.

As my daughter was a member of the Albemarle Club, we invited several

friends to dine with us there at different times. There we had a long

talk with Mr. Stead, the editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, on his

position in regard to Russian affairs, "The Deceased Wife's Sister

Bill," and the divorce laws of England. Mr. Stead is a fluent talker as

well as a good writer. He is the leader of the social purity movement in

England. The wisdom of his course toward Sir Charles Dilke and Mr.

Parnell was questioned by many; but there is a touch of the religious

fanatic in Mr. Stead, as in many of his followers.

There were several problems in social ethics that deeply stirred the

English people in the year of our Lord 1890. One was Charles Stewart

Parnell's platonic friendship with Mrs. O'Shea, and the other was the

Lord Chancellor's decision in the case of Mrs. Jackson. The pulpit, the

press, and the people vied with each other in trying to dethrone Mr.

Parnell as the great Irish leader, but the united forces did not succeed

in destroying his self-respect, nor in hounding him out of the British

Parliament, though, after a brave and protracted resistance on his part,

they did succeed in hounding him into the grave.

It was pitiful to see the Irish themselves, misled by a hypocritical

popular sentiment in England, turn against their great leader, the only

one they had had for half a century who was able to keep the Irish

question uppermost in the House of Commons year after year. The course

of events since his death has proved the truth of what he told them, to

wit: that there was no sincerity in the interest English politicians

manifested in the question of Home Rule, and that the debates on that

point would cease as soon as it was no longer forced on their

consideration. And now when they have succeeded in killing their leader,

they begin to realize their loss. The question evolved through the

ferment of social opinions was concisely stated, thus: "Can a man be a

great leader, a statesman, a general, an admiral, a learned chief

justice, a trusted lawyer, or skillful physician, if he has ever broken

the Seventh Commandment?"

I expressed my opinion in the _Westminster Review_, at the time, in the

affirmative. Mrs. Jacob Bright, Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick of Boston,

Kate Field, in her _Washington_, agreed with me. Many other women spoke

out promptly in the negative, and with a bitterness against those who

took the opposite view that was lamentable.

The Jackson case was a profitable study, as it brought out other

questions of social ethics, as well as points of law which were ably

settled by the Lord Chancellor. It seems that immediately after Mr. and

Mrs. Jackson were married, the groom was compelled to go to Australia.

After two years he returned and claimed his bride, but in the interval

she felt a growing aversion and determined not to live with him. As she

would not even see him, with the assistance of friends he kidnaped her

one day as she was coming out of church, and carried her to his home,

where he kept her under surveillance until her friends, with a writ of

_habeas corpus_, compelled him to bring her into court. The popular idea

"based on the common law of England," was, that the husband had this

absolute right. The lower court, in harmony with this idea, maintained

the husband's right, and remanded her to his keeping, but the friends

appealed to the higher court and the Lord Chancellor reversed the

decision.

With regard to the right so frequently claimed, giving husbands the

power to seize, imprison, and chastise their wives, he said: "I am of

the opinion that no such right exists in law. I am of the opinion that

no such right ever did exist in law. I say that no English subject has

the right to imprison another English subject, whether his wife or not."

Through this decision the wife walked out of the court a free woman. The

passage of the Married Women's Property Bill in England in 1882 was the

first blow at the old idea of coverture, giving to wives their rights of

property, the full benefit of which they are yet to realize when

clearer-minded men administer the laws. The decision of the Lord

Chancellor, rendered March 18, 1891, declaratory of the personal rights

of married women, is a still more important blow by just so much as the

rights of person are more sacred than the rights of property.

One hundred years ago, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield gave his famous

decision in the Somerset case, "That no slave could breathe on British

soil," and the slave walked out of court a free man. The decision of the

Lord Chancellor, in the Jackson case, is far more important, more

momentous in its consequences, as it affects not only one race but

one-half of the entire human family. From every point of view this is

the greatest legal decision of the century. Like the great Chief Justice

of the last century, the Lord Chancellor, with a clearer vision than

those about him, rises into a purer atmosphere of thought, and

vindicates the eternal principles of justice and the dignity of British

law, by declaring all statutes that make wives the bond slaves of their

husbands, obsolete.

How long will it be in our Republic before some man will arise, great

enough to so interpret our National Constitution as to declare that

women, as citizens of the United States, cannot be governed by laws in

the making of which they have no part? It is not Constitutional

amendments nor statute laws we need, but judges on the bench of our

Supreme Court, who, in deciding great questions of human rights, shall

be governed by the broad principles of justice rather than precedent.

One interesting feature in the trial of the Jackson case, was that both

Lady Coleridge and the wife of the Lord Chancellor were seated on the

bench, and evidently much pleased with the decision.

It is difficult to account for the fact that, while women of the highest

classes in England take the deepest interest in politics and court

decisions, American women of wealth and position are wholly indifferent

to all public matters. While English women take an active part in

elections, holding meetings and canvassing their districts, here, even

the wives of judges, governors, and senators speak with bated breath of

political movements, and seem to feel that a knowledge of laws and

constitutions would hopelessly unsex them.

Toward the last of April, with my little granddaughter and her nurse, I

went down to Bournemouth, one of the most charming watering places in

England. We had rooms in the Cliff House with windows opening on the

balcony, where we had a grand view of the bay and could hear the waves

dashing on the shore. While Nora, with her spade and pail, played all

day in the sands, digging trenches and filling them with water, I sat on

the balcony reading "Diana of the Crossways," and Bjornson's last novel,

"In God's Way," both deeply interesting. As all the characters in the

latter come to a sad end, I could not see the significance of the title.

If they walked in God's way their career should have been successful.

I took my first airing along the beach in an invalid chair. These bath

chairs are a great feature in all the watering places of England. They

are drawn by a man or a donkey. The first day I took a man, an old

sailor, who talked incessantly of his adventures, stopping to rest every

five minutes, dissipating all my pleasant reveries, and making an

unendurable bore of himself. The next day I told the proprietor to get

me a man who would not talk all the time. The man he supplied jogged

along in absolute silence; he would not even answer my questions.

Supposing he had his orders to keep profound silence, after one or two

attempts I said nothing. When I returned home, the proprietor asked me

how I liked this man. "Ah!" I said, "he was indeed silent and would not

even answer a question nor go anywhere I told him; still I liked him

better than the talkative man." He laughed heartily and said: "This man

is deaf and dumb. I thought I would make sure that you should not be

bored." I joined in the laugh and said: "Well, to-morrow get me a man

who can hear but cannot speak, if you can find one constructed on that

plan."

Bournemouth is noteworthy now as the burial place of Mary Wolstonecraft

and the Shelleys. I went to see the monument that had been recently

reared to their memory. On one side is the following inscription:

"William Godwin, author of 'Political Justice,' born March 3rd, 1756,

died April 7th, 1836. Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, author of the

'Vindication of the Rights of Women,' born April 27th, 1759, died

September 10th, 1797." These remains were brought here, in 1851, from

the churchyard of St. Pancras, London. On the other side are the

following inscriptions: "Mary Wolstonecraft Godwin, daughter of William

Godwin and widow of the late Percy Bysshe Shelley, born August 30th,

1797, died February 1st, 1851. Percy Florence Shelley, son of Percy

Shelley and Mary Wolstonecraft, third baronet, born November 12th, 1819,

died December 5th, 1889. "In Christ's Church, six miles from

Bournemouth, is a bas-relief in memory of the great poet. He is

represented, dripping with seaweed, in the arms of the Angel of Death.

As I sat on my balcony hour after hour, reading and thinking of the

Shelleys, watching the changing hues of the clouds and the beautiful

bay, and listening to the sad monotone of the waves, these sweet lines

of Whittier's came to my mind:

"Its waves are kneeling on the strand,

As kneels the human knee,--

Their white locks bowing to the sand,

The priesthood of the sea!

"The blue sky is the temple's arch,

Its transept earth and air,

The music of its starry march

The chorus of a prayer."

American letters, during this sojourn abroad, told of many losses, one

after another, from our family circle; nine passed away within two

years. The last was my sister Mrs. Bayard, who died in May, 1891. She

was the oldest of our family, and had always been a second mother to her

younger sisters, and her house our second home.

The last of June my son Theodore's wife and daughter came over from

France to spend a month with us. Lisette and Nora, about the same size,

played and quarreled most amusingly together. They spent their mornings

in the kindergarten school, and the afternoons with their pony, but

rainy days I was impressed into their service to dress dolls and tell

stories. I had the satisfaction to hear them say that their dolls were

never so prettily dressed before, and that my stories were better than

any in the books. As I composed the wonderful yarns as I went along, I

used to get very tired, and sometimes, when I heard the little feet

coming, I would hide, but they would hunt until they found me. When my

youngest son was ten years old and could read for himself, I graduated

in story telling, having practiced in that line twenty-one years. I

vowed that I would expend no more breath in that direction, but the

eager face of a child asking for stories is too much for me, and my vow

has been often broken. All the time I was in England Nora claimed the

twilight hour, and, in France, Lisette was equally pertinacious. When

Victor Hugo grew tired telling his grandchildren stories, he would wind

up with the story of an old gentleman who, after a few interesting

experiences, took up his evening paper and began to read aloud. The

children would listen a few moments and then, one by one, slip out of

the room. Longfellow's old gentleman, after many exciting scenes in his

career, usually stretched himself on the lounge and feigned sleep. But

grandmothers are not allowed to shelter themselves with such devices;

they are required to spin on until the bedtime really arrives.

On July 16, one of the hottest days of the season, Mrs. Jacob Bright and

daughter, Herbert Burroughs, and Mrs. Parkhurst came down from London,

and we sat out of doors, taking our luncheon under the trees and

discussing theosophy. Later in the month Hattie and I went to Yorkshire

to visit Mr. and Mrs. Scatcherd at Morley Hall, and there spent several

days. We had a prolonged discussion on personal rights. One side was

against all governmental interference, such as compulsory education and

the protection of children against cruel parents; the other side in

favor of state interference that protected the individual in the

enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness. I took the latter position.

Many parents are not fit to have the control of children, hence the

State should see that they are sheltered, fed, clothed, and educated. It

is far better for the State to make good citizens of its children in

the beginning, than, in the end, to be compelled to care for them as

criminals.

While in the north of England we spent a few days at Howard Castle, the

summer residence of Lord and Lady Carlisle and their ten children. So

large a family in high life is unusual. As I had known Lord and Lady

Amberley in America, when they visited this country in 1867, I enjoyed

meeting other members of their family. Lady Carlisle is in favor of

woman suffrage and frequently speaks in public. She is a woman of great

force of character, and of very generous impulses. She is trying to do

her duty in sharing the good things of life with the needy. The poor for

miles round often have picnics in her park, and large numbers of

children from manufacturing towns spend weeks with her cottage tenants

at her expense. Lord Carlisle is an artist and a student. As he has a

poetical temperament and is aesthetic in all his tastes, Lady Carlisle

is the business manager of the estate. She is a practical woman with

immense executive ability. The castle with its spacious dining hall and

drawing rooms, with its chapel, library, galleries of paintings and

statuary, its fine outlook, extensive gardens and lawns was well worth

seeing. We enjoyed our visit very much and discussed every imaginable

subject.

When we returned to Basingstoke we had a visit from Mrs. Cobb, the wife

of a member of Parliament, and sister-in-law of Karl Pearson, whose

lectures on woman I had enjoyed so much. It was through reading his

work, "The Ethic of Free Thought," that the Matriarchate made such a

deep impression on my mind and moved me to write a tract on the subject.

People who have neither read nor thought on this point, question the

facts as stated by Bachofen, Morgan, and Wilkeson; but their truth, I

think, cannot be questioned. They seem so natural in the chain of

reasoning and the progress of human development. Mrs. Cobb did a very

good thing a few days before visiting us. At a great meeting called to

promote Mr. Cobb's election, John Morley spoke. He did not even say

"Ladies and gentlemen" in starting, nor make the slightest reference to

the existence of such beings as women. When he had finished, Mrs. Cobb

arose mid great cheering and criticised his speech, making some

quotations from his former speeches of a very liberal nature. The

audience laughed and cheered, fully enjoying the rebuke. The next day in

his speech he remembered his countrywomen, and on rising said, "Ladies

and gentlemen."

During August, 1891, I was busy getting ready for my voyage, as I was to

sail on the _Ems_ on August 23. Although I had crossed the ocean six

times in the prior ten years I dreaded the voyage more than words can

describe. The last days were filled with sadness, in parting with those

so dear to me in foreign countries--especially those curly-headed little

girls, so bright, so pretty, so winning in all their ways. Hattie and

Theodore went with me from Southampton in the little tug to the great

ship _Ems_. It was very hard for us to say the last farewell, but we all

tried to be as brave as possible.

We had a rough voyage, but I was not seasick one moment. I was up and

dressed early in the morning, and on deck whenever the weather

permitted. I made many pleasant acquaintances with whom I played chess

and whist; wrote letters to all my foreign friends, ready to mail on

landing; read the "Egotist," by George Meredith, and Ibsen's plays as

translated by my friend Frances Lord. I had my own private stewardess, a

nice German woman who could speak English. She gave me most of my meals

on deck or in the ladies' saloon, and at night she would open the

porthole two or three times and air our stateroom; that made the nights

endurable. The last evening before landing we got up an entertainment

with songs, recitations, readings, and speeches. I was invited to

preside and introduce the various performers. We reached Sandy Hook the

evening of the 29th day of August and lay there all night, and the next

morning we sailed up our beautiful harbor, brilliant with the rays of

the rising sun.

Being fortunate in having children in both hemispheres, here, too, I

found a son and daughter waiting to welcome me to my native land. Our

chief business for many weeks was searching for an inviting apartment

where my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, my youngest son, Bob, and I

could set up our family altar and sing our new psalm of life together.

After much weary searching we found an apartment. Having always lived in

a large house in the country, the quarters seemed rather contracted at

first, but I soon realized the immense saving in labor and expense in

having no more room than is absolutely necessary, and all on one floor.

To be transported from the street to your apartment in an elevator in

half a minute, to have all your food and fuel sent to your kitchen by an

elevator in the rear, to have your rooms all warmed with no effort of

your own, seemed like a realization of some fairy dream. With an

extensive outlook of the heavens above, of the Park and the Boulevard

beneath, I had a feeling of freedom, and with a short flight of stairs

to the roof (an easy escape in case of fire), of safety, too.

No sooner was I fully established in my eyrie, than I was summoned to

Rochester, by my friend Miss Anthony, to fill an appointment she had

made for me with Miss Adelaide Johnson, the artist from Washington, who

was to idealize Miss Anthony and myself in marble for the World's Fair.

I found my friend demurely seated in her mother's rocking-chair hemming

table linen and towels for her new home, anon bargaining with butchers,

bakers, and grocers, making cakes and puddings, talking with enthusiasm

of palatable dishes and the beauties of various articles of furniture

that different friends had presented her. All there was to remind one of

the "Napoleon of the Suffrage Movement" was a large escritoire covered

with documents in the usual state of confusion--Miss Anthony never could

keep her papers in order. In search of any particular document she roots

out every drawer and pigeon hole, although her mother's little spinning

wheel stands right beside her desk, a constant reminder of all the

domestic virtues of the good housewife, with whom "order" is of the

utmost importance and "heaven's first law." The house was exquisitely

clean and orderly, the food appetizing, the conversation pleasant and

profitable, and the atmosphere genial.

A room in an adjoining house was assigned to Miss Johnson and myself,

where a strong pedestal and huge mass of clay greeted us. And there, for

nearly a month, I watched the transformation of that clay into human

proportions and expressions, until it gradually emerged with the

familiar facial outlines ever so dear to one's self. Sitting there four

or five hours every day I used to get very sleepy, so my artist

arranged for a series of little naps. When she saw the crisis coming she

would say: "I will work now for a time on the ear, the nose, or the

hair, as you must be wide awake when I am trying to catch the

expression." I rewarded her for her patience and indulgence by summoning

up, when awake, the most intelligent and radiant expression that I could

command. As Miss Johnson is a charming, cultured woman, with liberal

ideas and brilliant in conversation, she readily drew out all that was

best in me.

Before I left Rochester, Miss Anthony and her sister Mary gave a

reception to me at their house. As some of the professors and trustees

of the Rochester University were there, the question of co-education was

freely discussed, and the authorities urged to open the doors of the

University to the daughters of the people. It was rather aggravating to

contemplate those fine buildings and grounds, while every girl in that

city must go abroad for higher education. The wife of President Hill of

the University had just presented him with twins, a girl and a boy, and

he facetiously remarked, "that if the Creator could risk placing sexes

in such near relations, he thought they might with safety walk on the

same campus and pursue the same curriculum together."

Miss Anthony and I went to Geneva the next day to visit Mrs. Miller and

to meet, by appointment, Mrs. Eliza Osborne, the niece of Lucretia Mott,

and eldest daughter of Martha C. Wright. We anticipated a merry meeting,

but Miss Anthony and I were so tired that we no doubt appeared stupid.

In a letter to Mrs. Miller afterward, Mrs. Osborne inquired why I was

"so solemn." As I pride myself on being impervious to fatigue or

disease, I could not own up to any disability, so I turned the tables on

her in the following letter:

"New York, 26 West 61st Street,

November 12, 1891.

"Dear Eliza:

"In a recent letter to Mrs. Miller, speaking of the time when we

last met, you say, 'Why was Mrs. Stanton so solemn?' to which I

reply: Ever since an old German emperor issued an edict, ordering

all the women under that flag to knit when walking on the highway,

when selling apples in the market place, when sitting in the parks,

because 'to keep women out of mischief their hands must be busy,'

ever since I read that, I have felt 'solemn' whenever I have seen

any daughters of our grand Republic knitting, tatting,

embroidering, or occupied with any of the ten thousand digital

absurdities that fill so large a place in the lives of Eve's

daughters.

"Looking forward to the scintillations of wit, the philosophical

researches, the historical traditions, the scientific discoveries,

the astronomical explorations, the mysteries of theosophy,

palmistry, mental science, the revelations of the unknown world

where angels and devils do congregate, looking forward to

discussions of all these grand themes, in meeting the eldest

daughter of David and Martha Wright, the niece of Lucretia Mott,

the sister-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison, a queenly-looking

woman five feet eight in height, and well proportioned, with

glorious black eyes, rivaling even De Staël's in power and pathos,

one can readily imagine the disappointment I experienced when such

a woman pulled a cotton wash rag from her pocket and forthwith

began to knit with bowed head. Fixing her eyes and concentrating

her thoughts on a rag one foot square; it was impossible for

conversation to rise above the wash-rag level! It was enough to

make the most aged optimist 'solemn' to see such a wreck of

glorious womanhood.

"And, still worse, she not only knit steadily, hour after hour, but

she bestowed the sweetest words of encouragement on a young girl

from the Pacific Coast, who was embroidering rosebuds on another

rag, the very girl I had endeavored to rescue from the maelstrom of

embroidery, by showing her the unspeakable folly of giving her

optic nerves to such base uses, when they were designed by the

Creator to explore the planetary world, with chart and compass to

guide mighty ships across the sea, to lead the sons of Adam with

divinest love from earth to heaven. Think of the great beseeching

optic nerves and muscles by which we express our admiration of all

that is good and glorious in earth and heaven, being concentrated

on a cotton wash rag! Who can wonder that I was 'solemn' that day!

I made my agonized protest on the spot, but it fell unheeded, and

with satisfied sneer Eliza knit on, and the young Californian

continued making the rosebuds. I gazed into space, and, when alone,

wept for my degenerate countrywoman. I not only was 'solemn' that

day, but I am profoundly 'solemn' whenever I think of that queenly

woman and that cotton wash rag. (One can buy a whole dozen of these

useful appliances, with red borders and fringed, for twenty-five

cents.) Oh, Eliza, I beseech you, knit no more!

"Affectionately yours,

"Elizabeth Cady Stanton."

To this Mrs. Osborne sent the following reply:

"Dear Mrs. Stanton:

"In your skit

Against your sisterhood who knit,

Or useful make their fingers,

I wonder if--deny it not--

The habit of Lucretia Mott

Within your memory lingers!

"In retrospective vision bright,

Can you recall dear Martha Wright

Without her work or knitting?

The needles flying in her hands,

On washing rags or baby's bands,

Or other work as fitting?

"I cannot think they thought the less,

Or ceased the company to bless

With conversation's riches,

Because they thus improved their time,

And never deemed it was a crime

To fill the hours with stitches.

"They even used to preach and plan

To spread the fashion, so that man

Might have this satisfaction;

Instead of idling as men do,

With nervous meddling fingers too,

Why not mate talk with action?

"But as a daughter and a niece,

I pride myself on every piece

Of handiwork created;

While reveling in social chat,

Or listening to gossip flat,

My gain is unabated.

"That German emperor you scorn,

Seems to my mind a monarch born,

Worthy to lead a column;

I'll warrant he could talk and work,

And, neither being used to shirk,

Was rarely very solemn.

"I could say more upon this head,

But must, before I go to bed.

Your idle precepts mocking,

Get out my needle and my yarn

And, caring not a single darn.

Just finish up this stocking."