The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 4

ON BOARD THE BRITISH PRINCE, February 24.

MY DEAR MRS. SPOFFORD: Here we are at noon, Friday, steaming down Delaware Bay. We got along nicely until 3 P. M. yesterday, when we came to a standstill. "Stuck in the mud," was the report. There we lay until eight, when with the incoming tide we made a fruitless attempt to get over the bar; then had to steam back up the river to anchor, and lie there until nine this morning--twenty-four hours almost in sight of the loved ones! It is a break from all fastenings to friends to be thus cut loose from the wharf and wafted out into the waters. These long hours of delay have given me time to think of those left behind, and how very far short I have come of doing and saying all I should have done and said....

From the diary:

Feb. 24.--The weather lovely; saloon cozy and pleasant with piano, flowers and canaries. There are only seven pa.s.sengers, among them a Catholic priest, a dear little three-year-old child and a baby. We sent twenty letters on sh.o.r.e, written during the day we have been detained.

Feb. 25.--Today dawns with no possibility of communicating with a soul outside the ship, a lonely feeling indeed; but I am determined to get all the good I can to mind and body out of this trip, and as little harm as possible.

Feb. 26.--I sit at the captain's right hand at table. The sea is perfectly smooth; I wonder if this broad expanse can be rolled up into mountains.

4 P.M.--The wind and waves are beginning to roar. The priest shows signs of surrender.

Mar. 2.--Sea calm and dishes no longer have to be fastened to table. It seems like freedom again. I can think of nothing beyond shipboard, can see no moves to be made when we reach Liverpool.

Mar. 4.--Winds fair, sea smooth, whole company at breakfast.

Captain Burton read the church service. Rachel played the piano and led the singing.

ON BOARD THE BRITISH PRINCE, March 5.

MY DEAR SISTER MARY: At lunch the captain said, "I'll soon show you land! It will be Mizzenhead, the farthest southwest point of Ireland." This is the first pen put to paper since I wrote you at the Delaware breakwater, eleven days ago. Think of it, oh, ye scribbling fairies, almost two weeks and not a letter written by S.

B. A.!

Well, we are thus far and have had no more than what the sailors call a "stiff breeze" and only two whiffs of that sort. Since Thursday the weather has been lovely--bright sun and crisp air.

Rachel succ.u.mbed one night when the "stiff breeze" first opened upon us, and I felt a little squalmy. The next morning a sudden lurch of the ship took both feet from under me and I was flat on my back. The following day while I was lying on a seat, reading and half-dozing, the first I knew I was in a heap on the floor. Then I learned it wasn't safe to lie down without a board fence in front.

Again, in the evening I had taken the one loose chair in the saloon, drawn it under a lamp and seated myself very complacently to read, when lo, I was pitched over as if propelled from a ten-pounder! Three times and out--all in rapid succession--taught me to trust not to myself at all, but always to something fast to the ship. I haven't lost a meal during the whole trip. Another time I should take a larger stock of oranges, lemons and other fruit.

3 P. M.--We have just been up on the bridge for a first sight of the Emerald Isle. So long as there was no immediate prospect of setting foot on land, I could get up no spirit to write or think. I have worn the old velvet-trimmed black silk dress right through, and it is pretty well salted. I should love to have Lucy and Louise and Maud along on this trip, with sister Mary, too. What a jolly lot of tramps we would make! Well, their one ray of hope is to "pull through" the free academy and get on their own feet. There is plenty of good in store for all who can bring themselves in line to get it. Holding a dish right side up to catch the shower is the work for each one of us. How much I do think and hope for the three nieces now entering womanhood. For Susie B. Jr., and little Anna O.

and Gula, I shall think and hope by and by. As for the nephews, I do not forget them, but they'll fight their way through somehow, as have all boys before them....

Dinner is over and an hour's talk at table after it. The Englishman Mr. Mullinor, summed up: "Your country will come to ruin from such doctrines as you woman's rights folks advocate;" and I have put the case to him to the best of my sea-brain's ability. This is the very first time I have let my tongue loose. We expect to be in Liverpool tomorrow early, and then I will write you. Just take it for granted all is well with me, and I will try to do the same with you.

Miss Anthony found at Liverpool a cordial letter from Mrs. A. A.

Sargent, whose husband was now United States Minister to Germany. She welcomed her to Europe, saying: "You always have the entree to our home and hearts. Come and stay as long as you will." A note from Mrs. Stanton to her "beloved Susan" said: "I came up to London the moment I heard of the arrival of the British Prince. To think of your choosing a 'Prince'

when a 'Queen' was coming! I am on the tiptoe of expectation to meet you.... I write in the suffrage rooms surrounded with ladies."

A week later the diary records: "Left London at 10 A. M. for Rome, Rachel and self, also Hattie Daniels, Alice Blatch and Mrs. f.a.n.n.y Keartland, five in all, three of the Eagle and two of the Lion, each glorying in her own nationality!"

ROME, NO. 75 VIA n.a.z.iONALE, March 22.

MY DEAR SISTER: Here it is a whole month tomorrow since we took a last glimpse of each other and scarce a decent letter have I written you; but it is fearfully hard work to find the minutes.

There is so much to tell, and the spelling and p.r.o.nunciation of the names are so perfectly awful.... At Liverpool we drove two hours in the Princess and Sefton parks and then went to the city museum, where the most interesting things to us were the portraits of all the Bonapartes--men and women, old and young--Josephine's very lovely; and to the city library, which is free. There is also an immense free lecture hall, which was built for an aquarium but found impracticable, so it is an enormous circle, seated from the circ.u.mference down to the center, with a large platform at one side and every step and seat cut out of solid stone. Here the most learned men of the English colleges give free lectures, the city fund being ample to meet all expenses. The librarian, on hearing we were Americans, took great pains to show us everything. Of course when he said, "We have over 80,000 volumes," I asked, "Have you among them the History of Woman Suffrage, by Mesdames Stanton, etc., of America?" And lo, he had never heard of it!

Thursday morning we took train--second-cla.s.s carriage--for London.

Mrs. Stanton was at the station, her face beaming and her white curls as lovely as ever, and we were soon landed at our boarding-house. Lydia Becker came to dinner by Mrs. Stanton's invitation, so she was the first of England's suffrage women for us to meet. Friday afternoon we glanced into the House of Commons and happened to see Gladstone presenting some motion. Spent the evening chatting with Mrs. Stanton--a world of things to talk over....

Sat.u.r.day we went again to Bayswater to see Mrs. Rose--found her very lonely because of the death of her devoted husband a year ago.

She threw her arms around my neck and her first words were: "O, that my heart would break now and you might close my eyes, dear Susan!" She is vastly more isolated in England because of her non-Christian views than she ever was in America. Sectarianism sways everything here more now than fifty years ago with us.

That afternoon I left for Basingstoke, the new home of darling Harriot Stanton, now with Blatch suffixed. Her husband is a fine specimen of a young Englishman of thirty. Sunday morning he took me in a dog-cart through two gentlemen's parks, a pleasant drive through pasture and woodland, thousands of acres enclosed by a stone wall. When I said, "What a shame that all these acres should thus lie waste, while myriads of poor people are without an inch of ground whereon to set foot," he replied: "They would be no better off if all should be cut up into forty-acre farms and divided among the poor, for no man could possibly support a family upon one. The owners of these parks are actually reduced to poverty trying to keep them up." So you see it is of no use to talk of giving every Englishman a farm, when the land is so poor no one can make a living off of it. Of course this is not true of all England, but evidently its inhabitants must be fed from other countries. On our return I was conducted through the garden and green-house of Mr.

Blatch's father, where I saw peach trees in blossom and grape vines budding. The tree-trunks were not larger than my arm and I exclaimed, "How many peaches can you get off these little trees?"

"Why, last year, we had 250," said he. How is that by the side of our old farm harvest of 1,000 trees? And yet these English people talk as if they raised fruit!...

The next day I returned to London and Mrs. Stanton and I called on Rev. William Henry Channing at the West End, and had a two hours'

chat with him.... He was very cordial and on our leaving said, "I can't tell you how grateful I am for this interview. You have my blessing and benediction;" so we were glad at heart. Mr. Channing loves America above all other countries and feels it was a mistake for him to have left it. His elder daughter is the wife of Edwin Arnold. March 12 we dined with the son-in-law of William Ashurst, the friend of Wm. Lloyd Garrison--Mr. Biggs, and his four daughters. Caroline Ashurst Biggs, the second, is the editor of the Englishwoman's Review and one of the leading suffrage women of England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Very sincerely yours, Caroline A. Biggs."]

After dinner some twenty ladies and gentlemen came in and we had a delightful evening, but such a continual serving of refreshments!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mentia Taylor (Signed: "Yours very sincerely Mentia Taylor")]

Tuesday morning I went again to Mrs. Rose's and finding her bonneted and cloaked for a chair ride, I walked beside her, holding her hand, through Kensington Park. I hope and almost believe she will go back to America with me. I feel sure that we, who have not forgotten her early and wonderful work for woman and for freedom of thought, will do all in our power to smooth her last days....

That evening Rachel and I went to see Irving and Ellen Terry in Much Ado About Nothing. The painting and the lights and shadows of the scenery were lovely, and I suppose the acting was good, but I can not enjoy love and flirtation exhibited on the stage any more than off. All pa.s.sional demonstrations seem to belong to the two concerned, not to other persons. The lovemaking, however, was cooler, more distant and more piquant than usual.

Wednesday afternoon Mrs. Rebecca Moore, our old Revolution correspondent, took me to a meeting at Mrs. Muller's, about the Contagious Diseases Acts--fifty or sixty ladies present--was introduced, and several invited me to speak for them when I returned to London. Miss Rye, who has made between thirty and forty trips across the Atlantic with little girls, taking over more than 10,000 and placing them in good homes in Canada, was there and spoke. She said all her efforts could accomplish nothing in thinning out the more than 1,000,000 surplus women of the island.

Not one seemed to dare speak out the whole of the facts and philosophy. Each promised, "I will not shock you by calling the names," etc. Mrs. Peter Taylor's reception that evening was an unusually brilliant affair. She is looked upon as the mother of the English movement, as Mrs. Stanton is of the American. She is a magnificent woman and acted the part of hostess most gracefully.

Her husband is a member of Parliament. At eleven we went home and packed our trunks to be off for Rome on the morrow, half-regretting that we had planned to leave London....

ROME, March 23.

MY DEAR SISTER: It is noon--Good Friday--and just set in for a steady rain, so I will give you the goings, seeings and sayings of our company since leaving London.... We started from Victoria Station--second-cla.s.s carriage, no sleeper--for a three days' and two nights' journey to Rome. It looked appalling, even to so old a traveller as myself, but I inwardly said, "I can stand it if the younger ones can." The crossing of the straits of Dover was rough, the sea dashing over the sides of the boat, but Rachel and I went through the two hours without a quaver. At Calais we had the same good luck as at London--a compartment of the car all to ourselves.

Here we were to be settled without change for that night and the next day, so with bags and shawl-straps, bundles, lunch-baskets and a peck of oranges, we adjusted ourselves. We breakfasted at Basle, after having pillowed on each other for the night as best we could.

Now we were in the midst of the Jura mountains, and all day long we wound up and down their snowy sides and around the beautiful lakes nestling at their feet--through innumerable tunnels, one of them, the St. Gothard, taking twenty-three minutes--over splendid bridges and along lovely brooks and rivers.

We arrived at Milan at 7:50 P. M., when even the bravest of our party voted to stop over twenty-four hours and try the virtues of a Christian bed. Rachel and I shared a large old-fashioned room with a soap-stone stove, where we had a wood-fire built at once.

(Remember that all the houses have marble floors and stairs, and are plastered on the stone walls, so they seem like perfect cellars.) We had two single bedsteads (I haven't seen any other sort on the continent) with the same bedclothes covering both. Our big room was lighted with just two candles! We "slept solid" till 8 A. M., when Rachel got out her Italian phrase-book, rang the bell and ordered a fire and hot water.

After fairly good steak and coffee, we five began a day of steady sight-seeing.... In the evening we went to the station, and here found a wood-fire in a fireplace and monstrous paintings of Christ and the saints on the walls. All who had trunks had now to pay for every pound's weight. I had brought only my big satchel and shawl-strap. We were not so fortunate as to find a compartment to ourselves but had two ladies added to our number, while four or five men in the next one smoked perpetually and the fumes came over into ours. We growled but that availed nothing, as men here have the right of way. At Genoa the ladies left us--midnight--and two men took their places. These proved to be seafarers and could talk English, so we learned quite a bit from them. At ten we were halted and rushed in to breakfast. Sunday afternoon we reached the Eternal City and came direct to the Pension Chapman, tired and hungry, but later went to St. John's Cathedral to vespers.... After dinner we were glad to lay ourselves away. We have a pleasant room, with windows opening upon a broad court and lovely garden and fountain.

Monday we drove around the city for bird's-eye views from famous points. Such wonders of ruins upon ruins!

Sunday Evening.--It is of no avail that I try and try to write-when the sight-seeing is done for the day I am too tired.... Last evening the Coliseum was illuminated--a weird, wonderful sight.

Today, Easter Sunday, I have seen crowds of people reverently kissing St. Peter's big toe. Tomorrow we go to Naples for a week and then return and finish Rome.

NAPLES, March 27.

Here we are, Rachel and I, at the Pension Brittanique, far up a high hill, in a room overlooking the beautiful bay of Naples. It is lovely, lovely! The little island of Capri, the city, the bold sh.o.r.es and mountain setting--a perfect gem.... We have a little bit of wood-fire with the smallest sticks--twigs we should call them--two sperm candles to light our bedroom and no matches except what we furnish. But 8 o'clock is here and we are all to meet for breakfast....

Yesterday was a lovely _May_ day, and our party drove to the village of Resina, which is built forty feet above the ruins of Herculaneum. There, with a guide, we descended a hundred steps and walked through the old theater, over the same stone stairs and seats which two thousand years ago were occupied by the gayest of mortals. Then we went to the ruins of Pompeii and ate our lunch under large old trees growing upon the debris left by the great eruption. We pa.s.sed through the narrow streets, over stone pavements worn by the tread of long-buried feet, through palaces, public gardens and baths, temples, the merchants' exchange, customhouse and magnificent theater....

I have just received John Bright's splendid address before the 2,000 students of Glasgow University on being made Lord Rector. It fired my soul beyond all the ruins and all the arts in Rome or Naples. It is grand indeed, and reminds one of our own Wendell Phillips' address to the Harvard students two years ago.[14]

ROME, March 29.

_To Madam Susan B. Anthony, of New York, U. S. A._