The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 5

MADAM: We had the honor to announce your coming to Rome some three weeks ago in the Italian Times. While we ourselves have an impressive appreciation of your distinguished mental acquirements, yet we would wish to carry to our numerous English-speaking subscribers on this continent some testimony of your presence in our midst. Therefore we place our columns at your disposal, and will esteem the privilege of presenting to the public any topic your facile pen may write. To this end we will wait upon you or be pleased to see you at our sanctum. With much respect, we are, Madam, your obedient servants,

THE PROPRIETORS OF THE ITALIAN TIMES.

[Only English newspaper published in Italy.]

ROME, April 1.

DEAR BROTHER D. R.: We have climbed Vesuvius. One feels richly paid when the puffing and exploding and ascending of the red-hot lava meet the ears and eyes. The mountains, the Bay of Naples, the sail to Capri and the Blue Grotto are fully equal to my expectations....

The squalid-looking people, however, and their hopeless fate make one's stay at any of these Italian resorts most depressing. Troops of beggars beset one all along the streets and roads, and with tradesmen there is no honesty. For instance, a man charged some twenty francs for a sh.e.l.l comb, then came down to seven, six, five, and finally asked, "What will you give?" I, never dreaming he would take it, said, "two francs," and he threw the comb into the carriage.... Sat.u.r.day we took the cars from Naples to Palermo.

Every mountainside having a few seven-by-nine patches of soil in a place, is terraced and covered with grape vines and lemon trees, the latter now yellow with fruit. On many I counted twenty and thirty terraces, each with a solid stone wall to hold the earth in place. It is wonderful what an amount of labor it costs to earn even the little the natives seem to care for. Our hotel here is an old monastery, and on one side of the court is the cathedral with its grotesque paintings. One becomes fairly sickened with the ghastly spectacle of the dead Christ. It is amazing how little they make of the living Christ.

On Monday morning we drove back over that magnificent road, and took the train to Naples. In the afternoon we went to Lake Avernus and into the grotto of the sibyls, the entrance to Dante's Inferno.

It was a dark, cavernous pa.s.sage and with the flaring candles making the darkness only more visible, we could not but feel there was reason for the old superst.i.tion. The narrowness of the streets of Naples--and they are without the pretense of a sidewalk--leave the men, women and children, horses and carriages, funny little donkeys with their big loads, the cows and goats (which are each night and morning driven along and halted at the doors while the pint cupful, more or less, is milked to supply the people within) all marching along together in the filthy road, jostling each other at every step.

But we are back in Rome now and this forenoon we spent in the galleries of the Vatican. One is simply dazed with the wealth of marble--not only statuary, but stairs, pillars and ma.s.sive buildings. We stop here till the 9th, then go to Florence.[15]

It is good for our young civilization to see and study that of the old world, and observe the hopelessness of lifting the ma.s.ses into freedom and freedom's industry, honesty and integrity. How any American, any lover of our free inst.i.tutions based on equality of rights for all, can settle down and live here is more than I can comprehend. It will be only by overturning the powers that education and equal chances ever can come to the rank and file. The hope of the world is indeed in our republic; so let us work to make it a _genuine_ democracy, where every citizen--woman as well as man--shall be crowned with the one symbol of equality--the ballot....

ROME, April 5.

MY DEAR SISTER: How these anniversary days of our dear mother's illness and death bring back to me everything, even at this distance and amid these strange surroundings. How she would have enjoyed these sights because of her knowledge and love of history.

She could have told the Bible story of every one of these great frescoes. What a woman she would have been, could she have had the opportunities of education and culture which her granddaughters are having....

Tell Mrs. Lewia Smith her lovely piece of lace has been honored with the wearing in London and Rome several times and has been p.r.o.nounced beautiful; but I prize it most of all for the giver's sake. No one but she would have trudged through the slush and rain to get those splendid names to that testimonial. Nothing which came to me gave so much pleasure as those signatures of my own townsmen and women, from President Anderson all the way to the end of the list.... This evening Rachel has gone to a friend's to study German so as to make our way with that nationality. What a jumble, that by just crossing an imaginary line one finds people who can't understand a word one says!

Last evening we heard the grand Ristori render a part of Dante's Inferno and a selection from Joan of Arc. Of course I couldn't understand a word she said, but her voice, her gestures, her expression told the whole story. Then the music, vocal and instrumental, was the softest and sweetest....

ZURICH, April 23.

MY DEAR SISTER: We spent Friday night at Milan--there took our last look at Italian cathedrals, as we did our first, and its own still holds highest place as to beauty. We left early next morning and very soon were among the Alps.... The eleven hours' stretch was tiresome and disgusting inside our compartment, with from three to five stalwart men puffing away at their pipes all day long, and at every station rushing out for a drink of wine or beer. Our only chance of a free breath was to open the window, and then all the natives were in consternation!

We reached Zurich at six and, after a splendid dinner of roast chicken, green peas and lettuce, took a cab and called on Elizabeth Sargent, who is studying medicine at the university, and found her very happy and glad to see us. In the afternoon we took a delightful drive, as it was too cold and misty for the lake excursion we had intended. The highest Alps are still lost to us by fog and clouds. After supper we called at the American consulate.

Think of our government supporting a consul in most of the twenty-two cantons of Switzerland!

Tuesday.--At Munich. We saw princes and princesses galore out driving this afternoon, but not the king. We leave tomorrow morning for Nuremberg, and reach Berlin Sat.u.r.day, and there I hope to rest at least a week--but then the Emperor William must be seen, and lots of other curiosities.... If I could command the money, as soon as each of our girls graduated, I would take her first on a tour of her own continent and then through the old world, before she settled down to the hard work of life either in a profession or in marriage. Thus she would have much to think of and live over, no matter how heavy might be the burdens and sorrows of her after life....

COLOGNE, May 8.

MY DEAR SISTER: We left Berlin yesterday morning after a delightful week with the Sargents. I do not believe our nation ever has been represented at any foreign court by such genuine republican women, in the truest and broadest sense, as are Mrs. Sargent and her daughters. Mr. Sargent, too, touches the very height of democratic principle. Their a.s.sociation with monarchial governments and subjects but makes them love our free inst.i.tutions the more.[16]

Our last evening was spent with the Frau Dr. Liburtius--formerly Henriette Hirschfeldt--a practicing dentist in Berlin since 1869, who studied at the Philadelphia Dental College. No college in Germany will admit women. Frau Libertius is dentist for various members of the royal family as well as for the Sisters of Charity.

She says there are no dental colleges in the world equal to those of America....

May 10.--At Worms--where Martin Luther made his glorious declaration for the right of private judgment. There is a magnificent monument in a beautiful square; Luther's is the central statue--a standing one; below, at the corners, are sitting Huss, Savonarola, Wycliffe and Peter Waldo, and on a still lower pedestal are four more worthies--one of them Melancthon.... We spent Tuesday at Cologne--visited the splendid cathedral and the church of St.

Ursula. The latter contains the bones of 11,000 virgins martyred at Cologne in the fifth century. Whole broadsides of chapels are lined with shelves of skulls, which the n.o.ble ladies of the twelfth century partly covered with embroidery. Wednesday we took steamer up the Rhine at six in the morning and landed at Mayence at eight.

It was a beautiful panorama, but not surpa.s.sing all others I have seen. The vine-clad hillsides, the ruins of the old castles (nothing like as many of them as I had thought) and the winding of the river were all very lovely. We visited the cathedral, the monuments of Gutenberg and Schiller, and then the fortress and the remains of a Roman monument erected nine years before Christ....

HEIDELBERG, May 11.

DEAR BROTHER D. R.: As I clambered among the ruins of Heidelberg Castle today, I wished for each of my loved ones to come across old ocean and look upon the remains of ancient civilization--of art and architecture, bigotry and barbarism. I am enjoying my "flying,"

though I would not again make such a rush, but I am getting a good relish for a more deliberate tour at some later day. All of life should not be given to one's work at home, whether that be woman suffrage, journalism or government affairs.

After being perpetually among people whose language I could not understand, it was doubly grateful to be in the midst of not only my countrymen but my dearest friends, and I enjoyed their society so much that I almost forgot there were any wonders to be seen in Berlin. But we did make an excursion to Potsdam--a jolly company of us, Mr. and Mrs. Sargent and their gifted daughter Ella, also the professor of Greek in your Kansas State University, Miss Kate Stephens. She interpreted the utterances of the ever-present guides, whose jabber was worse than Greek.

At Potsdam we were shown the very rooms in which Frederick the Great lived and moved and had his being, plotted and planned to conquer his neighbors. In the little church are myriads of tattered flags, taken in their many wars, and two great stone caskets in which repose the bodies of Frederick the Great and his father, Frederick William, peaceful in death, however warlike in life. We also visited the new palace where the present Emperor spends the summer. We saw parlors, dining-rooms, bedrooms, the plain, narrow bedstead the Emperor sleeps upon, the great workshop, in which are maps and all sorts of material for studying and planning how to hold and gain empires. I even peered into the kitchen and saw the pitchers, plates, coffee-pots and stew-pans. It was my first chance of a real mortal living look of things, so I enjoyed it hugely.

There are rooms enough in these palaces for an army of people. All of these magnificent displays of wealth in churches, palaces and castles, citadels, fortifications and glittering military shows of monarchial governments, only make more conspicuous the poverty, ignorance and degradation of the ma.s.ses; and all pleasure in seeing them is tinged with sadness.

From the diary for May:

12.--Showering, but I walked up the mountain to pay a last visit to Heidelberg Castle, the most magnificent ruin in Germany. Its ivy-covered towers always will be pictured in my memory.

13.--At Strasburg. We have driven over the city, looked at the wonderful fortifications and explored the great cathedral with its famous clock. We heard the grand organ and saw 250 priests conduct the services before an audience of 2,000 people, nine-tenths women.

Then to St. Thomas' church and the monument to Marshal Saxe.

14.--Left for Paris and had a beautiful ride through Alsace and Lorraine, the lost kingdoms of France. It made me sad all day; I wanted them returned to their own mother country. Theodore Stanton and his wife Marguerite met us at the station.

15.--Madam de Barron has invited me to be her guest while here.

Such a delightful home and intelligent hostess! I have a charming room, and this morning the sun is shining bright and warm and the robins are singing in the trees. My continental breakfast--rolls, b.u.t.ter and coffee--was sent to my room and, for the first time in my life, I ate it in bed. What would my mother have said?

16.--Went to grand opera last night; magnificent house, scenery, toilets, equipages; but with my three "lacks," a musical ear, a knowledge of French and good eyesight, I could not properly appreciate the performance.

17.--Theodore took me to the Chamber of Deputies to see how Frenchmen look in legislative a.s.sembly--very like Americans. Then we called on friends at the American Exchange and the Hotel Normandie, and I was too tired to go to U. S. Minister Morton's reception at night.

22.--Called and had a good chat with Charlotte B. Wilbour, of New York; called also on Grace Greenwood; visited the Hotel des Invalides and walked in the gardens.

23.--Theodore and Marguerite took me to St. Cloud by boat and back on top of tram-car. Delightful!

27.--Today, Sunday, we went to Pere la Chaise and saw great crowds of Communists hanging wreaths on the wall where hundreds of their friends were shot down in 1871--a sorrowful sight.

28.--At noon we went to the College of France to witness the last honors to Laboulaye, the scholar and Liberal. Saw his little study and sadly watched the priests perform the services over his coffin.

29.--Left Paris at 9 A. M., Theodore and his little Elizabeth Cady going with me to the station. The parks and forests are green and lovely, the homes cozy and pretty, France is a beautiful country. I have enjoyed the last three months exceedingly, but I am very, very tired; and yet it is a new set of faculties which are weary, and the old ones, so long harped upon, are really resting.

_To Miss Susan B. Anthony_, PARIS.

MADAM: Having been informed of your arrival in Paris, I take the liberty of writing to ask from your courtesy the favor of a short interview. I have since several years heard of all the work you have done in behalf of womankind, and I need not say how happy I would be to meet a person who has so often been praised in my presence. Hoping you will forgive my intrusion, and have the great kindness to let me know when I may have the honor to call, I am, madam, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

[Of Le Soir.] A. SALVADOR.

PARIS, May 20.

MY DEAR MRS. SPOFFORD: I have just come from a call on Mademoiselle Hubertine Auclert, editor of La Citoyenne. I can not tell you how I constantly long to be able to speak and understand French. I lose nearly all the pleasure of meeting distinguished people, because they are as powerless with my language as I with theirs. We called also on Leon Richer, editor of La Femme. He thinks it inopportune to demand suffrage for women in France now, when they are yet without their civil rights. I wanted so much to tell him that political power was the greater right which included the less....