The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 8

Oct. 3.--At Stratford on Avon, and we have visited every spot sacred to the memory of Shakespeare, and walked through the meadows and down by the riverside....

Oct. 4.--In Oxford. I have visited many of the colleges, and as I saw where all the millions of dollars had been expended for the education of boys alone, I groaned in spirit and betook me to Somerville and St. Margaret's Halls, where at least there is a shelter for girls, and a beginning.

Oct. 5.--In London; and how almost like getting home it seems to come back here.

LONDON, October 7.

MY DEAR SISTER: Mrs. Stanton feels that she must stay with Hattie till the baby is a month old, and then have a week for farewell visits in London. Cousins Fannie and Charles d.i.c.kinson are here.

Today I learned that I should have a chance to see and hear John Bright at a convention of the Liberal Party at Leeds, October 17; all these together have made me put off leaving a little longer.

Since yesterday we have been in the midst of a genuine London fog.

It is now 10 A. M. and even darker than it was two hours ago, when we dressed and breakfasted by gaslight. I saw smoky, foggy days here last March but they could not compare with this, and yet the people say, "O, this is nothing to what November will bring."...

LONDON, October 27.

MY DEAR SISTER: Since I last wrote you I have visited Leeds where I was the guest of Mrs. Hannah Ford, who has an elegant home--Adel Grange. There were several other guests who had come to attend the great Liberal demonstration, among them Mrs. Margaret Priestman Tanner, a sister-in-law of John Bright, and his son Albert. Mrs.

Alice Scatcherd, of Leeds, was the person who had the sagacity to get women sent as delegates and secure them admission on terms of perfect equality. The amendment was a great triumph. She invited the friends to meet next day at her house, where I saw John Bright's daughter, Mrs. Helen Clark, and Richard Cobden's, Miss Jane Cobden. Both made speeches at the convention, and most fitting it was they should--the daughters of the two leading Radicals of a half century ago.

On Sat.u.r.day, Mrs. Ford took me to Haworth, the home of the Bronte sisters. It is a bleak enough place now, and must have been even more so forty or fifty years ago when those sensitive plants lived there. A most sad day it was to me, as I looked into the little parlor where the sisters walked up and down with their arms around each other and planned their novels, or sat before the fireplace and built air-castles. Then there were the mouldering tombstones of the graveyard which lies in front and at one side of the house, and the old church-pew, directly over the vault where lay their loved mother and two sisters. And later, when Emily and Anne and the erring brother Branwell had joined the others, poor Charlotte sat there alone. The pew had to be removed every time the vault was opened to receive another occupant. Think of those delicate women sitting in that fireless, mouldy church, listening to their old father's dry, hard theology, with their feet on the cold, carpetless stones which covered their loved dead. It was too horrible! Then I walked over the single stone pathway through the fields toward the moor, opened the same wooden gates, and was, and still continue to be, dipped into the depths of their utter loneliness and sadness, born so out of time and place. How much the world of literature has lost because of their short and ill-environed lives, we can guess only from its increased wealth in spite of all their adverse conditions.

From Leeds I went to Birmingham to attend an Anti-Contagious Diseases Acts conference, and there heard the serene, lovely Josephine E. Butler.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Josephine E. Butler"]

Miss Muller has invited Mrs. Stanton and me to spend the rest of our time with her. Mrs. Lucas and some others are going to Liverpool to say good-by to us. The cordiality, instead of decreasing, grows greater and greater as the day of departure draws near.... I dread stepping on shipboard, but long to set foot upon my native soil again. Only think, I shall have been gone over nine months when I land in New York!

From the diary:

Oct. 13.--Last evening at Mrs. Rose's I met the daughter of Charles Bradlaugh, a talented young woman, whom the college refused to admit to botany lectures because of her father's atheism.

Oct. 18.--At Leeds. Liberal party convention; went this evening to hear John Bright remember to forget to mention the extension of suffrage to women in 1869 and 1870, and the property law for married women in 1882. He did not meet my expectations as a speaker, but far surpa.s.ses any other Englishman I have heard. None of them can touch Wendell Phillips.

Oct. 28.--Had a four hours' row on the Thames today with some friends. This evening went to hear Mrs. Annie Besant.

Nov. 2.--Have been out to Basingstoke to see the new baby. Mrs.

Mona Caird lunched with us. Have heard Michael Davitt, Mr. Fawcett and Helen Taylor, all masterly speakers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Sincerely Yours, Frances Power Cobbe"]

LONDON, November 6.

MY DEAR SISTER: ... As soon as I finish this scribble I am to have 5 o'clock tea with Frances Power Cobbe. Tomorrow I go shopping, Thursday Millicent Garrett Fawcett is to dine with us, and Mrs.

Peter Taylor is to call here, and all are to take "substantial tea"

with dear, n.o.ble Mrs. Lucas, and then go to hear Henry Fawcett on the political issues. Friday afternoon we receive at Miss Muller's.

Sat.u.r.day morning I leave for Bristol to visit Miss Mary Estlin, Mrs. Tanner and the Misses Priestman, three sisters-in-law of John Bright, who give a reception in my honor. The 12th I visit Margaret E. Parker, at Warrington, and the next afternoon Mrs. Stanton and I both go to Alderley Edge, near Manchester, to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Bright.[18] On the 14th we attend the annual meeting of the Manchester Women's Suffrage a.s.sociation, and on the 16th go to Liverpool where a reception will be given us in the afternoon. That evening we shall spend at our hotel with the friends who go to see us off, and on the 17th we give ourselves to old ocean's care in the Cunarder Servia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Autograph: "Believe me, yours very truly, M. G.

Fawcett."]

Don't worry now if you do not hear from me again until I touch Yankee soil; and don't worry if the wind blows or if you learn the vessel is late or lost. If the Servia fail to land me safe and sound, don't repine or stop because I am not, but buckle on a new and stronger harness and do double work for the good cause of woman. You have the best of judgment in our work and are capable of doing much if only you had confidence in yourself, so whatever comes to me, do you be all the more for the less that _I_ am.

Half of Miss Anthony's nine-months' trip abroad had been spent in Great Britain. To her all the other attractions of the old world were as nothing compared with its living, breathing humanity. On the continent she was deprived of any exchange of thought with its people because she spoke no language but her own, and this made her prefer England; but there was another and a stronger interest--the great progressive movement which was going forward in regard to woman. Here she found women of fine intellect and high social position engaged in the same work to which she had given more than thirty years of her own life; and here she met sympathy and recognition which would have been impossible in any other country in Europe. Her central thought in going to Great Britain had been to secure the co-operation of Englishwomen in holding an international suffrage convention. At first her proposition met with no response. The most radical of English women were conservative compared to those of America, but after they had become thoroughly acquainted with Mrs. Stanton and herself and prejudice had been supplanted by confidence, the idea began to be more favorably regarded.

One serious difficulty in the way of the proposed convention lay in the fact that the suffrage women of England and Scotland were not themselves in thorough unison as to plans and purposes. No definite action was taken until the last afternoon of their stay, when, at the reception given in their honor by Dr. Ewing Whittle, in Liverpool, with the hearty concurrence of Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Scatcherd and Mrs. Parker, who had accompanied Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to see them safely on board their vessel, a strong committee was formed to promote international organization.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Margaret Bright Lucas (Signed: "Yours affectionately Margaret Bright Lucas")]

They sailed from Liverpool on the Servia, November 17, 1883. Among their fellow voyagers were Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey, of Orange, N. J., to whom the cause of woman suffrage and Miss Anthony personally are deeply indebted; and Mrs. Margaret B. Sullivan, of Chicago, the distinguished editorial writer. There was some lovely weather, which was greatly enjoyed, but heavy fogs impeded the ship and it was just ten days from the time of starting when, on November 27, they steamed into New York harbor and stepped again on the sh.o.r.es of loved America.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] The many inquiries and directions in regard to the suffrage work, and the loving messages to friends and relatives at home, are omitted in the extracts made from Miss Anthony's letters; but they are of constant occurrence, and show that these were never absent from her thoughts.

[15] While in Florence, Miss Anthony was entertained by the Countess de Resse, daughter of Elizabeth B. Phelps, of New York, and by the Princess Koltzoff-Ma.s.salsky, the distinguished author and artist, known through Europe by her pen-name of Dora d'Istria.

[16] Miss Anthony occupied some rainy days, while here, in wrapping up papers and writing letters which she put in her official envelopes, bearing the revolutionary mottoes, "No just government can be formed without the consent of the governed," "Taxation without representation is tyranny." After a few days a dignified official appeared at the American legation with a large package of mail bearing the proscribed mottoes, and said, "Such sentiments can not pa.s.s through the post-office in Germany." So in modest, uncomplaining wraps the letters and papers started again for the land of the free.--E. C. S.

[17]

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE.

A Public Meeting will be held in ST. JAMES' HALL, PICCADILLY, Thursday, July 5th, 1883,

In Support of the Resolution to be moved by Mr. Mason in the House of Commons, on July 6th, for extending the Parliamentary Franchise to Women who possess the qualifications which ent.i.tle men to Vote.

Doors open at 7. Organ Recital 7 to 8. The Chair will be taken at 8 o'clock by

WILLIAM WOODALL, ESQ., M.P.

Mrs. Fawcett.

Dr. Cameron, M.P.

Miss Tod.

J. P. Thoma.s.son, Esq., M.P.

Mrs. Beddoe.

Mrs. E. Cady Stanton.

Miss Susan B. Anthony.

W. S. Caine, Esq., M.P.

Mrs. Fenwick Miller.

Arthur Arnold, Esq., M.P.

Miss Becker.

A. Illingworth, Esq., M.P.

Miss Muller.

C. H. Hopwood, Esq., M.P.

Mrs. Oliver Scatcherd.

R. P. Blennerha.s.sett, Esq., M.P.

Miss Eliza Sturge.

Thos. Roe, Esq., M.P.