Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June"
by
Various
Part 2 out of 3
and inspiration.
At the time of life when people recognize the fact that their forces
are waning, and that a well-earned period of rest has arrived, Mrs.
Croly set for herself the last task of her busy life. She felt she had
something to tell about the success of her great idea, her message to
women, and she wrote the "History of the Woman's Club Movement in
America," a volume containing eleven hundred and eighty pages, which
told the story of nearly all the clubs in the General Federation. This
book will remain a monument to the founder of women's clubs. Into it
she put the skill and experience of her long years of editorship,
urging every faculty to the work, and applying herself with a degree
of industry that characterized the zeal of her best working years. And
it testifies to the martyr-like nature of her spirit, that she even
rallied from the disappointment consequent upon the financial failure
of the book. The dedication of the work reads as follows: "This book
has been a labor of love, and it is lovingly dedicated to the
Twentieth Century Woman by one who has seen and shared in the
struggles of the Woman of the Nineteenth Century." But nothing that is
good is lost, and the book testifies to the illimitable ideas, the
trust in eternal goodness, and the strength of purpose of one who had
a glorified estimate of latent feminine forces that require to be
developed.
Essays and Addresses by Jane Cunningham Croly
Beginnings of Organization[1]
Women in Religious Organization
When the history of the Nineteenth Century comes to be written, women
will appear for the first time in the history of the world as
organizers, and leaders of great organized movements among their own
sex.
[Footnote 1: _History of the Woman's Club Movement in America._]
The world of to-day, both for men and women, is a different world from
that which furnished the outlook for the men and women of a hundred
years ago. Science, invention, have changed its material aspects; and
while retiring some individual activities and occupations, they have
created new fields of industry that are rapidly changing the face of
the world, and making new demands upon strength and energy.
The world which man has conquered, and is still conquering, is no
longer the purely physical. He is working now toward the discovery and
control of the powers of the air, and has already harnessed some of
them to do his bidding. The succession of great events and discoveries
will mark this century as an epoch in the world's history, and is
responsible for economic changes which create social disturbance, and
to which both men and women must adjust themselves, often without
knowing the why or wherefore of that which is so different from what
has been. It is one of the paradoxes in human nature that women, while
being made responsible for human conditions, have been condemned to
individual isolation. It has been largely the result of general
physical differentiation and the dependence that grew out of it, and,
secondarily, the long ages required to produce settled social
conditions and a reversal of that great unwritten law of kings and
men--that might made right.
It is true that there was a time, some traditions of which are still
preserved among the Indian tribes of North America, when the woman
possessed controlling influence and power. This matriarchal or mother
age passed with the primitive period in which the energies of men were
absorbed in hunting and fighting. It was a tribal effort through
tribal women to formulate and give importance to family life, and it
must have been accepted and more or less sanctioned by the men. This
tribal leadership, at first domestic and social, disappeared with the
development of military leaders, the acquisition of military powers,
and the centralization of property in lands, houses, and personal
belongings, that required constant and effective methods of protection
and defence.
Instances are not wanting of heroic women of those early days who were
capable of holding and defending person and property against
aggression and warfare. But the logic of events was strong then, as
now, and the destiny of the woman was not that of military supremacy.
The first step in associated life taken by women was a simple protest
against the use and abuse of power on the part of men, wrought up by
fear or loathing to the point of desperation. Women, usually of rank,
fled to the desert with one or two companions, and encountered
unheard-of hardships rather than submit to the fate to which they had
been condemned by father, brother, or some other man who could
exercise authority over them. The first Church-sisterhood grew out of
such beginnings, and gradually obtained the sanction of the Church. A
recent remarkable work, "Women in Monasticism," shows how wide and
powerful the system of religious sisterhoods had become as early as
the fifth century, and traces its growing strength and enlargement
until its decline, which was coeval with the Reformation.
The strength of this extraordinary development lay in the fact that it
furnished women with a vocation; it gave employment to faculty. The
sisterhoods of the convents and monasteries were the nurses, the
teachers, the students, the caretakers of the poor, and the guardians
of the orphaned rich. The Fathers of the Church--St. Jerome, St.
Chrysostom, St. Augustine--all bear witness to the high character of
these sisterhoods and to their individual members, to their virtues
and lives of self-sacrificing devotion. Many of these women became
learned by the exercise of memory alone, for they had no books. Many
enriched their convents with manuscript books--the result of lives of
painstaking labor. The Beguines, who founded hospitals and schools,
were the best educated women of their day--the eleventh century. They
read Tacitus and Virgil in the original, and were skilled in medicine.
Disease often took loathsome forms, and only women whose lives were
consecrated to self-denying labor could have been the patient
ministers to the diseased poor.
This is all the more noteworthy because the idea of vocation was not
the early incentive to monastic life. It was sought as a refuge; it
developed into a vocation; and it is a matter of interest to women
to-day that these spontaneous vocations, growing out of an enforced
life, were inspired by love of well-doing, desire for study, the
acquisition of knowledge, its distribution, and the ever-ready spirit
of helpfulness at the sacrifice of every personal indulgence.
Naturally the monastic life of women was controlled by the Church, and
could have continued to exist only by permission. A Spanish lady of
rank who had befriended Ignatius Loyola as a young student of
Barcelona, attracted by the odor of sanctity and scholarship which
attached itself to the Order which he founded, gained reluctant
permission to establish (1545) an Order of Jesuitesses, subject to the
same strict rules and discipline. This was the beginning of a strictly
woman's Jesuit "college," which flourished notwithstanding all the
efforts Loyola himself made to get rid of it, and the restrictions put
upon it. Many noble ladies joined it, and it became the foundation of
a number of houses of the same name and character, extending into
Flanders and England, when, without cause, except fear perhaps of
their extent and influence, they were finally suppressed by a bull of
Pope Urban VIII, bearing date, January 13, 1630. This Order of
Jesuitesses existed for nearly a century. Their colleges were
scholastic, and had given rise to preparatory schools, when they were
summarily suppressed because of their independent life.
Had this Order continued to exist it might have gained an educational
ascendency throughout Europe which even the strong wave of the
Reformation would have found it hard to overcome. But the convents and
monasteries generally suffered at this time from the abuses which had
crept into the Church, and the rage for power which possessed its
prelates.
The influence was mischievous also from a social and domestic point
of view; from the sanctity and superiority attached to those who
ignored natural ties and duties, thus lowering the social and domestic
standard, and setting the nun's habit above the woman, the wife and
the mother. Yet nature had asserted itself even in the convent. The
motherhood in the monastic woman made her the mother, the caretaker,
the nurse, the teacher, and the helper of all those who needed
maternal care, while condemning and ignoring its common aspects and
place in everyday life.
This absence of domestic ties was not, however, obligatory upon all
sisterhoods. An interesting story of the "First Council of Women,"
told by Madame Lendier at the Congress of Women in Paris in 1889,
bears upon this point.
The monastic school out of which the Council grew, was founded in the
early part of the seventh century, by Iduberge, wife of Pepin, mayor
under the Frankish kings.
Iduberge cleared a space in the forest, and built a house for the
education and religious consecration (if they desired it) of the
daughters of nobles, her daughter Gertrude becoming the abbess. No vow
of celibacy was imposed. As long as they remained in the abbey they
were to conform to the rules of the house, but if they desired to
marry they were free to leave. The _chanoinesses_ of Nivelle spent
their morning in religious duties, but the rest of the day they were
at liberty to mix with the outer world. The abbess alone took upon
herself the vow of perpetual virginity. A hundred and seventy passed
away after the death of Gertrude. The abbey had grown in power, had
gathered around itself a town with gates and towers and
fortifications, but was independent of the French Government, being
under the sole rule of the abbess, who was called the "Princess."
This independence excited the jealousy of the Church, and in May, 820,
Nivelle received a visit from Valcand, the reigning bishop of Liege.
He was received by the lady abbess in the habit of her order, a cross
of gold in her hand; mounted on a white horse she rode at the head of
the procession that marched to meet him. Young girls of noble birth,
clad in long white gowns trimmed with ermine, and mounted on palfreys,
followed their abbess, and behind them the town authorities, feudal
lords and administrators of justice.
At the same time Valcand entered the town with every honor and
courtesy due to his rank. He held a solemn service, and having given
the benediction, he rose again and addressed the _chanoinesses_. He
declared that it had been decided by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle
that he should be sent to Nivelle to enforce the rules of St. Benoit,
which must be followed by all religious bodies; this rule being that
all the devotees of Nivelle were required to take upon themselves the
vow of perpetual virginity, to acknowledge themselves dependent upon
their bishop in all secular matters, and finally to yield up to
Valcand all temporal power at Nivelle.
This solemn declaration was received in silence. For some moments no
one moved or spoke, but a low murmur swept over the young sisters of
Nivelle Abbey. The lady abbess, followed by her _chanoinesses_, rose
and advanced to the rails of the choir stand. The abbess Hiltrude,
daughter of Lyderic II, sovereign of Flanders under the emperor, then
between thirty-five and forty years of age, was beautiful; of that
calm, grave type which speaks of a quiet, well-regulated life.
"In the name of the Cloister of St. Gertrude," she said, "we protest
against any interference in the temporal power of this government. We
claim the right of taking to ourselves husbands when it seems right to
us so to do. We are therefore resolved to follow the rules of our
patron saint, as we always have done heretofore, and if this protest
is insufficient we will present our appeal to our Holy Father, the
Pope."
The bishop declared that he would maintain the rule given by the
Council at Aix, and then descending from the pulpit, he ordered his
people to follow him at once out of Nivelle, refusing to join in any
of the festivities prepared in his honor.
Hiltrude now took things seriously into her own hands, leaving nothing
undone to secure the success of her appeal. She sent a courier to the
Pope, and another to Louis le Debonaire; but the wise abbess took yet
further precautions: she at once organized a council at Nivelle of all
the abbesses of the French Empire, requiring silence from them, and
assuring them of security in the town. The council could not be
brought together for a year, but on the 1st of May, 821, Hiltrude
inaugurated her "Concile de Femmes."
She took advantage of the marriage of Count d'Albion with Regina,
which was to take place at the abbey. Regina was a _chanoinesse_, and
it was the custom when a member of the circle at the abbey married,
that the marriage should be solemnized at Nivelle. Fifteen titled
abbesses, all of aristocratic lineage, arrived with imposing suites.
The council was a short one. They approved of all that Hiltrude had
done, and signed the appeal. The document, written, signed, and sealed
by all the abbesses present, was immediately sent to Rome, and to
Valcand himself. Meantime the pope and the king, who were much
perplexed, and the bishop, who was completely baffled by the logic,
strength and force of appeal of the "Concile," were obliged to
withdraw the opposition, and the _chanoinesses_ were left in peace to
marry or not to marry, as they pleased.
The ancient order of deaconesses imposed no vow, yet it was
co-existent with the early church, and accepted by many of the fathers
as part of the apostolic order. This position was strengthened by the
high character of the women, many of them widows, or unprotected
women, whom death or some other calamity had freed from natural ties.
Ancient church history is full of the records of courage, devotion,
and self-sacrifice on the part of these women, who were generally of
high birth, but gave themselves to poverty and the most menial
offices, and left names which have perpetuated the sanctity of their
order, and come down to the present day as types of good women.
The ceremonies used in the ordination of a deaconess were precisely
the same as those used for a deacon. The deaconesses were not
cloistered: they lived at home with children or relatives. But they
wore a distinctive dress, and had their place in the church with the
clergy. The "golden age" of the order is said to have been immediately
following the apostolic era, before the spirit of monasticism had
destroyed or limited activities, and shut off sympathy with the
outside world.
The royal and imperial order of the Hadraschin in Prague, Germany, is
the most imposing relic remaining of the religious orders of women,
though not the most numerous. There are about forty chapters still in
existence of this ancient order, with a royal residence at Prague. The
abbess possessed the right to crown the queen at coronation
ceremonies, and exercised it as late as 1836, wearing all the
magnificent insignia of her rank in the order.
A more numerous order of consecrated women, presided over and governed
by one "mother-general," is that of St. Joseph de Cluny. This was
founded by a woman, Madame Javonbey, in the beginning of the present
century, about ninety years ago. It has one hundred and twenty-eight
houses in France, and two in the United States. It has others in South
America, one in Italy, several in the West Indies and some in Africa.
All its property is in community, and its membership--about six
thousand women--teach in its schools, and care for the sick poor in
hospitals and in their homes. Two hundred are assigned to the care of
the insane, by the French Government.
The mother-general administers, from the mother-house _(maison mere)_
at Paris. She has two assistants and a council of six sisters. Under
the mother-general there are mother-superiors, one to each estate,
administering and governing it, but under this mother-superior at
Paris. These lesser governing women send in weekly reports to the home
convent at Paris, giving brief accounts of transactions and events,
such as the entrance of pupils, the purchase of lands, and extra dole
of food to the poor, the death of a member and the like. They are a
prosperous, working sisterhood, and have preserved the integrity and
independence of their beginning.
It was the spirit of protest against church and monastic abuses,
embodied in Martin Luther, which broke up the monastic system for both
men and women. Doubtless also it had outlived its usefulness in any
large or general sense. A more settled social and domestic life was
becoming possible through the development of trades and industries,
while the domestic virtues in women began to acquire a value, and
furnish guarantees to the State.
The discovery of printing gave a tremendous impulse to the spread of
civilizing and educational influences, to the multiplication of
schools, and the desire for knowledge. It was the dawn of intellectual
freedom, and the school of the people was the open door for it.
Spiritual freedom had to wait longer. It waited the unfolding of the
woman. At the beginning of this century she was still under the
dominion of the church and its leaders, and her efforts were
controlled by sects and doctrines.
The first associated work of women in this country, and in this
century, was still religious and philanthropic. The "Sisters of
Charity" in America owes its origin to a young and beautiful New York
woman, Elizabeth Seton, who was born in 1774, married at twenty, but
lost her husband by death in a very few years. Obliged to support
herself, she opened a school in Baltimore. But her tendency was toward
the devoted life of a _religieuse_, and the gift of a foundation fund
enabled her to gratify this strong desire. She assumed the conventual
habit, and opened a convent school on July 30, 1809, in Emmetsburg, of
which she became mother-superior. The character of "Mother" Seton was
considered saintly by Protestants and Roman Catholics alike. She died
at her post in 1821, after a life the last half of which was entirely
spent in self-denying work. Mrs. Seton was exceedingly lovely as a
young woman; and her sweet, serene face and presence, as she grew
older, was said to exert a magical influence upon all who came in
contact with her. This was particularly seen in her care of the sick,
and in dealing with turbulent spirits: they came immediately under her
influence without any effort on her part.
The first ten years of the present century saw the beginning of a
number of religious societies of women, organized to create funds, and
aid in church mission work. First among these were the "cent"
societies, 1801 and 1804, and later the Woman's Auxiliaries to the
Board of Foreign Missions. These grew in size and strength, until in
1839 there were six hundred and eighty-eight of these societies. But,
unfortunately, their limited and purely subjective character afforded
small basis for the wider growth necessary to perpetuity, and they
gradually declined, until in 1860 they had become nearly extinct.
A little later, 1864, the first independent "Union" of women
missionary workers was formed in New York by Mrs. Doremus, and within
a few years every denomination, beginning with the Congregationalists,
had its organized Woman's Auxiliary to the American Board of Home and
Foreign Missions. The "Missionary Union" remains, however, the only
independent society of women workers in this field, managing its own
affairs, raising its own funds, and sending out its own missionaries,
both men and women. Its very existence has been a great strength to
the Woman's Auxiliaries, stimulating them to independent action, and
especially to the demand for a voice in the disposal of the large sums
they raise and turn over to the treasury of the American Board.
The oldest purely women-societies in this country were also started
for missionary and church work. The first is the "Female Charitable
Society" of Baldwinsville, N.J., and is still existent.
The object of the Baldwinsville society, as stated in the
constitution, was "to obtain a more perfect view on the infinite
excellence of the Christian religion in its own nature, the importance
of making this religion the chief concern of our hearts, the necessity
of promoting it in our families, and of diffusing it among our fellow
sinners." A further object is "to afford aid to religious
institutions, and for the carrying out of this purpose a contribution
of twelve and a half cents is required at every quarterly meeting."
Mrs. Jane Hamill presided at its first meeting; the Rev. John
Davenport opened it with prayer. Mrs. Hamill was still the presiding
officer at its jubilee anniversary in 1867. At its seventy-eighth
annual meeting Mrs. Payn Bigelow was elected president.
The "Piqua (Ohio) Female Bible Society" was founded in 1818. It
consisted at first of nine women. In those early days the country was
a wilderness. Other members were added later. It has had in all, over
nine hundred members. Mrs. Elizabeth Pettit was its presiding officer
from 1840 until 1881--forty-one years. The daughters and the
granddaughters are all made members by right of inheritance, and in
several instances four generations have been represented at one time.
It held its seventy-fifth anniversary in 1893, when all the
descendants of the early members were notified, and many were present.
It has held a meeting on the first Monday afternoon of each month for
seventy-eight years, and the records are preserved intact. The founder
was Mrs. Rachael Johnston, wife of the Indian agent. It has sent over
fifteen thousand dollars to the parent Bible Society in New York.
It should be remembered that down to the last quarter of the present
century, there was little sympathy with organizations of women, not
expressly religious, charitable, or intended to promote charitable
objects. "What is the object?" was the first question asked of any
organization of women, and if it was not the making of garments, or
the collection of funds for a church or philanthropic purpose, it was
considered unworthy of attention, or injurious doubts were thrown upon
its motives. In Germany, even yet, societies of women are not
permitted, except such as have a distinctly religious, educational or
charitable object.
The Moral Awakening[1]
The life of the world is continuous, morally and spiritually as well
as materially. The individual sees it at short range and in fragments.
That is the reason why it so often seems dislocated and out of joint.
A thoughtful writer, Mrs. L.R. Zerbe, says: "When Goethe made his
discovery of the unity of structure in organic life, he gave to the
philosophers, who had long taught the value, the 'sovereignty' of the
individual, a physiological argument against oppression and tyranny,
and put the whole creation on an equal footing."
[Footnote 1: _History of the Woman's Club Movement in America_.]
The dignity of mind, and the right of the individual to its conscious
use and possession, had been already clearly enunciated by Fichte,
Herder, and others, who antedated Goethe. But Goethe went farther. He
carried the discovery of the rights of the individual to its logical
conclusion, which was, that the rights of every created thing should
be given a hearing. This was absolutely new doctrine. It brought women
and children within the pale of humanity. It moralized and humanized
nature itself; bringing birds, trees, flowers, all animate life, into
the "brotherhood" of creation.
The writings of Rousseau and Chateaubriand extended the idea, and
Madame de Stael and Mary Wollstonecraft were the natural outgrowths of
it. It may be said indeed to have been the actuating principle of
modern literature, especially of modern English poetry, which
vitalizes and idealizes children and nature. Whatever credit may be
given to others, it should never be forgotten that to Goethe we owe
the discovery of structural unity, that the cell of all organic life
is the same.
The ideas that grew out of this discovery reached the higher, thinking
class, and inspired the poets with a new enthusiasm for humanity long
before it reached the masses. The French nobility were satiated with
power. The "Little Trianon" was the only reaction possible to a queen,
from the wearisome magnificence of Versailles, the gilded slavery of
the court. The people recognized no sentiment of human sympathy in the
so-called "whims" and "caprices" of the luxurious occupants of
palaces; and maddened by countless wrongs, precipitated the French
Revolution, which, it has been said, turned back the tide of progress
for one hundred years.
From this movement were developed all those reforms which have made
the nineteenth century glorious, monumental in the history of
progressive civilization. The abolition of slavery, the development
of a spirit of mercy towards dumb animals, the recognition of the
human rights of women and children--all these may be traced through
many a winding way, back to the German scientists and philosophers,
who rediscovered the inner life while working from its outer side.
Yet, as in history there are no sporadic instances, no isolated facts,
so this flower of our century--the recognition of the rights of all
created things, with all that it involves--belongs to universal
history. It is the product of the Reformation and the Renaissance,
with roots only the records of Rome and Greece and Egypt may discover.
The quickening of moral and spiritual life in our day, its accelerated
movement, is not to be claimed by or traced to any one set of
influences or propaganda. The awakening has been all along the line;
and it has resulted in a new mental attitude toward the human life of
the world, both as a whole and in its various parts. Its great outcome
is the learning to live with, rather than for, others.
This new view, this great advance of the moral and spiritual forces,
addressed itself with singular significance to women. To those who
were prepared, it came not only as an awakening, but as
emancipation--emancipation of the soul, freedom from the tyranny of
tradition and prejudice, and the acquisition of an intellectual
outlook; a spiritual liberty achieved so quietly as to be unnoticed
except by those who watched the progress of this bloodless revolution,
and the falling away of the shackles that bind the spirit in its early
and often painful effort to reach the light.
The broadening of human sympathy, the freedom of will, gave rise to a
thousand new forms of activity; some of these an expansion of those
which had previously existed; others opening new channels of
communication; all looking towards wider fields of effort, a larger
unity, a more complete realization of the eternal ideal, the
fatherhood of God, the motherhood of woman, the brotherhood of man.
Realization of this ideal brought a new conception of duty to the mind
of woman, unlocked the strong gates of theological and social
tradition, and opened the windows of her soul to a new and more
glorious world. The sense of duty is always strong in the woman. If
she disregards it she never ceases to suffer. Her convictions of it
have made her the most willing and joyful of martyrs, the most
persistent and relentless of bigots, the most blind and devoted of
partisans, the most faithful and believing of friends, and the only
type out of which Nature could form the mother. This quality has made
women the constructive force they are in the world, and gives all the
more importance to the new departure, to the influences of the new
sources of enlargement that have come into their lives.
Thus it became a necessity that the quickening of conscience, the
widening of sympathy, the influence of aggregations, the stimulus to
desire and ambitions, should be accompanied by corresponding growth in
knowledge and a love beyond the narrow confines of family and church.
The cry of the woman emerging from a darkened past was "light, more
light," and light was breaking. Gradually came the demand and the
opportunity for education; for intellectual freedom for women as well
as men; for cultivation of gifts and faculties. The early half of the
century was marked by a crusade for the cause of the better education
of women, as significant as that for the physical emancipation of the
slave, and as devoted on the part of its leaders.
Simultaneous with this were two other movements--the anti-slavery
agitation, inspired by the new enthusiasm for human rights and carried
on largely by the Quakers of both sexes. The woman's-rights movement
was the natural outgrowth of the individual-sovereignty idea which the
German philosophers had planted, and of which Mary Wollstonecraft was
the first great woman-exponent.
The keynote of the educational advance was struck by Emma Willard in
1821. She was followed by Mary Lyon, Mary Mortimer, and other brave
women who dared to ask for women the cultivation of such faculties as
they possessed, without let or hindrance. This demand has taken the
century to develop and enforce. The work was so gradual that it is not
yet, by any means, accomplished. Schools and colleges exist, but not
yet equally, except here and there. They are, however, giving us an
army of trained women who are bringing the force of knowledge to bear
upon questions which have heretofore only enlisted sympathies.
Simultaneously with this question of educational opportunity, has
arisen an eager seeking after knowledge on the part of women who have
been debarred from its enjoyment, or lacked opportunity for its
acquisition. The knowledge sought was not that of a limited, sectional
geography, or a mathematical quantity as taught in schools, but the
knowledge of the history and development of races and peoples, of the
laws and principles that underlie this development, and the place of
the woman in this grand march of the ages.
The woman has been the one isolated fact in the universe. The outlook
upon the world, the means of education, the opportunities for
advancement, had all been denied her; and that "community of feeling
and sense of distributive justice which grows out of cooperative
interests in work and life, had found small opportunity for growth or
activity."
The opportunity came with the awakening of the communal spirit, the
recognition of the law of the solidarity of interests, the
sociological advance which established a basis of equality among a
wide diversity of conditions and individuals, and opportunities for
all capable of using them. This great advance was not confined to a
society or a neighborhood; it did not require subscription to a tenet,
or the giving up of one's mode of life. It was simply a change of a
point of view, the opening of a door, the stepping out into the
freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship with the
whole universe that comes with liberty and light.
The difference was only a point of view, but it changed the aspect of
the world. This new note, which meant for the woman liberty, breadth
and unity, was struck by the woman's club.
To the term "club," as applied to and by women, may be fitly referred
the words in which John Addington Symonds defines Renaissance. "This,"
he remarks, "is not explained by this or that characteristic, but as
an effort for which at length the time has come." It means the
attainment of the conscious freedom of the woman spirit, and has been
manifested first most strongly and most widely in this country,
because here that spirit has attained the largest measure of freedom.
The woman's club was not an echo; it was not the mere banding together
for a social and economic purpose, like the clubs of men. It became
at once, without deliberate intention or concerted action, a
light-giving and seed-sowing centre of purely altruistic and
democratic activity. It had no leaders. It brought together qualities
rather than personages; and by a representation of all interests,
moral, intellectual, and social, a natural and equal division of work
and opportunity, created an ideal basis of organization, where every
one has an equal right to whatever comes to the common centre; where
the centre itself becomes a radiating medium for the diffusion of the
best of that which is brought to it, and where, all being freely
given, no material considerations enter.
This is no ideal or imaginary picture. It is the simplest prose of
every woman's club and every clubwoman's experience during the past
thirty years.
It has been in every sense an awakening to the full glory and meaning
of life. It is also a very narrow and self-absorbed mind that sees in
these openings only opportunities for its own pleasure, or chances for
its own advancement on its own narrow and exclusive lines. The lesson
of the hour is help for those that need it, in the shape in which they
need it, and kinship with all and everything that exists on the face
of God's earth. If we miss this we miss the spirit, the illuminating
light of the whole movement, and lose it in the mire of our own
selfishness.
The tendency of association upon any broad human basis is to destroy
the caste spirit, and this the club has done for women more than any
other influence that as yet has come into existence. A club that is
narrowed to a clique, a class, or a single object, is a contradiction
in terms. It may be a society, or a congregation of societies, but it
is not a club. The essence of a club is its many-sided character, its
freedom in gathering together and expressing all shades of difference,
its equal and independent terms of membership, which puts every one
upon the same footing, and enables each one to find or make her own
place. The most opposite ideas find equal claims to respect. Women
widest apart in position and habits of life find much in common, and
acquaintance and contact mutually helpful and advantageous. Club life
teaches us that there are many kinds of wealth in the world--the
wealth of ideas, of knowledge, of sympathy, of readiness to be put in
any place and used in any way for the general good. These are given,
and no price is or can be put upon them, yet they ennoble and enrich
whatever comes within their influence.
We are only at the threshold of a future that thrills us with its
wonderful possibilities--possibilities of fellowship where separation
was; of love where hatred was; of unity where division was; of peace
where war was; of light--physical, mental and spiritual--where
darkness was; of agreement and equality where differences and
traditions had built up walls of distinction and lines of caste. This
beautiful thing needs only to be realized in thought to become an
actual fact in life, and those who do realize it are enriched by it
beyond the power of words to express.
Women have been God's own ministers everywhere and at all times. In
varied ways they have worked for others until the name of woman stands
for the spirit of self-sacrifice. Now He bids them bind their sheaves
and show a new and more glorious womanhood; a new unit--the completed
type of the mother-woman, working with all as well as for all.
The Advantages of a General Federation of Women's Clubs[1]
_Address by Mrs. Croly to the First Meeting of the First Federation of
Women's Clubs, Held in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 23, 1890_
The growth of the woman's club is one of the marvels of the last
twenty-five years, so fruitful in the development of mental and
material resources. What it was destined to become was, perhaps, far
from the minds of those who aided its inception, but all the
possibilities of the future lay in the germ that was thus planted, for
it was formed by the marriage of two great elements--freedom and
unity.
[Footnote 1: _The Cycle._]
The club has been called the "school of the middle-aged woman." It is
so in a very broad sense. It begins by gratifying her desire for
fellowship, her thirst for knowledge; by training her in business and
parliamentary methods; and gradually develops in her the power of
expressing her own ideas, of concentrating her faculties and focusing
them upon the object to be attained, the purpose to be accomplished.
At the same time she finds that a more subtle process has been going
on in her own mind. An insensible alchemy has been widening her
horizon, getting rid of prejudice, obliterating old, narrow lines,
leaving in their place a willingness to see the good in Nazareth as
well as in Galilee.
This result shows that she is a clubable woman, for it is emphatically
the club spirit. It is in this respect that the club differs from
those societies that are devoted to a single purpose; which demand
subscription to an idea, an opinion, a dogma, a belief, a single basis
or principle, and do not admit of fellowship on any other terms.
Doubtless those have their uses--they are the necessary and often
powerful expression of an advancing public opinion; but they have
always existed, usually and in past times, under the leadership of
men, even when composed of women. But it remained for the nineteenth
century to develop a moral, social, and intellectual force, made up of
every shade of opinion and belief, of every degree of rank and
scholastic attainment, of every kind of disposition and habit of
thought, all moulded into form,--and though as yet only the promise of
what will be, furnishing an outline of that beautiful united womanhood
which was the dream with which the club was started, and has been the
guiding star to its development up to the present time.
The union of clubs in a federation is the natural outgrowth of the
club idea. It is the recognition of the kinship of all women, of
whatever creed, opinion, nationality or degree; and it is a sign of a
bond that entitles every one to equal place;--not to charity or
toleration alone, but to consideration and respect. Inside of the club
we are equal sharers of each other's gifts. Each one brings her
knowledge, her sympathy, her special aptitude, her personal charm of
manner and disposition, and we are all enriched by this outflowing and
inflowing, by this equal part and share in a fountain made up of such
bountiful and diversified elements.
But the tendency of a circle is to widen. This is natural and
necessary to healthful life. Stop its currents, dam up its inlets and
outlets, and it is reduced to stagnation, and soon becomes foul and
mischievous instead of healthy and life-giving. The tendency of narrow
ideas is to run to routine, to spend time and strength upon trivial
details, and allow them to block and hinder the consideration of
weightier matters. There is undoubtedly a use for practice in business
methods, particularly for those women who have had no previous
training in business life; but the club ought to be an evolution. Once
acquired, the knowledge of business ways, methods, and tactics can be
put to better use than to aid or hinder the transaction of routine
affairs, which it is the function of a committee to dispose of.
The direction which the enlargement of club life takes must depend in
the first place upon local conditions and environment. Already in many
cities it has made itself, as in Philadelphia, the centre of the
active, moral and intellectual forces. In others, as in Milwaukee, by
cooperation in spirit and practice, it has provided a home for
literature and the arts. Whatever the woman's club does, is and ought
to be done on the broadest human principles; for if it forgets this it
ceases to be a club, and becomes merely a propaganda for the
advancement of certain fixed and unchangeable ideas.
But its own life, no matter how broad, is not enough. Whatever is
vital is social. This is why a club when it comes to understand its
own powers and sources of life, wishes for the companionship, the
sympathy, the fellowship, the shaking hands with other clubs. It is
said that corporations have no soul: clubs have souls, and they call
loudly for the enlargement of club sympathies, the discussion of
knotty club questions, the affirmation by others of what have become
club convictions, and mutual congratulations on club successes.
This is not all that a federation of clubs can accomplish, but it is
enough for a starting point. It is the kindly, providential,
sympathetic way in which we are always led from the smaller to the
larger field of work. Just before descending from a crest in the
Sierras into the valley of the Yosemite, you come suddenly upon a
wonderful view; it is called "Inspiration Point," and it is like an
open door, a revelation of the infinite, a promise in one gleam of
transcendent beauty, of all the separate and divisible splendors that
are to follow.
This spirit of enlargement beckons us and leads us to the formation of
the Federated Union of Clubs, and we cannot do better than follow its
guidance. We all need, clubs as well as individuals, encouragement and
counsel; we need to enlarge our knowledge of what other clubs are
doing, of their extent, of their objects, of their ambitions. Above
all, we need to enlarge our sympathies, to cultivate sympathy by
knowledge; for our prejudices are born of ignorance, and we rarely
dislike what we intimately know. As Charles Lamb said: "How can I
dislike a man if I know him? Do we ever dislike anything if we know it
very well?" With the growth of clubs the purely personal
characteristics of them will disappear, or at least be subordinated to
larger aims; and it is in the prosecution of these larger aims that
the federation will find its reasons for existence.
There is a vast work for clubs to do throughout the country in the
investigation of moral and social questions, in the reformation of
abuses, in the cultivation of best influences;--not the influence of
class or clique or party, but a wide, liberalizing, educational
influence which works for true goodness, for cleanliness, for order,
for equal opportunities, for the recognition of God in man and nature,
in whatever stage of unfolding the Divine in us may happen to be. It
is in the last twenty-five years that village-improvement societies,
first instigated by a woman--Miss Sallie Goodrich of Stockbridge,
Mass.--have created a transformation in whole townships, and so
enhanced the value of property as to drive out the original
inhabitants and change farming communities into fashionable summer
resorts. This result is of doubtful value. But every woman's club,
especially in the newer sections, has in its power, by wise and
careful action, to improve the conditions, elevate the tone, and
crystallize the moral force of its community in such a way as to make
it more desirable to live in, more beneficial to its own citizens,
more of an example to others.
All these questions of club life and work would naturally come up
before a federated body, and these would as naturally lead to
governmental questions; to contrasts and records of activities in
different parts of the world, and to the investigation of the causes
which bring about certain results.
Women are naturally both receptive and constructive. The affirmative
states of mind are those which, particularly belong to women; as
iconoclasts they are mere echoes. This affirmative condition is most
favorable to true development. Nothing good has ever come of mere
negation. But we must look for our truths and our basis of true
growth, in the light of the rising dawn--not, as heretofore, in the
waning glory of the setting sun. The union of clubs is the natural
outgrowth, of the planting of the true club idea. It was a little
seed, but it contained the germ of a mighty growth in the kinship of
all women--the women who differ as well as the women who agree; and
the federation of clubs is the forerunner of that unity of the race of
which philosophers have spoken, of which poets have dreamed, but which
only the constructive motherhood and womanhood of the race can
accomplish.
The Clubwoman[1]
The nineteenth century has been remarkable in many ways. It has
developed a new material and social order; but the fact is not as yet
fully recognized that it has developed a new woman--the woman who
works with, other women; the woman in clubs, in societies; the woman
who helps to form a body of women; who finds fellowship with her own
sex, outside of the church, outside of any ism, or hobby, but simply
on the ground of kinship and humanity.
[Footnote 1: _The Cycle_.]
It is not yet twenty-one years since a great daily in New York said
that if a society composed wholly of women could hold together one
year, a great many men would have to revise their opinion of women.
The remark was made apropos of the formation of the first women's
clubs in this country, and was echoed on all sides publicly and
privately. It is only significant now as showing the isolated position
of women, and the general impression which prevailed that they could
not and would not work together, except, perhaps, for some common
cause, religious or philanthropic, which for the time being absorbed
their energies and made them lose sight of their personal jealousies
and animosities. Why women should have been believed to be
antagonistic to women it is hard to say. This idea seems to have been
cultivated assiduously by men, and women have echoed it; for it cannot
be denied that the new fellowship that has come with the century and
with the awakening of women to the life which is theirs--the life of
friendship, of sympathy, of enlargement, of interest in affairs, of
common kinship with all that exists in a beautiful world--has in it
something of the nature of a surprise. Is it possible that women may
have a life of their own, may learn to know and honor each other, may
find solace in companionship, and lose sight of small troubles in
larger aims?
These questions have been answered by thousands of women, answered
with tears, after the manner of women, but tears of joyful recognition
of the new day which has dawned for them;--a day of larger
opportunities, a day which comes after a night of ages; for the woman
is for the first time finding her own place in the world. Heretofore
she was only welcome if the man wanted her, and if he no longer wanted
her she was again cast out. But she is now learning that the world
exists for her also; that she is one half the human race; that life,
liberty, and the pursuit of whatever is good are as desirable for her
as for the man, and as necessary in order to put her in _rapport_
with the eternal springs of all life and its varied forms of activity.
The first impulse of the awakened woman is to unite herself with other
women; her next to learn that which she does not know in regard to
art, literature, peoples, races; the countries she has never visited,
the kinsmen and kinswomen she has never seen, and the degree in which
their progress has kept pace with or gone beyond her own. This
knowledge comes to her through her club or literary society.
The woman's club has become the school of the middle-aged woman. It
has brought her up to the time. It has enabled her to keep pace with
the better advantages given to her sons and daughters. It has put an
interest into her life which it had never previously possessed, and
made her more humanly companionable because better able to judge and
more willing to suspend judgment. The clubs of women in America--the
growth mainly of the past twenty years--can now be counted by the
hundreds, and their membership by many thousands, and the history of
them all is practically the same.
It is this woman, born of women's clubs, who is the woman of to-day.
She is the centre of the intellectual activity of townships and
neighborhoods all over the country. She forms stock companies, and
builds athenaeums; she is at the head of working guilds; she organizes
classes, teaches what she knows, while she is being taught what she
did not know; and in mental activity, and labor which is not routine,
has renewed her youth, and added to her attractions. She is at the
same time far removed from a lobbyist. She is able to look at
different sides; she is socially at home with the best people in every
sense of the word. She is a lady as well as a woman, and does not
adopt what is _outre_ in order to obtain notoriety.
The New Life[1]
It is a very dull mind, whether belonging to man or woman, that does
not feel stirred by recent movements--not here alone but all over the
world--into some quickening sense of the deeper life, the broader
human claims, the unifying and uniting influences which have sprung
into activity, and which address, not the visionary, but the
thoughtful and far-seeing, with prophetic gleams of a new heaven and a
new earth.
[Footnote 1: _The Cycle_.]
It is also a very narrow and self-absorbed mind which, only sees in
these openings opportunities for its own pleasure, or chances for its
own advancement on its own narrow and exclusive lines. The lesson of
the hour is help for those that need it, in the shape in which they
need it, and kinship with all and everything that exists on the face
of God's green earth. If we miss this, we miss the spirit, the
illuminating light of the whole movement, and lose it in the mire of
our own selfishness. To women this uplifting, these open doors, mean
more than to men. They have been hedged about with so many
restrictions, forced and held in such blind and narrow ways, that it
is little wonder if sight and steps are feeble, and that they find it
impossible to take it all in, or to recognize at once the full meaning
of the day that is dawning for them.
For we are only at the threshold of a future that thrills us with its
wonderful possibilities;--possibilities of friendship where separation
was; of love where hatred was; of unity where division was; of peace
where war was; of light--physical, mental and spiritual--where
darkness was; of agreement and equality where differences and
traditions had built up walls of distinction and lines of caste. This
beautiful thing needs only to be realized in thought to become an
actual fact in life, and those who do realize it are enriched by it
beyond the power of words to express. "I should like to wake up rich
one morning just to see how it would feel," said one woman to another
not long since. "I do wake up rich every morning now," said the other,
"though I have still my living to earn, because my life is full of
prized opportunities, of cherished friendships, of chances for
acquiring knowledge that I had not in youth, and keeping myself in
touch with broad human facts and forces. Everything is interesting to
me, more interesting the closer my acquaintance with it, so that I am
fast getting rid of those ugly things we call prejudices, and laying
in a stock of appreciation instead, which is in itself enriching."
The old feeling of patron and dependant--so irksome, so humiliating,
so feudal, yet containing for many the whole moral law--is done away
with, and in its place appears a spirit of true fellowship, a growing
sense of mutual respect and helpfulness. Club life teaches us that
there are many kinds of wealth in the world--the wealth of ideas, of
knowledge, of sympathy, of readiness to be put in any place and used
in any way for the general good. These are given, and no price is or
can be put upon them; yet they ennoble and enrich whatever comes
within their influence.
Money is the only kind of wealth that is not common, that is not given
freely; and for that reason it has a deadening and demoralizing effect
upon the minds of those who cultivate and increase it for its own
sake, or fail to put it to its larger and more human uses. Wise
distribution is the only way in which money can be made valuable in
the world: it is only as a developing power, as an aid to the worker,
and a creator of instrumentalities by which good objects can be
accomplished, that it is desirable. In the light of this view, what
place do those men and women occupy who shut themselves up with their
money, and shut out the wide human interests which educate the mind
and heart to noble issues? Going to church does not help them, for it
must be an exclusive church and an exclusive pew, under an exclusive
pastor who patronizes Jesus Christ but does not sympathize with Him,
and who talks about the "dregs of society" as if it were something
far removed from the knowledge and consciousness of his hearers.
The woman of the past has especially been cramped up, bound around,
and blindfolded by her special form of belief, by her tradition, by
her social customs, by her education, by her whole environment; and
the effect will remain stamped more or less upon her individuality
long after the predisposing causes have passed away and better
influences and circumstances have taken their place.
But the present is full of encouragement. The new life has begun: the
woman is here;--not the martyred woman of the past; not the
self-absorbed woman of the present, but the awakened woman of the
future. That woman whose faculties have been cultivated, whose gifts
have been trained, whose mind has been enlarged, whose heartbeats
respond to the touch of the unseen human, and whose quickened insight
recognizes father, brother, sister, and friend beneath the strange as
well as the dilapidated robe.
This woman whose face no artist has painted, who is not yet familiar,
is among us, and will remain. Her work humanizes and reconciles, and
the changes it will effect will come so noiselessly that the majority
will not be aware of them till they are accomplished, and then each
one will announce, and perhaps believe, that they themselves have
brought these things about. But this will not matter, for when the
work is done it is really of little consequence who did it, since all
who do any good work at all are simply agents and ministers, charged
with a task it is their business to perform, and happy only as they
are able to execute it. It is those who are "let alone," who live for
and in themselves, who are the unhappy ones; and for these, though
they possess fine houses, much gold, stocks and bonds, the poorest
worker may well fervently pray that the new life may come to these
also.
The Days That Are[1]
We live in an age of discontent. Discontent has been deified. It has
been called divine; and unrest, the seal as well as the sign of
progress. Doubtless there is a time and a place even for discontent,
for there is no faculty that has not its function. But discontent,
which is a sacred fire when it burns within and is kept for home use,
is a mischievous and destroying element when it is widely distributed
and unthinkingly-employed by ignorance and short-sightedness.
[Footnote 1: _The Cycle_.]
Then it is certain that if discontent is good, content is far better,
and thankfulness better yet. If time teaches us anything, it is to
work and wait and trust; to be thankful for what is--for the digging
and seeding time as well as for the harvest; for one must come before
the other.
Time brings only one regret--that we had not more joy in the things
that were; more belief, more patience, more love; more knowledge of
the way things work out; more willingness to help toward the final
result. The preparation, the planting, the laying foundations, must be
done in the dark; usually done with blind eyes as well, which see not
what may or will be, but anticipate a harvest of pain from a
spring-time of rain. Yet these showers may have been indispensable to
the ground, and the seed may have expanded and sent its shoots up to
the surface in consequence of them.
But why use symbols? The days that are;--the days that are with us are
the good days. Suppose it is hard work, and only the prospect of hard
work? Work is the best thing we have got: it is salvation. It is the
means by which we struggle up out of the darkness into the light. It
is the law of life. It is the ministry of all that is good in the
world; and the better it is the better for us, the better for every
one. It is only those who do not know how to work that do not love it;
to those who do, it is better than play--it is religion.
But this is the mere influence of work itself. Suppose, besides your
work, you have the blessing of a family to be cared for, and your work
provides for them? This consecrates every part of it. It makes every
movement of the hand a benediction, every heart-throb an unuttered
prayer. Are not these days so full of labor best days? For about you
are those you love. They are under the roof you provide; their voices
furnish the music, their presence the sunshine of your life. Sometimes
that which your discontent craves will come to you. The freedom from
toil, the absence of "troubles" that now loom up so large to you; but
with your troubles your joys will have vanished, and you will sit in
the twilight waiting for the end, and wishing that you had cultivated
the sweetness instead of the bitterness of the beginning, that you had
not allowed the thorns to cover up your roses.
Wisdom seems to have been the same always, but each one has to learn
its lessons for himself. That is the reason why there is so little
apparent progress in essential truths. There are always those who have
grown into their realization; there are always those who are at the
threshold, and who must travel over the same paths, for we can none of
us acquire true wisdom for another; it must become a part of
ourselves, of our own moral and spiritual consciousness.
"It is all very well for you," says one; "you have never known the
pinch of poverty." How do you know that? We none of us know how and
where the shoe has pinched another person's foot. It is not our
business to know, but it is our business to prevent our soreness from
becoming sourness and bitterness. It is our business to make the
pathway of others as pleasant as we can, so that their unseen corns
shall irritate them as little as possible. All the wisdom of the days
that have been, and the days that are, will be found in the following
lines from Goethe's "Tasso":
"Would'st thou fashion for thyself a seemly life?
Then fret not over what is past and gone;
And spite of all thou mayest have lost behind,
Yet act as if thy life were just begun.
What each day wills, enough for thee to know,
What each day wills, the day itself will tell.
Do thine own task, and therewith be content;
What others do that shall thou fairly judge.
Be sure that thou no mortal brother hate,
Then all beside leave to the Master Power."
A People's Church[1]
"What would you do if you were rich?" This is a question often asked,
and readily answered by those who have not wealth of their own to
dispose of, for there is nothing easier than to give away other
people's money. But it is more difficult to the conscientious, who
feel that their unearned millions ought to inure in some way to the
public benefit, yet do not always see the way to the reconciling of
their own conditions and circumstances with that use of money which
seems to them wisest and best.
[Footnote 1: _The Cycle_.]
As a rule it may safely be assumed that if all who are poor were
suddenly made rich, they would do as the majority of our rich men do
with their money--keep it. But it is at least pleasant to think how
generous one might be, and as the rich occasionally are; and I propose
to suggest one object that I hope will one day be realized in this
great city, where everything good is possible, as well as everything
evil, and which only needs to take vital root in some active mind to
become a living reality.
Within a certain area New York may be called a city of churches, but
they are churches for the rich; solemn, imposing, cathedral-aisled,
glass-stained, costly, munificently beneficed, elegantly pastored--God
locked in, the poor locked out. I know there are "mothers'" meetings
and "mite" societies, and all the rest of it, but all the same the
poor woman in her old shawl and bonnet would not think of entering one
of those expensive pews, nor does the man in his working suit feel
that that is the place for him. Outside, the majority of churches take
no account of the necessity for the consolation, the comfort, the
upbuilding, the refreshment of religion, save and only for certain
hours on Sunday, and then it must be in full toggery, and in company
with, the eminently respectable.
The most beautiful thing about the old churches abroad is not their
splendor of carving and painting, but that they stand with, open doors
week days and Sundays, for the people to enter; and they do enter. The
market woman with her basket drops in for a moment on her way home
from the labor of her weary day. The old woman totters in to say her
"Ave Maria," the young woman to pray away her perplexities. Even the
business man sometimes finds it a resource from his struggles and
temptations. The poor, with their crowded houses and narrow quarters,
have so little privacy as to make quiet, and even an opportunity for
self-communion, a luxury. Then how often in the perplexities which
fill their lives they desire for a little while a retreat, a refuge
where they can think, perhaps receive a word of counsel, at least find
an atmosphere of absolute peace and restfulness.
The Monday prayer-meeting, the afternoon exhortation; the evening
conference of the Baptists, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, or the
Congregationalists, are not what is wanted; nor is it a cold and
barn-like edifice which makes one feel, if one goes to call upon God,
as though He were out, and could only be seen at stated times, and by
the will of the sexton and the trustees.
A people's church is wanted, where the people can come and go as they
please; which asks no questions, which is always open, which has brief
singing and organ services that all and any people of any kind and
degree may attend and feel themselves welcome. A morning service of
praise, a mid-day song of rejoicing, a vesper hymn of thankfulness. No
word of condemnation, no word of controversy, no word of doubt, no
word of assertion or denial; only unceasing love, continued and
eternal recognition of human kinship and readiness to minister to any
soul's need as far as it may be reached and helped.
No one minister could perform its offices; its servants would have to
be in a manner consecrated to its work, and they should be men and
women who have suffered, and therefore know, but who would find more
reason for rejoicing than lamentation; who would possess gifts of
music and oratory, and whose personal influence would be strong for
righteousness.
There are great churches with scattered congregations, in Fifth
avenue; there are a few poor churches, and small, for which no one
cares, and which offer no attractions to the over-flowing population
of Mott street. The spring and summer will soon come, and then these
great churches will be closed, their pew-owners distributed over lake
and mountain in all the different parts of the wide world. But the
"people" will be here. People who work in foundries and shops, who
live in tenement-houses; people who earn a hand-to-mouth living as
clerks, book-keepers, seamstresses and petty store-keepers; people who
have to stay in such homes as they can support because they cannot
afford to break them up and go elsewhere.
For these people and their children there is only the street. The
children occupy the street. For four or five months in the year they
make life hideous, especially on Sunday, by noise and exhibition of
vandalism that would disgrace the savages of any age or nation. The
police acknowledge themselves powerless to prevent it. It is simply
the exercise of undirected faculty which might be turned to account,
but which has only noise, confusion, and street warfare for its
opportunity for exercise.
There are possibilities in these congregations of the highways and
byways, and when we have our people's church or churches, open all the
year, and all the night as well as all the day, and the voices of the
angels for sweetness, singing love and peace on earth, in an anthem
that pierces the roof, and with the tones of a mighty organ to
emphasize to all the world its message, and it is not a question of
clothes, many people will be glad to listen, and will find an
influence in the music, in the willingness, in the free-heartedness,
in the sympathy, in the kindness, in the spirit of brotherhood, that
they would not get out of preaching nor dogma.
Whom are we waiting for to build this church? Is it a woman? Surely it
is an opportunity that carries the two-fold blessing.
Notes, Letters and Stray Leaves
A "free lance" is less free than the organs of a party. In one case it
means at least the opinions of a group; in the other, the dogmatism of
the one who wields the lance. Nothing is less free than the
self-styled freedom of the individual.
Enthusiasm implies a certain narrowness of vision. When people can
take a broad view they can see the elements of goodness or beauty
everywhere, and they cease to be enthusiastic in regard to one. The
great popular preachers are not university men, or those who are quiet
and literary in style, but strong, dogmatic men.
Perhaps the most noticeable difference between the so-called new woman
and the new man is this, that she is seizing every opportunity that
opens up new avenues of individual employment, while he is discovering
and storing energy to save himself from doing any work at all. The old
man made other men, and women too, work for him, the new man is making
the hitherto uncontrolled forces his servants, locking them up in such
small compass that a twist of the wrist will start the crash of
worlds.
The notes of the great god Pan, so "piercingly sweet by the river"--a
far cry and a weary way from Pan to Handel and Beethoven; yet during
all that time music has been the joy and the consolation of
peoples,--all except the Quakers.
If Poetry is the prophet of the future, music expresses all
emotions,--love, joy, fear, above all, aspiration. Music is
essentially religious, and has inspired the most perfect forms of
emotional composition we know.
I take off my hat to the new man--that is, I would if I wore one, but
I wear a bonnet, and pin it on with long, sharp-pointed things which
if they were not used voluntarily would be considered instruments of
torture. Think of the man who is testing the force of dynamite--who is
holding lightning bolts in his hand and forcing them to do the work
which he has planned for them, who is taking the altitude of the
mountains in Mars in his observatory in the air at midnight,--think of
these men stopping to swear while they ran the murderous little weapon
through six thicknesses of buckram, lining, velvet, lace, feathers,
ribbon and hair--to fasten on their bonnets!
Letter to the New York Woman's Press Club
October, 1900.
My dear Friends and Fellow-Members:
It was really a grief to me not to be able to meet you individually
and collectively before leaving to be absent the entire season. The
accident which disabled me for the summer, threatens to cripple me for
the winter also, and in this condition of dependence and general
disability, it seemed best to go where I could have seclusion, and the
care of some member of my own family.
I resign my place among you with less reluctance because the Woman's
Press Club is now strong and well able to guard its own interests, and
direct its own affairs. It will, I am sure, be all the better and
stronger from being thrown upon its own resources, and made to depend
wholly upon the potent efforts which have been evoked, and which may
be still further developed on the part of its membership.
It will be a source of the deepest satisfaction to me in my retirement
to think of you in connection with the happy times we have had, and
the good work done during the past three years, and also of the spirit
of loving fellowship which has grown so strong and so deep. Nothing
can give greater pleasure than to hear of your continued growth and
prosperity, of continued endeavor to make the work effective, and the
life of the Woman's Press Club beautiful and useful.
Remember that a well-rounded club is an epitome of the world; that it
never can and never ought to be perfect according to any one
individual's idea of perfection, for every one's ideal is different;
and it is the unity in this diversity which constitutes the spiritual
life of the club, as the soul animates and inspires the body.
Exalt the club. Bring your best to the front. Extinguish personal
aims. Mind not at all the little picking and carping of human
gadflies, whose desire to extract blood is perhaps a survival of their
species, and an evidence of their unfitness for human companionship.
I think of you at every gathering, and if you remember me, show it in
your determination to make the Woman's Press Club of Greater New York
an honor to the metropolis of the New World and to American womanhood.
J.C. CROLY.
Hill Farm, Hersham,
Walton-on-Thames, England.
Letter to Sorosis
May, 1899.
To my dear friends and fellow-members of Sorosis:
On the eve of my departure from New York for a season, my heart turns
towards Sorosis with a depth of affection I find it difficult to put
into words. For thirty years it has held a large place in my life. It
has represented the closest companionship, the dearest friendships,
the most serious aspirations of my womanhood. The past is filled with
delightful memories, social and intellectual, of which it was the
happy instrument and inspiration. Its galleries are stored with living
pictures of noble women who were with us, who are always of us, who
have become a part of that eternal source of spiritual life from which
the best things spring. What is the secret of the strength of Sorosis?
What is its value to the community and the world at large? It is, as a
centre of unity. This is our Holy Grail,--and this we are bound never
to defame, or defile by thought, word or deed.
We planted the seed not in Sorosis alone, but in the General
Federation; and it is our duty to see that it is preserved in its
integrity. Sorosis does not want place or power in the organization
she created, but it is hers to see that the great principle it
embodied is not lost sight of. That the limitless growth and
expansion provided for in its foundations are always from centre to
circumference, not in sections; and that as differences are not
recognized in the local organization, so there can be no north, south,
east, or west in the general organization, nor any separation or
division of interests. This is the aim of Sorosis:--to perfect within
its own membership that unity in diversity which is the basis of its
life, and the source of its growth; and, as far as its strength and
influence extend, preserve it as the foundation of a united womanhood.
The consolation I feel in going away is that I shall find you here
when I return; not, I hope, crippled and disabled as now, but able to
be among you once more. I leave a monument of the woman's club in the
"Women's Club History," which carries marvellous testimony to the
ideals and aspirations of the woman of the home--for this is the woman
of the club.
God bless and keep you all! I wish I could look into your kind faces
individually, and thank you for all that Sorosis past and present has
been to me.
Faithfully yours,
J.C. CROLY.
Letter to the Society of American Women in London
November, 1901.
To the Society of American women in London:
On the eve of my departure for America, I desire to express to the
Society of American Women something of what I feel sure I owe it
individually and collectively since its initial gathering in the
beginning of March.
My visit to England has been made under extremely trying and painful
circumstances. I had expected no participation in any social
functions. I had communicated with only a very few near and dear
friends. Formal intercourse with comparative strangers seemed
impossible.
But there was nothing strange in the atmosphere of the American
Society. It provided at once an atmosphere in which one could breathe
freely, so kindly and so cordial were its tone and spirit.
It formed at once a social centre in which the best elements
contributed to the most varying attractions. It brought together many
of the most charming and progressive women in English as well as
American society, and also many of the brilliant women we read about,
but rarely meet.
In addition, it performed a most useful office in extending the hand
of welcome from American women in London to the representative women
who attended the International Council; and has a future of
exceptional character in filling a social need which has never been
filled by the official representatives in republican America.
It is not too much to say that it has put life in London in quite a
new and much more attractive aspect to American women, by focusing the
best elements and bringing them in touch with each other. With time
and development the highest results of the modern co-operative spirit
should be attained, and the fulness of a life that will enrich each
individual member, and reach out beyond to an ever widening sphere of
happy influence.
J.C. CROLY.
Letter to the Pioneer Club of London
June, 1901.
To the Finance Committee of the Pioneer Club:
I hope I shall not be considered as taking a liberty in presenting a
subject of some importance for your consideration.
There is a feeling in some clubs and among some clubwomen that the
time has arrived for expanding the club idea and at the same time
drawing closer the ties which unite women in the form of organized
fellowship, which the modern clubwoman recognizes as a potent and most
valued element of her club life. It is believed, in short, that the
time has come for the initial steps to be taken for the formation of a
European Federation of Women's Clubs.
There are many reasons which seem to make it eminently proper that the
Pioneer Club should be the one to take these initial steps. It is the
oldest and best known woman's club in London. It was founded upon the
broadest human lines by a woman who possessed in the highest degree
that sixth sense which the nineteenth century contributes to the
twentieth--the sense of the Universal. This led her to affiliate the
Pioneer Club in the beginning with the General Federation of Women's
Clubs in the United States, and should inspire it to progressive life
and work.
The initial step is not formidable. It is, if thought desirable,
simply to address a circular letter to women's clubs on record,
wherever they may be known to exist, proposing a basis of federated
affiliation, and inviting them to unite in forming a grand Federation
of organized bodies of women capable of realizing any purpose upon
which they might bring their united forces to bear.
If it is said, "Of what use is such a Federation?" I might point to
many instances of educational and municipal progress, and social
reform in America effected by this combined effort. But details are
as nothing compared with the one great, glowing, ultimate aim of the
solidarity of thoughtful, high-minded, intelligent, progressive women.
It is written in the stars. It will surely become an accomplished
fact; and there are other clubs willing to take the initiative; but it
is fitting that the Pioneer Club should lead, and by its wisdom and
judgment lend an added dignity to noble endeavor.
J.C. CROLY.
Letters to Mrs. Dimies T.S. Denison, President of Sorosis
22 AVENUE ROAD,
LONDON, NW., January 27, 1899.
My dear Mrs. Denison:
Thank you very much for your delightful letter. It was so good and
heartening. Its spirit was so representative of the best that
club-life has given us that it made me feel more than ever thankful
for Sorosis and for that reserved strength and all-roundedness of
resource and character which makes it able to successfully tide over
any difficulties.
I have not heard of any effort to form a London Sorosis, nor do I
think it could be done successfully on precisely the same lines. If we
were starting a club to-day it would differ considerably from the one
started thirty-one years ago. That had to be formed out of such
materials as were available at that time, and built as it knew and as
it grew. Its virtue lay in its breadth, in the true and scientific
character of its conception. It made a centre and worked from that to
the radiating points of an illimitable circle, not knowing precisely
where these would take it, but with all the faith of Columbus in
results founded upon essential principles. We had no idea at the time,
that at every one of these farther points other centres were being
formed that also, in their own time and way, struck out feelers and
shafts, and thus became part of that great system of creative force,
which, still acting on its central and original idea of a larger
unity, brought together the General Federation. This is the mother
idea which Sorosis represents, and which needs no legal enactment to
enforce. It stands for this as much in London as in New York, and in
its own way has become unique. It lacks some of the elements of the
newer clubs, but it contained the germ of them all, and is essentially
a true growth, an aggregation of all the qualities of a diverse and
unified womanhood;--not by making it something else, but by studying
its own spirit and life, and the genius it has developed.
First, it stands for a wide hospitality and the generous recognition
of all other women; for high standards in literature, art, ethics, and
all the interests belonging to and growing out of them. Above all, it
stands for home duty; for honor, faithfulness, loyalty, courage and
truth. Finally, it stands for subjection;--that highest subjection of
the one will to the many; of that subordination of our own dominant
desire to the spirit and will of God, represented by the spirit and
will of the majority. For the voice of the people is in a real sense
the voice of God, whether we recognize it or not.
O my beloved Sorosis, you are the core of my heart! What have I said
but that you represent an ideal of life and character, and that each
member should hold herself responsible for its preservation and its
increasing beauty and value?
Faithfully yours,
J.C. CROLY,
Honorary President.
Dearest Mrs. Denison: When I began this letter it was intended for you
alone; as I went on it seemed as if it might find a little place at
the Breakfast. Use your own judgment in regard to having an extract
made for that purpose...
Yours lovingly, J.C.C.
QUEEN'S ROAD, ST. JOHN'S WOOD,
LONDON, N.W., April 16, 1899.
My dear President:
What a lovely programme! I am so proud to show it, and so happy that
Sorosis is going on so beautifully. Have I congratulated you? If not,
let me do it now with all my heart. I always knew your time would
come, and that you would make a popular as well as a wise president.
You have a light touch, but a very appreciative one, and that good
thing--a fine sense of humor. You do not take yourself too seriously,
but you give the best of yourself unreservedly. God bless you for
carrying the banner of Sorosis up to its highest level, and
maintaining its dignity in a way worthy of its reputation.
The London Club, or Society of American Women in London, is
flourishing. The president comes often to see me, and in her address
at the second luncheon, April 10th, said that she considered it a
special providence that I was in London at the beginning; that I had
been of the greatest help to her, and that she should always look upon
me as their "Club Mother." I began to wonder if that was what my leg
was broken for, and how many more times I might have to be cut to
pieces to make "Mother" enough to go around.
Mrs. Henry Norman (Muriel Dowie, author of "A Girl in the
Carpathians") made a brilliant little speech. She is delightful, and
very anxious to visit America. Her husband is the Englishman who of
his own choice graduated from Harvard. He has written some very
appreciative articles about America...
I hope I shall know when Mrs. F. and Mrs. L. are coming, and something
of their plans. At least how long they will stay in London. Won't you
be so good as to tell them this and give them my address?
I am endeavoring now to put myself under treatment for the pain and
weakness I feel when I try to walk (with sticks) in the street...
Really yours,
J.C. CROLY.
7 RUE D'ASSAS, PARIS, FRANCE,
October 3, 1900.
My very dear President and Friend:
Your letter was most welcome. I have been in a quiet little country
place since coming from Ober-Ammergau, and know no one. I thought much
of you in those quiet days, and wished to write, but waited to hear,
and the echoes did come in a way I understood, for I had letters
before leaving America which were an indication of the general trend
of thought and desire. Of course I never for a moment misunderstood
your attitude in the matter of the election... You could not help your
election. [Referring to the first vice-presidency of the General
Federation.]
I am very, very sorry the color question has been raised again. It
almost made a split six years ago. It was, at the best, premature. It
was a sacrifice of the greater to the less, of the real good we had
attained and the ideal towards which we were working, to a theoretical
possibility which had not yet presented itself. We have yet a thousand
obstacles to overcome within ourselves; a thousand problems to solve;
an ideal to work towards capable of infinite expansion. But we should
not strain the limits while the centre still lacks order and form, and
depends upon the wisdom with which it is guided for permanence.
We have made some dreadful blunders,... but ideals are not stones in
the street; they are stars in the sky. They are always beyond us; we
cannot wear them as breast-pins but we can work towards them...
Yours faithfully,
J. C. CROLY.
82 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE,
LONDON, W.C., April 10, 1901.
My very dear Friend and President:
How good it was of you to send me the beautiful souvenirs of the
thirty-third Annual Breakfast. They took me straight back to you all
through a mist of tears that were half pleasure, half pain; pleasure
that I was not forgotten, pain that I was not there to see the loving
glance, and share the hand-clasp. It is true I have many friends here,
but none that seem quite like the old friends; and there is only one
Sorosis--God's blessing be upon it for evermore! Yet wherever I go,
God's blessing and His Spirit seem to me to have descended upon women.
They show the most wonderful goodness and insight. They seem each one
to be specially made; not the kind that are kept in stock, so to
speak. Oh, I feel sometimes as if all my life had been partly a test,
partly an experience of their goodness, and that it is a sufficient
blessing, for nothing else has been left me.
A writer remarked the other day, in an article on the South African
war, that the best results of war were ties--the spirit of good
comradeship that it established among men. This is what we
preeminently get out of our club life, and without paying so fearful a
price for it. I hope to see you all when you come together in the
autumn.
With loving remembrance,
J.C. CROLY.
Letters to Mrs. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (London)
11 BARTON STREET, WEST KENSINGTON,
Jan. 15, 1889.
My Dear Mrs. Stopes:
It is very kind of you to take this trouble to give us a pleasure, and
I would not miss it on any account. But it is a little difficult for
me to name the day. I am in the hands of the dentist this week; I
shall hardly get through to go to the Writers' Club on Friday. These
two circumstances have postponed my visit to Miss Genevieve Ward to
whom it is now arranged that I go a week from to-morrow. I could make
it any afternoon that week that would suit you. Mrs. Sidney will be
delighted also to accept your invitation; and perhaps Miss Ward also.
Please make the afternoon to suit yourself and Miss Blackburn.
Really yours,
J.C. CROLY.
Jan. 19.
I go to Miss Ward's on Monday. It is her day at home, and therefore
will be more or less fatiguing. Tuesday I have promised to dine at the
Crescent Club with Mrs. Phillips and hear Mr. Felix Moscheles' lecture
afterwards. Miss Ward and her brother, Col. Albert Lee Ward, go also.
Three days of continuous going out would be too much for me, and
something would have to give way. I would rather it would be any event
than yours. Suppose you arrange it for the week following, and in the
meantime call for me at Miss Ward's on Monday. You will find Miss Ward
a very striking personality, and I particularly wish Col. Ward to
accompany me to your house. I will see you on Friday, and you can tell
me how you decide.
J.C. CROLY.
Jan. 20.
Friday the 27th will suit me very well. I have been out-of-doors so
little as yet, that I feared I might break down on the third day of
trying. I do know Lady Roberts Austen; have been to luncheon at her
house, but have not seen her since I came this time; I have
communicated as yet with so few. I heard from her the other day
however, and I know she will go to your house if she possibly can. I
have to drive wherever I go. I move too slowly for crowds and public
conveyances. I cannot risk weather.
Feb. 8.
I want to thank you for the afternoon I spent at your house; I enjoyed
it so very much. You will not consider me "pushing" if I say I am only
half satisfied. There are so many sides to your house; I want to see
the Queen of Scots portrait again, and the Donatello, and some of your
rare cookery books. I expect to change my quarters in about three
weeks to the North West; then you will let me come and browse, won't
you. But first you must come and lunch with me. With kind regards to
your delightful family,
I am, etc.
March 12.
May I come up next Thursday afternoon and bring with me an American
friend, Mrs. Stockber of Silverton, Colorado, who has just arrived by
the _Umbria_. Mrs. Stockber is an unusually interesting woman. She is
equal owner with her husband, an intelligent and large-minded German,
of one of the largest silver mines in the States, and is one of the
only two honorary women members of the great Association of Mining
Engineers of the United States. Mrs. Griffin, the President of the new
Society of American Women in London, also wants to come. I don't want
to inundate you; and this is only to ask if you are better, and can
receive a trio safely.
Yours, etc.
March 16.
I am sorry to give you so much trouble. But I have a friend here just
now, a woman of unusual character and ability. I remember I told you
of her. The other is Mrs. Helen T. Richards of the Boston Institute of
Technology. The only moment I can get her is on Monday afternoon, and
I want her to see the collection of prints and your pictures. If it is
all right I will bring her with me on Monday at 3 P.M. We must go to
Miss Ward's at 4.30. Do not have tea at that primitive hour; for we
shall be obliged to have a cup at Miss Ward's. I wish we might have a
chance of seeing Mr. Stopes; but of course that is something that may
be prayed for, but not what common people are made for. Dear, take
care of yourself if you can. There is only one of you.
Yours,
J.C.C.
March 17.
We will postpone. I cannot reach my two troublesome friends, and next
week you will be busy and tired. "By-and-by" is coming with the sun
and flowers. We will come too.
Yours lovingly and really,
J.C.C.
June 25, 1901,
82 SOMERS' STREET, W.C.
My very dear Friend:
I have only time to thank you for your kind "welcome," and tell you
how sorry I am not to see you to-day, and your precious Winnie, who I
hope has really started on the road to recovery. Children are the
richest boon vouchsafed us in this world, and the parents are the
trustees of this wealth committed to their charge, but belonging to
the world at large, and of which time only tells the value. I shall be
very busy now for a few days, but will see you as soon as possible.
Affectionately,
J.C.C.
[Illustration: Facsimile of a portion of a letter written by Mrs.
Croly in October, 1900.]
222 WEST 23D STREET,
NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 1901.
My dear Friend:
Thank you very much for your letter and card. It was a great pleasure
to me to receive it, and to learn something about yourself and what
you are doing. The news was long belated. The letter was to have been
printed the week that I left, and I provided to have it sent to about
a dozen friends as a good-bye. But it was so long delayed by Transvaal
excitement and sad war news, that I did not expect it to appear at
all.
I had a wonderful celebration on my seventieth birthday in December;
poems written, cakes with seventy candles sent, and a great
spontaneous gathering in my honor, which really bothered me not a
little, for I do not pose worth a cent, and do not know where to look
or what to do when people compliment me.
However, one thing gratified me above all others. It was a "birthday
party" given me by the Daughters of 1812--the most exclusive of
patriotic societies that is restricted to lineal descendants. The
gathering was magnificent; the cake was brought in lighted by seventy
candles borne on the shoulders of four men. By unanimous vote they
conferred upon me honorary membership, and the insignia were
conferred. The president in seconding the motion said, this departure
from their rules (alluding to my English birth) was not in honor of
"the club," nor of the "literary women," but of the woman who knew no
line of separation, and whose work had been done for all women. Was
not that a beautiful thing to say? Only that I intend to be cremated,
I would have it put on my tombstone.
We had a very bright and very beautiful beginning here to the "Holy
Year," so far as weather is concerned, and it is also very gay, though
my lameness prevents me from participating much in social doings. I am
also grieved by the unexpected effects of the Boer war, in England.
There must have been shocking blundering and mismanagement somewhere.
The pitying way in which "poor, stupid, decrepit old England" is
talked about is galling. Some military officers remarked recently that
England was hardly worth having a "scrap" with, she would be so easy
to beat.
Our General Federation holds a Congress in Paris in June, and my
passage is taken for May 19th. If nothing untoward prevents, I shall
be in London for a week early in June, and then go to Paris and
Ober-Ammergau. If you could go it would be very pleasant. Give my love
to your daughters, and kind regards to Mr. Stopes.
Yours ever,
J.C. CROLY.
Letter to Mrs. Carrie Louise Griffin
82 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, W. C.
June 25, 1901.
My dear Mrs. Griffin:
Mr. Bell wants an article immediately, about the American Society, for
the Chicago _Recorder_; and I am glad to write it, because it enables
me to make it stand for what it does; and will, still more, in the
very heart of western clubdom; and will be a John the Baptist for you
if you should go over next summer. He wants some photographs, yours
particularly; which please send. He left his card with address of
_Recorder_ in Fleet Street, which I omitted to take up-stairs at the
moment, and afterwards it could not be found. I am hoping that you
have it and will give it to me, or that Mr. Griffin perhaps knows it.
If you can drop in on Monday, A.M., I should be glad to ask you in
regard to some members--what to say of them, etc. Would Mrs. Clarence
Burns allow her picture to be used, and have you one of Mrs. De
Friese?
Always faithfully yours,
J. C. CROLY.
From a Letter to Mrs. May Riley Smith
... I have never done anything that was not helpful to woman so far as
it lay in my power. (April 2, 1886.)
Letters to Miss Anna Warren Story (Chairman of Executive Committee of
the Woman's Press Club of New York)
HILL FARM COTTAGE, HERSHAM,
WALTON-ON-THAMES, ENGLAND,
Oct. 29, 1900.
My dear Executive:
Your letter giving me all the news to date was most kind and welcome.
It seems very strange to be away from you all in this secluded corner
of Surrey, with nothing in sight but woods, a meadow in which cows are
grazing, and one neighboring cottage. My morning walk, when the
weather will admit of walking, is along the old post road lined with
woods and at the foot of our little lane or entrance to farm. The
other morning one solemn old cow put her head through the fence, and
stared with amazement at my crutches. Four others walked over to see
what she was looking at; and they all stood in a row, looking and
making no sound as long as I could see them. It was very funny.
It seems so odd after so many years of continuous and often hurried
work, to be using days for walking, and little things that since I was
a grown woman have been crowded into odds and ends of time, or omitted
for want of enough of it. I am gaining strength, however, and realize
how complete the prostration was, and how radical the reconstructive
processes had to be. The seclusion in which I live, surrounded by pine
woods, a mile and a half from the nearest post office (tho' a postman
brings our letters) and an equal distance from such supplies as a
village can afford, is a little trying in some ways, but a real boon
to me in my present condition.
It would have been very easy to plunge into the activities of women in
London. Many invitations have reached me, but I have been nowhere but
to one little dinner given by our only neighbor, the wife of a London
editor, and herself a popular story writer.
I can walk now with one crutch and a stick, and begin to hope for
complete restoration, which at one time seemed to me impossible. But,
oh, how tedious and wearing it is! We have an unusually fine October
for England, but gray skies and almost daily rains now. But the Surrey
country is beautiful, full of quaint old villages and objects of
picturesque interest. I am longing for the time and the weather to
explore it. I could write all day about my gradually growing desire to
be "up and doing." But time and space do not admit. Let me say in one
word how deeply I was touched by the action of the Executive
Committee, the Governing Board, and club. But I am also disappointed.
I wanted to leave the field clear, and have new energy put into the
club by bringing into active and central circulation the young, best
blood we possess. Thank you for your assurance that as far as possible
that will be done; and thank every officer and every member in my
behalf for the long and affectionate confidence they have reposed in
me, and for the many acts of personal kindness I have received from
them.
I am sorry you have lost the Countess by removal, and other valuable
members by death...
Yours faithfully and affectionately,
J.C. CROLY
NORFOLK VILLA, WEYBRIDGE, SURREY,
August 20, 1901.
My dear Anna:
Your letter came most opportunely. I had been thinking about you, the
Press Club, and my dear friends at home; for somehow I have not felt
the old pleasure in being in England, and if I had a home to come back
to, and my goods and chattels were not so far off, I should have come
back, I think, this autumn.
For one thing, the weather has not been favorable. We had such warm
weather in July; but every month has had a week or more of very cold
and wet weather. In Ober-Ammergau on the 8th of July we perished with
the cold, and the rain almost caked in ice upon us. Still, even such
weather could not spoil Ober-Ammergau. It is the one thing of its kind
on earth, and the nearest to an absolutely perfect thing I ever saw. A
great charm is the unconsciousness of the performers. They do not play
to an audience. There are no footlights, nothing theatrical; only the
Great Tragedy wrought out as a living reality. I think of all the
scenes; the one that made the deepest impression upon me was the one
in which there were the fewest actors and least acting. That was the
Garden of Gethsemane. So intense was the agony of spirit, that it
seemed as if I myself should cry out if the disciples had not gone
away and left the Saviour alone to his mortal struggle.
It is a great thing, Anna, that these people have done. They have
lived the Passion of Christ for nearly three hundred years. They are
born in it; they are fed upon it. They have made a cult of religion;
and they are absolutely religious, but not in the least sectarian. The
Christ they have lifted up draws all men unto him.
I have been in a quiet country place for four weeks, and shall stay
two weeks longer... If I remain this winter we shall probably go back
to Paris by November and to Italy in the spring. Now that I am here I
might as well give myself this one more chance... I was very tired
when I came back from our hurried trip, and was very glad of rest and
quiet...
Do not let my dear friends in the Press Club build upon me, or weaken
their force by re-electing me. Elect a young, strong, press woman.
Anna, do this without any reference to personal feeling or likes or
dislikes. You are capable of acting impersonally. Beg the club to do
this in my name, and to pick out their best for the chairmen of their
representative committees.
My own dear friends and fellow members; how I wish I could make them
feel the strength of my desire for their growth in wisdom and honor.
God bless them all!
Yours affectionately and faithfully,
J.C. CROLY.
ASHOVER, DERBYSHIRE,
May 30, 1901.
My dear Anna:
Your kind letter arrived this morning, forwarded by Mrs. Sidney to
this remote village in Derbyshire. I left London ten days ago because
I had to get fresh air and quiet. Ashover is a quiet little village; a
paradise of meadows starred with flowers, and wooded and cultivated;
hills in which all the treasures of one of the richest counties in
England (in floral wealth) are to be found. When I came here there
were still primroses, cowslips, violets, forget-me-nots, and fields
white with small daisies and yellow with buttercups. Now there are
masses of yarrow, marguerites, rhododendrons, bluebells, and great
trees of white and purple lilacs. Roses, I am told, will cover
everything by and by, but development is a little late this year. I
wish you could spend a month here this summer: what a revelation of
English beauty it would be to you!
Thank you for your sympathy with my personal troubles. I am not
unhappy... The goodness of women to me is always and everywhere
miraculous. This alone makes life worth living...
I am rejoiced to hear of the Press Club's prosperity. Nothing could
give me greater pleasure than to know of its constant growth and
advancement.
With love, ever yours,
J. C. CROLY.
Letters to Mrs. Caroline M. Morse
HILL FARM COTTAGE, WALTON-ON-THAMES,
SURREY, ENGLAND, Dec. 13, 1898.
My dear friend:
I was sorry to know from Ethel's note, received day before yesterday,
that you had been ill, and were still unable to the task of writing. I
wished above all things that I could in some way help and comfort you,
having always in mind the help and comfort you were to me during the
trying days last summer that followed my accident, and the consequent
long and tedious illness. There are many people who feel
sympathetically, but so few are capable and who are ready or are
permitted to apply the act of sympathy. It is the friend in need that
is the friend we remember with a grateful, lasting love...
At this moment we are on the eve of removal to London where we are
taking rooms once occupied by the family of David Christie Murray. We
go to-morrow, and begin a new chapter in this most disastrous of
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