JULIA WARD HOWE.
AUTHOR OF THE “BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.”
N Beacon Street, Boston, in an old-fashioned home, lives a woman mingling the twilight of her eventful life with the evening of the closing century, who has been a potent factor in its progress and developments. In her unpretentious little home have sat and talked the greatest men of America, and many of the European celebrities who have visited this country. Even the casual visitor to the home of this aged woman feels in the atmosphere of the place, with its mementoes of great men and women, some indefinable flavor, like a lingering perfume which tells him there has been high thinking and noble speech within the walls which surround him.
This noted poet, author, and philanthropist was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her father was Samuel Ward, and she numbers among her ancestors the famous General Marion, of South Carolina; Governor Samuel Ward, of Rhode Island; and Roger Williams, the apostle of religious tolerance. F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, is the son of her sister, who married Mr. Crawford, the artist. Mrs. Howe’s mother died when she was only five years of age, and her father five years later. But he had been a prosperous banker and provided to give her every advantage of a liberal education, which provision was carried out—her instructions including music, German, Greek, and French. She began to write verses while very young.
In 1843 Miss Ward was married to Doctor Samuel G. Howe. They went abroad on their wedding tour, spending a year in the Old World. Again, in 1850, she went to Europe, passing the winter in Rome with her two youngest children. The next year she returned to Boston, and in 1852 and 1853 published her first volume of poems, entitled “Passion Flowers,” which attracted much attention. At the same time her “Words for the Hour, a Drama in Blank Verse,” was produced in a leading theatre in New York and also in Boston. Her interest in the anti-slavery question began in 1851. In 1857 she visited Havana, and published her observations in a book, entitled “A Trip to Cuba,” which so vigorously attacked the degrading institutions of the Spanish rule that its sale has since been prohibited on that island. In 1861 appeared her famous “Battle Hymn of the Republic” with the chorus “John Brown’s Body, etc.,” which was published in her third volume, entitled “Later Lyrics.” The song and chorus at once became known throughout the country and was sung everywhere. In 1867 Mrs. Howe and her husband visited Greece, and won the gratitude of that nation by aiding them in the effort they were making for national independence. Her book “From Oak to Olive” was written after her visit to Athens. In 1868 Mrs. Howe joined the Woman Suffrage Movement, and the next year, before the Legislature in Boston, made her first speech urging its principles; and from that time forward has been officially connected with the movement.
Mrs. Howe visited England in 1872, where she lectured in favor of arbitration as the means of settling national and international disputes. At the same time she held, in London, a series of Sunday-evening services, devoted to Christian missionary work. During the same year she attended, as a delegate, the Congress for Prison Reform, held in London. On her return to the United States she organized or instituted the Woman’s Peace Festival, which still meets every year on the twenty-second of June.
Since her husband’s death, in 1876, Mrs. Howe has preached, lectured and traveled much in all parts of the United States, the most popular of her lectures being “Is Polite Society, Polite?” “Greece Revisited,” and “Reminiscences of Longfellow and Emerson.” In 1878 Mrs. Howe made another journey abroad, and spent over two years in travel in England, France, Italy, and Palestine. She was one of the presiding officers of the Woman’s Rights Congress, which met at Paris, and she lectured in that city and in Athens on the work of the various women’s associations in America. She has served as President in the Association of Advancement for Women for several years, and, notwithstanding her advanced age, retains her connection with this organization, and is an earnest promoter of their interest. She has formed a number of social Women’s Clubs, having for their object, mental improvement, in which the members study Latin, French, German, literature, botany, political economy and many other branches. She has been a profound student of philosophy, and has written numerous essays on philosophical themes.
Mrs. Howe’s three living daughters, all of whom are married, have been followers of her theories concerning woman’s freedom. One of them, Mrs. Laura Richards, is a well-known writer of stories for children, some of them being classics of their kind. “Captain January” is her best-known book. Mrs. Maud Howe Elliot, the third daughter, is a successful lecturer and also a novelist. Mrs. Florence Howe Hall, another daughter of Mrs. Howe, is a writer of acknowledged ability on social topics.
BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
INE eye hath seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored:
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in rows of burnished steel;
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;”
Let the Hero born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
OUR COUNTRY.
N primal rocks she wrote her name,
Her towers were reared on holy graves,
The golden seed that bore her came
Swift-winged with prayer o’er ocean waves.
The Forest bowed his solemn crest,
And open flung his sylvan doors;
Meek Rivers led the appointed Guest
To clasp the wide-embracing shores;
Till, fold by fold, the broidered Land
To swell her virgin vestments grew,
While Sages, strong in heart and hand,
Her virtue’s fiery girdle drew.
O Exile of the wrath of Kings!
O Pilgrim Ark of Liberty!
The refuge of divinest things,
Their record must abide in thee.
First in the glories of thy front
Let the crown-jewel Truth be found:
Thy right hand fling with generous wont
Love’s happy chain to furthest bound.
Let Justice with the faultless scales
Hold fast the worship of thy sons,
Thy commerce spread her shining sails
Where no dark tide of rapine runs.
So link thy ways to those of God,
So follow firm the heavenly laws,
That stars may greet thee, warrior-browed,
And storm-sped angels hail thy cause.
O Land, the measure of our prayers,
Hope of the world, in grief and wrong!
Be thine the blessing of the years,
The gift of faith, the crown of song.
THE UNSPEAKABLE PANG.
(FROM “A TRIP TO CUBA, 1860.”)
HO are these that sit by the long dinner-table in the forward cabin, with a most unusual lack of interest in the bill of fare? Their eyes are closed, mostly, their cheeks are pale, their lips are quite bloodless, and to every offer of good cheer, their “No, thank you,” is as faintly uttered as are marriage-vows by maiden lips. Can they be the same that, an hour ago, were so composed, so jovial, so full of dangerous defiance to the old man of the sea? The officer who carves the roast beef offers at the same time a slice of fat; this is too much; a panic runs through the ranks, and the rout is instantaneous and complete....
To what but to Dante’s Inferno can we liken this steamboat-cabin, with its double row of pits, and its dismal captives? What are those sighs, groans, and despairing noises, but the alti guai rehearsed by the poet? Its fiends are the stewards who rouse us from our perpetual torpor with offers of food and praises of shadowy banquets,—“Nice mutton-chop, sir? roast-turkey? plate of soup?” Cries, of “No, no!” resound, and the wretched turn again and groan. The philanthropist has lost the movement of the age,—keeled up in an upper [♦]berth, convulsively embracing a blanket—what conservative more immovable than he? The great man of the party refrains from his large theories, which, like the circles made by the stone thrown into the water, begin somewhere and end nowhere. As we have said, he expounds himself no more, the significant forefinger is down, the eye no longer imprisons yours. But if you ask him how he does, he shakes himself as if like Farinata—
“averse l’inferno in gran dispetto,”
“he had a very contemptible opinion of hell.”
[♦] ‘birth’ replaced with ‘berth’
Let me not forget to add, that it rains every day, that it blows every night, and that it rolls through the twenty-four hours till the whole world seems as if turned bottom upwards, clinging with its nails to chaos, and fearing to launch away.... But all things have an end, and most things have two. After the third day, a new development manifests itself. Various shapeless masses are carried up-stairs and suffered to fall like snow-flakes on the deck, and to lie there in shivering heaps. From these larvæ gradually emerge features and voices,—the luncheon-bell at last stirs them with the thrill of returning life. They look up, they lean up, they exchange pensive smiles of recognition,—the steward comes, no fiend this time, but a ministering angel; and lo! the strong man eats broth, and the weak woman clamors for pickled oysters.
MRS. MARY ASHTON RICE LIVERMORE.
FAMOUS SCHOLAR, TEACHER, ARMY NURSE, EDITRESS, LECTURER, ABOLITIONIST AND WOMAN’S SUFFRAGIST.
T seems almost incredible,” says a writer, “that a woman now so famous made mud pies in her childhood, was often sent supperless to bed, and was frequently bounced down into a kitchen chair with an emphasis that caused her to see stars.” When a young girl, struggling to support herself, she took in shop-work, made shirts, and subsequently learned the trade of a dressmaker, at which she worked for twenty-five cents a day. At eighteen she ran away from home like a boy, and spent three eventful years on a Southern plantation—years full of comedy and tragedy, and packed with thrilling experiences. Here were nearly five hundred slaves, with whom, and with their white masters, she was brought face to face daily. Here she witnessed scenes as tragic as any described in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Her description of the whipping of negro Matt, the cooper; his agonizing but unavailing plea for mercy; her subsequent visit alone to his cabin, when she entreated him to “run away, Matt, I’ll help you,” and his lonely death, will bring tears to the eyes of every reader.
Mrs. Livermore was the daughter of Timothy Rice, and was born in Boston, December 19, 1821. Notwithstanding the above reference to her early experiences, Mrs. Livermore had and improved all the advantages of the time for a thorough education. She graduated from the public schools of Boston at the age of fourteen, receiving a medal for good scholarship, and afterwards completed a four years’ course in the seminary at Charleston, Mass., in two years, and was elected a member of the faculty as a teacher of Latin and French. While performing these duties she continued the study of Greek and metaphysics under private tutors, and at the age of eighteen, as above suggested, she left home and went South to take charge of a family school on a plantation in Southern Virginia, remaining there nearly thee years. Her experiences in the South made her a most radical abolitionist, and on her return North she actively seconded every movement for the freedom of the slaves. She opened a select school for young ladies from fourteen to twenty years, at Duxbury, Mass., but relinquished it in 1845 on her marriage to Dr. D. P. Livermore, a Universalist minister, in Falls River, Mass. She made a most excellent minister’s wife, organizing literary clubs among the membership, and wrote many hymns and songs for church and Sunday-school books. She was also an active temperance worker, organizing a cold-water army of 1500 boys and girls, whom she delighted with temperance stories which she wrote and read to them. These stories were published in 1844 under the title of the “Children’s Army.” In 1857 she removed with her husband to Chicago, where Mr. Livermore became the editor of the Universalist organ for the Northwest, with his wife as assistant editor. During her husband’s absence in his church work she had charge of the entire establishment, paper, printing office and publishing house included, and wrote for every department of the paper except the theological, at the same time furnishing stories and sketches to Eastern publications, and was also active and untiring in Sunday-school, church and charitable work. At the convention in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was nominated, she was the only woman reporter who had a place among the hundred or more of men. During the Civil War she made her name famous by resigning all positions, save that on her husband’s paper, even securing a governess for her children, and devoting herself entirely to the work of relief and assistance to the soldiers through the United States Sanitary Commission. She organized Soldiers’ Aid Societies, delivered public addresses, wrote circulars, bulletins and reports, and made trips to the front with sanitary stores, giving personal attention to the distribution of the same, and bringing back numbers of invalid soldiers, accompanying many of them in person to their homes. She organized and conducted Sanitary Fairs, detailed nurses for the hospitals and accompanied them to their posts, and at the close of the war published her reminiscences, entitled “My Story of the War,” which is regarded as the most complete record of the hospital and sanitary work in the Northern army during this great fratricidal struggle.
Returning home after the war Mrs. Livermore became an ardent supporter of the Woman’s Suffrage movement as the best means not only of improving the condition of women, but with the broad, philanthropic idea of giving them a greater opportunity for doing good. Before the war she had opposed the placing of the ballot in the hands of women, but her experiences in the army taught her differently. She arranged for the first Woman’s Suffrage Convention in Chicago, elicited the aid of the leading clergymen of the city, and secured the attendance of the most prominent advocates of the cause from various parts of the country. The association was duly organized with Mrs. Livermore as its first president. “The Agitator,” a Woman’s Suffragist paper, was started by her in 1869 at her own expense and risk, in which she espoused the temperance cause, as well as woman’s suffrage. In 1870 she became the editor of the “Woman’s Journal” of Boston, and the family removed to Melrose, Massachusetts. Mrs. Livermore, however, retained the editorship but two years, resigning it, in 1872, that she might give her more undivided time to the lecture field.
During the last quarter century she has been heard in the lyceum courses of this country, visiting almost every State in the Union, and also lecturing at many points in Europe. The volume “What Shall We Do with Our Daughters and Other Lectures,” published in 1883, and a subsequent of the same character comprise her most important published discourses. The charm of Mrs. Livermore’s manner and the eloquence of her delivery have been equalled by few modern speakers. “At her feet,” writes one of her eulogists, “millions of people have sat and listened in admiration and wonder. The rich and poor, the high and low, the learned and unlearned, have been alike thrilled and moved by her burning words. She has swayed brilliant audiences of fashion; has spoken in State prisons, jails and penitentiaries; to audiences composed of outcasts; and to audiences numbering thousands of children. With untold wealth of mental resources, and a brain teeming with soul-stirring thoughts, these lectures overflow with grand principles; while the extraordinary scenes, thrilling stories, and remarkable facts given in them illustrate those principles with great clearness and force. Throughout her public speeches, whatever the theme, the listener never tires, but is rather uplifted by the ‘golden thoughts’ and ‘living truths’ that enrich them from beginning to end.”
During this period her pen was not idle. Her articles have appeared in the “North American Review,” the “Arena,” the “Chautauquan,” “Independent,” “Youth’s Companion,” “Christian Advocate,” “Woman’s Journal” and other high-class periodicals. She is identified with the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, for ten years being president of the Massachusetts branch of that organization. She is also president of the American Woman’s Suffrage Association, of the Beneficent Society of the New England Conservatory of Music, and was the first president for two years of the Woman’s Congress. Mrs. Livermore, notwithstanding her advanced age, keeps steadily at work with voice, pen and influence. After she was seventy-five years of age, at the earnest request of many prominent friends and admirers throughout the United States, she wrote her autobiography, a large volume of over 700 pages, issued in 1897.
We cannot better close this article than by quoting, from Mrs. Livermore herself, a retrospective paragraph with a prospective closing which is beautiful to witness in one standing, as she now does, in the twilight of a long and eventful career: “I cannot say that I would gladly accept the permission to run my earthly race once more from beginning to end. I am afraid it would prove wearisome—‘a twice-told tale.’ And so while rejoicing in the gains of the past and in the bright outlook into the future, I prefer to go forward into the larger life that beckons me further on, where I am sure it will be better than here. And when the summons comes, although the world has dealt kindly with me, I shall not be sorry to lift the latch and step out into ‘that other chamber of the King, larger than this and lovelier.’”
USEFUL WOMEN.[¹]
(FROM “WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH OUR DAUGHTERS,” 1883. LECTURES ON “Superfluous Women.”)
[¹] Copyright, Lee & Shepard, Boston, Mass.
OSA BONHEUR has achieved world-wide fame and pecuniary independence as one of the most skilful painters of animals; the boldness and independence of her own character inspiring her pencil, and her faithfulness to nature giving great force to her work. The whole civilized world does homage to her genius; and, during the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, the Crown Prince of Prussia gave orders that her studio and residence at Fontainebleau should be spared and respected.
Florence Nightingale, well born, highly educated, and brilliantly accomplished, gave herself to the study of hospitals, and of institutions for the diseased, helpless, and infirm. Appreciating the work of the Sisters of Charity in the Catholic Church, she felt the need of an institution which should be its counterpart in the Protestant Communion. She visited civil and military hospitals all over Europe, studied with the Sisters of Charity in Paris their system of nursing and hospital management, and went into training as a nurse in the House of the Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. For ten years she served an apprenticeship, preparing for the great work of her life. Her opportunity came during the war in the Crimea, when through incompetence, and utter disregard of sanitary laws, the rate of mortality in the English hospitals surpassed that of the fiercest battles. Horror and indignation were felt throughout England. Miss Nightingale offered her services to the government with a corps of trained nurses, was accepted, and went to Constantinople.
The disorder, the want—while storehouses were bursting with the needed hospital supplies—the incompetence, the uncleanliness, the suffering and death created general dismay. Unappalled by the shocking chaos, Miss Nightingale ordered the storehouses at Scutari to be broken open, when want gave place to abundance; and soon her executive skill and rare knowledge transformed the hospitals into models of order and comfort. She spared herself no labor, sometimes standing twenty hours in succession giving directions, and refusing to leave her post, even when she broke down with hospital-fever. Sadly overworked, her patience and cheerfulness were unfailing, winning the love of the roughest soldiers; and, as she walked the wards, men too weak to speak plucked her gown with feeble fingers, or kissed her shadow as it fell athwart their pillow. She expended her own vitality in this work, and returned to England an invalid for life. But not an idle invalid, for from her sick-room there have gone plans for the improvement of hospitals and the training of nurses wrought out by her busy brain and pen.
Caroline Herschel, sister of the great astronomer, was his constant helper and faithful assistant, in this character receiving a salary from the king. In addition she found time to make her own independent observations, discovering comets, remarkable nebulæ, and clusters of stars, and receiving from the Royal Society a gold medal in recognition of her work.
Charlotte Bronté’s portion in life was pain and toil and sorrow. Her experience was a long struggle with every unkindness of fate, and she lacked every advantage supposed necessary to literary work. Her force of character and undismayed persistence triumphed over all hindrances. She put heart and conscience into books that held the literary world in fascination. In them she rent the shams of society by her keen analyses. She depicted life as she had known it, shorn of every illusion, and then beautified it by unflinching loyalty to duty, and unwavering fidelity to conscience. The publication of “Jane Eyre” marked an era in the literary world not soon to be forgotten.
