“I’d rather live in Connecticut, the wife of a humble artisan, than here, the ‘consort’ of a Count or Duke.”
“You talk exactly like my father,” she repeated.
“Do I? I’m glad of it. I told you that Puritanism is contagious. Maybe I caught it from your father, and if I were sure that I have caught it, I would be sure of more moral fiber than you will get here, if you stay a hundred years.
“That Puritanism which you despise will make cosmos out of chaos; for in spite of its narrowness, there is in it the passion for humanity. It cries for justice, for freedom, for equality, even if it too often burdens itself with theological dogmas hard to understand and harder to believe.
“After all, the best thing in your country is, not that you give the weaker a chance to grow strong, and the broken the blessing of healing—the best of it is, that those of us who are just what we are, have a chance to help in the doing. It’s the work that a man or woman can do over there that counts.
“Yes, go back, crawl back, if necessary, to sober Connecticut; to its pure women and its undemonstrative men, who do not make meaningless compliments, after the fashion of your Captain; but who will at least think no evil of you and who will treat you with real courtesy, when there is need of courteous action.
“You want art? You fear you will miss it? They are doing something worth while at home, in bronze and marble; but they are doing more wonderful things in human flesh and spirit.
“I have seen wretched Italian children who came from where they make little fairies out of Carrara marble, yet they were crooked without and within; and I have seen them grow tall and beautiful and pure, by the grace of God and the passion of some noble woman. That, after all, is the supreme art.
“Music? You can have Grand Opera in New York composed of all the stars in the operatic firmament; yet I have heard music, sweeter, better and truer, sung by children in the Settlements.
“I have seen a Christmas at Hull House, in Chicago, which surpassed any Grand Opera. I am sure if angels come down to earth and care for our mundane pleasures, they must have struggled for a front seat there.