An eye like to a mystic book,
Of lays that bard or prophet sings,
Which keepeth for the holiest look
Of holiest love, its deepest things."
What an impetus was given to the cause of Woman's Rights, when the first Bloomer stepped upon the stage! With what tremendous huzzas of triumph and victory did the whole assaulting sisterhood mount the breaches thus made in the great bulwarks of man's tyranny and despotism; infuriately calling on every woman throughout the length and breadth of the nation to rise in the might of her slumbering strength, make her petticoats into pillars of defiance, and hurl them on the weak, unguarded outposts, till the whole tottering fabric should go down with a crash to rise no more.
Mrs. Pimble and her coadjutors commenced rolling the ball of reform with increased velocity. Mass meetings, of the most boisterous and denunciatory character, were held through the community. It appeared a war was commenced which threatened to cease only with the extermination of the masculine portion of Wimbledon. Mr. Salsify Mumbles, though as brave as most men in common encounters, was afraid to step outside his door lest his unmentionables should be seized by some of the new-fledged manhood, and a petticoat tied to his coat-tail. Even the green damask curtains and cushion-coverings that adorned the high, old-fashioned pulpit of the village church, were voted as ostentatious and calculated to foster luxurious idleness in the pastor; and a committee appointed and authorized to tear them from their places and sew them into bloomers for the comfort of the lady-lecturers, whose callings exposed them to the most inclement weathers. And so green-legged Philanthropy stalked through Wimbledon; but it never laid an armful of wood on the sill of Dilly Danforth's humble abode, though rough blew the storms of the inclement winter; nor did it put a cap over Master Willie's curly locks, or sew a charitable patch on the elbow of his ragged jacket. Because it was philanthropy in the wider sense, which sought to relieve in the sum of thousands—not of units.
Mrs. Dr. Simcoe figured not so largely among the sisterhood of reformers as she would have done had she not been encumbered by "Simcoe's children," who were two of the most ill-natured, uncompromising offshoots of barbarism that ever tormented a meek, unoffending woman.
Mrs. Lawson thought some reformer should arise to fill the place so nearly vacated by the persecuted lady, and fixed upon Mrs. Edson as her successor.
So, on a day, Mrs. Lawson, in green damask bloomers, black overcoat, and deer-skin gloves, appeared on the steps of Mrs. Edson's mansion, and gave a herculean pull at the door-bell which brought the master of the house instanter, with staring eyes, to answer the pealing summons. "I believe Mrs. Edson resides here," said the lady-reformist, looking loftily upon the man, who was evidently very much struck with his visitor's personal equipments.
"She does," answered he, at length.