For me? Well, it was much the same as with the rest of nature. My life went on through 1900 with only this difference, that it had grown—grown certainly in the past years of striving to put forth one’s self.
Personally the end of the old century marked a new departure, and was the starting-point of much interesting public work—work, by the way, that only a few short years before might not have seemed so enticing to the then young Society woman as it was now to the thoroughly interested worker.
In 1899 the International Council of Women, under that brilliant worker the Countess of Aberdeen, had met in London. It was a tremendous undertaking, and I served on several of the committees. The one, however, which took most of my time and thought was the Agricultural Section, for which I was the Convener, and finally took the chair. It seems a funny thing for a writer to have taken the chair at the proceedings of an Agricultural Section, but this was the outcome of the pamphlet on butter-making, and the endless articles I had then written about women taking up dairy-work in this country.
The Agricultural Section was a novelty, and, I am glad to say, proved a success. I never felt more nervous in my life, although supported on the platform by many able people, among them the Earl of Aberdeen. Viscount Templetown sat next to me, and primed me in what to say, rang bells when the allotted space of time had been filled by some speaker, and generally acted as call-boy and prompter combined. And Professor James Robertson, Agricultural Commissioner of Canada, travelled to this country purposely to speak for me. I felt terribly impressed by the solemnity of the entertainment, the whole section being a new departure.
I continually received little notes from the audience asking questions or offering to speak. One of them ran, “Please pass me down that beautiful hat.” Utterly amazed at such a thing, I read and re-read the sentence. I seemed to know the writing. I looked again, and found a little “Hy. F.”
“Good heavens!” I thought. “Harry Furniss is here making caricatures of the proceedings.”
Truly enough, the picture appeared in a paper the following week.
One thing leads to another. At the Paris Exhibition of 1900 a Woman’s Section was inaugurated, and a few people were invited by the Minister of Commerce of the French Republic from England to go over and speak on different subjects. Accordingly to Paris I went, and for twelve minutes inflicted upon those poor, dear French people a speech which I read in French, entitled “L’Agriculture et les femmes en Grande Bretagne.” Since those days cultured women have energetically taken up dairying, chicken-rearing, and egg-collecting, to say nothing of many branches of horticulture in which they have proved themselves eminently successful.
But while these international courtesies and gatherings were in process the tragedies of war were being enacted in South Africa, and deep anxiety and sorrow prevailed throughout the British Empire.
Only a few weeks after the relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith Queen Victoria came to London for a couple of days. She had a splendid reception as she drove through the chief streets, a marvellous demonstration of unorganised loyalty. After our sad reverses early in the Transvaal War England went wild at the favourable turn of events, and London continued its jubilation during Her Majesty’s stay.