Spending two months in traveling on the continent, Miss Anthony had many amusing experiences. While visiting our minister and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Sargent, at Berlin, she occupied some rainy days, when sight-seeing was out of the question, in doing up papers and writing a large number of letters on our official paper, bearing the revolutionary mottoes, "No just government can be formed without the consent of the governed," "Taxation without representation is tyranny." For a brief period she was in the full enjoyment of that freedom one has when a pressing duty to family and friends has been thoroughly discharged. But alas! her satisfaction was soon turned to disappointment. After a few days a dignified official appeared at the American Legation with a large package bearing the proscribed mottoes, saying, "such sentiments cannot pass through the post-office in Germany." So all that form of propagandism was nipped in the bud, and in modest, uncomplaining wraps the letters and papers started again for the land of the free and reached their destination.
But this experience did not satisfy the "Napoleon of our movement" that the rulers in the old world could securely guard their subjects from those inflammable mottoes to which from long use we are so indifferent. She continued to sow the seeds of rebellion as she had opportunity, in Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. It is well for us that she did not experiment in Russia, or we should now be mourning her loss as an exile in Siberia. At all points of interest books are kept for visitors to register their names; Miss Anthony uniformly added some of our Pilgrim Fathers' heroic ejaculations in their struggle for liberty, which friends visiting the same places afterwards informed us were carefully crossed out so as to be quite illegible. But we may hope for their restoration in the near future and that they may yet do an effective work. Thus circumscribed with her pen and not being able to speak a foreign language, happily no rebellions were fomented by her rapid transit through their borders.
My sense of justice was severely tried with all I heard of the persecutions of Mrs. Besant and Mr. Bradlaugh for their publications on the right and duty of parents to limit population. Who can contemplate the sad condition of multitudes of young children in the old world whose fate is to be brought up in ignorance and vice—a swarming, seething mass whom nobody owns—without seeing the need of free discussion of the philosophical principles that underlie these tangled social problems. The trials of Foote and Ramsey, too, for blasphemy, seemed unworthy a great nation in the nineteenth century. Think of well-educated men of good moral standing, thrown into prison in solitary confinement for speaking lightly of the Hebrew idea of Jehovah and the New Testament account of the birth of Jesus! Our Protestant clergy never hesitate to make the dogmas and superstitions of the Catholic church seem as absurd as possible, and why should not those who imagine they have outgrown Protestant superstitions make them equally ridiculous? Whatever is true can stand investigation and ridicule.
The last of April, when the wild-flowers were in their glory, Mrs. Mellen and her lovely daughter, Daisy, came down to Basingstoke to enjoy its beauty. As Mrs. Mellen had known Charles Kingsley and entertained him at her residence in Colorado, she felt a desire to see his former home. Accordingly, one bright morning Mr. Blatch drove us through Stralfieldsage over the grounds of the Duke of Wellington, well stocked with fine cattle, sheep and deer. This magnificent place was given him by the English government after the battle of Waterloo. A lofty statue of the duke that can be seen for miles around stands at the entrance. A drive of a few miles further brought us to Eversley, the home of Canon Kingsley, where he preached many years and where all that is mortal of him now lies buried. We wandered through the old church, among the moss-covered tombstones and into the once happy home, now silent and deserted, his loved ones scattered in different quarters of the globe. Standing near the last resting-place of the author of "Hypatia," his warning words for woman, in a letter to John Stuart Mill, seemed like a voice from the clouds, saying with new inspiration and power, "This will never be a good world for woman until the last remnant of the canon law is civilized off the face of the earth."
Mrs. Mellen's spacious home in Pembroke Gardens, Kensington, was thrown open for her American friends in London to celebrate the Fourth of July. A large number of our English acquaintances were also present, who very kindly congratulated us on the stirring events of that day in 1776. Of the Americans assembled, many contributed to the general entertainment. Grace Greenwood, Miss Rachel Foster, Miss Kate Hillard and Miss Mildred Conway gave recitations. Miss Lippincott, daughter of Grace Greenwood, sang some fine operatic music; Mrs. Carpenter of Chicago sang sweetly, playing her own accompaniment; Mr. Frank Lincoln gave some of his amusing impersonations; Miss Maud Powell of Chicago, only fourteen years of age, who had been taking lessons in France and Germany for some years, played exquisite airs on the violin; Mrs. Flora Stark, Miss Alice Blatch and Miss Conway gave us some fine classical music on the piano, and Nathaniel Mellen sang some pathetic negro melodies.[581] Altogether it was a pleasant occasion and I felt quite proud of the varied talents manifested by our young people. Some English friends remarked on their cleverness and readiness, all spontaneously called out without any time for preparation.
We heard Mr. Fawcett speak to his Hackney constituents at one of his campaign meetings. In the course of his remarks he mentioned with evident favor as one of the coming measures the disestablishment of the church, and was greeted with loud applause. Soon after he spoke of woman suffrage as another question demanding consideration, but this was received with laughter and jeers, although the platform was crowded with advocates of the measure, among whom were the wife of the speaker and her sister, Dr. Garrett Anderson, who sat just behind him. The audience were evidently in favor of releasing themselves from being taxed to support the church, forgetting that women were taxed also not only to support the church, in which they had no voice, but the State, too, with its army and navy. Mr. Fawcett was not an orator, but a simple, straightforward speaker. He made but one gesture, striking his right clenched fist into the palm of the left hand at the close of all his strongest assertions; but being sound and liberal, he was a great favorite with his constituents.
A pleasant trip southward through Bath to Bristol brought us to the home of the Misses Priestman and Mrs. Tanner, sisters-in-law of John Bright. I had stayed at their father's house forty years before, so we felt like old friends. I found them all charming, liberal women, and we enjoyed a few days together, talking over our mutual struggles, and admiring the beautiful scenery for which that part of the country is quite celebrated. The women of England were just then organizing political clubs, and I was invited to speak before the one in Bristol. They are composed of men and women alike, for the discussion of all political questions. The next day I spoke to women alone in the church on the Bible view of woman's creation and destiny. It is strange that those who pretend to be well-versed in Scripture do not see that the simultaneous creation of man and woman and the complete equality of the sexes are as clearly taught in the first chapter of Genesis as the reverse is in the allegorical garden-scene in the second. The drive over the suspension-bridge by moonlight to dine with Mrs. Garnet, a sister of John Thomasson, M. P., was a pleasant episode to public speaking and more serious conversation. There, too, we had an evening reception. There is an earnestness of purpose among English women that is very encouraging under the prolonged disappointments reformers inevitably suffer. There is something so determined and heroic in what Mary Priestman does and says that one would readily follow her through all dangers. It added much to my comfort in this visit to have an escort in Mrs. Lucas.
Later Miss Anthony visited Bristol and had a complimentary reception at the Misses Priestman's. She was the guest of Miss Mary Estlin, who had spent some time in America, a dear friend of Sarah Pugh and Parker Pillsbury. Miss Estlin was from home during my visit, so that I did not see her while in England. The order of English homes among the wealthy classes is very enjoyable. All goes on from year to year with the same servants, the same surroundings, no changes, no moving, no building even; in delightful contrast with our periodical upheavings, always uncertain where we shall go next, or how long our main dependents will stand by us.
From Bristol we went to Greenbank to visit Mrs. Helen Bright Clark, a daughter of the great orator. In the evening the parlors were crowded, and I was asked to give an account of the suffrage movement in America. Some clergymen questioned me in regard to the Bible position of woman, whereupon I gave quite an exposition of its general principles in favor of liberty and equality. As two quite distinct lines of argument can be woven out of those pages on any subject, on this occasion I selected all the most favorable texts for justice to woman, and closed by stating the limits of its authority. Mrs. Clarke, though thoroughly in sympathy with the views I had expressed, feared lest my very liberal utterances might have shocked some of the strictest of the laymen and clergy. "Well," I said, "if we who do see the absurdities of the old superstitions never unveil them to others, how is the world to make any progress in the theologies? I am now in the sunset of life, and I feel it to be my special mission to tell people what they are not prepared to hear, instead of echoing worn-out opinions." The result showed the wisdom of my speaking out of my own soul. To the surprise of Mrs. Clark, the primitive Methodist clergyman called on Sunday morning to invite me to occupy his pulpit in the afternoon and present the same line of thought I had the previous evening. I accepted his invitation. He led the services and I took my text from Genesis i., 27, 28, showing that man and woman were a simultaneous creation, endowed with equal power in starting.
Mr. and Mrs. Clark I found very agreeable, progressive people, with a nice family of boys and girls. Like all English children, they suffered too much repression, while our American children have too much latitude. If we could strike the happy medium between the two systems, it would be a great benefit to the children of both countries. The next day we drove down to see Glastonbury cathedral. England is full of these beautiful ruins, covered with flowers and ivy, but the saddest spectacles, with all this fading glory, are the men, women and children whose nakedness neither man nor nature seeks to drape.