To one who was chasing her hoop, I said, smiling, “You are a nice little girl.” She stopped, looked up in my face, so rosy and happy, and, laying her hand on her brother’s shoulder, exclaimed, earnestly, “And he is a nice little boy, too!” It was a simple, childlike act, but it brought a warm gush into my heart. Blessings on all unselfishness! on all that leads us in love to prefer one another! Here lies the secret of universal harmony; this is the diapason which would bring us all into tune. Only by losing ourselves can we find ourselves. How clearly does the divine voice within us proclaim this, by the hymn of joy it sings, whenever we witness an unselfish deed or hear an unselfish thought. Blessings on that loving little one! She made the city seem a garden to me. I kissed my hand to her, as I turned off in quest of the Brooklyn ferry. The sparkling waters swarmed with boats, some of which had taken a big ship by the hand, and were leading her out to sea, as the prattle of childhood often guides wisdom into the deepest and broadest thought.
ANNA ELIZABETH DICKINSON.
N 1861, a young girl of nineteen years, sprang like a Minerva fully armed into the moral and political arena, and for a time stirred the hearts of those who fell under her influence, as few other speakers have done. From the day she first appeared before the public, she feared not to utter the boldest truths and most scathing rebukes of sin in high places. Whether the principle for which she strove is right or wrong the world of course will judge for itself, but that this woman was honest, logical, sincere, and eloquent in advocacy, no one who ever listened to her earnest appeals or read what she wrote could for one moment doubt.
Anna E. Dickinson was born October 28, 1842, in the city of Philadelphia. When she was two years old her father died, leaving the family in straightened circumstances. Her parents belonged to the Society of Friends, and Anna was sent in her early years to the Friends’ Free School. At the same time she had little ways of her own in earning money, which she carefully husbanded and spent for books. When fourteen years old she made her appearance before the public by writing an article on slavery, which was published in “The Liberator,” and in 1857 made her debut as a public speaker by replying to a man who had delivered a tirade against women. From that time she spoke frequently on the subjects of slavery and temperance. In 1859 and 1860 she taught a country school, and in 1861 became an employee in the Philadelphia Mint, from which position she was soon dismissed, because in a speech in West Chester she declared the battle of Ball’s Bluff had been lost through the treason of General McClellan. Thus cast upon the world she entered immediately the lecture platform. William Lloyd Garrison heard one of her addresses and named her “The Girl Orator.” He invited her to speak in Boston, Massachusetts, where she delivered a famous address on the “National Crisis” in Music Hall. From there she entered upon a lecture tour, speaking in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, and until the close of the war devoted her time to lecturing. In Washington, D. C., in 1864, the proceeds of one of her lectures, amounting to a thousand dollars, she devoted to the Freedmen’s Relief Society. She was frequently called to the hospitals and the camps, where she addressed the soldiers. After the war she took up the cudgel in favor of woman’s suffrage. She visited Utah to inquire into the condition of women there, and returning delivered her famous lecture on the “Whited Sepulchres.” Other prominent lectures were entitled “Demagogues and Workingmen,” “Joan of Arc,” “Between Us Be Truth,” “Platform and Stage.”
Miss Dickinson made the mistake of her life when she deserted the platform for the stage in 1877. She wrote a play entitled “A Crown of Thorns,” in which she attempted to “star.” She next assayed Shakespearian tragic roles, including “Hamlet” and others, and afterwards gave dramatic readings. In all of these attempts she was out of her element, therefore, unsuccessful, and returned to the lecture platform, but continued to write plays. The only one of these, however, which was even moderately popular with the masses was entitled “The American Girl,” played by Fanny Davenport. The noted actor, John McCullough, was preparing to produce her “Aurelian,” when the failure of his powers came and it was never put upon the stage. Miss Dickinson also wrote a number of books. Among them we mention the novel “What Answer;” “A Paying Investment,” and “A Ragged Register of People, Places and Opinions,” the latter being a sort of diary, and perhaps the most valuable of the lot.
The last ten years added other mistakes and misfortunes which have tended to detract from the well-earned fame of her earlier life. These difficulties began with a suit brought against the Republican managers in 1888 for services rendered in the Harrison presidential campaign. Following this came family difficulties. Her health failed and she was placed by her relatives for a time in an insane asylum, from which she was eventually released, but was involved in further law-suits. Let it be said to her credit, however, that while she acquired an ample fortune from her lectures, she has given away the bulk of it to all kinds of charities, and it is from the money that she has made and her liberal disposition to dispose of it for the benefit of humanity, rather than to her relatives, which has involved her in much of the family trouble.
As an orator Miss Dickinson was a woman of singular powers. Together with a most excellent judgment, and a keen, analytic mind, enabling her to dissect theories and motives, she was a mistress of sarcasm, pathos and wit, and possessed that rare eloquence and dramatic fervor which go to make the great orator, and which can be understood only by those who have heard her on the platform. In her work she was always unique, and while as a whole her books and plays were not popular successes they contain passages of undisputed marks of genius.