I first met Eleanor Vachy at a boarding-school in the city of R——, where we soon became intimate friends. Eleanor was the result of a system. When but a few months old, and an orphan, she had been left to the care of her aunt, Miss Willmanson, a reformer, a progressionist, advanced both in life and opinions, who had spared nothing to make her niece an example to her sex. No pugilist ever believed more fully in training than did Miss Willmanson: she looked upon institutions of learning as forcing-houses, where nipping, budding and improving the natural growth was the constant occupation, and where the various branches of knowledge were cultivated, like cabbages, at so much a head. When Eleanor became, so to speak, her property, she seized with avidity the opportunity of submitting her principles to the test of experiment—of demonstrating to an incredulous world the power of education, and the vigor of the female mind and body when formed by proper discipline. The child was fed in accordance with the most recent discoveries in chemistry: she was taught to read after the latest improvement in primers; she was provided with mathematical toys and gymnastic exercises. Did she take a walk in summer, her attention was directed to botany; if she picked up a stone to make it skip over a passing brook, passages from the Medals of Creation or Thoughts on a Pebble were quoted; and when the stone went skimming over the surface of the calm pool, the theory of the ricochet was explained and the wonders of natural philosophy were dilated upon. Every sentence she spoke was made the text of a lesson, and the names of sages and philosophers became as familiar to her as those of Jack the Giant-killer and Blue Beard are to ordinary children.
Especially were the stories of distinguished women repeated by Miss Willmanson in glowing language, pointed out as precedents, and dwelt upon as worthy of emulation. "If their genius was great enough," she would remark, "to extort a recognition in times when only masculine pens wrote history, what could not the same ability do now?—now, when, strengthened by waiting, encouraged by ungrudging praise, and sure of having chroniclers of their own sex who will do them justice, a new era is dawning. The history of the world needs to be reseen from a woman's point of view, and rewritten by a woman's hand. Men have had the monopoly of making public opinion, and have distorted facts. What in a king they name policy, in a queen is called cruelty; what in a minister is diplomacy, in a favorite is deceit; what in a man is justice, in a woman is inhumanity; vigor is coarseness, generosity is weakness, sincerity becomes shallowness; and faults that are passed over lightly in the hero are sufficient to doom the heroine for all posterity."
The peculiar views of Eleanor's aunt did not prevent her from being an agreeable acquaintance. Although she believed in the intellectual capacity of woman, she did not look upon herself as a representative of the class: her admiration of her sex did not degenerate into self-laudation, and her enthusiasm was not tainted by egotism. Hers was not a strong-mindedness that showed itself in ungainly coiffures and tasteless attire. It was content with desiring and claiming for woman whatever is best, noblest and most lovely in mind and body. She would have given her life to further this end, but thought it mattered little if her name were forgotten in the bulletin that announced success to the cause.
Owing to her extreme reserve in talking of herself, it was very gradually that I gained this knowledge of Miss Willmanson's character; but many of her opinions were received at second hand from Eleanor, who admired her aunt greatly, and never tired of quoting her. It was she who told me that this talented lady was engaged upon a book the title of which was Footsteps of Women in All Ages. The aunt returned this admiration in no stinted measure, and her highest ambition seemed centred in her niece.
Eleanor was a tall, well-formed, unaffected girl, with a clear olive complexion; a slight rose-colored bloom on cheeks and lips; deep blue eyes, rather purple than blue, rather amethyst than purple, that looked every one candidly in the face; and hair reminding you of late twilight—a shade that, though dark, still bore traces of having once been light, even sunny.
As to her acquirements, however, what in the older lady was love of information, in the younger appeared to be what Pepys called a "curious curiosity." If she had been obliged to investigate a subject by constant labor, I doubt whether she would have stood the test. At school she was a parlor-boarder, attended outside lectures on the sciences, went to concerts and the opera, frequented museums, had small blank-books in which she took voluminous notes, and was constantly busy with some new scheme of improvement. In looking at her I often thought that could her aunt's dreams be realized, could her intellect ever approach the unusual symmetry and beauty of her face and form, it would indeed be an achievement. But was it likely that Nature, who is so grudging of her gifts, after having endowed her so highly physically would do as much for her mentally? "Aunt Will," as the girl called her, had none of these misgivings. This beautiful physique she believed to be the effect of her own foresight and care—of proper food and clothing, of training in the gymnasium, riding and walking. It was itself an earnest of the success of her plans, and made her confident for the future. One of the tenets of her faith was that Eleanor needed only to decide in what direction to exert herself, and that in any career success was certain. For this reason she gave her opportunities of every kind, that her choice might be unlimited.
In this, as in every other opinion, Eleanor agreed with her aunt, not through vanity, but through respect and habit. What she intended to become was the theme of long confidences between us when alone together, for the time which most other girls of her age devote to dreams of love and lovers was employed by her in speculations about her future profession. The artlessness of the girl in thus appropriating to herself the whole field of human wisdom would have been ludicrous had it not been so frank: it reminded you of a child reaching out its chubby hands to seize the moon.
In regard to love and marriage, Aunt Will was most resolute in speaking against them, and by precept and example she endeavored to influence her niece in the same direction. "It is a state which mentally unfits a woman for anything"—a dictum which was accepted by Eleanor without argument. It was understood that her life was to be devoted to being great, not to being loved. But Aunt Will refused to lend her help or advice in deciding what the career should be, believing that the prophetic fire would kindle itself without human help, and fearing that the least hint of what she desired might fetter a waking genius, though the girl often plaintively remarked, "I wish aunt would settle it for me."
The entire faith with which these two women looked forward to the future roused no little curiosity on my part as to the realization of their hopes. A year after our acquaintance began the ladies left R—— to travel abroad. Eleanor assured me solemnly that she should not return until she had won renown, that vision of so many young hearts on leaving home. "The great trouble is to decide what to do;" and here she sighed. "But Aunt Will says our work shapes itself without our knowing. Some morning we wake and find it ready for our hands, with no more doubt on the subject. I am waking."
"Meanwhile enjoying yourself."