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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 QUEEN LOUISE. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
L o%S"l 
 
 FAMOUS 
 
 TYPES OF WOMANHOOD 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF “ POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," “ GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS," 
 “ FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS," “ FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN," 
 
 “ FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE," “ FAMOUS EUROPEAN ARTISTS," 
 
 “ SOCIAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND," “ STORIES FROM LIFE,” 
 
 “ FROM HEART AND NATURE" (pOEMs), “ FAMOUS 
 ENGLISH AUTHORS," “ FAMOUS ENGLISH 
 STATESMEN," ETC., ETC. 
 
 “ My business on earth is to do what good I can." 
 
 John Wesley. 
 
 ’lb'%0 1 
 
 NEW YORK : 46 East 14TH Street. 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 
 BOSTON: ioo Purchase Street. 
 
Copyright, 
 
 1892, 
 
 By Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 
 
? -i 0. 7 
 
 3 Is, 4 t r 
 
 p 
 
 TO 
 
 FRANCES E. WILLARD, 
 
 A JSoble Type of Womanhood. 
 
 2 6 ‘ ? <? 7 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When Matthew Vassar gave a million dollars to found 
 Vassal - College, he said, “I considered that the mothers 
 of a country mould its citizens, determine its institutions, 
 and shape its destiny.” Without doubt he was right. 
 Though not all the women in this book were mothers, they 
 helped to do that which Mr. Vassar considered directly 
 traceable to woman’s influence. Queen Louise was the 
 inspirer of German unity ; Madame Recamier will always 
 be a social force from her charm of manner and loveliness 
 of character; the results of Mrs. Wesley’s life are incal¬ 
 culable ; Harriet Martineau moulded public opinion as 
 few have moulded it; Jenny Lind taught the world how 
 to use a marvellous gift for good ; Miss l)ix will show 
 to future generations what a retiring, devoted woman 
 can do for humanity. The power of true womanhood, in 
 all civilized lands, is increasing year by year, and with 
 increase of power comes increase of responsibility. 
 
 s. k. n. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Queen Louise oe Prussia 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 9 
 
 Madame RIscamier 
 
 
 
 
 . G2 
 
 Susanna Wesley .... 
 
 
 
 
 . 105 
 
 Harriet Martineau 
 
 
 
 
 . 150 
 
 Jenny Lind ..... 
 
 
 
 
 . 196 
 
 Dorothea Lynde Dix 
 
 
 
 
 . 241 
 
 Ann, Saraii and Emily Judson 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 . 273 
 
 Amelia Blandfohd Edwards 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 . 327 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 O one can read the life of the grand old Emperor 
 
 -C i of Germany, William I., without seeing how his 
 love for his beautiful young mother brightens every page. 
 No one who has ever stood before his writing table in his 
 Berlin palace can forget the lovely face that always hung 
 before him, or, in summer, the blue corn-flowers at his 
 side, dear to him because they were dear to her. 
 
 He said, when confirmed at the age of eighteen at 
 Charlottenburg, where Louise is buried, “ I will ever bear 
 in mind the virtues of the late queen, my mother. As 
 long as I live my mother shall live in my heart in sweet, 
 affectionate, and grateful recollections.” He kept, his 
 word, and for over half a century Louise has been also 
 the ideal and the idol of the German nation. 
 
 Louise Augusta Wilhelmina Amelia was born at Han¬ 
 over, March 10, 1776. Her father was Prince Charles, 
 afterwards Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the 
 brother of Charlotte, wife of George III. of England. 
 Her mother was Princess Frederica Caroline Louise of 
 Hesse-Darmstadt. 
 
 When Louise was six months old the family removed 
 from the unpretentious home in which she was born to 
 the old castle of Herrenhausen, the father having been 
 made Governor-General of Hanover. Here she passed. 
 
10 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 her happy childhood iu the midst of the fountains, trees, 
 flowers, and statues of that famous garden of one hundred 
 and twenty acres. 
 
 Princess Frederica, the mother, died in May, 1782, at 
 the birth of her tenth child, leaving six children under 
 twelve years of age. Louise was six. Two years later, 
 feeling that the lonely children needed a mother, Prince 
 Charles married Charlotte, his wife’s sister, who died in 
 fourteen mouths, leaving an infant son. 
 
 The duke, saddened by his double loss, resigned his 
 governorship in 1786 and went to Darmstadt, where his 
 children could have the care of their maternal grand¬ 
 mother, Princess George William of Hesse-Darmstadt. 
 She was a noble woman, and with the governess, a Swiss 
 lady, Mile, de Gelieux, reared Germany’s future queen 
 with wisdom and in Christian principles. 
 
 The child was delighted to visit the poor and the sick in 
 the neighborhood of the palace. Catherine E. Hurst, the 
 wife of Bishop John F. Hurst, in her sympathetic life of 
 Louise, relates many touching incidents. 
 
 The children of the servants of the royal household were 
 allowed to play with the little princesses. One day a thun¬ 
 der storm came unexpectedly. The mothers ran for their 
 children, all except one little girl named Hannah, who had 
 no mother. When Louise saw that no one came for the 
 child, she said, “Be quiet, dear Hannah; do not be 
 afraid of the thunder and lightning and rain, for our 
 dear Saviour sends it; and do not be sad, for you are not 
 alone, I am with you, and your father will come soon and 
 take you home.” 
 
 “ But,” said the child, “ who will take care of me when 
 my father dies ? ” 
 
 “ Who says that your father will die? ” asked Louise. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 11 
 
 “Oh, my aunt says that he suffers so much from pain 
 iu his breast when he must run so rapidly to keep pace 
 with the horses, that he can live but a very short time.” 
 
 “ Be assured your father shall not die, for I will tell 
 this to grandma, and she will give him another position,” 
 said Louise. 
 
 When evening came Louise told her grandmother, weep¬ 
 ing, that she could never have any more pleasure in driving 
 if the footmen w ho ran beside the carriage were to lose 
 their health in consequence. The grandmother abandoned 
 the barbarous custom. 
 
 A short time after this, scarlet fever appeared in its 
 most malignant form in the town, and many of the chil¬ 
 dren were laid iu their graves. Hannah was taken ill. 
 The grandmother gave orders that a physician should 
 attend her, and report to the palace. Finally, when the 
 fever had left her, and Princess George felt that it would 
 be safe to visit the little girl, she did so. What was her 
 astonishment to find Louise sitting at the foot of the bed, 
 reading to Hannah, while the sick child amused herself 
 with the princess’s embroidered handkerchief. The grand¬ 
 mother left the place unobserved. 
 
 When Louise returned Princess George said, “ Where 
 have you been, my child? ” 
 
 “ O grandma,” she said, “ I have been with a sick 
 child, who has no mother, and no grandmother like you, 
 and who would have died long ago if I had not visited 
 her. Will you not forgive me for not telling you of my 
 visits to her before ? ” 
 
 “ You know, my child, this disease could so easily have 
 taken you from us, and then what should we have done? 
 Oh, the grief we should have at your loss ! ” 
 
 “ I knew well,” replied Louise, “ that I should not get 
 
12 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the disease, for der liebe Gott — the dear God — saw that 
 I was doing good.” 
 
 Louise was always giving to those in need. When she 
 was thirteen she met a poor widow in the village, who was 
 begging for her hungry children. She gave the widow 
 all she had, and then borrowed from an old servant to 
 make other gifts. 
 
 Her grandmother reproved her for making debts, and 
 told the servant that he ought not to have loaned to the 
 child, but she granted Louise an increase of spending 
 money, stipulating that the princess should pay the debt 
 herself. This habit of giving continued through life, and 
 Louise always spent for others in preference to herself. 
 
 E. II. Hudson, in her life of Louise, tells this incident. 
 Monsieur Mideaelis, the editor of a periodical, gave les¬ 
 sons to Louise and her sister. He was not prosperous, 
 and the children saw that he was troubled. One day 
 Louise offered him a gold cross, saying, “ We are afraid 
 you want money, and we are so sorry that we have not 
 any to give you; but we have talked it over and have 
 agreed to ask you if you will accept this gold ornament, 
 which is the most valuable thing we have.” 
 
 The gift was courteously declined. The teacher saw 
 happier days, and died, in 1843, professor of French lit- 
 erature in the University of Tubingen. 
 
 Louise made two happy visits to Frankfort, — one when 
 she was fourteen, to witness the coronation of Leopold II., 
 the sou of Maria Theresa, and the other when she was 
 sixteen, to be present at the coronation of Francis I., the 
 son of Leopold. 
 
 All Frankfort was in commotion over the crowning of 
 Leopold II. The jewels, the sword of Charlemagne, and 
 the Gospel printed in golden characters, on which the 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 13 
 
 coronation oaths were taken, were brought from the towns 
 of Aix-la-Chapelle and Nuremburg, the attendants bearing 
 them in state carriages drawn by six horses. These pre¬ 
 cious jewels were placed in the chapel of the cathedral, 
 where the Emperor was to put on bis robes. 
 
 At ten o’clock, Leopold, forty-four years of age, 
 mounted on his richly caparisoned horse, his robe of 
 purple glistening with diamonds and pearls, and the 
 crown of Austria on bis brow, rode toward the cathedral 
 under a crimson canopy carried over his head by twelve 
 senators of Frankfort, who rode on each side of the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Before him were borne the crown on a cushion of cloth 
 of gold, the scepter, the orb, and the drawn sword of St. 
 Maurice. 
 
 The long procession was most picturesque and gorgeous. 
 The imperial body-guard, the pages in black and yellow 
 velvet, the halberdiers in black velvet tunics laced with 
 gold over a red bodice, long lines of princes and nobles, 
 made an imposing sight. 
 
 Within the cathedral the king was anointed with con¬ 
 secrated oil, received the Holy Communion, and ascended 
 to the imperial throne; without, bells were rung, cannon 
 were fired, and thousands of people cried, “ God save the 
 Emperor.” 
 
 After the coronation the Emperor was escorted to the 
 Romer palace, over a bridge carpeted with red, black, and 
 gold, which carpet the people immediately seized and 
 divided into thousands of pieces. 
 
 Louise spent these days of the coronation at the home 
 of Goethe’s mother. Frau Goethe was delighted with the 
 natural, merry princess, and her vivacious sister Frederica, 
 and often told the story of a pump back of their house, 
 
14 
 
 FAMOUS TYT.ES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 which Louise, espying, said, “Oh, I wonder if we could 
 make the water rush out. 1 should like to try.” 
 
 She did try aud succeeded, greatly shocking the lady 
 attending her, but Frau Goethe was pleased, and said : — 
 
 “I would rather have brought any vexation on myself 
 than permit them to be disturbed in the innocent pleasure 
 that was permitted them nowhere else; but in my house 
 the young people greatly enjoyed the liberty granted to 
 them. When they left they said to me that they would 
 never forget how happy they had been.” 
 
 Leopold did not reign long. His sister, Marie Antoin¬ 
 ette, was passing through the terrors of the French Revo¬ 
 lution, and urging her brother to aid and save her family. 
 He feared to make enemies of the successful revolutionists, 
 lest harm should come to her. He therefore tried to con¬ 
 ciliate the people. When matters became desperate, he 
 and Frederick William II. signed a treaty which united 
 Austria and Prussia against the French. Leopold ad¬ 
 dressed a letter to the French government, which only 
 exasperated. They declared war against Austria and 
 Prussia, April 20, 1792, and hostilities almost immedi¬ 
 ately followed. 
 
 Leopold died suddenly a month before the war broke 
 out, and Francis II., his son, at the age of twenty-five, 
 came to the throne. Louise saw Frankfort again in its 
 gala dress at this coronation. 
 
 The war went on in earnest. The French captured 
 Mayence and advanced towards Frankfort. Then Prin¬ 
 cess George with her granddaughters, Louise and Freder- 
 erica, retreated to Hildburghhausen in Thuringia, where 
 Charlotte, the oldest sister of Louise, had married the 
 Duke. The beautiful country was enjoyed by the prin¬ 
 cesses, but all were filled with anxiety about the war. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 15 
 
 Prussia and Austria, urged on by the brave and ener¬ 
 getic statesman, Stein, turned the tide of battle. They 
 recovered Frankfort, Dec. 2 ; the King of Prussia made it 
 his headquarters, and both armies went into camp for the 
 winter. 
 
 Princess George ventured to return to Darmstadt, 
 stopping at Frankfort to see the king, who was her nephew 
 by marriage. She called with Louise and Frederica, and 
 was invited to dine with the king and his sons, Frederick 
 William and Louis. 
 
 Louise was seventeen, with an exquisite complexion, 
 large, blue eyes, light hair, frank, natural manner, and 
 was very graceful. Frederick William, the crown prince, 
 was twenty-three, tall, and well-proportioned. He had a 
 thoughtful face and somewhat grave manner. He was 
 well-educated and of admirable character. He loved 
 Louise from the first. He told Bishop Eylert, years after 
 her death : — 
 
 “ I felt when I first saw her,‘ ’T is^he, or none on earth,’ 
 — that expression is somewhere in Schiller, I forget where, 
 but I have it, and it exactly describes the emotions which 
 sprang up in my heart at that moment.” 
 
 Bishop Eylert found it afterwards in “The Bride of 
 Messina.” 
 
 That love never changed, but remains one of the beau¬ 
 tiful things of history which keep bright our faith in 
 human nature. 
 
 The brother Louis likewise became devoted to Freder¬ 
 ica, and the double betrothal was celebrated a month later 
 in Darmstadt, the king assisting, and distributing the rings 
 with his own hands. Later, the brides-elect and their 
 grandmother were invited to see the camj) at Mayence. 
 
 Goethe, then forty-five, saw the king and the court 
 
16 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 party. He wrote : “ Toward evening there was prepared 
 for us, but especially for me, a lovely sight. The Prin¬ 
 cesses of Mecklenburg had dined at the headquarters of 
 his majesty the king, and after dinner visited the camp. 
 
 I confined myself to my tent, and could thus most per¬ 
 fectly observe the high-born personages, who walked up 
 and down before me quite at their ease. In this tumult 
 of war, one might really consider the two princesses as 
 heavenly visions. The impression which they made upon 
 me will never be obliterated.” 
 
 The war went on with varying success. Meantime the 
 French Revolution was doing its work. Louis XVI. had 
 perished on the scaffold, Jan. 21, 1793, the beating of 
 drums drowning his last words, “ I am innocent of all 
 the crimes laid to my charge; I forgive those who have 
 occasioned my death; I pray to God that the blood you 
 are about to shed may never be visited on France; I 
 heartily wish — ” 
 
 Marie Antoinette was guillotined eight months after¬ 
 wards, Oct. 16, 1793, at the age of thirty-nine. 
 
 Two years later, Frederick William II., worn with the 
 war, his country drained of men and money, concluded 
 the treaty of Basle with the French Republic, Jan. 22, 
 1795. 
 
 The marriage of the crown prince and Louise was set 
 for Christmas Eve, 1793. The bridegrooms, Frederick 
 William and Louis, waited at Potsdam the arrival of the 
 princesses. Troops of horsemen rode out to meet them, 
 while the town was thronged with various guilds in showy 
 costumes. 
 
 The butchers wore brown coats with gold bands on their 
 sleeves, red waistcoats embroidered in gold, and hats 
 with red feathers. Many years afterwards Louise gave 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PLUS SI A. 
 
 17 
 
 them a new standard in remembrance of this day, when 
 the one which they then unfurled was worn out. 
 
 Two days later, the stately entrance was made into 
 Berlin. Six royal secretaries at the head of forty postil¬ 
 ions led the procession. Now followed guilds, corpora¬ 
 tions, merchants, citizens, — a great concourse of people. 
 To the royal carriage eight horses were harnessed, while 
 six drew the state carriage in which rode the princesses 
 and the lady-in-waiting. 
 
 About noon, Dec. 23, the royal procession entered Ber¬ 
 lin through the Potsdam gate. Opposite the Royal Palace 
 a triumphal edifice had been erected, where the statue of 
 Frederick the Great now stands, the pillars covered with 
 evergreens, while chains of flowers were suspended from 
 arch to arch. 
 
 Thirty boys in green and more than fifty girls in white 
 and pink, with green wreaths in their hands, were sta¬ 
 tioned near the triumphal arch to await the coming of the 
 princesses. When the state carriage arrived, a little boy 
 came forward to recite a poem; then a little girl proffered 
 flowers, and on the impulse of the moment, Louise bent 
 over and kissed her. 
 
 “What has your Highness done?” said the lady-in- 
 waiting. 
 
 Louise was startled and exclaimed : — 
 
 “ What, is that wrong? May I never do that again? ” 
 
 At three o’clock the princesses were received by the 
 queen. The following day, at six o’clock on Christmas 
 Eve, all the members of the royal family assembled in 
 the queen’s apartments, when the diamond crown of the 
 Hohenzollerns was placed upon the head of Louise. After 
 spending a little time with Elizabeth Christine, the aged 
 widow of Frederick the Great, the company repaired to 
 
18 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the white drawing-room which is decorated in white and 
 silver; in the middle of the room, under a crimson canopy 
 embroidered with gold crowns, Frederick William and 
 Louise knelt on an elegant cushion, and were united in 
 marriage. 
 
 After the wedding banquet, served in five state apart¬ 
 ments, a ball followed. Everybody spoke of the beauti¬ 
 ful bride. She was dressed in silver glace, her corsage 
 glittering with diamonds to correspond with her crown. 
 She bowed and smiled with that artless grace which she 
 possessed through life. Fouque, the poet, said : — 
 
 “ The arrival of the angelic princess spreads over these 
 days a noble splendor. All hearts go out to meet her, 
 and her grace and goodness leave no one unblessed.” 
 
 The citizens of Berlin wished to celebrate the wedding 
 with a great illumination, but at the request of the Crown 
 Prince, the money, which would have been thus expended, 
 was given to the widows and orphans of those who had 
 fallen in the late war. 
 
 Prince Louis and Frederica were married three days 
 later, Dec. 27. 
 
 Frederick William and Louise went at once to live in 
 their own palace, at the head of Unter den Linden. Here 
 Frederick lived and died, bequeathing it to his grandson, 
 afterwards Emperor Frederick I., who married Victoria, 
 Princess Royal of Great Britain. 
 
 At the palace a happy married life began. The crown 
 prince was called the handsomest man in Prussia; tall, 
 and with military bearing, and as good as he was hand¬ 
 some. His wife attracted everybody by her sweetness of 
 manner, her musical voice, her joyous disposition, her 
 brilliant conversation, and her generous heart. 
 
 King Frederick William II. was very fond of Louise, 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 19 
 
 whom he called the “princess of princesses,” and on 
 March 10, the first birthday after her marriage, when she 
 was eighteen, he gave her the palace of Oranienburg 
 (Orange-burg), about twenty miles north of Berlin. It 
 was built for Louise of Orange, the lovely and cultivated 
 mother of the Elector of Brandenburg, who became the 
 first king of Prussia. 
 
 The king asked Louise what would most gratify her on 
 her birthday. She replied, “ A handful of gold, to dis¬ 
 tribute among the poor of Berlin.” 
 
 “ How large a handful would the birthday-child like to 
 have? ” asked the king. 
 
 She replied quickly, “As large as the heart of the 
 best of kings.” 
 
 She received a large sum, which was carefully distrib¬ 
 uted. She gave a feast to her servants on this birthday, 
 each being allowed to invite several guests, and eighty 
 came. She wished the number had been one hundred. 
 Both Frederick and Louise disliked the ceremonial of 
 court life. Once when they had returned from some court 
 festival, the crown prince took hold of both her hands 
 and said, “ Thank God, you are my wife once more.” 
 
 “ Am I not always your wife, then? ” she asked. 
 
 “ Alas ! no,” he said ; “ you must too often be only the 
 crown princess.” 
 
 The prince would not use the customary six horses 
 and pages, but sat beside his wife, in a carriage drawn 
 by two horses, like any citizen. He was conscious of the 
 financial condition of his country, and wished to practice 
 a reasonable economy. 
 
 They read much together, Louise being especially fond 
 of history and poetry. She took delight in the w'orks of 
 Goethe, Schiller, Richter, and others. Herder’s poems 
 
20 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 she carried with her in her journeys. She read Shakes¬ 
 peare in English, and the Greek tragedies in translation, 
 making long extracts which pleased her, and adding her 
 own pertinent remarks on the margin. Schiller’s “ His- 
 tory of the Netherlands,” and “ History of the Thirty 
 Years’ War,” and also Gibbon’s “ Decline and Fall of 
 the Roman Empire,” with the “ History of England,” 
 she read carefully. Several years later, when Richter ded¬ 
 icated his “ ‘ Titan’ to the four beautiful and noble sisters 
 on the throne,” the Mecklenburg princesses, and sent 
 Louise a copy, she wrote back: — 
 
 I have received your “ Titan,” and observed with pleasure 
 from it that you continue to interest your contemporaries in 
 truths which cannot fail to influence them, dressed as they are 
 in the garb of romantic poetry. Your object, to free mankind 
 from many a dark cloud, is too beautiful not to be realized, and 
 it will therefore be a pleasure to me to see you during your stay 
 here, and to show you how much I am, 
 
 Your kindly affectionate, Louise. 
 
 Once when talking with Frau Goethe about German 
 literature, Louise unclasped a gold necklace, and gave it to 
 her as a tribute to the genius of her son. The mother was 
 very proud of it, and wore it only on rare occasions. 
 
 Both Frederick and Louise were musical, the former 
 understanding the science of music so well that he often 
 composed marches, which were played by the bands. 
 
 In the year 1794, Louise lost her first child, a daughter. 
 The next year, Oct. 15, 1795, her first son, afterwards 
 Frederick William IV., was born at Oranienburg. He had 
 many sponsors : his two grandfathers, the Empress Catha¬ 
 rine of Russia, Francis II., George III., Queen Charlotte, 
 and others. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 21 
 
 Oranienburg was too stately for two persons who de¬ 
 sired a quiet home, so the estate of Paretz, the former 
 home of one of the crown prince’s tutors, was purchased, 
 with its castle, for thirty thousand thalers. 
 
 Frederick said to the architect who rebuilt it, “Always 
 bear in mind that you are building for a poor proprietor.” 
 The house was furnished simply, and the garden was a 
 restful retreat. The tall poplars and other majestic trees 
 were a great delight to the young wife, who loved nature 
 intensely. 
 
 “Amid the quiet and beauty of nature,” she said, “ I can 
 best rally and collect my mind, whose chords, like those 
 of an instrument of music, need each day to be drawn up 
 in order to get the right tone. If I neglect this, I feel 
 out of harmony.” 
 
 A rural village was on the estate of Paretz, and soon 
 the people came to know her and to love her. Once she 
 gave all the children of the village new clothes for the har¬ 
 vest festival. 
 
 Not far from Paretz, in the river Havel, is Pfaueninsel 
 (Peacock Island), which Frederick converted into a park. 
 Here, after they had become king and queen, they often 
 dined with their children beneath the beech trees. 
 
 One summer evening, as they were sitting under some 
 great oaks on the island, they l’equested Bishop Eylert to 
 read a sermon which he had recently preached on Christian 
 marriage from the words of Ruth to Naomi: “ Entreat 
 me not to leave thee, or to return from following after 
 thee : for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou 
 lodgest, I will lodge : thy people shall be my people, and 
 thy God my God : where thou diest, will I die, and there 
 will I be buried.” 
 
 They sat till the moon rose, and distant music floated 
 
22 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 through the air. Frederick broke the silence, laying his 
 hand on Louise’s shoulder, saying with tenderness, “ This 
 is my intention, dear Louise : I and my house, we will 
 serve the Lord.” 
 
 He went down by the river alone to meditate, while 
 Louise conversed with the bishop : “ Only in faith can I 
 find support,” she said. “ In the longing after happiness 
 I become sensible of a deep emptiness in my heart which 
 nothing earthly can satisfy. . . . What elevates me most 
 and gives me the most happiness, is the thought that the 
 king and I fully accord in our religious convictions. I 
 believe he is the best man and Christian on earth. Did 
 you hear, as you finished reading your sermon, how lie 
 said, with heartfelt emotion, ‘ This is my intention: I 
 and my house, we will serve the Lord ’ ? ” 
 
 Two English travellers rowed over one day from Pots¬ 
 dam to Pfaueninsel, and were told by the court cham¬ 
 berlain that the grounds were not open to the public, as 
 the king and queen were there. They communicated their 
 disappointment to a gentleman and lady, simply dressed, 
 whom they met. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” said the gentleman, “ that was Herr von Mos- 
 sow. I know him well, and if you like to walk round 
 the island I will excuse j’ou to him.” 
 
 “You had better come with us,” said the lady, “ for 
 you are strangers here, and we can show you every thing 
 worth looking at.” 
 
 They talked of England, and the lady’s sweet face 
 seemed to them full of expression. As they approached 
 the castle, breakfast was announced, and they perceived, 
 to their astonishment, that they were in the presence of 
 the king and queen, who had been their guides. They 
 were cordially invited to the breakfast. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 23 
 
 Death came once and again to disturb this happy life. 
 Prince Louis, to whom his brother Frederick was devot¬ 
 edly attached, died Dec. 28, 1796, of typhus fever, leav¬ 
 ing Frederica at eighteen with an infaul son. The crown 
 prince would not leave him, and took the disease, but 
 recovered. The young widow was at once taken to the 
 home of Louise. 
 
 Three weeks later the widow of Frederick the Great, 
 Queen Elizabeth Christine, died at the age of eighty-one, 
 and was buried in the royal vault back of Berlin cathedral. 
 
 She must have led a lonely life with Frederick, who, 
 at the command of his father, married her rathex than the 
 Princess Amelia of England, of whom he was fond. He 
 would never live with her. lie had been reared by a most 
 .tyrannical father, who once condemned him to death for 
 trying to escape to England, but he was saved by the 
 generals of the army and the representatives of foreign 
 powers, who assured the king that the heir to the throne 
 belonged to the nation more than to him. 
 
 Frederick passed his life either on the battlefield or 
 surrounded by men of letters at Sans-Souci, his pet grey¬ 
 hounds for his dumb companions. His sister Wilhelmina, 
 the playmate of his childhood, whom he tenderly loved, 
 died when he was in middle life. 
 
 Once a year, on her birthday, he went to call upon Eliz¬ 
 abeth Christine at her secluded abode at Schonhausen. 
 She gave herself to charities, and wrote several religious 
 books, a copy of each of which she presented to Fred¬ 
 erick, who had them handsomely bound, though whether 
 he ever read them or not is doubtful. He sometimes 
 made her valuable presents, but she was never permitted 
 to come to Sans-Souci, though she adored him. 
 
 Elizabeth Christine grieved sadly on hearing of iris 
 
24 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 death at Sans-Souci, on the night of Aug. 16, 1786, when 
 he expired in the arms of a servant at twenty minutes 
 past two, his little Italian greyhound watching beside him. 
 Observing the dog tremble, he directed that a covering be 
 thrown over it. He would not allow his wife to be sent 
 for. 
 
 She survived him eleven years, and had the small com¬ 
 fort of making a handsome cloth for the communion table, 
 which stands before the chamber where he lies buried in 
 the Garrison Church, at Potsdam. 
 
 After her death, Frederick William II. said, “ It will 
 be my turn next.” He died the same year, Nov. 16, 
 1797, and was buried in the crypt of Berlin Cathedral. 
 With all his failings, and his life had been far from moral, 
 he had been a good father to Louise. He left, says E. H. 
 Hudson, “ a legacy of three very great evils, — a demoral¬ 
 ized nation, his own cabinet ministers, and an exhausted 
 treasury. . . . The most imminent, though the least im¬ 
 portant, of the dangers arising out of these evils, was the 
 want of money. Frederick the Great had left the sum of 
 ten million pounds in the treasury, — it was all gone, and 
 instead of it there was a heavy debt which the new king 
 felt bound to discharge as quickly as possible.” 
 
 The crown prince now became King Frederick William 
 III., and Louise was queen. They did not change their 
 home, for Frederick said : — 
 
 “ The king will have to live on the revenues of the 
 crown prince.” 
 
 A second son had been born to them, March 22, 1797, 
 Frederick William Louis, afterwards Emperor William I. 
 of Germany. The king and queen walked arm-in-arm as 
 formerly in the Enter den Linden, and belonged to their 
 people as their great son William did after them. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 25 
 
 They visited the Christmas fair in Berlin. At one of 
 the stalls, a woman about to make a purchase, recogniz¬ 
 ing them, stepped back. “ Do not go away, my dear 
 woman,” said the queen. “What will the stall-keeper 
 sa} T , if we drive away his customers?” 
 
 She then inquired if the woman had come to buy toys 
 for her children, and asked how many she had. On learn¬ 
 ing that there was a son about the age of her eldest, she 
 said : — 
 
 “Take these toys and give them to your crown prince 
 in the name of mine.” 
 
 The queen seemed never to forget the small courtesies 
 of life, showing how thoroughly kind she was at heart. 
 When a count and the court-shoemaker were announced 
 at the same time, she received the shoemaker first, say¬ 
 ing: — 
 
 “The mechanic’s time is far more valuable than the 
 count’s. The tradesman must be attended to first, and 
 the count must wait.” 
 
 At a military festival, the Garrison Church at Potsdam 
 was so densely crowded that a woman by mistake sat in 
 the royal pew. The lady-in-waiting reprimanded her after 
 the service, as not showing proper respect to the queen. 
 Louise heard of it, and sent for Bishop Eylert. 
 
 “Come and drive with us to-day on Pfaueninsel, and 
 tell me that you have set the good woman’s mind at rest. 
 Bring her to me to-morrow, for I should like to know her 
 personally, and to speak to her myself.” 
 
 To a friendly note of invitation to Seheffner, the aged 
 councillor of war, she added this postscript: “ Pray wear 
 your boots, and do not come in thin stockings; I am sure 
 they cannot be good for you ; and as } T ou know, I am 
 fond of old friends, so I like to take care of them.” 
 
26 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The distinguished soldier said : — 
 
 “ I have never seen in any woman’s face eyes of a 
 purer, freer expression, such gladsome ingenuousness, 
 almost bordering upon childishness.” 
 
 The queen often asked Bishop Eylert to inquire into 
 the cases of various applicants, and wished him to be 
 lenient. She said : — 
 
 “The lines which separate deserved from undeserved 
 suffering are very seldom distinctly drawn ; they run into 
 each other, and we ought not to forget how unworthy we 
 are to receive the rich blessings that God bestows on us.” 
 
 She wrote in 1797, “To train my children to become 
 benevolent lovers of mankind is my warmest and dearest 
 wish. I even nourish the glad hope of fulfilling my aim.” 
 And she set them a wonderful example. 
 
 Six months after the death of Frederick William II., 
 the king and queen made a tour of their Eastern prov¬ 
 inces. At Stargard, in Pomerania, where a great crowd 
 had assembled, nineteen little girls strewed flowers in 
 their way. One of the children told Louise that one of 
 their number had been sent home “because she was not 
 pretty enough.” 
 
 “ The poor child,” said the queen, “ she has rejoiced 
 over our coming, and now she must be weeping at home.” 
 The queen immediately sent for her, and showed her much 
 kindness. 
 
 At Elbing, a man knelt before the king, presenting a 
 petition. The king took it and bade the man rise, say¬ 
 ing, “No man should kneel before any human being.” 
 
 At Dantzig, the amber-workers gave her a beautiful 
 necklace, which she wore as long as she remained in the 
 city, much to the joy of the artisans. At Konigsberg, 
 they stayed a week. The merchants collected a large 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 27 
 
 sum of money amongst themselves, and made a dinner 
 for the poor, giving each a useful present and a dollar in 
 remembrance of the royal visit. 
 
 On their return, they repaired to one of their favorite 
 homes, Gharlottenburg, the former residence of Sophia 
 Charlotte, the first queen of Prussia. She was a woman 
 of unusual mind, and a friend of the great Leibnitz, with 
 whom she corresponded for many years. When near her 
 death, she said to her attendants : — 
 
 “ Do not grieve for me; I am now going where my 
 intense curiosity will be satisfied as to the primeval cause 
 of those things which Leibnitz has never been able to 
 explain to me, — time, space, and eternity.” 
 
 On July 13, 1798, the fourth child of Queen Louise, a 
 daughter, Frederica Louise Charlotte, was born at Char- 
 lottenburg. She married, at the age of nineteen, Nicholas, 
 the Tsar of Russia, and died in 1860. 
 
 On Oct. 13, 1799, a fifth child, a daughter, was born 
 in the royal family; she died in the following year, of 
 whooping cough. 
 
 In August, 1800, Louise took another journey with the 
 king. The coal mines at Waldenburg deeply interested 
 her. Dressed in the garb of a miner — a suit had been 
 especially prepared for her — she went into the cavern 
 in the hillside in a boat, as a stream runs through it. 
 
 Twenty years afterward, Prince Radziwill asked the 
 miners if they remembered the visit. 
 
 “Yes,” said an old man; “about half of us are alive 
 who had the honor of rowing the boat on that day : three 
 of us are with you now. I sat at the rudder. I could 
 see the queen’s sweet face well by the light of the lamps. 
 I had never seen such a sweet face before in all my 
 life. She looked grand as a queen should look, but she 
 
28 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 was as gentle as a child, and had the sweetest smile I 
 ever saw. 
 
 “We sang the ninety-sixth psalm: ‘O sing unto the 
 Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord, all the earth.’ 
 The queen took the king’s hand, and said softly, ‘ My 
 favorite psalm ; this is heavenly ! ’ And then turning to 
 me, she said, ‘More slowly, my good steersman.’ The 
 king and queen made us all presents. She gave me with 
 her own hand two new Holland ducats. I gave them to 
 my wife, and she wears them as a necklace when she goes 
 to church, for what she touched is holy. Ah ! that was a 
 woman indeed ! Why did the good God take her from us 
 so soon? She did everything kindly, and loved us all. 
 She took away her mining dress to remind her of us, as 
 she told us.” 
 
 Louise was now twenty-four years old. 
 
 “She reminds me,” says Mrs. Richard Trench, in the 
 life of her written by her son, the Dean of Westminster, 
 “ of Burke’s star (Marie Antoinette), glittering with life, 
 splendor, and joy, and realized all the fanciful ideas one 
 forms in one’s infancy of the young, gay, beautiful, and 
 magnificent queens in the Arabian Nights. She is an 
 angel of loveliness, mildness, and grace, tall and slender, 
 yet sufficiently embonpoint; her hair is light, her com¬ 
 plexion fair and faultless ; an inexpressible air of sweet¬ 
 ness reigns in her countenance, and forms its predominant 
 character.” 
 
 After the queen’s early death, another lady wrote : — 
 
 “ Why can I not hold fast such features of her noljje 
 image as still float fresh in my mind ? The nameless grace 
 of her greeting, the inimitable rhythm of her walk and 
 bow, or the childlike repose of her gentle and yet earnest 
 glance, or the gliding of her royal form into a splendid 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 29 
 
 assembly in which, however large it might be, she appeared 
 always the fairest, the first, the only one. Of her was 
 true in its full sense Ossian’s praise, ‘ beautiful among 
 thousands.’ If one tried to compare others with her, and 
 considered their forms more beautiful in single features, 
 none stood the comparison. The character of her beauty 
 lay in the harmony of her nature. Here prevailed tender¬ 
 ness, gentleness, and perfect naturalness.” 
 
 In 1801, June 29, a third son, Frederick Charles 
 Alexander, was born to them. In the summer of 1802, 
 Frederick and Louise made another tour of their provinces, 
 receiving an ovation from their people. 
 
 At Memel, Alexander I., Emperor of Russia, spent a 
 week with the king and queen. The ship-owners and 
 merchants gave a brilliant ball which was opened by the 
 Emperor of Russia and the Queen of Prussia. The em¬ 
 peror was commanding in appearance as well as winning 
 in face, with many admirable qualities. 
 
 The next year, Feb. 23, 1803, the seventh child, Fred¬ 
 erica Wilhelmina Alexandra, was born. She afterwards 
 became Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. 
 
 The royal home continued happy and peaceful. The 
 king visited the nursery every morning, and received the 
 children from their mother, kissing and playing with each. 
 Every night, before retiring, the king and queen visited 
 their sleeping children and kissed them. The king was 
 always quiet and somewhat grave; the queen, light¬ 
 hearted and witty, the joy of every circle, and the idol 
 of her children. 
 
 One day when she was standing before the window of 
 the castle at Potsdam, holding one of her children, and 
 allowing it to play with a gold piece, a poorly dressed old 
 man approached, and asked charity. 
 
30 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The king responded pleasantly, “Ask this lady; you 
 see she allows her child to play with gold pieces. I have 
 not my purse with me.” 
 
 The queen gave the little prince some money (between 
 fourteen and fifteen dollars), and said : — 
 
 “ Give them to the man.” 
 
 The old man received them with tears in his eyes. As 
 soon as he had gone, the queen called him back and asked 
 his name. 
 
 “ Berghof,” he replied. “ I was formerly a saddler in 
 Brandenburg; for twenty-three years I served Frederick 
 the Great, and was discharged as sergeant.” 
 
 “ Without a pension? ” asked the queen. 
 
 “ Yes, madam.” 
 
 “This gentleman,” said Louise, pointing to the king, 
 “says he has not his purse with him; but he has pen, 
 ink, and paper, and his hand-writing is as good as gold.” 
 
 Whereupon the king wrote on a slip of paper and gave 
 to the man : — 
 
 Old Berghof, of Brandenburg, is to receive a pension of 
 twelve thalers monthly from the extraordinary treasury of 
 war. 
 
 Frederick William. 
 
 At another time she saw a sick man on a bench at 
 Potsdam. Thinking him needy, she asked her servant to 
 give the man ten- dollars, while she walked on. 
 
 The man, who was a master-mason, refused it. Fear¬ 
 ing that she had hurt his feelings, she returned and said : — 
 
 “ I hope you will pardon me if I have given offence. I 
 did not intend it.” 
 
 She asked if he would not come to the palace and let 
 her cook prepare his dinners till he was well, which kind¬ 
 ness he gladly accepted. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 31 
 
 The queen gave so much in charities that the treasurer 
 felt that he must confer with the kiug about it, and she 
 gave him leave. The next time she opened the drawer of 
 her writing-desk, she found that it had been refilled with 
 money. 
 
 “ What angel has filled that box again?” she asked. 
 
 “The angels are legion,” replied the kindly king. 
 
 While generous himself, he was prudent in expendi¬ 
 tures. He said: — 
 
 “ The secret of dollars lies in groschen ; whoever would 
 possess the one should be careful of the other.” 
 
 When he was ten years old, being very fond of cherries, 
 a basket was brought him from the hot-house, grown in 
 winter. When he found that they cost five dollars, he 
 refused to eat them. Yet, while averse to spending for 
 himself, he sent at this time twenty dollars to a poor 
 shoemaker to buy leather. 
 
 While there was peace in the royal home, and peace in 
 Prussia, Europe was passing through troublous times. 
 Frederick the Great had foreseen that Frederick William 
 III., his nephew’s son, would need a strong hand and 
 earnest purpose. In their last talk together, he said : — 
 
 “ Fritz, you should prepare yourself for the future 
 which is preparing for you ; my career has come to an end, 
 my day’s work is done. I am afraid that when I am gone 
 there will be great confusion, things will go on pele-mele. 
 The whole world is in a ferment, and the rulers, espe¬ 
 cially those in France, unfortunately foster the excitiug 
 elements instead of appeasing or neutralizing them. . . . 
 
 “Qualify yourself to pass through trials; prepare to 
 meet them firmly. When that day comes, think of me; 
 watch over the honor of our house ; be guilty of no in¬ 
 justice, but, at the same time, tolerate none. . . . The 
 
32 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 supporting foundation is the people, the nation in its 
 unity. Stand by it faithfully, that it may love and con¬ 
 fide in you; through the people only can you be strong, 
 prosperous, and happy. Do not forget this hour.” 
 
 Since the treaty of Basle, in January, 1795, Prussia had 
 remained neutral in the conflicts between Russia and Aus¬ 
 tria, England and France. Frederick William III. knew 
 the financial weakness of Prussia, and though he had two 
 hundred thousand soldiers, he dreaded war, both from its 
 barbarities and its enormous expense. He refused to 
 join the coalition of 1798, when Russia and Great Britain 
 concluded a treaty of alliance against the encroachments 
 of France. 
 
 About two months after the peace of Amiens, in 1802, 
 Prussia made an alliance with France, by which the former 
 gained considerable territory. In a little more than a year 
 after the peace, Great Britain and France were again at 
 Avar. Napoleon at once seized HanoA T er, disbanded its 
 German army, levied over seventeen million francs, occu¬ 
 pied Hamburg and Bremen, and closed the Elbe and Weser 
 against British merchant ships. Hanover begged the king 
 of Prussia to deliver her, but he still abstained from war. 
 
 The execution by Napoleon of the Duke d’Enghien, 
 March 21, 1804, shocked all Europe. The courts of 
 St. Petersburg and Stockholm Avent into deep mourning. 
 Alexander of Russia and Frederick wrote letters of pro¬ 
 test to Napoleon, but they were not heeded. The Duke 
 had been arrested at Ettenheim in Baden, betAveen the 
 Black Forest and the Rhine, and that country being under 
 the protection of Frederick, he was personally interested. 
 
 When Napoleon was proclaimed emperor, Dec. 2, 1804, 
 Alexander refused to recognize the title. Foreseeing that 
 war Avith Russia must soon occur, Napoleon made an 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PLUS SI A. 
 
 33 
 
 agreement with Prussia, by which the latter promised to 
 maintain a strict neutrality, and not permit Russia or any 
 foreign troops to march across her territory. 
 
 A coalition was formed against Napoleon by Sweden, 
 Russia, Austria, and Great Britain. Napoleon at once 
 marched his troops through Anspach, which belonged to 
 Prussia, thus violating his treaty, surrounded the Aus¬ 
 trian army near Ulm on the Danube, and cut it to pieces. 
 The Austrians felt that crossing a neutral country, and 
 falling upon them almost before they were aware of it, was 
 one of the principal causes of their defeat. 
 
 A strong war party had been growing in Prussia. 
 Frederick was urged on every side to join the other pow¬ 
 ers. The queen believed that the time had come to check 
 Napoleon, and rebuke some of his unjust acts. 
 
 On Oct. 25, 1805, Alexander came to Prussia to see the 
 king and queen. No Russian emperor had visited Prussia 
 since the time of Peter the Great. The streets were 
 crowded with people to give him a hearty welcome. The 
 Emperor Francis II. sent his brother, the Archduke of 
 Austria, to confer with the two sovereigns. An agreement 
 was finally made with Russia and Austria, that Prussia 
 should send one hundred and eighty thousand men into 
 the field if Napoleon did not yield to the conditions of the 
 allies. 
 
 Alexander remained for ten days, and on the night of 
 his departure, Nov. 4, dined with the royal family at Pots¬ 
 dam. He expressed regret that he had not seen the tomb 
 of Frederick the Great. “ There is yet time,” said Fred¬ 
 erick, and gave orders to have the church lighted. 
 
 At midnight the emperor, with the king and queen, 
 stood beside the plain zinc coffin. Alexander bowed and 
 kissed it, and reaching his hand across to Frederick, 
 
34 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 pledged eternal friendship to him and his house, and an 
 alliance against Napoleon. Louise consecrated the scene 
 with her tears ; tears that were remembered by Germany 
 long after she was in her grave. It is said that Louise 
 planned the meeting at the tomb, and with her woman’s 
 tact and heart, it is not improbable. A knowledge of this 
 midnight treaty came to Napoleon, and he said, “ The 
 King of Prussia shall pay for this.” 
 
 The Prussian army was made ready, and a letter sent 
 to Napoleon by the Prussian minister, Haugwitz, who, 
 reaching Vienna, and finding Russia and Austria on the 
 eve of a great battle, deferred giving the letter. 
 
 Napoleon, on Dec. 2, 1805, the first anniversary of his 
 coronation, swept all before him in the terrible battle of 
 Austerlitz. The Russians, according to Alison, in his 
 “ History of Europe,” lost thirty thousand in killed and 
 wounded, and the French twelve thousand. It was re¬ 
 ported that Alexander was killed, and the Grand Duke 
 Constantine b relv escaped with his life. 
 
 Haugwitz, who had come with a threat of war, con¬ 
 cluded to make a treaty of peace, whereby Hanover was 
 given to Prussia, and Prussia ceded Cleves, Neufchatel, 
 and Anspach to Napoleon. 
 
 The Prussians were enraged at Haugwitz, and the king 
 at first refused to sign the treaty, but finally did so, at 
 the request of his ministers, saying, however, that he 
 would keep Hanover only till a general peace could be 
 arranged. He said to Count Hoym, “ I have signed, but 
 I tremble for the consequences.” 
 
 Napoleon felt that Prussia was in his power. He 
 demanded that the king should renounce his connection 
 with Russia, and make a closer alliance with France. 
 
 Napoleon had consummated his long-cherished plan 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 35 
 
 of the “Confederation of the Rhine,” whereby several 
 states had separated themselves from the German empire, 
 and put themselves under his protection. Sixteen million 
 men transferred their allegiance to Napoleon with the 
 promise that hostility committed against one should be 
 considered as a declaration of war against the whole. 
 Francis II. saw that the German empire was destroyed, 
 and renounced the imperial crown. 
 
 England was angry concerning Hanover, and Napoleon 
 made her a private proposal to restore it to her — he had 
 just ceded it to Prussia — if she would make peace with 
 him. Before Anspach knew that she was given over to 
 France, forty thousand Frenchmen took possession. The 
 heart-breaks of war had begun. When by Napoleon’s 
 order the ports of Hauover were closed to Great Britain, 
 the latter at once declared war against Prussia, and 
 Sweden was ready to join her. It was discovered also 
 that Napoleon meditated the seizure of Westphalia. 
 
 Frederick William III. was worn and anxious over 
 these dire events. Louise was in ill-health. Her eighth 
 child, a son, Frederick Julius Ferdinand Leopold, born 
 Dec. 13, 1804, had died April G, 180G, at the age of six- 
 teeu months. Prostrated by a nervous fever, she was 
 advised by her physician to go to the baths of Pyr- 
 mont. Here she staid six weeks with her father and 
 brother George, but she was anxious to be at home and 
 share in the joys and sorrows of her beloved Germany. 
 She returned Aug. 3 to Charlottenburg, where the king 
 had planted some poplars and beeches in honor of her 
 coming. At Berlin she was received by the people with 
 the greatest enthusiasm. 
 
 Frederick had at last determined to meet the demands 
 of Napoleon by war. The army was made ready for 
 
36 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 marching. The patriotic queen, at the request of the 
 king, rode beside him when he reviewed the troops. 
 When the queen’s regiment, the Anspach-Baireuth dra¬ 
 goons, came into Berlin before going to the field, the 
 queen wore above her riding-skirt a spencer trimmed with 
 the colors of the regiment. This was given to the regi¬ 
 ment and is tenderly preserved. 
 
 Alexander offered at once to put himself at the head of 
 a large army to help Prussia. Frederick and Louise went 
 to Naumburg to meet the first body of Russian troops 
 sent by Alexander. The Russians were charmed with the 
 queen. She had lost something of her girlish light-hearted¬ 
 ness, but none of her enthusiasm and spirit. She was 
 thirty, still beautiful, brilliant, and thoroughly womanly. 
 
 The letter of Frederick to Napoleon, stating his grounds 
 of complaint, was hastily read, and then Napoleon dic¬ 
 tated his proclamation to his army : “ Soldiers ! the order 
 for your return to France was issued. You were already 
 within a few days’ march of your homes, triumphal fetes 
 awaited you, and preparations for your reception had 
 commenced in the capital; but while we too confidently 
 resigned ourselves, feeling too secure, new plots were 
 hatching under the mask of friendship and alliance. . . . 
 We ought not to return except beneath triumphal arches. 
 What! have we braved inclement seasons, the ocean, and 
 the desert; have we subdued Europe, often united against 
 us ; have we extended our glory from the east to the 
 west, only to return like deserters ? and are we to be told 
 that the French eagle has fled in dismay before the Prus¬ 
 sian ? ” 
 
 Frederick told his soldiers, “ On this war depends not 
 only the honor of the Prussian arms, but the very ex¬ 
 istence of the monarchy.” 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 37 
 
 The king chose Erfurt for Lis headquarters, and thither 
 the troops marched, singing triumphant songs. A por¬ 
 tion of the army was at Weimar. Louise was with her 
 husband inspiring the troops. She had not instigated the 
 war as Napoleon said, but he well knew that the love felt 
 by the German nation for her was to be more dreaded by 
 him than many armies. For her they would face death 
 on any battlefield. 
 
 When moving with the army the king and queen trav¬ 
 elled in a close carriage, followed by twenty other car¬ 
 riages, and surrounded by troops and artillery. One of 
 the generals, Ivalkreuth, said one day to Chevalier von 
 Geutz, a diplomatist from the court of Vienna, “ You 
 are hoping to have the honor of being presented to the 
 queen. If you should have an opportunity of saying a few 
 words to her on the subject [her remaining with the 
 troops], pray say all you can to induce her to remain. I 
 know what I am asking. Her presence with us is quite 
 necessary.” 
 
 Gentz had an audience with the queen at nine o’clock 
 on the morning of Oct. 9. She showed neither fear nor 
 irresolution. She said, “ I think we could not decide 
 otherwise than on war; our position had become so 
 equivocal that it was necessary to get out of it at any 
 price. It is much less on calculation than on a sentiment 
 of honor and under a sense of duty that we were obliged 
 to take this course. ... I was fully convinced that the 
 great sources of true security were to be found only in 
 the closest union of all who bear the name of Germans; 
 as to Russia’s assistance, I always regarded it only as a 
 last resource.” 
 
 The “ union of all who bear the name of Germans ” 
 was always dear to the heart of Louise. Her son Fred- 
 
38 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 erick William IV. said, “ The unity of Germany concerns 
 me deeply: it is an inheritance from my mother.” 
 
 Gentz was delighted with the queen. He said, “You 
 could not find another such woman in Germany. The 
 intellectual and refined ideas she developed every moment 
 during our three quarters of an hour’s conversation were 
 wonderful; she argued with independence and energy, yet 
 with precision and self-control, evincing a prudence that 
 would have been admirable in a man. At the same time, 
 everything she said was so full of deep feeling as not to 
 allow me for one moment to forget that it was a woman 
 who claimed my attention. It was a combination of dig¬ 
 nity, benevolence, and grace such as I never met with 
 before. Not a word was out of place, not a sentiment, 
 not a reflection which was not in exquisite harmony with 
 the general character of her conversation.” She spoke 
 guardedly and gently of both Napoleon and Josephine. 
 
 On Oct. 10 the main army which had proceeded to 
 Weimar was shocked by the news of the death of the 
 brave Prince Louis Ferdinand, nephew of Frederick the 
 Great, at the head of six thousand men, surrounded by 
 thirty thousand of the enemy. The fight lasted for five 
 hours. His horse got entangled in a hedge, and left his 
 rider struggling in the bushes. The prince had extricated 
 himself, when his surrender was demanded. He replied 
 by a cut of his sabre, and the next instant fell by the 
 sword of his antagonist. His conquerors took the body 
 to jSaalfeld and gave it military interment in the church, 
 from which it was removed in 1811 to Berlin cathedral. 
 
 On the evening of Oct. 13 the king and the aged Duke 
 of Brunswick reached the heights of Auerstadt. The king 
 had made arrangements for the queen to remain at the 
 ducal castle in Weimar; but anxious for the king and the 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 39 
 
 army, the heroic and fearless queen left that afternoon, 
 and was soon travelling with him, with the enemy in full 
 view. The Duke of Brunswick insisted on the wisdom 
 of her return, and she was finally persuaded to go back 
 to Berlin, attended by a guard of fifty men. A circuitous 
 route was marked out for her, as many Frenchmen were 
 in the country. 
 
 The next day, Oct. 14, 1806, the dreadful battles of 
 Jena and Auerstadt were fought. At Jena, Napoleon, 
 Ney, and Murat led the French against Prince Hohenlohe ; 
 at Auerstadt, Davoust led the French against the king 
 and the Duke of Brunswick. The king fought bravely 
 and with great coolness, having two horses killed under 
 him. The Duke had his left eye struck out by a bullet, 
 and was carried senseless from the field in the early part 
 of the day. 
 
 Alison says, “ The astonishing battles of Jena and 
 Auerstadt in a single day prostrated the strength of the 
 Prussian monarchy, and did that in a few hours which 
 all the might of Austria, Russia, and France in the 
 Seven Years’ War had been unable to effect. The sub¬ 
 sequent disasters of the campaign were but the com¬ 
 pletion of this great calamity; the decisive strokes were 
 given on the banks of the Saale. The loss of the Prus¬ 
 sians was prodigious : on the two fields there fell nearly 
 twenty thousand killed and wounded, besides nearly as 
 many prisoners; and two hundred pieces of cannon, with 
 twenty-five standards, were taken. Ten thousand of the 
 killed and wounded fell at Auerstadt. . . . Nor was that 
 victory bloodless to the conquerors : their total loss was 
 foiu-teen thousand men, of whom seven thousand five 
 hundred belonged to the corps of Davoust.” When 
 Napoleon entered Berlin, Davoust and his corps took 
 
40 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the lead, in reward for their bravery. Napoleon fol¬ 
 lowed the retreating Prussians into Weimar. 
 
 He took no rest on the night of the fourteenth. He was 
 dictating orders to his various corps in their pursuit of the 
 enemy. Towards evening on the following day he took 
 possession of the palace of the Duke of Weimar. 
 
 The next morning, before the sun had risen, an officer 
 entered the apartment of Napoleon. “ Sire,” said he, “ I 
 have a good report to give you, but we have failed in our 
 attempt to take the Queen of Prussia.” 
 
 “ Ah ! that would have been well done,” said Napoleon, 
 “ for she has caused the war.” 
 
 The queen pursued her sad journey towards Berlin. At 
 Brandenburg a courier met her to tell her that all was 
 lost, and that she must flee with her children. Her physi¬ 
 cian, Hufeland, accompanied her to the Schwedt on the 
 Oder, where the children had been sent already. Her 
 agitation frightened them as they had always seen her so 
 happy. 
 
 She said to her two sons, Frederick and William, eleven 
 and nine years of age: “You see me in tears; I lament 
 the destruction of the army ! . . . Destiny has destroyed 
 in one day a structure in the erection of which the great 
 men of two centuries have labored. There is no Prus¬ 
 sian state, no Prussian army, no national glory longer; 
 it has disappeared like that mist which on the fields of 
 Jena and Auerstadt hid the danger and terrors of that ill- 
 starred battle. . . . 
 
 ;t Call back to memory, in the future, when your mother 
 and quben is no longer living, this unhappy hour; weep 
 tears as you remember me, as I now at this sad moment 
 lament the downfall of my fatherland. But let not tears 
 alone content you; act, develop your powers. Perhaps 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF FIIUSSIA. 
 
 41 
 
 Prussia’s tutelary genius will alight upon you; then 
 deliver your people from the disgrace, from the re¬ 
 proach, of degradation iu which she languishes. . . . 
 
 “Oh, my sons, do not allow yourselves to be swept 
 along by the degeneracy of this age; become men, and 
 covet the glory of great commanders and heroes. If you 
 should lack in ambition, you would be unworthy of the 
 name of princes and grandsons of the great Frederick. 
 If with every exertion you cannot raise up again the 
 prostate state, then seek death as Louis Ferdinand 
 sought it.” 
 
 They soon went to Stettin, and after a day hurried on to 
 Ciistrin, where the king met her. He remained for some 
 time, examining the defences, the noble queen in her long 
 travelling cloak walking up and down the ramparts with 
 him. Many men in high positions counselled surrender 
 to Napoleon, but the queen urged continuance of the war 
 rather than submit to the hard terms of the Emperor of 
 France. Napoleon’s victories seemed to have paralyzed 
 the Prussian nation. Ciistrin was given up. Stettin 
 surrendered without firing a shot. Lfibeck surrendered 
 after a heroic defence. 
 
 The court retreated to Marienwerder, where they staid 
 ten days, and then to Qrtelsburg. The royal family suf¬ 
 fered every privation. They had but one scantily fur¬ 
 nished room in a wretched, house. They were ankle deep 
 in mud whenever they stepped out of doors. Provisions 
 were very scarce. “But,” says Sir George Jackson, 
 “we have some reason to be satisfied when we think of 
 the privations which the poor queen is enduring, whose 
 dignified resignation under these distressing circumstances 
 renders her even more interesting than does her great 
 beauty.” 
 
42 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The queen felt all this keenly, for she quoted in her 
 notebook, as expressive of her heart, this verse from 
 (ioethe’s “ Wilhelm Meister ” : — 
 
 “ Who never ate his bread in sorrow, 
 
 Who never spent the darksome hours 
 Weeping and watching for the morrow — 
 
 He knows ye not, ye gloomy powers. 
 
 To earth — this weary earth — ye bring us, 
 
 To guilt ye let us heedless go; 
 
 Then leave repentance fierce to wring us, 
 
 A moment’s guilt, an age’s woe.” 
 
 The people sympathized deeply with their king and 
 queen. The sect of Mennonites sent two hundred gold 
 Fredericks which they had collected among their people, 
 and begged the royal family to accept the money with 
 their love and respect. They accepted it. and repaid it 
 in better times. 
 
 A farmer’s wife brought some butter for the “poor, 
 dear king.” “No, no,” said the king, “ not poor; I am 
 a rich king, blessed with such subjects.” 
 
 Magdeburg soon fell. Marshal Ney heated twenty- 
 four-pound shot to red heat, and began to throw them 
 into the town. The people begged their leaders to sur¬ 
 render. Sixteen thousand troops in arms, four thousand 
 in the hospitals, six hundred pieces of cannon, eight hun¬ 
 dred thousand pounds of powder, a pontoon train com¬ 
 plete, and immense stores of all kinds fell into the hands 
 of the enemy. 
 
 Late in 1806 the royal family went to Ivonigsberg. The 
 queen was prostrated by nervous fever, and her life and 
 that of her child, Prince Charles, were in great danger. 
 Before she had recovered they were obliged to flee to 
 Memel, as the French were approaching. She begged to 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 43 
 
 be removed, saying in the words of King David, “ Let us 
 fall now into the hand of the Lord; for his mercies are 
 great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.” 
 
 They were three days and nights on the journey. The 
 first night the queen lay in a room whose windows were 
 broken, and the snow blew on the bed. But she was full 
 of trust and courage. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon had entered Berlin in triumph, 
 amid the hatred and despair of the people. He visited 
 Sans-Souci and looked upon the room where Frederick 
 the Great died. lie traced a large N in the dust on Fred¬ 
 erick’s coffin, saying, “If he w'ere alive now, I should 
 not stand here.” He sent Frederick’s sword, hat, and 
 scarf to Paris; these were destroyed in 1814, just before 
 the Allies entered. 
 
 At Charlottenburg he entered the queen’s private rooms 
 and read her letters, in some of which she showed her 
 aversion to him. But he was much impressed with her 
 picture, and wished to see her. 
 
 Early in 1807, the remnant of the Prussian army under 
 Gen. Lestocq combined with the Russian troops and 
 fought the desperate battle of Eylau, Feb. 8. The Rus¬ 
 sian and Prussian loss was said to have been twenty-five 
 thousand in killed and wounded, and the French thirty 
 thousand. Alison says of this battle, “ Never was spec¬ 
 tacle so dreadful as the field of battle on the following 
 morning. Above fifty thousand men lay in a space of two 
 leagues, weltering in blood. The wounds were for the 
 most part of the severest kind, from the extraordinary 
 quantity of cannon-balls w hich had been discharged dur¬ 
 ing the action, and the close proximity of the contending 
 masses to the deadly batteries which spread grape at half 
 musket shot through the ranks. 
 
44 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 “ Though stretched on the cold snow, and exposed to 
 the severity of an arctic winter, they were burning with 
 thirst, and piteous cries were heard on all sides for water, 
 or assistance to extricate the wounded men from beneath 
 the heaps of slain, or loads of horses by which they were 
 crushed. Six thousand of these noble animals encum¬ 
 bered the field, or, maddened with pain, were shrieking 
 aloud amid the stifled groans of the wounded.” 
 
 Napoleon suffered so severely that he proposed to make 
 a favorable peace with Frederick if the latter would break 
 with the Emperor Alexander, which Frederick refused to 
 do. Napoleon also sent word to the queen that he would 
 be happy to pay his court to her at Berlin. This was 
 impossible after his unjust and sarcastic words about her 
 in his bulletins. The Germans never forgave and never 
 forgot them. 
 
 The queen still had hope. She wrote her father, “Only 
 by patient perseverance can we succeed — sooner or later 
 I am sure we shall do so.” Brave Gen. Blticher told 
 Bourrieune, whom he met at Hamburg, “I reckon much 
 on the public spirit of Germany, on the enthusiasm which 
 reigns in our universities. Success in war is ephemeral; 
 but defeat itself contributes to nourish in a people the 
 principles of honor and a passion for national glory. Be 
 assured that when a whole people are resolved to emanci¬ 
 pate themselves from foreign domination, they will never 
 fail to succeed. I foresee that fortune will not always 
 favor your emperor. The time may come when Europe 
 in a body, humiliated by his exactions, exhausted by his 
 depredations, will rise up in arms against him.” 
 
 But hope was soon rvell-nigh quenched by the battle of 
 Friedland, June 14, 1807. The Russians lost seventeen 
 thousand in killed and wounded, and the French eight 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 45 
 
 thousand. The queen wrote her father three days after 
 the battle: — 
 
 “ We are on the point of forsaking the kingdom. 
 Consider how I feel in so doing, but I implore you do not 
 misjudge your daughter. Do not believe that pusilla¬ 
 nimity bows my heart. There are two principal reasons 
 why I am lifted above everything. The first is the 
 thought, we are no sport of blind chance, but we are in 
 God’s hand, and his providence guides us. The second 
 is, we shall go down with honor. . . . To live and die in 
 the way of right, and, if need be, eat bread and salt, will 
 never make me wholly unhappy, but I can no longer hope. 
 If good fortune comes, oh, no one will receive it more 
 gratefully than I, but J no more expect it. If misfortune 
 comes, it will stun me for a time. When not deserved it 
 can never overwhelm me. Only wrong on our part would 
 bring me to the grave.” 
 
 The defeated Alexander, his people clamoring for 
 peace, proposed an armistice, which Napoleon accepted. 
 It Avas agreed that the terms of peace should be settled 
 between Napoleon, Alexander, and Frederick, at Tilsit, 
 on the Niemen. 
 
 Napoleon desired to have as much dramatic effect as 
 possible. The bridge at Tilsit having been burned, a 
 raft was placed in the river, with a gaily decorated pavil¬ 
 ion upon it. At one o’clock, the short but alert con¬ 
 queror, with his strong pale face, aud keen, controlling 
 glance, surrounded by his officers, stepped into the boat 
 w hich was to bear him to the raft. At the same moment, 
 in sight of the great crowds which had gathered, the tall, 
 handsome Alexander started with his suite from the oppo¬ 
 site bank. Napoleon arrived first, and opened the door 
 for Alexander, whom he met cordially. They conversed 
 for three hours. 
 
46 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The next day, June 26, 1807, the king of Prussia was 
 called to the conference. Napoleon treated Frederick 
 coldly from the first, but he treated Alexander pleas¬ 
 antly. The three dined together each day, but Alexan¬ 
 der only was asked to spend the evening and talk till 
 midnight. 
 
 It seemed impossible to gain much for Prussia, when it 
 occurred to Alexander that the beautiful queen might win 
 concessions where he failed to obtain them. The king, 
 with an aching heart, sent for her. 
 
 When she received the message, she burst into tears 
 and exclaimed : “ This is the most painful sacrifice that 
 I can make for my people.” 
 
 She wrote in her diary: “ God knows what a struggle 
 it cost me! For although I do not hate the man, yet I 
 look upon him as the author of the unhappiness of the 
 king and his people. I admire his talents. I do not like 
 his character, which is obviously treacherous and false. It 
 will be hard for me to be polite and courteous to him; 
 still the effort is demanded, and I must make the sacri¬ 
 fice.’-’ 
 
 Napoleon sent an escort of French dragoons and his 
 state carriage drawn by eight horses for Louise. She 
 reached Tilsit July 6, and Napoleon at once called upon 
 her, Talleyrand accompanying tpm. She was dressed in 
 white crape, richly embroidered in silk. The conversa¬ 
 tion lasted for half or three quarters of an hour. Napo¬ 
 leon said, with his usual abruptness, “ How could you 
 ever begin war with me ? ” 
 
 “ Sire,” replied Louise, “ even if we have been imposed 
 upon in other respects, could the glory of Frederick 
 deceive us in regard to our powers?” She begged that 
 some of the fortresses be spared to Prussia, especially 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 47 
 
 Magdeburg. “ You ask a great deal,” said the emperor, 
 “ but I will think about it.” 
 
 Later Napoleon remarked to Talleyrand, “ I knew that 
 I should see a beautiful woman, and a queen with digni¬ 
 fied manners, but I found the most admirable queen, and 
 at the same time the most interesting woman I had ever 
 met with.” 
 
 Talleyrand thought he might yield to her infiuence, and 
 responded, “ Sire, shall posterity say that you have not 
 profited by your great conquests because of a beautiful 
 woman ? ” 
 
 At the sumptuous banquet to which Napoleon invited 
 her, she sat at his right hand, and the king on his left. 
 The emperor talked freely, but the king was silent. The 
 queen was quick-witted in her answers to Napoleon, bril¬ 
 liant, and with great tact, yet with one purpose ever in 
 mind, — better terms for fallen Prussia. 
 
 Napoleon offered her a rare and beautiful rose. She 
 hesitated about taking it, but did so, saying, with her 
 sweet smile, “ At least with Magdeburg ! ” 
 
 Napoleon replied, “ I must observe to your Majesty 
 that it is I who present, and you who are about to re¬ 
 ceive it.” 
 
 Again, though much against her will, she dined with the 
 emperor, after she had heard that he would yield nothing. 
 “The conversation,” writes the lady-in-waiting, “was 
 constrained and monosyllabic. After dinner the queen 
 talked once more with Napoleon; on going away she 
 told him that she was about to depart, and felt deeply 
 that she had been deceived.” 
 
 Louise said herself, a year later, “ What I suffered then 
 I suffered more on account of others than on my own 
 account. I wept; I implored in the name of love and of 
 
48 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 humanity, in the name of our misfortunes, and of the 
 laws which govern the world.” 
 
 Count de Las Cases, in his “ Memoirs of the Life, Exile, 
 and Conversations of the Emperor” at St. Helena, gives 
 these words of Napoleon in those lonely days of remem¬ 
 brance : “ The queen of Prussia was unquestionably gifted 
 with many happy resources. She possessed a great deal 
 of information, and had many excellent capabilities. It 
 was she who really reigned for more than fifteen years. 
 She also, in spite of my dexterity and all my exertions, 
 took the lead in the conversation and constantly main¬ 
 tained the ascendancy. She touched, perhaps too often, 
 upon her favorite topic, but she did so, however, with 
 great plausibility and without giving the slightest cause 
 of uneasiness. It must be confessed that she had an 
 important object in view and that the time was short and 
 precious. . . . 
 
 “I was determined not to yield. I found it necessary 
 to keep a great command over myself, that I might 
 continue exempt from all kind of engagement and every 
 expression which might be taken in a doubtful sense.” 
 
 By the treaty of Tilsit (signed July 7), the king of 
 Prussia was obliged to give up half his dominions, to 
 reduce his army to forty-two thousand men, and to pay 
 a war indemnification of one hundred and fifty million 
 thalers. 
 
 How little Napoleon dreamed that this would be paid 
 back with interest in the war of 1870 ! The queen wrote 
 her father, “ I am convinced that the way in which this 
 peace has been concluded will, at a future period, sooner 
 or later, bring down a blessing on Prussia, although I 
 may not live to see it.” 
 
 The state was near bankruptcy, and the king was 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 49 
 
 advised to declare it, but he said, “ I may be unfortunate, 
 but God will preserve me from committing a base act.” 
 
 The sovereigns and the people bent their energies to 
 paying the war debt. The gold dinner service of Freder¬ 
 ick the Great was sent to the mint to be coined into 
 money. The queen parted with all her jewels save one 
 ornament of pearls, which she said “betokens tears, and 
 I have shed so many.” 
 
 The royal table at Memel was furnished like that of an 
 ordinary citizen. A Russian diplomatist who spent a 
 night at the king’s house said, “ Not a thousand court 
 feasts, with golden uniforms and stars, would I give in 
 exchange for the memory of that night. A queen sits at 
 a poorly furnished table, that, like herself, is divested of 
 all external adornments; but her grace, beauty, and dig¬ 
 nity shine all the brighter. 
 
 “ By her side sits the eldest princess, Charlotte, as the 
 bud by the unfolded rose. She shared with her mother 
 the little household duties. Both delighted by their ami¬ 
 able attentions, and left behind in my soul a living pic¬ 
 ture which no after event can efface.” 
 
 The queen walked every morning and evening with the 
 king to cheer him. The Countess Voss, the lady in attend¬ 
 ance, said the king was so sad, “ it touched one’s heart 
 to the quick, and one could not listen to him without hot 
 tears.” 
 
 After the peace of Tilsit, Baron von Stein, who had 
 differed from the king some months previously, was re¬ 
 called, to the great delight of Louise. She wrote, “ How 
 happy I am that Stein is again here ; yes, I feel, since I 
 know that he is at the head of affairs, as if I could raise 
 higher and carry more easily my head, burdened with a 
 weight of care.” 
 
50 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 “ I implore you,” she wrote to Stein, soon after his 
 coming, “ have patience during the first months ; the king 
 will certainly keep his word. ... I pray God that the 
 good may not come to nought on account of the patience 
 and delay of three months. I implore you for the sake of 
 myself, my children, my country, the king, have patience.” 
 
 In all the great projects for the reform of Prussia in 
 education, in the army, in the emancipation of the peas¬ 
 ants, Louise was Stein’s helper and friend. She greatly 
 influenced her husband,- who was naturally more conserv¬ 
 ative than she. 
 
 She aided every good work. On her birthday in 1807 
 the Luisenstift, or Louise’s Association, was organized for 
 orphans, most of them the children of soldiers. She gave 
 both money and time to it. She still made charming lit¬ 
 tle fetes for her own children, who loved to make wreaths 
 of blue corn-flowers for her. 
 
 The cold air of Memel was affecting her health, and 
 the royal family removed to Konigsberg early in 1808. 
 On the fifst of February, of this year, the queen’s ninth 
 child was born — a daughter — to whom was given the 
 endeared name of Louise. 
 
 “ You will be pleased to hear, dear father,” she wrote 
 a little later, “ that the misfortune which has fallen upon 
 us has not affected our domestic happiness; indeed, it 
 seems to have drawn us nearer together, and strengthened 
 our affections. The king, who is the best of men, is 
 kinder than ever. Often I fancy that I see in him the 
 lover and the bridegroom ; more in actions than in words 
 do I perceive his constant devotion to me. 
 
 “ Only yesterday he said to me, looking at me with his 
 guileless eyes and earnest expression of countenance, 
 ‘ Dear Louise, thou hast become dearer and more precious 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 51 
 
 than ever to me in misfortune. Now I know by experi¬ 
 ence what I possess in thee. Let the storm continue 
 without, as it will; if only our happiness remain undis¬ 
 turbed, we are secure. Because I love thee so fondly, I 
 have desired our youngest-born daughter to be called 
 Louise. May she become a Louise ! ’ 
 
 “ This tenderness on his part affected me to tears. It 
 is my pride, my joy, and my happiness to possess the love 
 of the best of men, and because I love him in return with 
 all my heart, and we are so united that the will of one is 
 the will of the other, it is very easy for us to preserve 
 this harmony day by day. In a word, he pleases me in 
 all points, and I please him, and we are happiest when we 
 are together. . . . 
 
 “ Our children are our treasures, and our eyes rest upon 
 them with satisfaction and hope. The crown prince is full 
 of life and spirit. He has superior talents, which are 
 happily developed and cultivated. . . . He is particularly 
 attached to his mother, and could not be purer-minded 
 than he is. I love him most tenderly, and often speak to 
 him of the duties which will devolve upon him if he lives 
 to become king. 
 
 “ Our sou William will, if I am not mistaken, take after 
 his father, and be simple, upright, and wise. Also in out¬ 
 ward appearance he bears the greatest resemblance to him, 
 only he is, I think, not so good looking. You see, dear 
 father, I am still in love with my husband.” 
 
 After describing her other children to her father, she 
 adds, “ It may be well for our children that already in 
 their youth they have learned to know the serious side of 
 life. If they had grown up in the lap of plenty and ease 
 then they would suppose everything must ever be thus. 
 But they see by the grave countenance of their father, 
 
52 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 and the grief and frequent tears of their mother, that 
 things can change.” 
 
 The baby Louise, when grown to womanhood, married 
 Frederic, the second son of William I., King of the 
 Netherlands, and died in 1870. During the year 1808 
 the queen spent much time in reading history. “ I read 
 history diligently,” she said, “and live in the past be¬ 
 cause there is no more future for me.” 
 
 In the winter of this year, 1808, the king and queen 
 visited St. Petersburg at the request of Alexander. 
 Twelve elegant rooms were made ready for the queen, 
 one with hangings of pink silk and a toilette of gold. 
 Six superb Turkish shawls were presented to her, besides 
 a sumptuous table service of crystal, vases, silks, and 
 other costly things. She visited the benevolent institu¬ 
 tions with great interest. On her return she said, “ I 
 have returned as I went. Nothing dazzles me any more. 
 My kingdom is not of this world.” 
 
 During the spring and summer of 1809, the queen was 
 ill much of the time. France and Austria were at war, 
 and Louise feared that Prussia would be drawn into the 
 conflict. After the battle of Wagram, July 5, G, 1809, 
 she wrote her father: “With us it is all over for the 
 present, even if not forever. I look for nothing more 
 during my life. ... It becomes more and more clear to 
 me that everything had to come as it lias. Divine Provi¬ 
 dence is unmistakably introducing a new order of things 
 in the world ; there will be a different arrangement, since 
 the old order has outlived itself and is falling to pieces. 
 We have fallen asleep on the laurels of Frederick the Great , 
 who, as the master of his century, created a new epoch. 
 We have not kept pace with the age, therefore it has left 
 us behind. No one is better aware of this than the king. 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 53 
 
 I have just had a conversation with him, in which he re¬ 
 peatedly said, as if speaking to himself, ‘ This also must 
 be changed among us.’ . . . Better times will certainly 
 come. Faith in the most perfect Being is a guaranty for 
 this. But only through goodness can the world become bet¬ 
 ter. Therefore, I do not believe that the Emperor Napoleon 
 Bonaparte is firm and safe on his glittering throne. Only 
 truth and justice are strong and secure. . . . He has no 
 moderation, and he who cannot observe moderation loses 
 his balance and falls. . . . What has taken place is un¬ 
 mistakably neither final nor abiding, nor for the best good 
 of all, but only the opening of a path to a better end. This 
 end appears to be at a great distance; we probably shall 
 not see it, and shall die before it is reached. As God 
 wills ; all as He wills.” 
 
 The French troops had left Berlin, and the royal family 
 were to return Dec. 23. The queen had longed for the 
 day. She said, “ A homesickness that I cannot describe 
 draws me thither [to Berlin] and to my Charlottenburg ! ” 
 
 On the anniversary of the day and hour on which 
 Louise entered Berlin as a bride sixteen years before, she 
 entered it again Dec. 23, 1809. She rode in a handsome 
 carriage lined with lilac, her favorite color, the gift of the 
 citizens. By her side were her two daughters and her 
 son, Prince Charles. The king was on horseback with 
 his generals, while Frederick and William, the two sons, 
 were on foot as officers of guards in the queen’s regiment. 
 The citizens seemed wild with joy. The royal family 
 went first to the cathedral to attend a national thanks¬ 
 giving service, and then to the royal box at the opera 
 house to please the people. 
 
 Fouque said, “The queen sat beside her lnlsband. As 
 she conversed she often raised her eyes to the king 
 
54 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 with a very touching expression; had she, perhaps, 
 already the presentiment that she would not long be the 
 comforter, the consoling guide of the severely-tried mon¬ 
 arch? I do not know ; but when she bowed to the public, 
 before leaving the house, as was at that time the custom, 
 I could not help being struck by her expression, and I 
 said to my friends as we were returning home, I had 
 thought that Prussia could now give up all thoughts of 
 war, and settle down to peaceful pursuits, as Frederick 
 had done after the battle of Molwitz, which he lost; but 
 now I feel quite differently. 
 
 “ Our beloved queen has thanked us with tears. Bona¬ 
 parte has dimmed those heavenly eyes, and I wish Prus¬ 
 sia could gain a victory to brighten them. That may not 
 be granted to us, but at all events we must do everything 
 that can be done to make those eyes sparkle again.” 
 
 Borowsky, the court preacher, said, “Our dear queen 
 is far from joyful, but her seriousness has a quiet serenity, 
 and the calmness and repose, which God gives her, sheds 
 over her entire life a noble grace. Her eyes, it is true, 
 have lost their former sparkle, and one sees that they have 
 wept much, and still weep ; but by this they have received 
 an expression of gentle sorrow and quiet longing which 
 is even more charming than that which mere enjoyment of 
 life would give. The bloom on her countenance is indeed 
 gone and a soft pallor overspreads it, yet her face is still 
 beautiful, and now the white roses on her cheeks please 
 me almost more than the red of other days. At times 
 is seen a slight trembling of the mouth, around which 
 formerly a sweet, happy smile hovered. Sorrow is implied 
 by this, but it is not bitter. Her dress is ever exceed¬ 
 ingly simple, and the choice of colors indicates her frame 
 of mind.” 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 55 
 
 The king, as was his usual custom, thought how he 
 might benefit, the poor. He gave five thousand dollars to 
 them, remitted all punishments for light offences, and set 
 at liberty all whose terms of imprisonment were less than 
 a year. 
 
 To commemorate this return to Berlin, the people 
 placed on an island in the Thiergartcn a beautiful vase, 
 by the sculptor Schadow, which each year is filled with 
 fiowers on Louise’s birthday, the 10th of March. 
 
 The queen’s tenth and last child, Prince Albert, had 
 been born two months previously, Oct. 4, 1809. She was 
 in failing health with lung trouble. On her last birth¬ 
 day, March 10, 1810, when she was thirty-four, she said, 
 “ I think this will be the last birthday 1 shall ever cele¬ 
 brate.” 
 
 The country Mas unable to meet the money demands of 
 Napoleon. The latter said, “ if the king cannot pay, 
 nothing remains to be done but to surrender Silesia.” 
 The queen wrote Napoleon, begging for a modification in 
 the interests of Prussia, but it availed nothing. Napo¬ 
 leon's descendants were to learn later on that magna¬ 
 nimity to a fallen foe would have been the part of wisdom, 
 at least. 
 
 On May 20, Louise wished to go to Paretz. She 
 twined a wreath of oak leaves and flowers, still pre¬ 
 served, and was so loath to depart that she staid until the 
 moon came up, and then walked arm-in-arm down the 
 long avenue with her husband, and passed out of the gate 
 near the summer-house. Not long after, the king locked 
 the gate out of which she went for the last time, and it 
 has never been reopened. In the grotto where she used 
 to sit and teach her children is an iron table, with letters 
 in gold : “ Remember the absent.” 
 
56 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 On June 25, Louise started for Gharlottenburg, to make 
 a long desired visit to her father. On her arrival only 
 one day was given to a public reception. On that even¬ 
 ing she showed some of the ladies a locket which she 
 wore containing her husband’s picture, saying that it was 
 her most precious treasure. On the following day the 
 king arrived. Being in a room with her brother George, 
 and in front of her father’s writing-desk, she sat down 
 and wrote the last words she was ever to put upon paper: 
 
 My dear father, — I am to-day very happy as your daughter, 
 and as the wife of the best of men. Louise. 
 
 New Strelitz, 28 June, 1810.” 
 
 These words were always carefully treasured by Em¬ 
 peror William, her sou. 
 
 Louise went soon after with the family into the country 
 to the castle of Hohenzieritz. The king was obliged to 
 return to Berlin, but he wrote her affectionately. One 
 day when a letter came she said, putting it next her heart, 
 “Oh, what a letter! Hew happy the one who receives 
 such a letter ! ” 
 
 Louise soon became ill, and was tenderly watched by 
 her sister. “Oh,” she moaned, “if only their anxiety 
 for,me were not so great! It will make them ill.” 
 
 On Monday, July 1G, she was attacked with spasms, 
 which lasted five hours. The king had been sent for. 
 “Will he come soon? How late is it?” she asked re¬ 
 peatedly. “ Think of my dying and leaving the king and 
 the children ! ” she said to her physician. At four o’clock 
 on the morning of July 19 the king arrived with the two 
 elder sons. With eyes full of affection she looked on the 
 two boys, saying, “ My Fritz ! my William 1 ” 
 
 When the king was told that she could not recover he 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PRUSSIA. 
 
 57 
 
 said, sadly, “Oh, if she were not mine, she would live; 
 but since she is my wife, she will surely die ! ” 
 
 He left the room to gain control over his feelings. 
 “ Tell him,” said the queen, “ not to be so agitated, or I 
 shall die instantly.” The king sat on the edge of the bed 
 and tried to warm the cold hands of the queen. At ten 
 minutes before nine o’clock, in the forenoon, Louise looked 
 upon them all with her clear, open gaze, and then towards 
 heaven, saying : “I am dying ! O Jesus, make it easy ! ” 
 She drew a long breath, and life was finished. 
 
 All Germany seemed in tears. Bliicher said, “Our 
 saint is in heaven.” When four years later he led his 
 victorious army to the heights of Montmartre, when the 
 Allies entered Paris, he said, remembering those agonizing 
 days, “Louise is avenged!” 
 
 The precious body of the queen was carried to Berlin, 
 and lay in state until July 30. Six months later, on Dec. 
 23, the anniversary of her wedding day, the mausoleum 
 at Charlottenburg having been made ready, she was car¬ 
 ried thither. 
 
 The exterior of the temple is of red granite, four Doric 
 columns supporting the entablature. The building is 
 sheltered by trees—appropriate, since, with their shade 
 and graceful motion, they seemed to her as friends. 
 The exquisite recumbent statue of Louise in its soft blue 
 light, from the Hue glass above, as though the sky were 
 reflected upon it, is by Rauch, who worked on it two years 
 as a labor of love, for the queen had befriended him. lie 
 had been a footman in the royal household. Seeing his 
 love for art Louise furnished the means for his study at 
 Rome. Frederick thought of asking Canova to make the 
 statue, but Rauch was so disappointed that the work was 
 given to him; he died in 1857, honored by his nation. 
 
58 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The king founded several institutions and orders in 
 memory of his beloved Louise. The Order of the Iron 
 Cross was instituted on her birthday, 1814. 
 
 Napoleon, when he heard of the death of Louise, said, 
 “ The king has lost his best minister.” He too was com¬ 
 ing into sorrow. France and Russia were again at war. 
 
 The terrible march from the burning Moscow had been 
 made, the battle of Leipsic fought, and Alexander and 
 Frederick, — the crown prince and William riding behind 
 him, — with their army, entered Paris, March 31, 1814. 
 Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau, April 5, and soon 
 after retired to Elba. When, Aug. 7, the troops returned 
 to Berlin victorious, Charlotte now sixteen, in the place 
 of her beloved mother, greeted them with much feeling 
 and dignity. The king said, “ If this high honor be given 
 to those to whom it is due, to Gen. Bliicher and the Prus¬ 
 sian army, I will enter with them as the sovereign head 
 of a grateful people.” 
 
 After Napoleon’s escape from Elba, and his crushing 
 defeat at Waterloo, June 18, where Bliicher had one hun¬ 
 dred and sixteen thousand Prussian soldiers, he was sent 
 to St. Helena, where he lived in isolation for six lonely 
 years, dying May 5, 1821. What a contrast to Tilsit, 
 when Louise was the beautiful suppliant and he had it in 
 his power to be generous ! 
 
 Fourteen years after the death of Louise, Frederick 
 married the Countess von Harrach, a lovely woman, 
 though as she was not of royal blood she could not 
 become queen. He said to Bishop Eylert: “My last 
 daughter, my darling Louise, so like her mother, is leaving 
 me; I would not have it otherwise. ... I cannot be so 
 selfish as to wish to keep her with me through the re¬ 
 mainder of my life, but what should I do without her? 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PliUSSIA. 
 
 v « 
 
 5! I 
 
 Womanly companionship and sympathy have become 
 necessary to me, therefore I must marry again.” 
 
 He died sixteen years later, June 7, 1840, having 
 reigned forty-three years. Under the decoration of the 
 Black Eagle which he always wore was found the face of 
 Louise. 
 
 Frederick William IV., his son, reigned twenty-one 
 years, and died Jan. 2, 18G1, without children. lie 
 directed by will that his body should be opened, and his 
 heart taken out, and buried in a granite heart of propor¬ 
 tionate size, at the feet of his mother at Charlottenburg. 
 
 King William came to the throne on the death of his 
 brother. Early in 1870 trouble arose with France be¬ 
 cause Spain wished to make Prince Leopold of Ilohen- 
 zollern her king. France wished King William to inter¬ 
 fere to prevent it, which he declined to do. 
 
 A declaration of war was delivered at Berlin, July 19, 
 1870. King William said, “ God knows I am not re¬ 
 sponsible for this war; the demands were such that I 
 could do no other than reject them.” 
 
 Sixty years before, on July 19, he had knelt beside his 
 mother’s death-bed. Before going to war he went to 
 Charlottenburg, and stood with uncovered head beside her 
 tomb. 
 
 The Prussian army numbered a half million well-drilled 
 men, with a half million more ready for service. Moltke 
 knew France almost as well as he knew Germany, and 
 Bismarck was a born leader by the side of his brave king. 
 
 Battle after battle was gained by the Prussians, cul¬ 
 minating in the surrender of Napoleon III., at Sedan, 
 Sept. 2, 1870, with from eighty to ninety thousand French 
 soldiers. He was sent a royal prisoner to Wilhelmshohe. 
 Metz surrendered Oct. 27, with one hundred and seventy- 
 
60 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 three thousand Frenchman. A little more than a month 
 later, Jan. 18, 1871, King William, in the palace of Louis 
 XIV., at Versailles, was crowned Emperor William I. of 
 Germany. His ancestor, Frederick the Great, on that day 
 one hundred and eighty years before, had been crowned 
 king of Prussia. 
 
 The terms of peace, concluded between Bismarck, Jules 
 Favre, and Thiers, included the ceding of nearly the whole 
 of Alsace and Lorraine with other territory, about six 
 thousand square miles in all, to Germany, and a war in¬ 
 demnity of one thousand million dollars. 
 
 As soon as the emperor returned to Berlin, he went aloue 
 to the mausoleum at Charlottenburg. He was not insensi¬ 
 ble to the horrors of war. He knew how r the heart of the 
 Empress Eugenie w ould bleed and break like his mother’s. 
 He knew how r the ceded countries would mourn, and how 
 France would struggle under her pecuniary burdens ; but 
 out of all the sorrow had come that for winch Louise 
 louged and labored,—German unity. 
 
 He worshipped the memory of his mother. When he 
 was eighty, and her statue was unveiled in the Thiergarten 
 at Berlin, he said, “ In my childhood and in my j'outh I 
 could not understand what she foreboded, aud yet God in 
 his grace chose me to carry to completion what she fore¬ 
 saw, when I myself had scarcely a premonition of what 
 was to happen. It is clear to me that God selects his 
 instruments to do his will. And this inspires me with the 
 deepest humility and the deepest thankfulness.” 
 
 August Kluckhorn, in his memorial of Louise, translated 
 by Elizabeth H. Denio, of Wellesley College, gives these 
 touching words of the gifted queen : “ Even if posterity 
 does not mention my name among illustrious women, yet, 
 when it learns the sorrow's of the time, it will know what 
 
QUEEN LOUISE OF PH US SI A. 
 
 61 
 
 I have suffered through them, and will say : She endured 
 much, she remained patient in the midst of suffering. 
 Then I could wish that at the same time they might say : 
 She gave birth to children who were worthy of better 
 times; she endeavored to lead them on, and at last her 
 care has borne rich fruit.” 
 
 The wish has been fulfilled. Her care has indeed 
 “ borne rich fruit.” Gracious and beautiful, kind to the 
 lowest and the highest, the cultivated friend of poets and 
 statesmen, a devoted wife and mother, brave and able to 
 lead, yet gentle and lovable, she was, and is, the inspira¬ 
 tion of a great nation. 
 
MADAME RECAMIER, THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 “ f I be beloved was the history of Madame Recamier. 
 
 -L Beloved by all in her youth for her astonishing 
 beauty; beloved for her gentleness, her inexhaustible kind¬ 
 ness, for the charm of a character which was reflected in 
 her sweet face; beloved for the tender and sympathizing 
 friendship which she awarded with an exquisite tact and 
 discrimination of heart; beloved by old and young, small 
 and great, by women, — even women, so fastidious where 
 other women are concerned; beloved always and by all 
 from her cradle to the grave, — such was the lot, such 
 will be the renown, of this charming woman ! What other 
 glory is so enviable ? ” 
 
 Thus wrote Madame de Hautefeuille in her lament over 
 this celebrated woman. 
 
 What gave Madame Recamier her extraordinary power, 
 her charm over all with whom she came in contact? What 
 has made her memory fragrant for half a century ? 
 
 The cry of every heart is to be loved; to her, love 
 was given in the fullest measure. Every person desires 
 to have influence; she swayed, as by magic, each of her 
 acquaintances. Beauty counts for much, but she received 
 the same worship when she was old and blind, and from 
 those scarcely half her age. The richest in the realm 
 asked her hand in marriage ; the poorest gave her homage. 
 
MADAME bAcAMIEB. 
 
 63 
 
 Literary men sought her counsel, and she inspired them 
 to their best efforts. She had learned, what comparatively 
 few ever learn in this world, the secret of power, the way 
 to win and to hold hearts. 
 
 Jeanne Francoise Julie Adelaide Bernard was born at 
 Lyons, Dec. 4, 1777. Her father, Jean, a notary, was a 
 handsome man, but of weak character; her mother, Juli¬ 
 ette Manton, was equally handsome, but of great strength 
 of mind and business capacity. She amassed a fortune 
 in speculation, and held it through the horrors of the 
 Reign of Terror. She was not only capable, but viva¬ 
 cious and graceful, finding time to educate her daughter 
 carefully, and to be to her a sister as well as a mother. 
 The two were inseparable. 
 
 When Julie, or Juliette as she was usually called, was 
 seven years old, her father having been appointed collector 
 of customs in Paris, she was sent to the home of her 
 mother’s sister, Madame Blachette, at Ville-franche. Here 
 she was very happy in the affection of a child of her own 
 age, Renard Ilumblot, the first of her almost numberless 
 admirers. 
 
 After a time she became a pupil at the convent of La 
 Dcserte at Lyons, where one of her mother’s sisters had 
 become a nun. She left this school with great reluctance, 
 to live in Paris. After her death, this notice of her 
 school life was found among her papers : — 
 
 The next day, bathed in tears, I passed over the threshold 
 of that door, the opening of which to admit me I could scarcely 
 remember. I was put into a carriage with my aunt, and we set 
 off for Paris. From this serene and innocent period of my life 
 I turn with regret to one of turmoil. The former comes back 
 to me sometimes like a vague, sweet dream, with its clouds of 
 incense, its innumerable ceremonies, its processions in the gar¬ 
 dens, its chants, and its flowers. . . . 
 
64 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 It is doubtless owing to these vivid impressions, received 
 during childhood, that I have been able to retain my religious 
 belief, though coming in contact with persons of such various 
 and contradictory opinions. I have listened to them, understood 
 them, admitted them, as far as they were admissible; but I 
 have never allowed doubt to enter my heart. 
 
 In Paris, Juliette went early into the social life of 
 which her mother was fond. Once at Versailles, when 
 Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and the whole royal family 
 dined in public, as the crowd passed around the table the 
 beauty of the young Juliette attracted the queen, who 
 sent for her to come to their private apartments. Here 
 she met the princess royal, a girl about her own age, 
 eleven or twelve years old. 
 
 Juliette grew to womanhood very graceful, timid, yet 
 elegant in manner, very fond of dancing, and gifted in 
 music. She gave up singing and the harp iii later life, 
 but always retained her skill on the piano. 'When blind, 
 years afterwards, she would play from the old masters at 
 twilight, while the tears rolled down her cheeks. 
 
 Twice a week, the mother, Madame Bernard, gave fine 
 suppers at her home, where she welcomed all clever peo¬ 
 ple. Among the visitors was M. Recamier, a rich banker, 
 tall and fair, with blue eyes and regular features. He 
 was well versed in Latin, often quoting Horace and Virgil, 
 and also spoke Spanish fluently. He was a good talker, 
 very hopeful, throwing off care easily, agreeable, without 
 very deep feelings, and generous. 
 
 He was forty-two and Juliette fifteen when he asked her 
 in marriage. He had been kind to the child and had 
 given her pretty playthings. He was proud of her girlish 
 beauty, and she regarded him as a father. They were 
 married April 21, 1793. 
 
MADAME RECAMIER. 
 
MADAME RECAMIER. 
 
 65 
 
 The Reign of Terror was at its height. Beautiful Marie 
 Antoinette went to the scaffold that year. M. Recamier 
 saw her die, expecting daily that he and his family would 
 meet the same fate. 
 
 For four years Juliette Recamier lived a quiet, unevent¬ 
 ful life, till order was somewhat restored in distracted 
 France. She had become very beautiful. Her com¬ 
 plexion was surprisingly fair, her teeth white and regular, 
 her mouth small, her dark eyes brilliant though not large, 
 her hair black and curling naturally, and her face arch 
 and frank, lighting up with an irresistible expression 
 of goodness and interest in those she met. Her head 
 was well poised, and her carriage slightly indicative of 
 pride. 
 
 Her presence was solicited at subscription balls and 
 other public places. At St. Roch she was asked to pass 
 the contribution box for a charitable object. So intense 
 was the desire to see her that the church was crowded, 
 and people stood on chairs and altars of the side chapels 
 to catch a glimpse of the beauty of nineteen. The col¬ 
 lection amounted to twenty thousand francs. Crowds 
 gathered to see her in the fashionable drives at Long- 
 champs. 
 
 In the summers she and her mother lived at the chateau 
 of Clichy, its park, abounding in flowers, of which Juli¬ 
 ette was passionately fond, extending to the Seine. M. 
 Recamier dined with her every day, but slept at Baris, 
 where his tastes and his business called him. 
 
 On Dec. 10, 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte, the young 
 Corsican officer, had returned from his triumphs in Italy, 
 and the Directory were giving a fete in his honor in the 
 great court of the Luxembourg palace. Five Directors, 
 dressed in Roman costume, sat at the foot of the statue 
 
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 66 
 
 of Liberty, while the place was thronged with ministers, 
 invited guests, and the people, eager in their hero worship. 
 
 Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign Affairs, made a speech 
 of congratulation, and Bonaparte responded in a few sim¬ 
 ple and strong words. Juliette Recamier, dressed, as 
 was her custom, in white, desiring to see the face of the 
 slender young soldier, rose in her seat to look at him. 
 The eyes of the crowd were attracted in a moment, and 
 a murmur of admiration swept through the audience. 
 Napoleon, though not knowing her, gave her a stern look, 
 and she hastily took her seat. She was to know him 
 later on, receive his admiration, and then feel his severity. 
 
 The following year, 1798, M. Recamier bought a house 
 in Paris, in the Rue du Mont Blanc, afterwards No. 7 
 Chaussee d’Antin. It had been the home of M. Neeker, 
 the father of Madame de Stael, and through this trans¬ 
 action the life-long friendship of Madame Recamier and 
 Madame de Stael began. 
 
 The mansion was immediately repaired and enlarged. 
 The chairs were mahogany and ormolu, in cloth or silk, 
 and trimmed with gold lace. Juliette’s bed was consid¬ 
 ered the most beautiful in Paris, — mahogany enriched 
 with ormolu and bronze, covered with embroidered mus¬ 
 lin, bordered with gold lace. Her bath room was inlaid 
 with satin wood and mahogany, with arabesque patterns 
 in black. No expense was spared to make this abode one 
 of rare elegance and luxury. 
 
 Napoleon had become First Consul, and in the winter 
 of 1790 Lucien. his brother, then Home Minister, made a 
 fete in his honor. For a year Lucien, twenty-four years 
 old, had been deeply in love with Madame Recamier. She 
 showed his ardent letters to her husband, and wished to 
 forbid him her house, but M. Recamier feared to offend 
 
MADAME ll£. CAMIEM. 
 
 67 
 
 the brother of the First Consul, lest his banking business 
 should be injured. 
 
 At the fite Madame Recamier appeared in white satin, 
 with necklace and bracelets of pearl, — she never wore 
 diamonds even when possessed of her greatest wealth. 
 
 At dinner, Napolean passed alone into the dining-room 
 without offering his arm to any lady present. He sat at 
 the middle of the table, his mother, Madame Letitia, on 
 his right, while no one dared to take the vacant place at 
 his left. 
 
 After dinner he said to Madame Recamier, “Why did 
 you not take the seat next to me? ” 
 
 “ I should not have presumed,” she replied. 
 
 “ It was your place,” he answered. During the music 
 after dinner, Napoleon’s constant gaze made her very 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 Five years later, when the First Consul had become 
 Emperor, Fouche, Minister of the Police, was sent by 
 Napoleon to ask Madame Recamier to attach herself to 
 his court as lady of honor. “ He has not yet,” said 
 Fouche, “met a woman worthy of him; and no one 
 knows what the love of Napoleon might be, if he at¬ 
 tached himself to a pure person. Assuredly he would 
 allow her to exert an intluonce that would be entirely 
 beneficent.” 
 
 Mad ame Recamier refused the position. She admired 
 the genius of Napoleon, but she could not forgive him 
 for banishing many of her friends, Madame de Staid, the 
 noble Gen. Moreau, and others. 
 
 The execution of the Duke d’Enghien seemed to her a 
 blot upon his character. The duke, a prince of the House 
 of Bourbon, suspected by Napoleon of plotting against 
 him. was arrested, tried by court-martial at four o’clock 
 
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 08 
 
 in the morning, March 21, 1814, and, though not proven 
 guilty, was shot at half-past four at Vincennes, and buried 
 in a grave already dug for him before the trial. Fouchc 
 said of this act, "It was worse than a crime; it was a 
 blunder.” 
 
 M. Bernard, the father of Madame Recamier, had been 
 arrested and deprived of the office of postmaster-general, 
 having incurred the displeasure of Napoleon for allowing 
 Royalist documents to be circulated. 
 
 Fouchc was angered at Madame Recamier’s refusal, and 
 it is probable that his imperial master never forgave her. 
 The emperor, when at St. Helena, dictated this state¬ 
 ment : — 
 
 “ Napoleon, upon first taking the reins of the govern¬ 
 ment, was obliged to sign on trust a number of lists; but 
 he very soon established a strict inspection over every 
 department He discovered that a correspondence with 
 the Chouans was going on, under cover of M. Bernard, 
 the father of Madame Recamier. He was immediately 
 removed, and was in danger of being brought to trial and 
 condemned to death. His daughter hastened to the First 
 Consul, and through her solicitations her father was not 
 tried ; but Napoleon was resolute with regard to his dis- 
 missah Madame Recamier. accustomed to obtain every¬ 
 thing, aimed at nothing less than the restoration of her 
 father to office. Such was the state of morality of the 
 times, that this severity on the part of the First Consul 
 caused great outcries. People were not used to it. Madame 
 Recamier and her party, which was numerous, never for¬ 
 gave him.” 
 
 In 1802, Madame Recamier accompanied by her mother, 
 visited England, the Duke do Guignes, ambassador to 
 London under Louis XVI., giving her enthusiastic letters 
 
MADAME RECAMIER. 
 
 69 
 
 of introduction. Everywhere she received the greatest 
 attention. The Duchess of Devonshire became her inti¬ 
 mate friend. The Prince of Wales showed her every 
 courtesy. The journals vied with each other in descrip¬ 
 tions of her. Great crowds gathered on the streets and 
 in Kensington Gardens to catch a glimpse of her. Pic¬ 
 tures of her were spread throughout England, and were 
 carried to the isles of Greece. 
 
 The celebrated painter, David, had made a portrait of 
 her, with which he was not wholly satisfied, and Gerard 
 had painted his full-length portrait of her. David’s pic¬ 
 ture was sold to the museum of the Louvre for six thou¬ 
 sand francs. 
 
 Madame Recamier already had formed some devoted 
 friendships which lasted through life. Matthieu Jean 
 Felicite, the Duke de Montmorency, met her when he 
 was thirty-eight and she twenty-three. He had served in 
 the war of the American Revolution under his father, 
 had married early in life Mile, de Luynes, by whom he 
 had one daughter, and though one of the old aristocracy 
 of France, had embraced liberal ideas, and in the National 
 Assembly had moved to abolish the privileges of the 
 nobility. The execution of his brother, the Abbe de 
 Laval, whom he loved tenderly, led the impetuous and 
 worldly young man to become a devoted Christian. 
 
 The duke knew when he first met Madame Recamier 
 that her life was not a happy one. Married to a man 
 nearly three times her own age, without similarity of 
 tastes, without children in the home, her heart was deso¬ 
 late. He admired her tenderness, her purity, and her 
 constant thought for others. lie saw her desire to please 
 and her longing for love rather than for admiration, and 
 he feared the results for her. Till his death, through all 
 
70 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the cares of state that weighed upon him, he never ceased 
 to watch over her, and write to her in his absence. 
 
 “ Do all those things that are good and kind, and that 
 will cause no heart-breaks or leave regrets behind,” he 
 wrote her. “ I am not without fear of the daily effects 
 of a frivolous society which can do you no good, and to 
 which you yourself are superior. ... I hope you have 
 not forgotten your promise to devote, daily, half an hour 
 to consecutive and serious reading. These two conditions 
 are indispensable; and also a few moments to prayer and 
 meditation. Is this too much to ask for the greatest, one 
 might say the only, interest of life?” 
 
 George, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, brother 
 of the Queen of Prussia, became her sincere friend. He 
 wrote her nearly forty years after the beginning of their 
 friendship, “ It [the heart] tells me that the ravishing 
 beauty with which nature had endowed you is only the 
 reflection of an adorable soul, and that such a soul could 
 never forget any one whom it once judged worthy of its 
 esteem and affection. ... We all look upon you as the 
 embodiment of perfect beauty and perfect goodness.” 
 
 General Bernadotte, afterwards king of Sweden, was 
 her devoted friend. He wrote her while she was in Eng¬ 
 land, “In the midst of all the attention and homage which 
 you receive, and which you so justly merit, pray do not 
 forget that the being the most devoted to you in the world 
 is Bernadotte.” 
 
 Madame Recamier did not find her pleasure in society 
 alone. She was foremost in all charities, founding schools 
 for girls, visiting the poor and the afflicted, and giving 
 sympathy and appreciation as fully as she gave money 
 and time. 
 
 One Saturday, in the autumn of 180G, M. Recamier 
 
MADAME It A CAM IE It. 
 
 71 
 
 came to his wife much disturbed. His banking-house was 
 embarrassed. If the Bank of France would advance a 
 million, he might not fail. 
 
 Invitations were already issued for a great dinner which 
 they were to give. M. Recamier hastened to the country 
 because he could not meet the guests. The wife of 
 twenty-nine years must do it, and do it with all her accus¬ 
 tomed grace and cheerfulness. The dinner was given, 
 and Madame Recamier met all with a smiling face, while 
 her heart was aching. 
 
 The loan of the million was harshly refused by the 
 government, the resentment of the emperor, doubtless, 
 having something to do with the refusal. The great 
 banking-house of M. Recamier failed, and many smaller 
 houses in consequence. M. Recamier gave up everything 
 to his creditors, his wife sold her jewels to help pay the 
 debts, and their house aud valuable plate were disposed of. 
 
 Those only who have passed through such an ordeal 
 know the anguish of it. To lose for ourselves is little 
 compared with the fact that others lose through us. To 
 owe and not be able to meet obligations, however honestly 
 incurred, has led to many a heart-break and suicide. 
 
 The sympathy for Madame Recamier was universal. 
 Madame de Staid Wrote her from Geneva, “ How I curse 
 the exile which will not permit me to come to you and 
 press you to my heart! You have lost all that pertains 
 to the ease and luxury of life; but, if such a thing could 
 be possible, you are more beloved and more interesting 
 than ever. ... If it were possible for me to envy any one 
 whom I love, 1 would willingly give all I have to be you. 
 Beauty that has no equal in Europe, a spotless reputation, 
 a proud and generous character, — what a wealth of 1 nip¬ 
 piness still left in this sad life, in which we are robbed of 
 
72 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 so many treasures. . . . There is still happiness left, 
 when one is conscious of being so well beloved. . . . 
 Neither death nor the indifference of friends menaces you, 
 and these are eternal wounds. Adieu ! dear angel, adieu ! ” 
 
 Gen. Bcrnadotte wrote her on the eve of battle, “ I 
 have not ceased to give you my prayers and best wishes; 
 but, though destined to love you ever, I dared not run 
 the risk of tiring you with my letters. Adieu ! if you 
 still think of me, believe that you are my chief thought, 
 and that nothing equals the sweet and tender friendship 
 I cherish for yon.” 
 
 When Napoleon was told by Junot, Duke d’Abrantes, 
 of the sorrow felt for Madame Recamier, he answered im¬ 
 patiently, “ They could not have paid more honor to a 
 widow of a Marshal of France, who had lost her husband 
 on the field of battle.” 
 
 Troubles did not come singly to Madame Recamier. Her 
 mother, from whom she had not been separated since her 
 childhood, had been ill for some time. The financial ruin 
 of 31. Recamier, and consequent sorrow for her daughter, 
 caused her death Jan. 20, 1807. 
 
 For six months Madame Recamier sought respite from 
 her grief in seclusion, but her health becoming affected, 
 she consented to visit Madame de Stael at Coppet, in the 
 middle of the summer. 
 
 No one has ever stood in that gray chateau with its 
 green blinds, in the room hung with Gobelin tapestry, 
 where Madame Recamier used to sit with Madame de Stael 
 and look out upon placid Lake Geneva, so restful to two 
 troubled lives, without feeling the deepest interest in these 
 two remarkable women. 
 
 At the time of Madame Recamier’s visit, Prince Augus¬ 
 tus of Prussia, the nephew of Frederick the Great, was 
 
MADAME BA'CAMIEB. 
 
 73 
 
 staying at Geneva. He was but twenty-four, handsome, 
 of fine figure, brave in war, and cultivated and refined in 
 peace. He had been taken prisoner at the battle of Saal- 
 feld, where his eldest brother, Louis, was killed. 
 
 Prince Augustus met Madame Recamier at Coppet, and 
 gave her the supreme affection of his heart. He knew her 
 unhappy life, and urged her to free herself from her mar¬ 
 riage vows and become his wife. She was touched by his 
 devotion, and encouraged by Madame de Stael, wrote to 
 M. Recamier requesting a dissolution of the union which 
 had been such only in name. 
 
 M. Recamier replied kindly that he would consent if 
 she wished it, but he recalled his affection given her from 
 her childhood, his present misfortunes, and his oncoming 
 age. If she persisted in her request, he would go witli 
 her outside of Paris, where they would not be subject to 
 remark, and help her obtain a separation. 
 
 After such a letter, her heart relented, and the divorce 
 was never more thought of. For years Prince Augustus 
 cherished the hope that her resolution might be shaken. 
 He continued to write her until he saw her again eight 
 years later, in 1815, when the allied armies entered Paris. 
 He was in command of the Prussian artillery, and before 
 he reached the city he besieged successively several for¬ 
 tresses, writing her from each one. 
 
 lie met her again in Paris, in 1818, -when he commis¬ 
 sioned Gerard to paint for her the picture of Corinue, 
 “ as an immortal souvenir of the passion with which she 
 had inspired him, and of the glorious friendship which 
 united Corinue and Juliette.” In exchange for this 
 picture, Madame Recamier sent him her portrait by 
 Gerard. 
 
 The prince had it hung in the gallery of his palace at 
 
74 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Berlin till his death, when, in accordance with his last 
 wishes, it was returned to her in 1845. Three months 
 before his death he wrote her, “The ring that you gave 
 me I will carry to the tomb ” It was buried with him. 
 However unfortunate this hopeless affection of the prince, 
 it was but one of many illustrations of the fact that no 
 person ever loved Madame Recamier without continuing 
 this love through life. 
 
 In the summer of 1811, Madame Recamier determined 
 to visit again her exiled friend at Coppet. Madame de 
 Stael— ten thousand copies of her “Germany” had just 
 been destroyed through the decree of government — 
 begged Madame Recamier not to come to her, fearing 
 that she too would be exiled. Other friends tried to 
 dissuade her, but she decided to take the risk. 
 
 The result was what had been expected. Madame de 
 Stael says in her “Ten Years of Exile,” “It was with 
 convulsions of tears that I saw her enter the house, where 
 heretofore her arrival had always been welcomed with joy. 
 She left the next day, and repaired to the residence of a 
 relative, fifty leagues from Switzerland. But it was all 
 in vain : the fatal stroke of exile smote her also. . . . 
 Separated from all her friends, she passed whole months 
 in a provincial town, a victim to the saddest and most 
 monotonous solitude. Such was the fate which I had 
 brought upon the most brilliant woman of her day.” 
 
 Madame Recamier lived in exile, forty leagues from 
 Paris, at Chalons-sur-Marne, with the little niece of 
 M. Recamier, whom she had adopted a few weeks pre¬ 
 viously. Very few friends dared to visit her. To relieve 
 the monotony, she made the acquaintance of the organist 
 of the parish, and went every Sunday to play the organ 
 at high mass. She resolved never to ask to be returned 
 
MAD A ME BACAMIEE. 
 
 75 
 
 to prance, and requested her friends who were near the 
 emperor never to mention her name in his presence. 
 
 After ten months of this lonely life, she was induced, 
 by Madame de Stael, to go to Lyons in June, 1812, and 
 reside at the Hotel de l’Europe. Here she met the elegant 
 Duchess de Chevreuse, who was dying in consequence 
 of exile. She was the daughter-in-law of the Duchess 
 de Luynes, whose daughter had married Matthieu de 
 Montmorency. 
 
 At the home of Madame de Sermesy, the niece of INI . 
 Simonard, the old friend of Madame Recamier’s father, 
 the lonely exile formed some lasting friendships. Camille 
 Jordan, the distinguished orator, had known her from 
 childhood. She had written to him, when M. Recamier 
 failed: “However unexpected my misfortunes, I have 
 been able to bear them with resignation, and I have 
 had the satisfaction of consoling and alleviating the suf¬ 
 ferings of my husband and family; and should I not, 
 also, dear Camille, return thanks to Heaven, who, in re¬ 
 serving for me such bitter trials, has given me friends to 
 aid me in bearing them ? ” 
 
 It was a delight to meet this friend again. He intro¬ 
 duced her to the eminent Christian philosopher, 31. Bal- 
 lanche, a member of the French Academy and of the 
 Academy of Lyons. Ballanche had loved a young lady 
 of noble birth, but without fortune, had aided her father, 
 and had expected to win the daughter, but had been dis¬ 
 appointed in his hopes. 
 
 When introduced to Madame Recamier, 31. Ballanche 
 talked to her upon philosophy, and literary and political 
 subjects. Though not a great talker, she had so improved 
 her mind by wide reading, that in her communion with 
 men of intellect she could listen, as Sainte-Beuve said, 
 “ avec seduction.” 
 
76 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 From the hour that M. Ballauche met her, he became 
 her devoted friend for life. She was essential to his writ¬ 
 ing, to his comfort, to his very existence. When it 
 became necessary for her to go to Italy for her health, lie 
 selected the books for her to take in her carriage, among 
 them Chateaubriand’s “ Genius of Christianity.” 
 
 He wrote her after her departure : “ You are the per¬ 
 sonification of indulgence and pity ; you have seen in me 
 an exile from happiness, and have had compassion on 
 me. . . . Allow me to entertain for you the feelings of a 
 brother for a sister. I long for the time when I shall be 
 able to offer you. along with these fraternal sentiments, 
 all the humble homage in my power. My devotion will 
 be entire, and without reserve. 1 would sacrifice my own 
 happiness to yours. There is justice in this, for you are 
 of more value than I.” 
 
 Later he wrote: “My one absorbing thought is my 
 warm feeling of friendship for you. I have need to be 
 assured by you, and that as often as possible, that this 
 sentiment shall not end in unhappiness for me. I con¬ 
 fess, that every time I think of it I feel a kind of terror 
 that I cannot master. The idea often occurs to me that 
 you think you are attached to me, but that it is not really 
 so: this thought is an agony.” 
 
 After visiting Parma, Modena, Bologna, and Florence, 
 she arrived at Pome in Holy Week, 1813, and soon took 
 lodgings on the first floor of the Fiano Palace on the 
 Cor so. 
 
 One of her first visits was to the studio of Canova. He 
 was delighted to see the “ most beautiful woman in 
 Europe,” and she in turn to meet genius, which she always 
 worshipped. He returned her visit that evening, and from 
 that time, while she remained in Italy, he never failed to 
 
MADAME li£cAMIES. 
 
 77 
 
 pass the evening with her. He came early, and went 
 away a little before ten o’clock. Every morning he sent 
 her a pleasant note. Her appreciation became a necessity, 
 and her friendship an inspiration. 
 
 When summer came, Canova invited Madame Recamier 
 to his home at Albano, in the Hotel Emiliano. He re¬ 
 served for himself and his brother, the abbe, the rooms 
 facing the square, and gave to Madame Recamier and her 
 niece those commanding a view of the Campagna. J. B. 
 Bassi, a Roman artist, painted a picture of this residence 
 with Madame Recamier seated near the window reading. 
 Canova sent her the picture in 1816. At Albano, as at 
 Chalons, she played the organ every Sunday at high mass 
 and vespers. 
 
 In December, 1813, she visited Naples, and received 
 great courtesy from King Joachim Murat and Queen 
 Caroline, the sister of Napoleon. Murat had been a 
 faithful ally of Napoleon, but the Neapolitans declared 
 in favor of separation from France. He signed the treaty 
 which bound him to the Allies Jan. 11, 1814. 
 
 While absent with his troops, Caroline was regent. 
 When about to sign a death warrant, Madame Recamier, 
 who was present, begged for the life of the accused. She 
 said to the queen, “Since heaven has brought me here 
 at this time, it is a sign that Providence would save this 
 unhappy man.” Her request was granted, and the man 
 was pardoned 
 
 On the return of Madame Recamier to Rome, Canova 
 showed her two clay busts which he had made of her, 
 exclaiming, “ Mira, se he pensato a lei” (See, I have 
 thought of you). 
 
 The busts did not satisfy her, though she tried to con¬ 
 ceal her feelings. The artist saw it, and added a crown 
 
78 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 of olives to the bust with a veil, making the well-known 
 figure of the Beatrice of Dante. A copy of this, in mar¬ 
 ble, was sent to Madame Recamier by Canova’s brother, 
 after the death of the sculptor. 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon had fallen and been sent to the 
 island of Elba. Madame Recamier returned to Paris, 
 June 1, 1814, after an exile of nearly three years. 
 
 The House of Bourbon came back to power iu the per¬ 
 son of Louis XVI11. The Restoration brought back to 
 Paris Madame Moreau, the wife of the illustrious general, 
 Madame de Stael, Matthieu de Montmorency, and other 
 noted friends of Madame Recamier. M. Recamier had 
 somewhat regained his fortune, and his wife had come 
 into possession of her mother’s property, valued at four 
 hundred thousand francs. Life seemed again joyous 
 and prosperous. Friends as ever gathered to pay her 
 homage. 
 
 The Duke of Wellington came often to her salon. 
 Though a Royalist, Madame Recamier received at her 
 home distinguished friends, irrespective of party. 
 
 The religious Baroness Ivriidener, who exerted such an 
 influence over the mind of the Emperor Alexander, asked 
 for Madame Recamier’s presence at her meetings, but 
 deputed the brilliant Benjamin Constant to write her: 
 “ Madame Knideuer begs that you will make your appear¬ 
 ance with as few charms as possible. She says that you 
 dazzle everybody, and consequently, as all hearts are dis¬ 
 turbed, attention is impossible. You cannot divest your¬ 
 self of your beauty; but, prithee, do not enhance it.” 
 
 In the summer of 1817 a great sorrow came to Madame 
 Recamier in the death of Madame de Stael. She, too, 
 had lived in a loveless marriage till she wedded the young 
 army officer, Rocca. in 1811, when she was forty-five and 
 
MADAME RECAMIER. 
 
 79 
 
 he twenty-three. For six years they idolized each other 
 He died seven months after her death. “ I hoped,” he 
 said, “ to have died in her arms.” 
 
 The loss to Madame Recamier was irreparable. Madame 
 de Stael had loved her with no common affection. She 
 wrote her: “ If I could live near you, I should be only 
 too happy. . . . Your friendship is like the spring in the 
 desert, that never fails ; and this it is which makes it im¬ 
 possible not to love you. . . . You ax - e, and you will ever 
 remain, an angel of purity and goodness, worshipped by 
 the devout as well as by worldlings.” 
 
 When absent they corresponded regularly, though 
 Madame de Stael truly said, “There is no such thing 
 as absence for Christians, because they meet each other 
 in the sentiment of prayer.” 
 
 By the bedside of Madame de Stael, Madame Recamier 
 made the acquaintance of the man to whom she was there¬ 
 after to give the first place in her heart, M. de Chateaubri¬ 
 and. lie was a man of brilliant talents, a statesman, a 
 person of distinguished bearing, and the foremost French 
 author of the age. 
 
 Born at Saint Malo, a quaint old seaport in Brittany, 
 Sept. 4, 1768, Rene Francois Auguste, Viscount de Cha¬ 
 teaubriand, was nine years the senior of Madame Recamier. 
 His family was one of the most ancient in Brittany. IIis 
 father destined him for the naval profession, and later he 
 thought of entering the church, but, diverted from this 
 by sceptical books, he became infidel in sentiment and 
 weary of existence. He was tempted to commit suicide, 
 but was saved from this by his brother, the Count de 
 Combourg, who obtained for him a lieutenancy in the 
 regiment of Navarre. 
 
 When he was eighteen, after the death of his father, 
 
80 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 he returned with his family to Paris. Alarmed at the 
 excesses of the French Revolution, he embarked in Jan¬ 
 uary, 1791, for the United States, hoping to find by the 
 support and help of Malesherbes, the eminent statesman, 
 a northwest passage to the Polar Sea. 
 
 AVith a letter of introduction to Gen. Washington, the 
 President, he called upon him, was received with great 
 kindness, and was invited to dine with him. He never 
 saw Washington afterwards, but the visit made a lasting 
 impression upon him. He said, years later, “There is 
 virtue in the look of a great man. I felt myself warmed 
 and refreshed by it during the rest of my life."’ 
 
 After visiting New York, Boston, and other cities, he 
 dressed himself in the garb of an Indian hunter, and 
 travelled through the wilderness, spending weeks in some 
 Indian village, and sometimes sleeping under a great tree 
 beside a camp-fire, “ locked,” he said, “ in the arms of a 
 limitless moonlit silence, broken only by the cries of wild 
 animals, or the stir of the wind-swept leaves, or the dis¬ 
 tant roar of eternal Niagara.” 
 
 Finding in an English newspaper, in a Canadian cabin, 
 an account of the arrest of Louis XA r I. he hastened back 
 to France to find his family imprisoned and his estates 
 confiscated. 
 
 At the request of his sister, he married Mile, de La- 
 vigne, a lady of considerable fortune. Going to Germany 
 to join some French nobles in defence of his country, he 
 was wounded, and finally made his way to London, where 
 he lived for several years in poverty and exile, spending 
 his days in translating books to gain a livelihood, and his 
 evenings in composing bis “ Essay on Revolutions.” 
 
 This was published in 1797, and created a sensation. 
 While it advocated the principles of virtue and natural 
 
MADAME BACAMEE. 
 
 81 
 
 religion, the author doubted whether the Christian religion 
 was not crumbling away with the institutions of society. 
 
 Meantime sorrow was touching his heart. His brother 
 and sister-in-law, with his friend Malesherbes, had per¬ 
 ished on the scaffold. His wife and sister had been im¬ 
 prisoned at Rennes, and his aged mother at Paris. She 
 was a woman of marked ability, from whom Chateaubriand 
 inherited his wonderful memory and remarkable imagina¬ 
 tion. She died in 1798, with a prayer on her lips for the 
 conversion of her son. 
 
 “ She charged one of my sisters,” he said, “ to recall 
 me to a sense of that religion in which I had been edu¬ 
 cated, and my sister made known to me her wish. When 
 the letter reached me beyond the water, my sister also 
 had departed this life, having succumbed to the effects 
 of her imprisonment. Those two voices coming up from 
 the grave, and that death which had now become the in¬ 
 terpreter of death, struck me with peculiar force. I 
 became a Christian. I did not yield to any great super¬ 
 natural light: my conviction came from the heart. 1 
 wept, and I believed.” 
 
 From that time Chateaubriand resolved to consecrate 
 his pen to the service of religion. He wrote and pub¬ 
 lished, five years later, in 1802, his greatest book, “The 
 Genius of Christianity,” a work showing profound re¬ 
 search and great beauty of diction. It was eagerly read, 
 admired, and also denounced. It was given to a people 
 at a time of their greatest need. Infidelity had swept 
 over the nation. The Sabbath was abolished, the churches 
 were closed, and Reason was enthroned in place of God. 
 Chateaubriand, with all the resources of his genius, at¬ 
 tempted to unfold, as he himseil said, “all the marvels 
 which religion has wrought in the regions of poetry, 
 morality, politics, history, and public charity.” 
 
82 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Napoleon said, “The style of Chateaubriand is not that 
 of Racine ; it is that of a prophet; he has received from 
 nature the sacred flame; it breathes in all his works.” 
 
 When Napoleon had become First Consul, Chateaubri¬ 
 and returned to France under an assumed name and 
 became one of the editors of the Mercure. He had 
 already published his great romance, “ Atala,” the story 
 of an Indian girl, who is pledged by her mother to vir¬ 
 ginity from her cradle, and when she is older takes the 
 vow never to marry. .She falls passionately in love with 
 Rene, an Indian warrior, who has been made a captive 
 by her tribe. She plans his escape, and succeeds in 
 accomplishing it. Finding her love for him overcoming 
 her, she kills herself rather than break her vow. The 
 disciples of Voltaire wrote pamphlets against the book, 
 but it had an extended reading, and brought its author 
 into prominence. 
 
 Napoleon, with the hope of attracting the Bourbon 
 sympathizers to his side, appointed Chateaubriand first 
 secretary to Cardinal Fesch, then ambassador to Rome. 
 Chateaubriand tired of this position, and Napoleon made 
 him minister plenipotentiary to the Valois, the day before 
 the Duke d’Enghien was shot. Chateaubriand, not fear¬ 
 ing the new Dictator, as did most others, at once resigned, 
 and refused to accept any position under the consular 
 regime. 
 
 He visited Madame de Stael at Coppet, and then made 
 a journey to the Holy Land, stopping at Athens, Smyrna, 
 Cyprus, and also Egypt and Spain, writing “ Le dernier 
 des Abencerrages ” among the ruins of the Alhambra. 
 
 He returned to France in May, 1807, and greatly 
 angered Napoleon by an article in the Mercure. He was 
 arrested, deprived of his interest in the paper, and Na- 
 
MADAME eACAMIER. 
 
 83 
 
 poleon spoke of having him executed on the steps of the 
 Tuileries. He returned to his possessions near Aulnay, 
 where he wrote three books. 
 
 His favorite sister, Lucille, had died in 1804. He said, 
 “There is not a day that I do not weep for her. Lucille 
 loved concealment. 1 have made a solitude for her in my 
 heart, which she will quit only when I cease to be.” 
 
 When his “ Journey from Paris to Jerusalem,” in three 
 volumes, was ready for publication he was informed that 
 it could not be published unless it contained some pages 
 of eulogy of Napoleon. He refused to submit, but learn¬ 
 ing that his publisher would suffer through the suppres¬ 
 sion of the work, he inserted some truthful words about 
 the victories of the French soldiers and their able general. 
 
 Napoleon still hoped to win his favor, and Chateaubri¬ 
 and was offered the place in the French Academy made 
 vacant by the death of Chenier, and the general super¬ 
 vision of the imperial libraries, with a salary equal to a 
 first-class embassy. It was the custom of the member- 
 elect to pronounce a eulogy over his predecessor. As 
 Chenier had participated in the downfall of Louis XVI., 
 Chateaubriand denounced the crimes of the French Revo- 
 lution and the despotism of the existing government. 
 The emperor was exasperated, and exclaimed, “Am I, 
 then, nothing more than a usurper ? ” Chateaubriand, of 
 course, was not admitted to the Academy. 
 
 When the Allies entered France, Chateaubriand declared 
 in favor of the ancient dynasty, and published “ Bona¬ 
 parte and the Bourbons,” which Louis XVIII. said was 
 worth to him an army of one hundred thousand men. 
 
 Under Louis XVIII. Chateaubriand was appointed am¬ 
 bassador to Sweden, but before his departure Napoleon 
 returned from Elba. Later he was made minister of the 
 
84 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 interior under Louis XVIII., and called to the House of 
 Peers, where he made some memorable speeches. He 
 defended constitutional government in a work published 
 in 181G, “ La Monarchic selon la Charte,” and established 
 a periodical, the “ Conservateur.” 
 
 While Chateaubriand was leading this brilliant and in¬ 
 fluential career, he was subject to periods of deep depres¬ 
 sion. His life was not a happy one. It was not strange, 
 therefore, that in Madame Recamier’s calm j’et sympa¬ 
 thetic nature he should find the rest as well as apprecia¬ 
 tion which his heart craved. 
 
 Some of her best friends were anxious lest this new 
 friendship should bring her unrest, by reason of the 
 tumultuous life led by Chateaubriand. M. Ballanche 
 hoped to divert her attention by urging her to translate 
 one of her favorite poets, Petrarch, a work which she 
 began but did not finish. 
 
 “ Poetry and music,” he wrote her, “ will throw a charm 
 over the leisure that you will be able to make for yourself. 
 You will become famous in a new way. You will reveal 
 that side of yourself of which the world as yet does not 
 dream. . . . You have under your command the genius 
 of music, flowers, imagination, and elegance. Lift your 
 charming head, and do not fear to try your hand on the 
 golden lyre of the poets. My mission in this world may 
 consist in so working that some trace of your noble ex¬ 
 istence may remain on earth.” 
 
 Duke de Montmorency wrote her urging her not to rivet 
 “ with her own hands an unhappy fetter, from which 
 others will suffer as well as yourself.” 
 
 Madame Recamier had purchased in the Rue d'Anjou 
 a home for her father, his old friend M. Simonard, her hus¬ 
 band, her niece and herself, where she hoped to pass the 
 
MADAME It&CAMIEB. 
 
 85 
 
 remainder of her life in peace and comfort. Her sweet¬ 
 ness of nature was soon to be put to another test. M. 
 Recamier again failed in business, this time losing one 
 hundred thousand francs of his wife’s money. 
 
 At this juncture she felt that she must lead a separate 
 and personal life, and, with the advice of friends, sought 
 an asylum in the Abbaye-aux-Bois. With the rest of her 
 fortune she supported her husband while he lived, insist¬ 
 ing that he should abandon his disastrous speculations. 
 She provided for his wants and those of her father and 
 M. Simonard with filial affection, obtaining a home for 
 the three aged men near the Abbaye. 
 
 She lived on the third floor of the Abbaye in a small 
 suite, paved with tiles. Her bed-room was furnished with 
 a book-case, a harp, a piano, a portrait of Madame de 
 Stael and a view of Coppet by moonlight. Several pots 
 of flowers w'ere on the window-sill. At dinner all her 
 family came to the Abbaye to dine with her, including 
 M. Ballanche and M. Paul David, the nephew of M. 
 Recamier. 
 
 At the end of six months, Madame Recamier removed 
 to a suite of rooms on the first floor of the Abbaye, 
 which the nuns ceded to her for life. 
 
 The Abbaye soon became a centre of meeting for the 
 most distinguished men and women of France. Her 
 financial reverses made no difference in the hearts of those 
 who loved her. Here came, every evening, Duke de 
 Montmorency. Here came also Sir Humphry and Lady 
 Davy, Maria Edgeworth, Alexander von Humboldt, Eugene 
 Delacroix, Augustin Thierry, the brilliant linguist, Pros¬ 
 per Merimee, whose “ Letters to an Unknown” have been 
 one of the fascinating puzzles of literature, J. J. Ampere, 
 the Duchess of Devonshire, the Duke of Hamilton, the 
 
86 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXTTOOD. 
 
 Queen of Sweden, Gerard, and many others. Here Lamar¬ 
 tine read his “Meditations,” and Delphine Gay recited 
 her first poems. Miss Berry, the beloved of Horace 
 Walpole, came often to the Abbaye. 
 
 Chateaubriand had been appointed minister to Berlin, 
 from which place he wrote Madame Recamier that he had 
 been “overwhelmed with kindness and respect” by the 
 royal family. The Duchess of Cumberland became his 
 intimate friend. In his “ Memoires d’Outre Tombe ” he 
 says, “ I visited her frequently. She often said to me 
 that she would like to confide to me her son, the little 
 George, the prince whom, it was said, his cousin Victoria 
 desired to place by her side on the throne of England.” 
 To Madame Recamier he wrote, “I shall be absent only 
 a few months. Be tranquil, then. I will pass my life near 
 you to love you.” 
 
 In 1822 Chateaubriand was sent as ambassador to Lon¬ 
 don. He wrote sadly to Madame Recamier, “ I cannot go 
 anywhere here without seeing something that recalls to me 
 my youth and my sufferings, the friends that I have lost, 
 the people that have passed away, the hopes that I have 
 cherished, my first works, my dreams of glory, — every¬ 
 thing in fact involved in the future of a young man who 
 feels himself born for some purpose. I have grasped 
 some few of my chimeras, others have escaped me, and 
 none of them have been worth what they cost. One thing 
 is left to me ; and while I retain that, I shall be consoled 
 for my gray hairs and all my failures on the long road 
 I have been travelling for thirty years.” Chateaubriand 
 was now fifty-four and Madame Recamier forty-five. 
 
 In the midst of political life, letters from her were need¬ 
 ful for his happiness. “With what joy I recognized 
 that fine hand ! ” he wrote her. “ Every courier that ar- 
 
MADAME RACAMIER. 
 
 87 
 
 rived without one word from you broke my heart. . . . 
 Can you believe that I am dazzled, absorbed even, in the 
 part that I am forced to play in spite of myself ? If you 
 do, you little know me. I should be sorry, for my part, 
 not to succeed here. I like to do, as well as I am able, all 
 that I undertake. . . . To be loved by you, to live in a 
 little retreat with you, and a few books, is the desire of 
 my heart and the goal of all my wishes.” 
 
 In the autumn of 1822, Chateaubriand and the Duke de 
 Montmorency, Minister of Foreign Affairs, were sent to the 
 Congress of Verona. Chateaubriand was charmed with the 
 Emperor Alexander. He wrote to Madame Recamier, “ He 
 is a prince full of noble, generous qualities. . . . Prince 
 Metteruich is a perfect gentleman, agreeable and capable. 
 In the midst of it all I am sad, and I know why. I per¬ 
 ceive that places are no longer anything to me. This beau¬ 
 tiful Italy has nothing more to say to me. I look at 
 these great mountains that separate me from that which I 
 love, and I think with Caraccioli, that a little chamber on 
 the third floor in Paris is better than a palace in Naples.” 
 
 Chateaubriand distinguished himself at Verona for his 
 eloquence in the cause of Greece, and in the defence of his 
 country in relation to the Spanish war, and on his return 
 he was made Minister of Foreign Affairs in place of Duke 
 de Montmorency. This naturally produced coldness be¬ 
 tween the two men, and it required all of Madame Reca- 
 mier’s tact and kind heart to bring about good feeling be¬ 
 tween them. 
 
 She was constantly using her high position to aid some¬ 
 body. Chateaubriand often interposed for her sake for 
 an impulsive and brilliant friend like Benjamin Constant, 
 saying, “ Talent ought to have privileges. It is the old¬ 
 est aristocracy that I know of.” 
 
88 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Chateaubriand was at the height of his power. With all 
 his greatness he was often irritable, cold where he did not 
 care to please, and sometimes thoughtless. “ Ilis devo¬ 
 tion,” says Madame Lenormant, in the life of her aunt, 
 Madame Recamier, “ was the same, nor had his friend¬ 
 ship grown cold; but Madame Recamier felt that he no 
 longer treated her with that respectful reserve character¬ 
 istic of those permanent sentiments which she wished only 
 to inspire.” 
 
 The niece had become ill, and her physicians advised a 
 southern climate. Perhaps Madame Recamier, with her 
 woman’s intuition, felt that absence would produce a good 
 effect upon Chateaubriand. They started for Italy Nov. 
 2, 1823, accompanied by the faithful M. Ballanche. 
 
 Letters from Chateaubriand followed her : “ When one 
 has courage like you to break up everything, what signi¬ 
 fies the future? However, I shall await you. If I am 
 alive, 3 T ou will find me such as you have left me, — full of 
 you, not having ceased to love you. . . . Salute the 
 mountains for me, and the smiling valleys that I certainly 
 shall never see again.” 
 
 Madame Recamier met with a most cordial reception in 
 Rome. Her old friend, the Duke de Laval, Ambassador 
 to Rome, put his house, servants, and horses at her dis¬ 
 posal. She spent much time in the studios of noted artists. 
 The beautiful Duchess of Devonshire, formerly Lady Eliza¬ 
 beth Foster, wife of the fifth duke, celebrated in England 
 for her beauty, her talents, and the romance of her life, 
 became her intimate friend. 
 
 The Duke de Laval said to Madame Recamier: “The 
 duchess has some of your qualities, to which she owes the 
 success of her whole life. She is the mildest of all the women 
 who rule through sweetness, and she commands invariable 
 
MADAME RACAMIER. 
 
 89 
 
 obedience. What she did in London in her youth, she 
 is doing here. All Rome is at her disposal: ministers, 
 cardinals, painters, sculptors, society, — all are at her 
 feet.” 
 
 Gibbon said the duchess was “ so alluring that no man 
 could withstand her, and if she chose to beckon the Lord 
 Chancellor from the woolsack, in full sight of the -world, 
 he could not resist obedience.” 
 
 She was large and dark, with very brilliant eyes. She 
 was the patron of art and letters. She published, at her 
 own expense, the fifth Satire of Horace, with a versified 
 Italian translation, and also a translation of the “JEneid,” 
 by Annibal Caro. These volumes were illustrated by the 
 most renowned artists then living in Italy. At her death, 
 in 1824, she bequeathed Madame Recamier one of the ele¬ 
 gant rings which she wore. 
 
 Queen Hortense, the mother of Napoleon III., came 
 often to see Madame Recamier while the latter was in 
 Rome. They met usually at the Colosseum, and there had 
 long talks together, it being deemed imprudent that a 
 Bourbon sympathizer should be seen with a Bouapartist. 
 When, however, the queen's brother, Eugene Beauharnais, 
 died, Madame Recamier braved public opinion, and went 
 at once to see her friend. These pleasant relations con¬ 
 tinued till the death of Queen Hortense at the Chateau of 
 Arenberg. The Queen was carried back to France and 
 laid beside her mother, Josephine, at Rueil. 
 
 Before her death, Hortense wrote to Madame Recamier : 
 “ You are among those persons to whom it is not needful 
 to relate one’s life or one’s feelings ; the heart is the best 
 interpreter, and they who thus read us become necessary 
 to us. . . . Do not entirely forget me ; believe me, your 
 friendship has done me good. You know what a comfort 
 
90 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OP WOMANHOOD. 
 
 a friendly voice from one’s native country is, when it comes 
 to us in misfortune and isolation. Be kind enough to tell 
 me that I am unjust, if I complain too much of my destiny, 
 and that I have still some trends left.” 
 
 While in Italy Madame Recamier visited Caroline 
 Murat, the sister of Napoleon. Her husband, losing 
 his throne of Naples in the downfall of Napoleon, had 
 attempted to regain it and was arrested and shot. His 
 wife begged to live at Rome, but as it was probably 
 considered too near Naples, she was allowed to live at 
 Trieste. 
 
 She welcomed her “dear Juliette” with great joy. 
 “My position is very sad,” she said. “ I have also the 
 grief of being separated from my two sons. The perse¬ 
 cutions to which we have been subjected have forced them 
 to go to America. Achilles has been there two years; 
 my second son left me a fortnight ago. This separation 
 broke my heart.” 
 
 Madame Recamier spent eighteen months in Italy. Bal- 
 lanche was studying Roman history, and another friend 
 who lived with them, .1. .T. Ampere, was indulging his 
 love for travel and study. Ballanche was as ever depend¬ 
 ent upon her society. He said, “When you are laid in 
 your tomb of white marble, it will be necessary to dig 
 quickly a ditch for me, in which I shall hasten to lie down 
 in my turn. What should I do upon earth? But I do 
 not think that you will be the first to pass away ; in any 
 case, it seems to me impossible that 1 could survive you.” 
 
 Ampere was the sou of the noted mathematician, 
 Andre Marie Ampere, young, brilliant, attractive, the 
 life of every gathering. His mother had died when he 
 was three years old, and lie was the only joy and hope 
 of his learned father, whom he idolized. The youth, with 
 
MADAME It A CAM I EE. 
 
 91 
 
 his delicate organization, love of nature, and poetic tem¬ 
 perament, was a charming companion. 
 
 At twenty his father brought him to the Abbaye to meet 
 the distinguished company. Madame Recamier was then 
 forty-three. His conversation and his noble qualities 
 delighted her. For thirty years, till her death, he was 
 like a son or brother. 
 
 M. Sainte-Beuve, the noted French critic, thus speaks 
 of these first relations of his renowned friend at the 
 Abbaye-aux-Bois : “During this happy, rapturous time, 
 his imagination yielded itself captive to all the charms of 
 a refined and choice companionship, made still more at¬ 
 tractive by a setting sun of divine beauty. . . . She 
 talked to him with her usual grace of their charming 
 days, their drives and walks in the valley, of the cheer¬ 
 ful intercourse to which the young man’s animated con¬ 
 versation had lent an additional charm. Then, touching 
 with her exquisite tact the tender chord, she casually 
 intimated that there had perhaps been opportunities for 
 warmer feelings, that had they staid there much longer 
 she would have been afraid, at least, lest a heart inclined 
 to poetry might have begun to weave a romance, for her 
 young niece was then with her. 
 
 “At these words Ampere could not restrain himself, 
 but suddenly bursting out, agitated and sobbing, ‘ Ah ! it 
 is not for her,’ he cried, and fell upon his knees. His 
 declaration was made, his confession had escaped him; 
 he had, without intending it, uttered the sacred word, and 
 he would not take it back. . . . From that moment his 
 destiny was sealed. Madame Recamier had only to go 
 on fascinating him, calming him by degrees, but never 
 curing him.” 
 
 Ampere wrote her ten years after their first meeting : 
 
92 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 “ 1 am not, you know, a great lover of forms, but the 
 first day of the year is an epoch for me, the return of 
 which I cannot see unmoved. It was on New Year’s day 
 that I saw you for the first time. That moment, when 
 you dawned upon me, dressed in white, with a grace 
 of which, till then, I had no conception, will never be 
 forgotten. 
 
 “It was just ten years ago. Between that time and 
 this lies all my youth; and, at every joyous or painful 
 epoch during that interval, you reappear to me with all 
 the charm of that first day, and with even greater, for 
 daily intercourse with you has revealed to me other rea¬ 
 sons for loving and admiring you. . . . Will you not 
 send me for my New Year’s gift a few of those lines that 
 you alone know how to write? It will take you only a 
 moment, and I, I live long on such moments.” 
 
 Madame Recamier repaid these ardent affections by a 
 warm heart. She wrote Ampere: “ I pass my life in 
 forming projects ; it is the malady of those who are not 
 content with their fate. You are included in all my plans ; 
 it cannot be otherwise.” 
 
 Madame Lenormant says of her aunt: “ If Madame 
 Recamier was kind to everybody, in her affections she 
 was exclusive ; she confined them to a narrow circle. She 
 was fond of saying that there was a certain taste in per¬ 
 fect friendship to which commonplace characters could 
 not attain.” 
 
 Ampere’s father was desirous that he should marry 
 Baron Cuvier’s only child, the lovely Clementine, whose 
 early death broke her father’s heart. The hesitation of 
 young Ampere was a serious disappointment to his father. 
 She was engaged at the time of her death, by her own 
 choice, to 31. Dupargnet. 
 
MADAME ulCAMIEB. 
 
 93 
 
 Ampere gained fame as an author and a lecturer. After 
 a course on literature at the Marseilles Athenaeum, M. Le- 
 normant wrote him: “Paris will now be wanting you; 
 your friends will no longer be obliged to answer for you ; 
 there is nothing like type for making a man. Print all 
 you can, — the whole course, or, at least, the greater 
 part.” 
 
 He won a membership in the Academy of Inscriptions 
 by his works on the sources of French literature, and the 
 formation of the language. He was for a long time pro¬ 
 fessor in the College of France. He was an officer of the 
 Legion of Honor, and a member of the French Academy. 
 His “ History of Rome,” in four volumes, shows great 
 learning, especially on archaeological matters. 
 
 His soul was full of poetry. He wrote Madame Reca- 
 niier: “I go and ensconce myself in a dark seat in the 
 beautiful, dimly-lighted church; there I sit; I listen to 
 the chants; with my head bowed in sincere humility I re¬ 
 ceive the benediction ; then I go out and listen by the sea¬ 
 shore to another harmony and another prayer, — the 
 concert of the winds, the waves, the stars, the night.” 
 He died March 27, 18G4, outliving Madame Recamier 
 fifteen years. 
 
 Madame Recamier returned to Paris from Rome the last 
 of May, 1825. Charles X., the brother of Louis XVIII., 
 had come to the throne, and both the Duke de Montmo¬ 
 rency and Chateaubriand had gone to Rheims to attend 
 the ceremony of coronation. On their return, Chateau¬ 
 briand hastened to the Abbaye to greet again, with re¬ 
 spectful tenderness, her whose life was so closely united to 
 his own. 
 
 The following year, Feb. 1, 1826, the niece of Madame 
 Recamier was married to an accomplished scholar, — M. 
 
94 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Lenormant, Inspector of Fine Arts under the Viscount de 
 la Rochefoucauld. This gave Madame Recamier great hap¬ 
 piness, as it was a union of affection. “ She realized for 
 the child of her adoption,” says Madame Lenormant, 
 “that supreme felicity of love in marriage which had been 
 the dream and the regret of her life.” 
 
 Many times, in after years, she wrote her niece: “I 
 trust that you will be happier than I have been. . . . 
 Your image mingles with all my reveries; it is through 
 you that I have a future. . . . Your griefs are passing 
 ones, and your lot seems so sweet to me that I would 
 willingly give the brightest days of my life for your 
 saddest ones.” 
 
 This year, 182(3, the Duke de Montmorency died in 
 prayer at his parish church, St. Thomas Aquinas, on Good 
 Friday. His wife engaged a room at the Abbaye that she 
 might come there frequently for prayer and seclusion, and 
 to talk with Madame Recamier about, her lamented dead. 
 
 Chateaubriand was appointed Ambassador to Rome 
 under Charles X., and left for that city September, 1828. 
 He wrote to Madame Recamier : “ All my happiness is in 
 talking with you, and in thinking that sometimes our 
 thoughts meet in spite of the space that separates us. . . . 
 Remember that we must end our days together. It is but 
 a sad gift that I present to you, — the remnant of my life : 
 but take it; and, if I have lost some time, what is left is 
 of greater worth, since it will be devoted wholly to you. 
 
 . . . When shall I rest myself near you ? When shall I 
 no longer waste on the highways those days lent me to put 
 to a better use? I recklessly squandered them while I was 
 rich ; I thought the treasure inexhaustible. Now, when I 
 see how much it has diminished, how little time there is 
 left to love you, my anguish is great. 
 
MADAME R A GAMIER. 
 
 05 
 
 “ But are tliere not long years beyond the tomb? If I 
 had the philosophy of Cousin, 1 would describe to you that 
 heaven, where I shall expect you, where you will find me 
 again, full of grace, beauty, and youth. Poor and hum¬ 
 ble Christian, I tremble before the ‘Last Judgment’ of 
 Michael Angelo. I know not where my future abode will 
 be; but if it is where you are not, I shall be very un¬ 
 happy. . . . 
 
 “ Never forget me when I am no more. I shall have to 
 leave you some day. I will go to await you. Perhaps I 
 shall have more patience in the other life than in this, 
 where I find three months without you of immeasurable 
 length. ... I have all that could be desired in the way 
 of success, in kind attentions, and cordial welcome ; but I 
 am more than ever convinced that my political and social 
 life is at an end. It is your society, united with the most 
 profound retirement, that I need now. I am only occu¬ 
 pied with one thing, — my health ; because I have a great 
 desire to live some time longer for your sake. . . . Live 
 long, long years, so that there shall be somebody in the 
 world who thinks of me.” 
 
 In his excavations in Torre Vergata, near the tomb of 
 Nero, he rvrote her: “ I only breathed one wish, and that 
 was for you. I would very willingly consent to live with 
 you, under a tent, in the midst of these ruins. . . . The 
 noise of my steps at Torre Vergata will awaken no one ; 
 and, when in my turn I am in my grave, I shall not even 
 hear the sound of your voice.” 
 
 Evidently Chateaubriand was no longer the proud, self- 
 willed man of former years. “The truth is,” he wrote 
 her, “ that you have metamorphosed my nature, and that 
 I no longer recognize myself.” 
 
 Upon the accession of Prince Polignac to the office of 
 
96 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 foreign affairs, Chateaubriand resigned, and returned to 
 Paris. From the Tiber he came back to the Rhone ; “to 
 the Rhone,” he wrote Madame Recamier, “ whose waves 
 you brightened with your gaze as a child.” 
 
 In the year 1830, France was again distracted by the 
 “ Revolution of the three days.” On the 2Hth of July the 
 king issued an edict putting an end to the liberty of the 
 press. The people rose in rebellion, and he was obliged to 
 leave France with his little grandson, Henry V., afterwards 
 the Count de Chambord, the child of the murdered Duke de 
 Berri. Before Louis XVIII. died, he put his hand on the 
 head of his four-year-old great-nephew, and said to his 
 brother: “ Let Charles X. take care of the crown for this 
 child.” But Charles could not believe in the liberty of the 
 people, and fell by his own acts. 
 
 Chateaubriand made an eloquent speech in the House of 
 Peers against the exile of the elder branch of the Bour¬ 
 bons, and advocated the reign of the little Henry, and the 
 appointment of a regent, but the people favored the Duke 
 of Orleans, descended from the brother of Louis XIV. 
 Louis Philippe I. became the head of a limited monarchy. 
 Chateaubriand relinquished his dignity as a peer, with his 
 honors and pensions, and retired poor to private life. 
 
 This year, 1830, M. Recamier died, nearly eight)' years 
 old. Becoming ill, he wished to be carried to the Abbaye, 
 and there he died in his wife’s salon, receiving every.atten¬ 
 tion from her and his niece. Her father, M. Bernard, 
 died two years previously. 
 
 The following summer Madame Recamier went to 
 Dieppe for her health, and the next year to Switzerland, 
 where she and Chateaubriand visited the ivy-covered grave 
 of Madame de Stael, at Coppet. From 1834 Chateau¬ 
 briand devoted himself to his literary work, — his “Essay 
 
MADAME RECAMIER. 
 
 97 
 
 oil English Literature,” in two volumes, his “Translation 
 of Milton ” and his “ History of the Congress of Verona,” 
 in two volumes. 
 
 Chateaubriand sent the “Essay” and the “Milton” 
 to Beranger, who was greatly pleased with the courtesy, 
 writing back : “It is only from you that I have learned 
 anything. In my youth, the 'Genius of Christianity’ 
 taught me to appreciate the great works of antiquity; to¬ 
 day, thanks to you again, I penetrate into English litera¬ 
 ture, and reconcile myself with ‘Milton.’ . . . Adieu, 
 sir. Still give some thoughts to a man who daily remembers 
 you, and who will never cease to hope that your happiness 
 may be equal to your glory.” 
 
 Chateaubriand, in 183G, was working on his “ Memoirs,” 
 which, much against his pride, he sold during his life that 
 his wife might have enough for her support. “ Though I 
 have no heart for the ‘ Memoirs ’ after I have finished 
 what relates to you,” he wrote Madame Recamier, “ I 
 will accomplish one or two pages a day while I live, in 
 order to fulfil the painful conditions of my bargain, and 
 to wile away the time until the arrival of the two hours I 
 pass with you, which are all my life.” 
 
 Chateaubriand came every day to the Abbaye, between 
 two and three in the afternoon. For an hour they talked 
 alone, and then other visitors were admitted. 
 
 In June, 1838, he made a journey to the southern prov¬ 
 inces, and received a perfect ovation from the people; but 
 he hurried home, writing Madame Recamier: “Women, 
 men, skies, palm-trees, are not worth one moment passed 
 in your sweet presence. Therein lies the only repose 
 for me.” 
 
 So disconsolate was he when Madame Recamier was 
 absent that Madame Chateaubriand would urge her return, 
 
!»8 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 saying : “ What is to become of M. Chateaubriand ? What 
 is he going to do if you stay away long? ” 
 
 With failing health, Madame Rc-camier continued her 
 receptions that the learned and the great might meet and 
 comfort Chateaubriand. Alexis de Tocqueville, the noted 
 author of “ Democracy in America,” and Saiute-Beuve 
 came often to the Abbaye. De Tocqueville was a relation 
 of Chateaubriand, and Madame Recamier was especially 
 drawn to him because he had married through affection. 
 
 France, as ever, was disturbed by men ambitious to 
 rule. Prince Louis Napoleon, the son of Hortense, had 
 aspired to the throne, and was to be tried by the Chamber 
 of Peers. Madame Recamier visited him at the Concier- 
 gerie. He was condemned to imprisonment for life, and 
 was shut up in the fortress at Ham. Two years after¬ 
 wards he sent her a pamphlet, which he had just pub¬ 
 lished, with his “ deep gratitude,” and a letter enclosed 
 to Chateaubriand : — 
 
 Some twelve years ago, while walking one day outside of 
 the Portia Pia, at Home, I followed silently the Ambassador of 
 Charles X., regretting that frigid politics prevented me from 
 testifying to the illustrious author of the‘•Genius of Chris¬ 
 tianity ” all my admiration for him. . . . 
 
 I want to write the history of Charlemagne, and show the in¬ 
 fluence this great man exercised on the destiny of the world 
 during his life and after his death. When I shall have collected 
 all the necessary materials, I hope, if I submit to you some 
 questions, I shall not trespass upon your extreme kindness. 
 
 Receive, Sir Viscount, the assurance of my high esteem and 
 distinguished consideration. 
 
 Napoleon Louis Bonaparte. 
 
 Iu 1840, Victor Hugo wrote Chateaubriand : “ After 
 twenty-five years, there remain only great things and 
 
MADAME R£CAMIEE. 
 
 99 
 
 great men, — Napoleon and Chateaubriand ” ; and dedi¬ 
 cated some verses to him. 
 
 Chateaubriand wrote back: “No matter how great a 
 man’s fame may be, I shall always prefer liberty to 
 glory.” 
 
 This year, 1840, although Madame Recamier was in 
 poor health, she arranged a subscription-soiree at the 
 Abbaye, in aid of suffering in her native city, Lyons, 
 caused by the overflow of the Rhone and the Sabne. The 
 price for tickets was twenty francs, but several persons 
 gave five times that amount. Viardot, Garcia, Rubini, 
 Rachel, and others, gave their services. In less than ten 
 days nearly five thousand francs had been received. At 
 the soiree Madame Recamier was called the most beauti¬ 
 ful person present, and she was then sixty-three years of 
 age. 
 
 She lost her bloom as she grew older, but she never lost 
 the extreme winsomeness of her smile, her childlike inno¬ 
 cence, and her sincere, gracious manner. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve said : “ She did not struggle. She re¬ 
 signed herself gracefully to the first touch of Time. She 
 understood, that for one who had enjoyed such success as 
 a beauty, in order to seem yet beautiful, she must make 
 no pretensions. A friend, who had not seen her for many 
 years, complimented her upon her looks. ‘ Ah ! my dear 
 friend,' she replied, ‘ it is useless for me to deceive my¬ 
 self. From the moment I noticed that the little Savoyards 
 in the street no longer turned to look at me, I knew that 
 all was over.’ ” 
 
 Her playful wit, her even temper, her constant desire to 
 please, never changed. She had perfect ease of manner, 
 but a horror of familiarity. She was indulgent, yet firm. 
 She had great discretion and excellent judgment. While 
 
100 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 sometimes lacking decision in small matters, she never did 
 in great ones. She was not fond of domestic details, but 
 managed her property well. 
 
 In 1843 Chateaubriand was induced to try the waters 
 of Bourbonne-les-Bains. lie wrote pitifully to Madame 
 Recamier: “I am going out to walk with the lark; she 
 shall sing to you of me ; then she will be silent forever in 
 the furrow into which she will have dropped. ... Is it 
 not wonderful the sympathy between us? I think exactly 
 as you think. ... I have only one hope graven on my 
 heart, and that is, —to see you again.” 
 
 After a dictated letter, he wrote : “ I wish to finish by 
 two words in my own writing, to prove to you that I am 
 still living for you. It is very sad to be reduced to this- 
 . . . You see how my poor hand trembles, but my heart 
 is firm.” 
 
 In the fall of 1743, Henry, the Count de Chambord, 
 asked Chateaubriand to visit him in London. He could 
 not help responding to the call of his young prince. 
 
 He dictated a letter from London to Madame Recamier : 
 “ I have just received the recompense of all my life. The 
 prince has deigned to speak of me, in the midst of a crowd 
 of Frenchmen, with an enthusiasm worthy of his youth. If 
 I had the gift of description, I would give you the details 
 of it; but I shed tears over it, like a fool.” Thus devoted 
 was the aged man to the Bourbon dynasty. In the spring 
 of 1845 he visited the count at Venice, for the last time. 
 Chateaubriand said: “I am a Bourbonist in honor; a 
 Monarchist on grounds of rational conviction ; but in nat¬ 
 ural character and disposition, I am still a Republican.” 
 
 In 1839, six years previously, a cataract began to form 
 on one of Madame Recamier’s eyes. She was treated iu 
 1845 for it, but without beuefit. It was decided to per- 
 
MADAME R&CAMIETt. 
 
 101 
 
 form an operation in the summer of 184G, but Chateau¬ 
 briand having broken his collar bone in stepping from his 
 carriage, Madame Recamier wished to postpone the matter 
 till he had recovered. 
 
 He was never able to walk after the accident. When he 
 came to the Abbaye, he was carried to an arm-chair which 
 was placed by the fireplace. 
 
 In February, 1847, Madame Chateaubriand died, after 
 a brief illness. Ballanche was soon taken ill, and lodged 
 opposite the Abbaye. As Madame Recamier had just sub¬ 
 mitted to an operation upon her eyes by an able surgeon, 
 Ballanche would not consent that she should cross the 
 street in the bright light. She would not be refused, how¬ 
 ever, and stayed by his bedside till his death, “losing in 
 tears every chance of recovering her sight,” says her 
 niece. He was buried in her family tomb. 
 
 A few months after the death of his wife, Chateaubriand 
 begged Madame Recamier to honor his name bv marriage, 
 but she refused. “Why should we marry?” she said; 
 “at our age, there can be no impropriety in my taking 
 care of you. If solitude is painful to you, I am ready to 
 live in the same house with you. The world, I am cer¬ 
 tain, will do justice to the purity of our friendship, and 
 sanction anything that will render the task of making 
 you, in your old age, happy and comfortable, more easy 
 for me. If we were younger, I should not hesitate, but 
 accept with joy the right to consecrate my life to you. 
 Years and blindness have given me this right. Let us 
 change nothing in so perfect an affection.” 
 
 Chateaubriand could not console himself for her refusal, 
 though he acknowledged that she was right. 
 
 She submitted to a second operation on the other eye, 
 but it was unsuccessful. Her hearing was acute, and those 
 
102 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 who did not know that she was blind were unconscious of 
 it, from her recognizing persons by their voices, and the 
 unchanged brilliancy of her eyes. She lamented her 
 blindness because it made her less useful to her friends. 
 
 In February, 1848, France was again in revolution, 
 and Louis Philippe went into exile as his predecessor had 
 gone. 
 
 Chateaubriand died three months later, July 4, 1848. 
 His last illness was but for a few days. Every time that 
 Madame Recamier left the room, overcome with grief, his 
 eyes followed her with an agonized expression as though 
 he might not see her again, but she could not see these 
 looks. He asked for and received the Sacrament, never 
 speaking afterwards, and dying with his steadfast gaze 
 fixed upon her. He had written her eleven years before : 
 “ Never talk of what is to become of me without you; I 
 have not done so much evil in the sight of Heaven that 
 you should be called away before me. ... It is I, re¬ 
 member, who must go first.” And his wish was gratified. 
 
 He was buried in a granite rock on a little island, 
 Grand Bey, near his birthplace, St. Malo, where the At- 
 lantic Ocean chants a dirge for him in the strains which 
 seemed so mournful to him when a lonely boy. He then 
 imagined that a beautiful being stood beside him, and he 
 used to go into the woods to worship his “ Sylphide.” 
 He found her in real life w r hen it was too late. In 1875, 
 on the one hundredth and seventh anniversary of his 
 birth, a statue was erected to Iris memory at St. Malo, 
 by his admiring countrymen. 
 
 Madame Recamier shed no tears at Chateaubriand’s 
 death. A strange pallor came over her face and never 
 left it. She was calm, and thanked her friends for atten¬ 
 tions, but it was evident that she would soon follow him. 
 
MADAME RliCAMIER. 
 
 103 
 
 She talked of Ballancke and Chateaubriand as though 
 they were only absent for a moment, and when the hour 
 came on which they were wont to visit her, she would 
 tremble as though they had appeared to her in person. 
 
 Eight months passed. She had left the Abbaye and 
 gone to live at the home of her niece. On May 10, 1849, 
 while dressing for dinner, she fainted. A physician was 
 called and pronounced her disease cholera, which she had 
 always feared. 
 
 For twelve hours she suffered intensely, bearing her 
 pain with the utmost courage and sweetness. “We shall 
 meet again! We shall meet again ! ” she said to her 
 niece, and when she could no longer speak, she raised 
 her lips to be kissed. At midnight she called for Ampere 
 and her two nephews, Paul David and Charles Lenormant. 
 They came, and she said farewell as though for the night. 
 She died the following day, May 11. 
 
 After death she seemed more beautiful than ever, with 
 an angelic expression. She died as she had lived, beloved 
 by all who knew her. If some women’s hearts had ached 
 because of her, as Sainte-Beuve says, “which she sacri¬ 
 ficed and wounded without knowing it,” it must be remem¬ 
 bered that she lived in a different country from ours and 
 that her loveless marriage and that of Chateaubriand as 
 well, were most unfortunate. 
 
 What was the secret of her power? 
 
 She made no enemies. She appreciated the good in 
 each and drew ont the best. She was never censorious or 
 indifferent or frivolous. She never lost a friend. She 
 praised where it was deserved, and inspired all to their 
 utmost endeavor. She won confidence. She was abso¬ 
 lutely true to friends, — sincere, natural, and universally 
 kind. 
 
104 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 She was so intelligent as to be companionable with the 
 brightest minds of France. She enjoyed philosophy with 
 Ballanche, science with Ampere, and politics, history, and 
 poetry with Chateaubriand. She read Tacitus, Thiers, 
 and Mignet, and collected historical matter for Chateau¬ 
 briand’s works. 
 
 She was an interested listener. She rested people by 
 her repose of manner, and cheered them by her good na¬ 
 ture and freedom from envy. She was extremely gentle, 
 yet dignified, with a low, sweet voice. Aside from her 
 beauty, she had the transcendent charm of self-sacrifice. 
 She lived for others. 
 
 Lamartine, in speaking of her, said : “ Her whose an¬ 
 gelic face could bear no other name, and of whom it was 
 said that one look sufficed to bind your heart to her 
 forever.” 
 
 Sainte-Beuve said : “ France can never forget her ” ; and 
 he might have said, “ the world.” 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 O NE of the extremely interesting places in London 
 is Bunhill Fields, completely filled with graves, a 
 quiet, suggestive spot in the midst of the commotion of 
 a great city. John Bunyan has been long sleeping there. 
 Close to his grave is one beside which thousands have 
 stood, and will stand, in the years to come. It is the 
 grave of the mother of John Wesley. 
 
 Here he preached at her death one of his most eloquent 
 and impressive sermons. She was his companion, his 
 guide, his ideal woman. He hoped he might find one like 
 her in marriage, but he failed. He hoped he might not 
 survive her, but he was spared many years to do his won¬ 
 derful work. She was, says Isaac Taylor, “ the mother 
 of Methodism in a religious and moral sense; for, her 
 courage, her submissiveness to authority, the high tone of 
 ■her mind, its independence and its self-control, the warmth 
 of her devotional feelings, and the practical direction given 
 to them, came up and were visibly repeated in the charac¬ 
 ter and conduct of her son.” 
 
 She was the twenty-fifth, and youngest, child of Dr. 
 Samuel Annesley by his second wife, and was born in 
 London, Jan. 20, 1669. Dr. Annesley was an able and 
 prominent dissenting minister, dignified and handsome, 
 closely related to the Earl of Anglesey. Mrs. Annesley 
 was a lovely woman, the daughter of a member of parlia- 
 
lOfi 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 meat, who was also one of the Westminster Assembly of 
 divines. Susanna was always a favorite with her father, 
 who gave every attention to her education. “ Greek, 
 Latin, and French, and both logic and metaphysics, had 
 formed part of her studies,” says Ur. Adam Clarke. 
 She was deeply interested in the absorbing religious 
 discussions of the day. Though her father was a Noncon¬ 
 formist, she was permitted to think for herself, and joined 
 the Church of England when she was thirteen. In these 
 early years a youth, Samuel Wesley, six and a half years 
 older than herself, visited at the Annesley home. His 
 father was the Rev. John Wesley, and his grandfather the 
 Rev. Bartholomew Wesley. They were related to the 
 Duke of Wellington, Sir Robert Ker Porter and his sisters, 
 the novelists, and other distinguished persons. 
 
 When Samuel was sixteen, his father died, leaving his 
 widow and children in very poor circumstances. Several 
 persons contributed thirty pounds a year, and sent the lad 
 to school in London, where he met Susanna Annesley, 
 and, doubtless, enjoyed her bright conversation, and ad¬ 
 mired her beauty. 
 
 At twenty-one, he, too, left the Nonconformists and 
 joined the Church of England; possibly he had influenced 
 Susanna in her choice. 
 
 Determined to study and enter the ministry, he walked 
 to Oxford one August morning, in 1683, with a little over 
 two pounds in his pocket, and entered Exeter College. He 
 maintained himself by teaching and some literary work, 
 and after graduation became a curate in London, with an 
 income of thirty pounds a year. This he doubled by writ¬ 
 ing, and on sixty pounds a j-ear the young couple — Sam¬ 
 uel, twenty-seven, and Susanna, twenty — began their 
 married life in London lodgings in 1689. 
 
■SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 107 
 
 It must have required great faith to marry on this in¬ 
 come ; it required something more than faith in the years 
 of privation which followed. The young husband was an 
 untiring student, a man of cheerful nature, and devoted to 
 his work. The wife was a person of fine manners and un¬ 
 common beauty. Dr. Adam Clarke says : “ She was uot 
 only graceful but beautiful in person. Her sister, Judith, 
 painted by Sir Peter Lely, is represented as a very beauti¬ 
 ful woman. One who well knew both said, ‘ Beautiful as 
 Miss Annesley appears, she was far from being as beauti¬ 
 ful as Mrs. Wesley.’ ” 
 
 The Marquis of Normandy heard of the poverty of the 
 young minister, and obtained for him the position of rec¬ 
 tor at South Ormsby, where the salary was fifty pounds a 
 year, instead of thirty. Mr. Wesley was not preaching 
 for money; but having a son four months old, named 
 Samuel, after himself, added to his family, he looked upon 
 the tweuty pounds’ increase as a great blessing. 
 
 They left London with its activities, its libraries, and 
 its cultivated people for the little parish of thirty-six 
 houses and two hundred and sixty persons, at South 
 Ormsby. Mr. Wesley tried to make the best of it, and 
 found expression for his loneliness in verse : — 
 
 “ In a mean cot, composed of reeds and clay, 
 
 Wasting in sighs the uncomfortable day; 
 
 Near where the inhospitable Humber roars, 
 
 Devouring by degrees the neighboring shores. 
 
 Let earth go where it will, I ’ll uot repine, 
 
 Nor can unhappy be, while Heaven is mine.” 
 
 The next year, in 1691, a little girl was born to the 
 Wesleys, but died two years later. In January, 1692, 
 Km ilia was born, and in 1694 twin boys, Annesley and 
 
108 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Jedediali, who died in infancy. A few months after their 
 death another little girl was born, named Susanna; and 
 then Mary, who, through a fall, became deformed and 
 
 ill. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley’s life was already full of cares. Three 
 children had died, and of the four who were living, one 
 was continually ill, while the mother, a slight, frail woman, 
 was not yet twenty-seven years of age. 
 
 Besides his parish work, Mr. Wesley was writing his 
 heroic poem in ten books, on “ The Life of our Blessed 
 Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.” The work was dedi¬ 
 cated to Queen Mary, l’ope and others pronounced it 
 “ intolerably dull,” but it went through a second edition. 
 It was probably of little pecuniary help to the beautiful 
 wife and four children. 
 
 Mr. Wesley thus describes his wife in the volume : — 
 
 “ She graced my humble roof and blest my life, 
 
 Blest me by a far greater name than wife; 
 
 Yet still I bore an undisputed sway, 
 
 Nor was’t her task, but pleasure, to obey. 
 
 Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied. 
 
 In our low house there was no room for pride • 
 
 Nor need I e’er direct what still was right, 
 
 She studied my convenience and delight: 
 
 Nor did I for her care ungrateful prove, 
 
 But only used my power to show my love : 
 
 Whate’er she asked I gave without reproach or grudge, 
 
 For still she reason asked and I was judge.” 
 
 As Mrs. Wesley was a person of very strong will, and 
 could not have been the grand woman that she was with¬ 
 out it, perhaps the “undisputed sway” was somewhat 
 imaginary, but seeming real to him was doubtless com¬ 
 forting. 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 109 
 
 In the latter part of 1696, Dr. Annesley died, and Mrs. 
 Wesley sincerely mourned her gifted father, but believing 
 in the communion of departed spirits with those left on 
 earth, she found great consolation in the thought that he 
 was always near his favorite child. 
 
 Early in 1697 the Wesleys removed to Epworth, a 
 small market town of two thousand inhabitants. It is 
 said that Queen Mary, not forgetting the dedication of 
 the life of Christ, shortly before her last illness expressed 
 a wish that Mr. Wesley should have the living of Epworth, 
 worth two hundred pounds. 
 
 The house was of timber and plaster, three stories high 
 and thatched with straw, with large grounds attached. 
 Mr. Wesley determined to farm his own glebe, and there¬ 
 fore purchased oxen and the necessary farming imple¬ 
 ments. He was in debt already, and was obliged to 
 borrow one hundred and fifty pounds to furnish the 
 house, move his family, and begin life in the new parish. 
 These debts he was never able to cancel, and they proved 
 the intolerable burden of his life. 
 
 Soon after the family were settled, Mehetabel was born ; 
 the next year the ninth child, which soon died, and in the 
 two years following, John and Benjamin, both of whom 
 died in infancy. 
 
 In May, 1701, poverty, even worse than usual, stared 
 Mr. and Mrs. Wesley in the face. The latter was feeble, 
 and often confined to her bed for six months at a time. 
 Writing poetry for London publishers brought little re¬ 
 muneration. Coal was needed, and the last six shillings 
 were used to buy it. 
 
 It is probable that the parishioners did not inquire 
 whether the rector had any money in his pocket so long 
 as he preached the gospel regularly. Fortunately, Arch- 
 
110 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 bishop Sharpe heard of their poverty, spoke to several of 
 the nobility about it, and even appealed to the House of 
 Lords. 
 
 The Countess of Northampton, moved to pity, sent 
 twenty pounds to the family, ten of which Mr. Wesley 
 gave to his own widowed mother. The money was re¬ 
 ceived in both families with thanksgiving. 
 
 That evening, May 16, a boy and a girl were born in 
 the Wesley home, but soon died, and the next year, 1702, 
 Annie was born. 
 
 The children must be educated; but how ? There was 
 no money for schooling, and Mr. Wesley had little time 
 to spare from his church and his writing. The educated 
 but delicate mother must do it. 
 
 She, therefore, began her household school, and for six 
 hours a day through twenty years she continued it. When 
 her son John had become a noted man, he begged her to 
 write some details of the education of her children, to 
 which she reluctantly consented. She said, “ No one 
 can, without renouncing the world in the most literal 
 sense, observe my method ; and there are few, if any, 
 that would devote above twenty years of the prime of 
 life in hopes to save the souls of their children, which 
 they think may be saved without so much ado; for that 
 was my principal intention, however unskilfully and un¬ 
 successfully managed.” 
 
 The children were early taught to obey, and to cry 
 softly.” A child was never allowed to have a thing 
 because he cried for it, aud John Wesley used to empha¬ 
 size this in his talks to parents, urging that if a child 
 obtained a thing because he cried, that he would cry 
 again. Mrs. Wesley says, “ That most odious noise of 
 the crying of children was rarely heard in the house.” 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 Ill 
 
 One cannot help wishing that Mrs. Wesley had lived on 
 through the centuries to teach this doctrine. 
 
 “ Drinking or eating between meals was never allowed,” 
 she says; “ unless in case of sickness, which seldom hap¬ 
 pened. ... At six, as soon as family prayer was over, 
 they had their supper; at seven the maid washed them, 
 and, beginning at the youngest, she undressed and got 
 them all to bed by eight, at which time she left them in 
 their several rooms awake, for there was no such thing 
 allowed of in our house as sitting by a child till it fell 
 asleep.” 
 
 The children were taught never to address each other 
 without prefixing “ brother” or “ sister,” a fashion which 
 John Wesley followed through life, as indeed he did thou¬ 
 sands of things taught him by his mother. Her will was 
 law with him, her letters through college his oracles, her 
 life his blessed example. 
 
 With great firmness she combined great patience. Once, 
 when she repeated the same thing to one child twenty 
 times, her husband said, “I wonder at your patience; 
 you have told that child twenty times that same thing.” 
 
 “ If I had satisfied myself by mentioning it only nine¬ 
 teen times,” she replied, “ I should have lost all my labor. 
 It was the twentieth time that crowned it.” 
 
 Psalms were sung every morning and night at the open¬ 
 ing and the closing of school. Each elder child took a 
 younger one morning and evening, and read a chapter in 
 the Bible with him or her, after which each went to pri¬ 
 vate devotions. As soon as they could speak the Lord’s 
 Prayer was taught them. 
 
 They were to be courteous in all things ; a servant was 
 never allowed to grant a favor unless the child said, “Pray 
 give me such a thing.” If a child confessed a fault and 
 
112 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 promised to reform, he was not punished. “ This rule,” 
 says Mrs. Wesley, “ prevented a great deal of lying.” 
 Nor was he ever reminded of it afterwards. Acts of obe. 
 dience were commended. Mrs. Wesley had learned early 
 that the world forgets to commend, but rarely forgets to 
 blame. No one could take the property of another, even 
 to the value of a pin. Every promise must be strictly 
 observed, and a gift once bestowed could not be taken 
 back. The children were not taught to read till they were 
 five years old, and then the letters and small words were 
 learned from the first chapter of Genesis. 
 
 In 1702 Mr. Wesley had published his “History of the 
 Old and New Testament attempted in verse, and adorned 
 with three hundred and thirty sculptures,” but for this 
 money failed to flow in as he had expected. lie there¬ 
 fore went on horseback to London and appealed in vari¬ 
 ous quarters for aid. The Dean of Exeter gave him ten 
 pounds, the Archbishop of Canterbury ten guineas, and 
 others to the amount of sixty pounds. Possibly these 
 were subscriptions previously promised. 
 
 He had been home but a short time when his house took 
 fire. He wrote to Archbishop Sharpe, “He that’s born 
 to be a poet must, I am afraid, live and die poor; for on 
 the last of July, 1702, a fire broke out in my house by 
 some sparks which took hold of the thatch this dry time, 
 and consumed about two thirds of it before it could be 
 quenched. ... 1 got one of his horses [a sick neigh¬ 
 
 bor’s, whom he was visiting], rode up, and heard by the 
 way that my wife, children, and books were saved, for 
 which God be praised, as well as for what He has taken. 
 
 “ I find’t is some happiness to have been miserable, for 
 my mind has been so blunted with former misfortunes that 
 this scarce made any impression upon me.” 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 113 
 
 The house was rebuilt with great difficulty. A fifteenth 
 child was born into the home June 17, 1703, old style, 
 or June 28, new style, and this was John Wesley, the 
 founder of Methodism. 
 
 A few weeks later Mr. Wesley’s crop of flax was set on 
 fire, perhaps by some incendiary. As that was a day of 
 theological conflicts, and Mr. Wesley was not disinclined 
 to be belligerent with his pen, he doubtless made some 
 enemies. 
 
 Samuel, the first born, had been sent to Westminster 
 School, where he became distinguished for scholarship. 
 IIis fond mother wrote him long letters, chiefly about 
 religion, asking him to preserve them till he was older and 
 could better understand them. He seems to have con¬ 
 fided in her. Would not anybody in such a mother? She 
 writes : “ If you have wasted or misemployed your time, 
 take more care of what remains. If in anything you want 
 counsel or advice, speak freely to me, and I will gladly 
 assist 3 7 ou. I commit you to God’s protection. ... If 
 you can, possibly, set apart the hours of Sunday, in the 
 afternoon, from four to six for this employment [prayer 
 and meditation], which time I have also determined to the 
 same work. May that Infinite Being, whose we are, and 
 whom I hope we endeavor to serve and love, accept us and 
 bless us. . . . I think your health and studies require that 
 you should take a pretty deal of exercise. You know 
 whether your heart be too much set upon it. If it be, I 
 will tell you what rule I observed in the same case when I 
 was young and much addicted to childish diversions, which 
 was this : never to spend more time in any matter of 
 recreation in one day than I spent in private religious 
 duties.” 
 
 Again, she writes : “ 1 would advise you, as much as 
 
114 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 possible in your present circumstances, to throw your 
 business into a certain method, by which means you will 
 learn to improve every precious moment, and find an un¬ 
 speakable facility in the performance of your respective 
 duties. . . . Appoint so much time for sleep, eating, com¬ 
 pany, etc., but above all things, my dear Sammy, I com¬ 
 mand you, I beg, I beseech you, to be very strict in 
 observing the Lord’s Day. In all things endeavor to act 
 on principle, and do not live like the rest of mankind, who 
 pass through the world like straws upon a river, which 
 are carried which ivay the stream or wind drives them. 
 .... I am sorry that you lie under a necessity of con¬ 
 versing with those that are none of the best; but we must 
 take the world as we find it, since it is a happiness per¬ 
 mitted to a very few to choose their company.” 
 
 She writes him as “ the sou of my tenderest love, my 
 friend, in whom is my inexpressible delight, my future 
 hope of happiness in this world, for whom I weep and 
 pray in my retirements from the world, when no mortal 
 knows the agonies of my soul on your account, no eyes 
 see my tears, which are only beheld by that Father of 
 Spirits of whom I so importunately beg grace for you that 
 I hope I may at last be heard.” 
 
 Mr. Wesley writes earnest letters to his beloved Samuel, 
 and speaks thus beautifully of his noble wife : “ You will, 
 I verily believe, remember that these obligations of grati¬ 
 tude, love, and obedience, and the expressions of them, are 
 not confined to your tender years, but must last to the 
 very close of your life, and even after that render her 
 memory most dear and precious to you. . . . You will 
 endeavor to repay her prayers for you by doubling yours 
 for her, as ’.veil as your fervency in them ; and, above all 
 things, to live such a virtuous and religious life that she 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 115 
 
 may find that her care and love have not been lost upon 
 you, but that we may all meet in heaven. 
 
 “In short, reverence and love her as much as you will, 
 which I hope will be as much as you can. For though I 
 should be jealous of any other rival in your heart, yet I 
 will not be of her; the more duty you pay her, and the 
 more frequently and kindly you write to her, the more you 
 will please your affectionate father.” 
 
 The Epworth household went on as usual, except that 
 financial matters were growing worse. Hard-working Mr. 
 Wesley had written a poem of nearly six hundred lines, 
 “ Marlborough, or the Fate of Europe,” on the duke who 
 had gained the battle of Blenheim, August, 1704. 
 
 The faithful Archbishop Sharpe showed the poem to the 
 duke, who appointed Mr. Wesley to the chaplaincy of Col. 
 Lepelle’s regiment, but the Whigs gaining a victory in pol¬ 
 itics soon after, the rector was deprived of the chaplaincy, 
 and insulted by a mob on account of his Tory sympathies. 
 They fired pistols about his house, and under the window 
 where his wife lay ill. Her infant of three weeks old had 
 been carried across the street to a nurse, who, broken of 
 her rest by the disturbance, smothered the child when she 
 fell asleep; and then, nearly crazed by the accident, car¬ 
 ried it dead to the arms of its mother. 
 
 Brave Susanna Wesley bore all these things well; for 
 iier husband writes to the archbishop, “All this, thank 
 (iod, does not in the least sink my wife’s, spirits. For 
 my own, I feel them disturbed and disordered.” 
 
 Other troubles soon followed. Mr. Wesley owed some 
 money to one of the persons whom he had angered in the 
 recent election, was arrested and sent to Lincoln jail. The 
 archbishop, in deep sympathy, wrote asking how much he 
 owed. Mr. Wesley replied, “ Three hundred pounds ” ; 
 
116 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 but he cheerfully adds, “ I hope to rise again, as I have 
 always done, when at the lowest, and I think I cannot be 
 much lower now.” 
 
 While in jail he devoted himself to his companions, and 
 wrote Archbishop Sharpe : “ I don’t despair of doing some 
 good here (and so long I sha’n’t lose quite the end of liv¬ 
 ing), and, it may be, do more in this parish than in my 
 old one, for I have leave to read prayers every morning 
 and afternoon here in the prison, and to preach once a 
 Sunday, which I choose to do in the afternoon, when 
 there is no sermon at the minster. And I am getting 
 acquainted with my brother jail-birds as fast as I can, and 
 shall write to London, next post, to the Society for Prop¬ 
 agating Christian Knowledge, who, I hope, will send me 
 some books to distribute among them.” The cows on his 
 farm w ere mutilated, and also his house-dog, because he 
 barked; but Mr. Wesley adds, “ ’T is not every one w r ho 
 could bear these things, but 1 bless God my wife is less 
 concerned with suffering them than I am in the writing, or 
 than I believe your grace will be in reading them.” 
 
 The Archbishop of York w T ent to see Mrs. Wesley, and 
 said, “Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you ever really 
 wanted bread.” 
 
 “ My lord,” said she, “ I will freely own to your grace 
 that, strictly speaking, I never did want bread. But then 
 I had so much care to get it before it was eat, and to pay 
 for it after, as has often made it very unpleasant to me. 
 And I think to have bread on such terms is the next 
 degree of wretchedness to having none at all.” 
 
 “You are certainly right,” said the archbishop, and 
 gave her a generous sum of money. 
 
 Mr. Wesley remained in prison for three months. His 
 heart must have been touched when his wife sent him her 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 117 
 
 rings to help cancel the debt, “because she had nothing 
 else to relieve me with,” he says. But he returned them. 
 Finally, several persons raised money enough to pay half 
 the debts; and Mr. Wesley joyfully writes, “I feel I 
 walk a deal lighter, and hope 1 shall sleep better now 
 these sums are paid. ... I am a bad beggar, and worse 
 at returning formal thanks, but I can pray heartily for my 
 benefactors.” He returned to his rejoicing family. 
 
 In the latter part of 1706 another child was born, Mar¬ 
 tha, who closely resembled John, both in looks and char¬ 
 acter. On Dec. 18, 1707, Mrs. Wesley’s eighteenth child 
 was born, Charles, whose hymns have been the delight of 
 thousands. The babe was so delicate that he was wrapped 
 in wool, and “ neither cried nor opened his eyes for sev¬ 
 eral weeks,” says Eliza Clarke in her “ Life of Susanna 
 Wesley.” 
 
 A most trying calamity wms coming to the Wesleys. 
 They had suffered poverty, imprisonment, and the horrors 
 of debt. On the night of Feb. 9, 1709, Epworth Rectory 
 was burned to the ground. Five days afterwards Mrs. 
 AVesley thus describes the desolation to her eldest son, 
 Samuel: “The lire broke out about eleven or twelve at 
 night, we being all in bed, nor did we perceive it till the 
 roof of the corn chamber was burnt through, and the fire 
 fell upon your sister Hetty’s bed, which stood in the little 
 room joining upon it. She awaked, and immediately ran 
 to call your father, who lay in the red chamber. 
 
 “We had no time to take our clothes, but ran all 
 naked. I called to Betty to bring the children out of the 
 nursery; she took up Patty and left Jacky [John] to fol¬ 
 low her, but he, going to the door, and seeing all on fire, 
 ran back again. We got the street door open, but the 
 wind drove the flame with such violence that none could 
 
118 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 stand against it. I tried thrice to break through, but was 
 driven back. 1 made another attempt and waded through 
 the fire, which did me no other hurt than to scorch my legs 
 and face. 
 
 “When I was in the yard I looked about for your 
 father and the children, but, seeing none, concluded them 
 all lost. But, I thank God, I was mistaken. Your father 
 carried sister Emily, Sukey, and Patty into the gar¬ 
 den; then missing Jacky, he ran back into the house to 
 see if he could save him. lie heard him miserably crying 
 out in the nursery, and attempted several times to get 
 up-stairs, but was beat back by the flames; then he 
 thought him lost, and commended his soul to God, and 
 went to look after the rest. The child climbed up to the 
 window, and called out to them in the yard; they got up 
 to the casement and pulled him out just as the roof fell 
 into the chamber. Harry broke the glass of the parlor 
 window, and threw out your sisters Matty and Hetty, and 
 so by God’s great mercy we all escaped.” 
 
 And then she adds to this pitiful letter, homeless and 
 penniless as they are, “ Do not be discouraged; God will 
 provide for you.” 
 
 Mr. Wesley writes to the Duke of Buckingham, that 
 when he heard that “ killing cry ” of his Jacky, and could 
 not help, “ I made them all kneel down in the garden, and 
 we prayed God to receive his soul.” 
 
 John Wesley, who was then six years old, always felt 
 that God had miraculously saved him. He believed that 
 the moment when his father was praying for him in the 
 garden he awoke. “ I did not cry, as they imagined,” he 
 says, “ unless it was afterwards. I remember all the cir¬ 
 cumstances as distinctly as though it were but yester¬ 
 day. Seeing the room was very light, I called to the 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 119 
 
 maid to take me up. But none answering, I put my 
 head out of the curtains and saw streaks of fire on the top 
 of the room. I got up and ran to the door, but could get 
 no farther, all beyond it being in a blaze. I then climbed 
 up on the chest which stood near the window; one in the 
 yard saw me, and proposed running to fetch a ladder. 
 
 “Another answered, ‘There will not be. time; but I 
 have thought of another experiment. Here, I will fix my¬ 
 self against the wall, lift a light man and set him on my 
 shoulders.’ They did so, and he took me out of the win¬ 
 dow. Just then the wdiole roof fell in ; but it fell inward, 
 or we had all been crushed at once. When they brought 
 me into the house where my father was, he cried out, 
 ‘ Come, neighbors, let us kneel down; let us give thanks 
 to God ! He has given me all my eight children ; let the 
 house go; I am rich enough.’ ” 
 
 The books which had been purchased with the utmost 
 self-denial were all gone ; the collection of Hebrew poetry, 
 the papers of the Anuesley family, twenty pounds in 
 money, and their clothing. A month after the fire, in 
 March, 1709, Mrs. Wesley’s nineteenth and last child was 
 born, Kezia, who, like Charles, was extremely frail. 
 
 The fire, for a time, broke up the Epworth household. 
 Susanna and Hetty went to London to stay with their 
 uncles, Samuel Anuesley and Matthew Wesley. Emilia, 
 who was seventeen, and fitting herself to be a governess, 
 stayed with her mother for a year in lodgings, caring for 
 her with a peculiar tenderness and sympathy. 
 
 The rectory was rebuilt, after a time, in the Queen Anne 
 style of red brick, at a cost of four hundred pounds, and 
 the scattered Wesleys were gathered again into the fold. 
 The rector, though he could ill afford it, journeyed to Lon¬ 
 don for several winters as the representative of the clergy 
 in his diocese, in convocation. 
 
120 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Mrs. ATesley’s teaching went on as usual. Sometimes, 
 in the evening, Emilia read to her mother. The latter 
 writes to her husband at London that Emilia has been 
 reading an account of a Danish mission to Tranquebar: 
 “ Their labors refreshed my soul beyond measure,” she 
 says ; “ and I could not forbear spending a good part of 
 that evening in praising and adoring the Divine goodness 
 for inspiring those good men with such ardent zeal for 
 Ilis glory. For some days I could think and speak of 
 little else. 
 
 “ It then came into my mind, though I am not a man 
 nor a minister of the Gospel, yet if I were inspired with 
 a true zeal for Ilis glory, and really desired the salvation 
 of souls, I might do more than I do. . . . However, I 
 resolved to begin with my own children, and accordingly 
 1 proposed and observed the following method : I take 
 such a proportion of time as I can best spare every night 
 to discourse with each child by itself, on something that 
 relates to its principal concerns. On Monday I talk with 
 Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Nancy, 
 Thursday with -Tacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with 
 Charles ; and with Emily and Sukey together on Sunday.” 
 
 These Thursday talks with John were never forgotten 
 by him, and he wrote her years afterwards when he was 
 a Fellow of Lincoln College : “If you can spare me only 
 that little part of Thursday evening which 3 7 ou formerly 
 bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt not it 
 would be as useful now for correcting my heart, as it 
 was then for forming my judgment.” 
 
 Since John had been so wonderfnlly preserved to her, 
 Mrs. Wesley writes in her private meditations : “ I do in¬ 
 tend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this 
 child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided for, than ever 
 
SUSANXA WESLEY. 
 
 121 
 
 I have been, that I may do my endeavor to instil into his 
 mind the principles of Thy true religion and virtue.” 
 
 Besides Mrs. Wesley’s school duties, she prepared for 
 the religious instruction of her children three text-books : 
 “ A Manual of Natural Theology,” “ An Exposition of the 
 Leading Truths of the Gospel, based upon the Apostles’ 
 Creed,” and “A Practical Exposition of the Ten Com¬ 
 mandments,” besides sixty pages of manuscript, entitled 
 “ A Religious Conference between Mother and Emilia.” 
 
 Reading of the Danish mission was about to bear fruit, 
 even if Mrs. Wesley was “not a man nor a minister of 
 the Gospel,” for in 1710 she began to hold service every 
 Sunday evening in the rectory kitchen for the benefit of 
 her own children and servants. Others asked permission 
 to come till soon two hundred or more were present, and 
 many were obliged to go away for lack of room. She 
 read a sermon and then held converse with the people. A 
 woman who could write theological books for her children 
 could talk as acceptably, doubtless, as the curate who 
 preached in Mr. Wesley’s absence. 
 
 This was indeed an innovation, and Mr. Wesley wrote 
 to his godly and intellectual wife remonstrating with her. 
 She replied in a way that must have been convincing if 
 not conclusive: “The main of your objections,” she 
 writes, “ against our Sunday evening meetings are — 
 first, that it will look particular; secondly, my sex ; and 
 lastly, your being at present in a public station and char¬ 
 acter. . . . As to its looking particular, I grant it does ; 
 and so does almost every thing that is serious, or that 
 may any way advance the glory of God or the salvation 
 of souls, if it be performed out of a pulpit, or in the way 
 of a common conversation. . . . To your second, I reply 
 that as I am a woman, so I am also a mistress of a large 
 
122 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 family. And though the superior charge of the souls 
 contained in it lies upon you, as head of the family and 
 as their minister, yet in your absence I cannot but look 
 upon every soul you leave under my care as a talent com¬ 
 mitted to me, under a trust, by the great Lord of all the 
 families of heaven and earth. ... I never durst posi¬ 
 tively presume to hope that God would make use of me 
 as an instrument in doing good ; the farthest I ever durst 
 go was, ‘ It may be ; who can tell? With God all things 
 are possible.’ ” 
 
 To his third objection that he was in a “ public sta¬ 
 tion,” she replies : “ If I and my children went a-visiting 
 on Sunday nights, or if we admitted of impertinent visits, 
 as too many do who think themselves good Christians, 
 perhaps it would be thought no scandalous practice, 
 though, in truth, it would be so. 
 
 “Therefore, why any should reflect upon you, let your 
 station be what it will, because your wife endeavors to 
 draw people to the church, and to restrain them, by read¬ 
 ing and other persuasions, from their profanation of God’s 
 most holy day, I cannot conceive. But if any should be 
 so mad as to do it, I wish you would not regard it. For 
 my part, I value no censure on this account.” 
 
 When Mr. Inman, the rector, wrote Mr. Wesley ask¬ 
 ing him to stop his wife’s meetings, and saying that more 
 people went to hear her than came to the church to hear 
 him, Mr. Wesley again remonstrated. Mrs. Wesley wrote 
 back that some who had not been inside a church for seven 
 years came to her meetings, and then she wisely puts the 
 responsibility on him : “ If you do, after all, think fit to 
 dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me 
 to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience ; but send 
 me your positive command, in such full and express terms 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 123 
 
 as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neg¬ 
 lecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I 
 shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ.” 
 
 John Wesley never forgot these precious services, and 
 felt that if his mother could win souls, other women 
 should not be debarred from such a labor of love. It 
 is not strange that in his great work in after years, 
 women should have been his invaluable helpers, both by 
 word and deed. 
 
 Nearly two centuries have come and gone since the 
 mother of Wesley held services in the Epwortk rectory. 
 How many noble and educated women since then have 
 prayed and preached! And what human being shall 
 dare to close the door which Susanna Wesley helped to 
 open for her sex ? 
 
 John had entered Charterhouse School, London, when 
 he was a little over ten years of age, on the nomination 
 of the Duke of Buckingham. Here he studied for six 
 years, and became a favorite with both teachers and 
 pupils. Through the tyranny of the older boys, who 
 took away the food of the younger, he says, “ From 
 ten to fourteen I had little but bread to eat, and not 
 great plenty of that.” He was ambitious, and neces¬ 
 sarily so, if, as Addison says, “ Men of the greatest 
 abilities are most fired with ambition.” 
 
 Of course, letter after letter passed from the devoted 
 mother to her son. Now she wrote of the “ knockings” 
 at the rectory which have never been accounted for; now 
 to keep courage in his struggle with poverty, — he had 
 gone to Christ Church, Oxford, on a forty-pound scholar¬ 
 ship from the Charterhouse School, — “and to hope for 
 better days.” 
 
124 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 A rich brother, Samuel Annesley, was coming from 
 India, and he would probably help them all. Mr. "Wes¬ 
 ley had acted as his agent for a time, but the arrangement 
 had not been satisfactory. He blamed Mr. Wesley, and 
 the loyal wife replied that her husband might not be “ fit 
 for worldly business,” but added, “Did I not know that 
 Almighty wisdom hath views and ends in fixing the 
 bounds of our habitation, which are out of our ken, I 
 should think it a thousand pities that a man of his bright¬ 
 ness and rare endowments of learning and useful knowl¬ 
 edge in relation to the church of God should be confined 
 to an obscure corner of this country, where his talents 
 are buried, and he determined to a way of life for which 
 he is not so well qualified as I could wish.” 
 
 Sukey, who had been led to expect aid from her uncle, 
 becoming discouraged by poverty, married, unwisely, a 
 man from whom she afterwards separated. Mrs. Wesley 
 went to London to meet the brother from India, but he 
 did not come, and was never heard from afterwards. 
 When John learned that his mother was going to Lon¬ 
 don, he wept for joy at the thought of seeing her, but as 
 he had no money, he could not leave Oxford. 
 
 On closing his college life, John began to think of be¬ 
 coming a clergyman. He wrote to his father, who coun¬ 
 selled him to wait, fearing that he might be inclined to this 
 step merely as a profession, but his mother understood him 
 better, and wrote at once, “ I was much pleased with your 
 letter to your father about taking holy orders, and liked 
 the proposal well. ... I approve the disposition of your 
 mind, and think the sooner you are a deacon the better.” 
 Mr. Wesley soon agreed with his wife. 
 
 John wrote her, making inquiries about predestination 
 and other doctrines which troubled him, and she, with her 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 125 
 
 superior educationj answered with rare ability and clear 
 judgment. She advised what books to read. Thomas a 
 Kempis, on the “ Imitation of Christ,” and Jeremy Tay¬ 
 lor’s “ Rules for Holy Living and Dying” made a lasting 
 impression upon John Wesley. After reading the latter, 
 he said, “ I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, — all 
 my thoughts and words and actions, — being thoroughly 
 convinced there was no medium.” What John Wesley 
 would have been with an ignorant mother, it is difficult to 
 conjecture. The old question of ways and means could 
 not be ignored. The expenses of ordination must be met. 
 Poor Mr. Wesley wrote his son, “ I will assist you in the 
 charges for ordination, though I am myself just now 
 struggling for life.” 
 
 Joku was ordained deacon Sept. 19, 1725, and in the 
 following March was elected Fellow of Lincoln College. 
 H is father had interceded for him with Dr. Morley, rector 
 of the college, telling John meantime to “ study hard lest 
 your opponents beat you ”; and when elected, with a 
 glowing heart, though burdened with debt, writing, “ I 
 have done more than I could do for you. . . . The last 
 twelve pounds pinched me so hard that I am forced to 
 beg time of your brother Sam till after harvest to pay him 
 the ten pounds that you say he lent you. Nor shall I have 
 as much as that, perhaps not live pounds, to keep my 
 family till after harvest. . . . Mhat will be my own fate 
 God only knows. Wherever I am, my Jack is Fellow of 
 Lincoln.” 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century John Wesley held 
 this honorable position. He laid out a plan of work, and 
 closely followed it. Mondays and Tuesdays he devoted 
 to Greek and Roman historians and poets; Wednesdays 
 to logic and ethics; Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic; 
 
126 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Fridays to metaphysics and natural philosophy: Saturdays 
 to oratory and poetiy, chiefly to composing ; and Sundays 
 to divinity. He perfected himself in French, and gave 
 considerable time to mathematics and optics. 
 
 He wrote to his brother Samuel, “ Leisure and I have 
 taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long 
 as I live.” 
 
 In the summer of 1727 John came to Epworth to assist 
 his father who had become somewhat disabled by paraly¬ 
 sis. He was now sixty-five years old, and poverty and 
 labor were telling upon the rector of Epworth. Brain 
 work was fatiguing, but poverty a thousand times more 
 so, and the never-to-be-lifted debt w'as eating like a can¬ 
 cer. Strange that somebody did not lift the burden ! And 
 yet we are as blind to-day as were the people of Epworth. 
 To be our “ brother’s keeper ” was, and is, a very difficult 
 part of religion. 
 
 All were delighted to have John at home. He seems to 
 have fallen somewhat in love with Betty Kirkham, which 
 he confides to his mother, but he is soon recalled to Lin¬ 
 coln by Dr. Morley to become Greek lecturer and mode¬ 
 rator of the classes, with several private pupils, and is so 
 busy that his love matter is neglected or forgotten. When 
 John returned to college he found that his brother Charles, 
 who was at Christ Church, Oxford, had gathered round 
 him a small band of Christian young men who not only 
 studied earnestly, but met frequently evenings to read the 
 Greek Testament together. Charles attributed his in¬ 
 creased spirituality to “ somebody’s prayers, — my moth¬ 
 er’s, most likely.” 
 
 John at once joined the little band, and, being older, 
 became the leader. They were all devoted churchmen, 
 visited the poor and the sick, prisoners and debtors, — 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 127 
 
 the Wesley boys must have had a tender feeling for the 
 latter, — went without all luxuries and many necessities 
 for the sake of doing good ; and, living with all the method 
 to which they had been trained by Mrs. Wesley, were 
 nicknamed “Methodists.” 
 
 John Wesley began to rise at four o’clock in the morn¬ 
 ing for his work, and continued in this habit for sixty 
 years. In the first six years the number of Methodists grew 
 to fourteen. Who supposed then that it would ever grow 
 to over fourteen millions ? 
 
 John wrote his father of the w T ork they were doing, and 
 the good old man wrote back, “ I have the highest reason 
 to bless God that He lias given me two sons together at 
 Oxford, to whom lie has granted grace and courage to 
 turn the war against the world and the devil.” 
 
 A curacy was offered to John eight miles from Oxford, 
 at thirty pounds a year, which he accepted in addition to 
 his other work. When he had thirty pounds a year, he 
 lived on twenty-eight pounds, and gave away two. The 
 next year, receiving sixty pounds, he lived on twenty- 
 eight, and gave away thirty-two. The third year he 
 received ninety, and gave away sixty-two. 
 
 One cold winter’s day, a young girl whom the Method¬ 
 ists were keeping at school, called upon John Wesley. 
 She looked nearly frozen. “ You seem half starved,” 
 said Wesley; “have you nothing to wear but that linen 
 gown ? ” 
 
 “ Sir, this is all I have,” said the girl. 
 
 Wesley put his hand in his pocket, and found it nearly 
 empty. Then he looked at the pictures on his walls. 
 “It struck me,” he says, “will thy Master say, ‘Well 
 done, good and faithful steward ’ ? Thou hast adorned thy 
 walls with the money which might have screened this poor 
 
128 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 creature from the cold ! O justice ! O mercy ! Are not 
 these pictures the blood of this poor maid? ” 
 
 This habit of giving he continued through life. When 
 he was an old man he wrote in his journal, “ For up¬ 
 wards of eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly. 
 I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the 
 continual conviction that I save all I can, and give all I 
 can : that is, all I have.” 
 
 In one of his last impassioned sermons, he says, “Leave 
 children enough to live on, not in idleness and luxury, but 
 by honest industry. And if you have not children, upon 
 what scriptural or rational principle can you leave a groat 
 behind you more than will bury you? . . . Oh, leave 
 nothing behind you ! Lend all you have before you go 
 into a better world ! Lend it, lend it all unto the Lord, 
 and it shall be paid to you again.” 
 
 In the spring of 1731, Mr. Matthew Wesley, of London, 
 came to Epworth to visit his brother, and on his return 
 wrote a very stern letter to the rector, because he was 
 rearing his family in such poverty. He did not realize 
 that it cost more to support and educate the rector’s eight 
 children than it did his only child. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley, as ever, was enduring trials. Several of 
 her daughters, tired of the struggle with poverty, had 
 married unfortunately, and increased their troubles. The 
 bright and beautiful Hetty, who read Greek at eight, 
 married against her will a drinking man, who ill- 
 treated her. Martha, a woman of unusual loveliness of 
 character, married a curate who led a most unworthy life. 
 When he was dying, after he had made her unhappy for 
 forty years, he said, “I have injured an angel, — an 
 angel that never reproached me.” Kezia died at thirty- 
 two, her affections having been won by the man who was 
 already engaged to Martha. 
 
*9 US ANNA WE SI. E Y. 
 
 129 
 
 Mary, the deformed girl, was married to a young man 
 whom the Wesleys educated, and then gave him the living at 
 Wroote, a part of Mr. Wesley’s parish. The young couple 
 had fifty pounds a year to live on. Mary and her infant 
 child died a year after her marriage. Mrs. Wesley took 
 this death very much to heart. 
 
 In 1734 Mr. Wesley made his last visit to London to see 
 his “Dissertations on the Book of Job,” dedicated to 
 queen Caroline, through the press. Five hundred copies 
 were printed, and Samuel and John, as well as their father, 
 obtained all the subscriptions possible. 
 
 Mr. Wesley was growing old, seventy-two, — the won¬ 
 der was that he was not growing discouraged, — and how 
 to leave his family provided for was a serious question. 
 He wrote pitifully to Samuel, urging him to become rector 
 of Epworth, and thus care for his mother at her home : 
 “As for your aged and infirm mother, as soon as I drop 
 she must turn out unless you succeed me, which, if you 
 do, and she survives me, I know you ’ll immediately take 
 her then to your own house, or rather continue her there, 
 where your wife and you will nourish her till we meet 
 again in heaven ; and you will be a guide and a stay to 
 the rest of the family.” 
 
 Samuel did not wish to live at Epworth, and John was 
 urged to come, but he gave twenty-six reasons against it. 
 As ever, through life, Mr. Wesley’s hands seemed tied, 
 and he could do no more. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley saw that the end was approaching, and 
 wrote John and Charles to come to Epworth. They ar¬ 
 rived in time to talk with their father. He longed to see 
 his “Job” through the press and his debts paid, but both 
 these comforts were denied him. Mrs. Wesley came into 
 the room but seldom, for she fainted each time and had 
 
130 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 to be carried out. At sunset, April 25, 17:55, the debt- 
 burdened, devoted Samuel Wesley passed away, while John 
 was praying. ]\Irs. Wesley was comforted, because she 
 believed that her prayers were answered in his easy death. 
 
 The day after the burial in Epworth churchyard, the 
 landlady seized all Mrs. Wesley’s “quick stock,” Charles 
 wrote to his brother Samuel, valued at forty pounds, for 
 the fifteen pounds which his father owed her. “ It will 
 be highly necessary,” he adds, “ to bring all accounts of 
 what he owed you, that you may mark all the goods in 
 the house as principal creditor, and thereby secure to my 
 mother time and liberty to sell them to the best advan¬ 
 tage. . . . Let the Society [which gave aid to the widows 
 of clergymen] give her what they please, she must be still 
 in some degree burdensome to you, as she calls it. How 
 . do T envy you that glorious burden, and wish I could 
 share it with you ! You must put me in some way of 
 getting a little money, that I may do something in the 
 shipwreck of the family, though it be no more than fur¬ 
 nishing a plank.” 
 
 Mrs. Wesley moved away from Epworth, the place ot 
 so many joys and sorrows to her, and went to live with 
 Emilia, who had been helped by her brothers to establish 
 a school at Gainsborough. 
 
 A short time after the death of Mr. Wesley, John and 
 Charles were invited by Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe, 
 a member of Parliament who had founded the State of 
 Georgia, to go to the New World and help Christianize 
 the natives as well as minister to the colonists. John 
 declined to leave his aged mother. On being urged to 
 go if she would consent, he visited her, determining to 
 abide by her decision. When asked her advice, the brave 
 woman replied, “ Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice 
 
SUSAXXA WESLEY. 
 
 131 
 
 that they were all so employed, though I should never 
 see them more.” 
 
 This, of course, was decisive, and the two young men 
 bade her farewell, and sailed Oct. 14, 1735, for America. 
 
 In her first letter to her beloved John, she mourns that 
 she “does not long to go home, as in reason I ought to 
 do. This often shocks me; and as I constantly pray 
 (almost without ceasing) for thee, my son, so I beg you, 
 likewise, to pray for me, that God would make me better, 
 and take me at the best.” One does not wonder that she 
 desired to live, if only to see brighter days if possible! 
 After spending a year or more with Samuel, she went to 
 live with her daughter, Martha. 
 
 On the voyage to America the two young ministers 
 used every hour well. Wesley studied German, Spanish, 
 and Italian, when not talking with the passengers or hold¬ 
 ing service. lie found the Indians ready to hear the 
 Gospel, though “they would not be made Christians as 
 the Spaniards make Christians,” one of the chiefs saicW 
 After two years or more, Wesley decided to return to 
 England, not satisfied with his success, though Whitefield 
 said, “The good Mr. John Wesley has done in America 
 is inexpressible. IIis name is very precious among the 
 people.” 
 
 Early in 1738 Wesley met Peter Bolder from Ger¬ 
 many, an educated Moravian, who “preached justifica¬ 
 tion through faith in Christ, and of freedom by it from 
 the dominion and guilt of sin.” Bolder taught that a 
 man may be converted in an instant from sin to joy in 
 the Holy Spirit. Wesley felt that there was a peace in 
 believing and an assurance of pardon which he did not 
 then possess, and was determined to find it through 
 prayer. 
 
182 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 He was troubled for many days, till, on the evening of 
 May 24, 1738, he experienced a great change. “I felt 
 my heart strangely warmed,” he says. “ I felt I did 
 trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assur¬ 
 ance was given me that He had taken away my sins.” 
 His joy and peace were not unbroken, but from that time 
 onward he knew no rest in his marvellous work. His 
 message forever after was, “ By grace are ye saved, 
 through faith.” 
 
 “ Christians are called to love Cod with all their hearts, 
 and to serve Him with all their strength,” lie said, “ which 
 is precisely what I apprehend to be meant by the scriptural 
 term, perfection .” 
 
 He began to preach with renewed ardor. He talked to 
 the felons in Newgate; he spoke in churches and before 
 societies, and the congregations grew larger every day. 
 Soon the church doors began to be closed against him and 
 Whitefield, and they preached in the open air. 
 o “At first,” he says, “I could scarce reconcile myself 
 to this strange way of preaching in the fields ; having 
 been all my life, till very lately, so tenacious of every 
 point relating to decency and order, that I should have 
 thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not 
 been done in a church.” 
 
 During the last eight months of 1739 Wesley delivered 
 five hundred discourses, only eight of which were given 
 in churches. At Blackheath, from twelve to fourteen 
 thousand persons gathered to hear him, and quite as 
 many at Moorfields, Kennington Common, and elsewhere. 
 Good Mrs. Wesley was seeing the fruit of her labors. 
 
 Persecutions had begun in earnest. John Wesley was 
 forbidden by the sheriff to speak at Newgate, the last 
 place where prohibition was to be expected ! The Meth- 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 133 
 
 odists were called “ craekbrained enthusiasts, profane 
 hypocrites, and mad dogs.” 
 
 In Staffordshire a crowd surrounded Wesley, struck 
 him with clubs on the breast and mouth till the blood 
 flowed, and one seized him by the hair. The slight, 
 sweet-faced John Wesley said, “Are you willing to hear 
 me speak ? ” 
 
 “ No, no ; down with him ; kill him at once ! ” 
 
 “What evil have I done? Which of you all have I 
 wronged in word or deed ? ” 
 
 “ Bring him away, bring him awa} T ! ” cried the mob. 
 
 Wesley began to pray, when the ringleader said, “ Sir, 
 I will spend my life for you; follow me, and no one shall 
 hurt a hair of your head.” 
 
 “ From the beginning to the end,” says Wesley, “ I 
 found the same presence of mind, as if I had been sitting 
 in my own study. But I took no thought for one moment 
 before another; only once it came into mind, that, if they 
 should throw me into the river, it would spoil the papers 
 that were in my pocket. For myself, I did not doubt but 
 I should swim across, having but a thin coat and a light 
 pair of boots.” 
 
 Sometimes cattle were driven among the congregations; 
 stones were thrown, one of which struck Wesley between 
 the eyes, but wiping away the blood, he continued preach¬ 
 ing. Women were kicked and dragged by the hair, and 
 their clothes set on fire by rockets. Men were knocked 
 down and thrown into the gutters. The houses of those 
 who were called Methodists were torn down and the furni¬ 
 ture was broken into fragments. 
 
 Thousands of conversions were reported, and many 
 marvellous answers to prayer. Samuel Wesley had be¬ 
 come alarmed at such strange doings, and the more so 
 
134 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 that he had heard that his mother had attended one of 
 these gathering's. He wrote her : “ John and Charles are 
 now become so notorious, the world will be curious to 
 know w r hen and how they were born, what schools bred 
 at, what colleges, if in Oxford, and when matriculated, 
 what degrees took, and where, when, and by whom or¬ 
 dained; what books they have written and published. I 
 wish they may spare so much time as to vouchsafe a 
 little of their story. For my own part, I had much rather 
 have them picking straws within the walls, than preach¬ 
 ing in the area of Moorfields. 
 
 “ It was with exceeding concern and grief I heard you 
 had countenanced a spreading delusion, so far as to be oue 
 of Jack’s congregation. Is it not enough that I am bereft 
 of both my brothers, but must my mother follow too?” 
 
 Two weeks later Samuel Wesley was called away from 
 such earthly distractions as John was engaged in. He 
 died suddenly, Nov. 5. 1739, at the age of forty-nine. Mrs. 
 Wesley bore the death of her first-born and dearly loved 
 Samuel with composure, saying, “ He is now at rest. . . . 
 He hath reached the haven before me, but I shall soon 
 follow him.” 
 
 A month later she wrote to Charles : “ Your brother, 
 whom I shall henceforth call Son Wesley, since my dear 
 Sam is gone home, has just been with me and much 
 revived my spirits. ... I want either him or you ; for, 
 indeed, in the most literal sense, I am become a little 
 child and want continual succor.” 
 
 Shortly after Samuel’s death, in 1739, Jolm Wesley 
 purchased the old Foundry, near Moorfields, London. It 
 had been used by the government for casting cannon, till 
 in 1716 an explosion left it in ruins. He had no income 
 save the Oxford fellowship, but friends loaned and gave 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 135 
 
 money, some four, six, and ten shillings a year, so that at 
 an expense of about eight hundred pounds a plain chapel 
 to accommodate fifteen hundred persons was built, with a 
 house for lay preachers, and a band-room, large enough 
 for three hundred, where the classes met, and where five 
 o’clock morning service was conducted. The north end 
 of the room was used for a school, and the south end for 
 a book-room where Wesley’s publications were sold and 
 the proceeds devoted to Gospel work. During his long 
 ministry he wrote hundreds of pamphlets and books which 
 had an extensive sale. 
 
 Besides his own works, he prepared about fifty volumes 
 of the “ Christian Library,” which were made up of ex¬ 
 tracts from the best writers, grammars of five languages, 
 natural philosophy, history, memoirs, etc. His object 
 was “ that peasants and persons of neglected education 
 might have the means of acquiring useful knowledge at 
 the smallest expense of time and money.” 
 
 He used to say, “It cannot be that the people should 
 grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A 
 reading people will always be a knowing people.” 
 
 Over this band-room were the rooms of John Wesley, 
 and thither he brought his idolized mother to live with 
 him. He was then thirty-six. These must have been 
 happy days for tired, trusting Susanna Wesley. She 
 and her son talked together of theological matters. When 
 Thomas Maxfield, one of the first lay preachers, was al¬ 
 most insensibly led from praying with the converts to 
 preaching, and John was disturbed at this new departure, 
 Mrs. Wesley said, “John, take care what you do with 
 respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of 
 God to preach as you are. Examine what have been the 
 fruits of his preaching, and hear him yourself.” 
 
136 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Wesley was convinced, and said, “It is the Lord; let 
 Him do what seemeth Him good. What am I, that I 
 should withstand God ? ” 
 
 A little later, Emilia, who had married an impecunious 
 apothecary, was left a widow, and came to live at the 
 Foundry. 
 
 Wesley was drawn into some Calvinistic disputes with 
 Whitfield and others, but, in the main, his life wms devoted 
 to the one purpose of winning souls. He was punctual, 
 always kept his word, would ride all night rather than fail 
 to meet an appointment, and was careful in the use of 
 time. Once, when he was kept waiting, lie exclaimed 
 sadly, “ I have lost ten minutes forever ! ” 
 
 Meetings were being held all over Great Britain. The 
 persecutions continued, and so did the conversions. 
 Charles, too, as well as John, was becoming known and 
 loved for his hymns. During his life it is said that he 
 composed not far from six thousand six hundred. The 
 Wesleys collected and furnished the tunes for their people. 
 John said to his preachers, “ Exhort every one in the 
 congregation to sing, not one in ten only.” 
 
 In 1742, when John was thirty-nine, he visited ms old 
 home at Epworth. He offered to assist Mr. Ilomley, the 
 curate, either by preaching or reading prayers; but the 
 offer was declined, and a sermon preached against enthu¬ 
 siasts. At six o’clock, therefore, Wesley preached in 
 Epworth churchyard, standing on his father’s grave, to 
 the largest congregation ever gathered in the town. He 
 remained eight days, every evening preaching on the 
 grave. The effect was magical. On one occasion the 
 people on every side wept aloud, and then broke into praise 
 and thanksgiving. Men who had not been inside a church 
 for thirty years were deeply moved. The “ brand plucked 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 137 
 
 from the burning,” when he was six years old, had kindled 
 such a fire at Epworth as would never go out. The fifteenth 
 child of the patient Susanna Wesley was paying her a thou¬ 
 sandfold for all her care and sacrifice. 
 
 Wesley was building more chapels in London; one had 
 just been opened by him in Seven Dials; visiting the sick, 
 going among the poor, preaching several times a day, —. 
 never weary, never despondent, never fretting, he said, 
 “ I dare no more fret than curse and swear.” 
 
 Wesley preached without notes. As he was about to 
 preach in Allhallow’s Church, London, when he was 
 eighty-five, he said to his attendant, “ It is above fifty 
 years since 1 first preached in this church. I came with¬ 
 out a sermon ; and going up the pulpit stairs, I hesitated, 
 and returned into the vestry, under much mental confusion 
 and agitation. A woman who stood by noticed my con¬ 
 cern, and said, ‘Pray, sir, what is the matter?’ I re¬ 
 plied, ‘ I have not brought a sermon with me.’ Putting 
 her hand on my shoulder, she said, ‘ Is that all? Cannot 
 you trust God for a sermon?’ This question had such an 
 effect on me that 1 ascended the pulpit, preached extem¬ 
 pore, with great freedom to myself and acceptance to the 
 people, and have never since taken a written sermon into 
 the pulpit.” 
 
 Wesley’s style was always simple and clear— two char¬ 
 acteristics of all good writing or speaking. lie said, 
 “When I transcribe anything for the press, I think it my 
 duty to see that every phrase be clear , pure , proper , and 
 easy.” 
 
 Feeling that relief for the needy and Christian consola¬ 
 tion should go hand in hand, Wesley divided London into 
 twenty-three districts, and appointed visitors to call upon 
 the sick three times a week, and relieve the wants of the 
 
138 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 poor. One rule he especially emphasized : “Be mild, ten¬ 
 der, and patient.” Those who asked relief were to receive 
 “ neither an ill word nor an ill look.” He carried this out 
 in his own life. 
 
 Once, when he was eighty, on leaving Norwich, a crowd 
 of poverty-stricken people gathered about him. He had 
 given so much that he had just enough left to take him to 
 London. He said, somewhat sharply, “ I have nothing 
 for you. Do you suppose I can support the poor in every 
 place ? ” 
 
 At the moment he was stepping into his carriage, his 
 foot slipped and he fell to the ground. Feeling that God 
 had rebuked him, he said to a friend near by, “ It is all 
 right; it is only what I deserved; for if 1 had no other 
 good to give, I ought, at least, to have given them good 
 words.” 
 
 Wesley said, and with truth, “ Money never stays with 
 me; it would burn me if it did. I throw it out of my 
 hands as soon as possible, lest it should find a way into 
 my heart.” 
 
 When asked by the Commissioners of Excise to pay a 
 tax on his silver plate, he replied by letter, “ I have two 
 silver teaspoons at London, and two at Bristol. This is 
 all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any 
 more while so many around me want bread.” 
 
 When he was eighty-four years old, the white-haired 
 preacher spent five days in traversing the streets of Lon¬ 
 don, often ankle-deep in mud and meltiug snow, to collect 
 funds for the poor. This he did each year. 
 
 An eminent artist once asked Wesley to have a cast of 
 his face taken, and he would pay him ten guineas. He 
 l-efused, but finally consented and took the money. On 
 leaving the house, he saw an excited crowd surrounding an 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 139 
 
 auctioneer who was selling the furniture of a poor debtor; 
 even the bed upon which the man was dying. Wesley 
 rushed into the crowd, and asked the amount of the debt. 
 
 “ Te.’j guineas,” was the answer. “ Take it,” said Wes¬ 
 ley, “ and let the man have his furniture again. I see 
 why God sent me these ten guineas,” said the devoted 
 preacher. 
 
 Two small houses were added to the Foundry for needy 
 and deserving widows. A school was opened with about 
 sixty children, most of them so poor that they were taught 
 and clothed gratuitously. A lending society was also 
 started, Mr. Wesley begging from the London people fifty 
 pounds, to be loaned in sums not to exceed twenty shil¬ 
 lings, payable within three months. With this small sum 
 two hundred and fifty persons were helped in one year. 
 Mr. Wesley said, If this is not lending unto the Lord, 
 what is ? ” The capital was increased later to one hundred 
 and twenty pounds, and the maximum loan was five 
 pounds. And all this time Mr. Wesley was preaching day 
 and night to assembled thousands, and organizing socie¬ 
 ties of Christians in the various chapels. He had no 
 thought of separating from the Church of England, and, 
 indeed, never did leave the church; his one desire being, 
 as he said, “ Church or no church, I must save souls.” 
 
 The blessed work of Susanna Wesley was about to end ; 
 no, not to eud, for it was to be carried forward by millions 
 after her. What must have been her feelings as she 
 saw societies and schools springing up throughout the 
 land? Books and tracts scattered by thousands ; people 
 sitting up all night in the chapels for fear they might not 
 be awake in time for the five o’clock service before the 
 great preacher left the town ! 
 
 While preaching in Bristol on Sunday evening, July 
 
140 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 18, 1742, John Wesley heard ot' his mother’s illness. He 
 hastened to the Foundry in London. “ I found my mother 
 on the borders of eternity,” he writes in his journal; “ but 
 she has no doubt or fear, nor any desire but, as soon as 
 God should call her, to depart and be with Christ.” 
 
 On the morning of Friday, July 23, as she awakened 
 from sleep, she cried, “ My dear Saviour ! art Thou come 
 to help me at my last extremity? ” 
 
 “ About three in the afternoon,” writes Mr. Wesley, 
 “ I went to my mother, and found her change was near. I 
 sat down on the bedside. She was in her last conflict, 
 unable to speak, but, I believe, quite sensible. Her look 
 was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed upward, while we 
 commended her soul to God. From three to four the sil¬ 
 ver cord was loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern ; 
 and then, without any struggle or sigh or groan, the soul 
 was set at liberty. We stood round the bed, and fulfilled 
 the last request uttered before she lost her speech : ‘ Chil¬ 
 dren, as soon as 1 am released, sing a psalm of praise to 
 God.’ ” The poverty and the struggle were over at seventy- 
 three. These last days must have been the best and 
 brightest. 
 
 Mrs. Wesley was buried on Sunday, Aug. 1, in Bun- 
 hill Fields. John records in his journal: “ Almost an in¬ 
 numerable company of people being gathered together, 
 about five in the afternoon, I committed to the earth the 
 body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The por¬ 
 tion of scripture from which I spoke was, ‘ I saw a great 
 white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the 
 earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no 
 place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, 
 stand before God ; and the books were opened; and the 
 dead were judged out of those things which were written 
 
S US AX 1ST A WESLEY. 
 
 141 
 
 in the books, according to their works.’ It was one of 
 the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect to see 
 this side eternity.” 
 
 Mrs. Wesley’s tombstone having become defaced by 
 time, eighty-six years afterward, in 1828, a new monu¬ 
 ment was set lip over her grave, and in December, 1870, 
 an obelisk of Sicilian marble was erected to her memory 
 opposite the City Road Chapel, fronting Bnnhill Fields. 
 
 The triumphant words of Charles Wesley, “ God buries 
 his workmen, but carries on Ilis work,” were true, and 
 though the remarkable mother had gone, the remarkable 
 sons went forward in their untiring labors. 
 
 Seven years after Mrs. Wesley’s death, Charles, then 
 forty-two, was married to Sarah Gwynne of South Wales, 
 a young lady twenty-three, of excellent family, musical, 
 and well educated. The union proved a happy one. She 
 survived him thirty-four years, he dying at eighty and she 
 at ninety-six. 
 
 The year of Charles’s marriage, John, who was then 
 forty-six, expected to marry Grace Murray, an attractive 
 widow of thirty-three. She was devoted to Wesley’s 
 work, was gifted in speaking, nursed him during an ill¬ 
 ness, and was offered marriage by him. She accepted, 
 replying, “This is too great a blessing forme; I can’t 
 tell how to believe it. This is all I could have wished 
 for under heaven.” 
 
 She was also loved by a lay preacher, John Bennett. 
 Charles, believing that Grace Murray was not the one for 
 his brother, not being his equal socially, and thinking 
 that his work would be injured, influenced her to marry 
 Bennett. 
 
 It was a great blow to John Wesley. Four days after 
 her marriage he wrote a friend : “ Since I was six years 
 
142 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 old, 1 never met with such a severe trial as for some clays 
 past. For ten years God has been preparing a fellow- 
 laborer for me, by a wonderful train of providences. 
 Last year I was convinced of it; therefore I delayed 
 not, but, as I thought, made all sure beyond a danger 
 of disappointment. But we were soon after torn asunder 
 by a whirlwind. 
 
 ‘‘In a few months the storm was over; I then used 
 more precaution than before, and fondly told myself that 
 the day of evil would return no more. But it too soon 
 returned. The waves rose again since I came out of Lon¬ 
 don. I fasted and prayed, and strove all I could; but 
 the sons of Zeruiah were too hard for me. The whole 
 world fought against me; but above all, my own familiar 
 friend. Then was the word fulfilled, ‘ Son of man, be¬ 
 hold, I take from thee the desire of thine eyes at a 
 stroke; yet shalt thou not lament, neither shall thy tears 
 run down.’ 
 
 “The fatal, irrevocable stroke was struck on Tuesday 
 last. Yesterday 1 saw my friend (that was), and him to 
 whom she is sacrificed. I believe you never saw such a 
 scene.” 
 
 For thirty-nine years Wesley did not see Grace Ben¬ 
 nett. In 1788, when her son was officiating in a chapel 
 in Moorfiekls, she expressed a wish to see Mr. Wesley, 
 lie was then eighty-five and she seventy-two. Her hus¬ 
 band had been dead twenty-nine years, and Mr. Wesley’s 
 wife, whom he married two years after his disappoint¬ 
 ment, had been dead seven years. The meeting was brief 
 and affecting. He was never heard to men Lion her name 
 afterwards. She survived Mr. Wesley twelve years, dy¬ 
 ing at the age of eighty-seven. Her last words were, 
 “ Glory be to Thee, my God : peace Thou givest.” 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 143 
 
 Wesley’s marriage to Mrs. Vazeille, when he was forty- 
 eight, proved a most unfortunate union. She was jealous, 
 left him several times, and at her death gave her money, 
 five thousand pounds, to her own family, with only a ring 
 to her husband. He had desired somebody like his mother, 
 and the disillusion must have been a great disappoint¬ 
 ment. His habits of life were formed, and mutual con¬ 
 cessions were perhaps difficult. For thirty years Mr. 
 Wesley did his work from this unhappy home. He re¬ 
 peatedly said that he believed the Lord overruled this 
 painful business for his good; and that, if Mrs. "Wesley 
 had been a better wife, he might have been unfaithful in 
 the great work to which God had called him. He out¬ 
 lived her ten years. 
 
 The amount of Mr. Wesley’s work seems almost in¬ 
 credible. During the fifty years of his itinerant ministry 
 it is estimated that he travelled a quarter of a million 
 miles, usually on horseback, reading poetry, philosophy, 
 and .history, while the bridle hung loosely on the hoi'se’s 
 neck. He loved poetry and sometimes wrote it, but his 
 mother said, “Make poetry your diversion and not your 
 business,” and he accepted her advice. He delivered 
 more than forty thousand sermons, a large part of these 
 in the open air, and sometimes preached four and five 
 times a day; he wrote books, he superintended churches 
 and schools, he carried on a vast correspondence; he 
 was accessible to the highest and the lowest. 
 
 “ When you met him in the street of a crowded city,” said 
 Southey, “ he attracted notice, not only by his band and 
 cassock, and his long hair — white and bright as silver — 
 but by his face and manner, both indicating that all his 
 minutes were numbered, and that not one was to be 
 lost.” 
 
144 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Wesley said, “ Though I am always in haste, I am 
 never in a hurry; because I never undertake any more 
 work than I can go through with perfect calmness of 
 spirit.” 
 
 When Wesley was sixty-seven liis beloved Whitefield 
 died in Newburyport, Mass., Sept. 30, 1770. The latter 
 had intended to be buried in Tottenham Court Chapel, 
 London, and wished the Wesley brothers to lie beside 
 him. He said, “ You refuse them entrance here while 
 living. They can do you no harm when they are dead.” 
 
 According to a promise made between the two men, 
 Wesley preached the funeral sermon in Whitefield’s church 
 to an immense multitude. On the same day he preached 
 in Whitefield’s Tabernacle in Moorfields. The hour ap¬ 
 pointed was half-past five, but the place was filled at 
 three. Wesley’s text at both places was, “ Let me die 
 the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like 
 his ! ” 
 
 When Wesley was eighty, he said, “ I find no more 
 pain or bodily infirmities than at five-and-twenty. This 
 I still impute : 1, To the power of God, fitting me for 
 what He calls me to; 2, To my still travelling four or five 
 thousand miles a year; 3, To my sleeping, night or da}’, 
 whenever I want it; 4, To my rising at a set hour; 5, To 
 my constant preaching, particularly in tne morning.” 
 
 He wrote to a friend at this time, “ I am afraid you 
 want the grand medicine which I use, — exercise and 
 change of air.” 
 
 Three years later he writes that he is working on the 
 “ Life of Mr. Fletcher.” “ To this I dedicated all the time 
 I could spare till November, from five in the morning till 
 eight at night. These are my studying hours ; I cannot 
 write longer in a day without hurting my eyes.” Fifteen 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 145 
 
 hours, and he eighty-three years of age ! When Wesley 
 was eighty-five, his brother Charles died. A fortnight 
 afterwards, when at Bolton, in reading the hymn, — 
 
 “ My company before is gone, 
 
 And I am left alone with Thee,” 
 
 Mr. Wesley burst into tears, and sat down in the pulpit, 
 covering his face with his hands. 
 
 On his eighty-eighth birthday, he wrote in his journal: 
 “ For above eighty-six years, I found none of the infirm¬ 
 ities of old age; my eyes did not wax dim, neither was my 
 natural strength abated ; but, last August, I found almost 
 a sudden change. My eyes were so dim that no glasses 
 would help me. My strength likewise now quite forsook 
 me, and probably will not return in this world. But I 
 feel no pain from head to foot; only it seems nature is ex¬ 
 hausted ; and, humanly speaking, will sink more and more, 
 till ‘ the weary springs of life stand still at last.’ ” 
 
 A little before this, Henry Crabbe Robinson describes 
 John Wesley preaching in the great round meeting-house 
 at Colchester. “ He stood in a wide pulpit, and on each 
 side of him stood a minister, and the two held him up, 
 having their hands under his armpits. Ilis feeble voice 
 was barely audible, but his reverend countenance, espe¬ 
 cially his long white locks, formed a picture never to 
 be forgotten. There was a vast crowd of lovers and 
 admirers.” 
 
 On Feb. 23, 1791, Wesley arose at four o’clock as usual, 
 and set out for Leatherhead, eighteen miles from London, 
 where he preached in the dining-room of a magistrate from 
 the words : “Seek ye the Lord while He maybe found, 
 call ye upon Him while lie is near.” This was his last 
 
 sermon. 
 
146 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The next day he wrote his last letter to Wilberforce on 
 the abolition of slavery. “ Unless God has raised you up 
 for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition 
 of men and devils; but, if God be for you, who can be 
 against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? 
 Oh, be not weary in well doing. Go on in the name of God, 
 and in the power of His might, till even American slav¬ 
 ery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away 
 before it.” 
 
 Each day he was failing. On Tuesday, March 1, he 
 said, “I want to write.” A pen was put in his hand, but 
 he could not use it. “ Let me write for you,” said a 
 friend; “tell me what you wish to say.” “Nothing,” 
 he replied, “ but that God is with us.” 
 
 He tried to speak, but it was difficult to understand 
 him. He was able to communicate to them that he wished 
 his sermon on “The Love of God to Fallen Man ” given 
 to everybody. And then, with great effort, he said, “The 
 best of all is, God is with us ! ” And after a pause, while 
 lifting his arm in triumph, he reiterated, “ The best of all 
 is, God is with us ! ” 
 
 During the night he repeated scores of times, “I’ll 
 praise ! I ’ll praise ! ” In the morning, at ten o’clock, the 
 friends present knelt around his bed, while one prayed. 
 “ Farewell! ” said the dying man, and passed away March 
 2, 1791. Remembering the dying words of his mother, 
 “ Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of 
 praise to God,” the}’ sang beside the body of her beloved 
 John,— 
 
 Waiting to receive thy spirit, 
 
 Lo! the Saviour stands above; 
 
 Shows the purchase of His merit, 
 
 Reach«s out the crown of love.” 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 147 
 
 The excitement was so great when it was learned that 
 Wesley was dead, that it was decided to have the funeral 
 at five in the morning. He was buried March 9, behind 
 the chapel in City Road. 
 
 He left “ six pounds, to be divided among the six poor 
 men, named by the assistant, who shall carry my body to 
 the grave ; for 1 particularly desire there may be no hearse, 
 no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp, except the tears of 
 those that loved me, and arc following me to Abraham’s 
 bosom.” 
 
 A great multitude came notwithstanding the early hour, 
 and sobbed aloud when their precious dead was buried 
 from their sight. 
 
 Eighty-five years afterwards, in 1876, a mural tablet 
 was unveiled in Westminster Abbey by the lamented Dean 
 Stanley, bearing the faces of John and Charles Wesley, 
 with these words of John, “ I look upon all the world as 
 my parish”; his dying words, “The best of all is, God 
 is with us” ; and the words of Charles, “ God buries His 
 workmen, but carries on His work.” 
 
 Southey said, “I consider Wesley as the most influ¬ 
 ential mind of the last century; the man who will have 
 produced the greatest effects, centuries, or, perhaps, mil¬ 
 lenniums hence, if the present race of men should continue 
 so long.” Theodore Parker said, “John Wesley was the 
 greatest organizer a thousand years have produced.” 
 
 Wonderful son of a wonderful mother! Both educated, 
 both saving every moment, both cheerful. Wesley said, 
 “ I do not remember to have felt lowness of spirits for one 
 quarter of an hour since I was born.” Both brave to meet 
 every trial; both consecrated to the winning of souls. 
 
 “ The world is my parish ! ” Thus it has proved. What 
 have been the results of that godly training at Epworth 
 
148 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Rectory, and of the little band of Methodists at Oxford in 
 1729? 
 
 One hundred years have passed away since Wesley died 
 in 1791. This year, 1891, the Second Methodist Ecumeni¬ 
 cal Council, with five hundred delegates in attendance, has 
 been held at Washington, D. C. The following statistics 
 were there given : Methodist churches in the United States, 
 fifty-five thousand, — more than one-third of all the' 
 churches in our country; thirty-six thousand Methodist 
 ministers, besides thirty thousand local preachers; five 
 million communicants, and twenty million adherents, with 
 a church property worth two hundred million dollars. 
 
 What a record since Francis Asbury, the son of peasant 
 parents, came to this country in 1771, without a cent in his 
 pocket! “ His daily rides,” says Rev. Luke Tyerman in 
 his “Life of Wesley,” “were often from thirty to fifty 
 miles over mountains and swamps, through bridgeless 
 rivers and pathless woods, his horse frequently weary and 
 lame, and he himself wet, cold, and hungry. For forty- 
 five j’ears, when steamboats, stage-coaches, railways, and 
 almost roads, were utterly unknown, Asbury made a tour 
 of the American States, travelling never less than five 
 thousand, and often more than six thousand, miles a year, 
 and this generally on horseback. . . . 
 
 “Usually, he preached at least once every week day, 
 and thrice every Sunday; delivering, during his ministry 
 in America, more than twenty thousand sermons. . . . 
 Most of his life was spent on horseback, in extemporized 
 pulpits, or in log-cabins crowded with talking men and 
 noisy women, bawling children, and barking dogs,— 
 cabins which he was obliged to make his offices and studies, 
 and where, with benumbed fingers, frozen ink, impracti¬ 
 cable pens, and rumpled paper, he had to write his ser- 
 
SUSANNA WESLEY. 
 
 149 
 
 mons, his journals, and his letters.” He died in 1816, 
 and was followed to his grave, in Baltimore, by twenty-five 
 thousand of his friends. 
 
 Besides this grand record in the New World, what have 
 been the results of Wesley’s work in the Old ? “ The total 
 for the world, one hundred years after the death of Wes¬ 
 ley,” says the Rev. D. II. Muller, D. 1)., of Cleveland, 
 Ohio, to whom I am indebted for the above figures, “is 
 forty-two thousand itinerant Methodist ministers, eighty- 
 seven thousand local preachers, six million (6,147,000) 
 members, with twenty-five million adherents.” 
 
 Dr. Dobbin might well say : “A greater poet may arise 
 than Ilomer or Milton, a greater theologian than Calvin, a 
 greater philosopher than Bacon, a greater dramatist than 
 any of ancient or modern fame, but a more distinguished 
 revivalist of the churches than John Wesley, never.” 
 
 It was a blessing to the world that Susanna Wesley ever 
 lived, and the work of her and her noble son is only in its 
 beginning. What shall it be centuries from now? 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 
 O NE of my greatest pleasures in a walking trip through 
 the English lake district was a visit to the home of 
 Harriet Martineau, “ The Knoll,” at Ambleside. The dis¬ 
 tinguished woman and author had gone out of it by death 
 six years before, but the sunny rooms, and books, and 
 vines were as she left them. 
 
 The gothic, gray stone cottage was a mass of exquisite 
 color from the green ivy, the white clematis, the purple 
 passion flower, the red Virginia creeper, the yellow honey¬ 
 suckle, and roses, many of these flowers in abundant 
 bloom, and clambering to the very top of the house. 
 
 Here were the trees which Wordsworth, Macready, and 
 other visitors had planted. Here were the narrow stone 
 steps leading to the garden, where I gathered, at the sug¬ 
 gestion of the courteous owner of “The Knoll,” flowers 
 of many varieties, which the woman who belonged to 
 America as well as to England had planted. Here was 
 the gray granite sun-dial, in the shape of a gothic font, 
 with its motto, “Come, Light! visit me!” sent her by 
 Miss Sturch of London, in remembrance of a dial in the 
 garden of her maternal grandfather, which she loved when 
 a child. 
 
 The house was cheery and homelike. On the right of 
 the hall was the drawing-room, full of sunlight through 
 
HARRIET MARTINEAU. 
 ( 1833 .) 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEA U. 
 
 151 
 
 its long windows, and rich in gifts of pictures, statuary, 
 and books from celebrated friends, — Florence Nightin¬ 
 gale, Charles Darwin, Jacob Bright, H. Crabbe Robinson, 
 Lady Byron, Mrs. Carlyle, and others. 
 
 When the mother of the noble Col. Robert G-. Shaw, 
 the first white colonel of the first black regiment raised 
 during our Civil War, sent her son’s picture to Miss Mar- 
 tineau, it was hung in a conspicuous place. “ It always 
 melts my heart to look at it,” she said; “and think of 
 that great deed that proved two races worthy of each 
 other, and helped to save your land for both ! ” 
 
 Col. Shaw fell in the attack upon Fort Wagner, on the 
 nigiit of July 18,1863. As his regiment, the Fifty-Fourth 
 Massachusetts Infantry, rushed on the double-quick to 
 the charge, his last words were, “ We shall take the fort 
 or die there.” He was shot through the heart. The next 
 morning the dead and dying were found piled three feet 
 deep upon each other. Col. Shaw was buried among the 
 black soldiers, who showed that day that they were brave 
 enough and true enough to stand among the free forever. 
 
 Opposite this drawing-room was the study, used also 
 as a dining-room, the walls covered with books on art, 
 education, political economy, philosophy, theology, and 
 general literature; dictionaries, encyclopedias, annuals, 
 hand-books, — in short, whatever a gifted and unusual 
 mind could need for its work. 
 
 Back of these two rooms was the only other room on 
 the ground floor, the large, sunny kitchen, with its library 
 for servants — a feature which wisely might be copied in 
 other homes. 
 
 Above, the sleeping rooms were as airy and cheerful 
 as those below. Here George Eliot ^Emerson, Charlotte 
 Bronte, and other noted men and women had been her 
 
152 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 guests. From here the brilliant, lonely genius from 
 Haworth, the author of “Jane Eyre,” wrote to her sister 
 Emily : “ Iler [Miss Martineau’s] visitors enjoy the most 
 perfect liberty; what she claims for herself she allows 
 them. I rise at my own hour, breakfast alone. ... I 
 pass the morning in the drawing-room, she in her study. 
 At two o’clock we meet, talk and walk till five, — her 
 dinner hour, — spend the evening together, when she con¬ 
 verses fluently and abundantly, and with the most com¬ 
 plete frankness. I go to my room soon after ten, and 
 she sits up writing letters. She appears exhaustless in 
 strength and spirits, and indefatigable in the faculty of 
 labor : she is a great and good woman.” 
 
 Why do thousands, year after year, visit the home of 
 Harriet Martineau? Because she was, as Thomas Went¬ 
 worth Higginson truly says, “ in many respects the ablest 
 and most helpful woman whom this century or any century 
 has produced.” 
 
 Americans will always owe her gratitude and honor for 
 her attitude on slavery — a system which the South now 
 disbelieves in not less than the North — and for her deep 
 interest and aid in the time of our Civil War. The Hon. 
 W. E. Forster, in his great speech at Bradford, England, 
 said that “ it seemed as if she alone was keeping the 
 country straight in regard to America.” 
 
 Harriet Martineau, born June 12, 1802, was descended 
 from the Huguenots, a party of whom, after the Revoca¬ 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes in 1688, settled in Norwich, 
 England. Her father, Thomas Martineau, a manufacturer 
 of bombazines and camlets, was a gentle, refined, peace- 
 loving man who, failing in business, died under the stress 
 of pecuniary troubles. “Humble, simple, upright, self- 
 denying, affectionate to as many people as possible, and 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEAU. 
 
 153 
 
 kindly to all,” said Harriet in after years, “ he gave no 
 pain and did all the good he could.” 
 
 The mother, Elizabeth Rankin, the daughter of a 
 sugar refiner of Newcastle-on-Tyne, was a woman of 
 strong will, dominant temperament, probably rendered 
 less amiable by her husband’s losses and the care of 
 eight children, for whom she and her husband, says Har¬ 
 riet in her autobiography, “exercised every kind of self- 
 denial to bring us up qualified to take care of ourselves. 
 They pinched themselves in luxuries to provide their girls, 
 as well as their boys, with masters and schooling; and 
 they brought us up to an industry like their own ; — the 
 boys in study and business, and the girls in study and 
 household cares.” 
 
 Harriet was the sixth child, rather plain and sickly. 
 Her childhood was not a happy one. System and duty 
 seemed to be the watchwords of the home. There was 
 little time, and apparently no inclination, for words of en¬ 
 dearment or appreciation. The father was too heavily 
 weighted with cares, and the mother too busy teaching 
 her family how to sew and to cook, and to spend every 
 minute in work. Time for everything but love ! 
 
 Mrs. Martineau was devoted to her children as far as 
 working for them was concerned, but instead of caresses, 
 she used that sharpest of all weapons, sarcasm, which 
 cuts both ways, the user and the one on whom it is used. 
 
 When Harriet was sent with sarcastic messages to the 
 maids, such as “Bid them not to be so like cart-horses 
 overhead,” she says, “ It was impossible to give such an 
 one as that: so I used to linger and delay to the last 
 moment, and then deliver something civil, with all im¬ 
 aginable sheepishness, so that the maids used to look at 
 one another and laugh.” 
 
154 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Harriet was very susceptible to kindness, and was 
 unhappy because she felt that nobody loved her. “A 
 friend asked me,” she says, “ why my mother sat sewing 
 diligently for us children, and sat up at night to mend 
 my stockings, if she did not care for me ; and I was con¬ 
 vinced at once ; — only too happy to believe it, and being 
 unable to resist such evidence as the stocking-mending at 
 night, when we children were asleep.” 
 
 Once when she had a severe earache, Mrs. Martineau 
 took the little girl on her lap and laid the ear against her 
 breast. “I was afraid of spoiling her starched muslin 
 handkerchief with the tear's which would come ; but I was 
 very happy, and wished that I need never move again,” 
 she wrote in middle life. 
 
 At another time, when she was sent twice to find some 
 cravats in a drawer, with the usual remark that “ she was 
 more trouble than she was worth,” and they were at last 
 found in another place, her mother kissed her, and said, 
 “And now, my dear, I have to beg your pardon.” The 
 girl answered with tears, but the words cheered her for 
 long afterwards. 
 
 A wretched habit seems to have prevailed in the Mar¬ 
 tineau home, that of “taking down” any member who 
 showed any self-appreciation. Self-conceit is one thing, 
 but a true self-appreciation is quite another. Let a child 
 be told repeatedly that he or she is awkward, plain, un¬ 
 lovely, or stupid, and he is very apt to become so. The 
 whole world loves and needs encouragement. AVe are not 
 told that the habit of whipping was indulged in, that form 
 of brutality, happily, having passed away from most 
 schools, and the better class of homes in England and 
 America. 
 
 Harriet Martineau said years later in her book, “ House- 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEA U. 
 
 155 
 
 hold Education” : “ It should never be forgotten that the 
 happier a child is the cleverer he will be. This is not only 
 because in a state of happiness the mind is free, and at 
 liberty for the exercise of its faculties instead of spend¬ 
 ing its thoughts and energy in brooding over troubles, 
 but .also because the action of the brain is stronger when 
 the frame is in a state of hilarity ; the ideas are more 
 clear, impressions of outward objects are more vivid, and 
 the memory will not let them slip.” 
 
 The sternness in the Martineau household bred decep¬ 
 tion. Neither children nor adults give their confidence 
 when they know they will be blamed. “ In my childhood,” 
 says Harriet Martineau, “I would assert or deny anything 
 to my mother that would bring me through most easily. 
 . . . This was so exclusively to one person that, though 
 there were remonstrance and punishment, I was never re¬ 
 garded as a liar in the family.” 
 
 The child used often to long for heaven, which she 
 thought was a place “ gay with yellow and lilac crocuses,” 
 and sometimes meditated suicide as a way of getting there. 
 She was always fond of color. She tells this incident of 
 her childhood : — 
 
 “One crimson and purple sunrise I well remember, 
 when James [her youngest brother] could hardly walk 
 alone, and I could not therefore have been more than five. 
 I awoke very early, that summer morning, and saw the 
 maid sound asleep in her bed, and ‘the baby’ in his crib. 
 The room was at the top of the house. ... I crept out 
 of bed, saw James’s pink toes showing themselves invit¬ 
 ingly through the rails of his crib, and gently pinched 
 them to wake him. With a world of trouble I got him 
 over the side and helped him to the window and upon a 
 chair there. I wickedly opened the window, and the cool 
 
156 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 air blew in; and yet the maid did not wake. Our arms 
 were smutted with the black on the window-sill, and our 
 bare feet were corded with the impression of the rush- 
 bottomed chair; but we were not found out. The sky 
 was gorgeous.” 
 
 When Harriet was seven a peculiar and unexpected 
 happiness came to her. One Sunday when the family had 
 gone to church, she found on the table an old calf-bound 
 volume of “Paradise Lost.” She read it eagerly, and 
 went to sleep at night repeating it, till she knew the book 
 almost by heart. 
 
 At nine years of age the frail child was sent into the 
 country in exchange for a girl who wished to come to 
 Norwich for study. This brought never-to-be-forgotten 
 days. Long afterwards she said, “ 1 never see chestnuts 
 bursting from their sheaths, and lying shining among the 
 autumn leayes, without remembering the old manor-house 
 where we children picked up chestnuts in the avenue, 
 while my hostess made her call at the house. I have 
 always loved orchards and apple-gatherings since, and 
 blossomy lanes.” 
 
 The youngest child, Ellen, was born in the Martineau 
 home in the year 1811, much to the delight of the young 
 reader of Milton, Avho informed a friend that she, then 
 nine years old, “should now see the growth of a human 
 mind from the very beginning ! ” 
 
 The baby Ellen was a great joy to Harriet, with her 
 repressed affections. She hurried through her lessons to 
 get time to watch the infant, kissed her eagerly, and, when 
 she was vaccinated, “locked her door and prayed long 
 and desperately” that Ellen might soon recover. 
 
 Thomas, the oldest brother, taught his sisters Latin; 
 Henry taught them writing and arithmetic, while Harriet 
 
HABRIE T MAR TINEA U. 
 
 157 
 
 also took music lessons and French. She thinks she was 
 indolent naturally, but if so, she overcame it wonderfully. 
 
 She was an inquisitive child, like her brother James, 
 afterwards the well-known minister. When she was ten, 
 and he about eight, having heard that the round earth 
 “ swims in space,” they determined to prove it by digging 
 in their garden till they reached the other side. After 
 digging through two feet of soil, they came upon a mass 
 of rubbish, broken bricks and pottery, which stopped 
 their progress. They then altered their plan, dug graves 
 and lay down in them, to learn “ what dying was like.” 
 
 At eleven Harriet and her sister Rachel went to a 
 school for boys and girls, taught by the Rev. Isaac Perry. 
 Harriet read Cicero, Virgil, and Tacitus, taking great 
 delight in the latter, especially, and in mathematics. 
 “ In an intellectual life I found then,” she says, “ as 
 I have found since, refuge from moral suffering, and 
 an always unexhausted spring of moral strength and 
 enjoyment.” * 
 
 At the end of two years, Mr. Perry’s school closed 
 because he could not make ends meet, and Harriet went 
 back to the old, unhappy life. At thirteen she had begun 
 to grow deaf. At first it seemed an almost unbearable 
 sorrow. It was such a privation as those only know 
 who have experienced it. But she made a “vow of 
 patience” — “that I would smile in every moment of 
 anguish from it; and that I would never lose temper 
 at any consequences from it. . . . With such a temper 
 as mine was then, an infliction so worrying, so uninter¬ 
 mitting, so mortifying, so isolating as loss of hearing 
 must ‘kill or cure.’ lu time, it acted with me as a cure.” 
 
 She thought late in life that her great sorrow was about 
 the best thing that had ever happened to her; “ the best, 
 
158 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 ill a selfish view, as the grandest impulse to self-mastery ; 
 and the best in a higher view, as my most peculiar oppor¬ 
 tunity of helping others.” 
 
 In 1834 she published her valuable “ Letter to the 
 Deaf,” which had a wide circulation. In it she says, 
 “We can never get beyond the necessity of keeping in 
 full view the worst and the best that can be made of our 
 lot. The worst is either to sink under the trial or be 
 made callous by it. The best is to be as wise as possible 
 under a great disability, and as happy as possible under a 
 great privation.” 
 
 Harriet spent fifteen months at a school in Bristol, and 
 then her education was considered as finished. She used 
 to rise early and study Italian and Latin before breakfast, 
 and philosophy in hours stolen from sleep, but the days 
 were spent in sewing, — making fancy work when there 
 were no clothes to be made, — as this was supposed to 
 constitute the proper work for women. Even Jane Austen 
 kept her manuscript covered with a large piece of muslin, 
 so that “genteel people,” when they called, would not 
 think she was stepping outside of her sphere. 
 
 Harriet Martineau, though fond of needle work, regret¬ 
 ted through life having spent such “a frightful amount 
 of time in sewing,” and wasting her nerve power. “ No 
 one,” she says in her “ Household Education,” “ can well 
 be more fond of sewing than I am, and few, except pro¬ 
 fessional seamstresses, have done more of it, and my testi¬ 
 mony is that it is a most hurtful occupation, except when 
 great moderation is observed. . . . There is something in 
 prolonged sewing which is remarkably exhausting to the 
 strength, and irritating beyond endurance to the nerves.” 
 
 At nineteen, the unsatisfied life was to be somewhat 
 changed. James was going back to college, and, seeing 
 
HARRIET MARTI MEAU. 
 
 159 
 
 that she was so unhappy at his abseuce, he advised her to 
 try authorship. As whatever James said was law with 
 her, she began at seven one bright September morning, 
 an article for a small Unitarian journal, the Monthly 
 Repository , on the subject, “ Female Writers on Prac¬ 
 tical Divinity.” She told no one what she was doing, 
 and when the article was completed, signed it “ Discipu- 
 lus,” and carried it to the post-office. 
 
 To her surprise the article appeared in the next number. 
 On Sunday evening her brother Thomas, a physician, she 
 having gone to his house to tea, proposed to read to the 
 family the new Monthly Repository. “They have got a 
 new hand here,” he said. “ Listen.” And after reading 
 awhile, he added, “Ah! this is a new hand; they have 
 had nothing so good as this for a long while.” 
 
 As Harriet said nothing in praise, he was surprised and 
 finally exclaimed., “ What is the matter with you? I never 
 knew you so slow to praise anything before.” She replied 
 in confusion, “The truth is, that paper is mine.” He 
 laid his hand upon her shoulder, and said gravely, “ Now, 
 dear, leave it to other women to make shirts and darn 
 stockings; and do you devote yourself to this.” 
 
 “ I went home,” she says, “ in a sort of dream, so that 
 the squares of the pavement seemed to float before my 
 eyes. That evening made me an authoress.” 
 
 The literary work was continued. In 1823 a little 
 volume of hers was published anonymously, called “ De¬ 
 votional Exercises,” which were reflections and prayers 
 for young persons. A year or two later, another book, 
 which was a great comfort to her father, was published, 
 entitled “Addresses, Prayers, and Hymns.” 
 
 Dr. Thomas Martineau, the oldest brother, to whom 
 Harriet was much attached, died in 1824, and her father, 
 
160 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 losing nearly all his property in the bank failures of 1825, 
 died the following year. 
 
 With these sorrows had come one great joy. Mr. 
 Worthington, a classmate of James’s, and like him fit¬ 
 ting for the Unitarian ministry, had spent his vacation at 
 Norwich, and had fallen in love with Harriet. As he was 
 poor, and Harriet was supposed to have property, he had 
 hesitated to offer himself, though his affection was known 
 aud reciprocated. James did not favor the union, as he 
 feared Harriet’s strong nature would clash with Mr. 
 Worthington’s more gentle; but love has powers of which 
 James Martineau, at that time of life, knew nothing. 
 The love affair did not at that time end in an engage¬ 
 ment, and both were anxious and dissatisfied. 
 
 After the death of the father, and it was found that his 
 family were left poor, Mr. Worthington offered himself 
 and was accepted. He Avas associated in the charge of a 
 large church in Manchester, broke down from overwork 
 and previous worry, and had brain fever, by which his 
 mind became unbalanced. The physician recommended 
 that Harriet be sent for, as her presence might help to 
 effect a cure. 
 
 The mother of the young minister sent for Harriet, but 
 Mrs. Martineau forbade her daughter to go. Accustomed 
 to obey, though well-nigh heartbroken, the girl of twenty- 
 four waited for some weeks, till Mr. Worthington’s death 
 made a visit no longer necessary. Ilis family were em¬ 
 bittered by her apparent neglect, and had been given to 
 understand, by some mischievous person, that Harriet 
 was engaged to another. It was evident that somebody 
 deserved a lifelong remorse, and possibly had it. 
 
 What this love and death were to Harriet, she has shown 
 in various portions of her writings. In an essay in the 
 
HAlt HIE T MA1! TINEA U. 
 
 1(51 
 
 Monthly Repository , entitled “ In a Death Chamber,” she 
 says : “ In watching by the couch of another, there is no 
 weariness; but this lonely tending of one’s own sick 
 heart is more than the worn-out spirit can bear. . . . 
 What is aught to me, in the midst of this all-pervading, 
 thrilling torture, when all I want is to be dead ? . . . 
 Since the love itself is wrecked, let me gather up its 
 relics, and guard them more tenderly, more steadily, 
 more gratefully. . . . Oh, grant me power to retain them — 
 the light and music of emotion, the How of domestic w r is- 
 dom and chastened mirth, the lifelong watchfulness of 
 benevolence, the thousand thoughts — are these gone in 
 their reality? ... If 1 were to see my departed one — 
 that insensible, wasted form — standing before me as it 
 was wont to stand, with whom would I exchange my 
 joy?” 
 
 To Harriet Martineau love beautified and transfigured 
 commonplace life. She says, “ In a Hermit’s Cave,” 
 “ Where this flame, the glow of human love, is burning, 
 there is the temple of worship, be it only beside the 
 humblest village hearth. . . . Would that all could know 
 how, by this mighty impulse, new strength is given to 
 every power; how the intellect is vivified and enlarged; 
 how the spirit becomes bold to explore the path of life, 
 and clear-sighted to discern its issues.” 
 
 Later she says in her “Tale of the Tyne,” in a con¬ 
 versation between a young husband and wife : “Do you 
 really think there are any people that have passed through 
 life without knowing what that moment was, that stir in 
 one’s heart on being first sure that one is beloved? It is 
 most like the soul getting free of the body and rushing 
 into Paradise, I should think,” says the wife. And then, 
 in most expressive language, the husband voices his ex- 
 
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 162 
 
 perience: “I felt ns if I could have brought the whole 
 world nearer to God, if they would have listened to me. 
 I shall never forget the best moment of all — when my 
 mind had suddenly ceased being in a great tumult, which 
 had as much pain as pleasure in it. 'When I said dis¬ 
 tinctly to myself, ‘ She loves me.’ Heaven came down 
 round about me that minute.” 
 
 After the joys and the sorrows, Harriet worked harder 
 than ever. She wrote a “ Life of Howard ” for the Diffu¬ 
 sion of Knowledge Society, for which she Avas promised 
 thirty pounds. The Society claimed that the manuscript 
 was lost, though she found afterwards that portions of 
 it were used to adorn another life of Howard ! She never 
 received a penny for it. 
 
 To make matters worse, the reduced business left by 
 her father became bankrupt, and the family were left with 
 the merest pittance. Harriet had, she says, “precisely 
 one shilling in my purse.” She did not regard the losses 
 as a calamity. “Many and many a time since,” she 
 writes, “ have we said that, but for that loss of money, 
 we might have lived on in the ordinary provincial method 
 of ladies with small means, sewing and economizing, and 
 growing narrower every year : whereas, by being thrown, 
 while it was yet time, on our own resources, we have 
 worked hard and usefully, Avon friends, reputation, and 
 independence, seen the world abundantly, abroad and at 
 home, and, in short, have truly lived instead of vegetated.” 
 
 It was arranged that tAvo of the sisters should teach, 
 but what could the deaf Harriet do? She could seAV, and 
 at once she began to make fancy work to sell. All day 
 long she worked with her needle, and at night with her 
 pen, earning very little in both ways. 
 
 “The quantity 1 wrote, at prodigious expenditure of 
 
HARR IE T MAR TIXEA U. 
 
 163 
 
 nerve, surprises me now, after my long breaking-in to 
 hard work. Every night that winter, I believe, I was 
 writing till two, or even three in the morning, — obeying 
 always the rule of the house, — of being present at the 
 breakfast table as the clock struck eight. Many a time 
 I was in such a state of nervous exhaustion and distress 
 that I was obliged to walk to and fro in the room before 
 I could put on paper the last line of a page, or the last 
 half-sentence of an essay, or review.” 
 
 These days of anxiety wore upon her. She said, twenty 
 years afterwards, that people who knew her in the early 
 years did not recognize her or her portraits later. “The 
 frown of those old days, the rigid face, the sulky mouth, 
 the forbidding countenance, which looked as if it had 
 never had a smile upon it, told a melancholy story which 
 came to an end long ago.” 
 
 She sold a ball-dress — she had no more need of it — 
 for three pounds, and thus had a little spending money. 
 For two years she lived on fifty pounds a year. 
 
 She told Mr. Fox, the editor of the Monthly Reposi¬ 
 tory , that she could no longer write for him gratuitously, 
 so fifteen pounds a year were given her for her monthly 
 contributions, — book reviews, poems, and essays. The 
 wear and tear of literary life had but just begun. She 
 was yet to travel over the old road so familiar to most 
 writers. She offered her sketches to editors of magazines 
 and publishers, and they were scarcely looked at. She 
 had no literary friends or acquaintances. In despair, the 
 sketches were sent at last to the Monthly Repository , 
 which brought no fame, and little money. She had used 
 three stories in the Repository , which had been so much 
 liked that she determined to bring them out in a little 
 book, under tin* title of “ Traditions of Palestine.” 
 
1(54 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 When these were going through the press, she went to 
 London, staying with a relative. Mr. Fox, knowing how 
 desirous she was to earn her living by her pen, obtained 
 for her an offer from a printer to correct proof if she de¬ 
 sired to remain in London, thinking that she would get 
 journalistic work after a time. She was overjoyed, and 
 wrote to her mother of her wish to remain. 
 
 Meantime the relative had written to Mrs. Martineau 
 that Harriet would earn little by writing, and that she would 
 better return to Norwich, where it seemed evident that she 
 did not starve by sewing. Mrs. Martineau was convinced, 
 and at once wrote to Harriet, then twenty-seven, a per¬ 
 emptory letter to return home. The relative gave Harriet 
 some lilac, blue, and pink pieces of silk, and advised her 
 to make little bags and baskets for sale. 
 
 Harriet went back to Norwich with “ grief and desola¬ 
 tion in her heart.” The mistaken mother, who thought 
 she was doing the best for her daughter, was so distressed 
 by her pale and anxious face, that she made Harriet go to 
 bed, while she sat beside her and talked with her. 
 
 At this time*the Central Unitarian Association had ad¬ 
 vertised for prize essays, by which Uuitarianism was to be 
 presented to Catholics, Jews, and Mohammedans. Always 
 deeply interested in theology, Harriet determined to try 
 for all the prizes. The prizes were ten, fifteen, and twenty 
 guineas. 
 
 The first essay was written in a month, and copied, so 
 as not to be seen in her handwriting, by a poor-school boy, 
 to whom she gave a sovereign, which she could ill afford. 
 Then she wrote “ Five Years of Youth,” two hundred and 
 sixty-four pages, for which she received twenty pounds. 
 After this came the essays to the Jews and the Moham¬ 
 medans. 
 
HARRIET MAR TryEA U. 
 
 165 
 
 “The task became very onerous before it was done,” 
 she says. “ I was by that time nearly as thin as possible, 
 and I dreamed of the destruction of Jerusalem, and saw 
 the burning of the Temple almost every night.” 
 
 To her astonishment, and that of her mother, Harriet, 
 though there were many learned competitors, received all 
 the prizes, forty-five guineas ! The prize-money enabled 
 the tired woman to go to Dublin on a visit to her brother 
 James and his Avife. 
 
 Four years previously, in 1827, in reading Mrs. Mar- 
 cet’s “ Conversations on Political Economy,” she had be¬ 
 come more than eA T er interested in the science,—her two 
 stories, “ The Rioters ” and the “ Turn-Out,” ha\ T ing been 
 in that vein,—and felt that she might diffuse practical 
 ideas among the people by a series of stories on this sub¬ 
 ject. She felt that the people needed lessons in economy, 
 about property, taxes, Avealth, and all that pertains to 
 good citizenship. 
 
 She thought out her plan carefully, — that of writing a 
 series of brief books, — and Avrote to some London pub¬ 
 lishers, offering the series. She received refusals by re¬ 
 turn of mail. Finally, with a brave heart, the unknown 
 author started for London in the beginning of December, 
 to seek personal interviews with publishers. 
 
 Day after day, for three long weeks, in the mud and 
 fog, she visited strangers, the indifferent publishers all 
 saying “ No” into her ear-trumpet. They made substan¬ 
 tially the same excuse, — “ Considering the public excite¬ 
 ment about the Reform Bill and the cholera, they dared 
 not venture.” “ I was growing as sick of the Reform 
 Bill,” she says, “ as poor King William himself.” 
 
 Night after night she worked till long after twelve 
 o’clock, determined that the first tAvo numbers should be 
 
166 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 written, because she believed that the people wanted the 
 books. If the people did, it was evident that the pub¬ 
 lishers wanted no stories on political economy. 
 
 She kept up as bravely as she could. She says, “ I 
 was resolved, in the first place, the thing should be done. 
 . . . Next, I resolved to sustain my health under the sus¬ 
 pense, if possible, by keeping up a mood of steady deter¬ 
 mination, and unfaltering hope. Next, I resolved never 
 to lose my temper in the whole course of the business. I 
 knew 1 was right; and people who are aware that they are 
 in the right need never lose temper.” 
 
 Finally, she took one day’s rest at the house of Mr. 
 Fox, and touched by the sympathy of the family, she spent 
 nearly the whole night crying. Help came at last, as it 
 usually comes, — through friendship. Mr. Fox got his 
 brother, Mr. Charles Fox, a young and poor bookseller, 
 to make Miss Martineau a proposition. 
 
 It was not a generous one, as it saved him from all risk, 
 but it was something that he was willing to touch the mat¬ 
 ter at all, where others had refused. First, five hundred 
 subscribers must be obtained for the works. Second, Mr. 
 Fox was to have half the profits, after the usual book¬ 
 seller’s commission; and, third, a thousand must be sold 
 in the first fortnight after issue, or he would withdraw 
 from the contract. 
 
 Her pride rose against soliciting subscriptions for her 
 own books, as she knew that the whole labor would fall 
 upon her. But there was no alternative. She made ready 
 her circulars and sent them out. By the advice of Mrs. 
 Martineau, a prospectus was sent to each member of Par¬ 
 liament, but without request to buy. Some kind words 
 and orders came, but .slowly. The husband of a cousin 
 sent her two sovereigns, gave her a lecture on her rashness 
 
HARR IE T MAR TINEA U. 
 
 167 
 
 in undertaking authorship, and recommended “ a family 
 subscription to eke out her earnings with her needle.” 
 She returned the two sovereigns. After she was famous, 
 the gentleman apologized. 
 
 One night, while the circulars were being sent out, she 
 became well-nigh discouraged. She had finished the 
 preface to her “Illustrations of Political Economy” at 
 two o’clock at night; had cried before the open fire till 
 four; cried in bed till six; fell asleep, but was at the 
 breakfast-table at half-past eight, ready for the daily 
 drudgery again. 
 
 The first edition printed was fifteen hundred copies. 
 At the end of ten days, Mr. Charles Fox sent her a letter, 
 with a copy of her book. A postscript informed her that 
 lie should need three thousand copies ; a second postscript, 
 four thousand ; and a third postscript, five thousand ! 
 
 She says, “ I remember walking up and down the grass- 
 plot in the garden (I think it was on the tenth of Febru¬ 
 ary) , feeling that my cares were over. And so they were. 
 From that hour, I have never had any other anxiety about 
 employment than what to choose, nor any real care about 
 money.” 
 
 The whole press seemed to speak in Miss Martineau’s 
 favor. The Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, 
 which had refused one of her stories (“Brooke and Brooke 
 Farm ”), now begged to bring out the whole series. Lord 
 Brougham, who was one of the committee, “ tore his 
 hair,” she says, “unable to endure that the whole society, 
 ‘ instituted,’ as he said, ‘ for the very purpose, should be 
 driven out of the field by a little deaf woman at Nor¬ 
 wich.’ ” 
 
 Mr. Hume, on behalf of a new society, offered her any 
 price she would name for the whole series. She was be- 
 
168 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 sought on every side to take up various subjects for treat¬ 
 ment, under the guise of fiction. Members of Parliament 
 sent blue-books through the post-office, till the postmaster 
 sent her word “that she must send for her share of the 
 mail, for it could not be carried without a barrow.” 
 
 It soon became evident that Miss Martineau must live 
 in London to be near the libraries. She moved thither at 
 thirty years of age, and a life of fame and honor in the 
 great world began. 
 
 “I have had no spring,” she said, some years later; 
 “ but that cannot be helped now. It was a moral disad¬ 
 vantage, as well as a great loss of happiness; but we all 
 have our moral disadvantages to make the best of; and 
 ‘ happiness ’ is not , as the poet says, ‘ our being’s end and 
 aim,’ but the result of one faculty among many, which 
 must be occasionally overborne by others if there is to be 
 any effectual exercise of the whole being. ... I had 
 now, by thirty years of age, ascertained my career, found 
 occupation, and achieved independence. . . . Any one to 
 whom that happens by thirty years of age may be satis¬ 
 fied ; and I was so.” 
 
 She had promised to produce a book a month, of from 
 one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pages. 
 Besides writing her story, she had to read carefully upon 
 every topic. 
 
 Her daily life was regular. She rose at seven, made 
 her own coffee, and began work immediately, remaining at 
 her desk till two. Till four, she received visitors, who 
 came on all possible pretexts,— she could not return calls 
 for lack of time, — and after four took her daily walk till 
 dinner, when a carriage was always in waiting to take her 
 to some distinguished home. 
 
 She met and enjoyed the most noted people of her time. 
 
HARRIET MAE TINEAU. 
 
 169 
 
 Hallamwas a valued friend. At the breakfasts of Rogers, 
 the poet, she met Dean Milman, Lord Jeffrey, Southey 
 (then growing old), and others. The inimitable Sydney 
 Smith came often to her home, — he was as fast a talker 
 as she or Macaulay, and full of wit. It was always his 
 boast that Miss Martineau needed no trumpet when he 
 talked with her. She said “ his voice was to her like the 
 great bell of St. Paul’s.” 
 
 Hawthorne said of Miss Martineau: “ She is the most 
 continual talker I ever heard. It is really like the bab¬ 
 bling of a brook, and very lively and sensible, too; and 
 all the while she talks, she moves the bowl of her ear-trum¬ 
 pet from one auditor to another, so that it becomes quite 
 an organ of intelligence and sympathy between her and 
 yourself.” 
 
 Richard Mouekton Milnes (Lord Houghton), whom 
 Sydney Smith called “The Cool of the Evening,” came 
 often to see her. Mr. Grote, the historian, then the 
 leading member of the radical section in Parliament, 
 came with Mrs. Grote. Eastlake was home from Italy, 
 and most interesting. Landseer was an agreeable com¬ 
 panion. Barry Cornwall, modest and kind, was a delight¬ 
 ful acquisition to auy circle. Mary Russell Mitford came 
 to the Martineau home, — Mrs. Martineau had come to 
 live with her daughter, — and Letitia PI. Landon, before 
 she went to the Cape Coast to meet her pitiful fate. 
 
 Browning she met and liked. “ He is a real genius,” 
 she said. “ Mr. Macready put ‘ Paracelsus ’ into my 
 hand when I was staying at his house, and I read a canto 
 before going to bed. For the first time in my life, I 
 passed a whole night without sleeping a wink.” 
 
 She frequently visited at the homes of Mrs. Somerville 
 and Carlyle, in Chelsea. She said of the latter, “His 
 
170 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 excess of sympathy has been, I believe, the master-pain of 
 his life. He does not know what to do with it and with its 
 bitterness, seeing that human life is full of pain to those 
 who look out for it; and the savageness which lias come 
 to be a main characteristic of this singular man, is, in my 
 opinion, a mere expression of his intolerable sympathy 
 with the suffering.” 
 
 Miss Martineau arranged several courses of lectures 
 for him at a time when the money from them was most 
 acceptable. But he was obliged to discontinue them 
 from his nervousness. “ Yellow as a guinea,” she says, 
 “ with downcast eyes, broken speech at the beginning, 
 and fingers which nervously picked at the desk before 
 him, he could not for a moment be supposed to enjoy 
 his own effort; and the lecturer’s own enjoyment is a 
 prime element of success.” 
 
 She met Coleridge, who told her he waited for her 
 books from month to month. “He is not sixty and 
 looks eighty. . . . He is most neatly dressed in black; 
 has perfectly white hair ; the under lip quivering with the 
 touching expression of weakness which is sometimes seen 
 in old age ; the face neither pale nor thin ; and the eyes — 
 I never saw such ! glittering and shining so that one can 
 scarcely meet them.” 
 
 Her thirty-four volumes were written in about two years 
 and a half. She never believed in waiting for inspiration 
 in writing. She says, “ I have suffered, like other writers, 
 from indolence, irresolution, distaste to my work, absence 
 of ‘ inspiration,’ and all that; but I have also found that 
 sitting down, however reluctantly, with the pen in my 
 hand, I have never worked for one quarter of an hour 
 without finding myself in full train; so that all the quar¬ 
 ter hours, arguings, doubtings, and hesitation as to whether 
 
HARRIET MARTINEA U. 
 
 171 
 
 I should work or not which I gave way to in my inexperi¬ 
 ence, I now regard as so much waste, not only of time but, 
 far worse, of energy.” 
 
 She worked without stimulants. When told by a physi¬ 
 cian that she had better “ keep a bottle of hock and a 
 wine-glass in the cupboard, and help herself when she 
 fdt that she wanted it,” she replied, “ No, thank 3 - 011 . 
 If I took wine, it should not be when alone ; nor would I 
 help myself to a glass. I might take a little more and a 
 little more, till my solitary glass might become a regular 
 tippling habit. I shall avoid the temptation altogether.” 
 Again she said, “ Fresh air and cold water are my 
 stimulants.” 
 
 Her books were read and talked about everywhere. 
 Archbishop Whately thought “ The Parish” the best of 
 them. After the “ Guide to Service ” was written, at the 
 request of the Poor-Law Commissioners, so graphic was 
 it, that it was reported that Miss Martineau had been in 
 service as a “ maid-of-all-work.” After “ A Manchester 
 Strike ” appeared, the people were positive that she had 
 worked in a cotton mill. After “ Vanderput and Snoek,” 
 the favorite of Hallam, a stoiw on Bills of Exchange, it 
 was said that she surely must have lived in Holland. 
 
 Some of her works gave offence, as the “ French Wines 
 and Politics,” laid in the time of the French Revolution. 
 Louis Philippe, who had read the series and wished to 
 have them introduced into the national schools, now ob¬ 
 jected. Miss Martineau was apprised of his disaffection 
 and replied, “ I wrote with a view to the people, and 
 especiall}' the most suffering of them ; and the crowned 
 heads must, for once, take their chance for their feelings.” 
 
 The Tsar of Russia had also been delighted with the 
 series, and bv his orders great numbers had been bought 
 
172 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES' OP WOMANHOOD. 
 
 for the schools. When “The Charmed Sea” appeared, 
 the characters, exiled Poles in the mines of Eastern Si¬ 
 beria,— the question discussed being the origin of the 
 currency, — the Tsar ordered every copy of her works 
 burnt, and forbade that she should ever set foot upon 
 Russian soil. Evidently there were some matters in Si¬ 
 beria, then as now, that the Tsar preferred should not 
 come to light. Austria was also disturbed to have any 
 sympathy excited for the Poles, and forbade her entering 
 the country. 
 
 Some of her own nation were hurt at the plain but 
 needed words on over-population and consequent poverty, 
 in her “ Weal and Woe in Garveloch.” But Harriet Mar- 
 tineau was not one to be afraid, wherever she thought duty 
 called her. 
 
 “Sowers not Reapers” is an Anti Corn-Law story; 
 “The Loom and the Lugger” is upon Free Trade; 
 “ Demerara ” on Slavery; five of the stories were writ¬ 
 ten at the request of Lord Brougham and Mrs. Fry, on 
 Pauperism and Its Remedies. 
 
 Nearly twenty years after this time Miss Martiueau 
 had received about two thousand pounds as her share 
 from the little books. “I got a hearing,” she says; 
 “ which was the thing I wanted.” 
 
 Worn with her arduous work, she determined to travel; 
 but where? Lord Henley, a friend who was deeply inter¬ 
 ested in philanthropy, said, “ Will you not go to America? 
 Whatever else may or may not be true about the Ameri¬ 
 cans, it is certain that they have got at principles of jus¬ 
 tice and mercy in their treatment of the least happy classes 
 of society, which we should do well to understand. Will 
 you not go, and tell us what they are? ” 
 
 The more Harriet Martiueau thought upon the new 
 
HARRIET HA R TIME A U. 
 
 173 
 
 world, the stronger grew her desire to see it and its 
 people. She sailed for America early in August, 1834. 
 After forty-two days on the Atlantic, she and her friend, 
 whose expenses she paid in America, except the passage 
 money, arrived in New York. 
 
 Miss Martineau’s fame had preceded her. For nearly 
 two years she travelled East, South, and West. In Wash¬ 
 ington she met socially the most distinguished persons, 
 like Webster and Clay. Chief Justice Marshall gave her 
 “ a general letter of introduction,” asking “ aid and pro¬ 
 tection” for “two English ladies of distinction,” and 
 stating that “he individually should feel himself under 
 obligations ” to anybody who could be useful to them. 
 In Boston and New York she was entertained in homes 
 of elegance and culture. 
 
 She came to America for rest, and yet such a woman 
 could not hell) studying our institutions and our people. 
 She found both North and South exercised over the ter¬ 
 rible evil of slavery. She saw Garrison dragged through 
 the streets of Boston by a mob composed of gentlemen ! 
 
 Desiring to learn all that was possible she attended, 
 with some friends, a meeting of anti-slavery women. She 
 was asked if she would give a word of sympathy. She 
 knew how the Abolitionists were despised, but she felt 
 that she must be true to her convictions, whatever the 
 result to herself. 
 
 She rose and said, “ I will say what T have said through 
 the whole South, in every family where I have been ; that 
 I consider slavery as inconsistent with the law of God, 
 and as incompatible with the course of his providence. I 
 should certainly say no less at the North than at the 
 South concerning this utter abomination — and I now 
 declare that in your principles I fully agree.” 
 
174 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 At once she met the usual opprobrium of press and 
 people given to all leaders in an unpopular cause. The 
 world has never been tolerant, though fortunately the 
 despised of to-day becomes the idol of to-morrow, if 
 the cause be just and right. 
 
 Miss Martineau was called “a foreign incendiary,” and 
 her life was threatened, so bound hand and foot was the 
 nation by the slave power. She was told in 1835 by lead¬ 
 ing statesmen, “ that the abolition of slavery would never 
 be named in Congress,” to which she replied that when 
 they “ could hedge in the wind and build out the stars 
 from their continent, they might succeed in their pro¬ 
 posed exclusion.” Twenty-five years later it was not 
 only named, but its very name wiped out in blood. 
 
 After two years Harriet Martineau returned to Eng¬ 
 land, not saying good-by to her many friends, as she 
 believed that she should return and perhaps die in 
 America. Emerson and a host of others remained her 
 friends to the last, visiting her at Ambleside in later 
 years, and, at her request, an American lady, Mrs. Maria 
 "Weston Chapman, received all her papers after her death, 
 and wrote her life. 
 
 As soon as Miss Martineau reached home she was 
 besought to write a book on America. The leading Lou¬ 
 don publishers called upon her, and were eager to outdo 
 each other in their offers. She must have recalled those 
 days when she visited them only a few years before when 
 the “Reform Bill and Cholera” prevented their even look¬ 
 ing at her manuscripts ! 
 
 She finally accepted the offer of Messrs. Saunders & 
 Otley to pay her three hundred pounds per volume — 
 there were to be three volumes — for the first edition of 
 three thousand copies. She completed in six months her 
 
IIA UR IE T M. 1 R TINEA U. 
 
 175 
 
 work called “ Society in America,” in which she showed 
 a wonderful knowledge of our plan of government, our 
 politics, our charities, indeed our whole country, with its 
 unsolved problems. 
 
 She had high hopes for our future: “The democratic 
 party are fond of saying that the United States are in¬ 
 tended to be an agricultural country. It seems to me,” 
 said she, “ that they are intended for everything. The 
 Niagara basin, the Mississippi valley, and the South will 
 be able to furnish the trading world with agricultural 
 products forever, — for aught we can see. But it is clear 
 that there are other parts of the country which must have 
 recourse to manufactures and commerce.” 
 
 She believed that the time would come when the South 
 would find free labor more profitable than slave labor — a 
 thing now demonstrated. 
 
 “The manners of the Americans (in America),” she 
 said, “ are the best I ever saw : and these are seen to the 
 greatest advantage in their homes; and as to the gentle¬ 
 men, in travelling, if I am asked what is the pecu¬ 
 liar charm, I reply with some hesitation, there are so 
 many ! but I believe it is not so much the outward plenty, 
 or the mutual freedom, or the simplicity of manners, or 
 the incessant play of humor, which characterize the whole 
 people, as the sweet temper which is diffused like sunshine 
 over the land. They have been called the most good- 
 tempered people in the world ; and I think they must be 
 so. . . . I imagine that the practice of forbearance requi¬ 
 site in a republic is answerable for this pleasant pecu¬ 
 liarity.” Again she said, “The Americans may always 
 be trusted to do right in time.” 
 
 She saw and deplored the fact that we lacked some 
 things along the line of education: “There is not even 
 
176 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 any systematic instruction given on political morals,” she 
 said ; “ an enormous deficiency in a republic.” It is only 
 in recent years that we have felt the necessity and the 
 wisdom of teaching children how our country is governed, 
 cultivating a patriotic spirit, giving lessons upon good 
 manners and, in our higher institutions, upon social ethics, 
 so that the student shall be fitted to act upon the great 
 questions of the time. 
 
 In her “ Society in America,” she advocated suffrage for 
 women. “ That woman has power to represent her own 
 interests, no one can deny till she has been tried. . . . 
 The principle being once established, the methods will 
 follow easily, naturally, and under a remarkable trans¬ 
 mutation of the ludicrous into the sublime. The kings 
 of Europe would have laughed mightily, two centuries 
 ago, at the idea of a commoner, without robes, crown, or 
 sceptre, stepping into the throne of a strong nation. Yet 
 who dared to laugh when Washington’s super-royal voice 
 greeted the New World from the presidential chair, and 
 the old world stood still to catch the echo? 
 
 “The principle of the equal rights of both halves of 
 the human race is all we have to do with here. It is the 
 true democratic principle which can never be seriously 
 controverted, and only for a short time evaded.” 
 
 She said, m her autobiography: “ Let women be edu¬ 
 cated,— let their powers be cultivated to the extent for 
 which the means are already provided, and all that is 
 wanted or ought to be desired will follow of course. 
 Whatever a woman proves herself able to do, society will 
 be thankful to see her do, — just as if she were a man. 
 If she is scientific, science will welcome her, as it has 
 welcomed every woman so qualified. If capable of politi¬ 
 cal thought and action, ■women will obtain even that. 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEA U. 
 
 177 
 
 “The time lias not come, which certainly will come, 
 when women who are practically concerned in political 
 life will have a voice in making the laws which they have 
 to obey; but every woman who can think and speak 
 wisely, and bring up her children soundly in regard to 
 the rights and duties of society, is advancing the time 
 when the interests of women will be represented, as well 
 as those of men. I have no vote at elections, though I 
 am a tax-paying housekeeper and responsible citizen ; and 
 I regard the disability as an absurdity, seeing that I have 
 for a long course of years influenced public affairs to an 
 extent not professed or attempted by many men.” 
 
 She was deeply interested in opening up new avenues 
 for women to earn a living. She said in the “ Edinburgh 
 Review” for April, 1859, in an article on “Female In¬ 
 dustry,” that “ three millions out of six of adult English 
 women work for subsistence. . . . With this new condi¬ 
 tion of affairs, new duties and new views must be adopted 
 ... to provide for the free development and full use of 
 the power of every member of the community.” 
 
 At the suggestion of her publishers she wrote another 
 work on America, with more incidents of persons and 
 descriptions of scenery, called “Retrospect of Western 
 Travel.” This was in three volumes, for which she was 
 paid six hundred pounds. When she read the proof she 
 said, “ I wish I could write a review of my book, I see 
 so many faults in it. There is no education like au¬ 
 thorship for ascertaining one’s knowledge and one’s 
 ignorance.” 
 
 The manuscript of this work has been presented this 
 year (1892), in his valuable collection, by Mr. George 
 W. Childs, to the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and 
 Industry in Philadelphia. The librarian of the Institute 
 
178 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 writes me, concerning this manuscript, “ The work is in 
 three volumes, bound in four, in full crushed levant. The 
 size is square quarto, and it contains portraits of her 
 taken in 1833 and 1850. It is closely written in a legible 
 handwriting, and is much corrected with erasures and in¬ 
 sertions. It is in excellent condition, and is one of the 
 important manuscripts in the collection.” 
 
 The Rev. James Freeman Clarke said that both these 
 works on America “ were, perhaps, the best then written 
 by any foreigner except De Tocqueville. They were gener¬ 
 ous, honest, kind, and utterly frank — they were full of 
 capital descriptions of American scenery. She spoke the 
 truth to us, and she spoke it in love. The chief faults 
 in these works was her tone of dogmatism and her ex 
 cathedra judgments.” 
 
 After the books on America were finished, she wrote 
 some valuable articles for the “ Westminster Review,” — 
 “Domestic Sendee,” and “The Martyr Age of the 
 United States” ; and on her thirty-sixth birthday, June 12, 
 1838, began her first novel, “ Deerbrook,” and finished it 
 in the following February. The book went through two 
 large editions, but was criticised as to plot and characters. 
 
 In the midst of this work she had domestic trials, — her 
 mother, now nearing seventy, was becoming blind, and her 
 brother Henry, who lived with them, had become intem¬ 
 perate; and worn with her book and her cares, she started 
 for Switzerland and Italy. She became so ill by the time 
 she reached Venice that she was obliged to abandon her 
 journey, and was brought back to her sister’s at New- 
 castle-on-Tyne, to be under the medical care of her 
 brother-in-law, Dr. Greenhow. 
 
 In the fall, she went to Tynemouth, overlooking the sea, 
 nine miles from Newcastle, not willing to be a care to her 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEAXL 
 
 179 
 
 sister, and here she was a constant sufferer for five years. 
 She could not go out of the house, only passing from her 
 bed to a couch in an adjoining room. 
 
 And yet, through all these years, while enduring bodily 
 pain, she kept on writing. Her first work was an article 
 in behalf of Oberlin College, where, happily, nobody is 
 debarred from study by reason of sex or color of skin. 
 
 Then, believing in the possibilities of the negro race in 
 the way of education and good citizenship, when freed 
 from bondage, she wrote “ The Hour and the Man,” a 
 novel founded on the brave and able President of the 
 Republic of Haiti, Toussaint l’Ouverture. 
 
 Lord Jeffrey, formerly editor of the “Edinburgh Re¬ 
 view,” was greatly moved, and said, “ The book is really 
 not only beautiful and touching, but noble; and I do not 
 recollect when I have been more charmed, whether by very 
 sweet and eloquent writing and glowing description, or by 
 elevated as well as tender sentiments. . . . I would go a 
 long way to kiss the hem of her garment, or the hand that 
 delineated this glowing and lofty representation of purity 
 and noble virtue.” 
 
 Carlyle wrote to Emerson, “ It is beautiful as a child’s 
 heart, and in so shrewd a brain ! ” 
 
 Later on, Wendell Phillips, by his eloquent lecture, 
 made known, through the length and breadth of America, 
 the courage and the nobility of the hero of San Domingo. 
 
 Often needing ready money in these days, as she had 
 tied up her funds in deferred annuities, she refused to re¬ 
 ceive a pension, as she twice refused later in life. When 
 unable to give money to the anti-slavery cause in America, 
 she did fancy work to be sold at its fair, — one table-cover 
 of Berlin wool, wrought in dowers and fruits, brought one 
 hundred dollars. — wrote for its newspapers, and a long 
 
180 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 article in support of the society, when a number of persons 
 left it because women were permitted to become mem¬ 
 bers ! This reads strangely, a half century later, when 
 educated women work with men in all philanthropic efforts. 
 
 In 1841 % Miss Martineau began a series of children’s 
 stories, four in number: “Settlers at Home,” “The 
 Prince and the Peasant,” “ Feats on the Fjord,” and 
 “The Crofton Boys.” In 1843, she wrote, in six weeks, 
 “ Life in the Sick Room,” a book greatly praised by 
 Wordsworth. A little later, she wrote a little one-hundred- 
 page story, “Dawn Island,” sold for the benefit of the 
 anti-corn league, in their great bazaar, in 1845. 
 
 All through these five years of illness, she received 
 numerous testimonials of friendship. Sydney Smith said 
 that “everybody who sent her game, fruit, and flowers 
 was sure of heaven, provided always that they punctu¬ 
 ally paid the dues of the Church of England.” Lad}’ 
 Byron sent her one hundred pounds to use in benevolence, 
 in any way which she chose. Some other friends raised a 
 testimonial fund of fourteen hundred pounds, and invested 
 it for her. 
 
 In 1844, she was restored to perfect health through mes¬ 
 merism,— Lord Lytton, Hallam, and others, had urged 
 her to try it, — a fact which created widespread discussion, 
 much disbelief in the reality of the cure, a cessation of 
 friendly intercourse between her sister’s family and her¬ 
 self, but the greatest joy in her own heart that she could 
 walk again, and live, when day by day she had expected 
 death. Her “ Letters on Mesmerism ” were published in 
 the “Athenamin” in 1845. The same old intolerance 
 came to the front, because she had not been cured in the 
 usual way. Some were wise enough to be courteous and 
 open to conviction. Mr. Hallam said, “I have no doubt 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEAU. 
 
 18i 
 
 that mesmerism, and some other things which are not 
 mesmerism, properly so called, are fragmentary parts of 
 some great law of the human frame which we are on the 
 verge of discovering.” 
 
 Harriet Martineau longed to see trees. She had not 
 seen a tree for five years, “ except a scrubby little affair 
 which stood above the haven at Tynemouth.” She re¬ 
 paired to the English lake district, and took lodgings close 
 to Lake Windermere for six months. The view from her 
 windows was beautiful; “ one feature being,” she says, 
 “ a prominent rock, crowned with firs, which so projected 
 into the lake as to be precisely reflected in the crimson, 
 orange, and purple waters when the pine-crest rose black 
 into the crimson, orange, and purple sky at sunset. When 
 the young moon hung over those black pines the beauty 
 was so great that I could hardly believe my eyes. . . . 
 The meadows were emerald green, and the oaks were just 
 exchanging their May-golden hue for light green, when 
 the sycamores, so characteristic of the region, were grow¬ 
 ing sombre in their massy foliage.” 
 
 In 1845, Miss Martineau bought two acres of land, and 
 built her pretty graystone cottage, half a mile from 
 Ambleside, where she lived until her death. She felt 
 great pleasure in building. Wordsworth came often to 
 give advice about the new house. He said, mindful of the 
 economy which most poets are obliged to practise, “ When 
 you have a visitor, you must do as we did; you must say, 
 ‘ If you like to have a cup of tea with us, you are very wel¬ 
 come, but if you want any meat, you must pay for your 
 board.’ ” 
 
 She loved to take long walks at sunset, such walks as 
 Longfellow used to take from Boston to Cambridge, walk¬ 
 ing always towards the gorgeous light. It was a great 
 
182 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 pleasure in these walks to meet the aged poet Wordsworth. 
 She says, “ In winter, he was to be seen in his cloak, his 
 Scotch bonnet, and green goggles, attended perhaps by 
 half a score of cottagers’ children, the youngest pulling at 
 his cloak, or holding by his trowsers, while he cut ash 
 switches out of the hedge for them. After his daughter’s 
 death I seldom saw him, except in his phaeton, or when 
 1 called. He gave way sadly (and inconsiderately, as 
 regarded Mrs. Wordsworth) to his grief for his daugh¬ 
 ter’s loss, and I heard that the evenings were very 
 sad.” 
 
 During the winter of 1845 she wrote three volumes of 
 “Forest and Game-Law Tales,” Mr. John Bright, from 
 his committee on the game laws, furnishing her the evi¬ 
 dence. The books did not have as large a sale as hex 
 other works. They were, of course, not cared for by the 
 hunters of game who found pleasure in killing animals, 
 but some poor persons whose crops were spoiled by the 
 ruthless hunters, brought a load of sods one night — these 
 were difficult to get — and left them under her window, 
 with a dirty note on the pile, stating that the sods were 
 “a token of gratitude for the game-law-tales, from a 
 poacher.” 
 
 April 7, 1846, she moved into her new home, and a happy 
 domestic life began at forty-two. She never wished to 
 live in London. “ She had always been alive,” says 
 John Morley in his “ Miscellanies,” “ to the essential in¬ 
 completeness, the dispersion, the want of steadfast self¬ 
 collection, in a life much passed in London society. And 
 we may believe that the five austere and lonely years at 
 Tynemouth, with their evening outlook over the busy 
 waters of the hai‘bor-bar into the stern far-off sea, may 
 have slowly bred in her an unwillingness to plunge again 
 
183 
 
 HARB IE T MAR TINEA U. 
 
 into the bustling triviality, the gossip, the distracting 
 lightness of the world of splendid fireflies.” 
 
 In the autumn of 1846 she enjoyed a journey with 
 friends, at their expense, through the East. They studied 
 Thebes andPhilae, Cairo, Palestine, and after eight months 
 returned to England. They had the rare tact “ to leave 
 her perfectly free. We were silent when we chose without 
 fear of being supposed unmannerly,” a good lesson for 
 persons who feel that they must constantly “entertain” 
 their company. 
 
 In 1848, she wrote and published her “Eastern Life, 
 Past and Present,” which, Mr. Higginson, thinks “ will for 
 many years retain a distinctive value, however thoroughly 
 the same scenes may be explored. More than any other 
 of her books, it possesses a quality approaching genius in 
 its ready grasp of details, its picturesque unrolling, its 
 reverential appreciation of mighty symbols.” 
 
 From the first year’s proceeds of this book, Miss Mar- 
 tineau paid for her home. Her share in the second edition 
 she gave to reducing the cost of the book. During the year 
 1847 she wrote “Household Education,” and in the fol¬ 
 lowing year began a very important work for Mr. Knight, 
 the publisher, the “ History of the Peace,” between the 
 years 1815 and 1845. She shrank from the labor, as does 
 -every, writer, probably, in beginning a new piece of work. 
 “ When I had laid out my plan for the history, and began 
 upon the first portion, I sank into a state of dismay. I 
 should hardly say ‘ sank,’ for I never thought of giving 
 up or stopping; but 1 doubt whether, at any point of my 
 career, I ever felt so oppressed by what I had undertaken 
 as during the first two or three weeks after I had begun 
 the history.” 
 
 She rose very early in the morning, in the winter be- 
 
184 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 fore daylight, and took a long walk. In summer, she 
 started on her walk about six, and returned to her break¬ 
 fast at half-past seven. From eight till three she sat at 
 her desk, stopping to read her mail at half-past ten. In 
 the afternoon, she walked again, and read in the evening, 
 either for her work, “ or Montaigne, or Bacon, or Shakes¬ 
 peare, or Tennyson, or some dear old biography.” Of 
 course, she read the newspapers ; how can any woman be 
 intelligent as to the world’s work without these? 
 
 The first volume of the “History” was ready for the 
 press in six months, — she averaged seven manuscript 
 pages a day, — and the second volume in about the same 
 time. John Morley regards this as “ an astonishing ex¬ 
 ample of rapid industry.” lie thinks that Miss Mar- 
 tineau showed her good sense in not spending years over 
 a piece of work, which in the nature of things must be 
 supplanted by later historians. 
 
 “Literature,” he says, “is no doubt a fine art — the 
 finest of the arts — but it is also a practical art; and it is 
 deplorable to think how much stout, instructive work 
 might and ought to be done by people who, in dreaming 
 of ideals in prose or verse beyond their attainment, end, 
 like the poor Casaubon of fiction, in a little pamphlet on 
 a particle, or else in mediocre poetry, or else in nothing. 
 By insisting on rearing nothing short of a great monu¬ 
 ment more durable than brass, they are cutting themselves 
 off from building the useful little mud-hut, or some of the 
 other modest performances by wdiich alone they are cap¬ 
 able of serving their age. It is only one volume in a 
 million that is not meant to perish, and to perish soon, as 
 flowers, sunbeams, and all the other brightnesses of the 
 earth are meant to perish.” The “ History of the Peace” 
 was so successful that Miss Martineau wrote an intro- 
 
HARR IE T MA R TINEA U. 
 
 185 
 
 ductory volume, covering the first fifteen years of the 
 century. 
 
 While all this hard work was going forward, each win¬ 
 ter she gave free courses of lectures to the working and 
 trades people of Ambleside. There was a course on san¬ 
 itary matters, — the last two of the course being on in¬ 
 temperance,— on her travels, on the history of England, 
 on the history and constitution of the United States, and 
 on the Crimean War and Russia. She was an admirable 
 speaker, clear, interesting, and eloquent. 
 
 The amount of good to those persons who, through 
 lack of time or mental training, do not read and inform 
 themselves, cannot be estimated. Few, like Miss Mar- 
 tineau, could or would do all this work without compen¬ 
 sation. It is cause for congratulation that in many cities 
 in America funds have been provided for such courses 
 to the people, as in the Lowell Institute, Boston ; Cooper 
 Institute, New York ; the Peabody Institute, Baltimore ; 
 the White Fund at Lawrence, Mass., and elsewhere. 
 
 She organized a Building Society among the people, and 
 showed them how “ they were paying away, in rent, money 
 enough to provide every head of a household with a cot¬ 
 tage of his own in a few years.” She demonstrated this 
 by building some cottages which the workingmen could 
 buy, a lady loaning her five hundred pounds to begin the 
 work. 
 
 What she did in a small town is now being done in 
 the cities of both Great Britain and America by Building 
 and Loan Societies, and there seems now to be a possi- 
 bility for most laboring men, who are willing to live with¬ 
 out the wastefulness of drink, to own a home. She loaned 
 her library freely to the people, and those who value their 
 books will know what kindness of heart it requires to do 
 this! 
 
186 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Ia 1851, Miss Martineau published “ Letters on the 
 Laws of Man’s Nature and Development,” really a set 
 of questions asked by her and answered by Henry George 
 Atkinson, F. G. S. He was a scholarly man of means, 
 much younger than herself, not known to the public, “ her 
 dearest friend in all the world,” says Mrs. F. Fenwick 
 Miller, in her admirable life of Miss Martineau, and 
 doubtless ovc rated by her. The book was agnostic in 
 sentiment,- though asserting a great First Cause. It 
 created much bitter feeling, estranging permanently her 
 brother, the Rev. Dr. James Martineau, who reviewed the 
 book somewhat harshly, putting most of the blame upon 
 Mr. Atkinson. 
 
 Lord Houghton wrote her after reading the “ Letters” : 
 “ I am less and less troubled about theories which I dis¬ 
 approve when adopted by the good and true. Tbit can 
 hold them, and hold your moral judgment and sensibili¬ 
 ties, too. You are unharmed by what would be death 
 to me.” 
 
 Her next work was a translation and condensation into 
 two volumes of the “ Positive Philosophy ” of Auguste 
 Comte, in six volumes. The work was so well done that 
 Comte adopted it for use among his students, and her 
 book was retranslated into French. A friend gave her 
 five hundred pounds for doing a work which he had long 
 wished to see undertaken. She used over half the money 
 in paying the whole expense of publication, and shared 
 the profits with M. Comte. 
 
 A volume of her short stories was published in 1856, 
 and descriptions of manufactures under the title, “ Health, 
 Husbandry, and Handicraft” in 1861. She received be¬ 
 fore her death about ten thousand pounds from her 
 books. 
 
HART!IE T MAR TINEA IT. 
 
 187 
 
 She had already been asked to do an unusual work for 
 a woman — to write “leaders” for one of the large ton- 
 don newspapers, the Daily News. During the summer of 
 1852 she wrote two leading editorials each week. In the 
 autumn of this year she spent two months in Ireland, and 
 wrote letters to the Daily News almost every other day. 
 These were brought out in book form later. 
 
 During 1853 she wrote four articles each week, and 
 then six, one each day, for the paper. Besides this she 
 wrote long articles for the “Westminster Review” on 
 the struggle between England and Russia in the Cri¬ 
 mean War, on “The Census of 1851,” on “Ireland,” 
 and other topics. She wrote also a “Complete Guide to 
 the Lakes.” 
 
 In 1854, her health failed, arid her physician told her 
 that she could live but a short time. She went to London 
 for a time, the next year. She lived for twenty-one years 
 after this, however, but during most of that period, she 
 was a great sufferer, it was supposed from heart disease; 
 but after her death it was found to have been from a 
 tumor. She never left her home again in all these years, 
 but with patience arid cheerfulness she did her great work. 
 Sometimes she was well enough to go out upon the ter¬ 
 race, or sit in the porch among her vines. 
 
 “On my terrace,” she said, “there were two worlds 
 extended bright before me, even when the midnight dark¬ 
 ness hid from my bodily eyes all but the outlines of the 
 solemn mountains that surround our valley on three sides, 
 and the clear opening to the lake on the south. In the 
 one of those worlds, I saw now the magnificent coast 
 of Massachusetts in autumn, or the flowery swamps of 
 Louisiana, or the forests of Georgia in spring, or the 
 Illinois prairie in summer; or the blue Nile, or the brown 
 
188 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Sinai, or the gorgeous Petra, or the view of Damascus 
 from the Salahiey ; or the Grand Canal under a Venetian 
 sunset, or the Black Forest in twilight, or Malta in the 
 glare of noon, or the broad desert stretching away under 
 the stars, or the Red Sea tossing its superb shells on 
 shore, in the pale dawn. That is one world, all compre¬ 
 hended within my terrace wall, and coming up into the 
 light at my call. 
 
 “ The other and finer scenery is of that world, only 
 beginning to be explored, of Science. . . . Wondrous 
 beyond the comprehension of any one mind is the mass 
 of glorious facts, and the series of mighty conceptions 
 laid open ; but the shadow of the surrounding darkness 
 rests upon it all. The unknown always engrosses the 
 greater part of the field of vision; and the awe of infinity 
 sanctifies both the study and the dream.” 
 
 She continued her “ leaders ” for the Daily News, six¬ 
 teen hundred and forty-two in all, before she was obliged 
 to resign in 18GG, after fourteen years of labor. Her 
 articles were on America, the Southern Confederacy, In¬ 
 dian Famines, Drainage in Agriculture, Syrian Improve¬ 
 ment, The Morrill Tariff, French Free Trade, India and 
 Cotton, Loyalty in Canada, and the like; in short, wiiat 
 an educated and broad-minded statesman would write. 
 
 A series of articles on “The Histoiy of British Rule 
 in India” for the Daily News, were republished in a book ; 
 also a series of articles on ‘ ‘ The Endowed Schools of Ire¬ 
 land.” In 1859 she published a volume on “ England and 
 Her Soldiers,” to aid her friend, Florence Nightingale, in 
 her work for the army. This year and the two succeeding 
 years she sent over ninety long articles to America for the 
 anti-slavery publications. 
 
 She wrote also, for Once a Week, articles on “Repre- 
 
HABB IE T MAB TINEA U. 
 
 189 
 
 sentative Men,” historical stories, which she called “ His- 
 toriettes,” and on a variety of other topics. She had 
 also written many stories for Dickens’s “Household 
 Words.” 
 
 During all the years of our Civil War she wrote for 
 four leading English papers, keeping the people informed 
 of the real condition of affairs, and molding opinion in 
 favor of a whole-hearted support of our Union. She kept 
 up an extensive correspondence with statesmen and lead¬ 
 ing persons in both countries. The Daily News was so 
 warmly our friend, all through the struggle, that George 
 William Curtis declared in Harper's Weekly , which he 
 edited, “ our children’s children may well gratefully re¬ 
 member this course of the London Daily News.” Every¬ 
 body knew whose clear head and brave heart had helped 
 to make its course what it was. 
 
 She stimulated and aided the Lancashire workers who 
 were impoverished for lack of our cotton. She wrote for 
 the “ Atlantic Monthly” a series of articles on “ Military 
 Hy giene ” to help the Northern soldiers, for whom she 
 felt such deep sympathy. She wrote for (he “ Edinburgh 
 Review” an article on “The Progress of the Negro Race,” 
 expressing her constant belief in their better future. Her 
 history of the American Compromises, which came out in 
 the Daily News , was circulated by the, thousands in book 
 form. She nullified, as far as it was possible, the influence 
 exerted by the London Times. She wrote to her friend, 
 Mrs. Chapman, “ I am abundantly disgusted with Club 
 and Times insolence and prejudice, and I speak and write 
 against them with all my might. ... I call everybody I 
 know to witness that if we have war with the United States 
 the Times may be considered answerable for it. It seems 
 to me to be a sort of crazy malignity.” 
 
190 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 She deplored hasty words from either nation. “One 
 insulting word,” she said, “ is sometimes more dangerous 
 to nations than even a hostile deed ; and always more 
 disgraceful to him who utters it.” 
 
 She knew what most of us learn in middle life, that the 
 people who cry out for war are very often willing to stay 
 at home and cheer on those who go to battle ! 
 
 She never lost her deep concern for America. She 
 wanted to see our best men interested in politics : “ What 
 a tine spectacle it is,” she wrote Mrs. Chapman, “ the 
 higher order of citizens, the men of culture, trained 
 tastes, and gentle manners, repairing to the field of 
 political action because it is the field of patriotic duty! ” 
 
 She was living in accordance with her oft-repeated state¬ 
 ment, “ The real and justifiable and honorable subject of 
 interest to human beings, living and dying, is the welfare 
 of their fellows surrounding them or surviving them.” 
 She and Florence Nightingale took an active part in the 
 repeal of Acts ostensibly against vice, passed by Parlia¬ 
 ment in I860 and 1869. The “Westminster Review” 
 of 1870 helped to bring about this repeal. In 1868, 
 through the courtesy of the Daily News , her “ Biographical 
 Sketches,” published in that paper, were put into a book, 
 and went through four editions in England. The book 
 was reprinted in America. 
 
 The articles were graphic, analytic, and interesting, 
 though occasionally they seemed harsh; but she meant 
 always to be just. “ I had a devouring passion for jus¬ 
 tice,” she said of her youth; “justice first to my own 
 precious self, and then to other oppressed people. Jus¬ 
 tice was precisely what was least understood in our house, 
 in regard to servants and children.” She said of Char¬ 
 lotte Bronte that she had, “ in addition to the deep intui- 
 
IIARRIE T 31AR TINEA U. 
 
 191 
 
 tions of a gifted woman, the strength of a man, the 
 .patience of a hero, and the conscientiousness of a saint.” 
 
 Macaulay, she thought, as a talker, “perhaps un¬ 
 rivalled.” His life was mainly intellectual, “ brilliant, 
 and stimulating,” but wanting heart. Those who have 
 read Trevelyan’s life of him can scarcely agree with her. 
 
 The last years were drawing nigh. Her nieces, one or 
 more, always lived with her, and were very dear to her. 
 To her servants she was tenderly attached, and they in 
 turn idolized the gifted woman. The life was still a busy 
 one. “ I should think there never was such an indus¬ 
 trious lady,” said the maid who lived with her during the 
 last eleven years of her life; “when I caught sight of 
 her, just once leaning back in her chair, with her arms 
 hanging down, and looking as though she was n’t even 
 thinking about anything, it gave me quite a turn. I felt 
 she must be ill to sit like that! ” 
 
 She loved her work, though she recognized that author¬ 
 ship “ is the most laborious effort that men have to make; 
 for I have never met a physician who did not confirm this 
 conviction by his ready testimony.” She used to say to 
 her mother, when she had written ten hours a day for six 
 weeks, “ Never be uneasy about my writing so much. It 
 is impossible to give you an idea of the increasing facility 
 and delight which come with practice. It is the purest 
 delight to me when there is a fair prospect of usefulness, 
 and it is easier than the mere manual act once was. How 
 I once marvelled at the manufacture of a volume ! Now 
 I wonder that those who once write do not always write.” 
 
 Later she said, “How I love life in my study,—all 
 alone with my books and thoughts ! Books are not suf¬ 
 ficient companions if one only reads. If one adds writ¬ 
 ing, one does not want the world, though it is wholesome 
 
192 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 to have some of it.” All her middle life she never allowed 
 herself more than five or six hours of sleep at night. 
 
 She still kept up her reading. When she was seventy- 
 two, she said, “ I am reading again that marvellous 
 ‘ Middlemarch,’ finding I did not value it before.” After 
 reading “Adam Bede” twice, she said of George Eliot, 
 “A singular mind is hers, I should think, and truly won¬ 
 derful in power and scope.” She was a great admirer of 
 Jane Austen, having read “Persuasion” eleven times, 
 which she thought “unequalled in interest, charm, and 
 truth.” She enjoyed Thackeray’s “Esmond,” having 
 read it three times. “ It appears to me the book of the 
 century,” she said, “ in its department.” She never tired 
 of Scott’s novels. 
 
 When she thought she was going out of life, twenty 
 years before, she wrote, “ The world, as it is, is growing 
 somewhat dim before my ej 7 es; but the world as it is to 
 be looks brighter every day.” 
 
 Her last work was the knitting of a blanket for a 
 neighbor’s baby which was brought to see her one sunny 
 day in March, 187G. She left a second blanket unfinished. 
 She loved children, and felt that it was, perhaps, wise that 
 she had none of her own, as she would have idolized 
 them. 
 
 She waited cheerfully for the last change. “ Under the 
 weariness of illness I long to be asleep ; but I have not 
 set my mind in an} 7 state,” she wrote to a friend. She 
 thought “ annihilation” was our possible future. At sun¬ 
 set, June 27, 1876, she sank peacefully into the rest of 
 death. “ During that last night that she lay at the 
 Knoll,” says Mrs. Chapman, “ before being removed for 
 her funeral in Birmingham, her coffin was heaped with 
 flowers by unknown hands, even as she had filled the 
 
HATtlllE T MAE TINEA U. 
 
 193 
 
 place Tvitli multiplied blessings.” She was buried in Bir¬ 
 mingham among her kindred, with her name and dates of 
 birth and death graven on the stone. 
 
 Mrs. Chapman thus describes her friend : “ She had 
 rich, brown, abundant hair, folded away in shining waves 
 from the middle of her forehead. ... It was worn low 
 over the eyes, like the Greek brows ; and embossed rather 
 than graven by the workings of thought. [Her hair be¬ 
 came white before her death.] The eyes themselves were 
 light and full, of a grayish, greenish blue, varying in color 
 with the time of day or with the eye of the beholder. 
 They rvere steadily and quietly alert, as if constantly 
 seeing something where another would have found nothing 
 to notice. Her habitual expression was one of serene 
 and self-sufficing dignity — the look of perfect and benev¬ 
 olent repose that comes to those whose long, unselfish 
 struggle to wring its best from life has been crowned with 
 complete victory. You might walk the livelong day in 
 any city streets, and not meet such a face of simple, cheer¬ 
 ful strength, with so much light and sweetness in its play 
 of feature.” 
 
 Miss Martineau’s death caused mourning in thousands 
 of hearts. Florence Nightingale, with her sublime faith, 
 said, “ I know what her opinions were, and for a long 
 time I have thought how great will be the surprise to 
 her, — a glorious surprise. She served the Right, that is, 
 God, all her life. How few of those who cry, ‘ Lord, 
 Lord,’ served the Lord so well and so wisely ! . . . She 
 is gone to our Lord and her Lord. Made ripe for her and 
 our Father’s house.” 
 
 On this side the ocean the sorrow was not less genuine 
 and the honor not less universal. The Nation said, “One 
 looks in vain., indeed, for a parallel to this remarkable 
 
194 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 woman as a molder of public opinion through the press 
 and through printed works.” 
 
 Americans did not forget her noble efforts in their 
 behalf. The citizens of New York sent her, while living, 
 a set of the “ Rebellion Record,” published by Putnam. 
 The Hon. Henry Wilson sent her his “ Slave Power in 
 America,” “with the gratitude of the author for her 
 friendship for his country, and her devotion to freedom.” 
 
 After her death, funds were raised by public subscrip¬ 
 tion in America for a statue of her in -white marble, which 
 has been executed by the sculptor, Anne Whitney, of 
 Boston. It represents Miss Martineau seated, with her 
 hands folded over a manuscript on her knees. 
 
 The statue was unveiled in the Old South Church, Dec. 
 26, 1883, Mary A. Livermore presiding, and William 
 Lloyd Garrison, Jr., and Wendell Phillips making ad¬ 
 dresses. It proved to be the last public speech of Mr. 
 Phillips, who died six weeks later. 
 
 He spoke with his usual fervor and unsurpassed grace. 
 “ When a moral issue is stirred,” he said, “ then there is 
 no American, no German, we are all men and women. 
 . . . In an epoch fertile of great genius among women, 
 it may be said of Miss Martineau, that she was the peer 
 of the noblest, and that her influence on the progress of 
 the age was more than equal to that of all the others 
 combined. ... It is easy to be independent when all 
 behind you agree with you, but the difficulty comes when 
 nine hundred and ninety-nine of your friends think you 
 wrong. Then it is the brave soul who stands up, one 
 among a thousand, but remembering that one with God 
 makes a majority. This was Harriet Martineau. . . . 
 
 “ She was always the friend of the poor. Prisoner, 
 slave, wage-serf, worn out by toil in the mill, no matter 
 
HARRIET MAR TINEA U. 
 
 195 
 
 who the sufferer, there was always one person who could 
 influence Tory and Liberal to listen. . . . We want our 
 children to see the woman who came to observe, and 
 remained to work, and, having once put her hand to the 
 plough, persevered until she was allowed to live when the 
 paean of the emancipated four millions went up to heaven, 
 sharing the attainment of her great desire.” 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 “ /’"'i RE AT as was the wonder of seeing a whole popu- 
 lation thus bewitched by one simple Swedish girl, 
 it sinks into nothing before the wonder of herself. 
 
 “ Yon have seen her, and therefore you can appreciate 
 the grace, the dignity, the joyousness, the touching pathos 
 of her entrance ; her attitude, her courtesies, her voice. . . . 
 
 “You must conceive a character corresponding to all 
 this, and transpiring through a thousand traits of humil¬ 
 ity, gentleness, thoughtfulness, wisdom, piety. The man¬ 
 ners of a princess with the simplicity of a child, and the 
 goodness of an angel. . . . She came on Tuesday night, 
 and is gone this evening; and it seems quite a blank, as 
 if a heavenly visitant had departed.” 
 
 Thus wrote Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, afterwards Dean 
 of Westminster, to a friend, Sept. 22, 1847. 
 
 Mendelssohn said, “ I have never in my life met so 
 noble, so true and real an art nature as Jenny Lind is. 
 I have never found natural gifts, study, and sympathetic 
 warmth united in such a degree ; and although one or the 
 other quality may have appeared more prominently in this 
 or the other case, I do not believe that they have ever 
 been found united in such potency.” 
 
 Mendelssohn told Hans Andersen, “ There will not 
 be born, in a whole century, another being so gifted as 
 she.” 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 197 
 
 To Andersen, Jenny Lind was an inspiration. He 
 said, “Through Jenny Lind I first became sensible of 
 the holiness of Art. Through her I learned that one 
 must forget one’s self in the service of the Supreme. 
 No books, no men, have had a more ennobling influence 
 upon me, as a poet, than Jenny Lind. . . . She is happy — 
 belonging, as it were, no longer to the world. A peace¬ 
 ful, quiet home is the object of her thoughts; yet she 
 loves Art with her whole soul, and feels her vocation in 
 it. A noble, pious disposition like hers cannot be spoiled 
 by homage.” 
 
 Frederika Bremer called her “ a great artist, but still 
 greater in her pure, human existence.” 
 
 Jenny Lind fills a unique place among the world’s great 
 artists. She was gifted to a marvellous extent in voice. 
 She was not beautiful in face, though Sir Julius Benedict 
 said that when she was inspired with her theme, “ her 
 whole face lighted up and became perfectly beautiful.” 
 She was the idol of the public, not simply on account of 
 her talent, for many are talented, but also because she 
 was a veritable prince among givers, and the guardian 
 angel of the poor and the unfortunate. 
 
 She was born in Stockholm, Sweden, Oct. 6, 1820. 
 Her father, the sen of a lace-maker, was a good-natured 
 but weak man, unable to provide for his wife and child. 
 He had a good voice, and enjoyed music of “ a free and 
 convivial kind.” 
 
 Her mother was a woman of great energy and deter¬ 
 mination, who, being obliged to care for the child of a 
 former unhappy marriage, and in addition the husband 
 and child of a second marriage, by teaching school, had 
 lost much of her natural sweetness of disposition through 
 stern contact with poverty. 
 
198 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The mother could not care for the child and teach, so 
 Jenny was boarded for three years with a church organ¬ 
 ist a few miles out of Stockholm. At this early age she 
 showed a love for the country, a passion for the singing 
 of birds, and for trees and wild flowers, which continued 
 through life. 
 
 After her return to Stockholm she attended the school 
 kept by her mother, and found much comfort and com¬ 
 panionship in her grandmother. The latter first dis¬ 
 covered that Jenny had a voice for singing. 
 
 Having heard some military bugles in the street, the 
 child crept to the piano one day, thinking that she was 
 alone in the house, and picked out the air which she had 
 heard the soldiers play. 
 
 The grandmother, hearing the music, called out the 
 name of the half-sister, Amalia, supposing that it was she. 
 Jenny hid under the piano in terror. When her grand¬ 
 mother found her, she exclaimed, astonished, “Child, 
 was that you ? ” The girl confessed in tears. When the 
 mother returned, the grandmother said, “ Mark my words, 
 that child will bring you help.” 
 
 Fru Lind’s school did not pay — it was the old struggle 
 of the poor to make ends meet — and she determined to 
 become a governess, taking Amalia with her. The grand¬ 
 mother went to the Widow’s Home, taking Jenny with her. 
 
 The child was not old enough to realize much about 
 privation, and as she said in after life, “ sang with every 
 step I took, and with every jump my feet made.” She 
 had a pet cat, with a blue ribbon around its neck, to which 
 she sang almost constantly. 
 
 Jenny land, at Cannes, in 1887, a little before her 
 death, thus spoke of these early days to her eldest sou : 
 “ Her favorite seat with her cat was in the window of the 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 199 
 
 steward’s rooms, which look out on the lively street lead¬ 
 ing up to the Church of St. Jacob’s, and there she sat 
 and sang to it; and the people passing in the street used 
 to hear, and wonder; and amongst others the maid of a 
 Mademoiselle Lundberg, a dancer at the Royal Opera 
 House; and the maid told her mistress that she had 
 never heard such beautiful singing as this little girl sang 
 to her cat. 
 
 .. “ Mademoiselle Lundberg thereupon found out who she 
 was, and sent to ask her mother, who seems to have been 
 in Stockholm at the time, to bring her to sing to her. 
 And, when she heard her sing, she said, ‘ The child is a 
 genius; you must have her educated for the stage.’ But 
 Jenny’s mother, as well as her grandmother, had an old- 
 fashioned prejudice against the stage, and she would not 
 hear of this. 
 
 “ ‘ Then you must, at any rate, have her taught sing¬ 
 ing,’ said Mademoiselle Lundberg; and the mother was 
 persuaded, in this way, to accept a letter of introduction 
 to Herr Crcelius, the court secretary and singing-master 
 at the Royal Theatre. 
 
 “Off with the letter they started, but as they went up 
 the broad steps of the Opera House, the mother was 
 again troubled by her doubts and repugnance. She no 
 doubt had all the inherited dislike of the burgher families 
 to the dramatic life. But little Jenny eagerly urged her 
 to go on, and they entered the room where Cra?lius 
 sat; and the child sang him something out of an opera 
 composed by Winter. 
 
 “Crcelius was moved to tears, and said he must take 
 her in to Count Puke, the head of the Royal Theatre, and 
 tell him what a treasure he had found. And they went at 
 once, and Count Puke’s first cpiestion was, ‘ How old is 
 
200 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 she?’ and Crcelius answered. ‘ Nine years old.’ ‘Nine!’ 
 exclaimed the count; ‘but this is not a creche! It is 
 the king’s theatre ! ’ And he would not look at her, she 
 being, moreover, at that time, what she herself (in her let¬ 
 ter to the ‘ Biographical Lexicon ’) calls ‘ a small, ugly, 
 broad-nosed, shy, gauche , under-grown girl! ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Well,’ said Crcelius, ‘ if the count will not hear her, 
 then I will teach her gratuitously myself, and she will one 
 day astonish you ! ’ Then Count Puke consented to h§ar 
 her sing ; and, when she sang, he too was moved to tears ; 
 and from that moment she was accepted, and was taken 
 and taught to sing, and educated, and brought up at the 
 Government expense.” 
 
 Nearly twenty years later, when her name was on every 
 lip, and the good Crcelius was near his death, he wrote in 
 answer to a letter of gratitude from her, “ My interest in 
 you is, and will alwaj's remain, the most genuine. Your 
 honor, your success will be the comfort of my old age and 
 a balm for my sufferings.” 
 
 For ten years Jenny studied and acted at the Royal 
 Theatre. The pupils boarded at various homes in the 
 city, the theatre paying for food and clothes, and as Fru 
 Lind had given up her position as governess and returned 
 to Stockholm, she took her own child, among others, to 
 board. At the theatre the girl was taught singing, elocu¬ 
 tion, dancing, and other matters necessary for her pro¬ 
 fession, while her mother agreed to see that she was 
 taught the piano, French, history, geography, and other 
 studies. 
 
 German she did not learn till she was twenty-four, but 
 she pronounced it beautifully, and N. P. Willis said, when 
 she was in America, “She is a perfect mistress of French, 
 and speaks English very sweetly.” 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 201 
 
 These early years, full of hard work, were not very 
 happy ones for the young girl. The mother, with her 
 burdens and discouragements, was probably irritable, and 
 Jenny, unable to bear the friction of home life any longer, 
 ran away. After a law-suit between the impecunious 
 Linds, who needed the board-money, and the directors of 
 the theatre, the child was returned to her parents, to 
 whom, unfortunately, she legally belonged. 
 
 Still the girl was fond of her mother, and when she 
 died in 1851, when Jenny was in America, the latter wrote 
 to a friend in Sweden: “ My mother’s death I have felt 
 most bitterly; everything was now smooth and nice be¬ 
 tween us; I was in hopes that she would have been 
 spared for many a long year; . . . and that, now that 
 she was quieter and more reasonable, I might have sur¬ 
 rounded her old age with joy, and peace, and tender care. 
 But the ways of the Lord are often not our ways.” 
 
 Jenny began to act almost as soon as she was admit¬ 
 ted to the Koval Theatre. At ten she played the part of 
 Angela in “The Polish Mine.” The next year she was 
 Johanna in “ Te-stamentet.” The press spoke of her acting 
 as showing “ fire and feeling far beyond her years.” 
 
 The year she was thirteen she appeared in twenty-two 
 performances. The press said the child showed “ un¬ 
 natural cleverness,” but regretted that she had to take 
 parts full of “ coquetry, boldness, and heartlessness.” 
 From twelve to fifteen she sang in concerts, and the 
 Swedes were becoming very proud of her. At seventeen, 
 when she had appeared on the stage one hundred and 
 eleven times for her board and clothes, it was decided 
 that it was time to give her a salary of about sixty pounds 
 a year. 
 
 During her seventeenth year she appeared on the boards 
 
202 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 ninety-two times in twelve new characters. It was fortu¬ 
 nate that she had a good memory and great versatility, 
 otherwise the work required of her would have broken her 
 constitution. The state had not proved an easy task¬ 
 master, but the life was more enjoyable than if it had been 
 passed in the poverty of the Lind home. 
 
 When about seventeen she began to study the part of 
 Agatha in Weber's “ Der Freischiitz.” One day she 
 thought, to satisfy her teacher, Madame Erikson, of whom 
 she was very fond, she would put her whole soul into 
 her part. She did so, and the teacher met the effort with 
 silence. “Am I, then, so incapable?” thought the girl, 
 till she saw the tears on her teacher’s face. “ My child, 
 I have nothing to teach you ; do as nature tells you,” she 
 said. 
 
 On the day of her debut , March 7, 1838, she was ex¬ 
 tremely nervous and worried, but after the first note on 
 the stage all fear disappeared. The people w r ere surprised 
 and delighted, and she most of all, for she had learned 
 her ability. 
 
 She often said afterwards, “ I got up that morning one 
 creature; I went to bed another creature. I had found 
 my power.” All through life the 7th of March was kept 
 with grateful remembrance; it was a second birthday. 
 
 In 1839 her most effective part was Alice in Meyerbeer’s 
 “ Robert le Diable,” which she played twenty-three times 
 to enthusiastic audiences. So popular was she in this 
 piece that she gave it sixty times in the same theatre 
 during the next four years. 
 
 Bournonville, eminent in Copenhagen and at Stockholm 
 as a composer, said later, her voice even then “ possessed 
 the same sympathy, the same electric pov r er, which now 
 makes it so irresistible. She was worshipped.” He 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 203 
 
 said, three years afterwards, when she sang in Denmark, 
 “Jenny Lind discovered that she could get her living 
 out of Sweden; and also she learned that the artist, 
 in reality, should not settle down on the native soil, but, 
 like the bird of passage, should go there only in search 
 of rest.” 
 
 Jenny was able to take a brief rest in the summer of 
 1839 at Gothenburg, and her mother went with her to 
 enjoy the country air. Fru Lind wrote back to her hus¬ 
 band : “ Our Jenny recruits herself daily, now in the 
 hay-stacks, now on the sea or in the swing, in perfect 
 tranquillity, while the town people are said to be longing 
 for her concert and greatly wondering when it will come 
 off. Once or twice she lias been singing in rather good 
 circles, the divine air of ‘ Isabelle’ from ‘Robert le Li¬ 
 able. ’ Nearly everybody was crying, — one lady actually 
 went into hysterics from sheer rapture ; this has got abroad 
 already. Yes, she captivates all, all! It is a great hap¬ 
 piness to be a mother under such conditions.” Poor, 
 tired Fru Lind had gained courage in the struggle, and 
 was evidently looking forward to better days. 
 
 Towards the close of 1839 Jenny removed from her 
 home to the house of the chief of Swedish song-writers, 
 Adolf Fredrik Lindblad. In this family she found com¬ 
 panionship and quiet for study. “ I have to thank him,” 
 said Jenny Lind, forty years later, “ for that tine compre¬ 
 hension of art which was implanted by his idealistic, 
 pure, and unsensual nature into me, his ready pupil. 
 Subsequently Christianity stepped in to satisfy the moral 
 needs, and to teach me to look well into my own soul.” 
 
 Luma in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” became 
 one of her famous roles. After her thirteenth per¬ 
 formance of Lucia on June 19, 1840, a number of the 
 
204 
 
 FAMOUS TYPE* OE WOMANHOOD. 
 
 actors serenaded her, and on her return home she was 
 presented with a silver tea and coffee service which she 
 always valued highly, and, at her death, willed to her 
 eldest son. 
 
 The girl was as lovely in character as she was gifted in 
 song. The poor home and the hard work had not soured 
 her nature, but had made her more tender to the suffering, 
 and more considerate of others. 
 
 She began to wiu friends among the distinguished 
 people of her country. Erik Gustaf Geijer, the noted 
 author and popular Professor of History in the Univer¬ 
 sity of Upsala, wrote several songs for her. One, espe- 
 pecially, stirred her with ambition. It was found after 
 her death among her papers, with this line in her owu 
 hand on the bottom of the page : “ On these words I was 
 launched into the open sea.” 
 
 “ Oh! if from yon Eternal Fire, 
 
 Which slays the soul that sets it free, 
 
 Consuming them, as they aspire, 
 
 One burning spark have fallen on thee, — 
 
 “ Fear not! though upward still it haste, 
 
 That living lire, that tongue of flame! 
 
 Thy days it turns to bitter waste; 
 
 But ah! from heaven — from heaven it came! ” 
 
 When Jenny sang in Upsala before the enthusiastic 
 students, she must have enjoyed the lovely home and 
 garden of the gifted Geijer. He died April 23, 1847. 
 Forty years later I counted it a privilege to gather from 
 that garden some beautiful pink roses which I still 
 preserve. 
 
 The daughter of Baron L. thus describes the singer at 
 a party in the baron’s home : “ On the threshhold stands 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 205 
 
 the host and by his side, shaking hands with him, a 
 young girl, with an abundance of curls round the pale 
 cheeks; a gown in simple style softly clings round the 
 maiden figure and there is a dreamy, half-absent, and 
 fascinating look in the deep-set eyes. 
 
 “The hum is increasing still more when the old noble¬ 
 man leads the visitor into the midst of his guests ; but he 
 has not time to pronounce her name, it is already on 
 everybody’s lips, and is now flying round the room with 
 a subdued sound : Jenny Lind ! Jenny Lind ! 
 
 “ The beauties of the season are forgotten and, what is 
 more, they forget all about themselves; flirtation is sup¬ 
 pressed ; . . . a crowd of the high assembly gathers round 
 the plain-looking young girl, thus for once justly conced¬ 
 ing the preference of genius to birth — of beauty of soul 
 to beauty of features.” 
 
 Jenny Lind was about five feet and three to four inches 
 in height, with “ dove-like blue eyes ” and light hair, a 
 face which expressed every emotion, a quick and alert 
 mind which, said N. P. Willis, “comprehended every¬ 
 thing by the time it was half expressed,” a dislike of 
 the “small talk” of society and of compliments, and a 
 natural, frank, sincere manner. While vivacious, there 
 was an undertone of melancholy in her nature, as perhaps 
 there must always be in those who think deeply, and are 
 conversant with the world’s woes. 
 
 “ She has the simplicity of genius,” said Mrs. Stanley, 
 the wife of the Bishop of Norwich and the mother of Dean 
 Stanley, some years later. “ She never speaks of herself, 
 never appears to think of herself.” She moved on the 
 stage with all its perils, true to whatever was best in 
 womanhood. 
 
 Conscious that she had great talents, the “ Swedish 
 
206 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Nightingale,” as she was called, felt that she must put 
 forth every effort for their cultivation. She was ambitious 
 and rightly so. To develop every talent, however small, 
 and use it to the fullest extent possible, is the duty of 
 every human being. Indolence makes thousands of medi¬ 
 ocre lives; Jenny Lind won her place in part, as she used 
 to say, “by incredible labor.” 
 
 When she was twenty she was made a member of the 
 Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and was appointed 
 court singer by his Majesty, Carl Johan. She had deter¬ 
 mined to go to Paris to study, feeling that she had the 
 Eternal Fire of which Geijer had written. The directors 
 of the theatre tried to dissuade her by the offer of a salary 
 of one hundred and fifty pounds, which she declined. 
 
 In the summer of 1840, Jenny Lind made a provincial 
 tour, thereby earning enough money, with what she had 
 saved, to study in Paris for a year. The provincial con¬ 
 cert tour was a fatiguing one. She wrote a friend, “ The 
 roads were so bad that the wheels, now and then, sank a 
 foot deep into the mud, and it was very horrid sitting 
 about in the atrocious weather; but as soon as I arrive in 
 a town, and see the exceeding great kindness and friend¬ 
 liness the people have for me, then I feel it wicked to 
 grumble. You cannot think to what an extent they all vie 
 with each other in serving me. It is quite astonishing ! ” 
 
 Already she had begun the generosity which was for¬ 
 ever to make her name honored and beloved. She writes 
 again to the same friend “ to visit Bruhn the painter, a 
 poor sick man, ill in bed these last fourteen years ; I for¬ 
 got to bring him his monthly allowance before coming 
 away; w r ill you be good enough to give him, on my be¬ 
 half, eight riksdaler banco, and to tell him this is for the 
 months of July and August.” 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 207 
 
 Through life she felt that the money she earned was 
 only hers, in trust, as well as her voice. “ Every morn¬ 
 ing when she got up, she told me,” writes Mrs. Stanley, 
 “ she felt that her voice was a gift from God, and that, 
 perhaps, that very day might be the last of its use.” 
 
 Through the autumn of 1840 and spring of 1841 her 
 labors were incessant. Twenty-three times she gave 
 Lucia; fourteen times Alice in “Robert”; nine times 
 Agatha in “ Der Freisclhitz ” ; seven times Bellini’s “ Nor¬ 
 ma,” besides other plays and concerts. On June 19, 1841, 
 she appeared for the four hundred and forty-seventh time 
 on the stage of the Royal Theatre, since, when a child of 
 ten, she had played Angela in “ The I’olish Mine.” 
 
 Two weeks later she started for Paris, spending the 
 whole last night before her departure, says Madame Lind- 
 blad, in writing letters, “ coming occasionally into our 
 rooms to have a good cry.” 
 
 On leaving Sweden, Jenny Lind took a letter of in¬ 
 troduction from Queen Desiree (the wife of Marechal 
 Bernadotte, who became King of Sweden and Norway in 
 1818, under the title of Carl XIV., Johan) to her rela¬ 
 tive, Madame la Marechale Soult. At the house of 
 the latter Jenny sang before Signor Manuel Garcia, the 
 greatest singing-master of the century. Later, Jenny 
 called upon him, desiring to take lessons. She sang 
 in “Lucia,” in which she had appeared thirty-nine times 
 in Stockholm the previous year, and broke down. lie 
 said to the frightened girl, who had nearly worn her¬ 
 self out by her hard work, “ It would be useless to teach 
 you, Mademoiselle ; you have no voice left.” 
 
 She told Mendelssohn years afterward that the agony of 
 that moment exceeded all she had suffered in her whole 
 life. 
 
208 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 She asked Garcia, with tears in her eyes, what she was 
 to do. Evidently moved by her sorrow, he said she must 
 give her voice a complete rest for six weeks, not singing 
 at all, and talking very little. At the end of that time she 
 might come to him again. At once she began diligently 
 to perfect herself in the French language. 
 
 On her return to Garcia her voice had so improved that 
 he was willing to give her two lessons a week. She began 
 to practice the scales and exercises four hours or more 
 daily. For ten mouths she studied almost continuously. 
 Garcia’s help was valuable, but she knew that her power 
 came from another source. 
 
 She wrote, years afterward : “ The greater part of what 
 I can do in my art, 1 have myself acquired by incredible 
 labor, in spite of astonishing difficulties. By Garcia alone 
 have I been taught some few important things. God had 
 so plainly written within me what I had to study; my 
 ideal was, and is, so high, that I could find no mortal who 
 could in the least degree satisfy my demands. Therefore 
 I sing after no one’s method ; only, as far as I am able, 
 after that of the birds; for their Master was the only one 
 who came up to my demands for truth, clearness, and 
 expression.” 
 
 Her voice had increased in depth of tone, in clearness in 
 the upper register, and in sympathetic adaptation to the 
 words of every song. She had also learned to fill the 
 lungs with such dexterity that it was impossible to detect 
 when the breath was renewed. Unlike Henrietta Son- 
 tag, she had naturally limited sustaining power, and this 
 increase of sustaining power was gained by practice. 
 
 In May, 18.2, Jenny Lind returned to Stockholm, the 
 directors of the theatre giving her about one hundred and 
 fifty pounds, with extra-service money, and costumes pro- 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 209 
 
 vided. She sang in “Norma,” “Lucia,” Mozart’s “ Le 
 Nozze di Figaro,” and won additional fame as Amina, 
 in Bellini’s “ La Sonuambula.” In nine months she ap¬ 
 peared one hundred and six times in thirteen different 
 parts. 
 
 Her first duty and pleasure was to purchase a little 
 home in the country for her father and mother, and then 
 she transferred her guardianship to Herr Henric M. Mun- 
 the, a judge of high position and character. To the end 
 of his life he Avas her helpful friend. 
 
 When she Avas sixty years old, she wrote his son Carl in 
 appreciation of his noble father. She states that she had 
 intended to write her autobiography, as her experience had 
 been so varied, but later she abandoned it after the public 
 so criticised the “Reminiscences” of Carlyle. 
 
 In the summer of 1843, Jenny Lind sang in Finland to 
 delighted audiences. Topelius, the poet and historian, 
 remembering the welcome of the people, wrote in 1888, 
 after her death : — 
 
 “ I saw thee once, so young and fair, 
 
 In thy SAvect spring-tide, long ago; 
 
 A myrtle wreath Avas in thy hair, 
 
 And, at tl.y breast, a rose did blow. 
 
 “ Poor AA’as thy purse, yet gold thy gift; 
 
 All music’s golden boons Avere thine: 
 
 And yet, through all the Avealth of art, 
 
 It AA - as thy soul Avhich sang to mine. 
 
 “Yea! sang, as no one else has sung, 
 
 So subtly skilled, so simply good! 
 
 So brilliant! yet as pui’e, and true 
 As birds that Avarble in the AA'ood! ” 
 
210 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 She sang next in Denmark. “ All Copenhagen was in 
 raptures,” said Hans Andersen. “Jenny Lind was the 
 first artist to whom the students ever offered a serenade ! 
 The torches flashed round the hospitable villa where the 
 song was sung. She expressed her thanks by a few more 
 of the Swedish songs, and I then saw her hurry into the 
 darkest corner, and weep out her emotion. ‘ Yes, yes,’ 
 she said, ‘ I will exert myself; I will strive; I shall be 
 more efficient than I am now, when I come to Copenhagen 
 again ! ’ ” 
 
 In this city, having heard that a young man who was 
 ill felt greatly disappointed because he had not heard her, 
 she visited his home, and sang to him and his young wife, 
 notwithstanding she was to sing in “ Norma” that after¬ 
 noon. Hans Andersen tells of another act of kindness on 
 a second visit to Copenhagen. Every hour was occupied, 
 but having heard of a society which took children out of 
 the hands of bad parents, and provided for them, she 
 desired to help raise funds. 
 
 “Have I not still a disengaged evening?” said she. 
 “ Let me give a performance for the benefit of these poor 
 children, and we will have doubled prices.” 
 
 The concert was given, and the proceeds were large. 
 AVhen told how many poor children would be helped, her 
 eyes filled with tears, as she said, “Is it not beautiful that 
 I can sing so?” 
 
 From October, 1843, to July, 1844, she made sixty-six 
 appearances in Stockholm ; gave concerts to raise money 
 for the Swedish composer, Josephson, that he might study 
 abroad, and found occasional rest in her “ cosey little 
 home.” 
 
 She writes to Hans Andersen, describing it: “ Cheer¬ 
 ful, sunny rooms, a nightingale and a greenfinch; the 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 211 
 
 latter, however, is greatly superior as an artist to his cele¬ 
 brated colleague, for, while the first remains on his bar, 
 grumpy and moody, the other jumps about in his cage, 
 looking so joyous and good-natured, as if, to begin with, 
 he was not in the least jealous, but, instead of that, sup¬ 
 poses himself created merely for the purpose of cheering 
 his silent friend ! And then he sings a song, so high, so 
 deep, so charming and so sonorous, that I sit down beside 
 him, and, within, lift up my voice in a mute song of praise 
 to Him whose ‘strength is made perfect in weakness.’ 
 Ah ! it is divine to feel really good.” 
 
 At this time she was invited b} 7 Meyerbeer to sing in 
 his new opera, “ Das Feldlager in Schlesien,” to be given 
 at the opening of the new Royal Opera House in Berlin. 
 When she left Stockholm in July, 1844, to go to Dresden 
 to study the German language, the queen gave her por¬ 
 trait-medals of herself and the late king, with a watch, 
 which, she said, is “ to remind you not to forget the time 
 of your return to us.” 
 
 As ever, she was homesick at leaving Sweden, but her 
 ambition sustained her. In Dresden she lived quietly, 
 refusing to enter society, devoting herself methodically to 
 her study. Recalled to Sweden to assist, as court-singer, 
 at the coronation of King Oscar I., she was offered about 
 four hundred and twenty pounds, annually, for eight 
 years, with a pension for life, by the theatre directors, if 
 she would remain in Sweden. She was inclined to accept 
 the offer, but was dissuaded by friends. 
 
 In the fall of 1844, she went to Berlin. Through Meyer¬ 
 beer she was privately presented to the royal family. 
 Before appearing in opera, she was asked to sing at a 
 small party given by Augusta, afterwards empress. The 
 Couutess of Westmoreland, whose husband, the earl, was 
 
212 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the English ambassador to Prussia, and a noted musician 
 as well, the founder of the Royal Academy of Music in 
 London, was at the party given by Augusta. Lady West¬ 
 moreland thus describes the event, as told her by her mother, 
 the countess : “ She went in, full of curiosity, and saw sit¬ 
 ting by the lamp a thin, pale, plain-featured girl, looking 
 awkward and nervous, and like a very shy country school¬ 
 girl. She could not believe her eyes, and said that she 
 and her neighbors, among whom was Countess Rossi 
 (Henrietta Sontag), whose fame as a singer and a beauty 
 was then still recent, began to speculate whether Meyer¬ 
 beer was playing a practical joke on them; and when he 
 came up to speak to them, my mother asked him if he was 
 really serious in meaning to bring that frightened child 
 out in his opera. Ilis only answer was, * Attendez , 
 Miladi.' 
 
 “When the time came for her song, m} T mother used to 
 say it was the most extraordinary experience she ever re¬ 
 membered. The wonderful notes came ringing out; but 
 over and above that was the wonderful transfiguration — 
 no other word could apply — which came over her entire 
 face and figure, lightening them up with the whole fire and 
 dignity of her genius. The effect on the whole audience 
 was simply marvellous. 
 
 “ When she reached home, my father asked her, ‘Well, 
 what do you think of Meyerbeer’s wonder?’ 
 
 “ She answered, ‘ She is simply an angel.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Is she so very handsome? ’ 
 
 “ ‘ I saw a plain girl when I went in, but when she be¬ 
 gan to sing her face simply and literally shone like that of 
 an angel. I never saw anything, or heard anything, the 
 least like it.’ 
 
 “ My mother used to say that she thought her dramatic 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 213 
 
 power was quite as great as her musical genius, and that if 
 she had had no voice she might still have been the greatest 
 of living actresses.” 
 
 The gifted Henrietta Sontag called her afterwards, “ the 
 first singer of the world.” 
 
 Jenny Lind did not sing in Meyerbeer’s new opera, be¬ 
 cause a prima donna who had sung for years at the theatre, 
 declared it to be her right to sing. The public were, of 
 course, disappointed. But jealousies are not confined to 
 the stage ! 
 
 Jenny Lind's first appearance in Berlin was in “ Norma.” 
 She interpreted the character differently from Madame 
 Pasta, for whom it was written, or from Madame Grisi, 
 who was playing it nightly in London and Paris, with less 
 of passion, but more of true womanhood. Meyerbeer was 
 charmed with Jenny Lind, and determined that she should 
 appear in his new opera. “ He is a most polite man,” 
 wrote Josephson ; “ something of the courtier ; something 
 of the man of genius ; something of the man of the world ; 
 and has, in addition, something fidgety about his whole 
 being. Before reproducing the opera with Jenny Lind, 
 he called upon her, to the best of my belief, at least a 
 hundred times to consult about this, that, or the other.” 
 
 Before she appeared as Vielka in “ Das Feldlager in 
 Schlesien,” she was exceedingly nervous, and kept prac¬ 
 tising the whole afternoon and before the beginning of 
 the opera. Her reception was most enthusiastic. After 
 the fourth performance, an attempt was made to secure 
 her for London. She unwisely signed a contract with Mr. 
 Alfred Bunn, of Drury Lane Theatre, which, from dis¬ 
 agreement, ended in a lawsuit, with damages against her 
 of twenty-five hundred pounds. 
 
 Every evening was an ovation to the singer. When 
 
214 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 “ La Sonnambula ” was given, the prices asked and paid 
 were unprecedented. Meyerbeer wrote her, urging her to 
 overcome her diffidence; but added, ‘-Whether heaven 
 grants you or not this little supplement to 3 T our other 
 precious qualities, you will always be, for me, my dear 
 Mademoiselle, one of the most touching and noble char¬ 
 acters that I have ever met with during my long artistic 
 wanderings, and one to whom I have vowed for my 
 whole life the most profound and sincere admiration and 
 esteem.” 
 
 Her farewell concert was in aid of the “Asylum for 
 Blind Soldiers.” 
 
 Though constantly meeting such distinguished persons 
 as Tieck, Brockhaus, the head of the great publishing firm 
 in Leipzig, and Frau Bettina von Arnim, — Goethe’s Bet- 
 tina, —she wrote to Judge Munthe : “In the midst of all 
 these splendors, my whole soul goes out in longing for 
 Sweden. There is an inexplicable home-sympathy in the 
 depths of my soul, and I look upon its possession as an 
 unspeakable happiness; for to feel so warmly as this for 
 one’s country is a divinely elevating sentiment.” 
 
 On her way back to Sweden she sang in Hanover and in 
 Hamburg. She was serenaded and escorted home by 
 torchlight processions. “ She was the first in Hamburg,” 
 says Dr. Hermann Uhde, “ whose whole figure had ever 
 been so completely bestrewn with flowers that she stood 
 upon an improvised carpet of blossoms.” On her return 
 to Sweden, though it was midnight, the streets were com¬ 
 pletely blocked by those who had come to welcome her 
 home. 
 
 She was soon recalled to Prussia to sing at an enter¬ 
 tainment given by King Frederick William IV., — the son 
 of the immortal Louise, — in honor of Queen Victoria and 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 215 
 
 Prince Albert, who hacl come to Prussia to be present at 
 the unveiling of a bronze statue at Bonn to the incom¬ 
 parable Beethoven. 
 
 Queen Victoria was charmed with Jenny Lind, and 
 showed her many attentions through life. 
 
 During this visit she met George Grote, the historian 
 of Greece, and his wife, who were ever after her cherished 
 friends. She confided to Mrs. Grote that the stage was 
 distasteful to her, and that she should leave it as soon 
 as she was pecuniarily independent, adding, “ My wants 
 are few, my tastes simple, a small income would content 
 me.” She also wrote her old friend, Madame Erikson, 
 “ Connection with the stage has no attraction for me ; my 
 soul is yearning for rest from all these persistent compli¬ 
 ments and this persistent adulation.” 
 
 She sang for nine nights at Frankfort. At Darmstadt, 
 when she was called before the curtain, she was received 
 with “ a gentle shower of flowers.” 
 
 In the last week of October, 1845, Jenny Lind re¬ 
 turned to Berlin, and in the following five months sang 
 twenty-eight times, taking the part of Donna Anna in 
 Mozart’s “ Don Giovanni,” Agatha in 11 Der Freischiitz,” 
 Julia in Spontini’s “ Die Vestalin,” Valentine in Meyer¬ 
 beer’s “ Les Huguenots.” The house of Prof. Ludwig 
 Wilhelm Wickmann, the friend of Thorvaldsen and the 
 favorite pupil of Schadow, was her home. Here the great 
 singer met the choicest spirits of Germany. Hans An¬ 
 dersen came to see her. One day a poor tailor, who was 
 also a poet, came to call upon the gifted Dane. Andersen 
 had little to offer him, but suggested that he might arrange 
 for him to hear Jenny Lind. 
 
 “ 1 have heard her,” said the man. “ I could not afford 
 to buy a ticket; so 1 went to the man who provides the 
 
216 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 1 supers,’ and asked him if I could not go as a ‘ super ’ 
 oue evening in ‘ Norma.’ To this he agreed. So I was 
 dressed up as a Roman soldier, with a long sword at my 
 side, and in that guise appeared upon the stage; and I 
 heard her better than any one else, for I stood close be¬ 
 side her. Ah 1 how she sang ! and how she acted! I 
 could not stand it; it made me weep. But they were 
 furious at that. The manager forbade it, and would neA'er 
 permit me to set foot upon the stage again, for one must 
 not weep upon the stage.” 
 
 Mendelssohn came now and then to Berlin, for while 
 his devoted family lived there, his duties called him to 
 Leipzig, where he had founded the Conservatorium in 
 1843, and as leader of the orchestra of the Gewandhaus. 
 Jenny Lind wrote to Judge Munthe, “ Felix Mendelssohn 
 comes sometimes to Berlin, and I have often been in his 
 company. lie is a man , and, at the same time, he has the 
 most supreme taleut. Thus should it be.” 
 
 Mendelssohn took Jenny Lind to Leipzig to assist in 
 his famous Gewandhaus Concerts, the finest in Europe. 
 The rush for tickets was so great that not one fourth of 
 the applicants could be accommodated. Herr Brockhaus 
 said, “ Soul and expression so intimately associated with 
 so beautiful a voice and so perfect a method will never be 
 met with again. . . . One can only wonder, and love her. 
 And this affectionate appreciation is universal, — the same 
 with young and old, with men and with women.” 
 
 Instead of giving a benefit for herself, she gave a con¬ 
 cert for the widows of deceased members of the Gewand¬ 
 haus Orchestra. After the concert the grateful musicians 
 gave her a serenade, and a beautiful silver salver. 
 
 The Brockhaus children were delighted with the lovable 
 guest —she was staying with Frau Friedrich Brockhaus, 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 217 
 
 a sister of Richard Wagner — because she made herself 
 one with them ; looked at their pictures, and showed them 
 a bracelet given her by the King of Prussia, on the top of 
 which were three large pearls on a cover, and beneath the 
 cover a cylinder watch, a little larger than an English 
 sixpence. 
 
 After this, Mademoiselle Lind sang at Weimar, visiting, 
 with great feeling, the graves of Goethe and Schiller. 
 
 While at Prof. Wickmann’s, she commissioned Prof. 
 Magnus to paint her portrait, as a gift to the former and 
 his wife. This admirable likeness remained in the Wick- 
 mann family till 1877, when, at the request of the Berlin Na¬ 
 tional Gallery, the son sold it to the nation for twelve 
 thousand thalers. 
 
 She was cheered in the midst of her hard work by let¬ 
 ters from Mendelssohn. He, too, was working beyond his 
 strength. He wrote : “You ask how tilings go with me. 
 On the days when I was so quiet in my room, writing 
 music without interruption, and only going out from time 
 to time for a walk in the fresh air, they went very well 
 indeed with me — or, at least, I thought so. ... T, like 
 yourself, rejoice very much ndeed in thinking of the time 
 when I shall be able to put aside the duty of conducting 
 music and promoting institutions, and quit this so-called 
 ‘ sphere of activity,’ and have no other ‘ sphere of activ¬ 
 ity ’ to think of than a quire of blank music-paper, and no 
 need to conduct anything that I do not care for, and when 
 I shall be altogether independent and free. It will, in¬ 
 deed, be a few years before this can take place, but I hope 
 not more than that.” He died the next year. 
 
 Early in April, 184G, Mademoiselle Lind started for 
 Vienna, by the way of Leipzig, helping Mendelssohn in 
 his last concert, save one, in the Gewandhaus. He played 
 
218 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Beethoven’s “Sonata in C sharp minor” as no one else 
 could play it. His last performance in the Gewandhaus 
 was on July 19, 1846, when he played the pianoforte part 
 of Beethoven’s “ Kreutzer Sonata.” 
 
 Mademoiselle Lind was more than ever impressed with 
 the remarkable devotion of Mendelssohn to his family. 
 Brockhaus says in his diary: “I am convinced that she 
 would gladly exchange all her triumphs for simple, homely 
 happiness. She sees that in Mendelssohn’s house, where 
 the wife and children make his happiness complete.” 
 
 Mendelssohn helped to make Vienna pleasant for her 
 by letters to his friends. He wrote the singer, Herr 
 Franz Hausen, later the director of the Couservatorium in 
 Munich, to receive her “ not as a stranger, but as one of 
 ourselves.” “ She pulls at the same rope with all of us, 
 who are really in earnest about that; thinks about it; 
 strives for it; and, if all goes well with her in the world, 
 it is as pleasant to me as if it went well with me; for it 
 helps me, and all of us, so well on our road.” 
 
 Madame Birch-Pfeiffer, a well-known author, wrote a 
 friend in Vienna : “ She speaks little, and thinks deeply. 
 She is full of perception, and the finest tact — a mixture 
 of devotion and energy, such as you have probably never 
 before met with. Free, herself, from the slightest trace 
 of coquetry, she regards all coquetry with horror. In 
 short, she stands alone of her kind, from head to foot.” 
 
 Mademoiselle Lind had promised to sing at the “ Thea¬ 
 ter an der Wien,” at that time the largest in Vienna. It 
 had been built by Emmanuel Schickaneder, who, when.in 
 financial difficulties, was given “Die Zauberflote ” by 
 Mozart, with the promise that the score should not pass 
 out of his hands. He accepted the gift, but broke his 
 word, and sold a copy to every provincial manager who 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 219 
 
 was able to buy. Mozart died soon after in extreme 
 poverty, without having received a cent for his great 
 work, while Schickaneder became rich, and built his 
 theatre. 
 
 Mademoiselle Lind feared that her voice would not fill 
 the hall, but was finally persuaded by her friends to make 
 the attempt, and received the same ovation as in Berlin. 
 She wrote Madame Birch-Pfeiffer that at the close of 
 “ Norma,” “ I was called back sixteen times, and twelve 
 or fourteen before that. Just count that up ! And this 
 reception ! I was quite astounded ! ” 
 
 Mendelssohn wrote her cheering letters : “ To-morrow, 
 or the day after to-morrow,” he said, “the first part of 
 my oratorio [“Elijah”] will be quite finished; and many 
 pieces out of the second part are already finished also. 
 This has given me immense pleasure during these last 
 weeks. Sometimes, in my room, I have jumped up to 
 the ceiling, when it seemed to promise well. But I am 
 getting a little confused, through writing down, during 
 the last few weeks, the immense number of notes that I 
 previously had in my head, and working them backwards 
 and forwards upon the paper into a piece, though not 
 quite in the proper order, one after another.” 
 
 He wrote to Herr Hausen: “ I sit, over both my ears 
 in my ‘ Elijah,’ and if it turns out half as good as I often 
 think it will, I shall be glad indeed. I like nothing better 
 than to spend the whole day in writing the notes down, 
 and I often come so late to dine that the children come to 
 my room to fetch me, and drag me out by main force.” 
 
 As ever, Mademoiselle Lind was pining for Sweden,— 
 writing to the wife of Prof. Wickmann : “I have been 
 so homesick, that I scarcely knew whether I should live 
 or die.” 
 
220 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Despite the homesickness, the enthusiasm of the people 
 must have been most gratifying. When “La Sonnam- 
 bula ” was given at the farewell — when flowers were fall¬ 
 ing in showers upon the stage — the empress mother 
 dropped a wreath at the singer’s feet. Such a favor was 
 unknown in Vienna. The audience insisted on a few 
 words from Mademoiselle Lind, who said in .German, 
 “You have well understood me. I thank you from my 
 heart.” 
 
 The crowd outside the theatre was so great that it was 
 deemed wise for her to wait before going to her apart¬ 
 ments. Thirty times the people summoned her to the 
 window, shouting, “Jenny Lind, say you will come back 
 again to us! ” She stood sobbing like a child, and 
 throwing them flowers from the mass of bouquets piled 
 before her. 
 
 Hour after hour passed, till, as morning dawned, she 
 took her departure. The crowd even then so surged 
 about the carriage that her man-servant was badly 
 injured. 
 
 In May, 1846, Jenny Lind assisted at the “ Lower 
 Rhine Musical Festival,” Mendelssohn conducting it, at 
 Aix-la-Chapelle. The two principal songs in Haydn’s 
 “Creation,” “On Mighty Pens” and “With Verdure 
 Clad,” and the solo and chorus, “The Marvellous Work,” 
 displayed Jenny Lind’s powers admirably. Her greatest 
 success, however, was at the “ Artists’ Concert” in Men- 
 delssohn’s “ Auf Fliigeln des Gesanges ” and “ Friihlings- 
 lied.” Here, as at various other places, she was presented 
 with a poem, printed in black and gold, on white satin. 
 After this, she sang at Hamburg and other German cities 
 for the poor, and for Orchestra Pension Funds. 
 
 In the fall of 1846 she sang in Munich, making her 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 221 
 
 home with the family of Prof. Wilhelm von Ivaulbach. 
 At Stuttgard she earned for the poor about one hundred 
 and thirty pounds by a concert; at Carlsruhe two hundred 
 gulden were set apart for the chorus; at Nuremburg a 
 medal was struck in her honor. 
 
 On her return to Vieuna she sang thirteen times in 
 “ Vielka,”— another name for “ Das Feldlager in Schles- 
 ien,” — Meyerbeer superintending. So distrustful was 
 she of her own powers that at the close of the first per¬ 
 formance of “ Vielka,” when Meyerbeer came to thank 
 her and tell her she “ had sung divinely,” he found her in 
 tears, exclaiming, “Oh! Ilerr Director! forgive me for 
 singing so badly, and spoiling your opera.” 
 
 Moscheles thought her song with two flutes in this 
 opera “was, perhaps, the most astonishing piece of 
 bravura singing which could possibly be heard.” 
 
 She gave seven concerts in Vienna for charity : one to 
 aid a Swedish composer, another for the Children’s Hos¬ 
 pital, and the like. She was made court singer by the 
 Emperor Ferdinand. 
 
 In 1847, she went to London to fill an engagement at 
 Her Majesty’s Theatre. She was to receive forty-eight 
 hundred pounds for the season, — April 14 to Aug. 20, — 
 with a furnished house to live in, horses and carriage, and 
 eight hundred pounds extra for a month in Italy, if she 
 wished to study the language more fully, or for rest. This, 
 of course, was more than she had ever received before. 
 
 After her arrival in London, she began to be frightened 
 at the possibility of failure, and begged the manager to 
 cancel the contract. Mr. and Mrs. Grote gave a dinner- 
 party for her, and when she attempted to sing for the 
 pleasure of the company, though Mendelssohn, who was 
 present, accompanied her, she broke down from fright. 
 
222 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The excitement was intense on the night when Jenny 
 Lind was to make her first appearance. The rush for 
 places was so great that men were thrown down, ladies 
 fainted, and dress-suits were torn in pieces. The Queen 
 and Prince Albert were present, with other distinguished 
 people. 
 
 Jeuny Lind played Alice in “Robert le Diable.” The 
 Queen, herself an accomplished musician, was delighted, 
 and threw a wreath at the feet of the artist. 
 
 Two evenings later the same opera was given, and the 
 audience rose repeatedly en masse , and waved their hats 
 and handkerchiefs. The Queen was again present. 
 
 The press was most cordial. The Illustrated News 
 said: “ Her voice is astonishing. To the fullest, purest, 
 sweetest tone imaginable, it unites a vibrating and pene¬ 
 trating quality that makes its softest whisper audible, no 
 matter where the listener is seated, and that, when exerted 
 to its full extent, is truly glorious ; and it may be dis¬ 
 tinctly heard above the loudest din of the orchestra, and 
 the voices of the other artists.” 
 
 Clairville Cottage, at Old Brompton, a lovely home 
 among trees and flowers, was provided for the singer. 
 Here, shut out from the eager crowds who wished to meet 
 her, she devoted her time to study. When Mrs. Grote 
 accompanied her, occasionally, to some grand party, she 
 said to her friend, “ I would rather have been rambling with 
 you among the Burnham beeches.” The queen dowager 
 invited her to visit her, and the Duke of Wellington asked 
 her to his country-seat. 
 
 Her part of Amina in “La Sonuambula” gave great 
 satisfaction. In the last act, Amina walks in her sleep 
 over a wooden bridge spanning a mill-stream, the bridge 
 hanging in the air directly over a revolving water-wheel. 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 223 
 
 When she reaches the middle of the bridge, the planks 
 give way. She starts, lets the lamp fall, and then, with¬ 
 out awaking, calmly proceeds on her journey. The peril¬ 
 ous feat of crossing the bridge is usually performed by one 
 of the helpers, in place of the prima donna, but Jenny 
 Lind would not deceive the public. She said she was 
 frightened each time, but added, “I should have been 
 ashamed to stand before the audience, pretending that I 
 had crossed the bridge, if I had not really done it.” 
 
 Queen Victoria records in her diary, of the air, “ Ah ! 
 non credea “ It was all piano, and clear and sweet, and 
 like the sighing of a zephyr, yet all heard. Who could 
 describe those long notes, drawn out till they quite melt 
 away, that shake which becomes softer and softer, those 
 very piano and flute-like notes, and those round fresh 
 tones which are so youthful?” 
 
 Jenny Lind appeared for the first time in England in 
 “Norma,” by royal command, June 15, 1847. The 
 Queen and Prince Albert came in state. The royal boxes 
 were draped with crimson Genoa velvet trimmed with 
 gold lace, and blue velvet with silver lace. The Queen 
 came at eight, but the crowd began to gather as early as 
 half-past three in the afternoon. 
 
 Jenny Lind sang twice at Buckingham Palace, and once 
 at Osborne. She had always refused to take money for 
 Royal concerts, but the Queen gave her a handsome brace¬ 
 let, saying, “ I must again express not only my admiration 
 but my respect for you.” 
 
 The provinces were eager to hear Jenny Lind, so, in 
 August, she sang at Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, 
 Liverpool, Norwich, Bristol, Bath, and other towns. 
 
 At Bath, she talked with an aged woman, whom she saw 
 walking backward and forward before the almshouse. 
 
224 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 “ I have lived a long time in the world,” said the woman, 
 “ and desire nothing before I die but to hear Jenny Lind.” 
 
 “And would it make you happy?” said the singer. 
 
 “ Ay, that it would ; but such folks as I can’t go to the 
 play-house, and so I shall never see her.” 
 
 “ Don’t be so sure of that,” said the other, as they 
 entered the house. “ Sit down and listen.” 
 
 The old lady heard, and wept at the unusual music. 
 “Now you have heard Jenny Lind,” said the stranger, 
 and departed. 
 
 At Norwich — a thing most unusual — Jenny Lind was 
 entertained by the Bishop and his wife, the parents of 
 Dean Stanley. Mrs. Stanley wrote to her sister: “Her 
 voice was more wonderful than when I heard it before, — 
 different from all others, in being like the warbling of a 
 bird.” Again, she wrote: “I would rather hear Jenny 
 talk than sing, — wonderful as it is.” 
 
 She returned to Stockholm late in 1847, after an absence 
 of two years. Never after this did she take a penny from 
 Sweden, but gave all the proceeds of her concerts to its 
 charities. During the winter she sang ten times in Doni¬ 
 zetti’s “ Figlia del Reggimento,” in which she was a great 
 favorite, four times in “La Sonnambula,” four in “ Lu¬ 
 cia,” twice in “ Der Freischfitz,” and in “Norma,” “ Le 
 Nozze di Figaro,” and other operas. The proceeds were 
 given from these plays and several concerts to the edu¬ 
 cating of gifted but poor children for the stage; to the 
 Theatre Pension Fund ; to the machinists of the theatre ; 
 to the Artists Guild Pension Fund, and to various com¬ 
 posers, singers, and others in need. 
 
 The death of Mendelssohn, Nov. 4, 1847, had been a 
 great blow to her. She wrote to a friend in Austria: 
 “For the first two months after it, I could not put a word 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 225 
 
 rlown on paper, and everything seemed to me to be dead. 
 Never was I so happy, so lifted in spirit, as when I spoke 
 with him ! And seldom can there have been in the world 
 two beings who so understood one another, and so sympa¬ 
 thized with one another, as we! How glorious and 
 strange are the ways of God ! On the one hand, He gives 
 all! On the other, He takes all away! Such is life’s 
 outlook ! ” 
 
 For two whole years she could not bear to sing a Lied of 
 Mendelssohn’s. “ As soon as I am obliged to hear or 
 read anything about him,” she said, “ T get almost inca¬ 
 pable of carrying out the great duty which I have taken 
 upon my shoulders.” 
 
 She wrote to the wife of Mendelssohn : “ Ilis ‘ Elijah ’ is 
 sublime! In my opinion, he never wrote anything finer ; 
 and, assuredly, could not have written anything loftier in 
 the future. . . . You cannot but feel grateful when you 
 consider how much, and in what a lofty manner, you were 
 esteemed and loved by a being, not only exceptionally 
 endowed, but pure and original as lie ! ” 
 
 When she left Stockholm in July, 1848, for England, the 
 same love of country was in her heart: “My king, the 
 whole royal family, the country, the ground, — oh! I 
 could have kissed them all, and with tears of profound 
 reverence in my eyes ! ” 
 
 She had become engaged to Herr Julius Gunther, the 
 tenor of the Royal Theatre, who had sung for several 
 years with her in Stockholm. He, too, had studied under 
 Garcia, in Paris. The engagement was broken by mutual 
 consent a few months later, largely on account of diverse 
 views about the stage, she having determined to abandon 
 her stage life as soon as it was possible. 
 
 May 4, 1848, she appeared again at Her Majesty’s 
 
226 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Theatre in London, before a delighted audience. Chopin, 
 who had just come to London, went to hear her. He said, 
 “ This Swede is indeed an original from head to foot. 
 She does not show herself in the ordinary light, but in the 
 magic rays of an aurora borealis. Her singing is infal¬ 
 libly pure and true; but, above all, I admire her piano 
 passages, the charm of which is indescribable.” 
 
 Her delineation of the madness of Lucy Ashton in 
 “ Lucia ” was brilliant in the extreme. She gave the play 
 eleven times during the season. 
 
 Moved with sympathy for the incurables in the Bromp- 
 ton Hospital for Consumptives, she gave.a concert which 
 netted for the inmates about eighteen hundred pounds. 
 Lord Beaconsfield, in 1849, on an anniversary occasion, 
 said : ‘“I know nothing in classic story, or in those feudal 
 epochs when we are taught that the individual was more 
 influential, when character was more forcible — I know 
 nothing to be compared with the career of this admirable 
 woman. It almost reaches the high ideal of human nature 
 when we portray to ourselves a youthful maiden, innocent 
 and benignant, in the possession of an unparalleled and 
 omnipotent charm, alternately entrancing the heart of 
 nations, and then kneeling at the tomb of suffering, of 
 calamity, and of care. To me there is something most 
 beautiful in this life of music and charity — a life passed 
 amid divine sounds and still diviner deeds.” 
 
 In the fall of 1848 a grand rendering of “ Elijah” Avas 
 giA'en by Jenny Lind at Exeter Hall, to raise money for 
 scholarships in music in memory of Mendelssohn. The 
 soprano parts had been composed expressly for her, 
 therefore there ay as an especial titness in her giving this 
 oratorio. 
 
 Over one thousand pounds Avere realized from this con- 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 227 
 
 cert, which was allowed to accumulate until 1856, when 
 the first Mendelssohn scholar Avas chosen — Mr. Arthur 
 Seymour Sullivan, now Sir Arthur — for whom Jenny 
 Lind always had high admiration. 
 
 After this Jenny Lind gave a concert for the Manches¬ 
 ter Royal Infirmary and Dispensary, for the Queen’s Col¬ 
 lege Hospital at Birmingham, The Southern Hospital at 
 Liverpool, the sick children of the pQor of Norwich, 
 which resulted in “ The Jenny Lind Infirmary for sick Chil¬ 
 dren,” and other charities, earning and giving away in 
 less than nine weeks about fifty-two thousand dollars. 
 When presents were proposed on account of such gen¬ 
 erosity she refused to receive them, feeling that the money 
 could be used in a better manner. 
 
 At Norwich she hoped the tickets would not be too 
 high. When the bishop proposed one pound for the 
 reserved seats, she said, “ Would not ten shillings be 
 better, and then I could sing twice.” lie did not wish 
 to overtask her. 
 
 “ Never mind, if the people wish to hear me,” she said. 
 
 No wonder that Chopin said, “This Swede is indeed an 
 original from head to foot.” 
 
 April 3, 1849, Jenny Hind gave the “Creation” at 
 Exeter Hall for four prominent charities, and realized 
 about one thousand pounds. The Times said : “ One of 
 the most general topics of conversation and marked ap¬ 
 proval was the exceeding clearness with which Made¬ 
 moiselle pronounced the words of all her songs, duets, 
 and trios,” and urged all singers to follow her example. 
 
 It began to be noised abroad that Jenny Lind was to 
 leave the stage. The manager of Her Majesty’s Theatre 
 was in despair, and the public as well. She consented at 
 last to appear in six operas. In Amina in “ La Son- 
 
228 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 nambula,” the Times said, “Those high notes, so un¬ 
 rivalled in sweetness, and admitting the finest attenuation 
 without losing a particle of their value, seemed to vibrate 
 through the house with a clearness hitherto unknown.” 
 
 Her farewell, May 10, 1849, was in Alice in “ Ro¬ 
 bert.” At the close three times she came before an 
 enraptured but sorrowing audience, which rose each time 
 she appeared. Tears flowed down her cheeks, while the 
 audience shouted themselves hoarse. For nineteen years, 
 from a child of ten, she had been the idol of the public. 
 She would sing again for a time in concerts, but at twenty- 
 
 nine she bade adieu to the stage forever. 
 
 ° * 
 
 In eleven j’ears, between her first appearance in op¬ 
 era, in “ Der Freischiitz,” March 7, 1838, and her last in 
 “ Robert le Diable,” she appeared in thirty operas six 
 hundred and seventy-seven times. Sir Julius Benedict 
 thinks “ she held an undisputed sway over her audiences 
 in five operas only.” The compass of her voice, says the 
 memoir of the singer, written by Canon Henry Scott 
 Holland and W. S. Rockstro, “ extended from B below 
 the stave to G on the fourth line above it — in technical 
 language, from b to G; that is to say, a clear range of 
 two octaves and a sixth. The various registers of this 
 extended compass were so skilfully blended into one, by 
 the effect of art, that it was impossible for the most 
 delicate or attentive ear to detect their points of junction.” 
 
 The three notes, F, G, and A, of the middle register, 
 were the ones most injured by her hard work and faulty 
 method, before going to Paris to study. 
 
 Jenny Lind’s voice, says Rockstro, “ was not by nature 
 a flexible one. The rich sustained notes of the soprano 
 drammatico were far more congenial to it than the rapid 
 execution which usually characterizes the lighter class of 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 229 
 
 soprano voices. But this she attained also, by almost 
 superhuman labor. Her perseverance was indefatigable.” 
 
 Once, when Madame Birch-Pfeiffer left her alone, prac¬ 
 tising the word zersplittre , on a high B flat, in the opening 
 recitative in “ Norma,” and returned several hours after¬ 
 wards, she found Jenny Lind practising the same word. 
 
 “ She takes the greatest care of her voice,” Madame 
 Clara Schumann said. “ She does not dance, and drinks 
 neither wine, nor tea, nor coffee. . . . Never, perhaps, 
 have I loved and reverenced a woman as I do her.” 
 
 She disliked the contortions of face made by some sing¬ 
 ers when delivering impressive passages. She was never 
 satisfied with a song unless the singer “ looked pleasant.” 
 
 She never regretted her decision to leave the stage. 
 She wrote later to Madame Birch-Pfeiffer : “ I cannot tell 
 you in words how happy I feel about it. I shall sing in 
 concerts ; ... in this way I shall be able to work at least 
 five years longer; and that is necessary for me, as, for 
 the last twelve months, I have sung only for institutions 
 and charities. Without a beautiful goal one cannot en¬ 
 dure life. At least I cannot. I have begun to sing what 
 has long been the wish of my heart — oratorio. There I 
 can sing the music I love ; and the words make me feel a 
 better being.” 
 
 Years after Jenny Lind had left the stage, an English 
 friend found her sitting by the sea with a Lutheran Bible 
 open in her hands, looking out into a glorious sunset. 
 The friend said, “ How was it that you ever came to 
 abandon the stage, at the very height of your success ? ” 
 “ When, every day,” was the reply, “ it made me think 
 less of this,” laying a finger on the Bible,, “ and nothing at 
 all of that,” pointing to the sunset, “what else could I 
 do?” 
 
230 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 The Bible was to her a precious book. She wrote to a 
 friend soon after she left the stage : “ My Bible was never 
 more necessary to me than now — never more truly my 
 stay. I drink therein rest, self-knowledge, hope, faith, 
 love, carefulness, and the fear of God; so that I look at 
 life and the world in quite another fashion to what I did 
 before. Would that all men would come to this knowl¬ 
 edge, and that we all daily feasted on this Divine Book.” 
 
 A little time before leaving the stage, Jenny Lind 
 became engaged, in 1848, to a relative of the Grotes, 
 Claudius Harris, a young captain in the Indian army. 
 His admiration for her singing had been so great that 
 he had followed her to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and other 
 places. 
 
 She talked with Mrs. Stanley, while at the home of the 
 Bishop in Norwich, about her engagement. “ I want a 
 support,” she said. “ I am quite alone, and just when I 
 want help, the finger of God brings me this heart that 
 can feel with me about all works of charity, just as I do. 
 I never could marry any one who did not think with me 
 about this : I should say to him, ‘ Good by ! good by ! ’ 
 
 “We wish to live quiet and uninterrupted somewhere. 
 I want to be near trees, and water, and a cathedral. I 
 am tired, body and soul; but my soul most!” 
 
 Capt. Harris’s mother was opposed to the stage, and all 
 its associations. The son -was, also, but the goodness of 
 the singer had blinded his eyes to her profession. 
 
 In the marriage settlement, Jenny Lind felt that she 
 must retain the right to sing when she chose, and to have 
 control of her own earnings. This freedom seemed to the 
 young man “ unscriptural! ” The engagement was broken. 
 The disappointment was painful at first, but she soon felt 
 that good came out of it. 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 231 
 
 “ It has passed over my soul like a beneficent storm,” 
 she wrote Madame Birch-Pfeiffer, “ which has broken down 
 all the hard shell of my being, and has set free many green 
 plants to find their way to the dear sun ! So that now I 
 am always clothed in green, like the fairest hope ! And I 
 see quite clearly how infinitely much there is for me to do 
 with my life; and I have only one prayer, that I may yet 
 live long, and that, in the evening of my life, I may be 
 able to show a pure soul to God. . . . 
 
 “I am glad and grateful from morning to night! I 
 have a blitheness in my soul, which strains towards heaven ! 
 I am like a bird; I do not feel the least changed; quite 
 the contrary ; and the ‘ summa summarum ’ is that I have 
 won the greatest profit out of both outer and inner mis¬ 
 fortune ; and can thank God that I know what trouble is ! 
 All makes at last for good ! God does not die.” 
 
 In the early part of 1850, Jenny Lind sang at Gottingen, 
 where the students made her a “ Sister-Associate ” of one 
 of their famous guilds, and hung her portrait in their 
 Assembly Room. She sang at Hanover twice for charity ; 
 at Brunswick, for pensions for the ducal orchestra; at 
 Liibeck, for the poor; for the widow of the orchestral 
 director, Bach, and for the pianist, Schreinzer, and 
 reached Stockholm, May 12, where she gave six concerts 
 for the benefit of the Royal Theatre, which had educated 
 her, and sang at two state concerts in honor of the 
 wedding of the crown prince. 
 
 The queen dowager begged her to choose one of several 
 magnificent bracelets placed before her, but she preferred, 
 and accepted instead, a bunch of forget-me-nots, which 
 were in a vase on the table. 
 
 A medal in gold, silver, and bronze was struck in her 
 honor, to which the king, and other distinguished persons 
 
232 
 
 FA.VO US TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 of Sweden, contributed. At her death, she left these 
 medals to the National Museum at Stockholm. 
 
 The fame of Jenny Lind had, of course, spread to the 
 New World. The Emperor of Russia, at this time, offered 
 her $5G,000 for five months. P. T. Barnum determined 
 to bring the singer before the American public, if possible. 
 He sent his agent to Europe, who made a contract with 
 Jenny Lind for one hundred and fifty concerts, at one 
 thousand dollars a night, with expenses paid for herself, 
 a companion and secretary, a servant, horses and car¬ 
 riage furnished. This contract was afterwards changed 
 by Mr. Barnum in her interest, she to receive half the 
 profits whenever the receipts were above five thousand five 
 hundred dollars a night, and a right to annul the contract 
 after sixty or one hundred concerts, with fixed penalties in 
 either case. Mr. Barnum had faith in his venture, but the 
 American public had not. He had great difficulty in rais¬ 
 ing the $187,500, which he had pledged Jenny Lind should 
 be in the hands of London bankers for herself and musi¬ 
 cians, as her security. When lie asked the president of a 
 bank to aid him, the friend laughed, and said, “ It is gen¬ 
 erally believed in Wall Street that your engagement with 
 Jenny Lind will ruin you. I do not believe you will ever 
 receive so much as three thousand dollars at a single con¬ 
 cert.” A clergyman loaned him the last five thousand 
 lollars needed. 
 
 Jenny Lind gave two concerts in Liverpool before start¬ 
 ing for America. On the last night, after singing from 
 Handel’s “ Messiah,” she closed with the national anthem. 
 The Times said, “The scene that ensued defies descrip¬ 
 tion. The walls of the building reverberated with cheers. 
 Hats, sticks, handkerchiefs were waved in every direction. 
 The platform of the orchestra was covered with bouquets 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 233 
 
 and wreaths, many of which fell upon the head and the 
 shoulders of the songstress.” 
 
 She visited the new wing of the hospital, whose erection 
 was due to her last year’s singing ; and then, followed by 
 the shouts of thousands who were assembled on either side 
 of the Mersey, and amid the boom of cannon, she sailed 
 away to America, Aug. 21, 1850. 
 
 When she arrived, thousands were on the dock eager to 
 catch a glimpse of her. Triumphal arches, surmounted by 
 the eagle, bore the inscriptions, “ Welcome, Jenny Lind ! 
 Welcome to America ! ” That evening she was serenaded 
 at her hotel, the Irving House, by the New York Musical 
 Fund Society, twenty thousand persons being present. 
 
 America seemed even more wild with enthusiasm than 
 Europe had been. Tickets for the first concert, Sept. 11, 
 in Castle Garden, were sold by auction, some persons pay¬ 
 ing as high as six hundred and fifty dollars for a single 
 ticket. The “Jenny Lind Mania,” as it was called, 
 swept over the country. Jenny Lind’s share, from the 
 first concert, was nearly ten thousand dollars. She imme¬ 
 diately sent for the mayor of the city, and divided it, 
 according to his advice, among charitable institutions. 
 
 She soon wrote to her parents, “ I was met with quite 
 an astonishing reception. I have already given six con¬ 
 certs there [New York], in a hall with room for eleven 
 thousand people; it has been crowded each time.” 
 
 From Boston, she wrote to her guardian, Judge Munthe, 
 “It is, indeed, a great joy, and a gift from God, to be 
 allowed to earn so much money, and afterwards to help 
 oue’s fellow-men with it. This is the highest joy I wish 
 for in this life; everything else has disappeared from the 
 many-colored course of my path on earth. Few know, 
 though, what a beautiful and quiet inner life I am living. 
 
234 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Few suspect how unutterably little the world and its splen¬ 
 dor have been able to turn my mind giddy. Herrings and 
 potatoes, a clean wooden chair, and a wooden spoon to eat 
 milk-soup with, — that would make me skip, like a child, 
 for joy! ” 
 
 Mr. George William Curtis, who attended all the Lind 
 concerts in New York except one, heard her first in Berlin, 
 in the part of Amina: he says in his ewn book of essays, 
 “From the Easy Chair,” written with all his accustomed 
 grace and charm : “ The full volume, the touching sweet¬ 
 ness of tone, the exquisite warble, the amazing skill and 
 the marvellous execution, Avith the perfect ease and repose 
 of consummate art, and the essential womanliness of the 
 whole impression, were indisputable and supreme. . . . 
 Other famous singers charmed that happy time. But 
 Jenny Lind, rivalling their art, went beyond them all in 
 touching the heart with her personality. Certainly, no 
 public singer was eA r er more invested with a halo of 
 domestic purity. When she stood with her hands quietly 
 crossed before her, and tranquilly sang ‘ I knoAV that my 
 Redeemer liveth,’ the lofty fervor of the tone, the rapt 
 exaltation of the woman, Avith the splendor of the \ r ocal- 
 ization, made the hearing an eA'ent, and left a memory as 
 of a sublime religious function.” 
 
 In New York, as in Berlin, Jenny Lind was equally a 
 delight to all. When she appeared in Castle Garden, May 
 24, 1852, “the magnificent voice,” says Mr. Curtis, 
 “ filled it completely, and in the fascinated silence of the 
 immense throng every exquisite note of the singer A\'as 
 heard. She carried a fresh bouquet, the gift of some 
 friend, each time she appeared. But when at last she 
 came forward to sing the farewell to America, for which 
 Goldschmidt had composed the music, she bore in her 
 
JENNY JiIND. 
 
 235 
 
 hand a bouquet of white rosebuds, with a Maltese cross of 
 deep carnations in the ceu.re. This she held while, for 
 the last time in public, she sang in America; and the 
 young traveller who, live years before, had turned aside at 
 Dresden to hear Jenny Lind in Berlin, alone in all that 
 great audience at Castle Garden knew who had sent those 
 flowers.” 
 
 One night, in Boston, a girl, plainly dressed, came to 
 the ticket-office, and laying down three dollars, said, 
 “ There goes half a month’s earnings, but I am deter¬ 
 mined to hear Jenny Lind.” 
 
 The remark was repeated to the singer. “Would you 
 know the girl again ? ” she asked the man. Upon receiv¬ 
 ing an affirmative reply, she answered, placing a twenty- 
 dollar gold piece in his hand, “ Poor girl! Give her that, 
 with my best compliments.” 
 
 When she was in Havana, she saw one day a crippled 
 Italian, Vivalla, who had come to see Mr. Barnurn, passing 
 out of the gate. He had lost the use of his left side by 
 paralysis, and, unable to earn a living, gained a partial 
 support through his dog, which turned a spinning-wheel, 
 and performed other tricks. Jenny Lind was interested 
 in him, and gave him five hundred dollars, while Mr. Bar¬ 
 man made the necessary arrangements for his return to 
 his friends in Italy. 
 
 Vivalla called to leave her a basket of fruit, with his 
 thanks. “Mr. Barnurn,” he said, “I should like so 
 much to have the good lady see my dog turn a wheel; it 
 is very nice; he can spin very good. Shall I bring the 
 dog and wheel for her?” Mr Barnurn replied that she 
 would be too busy to see his dog. 
 
 He told the incident to Jenny Lind, who said, “Poor 
 man, let him come; it is all the good creature can do for 
 me. It will make him so happy.” 
 
236 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Vivalla came, and when she saw him from her window, 
 she hastened down stairs, saying, “This is very kind of 
 you to come with your dog'. Follow me. I will carry the 
 wheel up-stairs.” 
 
 For an hour she devoted herself to the happy cripple. 
 She petted his dog, sang and played for Vivalla, and 
 finally carried his wheel to the door for him. She might 
 be a great singer to all the rest of the world, but to this 
 poor Italian she seemed like an angel, sent directly from 
 Heaven. 
 
 From the ninety-three concerts given by Jenny Lind, 
 under Mr. Barnum’s management, the proceeds were 
 $712,161. Her portion was $176,675. Sometimes the 
 proceeds from a single concert were over sixteen thousand 
 dollars. In New York City alone she gave away between 
 thirty and forty thousand dollars in charities. When 
 warned against so much liberality, as some unworthy 
 persons were seeking aid, she invariably replied, “ Never 
 mind; if I relieve ten, and one is worthy, I am satisfied.” 
 
 The last sixty nights of the concert series were given 
 under her own management, assisted by Mr. Otto Gold¬ 
 schmidt, of Hamburg, an accomplished musician, At the 
 close of her tour, she was married to Mr. Goldschmidt, at 
 the house of Mr. S. G. Ward, in Boston, by Bishop Wain- 
 wright, of New York, Feb. 5, 1852. The Hon. Edward 
 Everett, and a few others, were witnesses. Jenny Lind 
 was, at this time, thirty-one, and her husband twenty- 
 three, he having been born Aug. 21, 1829. 
 
 The marriage proved to be a happy one. She had 
 found, she wrote a friend, “ all that her heart ever 
 wanted and loved.” Her charities in America were 
 unceasing. “While she habitually declined,” says Mr. 
 N. P. Willis, “the calls and attentions of fashionable 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 237 
 
 society, she was in constant dread of driving more humble 
 claimants from her door. She submitted, every day , to 
 the visits of strangers, as far as strength and her profes¬ 
 sional duties would any way endure. To use her own 
 expression, she was ‘ torn in pieces.’ ” 
 
 Mr. Willis thus sums up the charms of Jenny Lind: 
 “That God has not made her a wonderful singer, and 
 then left her , is the curious exception she forms to com¬ 
 mon human allotment. To give away more money in 
 charity than any other mortal, and still be the first of 
 prima donnas ! . . . To be humble, simple, genial, aud 
 unassuming, and still be the first of prima donnas ! To 
 have begun as a beggar-child, and risen to receive more 
 adulation than any queen, and still be the first of prima 
 donnas ! ... It is the combination of superiorities and 
 interests that makes the wonder; it is the concentrating 
 of the stuff for half a dozen heroines in one single girl ” 
 Henry F. Chorley, the author, thought her charm due, in 
 part, “ to the intense and unworldly, if not supernatural, 
 expression of her countenance, which held fast many an 
 eye that soon tires of regular beauty, or of features the 
 smile or the sorrow of which may be read at a glance.” 
 
 In 1852, Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt and her husband re¬ 
 turned to Europe, and spent some years in Dresden. 
 During the early half of 1854, she sang in Berlin, Leipzig, 
 Vienna, and Budapesth, and, in the following year, at 
 Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague, and many other cities, 
 always receiving the same enthusiastic welcome. In 1856, 
 she sang in England, and later, in Ireland and Germany. 
 
 While living in Dresden, she wrote to a friend in Paris 
 of her happy domestic life : “ I want to speak to you of my 
 baby. Well, I must tell you that God has given my dear 
 husband and myself an adorable little girl, born on the 
 
238 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 21st of March last. She is the perfect image of health 
 and happiness. She laughs, she crows, in a way to delight 
 all sympathetic hearts. We have given her a little Katha¬ 
 rine, among other names, but we call her Jenny, — I need 
 not say in honor of whom. 
 
 “ Our boy, Walter, will be four years old the 9th of 
 August next. He is an intelligent child, very intelligent, 
 very religious, and when he has been naughty it is touch¬ 
 ing to see the way he prays God to make him good again, 
 poor little chicken. lie adores me, obeys me, and I un¬ 
 derstand the child completely, for he is exactly like myself 
 in nature, — very impressionable, active, gay, high-tem¬ 
 pered, affectionate, shy, good-natured, quick to learn, 
 remembering all that he learns, preferring to the finest 
 toys a horrible old doll, because it is one with which he has 
 longest played, caring nothing about dress, but preferring 
 to be loved. Is he musical ? No, not the least in the 
 world. That is my great despair. But he is religious, 
 and I think he will be a Christian. 
 
 “ As to baby, I cannot say as much. The little creature 
 eats, drinks, laughs, and I have nothing to say against her 
 character. My husband is now in England looking for a 
 residence, for we intend, on account of our children, to 
 settle in that country.” 
 
 After her return to England, Madame Goldschmidt sang 
 on special occasions only. She gave three oratorios for 
 charitable purposes at Exeter Hall during the Interna¬ 
 tional Exhibition. In 1865 she appeared in the “Mes¬ 
 siah,” for the Clergy Fund Corporation: in 1866, at 
 Cannes; in 1867, at the Musical Festival at Hereford; 
 in 1869, in Hamburg and London, in “Ruth,” an opera 
 composed by her husband; in Diisseldorf and London, 
 in 1870 and 1871, the latter year, in concert with Madame 
 
JENNY LIND. 
 
 239 
 
 Schumann; in 1873, at Northumberland House, before 
 it was taken down; in 1877, in behalf of the Turkish 
 Refugee Fund; in 1880, in behalf of the Albert Institute 
 in a royal concert at Windsor; in 1883, her last public 
 appearance in concert, for the Railway Servants’ Benevo¬ 
 lent Fund, at the Spa, Malvern Hills. 
 
 During her last years she gave much time to training 
 the soprano voices in the Bach choir, founded by her hus¬ 
 band in 1875, and helping the Royal College of Music, of 
 whose faculty she was a member. 
 
 These last years were very happy, as she saw her chil¬ 
 dren and grandchildren grow up around her. In 1887 she 
 was attacked with paralysis, and was ill for several weeks. 
 As she lay on her death-bed, as her daughter opened the 
 shutters to let in the morning sun, she sang the first bars 
 of the song she loved, “An den Sonneuschein,” the last 
 notes she ever sang. 
 
 She died Nov. 2, 1887, at Wynds Point, her cottage on 
 Malvern Hills. She was buried Saturday, Nov. 5, in 
 Great Malvern Cemetery. The Queen sent a wreath of 
 white flowers for the woman whom she honored. 
 
 In accordance with her oft-expressed desire, the patch- 
 work quilt, which the children of the United States gave 
 her, was buried with her. 
 
 The money earned by Jenny Lind in America was 
 entirely set aside for charity, and given away by will at 
 her death. Fifty thousand Swedish crowns were sent to 
 the University of Upsala, and the same to the University 
 of Lund, to be used in scholarships for poor students; 
 that at Upsala to be called “ TheGeijer Scholarship,” and 
 that at Lund, “ The Bishop Tegner.” A large portion of 
 the remainder of the fund was giv n to a hospital for poor 
 children at Stockholm. She provided also for Jenny Lind 
 
240 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Scholarships at the Royal Academy of Music, and the 
 Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. 
 
 Sir Julius Benedict, who came to America with the 
 singer as musical director, pianist, and accompanist, 
 “regrets,” he says, “that Jenny Lind did not turn her 
 powerful influence to better account in America. There, 
 where all the best materials abound, she might have laid 
 the ground-work of a permanent school of music on the 
 largest scale “ in that country,” which sooner or later 
 will distance old Europe in the fine arts, as it does now 
 in all branches of scientific invention and commercial 
 enterprise.” 
 
 Jenny Lind’s gifts have been estimated at a half million 
 dollars, and this is, perhaps, an under estimate. 
 
 Though very modest, she knew and appreciated her 
 genius, and spoke to her friends “ of the heavenly career” 
 which she had been permitted to have. “If you knew,” 
 she wrote in 1847, “ what a sensation of the nearness of 
 a higher power one instinctively feels when one is per¬ 
 mitted to contribute to the good of mankind, as I have 
 done, and still do! Believe me, it is a great gift of God’s 
 mercy ! ” 
 
 Jenny Lind’s voice was so exceptional, and her char¬ 
 acter so noble, that she will always hold an individual place 
 in the world of art. “ I have heard greater artists than 
 the Lind,” said a famous physician of the court of Berlin, 
 “ but I have never heard but one Lind, or any artist who 
 knew better how to fascinate. She is certainly a marvel¬ 
 lous apparition, with an attraction that is irresistible.” 
 
 As Emerson said, “There must be a man behind the 
 work ” ; so the world loved her, because there was a true 
 woman behind the gifted artist. 
 
 “ She is simply an angel,” said the wife of the Earl of 
 Westmoreland. So thought the rest of the world. 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 N the town of Hampden, Me., April 4, 1802, wafe born 
 
 -L Dorothea Lynde Dix. Neither child nor mother 
 appears to have had any permanent home, as the father, 
 Joseph Dix, was an unsuccessful man, and a wanderer. 
 
 Almost the first knowledge which the world has of the 
 child is that when, at twelve years of age, she was stitch¬ 
 ing tracts together at Worcester, Mass., which her zealous 
 father wrote and published to save the world, forgetting, 
 seemingly, that his family, a wife and three children, were 
 in the meantime destitute, and that there is high authority 
 that a man should provide for his own.” 
 
 The little girl, high-spirited, and probably rebelling that 
 she was kept at her task without education, ran away from 
 Worcester, and reached Boston, the home of her paternal 
 grandmother. The latter, Dorothy Lynde, was a woman 
 of strong character, unemotional, living always by the 
 stern rule of duty. The home was not one of love and 
 sunshine for the child, but a home, nevertheless, where she 
 would not want for food or clothing. 
 
 Her grandfather, Dr. Elijah Dix, born in Watertown, 
 Mass., in 1747, was a man of unusual force and ability. 
 He became a physician and surgeon at Worcester, Mass., 
 and later removed to Boston, where he opened a drug¬ 
 store on the south side of Faneuil Hall, and chemical 
 works at South Boston, for refining sulphur and purifying 
 
242 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 camphor. He had great energy, large public spirit, and 
 will, qualities which seem to have passed over the sou 
 Joseph, and lodged in the little granddaughter, Dorothea. 
 
 He died when the child was seven years old. She re¬ 
 membered him as the one bright feature of her childhood. 
 She could never be brought to mention these days of pov¬ 
 erty and humiliation, not even to tell where she was born, 
 other than to say, pitifully, “ I never knew childhood." 
 
 Knowing early in life that the support of her mother and 
 her two little brothers, ten and twelve years younger than 
 herself, must inevitably fall upon her, she studied as hard 
 as possible, and at fourteen was back in Worcester, teach¬ 
 ing a school for little children. 
 
 So girlish was she in looks, though mature in heart, 
 with the burden of care laid upon her, she put on long 
 dresses, and lengthened her sleeves, that she might appear 
 older than she was. She was dignified and strict, and 
 seems to have prospered with the work. 
 
 After this experiment in teaching, she returned to the 
 home of her grandmother in Boston, then a town of forty 
 thousand people, and studied till she was nineteen, when 
 she opened a day-school in a little house owned by her 
 grandmother in Orange Court. The school increased till 
 the grandmother’s house — euphoniously styled the “ Dix 
 Mansion ” — was opened for a combined boarding and day 
 school. Children of prominent families came from as far 
 away as Portsmouth, N. H. Later, the two little brothers 
 came, and she brought them up, as she had expected to 
 do, providing for her mother as well. 
 
 Her generous heart soon began to manifest itself in work 
 outside of her school. She wrote to her dignified grand¬ 
 mother, — perhaps she preferred that manner to a personal 
 interview, — “ Had I the saint-like eloquence of our minis- 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 243 
 
 ter, I would employ it in explaining all the motives, and 
 dwelling on all the good, — good to the poor, the miser¬ 
 able, the idle, and the ignorant, which would follow your 
 giving me permission to use the barn chamber for a school¬ 
 room for charitable and religious purposes. You have read 
 Hannah More’s life. You approve of her labors for the 
 most degraded of England’s paupers ; why not, when it can 
 be done without exposure or expense, let me rescue some 
 of America’s miserable children from vice and guilt? ” 
 
 The school was started in the barn, and out of it grew 
 the work of the Warren Street Chapel, says the Rev. 
 Francis Tiffany, of Cambridge, Mass., to whose admirable 
 life of Miss Dix, by which he has done a real service to 
 humanity, I am indebted for most of the facts of this 
 sketch. 
 
 These months were full of exhausting labor. She 
 studied hard to improve her mind, “ almost worshipping 
 talent,” she said. She cared for her aged grandmother, 
 for her brothers, superintended the house, and taught both 
 schools, rising before daylight, and not retiring till after 
 midnight. Besides this, she wrote “ Conversations on 
 Common Things,” which has gone through sixty editions. 
 
 As a result of all this labor, she broke down in health, 
 and was glad to accept the offer of Dr. William Ellery 
 Channing, to care for the education of his children for the 
 six months of the summer of 1827, when the family were 
 at their country home in Portsmouth, R. I. Here she 
 found great rest and pleasure in studying shells and sea¬ 
 weed, as, indeed, in every department of natural history. 
 
 She bemoaned her illness, but not for herself. She 
 wrote a friend, “ It is for him [her little brother] my 
 soul is tilled with bitterness when sickness wastes me ; is 
 because of him I dread to die.” 
 
244 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 For three or four years, being unable to teach very 
 much, she compiled several books, mostly of a devotional 
 character. In 1830, she went with the Channing family 
 to the island of St. Croix, in the West Indies, and there, 
 besides teaching the children, she made collections of 
 tropical plants and birds, which she gave to Professor 
 Benjamin Silliman, Audubon, and others. 
 
 In 1831, she opened her school again in the Dix Man¬ 
 sion, ambitious to carry out her ideal of education, and de¬ 
 termined to earn a competency, that she might not be 
 impecunious like her parents. To the end of her life she 
 would never be long dependent upon others, or be paid 
 for her benevolent work. 
 
 Her school seems to have been an excellent one for 
 those times, with, perhaps, the duty-line too prominent for 
 the sunny life of childhood. The children were requested 
 to write letters to their teacher, which she answered, often 
 long after midnight. One child wrote : “ I thought I was 
 doing very well until I read your letter ; but when 3 'ou said 
 that you were ‘ rousing to greater energy,’ all my self- 
 satisfaction vanished. For if you are not satisfied in some 
 measure with yourself, and are going to do more than you 
 have done, I don’t know what I shall do. You do not go 
 to rest until midnight, and then you rise very early.” 
 
 “She was, at this time,” says a lady who attended her 
 school, “ in the prime of her years, tall and of dignified car¬ 
 riage, head finely shaped and set, with an abundance of 
 soft, wavy, brown hair. Next to my mother, I thought 
 her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She fasci¬ 
 nated me from the first, as she had done many of my class 
 before me.” 
 
 Her voice was especially rich, low, and musical in its 
 tone; her eyes were brilliant blue-gray, “their pupils so 
 
D OB 0 THE A LYNDE DIX. 
 
 245 
 
 large and dilating as to cause them often to be taken for 
 black,” and her manner modest, yet showing command 
 over self, and power over others. 
 
 After five years more of teaching, Miss Dix broke down 
 competely, and was obliged to go abroad. Dr. Channing 
 gave her letters of introduction to friends, among whom 
 Mr. and Mrs. William Rathbone, of Liverpool, wealthy 
 Unitarians, proved friends indeed. For a year and a half 
 the invalid found this home one of love and rest. They 
 did not realize, probably, that they were prolonging her 
 life for a wonderful work. She. seems to have found here, 
 almost for the first time, the affection of which her 
 woman’s heart had been deprived. 
 
 During this absence from America, ner mother died in 
 1836, and her grandmother also, who left her enough 
 property, combined with what she had earned, to sup¬ 
 port her comfortably through life. Iler brothers had 
 now come to self-support. One, Charles, graduated from 
 the Boston Latin School in 1832, and died in the ship 
 which he commanded in 1843, on the western coast of 
 Africa. Joseph became a prosperous merchant in Boston. 
 
 Miss Dix came home in the autumn of 1837. Such a 
 woman could not be idle. She was now thirty-five, im¬ 
 proving in health, and getting ready for work; and her 
 work was preparing for her. 
 
 Coming out of church one Sunday morning in the spring 
 of 1841, it is said that she overheard two men talking of 
 the inhuman treatment of the prisoners and lunatics in the 
 jail of East Cambridge, Mass. About this time, at the 
 suggestion of the Rev. Dr. Nichols, of Saco, Me., then a 
 theological student in Cambridge, Miss Dix was asked to 
 teach, in Sunday school, the women, some twenty in 
 number, in the East Cambridge House of Correction. 
 
246 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 With most excellent common-sense, for which she was 
 always remarkable, she reasoned that it was idle to teach 
 Christianity to people who were cold and ill-fed, unless 
 their bodies were cared for as well as their souls. She de¬ 
 termined to investigate matters, and found the jail over¬ 
 crowded, filthy; innocent, guilty, and insane all together; 
 no fires, with the thermometer below zero. She protested, 
 and was told by the jailor that “ fire was not needed, and 
 would not be safe.” 
 
 Duty had too long been the watchword of Dorothea 
 Dix for her to keep silent, and do nothing. She at once 
 applied to that noble philanthropist, Dr. S. G-. Howe, who 
 made a careful investigation of the matter, and wrote a 
 letter to the Boston Advertiser. Charles Sumner, too, 
 added his voice. Of course, the statements were de¬ 
 nied by those in charge of the jail, but the matter was 
 carried to the courts, and the rooms were soon cleaned and 
 warmed. 
 
 Miss Dix had begun her life-work at thirty-nine. It 
 was to know little or no cessation for nearly fifty years. 
 
 Much had been done both in France and England to 
 ameliorate the cruel condition of the insane. In former 
 times they were chained to their beds, to their walls, and 
 kept worse than dumb beasts. One man in Paris, when 
 Dr. Philippe Pinel undertook his work of mercy, had been 
 in chains for forty years. When his chains were removed, 
 he could not stand at first, but finally tottered to the light, 
 and, looking up to the sky, exclaimed, “Ah, how beau¬ 
 tiful ! 
 
 The noble Lord Shaftesbury labored in England for 
 seventeen years to do away with the terrible abuses. The 
 insane at that time were lashed into obedience by their 
 keepers, and, for misconduct, chained in wells, the water 
 
D OB 0 THEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 247 
 
 reaching to their chins. They were kept in dungeons if 
 violent, and fed on bread and water. Lord Shaftesbury 
 found that from seventy-five to eighty per cent might be 
 cured, if treated in the first twelve months ; only five per 
 cent, when the treatment was deferred. 
 
 Miss Dix, alone and unaided, determined to see if the 
 other prisons and almshouses in Massachusetts were like 
 the one in East Cambridge. She was a delicate and sensi¬ 
 tive woman, but heroic when there was a duty to be per¬ 
 formed. She went over the State carefully, notebook in 
 hand. Another woman, without the authority of town or 
 State, would not have dared, perhaps, to ask jailors to open 
 doors. She dared, and entered, and observed closely. 
 
 When her examinations had been made, she wrote her 
 Memorial to the State Legislature of Massachusetts, stat¬ 
 ing concisely and clearly what she had seen. “ I proceed, 
 gentlemen,” she said, “ to call your attention to the pres¬ 
 ent state of insane persons confined within this Common¬ 
 wealth in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens; chained, naked , 
 beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience.” 
 
 She told of a young woman at Danvers, nearly nude, 
 confined in a cage, where the air was so offensive that no 
 one could go near her. She told of another, at Saudisfield, 
 who had been chained and beaten, who “was put up at 
 auction (the town’s poor), and bid off at the lowest price 
 which was declared for her. One year, not long past, an 
 old man came forward in the number of applicants for the 
 poor wretch ; he was taunted and ridiculed. What would 
 he and his old wife do with such a mere beast? 
 
 “ ‘ My wife says yes,’ replied he ; ‘ and I shall take her.’ 
 
 “ She was given to his charge; he conveyed her home; 
 she was washed, neatly dressed, and placed in a decent 
 bed-room, furnished for comfort, and opening into the 
 
248 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 kitchen. How altered her condition ! As yet, the chains 
 were not off. The first week, she was somewhat restless, 
 at times, violent, but the quiet ways of the 'old people 
 wrought a change. . . . After a week, the chain was 
 lengthened, and she was received as a companion into the 
 kitchen. Soon she engaged in trivial employments. 
 
 “ ‘ After a fortnight,’ said the old man, ‘ I knocked off 
 the chains, and made her a free woman.’ She is at times 
 excited, but not violently; they are careful of her diet; 
 they keep her very clean; she calls them father and 
 mother.” 
 
 At Groton, Miss Dix found a } T oung man with an iron 
 collar around his neck, and chained in a small wooden 
 building apart from the almshouse, sitting month after 
 month in darkness and alone. He was declared incurably 
 insane. The keeper of the poor house, who had provided 
 the iron collar and chain, spoke of it as his favorite remedy. 
 “ I had a cousin,” he said, “ up in Vermont, crazy as a 
 wildcat, and I got a collar made for him, and he liked it.” 
 
 “ Liked it! ” said Miss Dix, in her calm manner, though 
 horrified at the hard-heartedness of the man, “ how did he 
 manifest his pleasure ? ” 
 
 “ Why, he left off trying to run away.” 
 
 The man at Groton had become insane while at work, 
 and was taken to the poorhouse. A band of iron, an inch 
 wide, was put about his neck, to which a chain, six feet 
 long, was attached. Manacles were on his wrists. He 
 was finally removed to the McLean Asylum, at Somerville, 
 where his shackles were immediately knocked off, and his 
 swollen limbs gently chafed. The delighted maniac ex¬ 
 claimed to his keeper, “ My good man, I must kiss 
 you.” 
 
 The young man remained for four months, was never 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 249 
 
 violent, and gave hope of complete recovery when the 
 overseers of the poor, feeling unable to pay three dollars a 
 week, carried him back to the chains of Groton, where, no 
 wonder, he soon became incurable 1 
 
 At Shelburne, Miss Dix found a man nearly dead, half 
 frozen, his food put into his filthy pen through bars. The 
 keeper poked him about with a stick. 
 
 When the memorial of Miss Dix was published, the 
 State was shocked at the revelation. The almshouse 
 keepers pronounced the incidents “ sensational and slan¬ 
 derous lies ! ” The keepers had visions of near-at-hand 
 struggles to obtain new positions, as many would inevi¬ 
 tably lose their places. 
 
 Some persons delared that this public work of searching 
 out misdeeds was unbecoming in a woman ! Alas, this 
 lias been the old argument used since the time of Eve ! 
 Rut gentle, yet firm, Dorothea Dix, went quietly on her 
 way, trusting in God, and in the righteousness of her 
 cause. 
 
 It was soon found that the State had provision for only 
 five hundred insane, while there were in the Commonwealth 
 nearly one thousand pauper insane and idiotic persons, 
 besides eight hundred cared for privately. Additional 
 buildings were soon erected for the insane, and many evils 
 remedied. 
 
 But Miss Dix was satisfied that if such things were 
 found in the progressive State of Massachusetts, other 
 States needed her keen eyes and fearless heart. Perhaps 
 she shrank from the labor and the unpleasantness. All 
 the same, she went forward. 
 
 Rhode Island was her next field for operations. She 
 visited, unobtrusively, the institutions, and made notes 
 through several months. 
 
250 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 At Little Compton, she found Abram Simmons. He 
 was in a stone structure, like a tomb, unlighted and un¬ 
 ventilated. “ The place,” she says, “ was about seven 
 feet by seven, and six and a half high. All, even the roof, 
 was of stone. An iron frame, interlaced with rope, was 
 the sole furniture. The place was filthy, damp, and noi¬ 
 some ; and the inmate, the helpless and dependent creature, 
 cast by the will of Providence on the care and sympathies 
 of his fellowman, — there he stood, near the door, motion¬ 
 less and silent; his tangled hair fell about his shoulders; 
 his bare feet pressed the filthy, wet stone floor; he was 
 emaciated to a shadow, and more resembled a disinterred 
 corpse than any living creature. Never have I looked upon 
 an object so pitiable, so woe-struck, so imaging despair. 
 
 “ I took his hands and endeavored to warm them by 
 gentle friction. I spoke to him of release, of liberty, of 
 care and kindness. Notwithstanding the assertions of the 
 mistress, that he would kill me, I persevered. A tear 
 stole over the hollow cheek, but no words answered to my 
 importunities. ... In moving a little forward, I struck 
 against something which returned a sharp metallic sound; 
 it was a length of ox-chain, connected to an iron ring 
 which encircled a leg of the insane man. At one extrem¬ 
 ity it was joined to what is termed ‘ a solid chain,’ — 
 namely, bars of iron eighteen inches or two feet long ? 
 linked together, and at one end connected by a staple to 
 the rock overhead. ‘ My husband,’ said the mistress, 
 ‘ in winter takes out sometimes, of a morning, half a 
 bushel of frost, and yet he never freezes,’ — referring to 
 the oppressed and life-stricken maniac before us. ‘ Some¬ 
 times he screams dreadfully,’ she added ; ‘ and that is the 
 reason we had the double wall, and two doors in place of 
 one ; his cries disturbed us in the house.’ ” 
 
DOROTHEA LYXDE DIX. 
 
 251 
 
 “ How long has he been here? ” asked Miss Dix. 
 
 “ ‘ Oh, above three years ; but, then, he was kept a long- 
 while in a cage first; but once he broke his chains and the 
 bars, and escaped ; so we had this built where he can’t get 
 off.’ Get off ! No, indeed ; as well might the buried dead 
 break through the sealed gates of the tomb ! ” 
 
 The frost on the inside of this stone cell, where poor, in¬ 
 sane Abram Simmons lived, was often half an inch thick, 
 and the outside blanket of his bed was frozen with the 
 drippings from the wall. With wet straw to lie upon, and 
 wet clothing to cover him, the dreary winters passed, one 
 after another. And all this in a Christian State! 
 
 All over Rhode Island Miss Dix found mismanagement, 
 lack of accommodation, and inhumanity unknown to the 
 public. When one of the leading men of the State pre¬ 
 sented the memorial which she had prepared, the people 
 were shocked, as they had been in Massachusetts. 
 
 What was to be done? The small asylum in the city of 
 Providence needed enlarging. She determined to visit a 
 well-known millionnaire, and ask his aid. People smiled at 
 her hopeless errand, for Mr. Butler had not been a giver 
 of his wealth. She laid the matter before him, with her 
 almost unsurpassed earnestness and eloquence. He lis¬ 
 tened, spell bound, and then said abruptly, “ What do you 
 want me to do ? ” 
 
 “ Sir, I want you to give $50,000 toward the enlarge¬ 
 ment of the insane hospital in this city.” 
 
 “ Madame, I ’ll do it! ” was his answer ; and “ Butler 
 Hospital ” was the result. 
 
 New Jersey was the next State visited, and Hon. Joseph 
 S. Dodd presented her memorial. And then, as usual, 
 followed some of her hardest work. As soon as the memo¬ 
 rial was published, she began to write editorials for the 
 
252 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF W031ANH00D. 
 
 press, and letters to prominent persons, urging them to 
 use their pens and their voices for whatever measure was 
 proposed. She was generally given an alcove in the 
 library, or other public building, and hither friends brought 
 member after member of the Legislature that she might 
 convince them with her sincerity and her power. Some¬ 
 times, at the parlor of her boarding-house, she would 
 invite fifteen or twenty members for a conference on the 
 memorial, or the bill following it. She had great tact, and 
 was a consummate judge of human nature. She was care¬ 
 ful not to give offence, while she was a master in executive 
 ability and leadership. 
 
 While thus laboring at Trenton, she wrote to a friend 
 in Philadelphia, says her biographer: “ You cannot im¬ 
 agine the labor of conversing and convincing. Some 
 evenings I had at once twenty gentlemen for three hours’ 
 steady conversation. The last evening, a rough country 
 member, who had announced in the House that the ‘ wants 
 of the insane in New Jersey were all humbug,’ and who 
 came to overwhelm me with his arguments, after listen¬ 
 ing an hour and a half, with wonderful patience, to 
 my details, and the principles of treatment, suddenly 
 moved into the middle of the parlor, and thus delivered 
 himself : ‘ Ma’am, I bid you good night! I do not want, 
 for my part, to hear anything more ; the others can stay, if 
 they want to. I am convinced; you ’ve conquered me out 
 and out; I shall vote for the hospital. If you ’ll come to 
 the House, and talk there as you have here, no man that 
 is n’t a brute can stand you ; and so, when a man’s con¬ 
 vinced, that’s enough. The Lord bless you ! ’ — and 
 thereupon he departed.” 
 
 Miss Dix met with all sorts of obstacles. People did 
 not like to be taxed, either for the sane or the insane. 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 253 
 
 Some called her a “ Heaven-sent Angel of Mercy,” and 
 immediately voted against her bill. Some wished she had 
 never come into their State; but always when the hard 
 work had been done, and the bill passed, and a noble 
 institution built, then the Legislature and the people 
 always passed a vote of thanks, and believed, as she 
 herself believed, “that she was called by Providence to 
 the vocation to which life, talents, and fortune have been 
 surrendered these many years.” 
 
 While working in New Jersey she had also been labor¬ 
 ing in Pennsylvania, and in 1845 bills for State insane 
 asylums were carried in each State. Besides work in these 
 two States, she visited the State prisons of Louisiana at 
 Baton Rouge, of Mississippi at Jackson, of Arkansas at 
 Little Rock, of Missouri at Jefferson City, and of Illinois 
 at Alton. During the three years, ending with 1845, Miss 
 Dix travelled, in her arduous labors of love, over ten thou¬ 
 sand miles. And yet she was frail in body, and naturally 
 timid ! Much of this journeying was over bad roads, 
 the water and mud sometimes coining up to the body of 
 her carriage ; “ but she always took with her for emergen¬ 
 cies,” says Mr. Tiffany, “ an outfit of hammer, wrench, 
 nails, screws, a coil of rope, and straps of stout leather, 
 which, under many a mishap, sufficed to put things to 
 rights, and enable her to pursue her journey.” 
 
 “ She travelled all over the country,” says a friend, 
 “ with a moderate valise in her hand, and wearing a plain 
 gray travelling-dress, with snow-white collar and cuffs. 
 Her trunk was sent a Aveek ahead, with the necessary 
 changes of linen, etc., and one plain black-silk dress for 
 special occasions. Neatness in everything indicated her 
 well-directed mind ” 
 
 She was now but little past forty, and her work seemed 
 
254 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 but just beginning. She went to North Carolina where her 
 bill for the Raleigh Insane Asylum had been once defeated. 
 The Hon. James C. Dobbin, afterwards Secretary of the 
 Navy, was her helpful friend. His wife, during an illness, 
 had received great kindness from Miss Dix, and not un¬ 
 mindful of such kindness, Mrs. Dobbin, on her dying bed, 
 besought her husband to see that Miss Dix’s bill was 
 passed. When the time came for him to speak upon the 
 bill, his eloquence, the memory of his lovely wife, his 
 own overwhelming sorrow, all added to his brilliant gifts. 
 The bill passed by one hundred and one ayes to ten nays. 
 
 Miss Dix went on her way to Alabama rejoicing. Here 
 the work was delayed — though only for a year or two — 
 by the burning of the State Capitol, and other matters; 
 but Miss Dix wrote a friend, “ I have recollected amidst 
 these perplexities that God requires no more to be accom¬ 
 plished than He gives time for performing, and I turn now 
 more quietly to my work up the Hill Difficulty. The 
 summit is cloud-capped, but I have passed amidst dark 
 and rough ways before, and shall not now give out.” 
 
 In Mississippi, where the Legislature determined “ not 
 to give a dime,” the members voted to give land, and three 
 million brick, and fifty thousand dollars, and wished to 
 name the hospital after her. This she always declined, 
 only in a single instance permitting one in Pennsylvania 
 to be called “ Dixmont Hospital,” in honor of her grand¬ 
 father, who founded the town of Dixmont, in Maine. 
 
 In many other States — Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, 
 Maryland — she accomplished much. She knew no such 
 word as failure. When told, “ Nothing can be done 
 here ! ” she replied, “ I know no such word in the vocab¬ 
 ulary I adopt.” She used to say, “The tonic I need is 
 the tonic of opposition. That always sets me on my feet.” 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 255 
 
 And she had that peculiar tonic administered in large 
 quantity through life. 
 
 She was consulted about proper sites for asylums, meth¬ 
 ods of building, the right persons to be placed in charge, 
 and a thousand matters that taxed heart and brain. 
 When a special piece of ground was desired at Washing¬ 
 ton, D. C., for the Hospital for the Insane of the Army 
 and Navy, she went to the owner, Mr. Thomas Blagden, 
 and begged him to sell it. He could not bear to part with 
 it, as it was dear to himself and his family. But after a 
 visit from Miss Dix, he sold it for fifteen thousand dollars 
 less than his price, though it cost him much anguish of 
 heart, and wear of body. Neither he nor his wife could 
 stand between Miss Dix and her cherished plans; “re¬ 
 garding you as we do,” he wrote her, “ as the instrument 
 in the hands of God to secure this very spot for the un¬ 
 fortunates, whose best earthly friend you are, and believ¬ 
 ing sincerely that the Almighty’s blessing will not rest on, 
 nor abide with, those who may place obstacles in your 
 way.” 
 
 She was always collecting from the many homes where 
 she found a warm welcome, such things as music-boxes, 
 minerals, puzzles, bird’s-nests, flowers, toys, with which to 
 amuse the poor insane creatures, whom she had seen 
 shut up alone and in darkness. 
 
 What wonder that the people looked upon her as an 
 angel of mercy ! Dr. Francis Lieber wrote from Colum¬ 
 bia, S. C., to George S. Hillard, of Boston: “What a 
 heroine she is ! May God protect her ! Over the whole 
 breadth and length of the land are her footsteps, and 
 where she steps flowers of the richest odor of humanity are 
 sprouting and blooming as on an angel’s path. I have the 
 highest veneration for her heart, and will, and head.” 
 
256 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 She wrote Mrs. Hare, of Philadelphia, from Texas: 
 “ My eyes fill with tears at the homely heart-welcome, the 
 confidence, the cordial good-will, and the succession of 
 incidents, proving that I do, in very truth, dwell in the 
 hearts of my countrymen. I am so astonished that my 
 wishes in regard to institutions, my opinions touching 
 organization, are considered definitive.” 
 
 Once she was taking dinner at a small public-house on 
 a prairie. When she offered to pay, the owner said, 
 u No, no, by George ! I don’t take money from you; 
 why, I never thought I should see you, and now you are 
 in my house! You have done good to everybody for 
 years and years. Make sure, now, there’s a home for 
 you in every hou=e in Texas.” 
 
 Once, when travelling in Michigan, in an uninhabited 
 portion of the country, she observed that her driver, a 
 youth, had a pair of pistols with him. She said, “ Give 
 me the pistols; I will take care of them ”; to which the 
 lad reluctantly consented. 
 
 Going through a dismal forest, a man caught the horse 
 by the bridle, and demanded Miss Dix’s purse. With her 
 sweet voice, she said, “Are you not ashamed to rob a 
 woman? I have but little money, and that I want to de¬ 
 fray my expenses in visiting prisons and poorhouses, and, 
 occasionally, m giving to objects of charity. If you have 
 been unfortunate, are in distress, and in want of money, 
 I will give you some.” 
 
 The man turned deadly pale, exclaiming, “ My God ! 
 that voice ! ” He told her that he had heard her speak to 
 the convicts in the Philadelphia prison, and expressed sor¬ 
 row for having disturbed her. She offered him money till 
 he should find some honest employment. He declined at 
 first, but she insisted, telling him that he would be tempted 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 257 
 
 to rob somebody else, if he had no money. But for her 
 presence of mind in taking the pistols, doubtless some 
 one would have been murdered. 
 
 She did not confine her work to asylums and prisons. 
 She said, “ My conviction of the necessity of search into 
 the wants of the friendless and afflicted has deepened. If 
 I am cold, they are*cold; if I am weary, they are dis¬ 
 tressed ; if I am alone, they are abandoned.” 
 
 While engaged in asylum-work at St. Johns, Newfound¬ 
 land, there was a dreadful storm, with many shipwrecks. 
 Knowing that at Sable Island, some thirty miles off the 
 southeast coast of Nova Scotia, there had been many 
 wrecks, she determined to visit the place, and see if there 
 could not be some remedy for the frequent loss of lives. 
 While there, a new vessel was wrecked in a dense fog, 
 though all lives were saved. The captain, the last person 
 on board, had become a raving maniac, and refused to 
 leave the wreck. Miss Dix begged the sailors to go back 
 for him in the life-boat, and save his life, if they had to 
 bind him for safety. They did as she requested, and 
 brought him bound hand and foot. Miss Dix loosened 
 his cords, took him by the arm, and led him away, calming 
 him by her persuasive manner and gentle words. 
 
 She hurried back to Boston to confer with Capt. R. B. 
 Forbes, of the Humane Society, as to the building of 
 modern life-boats, and other life-saving equipments. She 
 raised funds in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, for 
 four first-class life-boats, a life-car, mortar, coils of rope, 
 etc., all of which were sent at once to Sable Island, and 
 were the means of saving many lives. She sent also a 
 library of several hundred volumes, contributed by Boston 
 friends and booksellers, to constitute a Mariners’ Library 
 for Sable Island. To the end of her life she helped to 
 
258 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 establish libraries in the life-saving stations all along the 
 coasts of the United States. How barren seems a life 
 given to selfishness or idleness, when compared with that 
 of Dorothea Dix ! 
 
 As early as 1848 she had endeavored to obtain from 
 Congress a grant of five million acres of land, the proceeds 
 of the sale to be a perpetual fund for the care of the indi¬ 
 gent insane, to be divided among the States according to 
 population. Congress had given millions of acres for edu¬ 
 cation and internal improvements, and now she asked five 
 millions for those, she said, “ who, through the providence 
 of God, are wards of the nation , claimants on the sym¬ 
 pathy and care of the public, through the miseries and 
 disqualifications brought upon them by the sorest afflictions 
 with which humanity can be visited.” 
 
 In her memorial to Congress she said, “ I have myself 
 seen more than nine thousand idiots , epileptics , and insane 
 in these UnPed States, destitute of appropriate care and 
 protection .” 
 
 By the courtesy of Congress, an alcove in the Capitol 
 Library was set apart for Miss Dix, where she could con¬ 
 verse with the members. The bill was deferred that 
 session, from press of other matters. 
 
 In 1850 she appealed again to Congress, this time for 
 12,225,000 acres, ten millions of which should be used for 
 the benefit of the insane, and the rest for the blind, and 
 deaf, and dumb. 
 
 She went to the Capitol Library and worked daily as 
 before. She rose at four or five in the morning, spent an 
 hour in private devotions, to strengthen her for her work, 
 wrote letters on her varied work all over the country, and 
 at ten o’clock was ready to meet and talk with the mem¬ 
 bers about her beloved project. The bill was again de- 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 259 
 
 ferred, after passing in the House, and 1851 saw her a 
 third time at her post of duty, working and waiting. 
 
 This year it passed in the Senate, but was deferred 
 before the House. Two years later, in 1854, she saw her 
 12,225,000 acre bill carried triumphantly through the 
 House and the Senate, both Democratic. She was, of 
 course, enthusiastic and thankful. 
 
 The Democratic President, Franklin Pierce, had assured 
 her personally of his deep interest in the measure. Here¬ 
 after the work would Vie easy, for every State could now 
 care properly for its helpless ones. 
 
 To the astonishment of Miss Dix, as well as of all her 
 co-workers all over the country, the President vetoed the 
 bill! declaring that he did so from Constitutional reasons, 
 as also from expediency. For the first time in her life, Miss 
 Dix was prostrated by the unexpected disappointment, 
 after six years of labor, since 1848. It seemed necessary 
 for her to go abroad if her life was to be prolonged. 
 
 She sailed in September, 1854, in the “Arctic,” which, 
 on the return trip, went down with all on board. Mr. FI. 
 Iv. Collins, the chief owner of the line, declined any pas¬ 
 sage money from Miss Dix, saying, with emotion, when 
 she thanked him, “The nation, madam, owes you a debt 
 of gratitude which it can never repay, and of which I, as 
 an individual, am only too happy to be thus privileged to 
 mark my sense.” 
 
 She rested for some weeks with her friends, the Rath- 
 bones, in Liverpool, and then started for Scotland, to look 
 into the asylums and hospitals of that country. 
 
 She found what Lord Shaftesbury had found, no pro¬ 
 vision for pauper lunatics. Y\ hen this matter was brought 
 before the country, petitions poured in against taxing the 
 land for the insane poor. If rich, they were cared for in 
 
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 2fi0 
 
 private hospitals ; if poor ! they languished in almshouses, 
 prisons, or police stations. 
 
 Miss Dix, ill though she was, went about the work in 
 earnest. She visited the workhouses and private dwellings 
 where the idiots and lunatics were stowed away, and, find¬ 
 ing many abuses to be corrected, she determined to ask 
 the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, in London, for a 
 Committee of Investigation. 
 
 The Lord Provost of Edinburgh, learning of her deter¬ 
 mination and opposing it, also hastened to London, hoping 
 to meet the Home Secretary before she did. “The Lord 
 Provost stopped to have his trunk packed,” says Mr. 
 Tiffany, “ and to journey comfortably by day. Miss Dix 
 grasped a hand-bag and boarded the night train.” 
 
 She was twelve hours ahead of the Lord Provost, met 
 the Home Secretary by the aid of the noble Shaftesbury, 
 the commission was appointed, and the report was made 
 to Parliament in 1857. 
 
 Of course the country was shocked. The member for 
 Aberdeen characterized the report of the commissioners 
 as “one of the most horrifying documents he had ever 
 seen. It was a state of things which they could not be¬ 
 fore have believed to prevail in any civilized country, 
 much less in this country, which made peculiar claims to 
 civilization, and boasted of its religious and humane prin¬ 
 ciples. . . . Distressing as were the cases which he had 
 mentioned, there were others ten times worse, remaining 
 behind — so horrible, indeed, that he durst not venture to 
 shock the feelings of the House by relating them.” 
 
 Sir George Grey deplored, in the House of Commons, 
 that the bringing about of this needed reform should have 
 been left to a “ foreigner, and that foreigner a woman, 
 and that woman a dissenter.” 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 261 
 
 Lunacy Laws were passed in 1857, and Sir James A. 
 Clark, Physician to the Queen, wrote Miss Dix, four years 
 afterwards, concerning “ the improvement which has been 
 effected in Scotland through your exertions. The treat¬ 
 ment of the pauper insane in Scotland is now more care¬ 
 fully attended to than in any other part of Great Britain.” 
 
 After some noble work in the Channel Islands, Miss 
 Dix went with the Rathbones to Switzerland, the remem¬ 
 brance of which was always a delight. When worn with 
 her great cares in our Civil War, she wrote, “ I never find 
 the glorious views of the Alps fade from my mind’s eye. 
 A thousand incidents recall aud repeat the memory of 
 those grand snow peaks piercing the skies.” 
 
 On the return of the Rathbones to England, Miss Dix 
 went to France and other countries in her earnest work. 
 At Rouen she visited hospitals for aged men and women ; 
 at Paris she had a special permit to visit all the pris¬ 
 ons and hospitals, without exception; in Genoa, Turin, 
 Naples, Florence, and Rome, she gave no time to art, but 
 all her time to the suffering. Pope Pius IX. granted her 
 audience, and at her request, drove unannounced to the 
 insane asylum, and made a personal inspection. Cardinal 
 Antonelli entered heartily into her plans. 
 
 From the Island of Corfu she wrote to a friend : “ You 
 will not be more surprised than I am that I find travelling 
 alone perfectly easy. I get into all the hospitals and all 
 the prisons I have time to see or strength to explore. I 
 take no refusals, and yet I speak neither Italian, German, 
 Greek, or Sclavonic.” 
 
 In Greece and Turkey it was always the same kind re¬ 
 ception, the same God-speed to a noble woman who was 
 living to benefit the world. 
 
 Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, then President of Robert College, 
 
262 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Constantinople, wrote Mr. Tiffany, that “ Miss Dix made 
 the impression at Constantinople of a person of culture, 
 judgment, self-possession, absolute fearlessness in the 
 path of duty, and yet a woman of refinement and true 
 Christian philanthropy. I remember her with the pro- 
 foundest respect and admiration.” 
 
 From Constantinople she went to Russia, Sweden, Nor¬ 
 way, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Germany, always 
 on the one errand of mercy. She returned to America in 
 September, 1856, after an absence of two years, and 
 resumed the work of caring for her various institutions, 
 as though she had been away from school for a brief vaca¬ 
 tion. She raised money for her work, asking in the various 
 States for more than a third of a million dollars ! She 
 was glad of the work to do, otherwise, she said, in 1861, 
 “ the state of our beloved country would crush my heart 
 and life.” 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln was elected, Miss Dix, having 
 been much at the South, felt that war would be the inevi¬ 
 table result. She sought an interview with Mr. Samuel M. 
 Felton, the president of the Philadelphia and Baltimore 
 Railroad, and so impressed upon him the certainty that 
 Mr. Lincoln would be assassinated on his way to the inau¬ 
 guration at Washington (unless the Confederates could, in 
 the meantime, capture Washington, and make it the capi¬ 
 tal of the Confederacy, thus preventing the inauguration), 
 that President Felton arranged for Lincoln to be conducted 
 thither, privately, by night. 
 
 Mr. Tiffany justly thinks it remarkable that “ the keen 
 insight and military decision of mind of a woman should 
 have lighted on the precise point where the greatest peril 
 to the nation lay,” and thus have preserved Lincoln, and, 
 perhaps, Washington itself, to the country. 
 
DOROTHEA LYXDE BIX. 
 
 263 
 
 The Civil War came with that first gun fired by the Con¬ 
 federates, at Fort Sumter, at daybreak, April 12, 1861. 
 Three days later, President Lincoln called for seventy-five 
 thousand volunteers, for three months’ service. Among 
 the first to respond was the Sixth Massachusetts Regi¬ 
 ment, some of them lads under twenty, — the first full 
 regiment to enter the war. 
 
 Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, in her thrilling book, “My 
 Story of the War,” thus describes the departure of the 
 troops from the Boston and Albany Station: “With the 
 arrival of the uniformed troops, the excitement burst out 
 into a frenzy of shouts, cheers, and ringing acclamations. 
 Tears ran down not only the cheeks of the women, but 
 those of the men ; but there was no faltering. A clergy¬ 
 man mounted an extemporized platform, to offer prayer, 
 where he could be seen and heard by all, and a solemn 
 hush fell on the excited multitude as if we were inside a 
 church. His voice rang out to the remotest auditor. The 
 long train backed down where the soldiers were scattered 
 among mothers, wives, sweethearts, and friends, uttering 
 last words of farewell. 
 
 “ ‘ Fall into line ! ’ was the unfamiliar order that rang 
 out, clear and distinct, with a tone of authority. The 
 blue-coated soldiers released themselves tenderly from the 
 clinging arms of affection, kissed again and again and 
 again the faces upturned to theirs, white with the agony 
 of parting, formed in long lines, company by company, and 
 were marched into the cars.” 
 
 A woman had fainted in the crowd, and after she was 
 restored to consciousness Mrs. Livermore turned to speak 
 to her. The poor mother apologized for her weakness; 
 and a bystander said that Andrew, who had just enlisted, 
 was her only remaining son, as Clement, the other one, 
 
264 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 had been drowned, the week before, in the Bay of San 
 Francisco. 
 
 Mrs. Livermore tried to comfort her by saying, that 
 “ he had only gone for three months.” “ If the country 
 needs my boy for three months, or three yeai’s, I am not 
 the woman to hinder him,” was the reply of the noble 
 mother. “ He’s all I’ve got, now that Clement is drowned ; 
 but when he told me he’d enlisted, I gave him my bless¬ 
 ing, and told him to go; for, if we lose our country, what 
 is there to live for ? ” 
 
 The Sixth Regiment, in passing through Baltimore, on 
 its way to Washington, was stoned and insulted by a vast 
 mob, and several were killed. These were the first pre¬ 
 cious lives given for the preservation of the Union, April 
 19, on the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and 
 Concord. 
 
 Only three hours after this bloodshed in Baltimore, Miss 
 Dix reached that city, and, with difficulty, took the last 
 train which was permitted to leave for Washington. Again 
 the work was ready for her, and she was ready for the 
 work. At once she reported herself, with some nurses, at 
 the War Department for free service in the hospitals. She 
 was immediately appointed by Simon Cameron, Secretary 
 of War, “ Superintendent of Women Nurses, to select and 
 assign women nurses to general or permanent military 
 hospitals, they not to be employed in such hospitals without 
 her sanction and approval, except in cases of urgent 
 need.” 
 
 She had entered upon a work, Herculean in its propor¬ 
 tions. She had thousands of women to superintend, the 
 generous gifts of a great nation to help distribute, the 
 sick and dying to befriend, and many factious to con¬ 
 ciliate. What wonder that the frail woman of sixty did 
 
DOROTHEA LYE DR DIX. 
 
 265 
 
 not always agree with the surgeons ! What wonder if 
 she sometimes seemed arbitrary and severe ! 
 
 “ Her whole soul was in her work,” says Mrs. Liver¬ 
 more. “ She rented two large houses as depots for the 
 sanitary supplies sent to her care, and houses of rest and 
 refreshment for nurses and convalescent soldiers. She 
 employed two secretaries, owned ambulances, and kept 
 them busily employed, printed and distributed circulars, 
 went hither and thither from one remote point to another 
 in her visitations of hospitals, adjusted disputes, settled 
 difficulties where her nurses were concerned, undertook 
 long journeys by land and by water, and paid all ex¬ 
 penses incurred from her private purse. Her fortune, 
 time, and strength were laid on the altar of her country 
 in its hour of trial.” 
 
 Benson ,T. Lossing, in his “ Pictorial Field Book of the 
 Civil War,” gives Miss Dix the same well-deserved praise : 
 “ She went from battle-field to battle-field, when the car¬ 
 nage was over; from camp to camp, and from hospital to 
 hospital, superintending the operations of the nurses, and 
 administering, with her own hands, physical comforts to 
 the suffering, and soothing the troubled spirits of the 
 invalid or dying soldiers with a low voice, musical and 
 attractive, and always burdened with words of heartfelt 
 sympathy and religious consolation. 
 
 “ The amount of happiness that resulted from the ser¬ 
 vices of this woman of delicate frame, which seemed to 
 be incapable of enduring the physical labor required of 
 it, can never be estimated. The true record is only in the 
 great Book of Remembrance.” 
 
 During the long four years of the war she never took a 
 day’s vacation. She had to be reminded often to take 
 her meals, so completely was her mind absorbed by her 
 
260 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 work. What a pity that she did not keep a record of 
 some of the heroic and pathetic incidents of which these 
 days were full, as she ministered to the soldiers, — inci¬ 
 dents that are the only bright gleams amid all the dark 
 shadows of war ! 
 
 Mrs. Mary V. E. Thomas, one of the nurses in the war, 
 gives this illustration of the supervision of Miss Dix, and 
 its practical results, in “ Belford’s Magazine” for Janu¬ 
 ary, 1892 : “ One evening, as I was leaving the hospital, 
 a note was handed me from Miss Dix ; it read, ‘ I must 
 see you as soon as possible.’ I went direct to the office. 
 As usual, she came at once to the point. 
 
 “ ‘ I want you to visit the hospital across the river, in 
 Virginia.’ 
 
 “ ‘ What for? ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Don’t mention my name. Can you go to-morrow?’ 
 
 “ ‘ Yes ; but I should like to know for what purpose I 
 am going.’ 
 
 “ ‘ I want to know how the hospital is coming on.’ ” 
 
 The lady went, at the request of Miss Dix, and found 
 at the entrance of the hospital “a highly dressed and 
 highly rouged young woman, with a paper-covered novel 
 in her hand. — French, I saw at once. To my question, 
 ‘ Can 1 see the hospital? ’ she replied, in a saucy tone, ‘ Go 
 in there,’ pointing to the door; ‘ you ’ll find somebody.’ 
 She proceeded on her way to join the officer of the day, 
 who was awaiting her; this my backward glance revealed 
 to me.” 
 
 Airs. Thomas passed about the hospital, observing that 
 the nurses exchanged glances and acted as if they would 
 like to make some communications to her, but scarcely 
 dared. Finally she entered the room of a delicate-look¬ 
 ing girl, who told her the real condition of things. The 
 
DOROTHEA LYVDE DIX. 
 
 267 
 
 surgeon in charge had brought some disreputable persons 
 from New York, who sat at the officers’ table, and ate 
 and drank what was provided for the wounded soldiers, 
 giving the nurses dry bread and weak coffee. 
 
 For months they had tried to get a message to Miss 
 Dix, and finally, when a new milkman came, who was not 
 yet in the confidence of the officials, he was given a dollar 
 for getting a note to Miss Dix. Hence the unlooked-for 
 visit by Mrs. Thomas. 
 
 When she returned, Miss Dix asked anxiously, “ ' What 
 have you to report ? ’ 
 
 “‘I went through the hospital; patients seem to be 
 doing pretty well.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Nothing more?’ she questioned, as her countenance 
 fell. 
 
 “ ‘ Yes ; a painted woman, reading a French novel.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Ah ! What else ? ’ 
 
 “Then I opened my budget and told her all. Her face 
 flushed, she clasped her hands nervously, as she said, 
 ‘ That must be stopped.’ 
 
 “ And it was stopped. Within ten days that hospital 
 was broken up, the patients were removed to Washington, 
 and a certain surgeon was dismissed from the army.” 
 
 On another occasion, Mrs. Thomas received a slip of 
 paper which read, “Come immediately to my office. D. D.” 
 
 “ The ambulance soon brought me to Miss Dix’s office. 
 The windows were filled with plants, many of them in 
 bloom, giving the room a cheerful aspect, while the floors 
 and the corners of the room were piled up with all sorts 
 of hospital stores, bandages, wearing apparel for the 
 invalid soldiers, bedding, etc. Several nurses were 
 receiving directions. I sat down on a box to await my 
 turn. In a few moments we were alone. Miss Dix 
 
268 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 addressed me excitedly. ‘ You must go at once to 
 Armory Square Hospital; the wounded are being taken 
 there by the hundreds. You will find enough to do.’ 
 
 “ With nervous haste she filled a basket with such arti¬ 
 cles as would be needed. She looked tired and worn, and 
 was evidently kept up by excitement which could only 
 find relief in action. All the previous night she and the 
 other ladies had been at the steamboat wharf, ministering 
 to the wounded as they arrived. 
 
 “The hospital grounds were crowded with the wounded 
 and the dying, on stretchers. Stepping over several I 
 made my way to a tent already filled to its utmost capac¬ 
 ity. Before I could lay aside my bonnet and gloves a 
 pleading voice said, 4 Do, please, ma’am, look at this leg.’ 
 
 “ There lay a man of powerful frame and fine, open 
 countenance. I removed the soiled bandage, taking care 
 to notice the way it was put on, as it must be replaced.” 
 
 “ I am afraid I won’t be able to put it on like this,” 
 said Mrs. Thomas ; “ of course, the doctor dressed it? ” 
 
 “Oh, no, ma’am; it was one of them ladies at the 
 front; she was better than any doctor.” 
 
 Thus did Miss Dix and her noble helpers work for the 
 soldiers. 
 
 Mrs. Annie Wittenmeyer, whose work was most valuable 
 during the war, and who, since the war, has been a leader 
 in the National Woman’s Relief Corps, writes me, con¬ 
 cerning Miss Dix : “ She was tall and stately in person 
 and manners. She was reserved and imperious in con¬ 
 versation,— on the verge of haughtiness. She was fine- 
 looking, and had certainly in early life been handsome. 
 At sixty there were no wrinkles in her face, or gray 
 threads in her hair. She was neat and always suitably 
 dressed, but very plainly. 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 269 
 
 “ She was a woman of fine mind, which was enriched 
 by culture and much travel. When one could get her to 
 talk she was very entertaining, otherwise she seemed cold 
 and unsocial. ... 
 
 “The people had confidence in her integrity, and she 
 received heavy lots of supplies from this country and Eng¬ 
 land. She worked hard and loyally, and was true and 
 honest.” 
 
 When the war was over, the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, 
 who had then become Secretary of War, asked her how the 
 nation could best show her its appreciation of her invalu¬ 
 able services,— either by a great public meeting or a vote 
 of money by Congress. She declined both absolutely, but 
 said, “ I would like the flags of my country.” 
 
 A beautiful pair of flags were made for her by the direc¬ 
 tion of the Government, and sent to her, “ In token and 
 acknowledgment of the inestimable services rendered by 
 Miss Dorothea L. Dix for the Care, Succor and Relief of 
 the Sick and Wounded Soldiers of the United States on 
 the Battle-field, in Camps and Hospitals, during the recent 
 war, and of her benevolent and diligent labors and 
 devoted efforts to whatever might contribute to their 
 comfort and welfare.” 
 
 These national colors were bequeathed by Miss Dix to 
 Harvard College, and are now suspended over the main 
 portal of Memorial Hall, dedicated to the Sons of Har¬ 
 vard who gave their lives for their country. These flags 
 represent to Harvard College the work of a noble woman, 
 whose memory the students of that institution should 
 never forget to honor. 
 
 At the close of the war, for eighteen months Miss Dix 
 carried on a very large correspondence with the families 
 of the soldiers who had died or become invalids under her 
 
270 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 charge, and obtained pensions for them, or assisted in 
 various ways. She became responsible for the erection 
 of the monument at the National Cemetery at Hampton, 
 Va., near Fortress Monroe, where twelve thousand Union 
 soldiers are buried. 
 
 “ I had especial direction over most of these, martyred 
 to a sacred cause,” Miss Dix wrote a friend; “ and never 
 forget the countless last messages of hundreds of dying 
 men to fathers, mothers, wives, and children; never for¬ 
 get the calm, manly fortitude which sustained them through 
 the anguish of mortal wounds and the agonies of dissolu¬ 
 tion. Nothing, in a review of the past four years’ war, 
 so astonishes me as the uniformly calm and firm bearing 
 of these soldiers of a good cause, dying without a mur¬ 
 mur as they had suffered without a complaint.” 
 
 She raised eight thousand dollars among her friends, 
 visited the quarries of Maine and selected the granite, 
 and wrote General Grant for “ one thousand muskets and 
 bayonets, fifteen rifled guns, and a quantity of twenty- 
 four-pound shot,” for a fence, which he at once granted. 
 
 The monument is seventy-five feet high, on a base 
 twenty-seven feet square, inclosed by a circular fence, 
 with the muskets and cannon set in blocks of stone. On 
 it are the words, “ In Memory of Union Soldiers who 
 Died to maintain the Laws.” 
 
 At sixty-five she took up again her work for the insane. 
 For fifteen years, gently but efficiently she did her mani¬ 
 fold work for humanity. 
 
 At eighty, a home having been urgently tendered her 
 at the asylum in Trenton, N. J., the first one which she 
 had caused to be built in America, she accepted the offer, 
 and there ended her days. She had reared homes for 
 others, but had none for herself. Her marriage in early 
 
D OB 0 THEA LYNDE DIX. 
 
 271 
 
 life was prevented, it is said, by the breaking of an 
 engagement with her cousin. 
 
 For six years she lived at the asylum, an honored guest, 
 a great sufferer, but she said that “ it was all right it 
 should be so, it was God’s will; only it was hard to 
 bear.” 
 
 Dr. John W. Ward, at the head of the State Lunatic 
 Asylum, of Trenton, writes me : “I saw her daily during 
 her stay with us, and can assure you that her marvellous 
 mind and memory remained intact until almost the hour 
 of dissolution. Her descriptive powers were something 
 phenomenal. I have never met her equal in man or 
 woman. . . . Miss Dix was an indefatigable worker. 
 She allowed scarcely any obstacle to thwart her in her 
 work. Her indomitable will seemed capable of overcoming 
 everything ; yet she told me, a short time before her death, 
 that she never planned anything by herself. She always 
 felt fully assured that God directed her from day to day 
 what she should do, and it was this feeling on her part, 
 probably, that during her long life prevented her from 
 working with others. She worked through others, but 
 never with them. She was always a deeply devout woman ; 
 a Unitarian in religious belief, but with a sacred reverence 
 for Bethlehem, Gethsemane, and Calvary.” 
 
 Precious letters came to Miss Dix in the asylum from 
 all over the country. Whittier wrote from Oak Knoll, 
 Danvers : “ Thou hast done so much for others, that it is 
 right for thee now, in age and illness, to be kindly min¬ 
 istered to. He who has led thee in thy great work of 
 benevolence will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” 
 
 Gen. S. C. Armstrong wrote her : “ You are one of my 
 heroes. My ideal is not one who gives the flush and 
 strength of youth to good work, — for who can help 
 
27 2 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 doing so when a chance opens ? . . . But j’ou kept in the 
 field long past your best days. Your grit and resolve 
 have been wonderful.” 
 
 She died on the evening of July 17, 1887, at the age of 
 eighty-five, and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, 
 near Boston, a place dear to all Americans, on account of 
 the graves of Lowell, Longfellow, Margaret Fuller, and 
 others who have been an honor and a blessing to their 
 country. 
 
DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX, 
 
ANN H. JUDSON, 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 N the south side of "Washington Square, New York 
 
 City, is a beautiful Memorial Baptist Church, that 
 should be visited by every one who is interested in helping 
 humanity. 
 
 It is a church whose building and methods people will 
 copy in the years to come. Besides the Sunday services, 
 it is used every day in the week for noble purposes. “ If 
 a business firm should erect an expensive building, and 
 use it only during six or seven hours a week, could it 
 expect to succeed?” says the Rev. Dr. Edward Judson, 
 the pastor of this church. 
 
 “ And yet all over Manhattan Island we have vast en- 
 Closed spaces, which are actually in use for only a few 
 hours each week. The rest of the time they serve only 
 to circumscribe the cheerful habitations of men, and are 
 occupied by mice, and silence, and gloom.” 
 
 The Main Auditory, for worship, seats twelve hundred 
 persons; the Memorial Hall, for Sunday-school use, lec¬ 
 tures, and other entertainments, seven hundred persons; 
 the School-house, with three light, cheerful rooms, is used 
 for kindergarten, sewing-schools and primary work, both 
 secular and religious; the Young Men’s Headquarters, 
 with social room, library, and reading-room, and gym¬ 
 nasium, is open every night; the “ Deats Memorial Home 
 for Children,” at the base of the tower, with beds for 
 
274 
 
 FA MO US TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 fifty children, provides shelter, food, clothes, school, and 
 church. The expense of all this is borne in part by an 
 adjoining apartment and boarding-house with seven floors, 
 called “ The Judson,” which already yields a net revenue 
 of S10,000 a year. The current expenses of the church 
 proper are met by voluntary offerings, all the seats being 
 free , and the “ whole church open all day for any one to 
 come in and rest a while,” says its devoted and eloquent 
 pastor. On Sunday evenings the sermon is followed by a 
 Song Service, the congregational singing being led by a 
 choir of fifty voices, accompanied by organ, piano, violins, 
 and flutes. 
 
 Besides all the spiritual activities of the church, there 
 is an industrial school for girls, a dress-making establish¬ 
 ment for learners, a flower mission, a free ice-water foun¬ 
 tain, fresh-air work during the summer, a penny provident 
 fund, and other departments. 
 
 Dr. Judson has raised by personal effort over $200,000 
 of the money needed for these buildings in the heart of 
 the great city. He is the son of the second Mrs. Jud¬ 
 son, — Sarah Boardman, — and is an honor to the name of 
 his beautiful and consecrated mother. Preaching in a 
 cultured and wealthy church, he gave up his position to 
 do a greater and more needed work in the lower part of 
 New York. A man of unusual scholarship, most suc¬ 
 cessful in revivals, he is using his great energy and zeal 
 in an imperishable work. Some of the largest churches 
 in the denomination have called him to their pulpits, but 
 he prefers to give his life to his Memorial Church. 
 
 Of whom is this grand church a memorial? Of Dr. 
 Adoniram Judson, who wrought such a work in foreign 
 lands as to make his name immortal. He will live in his¬ 
 tory, forever associated with the three women who shared 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 275 
 
 his sorrows and his successes, whom he loved with a de¬ 
 voted and unchanging affection, and who will always be 
 an inspiration to the womanhood of America. 
 
 Ann Hasseltine Judson was born at Bradford, Mass., 
 Dec. 22, 1789. She was an enthusiastic, ardent girl, fond 
 of society, but equally fond of books, of great decision 
 and strength of mind, with indomitable perseverance. 
 So restless was she as a child that her mother once said 
 to her, “ I hope, my daughter, you will one day be sat¬ 
 isfied with rambling.” 
 
 She studied at the Academy at Bradford, and at the 
 age of eighteen, with characteristic New England energy, 
 began to teach school, that her time might be spent in a 
 useful manner. 
 
 In June, 1810, the Massachusetts Association of Con¬ 
 gregational Ministers met at Bradford. It was to inaugu¬ 
 rate a most important work. Several young men from the 
 quiet town of Andover, where they had been attending 
 the Theological Seminary, were at the meeting. Samuel J. 
 Mills, James Richards, Luther Rice, and Gordon Hall, 
 who, while in "Williams College, had prayed together at 
 night beside a haystack, and had consecrated themselves 
 to the work of saving souls among the heathen, had 
 come to the Bradford gathering. 
 
 Another young man was present, slight in physique? 
 with brown hair and eyes, whose history already was in¬ 
 teresting,— young Adoniram Judson. lie was born in 
 Malden, Mass., Aug. 9, 1788, the son of a Congrega¬ 
 tional minister ; a precocious boy, so excellent in Greek and 
 Latin that he was called by his schoolmates “ old Virgil 
 dug up”; equally fond of theology and of the novels of 
 Richardson and Fielding; valedictorian of his class at 
 Brown University when he was nineteen ; ambitious, self- 
 
276 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 dependent, publishing two text-books about the time he 
 graduated, one on grammar, the other on arithmetic; 
 and as restless by nature as was Ann Hasseltine. 
 
 He had determined to see the world for himself. He 
 went from the old town of Plymouth, Mass., whither his 
 father had moved some years previously, to Albany, N. Y., 
 that he might see the newly-invented steamer of Robert 
 Fulton. He sailed in her to New York, and then started 
 westward. 
 
 At a country inn where he stopped, the landlord apolo¬ 
 gized for placing him next to the room of a young man 
 who was dying. During the night Judson was much dis¬ 
 turbed by the groaning, and wondered whether the young 
 man was ready to meet death. He chided himself for such 
 
 pious thoughts, for he and his college mate, E-, witty 
 
 and charming, but a confirmed deist, had often laughed 
 about such fears for the future. 
 
 In the morning he inquired about the young man. “ He 
 is gone, poor fellow ! ” said the landlord. 11 He was a 
 very fine fellow ; iiis name was E-, from Brown Uni¬ 
 
 versity.” 
 
 Young Judson was stunned. He gave up his journey 
 to see the world, ceased his unbelief, entered Andover 
 Theological Seminary when he was twenty, and became 
 thereafter one of the most devoted men America has ever 
 known. 
 
 The following year, 1800, Dr. Claudius Buchanan’s 
 “ Star in the East,” a work showing the spread of the 
 gospel in India, especially under the German missionary, 
 Schwartz, fell into Judson’s hands. He began to think 
 seriously of foreign missions, and the next year, when 
 Mills and the others came to Andover, he was ready for 
 the final decision to preach to the heathen. 
 
ANN, SABAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 277 
 
 It was a bard matter for others rather than for himself. 
 He had been offered the position of a tutor at Brown 
 University, and had declined it. Rev. Dr. Griffin had 
 suggested him for his colleague “ in the largest church 
 in Boston.” His glad mother had said, “ You will be so 
 near home”; and he had replied, “ I shall never live in 
 Boston. I have much farther than that to go.” 
 
 His ambitious father had seen his plans for Adoniram 
 thwarted. “The son, also,” as says the Rev. Edward 
 Judson in his delightful life of his father, “ had nailed his 
 own ambitions to the cross.” 
 
 As there was no foreign missionary society in America, 
 the young students from Andover proposed to each other 
 to go under the auspices of the London Missionary So¬ 
 ciety. But first, they would attend the meeting at 
 Bradford, and lay the matter before the Congregational 
 ministers of the State. 
 
 During the sessions, the clergymen dined with Deacon 
 Hasseltine, whose youngest daughter, Ann, waited on the 
 table. She listened to the earnest conversation, particu¬ 
 larly that of the fearless and dignified Judson. He seem¬ 
 ingly paid no attention to the beautiful brunette, though 
 she afterwards learned that he was composing some verses 
 to her in his mind at that very time. 
 
 The Bradford meeting came to an end, but not until 
 that grand organization, the American Board of Commis¬ 
 sioners for Foreign Missions, had been effected, at the 
 request of these same young men. Judson wrote the 
 petition to the ministers and was the first to sign it. 
 
 Fearing that money could not then be raised to support 
 the Andover students, young Judson was sent to England 
 to confer with the London Missionary Society, as to a 
 union of the two nations in missionary effort. He was 
 
278 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 captured on the journey by a French privateer, taken to 
 Bayonne, and thrown into a damp and moldy prison. 
 
 Fortunately, an American from Philadelphia had heard 
 him speak as the prisoners passed along the street, stole 
 into the prison, wrapped his cloak around the slight, 
 boyish Judsou, and together they passed out in the dark¬ 
 ness. 
 
 “Now run!” said the stranger; and Judsou heeded 
 the injunction with a will. Later, in France, he was in¬ 
 troduced to some of the officers of Napoleon’s suite, and 
 travelled through the country in one of the emperor’s 
 carriages. 
 
 He returned to America in September, 1811, and as the 
 London Society did not deem it best to unite with the 
 American, Judson, Samuel Nott, Samuel Newell, and 
 Gordon Hall were appointed to labor in Asia, under the 
 direction of the American Board. 
 
 Judson had already told Ann Ilasseltine of his love for 
 her, and had written to her father, asking, “ Whether you 
 can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, 
 to see her no more in this world ; whether you can con¬ 
 sent to her departure for a heathen land, and her subjec¬ 
 tion to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life ; 
 whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of 
 the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate 
 of India ; to every kind of want and distress ; to degrada¬ 
 tion, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. 
 
 “ Can you consent to all this for the sake of Him who 
 left his heavenly home, and died for her and for you; for 
 the sake of perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of 
 Zion, and the glory of God ? ” 
 
 No woman had ever left America to go among the 
 heathen. Many of Ann’s friends opposed her going, but 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 279 
 
 she had prayerfully decided the matter in the affirmative, 
 and she and Mr. Judson were married at Bradford, Feb. 
 
 5, 1812. 
 
 Judson and Samuel Newell were ordained at the Taber¬ 
 nacle Church, in Salem, the following day, and sailed from 
 that town on the 19th, with their wives, for Calcutta. 
 
 That it cost Ann Hasseltine a bitter struggle, her jour¬ 
 nal shows: “ My heart bleeds,” she writes. “ O Amer¬ 
 ica, my native land ! must I leave thee? Must I leave my 
 parents, my sisters and brother, my friends beloved, and 
 all the scenes of my early youth? Must I leave thee, 
 Bradford, my dear native town, where I spent the pleasant 
 years of childhood ; where I learnt to lisp the name of my 
 mother; . . . where I learnt the endearments of friend¬ 
 ship, and tasted of all the happiness this world can 
 afford ? ” 
 
 During the long voyage of four months — they reached 
 Calcutta June 18 — the young missionaries read works 
 bearing on their future labors—Paley, and others — and 
 Mr. Judson read several authors on baptism. Since he 
 was going where there were some English Baptists, he 
 must needs be able to show to the natives why a Congre¬ 
 gational form was to be preferred. 
 
 The result was that he came to believe that the Bible 
 taught immersion, when one becomes a Christian, rather 
 than in infancy, and there seemed to him no alternative 
 but to unite with the Baptist Church. This cost him much 
 pain. lie could not look to the American Board for sup¬ 
 port ; there was no Baptist Missionary Society to which he 
 could turn, and it necessarily made him and his compan¬ 
 ions labor in separate fields. He was greatly blamed by 
 some, but in the end good resulted, as the Baptist churches 
 were stirred to more earnest efforts, and a Baptist Mis- 
 
280 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 sionary Union was formed, which has done a wonderful 
 work in heathen lands. 
 
 Judson and his wife were at once invited by Dr. Carey 
 to the mission-house at Seram pore. Here all was strange 
 and interesting to the young couple. Ann wrote home, 
 describing the English Church, where “ a number of pun- 
 kies, something like a fan, several yards in length, hung 
 around, with ropes fastened to the outside, which were 
 pulled by some of the natives, to keep the church cool.” 
 
 A wedding procession passed. “The bridegroom was 
 carried in a palanquin, with flowers in his hands, and on 
 his head. lie appeared to be about ten years of age. 
 The procession were dressed in uniform, w r ith large 
 branches of flowers, and instruments of music.” 
 
 The third day after their arrival, the worship of Jugger¬ 
 naut was celebrated. “ The idol was set on the top of a 
 stone building. He is only a lump of wood, his face 
 painted, with large black eyes, and a large red mouth. 
 He was taken from his temple, and water poured on him 
 to bathe him. . . . After they had bathed their god they 
 proceeded to bathe themselves.” 
 
 The Indian Government, which at that time meant the 
 East India Company, being opposed to missionaries, 
 especially those from America, as England and America 
 were not then friendly, ordered the Judsons and others to 
 return to their own land. They begged to go’to the Isle' 
 of France (Mauritius), which request was granted. 
 
 After a voyage of six weeks they reached this island, in 
 the Indian Ocean, four hundred and eighty miles east of 
 Madagascar. They found that the lovely Harriet Newell, 
 the wife of Samuel, who had come thither two mouths 
 before, had already given her young life, with that of her 
 infant daughter, to the cause of missions. When told that 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 281 
 
 death was near, she lifted her hands, exclaiming, “ Oh, 
 glorious intelligence ! ” 
 
 After four mouths, the .Tudsons determined again to try 
 India, and went to Madras. They intended to establish a 
 mission on Prince of Wales Island, in the Straits o-f 
 Malacca, but as the only vessel about to sail was bound 
 for Rangoon, Burma, they took passage, and arrived in 
 July, 1813. 
 
 The area of Burma at that time was two hundred and 
 eighty thousand square miles, — four times as large as New 
 England, — with a population of from six to eight millions. 
 The people worshipped Buddha, or Gautama, born about 
 500 e. c., the son of an Indian prince. lie left his home 
 and his wealth, at twenty-nine, and until his death, about 
 eighty, he travelled through India, preaching his gospel. 
 His life was spent in self-denial and charity. 
 
 On the arrival of the Judsons at Rangoon, Mrs. Judson, 
 who was ill, was carried in an arm-chair on the shoulders 
 of the natives. When put down to rest the women 
 gathered around her and peered under her bonnet. When 
 she smiled at this they laughed aloud. 
 
 The Judsons at once began the study of the language, 
 a matter of great difficulty, as there was neither grammar 
 nor dictionary, nor any English-speaking teacher. These 
 would have been lonely days except for the love they 
 bore each other, and their work 
 
 Mrs. Judson wrote to Mr Newell: “We have no 
 society, no dear Christian friends, and with the exception 
 of two or three sea-captains, who now and then call on 
 Us, we never see a European face. But, then, we are still 
 happy in each other; still find that our own home is our 
 best, our dearest friend. 
 
 “ When we feel a disposition to sigh for the enjoyments 
 
282 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 of our native country we turn our eyes on the miserable 
 objects around. We behold some of them laboring hard 
 for a scanty subsistence, oppressed by an avaricious gov¬ 
 ernment, which is ever ready to seize what industry has 
 hardly earned. We behold others sick and diseased, dailj’ 
 begging their few grains of rice, which, when obtained, are 
 scarcely sufficient to protract their wretched existence, and 
 with no other habitation to cover them from the burning 
 sun or chilly rains than that which a small piece of cloth 
 raised on four bamboos, under the shade of a tree, can 
 afford.” 
 
 At the end of three years, Judson had completed a 
 grammar of the Burmese language, concerning which the 
 Calcutta Review said, “We have seen no work in any 
 tongue which we should compare with it for brevity and 
 completeness.” He published also his first Burmese tract, 
 “ A View of the Christian Religion in Three Parts, His¬ 
 toric, Didactic, and Preceptive.” 
 
 One thousand of these tracts were printed at first, and 
 three thousand copies of a catechism prepared by Mrs. 
 Judson. So difficult was the acquisition of the language, 
 that Mr. Judson said he would rather submit to an exam¬ 
 ination in French after two months of study than in Bur- 
 man after two years. He thought it the most difficult 
 language on earth, except the Chinese. 
 
 Though he had no converts to baptize till he had been 
 in Burma seven years, he was not discouraged. When 
 asked whether he thought the prospects bright for the 
 speedy conversion of the heathen, he would say, “ As 
 bright as the promises of God.” 
 
 He wrote to a friend that, though Rangoon was “ a 
 most filthy, wretched place, if a ship was lying in the 
 river, ready to convey me to any part of the world I 
 
vBY.V, SARAH, AND EMIL Y JUDSON. 
 
 283 
 
 should choose, and that, too, with the entire approbation 
 of all my Christian friends, I would prefer dying to em¬ 
 barking.” 
 
 A child had come to brighten the Judson home, a boy, 
 Roger Williams, born Sept. 11, 181.1. Mrs. Judson wrote 
 her mother that she “ now felt almost in a new state of 
 existence,” and added, “ We hope his life may be pre¬ 
 served, and his heart sanctified, that he may become a 
 missionary among the Burmans 
 
 But the hope was not to be realized, for the following 
 May she wrote home : “ Death, regardless of our lonely 
 situation, has entered our dwelling, and made one of the 
 happiest families wretched. Our little Roger Williams, 
 our only little darling boy, was three days ago laid in the 
 silent grave. Eight months we enjoyed the precious little 
 gift, in which time he had so completely entwined himself 
 around his parents’ hearts that his existence seemed 
 necessary to their own. . . . We buried him in the after¬ 
 noon, in a little enclosure, the other side of the garden. 
 . . . We felt he was our earthly all, our only source of 
 recreation in this heathen land.” 
 
 Mr. Judson's heart, too, was equally torn by this be¬ 
 reavement. lie wrote to a missionary friend at Seram- 
 porc : “The light of his mild blue eye is quenched, his 
 sweet face has become cold to our lips, and his little 
 mind, which, to a parent’s discernment at least, discov¬ 
 ered peculiar sensibility and peculiar sweetness of dis¬ 
 position, has deserted its infantile tenement and fled — 
 oh, where? Into what .strange scenes is it introduced? 
 Who supports and guides its trembling steps across the 
 dark valley? There a parent’s aid could not be extended. 
 But we hope it had a more affectionate and abler guide.” 
 
 The strong man tried to be comforted, and yet he cried 
 
284 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD 
 
 oi.t in agony of spirit, “We had only one. Might not 
 this have been spared? ” 
 
 Still the childless parents labored on. In May, 1817, 
 Mr. Judson finished his translation of the gospel of Mat¬ 
 thew, and he began to compile a Burmese dictionary. But 
 his health became impaired by continuous study, and he 
 was obliged to take a sea voyage 
 
 He was constantly urging America to send out more 
 laborers. The work was too great, and the hands of the 
 workers too feeble. “Send us,” he wrote, “humble, 
 quiet, persevering men; men of sound, sterling talents, 
 of decent accomplishments, of some natural aptitude to 
 acquire a language; men of an amiable, yielding temper, 
 willing to take the lowest place, to be the least of all, and 
 the servant of all; men who enjoy much closet religion — 
 who live near to God, and are willing to suffer all things 
 for Christ’s sake, without being proud of it;—these are 
 the men we need.” 
 
 In 1819, a zayat , or little chapel, costing about two hun¬ 
 dred dollars, was built by Mr. Judson, along the roadside 
 leading to one of the pagodas where Gautama was wor¬ 
 shipped. In these pagodas, which were supposed to con¬ 
 tain a relic of Buddha, expensive offerings were made. 
 One offering, costing Si,200, provided by a member of 
 government , was a bamboo and paper pagoda, ornamented 
 with gold leaf and paintings. It was one hundred feet 
 high, with a man half way up the pagoda, dancing. This 
 was borne by sixty men, preceded by a band of music. 
 
 When these people came to worship Gautama, they 
 would see “ the teacher,” in his little open chapel, ready 
 to teach or to preach in the Burmese language. So elo¬ 
 quent and earnest was Mr. Judson, that those who could 
 not understand a word of the language were held spell- 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 285 
 
 bound by his manner. In later years, he found it difficult 
 to preach in his mother tongue, so thoroughly had the 
 Burmese language become his own. 
 
 The Burmans learn to read and write on a board a yard 
 long, made black with charcoal and the juice of a leaf, 
 while the letters are made by a white stone. 
 
 Meantime, Mrs. Judson had been studying Siamese for 
 a year and a half, and had translated into Siamese the 
 Burmese catechism, tract, and Matthew, besides turning 
 one of their celebrated books into English; an account of 
 the incarnation of one of their deities, when he existed in 
 the form of a great elephant. 
 
 As the number of the converts increased, the viceroy 
 of Rangoon began to be alarmed, and persecution was 
 imminent. Mr. Judson resolved to go to the capital of 
 Burma, Ava, and ask the emperor’s permission to preach 
 the Christian religion. The journey was made, and the 
 emperor received him with great state, but would make no 
 concessions, dashing Mr. Judsou’s tract to the ground. 
 
 When the missionary returned and told the converts 
 that he must remove the mission, as they were liable to 
 suffer death if they accepted longer the Christian faith, 
 they would not consent, but begged him to remain, and 
 they would suffer death even, if need be. 
 
 After eight years in Rangoon, Mrs. Judson’s health was 
 such that a change of climate seemed imperative to save 
 her life. She visited England, where she was cordially 
 entertained by the family of Mr. Butterworth, a member 
 of Parliament, meeting Wilberforce and other distinguished 
 persons, and then sailed for America, reaching New York 
 Sept. 25, 1822. 
 
 She was met in Philadelphia and Bradford by eager 
 hearts that did not expect to see her again this side the 
 
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 286 
 
 grave. For four nights she was so much overcome by the 
 union with friends that she could not close her eyes in 
 sleep. 
 
 Her health still declining, she was obliged to spend the 
 winter in Baltimore, away from the cold of New England. 
 Everywhere she won the love of all who met her. 
 
 Dr. Francis Wayland, president of Brown University, 
 says of her in his life of Dr. Judson : “ I do not remem¬ 
 ber ever to have met a more remarkable woman. To great 
 clearness of intellect, large powers of comprehension, and 
 intuitive female sagacity, ripened by the constant neces¬ 
 sity of independent action, she added that heroic disin¬ 
 terestedness which naturally loses all consciousness of 
 self in the prosecution of a great object. These ele¬ 
 ments, however, were all held in reserve, and were hid¬ 
 den from public view by a veil of unusual feminine 
 delicacy. . . . 
 
 “ As she found herself among friends who were inter¬ 
 ested in the Burnian mission, her reserve melted away, 
 her eye kindled, every feature was lighted up with enthu¬ 
 siasm, and she was everywhere acknowledged to be one 
 of the most fascinating of women.” 
 
 While in America, her “ History of the Burman Mis¬ 
 sion ” was published. Though her health was only par¬ 
 tially restored, she was restless for her home in Burma, 
 and in June, 1823, she said, as she was convinced, her 
 final farewell to friends, and arrived in Rangoon late in 
 the fall. 
 
 Mr. Judson had received permission to live at Ava, and 
 had been assured of the royal protection. At once, there¬ 
 fore, upon the return of his wife, they hastened thither. 
 It was well that they could not foresee the dreadful things 
 which awaited them. 
 
ANN, SABAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 287 
 
 War soon broke out between Burma and the English 
 Government in India. Refugees from the iron rule of 
 Burma had sought shelter in places under British rule. 
 The Burmese monarch demanded their surrender, and, this 
 not being acceded to, war was begun. 
 
 All white foreigners in Ava were suspected of being 
 friends of England, and were thrust into prison. Mr. 
 Judson, with a few others, was confined in the death 
 prison at Ava for eleven months, where their sufferings 
 seemed past belief. 
 
 The prison was a long, low building, five or six feet 
 high, with no ventilation except through the cracks be¬ 
 tween the boards. The atmosphere was a constant poison 
 from its filth. Men and women were fastened in stocks,— 
 heavy logs of timber, bored with holes to admit the feet. 
 Most wore heavy chains besides, and all were nearly 
 naked. The feet of the victims were fastened to a huge 
 pole, which was drawn up by pulleys, so that the head 
 and shoulders rested on the ground, and the blood flowed 
 from the up-lifted feet into the head. 
 
 Mr. Judson’s five pairs of iron fetters weighed fourteen 
 pounds, so that walking was impossible except by “ shuf¬ 
 fling a few inches at a time.” Each one daily expected 
 death. At three o’clock each afternoon some one was led 
 out to be executed, and no one knew whose turn would 
 come next. 
 
 Mrs. Judson’s noble heroism now showed itself. She 
 went to the governor and begged to see her husband. 
 Receiving a permit, she hastened to the door, and he 
 crawled to meet her. Then she sought to gain admit¬ 
 tance to the queen, but was not allowed. She gave money 
 and presents to the officials, and they clamored for more. 
 
 “For the seven following months,” writes Mrs. Jud- 
 
288 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 son to her husband’s brother, Dr. Elnathan Judson, when 
 the terrible ordeal was over, “ hardly a day passed that I 
 did not visit some one of the members of government, or 
 branches of the royal family, in order to gain their in¬ 
 fluence in our behalf; but the only benefit was their 
 encouraging promises preserved' us from despair. . . . 
 Sometimes, for days and days together, I could not go 
 into the prison till after dark, when I had two miles to 
 walk, in returning to the house.” 
 
 She was finally permitted to make for her husband a 
 small bamboo room in the prison, where he could be much 
 by himself. Occasionally she was allowed to spend two 
 or three hours with him. 
 
 After Mr. Judson had been six months in prison their 
 little daughter, Maria Elizabeth Butterworth Judson, was 
 born, Jan. 2G, 1825. As soon as Mrs. Judson could leave 
 her room she hurried over to the prison. The bamboo 
 room had been torn down, her husband’s mat and pillow 
 had been taken by the jailers, and more irons put upon 
 him than before. 
 
 One of the jailers opened the pillow and threw away a 
 seemingly hard roll of cotton. Some hours afterward a 
 Burman took the roll home as a relic of the banished 
 prisoners, and months later the manuscript which now 
 makes a part of the Burmese Bible was found within, 
 unharmed. 
 
 Mrs. Judson says in the letter to her brother-in-law: 
 “I went immediately to the governor’s house. He was 
 not at home, but had ordered his wife to tell me, when I 
 came, not to ask to have the additional fetters taken off 
 or the prisoners released, for it could nut be done. 
 
 I went to the prison gate, but was forbidden to enter. 
 All was as still as death. I was determined to see the 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 289 
 
 governor and know the cause of this additional oppres¬ 
 sion, and for this purpose returned iuto town the same 
 evening at an hour I knew he would be at home. He was 
 in his audience-room, and as 1 entered looked up without 
 speaking, but exhibited a mixture of shame and affected 
 anger in his countenance. 
 
 “ I began by saying, ‘ Your lordship has hitherto treated 
 us with the kindness of a father. . . . You have prom¬ 
 ised me particularly that you would stand by me to the 
 last. . . . What crime has Mr. Judson committed to 
 deserve such additional punishment?’ 
 
 “ The old man’s hard heart was melted, for he wept 
 like a child. ‘I pity you, Tsa-yah-ga-dau,’ — a name by 
 which he always called me ; ‘ I knew you would make me 
 feel; I therefore forbade your application, lint you must 
 believe me when I say I do not wish to increase the suf¬ 
 ferings of the prisoners. When 1 am ordered to execute 
 them, the least that I can do is to put them out of sight. 
 I will now tell you what I have never told you before, — 
 that three times I have received intimations from the 
 queen’s brother to assassinate all the white prisoners pri¬ 
 vately ; but I would not do it. And I now repeat it, — 
 though 1 execute all the others, I will never execute your 
 husband. But I cannot release him from his present con¬ 
 finement, and you must not ask it.’ ” 
 
 Soon after this, without Mrs. Judson’s knowledge, the 
 white prisoners were all removed ten miles to a prison in 
 the country, Oung-pen-la. They were chained two-and- 
 two, the official going on horseback, while his slaves drove 
 the prisoners, under a burning sun. Their bare feet were 
 soon blistered, and the soles became destitute of skin. 
 A Greek, in perfect health when they started, fell dead 
 on the way from the heat of the sun, the men beating and 
 
290 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 dragging liim till they were weary. Mr. Judson became 
 so exhausted that he was nearly carried by the man to 
 whom he was chained. 
 
 As soon as Mrs. Judson could find out where her hus¬ 
 band had been taken she followed him with her baby in 
 her arms, and two little Burmese girls. She obtained a 
 room to live in, which was half full of grain. One of the 
 Burmese girls had small-pox, and the baby and Mrs. Jud¬ 
 son soon were prostrated with it. After this Mrs. Jud¬ 
 son had spotted fever, and was very near to death. She 
 became so emaciated that she seemed no more her former 
 self. The Burmese neighbors who came in to see her die 
 said: “She is dead; and if the King of Angels should 
 come in, He could not recover her.” 
 
 All this time the baby, Maria, was half starving for lack 
 of food. Mrs. Judson was unable to nurse her; there was 
 no milk to be had in the village, and the heart-rending 
 cries of the little one nearly distracted the helpless mother. 
 
 By making presents to the jailers, Mr. Judson, scarcely 
 able to stand, from the effects of a recent fever, was 
 allowed to come out of prison and take the emaciated little 
 creature to different mothers in the village, that she might 
 share in the sustenance of their own babies. One can 
 scarcely picture a more pathetic scene ; the mother daily 
 expecting death, the father daily expecting the executioner 
 (indeed, they learned afterwards that they were taken to 
 Oung-pen-la for that purpose, and were saved only because 
 the “ pakan-woon ” was himself executed) ; the brilliant 
 scholar and devoted preacher, with a few inches of heavy 
 chain between his shackled feet, carrying a half-starved 
 child, “ a beggar at the breasts of pitying mothers ! ” 
 
 Mrs. Judson partially recovered. At the end of six 
 months in Oung-pen-la and two months at Maloun, where 
 
ANN, SABAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 291 
 
 he was obliged to act as an interpreter, Moung Schwaloo, 
 the north governor of the palace, obtained Mr. Judson’s 
 release, offering himself as security. Mr. Judson helped 
 the Burmese to negotiate a peace with their British con¬ 
 querors, under Sir Archibald Campbell, and he and his 
 wife and child were taken to the English camp, where 
 they received every courtesy. 
 
 A British officer, Major Calder Campbell, wounded and 
 robbed by his faithless Burmese boatmen, thus speaks of 
 Mrs. Judson : “ We were taken on board. My eyes first 
 rested on the thin, attenuated form of a lady — a white 
 lady! the first white woman I had seen for more than a 
 year. . . . She was seated in a large sort of swinging 
 chair, of American construction, in which her slight, 
 emaciated, but graceful form appeared almost ethereal. 
 Yet, with much of heaven, there were still the breathings 
 of earthly feeling about her, for at her feet rested a babe, 
 a little, wan baby, on which her eyes often turned with all 
 a mother’s love ; and, gazing frequently upon her delicate 
 features with a fond yet fearful glance, her husband. 
 
 “ Her face was pale, very pale, with that expression of 
 deep and serious thought which speaks of the strong and 
 vigorous mind within the frail and perishing body; her 
 brown hair was braided over a placid and holy brow ; but 
 her hands — those small, lily hands — were quite beauti¬ 
 ful ; beautiful they were, and very wan; for, ah, they 
 told of disease,— of death — death in all its transparent 
 grace, — when the sickly blood shines through the clear 
 skin, even as the bright poison lights up the Venetian 
 glass wdiich it is about to shatter. 
 
 “Mrs. Judson’s powers of conversation were of the 
 first order, . . . and gained a heightened interest from the 
 beautiful, energetic simplicity of her language, as -well as 
 
202 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 from the certainty I felt that so fragile a flower as she in 
 very truth was, had hut a brief season to linger on earth.” 
 
 On March 6, 182G, Mr. Judson and his wife and child 
 sailed down the Irrawaddy in a British gun-boat, and 
 reached Rangoon March 21. Years afterward, when sev¬ 
 eral persons were discussing what they regarded as the 
 highest type of enjoyment, and giving their experiences, 
 Mr. Judson remarked : “I know of a much higher pleas¬ 
 ure than tliat. What do you think of floating down the 
 Irrawaddy on a cool, moonlight evening, with your wife 
 by your side, and your baby in your arms, free — all free ? 
 But you cannot understand it, either; it needs a twenty- 
 one months’ qualification; and I can never regret my 
 twenty-one months of misery, when I recall that one de¬ 
 licious thrill. I think I have had a better appreciation of 
 what heaven may be ever since.” 
 
 They found the little church at Rangoon much scattered. 
 The English army held Rangoon only temporarily, and it 
 seemed essential that they should live where they might 
 have the protection of the British flag. A new city had 
 been started, called, in honor of the governor-general of 
 India, “ Amherst,” where it was expected that the seat 
 of government would be located. 
 
 Here Mr. and Mrs. Judson decided to begin anew their 
 work. The English Government, desiring to make a com¬ 
 mercial treaty with the Burmese king, Mr. Judson was pre¬ 
 vailed upon to go to Ava, as he so well understood the 
 language, with the assurance that the English would do nil 
 in their power to secure a clause in the treaty throwing the 
 whole of Burma open to the spread of the gospel. 
 
 After his departure Mrs. Judson built a little bamboo 
 dwelling-house, and two school-houses, in which she both 
 taught and held public worship on Sundays. 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMTLY JUDSON. 
 
 293 
 
 In the midst of this work, the fatal fever came again. 
 From the first she felt that she should not survive. The 
 terrible prison-life of her husband at Ava had done its 
 work. During the eighteen days of her illness she some¬ 
 times said : “The ‘ teacher ’ is long in coming, and the new 
 missionaries are long in coming; I must die alone, and 
 leave my little one; but as it is the will of God, I ac¬ 
 quiesce in His will. I am not afraid of death, but I am 
 afraid I shall not be able to bear these pains. Tell the 
 ‘ teacher ’ that the disease was most violent, and I could 
 not write; tell him how I suffered and died, and take care 
 of the house and things until he returns.” 
 
 The last two days she was comparatively free from 
 pain. Her last words at evening were: “ I feel quite 
 well, only very weak ” ; and then, with one exclamation of 
 distress in the Burmese language, she ceased to breathe, 
 Oct. 24, 1826, at the age of thirty-seven. 
 
 So short the life, and yet the results so blessed ! A 
 great work begun in Burma ; an example of unsurpassed 
 devotion to a husband; an illustration of heroism, of 
 dignity, and of nobility of mind and character worthy of 
 imitation. 
 
 The Burmese converts gathered about their “ white 
 mamma,” and buried her at Amherst under the hope-tree 
 (hopia ). Mr. Judson returned to his desolate home three 
 months later, and in the following April made another 
 grave beside that of his young wife, and laid little Maria 
 therein, at the age of two years and three months ; “ her 
 hands, the exact pattern of her mother’s, folded on her 
 cold breast,” wrote Mr. Judson to Mrs. Hasseltine at 
 Bradford. 
 
 He was but thirty-nine, and had buried his wife and his 
 three children, — his first infant in the Bay of Bengal; 
 
294 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 his second, Roger Williams, in the jungle graveyard at 
 Rangoon ; and Maria, under the hopia-tree. The blow 
 was a terrible one. “ He looks as if worn out with 
 his suffering and sorrows,” said one of his missionary 
 friends. 
 
 He turned at once to the translating of the Psalms into 
 Burmese, and to the preparation of two works for the 
 schools, — the one, astronomical, and the other, geographi¬ 
 cal. But the days were desolate for a man of such an 
 affectionate heart. Two years later, on the anniversary 
 of Mrs. Judson’s death, he wrote her sisters: “ It is the 
 second anniversary of the triumph of death over all my 
 hopes of earthly bliss. ... It proves -a stormy evening, 
 and the desolation around me accords with the desolate 
 state of my own mind.” 
 
 A year later, he wrote to his mother: “Do not think 
 that I can ever forget you. When I used to carry about 
 my poor little Maria, I thought how much my mother 
 loved her little Adoniram, and carried him about, and took 
 care of him. And though he has now grown almost out 
 of her knowledge, and been parted many years, and will 
 probably see her no more on earth, he can never forget 
 how much he owes to his own dear mother.” 
 
 Instead of Amherst being made the center of govern¬ 
 ment and the headquarters of the English army, as had 
 been expected, Maulmain was chosen, about twenty-five 
 miles farther north, and it seemed advisable to move 
 thither, Sir Archibald Campbell having given a lot for the 
 mission. The lot, however, was a lonely place, with a 
 thick jungle close at hand, where the howls of wild beasts 
 were often heard at midnight. 
 
 Others had come to join the workers in far-off Burma. 
 Young Colman, from Boston, full of promise and devo- 
 
ANN, SAFA IT, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 295 
 
 tion, had died after four years of earnest labor. A young 
 man in Waterville College, Me., slight in physique, but 
 strong in heart and purpose, said, “ I will go in his 
 place ” ; and George Dana Boardman made himself ready 
 for his work. 
 
 Another was moved by the death of Colman, and 
 wrote: — 
 
 “ ’T is the voice of deep sorrow from India’s shore, 
 
 The flower of our churches is withered and dead; 
 
 The gem that shoue brightly will sparkle no more, 
 
 And the tears of the Christian profusely are shed. 
 
 “ Mourn, daughters of Arracan, mourn ! 
 
 The rays of that star, clear and bright, 
 
 That so sweetly on Chittagong shone, 
 
 Are shrouded in black clouds of night, 
 
 For Colman is gone! ” 
 
 The author of these lines was Sarah Hall, born in 
 Alstead, N. II , Nov. 4, 1803, and taken, while a child, 
 to Salem, Mass. The eldest of thirteen children, her 
 young life was full of the care incident to such a family 
 circle. Exceedingly fond of poetry, she early showed de¬ 
 cided ability as a poet, and a love for knowledge which in¬ 
 dicated the rare mind she possessed. Her heart turned 
 toward missions. At thirteen, she wrote a tender poem 
 on the death of little Roger Williams Judson. At seven¬ 
 teen we find her teaching school, that she may gain the 
 means for a better education. She has finished Butler’s 
 “Analogy,” Paley’s “Evidences,” Campbell’s “Philos¬ 
 ophy of Rhetoric,” and later she is teaching her little 
 brothers at home, that she may have time for Latin, logic, 
 and geometry. 
 
296 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 She has i-ead the “ Life of Samuel J. Mills,” and is 
 ready to exclaim : “ Oh, that I, too, could suffer priva¬ 
 tions, hardships, and discouragements, and even find a 
 watery grave, for the sake of bearing the news of salva¬ 
 tion to the poor heathen ! Then I have checked myself 
 in the wild, unreasonable wish. Sinners perishing all 
 around me, and I, an ignorant, weak, faithless creature, 
 almost panting to tell the far he ithen of Christ! ” 
 
 When young Boardman met Sarah Hall, “ their spirits, 
 their hopes, their aspirations were one.” When asked to 
 become the wife of a missionary, Sarah’s mother said, in 
 the agony of her heart, “ Oh, I cannot part with you ! ” 
 but a month later, as she embraced her tenderly, she said, 
 “ I hope I am willing.” 
 
 And even after the marriage, July 4, 1825, when not yet 
 twenty-two, Sarah was leaving the paternal roof, she bent 
 her fair head out from the carriage^ window, and said, 
 “Father, are you willing? Say, father, that you are 
 willing I should go.” And the grieving father said, 
 “ Yes, my child, I am willing.” “ Now I can go joyfully,” 
 she said, and was soon on her way to India. 
 
 “ She was, at this time,” says one who knew her, “a 
 gentle, confiding, persuasive being, who would sweeten the 
 cup of life to those who drank it with her. Further acquain¬ 
 tance would develop strength as well as loveliness of char¬ 
 acter. It would be seen that she could do and endure as 
 well as love and please. Sweetness and strength, gentle¬ 
 ness and firmness, were in her character most happily 
 blended.” 
 
 After their arrival in India, Mr. and Mrs. Boardman 
 spent some time in Calcutta studying the language. Mrs. 
 Boardman was said to possess “ faultless features, molded 
 ou the Grecian model, beautiful transparent skin, warm, 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 297 
 
 meek blue eyes, and soft hair, brown in the shadow, and 
 gold in the sun.” 
 
 The Boardmans reached Amherst just before little 
 Maria Judson was buried, and rendered all the assist¬ 
 ance possible. “After leaving the grave,” writes the 
 consecrated Boardman, “we had a delightful conversa¬ 
 tion on the kindness and tender mercies of our heavenly 
 Father. Brother Judson seemed carried above his grief.” 
 
 Mrs. Boardman became very ill at Amherst. As soon 
 as she was able, they went to Maulmain, Dr. Judson com¬ 
 ing a little later; he had been given the title of D. D. 
 some years before by his own college, Brown University, 
 though he preferred not to use it, but the world has thus 
 designated him. 
 
 The work went on encouragingly at Maulmain, but 
 after seven months the Boardmans decided to go to 
 Tavoy, the only important point within one hundred and 
 fifty miles, thus to broaden the field of labor. Here Mrs. 
 Boardman, after “unwearied toil, repeated repulses and 
 discouragements,” established a school for girls. 
 
 The next year, 1829, Mr. Boardman made his first tour 
 among the Karens, wild men, as their name indicates, 
 scattered throughout Burma, Siam, and parts of China. 
 They number from two hundred thousand to four hundred 
 thousand. 
 
 “ Of all the people in the world,” wrote Mr. Boardman, 
 “ the Karens, I believe, are the most timid and irresolute. 
 And the fable that when some superior being was dis¬ 
 pensing written languages and books to the various na¬ 
 tions of the earth a surly dog came along and drove away 
 the Karens and carried away their books agrees better 
 with their indolent and timid character than half the other 
 fables in vogue among the wise and learned Burmans do 
 
298 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 with truth or common-sense. . . . They are in general 
 as careless about the future as the present, except those 
 who have heard the gospel, and those who have been en¬ 
 couraged by the Burmans to build kyoungs and pagodas, 
 in the hope of avoiding in the next world the state of 
 hogs and dogs, and snakes and worms. They are too idle 
 to be quarrelsome or ambitious, and too poor to gamble, 
 or eat or drink to very great excess.” 
 
 When Mr. Boardman went among them he learned that 
 they kept a mysterious book, carefully preserved, which, 
 although they did not know its contents, they had wor¬ 
 shipped for twelve years. He found that it was the 
 “ Book of Common Prayer with the Psalms,” published 
 at Oxford, England. 
 
 Mr. Boardman endured great privations in his jungle 
 trips among the Karens. “ The paths which lead to their 
 settlements,” he said, “ are so obscurely marked, so little 
 trodden, and so devious in their course, that a guide is 
 needed to conduct one from village to village, even over 
 the best part of the way. Not unfrequently the path 
 leads over precipices, over cliffs and dangerous declivi¬ 
 ties, along deep ravines, frequently meandering with a 
 small streamlet for miles. . . . There are no bridges, 
 and we often have to ford or swim over considerable 
 streams, particularly in the raiuy season, — when, how¬ 
 ever, the difficulties of travelling are so great as to render 
 it next to impossible. Sometimes we have to sleep in the 
 open air in the woods, where, besides insects and reptiles, 
 the tiger, the rhinoceros, and the wild elephant render our 
 situation not a little uncomfortable and dangerous.” 
 
 Mr. Boardman's health was becoming undermined. 
 Death had entered the household and taken the first¬ 
 born, “ the bright, beautiful, darling Sarah Ann,” two 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON 
 
 291) 
 
 years and eight months old. “I knew all the time that 
 she was very ill,” wrote Mrs. Board man; “but it did not 
 occur to me that she might die, till she was seized with 
 the apoplexy, about three hours before she closed her 
 eyes upon us forever. Oh, the agony of that moment! . . . 
 
 “A few hours before she died she called us to her, 
 kissed us, and passed her dear hand, still full and dimpled 
 as in health, softly over our faces. The pupils of her 
 eyes were so dilated that she could not see us distinctly, 
 and once, for a moment or two, her mind seemed to be 
 wandering; then, looking anxiously into my face, she 
 said, ‘ I frightened, mamma ! I frightened ! ’ ” But the 
 child had to go alone over the same journey which so 
 many have taken before her. 
 
 She was a most affectionate and attractive child, with 
 her blue eyes and rosy cheeks, and could speak Burmese 
 like a native. A little over a year later, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Boardman buried their youngest child, a boy of eight 
 months. 
 
 Mr. Boardman was admonished that his own work wag 
 near its close. His eyes were brighter and his cheeks 
 more hollow. He longed to go once more among his 
 beloved Karens to baptize several that had become 
 Christians. lie was carried, therefore, on a litter sev¬ 
 eral days’ journey into the wilderness, and by the water¬ 
 side, though so weak that he could not breathe without 
 being fanned, he saw thirty-four make the covenant with 
 their Lord. 
 
 A storm coming up, his mattress and pillows were 
 drenched with rain, though his friends tried to shield him 
 with their umbrellas. “ How kind and good our Father 
 in heaven is to me,” said the dying man to his wife; 
 “ how many are racked with pain, while I, though near 
 
300 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the grave, am almost free from distress of body. I suf¬ 
 fer nothing, nothing to what you, my dear Sarah, had to 
 endure last year, when I thought I must lose you. And 
 then I have you to move me so tenderly ! I should have 
 sunk into the grave ere this but for your assiduous atten¬ 
 tion. ... I have long ago, and many times, committed 
 you and our little one into the bauds of our covenant 
 God. ... lie will be your stay and support when I am 
 gone. The separation will be but short. Oh, how happy 
 I shall be to welcome you to heaven ! ” 
 
 Mr. Boardman died in the jungles, and was borne back 
 to his home on the litter, to be buried beside his little 
 Sarah. 
 
 Airs. Boardman was urged to return to America, with 
 her only remaining child, George, two years and a half 
 old, now minister of the First Baptist Church in Phila¬ 
 delphia, but she had come to spend her life for the 
 heathen, and she could not leave her work. 
 
 The gentle Mrs. Boardman went on in her self-denying 
 labors. She made tours among the Karens, as her husband 
 had done. “ Perhaps you had better send the chair,” she 
 wrote a friend; “as it is convenient to be carried over the 
 streams when they are deep. You will laugh when I tell 
 you that I have forded all the smaller ones.” 
 
 She often spoke to two or three hundred Karens. Her 
 village schools were so successful that when an appropria¬ 
 tion was made by government for schools throughout the 
 provinces it was stipulated that they “ be conducted on 
 the plan of Mrs. Boardman’s schools at Tavoy.” 
 
 She wrote: “Every moment of my time is occupied, 
 from sunrise till ten o’clock in the evening. . . . The 
 superintendence of the food and clothing of both the 
 boarding-schools, toge'ther with the care of five day- 
 
ANN, SAHAII, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 301 
 
 schools, under native teachers, devolves wholly on me. 
 My day-schools are proving every week more and more 
 interesting.” 
 
 A little more than three years after the death of Mr. 
 Boardmau, Mrs. Boardman became tlie second wife of 
 Dr. Judson. Ann Hasseltine had been dead for nearly 
 eight years, and the lonely missionary needed an educated 
 and devoted helper like Sarah Boardman. They were 
 married April 10, 1834. 
 
 When Mr. Boardman died, Dr. Judson had written her 
 concerning her child : “If you should be prematurely taken 
 away, and should condescend, on your dying bed, to com¬ 
 mit him to me, by the briefest line or verbal message, I 
 hereby pledge my fidelity to receive and treat him as my 
 own son, to send him home in the best time and way, to 
 provide for his education, and to watch over him as long 
 as I live. More than this I cannot do, and less would be 
 unworthy of the merits of his parents.” And now Dr. 
 Judson was to receive and treat George “ as his own 
 son,” a promise which he lovingly kept. 
 
 The work had grown wonderfully since those seven 
 years when Dr. Judson waited for his first convert. In 
 1832 there were one hundred and forty-three baptisms, — 
 over five hundred since his arrival in Burma. 
 
 Mrs. Judson was devoting much of her time to the 
 study of the Peguan, — a large portion of the population of 
 Maulmain and Amherst were Peguans, — and translated 
 the New Testament and several tracts from the Burmese 
 into the Peguan. 
 
 Dr. Judson was just completing his first rough draft of 
 the Burmese Bible, on which he had spent nearly seven¬ 
 teen years. He preferred to preach, and did so every 
 Sunday, and every evening of the week, but he knew that 
 
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 5U2 
 
 for all who labored after him this arduous translation was 
 a necessity. Seven long and laborious years he gave to 
 its revision. The work was accurate and thorough. 
 “ Long and toilsome research among the biblical critics and 
 commentators, especially the German, was frequently requi¬ 
 site to satisfy my mind,” he says, “ that my first position 
 was the right one. ... I never read a chapter without 
 pencil in hand and Griesbach and Parkhurst at my elbow ; 
 and it will be an object to me through life to bring the 
 translation to such a state that it may be a standard 
 work.” 
 
 “The best judges,” says Dr. Francis Wayland, “pro¬ 
 nounce it to be all that he aimed at making it; and, also, 
 what with him never was an object, an imperishable monu¬ 
 ment of the man’s genius. . . . We honor Wycliffe and 
 Luther for their labors in their respective mother-tongues, 
 but what meed of praise is due to Judson for a translation 
 of the Bible, perfect as a literary work, in a language so 
 foreign as the Burmese ? ” 
 
 In October, 1835, the Judsons welcomed the birth of a 
 daughter, Abby Ann, named after Dr. Judson’s only sis¬ 
 ter and his first wife. She came to a lonely house, for 
 Mrs. Judson the previous December had sent her only 
 child, George, a boy of six, to America to be educated. 
 
 She writes to her sister: “After deliberation, accom¬ 
 panied with tears and agony and prayers, I came to the 
 conviction that it was my duty to send away my only 
 child, my darling George, and yesterday he bade me a 
 long farewell. . . . My eyes are rolling down with tears, 
 and I can scarcely hold my pen. ... I shall never forget 
 his looks as he stood by the door and gazed at me for the 
 last time. His eyes were filling with tears, and his little 
 face red with suppressed emotion. But he subdued his 
 
ANN, SAIIAll, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 303 
 
 feeling's, and it was not till he had turned away, and was 
 going down the steps, that he burst into a flood of tears.” 
 
 To another, she writes: “Let George call the persons 
 with whom he finds a home ‘ uncle ’ and ‘ aunt,’ if they 
 desire it, but I do not like to have him call others ‘ papa’ 
 and ‘ mamma ’ while we live. Let him often be reminded 
 of us, and let the love which he now feels for us be care¬ 
 fully cherished. I could not bear to be forgotten by the 
 little one who was so long my only earthly comfort.” 
 
 Mrs. Judson’s friends in America said -they almost 
 feared to take charge of little George, “ for so perfect had 
 been his mother's work in training him thus far that they 
 should fear they would only mar what had been done.” 
 
 A son, Adoniram, was born to Mrs. Judson in Maul- 
 main, April 7, 1837, called by the natives, “Pwen,” 
 meaning a flower, and the following year, July 15, 1838, 
 another son, Elnathan. 
 
 In 1839, when Dr. Judson was a little past fifty, his 
 health failed from an affection of his lungs, entailing a 
 loss of voice, but he partially recovered after a sea voyage. 
 These were anxious days for Mrs. Judson, who wrote him-. 
 “ I have often wondered that I should have been so singu¬ 
 larly blessed as to possess that heart, which is far more 
 precious than all the world beside. ... At times, the 
 sweet hope that you will soon return, 1 ’estored to perfect 
 health, buoys up my spirit; but perhaps you will find it 
 necessary to go farther, a necessity from which I cannot 
 but shrink with doubt and dread; or you may come back 
 only to die with me. This last agonizing thought crushes 
 me down in overwhelming' sorrow.” 
 
 At the close of 1839, a third sou was born, Henry, who 
 died under two years of age, at Serampore, where Mrs. 
 Judson had gone for the health of herself and children. 
 
304 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Three years later another son was born, named Henry 
 Hall, after the child buried in the mission burial-ground at 
 Serampore. Luther had died at birth in 1841. 
 
 Dr. Judson, after his twenty-four years spent on the 
 Burmese Bible, had carried forward, at the urgent request 
 of the Board at home, his Burmese dictionary, and Mrs. 
 Judson, of whom her husband said, “ It is no more than 
 truth to say that there is scarcely an individual foreigner 
 now alive who speaks and writes the Burmese tongue so 
 acceptably as she does.” was translating “ Pilgrim’s Prog¬ 
 ress ” into Burmese, and editing the Burmese newspaper, 
 during the absence of Mr. Stevens. 
 
 In 1843, her seventh child, Charles, was born, who died 
 nearly two years later, at Maulmain, and Dec. 27, 1844, 
 Edward, who has been so blessed in his labors in New 
 York City. 
 
 Still in early middle life, but with her constitution 
 broken by such frequent illness and consequent care, it 
 became evident that only a trip across the ocean could 
 prolong the years of the gifted woman. 
 
 On April 26, 1845, Dr. and Mrs. Judson, with Abby, 
 Adoniram, and Elnathan, embarked on the ship “ Para¬ 
 gon ” for London. Henry, Charles, and Edward were 
 left in the care of the missionaries at Maulmain. The 
 vessel sprang aleak, and put in for repairs at Port Louis, 
 Isle of France. Mrs. Judson had so improved that it was 
 deemed best for Dr. Judson to return to his work, though 
 he longed once more to see his native land. Thinking 
 that she must part from her husband, Mrs. Judson wrote 
 him this touching poem : — 
 
 “We part on this green islet, love, — 
 
 Thou for the Eastern main, 
 
 I for the setting sun, love; 
 
 Oh, when to meet again' 
 
ANN, SABAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 305 
 
 “ My tears fall fast for thee, love; 
 
 How can I say farewell! 
 
 But go; thy God be with thee, love, 
 My heart's deep grief to quell. 
 
 “Yet my spirit clings to thine, love; 
 Thy soul remains with me, 
 
 And oft we ’ll hold communion sweet 
 O’er the dark and distant sea. 
 
 “ And who can paint our mutual joy, 
 When, all our wanderings o’er, 
 
 We both shall clasp our infants three, 
 At home, on Burma’s shore! 
 
 “But higher shall our raptures glow, 
 
 On yon celestial plain, 
 
 When the loved and parted here below 
 Meet, ne’er to part again.” 
 
 Mrs, Judson soon experienced a relapse, and Dr. Jud- 
 son decided to continue with her to America. They took 
 passage on the “ Sophia Walker,” bound for the United 
 States, leaving Port Louis July 25. 
 
 Mrs. Judson rallied once, but again failed rapidly. The 
 ship reached St. Helena Aug. 26, and remained there for 
 a few days. Mrs. Judson longed to see her parents, from 
 whom she had been separated twenty years, and especially 
 her son George, then seventeen years old; but she was 
 equally ready for the unseen world, saying to her hus¬ 
 band: “I am longing to depart. . . . What can I want 
 beside?” ; but was constrained to say, “ I am in a strait 
 betwixt two ; let the will of God be done.” 
 
 She was so resigned about the children remaining in 
 Burma, that Dr. Judson said: “You seem to have for- 
 
306 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 gotten the little ones we have left behind.” “ Can a 
 mother forget ? ” she replied, and was unable to proceed. 
 Charlie had then been dead three weeks, but the parents 
 did not know it. 
 
 On Sept. 1, at two o’clock in the morning, her husband 
 said to her : “ Do you still love the Saviour ? ” “ Oh, yes ! ” 
 she replied, “ I ever love the Lord Jesus Christ.” “ Do 
 you still love me ? ” he asked. She answered in the 
 affirmative. “Then give me one more kiss,” he said. 
 An hour later she had passed away. 
 
 During the day a coffin was procured from the shore, 
 and in the afternoon the body was taken to the land, and 
 buried at six o’clock, near the grave of Airs. Chater, a 
 missionary from Ceylon, who also had died on the passage 
 home. The ship sailed away that evening. “ In the soli¬ 
 tude of my cabin, with my poor children citing around 
 me,” writes Dr. Judson, “ I could not help abandoning 
 myself to heart-breaking sorrow. ... I exceedingly re¬ 
 gret that there is no portrait of the second as of the first 
 Mrs. Judson. Her soft blue eye, her mild aspect, her 
 lovely face and elegant form have never been delineated 
 on canvas. They must soon pass away from the memory 
 even of her children, but they will remain forever en¬ 
 shrined in her husband’s heart.” Dead at forty-two, but 
 Sarah Boardman Judson’s work had been most helpful 
 and lasting. “ Her translation of Mr. Boardman’s ‘ Dying 
 Father’s Advice,’” writes Dr. Judson, “ has become one 
 of our standard tracts ; and her hymns, in Burmese,— about 
 twenty in number — are probably the best in our ‘ Chapel 
 Hymn Book,’ a work which she was appointed by the 
 mission to edit. Besides these works, she published four 
 volumes of Scripture questions, which are in constant use 
 in our Sabbath Schools. The last work of her life — and 
 
ANN*, SARAH, AND EMILY HUDSON. 
 
 307 
 
 one which she accomplished in the midst of overwhelming 
 family cares, and under the pressure of declining health — 
 was a series of Sunday cards, each accompanied with 
 a short hymn adapted to the leading subject of the 
 card. . . . 
 
 “Her acquaintance with, and attachment to, the Bur¬ 
 mese Bible were rather extraordinary. She professed to 
 take more pleasure and derive more profit from the perusal 
 of that translation than from the English, and to enjoy 
 preaching in the native chapel more than in any other.” 
 
 As teacher, scholar, mother, and wife, Mrs. Judson has 
 left a fragrant and enduring memory; a woman rising 
 above obstacles, using her time to remarkable advantage; 
 gentle yet fearless in her work. “The most finished and 
 faultless specimen of an American woman,” said her Eng¬ 
 lish friends in Calcutta, “ that they had ever known.” 
 
 Dr. Judson reached Boston Oct. 15,1845, in feeble health, 
 with his three motherless children. lie found homes, and 
 churches, and colleges, all eager to see and hear him. 
 Everywhere, and at all times, he showed the same devotion 
 to missions. When, at a convention held in New York 
 City, it was proposed to abandon the Arracan Mission, 
 he rose to his feet, and, though unable to speak above a 
 whisper, said : “ Though forbidden to speak by my medi¬ 
 cal adviser, I must say a few words. I must protest 
 against the abandonment of the Arracan Mission. . . . 
 If the convention think my services can be dispensed with 
 in finishing my dictionary, I will go immediately to Arra¬ 
 can ; or, if God should spare my life to finish my diction¬ 
 ary, I will go there afterward and labor there, and die, 
 and be buried there.” These words were repeated to the 
 audience by Dr. Cone. The mission was not abandoned. 
 
 Years before, when he had received nearly four thou- 
 
308 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMAXHOOD. 
 
 sand dollars for his work for the government, in the 
 treaty at Ava, and as a diplomat, he gave all the money 
 to the mission. Ilis private property he gave also to the 
 mission. Though he said that he and others received 
 “ less than any English missionaries of any denomination, 
 in any part of the East,” he lessened his yearly allowance 
 from the Board Ijy one quarter. 
 
 His son Edward, in his father’s Life, tells this amusing 
 incident: “ The railroad system had sprung into existence 
 during his absence. He entered the cars at Worcester 
 one day, and had just taken his seat, when a boy came 
 along with the daily newspapers. He said to Mr. Judson, 
 ‘Do you want a paper, sir?’ ‘ Yes, thank you,’ the mis¬ 
 sionary replied ; and, taking the paper, began to read. The 
 newsboy stood waiting for his pay, until a lady passenger, 
 occupying the same seat with Mr. Judson, said to him ? 
 4 The boy expects to be paid for his paper.’ 4 Why ! ’ re¬ 
 plied the missionary, with the utmost surprise. 4 1 have 
 been distributing papers gratuitously in Burma so long 
 that I had no idea the boy was expecting any pay.’ ” 
 
 In January, 1846, Dr. Judson met in Philadelphia Miss 
 Emily Chubbock, then known in the literary world as 
 44 Fanny Forester.” He wished some competent Christian 
 person to write a life of Sarah Boardman Judson, as the 
 Rev. James D. Knowles, of Boston, had written one of 
 Ann Hasseltine Judson. Miss Chubbock was well fitted 
 for the work, undertook it, and it was published two years 
 later, soon having a sale of twenty-eight thousand copies. 
 
 Emily Clmbbock’s history had been an interesting one. 
 She was born, Aug. 22, 1817, in Eaton, in the central part 
 of New York State, whither her parents had removed from 
 New Hampshire, the same State in which Sarah Boardman 
 was born. Thev had been in comfortable circumstances, 
 
EMILY C JUDSON. 
 
AYY, SAB An, AND EMILY JUDSOY. 309 
 
 but having lost their money, the father never seemed able 
 again to win support for his family. Emily’s mother was 
 a woman of fine intellect, with the will-power and sagacity 
 which the father seemed to lack. 
 
 Emily was a delicate child, the fiflh in a large family. 
 At the early age of eleven she was working in a woollen 
 factory, earning one dollar and tw r enty-five cents a week. 
 “My principal recollections during this summer,” she 
 wrote afterwards, “ are of noise and filth, bleeding hands 
 and aching feet, and a very sad heart.” 
 
 She worked twelve hours a day, — too long for either 
 child or adult, — “and,” she wrote, “came home com¬ 
 pletely worn out with fatigue.” One May day, when she 
 Avas twelve years old, the carding-machine broke, and she, 
 having the afternoon to herself, used all her money in 
 hiring a horse and wagon to take her sick sister, Lavinia, 
 out driving. “ We spread a buffalo-robe on a pretty, dry 
 knoll, and father carried her to it in his arms. I shall 
 never forget how happy she was, nor how Kate and I 
 almost buried her in violets and other wild spring flowers. 
 It was the last time that she ever went out.” 
 
 When Emily was thirteen she saw in the “Baptist 
 Kegister ” the words, “Little Maria lies by the side of 
 her fond mother.” She knew at once that Mrs. Ann H. 
 Judson was dead, and she pitied Dr. Judson in his loneli¬ 
 ness. She even made up her mind to be a missionary 
 herself, though it seemed like a far-off possibility. 
 
 She says : “ We suffered a great deal from cold this winter, 
 though we had plenty of plain food. Indeed, we never were 
 reduced to hunger. But the house was large and unfinished, 
 and the snow sometimes drifted into it in heaps. We 
 were unable to repair it, and the owner was unwilling. 
 Father was absent nearly all the time distributing news- 
 
310 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 papers,” — one can but respect a man who is willing to 
 work to the uttermost, at any occupation however menial, 
 to help care for the children whom he has brought into the 
 world, — “and the severity of the winter so affected his 
 health that he could do but little when he was at home. 
 Mother, Harriet, and T were frequently compelled to go 
 out into the fields and dig broken wood out of the snow 
 to keep ourselves from freezing. Catharine and I went 
 to the district school as much as we could.” 
 
 They now moved to a farm, partly on account of the 
 poor health of Emily. Mr. Chubbock’s experiment at 
 farming proved a complete failure, and they moved back 
 to the village into a poor shelter, with two rooms below 
 and a loft above, reached by means of a ladder. Emily 
 got employment of a Scotch weaver at twisting thread, and 
 the others took in sewing, or tried to earn a living in 
 various ways. 
 
 Finally, the slight girl of fifteen, who seems to have had 
 a large part of the energy of the family, obtained a posi¬ 
 tion as school-teacher at seventy-five cents a week, 
 with the not altogether enjoyable feature of “ boarding 
 round.” The young, enthusiastic teacher was much 
 liked. She taught in the neighboring towns till she was 
 twenty. 
 
 There were, of course, home troubles: “failure in 
 stage-coach business. The family removed to Hamilton, 
 but returned in the spring; home lost; horses, coaches, 
 etc., seized and sold at auction.” Her father seems to 
 have made the mistake of thousands of men who prefer to 
 do business for themselves ou small capital rather than 
 work for others on a limited salary, the latter often being 
 a hundred times more conducive to the happiness and com¬ 
 fort of wife and children. Mrs. Chubboek, crushed with 
 
ANN, SABAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 311 
 
 this constant failure, and care, had brain-fever and inflam¬ 
 mation of the lungs. 
 
 Emily C'hubboek, besides teaching a hundred pupils, was 
 studying Greek with a student in the theological semi¬ 
 nary, and mathematics with a minister, writing poetry and 
 prose for the village newspapers, and showing an ability 
 that surprised and delighted all avIio knew her. She said 
 to a friend at this time; “ I have felt ever since I read the 
 memoir of Mrs. Ann II. Judson, when I was a mere child, 
 that I must become a missionary. I fear it is but a childish 
 fancy, and am making every effort to banish it from my 
 mind ; yet the more I seek to divert my thoughts from it, 
 the more unhappy I am.” One recalls how' the life of 
 Samuel J. Mills influenced Sarah Hall in her missionary 
 desires; who shall estimate the power of a book? 
 
 Finally, friendship did for Emily Chubbock what it can 
 often do, if we only think for others instead of selfishly 
 living for ourselves. What are we in the world for if not 
 to use our thoughts, our eyes, our hands, and our money 
 to help others ? 
 
 Miss Allen, of Morrisville, where Emily had taught, had 
 become her friend. When the former vent to the then 
 well-known Utica Seminary, she told the principal, Miss 
 Sheldon, of the girl who was struggling for an education. 
 Miss Sheldon at once proposed to Emily to spend two or 
 three years at her seminary, and pay for it by subsequent 
 teaching. This proposition was gladly accepted. 
 
 “ She was at this time,” says a friend, “ a frail, slen¬ 
 der creature, shrinking with nervous timidity from ob 
 servation ; yet her quiet demeanor, noiseless step, low' 
 voice, earnest and observant glance of the eye, awakened 
 at once interest and attention. . . . Miss Chubbock had 
 a heart full of sympathy; and no grief was too causeless, 
 
312 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 no source of annoyance too slight, for her not to endeavor 
 to remove them. She therefore soon became a favorite 
 with the younger, as with the older and more appreciative 
 scholars. Her advice was asked, her opinions sought, and 
 her taste consulted.” 
 
 Through the kindness of Mr. Hawley, of a bookselling 
 firm in Utica, a publisher in New York City agreed to 
 bring out a little volume for Emily of one hundred and 
 twelve pages, “ Charles Linn ; or, How to Observe the 
 Golden Rule ” : a book for children. She w r as to receive 
 ten per cent of the net price of the books, and to be paid 
 twice a year. 
 
 For the first edition, of fifteen hundred, sold in eleven 
 weeks, she received fifty-one dollars. All authors know 
 how rejoiced the young teacher’s heart must have been. 
 
 She was working far beyond her strength. Prof. A. C. 
 Kendrick, in his “ Life of Emily Chubbock,” says : “With 
 throbbing head and tingling nerves and an aching heart she 
 sat down to her papers, and it was only by sending her 
 thoughts away to the humble roof which sheltered those 
 who were dearer to her than life, and reflecting on the 
 sweetness of ministering to their wants, that she could 
 spur her flagging energies to their work. . . . 
 
 “As Miss Sheldon was at one time passing, near mid¬ 
 night, through the halls, a light streaming from Emily’s 
 apartment attracted her attention, and softly opening the 
 door, she stole in upon her vigils. Emily sat in her night¬ 
 dress, her papers lying outspread before her, grasping with 
 both hands her throbbing temples, and pale as a marble 
 statue. Miss Sheldon went to her, whispered words of 
 sympathy, and gently chided her for robbing her system 
 of its needed repose. Emily’s heart was already full, and 
 now the fountain of feeling overflowed in uncontrollable 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 313 
 
 weeping. ‘ O Miss Sheldon ! ’ she exclaimed ; ‘ I must 
 write, I must write ; I must do what I can to aid my poor 
 parents.’ ” 
 
 She wrote her sister Kate : “ Miss Sheldon has given 
 me some slips of geranium, but I am afraid they will die, 
 because I cannot get any jars to put them in. If they 
 live, I will bring them to you. I could get pretty flower¬ 
 pots for eighteen cents apiece. O Poverty, how vexatious 
 thou art!” 
 
 “ The Great Secret; or, How to be Happy,” soon fol¬ 
 lowed; then “ Effie Maurice,” “Allen Lucas; or, The 
 Self-made Man,” and some other Sunday-school books. 
 
 The income was comparatively little, but Emily at once 
 bought for her parents, in Hamilton, a small house and 
 garden for four hundred dollars, and hoped that her brain 
 and health would last till it was paid for. She wrote to a 
 friend, “There is nothing like coining one’s brain into 
 gold — no, bread — to make the heart grow sick.” 
 
 While on a visit to New York, when she was twenty- 
 seven, she wrote a bright letter to the Evening Mirror , 
 then edited by George P. Morris and N. P. Willis, sign¬ 
 ing the letter “ Fanny Forester.” The letter pleased Mr. 
 Willis, and lie gladly accepted her sketches. 
 
 At once people began to ask about the new and sprightly 
 author. Magazine editors wrote, seeking her productions 
 at the highest prices then paid. They had returned them 
 to her, or let them lie for months unnoticed and unanswered, 
 before Mr. Willis “ discovered ” her. It is gratifying 
 that every now and then there is au editor like Mr. Willis, 
 who “ discovers ” genius. Though she never met Mr. 
 Willis but once, she* always felt the deepest gratitude for 
 his kindness and appreciation. “I shall goon glorifying 
 you in our new daily paper,” he wrote her, “ until the maga- 
 
314 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 zine people give you fifty dollars an article,” — and so he 
 did. 
 
 When fame came, health failed. Emily Chubbock had 
 struggled long for recognition, and now the frail body was 
 too weak for its added work. She was invited to the 
 house of a minister, Dr. Gillette, of Philadelphia, a friend 
 of Miss Sheldon’s, though a stranger to her, to see if the 
 mild climate and rest would not restore the waning life. 
 
 She partially regained her health, and brought out sev¬ 
 eral of her magazine sketches on her return to Utica, in a 
 book entitled, “ Trippings in Author Land.” The book 
 was heartily welcomed. Her taste, her powers of reason¬ 
 ing, her sense of humor, her refinement, her graphic 
 descriptions, were everywhere talked about. When she 
 spent the following winter with the family of Dr. 
 Gillette, all doors were opened to her, and a new life 
 seemed, indeed, begun. 
 
 But other paths were opening to her. Dr. Judson was 
 on his way to Philadelphia to attend some missionary 
 meetings, and was to be escorted thither from Boston by 
 Dr. Gillette. On their way, a slight accident detaining 
 them for two or three hours, Dr. Gillette, seeing that a 
 friend had the newly published “Trippings in Author 
 Land,” borrowed it and handed it to Dr. Judson. He 
 took it hesitatingly, as the title seemed to him rather 
 frivolous, but was soon charmed by the grace of the style, 
 and vivacity of the writer. 
 
 Handing back the book, he said that it was written with 
 great beauty and power. He asked if the author was a 
 Christian, and said, “I should be glad to know her. A 
 lady who writes so well ought to write better. It is a pity 
 that such fine talents should be employed upon such sub¬ 
 jects.” 
 
ANN, SAEAH, AND EMIL Y JUDSON. 
 
 315 
 
 Upon being told that he would soon meet her, as she 
 was a guest at the Gillette home, he asked, “ Is she a 
 Baptist?” and was answered in the affirmative. 
 
 The next morning the devoted and scholarly missionary 
 of fifty-seven met the refined and charming author of 
 twenty-eight. He was pleased with her intellect and 
 sympathetic nature; she admired his mind and his devo¬ 
 tion to his work. As the acquaintance grew, both loved 
 each other with an ardor that not even death could 
 quench. Neither did he forget the two noble women 
 who had blessed his life already. 
 
 The letters which passed between Dr. Judson and Emily 
 after they were betrothed to each other, while they show 
 great depth of affection on the part of each, show no for¬ 
 getting of the departed. He writes from Boston: “I 
 have just been having a good cry here alone, in Mr. 
 Colby’s chamber, about my poor dear children. I left 
 the two boys yesterday crying as they set off in the cars 
 for Worcester. Abby Ann I took on to Bradford, and 
 this morning I left her crying at the Hasseltines’. And 
 thoughts of the children bear my mind to their departed 
 mother, and I review the scenes on board the ‘ Sophia 
 Walker’ and at St. Helena. And then I stretch away to 
 my two little forsaken orphans in Burma; and then I turn 
 to you, whom I love not less, though but a recent acquaint¬ 
 ance.” 
 
 And Miss Chubbock writes back : “I am longing to 
 see the little darlings. And, dearest, my own dearest, 
 best friend, God helping me, they shall never feel the 
 loss of the sainted one. Do not call them ‘ orphans’ any 
 more. I will love them and watch over them, and when 
 I fail in anything you will point out the faults and teach 
 me better.” And when she had become Emily Judson, 
 she kept nobly her promise. 
 
316 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Death had come so often to Dr. Judson that he almost 
 feared it again : “And must this face ever become settled,” 
 he writes her, “ cold, lifeless, like those other faces that I 
 once feasted on ? And must I again press down the stif¬ 
 fening eyelids on the extinguished orbs of love?” 
 
 The world did not favor the marriage. Many friends 
 even could not believe that a writer of fiction was suited 
 to be a missionary’s wife, and they felt sure that to place 
 a brilliant author in desolate India was a sacrifice too great 
 to be thought of. 
 
 But “ Fanny Forester” wrote to her friends : “ I am a 
 great admirer of greatness — real, genuine greatness ; and 
 goodness has an influence which I have not the power to 
 resist. ... I would go with him the world over. There 
 is a noble structure within, singularly combining delicacy 
 and strength, which will afford me protection and shelter 
 in this world,—-a place where my own weak nature may 
 rest itself securely, — a thing that never will grow old, and 
 that I shall love in eternity. So 3*011 see that in going to 
 Burma I make no sacrifices ; for the things that I resign, 
 though more show}*, are not half as dear to me as those 
 which I gain.” 
 
 Dr. Judson was not moved b } 7 all the adverse comment, 
 and when Emily wrote, “ I dread the coming of something 
 that ma } 7 separate us, or make 11 s less happy in each other,” 
 he replied, “ I wonder whether 3*011 think that anything I 
 hear or can hear will ever make me regret the blessed 
 Providence that carried me to Delaware 12 th, or feel un¬ 
 grateful for your kind love, which has allowed m } 7 spirit 
 to mingle with }*ours in a union which neither time nor 
 death can ever dissolve. . . . 
 
 “ I have been so cried down at different periods of my 
 life — especiall}* when I became a Baptist, and lost all, all 
 
ANN, SARAH, ANU EMIL Y JUDSON. 
 
 317 
 
 but Ann — that I suppose I am a little hardened. But I 
 feel for you, for it is your first field. Whatever of strength 4 
 or shield is mine, or I can draw down from Heaven, is 
 yours.” 
 
 The copyright of “Trippings” was purchased from the 
 publisher, and Ticknor, Read & Fields, of Boston, brought 
 out the work in two handsome volumes, under the title of 
 “ Alderbrook.” 
 
 Dr. Judson and Emily Chubbock were married June 2, 
 1846, and July 11 they sailed from Boston, many friends 
 coming to say good-by, among them the slender boy of 
 eighteen, George Dana Boardman, whom his mother had 
 so longed to see once more before she died, at St. Helena. 
 
 They were four months on the journey to Maulmain. 
 In passing the island of St. Helena, Dr. Judson thought 
 of Sarah Boardman, and said, “Farewell, rock of the 
 ocean ! I thank thee that thou hast given me a ‘ place 
 where I might bury my dead.’” And when the promon¬ 
 tory of Amherst loomed in sight lie discerned with a 
 small telescope on the greeu bank “the small enclosure 
 which contains the sleeping-place of my dear Ann and her 
 daughter, Maria.” 
 
 And when later he was absent from home for a time he 
 wrote to his wife, “ Here we lie, with Amherst in sight 
 from my cabin window,— Amherst, whither I brought 
 Ann, and returned to find her grave; Amherst, whither 
 I brought Sarah, on returning from my matrimonial tour 
 to Tavoy, and whence I took her away in the 1 Paragon ’ 
 to return no more; Amherst, the terminus of my long 
 voyage in the ‘ Faneuil Hall ’ with Emily. The place 
 seems like the centre of many radii of my past ex¬ 
 istence. . . . 
 
 “ I seem to have lived in several worlds ; but you are 
 
318 
 
 FA MO US TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 the earthly sun that illuminates my present. My thoughts 
 and affections revolve around you, and cling to your form 
 and face and lips. Other luminaries have been extin¬ 
 guished by death. T think of them -with mournful de¬ 
 light, and anticipate the time when we shall all shine to¬ 
 gether as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars 
 for ever and ever.” 
 
 What wonder that a man who could love earnestly, yet 
 not forget, was a kind and thoughtful husband ! Mrs. 
 Judson wrote long after: “He was always planning 
 pleasant little surprises for his family and neighbors, 
 and kept up through married life those little lover-like 
 attentions which I believe husbands are apt to forget. . . . 
 If he went out before I was awake in the morning, very 
 likely some pretty message would be pinned to my mos¬ 
 quito curtain. If he was obliged to stay at a business 
 meeting, or any such place, longer than he thought I ex¬ 
 pected, some little pencilled line that he could trace with¬ 
 out attracting attention would be despatched to me. . . . 
 He was always earnest, enthusiastic, sympathizing, even 
 in the smallest trifles ; tender, delicate, and considerate — 
 never moody.” 
 
 Dr. Judson and his wife were met by warm hearts at 
 Maulmain. The natives scrambled up the sides of the 
 vessel, and could scarcely wait to clasp the hand of the 
 missionary. 
 
 Mrs. Judson took the two motherless children, Henry 
 and Edward, to her heart. “ I do love the dear children 
 that a saint in heaven has left me,” she wrote home to 
 America. ‘ ‘ I love them for their own sakes ; for sweeter, 
 more lovely little creatures never breathed ; brighter, more 
 beautiful blossoms never expanded in the cold atmosphere 
 of this world. . . . Edward is the loveliest child that I 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 319 
 
 ever saw; there is something which seems to me angelic in 
 his patience and calmness.” 
 
 Dr. Judson wrote to his sister that “ Emily makes one 
 of the best wives and kindest mothers to the children that 
 ever man was blessed with ” ; and to his boys in America, 
 that his wife had just put their little brothers in bed, and 
 that “ Henry is singing and talking aloud to himself; and 
 what do you think he is saying? ‘ My own mamma went 
 away, away in a boat. And then she got wings and went 
 up. And Charlie, too, went up, and they are flying above 
 the moon and the stars.’ ” 
 
 Dr. Judson determined to try again if Burmese intoler¬ 
 ance could not be overcome, and moved his family from 
 Maulmain to Rangoon. They hired the upper part of a 
 brick house, which Mrs. Judson called “ Bat Castle.” 
 Maulmain had not been altogether a perfect abode, when, 
 as Mrs. Judson wrote, “ Frogs hop from my sleeves when 
 I put them on, and lizards drop from the ceiling to the 
 table when we are eating ”; and the floors were black with 
 ants ; but Rangoon was far less desirable. 
 
 She wrote to her sister Kitty: “The floor overhead is 
 quite low, and the beams, which are frequent, afford shelter 
 to thousands and thousands of bats, that disturb us in the 
 daytime only by a little cricket-like music, but in the 
 night, — oh, if you could only hear them carouse! . . . 
 We have had men at work nearly a week trying to thin 
 them out, and have killed a great many hundreds. . . . 
 Besides the bats, we are blessed with our full share of 
 cockroaches, beetles, spiders, lizards, rats, ants, mosqui¬ 
 toes, and bedbugs. With the last, the wood-work is all 
 alive, and the ants troop over the house in great droves, 
 though there are scattering ones besides. Perhaps twenty 
 have crossed my paper since I have been writing. Only 
 
320 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 one cockroach has paid me a visit, but the neglect of these 
 gentlemen has been fully made up by a company of black 
 bugs, about the size of the end of your little finger, 
 nameless adventurers.” 
 
 Despite all this, the missionaries worked on unceas¬ 
 ingly, Dr. Judson preaching and preparing his great Bur¬ 
 mese dictionary, two volumes, containing over one thou¬ 
 sand pages, and Mrs. Judson learning the language, 
 conducting prayer-meetings, caring for her children, “ and 
 so, so happy in each other; ten times happier than if 
 in America in a palace ” — “a deliciously happy family,” 
 Dr. Judson wrote to his daughter Abby. After seven 
 months, the appropriations for Indian missions having been 
 curtailed, they returned to Maulmain, where their house, 
 in which all their best clothing and most valuable goods 
 were kept, had been burned, with all its contents; but 
 Dr. Judson said, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath 
 taken away; blessed be /lie name of the Lord!” 
 
 On Dec. 24, 1847, Emily Frances was born to Mrs. 
 Judson, whose welcome the mother has so beautifully sung 
 in “ My Bird ” : — 
 
 “ Ere last year’s moon had left the sky, 
 
 A birdling sought my Indian nest, 
 
 And folded, Oh, so lovingly! 
 
 Her tiny wings upon my breast. 
 
 “ From morn till evening’s purple tinge 
 In winsome helplessness she lies; 
 
 Two rose leaves, with a silken fringe, 
 
 Shut softly on her starry eyes. 
 
 “ There’s not in Ind a lovelier bird; 
 
 Broad earth owns not a happier nest; 
 
 O God! Thou hast a fountain stirred, 
 
 Whose waters never more shall rest. 
 
ANN, SABAH , AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 321 
 
 “ This beautiful, mysterious thing, 
 
 This seeming visitant from heaven, 
 
 This bird with the immortal wing, 
 
 To me, to me, Thy hand has given. 
 
 “ The pulse first caught its tiny stroke, 
 
 The blood its crimson hue, from mine, — 
 
 This life which I have dared invoke, 
 
 Henceforth is parallel witli Thine. 
 
 “ A silent awe is in my room; 
 
 I tremble with delicious fear; 
 
 The future with its light and gloom, — 
 
 Time and Eternity are here. 
 
 “Doubts, hopes, in eager tumult rise; 
 
 Hear, O my God! one earnest prayer : 
 
 Room for my bird in paradise, 
 
 And give her angel-plumage there.” 
 
 Dr. Judson wrote to Abby, “Emily Frances is the 
 sweetest little fairy you ever saw.” Somewhat later Mrs. 
 Judson became very ill, and fears were entertained of her 
 death. The children, too, became ill. In helping to care 
 for them, Dr. Judson took a severe cold, and broke down 
 so rapidly that a sea voyage seemed the only possible re¬ 
 storative. His wife accompanied him to Amherst, where 
 they spent a month, but he did not improve. 
 
 He longed to live to complete his dictionary. “People will 
 call it a strange providence,” he said, “ if I do not live to 
 finish my dictionary. But to me it will be a strange provi¬ 
 dence if I do. Men almost always leave some work, that 
 they or their friends consider vastly important, unfinished. 
 It is a way God has of showing us what really worthless 
 creatures we are, and how altogether unnecessary, as 
 active agents, in the working out of his plans.” He did 
 
3 22 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 not live to finish his dictionary, and other hands completed 
 the great work. 
 
 It was decided that he should take a longer sea voyage, 
 and so he embarked, April 3, 1850, on the “Aristide 
 Marie,” bound for the Isle of France. He could not bear 
 to leave his family, and often said, “ Oh, if it were only the 
 will of God to take me now, — to let me die here ! I can¬ 
 not, cannot go. This is almost more than I can bear ” ; 
 and yet his face would brighten as he repeated, “ Oh, the 
 love of Christ! the love of Christ! We cannot under¬ 
 stand it now, — but what a beautiful study for eternity ! ” 
 
 Again, he said, when told by his wife that it was the 
 opinion of the mission that he would not recover, “ I know 
 it is, and I suppose they think me an old man, and imagine 
 it is nothing for one like me to resign a life so full of 
 trials. But I am not old, at least in that sense; you know 
 I am not. Oh, no man ever left this world with more in¬ 
 viting prospects, with brighter hopes or warmer feelings — 
 warmer feelings ” ; and he burst into tears. 
 
 “It is not because I shrink from death that I wish to 
 live, neither is it because the ties that bind me here, though 
 some of them are very sweet, bear any comparison with 
 the drawings I at times feel towards heaven ; but a few 
 years would not be missed from my eternity of bliss, and 
 I can well afford to spare them, both for your sake and for 
 the sake of the poor Burmans. I am not tired of my work, 
 neither am I tired of the world : yet, when Christ calls me 
 home, I shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away 
 from his school. . . . I am ready to go to-day, if it should 
 be the will of God, — this very hour ; but I am not anxious 
 to die.” 
 
 The “Aristide Marie ” did not sail till Monday, April 8, 
 five days after Dr. Judson had embarked. His wife was 
 
ANN, SABAH, AND EMILY JUDSON. 
 
 323 
 
 unable to accompany Jiim. On Wednesday evening, a 
 friend said, “ I hope you feel that Christ is now near, sus¬ 
 taining you.” “Oh, yes!” he replied; u it is all right 
 there.” 
 
 On Friday afternoon, April 12, he said, in Burmese, to 
 a servant, “It is done; I am going. . . • Take care of 
 poor mistress.” lie died at a quarter past four. 
 
 A strong plank cofliu was soon constructed, sand was 
 poured in to make it sink, and at eight o’clock the crew 
 assembled, and, in perfect silence, the body was committed 
 to the sea, in latitude thirteen degrees north, and longitude 
 ninety-three degrees east, three days out of sight of the 
 mountains of Burma. 
 
 A man of devoted piety, rare scholarship, sunny nature, 
 and indomitable will, Dr. Judson wrought a wonderful 
 work in his lifetime; a work that has gone on in an ever- 
 increasing ratio since his death. When he died there 
 were sixty-three churches among the Burmans and the 
 Karens, under the charge of one hundred and sixty-three 
 missionaries, native pastors and assistants, with seven 
 thousand native Christians. The Rev. J. E. Clough, D. D., 
 of the Telugu Mission in southeastern India, a people 
 numbering eighteen millions, says in the Independent for 
 May 19, 1892, of the twenty-one Baptist mission sta¬ 
 tions among the Burmese, Karens, and Shans, “ There are 
 about thirty thousand communicants, with five hundred 
 churches and chapels, of which one stands on the site of 
 the prison of Ouug-pen-Ia, where Dr. Judson was im¬ 
 prisoned, and where his devoted wife heroically struggled 
 for long months to preserve his life.” 
 
 Since Dr. .Tudson’s death, the American Board, the Bap¬ 
 tist Union, and kindred organizations in the Episcopal, 
 Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, have grandly car- 
 
324 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 ried on the labors in which he was the pioneer. The 
 American Baptist Missionary Union statistics for 1891 
 show four hundred and seventeen missionaries, two thou¬ 
 sand and thirty native preachers, fourteen hundred and 
 fifty-nine churches, and more than one hundred and sixty- 
 three thousand members, over eighteen thousand persons 
 having been baptized in 1891. 
 
 Mrs. Judson did not learn of her husband’s death till 
 four months had passed. Ten days after his death, April 
 22, his son Charles Avas born, dying the same day, of 
 whom his mother wrote in “ Angel Charlie ” : — 
 
 “ He came — a beauteous vision — 
 
 Then vanished from my sight. 
 
 His wing one moment cleaving 
 The blackness of my night; 
 
 My glad ear caught the rustle, 
 
 Then, sweeping by, he stole 
 The deAV-drop that his coming 
 Had cherished in my soul. 
 
 “ Oh, I would not recall thee, 
 
 My glorious angel boy! 
 
 Thou needest not my bosom, 
 
 Rare bird of light and joy; 
 
 Here dash I down the tear-drops, 
 Still gathering in my eyes; 
 
 Blest — oh ! hoAV blest! — in adding 
 A seraph to the skies! ” 
 
 To Mrs. Judson, as to the world, the loss of a man like 
 Dr. Judson was very great. She longed to stay in Burma, 
 “for,” she said, “ my heart is here. I loA'e the mission¬ 
 aries, love the work, and love the precious Christians that 
 haA r e been accustomed to gather round me for prayer and 
 
ANN, SARAH, AND EMILY JUDSON- 
 
 325 
 
 instruction. They sobbed like so many children when I 
 announced my purpose of returning.” 
 
 When failing health made a change of climate a neces¬ 
 sity, she bade adieu to Maulmain, Jan. 22, 1851, after live 
 short years of her married life, and, spending a little 
 time in England, reached Boston in October of the same 
 year, with her three fatherless children, Henry, Edward, 
 and Emily Frances. 
 
 She assisted Dr. Wayland in preparing a life of her 
 husband, published a little volume of poems, a collection 
 of essays, entitled “The Kathavan Slave,” its title taken 
 from the first narrative in the volume; a memorial of 
 Lavinia and Harriet Chubbock, entitled “ My Two Sis¬ 
 ters ” ; and was hoping to prepare an abridged memoir of 
 her husband, for Sabbath schools and for the young. 
 
 But a constitution never robust was breaking from its 
 early struggles with poverty. Indeed, even now, many 
 were dependent upon her, and her life was not an easy 
 one. 
 
 Toward the middle of the year 1854, consumption had 
 so wasted her vital forces that she longed for rest. “ It 
 is not,” she said, “ the pearly gates and golden streets of 
 heaven that attract me; it is its perfect rest in the pres¬ 
 ence of my Saviour. It will be so sweet, after a life of 
 care and toil like mine, though a very pleasant one it has 
 been, and I am only weary of the care and toil because I 
 have not strength to endure them. This lack of strength is 
 dreadful. . . . It is so sweet to die at home. I could not 
 bear the thought of being buried elsewhere than here, where 
 you all will probably rest by and by at my side.” 
 
 “ It is bright either way,” she said to a friend, who 
 had expressed the hope that God would restore her to 
 health. 
 
326 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD . 
 
 She died June 1, 1854, in the month of roses, as she had 
 wished, at the early age of thirty-seven. Though she 
 said, “There is one who will be inconsolable,” referring 
 to her little Emily, she made no provision for her in her 
 will other than for the rest of the children, to whom she 
 had been a loving mother. 
 
 On a simple headstone, in the cemetery at Hamilton, 
 N. Y., one may read the words, “ Dear Emily.” She had 
 been dear to the lamented Judson, dear to the Burmese, 
 whose language she spoke admirably, writing many hymns 
 in their native tongue, and dear to the tens of thousands 
 who appreciated her gifted mind, and the strength and 
 beauty of her character. 
 
AMELIA B. EDWARDS. 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 URINGr the winter of 1889-90, at the request of 
 
 twenty-five college presidents, and such men as 
 Lowell, Whittier, Holmes, and Howells, Miss Edwards 
 came to America to deliver a course of lectures on Egypt, 
 which she had given with great success in England and 
 Scotland. All who heard the gifted Englishwoman will 
 always remember her cheerful manner and her warm heart, 
 coupled with rare scholarship and such an enthusiasm for 
 her subject as made everybody long to visit and explore 
 the ancient country. 
 
 In every city where she spoke she was the recipient of 
 social courtesies from the most distinguished. Colum¬ 
 bia College had already, in 1887, given her the degree of 
 Doctor of Letters (L. H. D.), and Smith College made 
 her a Doctor of Laws, the first time such a distinction was 
 accorded in America to a woman. 
 
 In England she had won an honored place. The Crown 
 had recognized her services to knowledge by awarding her 
 a pension from the Civil List. When the Orientalists held 
 their Congress in Vienna in 188G, at the invitation of the 
 Emperor, Miss Edwards’s important paper was so much 
 appreciated that it was at once published in French, 
 German, and English. 
 
 When King Oscar invited the Congress to Stockholm, in 
 
328 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 1889, Miss Edwards’s paper treating of the Cypriote, 
 Phoenician, aud other signs upon the potsherds recently 
 discovered in Egypt v r as of so much interest that the 
 renowned Dr. Brugsch and others caused it to be read 
 again in the African section of the Congress. 
 
 In 1883, in conjunction with Sir Erasmus Wilson and 
 Prof. Reginald Stuart Poole, LL. D., she helped to found 
 the Egypt Exploration Fund, which has done, and is still 
 doing, an invaluable w'ork. The collecting of money 
 fell largely upon her; also the correspondence with the 
 explorers who were carrying forward the researches in the 
 Egyptian tombs and elsewhere; and the editing of the 
 works of these men, besides presenting the results of their 
 labors to the public through the London Times , the 
 Athenceum , the Academy , and other journals. She 
 watched every new discovery wdth delight. In Harper's 
 Magazine for July, 1882, she wrote of the finding of the 
 royal mummies now in the Bulak Museum in Cairo. 
 Prof. Maspero, in July, 1881, caused the arrest of some 
 Arabs whom he suspected of concealing valuable treas¬ 
 ures. These Arabs pointed out, at last, a buried tomb in 
 Dayr-el-Bahari, where were found some thirty-six mum¬ 
 mies of kings, queens, aud high-priests. These are now' 
 in the Bulak Museum. 
 
 In Harper's for October, 1886, she wrote on Tanis, 
 the Joan of the Bible; in The Century for January, 
 
 1890, on the Temple of Bubastis. 
 
 Her last illness was brought on by a visit to the London 
 docks, in November, 1891, to examine antiquities from 
 Almas, which were to be distributed in England and 
 America. In January and later, she rallied from pneu¬ 
 monia, but a relapse came, and she died, not at her home, 
 “ The Larches,” near Bristol, but at Weston-Super-mare, 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 329 
 
 on April 15, 1892, at five a. m. on Good Friday. She 
 was a little more than sixty-one years of age. 
 
 The end came suddenly and unexpectedly, bringing 
 sorrow to thousands of hearts in both hemispheres. 
 
 Miss Edwards was born June 7, 1831, in London. She 
 was the daughter of an army officer prominent in the 
 Peninsular Campaign under Wellington, and of an able 
 mother, descended from the Walpole family. Her ma¬ 
 ternal grandfather was an Irish barrister, Robert Walpole. 
 
 Her early education was begun by her mother, and car¬ 
 ried on by a tutor who fitted boys for college. At four 
 years of age she wrote a story, printing it in capital let¬ 
 ters; at seven, “The Knights of Old,” a poem, printed 
 in a weekly journal; at twelve, a long historical novel, of 
 the time of Edward III,, published in a penny paper, the 
 London Pioneer. 
 
 When she was fourteen she sent a story to “ The Omni¬ 
 bus,” a periodical edited by the late George Cruikshank. 
 On the back of the manuscript she drew sketches of her 
 chief characters. The great caricaturist was so pleased 
 with the art work that he visited the author and was 
 surprised to find her still a child. lie offered to train her 
 in his special work, but as she had decided to devote her¬ 
 self to music she declined his offer. For seven years she 
 studied music becoming a composer as well as a performer. 
 At the age of twenty-one she had become so successful 
 with her short stories in Chambers’s Journal and else¬ 
 where, that, having lost her property, she decided upon 
 literature as a profession, rather than singing in concerts 
 and operas. 
 
 From this time onward her life was one of continuous 
 labor, happy labor, and yet none the less exhausting and 
 constant. She wrote regularly for the press; reviews of 
 
330 
 
 FA MO US TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 books, musical, dramatic, and art criticisms, stories and 
 sketches for Household Words , Chambers’s Journal , and 
 Good Words , and was on the staff, at different times, 
 of several journals; the Saturday Review , the Graphic , 
 the Illustrated London Neivs , and the Morning Post. 
 Miss Edwards says in the Arena for August, 1891 : 
 “ Time is precious to me, and leisure is a thing unknown. 
 . . . When 1 am asked what are my working hours, I 
 reply, ‘ All the time when I am not either sitting at 
 meals, taking exercise, or sleeping’; and this is literally 
 true. I live with the pen in my hand, not only from 
 morning till night but sometimes from night till morning. 
 . . . For at least the last twenty-live years, I have rarely 
 put out my lamp before two or three in the morning. 
 Occasionally when work presses and a manuscript has to 
 be despatched by the earliest morning mail, 1 remain at 
 my desk the whole night through, and I can with certainty 
 say that the last chapter of every book I have ever written 
 has been finished at early morning.” 
 
 Her first novel, at least the first which attracted any 
 attention, was “ My Brother’s Wife,” published in 1855, 
 when Miss Edwards w r as twenty-four. Two years later, 
 in 1857, “The Ladder of Life” appeared, followed by 
 “Hand and Glove ” in 1858, and “Barbara’s History” 
 in 1864, the latter becoming a general favorite, being 
 translated into German, French, and Italian. 
 
 Meantime, in 1856, Miss Edwards had written “A 
 Summary of English History”; in 1858, “A Summary 
 of French History,” and a translation of “ A Lady’s Cap¬ 
 tivity among Chinese Pirates”; in 1862, “Sights and 
 Stories,” a holiday tour through North Belgium; in 1863, 
 “ The Story of Cervantes,” and the same year, “ Rachel 
 Noble’s Experience.” The next novel after “ Barbara’s 
 
AMELIA BLAND FORD EDWARDS. 
 
 331 
 
 History” was “Half a Million of Money,” published in 
 18(35, and the same year a volume of poems called “ Bal¬ 
 lads,” and one of short stories, called “ Miss Carew.” 
 
 “ Debenham’s Vow,” a story of the blockade at Charles¬ 
 town, appeared in 1870 ; “ The Sylvesters,” in 1871 ; “In 
 the Days of My Youth,” in 1873; and a volume of short 
 stories, “ Monsieur Maurice,” also in 1873. 
 
 She was now forty-two, and had published nearly twenty 
 Volumes, besides her large amount of journalistic work. 
 This meant a busy life indeed, varied by occasional visits 
 to Germany, Greece, and Italy. 
 
 In 1873, “ Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Val¬ 
 leys ” was published. It is a breezy and interesting 
 record of a journey in the South Eastern Tyrol, among the 
 limestone mountains called the “ Dolomites.” The book 
 shows Miss Edwards as ever the educated and energetic 
 woman; skilled in botany, knowing how to measure 
 mountains, to paint pictures, as well as to study character, 
 to get much of cheer out of the discomforts of an almost 
 unknown land. 
 
 The wedding scene in Cortina, where the bride and 
 groom exchange rings and receive the blessing of the 
 priest with their lighted candles in their hands, the hus¬ 
 band then going away to play at bowls, and the young- 
 wife to exchange her finery for her shabby, every-day 
 clothes, is a graphic picture. No tourist will ever go over 
 the route taken by Miss Edwards without looking for the 
 buried villages at the bottom of the lake of Alleghe, whose 
 church-spires and house-tops can still be seen. The four 
 villages were buried in this lake in 1771, through a land¬ 
 slide. It is said that a charcoal-burner, who had been at 
 work in the woods all day, ran through the villages telling 
 that the mountain was moving, but nobody heeded this 
 
332 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Eastern. Paul Revere, and in the night the mountain swept 
 down upon the sleepers and none escaped. Two villages 
 were buried and two were drowned. 
 
 Especially interesting is her description of Cadore, for¬ 
 ever immortalized as being the home of the great painter, 
 Titian. She saw the white-washed cottage where he was 
 born, with this inscription in Italian on the side wall: 
 “ In 1477, within these humble walls Titian Vecellio 
 entered a celebrated life, whence he departed, at the end 
 of nearly a hundred years, in Venice, on the 27th day of 
 August, 1576.” Adjoining is the old house where he is 
 believed to have painted, when eleven years of age, the 
 Madonna and the child standing on her knee, while a boy 
 (an angel), supposed to have the face of Titian, kneels at 
 the feet of the Virgin. 
 
 In the old Duomo Miss Edwards saw some pictures 
 believed to be genuine Titians, and found that the pastor of 
 the church thought “ Cadore the axis on which the world 
 goes round ” When one sees how thousands attach 
 themselves to any who have achieved fame, one marvels 
 why so many are unwilling to do the hard work which is 
 necessary to bring fame or success. 
 
 A second edition of “ Untrodden Peaks ” was published 
 in 1890, seventeen years after the first edition, dedicated 
 to “ My American Friends in all Parts of the World.” 
 
 In 1877 a book was published which was eagerly read, 
 and at once acknowledged to be the work of a scholar, 
 and an authority upon Egyptology, “ A Thousand Miles 
 up the Nile.” Heretofore Miss Edwards had been a 
 musician, a painter, a novelist, a charming woman socially : 
 now she was indeed a woman of whom her sex could 
 be proud, the accepted equal of prominent scholars, an 
 indefatigable worker, and one of comprehensive grasp. 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 333 
 
 No one can read the book without becoming forever after¬ 
 wards deeply interested in Egyptian history, having a desire 
 to see for one’s self the wonders of architecture in that 
 strange land, and the proofs of that remarkable civiliza¬ 
 tion, from which we may learn so much. She said she had 
 found that hieroglyphics could be read, “ for the simple 
 reason that I find myself able to read an Egyptian sentence.” 
 
 Miss Edwards and her friends sailed up the Nile in a 
 dahabeeyah, a flat-bottomed boat with two masts, with a 
 crew and other helpers, numbering twenty in all. The 
 Nile sailors she describes as a docile, good-tempered set, 
 who are paid a little more than two pounds a month. 
 Bread is their chief article of food, which they bake at 
 large public ovens along the river, cut in slices and dry 
 in the sun, and then soak in hot water, flavor with oil, 
 pepper, and salt, and stir it into boiled lentils till the 
 whole becomes like pea-soup. A little coffee twice a day 
 and a handful of dates, with this soup, constitute their 
 food for the journey. 
 
 Of course Miss Edwards saw the great pyramid at 
 Ghizeh, seven hundred and thirty-two feet long and four 
 hundred and eighty feet high, begun by King Khufu, or 
 Cheops, and supposed to have been over four thousand 
 two hundred years old at the time of the birth of Christ 
 
 At Sakkarah, after seeing more pyramids, she visited 
 the Serapeum, — the long-lost sepulchral temple of the 
 sacred bulls. These animals lived in the great temple of 
 Apis, at Memphis, when they were alive, and at death, 
 after being prepared like mummies, were buried in cat¬ 
 acombs in the desert. 
 
 In 1850, Mariette Bey, exploring in the interests of 
 the French Government, discovered this temple, and the 
 avenue six hundred feet long, leading to it, bordered with 
 
334 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 sphinxes. At the end of the main avenue was found a 
 semi-circular platform, around which stood statues of 
 famous Greek philosophers and poets. Besides the great 
 temple of the Serapeum there were found three smaller 
 temples, and three groups of Apis catacombs, vaults and 
 passages hewn out of the solid rock on which the temples 
 were built. 
 
 In these tombs Miss Edwards saw immense stone 
 coffins, fourteen feet in length, by eleven in height, each 
 coffin a single block of highly finished black granite. 
 Three of the sarcophagi bear the oval of Cambyses, the 
 second king of Persia, 529 B. C., who, being enraged at 
 one of the sacred bulls, drew his dagger and stabbed him 
 in the thigh. The bull died of his wound, according to 
 Herodotus. Mariette found in one of these sepulchral 
 chambers the footprints of the workmen, made four 
 thousand years before, in the thin layer of sand on the 
 pavement. 
 
 Memphis, the once great city 7 , with sacred groves, obe¬ 
 lisks, temples, and palaces, is now little more than dust 
 heaps. Apis, the sacred bull, once lived here in state, 
 taking his exercise in a courtyard where every column 
 was a statue. 
 
 Going up the river, the travellers were honored with a 
 visit from “ Holy Sheykh Cotton,” a well-fed man of 
 thirty, whose blessing makes the sailors sure of a success¬ 
 ful voj'age. “He has two wives,” says Miss Edwards; 
 “ he never does a stroke of work, and he looks the picture 
 of sleek prosperity. Yet he is a saint of the first water, 
 and when he dies miracles will be performed at his tomb, 
 and his eldest son will succeed him in the business.” 
 
 Another saint is Sheykh Selim, “ holiest of the holy, 
 dirtiest of the dirty, white-pated, white-bearded, withered, 
 
AMELIA BLAND FORD EDWARDS. 
 
 335 
 
 bent, and knotted up, — he who, naked and unwashed, has 
 sat on that same spot every day, through summer heat and 
 winter cold, for the last fifty years, never providing himself 
 with food or water; never even lifting his hand to his 
 mouth, depending on charity, not only for his food but 
 for his feeding.” 
 
 Worse, almost, than the ignorance and superstition of 
 the people is their filth. “ The children of the very 
 poor,” says Miss Edwards, “ are simply encrusted with 
 dirt and sores, and swarming with vermin. To wash 
 young children is injurious to health, therefore the 
 mothers suffer them to fall into a state of personal uu- 
 cleanliuess, which is alone enough to engender disease. 
 To brush away the flies that beset their eyes is impious; 
 hence, ophthalmia and various kinds of blindness. I have 
 seen infants in their mothers’ arms with six or eight tlies in 
 each eye. I have seen the little helpless hands put down 
 reprovingly if they approached the seat of annoyance.” 
 
 At Denderah, Miss Edwards saw the massive temple 
 begun by Ptolemy XI. upon a site where other temples 
 had been erected since the era of King Cheops. The 
 names of Augustus, Caligula, Tiberius, Nero, and others 
 are found in the royal ovals. The building must have 
 been comparatively new when in A. D. 379 the ancient 
 religion was abolished by the edict of Theodosius, and 
 forty thousand statues of divinity were destroyed. The 
 walls of the enclosure about the temple, with its groves 
 of palm and acacia, were one thousand feet in length, 
 thirty-live in height, and fifteen feet in thickness. 
 
 Here is a famous external bass-relief of Cleopatra, the 
 beautiful queen who knew ten languages, and who turned 
 the heads of Julius Cmsar and Mark Anthony. The 
 hair is plaited as the women of Egypt dress their hair 
 
336 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 to-day, in an almost infinite number of tiny plaits, the 
 ends covered with Nile mud dipped in yellow ochre. 
 
 The temple of Denderah contained store chambers, where 
 the vestments of the priests and the holy vessels must 
 have been kept, with cloisters and vast enclosures sur¬ 
 rounded by walls, where the solemn rites of the priest¬ 
 hood were probably observed. 
 
 The king is represented in his double character of 
 Pharaoh and high-priest in all the hieroglyphics of this 
 vast temple. He is conducted to the gods by goddesses, 
 lie is purified and crowned, and then presented in the 
 supreme presence of Hathor, the Goddess of Truth, and 
 of the Beautiful. Later he presents flowers, bread, and 
 Avine as offerings to Osiris. 
 
 The latter, the Good, was killed in a fight Avith Typhou 
 the Evil, and his body thrown into the Nile. IBs wife, 
 Isis, found it, and his soul was belieA r ed to enter into the 
 bull Apis. 
 
 In a dark chamber of the temple Avas the Holy of Holies, 
 where the golden sistrum or timbrel of the goddess was 
 kept. The king alone could take this mysterious emblem 
 from its niche, and enclosing it in a costly shrine, put it 
 in one of the sacred boats, to be hoisted on poles and car¬ 
 ried in procession on the shoulders of the priests. 
 
 At the temple of Luxor, in Thebes, Miss Edwards and 
 her party looked upon the representations of the battles 
 of Raineses II., usually called Rameses the Great. 
 He is said to have met his enemies single-handed, and to 
 have charged upon the foe six times, overthrowing twenty- 
 five hundred chariots and one hundred thousand warriors. 
 Those whom he did not kill he forced into the river. 
 Rameses II., called also Sesostris, began to reign at the 
 age of tAvelve, about 1405 B. C., Avith his father, Seti I., 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 337 
 
 the son o l Raineses I., the founder of dynasty XIX. 
 Rameses II. had three wives, as is told by the hieroglyph¬ 
 ics, an extensive harem, and his children numbered one 
 hundred and seventy. He was a wonderful ruler, build¬ 
 ing more than one hundred temples, digging artesian wells 
 and canals, and effecting the greatest improvements and 
 enterprises in his kingdom, through the forced labor of 
 slaves and captives taken in war. He is believed by 
 scholars to have been the Pharaoh of the captivity of the 
 Irsaelites, and his son, Menepthah, the Pharaoh of the 
 Exodus. 
 
 In 1881, Prof. Maspero found the mummy of this 
 famous chieftain, Rameses II., among the stolen and 
 hidden bodies in Dayr-el-Bahari. On the top of the 
 mummy case is an effigy of the body within. The hands 
 are crossed upon the breast. The right hand holds the 
 royal flail, and the left the royal crook. The eyes are 
 inserted in enamel, while the eyebrows and eyelashes arc 
 painted black. 
 
 The body itself was wrapped in orange and rose-colored 
 linen, very fine, with white bands to keep the shroud in 
 place. On these bands were written the name and history 
 of the king. 
 
 The Rev. Charles S. Robinson, D. I)., in his “Pharaohs 
 of the Bondage of the Exodus,” thus describes the mummy 
 of Rameses II. : “ The initial wrapping was removed, and 
 there was disclosed a band of stuff or strong cloth rolled 
 all around the body ; next to this was a second envelop, 
 sewed up and kept in place by narrow bands at some dis¬ 
 tance each from each; then came two thicknesses of 
 small bandages, and then a new winding-sheet of linen, 
 reaching from the head to the feet. Upon this a figure 
 representing the goddess Nut, more than a yard in length, 
 
338 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 bad been drawn in red and white color, as prescribed by 
 the ritual for the dead. Beneath this amulet there was 
 found one more bandage; when that was removed a piece 
 of linen alone remained, and this was spotted with the 
 bituminous matter used by the embalmers; so at last it 
 was evident that Rameses the Great was close by — under 
 his shroud. . . . 
 
 “A single clip of the scissors, and the king was fully 
 disclosed. The head is long, and small in proportion to 
 the body. The top of the skull is quite bare. On the 
 temple there are a few sparse liaiis, but at the poll the 
 hair is quite thick, forming smooth, straight locks about 
 two inches in length. White at the time of death, they 
 have been dyed a light yellow by the spices used in em¬ 
 balmment. The forehead is low and narrow . . . the 
 eyes are small and close together; the nose is long, thin, 
 arched like the noses of the Bourbons; the cheek-bones 
 very prominent; the ears round, standing far out from 
 the head, and pierced, like those of a woman, for the 
 wearing of ear-rings ; the jawbone is massive and strong; 
 the chin very prominent; the mouth small but thick- 
 lipped.” 
 
 The mummy is six feet long. At Dayr-el-Bahari were 
 found also the bodies of King Pinotem I., King Piuotem 
 II., Queen Isi-em-Kheb, and many others. With the 
 mummy of the queen were found mummified meats, — 
 trussed geese, calves’ heads, dried grapes and dates, all 
 packed in a large rush hamper, and sealed with her hus¬ 
 band’s seal. 
 
 Besides food for her future needs, her toilet was not 
 forgotten : her ointment bottles, several full-dress wigs, 
 curled and frizzed, a set of alabaster cups, and exquisite 
 goblets of variegated glass. 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 339 
 
 A wooden and ivory cabinet of the great woman Pha¬ 
 raoh of dynasty XVIII., Queen Hatasu, was found, con¬ 
 taining a desiccated human liver, possibly her own. She 
 was famous as a builder of ships and promoter of com¬ 
 merce. She was the wife of her brother, Thothmes II. 
 
 As the rites of mummification were performed for every 
 man, woman, and child, slave and criminal, it is estimated 
 that there have been in Egypt not less than 731,000,000 
 mummies. 
 
 Formerly a stately avenue two miles long bordered by 
 sphinxes about ten feet in length led from the temple at 
 Luxor to the one at Karnak. Miss Edwards thinks there 
 must have been two hundred and fifty sphinxes on each 
 side of the avenue. 
 
 At Karnak the travellers studied the Great Temple with 
 its doorway one hundred feet in height. The twelve 
 central columns of the hypostyle hall built by Seti, the 
 father of Kameses the Great, are sixty-two feet high, and 
 so large that six men with extended arms, finger-tip to 
 finger-tip, can barely span any one of them. The remain¬ 
 ing one hundred and twenty-two columns are gigantic 
 also. All are buried between six and seven feet in the 
 alluvial deposits. 
 
 Of this hall Miss Edwards says: “ The Pyramids 
 
 are more stupendous. The Colosseum covers more 
 ground. The Parthenon is more beautiful, yet in nobility 
 of conception, in vastness of detail, in majesty of the 
 highest order, the Hall of Pillars exceeds them every one. 
 This doorway, — these columns are the wonder of the 
 world.” 
 
 Miss Edwards became so absorbed in her water-color 
 paintings at these various places that she sometimes for¬ 
 got to eat. The faithful Arab servant would touch 
 
340 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 nothing at such time, saying, “By my prophet, am I a 
 pig or a dog, that I should eat when the Sitt is fasting?” 
 
 They explored Nubia, with its temples, tombs, and 
 strange people. They went among the natives, bought 
 girdles soaked in castor-oil, and other souvenirs of the 
 country. 
 
 Of the Nubian, Miss Edwards says: “He reckons 
 castor-oil among his greatest luxuries. He eats it as we 
 eat butter. His wives saturate their plaited locks with it. 
 His little girls perfume their fringes with it. His home, 
 his breath, his garments, his food are redoleut of it. It 
 pervades the very air in which he lives and has his being. 
 Happy the European traveller who, while his lines are 
 cast in Nubia, can train his degenerate nose to delight in 
 the aroma of castor-oil! ” 
 
 At Abou Simbel, in Nubia, the} 7 visited the temples 
 with the colossal statues of Raineses II. and his queen, 
 Nefertari, each thirty feet high, and their infants, ten 
 feet high. The superb hieroglyphics are cut half a foot 
 deep in the rock: “ Rameses, the Strong in Truth, the 
 Beloved of Amen, made this divine abode for his royal 
 wife, Nefertari, whom he loves.” In another place in the 
 temple one reads that “his royal wife, who loves him, 
 Nefertari, the Beloved of Mailt, constructed for him this 
 Abode in the Mountain of the Pure Waters.” The name 
 of Nefertari means perfect, good, or beautiful companion. 
 Evidently love was in the world in those days, as now. 
 
 Miss Edwards describes the monster battle scene with 
 1,100 figures, on the north side of the Great Hall. Ram¬ 
 eses drives before him the fugitives, after the battle. The 
 work must be seen at sunrise to be appreciated. 
 
 At Abou Simbel Miss Edwards and her party made 
 some interesting discoveries of rock-cut chambers in the 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 341 
 
 buried sand. They were sculptured and painted in the 
 best style of the best period of Egyptian art, bearing the 
 portraits of Raineses the Great and his queen. The 
 coloring was very brilliant. That these chambers had 
 never been discovered before, as have many of the others, 
 either in the times of the Ptolemies or the Caesars, was 
 shown by the fact that there were no interpolated inscrip¬ 
 tions, or “ pious caricatures of St. George and the Holy 
 Family,” in the time of the early Christians. Miss 
 Edwards thinks it probable that an earthquake which 
 visited that country in the time of Raineses II. made the 
 chambers ever after inaccessible. Dr. S. Birch thinks 
 the newly-discovered place might have been the library of 
 the Great Temple of Abou Simbel, where the Egyptian 
 books, huge rolls of papyrus, were stored. 
 
 In this excavating Miss Edwards worked with the 
 gi'eatest enthusiasm. “ Unconscious of fatigue,” she 
 says, “ we toiled upon our hands aud knees, as for bare 
 life, under the burning sun. We had all the crew up, 
 working like tigers. Every one helped ; even the drago¬ 
 man and the two maids. More than once, when we paused 
 for a moment’s breathing space, we said to each other: 
 
 ‘ If those at home could see us, what would they say ! ’ ” 
 
 On their return down the Nile, they joined the exca¬ 
 vators at work in the Necropolis of Thebes, and saw 
 mummies taken out of the rock tombs. Sometimes the 
 mummies were iu the mountain side; these tombs had 
 been numbered half a century before by Sir Gardner 4\ il- 
 kinson in “The Manners and Customs of the Ancient 
 Egyptians.” “ This book,” says Miss Edwards, “ as a 
 child, had shared my affections with ‘The Arabian Nights.’ 
 I had read every line of the old six-volume edition over 
 and over again. I knew every one of the six hundred 
 
342 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 illustrations by heart. Now I suddenly found myself in 
 the midst of old and half-forgotten friends. ... It seemed 
 to me that I had met all these kindly brown people years 
 and years ago, perhaps in some previous stage of exist¬ 
 ence ; that I had walked with them in their gardens ; lis¬ 
 tened to the music of their lutes and tambourines ; pledged 
 them at their feasts.” 
 
 Bab-el-Moluk, or the Valley of the Tomb of the 
 Kings, was found to be a most interesting study. The 
 longest tomb in the valley, that of Seti I., measures four 
 hundred and seventy feet in length, with a total depth of 
 descent of one hundred and eighty feet. The sarcophagus 
 was taken to England, and is in the Sir -T. Sloane Museum. 
 It is carved from a single block of the finest alabaster. 
 
 The tomb of Raineses III., one of the greatest of the 
 monarchs of Egypt, measures four hundred and five feet 
 in length, and descends only thirty-one feet. The sar¬ 
 cophagus is in the Fitz-William Museum at Cambridge, 
 England, and its lid is in the Louvre. Many of these tombs 
 were opened and rifled of their jewels and other treasures 
 in Ptolemaic times. The vases, sandals, clothing, food, 
 and other articles in the tombs were placed there for the 
 use of the dead, when they should awake, after the return 
 of the soul to the body. The wealthy often left a portion 
 of their estate to the priests to provide for these sepul- j 
 chral meals. 
 
 The immense colossi of the plain, at Thebes, fifty feet 
 high, without their pedestals, and eighteen feet and three 
 inches across the shoulders, representing Amenhotep III., 
 who reigned about one hundred and fifty years before the 
 time of Raineses the Great, and began the Temple of 
 Luxor, were of intense interest to the travellers. One of 
 these statues formerly gave out a musical sound during 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 343 
 
 the first hour of the day, and was supposed to have a 
 miraculous voice. The Greeks thought it the son of 
 Tithonus and Aurora, and called it Memnon. Hadrian 
 and other famous emperors and writers came to hear Mem¬ 
 non. Some have supposed the music was produced by 
 the priests, as there is a hollow space inside the throne 
 of the statue; others, that it was produced by rarefied 
 air through the crevices of the stone, caused by the 
 sudden change of temperature consequent on the rising of 
 the sun. 
 
 Miss Edwards’s “ A Thousand Miles up the Nile ” at 
 once became a classic on Egypt. The “ Literary World ” 
 well called it “ one of t he brilliant, fascinating books of 
 travel for all time.” 
 
 In 1879 she published “A Poetry Book of Elder 
 Poets.” She also wrote three hundred biographies for 
 Colnaghi’s Photographic Historical Portrait Gallery,” and 
 “ Home and Foreign Lyrics,” besides several translations 
 and compilations. 
 
 She published only one novel after this, “ Lord Brack- 
 enbury,” in 1880, which appeared first as a serial in the 
 London Graphic. It went through twenty editions, and 
 has been translated into French, German, and Russian. 
 
 The story turns upon the mysterious disappearance of 
 Lord Brackenbury, after he lias purchased one hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds, ostensibly 
 for Winifred, to whom he is betrothed. He is not in love 
 with her, but expects to marry her through the wish of 
 his father. 
 
 He prefers to lead a seafaring life rather than take upon 
 himself the cares of an estate; uses the diamonds for his 
 support for a term of years, marries the one he loves, and 
 returns seventeen years later, to find that his brother 
 
344 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Lancelot has married Winifred. He asks for and receives 
 a portion of the estate, and, without seeing his brother or 
 Winifred, goes back to his quiet, untitled life. The de¬ 
 scription of an eruption of Vesuvius in 1872 is very 
 graphic. 
 
 After the publication of this book Miss Edwards gave 
 herself more fully than ever to her beloved Egyptian 
 study. She translated Maspero’s “ Egyptian Archae¬ 
 ology,” and after her lectures in America, brought out, 
 in 1891, her “Pharaohs, Fellahs, and Explorers,” the 
 substance of the lectures, with much added. Every page 
 is full of interest. Her friend and co-laborer in Egypt¬ 
 ology in this country, the Rev. William C. Winslow, 
 D. D., LL. D., of Boston, the efficient and scholarly vice- 
 president of the Egypt Exploration Fund, well says of her 
 in “ Biblia ” for May, 1892: “Her profound knowledge 
 of ancient Egypt and her exhaustive study of the re¬ 
 markable results of the explorations in that historic won¬ 
 derland, combined with her graphic and picturesque 
 powers of description, made her articles of popular as 
 well as scholastic value. 
 
 “ It is not too much to say that Miss Edwards will live 
 in biography as one of the most remarkable women of 
 the latter half of this century. . . . We thank heaven 
 for what her busy, varied, suggestive life accomplished, 
 and for the splendid example she lias set to her own sex 
 in showing what women can do in scholarly research, and, 
 more important yet, in causing its light to shine out and 
 enlighten the world.” 
 
 Miss Edwards describes the finding, in 1883, of Pithom, 
 one of the “ treasure cities” built by the forced labor of 
 the Hebrews. It was discovered by M. Xaville, of Geneva, 
 the first explorer sent out by the Exploration Fund. 
 
AMELIA BLANDFORD EDWARDS. 
 
 345 
 
 Tanis, or Zoan, was discovered in 1884, by Mr. W. M. 
 Flinders Petrie. 
 
 The great temple of Tanis — Zoan — was one of the 
 grandest in Egypt, dating probably from the time of the 
 Pyramids. It was rebuilt centuries later by Raineses II. 
 Mr. Petrie found here fragments of the largest colossus 
 ever sculptured by man. It was cut out of the red granite 
 of Assuan, and once stood erect and crowned, one hundred 
 and twenty-five feet high, including the pedestal. The 
 minimum weight of this statue of Rameses II. must have 
 beeu about twelve hundred tons; probably one massive 
 block. The foot of the statue measured fifty-seven and 
 two eighths inches in length. 
 
 In one buried house in Tanis, that of Bakakhin, Mr. 
 Petrie found seven ancient waste-paper baskets full of 
 deeds, letters, and other manuscripts. One proved to be 
 a mathematical treatise, another an almanac. 
 
 In other places Mr. Petrie found most interesting papyri. 
 One, in 1889, was a complete copy of the Second Book of 
 the “ Iliad,” written in uncial Greek by a scribe of the 
 second century after Christ. It was buried under the 
 head of a young woman in the Graeco-Egyptian Necropolis 
 of Ilawara. The inscription upon her coffin was illegible. 
 “We only know,” says Miss Edwards, “that she was 
 young and fair, and that she so loved her Homer that it 
 was buried with her in the grave. Her head and her 
 beautiful black hair are now in the Ethnographical Depart¬ 
 ment of the Natural History Museum at South Kensing¬ 
 ton, and her precious papyrus is in the Bodleian Library 
 at Oxford.” 
 
 Miss Edwards regarded as the three most interesting 
 historic documents yet found in Egypt the “Chart of 
 Victory,” engraved on a large black granite tablet found 
 
346 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 ill the temple of Karnak, at Thebes, the “ Epic of Pen- 
 taur,” and the treaty between Rameses II. and the allied 
 princes of Syria. 
 
 The “Chart of Victory” records the conquests of 
 Thothmes III., the Alexander of ancient Egypt. The 
 “ Epic of Pentaur ” records the campaign of the great Ram¬ 
 eses II. against the allied forces of Syria and Asia Minor. 
 It is sometimes called the Egyptian Iliad. A copy of 
 this poem on papyrus is in the British Museum. 
 
 Several papyri have been found containing moral pre¬ 
 cepts. The maxims of Ptah-hotep are found in the 
 famous Prisse papyrus, the oldest papyrus known. It is 
 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, of Paris, written by a scribe 
 in the Xlth dynasty. Some of it is copied from a Vth 
 dynasty document, written nearly four thousand years 
 before our era. An excellent translation is in the Biblio- 
 thecra Sacra, 1888, made by Prof. Howard Osgood, D. D., 
 of Rochester, N. Y. The maxims are applicable to us of 
 the nineteenth century : — 
 
 “ Be not proud because of thy learning,” says Ptah- 
 hotep. “ Converse with the ignorant as freely as with 
 scholar; for the gates of Jcnotvledge should never be 
 closed .” 
 
 “If thou art exalted after having been low, if thou art 
 rich after having been needy, harden not thy heart because 
 of thy elevation : thou hast but become a steward of the 
 good things belonging to the gods.” 
 
 “ If thou wouldst be of good conduct and dwell apart 
 from evil, beware of bad temper; for it contains the 
 germs of all wickedness.” 
 
 “ Work for thyself. Do not count upon the wealth of 
 others : it will not enter thy dwelling-place.” 
 
 “ He who speaks evil reaps evil.” 
 
AMELIA BLANDFOBI) EDWARDS. 
 
 347 
 
 “ Ill-treat not thy wife, whose strength is less than 
 thine : be thou her protector.” 
 
 Miss Edwards’s lecture tour in America was fatiguing. 
 While at the house of Mrs. Francis Collins, at Columbus, 
 Ohio, a friend who had travelled with her in the Eastern 
 Mediterranean twenty years before, she broke her arm, 
 and from this, added to the wear of body, she never fully 
 recovered. .She did not lose a single lecture engagement, 
 being scrupulous about her word, and knowing the dis¬ 
 appointment her absence would occasion those who had 
 prepared for her coming. She even lectured on the 
 evening of the day on which her arm was broken, and 
 travelled several hundred miles the day afterward. 
 
 Mrs. Collins writes me concerning her: “ She was, as 
 you know, a most accomplished woman, and very agree¬ 
 able in manner, with nothing pedantic about her. She 
 was a fine artist, anti her sketches were spirited and 
 finished. She told me she had studied music sufficiently 
 to be able to write it for a full band, and on all subjects 
 which came up for discussion during the dolce far niente 
 days of our voyage she showed herself very familiar with 
 science, literature, and art. 
 
 “ Singularly destitute of near relatives, she was ex¬ 
 tremely devoted to an aged friend who had lived with 
 her for years, and on both occasions when I met her she 
 ■vas hastening home to her; the last time, if I remember 
 correctly, to keep her friend’s birthday. 
 
 “ She was very conscientious in her writing. She said 
 she always wrote as well as she possibly could, never 
 doing slovenly work for the sake of quicker remuneration.” 
 
 Miss Edwards was a woman of indomitable courage and 
 perseverance, else she could never have done the work 
 which she did. From a child, she was an omniverous 
 
348 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 reader. At fourteen she had read Scott, Bulwer, Cooper, 
 Dickens, and others, as her own words in the Arena 
 for August, 1891, attest: “The shelves of her library 
 devoted to the British poets carry me back to a time 
 when I read them straight through without a break, from 
 Chaucer to Tennyson. . . . An equally voluminous series 
 of histories of Greece and Borne, and of translations of 
 the Greek and Latin poets, marks the time when I first 
 became deeply interested in classic antiquity. To this 
 phase also belong the beginnings of those archaeological 
 works which I have of late years accumulated, almost to 
 the exclusion of all other books, as well as my collection 
 of volumes upon Homer, which nearly fill one division of 
 a bookcase. 
 
 “ When I left London, some six and twenty years ago, 
 to settle at Westbury-on-Trym, I also added to my library 
 a large number of works ou the fine arts, feeling, as every 
 lover of pictures must do, that it is necessary in some 
 way or another to make up for the loss of the National 
 Gallery, the South Kensington Museum, and other de¬ 
 lightful places which I was leaving behind. At this time, 
 also, I had a passion for Turner, and eagerly collected 
 his engraved works, of which I believe I possess all. 
 I think I may say the same of Samuel Prout. Of Shake¬ 
 speare I have almost as many editions as I have transla¬ 
 tions of Homer; and of European histories, works of 
 reference generally, a writer who lives in the country 
 must, of course, possess a goodly number.” 
 
 Miss Edwards also had among her books many valuable 
 gifts from authors: the “King and the Book,” from 
 Browning; “Many Moods,” from John Addington 
 Symonds, dedicated to her; a presentation copy of Sir 
 Theodore Martin’s translation of the “Odes of Horace,” 
 
AMELIA BLANDF011D EDWARDS. 
 
 349 
 
 and Lord Lytton’s version of the Odes, with a letter 
 addressed to her at the time of its publication. 
 
 “ JMy books,” says Miss Edwards, “have for many 
 years been my daily companions, teachers, and friends. 
 Merely to lean back in one’s chair, now and then — merely 
 to lean back and look at them — is a capital pleasure, a 
 stimulus, and, in some sense, a gain. . . . The tired 
 brain is consciously refreshed by it.” 
 
 Beside books, pictures, and pottery, treasures from 
 Egypt abound in her home: shrivelled dates, lentils, 
 nuts, and a piece of bread from the tombs of Thebes, 
 three mummied hands, and the heads of two ancient 
 Egyptians “ in a wardrobe in her bedroom.” 
 
 Miss Edwards was a brilliant woman mentally and soci¬ 
 ally ; esteemed not less for her sympathetic heart and her 
 warm feeling for America than for her learning and her 
 ability. The “ London Academy,” to which she contrib¬ 
 uted often, and would accept no remuneration, says of 
 her articles: “We know not whether to admire in them 
 most the brilliance of their narrative style or the accuracy 
 with which each detail was verified. She was in truth 
 a model contributor — never declining a request, punctual 
 to her promises, writing in a clear, bold hand, and consid¬ 
 erate of the convenience of printer as well as editor.” 
 
 Her home was “The Larches,” a rambling and pictur¬ 
 esque house set in the midst of larches and high shrubs, 
 in an acre of ground, at Westbury-on-Trym, four miles 
 from Bristol, in the west of England. Flowers grew 
 everywhere, and birds were welcome visitors. Under the 
 larch-trees Miss Edwards walked two miles daily for exer¬ 
 cise : a half mile before breakfast, a half mile after break¬ 
 fast, and a mile or more late in the afternoon. 
 
 “ To walk these two miles per diem.” she said, “is a 
 
350 
 
 FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD. 
 
 Draconian law which I impose upon myself during all 
 seasons of the year. When the snow lies deep in winter 
 it is our old gardener’s first duty in the morning to sweep 
 ‘ Miss Edwards’s path,’ as well as to clear two or three 
 large spaces on the lawn, in which the wild birds may be 
 fed. The wild birds are our intimate friends and peren¬ 
 nial visitors, for whom we keep an open table d' hute 
 throughout the year. By feeding them in summer we lose 
 less fruit than our neighbors ; and by feeding them in win¬ 
 ter we preserve the lives of our little summer friends, 
 whose songs are the delight of ourselves and our neigh¬ 
 bors in the springtime.” 
 
 Miss Edwards’s death, humanly speaking, came all too 
 early, just as she was in the midst of her greatest work. 
 She had planned much more labor, but other hands must 
 do it, if it be done at all. Her winsome presence and 
 generous nature will be gratefully remembered; while 
 her scholarship and her usefulness in the world of thought 
 will ever be an inspiration. 
 
 She was a member of many learned societies, such as 
 the Biblical, Archaeological, and the Society for Hellenic 
 Studies. She wrote the article upon Egyptology in the 
 Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and the supplementary article 
 for the American edition on Recent Discoveries in Egypt. 
 By her will she endowed a chair of Egyptology, and gave 
 her valuable library to Somerville Hall, a college for 
 women at Oxford. 
 

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