We had a constant source of amusement and vexation in the students in my father's office. A succession of them was always coming fresh from college and full of conceit. Aching to try their powers of debate on graduates from the Troy Seminary, they politely questioned all our theories and assertions. However, with my brother-in-law's training in analysis and logic, we were a match for any of them. Nothing pleased me better than a long argument with them on woman's equality, which I tried to prove by a diligent study of the books they read and the games they played. I confess that I did not study so much for a love of the truth or my own development, in these days, as to make those young men recognize my equality. I soon noticed that, after losing a few games of chess, my opponent talked less of masculine superiority. Sister Madge would occasionally rush to the defense with an emphatic "Fudge for these laws, all made by men! I'll never obey one of them. And as to the students with their impertinent talk of superiority, all they need is such a shaking up as I gave the most disagreeable one yesterday. I invited him to take a ride on horseback. He accepted promptly, and said he would be most happy to go. Accordingly I told Peter to saddle the toughest-mouthed, hardest-trotting carriage horse in the stable. Mounted on my swift pony, I took a ten-mile canter as fast as I could go, with that superior being at my heels calling, as he found breath, for me to stop, which I did at last and left him in the hands of Peter, half dead at his hotel, where he will be laid out, with all his marvelous masculine virtues, for a week at least. Now do not waste your arguments on these prigs from Union College. Take each, in turn, the ten-miles' circuit on 'Old Boney' and they'll have no breath left to prate of woman's inferiority. You might argue with them all day, and you could not make them feel so small as I made that popinjay feel in one hour. I knew 'Old Boney' would keep up with me, if he died for it, and that my escort could neither stop nor dismount, except by throwing himself from the saddle."
"Oh, Madge!" I exclaimed; "what will you say when he meets you again?"
"If he complains, I will say 'the next time you ride see that you have a curb bit before starting.' Surely, a man ought to know what is necessary to manage a horse, and not expect a woman to tell him."
Our lives were still further varied and intensified by the usual number of flirtations, so called, more or less lasting or evanescent, from all of which I emerged, as from my religious experiences, in a more rational frame of mind. We had been too much in the society of boys and young gentlemen, and knew too well their real character, to idealize the sex in general. In addition to our own observations, we had the advantage of our brother-in-law's wisdom. Wishing to save us as long as possible from all matrimonial entanglements, he was continually unveiling those with whom he associated, and so critically portraying their intellectual and moral condition that it was quite impossible, in our most worshipful moods, to make gods of any of the sons of Adam.
However, in spite of all our own experiences and of all the warning words of wisdom from those who had seen life in its many phases, we entered the charmed circle at last, all but one marrying into the legal profession, with its odious statute laws and infamous decisions. And this, after reading Blackstone, Kent, and Story, and thoroughly understanding the status of the wife under the old common law of England, which was in force at that time in most of the States of the Union.
Chapter IV.
Life at Peterboro.
The year, with us, was never considered complete without a visit to Peterboro, N.Y., the home of Gerrit Smith. Though he was a reformer and was very radical in many of his ideas, yet, being a man of broad sympathies, culture, wealth, and position, he drew around him many friends of the most conservative opinions. He was a man of fine presence, rare physical beauty, most affable and courteous in manner, and his hospitalities were generous to an extreme, and dispensed to all classes of society.
Every year representatives from the Oneida tribe of Indians visited him. His father had early purchased of them large tracts of land, and there was a tradition among them that, as an equivalent for the good bargains of the father, they had a right to the son's hospitality, with annual gifts of clothing and provisions. The slaves, too, had heard of Gerrit Smith, the abolitionist, and of Peterboro as one of the safe points en route for Canada. His mansion was, in fact, one of the stations on the "underground railroad" for slaves escaping from bondage. Hence they, too, felt that they had a right to a place under his protecting roof. On such occasions the barn and the kitchen floor were utilized as chambers for the black man from the southern plantation and the red man from his home in the forest.
The spacious home was always enlivened with choice society from every part of the country. There one would meet members of the families of the old Dutch aristocracy, the Van Rensselaers, the Van Vechtens, the Schuylers, the Livingstons, the Bleeckers, the Brinkerhoffs, the Ten Eycks, the Millers, the Seymours, the Cochranes, the Biddles, the Barclays, the Wendells, and many others.
As the lady of the house, Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, was the daughter of a wealthy slaveholder of Maryland, many agreeable Southerners were often among the guests. Our immediate family relatives were well represented by General John Cochrane and his sisters, General Baird and his wife from West Point, the Fitzhughs from Oswego and Geneseo, the Backuses and Tallmans from Rochester, and the Swifts from Geneva. Here one was sure to meet scholars, philosophers, philanthropists, judges, bishops, clergymen, and statesmen.
Judge Alfred Conkling, the father of Roscoe Conkling, was, in his late years, frequently seen at Peterboro. Tall and stately, after all life's troubled scenes, financial losses and domestic sorrows, he used to say there was no spot on earth that seemed so like his idea of Paradise. The proud, reserved judge was unaccustomed to manifestations of affection and tender interest in his behalf, and when Gerrit, taking him by both hands would, in his softest tones say, "Good-morning," and inquire how he had slept and what he would like to do that day, and Nancy would greet him with equal warmth and pin a little bunch of roses in his buttonhole, I have seen the tears in his eyes. Their warm sympathies and sweet simplicity of manner melted the sternest natures and made the most reserved amiable. There never was such an atmosphere of love and peace, of freedom and good cheer, in any other home I visited. And this was the universal testimony of those who were guests at Peterboro. To go anywhere else, after a visit there, was like coming down from the divine heights into the valley of humiliation.
How changed from the early days when, as strict Presbyterians, they believed in all the doctrines of Calvin! Then, an indefinite gloom pervaded their home. Their consciences were diseased. They attached such undue importance to forms that they went through three kinds of baptism. At one time Nancy would read nothing but the Bible, sing nothing but hymns, and play only sacred music. She felt guilty if she talked on any subject except religion. She was, in all respects, a fitting mate for her attractive husband. Exquisitely refined in feeling and manner, beautiful in face and form, earnest and sincere, she sympathized with him in all his ideas of religion and reform. Together they passed through every stage of theological experience, from the uncertain ground of superstition and speculation to the solid foundation of science and reason. The position of the Church in the anti-slavery conflict, opening as it did all questions of ecclesiastical authority, Bible interpretation, and church discipline, awakened them to new thought and broader views on religious subjects, and eventually emancipated them entirely from the old dogmas and formalities of their faith, and lifted them into the cheerful