On my return to England I spent a day with Miss Emily Lord, at her kindergarten establishment. She had just returned from Sweden, where she spent six weeks in the carpenter's shop, studying the Swedish Slöjd system, in which children of twelve years old learn to use tools, making spoons, forks, and other implements. Miss Lord showed us some of her work, quite creditable for her first attempts. She said the children in the higher grades of her school enjoyed the carpenter work immensely and became very deft in the use of tools.
On November 1, 1887, we reached Basingstoke once more, and found all things in order. My diary tells of several books I read during the winter and what the authors say of women; one the "Religio Medici," by Sir Thomas Browne, M.D., in which the author discourses on many high themes, God, Creation, Heaven, Hell, and vouchsafes one sentence on woman. Of her he says: "I was never married but once and commend their resolution who never marry twice, not that I disallow of second, nor in all cases of polygamy, which, considering the unequal number of the sexes, may also be necessary. The whole world was made for man, but the twelfth part of man for woman. Man is the whole world—the breath of God; woman the rib and crooked piece of man. I speak not in prejudice nor am averse from that sweet sex, but naturally amorous of all that is beautiful. I can look all day at a handsome picture, though it be but a horse."
Turning to John Paul Friedrich Richter, I found in his chapter on woman many equally ridiculous statements mixed up with much fulsome admiration. After reading some volumes of Richter, I took up Heinrich Heine, the German poet and writer. He said: "Oh, the women! We must forgive them much, for they love much and many. Their hate is, properly, only love turned inside out. Sometimes they attribute some delinquency to us, because they think they can, in this way, gratify another man. When they write they have always one eye on the paper and the other eye on some man. This is true of all authoresses except the Countess Hahn Hahn, who has only one eye." John Ruskin's biography he gives us a glimpse of his timidity in regard to the sex, when a young man. He was very fond of the society of girls, but never knew how to approach them. He said he "was perfectly happy in serving them, would gladly make a bridge of himself for them to walk over, a beam to fasten a swing to for them—anything but to talk to them." Such are some of the choice specimens of masculine wit I collected during my winter's reading!
At a reception given to me by Drs. Julia and Kate Mitchell, sisters practicing medicine in London, I met Stepniak, the Russian Nihilist, a man of grand presence and fine conversational powers. He was about to go to America, apprehensive lest our Government should make an extradition treaty with Russia to return political offenders, as he knew that proposal had been made. A few weeks later he did visit the United States, and had a hearing before a committee of the Senate. He pointed out the character of the Nihilist movement, declaring Nihilists to be the real reformers, the true lovers of liberty, sacrificing themselves for the best interests of the people, and yet, as political prisoners, they are treated worse than the lowest class of criminals in the prisons and mines of Siberia.
I had a very unpleasant interview, during this visit to London, with Miss Lydia Becker, Miss Caroline Biggs, and Miss Blackburn, at the Metropole, about choosing delegates to the International Council of Women soon to be held in Washington. As there had been some irreconcilable dissensions in the suffrage association, and they could not agree as to whom their delegate should be, they decided to send none at all. I wrote at once to Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren, pointing out what a shame it would be if England, above all countries, should not be represented in the first International Council ever called by a suffrage association. She replied promptly that must not be, and immediately moved in the matter, and through her efforts three delegates were soon authorized to go, representing different constituencies—Mrs. Alice Cliff Scatcherd, Mrs. Ormiston Chant, and Mrs. Ashton Dilke.
Toward the last of February, 1888, we went again to London to make a few farewell visits to dear friends. We spent a few days with Mrs. Mona Caird, who was then reading Karl Pearson's lectures on "Woman," and expounding her views on marriage, which she afterward gave to the Westminster Review, and stirred the press to white heat both in England and America. "Is Marriage a Failure?" furnished the heading for our quack advertisements for a long time after. Mrs. Caird was a very graceful, pleasing woman, and so gentle in manner and appearance that no one would deem her capable of hurling such thunderbolts at the long-suffering Saxon people.
We devoted one day to Prince Krapotkine, who lives at Harrow, in the suburbs of London. A friend of his, Mr. Lieneff, escorted us there. We found the prince, his wife, and child in very humble quarters; uncarpeted floors, books and papers on pine shelves, wooden chairs, and the bare necessaries of life—nothing more. They indulge in no luxuries, but devote all they can spare to the publication of liberal opinions to be scattered in Russia, and to help Nihilists in escaping from the dominions of the Czar. The prince and princess took turns in holding and amusing the baby—then only one year old; fortunately it slept most of the time, so that the conversation flowed on for some hours. Krapotkine told us of his sad prison experiences, both in France and Russia. He said the series of articles by George Kennan in the Century were not too highly colored, that the sufferings of men and women in Siberia and the Russian prisons could not be overdrawn. One of the refinements of cruelty they practice on prisoners is never to allow them to hear the human voice. A soldier always accompanies the warder who distributes the food, to see that no word is spoken. In vain the poor prisoner asks questions, no answer is ever made, no tidings from the outside world ever given. One may well ask what devil in human form has prescribed such prison life and discipline! I wonder if we could find a man in all Russia who would defend the system, yet someone is responsible for its terrible cruelties!
We returned to Basingstoke, passed the few remaining days in looking over papers and packing for the voyage, and, on March 4, 1888, Mrs. Blatch went with me to Southampton. On the train I met my companions for the voyage, Mrs. Gustafsen, Mrs. Ashton Dilke, and Baroness Gripenberg, from Finland, a very charming woman, to whom I felt a strong attraction. The other delegates sailed from Liverpool. We had a rough voyage and most of the passengers were very sick. Mrs. Dilke and I were well, however, and on deck every day, always ready to play whist and chess with a few gentlemen who were equally fortunate. I was much impressed with Mrs. Dilke's kindness and generosity in serving others. There was a lady on board with two children, whose nurse at the last minute refused to go with her. The mother was sick most of the way, and Mrs. Dilke did all in her power to relieve her, by amusing the little boy, telling him stories, walking with him on deck, and watching him throughout the day, no easy task to perform for an entire stranger. The poor little mother with a baby in her arms must have appreciated such kindly attention.
When the pilot met us off Sandy Hook, he brought news of the terrible blizzard New York had just experienced, by which all communication with the world at large was practically suspended. The captain brought him down into the saloon to tell us all about it. The news was so startling that at first we thought the pilot was joking, but when he produced the metropolitan journals to verify his statements, we listened to the reading and what he had to say with profound astonishment. The second week in March, 1888, will be memorable in the history of storms in the vicinity of New York. The snow was ten feet deep in some places, and the side streets impassable either for carriages or sleighs. I hoped the city would be looking its best, for the first impression on my foreign friends, but it never looked worse, with huge piles of snow everywhere covered with black dust.
I started for Washington at three o'clock, the day after our arrival, reached there at ten o'clock, and found my beloved friends, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Spofford, with open arms and warm hearts to receive me. As the vessel was delayed two days, our friends naturally thought we, too, had encountered a blizzard, but we had felt nothing of it; on the contrary the last days were the most pleasant of the voyage.
Chapter XXV.
The International Council of Women.