My son Henry had given me a phaeton, low and easy as a cradle, and I enjoyed many drives about Long Island. We went to Bryant's home on the north side, several times, and in imagination I saw the old poet in the various shady nooks, inditing his lines of love and praise of nature in all her varying moods. Walking among the many colored, rustling leaves in the dark days of November, I could easily enter into his thought as he penned these lines:
"The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread."
In September, 1889, my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, came East to attend a school of physical culture, and my other daughter, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, came from England to enjoy one of our bracing winters. Unfortunately we had rain instead of snow, and fogs instead of frost. However, we had a pleasant reunion at Hempstead. After a few days in and about New York visiting friends, we went to Geneva and spent several weeks in the home of my cousin, the daughter of Gerrit Smith.
She and I have been most faithful, devoted friends all our lives, and regular correspondents for more than fifty years. In the family circle we are ofttimes referred to as "Julius" and "Johnson." These euphonious names originated in this way: When the Christy Minstrels first appeared, we went one evening to hear them. On returning home we amused our seniors with, as they said, a capital rehearsal. The wit and philosopher of the occasion were called, respectively, Julius and Johnson; so we took their parts and reproduced all the bright, humorous remarks they made. The next morning as we appeared at the breakfast table, Cousin Gerrit Smith, in his deep, rich voice said: "Good-morning, Julius and Johnson," and he kept it up the few days we were in Albany together. One after another our relatives adopted the pseudonyms, and Mrs. Miller has been "Julius" and I "Johnson" ever since.
From Geneva we went to Buffalo, but, as I had a bad cold and a general feeling of depression, I decided to go to the Dansville Sanatorium and see what Doctors James and Kate Jackson could do for me. I was there six weeks and tried all the rubbings, pinchings, steamings; the Swedish movements of the arms, hands, legs, feet; dieting, massage, electricity, and, though I succeeded in throwing off only five pounds of flesh, yet I felt like a new being. It is a charming place to be in—the home is pleasantly situated and the scenery very fine. The physicians are all genial, and a cheerful atmosphere pervades the whole establishment.
As Christmas was at hand, the women were all half crazy about presents, and while good Doctors James and Kate were doing all in their power to cure the nervous affections of their patients, they would thwart the treatment by sitting in the parlor with the thermometer at seventy-two degrees, embroidering all kinds of fancy patterns,—some on muslin, some on satin, and some with colored worsteds on canvas,—inhaling the poisonous dyes, straining the optic nerves, counting threads and stitches, hour after hour, until utterly exhausted. I spoke to one poor victim of the fallacy of Christmas presents, and of her injuring her health in such useless employment. "What can I do?" she replied, "I must make presents and cannot afford to buy them." "Do you think," said I, "any of your friends would enjoy a present you made at the risk of your health? I do not think there is any 'must' in the matter. I never feel that I must give presents, and never want any, especially from those who make some sacrifice to give them." This whole custom of presents at Christmas, New Year's, and at weddings has come to be a bore, a piece of hypocrisy leading to no end of unhappiness. I do not know a more pitiful sight than to see a woman tatting, knitting, embroidering—working cats on the toe of some slipper, or tulips on an apron. The amount of nervous force that is expended in this way is enough to make angels weep. The necessary stitches to be taken in every household are quite enough without adding fancy work.
From Dansville my daughters and I went on to Washington to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Miss Anthony, who has always been to them as a second mother. Mrs. Blatch made a speech at the celebration, and Mrs. Lawrence gave a recitation. First came a grand supper at the Riggs House. The dining room was beautifully decorated; in fact, Mr. and Mrs. Spofford spared no pains to make the occasion one long to be remembered. May Wright Sewall was the mistress of ceremonies. She read the toasts and called on the different speakers. Phoebe Couzins, Rev. Anna Shaw, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Clara B. Colby, Senator Blair of New Hampshire, and many others responded. I am ashamed to say that we kept up the festivities till after two o'clock. Miss Anthony, dressed in dark velvet and point lace, spoke at the close with great pathos. Those of us who were there will not soon forget February 15, 1890.
After speaking before committees of the Senate and House, I gave the opening address at the annual convention. Mrs. Stanton Blatch spoke a few minutes on the suffrage movement in England, after which we hurried off to New York, and went on board the Aller, one of the North German Lloyd steamers, bound for Southampton. At the ship we found Captain Milinowski and his wife and two of my sons waiting our arrival. As we had eighteen pieces of baggage it took Mrs. Blatch some time to review them. My phaeton, which we decided to take, filled six boxes. An easy carriage for two persons is not common in England. The dogcarts prevail, the most uncomfortable vehicles one can possibly use. Why some of our Americans drive in those uncomfortable carts is a question. I think it is because they are "so English." The only reason the English use them is because they are cheap. The tax on two wheels is one-half what it is on four, and in England all carriages are taxed. Before we Americans adopt fashions because they are English, we had better find out the raison d'être for their existence.
We had a very pleasant, smooth voyage, unusually so for blustering February and March. As I dislike close staterooms, I remained in the ladies' saloon night and day, sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of eleven days we landed at Southampton, March 2, 1890. It was a beautiful moonlight night and we had a pleasant ride on the little tug to the wharf. We reached Basingstoke at eleven o'clock, found the family well and all things in order.
Chapter XXVI.
My Last Visit to England.
As soon as we got our carriage put together Hattie and I drove out every day, as the roads in England are in fine condition all the year round. We had lovely weather during the spring, but the summer was wet and cold. With reading, writing, going up to London, and receiving visitors, the months flew by without our accomplishing half the work we proposed.
As my daughter was a member of the Albemarle Club, we invited several friends to dine with us there at different times. There we had a long talk with Mr. Stead, the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, on his position in regard to Russian affairs, "The Deceased Wife's Sister Bill," and the divorce laws of England. Mr. Stead is a fluent talker as well as a good writer. He is the leader of the social purity movement in England. The wisdom of his course toward Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Parnell was questioned by many; but there is a touch of the religious fanatic in Mr. Stead, as in many of his followers.
There were several problems in social ethics that deeply stirred the English people in the year of our Lord 1890. One was Charles Stewart Parnell's platonic friendship with Mrs. O'Shea, and the other was the Lord Chancellor's decision in the case of Mrs. Jackson. The pulpit, the press, and the people vied with each other in trying to dethrone Mr. Parnell as the great Irish leader, but the united forces did not succeed in destroying his self-respect, nor in hounding him out of the British Parliament, though, after a brave and protracted resistance on his part, they did succeed in hounding him into the grave.
It was pitiful to see the Irish themselves, misled by a hypocritical popular sentiment in England, turn against their great leader, the only one they had had for half a century who was able to keep the Irish